The Surien Series Blood Guardian (4 page)

Symarah woke feeling refreshed and rejuvenated. She had a very busy day ahead of her and she was eager to get started. First on her agenda was to visit Lakeview Elementary, home of the Lancers. She had a soft spot in her heart for the grade school where she used to teach, and the people there were like family to her. She had intended to continue her teaching career and just do her writing in her spare time, but then it all just got too big. The deadlines and book signings took up a lot of her time, and she was barely able to finish grading papers and preparing lesson plans as it was, but when the movie deal came up she knew she had to choose. It was one of the hardest decisions she had ever had to make and she often worried in the beginning that she had made the wrong choice. It had been almost three years now since she resigned, and she couldn’t be happier with her decision. She was on the school board and volunteered at Lakeview a few times a week. She enjoyed how much more free time she had now, to do things she didn’t have time for before. One of her favorite ways to spend some of that spare time was to help Kassie out at her magic shop. Kass usually ran the shop herself three or four nights a week, not because she couldn’t afford help, but because she genuinely enjoyed it. Symarah loved spending time with Kassie at the magic shop, and that is exactly what she would be doing this evening. As she climbed into the driver’s seat of her GMC Acadia and headed toward the grade school, she couldn’t help but think of the dream she had last night. It was the first time that Dane had ever interacted with her in any of her dreams. In all her other dreams she was just an observer, but not last night. She wasn’t sure what to make of it. Why were her dreams changing after all this time? She had conflicting feelings about these new dreams. Obviously she didn’t like the ones where Vaiden kills her, but she could definitely get used to Dane saving her life and spending time with her. It was an amazing dream and she couldn’t wait to tell Kassaundra all about it. As she pulled into the school parking lot and walked into the building, she tried to put the whole dream issue out of her mind. She was glad to be back at the school teaching again, even if it was just on a volunteer basis. She came every week and taught a reading class for kids who were having trouble learning to read or reading below their grade level. She really enjoyed teaching these classes, and she loved interacting with the kids. When she opened the door to her classroom all thoughts of Vaiden and the nightmares and even the dreams of Dane were immediately forgotten as she was rushed by a gaggle of grade school kids and locked in a group hug. She truly adored these kids.  They were so filled with wonder and exuberance, you couldn’t help but feel the same; their excitement and zest for life was infectious. In a way she thought of these kids as her nieces and nephews, some even as her own children. “Okay guys, let’s get settled in, we’re starting on a new book today. This one is called
The Witch Herself,
by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. This is the third book in the
Witch Saga
, and since you all loved the first two books so much I thought we could continue with the series.” The kids cheered, they really seemed to enjoy these books, which made Symarah very happy. Seeing the kids get so excited over learning and reading was an amazing feeling, and the fact that it was the witch saga made it even better because these were her favorite books when she was a child. She was in the sixth grade when she’d found the first book, and they were being forced to read a book from the school library and write a book report on it, which was something they had to do every other week. Symarah had always loved to read but was never a big fan of writing book reports. “If the teacher wanted to know what the book was about, she should read it herself, why should I have to write her a book report about it?” she would always complain. She also didn’t like the fact that the book had to come from the school library. The books only went to the sixth grade reading level, and she could read at college level by the time she was in the fourth grade. Add to that the fact that they never had anything good to read in the school library, and it took her an entire class searching for something tolerable before she would finally give up and just grab something, so it was understandable why she would not like these bi-weekly assignments. She would have preferred to find a book from the real library, and even begged her teacher to let her do just that, but her teacher refused. She usually just picked out something funny if she could find it, but she would have rather been reading about things beyond the normal level of an average 12-year-old. She enjoyed books about the supernatural world, like witchcraft and vampires and gods and goddesses. She was obsessed with books on the lost city of Atlantis, but there was never anything like that in the school library, until one day she actually found something that seemed interesting, and now what seemed like a lifetime later here she was reading that same book with her own class.  She spent 45 minutes listening to the kids read, and reminding them to sound out the word by the letters and see if it sounded like a word they knew. Then, they spent the last 15 minutes of class having their traditional who can make the silliest face contest. Some of the ridiculous faces these kids would come up with were pretty hilarious. They always begged Symarah to do “the ugly face” and eventually she would cave and do the face and they would all fall over laughing. After the laughter subsided, they would pick a winner and that person got to pick a prize from the grab box, which was filled with small trinkets like stickers, pens and pencils, and little notebooks. This week the winner was Jenna, with a very silly and somewhat disturbing face. She picked out her prize, a small notebook with little pink mustaches all over it. Symarah reluctantly said goodbye to the kids and headed off to meet her publisher and run some errands. She finally arrived at Kassie’s magic shop a little before 6 pm.

 “Hey, it’s about time you got here, what took you so long?” Kassie scolded.

“Yeah, I’m only like five minutes early, you almost had to wait, what a gut-wrenching nightmare,” Symarah teased.

 “So ….” Kassie said.

“So what?” Symarah said, not knowing what her friend was talking about.

“So, did you take off the necklace like I suggested?”

 “Yes, I took it to Milan’s on St. Armands Circle.”

“You got rid of it? I said take it off for a few nights, not get rid of it!”

“No,” Symarah said, “I just took it to be cleaned and have the settings reinforced so the stone doesn’t fall out.”

“Oh, thank God; so did the dreams go away?”

“No, they actually got worse, so unfortunately your theory is wrong.”

 “Man, I thought for sure it was the necklace,” Kassie said in disbelief.

“Sorry to disappoint you Kassie dear.”

“You could never disappoint me Sym. So tell me about the dreams, how did they get worse?”

“Well, they didn’t really get worse so much as just different, weirder.”

They spent the next four hours waiting on the occasional customer, and talking about the dreams and how they had changed. By then it was closing time, so they closed up shop and headed upstairs to Kassie’s apartment for some much needed girl time. Symarah had stopped by the video rental place and picked up several scary movies, and as always, Kassie had purchased enough snacks to feed a small army. They changed into their PJ’s, Kassie in a pink T-shirt that read “Can’t sleep, clowns will eat me!” and a pair of pink pajama shorts that said “Shut up and go to sleep!” across her butt, and Symarah, wearing a short-sleeved black satin night shirt, with rhinestone buttons down the front and a pair of matching shorts. They grabbed the Doritos, Oreos, and whatever other snacks they could get their hands on, popped in their favorite horror movie,
Halloween
, the original version, and settled in for their scary movie marathon.

As he stood at the window of the empty building across the alley from the magic shop watching Symarah and her friend, Vaiden’s anger and frustration rose. Why had Daire backed off, he thought to himself. “Unden!” he shouted, the Atlantean term for slave, and a large man lumbered toward him. “My plan is not working,” he said to his slave, “the whole point of me pretending to try and kill her was for Daire to stay close to her and protect her, but instead he sends his little lap dog, Jareth, to do it for him. They have to spend time together or they will never fall in love.”

“I don’t understand,” the man said, “if you hate him why would you want him to fall in love?”

“He took my love from me, and now I will take his. He will watch her die and then I will kill him,” Vaiden snarled.

“How may I serve you in your quest for revenge thaison?” the slave asked, calling Vaiden by the Atlantean term for lord and master.

“I have sealed all exits from the building with my powers; their only chance of escape is through that open window.” He pointed to Kassaundra’s living room window. “I need you to move the dumpster away from that window so they cannot use it to escape.”

“Can’t you just close the window and seal it so they can’t get out?” the man questioned.

“I need the window open so that Jareth can hear their screams.” Vaiden growled. “Don’t ever question me again unden!” he snarled in disgust.

“My apologies thaison,” the man groveled.

“If my new plan is successful, Jareth will save them. Symarah still thinks that they do not exist but if she sees Jareth she will know that Daire is real as well. She will panic and Jareth will have to call for Daire. This will force them together and they will fall in love.”

“How do you know that they will?” the slave asked.

Vaiden lifted the man by his throat though he never laid a hand on the slave. “Because they are ayul,” he spat, as he threw the slave across the room with his mind. “Now go, do as you were told unden!” he shouted.

The man picked himself up and hurried out into the night to complete his task.

Yes, this should work well, Vaiden thought to himself, as an evil smile spread across his face. The thought of torturing Daire’s beloved while he watched helplessly almost made him happy…almost.

“Don’t drop the knife stupid!” Kassie yelled as they neared the end of their first horror movie. “I hope he kills you, that’s what you get!”

“You’ve seen this movie a thousand times and you say that every time she drops the knife,” Symarah laughed.

“Well, if she’s dumb enough to drop her only weapon then maybe the world would be better off without her,” Kassie grumbled. “You would think after the tenth time she thought she’d killed him and he still wasn’t dead that she would know better than to drop the …”

“Do you smell smoke?” Symarah interrupted Kassie’s rant.

“What?”

“Smoke, do you smell it?”

Kassie sniffed the air. “Yeah, where is that coming from?” The girls looked around the apartment.

“There,” Symarah said, pointing at the door that led down to the magic shop; “it’s coming from under the door.”

“You call the fire department and I’ll get some wet towels to shove under the door to keep the smoke out!” Kassie shouted as she ran for the bathroom. Symarah grabbed the phone but there was no dial tone. She got her cell phone from her purse and tried to dial 911 but there was no service. There has always been service here she thought to herself, there’s a tower right down the street. Frantically she grabbed Kassie’s cell phone but it didn’t have service either.

“Why aren’t you calling 911?” Kassie asked in a panic as she shoved the wet towels under the door.

“House phone is dead and the cells have no service.”

“What, that’s not possible, we get full bars here.”

“I know, but look.” Symarah showed her the phones.

“Shit, what are we gonna do?”

“We could climb out the front windows and slide down the awning,” Symarah suggested. But the windows wouldn’t open. They ran to each window trying to open them but none of them would budge.

“We’ll have to break it,” Kassie said, as she grabbed a hammer out of the junk drawer. She hit the window as hard as she could but it didn’t break. “What the hell?” she said in utter disbelief.

“Wait, that window is open,” Symarah said as she ran to the side window and looked out. “Damn, it’s too high and there is nothing to break our fall. We’ll have to yell for help.” They began frantically screaming for help.

Jareth had just sat down to enjoy his dinner at the restaurant down the street from the magic shop when he heard the screams. It was very faint, undetectable to the human ear, he could barely hear them.

“Damn,” he muttered as he threw $50 on the table and headed out the door toward the shop.

As he neared the magic shop he could see smoke billowing up from the building and a quick glance inside the windows on the first floor confirmed that it was on fire. The whole first floor was engulfed in flames. He searched for Symarah with his mind and quickly found her at a window on the second floor at the side of the building. He ran to the window to see Symarah and another women leaning out screaming for help.

“I’m here!” he shouted up to them to get their attention. “Do you have a rope or anything you can use to climb down with?”

“No, this is the only way out but it’s too far to jump.” Kassaundra shouted. “Call 911.”

“There’s no time, you’ll have to jump, and I’ll catch you,” he yelled.

“You can’t catch us, it’s too dangerous,” she said in a complete panic.

Jareth sighed in frustration. This would be so much easier if I could just use my powers he thought to himself.

“I promise I’ll catch you; I’m stronger than I look, besides what other choice do you have?” he asked.

“He’s right,” Symarah said, “we are running out of time, we’re going to have to jump and pray that he catches us, otherwise we’ll burn.”

Kassie looked down at the stranger, it was a long way down and she was terrified but they were both right this was their only option. The door to the living room was now completely engulfed in flames and she couldn’t breathe from the thick black smoke.

“Are you sure you can catch me?” Kassie asked the stranger.

“I promise you will be safe,” he remarked with a reassuring smile.

Kassie climbed out onto the ledge and looked down at the man. “Please dear Lord, let him catch me,” she prayed as she closed her eyes and stepped off the ledge into thin air.

After what seemed like an eternity she landed safely in the stranger’s arms. He carefully set her down on the ground and steadied himself to catch Symarah.

Symarah climbed out of the window and braced herself for the fall. She jumped off the ledge and hoped for the best.

Jareth easily caught her and set her down next to her friend.

“Are you both okay?” he asked.

They shook their heads to indicate that they were okay, but neither of them looked up. They were sitting on the ground, huddled together, still visibly shaken by what had just occurred.

“We had better call the fire department before the fire takes out the whole block,” Jareth said. “Do you have a cell phone?”

“No,” Symarah answered, “we left everything upstairs.” She looked up at the stranger with fear in her eyes and he felt bad for her, for them both. But then he noticed something strange; her eyes widened as she stared at his face and the look of fear turned to confusion. “Jareth?” she said in disbelief.

“What?” Kassie said as she looked at the man who had just saved their lives and then at her friend.

“That’s the man in my dreams, the new vampire that showed up here in Sarasota with Dane,” Symarah told her friend.

“How do you know my name?” Jareth asked her.

“I don’t know,” she replied, “I saw you in my dream but I never knew your name.”

Symarah was confused, how could this be? Had they fallen asleep while they were watching movies?

“This isn’t real,” she said, shaking her head in confusion, “I’m dreaming, I dreamt the whole thing.”

“No,” Kassie said, “we can’t both be having the same dream.”

“Unless you’re not real either,” Symarah said.

She was starting to panic now. She didn’t know what to think, didn’t know what was real anymore.

Jareth could hear the sirens from the fire trucks; someone must have seen the smoke and called 911. He couldn’t let her talk to the police or anyone else in her current state of panic, who knows what she might tell them he thought grimly. 

“We need to leave now,” Jareth said.

“I’m not going anywhere with you!” Symarah said in a panic, as she got up and started to run.

“Sym wait!” Kassie yelled as she chased her friend down the street.

Jareth put Symarah and Kassaundra into a deep sleep with a wave of his hand and flashed himself and the girls into his living room, laying them both on an oversized couch.

“What the hell are you doing?” Daire snapped.

“We have a serious problem,” Jareth interrupted.

“No shit, why did you bring them here?”

“It was my only option, she was beginning to panic.”

“You were just supposed to watch her, what the hell happened?” Daire asked.

“The building was engulfed in flames, they were trapped; I couldn’t just let them burn,” Jareth explained.

“You showed them your powers, what were you thinking?” Daire scolded.

“No,” Jareth shook his head, “I had them jump out the window and I caught them.”

“Then why are they here, unconscious on your couch?”

“Because your girlfriend recognized me,” Jareth answered, more than a little annoyed.

“How does she even know who you are, she never mentioned you in her book,” Daire wondered out loud, choosing to ignore Jareth’s remark about Symarah being his girlfriend.

“She said she saw me with you in her dream and that we had come to Sarasota.”

“Oh this is just fucking fantastic. What’s next, she writes a book about Atlantis with a map of its exact location?”

“I don’t think she knows about Atlantis or what we truly are; she still thinks we’re vampires,” Jareth assured Daire.

“Still, it doesn’t bode well that she recognizes you or that she knew we came to Sarasota. Does she know why we’re here?”

“I don’t think so, she was very confused. She thought that she had dreamed the whole incident, fire and all.”

“It’s only a matter of time before her dreams tell her everything,” Daire said. 

“We could alter their memories, erase all memories of the two of us,” Jareth suggested.

“Until we figure out how to stop her from dreaming about me, and apparently you now, it won’t do any good to erase her memories.”

“Well, we best think of something fast or we’ll have Athena to answer to.”

“Okay, let’s take this one problem at a time shall we; did anyone else see you with them?” Daire asked.

“No, not human anyway, but I was definitely not the only Atlantean there.”

“Well, at least you weren’t seen by humans. Did you see who is trying to kill her?” Daire asked.

“Unfortunately no, he stayed in the shadows.”

“For now we will just have to erase their memory of you. We can put them in an alley near the shop and when they wake they will think they passed out in the fire and have no idea how they escaped,” Daire suggested, “at least then she will still think I’m just a dream.”

“In the interest of time, that will have to do for now but we need to get this whole situation dealt with or we will both be on Athena’s shit list and that’s the last place I want to be right now,” Jareth groused.

“Is there ever a good time to be on Athena’s shit list?” Daire asked sarcastically.

“Good point,” Jareth agreed grimly.

They altered the girl’s memories and placed them in an empty alley not too far from the magic shop. Hiding in an abandoned building they planted a suggestion into the mind of a nearby firefighter to look around in the alley across the street. He called for help when he found the girls unconscious on the ground and then used smelling salts to revive them.

“What happened?” the fireman asked.

“I don’t know,” Kassie said, “we were in my apartment watching movies and we smelled smoke.”

“We tried to get out but none of the windows would open, we even tried to break one with a hammer but it wouldn’t break,” Symarah explained.

“How did you get out?” the fireman asked.

“I don’t know,” Kassie replied, “we passed out from the smoke and woke up here with you.”

Jareth and Daire were relieved to hear that their plan had worked and they were just about to leave, when they heard Symarah disagree with her friend.

“No, we yelled for help through the only open window remember?” she said to Kassie, “and then he came and saved us; we jumped out the window and he caught us.”

Kassaundra looked at her friend, completely confused; she shook her head. “No, I don’t remember any of that.”

“Who saved you ma’am?” the fireman questioned. But before she had a chance to answer, Daire froze the scene.

“What are you doing?” Jareth snapped. “You can’t just freeze the whole street; what if someone comes around the corner and sees?”

“She was about to give them your name and description, do you really want the police looking for you?”

“No, I suppose not, but I don’t understand why our plan worked on her friend but not her.”

“I don’t know, it’s never happened before but we don’t have time to figure it out now. I’m going to have to talk to her, ask her not to give your name and tell her I’ll explain everything later.”

“Do you really think that is wise?” Jareth asked.

“No, of course not, but what other choice do I have?”

Daire flashed himself in front of Symarah and unfroze her.

“What the hell is going on, why isn’t anyone moving?” Symarah started to panic as she looked around at the unmoving scene.

“Everything is fine, I just froze them so we could talk for a minute,” Daire said calmly as he crouched down in front of her.

She smiled when she saw him, the most beautiful smile he had ever seen.

“Oh, thank God, I am dreaming; I wasn’t sure for a minute there.”

“No Symarah, you are not dreaming, I am real, and so is Jareth.” 

“Of course I am, that would explain everything. I mean a fire is normal enough but not getting any cell phone service when we always did before, the windows wouldn’t open or break, then Jareth saving us, and now Kassie doesn’t remember any of it. It has to be a dream, it’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“The man who wants you dead took out your cell phone service and sealed the windows with his powers and the reason your friend doesn’t remember any of it is because I erased her memories to protect Jareth.”

“You erased her memories?” Symarah asked as a horrified look spread across her face.

“I will explain everything to you later but right now I need you to tell the fireman that you are too shaken up to remember what your rescuer looks like and you don’t know his name.”

“If you are real why should I trust you? You’ve been invading my sleep for years now, lying to me, making me think you are just a dream, not to mention the fact that you’re a freaking vampire and you erased my best friend’s memories. Trust you; I should be running as far and as fast as I can in the other direction!” Symarah ranted hysterically.

Oh yeah, we are definitely screwed, Jareth thought grimly as he watched the scene unfold from the abandoned building.

“If I was a threat to you do you really think I would have saved your life the other night in the ocean, and don’t forget, it was Jareth who saved you both tonight. Look, I promise I will explain everything later, but someone has tried to kill you twice and we are running out of time,” Daire said pleadingly.

Symarah was unsure of what to do. If she wasn’t dreaming and all of this was real then he was right, someone was trying to kill her, and Daire and Jareth had saved her life twice already. She shook her head in disbelief unable to wrap her mind around this new development.

“Symarah, please, it’s not just your life at stake here, it’s mine and Jareth’s as well. You say you’ve been dreaming of me for years now, have you ever seen me hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it? Look at me, do you really think that I could ever hurt you?”

In her heart she knew that he would never hurt anyone.

“Fine,” she reluctantly agreed, “but I expect a full explanation, and whatever you did to Kassie’s memories, I want it reversed.”

“Agreed,” Daire said, heaving a sigh of relief, “Jareth and I will come to your house this evening and explain everything.”