A Shade of Vampire 43: A House of Mysteries
Bella Forrest
Contents
Also by Bella Forrest
New Generation List
1. Serena
2. Vita
3. Serena
4. Vita
5. Vita
6. Aida
7. Phoenix
8. Serena
9. Vita
10. Serena
11. Aida
12. Serena
13. Vita
14. Serena
15. Aida
16. Vita
17. Serena
18. Serena
19. Aida
20. Vita
21. Serena
22. Serena
23. Aida
24. Phoenix
25. Serena
26. Phoenix
27. Serena
28. Serena
29. Serena
30. Vita
31. Serena
32. Phoenix
33. Aida
34. Phoenix
Novak Family Tree (You may need to turn the page to see it!)
Read more by Bella Forrest
Also by Bella Forrest
THE SECRET OF SPELLSHADOW MANOR
The Secret of Spellshadow Manor (Book 1)
The Breaker (Book 2)
THE GENDER GAME
The Gender Game
The Gender Secret (Book 2)
The Gender Lie (Book 3)
The Gender War (Book 4)
The Gender Fall (Book 5)
The Gender Plan (Book 6)
A SHADE OF VAMPIRE SERIES
Series 1: Derek & Sofia’s story
A Shade of Vampire (Book 1)
A Shade of Blood (Book 2)
A Castle of Sand (Book 3)
A Shadow of Light (Book 4)
A Blaze of Sun (Book 5)
A Gate of Night (Book 6)
A Break of Day (Book 7)
Series 2: Rose & Caleb’s story
A Shade of Novak (Book 8)
A Bond of Blood (Book 9)
A Spell of Time (Book 10)
A Chase of Prey (Book 11)
A Shade of Doubt (Book 12)
A Turn of Tides (Book 13)
A Dawn of Strength (Book 14)
A Fall of Secrets (Book 15)
An End of Night (Book 16)
Series 3: The Shade continues with a new hero…
A Wind of Change (Book 17)
A Trail of Echoes (Book 18)
A Soldier of Shadows (Book 19)
A Hero of Realms (Book 20)
A Vial of Life (Book 21)
A Fork of Paths (Book 22)
A Flight of Souls (Book 23)
A Bridge of Stars (Book 24)
Series 4: A Clan of Novaks
A Clan of Novaks (Book 25)
A World of New (Book 26)
A Web of Lies (Book 27)
A Touch of Truth (Book 28)
An Hour of Need (Book 29)
A Game of Risk (Book 30)
A Twist of Fates (Book 31)
A Day of Glory (Book 32)
Series 5: A Dawn of Guardians
A Dawn of Guardians (Book 33)
A Sword of Chance (Book 34)
A Race of Trials (Book 35)
A King of Shadow (Book 36)
An Empire of Stones (Book 37)
A Power of Old (Book 38)
A Rip of Realms (Book 39)
A Throne of Fire (Book 40)
A Tide of War (Book 41)
Series 6: A Gift of Three
A Gift of Three (Book 42)
A House of Mysteries (Book 43)
A SHADE OF DRAGON TRILOGY
A Shade of Dragon 1
A Shade of Dragon 2
A Shade of Dragon 3
A SHADE OF KIEV TRILOGY
A Shade of Kiev 1
A Shade of Kiev 2
A Shade of Kiev 3
DETECTIVE ERIN BOND (Adult thriller/mystery)
Lights, Camera, Gone
Write, Edit, Kill
BEAUTIFUL MONSTER DUOLOGY
Beautiful Monster 1
Beautiful Monster 2
For an updated list of Bella’s books, please visit her website: www.bellaforrest.net
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Copyright © 2017 by Bella Forrest
Cover design inspired by Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations LLC
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
New Generation List
Aida: daughter of Bastien and Victoria (half werewolf/half human)
Field: biological son of River, adopted son of Benjamin (mix of Hawk and vampire-half-blood)
Jovi: son of Bastien and Victoria (half werewolf/half human)
Phoenix: son of Hazel and Tejus (sentry)
Serena: daughter of Hazel and Tejus (sentry)
Vita: daughter of Grace and Lawrence (part-fae/human)
Serena
[Hazel and Tejus’s daughter]
My vision was blurring, my breath coming out in short, tight rasps.
I’m having a panic attack.
I kept my head between my knees, trying to regulate my breathing as best I could. It was dark, but the greenhouse behind me showered the long grass of the lawn in a soft glow. I kept my eyes fixed on a single point—one grass stem, a little taller than the others, that I could use to anchor myself.
I don’t want to lose control.
I wouldn’t, and couldn’t, fall apart. I had friends and family relying on me to stay strong. That was really the cornerstone law of GASP—you never gave up. No matter what the circumstances, or how dark and lonely and hopeless it all felt, you kept going.
No matter if it felt like the world as you knew it was crumbling around you.
I took another deep breath, and felt steady enough to raise my head and look around at the wild, unkempt garden that surrounded me. Most of it was in shadow, the only light coming from the pale moonlight and the windows of the old plantation house that were lit by the yellow kerosene lamps. I didn’t like being out here on my own—not after my last night-time experience in the swamps, which lay just outside the boundaries of the garden up ahead. I averted my eyes, reminding myself that Field was somewhere up on the roof or settled in one of the large trees that grew up around the building. Wherever he was, it wouldn’t be far—we had been told not to leave the grounds, and it was the one instruction from the Druid that we were finally willing to obey.
I leaned back against the glass of the greenhouse, listening to the mating call of the crickets and the silence that came from the swamps and jungle beyond. It was an unnatural silence—as if out there, in the darkness, creatures held their breath. Anticipating, perhaps, that I’d be stupid enough to venture out there again.
Not going to happen, I silently informed the darkness.
The security of the house might have been a double-edged sword, in that we were technically safe from the creatures that populated the rest of Eritopia—the shape-shifters and the Destroyers we had come across so far—but the security of the house didn’t feel comforting when it seemed that we were trapped there, with no way out and no hope of our families coming to get us. The latter was something that my friends and brother weren’t yet aware of. It would fall on me to pass on the news—another crushing blow to add to our current situation.
Trying to delay the conversation,
if only for a few more moments so that I could get my own head around the news before passing it on, I looked up at the blanket of stars which shone in the pitch-black sky. When I was in The Shade, looking up at the stars had always been reassuring, exciting even, knowing that there was this great, wide world on the doorstep in which I was nothing but a small speck. It gave me a sense of freedom, of huge possibility to do or be whatever I wanted. Now it just made me afraid. I didn’t recognize any of the shapes or patterns here, not like I did back home.
I’d never been knowledgeable about astronomy—not like Vita was—but I’d shown interest enough to come up with my own dumb names for constellations and keep my fingers crossed for shooting stars at certain times of the year. The sky above me was completely unfamiliar. Eritopia, a set of stars that included the land we were currently inhabiting, was deep in the void of the In-Between. The only place I would recognize in this dimension was the four stars of the fae, but I couldn’t see them in the night sky, and considering how vast the In-Between was reported to be by Corrine and the other members of GASP, I could only conclude we were a long, long way from where we were meant to be.
Knowing that I shouldn’t delay the inevitable any longer, I scanned the surrounding trees for Field. Not seeing him, I sighed and reluctantly walked back into the damp warmth of the greenhouse. I’d call him from the window once I got upstairs—it was probably best to tell everyone at the same time. Like ripping off a Band-Aid in one go.
I didn’t see or hear any sign of the Druid. I had left him back in his strange laboratory—a room covered in strange jars and beakers, full of unknown and dubious-looking substances. And the flame. The flame that had somehow shown me everything I’d never wanted to see.
Not wanting to spend time alone in the downstairs part of the house, which I considered the Druid’s domain, I headed straight for the staircase. We had taken over the second floor, sharing rooms like we were in a boarding-school dormitory, ensuring that we remained together—as if that would somehow keep the strangeness of the place at bay.
Once I reached the hallway, I headed for the last room on the left, where Vita and Aida would be sleeping. Wishing I didn’t need to disturb them from much-needed sleep, I pushed the door open, surprised to see another lamp glowing in the room and both Vita and Aida sitting upright on the bed.
“Why are you up?” I asked, before noticing their pale, horrified expressions. Clearly something had happened while I’d been gone. I scanned the room, trying to gauge the danger. I could see nothing unusual—well, nothing other than the same dilapidated, shabby room that looked like a movie set for a historical drama, completely at odds with the modern-day nightwear of my friends.
“I saw something,” Vita whispered. “In the mirror…”
Her hands had started to shake, and she held them tightly together in her lap. Whatever she had seen had obviously terrified the life out of her. Aida placed her hands over Vita’s, trying to provide a wordless comfort that our friend so clearly needed.
“Vita?” I pressed. She wasn’t the most forthcoming person, even under normal circumstances. I wondered if I should just hear the story from Aida, but when I turned to her, Aida’s golden eyes were as troubled and confused as I imagined mine were.
Changing tack, I sat down on the bed. My news could wait until Vita shared her burden. It wasn’t like we could do anything about the circumstances we were in anyway—there was no action to be taken, only acceptance of the fact that we were in far deeper trouble than we’d previously imagined.
“I’m sorry,” Vita replied, shaking her head as if to remove some mental image she didn’t want lodged there. “It was terrifying. I just…God, I hate this place.”
I knew exactly how she felt. Would there be any moment here when we wouldn’t all be terrified out of our minds? For both Vita and Aida, it was worse. I was afraid for them, and what might lurk outside of our safe-house…they were afraid of what they might become, what was happening to their bodies and minds as they transformed into all-seeing Oracles—a ‘gift’ (in the loosest possible definition of the word) left to them by the Oracle our parents had discovered living in Nevertide almost two decades ago.
“Just tell us what happened,” I replied gently. “We need to know. We can help.” Vita looked over at me with a look of disbelief mirrored in her turquoise eyes.
Yeah, okay. Overstatement.
We probably couldn’t help at all, but that wasn’t the point. Whatever Vita had just seen in the mirror, she needed to share it.
She nodded, and started to tell us what had happened, her voice high and tight, as if she only half-believed what she was saying.
“I was in the shower, because I was too hot and couldn’t sleep. When I got out, I looked in the mirror. Then my face—it started to change, to distort. I thought it was me. I was tired…but then the face definitely became someone else. It was a woman, with pale blue eyes and white hair. She called out my name, asking me if I was there—if I could hear her. I couldn’t reply. I just froze… I wanted to say something, she sounded so desperate to speak to me. Then she vanished, and I called out, but she’d gone.”
“Was it a vision?” I asked. So far, Vita was the only one who had been experiencing the ‘gift’—I thought that was maybe because of her latent fae genes, that somehow they made her more attuned to the change, but I wasn’t sure.
Vita shook her head.
“I don’t think so… it was different. I didn’t feel the nausea, and it wasn’t images in my mind—it was real. I promise you it was real.”
“I don’t doubt that,” I hastened to reassure her. I almost wanted it to be a vision because the alternative was another layer of weirdness on our already totally bizarre circumstances.
“The woman sounds familiar,” Aida replied slowly. “From the description—”
“I know,” Vita agreed. “It sounds like the Nevertide Oracle was trying to make contact.”
We all looked at one another, falling silent. It seemed we were all trying to work out whether this was good news, or bad. I guessed only time would tell.
Vita
[Grace and Lawrence’s daughter]
“We need to fetch the others,” Serena said eventually. “I have some news of my own—it’s not good.”
“Did you manage to mind-meld with the Druid?” Aida asked, reminding me of Serena’s mission tonight. She had waited till we thought the Druid would be asleep, planning to syphon off him while he was unprotected and hopefully unaware of what was happening to him.
Serena shook her head. “No. It didn’t go as planned. He woke up—he’s too on guard. But then he showed me something… I’ll tell you everything when we’re all here. I’ll get the boys.”
Serena stood up, moving toward the doorway. She had changed into a nightgown that she’d found in the closet—a white, frilly thing that would have looked ridiculous on anyone else, but managed to make Serena, with her poker-straight black hair that fell like a waterfall around her shoulders and her large blue eyes, look like a romantic heroine, about to be swept off her feet by some dashing highway robber or something.
I nodded gratefully at her suggestion. Having all of us together would make me feel a whole lot better, reminding me that I wasn’t alone in this. Even if, so far, it had just been me seeing visions and getting accosted in the bathroom by the Oracle, a whole team of us would deal with it—deal with anything that this stupid house chose to throw our way.
When Serena had gone, Aida turned to me.
“When you said she sounded desperate, what did you mean?” she asked. “Like she was in trouble, or we were?”
It was a good question. One I wasn’t sure I knew the answer to, not yet. I tried to recall everything just as it had happened, to move away from the shock and fear that her presence had brought up in me and remember the details.
“She just sounded frantic. And at the end, it was almost like something happened to cut her off—that her disappearance was against her will, not j
ust because I hadn’t answered.”
Aida’s expression grew even more concerned. I knew what she was thinking. The Druid had told us that the Oracle was in the custody of Azazel—already that name struck fear in me, and I hadn’t come face-to-face with him yet. I didn’t even know enough that I could say for sure that what the Druid had told us was true. Azazel was the ruler of Eritopia. He owned and controlled the repugnant Destroyers that had killed one of the incubi while we were in the jungle, Bijarki only just narrowly escaping the same fate. If the Oracle had tried to contact us without Azazel’s permission, and been caught, she would be in danger. And so would we.
Before I could say anything more, the footsteps of the others came from the corridor. In the room next door, I heard a light thump, as if someone had dropped down onto the dusty floorboards. It must have been Field, coming in from the outside. Soon they were all gathered in our bedroom—Jovi looking sleep-rumpled with his black hair sticking up at odd angles. Phoenix and Field both stood leaning against the wall, Phoenix frowning with concern and Field looking wary, his eyes darting to the open windows as if he expected something to come flying through them at any moment. We were all on high alert.
Serena, never really able to sit still at the best of times, paced slowly up and down the room, chewing on her lip with worry.
“Vita,” she said, coming to a standstill, “you’d better start.”
With reluctance, I repeated the story again. I tried not to feel like a freak when the boys raised their eyebrows in surprise, staring at me as if they didn’t recognize me anymore. I knew it was most likely my imagination—especially when the surprise gave way to a deep concern.
“Are you okay?” Field asked, when I’d finished explaining my theory that it was the Oracle who was trying to reach out to us.
“Just shaken,” I replied evenly, not wanting anyone other than Serena and Aida to know how terrifying I’d found the whole thing. “And I want to know why she’s trying to reach out to us—and whether or not we speak to the Druid about it.”