Blood Ties (NaNoWriMo 2015)

Fifty-Three

Before I knew it, I was sitting on the edge of the hotel's pool and watching Keith, Jasper, Dominic and Adeline Chay (Jasper's guest, I'd been told) playing water polo. While I loved swimming and had even been on the team for a time while in high school, I wasn't feeling up to jumping in and joining in the fun. I was going to be hopelessly outmatched by any one of them and knowing Jasper and Keith, I had a feeling they'd go easy on me to make up for the difference in speed and strength. I wasn't exactly able to stomach that easily.

I dipped my toes in the water, the temperature was perfect, heated enough not to be cold, but not so warm you felt like you were boiling in a hot tub.

"Not much of a swimmer?"'  I turned my head, Marilyn was behind me, dressed in a bathing suit as well, but it looked more like something out of the Roaring Twenties than the twenty-first century.

"Not today," I said. "I'm still reeling from what happened with Isis," tiny lie. I felt fine now, but my mind was a little restless afterwards as I tried to recall the events. I remembered thinking she was in league with Richard, and then when I woke up, unharmed save for some crazy nightmare I learned I was wrong about that. She told me a friend sent her, a lie I was sure, but I don't think she'd intended me harm either.

"That must have been frightening for you," Marilyn remarked. "May I sit next to you?"

"Of course," I said, sliding over.

She sat next to me and likewise dipped her feet into the water. "If you don't mind my asking, what exactly happened? I know whatever happened, you were rendered unconscious and remained so for two nights." I heard her hesitate and then say, "Your heart even stopped a moment, did you know that?"

"Yes," I answered, that fact still made me feel cold. "Damon told me. He said he'd thought I was dead."

"So did I," she informed me. "I came in after Damon, you were so pale, not moving, I feared the worst myself. Damon went a little, feral after that."

"I knew that," I told her. "I wrestled that out of him too." I ran over the events before I'd lost consciousness and recalled Isis speaking, one word I'd understood, well sort of. "Marilyn, you told me the High Court and it's laws are written entirely in Latin right?"

Marilyn gave me an appreciative smile. "Yes, that is correct."

Okay this was going in a direction I wanted. "And you are required to be able to understand it, verbally and in writing?"

"Also correct, why do you ask?"

"I heard someone saying it when I walked by. They were playing some sort of trivia game I think, I only caught this much." I lied. I suddenly did not want to say that Isis had said this before the spell was cast. "I recognized the language of origin, but it wasn't familiar to me. No roots or prefixes I already knew. I thought you might know what it means given your background."

Marilyn smiled at me again, seeming flattered that I'd come to her for help. "Of course, what was it?"

"Praedico," I said, the word ringing in my ears. I heard it again, but not in my own voice, in Isis.

"Oh that's easy! It means to warn."

Warn? Why had she said that? The red and sliver colors in the cloud the priestess had sent on me suddenly was ominous. Like a storm cloud. "Thank you!" I said, hoping nothing in my voice or internally (like a heartbeat) would give away the turmoil I was feeling. I still didn't believe in Zalam or things like her, but this was weird. Two of her servants had come to me on two separate occasions both performing some strange sort of ritual with elements from me. Archie had used my hair, Isis had used my blood and both had eyes that turned white. That was freaky, I'd been around enough vampires in the last two months to know that such events were unnatural.

Just why they were doing it though, that was what was freaking me out. Did Richard hire them? Even the holiest of people were only human (or acted human) and were preyed on by temptations and material things like everyone else. I didn't know Archie well, neither did Damon, his loyalty might not have been hard to buy.  Isis was another story, she was the High Priests, sort of like what the Pope was to the Catholic church. She might have been under too many prying eyes to get bought off, but perhaps she didn't want money. Maybe her faith or her interpretation of it said humans and vampires mixing was blasphemy or something.

Or maybe it is nothing at all and I'm just paranoid. I thought to myself, dipping my feet in and out of the water, watching as ripples flowed across the surface. Ife was a fairly devout follower of Zalam and she'd welcomed me with open arms, and I couldn't speak for her, but I did consider her a friend. A good friend in fact and even if that wasn't true for her, she still was nothing but kind to me. But still, that negative voice in the back of my head whispered.  There are people of faiths that use it as grounds to kill all over the world regardless of what it actually says. It doesn't matter what their faith preaches.

Stacy was right, I was too negative. I'd been alone with Archie for about a half hour and he was the one who got hurt that night, not me. If he'd planned to hurt me, it would have happened already. And Isis, she didn't even bother to go for a private meeting, people were three feet from us the entire time. What had happened with them had been strange and scary, but they were vampires! They sort of covered those topics already just by being vampires. I recalled the  night Damon and I had met. I'd been scared senseless at the sight of him, the fangs, the blood staining his coat and his iron grip that I had been unable to break. His calm manner and banter with his father had been strange to me as well.

Perhaps the strange and scary of the priests and priestess was just the kind I had not given myself time to adjust to.

I pushed the matter to the back of my mind and stored it away. They were no reason to worry right now, Richard Erable was the big problem and Doc was part of it now too. I'd tackle the priestess and her warning another day.

I looked into the clear water and without a second thought jumped into it, Marilyn had been right, water was good for a shock to wake you up, or in my case, shock your worries away even if it was only for a moment.

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New chapter! It seems we now know what Isis was saying, and now Ember is worried about another group of people in league with Richard. Jeez, how many is that now? *counts on fingers* (Can you tell I'm terrible at math?) Thank you for reading you guys! You are awesome!

Write on! =D