Chapter 23

Trisha’s P.O.V:

Neema was almost exhausted by the time we arrived at the Sanctuary. I’d forgotten that other than his escape from the Rudolf manor and our escape from my home, he’s never been out in the sun before. So he took his time admiring his surroundings and soaking in all that he saw. Sometimes, Lucas and I took short breaks to let him wander off into the woods chasing butterflies or to just take in the fragrance of the wild flowers that grew with careless abundance all around us.

Sometimes it was Lucas himself who’d stop and take us on a different route to show us something he was sure Neema would love, like the small tree houses built by the patrol guards on smaller trees which even Neema could climb up on. And even though it meant we would be late to the Sanctuary, it was worth seeing the smile on the boy’s face.

I’d never seen Neema so happy until now and I realized just how much fear had crippled the child. He didn’t run off immediately after he saw something new, like children his age should. No, he was hesitant and he looked back several times to make sure we were right behind him. But overall, I’m glad that I brought him with me today because exhausted or not, Neema’s face bore a huge grin of pure, innocent joy.

Now, he looked wide eyed at the huge Wall of trees that surrounded the Sanctuary and tried to monitor the route as we squeezed past the five layers of trees. He’d been quite talkative until now, asking me names and places, but now he stayed quiet and took everything in as we approached the village. Lucas walked beside us in human form, since his wolf was too big to squeeze past the trees. We’d stopped just outside the wall and I’d handed him the bag he’d asked me to carry, and then he’d gone behind one of the forest giants and come back a few minutes later, properly dressed in his black jeans and the red shirt I’d seen him wear this morning.

“We part ways here,” Lucas said when we reached a crossroads. “I’ll meet with David in the Primary Hall, it’s that big red building over there,” he pointed at the largest building in that direction. “You can join us there once you’ve had your questioned answered.”

“Alright,” I nodded and waved him goodbye as he walked away from us. Neema was too tired to give a wave so he just gave a sleepy ‘bye bye, Lucas’ tilt of his head before laying his head down on my shoulder and yawning a few times.

“I’m sorry baby,” I patted his head lightly. “I know you’re tired, but I have some work to do. It’ll be a while before we get home.”

“It’s okay,” Neema yawned. “We’ll find our home soon.”

I stopped dead in my tracks.

“What?” I asked him again. “What did you just say? Neema?”

But Neema was fast asleep, his breathing was even and his entire weight was on me, even though it didn’t feel like any weight at all.

But what did he mean by that? We’ll find our home soon? Does he mean we’ll be leaving the den? But where can we go other than the den? My house was destroyed and we didn’t have anywhere else to-

The castle…

It’s incredible how I’d completely forgotten about Damien in the past twenty four hours. No, not forgotten, just…pushed to the back of my mind.

I shook my head. This wasn’t the time or place to be thinking about Damien. I needed to get to Dilliana so I could unlock the secrets of those letters. So, I held Neema tightly in my arms and with my vampire speed, covered the rest of the distance to Dilliana’s house within seconds.

And it was a good thing that I used my vampire speed, because I found Talia locking up Dilliana’s door with a large bag sitting by her side.

“Talia!” I called out as I slowed down to a stop and positioned Neema easily on my arms. “Where’s your grandmother?”

Talia looked startled at first before her expression turned guarded. “Why do you want to meet her?” She asked hesitantly.

“I need to clarify a few things with her. It’s about the bag she gave me, the one she stole from Vandal’s manor while she was escaping.” I pulled out the letters that I’d brought with me, from my pocket.

The letters seem to give Talia some reassurance so she picked up the bag and told me to follow her to her parent’s home. “Granny is very sick, so Mum and Dad decided it’s best to keep her with us.” Talia informed as she took me down a different route that I’d never been to.

“I’m sure she’ll be fine, honey.” I reached out my hand to pat her hair but stopped short to touching her when a passerby gave me a glare as we were walking through what appeared to be a market place. I dropped my hand, not wanting to upset anyone as I noticed several others take in Neema in my arms, but Talia seemed to have noticed the other man’s behavior too.

“Don’t mind them,” she said in a small voice. “Everyone here has some reason to hate vampires. They won’t trust you that easily, but they won’t hurt you. You’re Lucas’s guest.”

“I’m not sure if anyone here can hurt me, Talia,” I told her. “But I don’t want a few bad vampires to be a representative of our race. There are good people amongst us too.”

Talia stopped walking and turned to face me with big, innocent brown eyes. “Are you a good vampire?”

“I can’t answer that Talia; you’ll have to tell me.” I told her.

“I think you’re okay,” she said turning on to a small lane. “Come on, we’re almost there.”

I noticed that some of the concrete buildings had been renovated and now held a few walls made of wood. Talia took me to a similar two stories house, which looked like it had been much higher, but it had probably gone down because of the bombings during the Wipeout. A woman in her early thirties was sitting on the front porch with another baby in her arms and she looked instantly alarmed when she realized that Talia wasn’t alone.

“Mum, this is Trisha. Granny gave her the bag she stole from the manor.” Talia filled her in. “She wants to ask granny some questions.”

The woman visibly relaxed. “Come in.” She said meekly and entered the house, leaving the door open for me.

“Can I see Dilliana?” I asked as soon as the woman closed the door behind me.

“Sure…would you like to place him somewhere?” the woman motioned towards Neema and it made me instinctively tighten my arms around him.

“He stays with me.” I told them firmly, to which both Talia’s mother and father, who just came out of a room, nodded their heads in understanding.

“This way,” Talia’s father pointed towards the door he just exited. “My mother had been asking for you.”

I followed him into the room and found Dilliana hooked up to an IV. She looked tired, but as soon as she saw me, she sat up in bed, with some help from her son. “You came!”

“Yes,” I sat on the bed beside her and gave her the letters. “I found out that Vandal writes in poems. Not everything, but ones that he doesn’t want others to understand or find out about.” I pointed out a few letters to her. “Like this one. It sounds like a love letter with a tragic ending but it’s actually about a vampire guard who’d fallen in love with a slave girl. It’s an execution order. And this here,” I brought up another letter. “That’s about a slave transfer to a facility in Canada where all slaves are drained of blood and killed.”

“I see…” Dilliana was quite for a while as she held the letters with trembling fingers and brought them closer to her eyes so she could read them. Talia’s mother had taken Talia and her little brother to another room, but Taj, Dilliana’s son, stayed in the room and took everything in with a pained look on his face.

“But there is one letter that I don’t understand,” I finally pulled out the letter that I was sure he had written about Neema and presented it to her. I placed Neema down on the bed gently with his head placed on my lap. He was starting to shift uncomfortably on my shoulder and since I’m staying with him, there shouldn’t be any harm. “I was hoping you could help me figure it out.”

I watched as Dilliana read the letter and her eyes widened in shock. Taj took the letter from her as Dilliana went still, but he too seemed equally surprised.

“What? What is it?” I asked as mother and son exchanged concerned looks. I knew they were judging if I could be trusted with this secret and I knew that they knew exactly who the letter was about. But when I saw Taj give a small shake of his head, I knew they had decided against telling me.

“I know you must think you can’t trust a vampire, but I desperately need your help.” I told them before I shut my eyes and made the decision to take the first step. “And I know that letter talks about an Oracle.”

I tightened my hands into fists as both Dilliana and Taj let out shocked gasps. They hadn’t expected me to know.

“H-how?” Taj asked, unable to say anymore.

“I will tell you, if you tell me what exactly the letter means.” I told them both as they once again exchanged concerned glances.

“Alright.” Dilliana sighed, running her wrinkled fingers through her grey hair. “The letter talks about a family of Oracles. It is said that an Oracle is born every thousand years that changes the fate of the world. They’re the messengers of God and whoever has an Oracle by their side, can dominate the world. This is what Vandal has written here. He’s found the Oracle.”

“If he has, then we’re all doomed!” Taj’s voice quivered as he said so.

“It’s exactly why I need to bring him down.” I told them. “I need solid proof against Vandal that I can present to Damien. Unless I have that, we’re all sitting ducks here!”

“I think I might have something.” It was Taj who spoke this time. “I removed it from the pile before mother gave it to you. I didn’t trust you enough then.”

“Oh, Taj! You shouldn’t have!” Dilliana scolded her son as Taj took something out of the drawers of the night stand beside the bed.

“I’m sorry mother,” he told Dilliana before he gave another letter to me. “I hope this helps.”

I took it from his hands and rolled out the letter. It looked very old and it was made with some kind of material other than paper. A kind of cloth maybe? And it had two wood rollers on both ends, like the letters used to be centuries ago. But what I saw inside made me drop the letter onto my lap as my body froze with shock.

Because the letter wasn’t written in the form of a poem, it simply constituted two lines. Two powerful lines that had changed history forever.

Kill that bastard! Kill King Dominic! He has no right to live after he ended the life of my beloved, Maya. Kill him!

It was a letter of assassination of King Dominic; Damien’s father…dated three hundred years ago, right before Damien succeeded the throne.