Prophecies of Light Read online

  Table of Contents

  Welcome!

  The Vampire Gift 7: Prophecies of Light

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The End

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  TO THE VAMPIRE GIFT SERIES

  New books are released every 6-8 weeks!

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  – BOOKLIST AS OF JANUARY 2019 –

  Currently Available:

  The Vampire Gift 1: Wards of Night

  The Vampire Gift 2: Kingdom of Ash

  The Vampire Gift 3: Throne of Dust

  The Vampire Gift 4: Darkness Rising

  The Vampire Gift 5: Whispers of Evil

  The Vampire Gift 6: Secrets of Hope

  The Vampire Gift 7: Prophecies of Light

  The Vampire Gift 8: Shadows of Mist

  The Vampire Gift 9: A Taste of Crimson

  Coming Soon:

  The Vampire GIft 10: Crypts of Dawn

  The Vampire Gift 11: Wards of Destiny

  The Vampire Gift 12: Realmspk of Reverence

  by E.M. Knight

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  The Vampire Gift 7: Prophecies of Light

  By E. M. Knight

  Copyright © 2017

  Eleira Publishing

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead or vampire, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Cover art by B. Wagner

  First Edition: September 2017

  Chapter One

  James

  In the skies over Canada

  I put the plane on autopilot and walk out of the cockpit, needing to stretch my legs.

  We’ve been flying for hours. By some extraordinary stroke of luck, the Crusaders’ main facility happened to be located in Canada. That simplified things greatly for me. Meant there was no need to cross the American border with my coven members and the nine vampires of the pack.

  All is quiet in the cabin. The pack vampires are sticking to themselves. I suspect, for many of them, this is the first time they’ve been on a plane. They’re not quite uncomfortable, but they’re not entirely at ease, either.

  Though they do their very best to cover it up.

  Smithson is near the front, flanked by April and Liana. I shoot the girls a quick grin as I pass. April pretends not to notice, but Liana blushes from the attention.

  She’s into me more than I can believe. I can’t wait for the moment we’ll finally be alone, in a secluded bedroom or closet somewhere…

  I clear my throat, adjust my pants, and put those thoughts out of my mind before I can get too excited.

  Sylvia and Victoria are also sitting together, heads pressed close in conversation. They stop talking when I come to their side.

  “Well, go on,” I tell them. “Don’t hold your tongues on account of me.”

  Victoria rolls her eyes. “What do you want, James?”

  “I want to know how the process is going.”

  Her voice takes on a strained quality as she answers me. “I told you. I don’t think it’ll be possible for me to cloak her.”

  I scowl. “You seemed more confident before.”

  “That’s because back then I thought I could still salvage something of this torrial.” She opens her hand and reveals two broken pieces of a small ivory stone.

  I frown. “And you can’t? It’s completely lost?”

  She grunts. “It was a strong one, James. The strongest I’ve ever had. I told you I intended to use it in case we came across Cierra. But, well…” she hesitates, glancing at Sylvia from the corner of her eye.

  “But somehow, it broke,” I finish for her.

  We haven’t yet revealed to anybody else what happened with me and Victoria by that portal door in the pack’s lair, where she made me angry, and I lashed out.

  “Yes,” she says.

  “What are our options?” I ask her. “Can’t you try the cloaking spell without it?”

  Victoria laughs, full of scorn. “Oh yeah, James. Great idea. Ask a witch as weak as me to cast a spell that complicated on her own? I’m sure there’s no way that would backfire.”

  “What’s the worst that can happen,” I say slowly, “if you were to try?”

  “You mean if I try to prepare the proper weaves, to pull them out of the currents, and then to direct them at Sylvia without any sort of buffer?”

  “Yes.”

  “They’d rip away from me. I wouldn’t be able to control them. And who knows how they’d manifest themselves then? If it’s mid-spell, they could morph into something horrible. They might maim her. Kill her. And I would most certainly be burned out.”

  I lower myself in the vacant seat across from the two women. “What do you mean, ‘burned out’?” I inquire. “I’ve heard that phrase used before. But I’ve never had it explained to me.”

  “A witch can lose her abilities to control the Elements if she channels too much,” Sylvia answers before Victoria can. “The mind can only hold a certain amount of magic. It’s defined at birth. There’s no way to augment it, no way to expand it. It’s nothing like a muscle, which you can grow. It’s simply the limit you were given.”

  “So why would trying to use more risk losing the ability?” I ask. “If anything, I’d think the limit would make it impossible for a witch to draw more than she’s capable of.”

  Victoria shakes her head. “No. It’s not like that. Imagine bending down to pick up a heavy object. There’s a limit to what you can lift. If it’s past that, picking it up becomes impossible. It’s just more than your strength.

  “Magic, on the other hand, isn’t like picking up an object. It’s like having one hurtling down at you. You either catch it, or you don’t. If you do, it means you were able to withstand the drop. But if the object is many times heavier than what your body can stand, you’ll be crushed.” She grimaces. “Nasty metaphor. But it elucidates my point.”

  “No, I get it,” I say under my breath. “So if the torrial is completely busted, and you can’t cloak her on your own, what are our options when we arrive?”

  Sylvia takes hold of my sleeve. “Call it off,” she pleads. �
�What you’re proposing is madness. I know the Crusaders, James. And as soon as they realize you or I are vampires, they will kill.”

  I roll my head from side to side. “And that’s why we need you to be cloaked,” I say. “So they don’t know we’re vampires.”

  “You’re not even thinking straight!” she exclaims. “James, the cloaking prevents others of our kind from detecting us!”

  “Our kind,” I mutter. Then I smile. “So glad you finally see yourself that way.”

  She shoots me a piercing look. “I’m not stupid enough to deny what I’ve become.”

  “And yet you’d be surprised how long some other fledglings fight it,” I say.

  “Anyway, that’s not the point!” she exclaims, growing impatient. “The point is that cloaking won’t do anything to help us. You’re leading us to our death.”

  I narrow my eyes and very deliberately lean forward. “If you are so certain about that,” I say, “why are you on this flight?”

  She scoffs. “As if I had any other choice!”

  “Admit it,” I say. “You’re curious. You want to test the extent of your new powers. Your whole perception of the Crusaders was formed when you were still human. And still a little girl, at that.”

  “So?”

  “So, it’s very easy for an impressionable young woman to be taken in by the lies spun by her elders.”

  “They weren’t lies,” she hisses.

  “Fine. Delusions, then. Images of unearned grandeur. The Crusaders were made out to be much more powerful in your mind than they really are, I suspect. After all…” I reach out and brush my fingers along the side of her head, right at the point her wig sits. “They did this horrible thing to you.”

  She pulls away, almost like she’s been singed by my touch. “I’m not the one underestimating their abilities,” she whispers.

  “How many vampires have they actually killed?” I ask. “Forget the stories they told you. Forget their propaganda. How many vampires are actually dead at the Crusaders’ hands?”

  “Hundreds, if not thousands,” a weary male voice says from behind me.

  I look back. Smithson is standing there. I glance past him, at April and Liana. April again avoids my gaze, but Liana shrugs.

  “What are you doing up?” I ask him, not too kindly.

  “You’re making plans involving things you know very little of,” he says. He looks at me for a long moment… and then sighs. “I came to offer my help.”

  My eyebrows slowly climb up. “Is this a genuine offer?” I wonder. I look at Victoria. “What do you think?”

  She considers the stranding vampire for a moment, and then she speaks. “He’s bound to us now,” she says. “I’d take him at his word.”

  “Don’t know if I would go that far,” I mumble. But I gesture to the empty spot behind me. “Sit.”

  Smithson looks me over, then lowers himself into the seat.

  “The Crusaders are not some ragtag organization,” he says. “They make up some of the most formidable military militia on earth. Their facility here in Canada is one of many. To the outside world, they conduct themselves as part of the military complex. They work with governments worldwide to topple dictators, to exert regime change, to destabilize regions of the world that would be better off in anarchy, for their masters. They have a foothold in all the major terrorist groups around. The rebels in Syria. The pirates in Somalia. The gangs in Southern Afghanistan that control the poppy fields. Wherever governments call upon the Crusaders to do their dirty work.”

  “So government contractors,” I say. “And? What does that have to do with us?”

  “You’d have to be extraordinarily short-sighted or extremely conceited not to see the point. The Crusaders have access to the best technology on earth. They have money, influence, and weapons the likes of which you’ve never seen. They make their cash fighting proxy wars. But their purpose remains true: to wipe out the entirety of the vampire threat.”

  “Then why haven’t they attacked the covens?” I ask. “We know The Haven was warded. But The Crypts? If these Crusaders are so powerful and so dedicated to their purpose, they would have long-ago mounted an attack.”

  “No.” Smithson shakes his head. “You don’t get it. It’s only in recent years that military technology advanced to the point of actually being able to threaten vampires.”

  “You told us they’ve killed thousands,” I say, with no small amount of skepticism.

  “Over the course of their history, yes,” Smithson clarifies. “In the beginning, when vampires were scattered, before there were covens, they could ambush lone wanderers and pick them off. Remember, too, that unlike the Order, the Crusaders were willing to work with witches. At one point in this history, that was enough.”

  “Yet five hundred years ago, my Mother’s and Father’s covens were formed,” I say. “And your Crusaders have done nothing against them.”

  “Five hundred years ago they were incapable of going against an organized faction of the creatures of the night. But they’ve since expanded their abilities. Now, nothing holds them back.”

  “So what, are you trying to say? That they’re going to mount a true assault? On The Haven, on The Crypts?” I scoff. “That’s laughable.”

  “You don’t know the weapons they have in their possession,” he mutters.

  I close my eyes and exhale very slowly. “I think,” I say after a moment, “that you’re just trying to scare me. That you’re trying to get me to change my mind about this expedition.” I crack open one eye and look in the direction of Liana and April. “That’s what you told the girls, isn’t it? That’s why they let you come. You said that you would dissuade me from doing this thing.”

  I surge up. “Well. I’ll tell you what, Smithson. I will not be intimated. I will not be scared off. We will proceed exactly as intended. And Victoria? If you don’t manage the spell, so be it. I’m tired of waiting. I’m tired of staying still. You know we need answers. Sylvia will come with me, once we land, while the rest of you stay back. We will get the information I seek. And for those of you who truly think some measly group of humans can pose a threat, remember this:

  “We are hunters. We are the undead. We are many times more powerful than anybody else out there in the world! And above all, we are not going to the Crusaders as a threat. We intend them no harm. Though if it comes to that…” I flash my fangs, “…we’ll have no problem giving them the fight of a lifetime.”

  Chapter Two

  Eleira

  The Haven

  Together with Riyu, I walk up to the very edge of The Haven. I stop a foot away from where it begins. I turn my head to him.

  “Do you see it?” I ask.

  The little vampire frowns. “No,” he says, after a moment. “But I can feel something in front of me. It’s like a veil cutting off my perception of whatever lies past.”

  “I don’t see it, either,” I admit.

  I have to be directly linked to the throne torrial, seated atop it, with moonlight streaming down, to actually be able to see the wards.

  “What happens if someone crosses the borders from within?” he asks.

  “Nobody’s tried yet,” I say. “But as far as I know, nothing bad. What use are protective walls that trap us here as if in a prison?”

  “No use at all,” he agrees.

  “I made them so they’d be solid from the outside,” I continue.

  “So when a vampire walks out… how does he come back in?”

  “There are eleven points around the border,” I say. “The strength of the throne torrial flows over from them, connecting them to create the barrier. You have to arrive at one of those points and be let in by me.”

  Riyu looks at me quizzically.

  “I made a series of inverted weaves,” I tell him, “to disguise the openings.”

  His eyebrows shoot up. “So those eleven points are unprotected?”

  “No,” I shake my head. “Not exactly. “Think of them
like gates. They still offer a deterring force. One cannot simply walk through. But they are rightfully weaker than the rest of the wards.”

  “So it’s possible for an enemy to break through?” Riyu wonders. “At one of these points?”

  I glance back at the guards who came with us. “Give us some space, please,” I say.

  On my order, they back away.

  I lower my voice. “The points are weaker, yes, but they’re also booby-trapped. If one of the gates is forced open without me doing so, the intruder will be met with a very, very nasty surprise.”

  “And you say they’re inverted, so nobody knows exactly where they are,” Riyu considers. “That’s clever.”

  I smile. “I got the idea when—“

  I cut off. I’m getting too comfortable with Riyu. I have to remember that even if he has sworn fealty, he was still a vampire of The Crypts for most of his life.

  And he hasn’t exactly provided me with enough of their secrets to make my trust in him absolute.

  He waits for me to say more. When it becomes obvious I won’t, he murmurs, “You really did something incredible here, Eleira.”

  I hold my surprise in. “What do you mean?”

  “Well…” He takes a step closer to the wall and holds his hand out right to the surface. I can tell, intuitively, that he’s a scant inch away from touching it. “I was here when Morgan had hers up. They protected The Haven, in a way, but yours makes hers feel absolutely primitive in comparison.”

  “Really.” A big swell of pride takes me from inside. “And what makes you say that?”

  “Even though I can’t see the weaves you used, I can feel their complexity,” he says. “And the tapestry you wove here is remarkable. It’s astounding. To be frank…” he lowers his voice and looks me in the eyes, “to be absolutely honest, it makes me suspect you called on some other power, maybe not of this world.”

  This time I can’t hold my surprise in. I gasp.

  His gaze snaps to me. “I’m right,” he says, and it’s not a question.

  Before I can figure out whether to be angry, annoyed, or threatened, Riyu holds one hand up in a placating gesture.