Fallon started to untie the silk wrapper as if she hadn’t heard me. The carved words (at least, I thought they were words) were haphazardly etched into the wood all over the box. There appeared to be no rhyme or reason to their patterns. I had a feeling if I could read the writing, it would all make sense, but even not knowing exactly what it said, I could still appreciate the intricacy.
“Hey, are you listening to me? Fallon?” I snapped my fingers in front of her face to get her attention, but she was so focused on the box, she wouldn’t look up.
“Weird. It doesn’t appear to have an opening. Looks like a solid piece of wood. There’s no visible clasp or hinges either.”
“Maybe it’s not meant to be opened.” That gave me a small measure of comfort.
Fallon still didn’t seem to hear me. She ran her fingers all over the patterns as if hunting for some hidden button or lock. After staring at it for a few seconds, she found what she as looking for, a hairline seam. It was barely visible within the patterns. “Must be like an ancient shoe box.” Fallon chuckled. “Look. The top just fits over the bottom. Well, let’s see what treasures are inside.”
“Fallon, I’ve got a bad feeling about this. Let’s not—”
Before I could get out another word, Fallon pulled the top off.
A cloud of dust
poofed
out, spewing chalky ash into my face.
I coughed as it choked out the air around me. My eyes began to water and a tear spilled over my cheek.
Fallon let out a violent sneeze that knocked her backwards into the wall. Her newly hung painting fell with a crash. She dropped the box, spilling murky gray ash into a pile on the splintered canvas.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” she said, shaking herself as if coming out of a daze. She bent down to clean up the mess. “I don’t know what came over me. It was like the box was calling me, telling me to open it.”
I felt a strange prickling sensation across my skin. The hairs on my neck stood on end as if electrically charged. The air around me felt as if it were growing colder, like someone had set the thermostat to zero. A shiver danced its way up my spine, causing gooseflesh to erupt and spread down my arm.
My kind can always feel another vampire’s presence. This eerily cold hair-raising sensation felt very similar, yet somehow amplified.
I turned to find Nicholas looking over my shoulder. It was if he had appeared out of nowhere. I jumped in place, startled by his sudden appearance, and bit back a curse. His scruffy face was mere inches from my neck, though his blue-gray eyes, a trademark of the vampire race, were locked on the box in Fallon’s hand.
“What have we here?” he asked. “Been ordering junk from those websites again, little human?” He folded his arms in front of his chest. Nicholas wasn’t a tall man, but he was muscular and looked very formidable and menacing when he wanted to.
Fallon finished sweeping the ash back into the box and replaced the lid. “No, the human has not been ordering junk.” She shot him a taunting glare.
Human or not, Fallon didn’t take Nicholas’s crap. Once she learned he wasn’t going to kill her, it became almost a game between those two: an ongoing battle to see who could annoy whom the most. It was fun to watch the two of them go at it, though somewhere in the back of my mind, I wondered if it might one day go too far.
“Someone dropped this on our doorstep.” Fallon set the wooden box on the futon and picked up the corner of the cardboard box it came in, showing Nicholas the big red symbol on the bottom. “You’re older than dirt, right? Maybe you can read this.”
He opened his mouth as if to make another snarky comment and then closed it immediately. His eyes narrowed and his brows pulled together in deep concentration.
That startled me more than the odd chill in the air. Nicholas was always quick with an answer or some kind of quip. For him to be silent meant that this, whatever it was, was not the innocuous present I had hoped it would be, and further confirmed my feelings of unease.
“Thanatos?” Nicholas whispered under his breath, as if asking a question rather than making a statement.
Fallon and I exchanged confused looks. I shrugged at her and after a moment of awkward silence, decided to ask the obvious question. “Who is Thanatos?”
“When did you receive this?” he asked curtly.
“It was on the doorstep when I got home from the store,” Fallon replied. “I dunno, probably about seven o’clock or so.”
“What was inside the package?”
“Just this.” Fallon dropped the cardboard box and handed the smaller wooden one to Nicholas.
He took it gingerly, as if he feared to touch the ancient-looking thing.
“Who is Thanatos?” I asked a bit louder this time.
“Death personified.” Nicholas’s voice warbled, hinting at his own worry.
A cold breeze blew through the den, making the curtains covering the large window dance. I looked up to see if the fan had been turned on, but it remained still.
“You mean Death, like the Grim Reaper?” I asked, my voice cracking as the eerie feeling of dread intensified to an overwhelming sensation.
“Exactly,” Nicholas said. He too watched the dancing curtains. “Though I doubt the person who sent this is the actual Thanatos of legend. But perhaps he is closer to the literal truth; something like we are, a vampire, a bringer of death.”
I screwed up my face, confused as always by Nicholas’s cryptic ways of explaining things. Did that mean he thought a vampire dropped it off, or that this box had something to do with vampires in general? “So did this belong to Thanatos?”
Nicholas suddenly looked more annoyed than worried. “Thanatos is the Greek god of death, Alyssa. That symbol is like a calling card.”
“Wait a second,” Fallon interrupted. “Hades is the god of the underworld.”
Nicholas smiled revealing his fangs. “Correct. Two points to the little human. Perhaps you could teach your friend here a thing or two.” He gave me a short sneer. “Hades is the ruler of the underworld, but Thanatos is the bringer of death. He is the one who sends the spirits to Hades.”
“So are you trying to tell me the gods are real? And sending us warnings?” I asked.
“In my day, we believed the gods were as real as your next door neighbor. I, of course, have never met one, but that does not negate the possibility that they might have some physical form. Remember, we were supposedly born of the Keres, grandchildren of the goddess Nyx.”
I nodded, remembering Lysander’s telling of our legend. Vampires were the offspring of the Keres, who were daughters of Nyx, Goddess of the night. The Keres were extremely bloodthirsty creatures that swarmed battlefields to drink the blood of fallen soldiers. They finished off the dying so their souls could pass on to the underworld. According to Lysander’s story, one of the Keres had mated with a dying man, and the first vampire had been born of that union. Immortal like its mother, the new creation carried an insatiable bloodlust, but took on the form and build of its human father. Nyx didn’t wish the new creation destroyed and tried to hide it from the world. She cursed it to only be able to roam at night, where she could watch over it.
The lights in the room flickered for a moment. Again, Fallon and I exchanged worried looks. Nicholas’s eyes narrowed. He glanced from me, to Fallon, then to the box in his hands.
“Whatever this thing represents”—Nicholas held up the box—“it’s very old. We’ll need to bring this to Lysander’s attention as soon as he returns.”
“We probably should have done that before we opened it.” I turned to Fallon.
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t mean to open it. I don’t know what came over me.”
“There’s nothing we can do about that now.” A shiver ran down my spine as the words left my lips. Dread curdled in the pit of my stomach.
Fallon’s computer beeped. The twangy mechanical sound startled me from my thoughts. When I looked over, it was in the process of rebooting. The operating system splash screen flashed on the monitor.
Fallon scooted into the desk chair. “Why the heck did it do that?” She typed in the password as soon as the dialogue box came up on screen. “Something strange is going on here.”
I hoped Lysander would be able to figure out the mystery behind the box. Nicholas’s interpretation of the symbol and the persistent creepy chill hanging in the air left me feeling uneasy.
Nicholas set it back into the cardboard box. “No one is to touch this until Lysander’s had a chance to look at it.” He turned to Fallon. “Let me know as soon as he gets back.”
“As you wish, your highness.” Fallon didn’t bother looking at him; she was staring angrily at her computer, which showed a blue screen with a warning message. I wasn’t a computer person, but even with my limited knowledge, I knew the blue screen was a bad thing.
“Damn computer. I’m going for a smoke while it reboots.” She shot up from her chair and grabbed her pack of cigarettes.
“Those things are going to kill you. If you’d like, I could do it quicker,” Nicholas said, not missing an opportunity to pick on her.
When she didn’t respond, he shrugged and turned to me. A wicked smile crossed his face. “As for you. No strange packages or ancient boogeymen are going to keep you from your date with the mats.”
“Great,” I said without a hint of enthusiasm. My muscles tensed at seeing his satisfied look. He enjoyed combat training a little too much.
I hated it, but had no choice.
According to Lysander, I was a magnet for danger. I had to agree with him on some level. I wouldn’t be a vampire if it weren’t for the two thugs who had attacked me on the UNLV campus. Of course, I didn’t really avoid danger either.
A couple of months ago, when we raided the Acta Sanctorum’s Las Vegas base of operations, I’d been ordered to stay with the group as we fought our way to Quentin. In the middle of the fight, I heard my best friend, Fallon screaming and broke away to save her. We’d won in the end, but I got my ass handed to me, trying to play hero. That’s when Lysander asked Nicholas to help train me in hand-to-hand combat. He hoped it would help prevent me from being killed, and thought it might teach me a lesson in following orders.
Leaving the cold chill of the den behind, I quickly changed into a tank top and yoga pants—no nifty karate gi in this house—and walked into the makeshift dojo.
Lysander had recently outfitted the garage with wall-to-wall mats and soundproofing. The soundproofing was installed after our first lesson, when Nicholas broke my nose and two of my ribs. Our neighbors overheard the fighting and threatened to call the cops on us for domestic disturbances. In Las Vegas, people might not question neighbors with a nocturnal lifestyle, but trying to explain sparring to a human while you’re bleeding from serious-looking wounds is not an easy thing.
A speed bag had been hung in one corner and a large punching bag in the other. Mounted to the wall were various knives, swords, and special daggers. I stopped to admire the matched pair of dragon daggers Lysander and I had used when we went after Quentin. Their gem eyes twinkled in the harsh fluorescent lighting.
Nicholas followed me into the room. He must’ve noticed me staring at the daggers. “Fancy a knife fight? You think you’re ready for bloodshed?”
It was a trap, and I knew better than to engage. Instead, I tried deflection. “Speaking of blood, when was the last time you hunted? You’re looking a bit weak.”
“Weak.” He narrowed his gaze. “Really?”
Maybe that wasn’t the best choice of words. “I just meant you look pale. That’s all.”
“Nice try. But you’re not getting out of this so easily. Lysander wants you trained, and it’s the highlight of my evening to do so.”
I smiled innocently. “Lysander could train me himself.”
“Formidable as he is,” Nicholas nodded in respect as if Lysander were in the room, “he is no good at teaching. His lack of patience can become a problem.”
To that, I agreed. Lysander was not the easiest of teachers. He tended to throw you to the wolves and let you live or die by your own merit. Nicholas wasn’t much better, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.
Nicholas, as I had heard it, was a former Roman legionary. He may have been a few thousand years old, but he was still sharp as the blade of a freshly edged sword when it came to battle tactics. He didn’t teach the modern Japanese karate or trendy Krav Maga from Israel, either. His was an older and very brutal fighting style, which he taught as he learned it—no foam weapons and no padding. We fought as we were, using our fists and feet as weapons, only pausing long enough to allow our wounds to heal.
Nicholas smiled wide, showing me his sharp fangs. “Ready to kiss the mats, little warrior?”
Not wanting to further play to his ego and let him see how much I dreaded this, I gave him an impish look and stuck my tongue out. “Sure am. Let’s do it.”
“You’ll pay for that.”
I’d earned his respect as a member of the clan, proving myself against the Acta Sanctorum’s zombie-like creatures. But still, it seemed his hobby was to make me squirm. He wouldn’t do permanent damage, but he liked to make sure I knew my place in the clan. I might be the mate of the leader, but I was still young, and that meant bottom of the totem pole.