Christine Feehan

Unexpected chaos and change.

Confusion, manipulation and trickery

In the distance, dark clouds gathered over the sea in an angry roiling boil.  The wind slammed hard into the surface, creating rough, hazardous waves that rushed toward shore like angry stallions.  There was little beach between the sea and the vast forest that stretched almost to the very shoreline.  The canopy swayed and rocked, rustling tree branches and sending leaves and needles swirling through the air like weapons of destruction.
           
Darkness brought out the creatures of the night.  Bats wheeled and dipped as they feasted on insects.  Great round yellow eyes blinked from some of the higher tree limbs as the owls surveyed the forest floor, and the voles and mice rushed through rotting vegetation to get home.  The merciless wind swept in from the sea, slamming into the stoic trees, bending them, causing creaks of protest, but the trees held as they had for hundreds of years. 
           
The village of Nachtbloem rested on the outskirts of the forest, so close that the wilderness crept forward as if to recover the site that had been carved from the woods.  Night flowers grew wild in every meadow, tipping their faces toward the moon.  The village was situated near the river and close to the ocean, where many of the inhabitants made their living fishing or sending their wares to neighboring countries via the sea route.
           
Often fierce storms brewed over the ocean and crashed over their homes, pouring water into the river so that it reacted like a snake.  The river would swell up, a thrashing, roaring serpent, spewing the frothing, maddened water from its banks to flood the roads.  With the roads impassable, the people were trapped in the village until the abundance of water soaked into the ground or they managed to fix it.  It had happened often enough in the last two years that it no longer fazed them. 
           
Silke Vriese Reinders knew storms like the ones Nachtbloem experienced weren’t normal.  Everyone in the village was aware the weather wasn’t normal even though the storms came consistently in the usual months.  It rained often in Holland, but in comparison to other countries, the weather was rather mild across the land.  Living on the coast, they shouldn’t experience such violent storms.
           
With one arm, Silke encircled a tree trunk while she watched the ferocity of the waves pounding the shore.  In the distance, waterspouts leapt across the choppy surface of the water, but the towering columns were ominous as they spun wildly forming more and more geysers as they hurtled toward shore.
           
“Doesn’t look good,” Tora Kros said, standing on the other side of the tree.  She was tall and willowy with shining dark hair and gorgeous emerald green eyes. 
           
“I think of these storms as tests,” Silke said.  “Look into the clouds, Tora.  You can make out the faces of our enemies.”
           
Tora followed her gaze to the dark clouds laced with lightning.  As each cloud rolled and boiled as if in a cauldron, eyes glowed from the jagged lightning, demonic faces stared malevolently at the shore, forest, and village.  The faces distorted eerily as the clouds roiled and churned.  Each face twisted and turned with the rolling cloud, but it was clear the glowing, malevolent eyes were marking the village and forest, attempting to see everything they could.

“A war is coming,” she whispered aloud to her best friend.  “I read it again in the cards this evening just as the cards have warned me for the last two years.”
           
The tree she held onto was solid, although slenderer than quite a few of the others.  She needed the grounding when she was all too aware of the land shifting under her feet.  In days long past, mythical creatures and demon slayers were considered part of everyday life.  Now they existed in video games.  Movies were made about vampires and evil demons.  Television shows depicted supernatural beings.  No one believed in these things in modern times, at least it seemed that way.  Those living in Nachtbloem knew better.
           
Three hundred people, give or take a few when elders died and babies were born, resided in the village of Nachtbloem.  Although many people in Germany, the Netherlands and even Belgium claimed to be fully Frissi, the people living in that remote village were direct descendants of those from Germania times.  The story of the battle between the Frissi and Roman invaders was always kept fresh in their minds, handed down from generation to generation during storytelling time.
           
In AD 28 the Frissi were the only people able to defeat the Roman army when their land had been invaded.  At first, the Frisians lived alongside the Romans without rancor.  When new leadership of the Romans demanded taxes to be paid in forms the Frisians didn’t have, wives and daughters were sold into slavery in order to satisfy the leader of the Romans.  The Frisians rebelled and decided, with a small force, to attack the fortress where the leader was hiding.  The Romans fought back and even managed to get reinforcements.
           
The Frissi were a people who, once riled, refused to quit.  They got the job done.  The Romans had an overpowering force, so the villagers pulled back to the forest they were so familiar with and prepared for battle.  The forest held its own secrets, many known to those people long ago and to many of the villagers in the present day.

“The demons are looking to map out the land.  To see the best way to attack us,” Tora said.  “Notice they are particularly studying the forest.”
           
As the stories of that epic battle unfolded, much was lost in the translation of accounts.  Many simply believed that the woman leading the battle and aiding the small army was mythical.  Unreal.  She was called Baduhenna and named goddess.  The suffix henna often denoted a female deity.  The prefix Badw or Badu meant battle.  Baduhenna’s daring and skills became the thing of legends as she became known as the Frisian Goddess of War and Battle.
           
To the villagers living in Nachtboem, Baduhenna was very real.  In the stories many believed mythical Baduhenna led her small army into the darkened forest.  The crows aided her, flying through the woods or circling above.  The cries of the crows instilled fear into the hearts of the enemies as the sounds pierced the absolute quiet just before the battle ensued.
           
Many believed another goddess, Morrigan in the form of a crow, aided Baduhenna.  She helped to bring panic and confusion to the enemy.  The small force of Frisians using only light weapons, such as hand axes, killed over nine hundred Roman soldiers in a day.  In their confusion and paranoia, the Romans killed an additional four hundred of their own men before they fled, making the Frisians the only people to defeat the Romans.
          
 The villagers living in Nachtboem were extremely proud of their ancestors.  They also believed the rest of the legend—the part history left out.  The Romans had been aided by demons from the underworld in their invasion.  Without Baduhenna and Morrigan to aid them, even with their fighting skills and the affinity they had with the forest, they would have been defeated. 
           
Legend said they would be invaded again.  This time the battle wouldn’t be for their small village, but for mankind.  No one knew how they could defeat a modern-day army aided by creatures from the underworld, they just believed they would have to do so.   
           
“I began to suspect these storms covered the movements of those sent to spy on us,” Silke said.  “I can’t command the weather the way you do, but I’ve been practicing.”

Silke was a demon hunter.  A slayer.  Her mother died in childbirth, passing her gifts, her responsibilities and powerful tarot cards to her only daughter.  Tora and several elders in the village began her training when she was a child.  Most of the techniques for killing demons known to her female ancestors were passed on to her at birth.  She had to perfect each one.  Learn the names of demons, what they were capable of, and how best to slay them. 

She knew there was a hierarchy among demons, and some were far more powerful than others.  Tora had three friends who knew demon slayers.  They didn’t live close, but like Tora, they Carpathian and were guardians of the gate.  Carpathians were nearly immortal, existed on blood, and slept during the day in the rejuvenating soil.  The other three women were very generous passing the information on fighting demons to Tora who shared it with Silke so they could better defend their people when the time came.

“You don’t want to draw their attention to you,” Tora cautioned.  “I’ve been very careful to counter their storms with a gradual decline, so they don’t notice it’s waning any way but naturally.”

Silke wished she was as adept as Tora.  Tora had centuries of experience on her.  Her Carpathian heritage allowed her to shapeshift and fly through the air, which Silke very much wanted to do.  That was one gift she was especially envious of.  Silke had discovered she had a small talent for manipulating weather, but it was underdeveloped.  With all she had to do, after all she had to eat and wear clothes, which meant working a job, time was an issue.  She trained as a slayer from the moment she rose to when she finally allowed herself to sleep.  In that time, she had to fit her day job into the mix.  That left little time to refine the gifts she needed to develop.

“We want to keep every advantage that we can,” Tora added.

Silke nodded her agreement.  “I sealed the ground beneath the village the best I could after we found Albert Friesorger dead.  His body looked as if animals had torn him apart, but it was a pack of small demons.  I tracked them to the edge of the sea as if they found their way to us via water, but I know they came from underground.”

Tora, although much older with a vast amount of information on the hunting demons, guarding gates and destroying vampires didn’t argue with her.  She trusted Silke as the slayer with hundreds of years of knowledge passed from mother to daughter.  She trained with Silke nightly and knew her abilities.  That alone gave Silke confidence in herself, but she also was very aware of the buildup of the enemy.  They were becoming much more aggressive, the storms more frequent and much more violent.

“Testing us,” she murmured again.

“We need to continue to seemingly fail to spot them,” Tora said.  “The only thing we have going for us is the element of surprise.  They can’t know our strengths or weaknesses.  We must outsmart them and hope our reinforcements get here on time.”

Silke knew they needed the Carpathian warriors to aid them.  There was no hope of winning an intense battle, even in the forest of secrets, without help.  She was very conflicted over who would be coming.  Every year from the age of two to twenty-three, Silke had opened a package on her birthday containing recordings from Astrid, her mother.  Prior to giving birth, she must have had a premonition she wouldn’t survive.  Silke came from a long line of women with special gifts.  All who knew Astrid testified that she had special talents in abundance.

Silke was fourteen when Astrid’s now familiar voice told her to go to Tora and ask questions about a species of people called Carpathians.  Silke always looked forward to listening to her mother’s voice and hearing her advice.  This was the first time the recording hadn’t been about personal advice from mother to daughter.  There weren’t her usual thoughts on the recording or even tips on fighting demons.  Astrid detailed how important it was for her to learn about the Carpathian species and reiterated several times that she was to rely on Tora to educate her. 

Silke had grown up speaking an ancient language, one that Tora referred to as Carpathian.  She’d asked, of course, where the origin was, but Tora had simply said she would reveal all to her in time.  Silke was so busy learning everything from fighting skills to other languages that she had stopped asking.  Now, her mother specifically had instructed her to learn what she could about the Carpathian people from Tora.

Tora had been her best friend almost from the first day Silke could remember, even before she could walk.  Tora was kind and patient and Silke considered her family, a sibling.  Since both parents had died, as a child Silke clung to Tora.  She always seemed older, although when they were children, she couldn’t have been more than five years older—at least that was what Silke thought at the time.

“When I first asked you about the Carpathian species, you told me they were warriors, hunting vampires,” Silke said to Tora.  “At that time, you said they slept in rejuvenating soil and drank blood without killing their donors.  You told me they had tremendous powers, including shapeshifting and flying.  You were very matter-of-fact.  I didn’t have any trouble understanding or believing.  Mostly because I knew you.  When you told me that every gift comes with drawbacks, and you explained that Carpathians were nearly immortal but would become paralyzed during daylight hours and come out only at night, I realized you were Carpathian.  You visited me at night, never during the day.  Only once in that conversation did you mention demons and Carpathians in the same breath.  I thought you meant vampires, but you didn’t, did you?”

Tora shook her head.  “Carpathians view vampires as just that—vampires.  They’re wholly evil and prey on every species on this earth they can.  They create flesh-eating puppets and ruin the land.  They have made alliances in the underworld recently.  Banning together and making alliances is new, from what I’m told.”

That didn’t explain the demon reference Tora had so casually made all those years ago.  Silke knew where vampires came from.  When she turned fifteen, she learned that, aside from being a demon slayer, her mother had also passed on another responsibility—a huge one.  Silke guarded the soul of a Carpathian warrior.  If that wasn’t fantasy, what was?  When a Carpathian male was born, his soul split.  He retained all the darkness and somewhere, a female child was born with the other half of the soul made up of his light.  His task was to find her and bind their soul together.  It wasn’t easy to find their lifemate and many of them succumbed to temptation, turning vampire, forcing friends to hunt them.  The woman could die, and the soul would be born again and again for as long as the Carpathian male still existed.

The thought of such a responsibility at fifteen was disconcerting.  Still, at fifteen, none of the things she learned about Carpathians seemed real.  They were larger-than-life heroes, hunting vampires and keeping mankind safe.  They were warriors fighting for others despite the constant whisper of temptation to kill while feeding just so they would feel a rush.  Those were facts she’d learned from Tora.

Tora had told her male Carpathians lost their ability to see in color or feel emotions.  They lived in a bleak, gray world century after century.  She’d also revealed that Carpathians choosing to give up their souls to feel the rush when they fed, became vampires.  Silke had lain awake often over the years thinking of how horrible it would be to live with honor for centuries and then, in a moment of weakness, become the very thing you hunted.

She was responsible for guarding the soul of a Carpathian warrior.  It was told in the stories handed down from her ancestors that he would come with others to help them in their final battle with Lilith’s demons from the underworld.  She feared he wouldn’t arrive in time.  She was also very nervous.  The idea of a stranger having a claim on her bothered her immensely.  And there was that casual line about demons Tora had mentioned when Silke was fourteen.  Tora wasn’t volunteering an explanation.

Once more, Silke looked up at the black, rolling clouds.  The edges seemed frayed as if the vicious wind would suddenly reverse directions and rip at the clouds to pull them apart before once more aiding the demons in their quest to spy on the village and forest. 

Tora had covered the forest in a shroud of dense magic weaves that appeared as fog so that even with the canopy swaying in the wind, it was impossible to penetrate through the layers to see inside the forest.  Silke had done her best to seal the ground to make it impossible for demons to enter that way.  They needed the forest to remain a mystery to their enemy.  It would be their chosen place of battle, just as it had been in AD 28 when their ancestors fought off the Romans.

“Tell me what you’re afraid to say about Carpathians and demons, Tora.”  She wasn’t going to be a coward, and she needed as much information as possible.

Tora sent another wave of capricious winds to counter the violent storm, this time toward the waterspouts whirling their way toward shore.  The wind shifted at her command, stilling just on the surface beneath the spouts, so the rotating winds propelling the spouts abruptly ceased and the spouts collapsed.

“Stay still,” Silke advised.  “I feel their scrutiny.  They’re wondering if something or someone is countering their commands.”

“They won’t be able to detect my touch,” Tora said with confidence.  “They can try, but I’m hidden from them.”

“One of them is a sniffer,” Silke cautioned.  “That isn’t his official demon name, but I call him that.  He has a long snout, and the others depend on him to ferret out their prey when they fail.  If you left any trace of you behind, there’s a good chance he’ll catch your scent even if he can’t track you.”

Tora tilted her head up to better look at the faces in the clouds.  The wind she’d sent pulled more of the clouds apart, so the faces were even more distorted than before.  “I thought I knew a lot about demons, but your knowledge is much more than mine.”

“It’s the only area I might have an advantage on you,” Silke conceded.  “I was born with the knowledge of my ancestors imprinted on me.  Every demon slayer in the family contributed until I’m a walking encyclopedia of demons.”  She made a face.  “That’s not a good thing when I try to sleep.”

Tora had a strange expression on her face, one that indicated guilt.  Or at least she was anxious, which was so unusual for her friend that it alarmed Silke.

“We’re back to what you don’t want to tell me,” she said.  “Just say it, Tora.  We’ll figure it out.”

Tora reached for her hand.   “You’re my family, Silke.  I love you the way I would a sibling.  Or even a daughter at times.  I’m always proud of the way you face every new threat.  You have such courage.”

That little speech didn’t bode well, although she knew Tora meant every word.  She waited in silence for Tora to explain.  The heavy rains lessened along with the wind.  The overhead clouds lightened from ominous black to a dark gray.  The faces faded as if they’d never been, but Silke wasn’t deceived.

“They’re still there, hidden in the gray.”

“For demons, they have quite a lot of power,” Tora observed, speculation in her voice.

Silke frowned, the puzzle pieces turning this way and that in her head.  Those particular demons were at the top of the hierarchy, but they couldn’t command weather.  They had various skills, such as the one she named Sniffer.  Two others had excellent vision.  One had amazing hearing.  Altogether, the skills would allow them to ferret out secrets or find their potential prey easily.  Silke and Tora had unusual training, allowing them to hide from the demons.

“Someone else is controlling the weather,” she mused.  “That must be the answer.  As powerful as each demon is alone, even together they couldn’t possibly do that.  Someone else with your skills, Tora, is most likely commanding the weather we’ve been getting.”

Tora dropped her hand and rubbed her arms back and forth as if suddenly cold.  Silke knew Carpathians controlled their body temperatures.  More than once, Tora had done so for her.

“You know about the gate I guard.  That’s why you have the tarot cards.  There are four gates, and a Carpathian woman guards each of them.  You have the ability to keep demons from escaping the underworld and together the two of us have kept that gate intact.”

Silke had been to the gate on several occasions to ensure no demon had found a way through.  Time and again, she’d sealed the ground around the gate.  Lately, she knew Tora was concerned that whatever was behind the gate was weakening the ancient wood and the spells.  She’d never seen whatever was being held there.  Tora referred to him as a beast. 

Another Carpathian woman, Gaia, lived in the underworld and seemed to be Tora’s friend, but Silke had never seen her.  She knew the area the beast had at his command was tremendous, stretching from Siberia, Italy, and Algeria around to their little village.  The beast and his companion seemed to travel from gate to gate.  Silke didn’t understand how he could be so dangerous if a Carpathian woman was his companion.

“It’s difficult for all of us guarding the gates to comprehend just how lethal the beast is.  His name is Justice, at least that’s what he was called when he chose to save members of his family and remain behind in the underworld.  He fought off the demons while his family escaped.  All of them were horribly wounded as was Justice.  He blocked the portal and shut it down, so the demons couldn’t go after his family, thus trapping himself in the underworld.”
           
“He sounds like a hero, not a beast,” Silke said.
           
Sorrow flashed across Tora’s face.  “He is a hero.  He was the thing legends were made of, even in my world.  Justice was Carpathian at one time.”
           
“I don’t understand.  Is he vampire?  Did he turn while he was trapped in the underworld?  How could your friend stay with him?”
           
Tora shook her head.  “Justice isn’t vampire.  Our species can live very long lives.  Some believe we’re immortal, but we can be killed as you well know.”
          
Silke had seen Tora after several battles with vampires.  She’d been close to death on two of those occasions.  Silke had managed to aid her in dispatching the vampires before attending to the wounds and giving her friend blood.  Several times over the years they had gone into battle together and prevailed, but their wounds had been numerous.
           
“After centuries of a gray, emotionless existence, when life has been nothing but hunting and killing your friends, family, and other Carpathians who turned vampire, seeing the horrific things vampires did to their victims, takes a tremendous toll.”
           
Silke imagined that the life of the Carpathian male was grim and endless.  She was surrounded by people in the village she loved.  She was an orphan, but she’d always been cared for.  She had Tora as well as the elders in the village who were generous with time, attention, and advice.  Fenja Reinders, a single woman in the village had always wanted children.  She had taken Silke in when her mother had died.  She was the local midwife, assisting women giving birth and had been present when Astrid had slipped away.  The village had decided she would be the best choice for raising the orphaned infant, and she’d readily accepted the task.
           
Silke loved her as she would have her birth mother.  Fenja had raised her with kindness and love.  She couldn’t remember a single time when Fenja had yelled or lost her temper.  She had lovingly told her the stories of the “Battle of Baduhenna”, making the stories exciting and every hero or heroine larger-than-life.  She’d taken Silke to the forest and introduced her to the plants and trees, carefully and patiently teaching her which were poisonous, edible, or could be used for medicine.  She’d taken Tora into her heart and gave the girls plenty of time to train in the skills Silke needed as the demon slayer.
           
“I can’t imagine what kind of life those men have led.” Silke’s heart ached for the warriors.  In modern times, the story of Carpathian males hunting vampires and sustaining near-fatal wounds yet going back over and over again to do the same thing, should have been more like a grim fairytale, but Silke had always considered those stories reality.  Perhaps it was the way both Fenja and Tora regaled her with tales of the past so often that those stories became believable to her.
           
Tora sighed, glancing upwards toward the sky again.  The clouds had drifted closer, no longer out over the sea, but nearly directly above the forest.  Now, rather than angry dark and boiling, the shapes were intact and the color various shades of charcoal. 
           
“They’re back,” Silke announced.
           
“They’re so predictable,” Tora said.  “You called it when you said they hadn’t left.  Do they think we’re going to fall for their tricks and reveal ourselves to them?”
           
“Tora, whoever creates the storms had to have been like you at one time.  Why would they be in the underworld?”
           
“A vampire was a Carpathian,” Tora reminded.  “Once destroyed, they very well could be trapped in the underworld and subject to Lilith’s bidding.  She’s a cruel and exacting mistress from everything I’ve been told.  There have been three battles with her armies.  She used vampires and mages to aid her demons.”
           
“This beast you guard, could he be the one building the storms for them?  Would he have that kind of power?”
           
Again, the look of anxiety crossed Tora’s face.  “The reason he’s locked behind the gates is because even Lilith fears him.  She wants to find a way to control him as do other factions.  That’s why you need to guard the tarot cards so carefully.  Like the soul you’re keeping safe, the cards must be kept safe and away from others as well.”
          
Silke took her gaze from the clouds gathering over the forest to study Tora’s expression.  Tora was an absolutely beautiful woman.  Her skin was flawless.  Her hair was dark, thick, and shiny.  Her eyes were shaped like a cat’s and colored a deep emerald green.  Every man that met her, young or old, was enamored with her and it was easy to see why.  Not only was she beautiful but she had a mesmerizing quality to her.  Just being in her presence was soothing.
           
“Tora, clearly you’re worried about my reaction to whatever it is you’re holding back.”
           
Tora rubbed along the bottom of her chin with her closed fist.  It was one of the few things she did when nervous.  To others, she would never give that telling sign away, but she knew she was safe with Silke, even if she had withheld something important. 

Silke didn’t hold grudges.  Not ever.  She sometimes got even, as she had when two young boys tried to push her around in school when she was eleven.  That hadn’t ended well for them.  When one tried to push her so the other could steal her lunch, she beat them up right there in the schoolyard.  She told them that until they apologized bad things would happen to them.  It only took three days of insects crawling all over their bedrooms, clothes, and toys before they gave her the apology.  After they apologized, she brought them fruits and baked goods often because Fenja told her the boys didn’t have a lot in the way of food. Their father had gone on a fishing trip and never returned.  Their mother struggled to make ends meet.  That was one of the first lessons when she realized although the village was filled with happy people, some struggled.

“It’s your lifemate, I know he’s one of the ancients.” Tora made it sound as if she were confessing a great sin.

Silke frowned, trying to comprehend her meaning.  Obviously, that revelation was supposed to be significant.  She shifted her gaze to the clouds when she felt the buildup of energy.  “They’re going to rain lightning on us in an attempt to penetrate the veil you are protecting the forest with.” 

Tora gripped her arm. “Honey, did you hear what I said?”

“I figured out that if I was guardian to a soul, he would have to be a Carpathian warrior living the kind of horrible life you told me about.  This doesn’t come as a shock.”

Again, Tora rubbed her arms as if cold.  “He’s ancient.  Your lifemate is one of the very ancient Carpathians.  There were a few who held out far longer than others.  They became…more.  From everything the others guarding the gates told me, these ancients have much battle experience and powerful gifts developed over two thousand years of going into battle.  In that time, they made numerous kills.  Even when one doesn’t feel, killing takes a toll.  Living in that endless void takes a toll.”

Silke was trying to understand what Tora was not telling her.  “But they haven’t chosen to suicide, and they didn’t choose to become vampire.  It seems they are extremely strong. Isn’t that a good thing?”

“They have a code.  They believe they owe it to their lifemates to remain on earth searching until they find them.  These men secreted themselves in a monastery in the Carpathian Mountains to keep from going insane or turning.  Each battle, each kill, brought them closer to the brink, so it seemed a good idea to lock themselves away.  Your lifemate did that.  He’s considered extremely dangerous, Silke.  He’s powerful and has gifts many other Carpathians don’t and most hunters have tremendous talents.  Already, it is whispered that should he turn vampire few, if any, could defeat him.”

Silke found herself frowning, still trying to puzzle out Tora’s concern.  She wasn’t certain what Tora was trying to tell her.  It was very unlike Tora not to be direct, especially with Silke.  They were very close.  Silke tended to follow where Tora led, trusting Tora to show her the things she needed to learn to better defend their people.  More than that, she allowed Tora to take the lead because she loved and trusted her.  Tora had never let her down.

“Justice, the beast we guard, was Carpathian.”  Tora frowned.  “Is Carpathian or has remnants of his Carpathian code.  Gaia would never stay with him otherwise.  Gaia was brought to the underworld as a child.  An exchange was made with Xavier, the high mage.  I think Lilith wanted her for her ability to talk to animals.  When she couldn’t mold Gaia to her likeness, she allowed demons to terrify her.  Gaia hid in the beast’s territory, inside the gates with him.  He protected her and made it known she was under his protection.  That was how their friendship began.”

“Again, he sounds like a hero to me.”

Jagged lightning ripped through the sky, sizzling and crackling as almost simultaneously, the roar of thunder shook the forest and ground.  The strike was directly overhead, yet it never penetrated the canopy.  Ground to sky, the energy couldn’t build because the heavy layers of fog were impenetrable.  As if the lightning were dozens of swords and spears, the bolts rained down seeking an entry.

The veil held despite the relentless battering.  The lightning bolts couldn’t penetrate the mysterious fog that covered the forest.

“You would think they would recognize the touch of a Carpathian,” Silke said.  “If Lilith has vampires at her disposal, and I can’t imagine that she doesn’t, why don’t they recognize that the forest is protected by a Carpathian?”

Tora gave her an enigmatic smile.  “I was a young woman when the Battle of Baduhenna took place.  Over the years I have learned many, many things.  It seems that most Carpathians trained under the high mage, Xavier.  The spells they learned to safeguard, even using just one weave that is familiar to vampires would quickly identify a Carpathian, but I had no such experience.  Everything I learned was through trial and error.  My weaves are natural, all about the earth.  I learned mainly from nature and all the creatures I came across from the time I was a child.”
“You never talk about your parents.”

“I was very young when they passed.  My father hunted a vampire, and he was killed.”  Tora’s voice was very matter-of-fact.  “The vampire followed the trail back to my mother and me.  My mother defended me, but he would have killed us both if it wasn’t for your ancestors.  A group of women heard my screams, and they came running.  My mother knew them and was able to tell them how to aid us in defeating the vampire.  It was your ancestors leading the way fearlessly.  They took me in and raised me when my mother succumbed to her wounds.”

Silke knew the battle and death of Tora’s parents had happened centuries earlier.  Tora acted stoic about it, but Silke sensed her underlying sorrow. 

“I’m so sorry, Tora.  It’s never easy to lose one’s parents.  I didn’t know mine, but if I were to lose Fenja, I know I would never get over the loss.  I’m so happy it was my family that took you in.  You’re my sister.  I love you very much.”

They didn’t often express their affection for one another, although they showed it in the things they did for each other.

“This Carpathian warrior who is your lifemate,” Tora blurted out.  “Like I said, he’s one of the ones that had been in the monastery.  He’s lived longer than I have.  I’m told he’s extremely dangerous.  Even other Carpathians who were in the monastery are leery of him.  He has developed gifts that would make him nearly impossible to defeat in battle, just the way Justice has developed them.”

“What are you saying in plain language?  Do you believe the man I’ve been promised to is like the beast you and the others have kept behind the gates?”

Tora frowned and rubbed her chin.  “I don’t know.  No one knows, only that when you live so long and fight so many battles something happens to you.  It isn’t vampire but more like a demon.  Not the type of demons Lilith commands.  One with all the knowledge of centuries of battles.  Scary strong.”

Silke stared at her friend for a long time in utter astonishment.  Then she burst out laughing.  “You’re telling me the soul I guard could very well belong to a demon.  I’m a demon slayer.  He’s supposed to be my husband.  I guess that’s very fitting. If he gets out of hand, I’ll be the one who is supposed to take him down.”
“It isn’t a laughing matter,” Tora scolded.

“It is.  You really need to see the irony of a demon slayer having a demon as a husband.  Sheesh, Tora, what could be funnier than that?”