Chapter Vampyri
Modern times…
Footsteps on the stairs encouraged her to wipe her face. With faster than human speed, she pulled all the invoices from a file cabinet and put them on the desk.
“I need a box please.” She turned as she pulled award plaques from the wall. The useless trinkets impressed visitors but meant nothing to Anjael.
“Don’t worry about the office, I’ll take care of it, my lady. Dart sent you a message, but you left your phone downstairs.” Handing the phone over, Woods added, “Lord Ouro stated that Jake fed the young vampire and Dart was able to locate the coven. He wishes for you to come. Immediately.”
Sighing Anjael nodded. “Get the jet ready with a flight plan to Italy. We will leave before dawn.”
Scowling Woods asked, “What is going on?”
“The wolves are going to war.” She put her hand on his shoulder when he shuddered. “I promise I will keep you safe.”
“I know you will, my lady,” Woods bowed to her.
She clipped a bag around her waist, but paused on the balcony before jumping down. “And Woods, do not hate what you are.”
Her hacker stared at her for a moment then said, “My weak wolf refused to protect me or let me fight, it is a coward. I wish it died with my sister and parents.”
She almost lectured him on the dominance hierarchy of wolves but didn’t. His human soul was a fighter, but his wolf was what they called an omega or WWWWW, the lowest, most subservient level in the pack. “But you are not. Perhaps you could teach your wolf, your courage.” She leap off and let her wings carry her in to the skylight. Many of her employees watched, then went back to work. They believed they worked for a benevolent and repentant demoness. She paid the best in the state, and they got full benefits, not only for themselves but for their extended families. Her graciousness earned their loyalty and her insistence that they all attend religious gatherings of some kind annoyed a few of them, but she declared that just because her soul was condemned did not mean she wanted theirs to join her in hell.
/\^^^^/\
Flying over Las Vegas, Anjael clicked and heard Dartanian’s answer. Banking, she landed outside a modest-looking business complex.
“Are you certain they are here?”
“I followed the scent trail from the manor which stinks of witchcraft. Most of the coven appears to have gotten in a large van or truck and left. You need to come to the manor with me,” Dart glanced around nervously then murmured, “It smelled like a familiar incense, but I am uncertain where I smelled it before.”
Her mouth pursed in a thing line then she buzzed and looked up at the camera by the door. “I am Lady Wasi, a friend of Lord Evan and Lady Marguerite. I am here to help you.”
The lock clicked, she went to open it, but Dart caught her hand. “Please allow me to go first.”
“Fine,” Anjael rolled her eyes.
Dart entered silently and walked ahead of her.
A single vampire female stood at the end of the hall with a silver sword. “Are you with the witches and wolves?”
“We are no threat to you,” Dart promised. “We have come to take you to safety.”
“You both smell of wolves.”
“We have a pack beholding to us who are not with the ones who took your coven. You can call me Anjael. What’s your name, youngling?” Anjael used the old term for a vampire who was less than fifty years old or turned.
“I don’t trust you.” The young female smelled of fear and courage.
“You are wise, so let me show you something.” She cued a video from her cloud account then held the phone out for the vampiress to watch.
Lady Marguerite appeared next to Anjael. Marguerite’s French lilt was clear. “If something happens to our coven, seek out my old friend Lady Anjael Anutari Wasi. She will get you safely to another coven. Your inner shadow will fear her but do not let that she is one of the last demons make you afraid. She is the best defender and most loyal friend you will ever make.”
“You knew Lady Marguerite?”
“I have known her since World War Two. She was part of the Haute-Liore coven before she found her beloved and changed him,” she revealed, then introduced Dart, “And this is Lord Dartanian, he is from St. Martin-du-Canigou.”
“Mademoiselle.” Dart bowed his head to her.
“I’m Sarah.” She let the sword drop as she suddenly looked her real youthful age of less than twenty. “Lady Marguerite took me and my brother in after a renegade bit and changed us. When the smoke came, and everyone collapsed, she… she shoved us and the four children into the dumb waiter and told us to stay hidden in the trash, then come here and wait for help. That was two days ago. Milo left to bring a feeder for the children, but he didn’t come back.” Sarah started sobbing, “We heard them killing Lady Marguerite. Her shadow shrieked as she fought them. I… I think they burned her.”
Anjael held her tightly and looked at Dart. “Call Ridge, tell him to bring Ouro’s SUV. We will need the window tint to keep them safe. Also have Jake contact the other feeders.” She looked down at the girl. “Sarah, I need you to tell me anything you, your brother, or the children need from the manor.”
“Clothes and things.” Sounding uncertain, Sarah went down a hidden staircase and opened the door.
“I need to smell the other children so I can find their clothes.” Anjael revealed.
“It will be faster if I go with you,” Sarah looked around at the four children on cots. “Guys, this is Lady Anjael. Lady Marguerite sent her to help us.”
Anjael smiled without showing her teeth. “Hello children. We are going to have a grand adventure together. Who wants to fly on a plane?”
They all raised their hands as Dart rushed down the stairs. “My lady, we need to leave now. There are several wolves with a strange pack sent approaching rapidly.”
Sarah looked panicked, “What do we do?”
“Sarah, hold two of the children. Dart will carry you and I will carry the other two.” Anjael looked at Dart, “Just like when we were in the resistance.”
They carried rushed up the stairs then climbed onto the roof through an access panel. Sarah clutched the two smallest children to her as Dartanian lifted her.
He looked down at her, “Don’t be afraid.” Then he grew into his giant demon-form.
“Wow.” The teenager gasped in awe as he looked down at her with his golden sandstone eyes. She reached up timidly to touch his horns. “What are you?”
“A demon, my precious, my queen and I are demons,” he answered in the deep tone of his inner self. “Hold tightly to the children.” He leapt skyward following Lady Anjael who turned into a white female gargoyle. They flew upward and spoke in the clicks and whistles of their language.
“Sarah, can you tap my blue tooth earpiece?” Dart asked, she caressed his pointed ear as she did, and he grinned at her. “Call Ridge… We got flushed. The queen says to meet us at the coven manor, then we will go straight to the airport.” He listened then responded, “Thanks, bye… Call disconnect… I have good news for you, Sarah. Your brother is safe and will meet us on the plane.”
He banked and then flapped his wings as they landed.
“That was amazing!” the little girl vampiress gushed.
“Thank you, Maddie.” Anjael set her and the boy down. “Did you have fun, Garrett?”
“Yes, Lady Anjael.” The boy’s fangs showed around his thumb as he sucked it.
“Stay here with Lord Dartanian and Sarah. I need to check the house.”
“Do you need my sword?” Sarah asked.
“No, there is nothing that can cut my skin.” Anjael shifted to her midform and leapt down.
The front door was unlocked. She walked through the house. No one was there but she could smell that a witch and wolves with a strange burnt meat pack scent had searched the house. Everything of value was missing. She found Lady Marguerite’s ashes in a room with the blood of her mate, Evan. The turned human’s body was not there. The lack of bodies was unsettling. Anjael touched a place on the wall and a hidden panel below the beadboard. She tapped in the code and the safe opened. She took out the coven documents, several bundles of cash, and a box of gold ingots and cut jewels. Leaving the office, she closed the door then clicked. Moments later, Dart’s demon walked in the large entryway carrying all the children. Sarah dropped off his back.
“Hurry and pack, children, we need to leave before they come back here.” Anjael watched them go then went then opened the door, she took the attaché case she filled and handed it to him before closing the door again so the children wouldn’t see the ashes and destroyed room. “I need you to go over the documents and put them in the children’s names.”
He stretched as he shrank into his mortal form. “Now, I know why you made me go to law school. You hate paperwork.”
“I do.”
A car honked out front as he chuckled.
She looked down the hall the children went. “I am going to help them. Ask Ridge if he has ever heard of a pack that had a scent liked smoked or burned meat.”
Twenty minutes later, the children were packed. Anjael insisted they take pillows with their parents’ scents to comfort them because she knew the coven was dead. Nothing personal had been taken when the coven left and Vampyri were very fond of family mementos. Something in her intuition nagged her as it did Dart.
“Do you remember the scent?” Dart asked as he closed the door of the SUV.
“It smells like Tenochtitlan did before we killed the servants of the burning bird deva.” Anjael bowed her head. “Get them to the airport. I am heading back to the pack.” She leaped into the air and flapped her wings to gain altitude. The sun was just starting to lighten the horizon. She circled the Smith-Liore coven manor twice remembering when she met Marguerite Liore of the Houte-Liore Coven as she turned and flew homeward.
/\^^^^/\
1943…
“Lady Wasi.”
“Lady Liore. Have you heard from your brother?” Speaking in French, Anjael turned from looking at the map of France. So much had changed since she left over three hundred years earlier. The flags around Mont Mouchet showed the area of the resistance cells. The Marquis du Mont Mouchet were 2,700 French resistance fighters hiding in the forest surrounding the peak. The rough terrain was where the last of the werewolf packs of France lived and were killed out in the 17th century because of a mad hybrid, the offspring of a she-wolf kept as a sex slave and feeder for a Vampyri coven. France was solely the territory of the humans and Vampyri for two centuries.
“Oui, Louis said there are only four or five Nazis at each bridge with rifles. If the allied air forces can destroy those bridges, it will slow the resupplying of the Nazi forces.” The vampiress glanced at her. “Are you certain you and your clan can handle the anti-aircraft sites? There are only four of you to destroy a dozen locations.”
“Three,” Anjael corrected her. “Shishi will not be coming because he cannot fly. He will be traveling with the wolves behind the Axis lines to disrupt their communications.” Anjael bowed her head then asked, “Will your brother and marquis fighters be comfortable working with the wolves that are part of the American military? You hunted them to extinction the way the Nazi are hunting the Jewish tribes.”
“It was a mistake… My grandfather believed my grandmother was killed by wolves. When the other covens refused to attack the packs, he used his influence to have the covens and packs driven from France or killed.” She smelled nervous.
“I know Lord Le Moyne of Orleans.” Anjael revealed emotionlessly, “He has a coven in New Orleans and is considered one of the cities founders. His coven refused to aid the French allies after what your coven had done to his family. He said to let the Nazis have you.”
Marguerite sighed with her head bowed, repeating, “It was a mistake… But the people of France do not deserve to be punished for the errors of our ancestors. You’re a demon, you wouldn’t understand that we are innocent...”
Laughing humorlessly Anjael refuted her, “You think so? My kind has repeatedly saved the French Humans and Vampyri, like during the Black Death when the Cruor, Dragons, and Lycani were all that stood against the Demons, Unicorns, and Nosferatu as those three species traveled across Europe consuming the souls and blood of everything living. We won and made them extinct to protect all living things. A century later, many turned on us, and then they hunted us for centuries. The Dragons fled. The Bibre Cruor were almost made extinct. Only the Lycani held onto their land until they were accused of being the beast of Gévaudan, a Lycani-Vampyri hybrid who was committing murders.” Anjael step close, letting her demoness peak out at the vampiress. “Once we save you and yours from the Germans and their power-mad deva, will you turn on us all again?”
“Us?” Marguerite began to look offended but also terrified. “What are you if the Demons are extinct?”
“My species was betrayed and petrified by yours and the humans many times. Their corpses still decorate your buildings and cathedrals in Paris and Cologne after the eclipse in 1310. Fifteen hundred years before that, my people were poisoned and murdered en masse at Carnac. I am not a true demon, I am one of the last Bibre Cruor queens, a stone skin. I know all the events first-hand because my mother passed her memories to me on the day I hatched as her mother did for her and her mother’s mother and so on for over twenty thousand years. Vampyri are not to be trusted.”
“Lady Wasi, are you antagonizing our allies?” In American English, the deep timbre of the White Mountain Alpha made her turn and blink at him.
“Define antagonizing.” Anjael grinned at him with a slash of pearly, pointed teeth. “I am only reminding Lady Liore what many are having to forget to come and aid her countrymen. She does not think three demons will be enough to clear the anti-aircraft artillery.”
Markham Mont Blanc laughed loudly.
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