Mikey was safe, hidden away somewhere several hundred miles north. The thought my family so far away from the danger made me feel better. It no longer shocked me at how much I cared about them — even that idiot John…a bit.
Faru had assembled a meeting in the Feasting Hall. The room had been full to the point of bursting. There’d been waves of shock and anger as he delivered the news, followed by a resigned acceptance. Afterwards we had all gone to our apartments to eat and get some sleep so that we could rise early in the morning and begin to prepare. I’d sat in silence for a long time on my couch, before knocking on Gabriella’s door.
I sat down next to her on the sofa, warming a hand by the fire.
“I don’t know if I’m ready for this,” I said staring into the flames. “I thought I was. But then it occurred to me…I’m going to have to actually kill people tomorrow aren’t I?”
Gabriella lifted her back off the cushions. “You already have killed Alex. Rahuman remember?”
“I know. But I did it without thinking…you know. Like survival instinct. But at the bar, my instincts told me to go straight for the swords, but I fought them and decided on the safer option instead. It almost cost me. Tomorrow, I know that it’s kill or be killed. I’m just…I don’t know if I can.”
“Alex, I know that it’s hard. Killing anyone is not a decision any of us take lightly. But the Soldiers of Sorrow are the worst kind of evil. They are coming here with the sole purpose of killing as many of us as they can and serving you to The Sorrow on a platter. You need to understand, you’re a Chosen Alex — a walking weapon. It’s inside you. You have to stop fighting it and let it take over.”
I turned around to face her. “That’s what I’m frightened of.” I pressed a hand against my stomach. “What’s inside scares the living hell out of me. You saw what I did to TJ. I couldn’t stop myself. Midnight told me about the darkness he felt inside. I–I think I have it too.”
Gabriella paused for a second. “Alex, I already told you. When you hurt TJ, you were drunk and going through your Awakening. You weren’t yourself. Look, I don’t know how you feel inside. All I know is what I see. And what I see is a kind, strong, caring person who is willing to put his life on the line for what he believes in. We all have a darker side,” she placed a hand on my arm, “but we all have good too.”
I felt myself relax. I leaned back into the sofa and let out a deep whoosh of breath. “You’re right…as always,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Hey” she laughed and swatted my arm. “As morbid as it sounds, this could be our last night alive,” I said staring at the pictures on the mantelpiece. “So what shall we do?” Gabriella asked from behind me. I turned around and stared right at her. “I want you to tell me about your parents. Everything.”
Gabriella’s face drew tight and she squirmed as if I’d asked her to imagine her deepest phobia. She looked away in some subconscious attempt to avoid the question. I leaned over and gently pulled her around to face me. I stared into her eyes.
“Ella, I know that something bad must have happened. But you can’t keep it inside forever. I think it’s time you told someone.”
I could see the anguish in her face. It seemed like she were caught in an internal struggle. Something seemed to give. She let out a long sigh.
“Okay.”
29
Baptised in Blood
Most of what I know I’ve had to piece together from diaries my Papa kept and what Sage Etorre told me.
Papa’s name was Antonio De Luca. He was born in a small village about thirty kilometres south of Roma. It was the sort of place where everybody knew everybody else.
His family wasn’t rich — my grandfather was a tailor by trade. He had two sisters, Milena and Angelica. The family were devout Catholics. Before he could even walk, my father attended Mass. Antonio idolised my grandfather — his early diaries were full of extracts about him. He helped out at the tailors, working hard to make life easier for his father. He even expressed a desire to continue the family business, which he wrote made grandfather really proud. It was a humble life I guess, but Papa seemed happy. That was until he turned eighteen and had his Awakening.
His diaries don’t explain what could have caused it. All I know is how scared Papa was when he discovered he had all these extraordinary abilities. Back then, the HASEA wasn’t so organised. They didn’t approach him for some time. Not knowing what to do, he went to my grandfather for advice. It didn’t go well. My grandfather thought he was possessed by a demon. He carted him off to see the local priest who apparently performed all manner of frightening exorcisms on him. When it didn’t work — which naturally it wouldn’t as he was about as far from possessed as you can get — the priest proclaimed him to be the spawn of Satan. The whole family was shamed. In turn, Papa’s own family shunned him. He was told to leave with little more than the clothes on his back and some parting money from my weeping grandmother.
Being deeply religious himself, Papa believed what the priest had said. He was convinced that he was evil. That it was only a matter of time before he seriously hurt someone…or worse. So he headed to the nearest bar with the intention of drinking himself into oblivion. He was sat in the corner, drowning his sorrows when my mother walked in.
Mamma’s name was Lorena. As I told you before, she was a Succubus. She’d come to the bar looking for men she could drain. But I need to explain something. Succubi aren’t like Incubi. They don’t exist just to breed. They drain life-force not just to stay young and beautiful — that’s a by-product. If they don’t. they decay and eventually die. If they want to live, they don’t have a choice. But some are lazy and can’t be bothered to spend more than one night feeding. They drain a single person until they are dead to get what they need. Those are the ones we have a problem with. Others ‘hop’ — taking the bare minimum from each person. Sex is the trade-off. All the victim remembers is a great one night stand and a few days of flu afterwards. Not a bad deal really. Anyway, Lorena was the latter, not evil, just doing what she needed to in order to survive.
So she came into the bar and was working on several of the men. Succubi have a few talents, one of which is the ability to sort of drink in the surface information of their victims. Then they use it to help them relate to the person. That’s what Iralia did to you the day you first came to the base. Not that they really need the skill, because another is that they can charm others into falling in love with them. Naturally this helps when they want the person to…um, go home with them.
So anyway, Lorena noticed Papa sitting away from the others and how much more powerful his life-force was. So she headed over to try her charms on him. Naturally they didn’t work. Antonio was unknowingly immune to her allure. Mamma had never before met a Chosen and was confused and intrigued by him. She wanted to know more, but couldn’t use the short cut, so decided to try the old fashioned way. But, Papa refused to open up. He just sat there and drank, staring into his glass, whilst Mamma talked to him. At the end of the evening, he was very drunk. Lorena offered to take him home. He admitted he had no home to be taken to. Maybe it was the curiosity, or maybe she was starting to feel something, Mamma did something she’d never done before. She invited him to stay at her place. Apparently he made weak efforts to refuse, but she insisted. He took the sofa, and turned down her advances. In the morning, when she came down, he’d gone. That evening, she found him in the same bar once again drowning his sorrows. And once again, she sat with him and talked while he drank and for the second time offered him a place to stay. As before, in the morning, when she came downstairs, there was no sign of him. The pattern continued for at least a week. Every evening, he’d head back to the bar and start drinking. After my mother finished her shift at a local restaurant, she’d join Papa and sit with him, whilst he drank. She told him little things about herself. All the truth, only leaving out the parts that were Succubus related. Little by little, he began to open up. He told about his family, about his past. Told her about what he thought was the evil inside of him. Told her the things he could do. He demonstrated by melting his glass with a hand. It was at this point that Mamma realised what Papa was. She knew she should fear him, but instead she felt something else. And he felt the same thing when he looked at her. No tricks or allure. They were falling for each other.