Servant of the Moon #1 - unedited draft

::A special visit to the world of the Pureblood Vampires and Hunters of SerenityR0se’s Blood Magic series here on FindNovel.net::

https://www.FindNovel.net/stories/fantasy/198573

Del came staggering out of her scrying room, shouting for her sister and grandfather. Louis barely caught her before she plummeted down the stairs to the oracles’ living quarters.

“There’s.. going to be an... another attack...” she stammered, moonlight still glowing in her eyes like she was still on the Tides. “Must help... must stop...” She passed out in his arms, and he lifted her gently like a bride. Her head lolled against his shoulder.

One of the acolytes stared shocked at him as he held her in his arms. “Don’t just stare at me, foolish girl, get Elder Eliazar now!” The girl bobbed her head and ran past him.

Slowly, Louis carried Del down the stairs, savoring how she felt in his arm, against his chest. She smelled of sacred incense and purest snow. He pressed his lips against her forehead, relishing the flavor of her skin. If only she would be his. His foot nudged the door to her rooms open and he carried her into her bedroom, laying on her bed gently and covering her. Her black hair spreading around her like a veil. She never slept in her bed anymore, always on the floor of her closet surrounded by his brother’s scent, like a wounded animal. He growled his annoyance as he shut the door to the closet. For over a year, he had been at her beck and call, for over a year he waited for her to see that he loved her. For an oracle, she was blind to what was right in front of her. He heard her grandfather’s footsteps and annoyingly, her sister’s and the acolyte’s. He had not told the girl to bring that bitch but she must have heard the Delphi call for her.

“What is it? What did she see?” Eliazar demanded, Louis hated the old fool that kept him from proclaiming his love for the Delphi with the threat of sending him away from her, so to be close to Delilah, he needed to continue to pander to him.

“I do not know, she called for you and said, ‘There is going to be another attack, must help, must stop,’ then she passed out.” Louis explained. “Her eyes still glowed.”

“Who or what was the petition?” Essie demanded, taking her sister’s hand.

“I cannot tell you,” Louis said haughtily, “It is between the Delphi and the petitioner.”

Essie rose as if to attack Louis, but Eliazar stepped between them. “He’s right, Essie. But that vision lead to this one, we can only wait for her to awake. She must start remembering to bring herself all the way back from the Tides, no matter how traumatic the vision.”

“Louis, see if she made any notes. Acolyte Tessa, bring some of Healer Margo’s restoring tea for the Delphi. Essie, stay with her. I want to know the moment she wakes. I will put the Wanderers on alert.”

Essie looked at him, “But Grandfather we don’t know where the attack will be. Who will you alert?”

Eliazar’s eyes clouded with rage at the memory of his home pack’s destruction, “Everyone.” A new human device called a cellphone gave them a kind of packlink that reached from coast to coast.

He strode out and Louis followed. Eliazar tried not to clutch his fists. It was happening again, and this time he would not make Isaac’s mistake to wait for clarification or be foiled from sending aid by weather. He would be ready for what came, to aid whomever needed.

Essie brushed her fingertips over her sister’s forehead, she was so pale. She was reaching into her pocket for her smokes when she noticed a familiar and hated smell on her hand, she sniffed her finger tips then leaned over and sniffed her sister’s face. A feral growl vibrated in her chest and her mind cussed her ex-lover in every language she could remember. In the bathroom, she wet a cloth and carried it back, she would scrub his stench off her unconscious sister before she killed him. As Essie wiped Del’s face, her sister’s eyes flew open.

“Must stop.. Must help,” Del muttered incoherently.

“Yeah you said that already, sis. But who? Whose pack needs saving?” Essie asked around the cigarette in her mouth.

“Not a pack, a coven. The sunwolf is after a group of vampires living not to far away, I saw where we need to go.” Del was already struggling to get up.

“I’ll tell Grandpapa to send the Wanderer’s, we can...” Essie started.

“There’s no time. We have to leave now with the Shogunate wolves. The attack is tomorrow morning, I mean this morning.” Dell struggled to pull on jeans and a tee-shirt. They looked identical now, except that Del was thinner in the face from her grief.

“Uhh sis, what do you think you’re doing?” Esther knew Delilah should not leave the safety of the Temple in the middle of the night.

“Going with you, Ketsu, and Kiayou. Do you need to change?” Del’s eyes had that determined glint that always meant they were about to get into trouble.

Essie sighed and snubbed out her cigarette, “Well, let’s go before Grandpapa finds out or we’re both grounded. Rescuing vampires, Goddess what’s next?” Del gave her a flat look and Essie held up her hands in surrender, “Nevermind, I didn’t ask.”

Before dawn next morning, on a ferry to an island off the western Canadian coast, Essie leaned on the rail, staring at her cigarette, a tendril of ebony hair blowing across her face. Her healed head injury hurt as it always did, hummed away like static on a radio she couldn’t shut off. She couldn’t wait to start traveling again. She grieved for Delilah and her loss, but feared finding her mate more that anything. She struggled to understand how she could be mated to such a horrible, malevolent male.

Del walked up to her with a hot cocoa for each of them, “What cha’ thinking about?”

“My mate,” Essie answered honestly, frowning.

“Don’t, he’s not worth it. I don’t know what happened, but this is just wrong, he is not your mate,” Del declared viciously. She looked up at the cliffs as the ferry skimmed the pre-dawn coast, “There it is.”

Kaiyou’s growl rumbled from behind them, “It looks abandoned, Delphi.”

Delilah shrugged, “The Goddess showed me, us four standing at the doors of this place just after dawn.”

Their wolves made quick time from the ferry terminal to the mansion, Kaiyou had been correct. It was abandoned but from the blacked out windows and heavy shutters, it was clear vampires had once lived here. The heavy door swung brokenly on its hinges as leaves blew around the mossy, shallow fountain in the center of the room, water dripped into its basin from a hole in the ceiling above.

Essie sat on the edge, “What now, sis? No one has been here in years, maybe decades. Why did the Goddess send us here?”

Del wanders around, head bowed, listening for the Tides, for any whisper, suddenly her head popped up. “This is where she sent them.”

“Sent who, Delphi?” Kaiyou asked.

“Mother had a vision of a coven being attacked by a werewolf made of sun-bleached bones, he was gathering vampire blood to burn to regain his flesh. She sent a warning to that coven but it was still destroyed. The morning of the attack, two pureblood vampire children fell into the Tides and she guided them to safety and pushed them out again. Like how Essie and I got to the Hidden Eye. This is the place she sent them, I am sure, but I don’t know where they went after or why. Mother left a note on the last page of the record saying to find the Augur Vampyr and ask the secret of the sun-wolf’s soul,” Dell explained.

“Augur Vampyr? What or who is that?” Ketsu scowled.

Essie sighed, “The vampire equivalent of the Delphi. But she isn’t here, they’re...”

Essie stopped as the a breeze blows from one of the halls, it smelled like moonlight and the Tides. Essie was two steps behind Del as they ran though the dark halls into an enclosed room with a shimmering pool in the center. Ketsu collided with Essie’s back as she slid to a stop.

“Swim toward the moonlight,” Del shouted as she dove in, Kaiyou, a step behind her, did not hesitate to enter the water. Where the Delphi goes, he goes.

“Fu*ck me!” Essie breathed out in shock, then jumped in, Ketsu had no choice but to follow.

The water glowed and bubbled around the werewolves in strange iridescence and they swam deeper. They could see light on the top of the water that was now below them, before they burst through the surface. Del pulled herself up on the edge of a pool in a darkened room, coughing and gasping for breath. A pure-blood vampiress stared at her shock.

Del looked at her with certainty, “You must be the Augur Vampyr, I’m the Delphi of the Moon. My Goddess sent me, I mean us, to help you.”

Max and his brother Jack rushed into the pool room and stared, shocked, between the woman sitting on the edge of the pool and the three in the water. Max’s beloved Lanea was staring at the one closest. Max didn’t know if she was a threat or not. His double axe was in his hand in a moment as Jack flicked a blade ready to cut himself. Jack had been born with the ability to wield Blood magic, to turn any drop of blood into a weapon with the power of his mind and will.

Surprisingly Lanea rushed to the younger woman and hauled her to her feet, hugging her, “You came back.”

The dark haired female, looked at her strangely then recognition shined in her eyes, “It was my mother who saved you that morning, not I. My name is Delilah Ayala. We came to help.”

“We?” Lanea stepped back, looking at an identical woman, who was sadly examining a soaked pack of cigarettes. Two very similar males, obviously brothers, stood as if ready to jump to Delilah’s aid if she was threatened.

“This is my sister Esther, and our protectors, Kaiyou and Ketsu. We came through the Tides. I saw an attack coming and was lead to the place my mother sent you. The pool there brought us through the Tides to here,” Delilah explained.

Max and Jack just looked at each other for a moment before Max stepped toward his wife, “Excuse me, but what in the hell are you talking about? And what the hell are the Tides, there’s not an ocean near here.”

The other dark-haired woman laughed and smirked at him, “Just accept it, it’ll be easier, Whitey.”

“Whitey?" Max snarled at her.

Esther fumbled in her pocket, pulling out the wet cigarettes and muttered a curse as she stuffed them back in her pocket for the second time in as many minutes, “Yeah, Whitey. You and your buddy got some freaky eyes. I’m a werewolf with an oracle for a sister so trust me, I know freaky. Now when’s the attack coming?”

Jack slid his dagger back on his hip, “You just missed the attack, they killed many and took the children. I’m Jack and Whitey’s name is Max.”

The four werewolves looked between each other. The Delphi growled, “Goddess dammit, the fuc*king sunwolf is always one step ahead of me.”

“It’s ’cause you can’t see him, sis,” Esther reminded, reaching for her pocket for the third time, then scowled, “Hey Whitey, got any cigarettes a desperate wolf can bum?” Max scowled at her.

Jack laughed at Esther’s attitude, after the night they’d had, he was exhausted and to watch his brother get flustered by the soaking wet beauty was funny, “Come on... Esther? I’ll find you some.”

“Uh Jack, is it? Can you give Ketsu and Kaiyou anything that smells of the children while you’re getting my sister her nicotine fix?” Delilah asked.

He nodded waved for them to follow him, leaving Lanea, Max, and Delilah in the pool room.

Delilah turned to Lanea , her eyes sincere, “I am so sorry we’re late but I promise we will find them. Kaiyou and Ketsu are Shogunate wolves, they can track anything if they have the scent. Even scent blocking potions and magic doesn’t stop them.”

Lanea nodded, “Please, just find our children.” She leaned into Max, who hugged her. Delilah pushed away the pain in her heart, it was obvious to her they were mates or whatever the vampire equivalent was. “Your sister said you couldn’t see the sunwolf. How did you know we needed you?” Lanea’s question didn’t surprise Delilah.

“Augur Vampyr Lanea, I have been having visions of the terrible things he has caused and will cause for years, but every time I try to see him, I only get a vision of a wasteland,” Delilah started.

“The sun-baked earth with blood bubbling up between the cracks,” Lanea interrupted and Delilah nodded. Max just looked between the two females of different species as Lanea revealed, “I can see him. Brittle, sun-bleached bones wearing a new skin.”

“He burns the blood of vampire children and eats the hearts of wolf pups to restore his flesh,” Del continued.

“While he feeds the delusions of the wicked as he devours their willing souls,” Lanea finished.

Max stared between his wife and the strange woman, who had the largest blue eyes he has ever seen. Her eyes reminded him of a deer. It gave him the chills to realize they had shared this nightmare vision.

“Who are you?” he whispered.

“I am the Delphi Delilah Ayala, last of the Naphtal Oracles, and highest Servant of our Moon Goddess,” she said her title with reverence as if she was honored by it and burdened.

“Come, Delphi Delilah, we will get you some dry clothes and then you and yours can help my beloved and his brother find our children,” Lanea announced, she felt something she had not felt in a very long time, she felt hope.

Lycaeon letter

“What does it say? Where did that irresponsible bi tch drag the Delphi off to?”

The Elder Eliazar stood trembling, staring at the note his granddaughters had left him. It was written in the ancient Lycaeon script of the temples, only a dozen wolves living the the whole world could read it, he was one of them. Louis was pacing in front of his desk, the annoying pup who was the brother of Delilah’s lost mate was on his last nerve. True, he was good at his job of organizing the petitions and helping things run smoothly between the petitioners and the oracles and acolytes who waded the Tides for them, but Louis’ obsession with his youngest granddaughter bordered on compulsive. Eliazar wondered how two such level headed wolves as Luca and Leon could have a brother like Louis. It didn’t help that Eliazar’s wolf wanted to maul him for the badly ended relationship with his oldest granddaughter, Esther.

“It says the Delphi had a vision which required her personal attention and she has taken her sister and the Shogunate wolves to resolve the matter. No one beyond the Temple is to know they left,” Eliazar half-lied. “Louis move the petitioners around, if any one asks, the Delphi is recovering from a particularly difficult vision. Go.”

As soon as Louis was out of his office, he read the letter again.

"Honored Grandfather,

I have seen a vision of a coven of pureblood vampires attacked and their children stolen, much like the one my mother Tamaza saw when she was Delphi. The children of the ones she rescued then, are in danger now. I must preserve them. The Goddess is sending me personally. If the sun-worshiping wolf gains the blood of these innocents, he will be able to move forward much more quickly. Their mother is the Augur Vampyr I have been seeking. It is my prayer to the Goddess that she will have the answers I seek.

I am sorry, honored grandfather, but there was no time to consult you and I could not risk anyone else knowing what I must go and do. Do not worry, Esther is with me, the Shogunate wolves will protect us. Watch father’s accounts, if I have needs, I will draw from there so none but you will know where I travel. I have seen thorns growing among the moon vines on the walls of the temple. I know not who has seeded them.

Love eternally, Delilah.

Eliazar held the letter over a match and tossed into the basin of the closet toilet of his office. He sent a prayer to the Goddess to protect his granddaughters from whatever danger they faced. Contacting vampires was not something that could be done, rescuing them was unheard of, but if the Goddess said go, Delilah would not hesitate. She was a true Servant.