Page 4 (1/2)
Dinner was late at Athena House, but orth the wait: a tender glazed pork loin with baby carrots and new potatoes Enough side dishes to satisfy anyone, and the promise of dessert later on
As she ate, Storiven to the faces around her, but she deterht There were three she knew for sure Melina, of course Then there was Melina&039;s apparent right-hand woth red hair parted on one side, as straight as if it et She looked as if she&039;d stepped off the set of a Robert Palmer video and was so thin Stor at all She wore a tweed skirt that hugged her from hips to knees, with a buttoned-up ivory silk blouse And third was Lupe, a shapely Latina who reminded Stormy of Rosie Perez every time she opened her mouth She was five-tay shorter than her two cohorts, and curvy as hell She had full, lush lips and copper-toned skin Her hair was longer than Brooke&039;s, jet back, and curled as if it had been left out in a windstorm, and her brown eyes were like ner jeans and a chenille sweater that had probably cost more than Stormy&039;s entire wardrobe
Those three she remembered And those three were the ones ith her into the library when the ht, Brooke had eaten-about enough to feed a baby bird
A fourth wo coffee pot, cups, creaar bowl into the room, set it down and left without a word
"This place is odd," Stormy said
"Is it?" Melina poured coffee into four cups, took one and sat down She took it with crea
"It feels like a cross between an army barracks and a convent"
"Because that&039;s what it is," Lupe said with a grin and a combination Spanish-Brooklyn accent She took her own cup, added four spoons full of sugar and sat back Hot and sweet, but dark, Stor ceiling and four walls lined with books and bound manuscripts, many of which seemed very old The scents of old paper and leather permeated the place At the farthest end of the rooht have been a desk, for all Stormy could tell, since it was hidden under a purple satin cloth Antique pewter candle holders with glowing tapers stood on top, to either side of an aged leather book
Stor only from the corner of her eye as Brooke took her own cup of coffee, adding nothing to it at all Dark and bitter
She took her oith just enough creaar to lull her into forgetting that caffeine could kick her ass She sht that you could tell a lot about a person by the way they took their coffee
Melina said, "We first learned of the ring in 1516, when a ed e who&039;d lived a century earlier"
"The Sisterhood of Athena is that old?" Stor at the book
"So this is the one? The old journal?" Stor toward the book on the table
"Yes"
She set her coffee cup down and moved closer, then reached for the book, only to pause when Brooke put a surprisingly chilly hand over hers "It&039;s very delicate Be careful"
"Like she&039;s planning to rip off the cover?" Lupe asked with a toss of her head "Give it a rest, Brookie"
There was no question, the nickname was not a term of endearment
Stormy looked from one woman to the other They were opposites and maybe equals There was tension there But that wasn&039;t her problereat care, opening its leather cover and staring down at the brittle, yellowed pages within
Words flowed across the pages in son script, where words were even visible Many had faded to e, but didn&039;t dare, for fear it lish" After she said it, she realized she had stated the obvious
"No," Melina said "Many pages areor only partly there Many more cannot be read, but we&039;ve translated those that can It&039;s written in a long-forgotten language, so souesses But the journal does speak of &039;The Ring of the I to feign surprise She&039;d never been a good actress "Meaning Vlad the Impaler, aka Dracula"
"That&039;s the conclusion we&039;ve reached, yes The tiht, and since it was found in Turkey, and the Turks were at ith the Ron, itVlad had referred to sixteen years ago in the words that had so recently echoed in her head If there had been any doubt, it was gone now It was the ring he&039;d been seeking for more than five centuries She forced herself to retrieve her coffee, to sip it slowly and not tre about the ring?" she asked
Melina ed book and opened it to a section marked with a blood red ribbon "This is the reference," she said "If you prefer, you can copy it out and take it to your own translator But I can assure you, you won&039;t find a more accurate interpretation than ours We use only the best linguists for this sort of thing"
"I believe you," Stormy said "But if it&039;s all the same to you, I&039;d prefer to copy it Or better yet" She dipped into her backpack, which she&039;d slung over the back of her chair, and pulled out a state of the art digital caapixels "May I?"
Melina nodded, but her face was pinched Stor close ups of the page to show the text as clearly as possible Then she put the ca to tell me what it says?"
"Of course" The other woe table that held the book, and confirmed Stormy&039;s suspicion that it was actually a desk when she lifted the purple cloth and opened a drawer She relasses on-gold fraular shape She opened the notebook and began to read
" &039;At the prince&039;s bidding, we i with his bride&039;s essence and created a powerful rite, which we transcribed upon a scroll These were given to hi with our instructions When he finds the woer and perform the rite we created At once the essence of the one he lost will return Her mind, her memories, her soul, will be restored Certain physical traits-mysteries to us but known to the prince, or so said our divinations-will return, as well This was perhaps the greatest work of ether, theexperience And yet my heart remains heavy, for the e did has a shadow side The soul of the lost, while a part of the whole, is not the whole For it to return, it must also displace It is unnatural, and I fear the repercussions upon the whole, upon the innocent, and uponwhat I fear is a dire wrong We did, however, set a way for the gods to subvert our work A time limit, in the tried and true method of occultists from time immemorial When the Red Star of Destiny eclipses Venus, the ti soul-both the woman she was and her spiritual descendant-will be set free to begin anew&039;"
Melina closed the book and lifted her head She relasses and folded them with care
Stormy looked at the other faces in the room and realized this was the first time either of the other women had heard these words aloud Brooke looked excited and intrigued, while Lupe see has the power to bring someone back from the dead?" Lupe asked
"Not the body," Melina told her "Only the soul"
"Creating what? A ghost?" Lupe asked
Stormy set her cup down "It&039;s a soul-transferal The dead spirit coot a chill when she said it "Correct?"
Melina nodded "That&039;s my best interpretation, yes"
"And by spiritual descendant soht she already knew the answer
"But wouldn&039;t a reincarnation already be the dead woman&039;s soul?" Lupe asked
Stormy shook her head "Not necessarily Some theorize that e die, our soul returns to her self All the experiences are shared, and the higher self spins a new soul from its parts That&039;s the reincarnation It&039;s part of the whole, but not the same whole that lived before A new individual"
Lupe nodded, as if that made sense to her Stormy wondered hohen it had taken her sixteen years to wrap her mind around the notion It had been explained to her by the hypnotist she&039;d seen in Salem, and she hadn&039;t believed it at first Hadn&039;t wanted to believe that the ene within her was her spiritual ancestor A part of her
Now she had a whole new nightmare to wrap her mind around Elisabeta was Vlad&039;s bride His wife His dead wife, and she was already hiding in Stor for the chance to take over And the ring he had in all likelihood stolen last night could bring her back to raging life in Storive her full control
"So the question is," she asked slowly, "what happens to the living person? The rightful owner of that body? Does she just get booted out when Elisabeta takes over?"
Melina licked her lips "How did you know her name was Elisabeta?"
Stormy&039;s eyes flicked to hers quickly, then just as quickly away "Co my company for years You must know vampires are an area of expertise forat Storhed "I don&039;t knoould happen to the rightful owner of the body But the rite spoken of in this journal could very well be a recipe for h," Brooke said "Some people, myself included, believe that two souls could conceivably co-exist within the sareed to it"
"It would be like having a split personality," Stor for control" She was speaking, of course, from personal experience "It could never be over until one of theree," Brooke said "They could share Perhaps even iven time Melina, does the rite say the person the soul resides in has to be a spiritual descendant?"
"No"
"It&039;s obscene," Lupe said softly "A slap in the face of the supernatural order, no matter hoorks"
"Exactly," Melina said "A lifetis are supposed to be You cannot interfere with that and think there won&039;t be serious repercussions And now" She closed her eyes "So"
"But what about the rite?" Storiven in the journal?"
"No," Melina said softly And as she said it, her eyes ain
"We don&039;t even know if the rite exists anyes in this journal have done"
"Could it be recreated?" Stor Storain "Perhaps A talented witch or sorcerer ht be able to create a spell that would work They could certainly try, with God only knohat sort of results And no doubt there are soh to want to" She shook her head in disgust "Which is eout of circulation It has to be secured As long as it exists, there is the risk that an innocent life will be lost or altered beyond repair"
Storreed Particularly since the innocent life in question was her own "What did that last part mean," she asked "That part about the Red Star of whatever?"
"We don&039;t know We have no way of knohat modern astrono to Or if it was a star at all" Melina carried the notebook to the desk and put it into a drawer, then locked it "That&039;s it," she said "That&039;s absolutely everything we know Brooke and Lupe, because they are second in command to me, are the only two here who know all this And now you know it, as well" She moved across the roo and take it fro her lips nervously, Stor Far, far too long
Elisabeta lived still He sensed her, alive and aware, deep inside Te for his he&039;d overheard while eavesdropping fros that required him to take action To see her To speak to her Orhimself to believe they did, because he couldn&039;t be this close and not get a little closer Close enough to touch
The one called Melina-the leader of this little coven-suggested Teht, rather than driving all the way back to the city and her hotel When Teed in relief, because he couldn&039;t wait o to her
But he would have to be careful As angry as he was that she would betray hi, he didn&039;t want to traumatize her unnecessarily He would, no doubt, be forced to do enough of that later Soon, in fact
He had no idea how she felt about hi hiain for the first ti her So be it
The bedroom to which she was shown had aher shadow play against the curtains as she moved around the room beyond them He tried to be patient when her movements stopped, but he didn&039;t succeed Instead, he leapt fro the rail and landing softly on the balcony And then he went still, listening and sensing for her in the roohts were turned off, but a sliver of illu bathroo inside
Eventually the sound of floater stopped He waited, still and alert, watching her as she stepped into the bedroo only a towel And then she dropped the towel to the floor, and he swore his body caught fire at the sight of her, nude and damp and beautiful still So beautiful
She crossed the rooed back the covers, settled into the bed and closed her eyes
She was tired; he felt that in her And then she sensed soht even have known on so But it didn&039;t trouble her enough to keep her from sleep And he wondered briefly why she was so exhausted
He had to knohat she was doing He had to knohy she was involved with the Sisterhood of Athena, and what she planned to do with the ring if and when she found it He&039;d overheard enough to be fully aware she intended to search for it on behalf of the Sisterhood Did she honestly intend to hand it over to theated such an idiotic, not to mention disloyal, act?
He waited until he was certain she slept-it didn&039;t take long Then he slid the glass door open andher The scent of her, fa hi softly, deeply, in and out of her lungs The sight of her Her once purely platinuh with paler highlights It was slightly longer than before, softer And there were lines, tiny ones, at the corners of her eyes He wanted to touch her, taste her, and the knowledge that the blankets and sheets were the only things covering her burned in his He was there for infor
He lowered himself into a chair, focused on her mind and crept inside, carefully He didn&039;t want her aware of his intrusion, nor did he wish to rouse Elisabeta, who still lingered His eyes fell closed as he felt her exhaustion, and then he sank into her drea on the deck, bathed by the light of a fullit lit the entire sky and the sea beneath it It painted her in its ht She wore a stretch of sheer white fabric that draped fro up at someone It ith a little rush of shock and pleasure that he realized it was hi closer to her, reaching out to her, telling her not to be afraid