UnSpeakable Vol. 3, Niall's Discipline

Chapter Seven: Bathed In Blood

The ring was bad news, Liam knew this for some time even before he fled to England during the Boxer Rebellion. All the myths that he feared were true. They were all the same as they were when he was told about them. 

“So how bad is this ring?” Harry asked clutching the ring in his grasp. It was still dusty with dirt. The ring had a red gem in the centre with a symbol of infinity etched into it's surface, it's gold shine was old but was quite polished.

“It's not the ring that worries me. It's who it belongs to.” Liam replied. Ashton and Niall sat nearby on the steps in the Styles house. Liam leaned against the wall. Zayn was still nowhere to be found. As always he was probably battling demons of his own.

“Who does it belong to?” Niall asked, Liam took the ring from Harry's grasp and held it up.

“A gang.” he said. Ashton laughed and Niall elbowed his side.

“Sorry, but a gang? As in mortals?” Ashton said, clearing his throat and giving Niall the most disturbed look.

“Not just any gang...Order Of Elmara.” Liam said, turning toward the kitchen. “You see, long before AIDS, the age of Aquarius or poverty in Africa –”

“Dude, you can just say a very long ass time ago, we get the picture.” Ashton said, Niall nudged him again. He let out a shrill as though he'd been hit in the gut.

“Before I was a vampire... there were myths of an Order – A gang of half gods. Each from a separate pantheon. Sumerian, Hindu, Norse, Greek and Roman...” Liam took a deep breath turning back to his friends with a horrid look on his face. “Cronus banished them once they tried to pass through the city of Atlantis, causing the city to flood and the Half God's to die out and return home to their Utopia’s.” He got more intense. “Lydus, Angelo, Thor, Jupiter...and Zayn.”

“What!” Harry said, lifting his head from his cheeks. “Zayn...you mean our Zayn?”

Liam nodded and sat down on the couch near the fire place which had been kindling for hours. He sat comfortably where he could see his friends.

“Liam, that's impossible...he's sixteen like the rest of us.” Niall added.

“No, that's what he wants you to think. Zayn has had many lives, thousands. I thought you all understood the whole immortal part of being a god?”

“No, half god! You're trying to put this all in the wrong way.” Niall protested, “If you're trying to tell me that our friend sent Dahak here to bring the gang back from purgatory then, I'm sorry...I don't want to believe that.”

“Believe it Niall, because it's true!”

“You guys talking about something?” A voice said from the kitchen. Everybody turned to see Zayn standing there smiling while eating a sandwich. Nobody said a thing, although Ashton gazed at Liam evilly. “What, you all taking a break? Time to go kick some Dahak-ass!”

“Zayn, we're just talking about you.” Louis said, keeping an arm around Harry's shoulder. His hair still wet, he had only jumped out of the shower before running to the meeting. “Liam was telling us about your glory days.”

“Louis!” Niall exclaimed. Zayn smiled and laughed.

“What're you guys –” he saw it. The ring. It was like yesterday. It all came tumbling back. The death, the fire. Zayn had taken many lives on the battlefield. But, he'd forgotten of the lives he'd taken in his past. He was known as Zayn Destroyer Of Nations. He conquered most of Greece by 23 BC. There was a mission he left behind and most of what he had left in the past was death and destruction. He couldn't cut it as a killer. And when his father had banished him to Mount Olympus for seven thousand years, he thought more about death and how it effected his life before all of this. It was Dahak who had him change. And there was more to the story then he lead on. He went down a path of redemption for a rather long time. Righting all the wrongs he'd done. He could never bring back the thousands of villagers he'd killed but he could make up for it other ways. He was glad he never made it into history books, due to the shame he'd brought on his kinsman. “Where did you get that ring?”