Indignation (30 page)

“In animum et corpus.
Dabo coniungere ipse ad te.
Per pluvias nubes subtus Coeli.
Pugnabo cum imber et ignes.
Ad tradat te sanguine.
Ad unionem.
In animum et corpus.
Aeternum.”

“In mind and body.

I give connect myself to you.

Through the rainy clouds underneath the Heavens.

To the flames of the underworld.

I will fight with rain and fire.

To hand you my blood.

For our union.

In mind and body.

For eternity.”

The circle beneath them begins to glow a vibrant violet light. The floor begins to shakes like an earthquake as the two drips of blood move to connect to one another. Their fingers that were barely touching before is forced to entwine with one another. Annalisa can feel the sharp stings all over her body. Her head spins from the energy it’s taking to do the spell. She can feel the tear drops of blood that falls down her face. Alyssa has her nose bleeding from her own energy loss of the spell.

The shaking stops, the light fades. She let’s go of Alyssa and looks down. The two drips of blood has become one splatter. The spell is done. Now she has to test if it’s fully successful.

“We did!” Alyssa jumps up with amazement. “The curse is lifted.” She covers her mouth from her happiness.

Annalisa brushes her leather pants clean and stands to face her sister. “We need to leave.”

The two sisters make it out safely. Merlin smirks when Annalisa waves the transcript in her hand. She levels her feet on the rocks to him. “Knock her out.” She whispers to him as she moves past him to ignore the scene behind her. Everything is going according to plan.

<><><>

Alyssa screams as she’s being practically dragged into the dungeon. Her eyes widen at the ancient torture punishment that decorate the dungeon. “Please!” Her scream mean nothing to the men who lock her up.

She runs her fingers through her light brown hair in fear. She has awakened up to men dragging her into the dungeon. She doesn’t remember what happened when she left the cave with Annalisa. She remembers nothing after that. The thought of those men being one of the Elim Guards stopped her worrying until they had just locked her up. She knows she’s not being rescued, she’s being held hostage. If she’s here, then where do they have Annalisa and Merlin?

Alyssa hears the small drops of water of a leak echo around. She looks down to see herself wearing leather pants. Her arms are covered with the sleeves of a leather jacket. She shrugs it off to find herself wearing a tight fitted corset. This isn’t something she would wear. This is something that-

“No!” She shakes her head. She slams her body to the bars with desperation. “I’m not Annalisa! I’m Alyssa!” She yells. No one hears her; no one comes to her rescue. What has she gotten herself into?

Miranda eyes widens at the unexpected call. “I’ll be there.” She hangs up the phone. “Gabriel!” Gabriel rushes out of the bathroom with a white towel wrapped around his waist.

“What is it?”

“Julian’s guards have Alyssa and Annalisa. We need to fly home. Call all the Elim Guards. Tell Dias. I’ll send a message to the Underworld.”

Miranda can’t help but smile. It’s been a little more than a week that Alyssa has disappeared. Everyone was losing hope to find her. She doesn’t know if she should be relieved though. A war is still approaching between the Heavens and the Underworld.

She has already known of the precognition, but now it’s public. She doesn’t know what will happen if the two realms fight. She only really knows one thing. There can only be one winner.

<><><>

Annalisa glares at the guards that restraint her. She struggles against them, but they are too strong for her to take. Nothing is going as planned. Merlin betrayed her. After he attacked Alyssa he went after her. She fought him with all her powers of a witch, she fought with all her physical strength, but it wasn’t enough. He made her black out. She has woken up to the guard of men restraining her.

She wants to kill Merlin with her bare hands. She wants him to die at her fingertips. She should have killed him with the dagger when she had a chance. She’s lost for words as she looks down. Her warobe is changed. She wears a tight fitted top with loose sweats. She would never wear this. This is something that Alyssa would wear. She silently curses Merlin for his stupidity. He has set her up all this time. She trusted him, she trusted him for over four centuries and he betrayed her.

“You die at my hands!” She yells to nothing, but the men take it as a threat and grasp a firmer grip on her. They remain silent.

She doesn’t recognize the men, but she knows they belong to Julian. She looks up at the night sky. Merlin must be laughing at her. She wishes she can slap that smirk right of his face at her entrapment. A form of light sheds on her thoughts. Annalisa knows why she’s dressed like Alyssa. It’s just to confuse Julian. Merlin has done all this just to mess with Julian’s head, knowing that she will never tell him that she’s Annalisa. It’s true though. Annalisa isn’t naive. She knows that he has learned to love Alyssa as well, but she would be damned if he chooses her sister than her. 

Alyssa feels her eyes close from her exhaustion. She wants to just sleep everything away. She also would like a nice warm bed with feather pillows, but she can’t be picky at the Moment. How did everything go so wrong in her life? When did she wake up to find her life being knotted in such a mess? It seems surreal that everything bad is coming her way and she can do nothing about it. She doesn’t even want to cry. She’s tired of crying. She tried of feeling like a weak woman.

Sometimes when she used to close her eyes she could see herself graduating, going to college, and maybe try pole dancing just for the heck of it. Now when she closes her eyes she sees Dias naming her his heir, Julian losing control, Annalisa shoving her down the stairs. It seems unreal that something like this can happen to her. When she thought she was mortal is was never this complicated. She had her problems like many woman her age, but she never had feared entrapment so much.

The dungeon is silent compared to her thoughts. She just wants to be let out. She wants to be let free to do what she wants without worrying about anything or anyone.

A man in a black suit appears on the other side of the bars. His black top hat hides his eyes from view. He uses his own hand to break the lock. ‘Come with me.’ A deep voice says into her mind. The man grips her upper arm and rushes her out of her imprisonment.

She pulls her arm away from his grasp. “How did you-?”

‘Question is preferred later.’ He takes a hold of her arm again and leads her through the Dungeon. The man starts to walk faster when a large oval like portal appears in front of them. He goes into it without much thought, pulling her with him.
 

Demon Astator

‘You show your fear much too well.’ The strange man states.

“Who are you?” Alyssa finds her voice.

The man with the hat that hides half of his face leads her through the woods she has appeared in. His walks are more like a glide as he rushes to the unknown location with her following him in a sprint.

He suddenly stops and turns around. She stumbles when she bumps into his rock hard body. Alyssa presses her hand to forehead from the impact. “Ouch.”

“I am your worst nightmare.” He finally says out loud to answer her pervious question. “Although we did have some wonderful times together.” He smirks still not showing his eyes that are covered by the hat. He turns to lead her inside the small hut.

“Together? What do you mean? I’ve never seen you before.” She follows him into the abandon hut. He forces the door open. Nothing seems to surprise her at this point of her life. Breaking and entering is the last thing she would care about.

“You have. Alyssa, sweet, innocent, Alyssa. In love with a boyfriend who loves your sister. They say the teenage years hard, but you have taken it to a new level.” He tsks. “I cannot say I am surprised by your complicated life. Fate is twisted in many ways.”

She looks around the plain hut. Two chairs are place in front of the fire place. There’ a small round table on the far corner. The walls are made of rough wood. She can see the long door that might lead to a room. The hut is fairly small, but it seems cozy.

She turns to the man with curiosity instead of fear. “Who are you?”

“I am Astator.” He takes off his hat to reveal his bright red eyes.

She gulps. Nothing seems to surprise her now, but her fear can still be spiked. Can someone help her not get kidnapped by more immortals? It will make her life so much easier to deal with.  “What do you want from me?” She takes a step back, away from him.

“Nothing you have is of any value to me. I am only here to help you.”

“What are you going to do to me?”

He takes a step towards her and smiles, not evilly, but sincerely. “I will not hurt you. I may have hurt the woman I love, among others. Maybe tortured even, but I would not ever hurt you. You may not remember, but I owe you my life.”

“Why? I don’t remember anything.”

“You are the only one that knows how to truly kill me, but you swore an oath on the Underworld, and the Heavens, to not attempt to murder me for eternity. The violation of your oath would result in your death.”

“I find out more and more about myself every second.” Her voice is heavy with sarcasm. “I must have seen something in you to do that. You’re freaking me out with your red eyes.” She confesses. “That means no help from me. Helping you is like saying that Brandon has had a secret crush on me for years, which he doesn’t.” She knows she sounds like a typical high school girl, but it makes her feel better talking about her friends and normal life.

“We had an exchange. I let you out of hiding, making you forget everything; in exchanged my life is spared in your hands.”

“I was with you the time Annalisa was talking about? The time I had disappeared into some kind of portal? She thinks I disappeared with our mother.”

“I have known Selene on a personal level, she trusted you in my care. I must say that when she created Annalisa I was shocked. Selene is such a powerful being. She would not have created a being with such a curse. It was never in her nature to sprout fear in others. To reconcile for that mistake, she created you. The light to the dark.”

“Annalisa made Selene sound so cruel? You make her sound like a saint.”

His dark chuckle is heard around the room. “Selene will never be considered a saint. She has morals she stands by. Not all of them are for the good, but she believes they are.”

She bites her lip from the disturbing question that runs through her mind. “You said you knew my mother on a personal level. Were you her-?”

He shakes his head with amusement. “Selene is my sister, not my lover.”

Her eyebrows crease together in thought. “So you’re my blood uncle?” She says slowly.

“Yes, I am. But I have too many enemies for you to be calling me uncle in public. I promised Selene I would watch over you and I have done, so far everything I could, to keep you alive.”

“How did you keep me alive? I never saw you before now. Plus isn’t Dias, Julian, Gabriel, Miranda, and the Elim Guards the one who protects me?”

He motions for her to take a seat by the fireplace as he takes a seat as well. “Their job is to protect you at all costs, but I have secretly followed you since you have left the portal. I have done so in the name of Selene.”

Her eyes widen in acknowledgement. “You’ve been following me? Like a stalker?”

“Stalking is such a strong word.”

“Stalking is a crime.” She points out.

“Now you are just being dramatic. Although, now that we are on the topic. I congratulate you on your achievement for winning that competition in DEKA.”

“It’s DECA.” She corrects him.

“Mortals are too strange to follow.”

“So are immortals. I have so much experience with being kidnapped that can take Anastasia Dylan a run for her money.” She talks about the governor’s daughter who was all over the news last year for being kidnapped for seven years by the family’s lawyer. That’s really sad how someone is willing to do that and then make their victim pass as someone else.

“Who is that?”

“Just a girl who was kidnapped for years.”

He shakes his head in disappointment. “Your mentality of a mortal gives immortal one a migraine.”

She rolls her eyes. Now who’s being the dramatic one? “Welcome to the club uncle Astator.” Her words slip out without a thought.

“You should be careful on your outbursts. If you were among the two realms that surround you, they would not care about your name or power, they will kill you instantly. No one must know our true connection of blood that binds us. No one must know I am Selene’s brother.”

She frowns at his warning. “Do you really have enemies that would kill me if I told them that you’re my uncle?”

“I have so many enemies now that I have threatened the vampire crown.”

“The vampire crown? What’s that?” She questions. Her fear of him has vanished now that she knows he’s her blood uncle from her mother’s side. He’s the only tie that connects her to Selene. She disregards all the things Annalisa has said their mother.

Annalisa is a liar, a manipulator. She has used her to get her curse lifted and then has handed her over to be dealt with. She doesn’t know it for sure, but what else could explain her sudden change of warobe? It’s obvious that Annalisa must be passing as her. In all honestly Alyssa doesn’t even know if she wants to go back to the life she has awakened to. All the lies, revelations, protection, are nothing of what she would have ever dream of her future being. The only thing worth go back for is her friends and Julian. That’s all, but she won’t even have them if she’s I constant danger.

“I have threatened the life of the Vampire Queen. Their Consul, along with every Conclave they have, has been warned to kill me upon visibility.”

“Didn’t you say that I was the only one who could kill you?”