Suffocate In Spirit - Shadows of the Night 4

Chapter 41

Hi!

In case you didn't notice, I changed my cover pics. I hope you like them. Special thanks go to
midnightmvelvet: thanks again for making them. I'm dedicating this chapter to you!

Okay, back to the new chapter: Red Night's Eve has begun - and it's deadly as hell.. I hope you like it :-)

Lara

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Chapter 41

Power swept the room, pushing forward, then retreating like the flow of respiratory current out of a giant's organism. The candles flickered for a moment then stilled into absolute motionlessness. Even in my current state I felt it: the newcomers' entrance changed the whole gravitational power system in the room, turned it upside down from one second to the other.

Sound died to the point of non-existence. Nothing but the sharp clack-clack of high heels penetrating. Two figures appeared in the red-yellow glow of candles. A vampire, tall and slender, followed by a female. What little I had left of my magic resonated with their auras, reacted to the shitloads of power they carried.

Power they carried. The thought gave me pause. I forced my awareness to widen, clawed my way into the world of second sight. I wasn't only witnessing the entrance of a centuries old vampire. My eyes widened. The female, Helèna Bathoryn, wasn't your ordinary, run-of-the-mill human servant. Technically she wasn't even fully human. No, she was a witch too. A powerful one at that.

The expression on her face left no doubt that she was different from any other human servant in the monastery. There wasn't an ounce of fear. Not in her eyes, not in that wide mouth and the set of those red-painted lips. Her blue eyes stayed on the end of the nave, frosty and above anything and anybody, rimmed by wide, thick brows as black as her hair. She had an exotic, cruel beauty - the kind that only drew the attention at second glance, but swallowed the beholder whole once it hit, turning perceived imperfections into something far more beautiful.

My eyes went back to the vampire. Whoever Vladislav II was, he died a long time ago, and he liked being dead. I could see it in his eyes - or rather, I could see nothing in them. Black as onyx, they could only be called dead. There was no forced stiffness or careful blankness. To the contrary, the void seemed to be a natural state. He was a walking unknown.

His black moustache would have looked good, had we been in the fifteen hundreds. As it was it did little to distract from his sharp chin. Long, black hair cascaded down the war uniform he was wearing. If I had two words to sum him up? Hungarian and ancient.

Maybe I should add ridiculously powerful to the mix. Yeah.

What really bothered me was Alexander's reaction. That he reacted alone was alarming enough. Who was Vladislav anyway that the whole congregation of undead had stilled and was watching his descent down the nave like a silent congregation of Greek statues?

I had no idea. Truth was, I wasn't sure I wanted to find out.

Conversations picked up again. Formal introductions to the Cellinis were over. In contrast to the rest of the guests, neither Vladislav, nor his human servant bowed in front of the hosts. All Helèna Bathoryn did was show a hint of a curtsey that, really, looked more like a shrug than anything else.

I shot Alexander one or the other look, trying to get some sort of reading on his mood. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't detect anything. There was no way around the impenetrable mask of blandness. Not a hint as to why he showed a reaction when the Hungarian vampire entered.