I clamped a hand over Brown's mouth. Whatever she was about to say did not need to be said. After she quieted and sat back on the couch, I let go and watched my roommate. What was she thinking and why was I so hesitant to read her thoughts?
Then I closed my eyes. I had to go in there. I had to violate my roommate. And I heard,
'Pete said she wouldn't understand. No one would. He said that she couldn't know. Am I wrong in not telling her? I didn't lie because—yes I did. Who am I lying to? Myself? That stupid girl is right. I wouldn't have told Davy if Pete hadn't felt the same as me. What do I do now? Pete, come help me.'
Suddenly the whole room shook again. The ferocity of it shocked even me and I stood. This wasn't me. This wasn't Brown. What was coming?
Brown gasped, excited and scared at the same time.
Emily looked around, but there was a waiting look in her. That's when I realized that she knew what he was. She had asked for him to come and she thought it was him coming.
Pippa ran to our door and braced herself. "What's going on?"
Brown screamed, "Something's coming."
Then it stopped and the air felt eerie. I had a moment to wonder what stood outside our door before three bursts of light exploded from the hallway. Pippa fell to the ground. Emily crumbled. And Brown dropped. All of them were unconscious.
"What?" I gaped.
Saren stood in the doorway, in blue leather this time. The fire in her eyes was blazing and it smoldered in the air. A burning smell filled the room. "We have to go. Now."
"What did you just do?" I couldn't look away from their fallen bodies.
"They aren't dead, but they will be soon if I don't get you out of here."
"But—"
She grabbed my hand and both of us teleported. The room wrapped around us and we were on our feet in an alley somewhere.
I threw down Saren's hand. "What just happened?!"
She ignored me and scanned our surroundings. "We're safe. For now."
"Saren!" I clipped out. "Fill me in on what's going on or I'm going back. I'll figure it out for myself."
A burst of fire exploded from her eyes. It zapped and burned me before she retracted it. "Don't threaten me. I am still your superior and you need me if you're going to survive the near future."
"What?!" My mouth hung open. Again. "What are you talking about?"
She stopped and turned to me. "Do you know what kind of wolf you're roommate is mixed up with?"
"Like Pippa? She's harmless."
"The girl is. He's not. Pete Young is the next leader of the werewolf nation. He's at your school to unite the werewolves for an uprising against the vampires."
"They're going to war with them?"
"The werewolves have laid low for thousands of years, but they're strong. Their power is ancient, more ancient that the vampires and it's rising again. Pete Young is meant to bring them together. They don't want to replace vampires, but they want to usurp them. And this guy is the equivalent of your vampire to their species."
A part of me was proud of Emily. "But what does that have to do with me?"
"She called him. He was going to her, fast. The second he got there he would've felt your power and tried to drain you from it. He wouldn't have been able to stop himself."
"Vampires can't sense my power. Why could he?" Pippa hadn't sensed my powers.
Saren sighed in frustration and paced up and down the alley. She was tense, ready for a fight. "We should be moving and not talking. He probably sensed your trail and could be coming after us."
"Stop!" I held onto her shoulders and made her stand still. "He's just a werewolf, right? Right?"
Saren shook her head. "He's not
just
a werewolf. He's got power, magic in him. He was created using the essence of the Immortal thread from a dead Immortal."
"Talia?"
"Her mother. The wolves took her mother after Lucan and Lucas had left her. They took the essence of the thread that was still in her body with magic."
I had no idea how to figure this all out. "What, huh?"
She rolled her eyes and sighed in disgust. "It's like a boat that makes waves in the water. They caught the waves that remained after the boat had left. Does that make sense to your little human brain?"
"Hey! Back off, fiery witch from hell! You think I like this? You think I like running from magical beings?" I snapped at her and then ran a hand through my hair. She wasn't the only one on edge. "You said that my friends would've died if we hadn't left. Why? What would've happened?"
"When he tried to drain you, you would've defended yourself. You still don't know your powers. Your reaction would have been stronger than you wanted and would have not only killed him, but your friends too. I stopped it from happening. I stopped him from figuring out who you are, at least until we can figure out how to blanket your powers to him."
"Oh! So I can go back?" At her dark look, I added, "Sometime?"
Saren rolled her eyes. They looked like sparklers waving in the air. Then she stalked off with her leather-clad legs rubbing against each other.
I took in the sight of her black hair flowing behind her, sleek and shiny with her blue leather outfit. "You look like a superhero right now. Did you go for that on purpose?"
She sighed in disgust. The blue leather transformed into a black-colored outfit. The fabric was loose and seemed to flow behind her, billowing in the wind. She kept going.
"Can I do that? Can you show me how to do that?"
She barked over her shoulder, "We have work to do."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
"Not to be a nag, but where are we going?" I followed behind Saren as we walked down another set of streets. We'd been walking in circles for the last hour. I wasn't sure if she was aware of the attention she was attracting dressed like a rich person in the back streets that accumulated the back street type of person. A few homeless. A few drunks. More than a few illegal activities were going on around us.
Saren kept trudging around and cursed underneath her breath.
She whipped back to me now. "What do you think I'm doing? I'm mixing your scent with all these other things. He's good. He's going to be able to pick your scent out of all these places, but I want him confused."
"I get that, but where are we going? Shouldn't we go?"
She rolled her eyes. "You are so human, it annoys." Then she grabbed my hand and we were whisked into another teleport. When we stopped, I looked around and saw only cement floors. There were no windows, just open areas in brick walls. A tree had grown in the corner of our room with vines that climbed up the wall and onto the ceiling. A few flowers intermingled among the vines.
"Where are we? Is this some magical place?"
"It's an abandoned castle, used by a coven that was killed off in the early 1800s." Saren left for another room.
I followed, wide eyed. "Castle? Are you serious? I didn't think we had castles in America."
She stopped and glanced over her shoulder. "We're not in America anymore."
My eyes went even wider. "What?"
Then she kept going, down some steps that looked like they had been put together with brick and cement by hand.
"Where are we?"
"It doesn't matter." She strode through another opening and then paused before an altar. A moment later, she lit candles on it. A banner hung from it with a sign that looked like a hand surrounded with weaving loops of rope. A tiny blade of grass grew out of the middle of the hand.
"What does that mean?"
Saren stopped and looked where I pointed. The hand seemed to turn till it was pointed at me. It looked like it was stretched for my hand to take it in a hold. Her voice was quiet. "It's the sign of the Immortal."
"The sign of me?"
"No. It's the sign of its creator, the true essence of the Immortal, what created it from the thread."
I swallowed. "You told me before not to talk to Blue. Then before that, I was told that Jacith wasn't the real creator. The vampires all think he is. They think he's some super powerful. I don't know, but Roane told me before that Jacith created the Immortal. What's the real story?"
Saren watched me for a moment and then the air circled around her. It picked up speed and her eyes gleamed. Dust picked up from her feet and moved upwards. It covered her entire body until I couldn't see her through it. Then it stopped and everything fell back in place.
Saren didn't look like Saren anymore. The black hair was gone. The fire eyes had been replaced with soft almond ones. The black outfit was now a white robe wrapped around her body. Her hair was a golden wheat color, braided in crowns on top of her head. She smiled and I knew then this was not Saren.
"My name is Sireenia. I am a sister to Saren and Stepianhas, your last guide."
"Are you my new guide?" I wasn't sure I'd miss Saren.
She smiled again. It was a tender look. "No, but I will help you along the way. Saren is your guide for a reason. She will fight when you are unable to. No one will harm you and many will try. She is here to help you embrace your powers because you are very powerful, but you need to become your powers."
"Who is Jacith? How is my old sponsor involved?"
"You are ready for some answers. We can tell that you know more than you think." She gestured to the side where a chair carved in rock appeared. Another was beside it and we both sat in them. Sireenia folded her hands in her lap. All her movements were graceful. "Your empathic sponsor was assigned to you for a reason. She came from a long line of witches that worshiped their original sorcerer Jacith. Her attributes matched yours. You needed someone who was motherly, but aloof. She was that, but she also had a sense of purpose that you respected. She had humor that met yours. She was picked for you and her assignment was to bring you to Jacith when the thread went into you."
My eyes were wide and my soul felt like it had a hole in it. It was gaping open. Everything she said was true.
Sireenia had been watching me and then took my hand. I felt her calm enter me and the peace soothed over everything, all my agitation, panic, and even seemed to lick other wounds inside of me.
"You're very beautiful." She held my eyes. "They've told me of your will, your spirit, but they haven't shared your looks. Do you know how beautiful you are?"
I looked away. Then she squeezed my hand and I looked back.
"You're not normally bashful. Why are you now? You know you're attractive."
I had no idea. "You're so direct. No one's told me like that." I knew I wasn't ugly, but I never thought about my looks. I wasn't known for them. I was the carefree, funny one.
"Oh. Maybe they should've." Then she winked and sat back. "But you're right. We're not here about your looks. I'm here because you wanted to learn about Jacith and Saren didn't want to be the one to tell you. She wanted me to explain it to you so here we go."
My fingers dug into the armrests of my chair and I braced for what I was about to hear.
Sireenia looked at me warmly. "Jacith used to be Jacob Withering. It's an old name with old roots and he wanted a new one. He didn't want ties to where he came from so he changed it to Jacith when he became a vampire. He lived and ruled under the normal hierarchy that each vampire does, with their Family that might be allied with other Families and so forth. This was all fine until Jacith met a witch one day. He fed from her and she turned him human. Jacith was fascinated by this. He loved the power it gave him and he had her turn himself back into a vampire.
This began his long fall into sorcery and dark magic, but he kept his darkness from his vampire Family. They thought he used his magic for good, but he didn't. Even then his Family strove to protect the humans; they felt it would restore their own humanity so they wouldn't forget their true beginnings. They knew if they did forget it would only be a matter of time before all was lost. Madness and chaos would ensue. The slayers were created for this reason and then the decree occurred and hunters now hunt their own. Jacith wanted to win favor with the ruling Queen. He wanted to use her power for himself. He could use it for more magic so he created the Immortal prophecy.
He had hoped the legend of the Immortal, which would balance all powers in the universe, would make her happy. It did. She fell in love with him and he's slowly been draining her of all her power. He only created the thread of the Immortal, which vampires could get power from. He thought this was the Immortal."
There was so much I didn't understand, but I asked the one question that burned in my mind. "Is he still alive?"
She smiled, saddened. "He is and he is protected still by the Romah Family, the most powerful of all vampire Families. The Roane family is second to them, but they protect the Romah Family. They are their guardians. It's an alliance that has never been broken. Your vampire is hoping to destroy that alliance, but it'll create a divide instead. The Romah and Roane Family will bind together against him and they'll never see reason. They believe to this day that Jacith is a good sorcerer. That he created the Immortal for balance and equality."