Suffocate In Spirit - Shadows of the Night 4

Chapter 38

Hi!

Alexander's back and he's brought a bag full of surprises. No trick or treating - Anna's got to amp up her skills if she wants to stay alive. Anny suggestions or exit strategies for the 'little witch'? Let me know!

Lara

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Chapter 38

Alexander's hand settled on my arm. A careful touch that was more than simple skin contact.

"The Cellinis have felt your power, your true power, the last time we met, little witch. They will know that you are trying to deceive them. Drop whatever spell you did," he said softly.

I stared into his face, a kaleidoscope of shadows dancing on and around it as the car approached the monastery, and stated the obvious. "They're centuries old. They'll figure out it's not them I'm trying to deceive."

The Cellinis were the slightest problem, the easiest hurdle to overcome.

For an instant his fingers tightened on my arm, then glided down to my wrist with a deliberate slowness that drew goose bumps out of my skin.

"You have nothing to fear as long as you are with me," he said. "You should know by now that I protect those that are with me."

The hand was gone. The simple touch that left me reeling, gasping for air and longing for room to breathe. I stared out of the window, mind racing. Silence settled in the car, a blanket of white noise that prevailed as we passed the gate and made our way to the monastery. Once, in centuries past, it had been built with white, yellowish stone that even these days gleamed a pale white in the face of the moon. The color seemed too bright, unreal, against the harsh, rugged mountains looming behind. Red banners adorned the stone wall like a perfect composition of art. The color gave the illusion that the cloth was soaked with blood.

Part of a whole army of decorations meant to distract from what this really was. There were dark spots reaching up from the outer wall, way up into the air. The longer I looked the more I was certain. Not just dark spots - scorched marks like tainted hands reaching for the sky. They marred the monastery's exterior shell, a faint memory of times when religious belief had been about war, bloodshed, and fire.

My hands were moist with cold sweat, torn between the urge to close my eyes and the burning need to learn more.

A complex of buildings that flanked and hugged the tower-like stump of stone in the middle. Light reflected and I caught a glimpse of a round, ornamented window. This had to be the actual church, the most sacred of what once had been a place of silence and peace. It would be in that part that the festivities would be held - I didn't need Alexander to tell me that. Previous experience taught me that much. Whenever given the chance, vampires spat on everything that faintly reeked of church and Catholicism.

Yeah, it wasn't the building that made me shiver down to my bones. The things that frightened me most were those that moved. Vampires, guests who'd come at the Cellinis' bidding to celebrate whatever the hell Red Night's Eve was about.

I caught a glimpse of a group heading to the heart of the monastery, towards the place we were headed. Their figures danced in the moonlight like whirling, sharp blades of darkness. They glided into the night with a grace equal to Alexander's, speeding up effortlessly to pass our car in a shadowy blur.

I swallowed. Whoever these vampires were, wherever they had come from, they were playing in a different league than most master vampires I'd met. They weren't old as dirt, they were what the very first dirt was made of. My pulse quickened. And they were my enemies. All of them.