Raven

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  They were a group of five; three men and two women. An odd-looking bunch, but I wouldn't have expected anything less.

  The eldest was an old white-haired man who ambled along slowly with a walking stick. What I noticed most about him were his massive grey eyes. He resembled a caricature rather than a real person. But they were friendly eyes that twinkled and smiled at us, even though his mouth, initially, did not.

  Walking slightly behind him was a younger man, of about forty years, with red hair and green eyes and covered in freckles. His pale, almost translucent skin suggested he didn't venture out into the sunlight very often. But again, he had a friendly and, despite the colour, a warm face.

  The third man was barely twenty years old and I knew he was a changeling – I guessed a werewolf. His strong attractive features and golden eyes gave him away. He was quite tall but very stocky and, although wolf-like, I wasn't afraid of him. I could tell he was trying to appear fierce but I could see right through him. He was a softy at heart.

  The eldest woman was probably in her sixties and she commanded a certain presence. She was more striking than beautiful and had shoulder length grey and black hair. I could imagine her as a school teacher, strict and bossy. A little bit intimidating.

  And the last woman was a bit of an enigma. Her face and body suggested she was around the same age as me yet she had grey hair, short and spiky. For some reason I was drawn to her, there was a certain familiarity to her. I could tell she was feisty, rebellious... fun.

  “Lilly, my dear child. We are so relieved to find you safe and well,” said the old man with the large eyes as he held out his arms and pulled me into a gentle hug, “your grand-father is also safe and recovering well, so you need not worry too much about him now. Hello Jo. It's good to see you again. You won't remember me though as you were just a toddler when we last met,” he chuckled, hugging her softly too. “I am one of the Elders. I am Finley. We came to help but by the looks of it, you are not really in need of any assistance. You appear to have everything tied up rather well,” he said, with a wink, as he approached the two sorry creatures and gave them a prod with his walking stick.

  When Vivian lifted her face from her knees, Finley did a double take before turning his attention back to us. “Oh, let me introduce you to the others,” he said as they all stepped closer as if they had been awaiting his instructions.

  “Rupert here is our newest addition to the Elders,” he said as the red-headed man stepped forward and shook my hand. “Good to meet you Lilly... Jo,” he smiled, shaking Jo's hand too before stepping back.

  “And this lovely lady is Ursula. She has been with us for many years,” and the older, slightly frightening looking woman stepped forward, nodding her head at us both before stepping back.

  “And our other friends here are not members of the Elders but were with us when we heard about what was happening and they wanted to come along and offer any assistance. I think they're perhaps a little disappointed at missing out on all the action,” he laughed.

  The two stepped forward and smiled at us, clearly pleased to see some younger people.

  “Hi. I'm Tabitha and this is my boyfriend, Zoltan,” said the young woman with a grin, “we had hoped to get in on a bit of action. There hasn't been much going on lately,” she laughed and I felt immediately at ease. So these were the people Charlie had seen arguing at Christmas. Zoltan stepped forward and shook Jo's hand and then he turned to me to shake my hand but as our hands touched, he let out a deep snarl and snatched it back.

  I immediately felt defensive and took a step backwards, pulling Jo with me.

  “Don't worry about Zoltan. I got the same reaction from him when we first met too. You've probably realised that he is, in fact, a werewolf?” asked Tabitha and I nodded, “Well sometimes the wolf overpowers the man and that kind of thing happens,” she laughed, “but you'll find that he's pretty harmless... to us, anyway.”

  He turned to look at me and smiled apologetically. I forgave him easily.

  While we had been talking, the others had been into the cave to investigate what was there. I heard them whispering to each other about how they had not known of the cave's existence. How a witch had been under their very noses and they'd not seen what was going on. It perturbed them, which in turn, worried me a little.

  When they came back out into the sunlight, Rupert pulled both Vivian and Charlie up from the ground, ensuring the ropes were tied tightly enough and then we prepared to set off towards the Elders' home. I grabbed our bags and we began our hike back up the mountain. Jo walked ahead with Finley and Ursula; Vivian and Charlie were pulled in the middle of the group by Rupert, and I walked behind with Tabitha and Zoltan.

  Tabitha was eager to know what had happened and so as we walked, I relayed our adventure to her. When she commented on my British accent, I also told her about my life before and how I had managed to find myself in Canada in the first place.

  She was intrigued by my tale and impressed that we had managed to capture the witch. “I would have probably killed her,” she said.

  “Well, I was pretty close but, as Jo told me at the time, I'm not a killer. Vivian needs to take full responsibility for the evil things she has done. The Elders will make sure of that,” I answered.

  “Yeah, I guess you're right. You've got more self control than me though,” she added.

  “I doubt that. I'm sure had it been you, you would have been able to stop yourself.”

  We continued to tell each other about our lives and I discovered that Tabitha had been raised in New York but had moved to Canada as soon as she was old enough to fend for herself.

  “I always felt like I had some connection to this part of the world you know,” she said.

  “Well, it's not difficult to connect is it? Just look how breathtaking it is,” I said as we stopped momentarily to take in the utter magnitude of the view surrounding us. Tabitha laughed then and agreed with me but I knew she had meant it in a different way. There was some kind of pull that brought her here. She didn't know what or why but she wanted to find out.

  “But how did you find the Elders? How did you know about... you know... all this supernatural stuff?” I laughed, not knowing of a better way to describe it.

  “My mother told me actually. She had a lonely childhood, brought up by a strict mother and a father she rarely saw. When her father took off one day, her mother went crazy and started casting crazy spells. My mother freaked out and managed to run away. But after a few days, she decided to go back and when she did, she found nothing. Her mother had gone too. She'd just upped and left. Never to be seen again,” she explained.

  “So that's how your mother learned?” I questioned, thinking it wasn't really enough to make you believe. But Tabitha shook her head, “Oh no... God no. It was when her father returned one day that she finally understood about it all. He was different. Mum told me that he actually scared the hell out of her. He was so incredibly pale and his eyes would change colour from yellow to red. He told her that he had been made a vampire.”

  “Oh,” I exclaimed, “well, that would do it.”

  Tabitha smiled, “My grand-father was a vampire. He told my mum he loved her more than anything else in the world but that he had to go away. He said it was too much of a risk for him to stay near her. He couldn't bear her being in danger.”

  “Wow, that must have been hard,” I whispered.

  “She knew he was telling the truth and so she accepted it. She started doing loads of research into the supernatural, paranormal... whatever you want to call it. Eventually she started discovering all kinds of freaky stuff. So I learned all about it from a very young age, I guess.”

  Her mother had never married and still lived in New York. Tabitha was the result of an intense affair she'd had with a very wealthy man who had adored her. “But my mum didn't want to settle down, she likes her own company and she likes to travel a lot... for research purposes. My dad never married either, so occasi
onally they get together. He's been very good to her, and to me. He's a good man,” she said.

  I thought of my own father and felt a tug of sadness at the pit of my stomach. I wish I knew the truth. Where was he? Was he alive? Did he desert me on purpose? So many questions and so few answers.

  As we had been chatting, we had fallen behind. The rest of the group were quite far ahead and so we walked on in silence, increasing our pace until we caught up with them.

  A few hours later, in darkness, we arrived. It wasn't what I expected.

  The main entrance to the mass of caves beneath the mountains was well hidden. If I'd have been there alone, there was no way I'd have known anything was there.

  But a large group of people and creatures were waiting for us. I later found out that the raven and the owl had flown on ahead and notified them of our impending arrival.

  I wasn't prepared for such a large group, but everybody was very pleased to see me safe and well. Many of them patted me on the back and welcomed me into their home. However, my number one priority was to see Gabriel and so I asked to be taken to him.

  “Ursula will take you both to him. Now I must sit down. It has been a long day and a long walk for my old legs,” chuckled Finley as he was led in the opposite direction.

  “Come, girls. Zis vay,” ordered Ursula in a thick German accent. It was the first time we had heard her speak.

  “You're German, Ursula?” asked Jo tentatively.

  “I am, yes,” she answered and continued walking in a fast pace.

  “How did you get here?” I asked, hoping to get her to loosen up a little.

  She stopped and turned to us. “Now is not ze time for conversation,” she said, turning brusquely as she carried on walking, taking large strides. We struggled to keep up, especially after such a long hike up the mountain.

  Jo shrugged her shoulders and we walked quickly in silence, having little time to take in our surroundings. What I did notice though was that the sequence of caves rolled easily and smoothly into each other and it was warm. I had expected something cold and damp but it was quite the opposite. It felt homely.

  “Come!” yelled Ursula, “Gabriel is in here,” and she pulled back a heavy thick green curtain to reveal a large oval-shaped room covered in wall hangings and thick warm rugs on the floor. There were two old red leather sofas facing each other, with a mahogany coffee table carefully positioned between the two. Behind was a large king size bed and in it, lay Gabriel. He was surrounded by pillows. He grinned the moment he saw us. I noticed then that he was on a drip.

  “Girls, girls... I was so worried. Lilly I am so sorry,” he said with open arms but he winced as he moved.

  “Gabriel, I was terrified something awful had happened to you,” and I suddenly broke down in tears, “for a while I thought you might be... might be... dead.”

  “Dear Lilly. I'm okay. Everything is all right now. Come now, no more tears.”

  But they continued to fall, preventing me from speaking. Jo, instead, spoke for me, telling him all that had happened.

  “Jo, you have been so courageous, my dear,” he said to her.

  “But I didn't do anything... Lilly was the one who captured Vivian.”

  Finally able to speak I said, “But I couldn't have done that had you not captured Charlie, Jo. And when you winked at me I knew you were telling me Gabriel was safe. I couldn't have done any of it without you.”

  This time, it was Jo's turn to shed a few tears. After a few minutes, we laughed and hugged each other.

  “You are both the most courageous girls I know and I am so proud that you are my grand-daughters. Now that you are safe we need to send a message to the rest of the family to let them know. They're probably worried sick,” he said, adding, “if only this place had a cell phone mast. There's no signal around here.”

  We giggled with him then and pondered the quickest and safest way to get a message back. Ursula, who had been waiting outside, stepped in and suggested we send a changeling. Jo offered to fly back home but she was too tired. She needed rest.

  “I vill talk to Finley. Ve vill decide who to send, okay?” she had said before walking back out again.

  “She's a strange one,” I said to Gabriel quietly and he laughed loudly.

  “Perhaps a little. But she is an incredible woman. She is responsible for saving the lives of hundreds of people during the First World War,” he said clearly in awe.

  “But surely she's too young to have been involved,” I asked confused.

  “Ursula has recently celebrated her two hundredth birthday,” he said, impressed, “when she was 61, she was bitten by a vampire.”

  I gasped, not expecting it at all.

  “She wasn't directly involved in the war itself, but there was a very nasty vampire around at that time, Olivier Duran was his name. He was ruthless, killing anybody and everybody. Ursula made it a point to stop him. She prevented hundreds of murders. That's how the Elders discovered her. They're always on the lookout for those that help other people like that. So they sent a couple of people over to France and they worked together to stop Duran.”

  “Wow,” said Jo, “that's impressive. Did they kill him?” she asked.

  He shook his head, “Unfortunately he managed to escape. He hasn't been found since though so we're hoping that he now keeps his killing to a minimum.”

  “But how does Ursula survive? She needs blood doesn't she?” I asked and Gabriel nodded, assuring us we weren't in any danger from her.

  “She has extraordinary self control. She usually feeds off the blood of other animals, occasionally from the stock they keep in the medical supply here.”

  Tabitha appeared with Zoltan, “Can we come in?” she asked.

  “Of course, come in, come in,” said Gabriel.

  “Zoltan is probably the fastest here at the moment and so he'd like to deliver your message to your family, if that's okay with you,” said Tabitha.

  “That would be wonderful. It's very kind of you to offer, Zoltan. Thank you. Perhaps we should write a letter. That would be best. Jo dear, please hand me the ink pot and some paper... thank you.”

  After he had written a lengthy note to our family and Zoltan had taken it away, Jo stepped out with Tabitha for a while as I stayed with Gabriel.

  “Gabriel?” I asked.

  “Yes dear?”

  “What did Charlie do to you?” I whispered.

  “It's not important now. You can see I'm okay,” but he decided to tell me after seeing the stubborn expression on my face.

  “I believe that he drugged me before I went to sleep. I think he must have put something in my tea. It paralysed me but I was conscious of what was happening. He removed me from my sleeping bag... and told me that he was going to... deliver you on a plate to Vivian.” A tear fell from his eye as he spoke. “And then he pushed me down the mountain. I couldn't even lift my hands to protect my face from everything that I fell on, stones, twigs, branches, rocks. I seemed to fall forever. It was cruel. Very cruel. But I am safe and I am recovering. And more importantly, you are safe and well,” he said as he lifted a bruised hand to my face and softly brushed my cheek with his fingers.

  “I fear I will never forgive myself for putting you in that position,” he added.

  “No Gabriel, no... please don't think like that. There is nothing to forgive. She would have got me somewhere else if it wasn't here on the mountain. She was desperate for my blood, Gabriel. But she got what she deserved in the end,” and I told him how my blood had affected her, how her face had changed beyond recognition. All the beauty she craved, gone for good.

  He smiled and I could see in his eyes that he was exhausted.

  “I should let you sleep now, Gabriel,” and I kissed him gently on the cheek and went to stand up, but he took my hand before I could go.

  “Lilly... did she tell you anything about your... father?”

  I sat back down, took his hand in mine and held it tightly.

  I had hop
ed to wait until he was better before I told him the truth but he needed to know. Just as I had needed to know. And so I told him. That she had almost killed my father, 'almost bled him dry' and then he had escaped, without taking me with him. I told him that we didn't know if he was alive or if he was... dead.

  Gabriel and I sat sobbing together, thinking of the man he had been and wondering what kind of man he had become – dead or alive.

  “Lilly, please sit here with me for a while. At least until I fall asleep,” and I nodded as he closed his eyes while I sat quietly by his side.