Beneath the Vail

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Blotchy red skin tear-stained cheeks, messy dark hair; my reflection was unrecognizable. I looked bad, worse than bad, I looked ragged, a bruise on my cheek glared at me slightly swollen. I took the damp kerchief from Vulkan as he turned away from me, leaning against his desk. "That's impossible, my sister is dead. She was a Sânge just as I am, and my mother was."

"She is, was a slayer, just as you are. I smelled it earlier today in your blood."

I shook my head, turning away from my appearance, "Right, the 'ichor of false gods' was it?"

Vulkan smirked, "I'm naturally suspicious, but there were too many connections to be coincidence. I knew you'd never admit it, from my knowledge of slayers, they cannot be broken."

"That's just it though, really I am not a slayer. I don't even know what that is."

His brow furrowed, "You really don't know?" I shook my head exasperated. "A slayer is a member of a clandestine coven of women explicitly. They do a lot of missions surreptitiously if you will. They're covert, unknown, no database of members or numbers."

"Then what on earth has you believing that my sister or I are a part of this mystery coven?"

There was a shift in tension, the air was dense, and an energy was wafting off of Vulkan. "I proved my theory when the belladonna worked." He's hiding something, I can tell with the way he's avoiding my direct gaze.

I tossed the kerchief onto the desk, folding my arms, "So you mean to tell me, a secret group of women that rally together to fight evil like a band of superheroes, that has no discernible way for you to know who they are, have gone seemingly out of their way to torture and kill a vail guardian. Furthermore, you believe me to be one of these 'slayers' and that my sister, who no longer lives is the one who did the torturing?" I threw my hands in the air making quotations as I said 'slayer'.

"Yet I am the deceitful one." It's ludicrous, though my thoughts drift to the Umbrian nightmare. The dream within the dream, or perhaps there's something to what the lycan says, a dream within a memory. The belladonna did work, but what if he's lying?

He was sifting through the left drawer of his desk, muttering inaudible words, I became entranced by the mere movement of his lips. Strands of his hair fell into his face, escaping the leather tie that held the rest back but barely. He wore a concentrated look with his brows furrowed and a light sheen of perspiration glinting from the fire's warm glow. He looked like a sculpture, a perfect piece of Hellenistic art, with the likeness of some unknown God that only the prepossessing could worship.

His eyes captured mine and for a moment, though brief it felt familiar, like something we'd done a thousand times. I turned away as quickly as I could remember he was in fact a Hex loathing lycan; I traced my fingers along the old tattered books. Some of the bindings were frayed, some even charred, one book caught my eye the symbol which mirrored that of the iron key he drew from his pocket. Just as my fingers lay flush against the rough cover his hand grabbed mine, "It's best not to be too intrusive of other's property."

I felt the slow burn of my cheeks as they turned red, once again I am a dolt. He handed me a clear vile filled with a blackish liquid, I raised a questioning brow. "An extract of the Calabar bean, its poison to counteract the nightshade I previously poisoned you with. It'll help with the temporary glaucoma you're probably experiencing." I looked at the suspicious liquid, shaking the vile rather violently to observe it again. "And the headaches."

He went back to the dagger tapping it softly, "You are as I say you are, a slayer, the same goes for your sister. I don't know how her prints came to be on that blade, or how you recognize it. We need answers and Beatrix has them. We're late anyway."

Confusion scrambled any coherent thought that tried to shed logic on what he was saying. "How did you come by this knowledge of slayers then?" Again, he turned away, avoiding my gaze. I reached out grabbing his forearm, the muscles tensing at my touch. Again, the familiar feeling struck me, my skin tingling as it touched his exposed flesh. "Vulkan, I know you're keeping something from me."

He yanked his arm free of my grasp, "Of course I'm keeping things from you girl! You may as well be a stranger."

"Why do I feel like I know you then!" I wished the words never passed my tongue.

He backed me against the bookcase, standing too close but careful not to touch, "Your infatuation with me however cute, needs to be quashed. I studied your family, the Korhonens as well as the Sallows, you're nothing more than a blip. A temporary deviation from the ultimate task at hand. The Legion required I look into you after your little detective gambit."

It is best described as emotional whiplash, this overbearing feeling, one minute he's soft and sharing things readily, the next he's a brooding angry lycan. He was a stranger yet standing here in his apparent office the familiarity of him was ever-pressing. I knew him just as I knew the blade, I went to his desk rest my fingers on the worn leather sheath some spots smooth almost polished. I grabbed the hilt brandishing the weapon, uniquely small for a flamberge. There was a chip at the hilt near the ricasso on the rain-guard, just as I knew there would be. I looked down the short wave-blade, eyeing Vulkan at the end of it, a somewhat timorous expression crossed his face.

My grip strengthened on the dagger, the grooves fitting in my palm like it was made for me. The weight a perfect balance, at the very end of the hilt a secret revealed. A piece of the puzzle fell into place and I found myself in a peculiar predicament. The initials S.R.K glared at me. "The dagger is mine."

It came in flashes, the dreams or the memories rather, 'my favorite dagger, the Umbrian symbols all over bits of parchment, Surge et Luna Mors'. "The Death Moon." The blade was still fixed in my iron grip though now lowered to my side. "I need to see professor Freling at once." I sheathed the flamberge and headed for the door but in an instant, Vulkan blocked my escape.

"What do you know of Luna Mors?"

Pressure built in my head, my skull felt as if it weresplitting in two, the pain unimaginable. My knees began to buckle though theground never came, instead, I felt nothing. The entirety of nothing, as thoughif I were to walk, I would already be at the end, no journey, just the end.

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