Snippet: Dark Forces

This is another story-in-the-making. I started this some 2 years ago, and as usual, didn’t get to finish it. Anyway, just posting it here. I’m still concentrating on Tales of the Damned right now. Ü

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 He was getting ready for bed.
A quick, approving smile lifted up the corners of Zhia’s lips as she watched him slowly undress, revealing sturdy shoulders, a bare chest, and just a faint hint of muscle. He looked tall and strong for his age, not exactly big-boned, but just enough for girls to fawn over. He wasn’t quite eighteen, she knew. Hadn’t she been counting the years herself? After all, she had to. It was part of a great task she must perform, a task which had not been wholly explained to her, making her just slightly sullen.

But only slightly. She knew the details would be revealed in time; surely the Elders will not let her do something she did not understand, particulary something that was obviously of great importance.

Zhia’s smile widened. Vampires so loved drama. Even though the Guardian Clans to which she belonged had long discarded the elaborate wardrobes of the old days and now dressed in simple - though still elegant - outfits, they still injected quite a good measure of theatrics in their daily tasks. It was like part of their very being. She suspected that when she would finally be summoned to the Council to hear the true nature of her task, it would be like watching a play at the Paris Opera House.

Quite suddenly she stiffened, sensing that she was no longer alone. After a split-second, she relaxed. Nicholas. There was no mistaking that familiar powerful presence.

“You watch him too much, little sister,” a rather disembodied voice spoke from somewhere above her.

“Is that not what I am here for? To watch him, Nicholas?” she replied without turning her head.

“Not while he undresses, ma cherie. Give the boy some measure of privacy.”

Nicholas’ voice now held a tinge of amusement. Zhia stifled a laugh and turned, coming face-to-face with a bat hanging upside down from the branch just inches above her head, staring at her with red, baleful eyes.

“A bat,” she remarked. “How old-fashioned.”

“You underestimate us, sister. We bats have more to boast about than you pretty little ravens.”

Zhia made a face. She wasn’t adverse to bats, but she certainly preferred being perched on top of a branch than hanging upside down from it.

The lights in the bedroom suddenly flickered out, and the yard was bathed in darkness.

“Ah,” Nicholas breathed. “Now he goes to sleep, and I can have your full attention.” He swung from the upper branch and landed beside Zhia.

Both were oblivious to the young man inside the bedroom, who was not quite asleep yet, although his lids were drooping and he was yawning rather heavily. He was, in fact, staring at the window, for he thought he saw a bat and a raven up in the tree outside, just before he switched off the lights. He struggled to keep his eyes open as they adjusted to the gloom. Was that really a raven and a bat perched side by side on a branch just outside his window?

Out on the branch, Nicholas and Zhia stiffened. “He sees us!” Nicholas warned. “Quickly, Zhia!”

Zhia threw a wave of shadow towards the window, careful to make it look natural enough so as not to attract suspicion, as she and Nicholas dissolved into the darkness.

The young man blinked. There was nothing there now, just an empty branch swaying gently in the wind. No bat. No raven. He lay back on the pillows ruefully. His sleep-fogged brain was making him see things. He yawned. He better get some sleep. There was school tomorrow.

Nicholas and Zhia shimmered into their full forms under the shelter of the tree. Zhia cocked her head to one side, listening intently as she sent out a subtle probing thought.

“He has fallen asleep,” she announced after a brief moment.

“And he has convinced himself he was merely seeing things,” Nicholas added with a small sigh of relief.

“I am sorry, Nicholas.”

“It was not your fault,” he told her. “We cannot take such risks in the future. The time has not yet come, but it draws ever nearer.”

Another figure suddenly materialized out of the darkness. They both turned and regarded the newcomer.

“Mykos,” Nicholas greeted the dark-haired vampire.

“Elder,” Mykos acknowledged with a slight bow.

Nicholas turned back to Zhia. “Mykos shall take over for the moment. The Council is about to convene, and we require your presence.”

“Of course, Nicholas.”

“Let us be off, then. There is much to discuss.”

He launched himself into the air, shimmering into a raven as he did so. Zhia looked over at Mykos and nodded an acknowledgement, secretly pleased they had not sent a female vampire, then changed back into a raven and flew off after Nicholas.