Twilight

Chapter Six

During the rest of Billy and  Jacob's stay, Rigan taught me tracking tricks that she had learnt in her Mordain school. She called them hydromancy, catroptromancy and pyromancy  -  the ability to see people or places in water, through mirrors or in fire. I found water and fire the hardest to learn but catroptomancy was a little easier so Rigan decided I should practise with that one first but we had to use the bathroom mirror as I did not have a new mirror yet.

After one hour and forty-five minutes of focusing and locating, the image of James and his three Cold One friends appeared in the glass. Rigan and I watched as the three of them stalked a group of campers, which also included children but they seemed to be ignored.

Rigan ran her right hand above the image for a minute or two, her iris color bleeding from jade to ruby, as if she was scanning the visions. "It's in the future," Rigan said after a while. "We have two days until we could have a huge blood bath on our hands."

I nodded. "But that's great, right? It gives us more time to prepare. To add to that, we know what they are going to do and we know who they are. Well, one of them at least."

"James, Laurent and Victoria," Rigan said. "Nomadic Cold Ones. James is a tracker who was bitten by  a French vampire named Ariel Beau-Pre, who liked to challenge humans to life and death competitions and then bite them since she always won. Victoria is his mate who he had tracked in London but she kept evading him, which caused him to be interested in her and make her his mate. Laurent worked under King Louis XIV, where he met Boris, a powerful vampire; he knew Laurent favoured people with power and befriended him to such an extent that Boris was willing to change the forty-year-old Laurent."

"How do you know some of their back stories?" I asked curiously.

"Rachel was a serious book-worm, so I often accompanied her to the Archives," Rigan answered. "You have no idea what they have there; the history of every single vampire, werewolf, Mordain, human, demon and Dark One! Historians would kill for it. Plus, I met Ariel Beau-Pre when I was on holiday with some amigas to France."

At that point the vision faded from the mirror and Rigan nodded. "OK. Let's go back to the power station and see if we can find those three."

Sneaking out of the house was pretty easy as Charlie knew we were going out. We took my truck up to the power station. On the way, I asked, "Why is James such a skilled tracker?"

"When someone gets turned into an Ice Category vampire, everything from facial features to talents gets enhanced," Rigan explained. "That is why James is such a lethal tracker; his tracking skills were rarely matched when he was human!"

"What about the other Categories?" I asked.

"Fire, Water, Earth, Air and Quintessence," Rigan said. "You see, we base a type of vamp on an Element they are most like.

"Fire Category vampires look like their human selves with no physical enhancement but they are more confident, they are faster and stronger than they had been, they can compel people to do things against their will. They were created by Dark based magic with fire. They conform to the stereotypes of being burnt by the sun and being killed with a wooden stake. When they feel powerful emotions, their faces pale and blood rushes to their eyes, causing them to go veiny and the canines will lengthen to fangs. They can cause volcanoes to erupt, wildfires to break out, droughts and shoot fireballs.

"Water Category vampires look like normal humans but a lot more beautiful and their eyes change colour depending on mood. They can cause fog to form, freak rainstorms, hurricanes, tsunamis, floods and blizzards. Water vampires do not have fangs unless they drink blood and can control how beautiful they look. They are the enemies of the Fire vampire because Dark magic created them from water. They conform to the stereotypes of being burnt by the sun and killed by the stake. They are also harmed by holy water.