Sofia and I hurried through the forest to the couple’s penthouse. The lights were on, but as we knocked, nobody answered. Sofia couldn’t detect even the slightest sound of anyone inside. The door hadn’t been locked. I pushed it open and we stepped inside. We moved from room to room, seeing if they might have left a note for us as to their whereabouts in case we returned.
“Derek,” Sofia called from Vivienne and Xavier’s bedroom. I hurried to the room to find her pointing to a wet patch on the bed. “I’m guessing Viv’s water broke already. Maybe she’s been taken to the Sanctuary?”
For all we knew, Corrine was still mysteriously absent from The Shade. But it was possible that Vivienne had been taken there to be tended by other witches.
We descended from the treehouse and ran back through the woods toward the witch’s residence. We bumped into Rose and Caleb, who followed us to the Sanctuary.
When we arrived outside the door, my spine tingled as my ears caught the crying of an infant. Sofia gasped.
“Oh, my God, it’s happened already!” Rose exclaimed.
Worries about my son momentarily drifted into the background as excitement overtook me. I forced open the front door, too impatient to wait for somebody to come to answer it, and barged into the entrance hall. We hurried toward the crying, stopping outside one of the bedrooms.
“Vivienne?” I spoke up, a slight tremble in my voice.
The door flung open a moment later, and we found ourselves standing face to face with Corrine. Her thick brown locks were wrapped tightly above her head in a bun, beads of perspiration shining in the roots of her hair.
Her eyes widened, and a look of relief washed over her face. “Oh, thank goodness you’re back. Come in! Come in!”
We rushed in to find Vivienne lying on a double bed, cradling a blanket-clad baby in her arms. Xavier sat next to her on the bed. Vivienne looked drained and exhausted, but both of the new parents were positively glowing with happiness.
My throat tightened. My voice choked up, and I could hardly even greet them. I broke out into a smile, joy billowing up within me.
I hurried to Vivienne’s bedside and kissed her forehead while looking down at her beautiful baby.
“A boy or a girl?” Sofia asked, arriving by my side along with Rose.
“A girl,” Vivienne replied, tears moistening the corners of her eyes as she gazed at her baby.
“How late are we?” Rose asked, smiling at the baby girl.
“A few hours,” Xavier replied. His eyes had the same glistening quality as his wife’s. They both looked in a daze, lost in their own little bubble with their new child.
Vivienne raised the baby from her chest and handed her to me. I held her in my arms, taking in her features. Fine strands of dark hair covered her head and her eyes were bright blue, closer to my mother’s—and my—eye color than to Vivienne or Xavier’s. I dipped down and planted a kiss on her tiny nose.
“So you’ve named her Aurora?” I asked.
“We thought that’s what we’d name her… Xavier and I decided on that name months ago if we had a girl. But when she came out and I looked into her eyes for the first time… I wanted to name her after our mother, Derek.” Vivienne’s eyes shimmered with melancholy even as she smiled. “Victoria.”
Victoria Vaughn.
We had lost our mother hundreds of years ago. Her death—caused by a vampire—had been the catalyst to my becoming a hunter before my siblings and I were eventually turned into vampires. My mother had died so long ago that she was but a distant memory. I had been only a teenager in human years, and so for the vast majority of my life, she had been absent.
But the look in my twin sister’s eyes stirred up memories of Victoria Lisette Novak. Memories of a beautiful, strong, dutiful woman. A woman my father Gregor Novak hadn’t deserved. I wished that she could be here now, that she could hold her new granddaughter in her arms and remark on how similar their eye colors were.
“I’m glad,” Rose said, her voice breaking through the haze of my memory. “I prefer the name Victoria.”
My daughter was standing several feet away from me, behind Caleb. I had sensed her take a step back as I’d picked up the baby, and now she had moved to the furthest end of the room, where she stood watching the scene. She was wise to do that. Although she’d made great progress in controlling her bloodlust, she still hadn’t been a vampire for long, and the blood of babies was particularly sweet.
I placed Victoria into Sofia’s ready arms, giving her a chance to greet her niece. Sofia kissed her puffy cheeks and stood with her a while before handing her back to Vivienne. My sister readjusted the blanket before resting Victoria against her chest.
We moved from the bedside and took seats around the room just as someone knocked on the door. Rose, being closest to the door, pulled it open to reveal Aiden standing in the doorway. He held a bouquet of bright yellow sunflowers. He’d come better prepared than us.
“Congratulations,” he exclaimed. Corrine took the flowers from Aiden and arranged them in a vase on Vivienne’s bedside table while my father-in-law approached the bed. He gestured to the flowers. “I didn’t know if I’d find you with a boy or a girl, so I opted for a neutral color.”
“Thank you.” Vivienne grinned, allowing Aiden to greet the newest member of our family.
“So how has everything been since we’ve been away?” I asked.
Xavier tore his eyes away from Victoria to face me. “Other than the arrival of Victoria, quite uneventful.”
“What happened with you?” Vivienne asked anxiously.
I didn’t want to bring up the news of Benjamin now. Not on one of the happiest days of my sister’s life.
“It was… eventful,” I muttered.
“Well, did you manage to reclaim Ben or not? Where is he?” Vivienne pressed.
I was relieved when Corrine came to my rescue.
“Vivienne,” she said, her voice taking on the tone of a scolding schoolteacher as she eyed my sister sternly. “As your midwife, I insist that you keep your focus on your baby and on your recovery. No other topic shall be discussed in this room until you’re fully recovered and strong enough to move back into your penthouse with Victoria. Okay?”
Vivienne was clearly not “okay” with it, but Corrine had a way of speaking with finality and my twin didn’t argue. She just pursed her lips and nodded reluctantly, while her eyes remained on me, silently pleading for more information about our trip.
Corrine turned to Sofia and me. “I’d like to have a private word with you two,” she said. Her expression had turned stony.
Aiden, Rose and Caleb remained in the room while Sofia and I followed Corrine out of the door. She led us along the hallway and into a sitting room. She made sure the door was shut before joining us in the center of the room. Clearly, she didn’t want to run any risk of Vivienne overhearing, even with Vivienne’s weaker human ears.
What exactly is so secret? My stomach tensed as I took a seat on the couch with Sofia while Corrine began to pace up and down on the rug in front of us.
“What happened to you, Corrine?” Sofia asked. “We were looking everywhere for you on the island, and then it occurred to us that you might’ve gotten trapped in The Oasis.”
“I was trapped in The Oasis. And if it weren’t for River taking compassion on a poor dove locked in a cage, I would likely still be there.”
“They turned you into a bird like the other witches?” Sofia asked. “How long have you been back?”
“I believe I returned the same day you left. We just missed each other. I returned with River because Benjamin requested it. We would have stayed with him, but he insisted.”
I leaned forward in my seat. “What’s happening with him?”
“He…” Corrine drew in a deep breath, clasping her hands together. “He discovered something about himself. He went to visit an oracle and… Oh, God. I hate to be the one to break this news to you… Ben was marked by an Elder as a newborn, and ha
s been bonded with him ever since.”
Even though Nuriya had already revealed this to Sofia and me, my breath still hitched to hear it again, this time from Corrine’s lips. It made the situation seem that much more real. That much more inescapable.
“We know, Corrine,” Sofia said quietly.
The witch’s eyebrows shot toward her hairline. “What? How?”
Sofia glanced my way before beginning to recount to Corrine everything that had happened to us since we left. From the meeting with the Drizans, to the storming of The Oasis, to the eventual discovery of what had happened to our son and how we had just made things so much worse for him.
Corrine sank into an armchair. “Oh, no. I had a bad feeling all along about you leaving to break the jinn’s bond before I had a chance to talk to you. Even despite them keeping Ben as a prisoner, I’d seen how the Nasiris were helping him, and God knows that boy needs help.”
“But what now?” Sofia asked, her voice strained. “What can we possibly do to help my son? Nuriya said that without a second jinni, he won’t have enough protection to stop the Elder from luring him back to Cruor.” Her voice cracked and trailed off into a sob.
Corrine gazed at us with sad eyes. “For all my years’ worth of knowledge, I don’t know, honey. I just don’t know. I’ve already discussed the situation in depth with Ibrahim, and he’s just as clueless.” She paused, and leaned forward to lay a hand on Sofia’s knee. Corrine glanced from my wife to me. “You know, the last words Ben spoke to me before I left The Oasis with River were that this was a journey he had to go on alone. Perhaps he was right. You two instigating the Drizans to damage the Nasiris’ protection of Ben, perhaps that was like… an arrangement of destiny. Maybe he really is supposed to go through this alone.”
I clenched my jaw. In my mind, the question wasn’t whether or not this was his destiny. The question was, could my son survive this on his own?
But whatever the answer was, in a sense it didn’t matter. Each time we tried to help our son, it only ever seemed to backfire. He was worse off now than before our “help”. Maybe Corrine was right. Maybe we just needed to accept that this journey was one Ben had to make alone.
Chapter 5: Ben
I lowered myself closer to the ocean and began to run. I was weightless, floating. Even though my legs moved, my feet grazing the surface of the waves, they merely passed through them. It was as though I hurtled forward by sheer willpower alone. As I picked up speed, I realized that I traveled faster than I had when I’d been a vampire, for I no longer had a physical body to carry along with me.
The sun burst through the clouds overhead. Its rays fell upon me, and I instinctively braced myself to feel the pain, but of course, I felt nothing. The shafts of sunlight shone right through my form, beaming down and making the waves beneath me glisten.
Now that it could no longer harm me, I yearned to feel the sun’s warmth on my skin. I could hardly remember what it felt like as a human. And the sea spray that showered over me, I yearned to feel its coolness and smell the salt. Of course, I couldn’t. It seemed that the only senses that worked were my hearing and vision—although even my sight was different than it was before. I could see things clearly, yet the world surrounding me appeared washed out, its vibrant colors dulled and faded, like a watercolor painting left out in the sun.
Surging ahead, I still wasn’t sure where I should go. I just knew that I couldn’t stay in Cruor forever.
Now that I was no longer a threat to my family, perhaps I could find a gate and make my way back to The Shade. But how would I find a gate? When Aisha had first led me into the supernatural dimension, we’d come through a portal in a strange, black desert. Aisha hadn’t told me which land that was, so I had no idea how to return there.
Aisha. What had happened to that jinni? Was she in that box still, perhaps back on Julie’s ship? I wondered where Julie was now. I was oblivious to how much time had passed since Julie had abandoned me in Cruor. But if the ship was being pulled by sea creatures who were even half as fast as the dolphins and sharks I’d had experience with since being here, I was sure that they would be far away by now.
I recalled the hours before I’d found myself in Cruor. We had boarded Julie’s ship, which had been floating near The Tavern. I didn’t know how long it’d taken to travel from The Tavern to Cruor because I’d been unconscious for much of the time. But something told me that if I made it to The Tavern, I would have a better chance of making it back to The Shade. There were many wanderers who passed by, and if I just listened in to conversations long enough, perhaps I would catch mention of a gate. Perhaps I might even be able to follow them to it, if the right person came along.
But how on earth did I find The Tavern? I hadn’t even the first clue as to which direction to head in. Right now I was just running straight ahead, with no idea where I might end up.
The past weeks merged together in a blur of urgency to solve my mystery. It took a while for it to sink in that I didn’t have that problem anymore. I had time now. I was no longer a ticking time bomb. There was no hunger in my stomach, and I wasn’t affected by the time of day. I doubted that I would even tire of traveling. As much as I wanted to return to my home to check that everyone I loved was all right, time wasn’t the issue it had once been.
And so I kept running, away from the land of the Elders, deeper and deeper into the ocean. By the time the sun set, I still hadn’t come across land. I wondered if I’d taken completely the wrong direction, but the increasing frequency of ships that I spotted sailing toward me gave me hope that there were shores nearby.
As night fell, I spotted the outline of an island far to the east. It was some distance away yet, but at least I’d found it. As I moved toward it, I caught sight of something that arrested me. A ship, perhaps three miles in front of me, also moving toward the island. Even from this distance, something about it struck me as familiar. From its size, shape, and the color of its sails, the closer I got to the vessel, the more certain I became that it was Julie’s ship. Whether it belonged to her father, I wasn’t sure anymore. For all I knew, she didn’t even have a father.
It surprised me that Julie would be headed back toward this area. And from the looks of it, she was intending to arrive at the harbor. The ship was on a direct course toward the shipyard, showing no signs of slowing down. Skimming along the waves beside it, I caught up with the ship. Jumping upward, I soared through the air and landed noiselessly on the deck.
When I cast my eyes around, it was clear that something wasn’t right. The floorboards were stained with blood. There was splintered wood scattered about, the canvas fabric of the lower sails was torn, and a table had been upturned and ripped apart. The trap door leading down to the lower decks had been ripped from its hinges.
What happened here?
There was nobody navigating the ship, yet the vessel continued speeding ahead. I swept my eyes once more over the deck. Thick reins hung down over the bow of the boat and had been fastened to a mast. Whatever sea creatures served as the engine of this ship were leading it forward of their own volition.
I approached the open trapdoor. Descending the narrow staircase, I found myself at the end of a long, dim corridor that connected all the numerous cabins on this lower deck.
“Julie?” I found myself calling, my voice echoing in my ears.
No reply.
I moved further down the corridor, looking into the first room on my left. Like the deck above, this cabin also looked distressed. Bloodstains tainted the floor and walls, and the door was wrecked. It looked like someone had punched a fist through the wood.
The corridor wound to the right. As I turned the corner, my eyes were drawn to the ceiling.
Three naked figures—men?—were hanging from it. I moved closer, gaping up at their starkly pale skin, hairless heads, and emaciated limbs. I couldn’t make out their faces, only the backs of their heads, but as I walked directly underneath them, I caught a glimpse of their hands and feet,
stretched out and gripping the walls on either side of them. Gnarled claws extended from their fingers, and their white cuticles were stained with red.
Although nothing could injure me anymore, I felt hesitant to move any closer to them. They were just so… strange. What were they exactly? Apparently yet another species of supernatural creatures to blow my mind. But what were they doing on Julie’s ship? And the blood staining their fingers… could that be Julie’s blood and that of her companions? Perhaps these creatures had hijacked their ship as they’d navigated away from Cruor.
I backed away from the pale creatures clinging to the ceiling, and cleared my throat. “What are you?” I spoke up.
They remained still, silent and barely breathing—as though I hadn’t spoken at all.
I backed further away from them, deciding to abandon my curiosity about them and focus on finding the box I feared Aisha was still trapped in. It was nowhere to be found on this level, so I took the staircase down to the deck beneath.
The last I’d seen of the box had been on the rocks beneath the mountain where I’d encountered Basilius. As a spirit I’d roamed that whole area during the time it had taken me to build up courage to abandon my physical form on the cliffside. I would’ve noticed the box if they’d left it there. So I could only assume that they’d carried it back to their ship. And as it turned out, I was right. Moving from room to room, I discovered the white oblong box in a small storage room near the galley.
I lowered my hands over the lid of the box. They didn’t pass through it, as my form did with other hard objects. Instead, I felt resistance, the same kind of resistance I’d felt while pressing my hands against The Oasis’ invisible barrier. I found myself relishing the illusion of solid contact. The feeling of touching something gave me a sense of grounding. I continued to press my palms down against it for several moments before calling, “Aisha?”