“Why?”
“I do not know. I am only doing what I’ve been led to do in my visions.”
Kirios nodded. “I understand. But what am I to do with this?”
The Prophet shrugged. “Whatever comes naturally to you, my son.”
The seer struggled to his feet, Kirios rushing to help him, a frown marring his handsome face. “I have taken too much.”
“No, no. You did fine. Most vampyres do not have your restraint.”
“What are you doing?”
“Getting you out of here.”
At that he began yelling at the top of his voice, screaming for help. When they heard shuffling of feet drawing closer, the Prophet turned away from the entrance so their captors would not see the neck wound, only the blood on his hands. Kirios lay on the ground, his mouth wiped clean of the blood, pretending to be as weak as ever. It was a masquerade that would end once the Midnights looked close enough to see the fullness in his body, the healthy sheen of his skin and hair.
“What is all this yelling?!”
“I’ve been hurt,” the Prophet grumbled.
“Let me have… dear goddess, man, what the Hades have you done?”
“I slipped. I’m bleeding badly.”
“Can’t you fix that yourself?” The magik sighed in irritation.
“You haven’t fed me for days. I don’t have the energy.”
“Fine.” The first magik turned to the other. “Take the spell down.”
There was only a moments silence and then a rush of sound like waves crashing on shore.
“Go, Kirios!” the Prophet yelled.
He was gone before they even knew what had happened, running like the wind itself, brushing by blurred magiks and out of their citadel. Yes, he was a different creature from the one that had been thrown into the prison. He was an altogether new breed.
Paris, 1385
“I have something to tell you.”
Kirios turned slowly and narrowed his eyes on the beautiful woman in his bed. Her long elegant lines were enticing as all Hades and any other time he would have been perusing them languidly. But her tone was not something to be dismissed. The faerie in his bed had been keeping secrets from him.
“Are you going to spoil the party, love?” he asked lazily, deceptively disguising how tense he had grown. The party he referred to was the one going on as they spoke. The young Charles VI of France had just been wed to his even younger bride, Isabeau of Bavaria, and France was holding its first ever court ball to celebrate. The faerie in his bed was a Daylight spy he had met a few years ago when tracking a rogue vampyre. She had been gathering evidence that the vampyre was a dog working for the Midnights and the two of them had collided on the hunt. Collided and then fallen straight into bed with one another. Theirs was a casual relationship, but one of mutual respect and trust. Or so he had thought. She had told Kirios the Coven had reason to believe the Midnights would use the celebration of the king’s marriage as an opportune time to attack the Daylights, who had set up one of their largest branches of the Coven in Paris. Kirios had been in Scotland at the time, hunting a particularly nasty lykan with his gang of hunters, when she had appeared asking for help. He had gladly acquiesced. They had just heard word that Richard II of England was sending a small army invasion force against the Scots and Kirios really hadn’t wanted to get stuck in the middle of his idiocy. It seemed he was forever dodging the battles involving the English and the French. Now after twenty-eight years the English were trying to pull the Scottish back into another damn war.
Dear Gaia, one war was enough for Kirios.
His people had assured him they could find the lykan without him and off he’d gone. It was, after all, a break from the tedium of hunting rogue Daylights. He much preferred the chance to cut down Midnights, whether magik or faerie, loving the complete shock on their face when they realized he was impervious to their magik; another beautiful gift from the Prophet’s blood.
“We did not just meet by chance,” she said softly, drawing the bed coverings over herself nervously.
Kirios shook his head. “I’m not sure I understand, Saffron.”
Saffron sighed. “I was captured within the stronghold of the Midnight Coven when I was spying. I was careless. Or maybe I wasn’t. He was a Cassandrian after all. He knew I was there. He told me to call him the Prophet. That he had seen me in his visions. That I would play a part in bringing the war to an end… 700 years in the future.” She shook her head in amazement. All the time she had been speaking Kirios’ heart had been racing. He stumbled over to the bed and plunked down beside her, his eyes wide with excitement. All these years and nothing. He had almost gone crazy with frustration because nothing had pointed him in the right direction. Finally, here was something.
“Only the strongest of us live that long now, Kirios. He says I am strong too.” She smiled a little shyly.
Kirios chuckled and stroked her cheek affectionately. “I’m not surprised. You’re just a baby and already you’re one of the greatest spies the Coven has.”
She blushed. “You really think so?”
He tut-tutted. “No more compliments for you until you tell me what else he said.”
“He told me about you. Nothing more… just where to find you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this when we first met?”
“I was afraid. I didn’t know if I could trust you.”
“And now…”
She laughed. “Kirios, I brought you all the way to France with false information in order to speak with you about this.”
He snorted. So that was why things had been so quiet around here; why they couldn’t find any signs of an imminent attack from the Midnights.
“Why did you not speak with me in Scotland?”
Saffron bit her lip and ducked her head, her long silver blonde hair falling in front of her stunning face. “I wanted to be on home ground for such a declaration.”
Kirios struggled not to laugh at her logic. “Of course. How silly of me.”
She shrugged off his teasing and looked up at him with wide pleading eyes. “Why did he tell me to find you, Kirios?”
He sighed heavily. “Because he once visited me too.”
With that he told her all he could, about the Prophet, about his visions, of what he thought Kirios’ help would do. And now Saffron too,
“So.” She frowned in thought. “What does that mean for us?”
“I think it means that you and I are stuck with one another for a very long time.”
St. Petersburg, Russia, 1725
Kirios waited impatiently for Petrovsky, burrowing into his fur coat. He wasn’t cold. He was never cold. But the city was charged with apprehension. Peter, the Emperor of Russia, had died the night before, and with no heir apparent a sense of foreboding hung above St. Petersburg like an omen of what was to come.
His ears perked up and he spun around at the sound of approaching footsteps. Petrovsky.
“Reuben,” he whispered, coming towards him. Kirios had caused a lot of suspicion over the years, legends of a vampyre who couldn’t be hurt by magik had begun to circulate. He had found it necessary to change his name and stay out of the magiks’ way so the legend could die. For some reason his instincts told him he should remain a shadow until the time was right.
“What took you?”
“Anna’s father. He thought we should properly mourn the emperor.”
Kirios frowned. “I forgot he’s quite involved in human affairs.”
Petrovsky nodded. Theirs was a strange and unexpected friendship. A few years back, when Kirios had been on a hunt in St. Petersburg, he had come across this young Midnight trying to help a Daylight. At first he couldn’t believe what he was seeing so… he stalked him for a while. Petrovksy was of lower class descent among the Midnights and seemed to go out of his way to find Daylights - spending his nights searching the underworld of St. Petersburg with the determination of a bloodhound. Finally, Kirios actually concerned for the over eager young magik who was most certainly going to be killed by the supernaturals who intrigued him merely for being a Midnight, had enough and revealed himself to the boy.
Petrovsky was fascinated by other supernaturals, had no ill-feeling towards them whatsoever. And for some reason, Kirios believed him. Petrovsky hated the mindless prejudice of the Midnights who had never treated him well anyway, and like a young soldier desperate to join the war, accepted Kirios’ command. After all, a Midnight working for the Daylights was an unimaginable gift. First Kirios had masked Petrovsky’s trace so that the Head of the Midnight Coven would never know his true intentions, and then he had set about making the boy wealthy. Kirios spread rumors that Petrovksy had killed many Daylights and that, alongside the boy’s quirky charm, made him a great favorite with the Head of the Midnight Coven. Certain sacrifices had to be made in order to prove himself. Petrovsky had to kill some Daylights but Kirios compartmentalized that issue as a necessity of war, and was proven right when Petrovsky was given a position on the Council. It was not long after he married Anna, the daughter of a prominent Midnight and a member of a very old, influential family within the Coven.
“I came here because you said you had urgent news,” Kirios snapped.
“I am sorry. I could not get away.”
“Fine. What is the problem, Alex?”
Alex grinned. “Anna. She is with child.”
The vampyre’s heart picked up speed. Yes. This was it. This would help change everything.
“Then we must work out a plan.”
The young man smiled cheekily. “I thought that was what you would say. You want to teach him, don’t you?”
Kirios nodded. “We have to. Your children must know the truth of this war, Alex.”
Petrovsky suddenly grew very serious. “Of course, Reuben. No child of mine will be contaminated with Midnight insanity.”
New Jersey, U.S.A 1950s
“Holy!- ”Kirios yelped, his glass of blood going everywhere as he jumped. His gang of Rogue Vampyre Hunters were all out and about in New York, prowling the night for its varied predators. He was taking a moment for sustenance when a familiar magik had popped up before him, inches in fact from his face.
The Prophet smiled sheepishly and took a few steps back. “Sorry, I’ve never quite got the hang of a communication spell.”
Kirios shook his head. “What… how?”
The Prophet looked like a sixty year old man now but his bright blue eyes convinced Kirios that the magik in front of him was definitely the seer he hadn’t seen in almost two thousand years.
“Still as articulate as ever, Kirios. Or is it Reuben now?”
He nodded shakily. Not many things could unsettle him but the sudden appearance of this guy definitely did. “What are you doing here?”
The Prophet tapped his head. “Had a few more visions I thought you might be interested in hearing about.”
Excitement immediately rushed through every cell in Kirios’ body. “Seriously? No joke… things are finally going to happen? Jeez, I almost gave up hope-”