Amid The Shadows Ch. 15

Alistair woke suddenly, his body and face drenched with beads of cold sweat. If his heart still beat it would no doubt sound like a dozen horses trapping through a cobbled street. Something had dragged him from his death like slumber. He looked around the room in a frantic panic. It was still day, his internal clock alerting him to the sun's height outside the stone walls.

His first reaction was to check his person, his hands skimming down a toned chest, no signs of injury. Everything in the room around him was deadly silent. The thought occurred to him in an instant, if not himself then someone he was tied too. He closed his eyes and let an overwhelming sense of detachment overtake him as he tired to pin point each of his protégées.

Diana was muddled and scared, which was the usual, Claudia was closed off to him emotionally. This should have puzzled him, however, over the years his attachment to his child has been growing more and more distant. The fact that he could still feel her as a physical being eased him. Paul was panicked and full of fear, he frowned and reached for Alexis.

'Alexis' he spoke her name in a whisper drawing upon her face and trying to locate her again. As the newest number of his collection, Alexis was only tied faintly by the first exchange of blood and their blood pact. She would be the hardest to locate. Alistair drew upon his own ball of magic, its dark black essence building inside him, the metaphysical portrayal of his power drew claws and roamed its confides with an endless hunger. The sweet memory of drawing from Alexis made it grumble with want, another taste, a lick.

Alistair pushed the urge aside and focused on her location. There was nothing. Nothing....a space as dark and black as the thoughts in his mind and filled with a cold nothing and no one. This was where she should have been through their blood connection. Just a hollow Alexis shaped hole was left.

He drew himself from the bed slowly, groggy from his early rising and the battle of wills against himself. He started to slow draw on a tee shirt over PJ bottoms. If something had happened to her, his future plans were as good as dead. He flung open his bedroom door onto a lamp lit landing. He scanned the hall, drew a breath and gave a shout. 'Taran!'

**

George was numb, Karl was talking to him, his mouth moving slowly, his brow furrowed with worry but to George it was simply white noise and slowed movement as pain overwhelmed him. He had felt the same pain and hollowness when Marianne had died and now, his daughter was gone. The tearing from his heart felt the same. That was all it could be.

He tried to take in his surroundings but nothing seemed to fill the clawing dread and guilt that claimed him like shadows sweeping across the night. He looked to Karl, his friends eyes red with emotion, he looked to Paul next, his son was crumbled in a heap sobbing while Diana caressed his shoulder. The vampire was watching everyone with wide eyes. George strode to her with purpose. He bent to her level, Claudia shrunk back as he leaned in closer, inches from her face.

'I know not how in depth your dealings or depravity with Alistair, but as a vampire, I would think that you are either is partner or his sired child.' At the last comment Claudia gave a subtle nod, George then continued to speak.

'YOU are going to assist us with our enquiries and help us get into Alistair's castle. If not, I will personally keep you captive until your body and mind is weak and on the edge of insanity. Only then will I release you. Set you out into the woods on a wolves full moon and watch with glee as they chase, catch and rip you limb from limb, unleashing pain and suffering upon you. As your master has taken my child, I will take his. This I promise you as a solemn vow.'

**

Claudia's mind was whirling with emotion, the wizard's cold eyes and colder words had her mind buzzing with thoughts and questions. As he had promised, something shifted across the lands, the trees began a wild breeze as if in agreement and acknowledgement of some agreement.

The gag in her mouth was wet and soggy. If she had to breathe, she'd be suffocating. She was grateful at least for that small mercy, the fear she now felt made he so uneasy. She eyed her captives with a fearful sense of unfamiliar and detached familiarity.

Firstly, the younger Martinez was being comforted by her Sire's pet. The changer Diana. She had seen the recognition in her eyes when the wolf hoisted her from the ground over his shoulder. They knew who and what each other where. What she was doing here?....then she saw, Diana was comforting Paul, offering gentle comfort and support.

She had followed him for months on her Sire's orders and now she saw something differently. Diana cared and something inside Claudia rebelled against it. She had felt that way once...needed one person like the air around them. Instead he'd sent himself mad trying to change her into something she couldn't be. Lewis.

His name echoed in her head and with it, something in her gut tightened in loss. She missed him, even after all this time. She wanted to see him for one minute, to tell him how much he'd meant to her. A point she had discussed with Alistair on numerous occasions. Alistair had been the loving, and understanding friend he had always been and told her of Lewis' increasing madness and at the mere mentioned of her name, how it would sent him into crazed episodes.

She remembered her own episodes, times when she had absorbed texts and magic like a sponge, tested and tired all kind of depravity to fill her own emptiness. She had been evil, the things she had done...what both of then had done...what she had wanted to do. It made her shiver with shame and sickness.

She realized then in that second why she rebelled against what she was seeing. Why she shunned attention and interaction with anyone and everyone. She hated herself and she was jealous of what Diana was doing. Showing her emotions, because somewhere deep inside Claudia she'd shut those feeling off for a while, they made her weak. Only one person saw her...metaphorically speaking, the sad truth was that she had accepted in reality she would probably never see Lewis Jensen Crane again.

**

Jensen sat by her side and stroked her hair, watching in the cave light as the marks on her face and arms faded slowly. She was healing, slowly. He told her tales of his exploits in the ring, of waking up with limbs so sore, he was exhausted and had slept for days. Trying everything to lighten the situation, get a response from her and convince himself that she was ok. That he was ok. In that moment, it was crystal clear. He watched the slow steady rise of her chest, drank in the smooth skin on her cheek, the soft skin in between her eyebrows he'd kissed. He knew without her his new beginning, the fire in his belly would diminish, he loved her.

Jensen would drive a stake into Alistair heart himself before he'd let someone else he love be corrupted by the poison in that man's body and mind. Alexis would not become what Claudia had, their story had only just begun, he'd be damned if he didn't see it out to the end.

**

Alistair stood in the sun room, the thick UV protected glass of the windows let in light but without any of the harm. He had yet to modernize the bedroom, he smirked at the errant thought that he'd fuck Alexis in that room and watch the sun light up their skin. His fangs dropped and nicked his bottom lip as he fantasized about her in graphic details. Uneasy that he'd been unable to feel her for a few hours.

As he imagined, playing out a scene, he'd tongue and skim the warm skin of her inner thigh, slowly, he hear her groan until he reach the apex of her thighs, could hear clearly the pounding of the blood in that beautiful purple blue vein. He tensed imagining himself biting through her flesh at that moment, hearing her groan and then shake in orgasmic bliss.

The door to his study banged opened and Taran interrupted the sweetest moment of the daydream with his heavy breathing. Alistair eyed him with a wild anger.

'WHAT!' He boomed.

Taran pointed to the window with a shaky hand and pointed a a ragged scar trailing his arm. Alistair knew the wound. Diana had told him in confidence after their first sexual encounter. Taran had been attacked by a shifter and feared them greatly. As he rose with a slow grace and moved to the window, he looked down at the face of the man who knew him best. George Martinez.

'My My' Alistair murmured to himself, 'Today just got interesting.'

**

Alex didn't know where she was, she rose from inside the cave careful expecting to feel pain and soreness from her flying act in the air. Instead, she felt free and light. She noticed then, the torches lining the walls and the clean clothes on her person. She was in a cave but which cave?

'Hello?' Her voice echoed off the walls and bounced back to greet her.

'Jensen?' Again repeated, this time almost a mocking tone.

The goosebumps on her arm elevated her anxiety. She walked hesitantly further into the mild darkness of the dimly lit cave. Her feet made no sound on the dirt in the floor below her. The key hanging just above her breasts hummed and sang as if excited. Its song a sweet aria of longing making Alexis' feet move subtly faster and faster, until the tunnel of torches blurred by her vision. Her feet numbly running on the dirt gliding without a sound unto a place of the unknown. As this thought occurred the torches rapidly increased in number and then the cave split into a grander room, a room of such splendour that Alex halted in her movement, her rapid breath the filling in the great empty space with its only sounds.

The room was decorated with elaborate drawing and depictions of something and everything in paints and colours so vibrant, they looked like photographs or exquisite oil paintings come to life. People, places, animals and symbols adhered the stone of every wall, as if telling a story. The ceiling was decorated in in gilded gold and stones, figures, craved with such reality and care, showing angels and demons sparring in graphic illustrations of war. Her brain was overloaded with beauty and sadness. Brutality and joy. Alex stood immobilized by it all.

'It is beautiful little one'

A soft male voice spoke from her right causing Alex to turn suddenly. To a voice she had not heard in years. As she drank in the kind and loving features of a man she had never dreamed she would see again.

'Papa?' Her voice shook with emotion, her lip trembled as she watched the warmth and love flow from his eyes. Her Grandpa, Grandpa Martinez, how she had missed him, to be suddenly here before her, it was too much and whatever magic or evil it was, at that moment she didn't care.

'Come and give this old man a hug' Grandpa Martinez, opened his arms wide and embraced his granddaughter as she flew into his arms. Hushing her sobs and cries with encouraging words, stroking her hair and rocking her slightly. Telling her how beautiful she had grown. He held her until her sobs quieten and he rocked her gently.

'How are you here?' Alexis asked quietly into his shirt, breathing in the smell of mint and cigars. Sometimes late at night, she'd sworn she had smelt it in several places at home, sometimes finding herself sitting in his old room and wondering if she was going mad.

'Your mother sent me.' she looked up at him with wide eyes.

'Really?' Alex wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

'Yes little one, she is unhappy with things.' Grandpa offered her a handkerchief and a sad smile.

'What things?' Alex dabbed her eyes.

'Your father, your brother, you getting mixed up in things with that little shit Alistair.'

'Grandpa!' Alex was shocked at hearing him swear.

'Well! It's true. What was your father thinking! Leaving you alone-'

'He has never initially left me alone Papa' Alex interrupted.

'Maybe neglected would be a more apt description. I'm sorry I left you to them my little one.'

'I was angry at you for a long time Papa.' Alex stared at her hands watching them screw and unscrew the handkerchief. 'You left me alone, so alone.' Alex took a long shaky breath. 'Then I realized we have no control over life, over death. My anger was just part of my grief I suppose.' Alex shrugged. 'Didn't stop me needing my Papa.'

Alex starting to cry. How many times had she visited where he lay in the ground and wished she could speak the truth? When would she have the chance again to release these emotions?

'Then I'd see you sometimes Papa, in the house, in the garden, but you never spoke to me and I thought I'd done something wrong. The spirits I wanted to notice me, speak to me, never did, they never do. I missed you and I was alone. Why did you leave me?'

Alex sobbed louder, her voice raising. 'I was so alone! Do you know what its like to be ignored, because you look too much like your mother or because you are not the heir, just the spare?'

Her grandfather grabbed her face, forcing her to look up into the kind blue eyes of the man who made her feel loved and safe as a child.

'You are not the spare Alexis Martinez, you are my talented, beautiful, graceful, kind granddaughter. You are so loved and full of love. The Wolf, the Mage, half those idiots in the council...even if young men very rare think with their heads. You, my darling are unique and extraordinary. I am sorry my darling girl I left you alone.'

As they stood in silence the faint ringing of angelic bells filled the air and Alex watched her grandfather close his eyes and sigh.

'I'm sorry little one, time is short.'

'Why are you here?''

'To guide you, help you if I can. Your mother has been chewing my ear off for years about the things your father should have done. Your brother setting you up with Alistair finally-'

At this comment, the bell sounds flew into a frenzy.

'Paul sent me up?' Alex asked in shock, 'But Dominic...'

'I've said too much little one and I'll pay for it later, but you must understand that the need for something in some makes them easier to corrupt and warp to an individuals way of thinking. Alistair certainly achieved it with those too. Your mother is furious and so am I.'

'Why would Paul-'

'I'm sorry little one, but how you deal with that will have to be another time. We need to discuss the stone.' His eyes were grave as he spoke to Alexis.

'I made a pact.'

'I know little one, but you have to listen to me. This stone is dangerous in Alistair's hands, no one will be safe. You need to read the Duke's diary carefully. Things aren't always what they seem, sometimes the first character one reads in a book usually isn't the lead or the hero.'

'What does that mean?'

'Sometimes its best to go back to where it all began. When you find the stone you will have a choice, destroy it or be destroyed. There can be no other way little one. If you fail in this, the world as you know, as it exists, shall be ripped apart from its seams and no magic can undo what shall come to past. Evil will pro veil and coat the green lands of humanity in a darkness that will never lift.'

The sound of bells and thunder sounded in the cave, causing the ground underfoot to vibrate with life.

'What does that mean Papa??' Alex asked anxiously, 'Papa!' His body started to fade into the darkness, 'Tell me how to destroy it.'

'It means you are more powerful than you know. It means in the end, one of you must choose, to be of the spirits and live a life amid the shadows little one. It means my darling girl, time is ticking away and you must wake up and finish this, NOW!'

He thrust his hand to her chest and Alex felt a flush of warmth and light overtake her and flood her body and her senses. Alex struggled to breathe. She struggled against it, fought and screamed until exhaustion took her over.

**

Jensen watched Claude fight sleep, a smirk lifted his spirits as he watched the book slip in Claude's hand and sleep finally claim him. Claude had kept busy while Alexis remained unconscious, talking of nothing of importance, reading that damn Duke's diary, cooking something from a packet in Jensen rucksack and badgering him to eat, until at last Jensen had eaten a bowl of something that resembled a soup and chewed something crispy like bread.

The cave was eerily silent, the odd crackle of the fire or a whirl of wind catching on the stone around them. Jensen took this time to reflect upon things about himself and always came to the same conclusion. He was a fucked up individual. He looked at Alexis and wished he was a better man, one untainted by emotional shit, of an emotional stunted set of parents and a psychopathic brother.

A man who didn't feel the need to kick the shit out of everything around him, to destroy things to feel relief. Expect, since Alex has come into his life, his outbursts hadn't been that many. While his power grew stronger each day, his inner magic finally seemed to be settling to to his centre.

He'd hurt her, he knew this, with his own hands and his words. The regret he felt when he looked at her, now, sleeping before him made him sick. But compared to what he had been in those mad years before and during his time in Alistair's house of horrors, the change and progress in him, shocked him. He no longer had black spots in his memory and things popped into his head daily as if pieces of the jigsaw had been found and were coming together.

A murmur of something drew him from his thoughts. Alex made more sounds and frowned. She opened her eyes and looked up confused at Jensen's face hoovering above her.

'Hello Beautiful' Jensen spoke gruffly as a feeling of relief and happiness assaulted him. He lifted her gently and drew her into his lap, smelling her hair and kissing her neck.

Alex murmured something else. 'What Beautiful? Tell me what you need.'

'W-water' she gasped. Jensen gripped her around her waist, positioning her on his legs and used his right hand to scramble around her back pack, pulling out a plastic bottle with sports cap, he pulled it open with his teeth and offered her small tentative sips.

'Better?' he asked after catering to her a handful of times. Alexis nodded and looked at him intently.

'I am so in love with you' Jensen uttered the words without a another thought, he wouldn't lose her. After chasing after her and watching her suffer and in pain. As fucked up as he was, he had to let her know.

'Jensen-' Alex touched his face with a shaky hand, 'I-I....'

'You had every right too leave.' Jensen shook his head, 'I said some hurtful things to you and Claude. Its been a long time since someone has touched me like you have.' He let out a laugh, 'I mean that on ALL levels.'

Alex laughed and winced before settling her head to his chest, 'Don't make me laugh too much, I'm still a little sore. But I love you too crazy Mage man.'

Jensen held his breathe as she settled against his chest, letting out a sigh. He looked around the room and caught Claude watching him intently. His sad smile only made Jensen fell uneasy. As if sensing his uneasy, Claude stood. 'How about something to eat for the patient?'

**