Sandrine looked down at the foamy water at her feet, reminded of when they reunited in the Bohemian Forest. To think she almost decided against searching for her.
To say her trip had been harrowing was an egregious understatement, and she was barely able to maneuver her way through the tall brush, wildly unlike the plains she just left behind. Though weak, she was grateful to be starving; it helped her pick out Cahira’s scent almost immediately.
Sandrine vividly remembered the look on her face when she froze instinctively, prepared to grab an arrow and shoot. Yet as soon as Cahira’s warm eyes found recognition in hers, she dropped her bow and ran to greet her.
Sandrine stiffened, shocked by the uncharacteristic display of affection. She relaxed however when Cahira pulled away, letting her see the childish joy spread across her freckled, still very human skin, as if she’d just been reunited with a long-lost sister. “Come to my home,” she said. “Let me see if we can get you something to eat.”
Sandrine nodded, grateful for the gesture. Cahira’s scent was starting to churn up her hunger.
Not far from where they met was a moss-covered hill, hidden by clusters of shrubs and plants and protected by a creek they crossed to get there. Cahira lifted a curtain of ivy to reach the wooden front door, which she opened for Sandrine.
She was pleasantly surprised by its coziness, observing the slabs of pine that made the walls and floor, the cabinets Cahira had built for drying herbs and storing tools, the kitchen table strewn with weapons, and her various potions. She was alarmed to see an old wolf perched on a netted bed hanging from the wall, but the animal barely acknowledged her presence.
The master warned me of your arrival. The animal’s voice jolted Sandrine in her mind.
Geri, my hunt was interrupted—do you mind fetching supper? Cahira asked hopefully.
Geri jumped down from her perch in wordless acquiescence, landing easily on the floor and heading out the door. Cahira hurried to clear the table, putting her knives and arrows back in their respective places in the cabinets. She pulled out a chair for Sandrine before lighting the candles around the house so she could shut the front door.
“So you’ve abandoned your search for David already?” Sandrine asked when she joined her at the table.
Cahira sighed. “I have not abandoned the plan. I’m just not sure where I should be looking anymore. I’ve heard nothing from the spirit world since I left Paris. I was beginning to think maybe it was all some trick of Angelique’s to bring me to France.”
Geri interrupted them with a scratch at the door. Cahira complied, letting the wolf in with her prize. “That was fast,” she remarked as she gingerly removed the wild bird carcass out of her mouth and patted her head. The wolf climbed back up to bed to wait for Cahira to prepare their meal.
“Actually, that’s why I’m here,” Sandrine resumed their conversation. “I just returned from Africa, where I met a reincarnated god named Anubis—the one I told you about in France.”
“Oh?” Cahira chopped off the head of the bird, squeezing the blood into a cup for Sandrine and handing it to her quickly before it grew cold. She returned to the preparing table to defeather and gut the rest.
“Yes,” Sandrine replied, taking an appreciative sip from her cup. The warmth soothed her aching limbs. “Anubis believes David is still alive and residing somewhere in Europe. No one can find him, however, because he lives with one of his reincarnated sons, a liminal being called Libraean, who put a protection spell over them both.”
“I don’t suppose he knows how to break it.”
“No, he does not,” Sandrine confirmed, taking another careful sip before she cleared her throat. “Cahira, there are several pieces of my story I never told you.”
Cahira paused, turning to offer her full attention.
“When we first met,” she began, “I told you the story of how I arrived in France to meet Angelique. As you may have already guessed, that was the story she wanted me to tell you to gain your trust. In reality, I was not a child when I came over on the slave ships, but a grown Hangbe Warrior.” She cleared her throat again, apprehensive at sharing so much of herself. But she knew it was right—Cahira was to be trusted. The sea had told her so.
“The Hangbe Warriors were a band of women soldiers created to protect Queen Hangbe of Dahomey from the men who wanted her throne. Our training was a brutal endeavor, designed to sculpt us into perfect instruments of death. Yet one of her brothers still managed to poison the queen in 1718. No one believed it was him, but I knew better. He became king and wanted to assume command of the Warriors, but I fled, jumping aboard a slave ship headed to France. I was young, obstinate, and foolish then, and somehow I thought a life of forced servitude would be better than fighting for a corrupt king in my own homeland.”
Cahira had stopped preparing their food, joining her at the table to listen with rapt attention.
Sandrine continued. “The ship did succumb to smallpox during our voyage, as I told you before, and I used this opportunity to escape. I’d been hearing the ocean calling to me since I boarded, and when I jumped into the cold waters, I met the Greek God, Poseidon. He helped me ashore and revealed my true nature to me—that I was the reincarnated goddess Medusa, once his lover. He assumed I’d want to pick back up where we’d left off centuries ago, but I was unwilling—not only had I sworn off men as a Hangbe Warrior, but my memories were trapped. He was nothing more to me than any other man.” The blood had gone cold, but she took the last sip, wishing there was something stronger mixed in. Oh, how she hated speaking of Poseidon.
“He insisted I try, revealing there was a sorceress named Angelique who could help unlock them for me. Again, I was quite headstrong back then and driven by my curiosity, so I left him and headed to Paris. There, I met our dear Angelique who—as you may have guessed—turned me into a vampire against my will.”
“And that was when you met me, in Paris,” Cahira said.
Sandrine nodded. “When you and I parted, I thought Lesplaies and I were returning to Africa against Angelique’s wishes, but it turns out, it was all a part of their plan. Long before I met you, when I was a young vampire, I accompanied Lesplaies to the Kingdom of Hueda, which had become one of the busiest slave ports. On our journey, he admitted that Angelique made a deal with the king to take over the French slave trade, but he believed her intention was to stop it once and for all. I was skeptical, of course, but I said nothing, assuming we were on the same side. As soon as we arrived, Lesplaies unleashed one of the worst plagues I had ever seen onto a colony of white men settled nearby, taking the entire African village along with it.”
She took a deep breath. “It was utter chaos. Humans dying in the streets with no one to bury them. The bodies were thrown into the French compound, which eventually was burned to the ground. The loss of so many lives left Hueda easy prey for King Agaja, Queen Hangbe’s brother and latest Dahomian monarch, who swept in and took over the port for himself.”
Cahira rose, rustling around until she produced a pipe. She used the candle to light it, filling the room with herbal smoke. She wordlessly offered it to Sandrine.
“No thank you,” Sandrine said before continuing. “In the midst of the pandemonium, I realized that the plague was just a cover for Lesplaies’s true motive—to weaken a reincarnated god named Anubis so he could take him back to France for Angelique, who wanted to consume his power. He bade me to prepare the ship so we could leave immediately with the sickly Anubis in tow. He had been feeding him drops of his blood so he stayed alive, but weak enough with sickness that he could not fight against his capture. But an old spirit came to me, revealing who Anubis really was. I turned him into a vampire so he would not die from his fever, then snuck him off the boat.
“Lesplaies never found out that I was the one who freed him, but Angelique was highly suspicious. On our second voyage—the one we embarked on after I met you—Lesplaies was meant to let another plague loose onto the Kingdom of Dahomey, for reasons I do not know. This time, I killed him before he had the chance. I met Anubis when I arrived on shore, who remembered me fondly, but warned me not to set foot in town. While Anubis was favored by the African gods, killing one of them, as I had just done, was unacceptable. I was forced to leave. Since then, Angelique has been hunting me, just like she hunts you. She can no longer access Anubis or find you, but she is not giving up. Her demons still crawl about, wreaking havoc on the world as they search for us.”
Cahira took a long drag from her pipe and sat quietly, waiting for Sandrine to continue.
Sandrine looked down at her cup. “I have long understood that creatures like us depend on humans to live but, over time, I seem to have grown a sort of empathy I never had before. I think there might be more to us creatures than a destructive existence. Perhaps we reincarnated to help preserve the balance between the light and the dark.”
Cahira grinned through a cloud of smoke. “So you’ve become one of the good guys.”
Sandrine felt her face grow hot. She grabbed Cahira’s pipe. “I don’t know what I am, but I plan on traveling the world and when I run into one of her wretched gods or demons, I’m going to kill them with my bare hands. I came here because I was hoping you’d want to join me.”
Cahira lit up. “Of course I will,” she said immediately.
Sandrine melted with relief, pulling the smoke from the shouldering herbs into her lungs. A curious blend filled her mouth, and she was surprised how tantalizing the flavor proved. “What is this?”
Cahira laughed. “A blend of medicinal herbs and tobacco. You will sleep well.”
No sooner had she spoken, did Sandrine’s exhaustion finally break through.
Cahira gently took the pipe back from her. “Your home is mine,” she said. “I will prepare Geri and my dinner while you rest. We will make our traveling plans when you rise.”
“Still chasing women that don’t love you back?” A male voice burst through her memories, bringing her back to the present, her feet still plunged in the cold, wet sand.
