Chapter Four #5
The scenery outside the car windows changed from urban to rural.
They had left Berlin. Mihaela studied the trees, their weird naked shapes black against the white of the snow.
The greyness of the road ahead of them, merging into the dark sky.
For the first time since she agreed to come on this adventure, Silvio’s words left her feeling hopeful.
If he was extending an invitation to his home that meant that she was free to move and leave if and when she wished.
Going to the Coven need not be permanent, they were not going to lock her up.
It made the remainder of the journey pleasant.
When they finally arrived, Mihaela craned her neck as far as she could, trying to see as much of the building before the double doors closed behind them.
The architecture looked neoclassical. It had that attempt at stripping away the excess of the Baroque in favour of something simpler, pure, and full of symmetry.
A Classical style made for modern purposes.
A building erected for practicality as much as for beauty.
She recalled having seen pictures of palaces and castles built in a similar fashion, always set on the outskirts of cities.
It reminded her of Vrana Palace, just out of Sofia, the way it was hidden behind trees and how vines crept up its walls.
A servant welcomed and led them through the corridors, his steps fell heavy and with purpose.
He took them deeper into the house, past art rooms and halls.
Mihaela caught a glimpse of a mediaeval armoury through an open door, figures glided among the suits of armour, stopping abruptly to look at her.
“The Marquis Bracci and Comte Gabrielli, my lord,” the servant announced, taking an abrupt step aside as he ushered them into a room.
Mihaela was impressed with the man’s agility as he swirled out of their way and closed the door behind them.
He moved so swiftly and so silently that for a moment she wondered if she were wrong in her assumption that he was human.
Stranger things had happened though. She would not be surprised if demons walked these halls side by side with the damned.
“Ah, but my Marquis is quick to return. I hope you bring good news?” a voice came from the far end of the room.
Mihaela’s eyes scanned the study. There was a massive oak table similar to those that emperors of once used to marshal fleets and legions across maps, redrawing the borders of the world.
Strangely enough there were few books. The spaces on the walls intended for shelves and bookcases were instead taken by portraits and paintings; a few mirrors reflected the lights of the chandeliers.
Crystal droplets hung from the ceiling and sparkled playfully.
There was a fireplace which she almost missed as it was not aflame.
Its mantel appeared to be made of crude stone depicting twisted figures of manlike creatures holding up the whole structure.
Leaning against that mantelpiece was a man, watching them.
He looked old and fragile, as human as her father looked, with age carved into the skin of his hands and face, his hair and beard peppered with white.
His light eyes were studying her, taking in all of her.
When she met his gaze her skin felt like it was covered in maggots, and she had to restrain herself from shaking her whole body in an attempt to get their ghostly presence off her.
There it was again. That feeling of someone scraping, searching through the folds of her brain, pushing away memories and stray thoughts.
Mihaela shook her head and looked around for where Emerick had gone.
He was standing a step behind Silvio, his hands clasped behind his back.
He caught her staring and winked, a smile tugging at his lips.
Mihaela frowned back at him and turned to face the All Father, just in time to see him move.
He was suddenly there—before her, looming down, his eyes unblinking.
“Let me look at you.”
His voice was so low, barely a whisper, as if he was afraid he would frighten her. There was some eagerness in the movement of his hands, the way he opened and closed his fingers in a fist, restraining himself from touching her.
“Thank you,” the All Father breathed, his voice shook from relief. He made to turn and address the two men behind him, but did not dare look away from her. As if the moment he ceased to behold Mihaela she would turn to salt.
“Silvio… I am in your debt. Please,” he lifted his arm and gestured, beckoning the Marquis, “be my guest, stay as long as you like.”
Silvio looked from the All Father to Emerick, the question hanging in the air unspoken.
“I wait at your pleasure, Marquis,” Emerick said softly, the abandon and intimacy of his words made Mihaela blush.
“Then you shall have us, Ingenuar,” Silvio agreed.
Without further ceremony, his task complete, Silvio turned to leave but stopped and looked at Mihaela, silently allowing her to ask for his presence in the study.
After all, was Silvio not the one who found and guided her on this trip?
In the short amount of time Mihaela had spent in his company, she felt a sense of belonging, a dark purpose.
He appeared to her fatherly, a parental figure who was the first to teach her how to properly drink from the fountain of life.
Yes, he came with Emerick, who constantly tugged on the strings of her consciousness, but surely there were ways to block him, methods to lock him and others outside the confines of her mind.
“Daughter,” Ingenuar beckoned, finally offering his hand.
Years ago, a handshake had gotten her into all this mess in the first place. Her measly little soul for all the knowledge Mihaela could physically muster. Astra’s long fingers had closed around Mihaela’s wrist and dragged her down into that bargain—a debt whose payment was not due for decades.
Or never, as Mihaela bitterly observed once she woke up as a vampire one evening. She had found a way to cheat death and death did not like being cheated. Death had caught up to her with a voice coming from above. A rumbling in the earth, a crack spreading on glass, a vein splitting a river of ice.
“I will give you the greatest gift I can bestow upon mankind,” her maker had said many nights ago when he killed Mihaela. “I will give you myself.”
MIHAELA, 1995
Astra had still not returned and Mihaela began to worry.
Back then, when Mihaela had been writing the first draft of her thesis—fighting off the exhaustion of the day’s toils and stalled in her academic progress—she had grabbed at any opportunity for distraction.
Astra had answered all her questions, even the ones on what codex of laws governed the circles of Hell, as if that mattered when their deal was already sealed.
What bound demons to a soul? Did it anchor them to the mortal plane until the contract was fulfilled?
It did not seem to be an issue that Mihaela was no longer human.
The vampiric transformation had denied her of simple mundane pleasures but it had not deprived her of a soul.
Astra spoke of her brethren who had become fixated on their chosen, driving them mad in turn.
“The longer a demon resides with a mortal, the more it taints the soul. The corruption sweetens it further, making it ripe—like rotten fruit. That is why a demon might spend years with their chosen, egging them on, encouraging their manias and vices. The more time they spend together, the better,” Astra elaborated.
“In the end, all that matters is the feast delivered at the altar of the flesh. Time does not exist for a demon in the same way it does for a human. It does not affect us.”
“What about my soul? How will it taste?” Mihaela asked and hoped her voice sounded as flirtatious as she imagined it did. She was hopeless at this, at flirting, at luring. Yet somehow, here she stood, this mistress of Hell, a general of legions of fiends in the Underworld.
“With eternity to fatten it?” Astra’s breath caught, the words came out wet. Mihaela’s eyes trailed over her mouth recalling the sensation of it on her body.
Astra was a woman like no other Mihaela had seen.
Her hair was long and raven-black, her serpentine eyes burning yellow.
The androgynous set of her features, the fluid movements of her body, her footsteps were heavy and each time her hands clasped around Mihaela, the grip was firm.
A grip that said mine, and kept squeezing tight.
Her clothes looked tattered and worn, leather smooth from years of wear.
They did not look like something human hands had stitched or a machine had weaved.
Sometimes Mihaela liked to imagine how they would melt into Astra’s skin as she transformed into a beast, a leviathan of the Old Testament, jaw unclenching as a precipice to swallow Mihaela whole.
How much Mihaela craved and begged to be caught between those lips, these teeth, and that wicked tongue.
Now, alone, sitting in one of the many music rooms of the Berlin Coven, Mihaela regretted not asking more questions.
Not about how souls tasted or how they were wrenched from their flesh sacks, but what Astra normally did in Hell.
What were her responsibilities and what devil kept her away from Mihaela?
What could possibly make her vanish for years without a word?
How does time pass when you are down there?
Mihaela mused, feeling like her soul had fermented enough to earn her at least a nibble from Astra.
She had found a King James Bible in the library and was leafing through the thin pages, the English and its miniature font making her head ache.
She kept frowning at the pages, willing them to make sense.