After leaving Dee’s lair, Caia had tracked the Prophet down in the trace. The old guy was in Greece, putting his feet up while the Midnights figured out just who was in charge now Nikolai was A.W.O.L. Tracking him was the easy part; it was getting a hold of him that was proving to be problematic. Caia wasn’t confident enough in her communication spell to travel to somewhere she had never been before and she didn’t have Vil because, well, he was with the pack. Saffron could transform into a bird and fly there but that would take days they didn’t have. In the end it was Nikolai who came to the rescue. Reuben called him and asked him if he had ever been to the Prophet’s place in Greece and surprise, surprise the Midnight had. Nikolai told Reuben to bring Caia and Saffron to his beach house and he’d get the Prophet to come back with him to speak with Caia. And that was exactly what he did.
Now, Caia hadn’t known what she’d been expecting. OK. So she did know. She had been expecting some withered old man with a long white beard, wearing ancient Greek dress and banging around the place with a staff. Pretty much Gandalf in ancient Greek clothing. The Prophet hadn’t been anything like that. He had been old… like seventy old, but with a full head of pepper grey hair and a trim physique. He walked like a man years younger than he looked. He was all handsome older man in white linen trousers and shirt. The dude was less Gandalf more… Sean Connery. He’d been a charmer alright. He had approached Caia with a careful smile, his light eyes drinking her in from head to foot. Almost tentatively the Prophet had taken her hand between the palms of both of his and shook it gently.
“So this is Caia Ribeiro.” He’d smiled, shaking his head in wonderment. “You’re just what I imagined.”
That had amused her. “Well, you’re the only one who pictured me like me. I think people were imagining… taller and well… just taller.”
He chuckled warmly and nodded. “I’ve waited a long time to meet you.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“And now you wish to speak with me?”
Caia had gestured to Nikolai’s sofas and the Prophet had followed her to the seating area. He had laughed a little at the way Reuben, Saffron and Nikolai had trailed them, barely giving them room to breathe.
“Nice to see you, Kirios.” The Prophet grinned at Reuben.
The vampyre narrowed his eyes on him. “Your last bout of information regarding the Septum turned into crap. That’s why you’re here.”
“Jeez, Reuben, are you always so rude?” Caia had admonished him and turned politely back to the Prophet. “Ignore him.”
“Ignore him?” Reuben spluttered. “Old man you sent us on a twenty year goose chase.”
The old man shrugged lazily but his eyes turned serious. “And yet here I am speaking with Caia. And she has something very important to ask me. Something that will matter. So… maybe the goose chase wasn’t really a goose chase after all.”
Saffron had taken that moment to roll her eyes. “Oh please, don’t give us that everything happens for a reason bullcrap.”
Their disrespect towards the Cassandrian had made Caia extremely uncomfortable and she gritted her teeth, waiting for him to decide their insults weren’t worth it and just… poof! Leave them with no words of wisdom or plan.
But he hadn’t done any of that. Instead he had pinned Saffron with an implacable look and said in a voice that sent shivers racing down Caia’s spine, “You’re a child of the gods and you don’t believe in fate? If you don’t believe in fate then what have we been doing for the last seven hundred years, Saffron?”
She grumbled under her breath and tossed her hair. “I believe in fate,” she’d said finally and then twitched a little before throwing herself down into an armchair. “Sorry, I’m just very anxious and very tired.”
The Prophet had nodded, instantly dismissing her childish outburst. And then he had turned his attention back to Caia. “Well, my dear, I already know what you wish to ask. You wish to ask me, if you were to become the Head of the Daylight Coven, as Head of both Covens, could we ask the gods to take the trace away.”
Caia had gaped at him. “Did Nikolai tell you?”
“No,” the Prophet and Nikolai replied in unison.
The Prophet had tapped his fingers to his head, smiling kindly as he told her, “Visions, my dear. The gods see all and they communicate through me.”
Excitement had buzzed through them all in that moment, all three of them leaning in towards the old man together. “So?” she had asked. “Will they? Will they take it away?”
Disappointingly the Prophet had merely shrugged. “They’re still deliberating.”
“What do you mean they’re still deliberating? What’s there to deliberate about?”
At that, he had let out a gust of laughter, leaving them all bemused, which was pretty much how the entire meeting with him had gone so far. “My dear girl, we are the gods’ only source of entertainment. They’ll drag this out a little.”
“And by a little, you mean?”
“A few days, a few weeks-”
“Not months,” Caia had gasped. “Please don’t say months.”
“I don’t know. But as soon as I do, I will return with the answer.”
And then he was gone.
“Whoa.” Reuben shook his head. “That guy has had some serious work done. Last time I saw him he was wheezing and banging around with a stick.”
Nikolai nodded. “He really let himself go during Devlyn’s reign. My Regency did a world of wonders for him.”
Caia had just stared at them like they were crazy. Sometimes they were so inappropriately blasé.
So she had been waiting for a couple of weeks now, slowly going mad as she wandered from room to room. She had spent her time going for runs on the beach as a human during the day and as a wolf at night. Other than Reuben’s ‘helpful’ training regime every day, where he tried to get her to focus the unknown energy that made her so special – and they were getting there slowly but surely – he and Nikolai weren’t much company. When Nikolai wasn’t complaining about furniture and accessories he was losing to Caia’s training (she was successfully turning items to ash by choice by now), he and Reuben could literally sit still for hours, staring at nothing and speaking to no one. It was creepy. As for Saffron, the faerie kept coming and going as she pleased, and Caia had never envied anyone more for their abilities than during those weeks cooped up in the beach house with only a vampyre and a magik for company. With no one to really talk to she found herself dwelling on the pack a lot. At night it was hard not to cry herself to sleep thinking about their loss. For her the biggest hurt was the loss of Dimitri. It wasn’t just that he had looked out for her or cared for her; it was more the thought of how much his loss was hurting the people closest to her. Jaeden to be exact. Her friend had already suffered through so much; Caia ached for her. And she ached, wondering if she would ever have the pack back, admitting only to herself how lonely she was without them; lonely without Lucien to fall asleep with at night.
On top of that there was her trace. It had begun tingling all over the place, telling her the Midnights were reorganizing themselves. Two magiks were out in front for leadership, Jack Straton an Australian and a Russian woman called Orina Beketov. Caia had been praying for Straton to make the grade since he wanted to find Nikolai first (a task she knew was impossible and would keep them occupied forever) before taking on the Daylights. Beketov wanted to begin where they had left off, starting with a major attack against the New York Krôls, one of America’s largest vampyre covens. The worst day for Caia came when the trace told her Orina had won the votes. She was the new Regent of the Midnight Coven and the woman was as vicious as they came. Her plans for the attack were all set in motion, ready to take off in one month’s time. Of course Caia had wanted to go straight to the Center to let them know so they could prepare themselves and warn the Krôls. But Nikolai and Reuben wouldn’t let her, and by wouldn’t let her she meant Nikolai had put a spell around her that stopped her from using her communication spell. And she couldn’t find a way around it. Unfortunately, she still had so much to learn.
It had been a week since she had learned of the Midnight’s plan for attack. For once they were all together, Saffron, Nikolai, Reuben and her sitting around the kitchen actually participating in conversation.
“No, it’s definitely a different guy that’s the voice of Kermit the Frog. It has been for years,” Reuben insisted as he sipped from a mug of warm blood.
Nikolai frowned. “No. We get Sesame Street in Russia too. You can’t fool me… Kermit has sounded the same for decades.”
Caia tried to hide her snort in her toast.
Reuben groaned, “Yeah, because they found a guy who sounds exactly like him.”
The Russian looked pensive for a moment. “So… how long are we talking about?”
“I dunno… Jim Henson died in 1990.”
Nikolai shook his head looking disturbed. “No, that’s no right. I see Muppet Christmas Carol; that was definitely the original Kermit.”
“Oh.” Caia grinned, remembering watching that movie during the lonely Christmas holidays she had spent with Irini. Obviously they didn’t believe in Christmas and all that stuff but most supernaturals celebrated it to fit in with the humans. “I love that movie.”
Saffron leaned back in her chair. “Were you even an egg when that movie came out?”
“It was 1992.” Reuben nodded. “Caia was just about to hatch.”
“No.” Nikolai insisted. “Then that can’t be right. You said Henson did in 1990, da?”
“Yeah and Steve Whitmire took over for him. He’s the voice of Kermit the Frog in the Muppet Christmas Carol.”
This seemed to disturb Nikolai and Caia shared an amused look with Saffron. He shook his head again. “I could have sworn Kermit has always been Kermit. What I want to know is how he sounds so much like the other man?”
Caia grunted into her juice this time. “What I want to know is how Reuben knows so much about this stuff?”
The vampyre scowled at her. “Photographic memory.”
“And Jim Henson’s Productions was one of the institutions you felt necessary to study up on?” Saffron asked with a dead pan face.
Caia choked on a piece of toast.
“Isn’t anyone going to rescue Caia from the toast?” A familiar voice intruded. Caia was suddenly whacked on the back (hard) by Nikolai and the toast dislodged itself. She looked up to see the Prophet standing over the table.
“Better?” he asked softly.
She winced at the sting Nikolai’s hand had left but thanked him nonetheless before turning back on the Prophet. She gazed up at him imploringly. “Please tell me you have news.”
He grinned back at her. “Finally, I have news.”
“Well?” Saffron snapped impatiently.