Eternal Dawn (20 page)

‘You have a gallery in your house?’ I asked Cassius, approaching the painting closest to me. ‘Who is the artist?’ Cassius didn’t reply.

It was titled
Nuit Rouge
. In it, a woman in a black dress danced across the floor of an ancient ballroom. Small fangs showed in her mouth, and in the mouths of the other subjects. I
took a step back; these were paintings of vampires?

While a vampire, I had created the very violent vampire holiday Nuit Rouge.

‘Does Nuit Rouge still exist?’ I asked.

‘No, Renoiera.

The woman in the picture had long brown hair, flowing in tendrils down her back. Four men stood in a line behind her with their arms crossed over their chests. The rest of the room raised
glasses filled with a red substance I assumed to be blood.

I moved to the next painting.

This one was called
Swimming Trip
.

A skiff, an old-style wooden boat, floated in shallow water. The sun poured down in a single beam on a girl, again with long brown hair, as she sat on the edge of the boat. People swam in the
water, splashing one another. This scene . . . it was very familiar.

I quickly moved to the next painting, my heart gathering speed.

The Ritual
.

A girl stood in the centre of a field of lavender holding her arms out to her sides. A bright beam of sunlight flowed over her and sparkles of light were emitted around her body. I brought my
hand over my mouth.

‘No . . .’ I whispered in a heavy exhale. I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath. ‘Who painted these?’

‘I did.’

‘How?’ I whispered. ‘
How?
’

‘As I said, at first they were just stories – like fables. I created the swimming painting in 1850,’ Cassius explained.

I collapsed on to a bench. Tracy and Tony stood at the end of the room looking at a painting together. Tracy pointed at something on the canvas.

‘Justin didn’t change back to a human when you returned to 1417. He is here in a time that should have been erased. So this is a new world. But the events of the old world, your
original world, somehow crossed over.’

I looked from painting to painting before me.

The answer was so clear. Of course. Why hadn’t I realized?

‘My soulmate,’ I said. ‘Our two worlds can never truly be sealed off from one another while Rhode and I are apart. The connection between our worlds never closed
completely.’

Cassius nodded. ‘I believe so.’

Supernatural creatures like vampires could sense my history because of the connection between Rhode and me. The link between our souls somehow created a channel. One question was answered, but
the important one still remained:

‘It doesn’t explain why Justin remains a vampire,’ I said.

‘Lenah . . .’ Tony’s voice was unnervingly quiet.

‘Damn it,’ Cassius said. ‘I meant to explain it to him first.’ He ran to Tony and I followed quickly.

The painting before Tony showed a young man sprawled dead on the floor. There was ornate wallpaper in the room and an orderly arrangement of oversized chairs. It had to be the Victorian era. The
subject was unmistakably a young Japanese man, and above him was a portrait. My portrait, the one Tony had created of me when I had originally been at Wickham. The youth in the painting was
Tony.

The girl was the one with brown hair and blue eyes that was captured in all the art in the room.

These paintings were all of my first year at Wickham.

‘What happened?’ Tony asked, staring at the painting. ‘I heard you guys talking. Is this what happened to me before?’ He turned to me.

Tears had welled in his eyes and I could see that Tracy was trying not to cry too. It nearly broke me. I didn’t want to see those tears but I had to do this, I had to tell him.

‘You were killed. And I wish I could say it wasn’t my fault. But I got to you too late.’

‘Vampires killed him?’ Tracy asked quietly. She waited for Cassius to answer but he didn’t. He kept his gaze on me.

‘Yes. My coven did it,’ I said. ‘I didn’t get there in time.’

I didn’t tell her that Tony had sought out the vampires. That in his usual dogged manner he had become obsessed with discovering my identity.

‘I should have been honest, Tony. I’m so sorry.’ My voice cracked with the threat of tears.

Tony turned back to the painting of his death again.

‘So you . . .’ he started to say.

He searched for the words and I prayed this wouldn’t be the moment I lost Tony. I deserved it for not telling him about his death from the start. I should have said that he had died too
young and that seeing him in the flesh this time had nearly made me pass out. I had believed Tony’s death to be final. His face and laugh had haunted me in my father’s orchard. I had
even taught Genevieve to spell his name.

Tony shook his head.

‘So you went back in time – reversing history – so you could bring me back?’ he asked with a lift to his voice.

‘Yes,’ I said, closing my eyes again as I confessed.

Warm strong arms slipped around me; Tony was hugging me! Tracy stood back beside Cassius. Her palm covered her mouth and tears ran down her cheeks.

I hugged him back, hard.

‘Thank you,’ he whispered. ‘Thank you for bringing me back.’

I exhaled heavily, relieved that he was here, embracing me and not walking out the door because I had let him down in another life. I squeezed him again.

‘Ow! OK there,’ he said, pulling away. ‘You’re pretty strong, Vampire Queen.’

‘Please don’t call me that.’

‘Why not?’ Tony sounded it out. ‘Vampire Queen – it’s so regal.’

‘I’ve had enough regality for a lifetime,’ I replied.

‘I think we can move on now,’ Cassius said, and the knowing smile on his lips showed that he was satisfied that I had made my peace with Tony. He led us out of the gallery.

‘Before we enter a new phase in our lives, we have a tradition,’ Cassius said. ‘We’d like you to be a part of it tonight.’ We stepped outside to a
raised patio that opened up to the higher ground of the backyard. Someone had covered it in hundreds of white candles. I appreciated the sentiment. White candles were cleansing. They could purify a
room; they could keep unwanted entities at bay.

Hanging lights twinkled from a lattice. Tracy’s eyes glittered and she reached up so her fingers grazed the lights. Near a path leading into the dunes, Liliana stood with her arrows and
bow. Dozens of arrows were piled up on the sand.

There were only ten Dems left after last night’s fight and they stood on the patio, each waiting patiently. Cassius stepped forward with a pen and a basket of pieces of paper.

‘Take as many papers as you’d like. Write on them your deepest fears. No one will see it but you.’

‘Deepest?’ Tony queried.

‘What you fear can sometimes be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Tonight we’ll help to stop that happening.’

I didn’t quite understand, but I sat down at a table beneath the lights with four rectangular pieces of paper from the basket. At another table across from where I sat, Cassius bent over,
scribbling on only one sheet of paper. I wanted to know what his deepest fears were, but after seeing him swing a dagger and a machete at Justin at the same time . . . I didn’t think it
possible he had any.

Tony held the pen to his mouth, as if he was taking a test. Tracy handed her papers over almost immediately. I envied her confidence. As I stared at my paper, I kept second-guessing my
fears.

I feared that Justin would remain a vampire. And worse, that somehow I couldn’t bring him back to the land of the living. I feared that more Demelucrea, who had been made from my blood,
would die, and it would be my fault. Deepest of all, I feared that Rhode and I would be separated forever. I had no doubt that, if he died, I would split apart, becoming nothing but frayed
edges.

Micah, the lanky, tall Dem, dipped the end of Liliana’s arrow into what appeared to be water in a small gold bowl. Water couldn’t light arrows – it had to be kerosene. Tony
stood up and handed over three pieces of paper.

So what did I fear the most?

Paper 1: That I would fail Rhode. That he would die.

Paper 2: That Justin would die.

Paper 3: That I would create more victims in my wake.

And the last paper, Paper 4: That I would need to be queen.

I stood up, joining the group at the arrow and bucket.

‘Come on,’ Liliana said, and we walked to a clearing in the middle of the dune grass.

All the Dems except for Cassius, Micah and Liliana formed a half-circle behind us. Henri stood furthest away, admiring the sky.

‘Go ahead,’ Cassius said to Tony, Tracy and me. ‘We’ll go after you. You stand in the centre.’ A brown wisp of hair curled over his metallic silver eyes. In the
moonlight, they looked like steel.

‘Tracy, you first,’ Liliana said, and she took Tracy’s paper, crumpled it into a ball, and handed it to Micah. He shot it into the air with a slingshot and the paper flew up to
the stars. Liliana lit the end of an arrow with fire and shot it at the paper. It chased behind, caught it and sizzled in the sky. It fell to the ocean below, extinguishing in the waves.

‘That was
awesome
,’ Tony said.

‘What did you write?’ I asked Tracy. ‘Of course you don’t need to tell me,’ I added quickly. I only realized as it came out of my mouth how personal a question it
was.

Tracy kept watching the waves. ‘That my friends will be hurt or killed. Claudia and Kate . . .’ she hesitated. ‘And Justin.’ She met my eyes. ‘And you too. That we
get through this.’ I was touched by her selflessness.

Liliana took Tony’s papers. Micah readied to set them into the sky one after the other. Liliana would need to fire three arrows very quickly to hit them all.

‘When the fire ignites your fear, you are burning it away, so it can’t control you any more,’ Cassius said.

‘And when it hits the water, you are cleansed,’ I finished. All of the Dems, even the silent ones waiting their turn behind us, looked at me.

Their gaze humbled me and I wished I hadn’t said anything. But I had been a vampire for 592 years. I knew a thing or two about rituals, even if I was a human now.

With a quick
thwap
of the slingshot, Tony’s fears went into the air and Liliana released her bow three times. Each fear sizzled away and dropped in a long arc into the ocean. I
hoped the ritual between us was true and binding.

Tony slipped an arm around Tracy’s shoulders.

‘And you?’ Cassius said, and extended his hand, waiting for my fears to be placed in his palm. I handed them over and joined Liliana and Micah.

‘Do you think this really works?’ Tony asked.

‘It’s the intent that matters,’ Liliana said. My heart swelled for her because that was exactly what Rhode would have said.

Four times my fears went into the air, and three were hit by the arrows right away. Liliana fired the last arrow, but it missed the small piece of paper by a wide berth. The white speck lingered
in the black sky, was carried by the wind out over the ocean and settled somewhere deep in the waves.

‘I’m a very good shot. I don’t know what happened,’ she apologized, but I caught a smirk on her lips when she bent down to soak another arrowhead. She could hear my fears
in her head; she didn’t need the pieces of paper.

‘OK, Cassius,’ Liliana said, ‘Your turn.’

‘My fear is simple,’ he replied, and gave his paper to Micah. ‘That I will fail the Renoiera.’ His steely eyes locked on mine. ‘That I won’t have served my
purpose.’

His paper soared into the air, and in seconds Liliana’s arrow pierced it.

‘That I will die without honour,’ he said, and finally tore his eyes away from mine.

The next morning, after assembly, Tony, Tracy and I were in the chapel with the Dems, going over final plans. Since the Luntair ritual I understood the Demelucrea better
– especially Cassius. They were exactly what I would have been had I not attempted to perform the ritual for Vicken long ago. They were not quite traditional vampires but still, they were
stuck, like all those who are cursed to immortality. They were not demons preying on the helpless, but they remained the undead.

Cassius wanted to set right what had been done to the Dems, and I could appreciate that.

Outside the chapel people laughed and chatted excitedly about the eclipse. The phenomenon captivated the entire school. Even Lovers Bay Main Street was getting in on it, with Moon Eclipse Lattes
at Main Street Coffee and moon pie specials at Lovers Bay Diner. If only they knew what the eclipse meant for us.

Cassius checked his watch and pointed. ‘We have two hours until the eclipse.’ He resumed a conversation he was having with Micah. ‘Lenah will go last. Make sure Liliana pulls
up the rear, but we need Lenah protected. Shielded.’

‘I want to go in
first
,’ I said.

‘The bottom window gives us the best access,’ Cassius agreed. ‘But you are too valuable to go before us.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘It has to be me.’ I crossed my arms to emphasize my point.

An uproar broke out. Some of them spoke in the vampire language, Linderatu, and some used English. Cassius swore in Italian. One of the words I heard repeatedly was
no
.

Tony stood by my side. He looked me over and then took the same stance as me, arms crossed over his chest. Tracy, in her usual manner, sat beside us silently. I could tell she was calculating. I
had learned never to underestimate her.

‘That’s suicide,’ Liliana said. ‘We can’t risk you going first.’

‘I have to do this,’ I said. ‘If I’m your
. . .
’ I couldn’t say it. ‘If I am who you say I am to you, I should go first. It’s me Justin
wants anyway.’

‘Exactly why you shouldn’t go first,’ Esteban added, speaking up from the darkened corner of the room.

The morning light beamed through the stained-glass windows of the chapel and on to the table where we’d laid out the plans of Justin’s house.

‘I don’t want anyone holding my hand through this,’ I said. Cassius pointed at the drawing of the window.