…No longer alone…
Love is the same in any realm, Will. It’s time to trust your fate.
They were different, unexpected, and they were the last words Time said to him before he forgot who and what he was and opened his eyes upon the new world Time created for him. William Balthazar Solan was no more. He did not exist here, in this place, in this realm.
Here, he was Will Slate.
A clean slate.
He blinked and sat up straighter. The thought had floated strangely through his head. He was just tired. They’d been up too many hours. He looked up at the sentinel who stood across the safe house room, leaning against the bookshelves with his arms crossed over his chest.
The sentinel’s name was Fort, which was short for Fortescu. He was nearly as tall as Will, but twice as thick. His eyes and skin were dark, his countenance sometimes darker. Sentinels were a tough breed, created that way for a specified purpose. They were made to protect wardens. And that wasn’t an easy job.
Wardens were a hardy breed themselves, peace keepers and bounty hunters for the paranormal, working for the “factions,” the other-worldly, non-human realms in the multiverse. When one of their own went rogue or became dangerous, a leader in a faction – be it werewolf, warlock, fae, or whatever – would contact and pay the wardens to deal with the situation.
Sometimes they were asked to bring someone in. Sometimes they were asked to kill them outright. Every single time though, it was dangerous. And sometimes it got deadly. That was where sentinels came in.
Sentinels possessed the unique ability to hear their wardens’ calls for help. They also possessed the ability to deal with nearly any damage dealt to them by paranormal creatures, and most importantly, they could heal most paranormal wounds. What they couldn’t deal with was human-made damage or wounds, ironically. Which was why most of them tended to lean toward a larger physique: what nature hadn’t given them, they would give themselves. Fort, for instance, was a master martial artist.
One famous sentinel, Ashrim, was reputed to be so adept at meditative ritual, he could escape a bullet. This kind of reaction time was impossible, even with transporting, but numerous tales of Ash doing exactly that abounded. When asked, he claimed he was simply taking advantage of blind sides and speed. But Will had his doubts. He was pretty sure that in the same way Fort took advantage of physical enhancement, Ash was taking advantage of the magical and had become a magic user himself.
Will wearily sighed and addressed his sentinel. “Tell us again.”
Fort smiled a wide smile, shook his head, and pulled out a chair at the table. “You boys need more sleep.”
“We’re coming off a tough job,” said Liam, Will’s cousin. “Cut us some slack.”
Liam sported short dark blond hair that was a touch longer on top and buzz-cut on the sides. He had a model’s chin, but was half a foot shorter than Will. Not that he was short – Will was just tall. Liam was stocky and hard, and fast as a whip in a fight. His eyes were a lot like Will’s, shades of green that changed depending on what he wore or what mood he was in. Right now, they were cloudy; that’s how Will would describe them. Liam had been three beers in when their sentinel had popped into existence in their living room, and his fourth beer was safely entombed in his right hand.
Now he pulled a chair out at the same table beside Will and spun it around, sitting down on it backward. He always did that when he was riding the border between buzzed and bombed. He was a warden too, and Fort served as sentinel for the both of them. Across the paranormal factions, it was often joked that Fort had the hardest sentinel job of all, watching over those two. They were rather infamous for getting into trouble. “But we did it.” Liam nodded at his cousin and smiled a proud, lopsided grin.
Will returned the gesture, then looked up at Fort again. “You want us to find a woman.”
Fort laughed heartily, his massive barrel chest filling with the sound as if he had his own echo chamber. “You also need coffee. And yes,” he replied. “But not just any woman.”
“Start from the beginning and don’t leave anything out,” said Liam, rubbing his eyes.
Fort sighed heavily and leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees to lace his thick hands together between them. “Her name is Helena Dawn.”
A new dawn.
Will’s brow furrowed.
Liam said, “You called her the Promised One.”
Promised One. Will’s mind flashed, as if it had been dark and someone had struck flint and steel within its vast black expanse. But the flash was gone as quickly as it had come.
Fort nodded. “At least one of you was listening. Like I said, her name is Helena, but in sentinel circles, she’s been referred to as the Promised One for countless generations. To be honest, we didn’t really think she was real. She’s sort of a legend.”
Will silently processed. He was forming an image in his mind; he couldn’t stop it. He wondered whether it was at all accurate, and why he was forming it in the first place.
Fort looked down at his hands as he talked. “We’d always been told she would be beautiful.” He shrugged. “That was a given. She’s supposed to be the ‘gift’,” he said, making the quotation mark sign with his fingers, “that makes everything square between the Storyteller and Cain. So of course she would be beautiful.” He shook his head and his gaze drifted. “But I never expected….” He laughed, unable to come up with the right words. “Well, I never expected her.”
The Storyteller was what the people of the realms called the creator, the maker, the one who had architected everything and everyone in the multiverse. None of them had any idea whether the Storyteller was male or female, or what he or she looked like. They only knew that before there were stories, books, and legends written down or shared – there was nothing. Before words, there was no way to share ideas. There were barely ideas to share.
Hence, all of creation was credited with the one who made those words. The original one. The first story teller: the Storyteller.
Will thought back to the stories he’d been told over the span of his life. One of the most striking was of course the tale of Cain and Abel, the vampire brothers. The Storyteller created all of the factions and species in the realms, from human to werewolf to gargoyle to fae and on and on. Long ago, before the factions and division of the realms, the Storyteller created the first two vampires. They were created as a pair to keep one another company until the Storyteller finished creating the rest.
Long standing legend held Abel as the “good” brother, the kind and decent brother, determined to champion a species of vampires who lived in symbiotic peace with another of the Storyteller’s creations, humans. Cain… was the other one.
Cain didn’t want peace with the humans. He simply thought of them as humans now thought of cattle and chickens. They were fodder and little more. When Abel would not see his side, Cain murdered his brother, taking his head and writing the history of vampires then and there. Due to Cain’s betrayal, the centuries and millennia to come would paint vampire lore red, taint it with darkness, and forever frame the vampire as one of the Storyteller’s most dangerous designs.
For this fateful atrocity, Cain had been imprisoned by the Storyteller in a solitary and empty realm, alone. In the dark.
He’d been there for millennia. The time that had lapsed between the moment of his imprisonment and now was frankly immeasurable. The problem was, he’d been strong going in. Now? After all this time? Well, what did anyone need in order to get better at something? Practice. And what do you need for practice? Time and nothing else to do with it.
Time, in essence, was very much on Cain’s side. Rumor had it that since his incarceration, he’d learned to astral project, in a manner of speaking. In doing so, he was now able to enter the minds of certain individuals in realms outside his. Every now and then, someone would come along who claimed that Cain had been in their heads. They could be any manner of species, from Nightmares to Akyri to human, but they
all had one thing in common. Up to that point, these people would always be the ones others considered reasonable. They were level-headed, fair, non-judgmental, kind. And then boom! They were whack-jobs shooting up department stores or running people over in the streets.
Authorities wrote these people off. But if it was all real and Cain was more than just a story, then who knew what other tricks the First Vampire had up his sleeves by now?
“So, you’ve seen her?” asked Liam. He leaned forward a little, draping his arms over the top of the chair back.
Fort’s eyes grew wide and he nodded. “Oh yeah. You could say that.”
Will closed his eyes. He was getting a headache for some reason. “If she’s real, then Cain is too,” he said softly, mulling over the realization.
“Oh believe me boys, Cain is real. And he’s ready to get the hell out of his prison.”
And that settled that. The story of the First Vampires was real. All those poor fuckers who’d claimed he was in their head were telling the truth after all.
Liam shook his head. “Fort, what is the deal with her? I mean, why would the Storyteller give someone to Cain?”
“No shit,” said Will. His voice had an edge to it that it normally didn’t have. “A living, breathing person. Who the hell gives a person to another as a gift?”
“And to someone who killed his brother, no less,” finished Liam. “What’s the point?”
“According to the legend, the Storyteller later felt that by design, he set Cain up to fail. He created Cain first. When Abel was made next, Cain in his imperfection was jealous and felt threatened. Then Abel had all these ideals –”
“Ideals that would further limit the vampires and hence further threatened Cain,” said Will.
“Exactly.” Fort nodded. “The Storyteller hadn’t considered this at first. To rectify the mistake, Abel was resurrected at once.” Fort shrugged. “The Second Vampire is out there right now somewhere under cover, making his own life. But Cain had already committed the act and needed punishment. He was imprisoned, and he’s been there ever since. In short, the Storyteller wanted him to learn a lesson, see if it might smooth out the rough spots in his character.
But the Teller didn’t feel eternity in isolation was fair, especially given Abel wasn’t even dead any longer. So it was laid down that one day in the far future, a Promised One would arrive. That would be Helena Bonaventure Dawn. If she willingly chose to join Cain, the First Vampire would be forgiven for his crime and released back into the world, because surely that meant Cain had redeemed himself.”
“So… she’s like a living, breathing litmus test for evil?” asked Liam.
Fort made a bewildered sound. “I know. It’s messed up. What’s worse is that if he gets his hands on her, whether she willingly chooses him or not, he’ll be set free. Given Cain’s continued reputation, it’s clear he hasn’t changed his mind about humanity or how vampires should behave, and he’s grown ten-fold in power. So, this would be bad.”
“He hasn’t learned anything if he’s breaking into people’s minds,” added Will.
“No, he hasn’t,” agreed Fort. “Except that he wants a whole hell of a lot of revenge for the last several thousand years. But what’s done is done; the Storyteller set the wheels of this event in motion long ago. It’s fated to happen and Helena has come into being. So now we just have to stop all hell from breaking loose. Literally.”
It’s fated to happen.
Fated…
Will frowned at the words that floated through his mind. It was happening a lot, phrases and words echoing in the chambers of his brain as if he’d heard them before, just recently – and they were important.
But Fort continued. “So a few select sentinels have been chosen to protect Helena from Cain. Keep her safe – keep him locked up. That’s why I’m here. And that’s what you two are going to help me do.”
Chapter Nine
Will kept his eyes shut and sank into his thoughts. Since the moment Fort had shown them Helena’s image in the scrying bowl, he’d been trying to process what he’d seen. His chest felt too full, too tight, and his throat just a little too dry. She was exactly what he’d imagined. Was that possible?
“So… when she was created, she was made as if she’d had her whole life already. Not a baby, not born, just – an adult. And she’s been a warden all this time,” Liam said, bewildered.
Will opened his eyes and settled them on his cousin, who was pacing back and forth, clearly trying to process everything.
Liam stopped and met Will’s gaze, shaking his head. “You saw what I saw, Will. She’s had decades of practice and has more fight in her than every warden we’ve ever worked with combined.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Liam studied him for a moment, probably noticing what Will knew was there – his eyes were probably very vivid right about now. They got that way when he was emotional, just like Liam’s did. It was an unfortunate tell. But Liam was used to his cousin and he knew better than to mention something Will had no control over. So instead, he threw up his hands in frustration. “Okay, so then what’s the plan? What do we do when she resists? Because you and I both know she will. She’ll think we’re nuts. What warden with our kind of training wouldn’t think we were nuts when we traipsed right on up and told them they hadn’t really lived thirty-some years and they were really only made a few days ago as a gift for someone and that they were in danger and should come with us?”
Silence.
“She’ll kick the crap out of both of us,” Liam finished.
“I’m thinking,” Will said. And it was true. He’d been trying to wrap his head around it and create a plan of attack for the last hour.
Liam turned away in irritation, put his hands on his hips, and returned to pacing. His hiking boots left tracks of garden soil beneath their tread. When Fort had appeared, they’d just finished with another job, and had yet to change or shower.
Will watched his cousin with mounting trepidation. What the sentinel was asking of them basically amounted to a babysitting job, but the baby was an atom bomb. She could damn well protect herself. What was worse, the “creation” of Helena was complicated. She’d been made as a fully grown adult with an entire past, a family, and a history. She was a warden just like they were. It didn’t make sense time-wise, and when Will stopped to think about it, the time aspect of it in general felt strange. Familiar, almost.
Something niggled at him uncomfortably.
Liam was right. Helena Dawn was well trained and exceedingly skilled, with magnificent supernatural powers to boot. If the two of them showed up claiming to want to protect her, she was going to be dubious at best.
“Why can’t a sentinel just go and tell her what needs to be done so she’ll be expecting us? No surprises?”
“You weren’t paying attention,” said Will. “Fort went over that.” He realized that Fort had gone over that part after he’d shown the cousins Helena’s image, and knowing Liam, the warden had probably been way too buzzed and way too preoccupied with her beauty to be paying attention to what Fort was telling them at that point. So he reiterated. “He said Helena’s location is being protected. She’s being hidden from everyone but her own sentinel, and even he can only come when she calls him. It was a precaution put in place a long time ago to protect Helena from anyone else getting to her and using her as leverage against Cain.”
“So… I’m guessing she hasn’t called her sentinel lately. Or he surely would have told her what’s going on.”
Will shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably.”
He sighed and pushed away from the door frame he’d been leaning against to make his way further into the safe house library. The safe house was an equally warded location where Will and Liam lived day to day. Every warden had one, whether it was a hut in the tropics or an igloo in the ice or a cabin in the woods or a refurbished missile silo in Alvira, Pennsylvania like this one. Rumor had it that even the North Dakota Stanley Mickelsen
Safeguard Complex in Nekoma was actually inhabited by a warden or group of wardens, despite the fact that it was technically owned by someone for agricultural farmland.
Will and Liam’s safe house was composed of four main rooms, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, an underground garage, and a cell for troublesome marks – or as Liam liked to refer to it, “the dungeon.” One of the main rooms was a gym. Another was a library.
“You know,” he said slowly as he made his way to one of the library’s book stacks and placed his hand on the wood to lean into it, “it’s only a matter of time before Cain finds someone who will help him.”
If the rumors were all true, and it was looking like they were, then Cain could get into people’s minds. It wouldn’t be long before he managed to find his way into someone’s head and work that person around to his side. If that person happened to be of a certain persuasion, such as a leadership position in one of the factions, then the Slate cousins would have a small army to deal with.
One or two men, even a handful, they could more than deal with. But an army of vampires? Demons? Fae?
Or dragons?
Probably not so much. If the bad guys managed to get to Helena, convince her to join Cain, or worse – simply force her to – then that would be that. Cain would be let loose on the world, and every warden’s job will have gotten that much harder.
Plus… there was Helena to consider.
And he did. Consider her, that was. A lot.
“All you’re doing is listing more problems Will, and no solutions,” accused Liam. He was probably starting to get a headache right about now; Will could detect the sharper points to the edges of his words and determined it had been about that long since he’d stopped drinking. The hangover bit was starting to set in.
A glance up confirmed his suspicions, as Liam was drinking water now, and pretty much guzzling it to get it into his system as quickly as possible. That was always the un-fun part. The pleasant effects of alcohol never lasted long enough. To Will, it just wasn’t worth the effort.