The Night the Vampires Came

Chapter 33

Chapter 33

A helicopter appeared in the clearing just beyond the lake. A woman with fear in her sharp eyes approached me. She covered me with a gray wool blanket. I felt the gesture was borne out of a desire to keep me concealed instead of any genuine concern over how sopping wet I was. I recognized her, but it took a second to pinpoint her name. So many lifetimes and so many names had flashed across my eyes while I was under the waters of the lake that the details of this life were hard to recall. As she proceeded to rub the blanket over my dripping hair, I finally remembered. We met on the beach in Miami. She wasn't wearing her white labcoat anymore. Now she was dressed in an ill-fitting black suit. I thought the lab coat looked more natural on her.

"Orienne," Dr. Lemeris said in a patient and soothing tone. "It is time for you to come home with us to Lykos. We have waited thousands of years for your return."

Holly approached me but stopped short of touching me. She just stood and glared at Dr. Lemeris and the rest of her Levarsi coworkers who were standing guard. Up ahead, I saw the treetops shaking with the wind generated by their helicopters.

"Ailith," a man said as he stepped out from behind the strangers. My eyes widen at the sight of him. I would recognize his scruffy uneven beard anywhere. It was my father. My eyes teared up at the sight of him, but I stopped short of running to him. I could tell from the way he was dressed that he was one of them, the Levarsi. He abandoned our family back in Windflower Springs. Now, he showed up to save the day? After everything? How dare he!

When I adverted my eyes from him, Holly nudged me in the shoulder. I couldn't believe she was hinting that I should go to him! As the seconds ticked by, I finally dropped the smelly wool blanket to my shoulders and looked back at my father. I felt like I was seeing him for the first time through my identity. He was looking back at me with a kind of deference, as though he too recognized that I was something more than just his long-neglected daughter.

For as long as I could remember, my father was an abnormally skinny man with a weary face. He was probably attractive when he was younger, but old age had grayed his hair and left him with a pale, wrinkled, perpetually frowning face. He had a small smile over his thin lips as I met his eyes. His yellow teeth were visible under his dark purple lips. He came over and offered me his open hand. "Let's go. These people are our friends. Holly can come too. We'll be safe where they are taking us."

I reached out and gave my father a single shaking hand. He smiled wider, as though he didn't expect me to accept his offer. He reached around me and hugged me in a way that seemed both awkward and impersonal.

"You're going to be fine, Ailith. These are good people."

"Grace is dead," I said bluntly. "So is mom."

"I know." My father's indifferent tone of voice told me he already knew, and he didn't care. "I'm just happy you're alive."

*

"Maybe, when Meng Po served me the Tea of Forgetfulness in the afterlife, I didn't drink it," I joked as we boarded the helicopter. "But you know this, didn't you, dad? That when I woke up from that surgery when I was a kid, I wasn't quite the same? Did you grieve for your daughter Ailith?"

"You are Ailith," my father stated. "You're hysterical."

"Am I?" I asked, my voice deep and hollow. I realized that it was a voice I hadn't heard before, a wise voice that echoed over the centuries. My father seemed to respond to it better. It was as though for once, he was obeying me — instead of the other way around.

"You're a little more than Ailith now," he replied with a curt nod of his head. "You're Orienne, goddess, and mother to us all."

"Yes," I replied in a tired voice. "A goddess who can't seem to die."