A Shade of Vampire 43: A House of Mysteries(10)

“Bijarki?” I called out his name. This time he turned and faced me, his face splitting into a smile.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“For what?”

I took a step backward, unnerved by his gaze. It looked so intimate, like he knew me somehow, not just as one of the Oracles that the Druid was looking after, but as a friend or a…Don’t go there.

“Vita, we need to hurry,” he admonished. “We don’t have time to mess around.”

He held out his hand toward me, palm open, waiting for me to take it. I stared at the taut muscle of his forearm, how his skin had a slight silver sheen to it, like his bones were made of metal. For some unaccountable reason, I felt a strong urge to take his hand, to discover what it would feel like to have my palm against his. I looked up, into his eyes, seeing an urgency reflected there, an impatience because I wouldn’t do as he asked.

“Vita, please,” he begged.

I placed my hand in his, and the vision vanished.



Without time enough to blink, I was somewhere else—this time standing in the corner of a large room. At one end, there was a large door, guarded by two vile Destroyers. They sat atop their winged horses, their tails wrapped tightly around the middle of their horses’ bellies, holding them upright. Each of them held a pointed spear, the tips of the wood seeping with a bright purple liquid I recognized from the jungle. Their black eyes stared unseeingly ahead, and the only movement they made was the occasional flare of their nostrils, as if they were constantly sniffing out scents in the room. I didn’t know if I was visible to them or not, but I tried to remain perfectly still, not wanting to take any chances.

At the other end of the room, there was a giant rock. It was black, like volcanic stone, and sprawled out, filling the entire width of the room on either side. In the center of the rock sat another Destroyer. He was no larger than the other two who stood guard, but his presence seemed to fill the room entirely. He had long, dark hair, spilling down to his waist, and a thick beard that was braided at the end, ending in a perfect point between the well-defined pectorals on his chest.

He was such an all-consuming sight that I’d almost failed to notice the small figure standing in front of him, looking slight and waif-like in comparison. I blinked a few times, opening my mouth in a gasp of surprise as I recognized the figure as myself.

When neither of the guards so much as turned their heads at my sharp intake of breath, I started to move forward, testing my theory that they couldn’t see me. Relieved when they still didn’t notice me, and neither did the Destroyer on the throne, I got closer, wanting to hear the exchange between my ‘other’ self and the creature on the throne.

“You are mine now,” he hissed. “And you will be mine for an eternity. It will be up to you how it is spent—in my good graces, receiving all the gifts you could possibly imagine, or in disfavor, a lonely life floating in a bowl, seeing a world that you will never be part of again.”

“Then I choose disfavor,” the ‘other’ me spat back. My hands were held in fists at my sides, with two bright spots on either cheek. “I would rather die of loneliness than spend a second in your company!”

The Destroyer, who I was now convinced was Azazel himself, leaned back on his throne and laughed.

“Does he mean that little to you?” he asked, languorously stroking his beard. I watched as my face blanched and my entire body started to tremble. Who was he referring to? It had obviously caused me to have a visceral reaction, so the person he was threatening—besides me—was obviously important—it could have been any one of my friends, but the mention of a ‘he’ automatically made me think of some romantic attachment…but perhaps that was a misleading assumption.

Before any more of the vision could unfold, the scene vanished again—this time, very much against my will.



The next vision was upon me before I could recover from the last. I felt like I was still trying to hold on to the throne room, desperately wanting to know what had happened, what my decision had been, but I was already somewhere else, standing beneath a star-studded sky, the lights so bright that they felt like they were near enough to reach out and touch.

My heart felt like it had stopped beating in my chest as I greedily tried to take in my surroundings. Without a shadow of a doubt, it was the most beautiful, awe-inspiring sight I had ever witnessed.

I was standing on a mountain, and must have been so high up I was practically touching the heavens. I could see galaxies unfurling in the distance—pink, purple and blue hues glowing in the night’s sky, as if the entire cosmos was laid out in front of me. Its beauty made my throat tighten, keeping down a well of emotion that was building up inside of me.