Eternal Dawn (17 page)

‘
Renoiera
. . .’

There was that word again.

Renoiera
. . .

‘OK . . .’ Tony said quietly. ‘What’s Reno-yare-a?’

At the back of the room, at least six vampires stood in a row behind the last pew. When meeting my eyes, they bowed their heads. Cassius was the only one near me and knelt down in the aisle next
to my pew.

‘What language are you speaking?’ I asked. ‘It’s not Spanish or French. Nor any romance language I’ve ever heard.’

‘It is our language,’ he said. ‘Called Linderatu.’

‘A
vampire
language?’ I asked incredulously. I leaned towards him and lifted the pendant from his neck. ‘And what is this symbol?’ I said. He examined my
features with such awe that I dropped the pendant.

‘It is
your
symbol: R for Renoiera.’

‘
My
symbol?’

‘Renoiera . . .’ He said, rolling the
r
, like in Spanish. Tony murmured the word behind me.

‘What does it mean?’

‘It means queen,’ Cassius said. ‘For you.’

‘Queen?’ Ridiculous.

Cassius bowed again and the rest of the vampires at the back of the room followed suit.

‘I’m not your queen. You must be mistaken. None of you should have any idea who I am.’

Cassius knelt again. ‘How we know of you is but one of very many questions you will have answered tonight.’

‘Please stand,’ I whispered to Cassius. As I reached down, my fingers grazed his shoulder. I gasped.

‘You’re . . . you’re
warm
,’ I stammered. ‘No, you’re positively hot. Like a human.’ Another question immediately blossomed in my mind.
‘Is this related to why you can be out during the day?’

My head throbbed and I pressed my fingertips to my temple.

Tell her!
Cassius had screamed.
Tell her why we have come to protect her. Why we save her.

He hesitated and lifted my arm with his warm fingers.

‘Ah,’ he said. He nodded at the bracelet. I noticed that he wore a patch of bloodied white fabric pinned to his black shirtsleeve. The blood on his shredded cloth was a rust-coloured
stain.

I took advantage of the silence and rolled the word ‘Renoiera’ in my mind again. What Suleen had said about the revolution came back to me.

‘If you are here to protect me, why did you run from me all those times?’

‘We thought we might put you in even more danger if Justin saw you associating with us. As you could see from our interaction, we are not his favourite vampires. We wanted to wait until it
was most dire to reveal ourselves to you.’

‘But how?’ I asked. ‘How do you know who I am?’

‘There have been whispers of a Vampire Queen who became human throughout the last four hundred years,’ Cassius said. ‘At first they were stories, like fairy tales.’

‘I don’t understand. My past was meant to be erased.’ I had a hunch. It was just an idea but I could put the pieces together easily enough. Justin’s power and his
knowledge were beyond his years.

‘The Hollow Ones,’ I said aloud, ‘have something to do with this, don’t they?’

The group of vampires exchanged knowing glances.

‘The Hollow Ones lived in a house of onyx, Renoiera,’ a vampire said from the back of the chapel.

Cassius silenced him with a glare. Clearly the vampire was not supposed to talk. But he had revealed an important clue as to why they were here and why they remembered me. Onyx.

‘Yes, the ceilings,’ I said. In my mind’s eye I saw myself reflected in the onyx foyer of the Hollow Ones’ home. Vicken and I had used the reflection in the onyx ceiling
to see our souls. Onyx shows the purity of the soul. At the time, in that life, both my soul and Vicken’s had been grey like old snow.

‘OK, but it doesn’t explain how you remember me when all knowledge of me as a vampire should have been erased.’

‘What started as fairy tales eventually began to circulate as fact. Do you understand?’ Cassius said in his sing-song Italian accent. ‘As time went on, people began to suspect
your story was not legend but truth. We had no proof, but three years ago the Hollow Ones, without explaining why, claimed that they had acquired your blood. From that moment on, the rumour became
fact.’

‘But how?’ I asked.
It is the onyx
, the voice of the vampire queen deep inside me whispered.
Onyx
. . . she whispered again.
There were ceilings of onyx in that
house. Look to the clues.

The voice of my vampire self was a small part of my conscience, an aspect of my soul that I would never entirely be divorced from; it both helped me and hindered me. It kept me in touch with the
supernatural world. At present, I was reminded of times as a vampire when dealing with creatures or vampires that were very powerful. I needed as much information as possible.

‘What are you? Why are your eyes silver? How can you stand to be in the light?’ I asked.

‘The silver is not just the pigmentation of our eye,’ Cassius said, ‘it protects our souls from the sun. Like a shield, though we are not entirely sure of its exact magic. Once
we are weakened we turn to ash like any vampire. Stake through the heart, beheading, and sunlight. We are not invincible.’

He reached out for my forearm.

‘We can share each other’s minds. This is one way we transfer information. I can share with you our story.’

‘Through touch?’

I lifted my arm to meet his fingers, and when he wrapped them around my skin his warmth reminded me that these vampires were not normal. Vampires are ice cold, dead. I glanced at Tracy and Tony
still sitting in the back pew. Tony mustered a crooked smile but Tracy’s mouth was a firm line, guarded. She didn’t trust them yet.

I gripped on to Cassius’s arm and closed my eyes. Images came to my mind uninvited.

I am in the Hollow Ones’ house. Cassius walks alongside Rayken, a member of the Hollow Ones’ trio. They follow a long line of vampires down a hallway. At the end is a massive
door decorated with sculptures of grotesque twisting bodies. Behind it is the library. Cassius looks up at the hallway’s ceiling. Onyx. His soul is reflected in the stone. The hanging orb
hovering over his chest is a smoky grey. His soul is not black. Cassius follows Rayken into the library. A quartet plays soft music in the corner of the room.

Rayken, Laertes and Levi, the Hollow Ones, circulate goblets of blood between all the vampires in the room. In the middle, dressed in his crisp black suit, is Justin. He doesn’t take a
goblet; he keeps his hands crossed over his chest. Cassius brings the goblet to his nose and sniffs. The blood seems normal.

But he is cautious. Justin catches Cassius as he sniffs the blood a second time. Perhaps it’s sweeter than usual?

‘You’re lucky,’ Justin says to Cassius. ‘Only very few vampires have been invited here. You must have done something right.’

Cassius looks about the room. He recognizes some of the vampires but not all. He knows Liliana, the blonde standing in the corner. Her sister stands by her side; both are very capable
archers.

Rayken stands in the centre of the room and raises his glass.

‘A new ritual,’ Rayken says. ‘We wish to expand the confidence of the Hollow Ones. In this ritual, we will share blood together. And in doing so begin a new coven. The
strongest coven.’

The vampires in the room bring the goblets to their mouth and drink. The liquid is so sweet, the best Cassius has ever tasted. He finishes his in two gulps.

The image shifts.

Cassius is balled up on the floor. He wants. He wants. He wants. He wants to go back; he wants to take back all he’s done.

‘They weren’t supposed to retain their sanity! What good are they to me now?’ Laertes’s voice echoes through a nearby door.

‘It must be her blood,’ Justin replies.

‘Lenah kept her mind when she was remade a vampire,’ Laertes reasons, calming down. ‘Her blood runs through their veins. We knew it was a risk.’

‘Throw him into the sunlight,’ Rayken says. ‘With his mind intact, Cassius is meaningless to me.’

It hurts, Cassius thinks. Don’t throw me into the sunlight!

I inhaled the crisp air inside the chapel. The warmth of Cassius’s hand moved away from my arm.

‘We are called the Demelucrea. It means half-light,’ Cassius said, taking a step back to join the rest of the vampires. ‘We are only part traditional vampire. Our other half is
a Demelucrea. The Demelucrea keeps his sanity and the ability to tolerate the sun . . .’

‘Do you drink blood?’ Tony asked.

‘Yes,’ Cassius replied. ‘We get it from blood banks. We try not to kill the living.’

‘Try?’ Tracy squeaked.

‘How did they alter the blood?’ I asked. ‘What did they do to it?’

‘We do not know,’ Cassius answered simply. ‘It was your blood, Renoiera, That is all we do know.’

‘My blood? Impossible.’ But Suleen’s words came back to me.

He has made them from your blood.

‘The Hollow Ones acquired your blood somehow. Through a rip in time, or perhaps the power of the onyx house made it possible.’

There was that word again, onyx. The Hollow Ones had once possessed a vial of my blood. But again, Fire
changed
history. That event, when I gave my blood to the Hollow Ones,
never
happened
. Just like Tony’s murder never happened! He was alive now because Fire successfully changed history when I went back to the medieval world. Even though I gave my blood to the
Hollow Ones in their house of onyx, I had never bled on the stone floors. It was a very clean transaction. They would have been able to extract it from the stone only if I had bled on it, just as
with the arrow that pierced Justin that first night out on Main Street.

Ugh. I groaned.
The event never happened! It’s just not possible for them to still have my blood.

‘However they acquired it,’ Cassius continued, ‘they used your blood to mix with ours.’

Bile crept up to my throat and I turned from them, trying to steady myself. The cut on my middle finger burned.

‘Who knows the bounds of the Hollow Ones’ knowledge?’ he went on. ‘All I am sure of is that we are vampires who can be out by day.’ He said with emphasis, ‘We
are not tortured by the pain of our existence.’

Tortured by the pain of our existence. He talked like a vampire too.

‘Who created your language?’ I asked.

‘I did.’

‘You made a language? In
three
years?’

‘Why not?’ he said, and lifted his chin. ‘If they couldn’t understand us, then they couldn’t thwart our plans. Once we were the unwanted we made our own language
and reclaimed our existence.’

‘So you were made into . . .’ Tony chose his words carefully, ‘hybrids?’

‘From what I have gathered, our intended purpose was to kill during the day as well as at night. But the Hollow Ones’ plan went awry because we kept our sanity and reason. Our
humanity, if you like.’

‘Where’s your family?’ Tony asked. It felt respectful, as if he wanted to understand Cassius.

‘My family is dead. As a vampire, without my sanity, I had no conscience; it didn’t matter what I had done or who died. I was angry and numb.’

My little sister Genevieve popped into my head, running down the orchard lane squealing with laughter.

‘Many of us miss our families,’ Cassius said gently.

I swiped my hand across the air.

‘No more,’ I said, and threw myself down the aisle, out the chapel door and outside. My stomach clenched and I took great puffs of air to prevent the tears from coming. I ran past
the bodies of two dead Demelucrea in the dark field. At dawn’s first light, they would be ash. Nothing but dirt for the lacrosse players to kick up during their next game.
We are not
invincible.

‘Lenah! Stop!’ Tony’s voice called after me. ‘Please!’

I fell to my knees at the Wickham farm fence. I waited for Tony’s footsteps and he knelt by my side.

‘So there it is,’ I said, staring at the ground. ‘Suleen was right.’

Cassius knelt down on the other side of me.

‘It’s because of the blood they took from you that we kept our minds,’ he said gently. ‘We consider it a gift.’

‘Only when I was remade a vampire a second time did I retain my mind,’ I sobbed. ‘No one knows why that happened. Before that, I was evil. The blood that courses through you is
cursed.’

‘A curse to be in the daylight? A curse to walk among humans? When Suleen said it would be possible for you to come back, we banded together, Renoiera. It’s because of you we have
hope.’

‘Hope for what?’

‘That we can defeat Justin. That . . .’

His gaze fell to the ground.

It was not as heroic as they made it sound. But I understood why they revered me and had made me into a legend. I had broken the bonds of immortality.

‘You want me to help you be human again,’ I said.

Cassius sighed. ‘It is our deepest hope. But we need your expertise. We want freedom from Justin. He is a tyrant. Now that his plan to bring you back to the modern world as his queen has
failed, we can only guess what he plans to do next.’

We thought a lot alike, Cassius and I. Even though our task was not the same; the Demelucrea wanted to destroy Justin. I wanted to find out what Justin wanted
and
get Rhode the hell out
of there as soon as possible. I knew what Suleen had asked of me, but it wasn’t that simple to just kill Justin.

‘Tony . . .’ I sought comfort from my friend.

‘It’s OK. Really. We’ll figure this out, and we’ll get Rhode back,’ he said. He squeezed my hand. ‘We will.’

‘I cannot promise the ritual will work for you,’ I said looking at Cassius.

‘Why, Renoiera, we have tried the ritual with Suleen. It does not work. To perform a ritual you must be a complete vampire, and we are not. Nothing happened. No horrific consequences, no
grand gestures. It was even worse, I think. We remained exactly the same.’

‘So how do you plan to become human again?’