A Moonlit Night - The Complete Saga (27 page)

“I’m not leaving until you tell me
something,” Emily stated, “Anything… about who I am, or where we’re
going.”

“We’re in the Amazon.”

“What?” Emily asked, “No shit, really?”

“Yes,
really
.”

Emily took the scrap of information and
decided to press it no further. She would find the information she
sought, but on her own terms and without the need for subversion.
Xander was still a good man and she would give him the benefit of
the doubt, if even just this one last time.

And then suddenly, a resemblance of the man
he once was returned and he called Emily back as she was leaving
his cabin. “Here, I believe this is what you were looking for.”

Xander tossed an iron casket into Emily’s
direction. She barely managed to grapple on to it as he collided
into her with a thud. It must’ve weighed fifty pounds and was
incredibly awkward to carry, but something inside the casket
resonated with the summoner and instilled her with the strength to
carry it without burden.

“I hope you can forgive me for withholding it
for so long,” Xander said, “I always planned on showing you this… I
just needed to be sure that Lady Amata was no longer in your
head.”

“What does it contain?” Emily asked.

“I was hoping you could tell me,” Xander
replied, “Only a fraction of the scrolls were translated by the
great sage, Mitra, the rest is nothing more than scribbles and what
appears to be the mumblings of a madman.”

“Who is this Mitra, anyway?” Emily asked.

“No one knows,” Xander said, “Those scrolls
are far older than I… and the few vampires that are old enough have
long since withdrawn from the world. Truth be told, I believed him
to be nothing more than a mixture of a hundred different stories
all strewn together… and those scrolls, the work of myth and
legend.”

“What changed?” Emily inquired, “When did you
start believing that the summoner was real?”

“Costa Rica,” Xander said as he grabbed the
satellite phone on the dresser, “Simeon showed me the scrolls while
I attended one of his usual gatherings. There it was… displayed to
all the most powerful and influential vampires of our generation…
the proof that the summoner existed and that their downfall had
been prophesied. Panic broke out among our kind, and after
thousands of years, my people once again began to hunt for the
summoners. This time, however, there was only one summoner to be
found.”

“My mother,” Emily answered.

“Indeed,” Xander said, “And with her final
breath, she transferred that power to you.”

“Come,” continued Xander, motioning towards
the door, “We should go.”

As if she had opened it a thousand times
before, Emily unlocked the many mechanisms around the casket’s seal
with little trouble. As her fingers lingered on the parchments
inside, she was pulled back by Xander and urged out of his room and
to the upper deck.

“How did you find this place?” Emily asked,
“If it’s been so elusive over the years, why are you the first one
to find it?”

“In fact, I’m
not
the one who found
the Temple of Prometheus,” said Xander with a mischievous smile,
“That honor also goes to my late master… although he never truly
understood what he’d found. It took him decades to comb this
jungle, and then one day he found it. Only the bloody fool didn’t
recognize the signs and ploughed on through the rest of the jungle.
He was the strongest, most intelligent man I’ve ever known, but he
wasn’t bright. The writing was on the walls, there for him to see,
but with no question asked of him, he faltered to see the answer,
right there in front of his face.”

Xander opened a large steel hatch and the two
exited onto the upper deck where a helicopter awaited them on the
bow of the vessel. All the vampires and ghouls left in Xander’s
care amounted to no more than thirty men, but they stood strong for
their master, so close to achieving what they all yearned for. They
wanted freedom, a life free from the persecution that haunted them
nightly. To the death they’d fight for the chance at life and the
humanity it brought with it.

They were a mismatched group of individuals.
Half were suited in chainmail and carried large medieval weaponry,
but the others were protected only by clothes on their back and
given knifes and stilettos to defend themselves. Not exactly the
army Xander hoped to assemble, to say the least.

Emily’s closest friends were all in
attendance. Steven looked reinvigorated from the fresh sea air and
for the first time, in a very long time, she saw her brother as the
white knight he’d always been in high school. He protected her
then, and he’d protect her now. Everything had changed, yet a few
things remained the same, comforting things that she would keep
close in her hour of need.

Steven was dressed head to toe in the same
chainmail as the other vampires, long sword strapped to his back
and cold demeanor in his eyes. He was ready for war, ready for a
bloodbath. Emily had failed him, allowed him give in to his dark
desires and take up arms in the battle for her life. She was going
to make things right, she vowed, or die trying.

The vampire hunter’s had been good for him,
at least in the short while he attended. She could sense a new
strength in him, a spark of white hot energy that stirred within
him, not unlike the fierce explosion of raw power that the blood
demon endowed him with temporarily.

His mentor, Samuel, was a good man.
Too
good, perhaps, caught in a fight he never belonged in.
He was in the wrong place, wrong time, and hunting the wrong game.
Samuel thought he was hunting a vampire, and while he did find a
vampire, a pack of werewolves had found him, lurking in his shadow
and ready to pounce at first drop of his guard. And so they did
pounce, but not as hard as Samuel, who drove them off with help
from a summoner and the vampire he vowed to slay.

Esther was also there, offset from the group
with a bright flashy dress, vibrant and colorful like the dresses
she used to wear, before the castle fell. She was smiling, beaming
with confidence, and surely would’ve been flush in the face had her
skin still allowed it. She was a good vampire, but more than that,
she was a good person. Esther was someone that Emily could count
on, and in her new paranormal world, these people were few and far
between.

“Beautiful dress,” Emily said as she ran a
finger down the cerulean satin corset, “It looks great on you, but
it’d look pretty decent on me, too.”

“Thanks,” Esther replied with a smile, “It’s
the only one I could salvage. I spent half the night digging it up
from the wreckage, and the other half I spent scrubbing it clean. I
wanted to save it for a special occasion.”

“Ugh,” Fiona interrupted, clutching at her
throat as if she was going to vomit, “You two are just filling my
heart with warmth… I bloody hate when that happens. Knock it off
and let’s get in the ‘copter.”

And then there was the mildly antagonistic,
Fiona, a woman Emily hoped to one day call her friend, but until
then she would have to sleep with one eye open. Like every one once
in their camp, Fiona had paid with blood, although her wounds were
a little fresher than most.

She was tall, strong, and confident— exactly
the type of person Emily would expect in her closest circle of
allies. Unlike the others, however, she had the nasty habit of
threatening to murder Steven and make off with Samuel’s head. She
would needed to be watched closely, a fact readily apparent to the
summoner.

“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” Emily said as
she was guided onto the helicopter by Xander.

Steven, Fiona and Esther accompanied them
onboard and quickly strapped themselves into the seats. Samuel
followed closely behind and tried to board, but was cut short by
Xander.

“We’re full,” Xander replied with unyielding
sympathy, “Maximum capacity… and all that stuff. You’ll have to
walk the distance with all the ghouls and younglings. Sorry, but
you
know
how it is, right?”

“Yeah, I know exactly how it is,” Samuel
replied, taking another step towards the helicopter, “You’ve been
giving me snotty looks since your precious castle walls fell down
and I’m sick of it. You want to blame me for everything that’s gone
wrong? Fine, go ahead. I bet it’s easier than blaming
yourself.”

“I should knock that smirk off your face,
boy
,” Xander growled, “I’ve killed many of your kind, and
I’ve no doubt I’ll kill many more—.”

“You two are completely helpless!” Emily
shouted as she threw her hands into the air. It took only a slight
burst of adrenaline, but the impact of Emily’s charged fingers
hitting the steel beam above her channeled into the helicopter. It
came alive with lights blinking, radio chirping and rotors
spinning— all from the slightest touch of a summoner’s charged
energy.

“Whoa,” Steven said with vain hopes of
breaking the tension, “Now
that
was pretty fucking cool,
wasn’t it?”

“Listen, Samuel,” said Emily as she unhooked
herself from the seat, “I need you to stay behind. I can’t explain
it, but it’s important that you meet us there later. Please,
Samuel, can you do this for me?”

“I can,” Samuel grumbled, “I don’t care much
for it, but I’ll escort the ghouls and fledglings to the location.
It’s marked on a GPS somewhere, right?”

Xander tossed a spare scanner towards Samuel,
which he promptly caught and gave it a quick scan before stuffing
it into his backpack.

“That’ll work,” Samuel said, “I’ll see you
there in a day or so, then?”

“With a little luck,” Xander whispered, “Not
at all.”

“Wait,” Emily said, hands in the air and
waving anxiously around, “Esther, would you please go with Samuel.
I know he can handle himself, but I’d prefer to have a vampire that
the clan respects accompany him to safety—.”

“No, no, no,” Fiona said abruptly, “That
won’t work, at all. Esther’s the expert in lost languages and we’ll
need her around if we need to decipher anything left behind by the
ancient vampires that first discovered this place.”

“I’ll do it,” Fiona said after a brief pause,
“I’m no use before the battle and it’d do me some good to scour the
landscape that we’ll likely be fleeing through soon enough.”

“I don’t care who comes,” Xander said as he
took a seat beside the pilot, “I just want us up in the air within
five minutes.”

“Fiona,” Emily said, gripping onto the
vampire’s camouflaged jacket, “I know we haven’t seen things quite
the same lately, and maybe we never did, but I need you to promise
me that you’ll make sure Samuel’s in good hands.”

“Are you going to threaten me, too?” asked
Fiona, less than impressed with the summoner’s little speech.

“No,” Emily replied.

“Good,” Fiona said as she tugged free from
Emily’s grip, “Then I’ll take it under advisement.”

And just like that, Emily was pushed back
into her seat and strapped in for the voyage in front of them.
Their mode of transportation may have differed, but their
destination remained the same and it loomed closer with each
passing moment. The Temple of Prometheus was near— she could feel
it in her bones.

The helicopter took off with a gust of wind
and left the rest of Xander’s coven to find their own way to the
temple. The ride was jaunty, which made it difficult to think or
have thoughts heard. Everyone just stared blindly at the landscape
as the helicopter lifted high up over the sprawling jungles that
encompassed the entire view. Everyone, except the summoner, who had
one more thing she needed accomplish; things made much more
difficult by the chopping blade that thundered in her ears.

* * * * *

It had been almost thirty minutes since they
had gotten aboard the helicopter, but finally Emily had reached the
goal she had been striving this entire time to achieve. She wasn’t
sure if the sage’s scrolls had instilled her with newfound power,
or if her proximity to the temple was acting as a conduit for her
powers; but it gave her new insight to the ways of her kind, and
she would make full use of the opportunity it provided.

“Can you hear me?” Emily thought, her
consciousness reaching out to those left behind, “I need to know it
you can hear me?”

Back aboard the ocean liner, a startled
vampire hunter almost lost his footing as he heard the
transmission, beamed directly into his head from far away.

“Emily, is that you?” Samuel shouted, his
words echoing around the tight confines of the steel stairwell he
was in, “Where the hell are you?”

“You don’t need to shout,” Emily said
telepathically, “I can hear you just fine with your thoughts.”

“How the heck are you doing this?”

“I only wish I could explain it myself,”
Emily said, “I
feel
something here, Samuel. A connection
unlike any other I’ve ever felt before. There’s something strong
here… and it’s calling out to me. Right now, let’s call it a new
trick. I’ll discuss the matter further, but first I need a
favor.”

“Well now that you’ve got me sloshing around
with ghouls and vampires, I’m free to do just about anything you
need.”

“I’m sorry for that,” Emily continued, “I
wish there could’ve been another way.”

“Yeah, I do, too. Oh well, out with it,
Emily, what do you need?”

“I had hoped to get you to press Esther for
information,” Emily confessed, “That’s not going to happen now, but
I need you to see if you can get Fiona to open up a little.”

“You want me to become her friend?”

“Something foul is in the air,” Emily said,
“Ever since I was declared the summoner by the paranormal realm;
people have been using me for their own gains. All the schemes and
betrayals, their sole purpose was to cloud my mind and make the
right choice seem unattainable. I’m going to finish this war on
my
terms, and for that I’m going to need your help.”