The Light Who Shines (7 page)

Bluebell Kildare: May 27, 2022, Red Ages

I decide to swing by the Dragomir Magical Artifact Shop
before heading to the precinct. As I turn onto Windsor Avenue, I think about
what Father O’Brennen told me last night. Is my aura the reason I’ve never
encountered a Dark Vampire before? Even though most people go their whole lives
without running into a Night-Crawler, I do work in the Supernatural Homicide Investigation
Unit, so it seems that I should have by now. Ernesto is our resident Night-Crawler
expert at the office and leads all the hunts. Still, there has been many a time
that I’ve been called out for a homicide in the wee hours of the morning just
to find out the call had been reported incorrectly and was actually a case of
death by Dark Vampire.

And who was the Daylight Vampire who saved me? I didn’t
think to ask Father O’Brennen his name. Is he still around? Is there more he
can tell me about that night?

I stop my musings as the Dragomir Magical Artifact Shop comes
into view. It‘s a corner store made of flagstone and favored with a rare parking
lot of its own in back. I park and walk around to the front entrance.

No merry bells announce my arrival here. Solid oak shelves
covered in a thick layer of dust fill the dimly lit store. The dust is so thick
it seems to swirl around me, gathering in glittering pools and eddies that hang
in the air.

I wave it away from my face and look at the shelves adorned with
a wonderful assortment of magical items: scrying mirrors and a looking glass
fountain to keep connected with loved ones, firefly lanterns to light your
house, and glow stones to brighten your garden. One entire wall is devoted to
glass-covered shelves stacked with aged books on every magical subject
imaginable. Another bookcase is dedicated to gorgeous parquetry safe boxes.
These special boxes are made of tiny geometric shaped veneer inlaid over
interlocking pieces of wood. They require a magic word to open. When you close
them, their wooden designs rearrange, disguising the opening. The next time you
give the magic word, the box will open from another side.

As I take in my surroundings, a few rays of sunlight peek
from behind the clouds and shine through the windows in bright streams, lighting
up the whirlpools of dust that still fill the air. It makes me want to twirl around
like a little girl. I immediately love this store, musty dust and all.

Behind the heavy oak counter, the clerk is studiously
ignoring me as she reads a book. Her reading glasses have dropped to the tip of
her nose, and a mess of wavy, brown hair has fallen about her face. I wait for
her to look up, but she seems oblivious to my presence. I stand right in front
of her to get her attention, but still she keeps her eyes pinned down on the
book. I am obviously three feet in front of her, and yet she pretends I’m not
here!

This is extremely vexing, and just as I’m about to say
something rude, I notice a sign that says “Please ring bell for service.” Next
to it sits a large brass bell. I ring the bell, and a high pitched sound
reverberates throughout the room. I resist the urge to ring it five times in a
row to annoy the clerk. Then, wonder of wonders, she lifts her glasses to peer at
me through the lenses. How glorious it feels to be acknowledged!

Even more astonishing than the fact that she now realizes I
am alive is the fact that her face lights up in a beatific smile that transforms
her into a very arresting mature woman. With her face lifted up, her hair now
looks like a riot of soft waves that frame a face dominated by deep-set, warm
brown eyes that flicker with golden light.

“Hello,” I say a little uncertainly. She has definitely put
me at sixes and sevens.

She answers with a deeply melodious voice, “Hello, what can
I help you with today?” Her voice is so strange. It’s like ten voices speaking
all at once, or like the strumming of a harp with notes overlapping one
another. It is simply musical. I tilt my head as though to hear it better.

I suddenly realize she is sitting there waiting expectantly for
me to answer. I try to pull myself together, remembering that I have a goal to
accomplish here. “I’m looking for Mr. Dragomir,” I respond.

Her smile immediately turns chilly, and her voice sounds like
a dozen angry people speaking to me from different directions. “Mr. Dragomir is
not in.” Then she points her eyes toward her book again.

Darn, I lost her again. Beginning to catch on, I ask, “Are
you Mrs. Dragomir?”

She looks up and says with great power, “I am
the
Dragomir.” I feel unaccountably humbled and apologize. “I am sorry, Dragomir,
for my error. My friend Alexis from Herbal Enchantments referred me to you.”

Looking slightly mollified, but still a little snippy, she says,
“Please call me Dragomira. Now, what can I help you with?”

“Excuse me for commenting on this, but your voice is the
most remarkable voice I’ve ever heard.” Then I pull out my ID for her to see. “My
name is Bluebell Kildare. I’m with the Supernatural Investigation Bureau. I was
wondering if you could answer a few questions.”

Dragomira ignores my statement about her voice and my ID,
looking unimpressed with both. “It depends on the nature of those questions.”

“I’m looking for information on a particular amulet. If you
can give me a piece of paper, I’d like to make a sketch.”

Dragomira, still exuding a markedly severe demeanor, deigns
to get off her stool to retrieve some paper and a pencil from a nearby drawer.

Undaunted, I sketch the amulet, drawing the triangle within
the circle and the cutout in the shape of an eye. My sketch includes the hole
in the center of the amulet and a depiction of the back that includes the
ridging and beading.

As I sketch the amulet, Dragomira’s eyes become riveted, and
I swear they start glowing amber. When I finish, she puts her hand up and her
chorus of voices whispers, “One moment. This conversation requires no audience.”

She goes to the door of her shop, turns the heavy brass
deadbolt, and places her “Closed” sign face out.

When she returns, I say, “I take it you know this amulet.
Should I pull out my privacy charm?”

Dragomira laughs softly and says, “My dear, this shop is so
well warded the Gods themselves would have trouble entering. Perhaps I know
this amulet. Tell me, what it is made of?”

I look curiously around the shop, then point to the sketch
and answer. “The amulet is gold. The triangle looks to be jade. The grooves on
the back are gold, and the beading is some sort of white metal, perhaps white
gold.”

“It’s platinum,” Dragomira says crisply. “Yes. I know of
this amulet.”

“What can you tell me about it? Why would someone want it?”

Dragomira leans her arms on the counter, and her warm brown
eyes betray her worry. She shivers. “Ah, Illustrissima! That is the question.
What would someone want with the amulet? I am afraid of the answer.

“This amulet has two pieces. What you drew here is only one part.
The triangle is made of jade, the stone of wisdom. Its significance here is
that it’s part of a key used to unlock a book. The missing part, the center, is
in the shape of an eye. The iris of the eye, carved with the circle of life, is
made of sugelite, a purple stone, which issues dire warning.”

Dragomira jabs her long, elegant finger repeatedly at the
center of the eye in the drawing as she speaks. “It warns of the end of
humanity. In the center of the eye is a pupil made of amber, used for its
properties of attraction, to help you find that which you seek with the book.
The eye fits into the hole in the center and has grooves and beads of its own. The
two pieces, when joined together, form the symbol for the All-Seeing Eye, which
sees across planes and into the Underworld.”

When she finishes with her explanation, Dragomira assesses
my reaction in a way that makes me feel somehow inadequate.

I forge ahead anyway. “What book does the key open?”

“Ah,” Dragomira says heavily. “You plunge right in, do you
not? It opens the ancient
Grimorium Cantionum Spiritualium
—
The Spell
Book of the Spirit and Soul
. It is a book that contains the knowledge to
call demons and spirits from other planes, including the Plane of Death. It is
a very powerful book, and those who have possessed its knowledge have done
massive damage to those who live in this world.”

I shift a little uneasily as this case seems much more
dangerous and complex than I’d originally thought. “What sort of damage?”

Dragomira gestures toward a stool at the end of her counter.
“I will tell you a story. Please sit down.”

I drag the stool over and take a seat, listening avidly as
her hypnotic voice begins to weave a picture of ancient times.

“In ancient Ireland,” she begins, “a talented sorcerer’s
apprentice somehow came to possess the
Grimorium Cantionum Spiritualium
.
We now know this apprentice as Patersuco—“Father of the Vampires.” Patersuco
was deathly ill from a blood sickness and desperate to save his own life. The
learned now speculate that he suffered from leukemia, but that matters not to
this story. Patersuco was a selfish and greedy man, so he sacrificed his first-born
infant son and used the knowledge of the book to summon the greatest demon of
the Plane of Fire, Lilith, second only to Lucifer.

“When Lilith arrived, Patersuco tried to bargain with her
for immortality. Lilith asked what he would give her in return, and Patersuco
said that the sacrifice of his son was his gift to her. Lilith laughed at him
and said that sacrifice was nothing. She said the baby’s soul was innocent, so
it went to the Plane of Light, and all she received from the sacrifice was a
blood gift. She taunted him, telling him that rather than kill his son, he
could have simply slit his flesh and dropped some blood on the altar.
Patersuco’s sacrifice, she said, was only enough to buy her audience.”

Dragomira sees the shocked look on my face at the idea that
a man had so easily sacrificed his own son. “This was just before the Red Ages,
and the earth was still wild and untamed. Man also was wild and untamed. Human
sacrifices were not uncommon, as wrong as they may be. But even then,
sacrificing one’s own son was unheard of.”

I interject, “I also think Patersuco was foolish to think
that Lilith would trade a mortal life for an immortal life. Isn’t it immortal
souls that are collected on the Plane of Fire?”

Dragomira raises her eyebrows at this. “Excellent
observation. Indeed, a mortal life has no value to Lilith. Nonetheless, Patersuco,
in his foolishness and arrogance, was enraged that she made so little of his
sacrifice—but he was determined to achieve his goal. So he then offered to give
her his soul when he died. Lilith laughed at him again and said that he had
killed an innocent in cold blood, his own living flesh, even, so his soul was
already destined for the Plane of Fire when he died. She also pointed out that
since he was asking for immortality, she would have to wait a long time for
that prize.”

“Lilith sounds highly conniving. Apparently by sacrificing
his son, he had given her his own immortal soul. But Lilith didn’t recognize
this as part of his payment to her.”

Dragomira says, “She is second only to the Prince of Lies, the
Prince of Thieves, the Master Bargain Maker. She is indeed skilled, and instead
of taking his bargain, she offered him another.”

By now I’m sitting on the edge of my seat, waiting for
Dragomira to spin the rest of the tale.

“She said that she would cure his blood disease, but it
would require that he drink the blood of other humans to survive. She said to
make this easier, she would make him desire blood. She would give him strength
and resistance from disease, but he would always carry her mark. He would live
a long life and be difficult to kill, but the only immortality she would grant him
would be the same that all mortals achieve: through creating more of their kind.
He could not conceive new life; he could, however, fill others with his blood,
and they would carry the same gifts she had given him. But she gave him a
warning. If he killed in bloodlust, his soul would immediately belong
completely to her.”

Dragomira suddenly stands up and tilts her head as though
listening to the ceiling. Then she closes her eyes and starts saying a string
of words in an ancient-sounding language, painting patterns in the air with her
hand. She seems to be in some sort of trance. I sit silently, unsure of how to
respond.

Finally, after what seems like forever, she opens her eyes.
“Excuse me for that,” she says. “I felt a disturbance in our wards. Someone was
trying to enter uninvited. All is well now.” Then she sits back down and
continues as though nothing had happened.

“Patersuco, unwise as he was, accepted this offer. Thus,
Lilith created the first Vampire. All Vampires are descendents of those turned
by Patersuco. All Vampires carry Lilith’s mark. All Vampires are doomed to the
Plane of Fire. Because of this bargain, Lilith ensured that many more
generations of souls would come to her.”

“So she really pretended to give Patersuco what he wanted,
and in return she got over two thousand years of an ever-increasing number of
souls. Patersuco offered a very cheap price for the boon he ended up giving her
in return!”

“Exactly. He was a selfish, greedy man and a lousy
bargainer. Lilith gave Patersuco the ability to create new beings, each of whom
has the temptation of bloodlust, and eventually when they give into that
bloodlust and kill, their souls go to her. When their souls go to the Plane of
Fire, their flesh is left on Earth to continue to ravage humans, and ravage
they do.

“The mark that she left on Patersuco was a dark smear on his
soul, and every child that he created carries this mark. The mark ties the soul
to Lilith, and when it’s finally released from the body, it returns to her like
a homing pigeon. So, even if a Daylight Vampire never kills in bloodlust, their
soul will join her in the end when they are finally killed by one of the
permanent methods.”