Servant of the Moon #1 - unedited draft

25 years ago, 7 years before the birth of Esther and Delilah, 9 ½ years before the birth of Moire and Comhnyall, when Tamaza Ayala of Naphtal was Delphi.

The sun had set two hours ago, Lanea and Larson sat in the garden playing with a fluffy kitten Catresa had acquired from a local farm. They were giggling as Larson dangled a feather over it, while they waited for their parents, and their grandparents, to finish greeting the guests. It was Larson’s 3rd birthday. The whole garden was lighted with chandeliers over long tables. Everyone clapped when Larson blew out his candles, and laughed when he had sneezed and headbutted his cake, covering his forehead and pale blond hair in frosting. He had been such a weak and tiny vampire babe that they had all feared he would not survive his first year, but Lanea was sure he would live and he had. Now he thrived.

Lanea giggled, burying her face in her grandfather Lain’s sleeve as her mother and grandmother tried futilely to clean the squirming toddler. His pale red eyes held her scarlet ones and he smiled. Her father often said she was the only person in the whole world his father would smile for. The light flickered and she looked at the lodge. Suddenly, she felt a cold breeze and the lights of the lodge turned to fire, and the shadows in the grass turned to blood. Her eyes grew wide with fear, as her small hands clenched on his sleeve. At 12, she was the youngest augur of the vampire race, a seer blessed with the gift or curse to see beyond the world of the living and the undead, as his people were called. Her eyes turned black as the shadows spoke to her.

“What did you see, my pale angel?” her grandfather asked in a low, concerned tone.

She gazed back to him, “The lights... they turned to fire and there was blood on the grass.” She was quiet for a moment, then adds, “Grandfather, my sight says death is coming. A wolf on fire.” A single tear ran down her pale cheek, Lord Lain wiped it away gently, studying her face.

“When, my angel?” he inquired calmly.

“Tonight,” she whispered. Her eyes begged him to believe her and he did.

“Listen carefully, Lanea, stay close to your brother. If it comes, take Larson and flee, run and do not look back,” he ordered her. “Now try to smile, it is your brother’s birthday.”

“I will obey, grandfather,” she promised, smiling wanly.

He kissed her on the forehead before rising and going to speak with her father and his Master-of-Arms. Rumors of attacks against covens have increased in the last decade but no one knew who the attackers were, only that no one survives and the missing are never found. If they are coming for his coven, they are going to face a battle. Lain believed the werewolves and witches have allied to destroy his kind and break the thousand year truce that has separated life from all out war.

Oddly just today, he received a letter from the werewolves’ highest oracle, she had been given a vision for him from her Goddess. A warning she hoped he would understand because she did not. It was horrifyingly detailed about the ways of his people and the betrayer in their midst who wished to profit from his granddaughter’s gift by selling her to the sun-worshipers. He had hoped he would have more time.

It had been a long night and was almost dawn. Larson was yawning constantly when their mother picked him up, to take him to bed. Kitten tucked in her arms, Lanea rose to follow. Lanea felt the cold breeze again and rushed to catch up with her mother but her uncle blocked her way. She doesn’t like the way he always watched her and tried to touch her.

“Leaving so soon, little Lanea,” he hissed, his face is half-shadowed under his hood.

She was afraid, but her grandfather always taught her to never show fear around other vampires, so she bravely announced, “I am just going to see my baby brother to bed. Good night, uncle.”

“Oh, you can miss one night,” his lips curled in a malevolent smile, “The evening is just getting interesting.”

Lanea swallowed and backed up a step, she couldn’t help it as she stammered, “B.. But I promised when he was a b... babe, I... I wouldn’t be a very good big sister if I broke my promise on his birthday.” She finished in a rush, “Please, excuse me.”

Her uncle smiled at her in a way that makes bumps dance across her skin, “Such good manners and so beautiful. Your parents must be very proud, little angel.”

“Th-thank y-you, uncle,” then she ran as she quickly could and shut the door behind her leaning against it, trembling. She bolted up the stairs to her brother’s nursery and locked the door. The enchantment of the threshold will protect them as long as they stay inside the lodge, inside this room. No hostile vampire can enter here and her mother does not trust her uncle. Lanea heard her talking to the witch who enchanted the doorway and windows. She decided to sleep in Larson’s room, tonight rather than risk the journey down the hall to her own, her threshold isn’t protected. She doesn’t know why she feels so terrified but she could not push away the feelings of dread.

A scream jolted Lanea awake, she could feel it as much as hear it, her mother was dying. Outside the sounds of the party have been replaced by the sound of wolves and vampires battling. The thick stench of smoke and burning flesh fills the air. Sliding the slats in the shutters open, and looking below she sees her grandfather Lain standing, back to back, with Master-of-Arms Maximus. Both have the hagard look of vampires who have lost their beloved. They are surrounded by a half-dozen werewolves. Her grandmother Vanessa is dead in the grass, their nanny Catresa near her side. Lanea cannot see her parents, only the bodies of their coven, she knows no one is coming to help them. Nothing living could get in this room to harm them, but the fire could. She had to save her brother before the burning mansion claimed them. Lanea wrapped Larson in his favorite blanket and rushed to the door.

A voice stopped her, ‘NO! Don’t open it, there are flames just beyond.’

Lanea realized if she opened the door, they won’t make it. Desperately, she went to the window, shoving the heavy shutter open, and climbs out. Three stories isn’t a long drop for an adult vampire, but to a 12-year-old holding her baby brother, it was forever. She edged carefully to the corner and jumps down to the overhang below. Beneath her feet, the roof feels hot and soft.

‘Run!’ the voice shouted at her and she does... toward the edge with pieces of the roof caving in behind them. Flames reached though the holes trying to claim them.

Suddenly, someone scooped her and Larson up in his arms and jumped the two stories down. Her father was carrying them, he was covered in his own blood and Lanea realized by the smell, her mother’s and her uncle’s. His face was grim as he rushed toward the gates. Something collided with them and they rolled into the grass. Somehow Lanea was still holding on to Larson, who was crying.

“Run, Lanea! GO!” Laren shouted at her, grappling with three werewolves, she watched them tear her father apart.

A large golden and gray werewolf warform advanced on her, growling. The ancient symbol of the sun-war god tattooed on his shoulder, vines of flames circling his torso visible though his fur. His soul was not his own, it was ancient, and this was not the first body it had lived in. It needed her blood, the blood of her people so it could move to its next host, so it’s children could be born. She was paralyzed in fear, the voice she heard before was shouting at her to flee, but she couldn’t move. It is the monster of her nightmares come to claim her soul and her blood for his god of fire and war. She watched his fur melt way into the most hideous male she had ever seen. The tattoos glow sickly gold like fire. He smiled in a way that makes him even more terrifying and Lanea began to back away. She turned and ran, carrying her little brother. Her feeble attempt to flee made him laugh as he stalked her through the burning gardens.

‘Run to the reflecting pond and jump in, HURRY!’ the voice urged her.

She fled faster from the monster, carrying her little brother. She could feel him following her at a slow almost leisurely pace, she was prey and he was stalking her. She darted between the hedges, grateful for how she had once loved playing hide and seek in the maze of greenery. She stopped gasping for breath at the raised edge of the reflecting pool.

Why did she come here there is no way out but the one she came? Panicked, Lanea turned full circle. The sun was rising, there was no shelter for her or her brother, their delicate skin would be burned and blistered in moments. She heard the burning werewolf coming, and backs into the fountain, falling into the water. A foot of water turns into many and two arms clutched her tightly as she struggled not to drown.

‘I’ve got you, only a moment more.’ the voice promised.

Lanea and Larson were shoved to the surface of a fountain, the water inches deep. This one inside a darken entry of another coven manor. As they cough, soaking water onto the floor, vampires rush toward them. Her mother’s parents hurry to them, her grandmother sobbing in relief as she held her. Lanea glanced at the fountain to see a dark-haired, deep blue-eyed woman smiling at her sadly before vanishing in the ripples. ‘Remember whom you saw tonight. Tell your grandmother your dreams, Augur Vampyr. The sun is rising.’

The present...

Delilah sat back in her chair, as Delphi she was allowed to read the vision other oracles and previous Delphis had recorded. For many generations, no records were kept with disastrous results, visions that if shared could have prevented great wars and tragedies were misplaced or misunderstood until too late. So secretly, the Servants of her family had began collecting and cataloging them. An oracle was not allowed to speak to anyone but the petitioner of their vision, but visions that came during meditations or appeared in adjunct to a petitioner’s vision were recorded. However as in years past, some visions were not understood until after the events they predicted.

Del was trying to find if there were any references to the sun-worshiping wolf Esther so feared. What she found was an account of her mother using the Tides to rescue two vampire children from an attacked coven, they were attacked by an older version of the apostate and another account of an earlier vision of the old sun-bleached wolf skeleton burning the blood of vampires in front of a burned out mansion with the symbol of one of the vampire royal houses, as the blood burned the flesh on the skeleton was restored. The pages indicated her mother had sent them a warning they had not headed or didn’t understand. A handwritten note on the last page said to find the Augur Vampyr Lanea and ask her the secret of the sun wolf’s soul. It was in her mother’s curled script and not the archivist’s blocky letters.

Delilah had no idea how to find a mythic seer of the vampires or even any vampires. Their race had hidden itself from all the other non-humans long before she was born and no wolf or witch knew why. She looked around the archives, only she and the archivist were allowed in here. Perhaps she and Esther would switch and Esther could find what she had missed.

Every time Del tried to scry for him, all she saw was the blinding sun overhead, blazing fiercely.It burned away the water of the Sacred Tides until there was nothing but a barren, cracked wasteland. Then the blood of every living thing began to bubble up between the cracks, so thick she couldn’t swim in it, so sticky she wouldn’t walk on it. After the third time of almost dying, Essie forbid her to do it again, saying they would find another way to track her evil mate.

She rubbed one hand over her heart, and the other over the empty place where Luca’s mark should be. It had taken almost a year to fade. Suddenly, overcome with grief, Delilah heaved a great sob, she didn’t want to be the Delphi, she couldn’t even save her own mate so how was she supposed to save all of wolf and vampire and witch and human kinds. How can she save her sister from a threat she can’t even see? Frustrated and mate-lost, she buries her head in her arms and cries out her grief.

Essie watched her sister dragging herself to her rooms, Delilah had gone from scrying all night to the archives. She looked like death warmed over, no actually, Essie decided, she looked like freezer-burned, microwave-thawed death on a cheap paper plate. Del didn’t even close the door behind her, Essie looked into her room to see her sister shutting herself in Luca’s closet. It wasn’t really his closet, they had never shared a room here but she had all of his clothes and bedding moved into the small space. Essie could barely feel her sister’s grief over the buzzing vibration in her head, saddened and annoyed, Essie lit a cigarette.

“Do not smoke in the Delphi’s room,“Louis snapped at her as he pushed by and tapped lightly on the closet door, “Delilah, I brought you some tea and crepes. Please, you must eat.”

Esther stood watching him pleading with her sister to open the door for several minutes before she snuffed her cigarette out. She took the tray from him and shoved him away from the door. Holding the tray in one hand she pulled a lock blade from her boot and jimmied the door. “Sis, eat or I will drag you out by your hair and force feed you.” Then she slammed the door. “See, Louie, easy peasy. Now, get out of my sister’s room.”

“You cannot talk to me like that Esther, I am the petitioner’s coordinator now, I have responsibilities, unlike you,” Louis snarled back at her.

Esther just rolled her eyes, venting hostilely “She will never pick you to replace Luca, she will never pick anyone to replace him. They had a true bond. It will never be broken, only stretched thin until she joins him.”

“You think I am unworthy of the Delphi because I fucked you first?” He challenged.

She pointed the tip of the blade at him, her eyes narrow, “You were just a pleasant distraction after Ren and Michel, and not nearly as ‘attentive to my needs’,” she slurred the last words in a false french accent and watched as red rage creeped up his neck.

He let out a stream of profanities in his native French Canadian, that includes the words; prostitute, slut, and bi tch.

She just laughed, “Oh Louie, Louie, Louie. I am an unmated shewolf, you aren’t insulting me. I am a bi tch. You insult my sister AND your brother by wanting to take his place.” Her voice dropped to a low and deadly tone. “Now get out or my sister will need an new ‘petitioner’s coordinator’.” She showed him her teeth.

“Do not threaten me, Esther, I was was warrior before I came here,” he snarled back.

“And I was the daughter of a Benjmin Beta trained by a Shogunate wolf,” she reminded him that he was not a threat to her. Stalking toward him, slowly flipping her blade in her hand, "Go or become carpet."

He retreated, hating that his wolf fears hers, “This is not over, Esther.” He slammed the door behind him.

Essie clicked her knife shut and rubbed her forehead, what did she ever see in that wolf, she wondered. What she thought he was and what he is are so disparaged. Like he and his twin, Louis and Luca were as different as night and day. She dragged a chair over to the door by the closet, and sat down, leaning her elbow on her knee.

“I’m right here, Del. I’m here and I’m not leaving, I didn’t get to tell you about training today. We got a few of the wolves from the Old Wemyss pack over to train with the protectors, and let me tell you, damn girl, they are some hot pieces of wolf-meat. Eye-candy galore on the training grounds for the next week. If you wanna trade places and sneak out to see them, we can switch, it’ll be tots worth the bait and switch. I’ll even let you pretend to be me if you want a roll with one of them.”

She paused to lit another cigarette and took a few puffs, waiting for the buzzing in her head to subside to a low hum before for continuing to talk aimlessly for hours about her training and how scrumptious looking the visiting warrior wolves are and that she may need to sample some of that candy before they leave. Finally, the door unlocked and Del handed her the tray, food uneaten.

“Do you ever shut up?” Del asked tiredly.

Essie smirked, “Nope... Not if I can help it. Do you ever eat?”

Del smiled at her wanly, “Nope... Not if I can help it.”

They may look the same but they are as different as night and day.

::Inspired by the Vampires of @SerenityR0se and the Blood Magic Series and with her permission.Thanks for allowing me to trespass in your world, Mistress K.::