The Night the Vampires Came

Chapter 32

Chapter 32

The water exploded under me. I hit the surface at such a high speed; the impact almost knocked the wind out of me. I didn't know how deep the lake was, only that it was cold and unforgiving. In my shock, I sank beneath the surface immediately.

As the waters closed over me, blotting out the midday sun, I felt as though I was dying. The waters weighed down on my chest, and I could only hold my breath for so long. These were my last moments as Ailith Ying. I thought back to my father and mother in our little house in Windflower Springs, where I used to read my books sitting on the cozy staircase up to the attic.

Then I felt a hand tugging at mine. Who was it? Who could have gotten to me in time?

No one.

Not unless it was a vampire.

Grace was here. Her black hair formed a ghastly halo around her head. I saw her eyes glow even in the darkness of the deep waters. Her skin was pale and falling apart with decayed chunks of flesh. They were right; she was dead, had been dead for days.

Yet, she wanted to get to me. To do what? To eat me? To save me?

"Stay back!" I yelled, but it was futile. There was a surge of ice-cold water in my mouth as I struggled to breathe. It hit me with a force that sucked all the air out of my lungs. I couldn't see anything anymore. My sense of panic blinded me. I saw nothing, heard nothing, and my world became one with those waters.

As I opened my eyes again, this time, I saw a dim light in the distance. It seemed to closer with every second as I fought to breathe. Am I dying?

A cold, clammy hand gripped mine. As my limbs stopped kicking and grew limp, I started to see visions.

The first one was of a Samaritan woman with sand-colored skin and bare feet, falling into an ancient tomb. Then, in the blink of an eye, a thousand years passed, and I was the daughter of a Yemen Bedouin digging in the sands of the Saraswati desert. I was digging in the sand one day with my sisters, and I found an emerald of such clarity, I thought it was a star that had fallen from the night sky. My father sold it to a traveling Austrian gentleman who was on his way to India.

Another lifetime flashed by, and I was a Mongolian warrior riding into battle with an eagle on my shoulder. And then another glimpse of another life as an Indian historian studying the artifacts of a sunken city off the coast of Lykos.

In another lifetime, I was a Ta'shi Princess living in the court of emperor Zhu Yuanzhang during the Ming dynasty. I saw myself sitting at a New Year's celebration at the Forbidden Palace wearing my traditional Islamic garbs. The emperor called me his little Chrysanthemum, but it was his favorite concubine who held my heart. I gave her a family heirloom, a jewel continuing the secrets of eternal life like the emerald I later found in the Saraswati desert. It was with that gem she would pass along her descendants — who became known as the Liangs — the secret Lumin pills of Yagerin.

Hundreds of years flashed across my closed eyes. A thousand loved ones I had to watch wither, die, and fade into dust.

Across the world, during the turn of the century, I was a physician teaching medicine in Glasglow. Although I had been born female, I passed as a man easily, going as far as to take a wife. Her name was Elizabeth, and she was the daughter of a famous chemist. Her name was Syderra Vannet, and through her family, I planted the seeds of what would later go on to become Sylvirua.

My soul continued even as the rest of them died. I was eternal, everlasting, cursed to return to this earth until the end of time.

As the light came closer, the small hand grasping mine, turned into the frail human hand of a little boy. This vision lingered longer than the rest. I was standing beside a small boy, barely more than a toddler, with golden curls and the most beautiful green eyes. This was no vampire. He waved his hand across the waters of Tahil lake, and I saw the waters ripple as though in greeting.