Dangerous Creatures (Book 3, Pure Series) (37 page)

              "Yes," I said. "It's a mythical bird in Russian folklore. It's supposed to be able to cure any illness."

              "Well, according to the stories around here," Sachiko said, "the Firebird was real. And even though she grew to be very old, she never died. Instead, she went to sleep—right here in Krov, somewhere under the ground in the Pure Woods. That was centuries ago, and she continues to sleep now—no one knows if she will ever awake again. But while the Firebird sleeps, she dreams. And she dreams of all the suffering that goes on in this world. In her sleep, the Firebird cries—she cries for all the suffering she sees. Her tears flow up through rock to the surface, and they form a spring—a spring that has marvelous healing powers and can cure any ailment imaginable."

              "Including the ailment of being a vampire?" I said.

              "Exactly," Sachiko said. "The spring is known, naturally enough, as the Tears of the Firebird. The spring was largely a secret—though certain human and vampire mystics did know of its existence. But its waters flowed into the ground in the Pure Woods, and its healing properties eventually extended beyond the boundaries of the spring itself. In time, the entire woods became imbued with its healing powers."

              "That doesn't sound so terrible," I said.

              "It wasn't terrible for humans and animals and plants," Sachiko said. "In other words, it was good for the natural world and the things that fit into the natural order. But for the unnatural creatures—like the vampires—the effect was not so good. The original vampire community was in the Pure Woods—and there's still a small one living there today—but that original colony was suddenly beset by a plague. The healing powers that flowed through the woods hit the vampires hard. Some of the vampires were unexpectedly healed, and they became human once again. The desire for blood left them—as did their unnaturally long life span—and those who were not killed by their former brethren returned to a normal human existence and lived out the rest of their mortal lives. Other vampires, however, were not so fortunate. The healing powers that lifted the vampire curse for some, simply brought death for others. In these cases, the skin of the afflicted vampires would grow grey and cracked, and lines like veins in marble would appear all over their bodies. The natural decay that should have come to them in death, came to them in their unnatural state of life. Once the decay was complete, they died."

              "So that's what was happening to David?" I said.

              "That's exactly what was happening to him," Sachiko said.

              "But how could that old spring affect David?" I asked. "I've been to the Pure Woods, and I've never heard anything about it."

              "You haven't heard about it for a reason," Sachiko said. "Once the vampires of the Pure Woods realized the spring was the reason they were losing their lives—either to humanity or otherwise—they destroyed the spring. According to some versions of the story, they cursed the spring with vampire magic so that it ran dry. According to other versions, they simply buried it under earth and stone. But whatever they did, the spring disappeared, and the Pure Woods lost its healing qualities. But the Firebird continued to dream, and her tears continued to fall somewhere underground. The Order of the Hawthorne got to hear of the legend and vowed many generations ago to find the spring and restore it."

              "And did they restore it?" I said.

              "I suppose they must have," Sachiko said. "Either that or the level of the spring rose until it burst forth naturally again. In any event, the Order did find the spring, and once they realized that it was indeed the Tears of the Firebird—and that the water was effective against vampires—they put it to use."

              Sachiko ran her thumb over the insignia on the stake once again.

              "It wouldn't have been nearly so bad," she said, "if the waters of the spring had remained within the boundaries of the Pure Woods. But the Order has taken water out—and taken it all over the world. They've been testing it and using it—eventually putting it into stakes. It's been getting into the world's water supply and into the soil and grass and trees. It's created an epidemic in the vampire community. That's why vampires are getting stricken and vanishing suddenly. It's not because some mysterious ghost girl is going around staking people—there aren't even any stakes present at most of the incidents now. Vampires are vanishing—actually crumbling into dust and dying—because they've been exposed to water from the Tears of the Firebird. That's what the ghost girl actually is—it's a contaminant that's gotten into the air and the water. That's why the deaths are seemingly so random."

              Sachiko turned the stake over in her hand.

              "Luckily, this one is empty. I suppose that's because it was used on the king."

              "Why haven't you told anyone about this?" I said.

              "I did tell people, at first," Sachiko said. "But nobody believed me. And what proof did I have, really? I know where the spring is, and I know it's dangerous. But the only way I could really demonstrate that would be to stab a vampire with one of these stakes and then wait for the negative effects to show. Of course, then it would just look like I was you in disguise as the ghost girl, offing vampires with my terrible powers. No one would ever believe it was the water."

              "How did you find out about all of this?" I asked.

              Sachiko frowned. "It's strange, you know. I don't know exactly how it happened. I remembered feeling a disturbance at first—something in the air that wasn't right. I followed the disturbance, and I came across a vampire who was suffering."

              Sachiko paused. "There was nothing I could do for him. He actually vanished right before my eyes—left nothing but a cloud of dust. That was the first death of this type I'd ever seen. Then I felt the disturbance again and again. And every time I followed it, it led me to the death of a vampire."

              "So that's how you know where to go?" I said. "That's why you always appear—as if by magic—before a vampire is stricken?"

              Sachiko nodded. "I'm fast. And somehow I can feel the trouble coming, and I follow it. I was a healer of a kind myself once—back in my old human life. Perhaps some of those instincts remain. Eventually, following the disturbances led me to the spring. The feeling of disturbance is strongest at the source."

              "So this healing water is all over the place now," I said. "Why doesn't it affect all vampires? Why is it just a few here and there?"

              "It probably depends on the amount of the exposure," Sachiko said. "And some vampires are more sensitive to it than others—the most sensitive are always hit the hardest in any epidemic. But the more the tears are used throughout the world, the more vampires will die through accidental exposure."

              "You've seen deaths," I said. "But have you seen any cures? Have you seen anyone who became human again?"

              "No," Sachiko replied. "I've heard of a few, but I haven't seen one. They seem to happen considerably less often. And I don't know what makes the difference—I don't know why some are cured and others die. Perhaps it has something to do with the dose, or maybe it's something else entirely. And I don't object to a cure. The problem is that no one has a choice. A lot of us didn't choose this life in the first place. It's wrong to take the choice from us a second time."

              "So is that what Terrance was doing?" I said. "He was at the castle distributing cures?"

              "Not exactly," Sachiko said. "That was just a means to an end. What he really came for was the Star of Morning."

              I looked at her in surprise. "Terrance has the sword?"

              "Of course. That was his whole purpose in coming to the castle. He wanted the sword, and he stormed the Vaults. The 'cures' were incidental. After all, no one was just going to let him walk in and take the sword."

              "What would Terrance want with the Star of Morning?" I asked.

              "He's a vampire hunter," Sachiko replied. "And one of the oldest, strongest vampires in the world has been released."

              I was startled. "You think Terrance is going to go after the Hunter?"

              "He's a member of the Order of the Hawthorne," Sachiko said. "It's what they do. They certainly couldn't ignore something of this magnitude. And it's very possible that the Order actually knows how the sword is supposed to be used. That's the sort of thing they exist to know."

              "Then we have to find Terrance," I said. "We have to find out what he knows about the sword."

              "As much as I dislike the idea of working with the Order of the Hawthorne," Sachiko said, "I have to agree with you. We'd better find him."

              "What about this vampire cure the Order has?" I said. "Could that be used against the Hunter?"

              "Unfortunately, I don't think so," Sachiko said. "I have a terrible feeling that the Hunter is far too powerful for that. And the Order of the Hawthorne doesn't think so, either. Otherwise, they never would have sent Terrance to steal the sword."

              She looked down at the stake in her hands. "No—destroying the Hunter will take something much stronger than this."

              As I watched Sachiko turn the stake over in her fingers, everything around me abruptly went black, and Sachiko, the stake, and the room before us vanished from my sight. The darkness surrounding me was complete and absolute, and I suddenly felt a deep, bone-chilling cold wrap around me.

              I turned my head in the darkness. "Sachiko?"

              "I'm here," she said. "And I can't see a thing. The darkness is too dense even for me."

              "What's going on?" I asked. "What does it mean?"

              "It means something is happening with William," Sachiko said.

              "Something good or bad?" I asked.

              "That remains to be seen. All we can do is wait. Just stay here on the couch with me, and try not to let the darkness get to you. Complete darkness can play tricks on your mind."

              I shivered.

              Sachiko and I continued to sit in the dark and the cold, and as time stretched on, I felt the darkness pressing in on me as if it were an actual physical weight.

              I found myself struggling to breathe.

              Then, as quickly as it had come, the darkness and the cold vanished. Once again, I was sitting with Sachiko on the sofa, and the dim light that had lit up Veronica's shabby front room of lace and crystal was back.

              The door on the far side of the room opened, and Veronika herself emerged. Her face was drawn and pale, and she looked deeply tired—as if something essential had gone out of her.

              "You can come in and see him," she said.

              I got up quickly. "William's okay?"

              Veronika bowed her head. "William has been restored."

              I rushed past her into the room. William was lying on a bare wooden table in a cramped, cluttered room. I could see that the cuts and bruises on his face and neck had healed—but his eyes were still closed, and he wasn't moving.

              Fear froze me to the spot. "What's wrong? Why isn't he moving?"

              There was a tired voice in my ear. "He is all right. He's just very weak. Go to him."

              I moved quickly to the table, and I brushed my hand over William's hair.

              "William," I whispered.

              His eyes fluttered open, and he looked around as if in confusion. Then his eyes settled on me.

              "Katie," he said softly.

              Then he sat up quickly. "Katie!"

              He wrapped his arms around me and held me tightly.

              "Oh, Katie. I thought I'd never see you again."

              I hugged him back fiercely, and I could feel tears stinging my eyes.

Chapter 27.

"Katie, I thought I'd lost you," William said.

              "You'll never lose me," I said.

              "The thought of you was the only thing that kept me going," William said. "I tried to find you. I kept your image before me always. Your face was the last thing I saw before—"

              William stopped and then went on in a low voice. "I thought I was going to die."

              "You very nearly did."

              William and I both looked up to see Veronika watching us with glittering eyes.

              "Who are you?" William asked. "Katie, who is this?"

              "This is Veronika," I said. "She saved you."

              "Saved me?"

              "I did more than save you," Veronika said. "I brought you back from the brink of death."

              "I don't know how to thank you," I said to her.

              "There's no need. You will pay me in time."

              "All the same," I said. "You've given William back to me. I'll be forever grateful for that."

              "I've given you nothing," Veronika said. "It's a simple exchange. For now you are both free to go. I will find you when I want you."

              "Free to go?" William said. "What's going on here?"

              "Do you remember none of it?" Veronika said. "The attack? Your imprisonment in the castle?"

              William frowned. "The attack?"

              He turned to me suddenly. "Katie, I went to the Black Tomb to find Ignis Sacer, but it wasn't there. Something moved in the tomb. And then—"

              William stopped. "And then I don't know. I don't remember."

              "You've lost the memories surrounding the event," Veronika said. "That's not surprising given the circumstances."

              William winced. "Lost my memories?"

              "Will they come back?" I asked.

              "I don't know," Veronika said simply. "You may be better off without them."

              William looked around the room then, and he seemed to take in his surroundings for the first time.

              He looked at Veronika, and his arm tightened around me convulsively.

              "You're a vampire."

              "Yes," Veronika said.

              "And we're in Zamochit. I can tell by the light and the scents in the air."

              "Yes."

              William got to his feet unsteadily, and I reached out to support him.

              He took my hand. "We need to get out of here right away."

              We walked into the next room, and Sachiko looked up from the sofa as we entered.

              William stopped abruptly when he saw her.

              "Another vampire," he said. "All we want to do is leave this place peacefully. I would appreciate it if you don't try to get in our way."

              "It's okay," I said. "This is Sachiko. She's a friend of mine. She got both of us out of Rusalka Castle. If not for her, neither one of us would be here."

              Sachiko stood up. "It's nice to see you awake finally."

              "Thanks for helping us," William said. "I'm sorry I don't remember you."

              "It's not your fault," she replied. "You weren't really in any condition to notice what was going on."

              A crystal on a nearby shelf seemed to catch William's eye then, and he frowned as he looked at all the crystals scattered around the room. Then he glanced back at Veronika, who was standing in the doorway of her workroom, watching us.

              William looked at me next, but he didn't say anything. Instead, he turned back to Veronika.

              "Thank you for what you have done here—for restoring me to health. And thank you for reuniting me with Katie."

              Veronika smiled. "Like I said, there's no need to thank me."

              William's hand gripped mine a little more tightly. "Let's go."

              We left the house, and Sachiko followed us, carrying her stake.

              Veronika followed, too, stepping lightly out onto her front step in her bare feet.

              "Remember our agreement, kitten," she said. "Goodbye for now."

              She smiled then and went back into her house, closing the door behind her.

              William, Sachiko, and I were left standing on the street in the hazy golden glow of daytime in Zamochit.

              "I've been thinking about what we should do next," Sachiko said. "And I—"

              "What we need to do," William said, "is get Katie to her mother's house here in Krov. It's the only place where she'll be safe from the Hunter."

              "And the last time I saw that house," Sachiko said, "it was on fire. The Hunter himself was burning it down."

              "So he's on Katie's trail even now," William said. "All we can do is run, then. We'll have to keep moving. We won't be able to stop in any one place."

              "Just hear me out," Sachiko said. "We can't just go running off without thinking things through. We need to plan what we're going to do. But we can't have this conversation out here. The street is no place to talk—not even during the day."

              "We can't wait," William said. "The Hunter—"

              "Can catch Katie more easily outside Zamochit than he can inside it," Sachiko said. "Outside Zamochit, there's nothing but the empty Wasteland. He could spot us from a mile away, even if we move fast. Inside Zamochit, there are a lot of scents and trails to confuse him. We're safer at the moment in a crowd. And I know where we can find one. We shouldn't attempt to cross the Wasteland until we know exactly where we're going."

              "You want to take Katie into a crowd," William said. "I assume you mean a crowd of vampires."

              "Yes," Sachiko said.

              "You can't take a human into a crowd of vampires in Zamochit," William said. "It's far too dangerous."

              "This place I'm thinking of is different," Sachiko said. "Everyone there is an outlaw. They don't ask questions, and nobody wants any trouble. There's sort of a truce there amongst everyone. They've tolerated other—creatures—before."

              "Sort of a truce?" William said. "That's what you want us to depend on?"

              "Any agreement is only words," Sachiko said. "You have to trust other people in order for it to work. And I trust these people—at least while they're in this particular place."

              "I want to go," I said. "Sachiko's led me through a lot so far. If she says we can trust the place, we can trust the place."

              William looked from one of us to the other. "Very well," he said at last. "Which way do we go?"

              Sachiko began to walk down the street. "Follow me."

              She guided us down several narrow, twisting streets until we came to a long, low, dilapidated building with a roof that was badly in need of repair.

              Sachiko walked up to a sturdy metal door and knocked. A few moments later, a thin rectangular window in the door slid open to reveal a pair of dark, suspicious eyes.

              Sachiko whispered something I couldn't hear to the owner of the eyes, and the window slid closed suddenly.

              There was a faint rattling sound then, as of someone fumbling with a lock, and then the door itself swung open noiselessly.

              Sachiko waved us forward. "Come on."

              We followed Sachiko inside, and I found myself standing in a very dark, dusty room with a long curtain at the end of it. A tall, glowering vampire—clearly the owner of the eyes we had seen—shut the door behind us and locked it.

              The vampire looked William and me over, and his expression grew decidedly hostile. But Sachiko laid a hand on his arm.

              "It's okay," she said. "They're with me."

              The vampire jerked his head toward the curtain in assent, and the three of us passed through it.

              The room we entered was even darker than the one we had just left, and I could only just make out a large room, with rickety tables and chairs, where vampires sat whispering and drinking. There was a row of booths along one wall, and along another wall was a bar where a bartender stood talking to a customer. Nobody looked around as we walked in.

              "This place is a vampire tavern," Sachiko whispered to me. "I'd tell you its official name, but you'll probably sleep better at night if I don't. The important thing is that everybody in here makes a point of not overhearing conversations."

              Sachiko steered William and me to a table.

              "I'll be right back," she said. "We'll look out of place if we don't order something."

              "I'm not drinking anything in here," William whispered.

              "Relax," Sachiko said. "It's like I told Katie. Not all vampire alcohol is made of blood. That's just the expensive stuff. And they definitely don't serve anything expensive in here. Just have a seat."

              William and I sat down, and Sachiko soon joined us with three mismatched drinking vessels. I tipped up the metal cup in front of me and found myself staring into an unsavory-looking liquid of a vaguely wine-colored hue.

              "I hope you won't be offended if I don't drink this," I whispered to Sachiko.

              "Not at all," she replied in a low voice. "In fact, I would very much recommend that you not drink anything in this place. But all the same we should have it. The manager gets restless if he sees non-paying customers hanging around."

              "So what did you want to tell us?" William asked.

              "Well, there's more than one reason I wanted to come in here," Sachiko replied. "I needed to get some information. It turns out that Terrance did indeed successfully make it out of the castle last night. I was pretty sure he would, considering what a good job he did on the castle guards, but I had to find out for sure. And the word is that not only did he get out, but he also got out with a very valuable item from the Vaults—although no one at the castle will divulge what that item is."

              "So if Terrance got out of the castle," I said, "he's probably gone to the Hunter's tomb to wait for his return. Either that, or he's hiding somewhere very close by."

              "That's just what I was thinking," Sachiko said.

              William was incredulous. "The Hunter's tomb? That's where you're thinking of going? Absolutely not. If we go to the Hunter's tomb, then Katie's as good as dead."

              "It's not quite as crazy as it sounds," Sachiko said. "A few things have happened that you don't know about."

              William shook his head. "We can't go anywhere near a place that's associated with the Hunter. He's sure to have eyes all over that tomb, and as soon as we show up there, he'll be right on us. We have to run. Or, since Katie's house has burned, we may be able to seek shelter at the castle. They want to stop the Hunter, too."

              "We can't go to the castle," I said. "You were being held prisoner there while you were sick. And the queen herself tried to kill me last night."

              William looked startled. "She—"

              "And don't think we'll get help from the king," Sachiko said. "He was stabbed last night and is still with the healer this morning. They do want to stop the Hunter, but we can't trust them. I have reason to believe someone up at the castle engineered the attack on you at the Black Tomb."

              William was silent.

              After a few moments, Sachiko went on.

              "Now, as I said, there are a few things you don't know about. There's a sword—"

              "I tried to get that sword," William said, "and I failed. We have no defense against the Hunter."

              "We don't need Ignis Sacer," Sachiko said. "There's another sword—the Star of Morning."

              William shook his head. "I know about the Star of Morning. And it's no good to us. No one knows how to use it."

              "The one who stole it knows how to use it, I bet," Sachiko said. "Otherwise he wouldn't have stolen it. That's why we have to go to the Hunter's tomb. If we find Terrance there, we'll find the sword."

              "Who's Terrance?" William said.

              "It's Terrance Scott from my high school," I said. "You saw him briefly on the night of the Black Moon Carnival."

              William's eyebrows rose. "Terrance from your high school?"

              "He's a member of the Order of the Hawthorne," Sachiko said.