Penned on the flight to Tokyo…
This is not the first time I have tangled with the Supernatural Order and it will not be the last. I spoke those words to Victor as we headed to Toronto, albeit with more humor in my voice than I currently would impart upon the declaration. Still, it is a reality I have occupied for over twenty years now. It seems my fate has been interwoven with their existence.
The simple explanation could be summarized by noting I am a seer. I was born to be a vampire hunter and somehow, wound up becoming an immortal instead. Throughout the twenty-seven years I have possessed fangs, twenty-two of them have been spent walking this earth with psychic abilities. I managed to avoid the stern eye of the cosmos for the past sixteen years. And now, my respite from my calling has come to an unfortunate end.
One could be very quick to remind me this is not my fault. In these sixteen years, I have been a rogue, but without any duties from The Fates I have been shirking. Oh certainly, I could have been in servitude to the Order had our last meeting not gone the way it did, but even if I had not been warned to stay as far from Seattle as possible, I would not have been of the mind to help them. Not after they stole John and Lydia and stripped me of one of my abilities.
Correction. Blocked one. That, however, is a story for another time.
Whatever the matter, in those years, I both mourned and healed, both came to lose everything and gain so much more back. I lost love and found love. I watched the woman I adored turn to dust; held the hand of the man for whom I would die and exchanged vows. The first time I looked at Victor and beheld my new husband, I saw the future within his chestnut colored eyes. I knew it would be filled with both good times and bad ones. I never realized, though, how soon the tide was to turn in the world around us.
It started with the videos, and turned into the summit we attended with distinguished members of his bloodline. I recall being introduced to kings and queens, dukes and members of the class to which Victor belongs, the Primael. I listened to a man named Mitchell Livingston declare to us this threat could be the single worst problem immortal kind has ever had to weather and saw it in the eyes of each immortal gathered that this was truth. On the other side of this tempest would either be our victory or our destruction. There was no way, however, that vampires could remain underground for much longer.
And yet nobody seemed to have the answers.
Truly, I should have walked out of that meeting knowing what happened. Nobody else has the resources or the will to launch such an underhanded attack against us. No, it is the Order who are both entrusted with the responsibility of protecting the natural order and the engineers of its collapse in recent years. They were behind the slaughter in Europe I ended and now, it would seem the Fates have chosen us to be the ones to stop its latest enterprise. At the same time, I find myself wondering about the cost.
By now, John and Lydia have made it into the Order’s Seattle Headquarters and heaven only knows what happened the first time they sat down with Wallace Alexander. I still remember being held down and screaming in agony as his hands touched my head and his will shoved my ability to turn mortal into the tightest closet ever manufactured. I remember that distinct emptiness at losing it all sixteen years ago, an emptiness which almost resulted in a successful suicide attempt. Knowing he is now supervising my children brings with it no measure of comfort for me.
Beyond this, though, I know the moment he looked at Lydia and saw I had turned my daughter into a vampire, I might as well have signed my death warrant. John approached Victor and me prior to leaving for Seattle, asking us to seek shelter somewhere far away from Philadelphia for this very reason. In order for he and his sister to figure out why the Order is recording Victor’s bloodline in the midst of feeding and distributing those videos, he needed to know we would be safe. We spirited away to Toronto and then, departed for Vancouver. As we waited with Delilah and Robin for our final flight to Tokyo, I watched my brother and his bonded suffer with anguish over what might happen to John and Lydia. My eyes fell to Victor as we boarded the airplane, and my demeanor faltered despite myself.
I could no more leave him to such a fate than Delilah and Robin should have been asked to do for John and Lydia. Indeed, wherever Victor goes and in whatever danger he might find himself, I would be right there, facing it beside him. Still, there was no way any of us could accompany John and Lydia without weapons drawn and all of us ready to face our deaths. We would slay as many as we could. Our ends, however, would be imminent.
In not doing anything, though, I still find myself in trouble. Two master seers have visited Allen’s coven and threatened my old friend. We are half a world away, bound for the residence of Victor’s old friend Nathan, but I still see the storm clouds on the horizon, the familiar harbinger of danger about to engulf us. The sword I carry with me once again hums with the familiar resonance of duty waiting, a threat riding on the wings about to descend like a drove of hawks. What we are about to face, I do not know. I only know one thing for certain.
While I know Victor can more than hold his own, indeed he has lived for four centuries on this mortal coil by his own recognances, I still fear for whatever might come for us. The twisted hand of fate has never spared me my sentiments as it has brought its weight upon my shoulders and knowing the Order will have me in its sights causes me to fear for my maestro, my husband and lover. Whatever may come, I know we can face together as we have faced every trial we have endured thus far and made it to the other side.
Still, I would feel that much better about it if I knew what to expect.
His immortal poet, forever and always,
Peter
Posted via web from from the poet’s pen
