That didn’t explain the demon reference Tora had so casually made all those years ago. Silke knew where vampires came from. When she’d turned fifteen, she’d learned that, aside from that of being a demon slayer, her mother had also passed on another responsibility—a huge one. Silke guarded the soul of a Carpathian warrior. If that wasn’t fantasy, what was? When a Carpathian male was born, his soul split. He retained all the darkness, and somewhere, a female child was born with the other half of the soul, made up of his light. His task was to find her and bind their souls together. It wasn’t easy to find a lifemate, and many of them succumbed to temptation, turning vampire, forcing friends to hunt them. The woman could die, and the soul would be born again and again for as long as the Carpathian male still existed.
The thought of such a responsibility at fifteen was disconcerting. Still, at fifteen, none of the things Silke had learned about Carpathians had seemed real. They were larger-than-life heroes, hunting vampires and keeping mankind safe. They were warriors fighting for others despite the constant whisper of temptation to kill while feeding just so they would feel a rush. Those were facts she’d learned from Tora.
Tora had told her that male Carpathians lost their ability to see in color or feel emotions. They lived in a bleak, gray world century after century. She’d also revealed that Carpathians choosing to give up their souls to feel the rush when they fed became vampires. Silke had lain awake often over the years thinking of how horrible it would be to live with honor for centuries and then, in a moment of weakness, become the very thing you hunted.
She was responsible for guarding the soul of a Carpathian warrior. It was told in the stories handed down from her ancestors that he would come with others to help them in their final battle with Lilith’s demons from the underworld. She feared he wouldn’t arrive in time. She was also very nervous. The idea of a stranger having a claim on her bothered her immensely. And there was that casual line about demons Tora had mentioned when Silke was fourteen. Tora wasn’t volunteering an explanation.
Once more, Silke looked up at the black, rolling clouds. The edges seemed frayed, as if the vicious wind would suddenly reverse directions and rip at the clouds to pull them apart before once more aiding the demons in their quest to spy on the village and forest.
Tora had covered the forest in a shroud of dense magic weaves that appeared as fog, so that even with the canopy swaying in the wind, it was impossible to penetrate through the layers to see inside the forest. Silke had done her best to seal the ground to make it impossible for demons to enter that way. They needed the forest to remain a mystery to their enemy. It would be their chosen place of battle, just as it had been in AD 28, when their ancestors fought off the Romans.
“Tell me what you’re afraid to say about Carpathians and demons, Tora.” She wasn’t going to be a coward, and she needed as much information as possible.
Tora sent another wave of capricious winds to counter the violent storm, this time toward the waterspouts whirling their way toward shore. The wind shifted at her command, stilling just on the surface beneath the spouts, so the rotating winds propelling the spouts abruptly ceased and the spouts collapsed.
“Stay still,” Silke advised. “I feel their scrutiny. They’re wondering if something or someone is countering their commands.”
“They won’t be able to detect my touch,” Tora said with confidence. “They can try, but I’m hidden from them.”
“One of them is a sniffer,” Silke cautioned. “That isn’t his official demon name, but I call him that. He has a long snout, and the others depend on him to ferret out their prey when they fail. If you left any trace of yourself behind, there’s a good chance he’ll catch your scent even if he can’t track you.”
Tora tilted her face up to better look at the faces in the clouds. The wind she’d sent pulled more of the clouds apart, so the faces were even more distorted than before. “I thought I knew a lot about demons, but your knowledge is much more than mine.”
“It’s the only area where I might have an advantage on you,” Silke conceded. “I was born with the knowledge of my ancestors imprinted on me. Every demon slayer in the family contributed until I was a walking encyclopedia of demons.” She made a face. “That’s not a good thing when I try to sleep.”
Tora had a strange expression on her face, one that indicated guilt. Or at least she was anxious, which was so unusual for her friend that it alarmed Silke.
“We’re back to what you don’t want to tell me,” she said. “Just say it, Tora. We’ll figure it out.”
Tora reached for her hand. “You’re my family, Silke. I love you the way I would a sibling. Or even a daughter at times. I’m always proud of the way you face every new threat. You have such courage.”
That little speech didn’t bode well, although she knew Tora meant every word. She waited in silence for Tora to explain. The heavy rains lessened along with the wind. The overhead clouds lightened from ominous black to a dark gray. The faces faded as if they’d never been, but Silke wasn’t deceived.
“They’re still there, hidden in the gray.”
“For demons, they have quite a lot of power,” Tora observed, speculation in her voice.
Silke frowned, the puzzle pieces turning this way and that in her head. Those particular demons were at the top of the hierarchy, but they couldn’t command weather. They had various skills, such as the one she’d named Sniffer. Two others had excellent vision. One had amazing hearing. All together, the skills would allow them to ferret out secrets or find their potential prey easily. Silke and Tora had unusual training, allowing them to hide from the demons.
“Someone else is controlling the weather,” she mused. “That must be the answer. As powerful as each demon is alone, even together they couldn’t possibly do that. Someone else with your skills, Tora, is most likely commanding the weather we’ve been getting.”
Tora dropped her hand and rubbed her hands back and forth on her arms as if suddenly cold. Silke knew Carpathians controlled their body temperatures. More than once, Tora had done so for her.
“You know about the gate I guard. That’s why you have the tarot cards. There are four gates, and a Carpathian woman guards each of them. You have the ability to keep demons from escaping the underworld, and together the two of us have kept that gate intact.”
Silke had been to the gate on several occasions to ensure no demon had found a way through. Time and again, she’d sealed the ground around the gate. Lately, she knew Tora was concerned that whatever was behind the gate was weakening the ancient wood and the spells. She’d never seen whatever was being held there. Tora referred to him as a beast.
Another Carpathian woman, Gaia, lived in the underworld and seemed to be Tora’s friend, but Silke had never seen her. She knew the area the beast had at his command was tremendous, stretching from Siberia, Italy, and Algeria around to their little village. The beast and his companion seemed to travel from gate to gate. Silke didn’t understand how he could be so dangerous if a Carpathian woman was his companion.
“It’s difficult for all of us guarding the gates to comprehend just how lethal the beast is. His name is Justice; at least, that’s what he was called when he chose to save members of his family and remain behind in the underworld. He fought off the demons while his family escaped. All of them were horribly wounded, as was Justice. He blocked the portal and shut it down so the demons couldn’t go after his family, thus trapping himself in the underworld.”
“He sounds like a hero, not a beast,” Silke said.
Sorrow flashed across Tora’s face. “He is a hero. He was the thing legends were made of, even in my world. Justice was Carpathian at one time.”
“I don’t understand. Is he vampire? Did he turn while he was trapped in the underworld? How could your friend stay with him?”
Tora shook her head. “Justice isn’t vampire. Our species can live very long lives. Some believe we’re immortal, but we can be killed, as you well know.”
Silke had seen Tora after several battles with vampires. She’d been close to death on two of those occasions. Silke had managed to aid her in dispatching the vampires before attending to the wounds and giving her friend blood. Several times over the years, they had gone into battle together and prevailed, but their wounds had been numerous.
“After centuries of a gray, emotionless existence, when life has been nothing but hunting and killing your friends, family, and other Carpathians who turned vampire, seeing the horrific things vampires did to their victims takes a tremendous toll.”
Silke imagined that the life of the Carpathian male was grim and endless. She was surrounded by people she loved in the village. She was an orphan, but she’d always been cared for. She had Tora as well as the elders in the village, who were generous with time, attention, and advice. Fenja Reinders, a single woman in the village, had always wanted children. She had taken Silke in when her mother had died. She was the local midwife, assisting women giving birth, and had been present when Astrid had slipped away. The village had decided she would be the best choice for raising the orphaned infant, and she’d readily accepted the task.
Silke loved her as she would have her birth mother. Fenja had raised her with kindness and love. Silke couldn’t remember a single time when Fenja had yelled or lost her temper. She had lovingly told her the stories of the Battle of Baduhenna, making them exciting and every hero or heroine larger than life. She’d taken Silke to the forest and introduced her to the plants and trees, carefully and patiently teaching her which were poisonous, edible, or could be used for medicine. She’d taken Tora into her heart and given the girls plenty of time to train in the skills Silke needed as the demon slayer.
“I can’t imagine what kind of life those men have led.” Silke’s heart ached for the warriors. In modern times, the stories of Carpathian males hunting vampires and sustaining near-fatal wounds, yet going back over and over again to do the same thing, should have been more like a grim fairy tale, but Silke had always considered those stories reality. Perhaps it was the way both Fenja and Tora regaled her with tales of the past so often that those stories became believable to her.
Tora sighed, glancing upwards toward the sky again. The clouds had drifted closer, no longer out over the sea, but nearly directly above the forest. Now, rather than angry, dark and boiling, the shapes were intact and the color various shades of charcoal.
“They’re back,” Silke announced.
“They’re so predictable,” Tora said. “You called it when you said they hadn’t left. Do they think we’re going to fall for their tricks and reveal ourselves to them?”
“Tora, whoever creates the storms had to have been like you at one time. Why would they be in the underworld?”
“A vampire was a Carpathian,” Tora reminded her. “Once destroyed, they very well could be trapped in the underworld and subject to Lilith’s bidding. She’s a cruel and exacting mistress, from everything I’ve been told. There have been three battles with her armies. She used vampires and mages to aid her demons.”
“This beast you guard, could he be the one building the storms for them? Would he have that kind of power?”
Again, the look of anxiety crossed Tora’s face. “The reason he’s locked behind the gates is because even Lilith fears him. She wants to find a way to control him, as do other factions. That’s why you need to guard the tarot cards so carefully. Like the soul you’re keeping safe, the cards must be kept safe and away from others as well.”
Silke took her gaze from the clouds gathering over the forest to study Tora’s expression. Tora was an absolutely beautiful woman. Her skin was flawless. Her hair was dark, thick, and shiny. Her eyes were shaped like a cat’s and colored a deep emerald green. Every man who met her, young or old, was enamored with her, and it was easy to see why. Not only was she beautiful, but she had a mesmerizing quality to her. Just being in her presence was soothing.
“Tora, clearly you’re worried about my reaction to whatever it is you’re holding back.”
Tora rubbed along the bottom of her chin with her closed fist. It was one of the few things she did when nervous. To others, she would never give that telling sign away, but she knew she was safe with Silke, even if she had withheld something important.
Silke didn’t hold grudges. Not ever. She sometimes got even, as she had when two young boys tried to push her around in school when she was eleven. That hadn’t ended well for them. When one tried to push her so the other could steal her lunch, she beat them up right there in the schoolyard. She told them that until they apologized, bad things would happen to them. It only took three days of insects crawling all over their bedrooms, clothes, and toys before they gave her the apology. After they apologized, she brought them fruits and baked goods often, because Fenja told her the boys didn’t have a lot in the way of food. Their father had gone on a fishing trip and never returned. Their mother struggled to make ends meet. That was when Silke realized that although the village was filled with happy people, some struggled.
“It’s your lifemate, I know he’s one of the ancients.” Tora made it sound as if she were confessing a great sin.
Silke frowned, trying to comprehend her meaning. Obviously, that revelation was supposed to be significant. She shifted her gaze to the clouds when she felt the buildup of energy. “They’re going to rain lightning on us in an attempt to penetrate the veil you are protecting the forest with.”
Tora gripped her arm. “Honey, did you hear what I said?”
“I figured out that if I was guardian to a soul, he would have to be a Carpathian warrior living the kind of horrible life you told me about. This doesn’t come as a shock.”
