Stolen Night (2 page)

Someone was watching me.

The blonde? Had she been looking for me? Is that why she had killed Kate?

Dozens of students were making their way to the beach to investigate the chaos. I looked past the union and up the long slope of an enormous hill that led to the archery plateau.

Atop it stood a familiar figure, and hope immediately rushed through me. He would be able to explain everything.

Suleen. The oldest vampire.

He stood dressed all in white with a turban fitted tightly to his head. He lifted his arm and motioned for me to follow him, then turned and walked on to the archery plateau, disappearing into
the shadows.

I ran, trying to ignore the weakness in my legs as I sped up the hill. Justin followed behind me.

‘Lenah, wait! What’s going on?’ he called.

I tallied the horrors of the last day as I ran. Kate’s murder, the blonde vampire and now Suleen’s arrival? All of this was undeniably connected.

‘Something is very wrong. He wouldn’t be here otherwise,’ I said.

‘What’s wrong? Who
is
that?’ he asked.

We crested the archery plateau, the line of targets in the distance highlighted by the moonlight. Suleen was not alone. A figure stood beside him in the middle of the field, clad in black
trousers, black boots and black spiky hair.

My God.

The young man turned and his eyes bored into mine – blue. Blue. Blue.

My hand flew to my chest and I stumbled back.

Rhode. My Rhode. His whole body was surrounded by a halo of silver. The light that emanated from his black hair, his blue eyes and the curve of his face was nothing compared to the beauty that
radiated from within him.

How could it be? I had run my fingers through his gritty vampire remains that first day at Wickham. I’d been so sure he was dead.

Of course
. . . the realization pulsed through me. If I had survived the ritual with Vicken . . . why wouldn’t he survive the ritual as well?

I ran to him. He watched me, completely still. The shock of seeing Rhode coursed through me, over and over again, making my mortal heart race. I was a step from him, close enough to reach out
and touch his skin.

I would touch him! Feel his skin with fingertips that were alive with nerves and pulsing with blood. Suddenly Suleen stood between us. I stepped to the left to avoid him but Suleen blocked my
way. I moved to the right – blocked again. Rhode kept his eyes locked on mine, but didn’t take so much as a step towards me.

My fingers shook as my hand stretched out to him. ‘Rhode . . .’ I whispered. ‘You’re not dead. You’re not dead.’

He blinked sparingly, marvelling at me as if I was an unknown creature or some rare bird.

‘Rhode?’ I said, panic rising from my stomach to my chest.

‘Lenah . . .’ Suleen’s slow voice broke my gaze. ‘We haven’t much time.’

‘Damn it, Rhode, speak to me,’ I commanded.

Rhode closed his eyes for a moment, seemingly gathering strength to speak. Instead he took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes to look at me, I nearly fell back from their coldness.

‘Rhode?’ I said. ‘Do you know how long I’ve dreamed of this?’ He didn’t respond. ‘I love you!’

A pressure on my arm fell away. Justin. I had almost forgotten he was there. His cheeks were streaked with dirt, and when I moved my gaze to his hands, those too were caked in mud and sand. It
reminded me of our terror that night, of what we had been through in the last few hours. And Kate Pierson had died.

‘This is Rhode?’ he said faintly. The wonder and hurt in his tone made me want to clamp my hands over my ears.

Rhode stared at Justin with the same curiosity he had for me, as if we were some strange animals. Justin reached for me again.

‘You don’t want to be here, Lenah,’ he said.

At this, Suleen stepped between Justin and me.

‘What are you . . . ?’ I started to say as Suleen opened his hand, palm facing Justin. A great gust came over us all at once. Trees swayed back and forth so their branches curled and
creaked. There was a loud pop as Suleen thrust his arm forward. In a blink, a wide vertical whirlpool of water separated Justin from Suleen and me. This watery shield hovered in the air between us.
I reached out, extending my fingers, and ran them through the whirlpool suspended in the air. They made lines where they broke through the water.

I had never – ever – seen a vampire with that kind of power.

‘Lenah!’ Suleen said from behind me. ‘
Rapidement
.’ Quickly. He turned back to Rhode and left the swirling shield hanging in the air as though it had always been
there.

‘Lenah!’ Justin banged a fist on to the watery barrier, then stepped back. He rose on to his tiptoes, trying to see over the water, but the barrier simply stretched upwards too. Our
eyes met through the water, his face rippling strangely.

‘Lenah!’ He yelled my name again, and the sound of his voice breaking made a knot form in the centre of my chest. I could not go to him. Not even after everything that had happened
that night.

I turned to Suleen in frustration. ‘What the hell is going on?’

‘Lenah,’ he said gently. His touch warmed my fingers. ‘When you performed the ritual for Vicken, you alerted the Aeris.’

‘The Aeris?’ I said with surprise. I had only heard of them in ancient vampire texts and Celtic mythology.

‘What you both have done with the ritual, it must be reckoned,’ Suleen said.

‘A reckoning? Like a trial?’ I asked. Rhode wouldn’t look at me; his arms were folded across his chest. The muscles in his forearms contracted, drawing my eyes down for a split
moment. Then, he
swallowed.
I watched, just to prove to myself he was human, that he was real. His chest rose and fell in an easy rhythm. We had both performed the ritual, we had both
intended to die, yet here we were together – both very much alive. Both human.

‘Lenah,’ Suleen said, ‘you must focus right now. This will affect both of you –’ he placed his warm palms on my shoulders – ‘indefinitely.’

I wanted to tell Suleen and Rhode about the blonde vampire. About Kate’s death and the horror unfolding down on Wickham campus.

The watery shield still hovered in the air, but Justin was gone from the other side. All that lay behind it was the rippled green of the darkened trees speckled with silver glints by the moon.
The knot in my chest tightened again when Suleen spoke.

‘Rhode must explain to the Aeris why he manipulated the elements to perform a ritual to turn a vampire into a human. He must explain why he passed this information on to you, so you could
perform it as well.’

‘Well, that’s easy. I was losing my mind. Going insane. Tell him, Rhode.’

Rhode sighed, then spoke for the first time. ‘Lenah . . .’ It didn’t even sound like my name – it sounded like a swear word, a rotten curse spat out, wishing to be
forgotten.

‘You never said this ritual was elemental magic,’ I said to Rhode. Elemental magic would be the only reason the Aeris were involved. For they represented the four elements of the
natural world: earth, air, water and fire. Not human. Not spirit. The Aeris exist as the earth exists.

‘We have to do this, Lenah,’ Rhode said. His voice was calm. ‘We have to clear up our own mess.’

‘It’s time,’ Suleen said, and finally moved out from between us. Suleen looked towards the middle of the green but I kept my eyes on Rhode. The long trunks of trees behind him
were a blur. The flat summer leaves were nothing but a wash of darkened emerald to me now.

‘You won’t even look at me?’ I asked quietly. ‘Did you know the Aeris were coming?’ I didn’t dare move closer to him. ‘Why didn’t you come back
sooner?’

Again, his silence was his answer.

‘I don’t understand you,’ I said.

‘I didn’t
want
to come back,’ he snapped. ‘I
had
to.’ He lifted his eyes to mine. ‘For this.’

His words cut into the centre of my chest.

He hadn’t
wanted
to come back?

It was then I glimpsed a white light out of the corner of my eye. I knew that light – it was supernatural.

Rhode’s words hung in the air, stinging me like a burn. There was a large expanse of land before me and the archery targets sat deep in the distance of the plateau. My blood pulsed in the
base of my throat; I brought my fingertips to my skin to feel it. The white light in the centre of the green grew to be as long and wide as the field that stretched before me.

At first it was difficult to see anything discernible in the whiteness, but eventually the fuzzy forms took the shapes of human bodies. Four female bodies. The Aeris stepped forward.

Their dresses were flowing, and it seemed as though they were made from water. The hue of their gowns changed colour every few seconds; one moment they were blue, then a darker blue, then red. I
wondered if it was a trick of the light. One of the women had impossibly white eyes and her hair drifted around her head as if she was underwater. The woman next to her had hair that fluttered
around her like crackling flames, a bright red. When she looked at me, her gown flickered a poppy orange. Fire.

Behind the Aeris were hundreds, no,
thousands
of shapes that looked like regular people.

The four spoke together: ‘We are the Aeris.’

Their light took over the entire sky now.

‘Who are the people behind you?’ I asked.

‘These,’ Fire replied, gesturing behind her across the field of people, ‘are your victims and the victims of the vampires you made.’

My victims?
I shook my head quickly.
It couldn’t be
.

Yet there they stood. They were amorphous, their identities shielded by the light. Included in their masses was a bright being no more than three feet high. A horrified chill ran through me.

A child.

She was the child I had killed hundreds of years ago.

Looking from Rhode to me, Fire said, ‘Your lives are destined to be intertwined. You are held together by a power that cannot be undone by the Aeris.’

‘Destined?’ I asked.

‘Yes, Lenah Beaudonte. You and Rhode Lewin were born under the same stars. The course of your lives has brought you here – together, as soulmates.’

‘You never interfered with us before,’ Rhode said.

‘You, Rhode, were meant to die when you performed the ritual to make Lenah human. Yet your soulmate tied you to this earth. When you went out into that sunlight, you were meant to die. But
you could not. Not without Lenah.’

‘And the same for me?’ I asked. ‘When I was performing the ritual on Vicken?’

She nodded. ‘So now we have come to undo what you have created with this ritual.’

I wracked my brain trying to understand what she was saying. Fire’s hair crackled. ‘You cannot manipulate the elements in order to bring life out of death. Not without
consequence.’

‘So you’ve come to punish us?’ I asked.

‘We have come to hold you responsible.’

Fire gestured towards the ghostly figure of the child to illustrate her point. There was nothing to say. Nothing I could possibly try to defend.

‘It was our nature then,’ Rhode said plainly. ‘To kill.’

‘We are not here to hold you accountable for your endless murders, as heinous as they might have been. The Aeris are not responsible for, nor do we police, the vampire world. Vampires are
dead. Supernatural night wanderers. We cannot hold you responsible for the killings you performed in that world,’ Fire said as she paced between us. ‘What interests me is what you have
done to become human. It is against the laws of nature to manipulate the elements. You forced yourself back into this natural world with the ritual, and once you did you became our responsibility.
You will not go unpunished.’

Rhode said nothing. I was unable to keep my eyes away from the thousands of figures collecting behind the Aeris. All of those people . . .

Fire faced me and clasped her hands together at her waist, then let them hang. She moved her eyes to mine. My legs were so weak they shook and I wondered if I would fall to the ground right
there.

‘The choice is this: either you can go back to your natural states – Rhode will return to 1348 as a knight under Edward III. You, Lenah, will live your life in 1418 as it should have
been.’

‘When we were human?’ I asked incredulously.

‘Natural states means when you each had a white soul, a pure soul,’ Fire explained.

‘You’ll send us back in time?’ Rhode asked.

Fire glanced behind her at the crowd of our victims. A question rose in my mind.

‘What about all of them?’ I asked, gesturing.

‘When you go back to the medieval world, these souls will return to the natural course of their lives too.’

‘I don’t understand,’ I said.

‘Every person you murdered will live again, as will those killed by the vampires you created. They will never meet you – because you won’t become a vampire. It will be as
though you had never met.’ She looked at both Rhode and me.

In 1348, when he became a vampire, Rhode was nineteen. I wouldn’t be born for another fifty-four years. He would be dead by the time of my birth or, at best, a very old man. That was their
purpose. To send us back so that we would remain apart.

‘It is a balance, Lenah. All the four elements of the world create balance. You were made a vampire against your will. You are Rhode’s original victim so it is your choice to decide
his fate.’

‘What is the other option?’ I asked.

Fire stepped to the edge of the white light. Her pupils were bright red but the iris around them glowed a pearl white. I held my breath until my cheeks and whole body tingled.

‘You and Rhode have unleashed a chain of reactions that cannot be undone unless you separate. You may either go back to the medieval world or you may remain here. If you choose to stay
here, you and Rhode may not commit to one another.’

‘Commit?’ Rhode asked. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Commitment to love is a choice deep within the soul. If you choose to bring your lives together in this world, we will know.’

Could we touch? Talk? Kiss . . . ? All these questions popped into my mind.