The Incandescent | Book 7 | The Fairy arc

Chapter 27 ~ The Vampire Attack in Nieto City

________________

~ Planet Mijoria ~

________________

Daylight took forever to become nighttime. Trésora slept all day in her silver prison cell, away from the burning rays of the sun that emitted furnace heat.

The pungent scent of garlic burned her nostrils and made her insides feel like hot coals, her skin tingling with discomfort as one would feel venturing outside in cold weather without a warm coat.

Mijorian prison cells were not underground in some dungeon or basement; they were on a skyscraper building with multiple floors, each with large windows to allow natural light to seep into the prison cells. This was done intentionally for vampire prisoners, so they would endure the harsh sunlight as part of their punishment for crime.

The scent of lavender added to the discomfort, since it was not a scent Trésora particularly relished. She preferred sultry scents like redcurrant and chocolate.

Lavender was confused with lavand, a flower that weakened fairies. Thinking lavender could weaken vampires, Mijorians laced the silver prison with lavender-scented garlic. Vervain was a plant closely related to lavender; therefore, Mijorians used lavender and vervain.

However, neither lavender nor vervain weakened vampires. For fairies, simply inhaling the scent of lavand immediately caused an allergic reaction in the form of a runny nose and burning eyes. Because lavender and lavand were similar in appearance and scent, Mijorians mistakenly believed that if the flower could weaken fairies, it could also weaken vampires, since both were powerful lifeforms. But vampires, both the good and the bad, didn't want to correct the Mijorians, so they kept it as part of the myth, avoiding the plant entirely.

The true plants that weakened vampires were blackthorn and juniper. Back in ancient and medieval times, Romanians sewed blackthorn in their clothing to prevent vampire attacks. Juniper was used by gypsies and the Romani people to protect themselves from vampires.

Blackthorn and juniper were unavailable on Mijoria, a planet devoid of pine and evergreen trees, devoid of the black shrub that heavily repelled vampires. So the Mijorian people used silver and garlic, and lavender and vervain, as the effective and ineffective vampire repellant. Trésora experienced a slight discomfort with lavender and vervain. It was silver and garlic that did the real damage.

Trésora shivered, not from cold but from pain. She felt the small object in her hand, the object that was her literal key to freedom out of this cell. She clutched it close, feeling the sharp rose pin in her cold white hand. She closed her eyes, waiting for the long day to be over.

At last, it was finally night. But the end of day meant more guards posted around the prison, surrounding her cell like sentries. Trésora groaned at the sight of the silver swords oiled with fresh garlic. She would only have a few hours to carefully plan her escape.

The night was moonless, just a few stars twinkling in the night sky. Trésora waited until three hours before dawn, when the sentry guards were bored and fighting sleep, before she put her plan into action.

Trésora feigned leaning against the door in boredom, surreptitiously using Mara's rose pin to pick the lock. To cover any noise, Trésora sang, her musical voice like chimes.

The guards listened, appreciating music sung by a beautiful woman. Trésora sang in her native language Slovenian, a Slavic language so the Mijorian guards wouldn't know the lyrics.

Trésora was a Slavic vampire of Slovenian origin, though she also spoke Romanian, Russian, English, Mijorian, Ghatomese, and Iredescent.