The Lie (The Skyy Huntington Series) (17 page)

Aiden went to sit at the foot of my bed. I typed in a few words in a translation site and got nothing back as a result. “Hmm weird. No results. I’ll try another site.” I went to four different sites and I couldn’t get a hit on any word I typed into the search engines.

“It could be a code, or a secret language. I’m sure you were wondering what I was saying to the vampire earlier. We have our own language, and it isn’t in any databases or known to anyone but vampires. It could be possible it’s something like that,” Aiden offered.

Well, a few months ago I was walking around in graveyards hoping to see a ghost or something. Now here I was submersed into a supernatural world. I sure as hell wasn’t expecting this. I guess I got my wish.

I told Aiden he could sleep on my bed if he got tired, and I crawled under the covers hearing him clicking away on my keyboard at the computer. I pulled my curtains closed so it would block out the sun, they weren’t anything like his metal shades but I hoped he’d be comfortable enough while I slept.

I woke up a little after 1 p.m., sleeping way longer than I had wanted to. Aiden was sitting in my computer chair reading a book. Apparently he hadn’t taken me up on the offer of sleep, and the night passed by without any incidents.

Sitting up in bed and stretching, I asked how his night was. “Uneventful and quiet,” was his reply. I guess that given our situation, that was a good thing. I was also happy to see a text message from Christian on my phone. He indeed had forgotten about being rushed out of the restaurant and told me he had a great time at dinner last night. At least he made it through the night too.

“We need to get over to your place to let Cupcake out. Let me just throw some clothes on.” Aiden nodded and swiveled the computer chair around facing away from me.

Once we were to Aiden’s house, I fed Cupcake and then went to ‘eliminate’ myself while she was eating. Aiden had disappeared up into his sanctuary to take a shower and get a change of clothes. I also assumed he was sucking out of one of his blood packs I imagined he had. Better that than me.

Once everyone had fed, showered, eaten, and eliminated, we were back on the way over to my house. “Would you mind if we stopped off to grab a quick burger or something. I am craving some junk food.” I was starving, and a greasy burger was just what I could use. Unfortunately there were no fast food places in Marblehead itself so we had to take the short drive into Salem to get to one. Once my burger was consumed at record pace, we stopped off at a hardware store to get some masks for my face and some goggles. I didn’t want to be breathing in anymore of this dust than I had to, and my eyes were all puffy and red from last night.

Once we were back at my house I noticed that Aiden had dressed up in decent clothes again. I figured he’d want to wear some sweatpants and an old shirt similar to what I had on. The rooms in the basement were dusty and dingy. “You going to be comfortable in those jeans and that shirt?” I had to ask.

He looked down at himself, in his designer jeans and perfect fitting black sweater, then back up to me. “Yes, why?” he asked.

I chuckled softly. “Just isn’t the kind of clothes most people clean and rummage through basements in.” He shrugged, clearly unbothered by it. I grabbed a hair tie and pulled my hair up into a messy bun, grabbed a bottle of water, and we went down the secret staircase into the rooms below.

“So what did you find in the bookcase yesterday, anything interesting?” I realized I was way too tired last night to even bother asking.

“Nothing really terribly interesting. A lot of history books, some old record books, map books. A lot of books on apothecary, herbalism, pharmacology.” As Aiden was talking, the air in the space between he and I started shifting. It got blurry and cold and really…well weird was the only thing I could think of. I was wondering if I was about to pass out or something when all of a sudden someone appeared right there in the room between us.

Once the person fully materialized Aiden had him in a lock with his hands behind his back before I could even blink. Once I recognized who it was, I thought I was going to pass out for sure. “Holy shit,” I said.

“Well, Skyy, I am happy to see you too. And if you wouldn’t mind please, kind sir, get your scummy vampire hands off of me.” Standing in front of me, in this room was my grandfather, who was supposed to be dead, but who looked very much alive and well. I had to sit down I was so light headed. Aiden looked at me for approval to let go of my grandfather. I nodded my head.

“It’s ok Aiden, this is my
dead
grandfather, Killian Huntington.” Aiden, for once, looked shocked, but released the death grip on my grandpa.

Grandpa dusted himself off and straightened his Hawaiian shirt. He was wearing cargo shorts and sandals, along with the Hawaiian shirt that had a very busy print on it. He looked exactly the same as he had the last time I had seen him alive, his snow white hair perfectly combed, still wearing the same glasses. He had passed away at age seventy-two, but still managed to have a full head of hair, little to no wrinkles for someone his age, and remarkable teeth which he claimed were his own but I never believed it.

Grandpa walked closer to me and gave me a once over look from head to toe. I must have looked like a deer in the headlights, because he let out a small chuckle. “I sure wasn’t expecting to see you here Skyy.” Yeah, likewise, I thought to myself, still not knowing what to say. Aiden stood behind Grandpa keeping a short distance but still close enough he could act if he tried anything, and at this point I had no idea what to think of my good ‘ole Grandpa. Everything I thought I knew just got tossed out the window when I saw him step through a shimmering portal from who knows where.

“We found this room yesterday Grandpa. Are you dead? Alive? What is going on? There are people searching for a book and trying to kill me. Please explain! What is going on!” I begged him.

Grandpa pulled over the chair Aiden had been using the night before and sat down in it, giving out a low grumble that old people do when they sit. “Well, the answer is pretty complicated. I never wanted you to get involved in this, but since you are I suppose I owe you some answers,” he said. “First off, the short answer to your first question is, no, I am not dead and I never was. I needed the family and everyone else I knew to think I was. Judging by the company you keep, I assume you know about the supernatural world as well, and after seeing me come through the portal into the basement here, I suppose I can tell you that, yes, I am human but I also have magical powers and the ability to live far past the normal lifespan of a human,” he paused for a moment as I absorbed what he told me.

I decided to jump in before he started again. “Grandpa, please tell me you’re not using black magic, or bad magic? These people are looking for a book that’s evil, I couldn’t believe you’d ever be involved in anything like that when I found out about it, but now I just don’t know what to think.” I said, frustrated.

Grandpa shook his head, “No Skyy, I most certainly
do
not
use black magic, never have, never will. The magic my order practices is white magic, along with alchemy and potion making skills, to name a few of our other talents. We have been around for centuries, a small group of us, trying to protect the families that were involved from the wrath of Elizabeth Bathory and keeping that blasted book out of her insane hands.”

The next question out of my mouth seemed so obvious, “Why didn’t you just destroy the book?” I asked.

“It’s not that simple, not by a long shot. We’ve been looking for a way to destroy it ever since getting our hands on it. It was created with powerful black magic. All those people she killed, their blood was used to write the words on those pages, their souls were used to seal magic into the writs. Back when my order first obtained the book, they tried to destroy it, which ended up with the lab the poor souls were using being blown sky high and everyone inside it perished. Everything but the book was burnt to ash, there weren’t even skeletons left to identify,” he said.

I grimaced. How terrible. What could cause someone to go so batshit crazy, to become so evil, to create something that twisted? Hundreds of young women died at her hands…that was bad enough to read in history, but to think their souls were all trapped in this God awful book was almost too much to bear.

Grandpa continued, “So we have been keeping the book hidden away since then. The first person to ever take the book was a servant in Bathory's employ. She had seen what was going on in the castle, had seen the many girls come but never leave. She was present one night when Bathory took several of the servants in the house and made them strip naked and walk into the freezing snow, while she poured water on them, turning them into frozen statues. Bathory had a handful of witches she conspired with, most famously Anna Darvula who may have been the most sadistic of them all. These witches helped her create the book that she is looking for, and the servants, knowing that they would probably be next in line for torture, took that book and fled the castle. That servant is an ancestor of ours, and the other servants that fled with her are ancestors of families in my order.”

My mouth dropped open when he said this. I was the ancestor of the brave but stupid person who stole the book from Bathory? And more importantly my grandpa spoke about these events like he was there when they happened. “So, you were alive? Back then I mean?” I asked him.

“No, I wasn’t alive at that time, but I was born in 1856. My father was the one who passed this knowledge on to me and I have been trying to protect the book from Bathory ever since then.”

“So, is the book here? Like in your house? The vampire she sent to find it thinks it is,” I questioned him.

“Well, the main reason I faked my death is because we are getting very close to hopefully perfecting a ritual that will destroy the book, and it’s consuming the majority of my time and focus. Our order has the book hidden in another location, which I cannot tell you about nor would I want to because if you ever got captured by Bathory she has ways of torturing your mind to find out what is inside of it,” he replied. Great, it just keeps getting better and better.

“Well, what exactly
is
Elizabeth Bathory now?” I inquired. Aiden said she was a vampire but the way everyone has been talking it seemed like she was the queen bee of all baddies.

Grandpa answered, “Well, she is many things. She is a vampire most definitely, but she is also a powerful sorceress and necromancer. More powerful than any one person should ever become. And if rumors are to be believed, in the last two centuries she has been trying to alter her body with dark faerie DNA, experimenting on herself.”

“Say what? So there are not only ghosts, vampires, witches and sorcerers, but also faeries too?” I guess I jumped head first into this world after all.

Aiden, who’d been standing quietly behind my grandpa finally spoke up. “There is a lot more than that in our world Skyy. Let's just say, anything you’ve read about, probably exists and there are plenty of things you never read about that exist too.”

Grandpa gave a little huff when Aiden spoke and turned his head to look at him. “Just what exactly are you doing here with my granddaughter anyway?” he said rudely to Aiden.

“Grandpa! Aiden is my friend and he has actually helped keep me alive on more than one occasion,” I almost shouted in his defense. I could tell Grandpa obviously had some kind of beef with vamps.

Aiden chimed in, “I take it you’ve not had many pleasant experiences with vampires sir?” he replied in a friendly tone.

Grandpa huffed again. “No, I most certainly have not. Though I have not associated with any of the vamps in America, only the ones in Europe and let's just say none of them top my list of people I’d call friends.”

Aiden nodded at his statement, “Well, as I explained to Skyy, vampires are just like humans, some are good some are bad, it all depends on the person. I know a lot of the older vampires that dwell in Europe can be especially dreadful to deal with, and even malevolent. I never ran in those circles, my mother and I mostly kept to ourselves.”

My Grandpa huffed yet again, “Well excuse me if I don’t want to see my granddaughter turned into a blood slave. I’d rather you just took off now and leave us to it. This is none of your business anyway.”

Ok, now I was really getting pissed. To find out pretty much everything I thought I knew about my grandpa was a lie was one thing, but for him to come back and be blatantly rude to Aiden, vampire or not, set me off.

“Excuse me Grandpa! I’m not exactly happy about this entire situation here either! People have broken into my house, are stalking and threatening me, you just appeared out of a shimmering blob of air shocking the shit out of me because I
thought
you were dead, telling me all kinds of crazy shit, and now you’re being rude to the one person who has stood by me and helped me through all of this! If you want him to walk away then I go with him, because I sure as hell didn’t sign up for this,” I was shaking I was so mad.

Aiden cleared his throat and spoke again, “I’d like to just clear up any confusion you might have sir, I don’t drink from humans, and only ever did before donated blood was a reliable source for us, and I have never,
ever
, manipulated anyone into being a blood slave, nor have I ever taken the life of anyone.” I could tell by his tone he was trying to be polite but he was not happy at being accused of things he hadn’t done.

I began to stand up, ready to walk out of the basement. I think Grandpa got the hint. He started waving his hands to calm me down. “Ok, ok Skyy. I’m sorry if I offended either of you. These are difficult times, and I didn’t expect to have you involved in any of this.” He glanced over at Aiden and gave him a nod, which I assume meant he was sorry and he’d tolerate his presence for now. “Now, you say there is a vampire here in town who has been tracking you, looking for the book?” he asked.

I nodded, and Aiden gave him the details. “Yes sir, he is one of Bathory's vampires, so he is powerful but he is still young. I am able to protect Skyy from him, and probably anyone else she would send with the exception of the hag herself.”