The Seraph Chronicles–Chapter Five: When in Venice.

Want to say thanks to everyone who is popping by for a read.The name of London, being Londin is deliberate, it’s as in Londinium, the Roman name for London.

Chapter I | Chapter II | Chapter III | Chapter IV

Chapter V: When in Venice

Venice, 1486.

‘This is not wise, sister,’ mutter Zuriel in her sister’s ear as Aracelle pinched her cheeks to make them red.

Aracelle brushed her off with a smile. ‘It’s just a little look,’ she replied.

‘No,’ said Zuriel putting her hand on her sister’s arm. ‘You caused enough of a scene yesterday when he saw you. I implore you not to draw attention to us again.’

‘I will not,’ replied Aracelle, ‘we will just watch with our faces turned away so as not to show our interest.’

‘Your interest,’ Zuriel amended. ‘Besides sister, if you think feigning disinterest will be enough to not cause a scene, then you are misguided.’

Aracelle turned from her vanity table to look at her sister with cold eyes.

‘I think you are trying to snare him,’ continued Zuriel disapprovingly.

‘I am not,’ replied Aracelle stiffly, ‘he is a human, he is simply nice to look at.’

Zuriel threw her arms in the air. ‘It does not do, dear sister, for one of your perceived status to flirt with a Principe in such a manner,’ she hissed at Aracelle, ‘you look like nothing but a common whore and Principe Niccoló is a notorious womanizer. You are a fool.’

Aracelle was about to open her mouth in retort when there was a knock at the door. ‘Enter,’ she yelled with a quelling look at her sister warning her to keep her tongue.

A small, regally attired pageboy stepped into the room, whipped off his hat as he bowed low to Aracelle. ‘Il Principe Aracelle send a token of his affection,’ he informed Aracelle before producing a single red rose. ‘His Royal Highness was careful to remove the thorns.’

Aracelle took it with a smile and inclined her head politely. ‘If you would thank His Royal Highness,’ she said.

‘Ma’am,’ replied the page before retreating backwards.

Zuriel clicked her tongue and Aracelle huffed out a breath. The two sisters glared at each other for a moment before Aracelle turned to place the rose on her vanity table.

‘And you still think you will not cause a scene?’ asked Zuriel with her hands on her hips. ‘The man is sending you favours.’

Aracelle smiled but not so Zuriel could see it and looked at the rose and its delicate petals.

‘You cannot seriously be thinking of still going when he is pressing his favour,’ continued Zuriel with an almost hysterical note to her voice.

Aracelle sucked in a breath before turning to her sister. ‘Just one more look.’

Il Principe Niccoló watched the stands fill but so far there was no sign of the angelic Aracelle and her disapproving sister. He had first seen Aracelle a month ago and now, somehow, she had become engrained in his mind’s eye. The copper of her hair was startling as were her magical blue eyes.

He swished his sword as footsteps approached. ‘Something vexes you,’ said his youngest brother, Angelo. ‘The girl is not here?’

‘Not as yet,’ he said casting another gaze out to the stands. ‘It will wound my chances if I do not have her face to look upon.’

Angelo clapped his hand on Niccoló’s shoulder. ‘She will come,’ he assured him, ‘now I must go, Giovanni is gambling his wealth away. Father instructs me to ensure that he does not return home penniless tonight.’

‘I say leave him to his games,’ said Niccoló, ‘he should go penniless to his clothes and perhaps he will learn his lesson.’

‘I do not disagree,’ replied Angelo, ‘but father will not allow the humiliation.’

Niccoló laughed hollowly. ‘It is already a humiliation,’ he said grimly, ‘its just father doesn’t yet see it.’

‘Indeed, brother, but I must do as he commands, he is Il Re,’ said Angelo, he glanced up over Niccoló’s shoulder. ‘I told you she would come.’

Niccoló turned and indeed stood just a few feet away in a emerald green that complemented both her hair and eyes. Her hair fell in soft waves with a circlet of silver about her brow.

He turned back to his brother. ‘Good luck in your task,’ he said.

‘And you in yours,’ replied Angelo before bowing and setting off into the crowds.

Niccoló turned to Aracelle and walked towards her as she dipped into a low curtsey which must have left her knees on the ground.

‘My Lord,’ she said reverently as she looked up to meet his eyes.

With a smile he held out a hand and lifted her to her feet before pulling her flush to his chest. ‘We will have none of that,’ he said. ‘Did you get my token?’

‘A beautiful addition to my day,’ replied Aracelle with a shy smile. ‘Indeed, I have come to return the favour.’

She pulled an embroidered clothe from her sleeve which was decorated with the ensign of her initials and angel wings. ‘It is for luck, so that you might return to me safely.’

Niccoló pressed his lips to hers, cradling her jaw gently.

‘Knowing you are waiting for me will bring me back from anything,’ he said against her lips before slowly releasing her but not letting go of her hand. ‘I shall wear this with great honour. When I am victorious, I have a matter to discuss with you.’

Aracelle smiled. ‘Then I will pray you thwart your enemies so that I might hear all you have to tell me.’

‘I hope it will be a pleasing subject to your ears.’

‘All that you have to say is pleasing to my ears,’ she said before curtseying again. ‘I must take my place.’

‘I will look for you, my love.’

Londin, 2011

Aracelle looked up as she heard the door snicker close. Seconds later the scent of pizza reached her nose before Stephen appeared in the doorway. Aracelle flipped her journal shut and put her pen down on the leather binding.

She smiled warmly at him but she knew, from the look in his eyes that what he was here for was not a friendly chat over pizza and cola. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’

Stephen put the pizza on the oak table before sitting down in one of the overstuffed armchairs next to Aracelle’s sofa.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said leaning forward, ‘I will keep your secrets, but I want to know what I am keeping. I know Niccoló was in that alley way this afternoon. I want to help you, you don’t have to do this alone.’

Aracelle nodded and flicked open the pizza box. ‘Our vampire friend is not guilty of this crime either,’ said Aracelle. ‘The crime scene is, as he suggested to me, a perfect reproduction of one of his earlier crimes excluding the ceiling decoration.’

She pushed a file over to Stephen before grabbing a slice. ‘It’s perfect.’

Stephen pulled out the pictures and studied them. ‘You realise this could make you a prime suspect?’ said Stephen. ‘There have been cases of criminologists and demonologists who have become obsessed with the crimes and begin to replicate them.’

Aracelle smiled tightly. ‘I thankfully bypassed the psycho disposition,’ she remarked. ‘Not to mention, we were here all night and then travelled to work together.’

‘Larissa will believe it, no one else will,’ remarked Stephen heavily, ‘okay, so if not you, who is the copycat?’

‘Although he doesn’t know it yet, Niccoló has already provided me with the answer,’ she said before getting up to her feet. She grabbed her journal and slid it into the bookshelf. ‘You and I are going on a little trip.’

‘What sort of trip?’ he asked.

‘The Venetian Consulate,’ said Aracelle, picking up her coat and bag. ‘We will be speaking with Angelo Valentio.’

Stephen’s eyebrows shook into his hairline. ‘I’m underdressed,’ he exclaimed.

‘You’ll do fine,’ Aracelle soothed, ‘I’m not exactly in haute couture.’

‘True,’ agreed Stephen taking in her maxi dress and accessories, ‘but you aren’t in an old pair of jeans and a t-shirt.’

‘You’re a warrior,’ said Aracelle, ‘the effect is rustic.’

Aracelle drove them through the streets of Londin with the same skill and erratic sense of the taxi drivers. Her number plate was registered with the Consulate, she had explained as she zipped down another bus lane and skipping past the traffic.

‘Why do you have a connection with the Venetian Consulate?’ asked Stephen as she had to slow for a bus.

‘The Kingdom of Venice is my true home,’ she said, ‘I always return their eventually and return to my adopted family.’

Stephen nodded. ‘I’m glad you have family,’ he said softly. ‘I don’t like the idea of you just wondering the world alone and occasionally returning to a dusty haunt that hasn’t been lived in for years.’ He turned to look at her. ‘Are the rest of your family Seraph’s?’

Aracelle shook her head. ‘No, I fell in with the Valentio family in the fifteenth century and they’ve never booted me out.’

‘So you’ve seen generation after generation come and go?’

‘Not quiet,’ she said as she pulled up to gilded gates. She got out the car and pressed the buzzer on the wall. ‘Doctor Serafino,’ she announced after a grainy welcome from the guard. ‘I have an appointment with Sua Maestá Re Angelo.’

‘Si, si, Vostra Altezza,’ came the reply as the gates started to swing open.

Aracelle climbed back in the car and started up the engine of her little coupe. She drove the car up a long drive way bringing them to a halt outside a white building with columns creating a balcony. The lights on that upper level were on and Aracelle knew them to be the personal quarters of Angelo and Carlota Valentio.

A footman rushed out the door and around the driver side. He bowed low for Aracelle while Stephen was treated to the same experience next to her. She bit back a laugh has he stammered a thanks; he was clearly out of his depth but that was his own fault. He shouldn’t have just turned up on her door step.

She led the way into a massive marble entrance hall at the same time that the blustering Personal Assistant of Angelo came down the stairs gesturing wildly as he rattled of a steam of Italian.

‘What’s he saying?’ asked Stephen in Aracelle’s ear.

‘He’s complaining that he doesn’t have Criminal Check on your and that I should know better,’ she explained before turning to Ludo. ‘I told Angelo I might be bringing him.’

‘Sua Maestá did not mention it, Altezza,’ replied Ludo.

Aracelle smiled. ‘No doubt one of Sua Maestá’s little amusements for the day.’

Ludo then turned to Stephen. ‘Your name perhaps?’

‘Stephen Needleson,’ he said holding out one of his large hands to Ludo.

Ludo clasped it for the merest of seconds before withdrawing. ‘I shall see you up,’ he said before focusing on Stephen. ‘I presume you know how to greet royality?’

Aracelle stepped across. ‘Indeed he does,’ she said, ‘now come on, time is a precious commodity.’

Ludo led the way up the grand staircase with Aracelle and Stephen just behind. The young warrior grabbed the arm of his friend. ‘You could have warning me that the Valentio family you fell in with was the Valentio family.’

Aracelle smiled. ‘I didn’t want to alarm you.’

‘So what are you, some sort of honoury Princess?’

‘Good heavens no,’ said Ludo as he reached the top stair. ‘Sua Altezza is La Principessa di Venezia though her marriage.’

Stephen goggled at Aracelle. ‘You are married?’

She laughed in reply. ‘I have lived on Earth of over five hundred years, I think we can safely say that I have felt the tug of love in that time,’ she replied then followed Stephen’s eyes to Ludo who was watching them. ‘Ludo knows what I am,’ she informed her friend cheerfully.

The older man brought them to some huge, white wooden doors with gold trimming. With great importance, he threw them open to reveal a couple stood in the middle of the floor space. The man was in a suit of black with his tie missing and button’s undone at the top, while the blonde haired woman was wearing deep burgundy dress.

‘Okay, perhaps a little under dressed,’ Aracelle conceded to Stephen as Ludo cleared his throat.

‘Sua Altezza Serenissima, La Principessa Aracelle, La Principessa di Venezia e il signor Stephen Needleson,’ Ludo announced with great diginity.

Stephen bowed low as Carlota move forward to embrace Aracelle in the manner of long parted sisters. Angelo took charge of the moment dismissing Ludo with a few words before grasping Stephen’s hand.

‘Welcome,’ he said, ‘Aracelle has spoken most highly of you.’

‘Thank you, Your Majesty,’ Stephen replied.

‘We’ll have none of that,’ Angelo declared, ‘you are amongst friends here.’ Then he turned Aracelle and embracing her. ‘My dearest sister, how good it is to see you once more, I trust you are keeping well?’

‘Indeed,’ she replied, ‘I find my work most interesting; if a little close to the bone at this time.’

‘Carlota mentioned your recent liaisons,’ said Angelo, ‘but you seem to be bearing up rather well.’ He turned to Stephen. ‘So that we are on the same page, I assume you know?’

‘Know?’

‘He does,’ clarified Aracelle, ‘he saw one of my quicker than lightening moves yesterday.’ Aracelle turned to Stephen. ‘Angelo and Carlota are very good at concealing our true nature.’

Stephen looked over the King and Queen of Venice and back at Aracelle. ‘They are Seraph’s like you?’ he asked.

Aracelle shook her head. ‘They are both human,’ she said.

‘Very long lived human’s at that as well,’ put in Carlota coming over holding two tumblers. ‘I assume you have no objection to whiskey? It’s a eighty year old classic.’

‘It will be a shame when it runs out,’ put in Angelo as he accepted his glass. ‘you picked a good day to be having this problem Aracelle, we were flying here today to pay our respects of King Edward. A fine man,’ he said gesturing a toast to the skies before knocking it back.

Stephen followed suite and Carlota topped up the drinks before the men sat down in armchairs either side of a large sofa. Aracelle made for the main sofa sitting close to Stephen while Carlota returned with two large glasses of red wine and set one down in front of Aracelle. Carlota took a sip from the wine before walking over to large oak desk and picking up a file .

‘You were lucky to email when you did,’ said Carlota, ‘I had just a spare few moments to dig this up for you. Your filing system remains a mystery to me.’

Aracelle took the folder. ‘It’s chronological,’ she said, ‘but then you don’t have my memory for dates.’

‘I had to check it in your archive, you just wrote ‘Vegas in the twenties’ in your message.’

Aracelle shot Carlota an apologetic smile as she sat down beside her on the sofa. Stephen shimmied a little closer to peer over Aracelle’s arm.

‘Is this the murder you think has been copied?’ asked Stephen as Aracelle started spreading out the pictures on the table. From her handbag she pulled another file and placed pictures side by side. Stephen frowned. ‘Is this wise?’

‘We’ve seen worse,’ put in Angelo, ‘when you have brothers like mine you become used to seeing the devastating results of their respective natures.’

Stephen looked up from the photos. ‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Well, Niccoló can somewhat be forgiven,’ said Angelo, ‘he did not ask to turned into the creature of the night that he is, and in all fairness, he is rather tame in comparison to Giovanni, who sadly has not excuse.’

‘He is a twisted soul,’ said Carlota, ‘I often wish that he had not been in line of that spell.’

Aracelle placed a hand on Carlota’s arm. ‘It was not your fault,’ she soothed. ‘You cannot stop a desperate man from getting anything he really wants. Perhaps he was the balance factor, you make a good person live forever in return you also get an evil one.’ She looked up at Angelo. ‘And speaking of him, have you heard from Giovanni of late?’

Angelo looked up sharply. ‘I made my position clear last time I spoke to him,’ he said darkly. ‘As a consequence he does not make contact with me. Why do you ask?’

‘His name popped up in the same sentence as Alessia, and it didn’t involve his rather overdue death,’ said Aracelle, ‘something far more concerning.’

‘Have you tried contacting Alessia?’ asked Carlota, ‘it was only last month that she was visiting us in Venice.’

‘With no success, I confess to this being the first I’m I’ve been worried about her in a long time,’ said Aracelle taking a sip of wine. ‘I know better than anyone that Alessia can handle herself but recent and impending events don’t fill me with confidence for her safety.’

‘I shall try to contact her,’ said Carlota gently, ‘you need to concentrate on this.’

Aracelle turned her head back to the photos and noticed that Stephen was holding two up and comparing them. Aracelle watched as he put the two down and turned two others in his direction. ‘What is it?’

‘I don’t have the same level of experience or knowledge as you do, but I think you’ve missed something,’ said Stephen. ‘Look at the Vegas crime, what do you see?’

Aracelle pictured up the picture of the body and studied the pallor taking particular note of the neck. ‘Traditional bite mark, some blood left in the neck area, the limb tears are tears, as if he has been torn limb from limb; it’s as messy as it is clean.’

‘Then today’s murder,’ said Stephen, ‘thinking along the same lines.’

‘Okay,’ she said slowly as she picked up the equivocal picture. ‘It’s not a bite mark is it?’ she said pulling the picture closer. ‘It’s more a puncture wound.’

‘The other injuries,’ said Stephen, ‘they were limb from limb tearing; this body was cut into pieces before being put back together. Also, total blood loss from a body is almost impossible for a vampire to achieve.’

Aracelle was about to open her mouth to speak when her personal mobile started to ring. She slid her hand into her handbag and pulled out the slim smartphone noting that the call was coming from her own apartment which should have been empty.

‘Serafino,’ she answered tightly.

‘Did you forget we had unfinished business, my dear?’ shot back Niccoló, ‘imagine my disappointment to get her and find the flat distinctly empty.’

Aracelle took a moment before speaking. ‘You aren’t the centre of my universe, you know, I do have other work to do that doesn’t relate to you.’

There was a bark of laughter. ‘Now we both know that’s not true,’ he replied, ‘so, what did you find out about my copycat?’

Aracelle only half heard his question has her attention fell on Vegas picture. As a rule she never looked at the faces unless there was a point of interest relating to the case there.

‘You still there?’

‘Who’d you kill in Vegas? Who was the card fiddler?’ she asked.

‘A gentleman by the name of Marco, so he said, but I’d recognise him anywhere,’ said Niccoló his tone now serious. ‘Which brings me to another point, my supposed M.O. in your work isn’t mine; it’s his. I’ve been tracking my brother for years which is probably why you got so confused marrying up his crimes with my style.’

Aracelle felt a dangerous smile creep over her face. ‘You’re brother, Giovanni Valentio?’

‘If Alessia Valenti knows Valentio, then why hasn’t she ripped him limb from limb?’ asked Niccoló, ‘I might be a creature of the night through no choice of my own, but that man is demon through and through. His only redeeming feature is that one day someone might work out how to undo Carlota’s magic so he can be put in the ground where he belongs.’

‘It’s a good question,’ replied Aracelle, ‘it’s the one I intend on answering.’

Without further ado Aracelle hung up her phone and put it back in her pocket. Everyone was looking at her with inquisitive looks. ‘Everything is fine,’ she said, ‘fine.’

‘Right, well, if that is the case,’ said Angelo getting up from the armchair he had been listening from, ‘I take it we need to reclassify eighty year’s worth of murders from Niccoló to Giovanni?’

Stephen was pulling out his phone. ‘What shall I say to Larissa?’ he asked. ‘We at least need to try and tell her that this was a copycat.’

‘Tell her you’ve been looking over the crime scene pictures, and point that out,’ she replied pointing at the neck wounds, ‘and the complete draining of the blood.’

‘What about who the murderer is?’ asked Stephen as he started dialling the number, ‘revealing what you know could be a slippery slope for you.’

‘Stephen is right,’ agreed Angelo. ‘From what you have told me, Larissa is not going to take to your heritage very well, it would be best to keep it as shielded from her as possible.’

You’re right,’ said Aracelle nodding in agreement. ‘If it is Giovanni, then we can find some other way of working him into the picture.’ She stood up and stretched, rolling her shoulders. ‘I’m wondering if it was he that murdered the King, as well.’

‘You will have to consider the possibility,’ said Angelo heavily as he slid his hands into his trouser pockets and retreated to the window.

Aracelle frown and exchanged a small glance with Carlota before she exhaled slowly as Stephen put the phone to his ear. She ignored Stephen as she watched Carlota walk over to her husband. After so many hundreds of years together they could communicate without saying a word.

Angelo looked every ounce of his half a millennia as he looked gravely down at the world before him. Carlota might blame herself for Giovanni’s prolonged life, but the blame lay at Aracelle’s feet. Angelo and Carlota would have long been at peace had it not been for her.

She crossed her arms over her chest and looked away. Angelo and Carlota had sacrificed a lot so that she would not walk the ways of the world alone. However, she was always alone. She was a Seraph guarding a terrible secret from the world. Aracelle knew it was easier to bear with Angelo and Carlota supporting her however, she was acutely aware of their suffering; watching Niccoló and Giovanni paint the world red continued to be a harrowing experience of the kind hearted Angelo.

Behind her, Stephen hung up his phone and Aracelle looked at him.

‘She isn’t buying it,’ said Stephen. ‘Larissa thinks you’re behind what I told her.’

Aracelle pressed her lips together and nodded. ‘I didn’t think she’d believe you,’ she said, ‘but we have to try.’

Stephen ran his hands though his light brown hair. ‘Does this mean we are now working against Larissa?’

‘I think I have an idea to bring her around,’ said Aracelle, ‘but I need a diversion, I need to speak to Henry.’

‘The Prince?’ said Stephen. ‘Why the hell is he going to listen to you?’

‘He doesn’t have the same outright prejudice that Larissa has,’ said Aracelle, ‘if I show him the evidence, he might be able to talk Larissa into seeing sense.’

Stephen laughed. ‘I very much doubt it, no one makes Larissa see sense, I believe it was the reason you knocked her out before setting out to track down Niccoló the other night.’ He shook his head. ‘You know why she feels the way she does, you’ll never talk her into believing a human with a soul could do this.’

‘Well, you will have to try,’ said Angelo, turning to look at them, ‘for all our sakes.’

The Seraph Chronicles – Chapter Four: Beasties and Other Wildlife

Well, this week is 'Secret Sauce’ in NaNo land, and we are encouraged to shake it up a bit. I’m shaking it up by diving into the past with Aracelle and Niccoló, but in the meanwhile, our vampire has managed to get himself in a bit of bother.
Word count wise, I’m just over 15k of 50K (today’s word count target is 15K, this chapter will bring all up to just over 14k Chapter Five is in the works.)

Chapter I | Chapter II | Chapter III


Chapter IV: Beasties and Other Wildlife
A good, well refined whiskey was hard to come by, but Niccoló knew just the place. By night, the usually vibrate city of Londin, handed itself of over to the creatures that went bump in the night and no one need to create scares more than he did right now.
He sat with a single malt in front of him that had been poured by a red haired woman with the steeliest grey eyes he had ever seen. However, he had had it with unusual women. What he wanted was a nice blonde, blued eye bimbo who would be glad of the attention. He cast a look around; there was nothing to his taste here.
Good, virginal blood was even harder to come by than the whiskey.
The barmaid was back; her hips swaying unnaturally in the black leather trousers. Without a word she filled up the glass. ‘On the house,’ she said in a husky voice as she pushed the glass towards him with the tips of her fingers.
Niccoló took it. ‘Cheers,’ he said before downing it in one. ‘Now take a hint and leave.’
The barmaid lifted her dark eyebrows but moved away with the same unnatural sway of her hips. Niccoló huffed out a breath as he hauled himself to his feet. As he did so the barmaid cast a look over her shoulder and she smiled.
It was not a sweet, seductive, take me to bed smile, but a triumphant smile. Suddenly fuzziness came over Niccoló’s mind; everything blurred at the edges. He looked at the back of the barmaid as he swayed. ‘You bitch,’ he muttered as he crashed to the floor.
Cold water splashed over Niccoló’s face bringing him to consciousness. He roared before spluttering as the water trickled down his neck and collar. The first thing he tried was pulling up his wrists, but he was well and truly shackled to the arms of the chair he was sitting on but nonetheless he still attempted to struggle.
‘I wouldn’t bother,’ said a voice from behind him, ‘the belladonna has weakened you. It would be better to conserve your strength so you can escape later.’
From behind him the barmaid walked into view. She was no longer dressed in the provocative outfit she had been in but she looked no less alluring in a sleeveless black top and matching cargo trousers.
‘And who might you be?’
She flicked her red hair so it left her neck exposed. ‘Alessia Valenti,’ she said.
Niccoló felt this eyebrows rise at the name. ‘The demon hunter?’
‘So you’ve heard of me?’
‘How could I have not?’ he asked. ‘You’re the scourge of the underworld.’
Alessia smiled. ‘It’s one of my nicer names,’ she remarked dragging a chair over and sitting down on it. ‘You however, would be Il Principe della Notte.’
A smile curved on Niccoló’s face. ‘Finally, someone who shows a bit of respect,’ he said. ‘What do you want with me, because I quite assure you, I’m not into bondage.’
Alessia laughed for a second before a dark look crossed her eyes. ‘What I want with you goes against every grain in my body,’ she said. ‘I want you to understand that if I had my way, I’d drive a chair leg though your heart.’
Niccoló glared at her, but he knew, she had him at the disadvantage. She could kill him in an instant in this position but instead she was talking.
‘Luckily for you, and rather unluckily for the world at large, a higher authority has requested I provide you with this,’ she said, holding out a necklace.
With a flick of her wrist, Alessia tossed the necklace and it landed in his lap. Niccoló looked down at the intricate design that had been his ensign. The N curved over the V topped with a crown. He brought his eyes up to meet Alessia’s.
‘So Dr Serafino was right, in life you were Il Principe Niccoló,’ mused Alessia from her chair. ‘Perhaps it will not be all bad news that I have given you this, despite what you are,’ she said.
‘And what is it?’ asked Niccoló.
‘It’s been enchanted,’ said Alessia, ‘to allow you to walk in the sun. For some reason, it has been deemed that you will have some part to play in the upcoming events and those who watch over us seem to think you need to be freed of being unable to walk in the daylight.’
Niccoló frowned looking at the necklace. ‘What’s the catch?’
‘Serafino,’ said Alessia, ‘she’s the catch, but also the path you must follow.’
‘I want nothing more than to be a thousand miles away from her,’ he spat.
Alessia got up and strode over to where he sat and lifted the talisman from his lap. ‘Well, that is a shame,’ she said. ‘Because she is the key to all the unanswered questions in your life as well as the unwitting leader in all that is to come.’
Niccoló laughed harshly at Alessia. ‘You think because she wrote a couple of thousand words on me that she has the answers?’
Alessia cocked her head to the side. ‘No, I think she has all the answers because she’s a five thousand year old Seraph,’ she replied.
‘A Seraph?’ he asked, ‘as in a guardian?’ His eyebrows quirked. ‘That would explain the violet eyes.’
‘Indeed,’ said Alessia crossing her arms over her chest dangling the necklace just above the range of his movement, ‘and before you ask, she wasn’t the one to conjure this idea. No doubt she will not be happy that this has been offered to you.’
Niccoló lifted his head. ‘She came to me in search of answers,’ he informed Alessia.
‘Perhaps,’ conceded Alessia, ‘but that doesn’t mean she wants you walking around munching on everyone.’
‘Ahh, but think of the choice available,’ he said with a dangerous smile. ‘Sweet, pure blood.’
Alessia’s hand fisted and drew back seconds later it collided with inhuman speed and strength with his face. ‘The human race isn’t your personal supply of food,’ she said.
Niccoló wriggled his jaw and rolled his eyes. ‘Then, pray tell, how am I supposed to keep my strength for this great mission if I can’t eat?’
A smile crept on his face as Alessia looked back at him dumb struck. ‘Well, Miss Defender of Humankind, what’s the suggestion?’ he asked sweetly. ‘If the world needs my help, then I gotta eat.’
‘Then I suggest a more human friendly alternative,’ she said leaning in close so their faces were mere inches apart, ‘because I’ll be watching your every move, Niccoló, waiting for the moment I can drive home a stake into that dead heart of yours.’
Alessia pulled her fist back and slammed it into his face again. Alessia straighten and let the talisman fall into his lap before leaving. He wouldn’t be out long and when he woke he would be strong enough to break free of the bonds she had placed him in.
As she reached the door she looked back at the knocked out vampire. She felt almost sorry for him as she reached for her phone and tapped the screen a few times before putting it to her ear. Hell was coming and he was her only ticket to freedom; tonight’s events would reach the right ears before it was too late and she would be saved from the horror she was currently caught up in.
‘Giovanni,’ she said as the phone picked up, ‘it’s done. He’s dead.’
‘You have done well,’ he said, ‘now come home before your exploits reach the wrong ears. No doubt your mother will have something to say on this, it will be nothing good.’
‘Yes, uncle,’ she said quietly before turning her back on Niccoló and leaving.
Larissa pushed open the door to Aracelle’s office. The red haired woman was leant over her desk flicking though one of her books. To the left was a white board with pictures and notes from the kidnap and the murder scene that they were not supposed to have pictures of.
‘Our request has been denied,’ Larissa announced to her demonologist.
Aracelle looked up and turned around. ‘That doesn’t surprise me,’ she said taking the fax from Larissa. ‘When did you send the request?’
‘Nine,’ she replied, ‘why?’
‘Must be the quickest turn around we’ve ever had on any request,’ she said as her office mobile started to ring.
Larissa lifted her eyebrows. ‘Dubious?’ she asked as Aracelle picked up her phone.
‘Of course,’ she replied unrepentantly, ‘one of the most dangerous demon’s alive is posing as the boyfriend to the new Queen after her father has been brutally murdered in the run up to one of the most important dates in the supernatural calendar.’ She shrugged. ‘Dubious doesn’t cover it.’
The phone rang off and Aracelle put the phone down on her desk. Larissa was about to open her mouth again when phone started ringing again. Aracelle’s eyebrows knitted together as the same number as before flashed upon the screen.
‘What is it?’
‘Persistent,’ she said as she clicked on the accept call button. ‘Serafino.’
Larissa watched as Aracelle’s eyebrows knitted together; behind her Stephen walked into the office space with a frown on his face.
‘What?’ asked Larissa quietly.
Stephen nodded to Aracelle who was now thanking whoever was on the phone with a cheerful voice that belied the expression on her face.
‘Did you just get the same call I got?’ Stephen asked as Aracelle hung up the phone.
‘Depends, was your phone call an invitation to the Royal Masquerade?’ asked Aracelle, ‘with a plus one?’
‘Oddly enough, yes, and Larissa, your phone was ringing as well.’
Aracelle smiled. ‘Accept with grace,’ she advised the witch.
Larissa frowned. ‘What now?’
‘It’s clearly a trap,’ said Aracelle, ‘a badly thought out one, however, it will give us the chance to get a look at those on the other team so to speak.’
‘If it’s a trap then why do we need to go?’
‘Kaleed has a hold over the Queen, we need to get up close and personal to see what that hold is,’ explained Aracelle.
‘Henry mentioned that name to me last night,’ said Larissa, ‘you will have to explain who and what he is, Henry said you were the best person to answer that.’
Aracelle smiled and nodded. ‘Not here,’ she said, ‘we have to assume we’re having our every move watched.’
Larissa frowned even more deeply and looked over at Stephen who nodded his agreement. ‘Then when we are within these four walls, we keep it strictly work, for our own safety,’ she said before leaving the room to receive her own invitation to the ball.
Stephen walked over to sit in the chair besides Aracelle’s desk. ‘I don’t think it matters where we are,’ he said as the door hit home, ‘I think we’re marked wherever we are.’
‘You suggesting we live on a knife’s edge and just act as we need to?’ enquired Aracelle.
‘If it saves lives, then yes,’ said Stephen, ‘isn’t that what you do? Save lives?’
Aracelle smiled at him. ‘Actually I watch and then intervene when needed.’
‘I’ll say you’re needed right now,’ he said.
‘I think you might be right,’ she said walking over to the white board to survey the pictures there. ‘We need to try and predict when and where the next attack will happen.’
Stephen looked at the pictures as well. ‘But it’s seemingly random.’
‘Everyone has a way of picking out their victims, Stephen,’ said Aracelle, she tapped her finger on the kidnapped girl. ‘We need more information about Kerrie. There hasn’t been an investigation on that, so we don’t have the usual background information or witness statements.’
‘A tactic to slow us down?’ asked Larissa as she returned.
Aracelle nodded. ‘We have to assume that our progress will be hinder in every way. Larissa, how do you feel about throwing out the rule book?’
‘I think we’ve already covered our bases there, Aracelle, by harbouring Henry and Niccoló under the noses of the DTU,’ she said. Larissa looked at the pictures. ‘We have to continue as we mean to go on, and if that means continually breaking the rules, then we shall do so.’
Suddenly the door flew open and stood there was their superior. Larissa, as head of the team, stood up. ‘Sir?’ she said.
‘There has been a report of a very bloody murder at one of the demon bars in Hapton, our snitch Tom Craclic has been ripped to shreds in his bar,’ he explained, ‘I want you lot down there now and I want verification on reports that Il Principe della Notte was there last night. I want that bastard nailed.’
Larissa nodded her head. ‘Yes, sir,’ she said.
‘Good woman,’ he said before backing out.
Then Larissa turned on Aracelle. ‘Let’s go and see what mess your new friend has been causing, shall we?’
Aracelle lifted sheet covering Tom’s body and she exhaled slowly. She closed her eyes as she recalled the threat Niccoló had made to him two nights ago.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Aracelle quietly as she put the sheet back and looked around taking in the scene.
Larissa walked over. ‘This time you can’t deny that this is di Notte’s M.O.,’ she pointed out.
The crime scene was utterly contained to the body; there was no unnecessary blood spill and the limbs had been ripped off after the body had been drained. It was a perfect textbook revenge kill and it even had a motive.
‘You didn’t really think he had turned away from his true nature did you?’ asked Larissa very quietly.
Aracelle shook her head. ‘No, he made no such promise,’ she said just as quietly as Larissa, ‘but I feel responsible. This is where I tracked him down to two nights ago.’
Larissa placed her hand on Aracelle’s shoulder. ‘You are not responsible for the actions of a creature of this nature.’
She took a deep breath before nodding her head at Larissa; the truth was she was responsible, in the long run for Niccoló despite turning her back on it. She could of easily driven a stake through his heart at the alter where he returned to the life of a vampire.
Larissa moved away and Aracelle lifted the sheet; just to be certain. Craved into the cheek was the infamous ensign that had adorned the face of many a victim of Il Principe della Notte. An A over a V. She’d recognise it anywhere. It had taken her many years to recognise what the message meant; it was a message of revenge against his nature for the death he had brought to his wife.
Unusually for her, she felt a rise of anger bubble rather than her cool detachment for the scene. It was too close to her, this revenge, this perfect revenge. As she sighed and drop of fluid landed on her arm. Aracelle looked down and saw not a dribble of water but of dark red blood.
With a deep breath Aracelle looked up drawing her smartphone out of her pocket. On the ceiling, where no one had noticed was a symbol; lust. She dropped to a knee and clicked a picture.
‘Larissa,’ she yelled calling her superior back. ‘Look at this.’
The witch reappeared and looked up. ‘So he is involved with this,’ she muttered as Stephen joined them. ‘I’ll bet he was watching us, reporting our movement, that’s how we’ve attracted the attention of the people behind this.’
Aracelle wished she could dispute the fact, but it seemed the vampire had no intention of playing to their tune and he added to the list of creatures that would soon feel the end of one of Stephen’s wooden stakes.
‘I need to get one of my books from the car,’ she announced. ‘I need to confirm that this is what it is.’
Outside, Aracelle took a deep breath. In her long life she had never been afraid of the night or the shadow but right now she was grateful for the sunlight. It warmed her against the nightmare that was waiting back in the bar. Here she was safe for just a moment.
Something passed in the corner of her eye and she spun before she was flung from her feet. She landed awkwardly in the mouth of an alleyway as she got to her feet she was pulled up and dragged into the darkness. Aracelle’s body slammed up against the wall and seconds later she was eye to eye with intense green eyes shot through with gold.
‘You planning to kill me, as well?’ Aracelle breathed.
‘I didn’t kill him,’ replied Niccoló relaxing his grip of her but not freeing her. ‘I spent my evening bound to chair.’
‘I don’t really need to know what you do in your spare time,’ replied Aracelle.
‘You do when I’m accused of a murder I didn’t commit,’ bit back Niccoló, ‘you asked me not to kill him. I always feel strangely compelled to do as you request. Making me wonder if you work some abracadabra on me.’
‘I’m all out of abracadabra today,’ answered Aracelle, ‘so, if you weren’t murdering my favourite snitch last night, dare I ask why you were tied to chair?’
Niccoló looked disgusted for a moment. ‘I had an encounter with Alessia Valenti,’ he said, ‘sly bitch laced my drink with belladonna.’
Aracelle shook her head. ‘You couldn’t have,’ she said, ‘you’d have never survived the encounter.’
‘That’s what she said,’ replied Niccoló as he pulled at one of the chains around his neck, ‘but instead she gave me this and to my surprise, it does as prescribed.’
‘And what does it let you do?’
‘Walk in the sun,’ he said.
Aracelle frown as she looked at the ensign. ‘That must have gone against the grain for her. She’s very clear when it comes to any sort of demon.’
Niccoló stashed the necklace back behind his crumpled shirt. ‘I didn’t kill Tom; I will admit that is an almost perfect reproduction of one of my own crime scenes. Nineteen eight two, Vegas, guy was cheating at cards.’
‘Then who is copying you?’
‘Well, that’s the bit you will be helping me with, Valenti seemed to know you, so I’m assuming you two must have exchanged a bit of information at some point,’ said Niccoló meeting her eyes again.
Aracelle nodded. ‘That may well have happened,’ she said, ‘suffice to say we are familiar with one another.’
Niccoló smiled at her. ‘Excellent,’ he said, ‘I want to know how her Uncle Giovanni is. She phoned him to tell him I was dead when she thought she had knocked me out.’
‘Her Uncle Giovanni?’ said Aracelle hearing the faint tone of her voice.
Niccoló nodded. ‘That’s what I said, and I want to know who he is, so I can show him what it’s really like to be ripped limb from limb,’ he said venomously. ‘You might not believe it Ms DTU, but I do have a sense of right and wrong and Tom did not deserve what was done to him.’
‘Yet all the others did?’ asked Aracelle quietly.
Niccoló was about to open his mouth when Stephen’s voice reached them as he called for Aracelle. ‘Get me the info I want,’ he demanded pulling Aracelle away from wall and placing his lips on hers.
She pushed away as their lips met in the briefest of touches and landed back against the wall. Aracelle sucked in breath after breath as Niccoló tasted his lips where they had met.
‘Interesting,’ he remarked before moving away from and out of sight before she could even muster a thought.
‘Aracelle,’ came Stephen’s voice again now at the mouth of the alleyway. ‘Aracelle, what happened?’
She shook her head. ‘Nothing,’ she said, ‘I’ll explain later.’
Pushing herself away from the wall, Aracelle walked back towards Stephen. ‘I need a look at a Vegas murder in the eighties,’ she said. ‘I’m willing to bet it’s an almost perfect replica.’
Stephen grabbed her shoulders as she went to push past him. ‘You are staying at my place tonight,’ he said sternly.
‘No, I’m not,’ she replied sharply. ‘I can handle to myself. We need as minimum loss of life as possible.’
‘It will be for nothing if you die,’ he said.
Aracelle shook her head. ‘I won’t die, it’s impossible to kill me.’

Chapter V

The Seraph Chronicles – Chapter 3: Perfect Alignment.

So, word count wise, we are still good. Still dubious on the quality,but it’s count that matters. Also, coming up soon is the ‘Plot Spanner’ which are Spanners thrown into the works of the story. Taking risks with the story.

Chapter I | Chapter II


Chapter III: Perfect Alignment
Henry’s first thought as light shone on his eyes was that this was not his bed, by any stretch of the imagination. The sheets weren’t the crisp high count cotton he was used to and neither was the bed particularly big. It all served as a terrible reminder to the last twenty four hours.
He blinked as the last few minutes of the previous night came to him. Henry spun in his sheets to sit bolt upright and his hand when to his neck. He frowned to himself because it went against the grain of what he had grown up believing.
‘Don’t worry,’ said an amused voice from the bedroom door, ‘I promised her I wouldn’t eat anyone.’
Henry looked over at Niccoló lounging in the doorway. ‘And you are listening to a human?’
Niccoló shrugged. ‘She interesting,’ he said. ‘Interesting enough to keep her on side at the moment.’
‘So you plan to use her as your play thing?’ asked Henry grabbing his crumbled shirt.
‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m planning to use her to get every ounce of information out of her about what she knows about Kaleed, and me, and then, I’m going to hunt that son of a bitch down.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Henry, ‘I don’t blame you, so you’ll not mind if I tag along for the ride.’
Niccoló shook his head and laughed. ‘I do mind, as it happens. You are human, and I don’t work with human.’
‘Yet you are playing puppy dog to Aracelle Serafino,’ replied Henry, ‘waiting for her to deal out her little scraps of information.’
‘Not when I have that thesis of hers,’ Niccoló shot back, holding up a bound book. ‘It was in her bookshelf.’
‘It’s about you,’ replied Henry crossing his arms over his chest and staring down the vampire, ‘Kaleed pops up in the capacity of turning you into what you are now and your long held desire to kill him. I’ve read it and you won’t learn anything about him from it.’
Niccoló looked at the small bound book in his hand before grinning. ‘True, but it does have her bibliography in the back, so I can just chase up the volumes she read.’
Henry shook his head and laughed. ‘Go knock yourself out,’ he said with the flick of his hand to dismiss Niccoló but he just stood there.
‘You can go,’ said Henry.
‘I realise that,’ said Niccoló taking a step into the room.
Henry was struck by how big he suddenly seemed and now mesmerising; it was probably how he got his prey to acquiesce to his requests when he had them in his arms and ready to strike. Niccoló was not a human, he reminded himself, but a dangerous monster from a dangerous time.
‘But let me tell you this, Your Royal Highness,’ continued Niccoló, ‘you are in an unholy land now, and the usual rules don’t apply. I’m not a subject of the Crown of Briton and therefore, you cannot command me.’
He was saved having to answer when his phone started ringing from the pocket of his disgarded trousers and he moved to check the phone so he could close off the conversation with Niccoló. He turned his back for a single second, when he looked up, Niccoló had gone. He puffed out a breath. Henry needed to know why the world had chosen him to be connected to this creature of the night when he had spent his life as a God fearing man.
Aracelle frowned as she stepped over the threshold of her home with Stephen in tow. It was nearing to midday and the house was dark with all the curtains drawn. That was what you got when you had a vampire dossing on the sofa. She listened out and heard the shower running and huffed out a sigh.
‘You know, you should really come and stay with me,’ said Stephen as they stepped into the living room.
She looked around and catalogued all the books that had been taken from the shelf. She frowned and shook her head.
‘What is it?’ asked Stephen looking around.
Aracelle shook her mane of red hair again. ‘Nothing,’ she said as she walked over to her desk where she had left her case file that morning. As she looked down her eyes fell on a page of a codex that she hadn’t been using.
She pulled the book over and glanced at the diagram entitled ‘Perfect Alignment’. Aracelle frowned as she read the description of the phenomena that happened once every five hundred and nineteen years; the next one in two weeks’ time. As the shower switched off Aracelle slid into her chair and pulled her case file from drawer.
‘Aracelle?’ asked Stephen again with a note to his voice.
Aracelle pointed up to a shelf on her right. ‘Zuriel’s Compendium, fourth shelf, middlish,’ she instructed as she opened the file and picked up a picture. She held it up and studied the image she had looked over and over again since early last week.
Less than a minute later the book was hovering under her nose. She looked up and smiled her thanks as she flicked to a page towards the end of the book.
‘What are you looking for?’
Aracelle jabbed her finger at a passage. ‘This,’ she said, ‘from fourteen ninety-two. It talks about a ritual that was attempted when the alignment was last in place. Requiring the blood of ten; three innocents and seven that represent the deadly sins. Those who represented the sin where killed and their bodies marked, while the three innocents would be sacrificed.
‘These are the symbols of the seven,’ explained Aracelle turning the book to Stephen.
Stephen took the book as the door to the hallway opened. Aracelle looked up and felt her eyebrows lifting as Niccoló sauntered in wearing nothing but a towel slung low over his hip. To her annoyance, he breathe stole for a second before she recovered, but not soon enough for the dark haired vampire not to have noticed. He smirked at her and she wrinkled her nose in a dirty expression back at him.
‘Making yourself at home, Niccoló?’ she enquired politely.
Stephen looked up then around at the vampire. ‘So, this is the,’ he started before he stopped as Aracelle’s eraser hit the side of his head.
‘He has enough of an ego, let’s not inflate it,’ she said sternly before turning her attention back to Niccoló. ‘Where is Henry?’
‘Stepped out for milk,’ he said, ‘getting used to the fact that he might not be a prince any more. It’s a shock to the system for him, not having someone to dunk his teabag.’
Aracelle scowled before turning her attention back to Stephen. ‘Marks of the seven,’ she said before turning the page for him, ‘and marks of the innocents.’ She handed him a picture from her case file.
Stephen took it as Niccoló joined them and looked over the page that Stephen had open. ‘I’ve seen this before,’ he said taking the book. ‘The city was in panic.’
‘City?’ questioned Stephen.
‘Venice,’ said Niccoló, ‘my home when I was a human.’
Aracelle took the book back again. ‘Not only that, the symbol for greed was carved into the wall at the murder scene of King Edward. I remember seeing this symbol in several of the pictures,’ she pointed to a symbol that used to denote money. ‘I didn’t really think much of it at the time; I was more concerned with the other markings on the body.’
‘So Larissa was right,’ said Henry from the door. ‘It was ritualistic.’
‘So it would seem, Your Royal Highness,’ she said.
Henry nodded slowly. ‘So where does this leave us?’ he enquired. ‘Do we have more questions than we have answers?’
‘Most likely, yes,’ said Aracelle, ‘sorry.’
Stephen put the book down. ‘We should call Larissa, and get her up to date,’ he said, and then he looked at Aracelle. ‘You really weren’t kidding when you said this was bigger and more dangerous than anything we have faced before.’
Uncomfortable did not begin to explain the atmosphere in Aracelle’s flat. On her own it was light and airy, but now, it was cramped as difficult alliances were forged between the D.T.U. members and the vampire. Silence had fallen between five of them as they had all moved onto everything they could find about perfect alignment. The only sound was the rustle of books as her fingers slid over the keyboard as she constructed an email to one of her many contacts.
She paused for a moment, looking over the words she had written to Alessia Valenti, a demon hunter who worked in Italy.
‘Who is Zuriel?’ asked Stephen suddenly breaking the silence. He held up the Compendium he had been reading.
Aracelle looked up from her email. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Questioning my source,’ he said, ‘it’s what you always say, that a source should be questioned. So who is this Zuriel?’
‘There several accounts of who she is,’ she explained, ‘it’s likely that those stories have merged and become one though. The Valentin Family chronicles state that Zuriel is Lady Zuriel Serafino, other’s suggest, including the Papal records, that Zuriel is what is known as a Seraph.’
‘What’s a Seraph?’ asked Henry putting down his own book.
The whole group was interested now and all of them looking at her expectantly, even Niccoló.
Aracelle clicked her tongue. ‘A Seraph is a guardian of mankind,’ she said getting up and walking to her largest bookshelf. ‘It is where we get our modern interruption of Angels from. According to several Codex’s predating the idea of Angel’s, there are written reports of ethereal winged beings that lived among humans fighting side by side to thwart the demon’s that walked the Earth.’
She pulled a large book from the shelf and opened it to a page which contained an image that predated the writing of the book of Genesis. ‘This winged being is a Seraph, gone are the white wings, robes and halo that you would be used to, and replaced with coloured wings, in this case gold, holding light and fire to defeat the creatures of the night. The clothing you will note is contemporary of the era.
‘It is said that Seraph’s would live as human’s by day and at night they would fight a furious battle to protect human kind,’ she concluded. ‘The confusion with Zuriel probably comes from her surname, Serafino is Italian for Seraph and that there is a Seraph by the name of Zuriel. The Seraph Zuriel was not a guardian of mankind, but her job was to protect her kin on Earth.’
Everyone was looking at her as she brought her explaination to a close. Niccoló was looking at her more intently than any of the others. ‘Zuriel Serafino is your ancestor, isn’t she?’
Aracelle nodded before turning away to push the volume back into its shelf.
‘So she wasn’t a Seraph?’ said Larissa with a relieved smile.
Seraph’s had been classed as demons since the days of the Bible when their good side had been torn away from their bad side for the sake of creating something fictional. A Seraph’s mission might be to protect mankind when they were created but they could also exercise free will and turn their strengths to destruction. Like Kaleed had done.
‘Not as far as I am aware,’ replied Aracelle going back to her desk. ‘Have we got any more information from any of this or are we still blind?’
‘I’ve found nothing more about this particular ritual,’ said Henry, ‘although a few others have been connected to Perfect Alignment. There are a whole host of dark rituals that cover almost everything.’
‘Perfect Alignment focuses energy,’ said Larissa, ‘it makes every spell more powerful. Each day it comes closer I feel my magic get stronger.’ She looked between the others who were looking at her slightly suspiciously. ‘Caster,’ she reminded them. ‘Perfect Alignment came up in my training because I should live to see it. I hadn’t really thought about it until you mentioned it on the phone, Aracelle.’
‘Well, that’s living with the glass half full,’ remarked Niccoló.
Larissa stared at him; her expression dark and utterly dangerous. ‘Somehow, I figured you’d have had something to say if I had said that I will live to see the day.’
Niccoló raised his eyebrows before chuckling. ‘At least I would have admired you for having a bit more of a fighting spirit,’ he remarked. ‘Are you usually this cheerful, or is it just me that is grating on your nerves?’
Larissa squared her shoulders. ‘Oh, I won’t let you have the satisfaction of letting you grate on my nerves.’ She stood up and looked at Aracelle. ‘I appreciate what you are trying to do, but I need some air. I shall see you at the office in the morning. We have work relating to the kidnaps to do.’
Aracelle nodded her head. ‘I’ll draw up the paperwork tonight.’
The Caster nodded her head. ‘Right, and Henry, did you wish to return to my apartment tonight?’
Aracelle mentally added the ‘you’ll be safer there’ to the end of the sentence.
Henry rose from his seat. ‘My bag is still there, it will be good to get out of these clothes,’ he said, ‘Aracelle, thank you for your hospitality and for lending us your expansive knowledge.’
She nodded. ‘It’s my pleasure,’ she said with a smile. ‘I’m just sorry this situation has arisen for you, but I can say I think we’ll prove your innocence.’
‘Thank you, I appreciate it.’
He wanted her alone. Niccoló frowned at Stephen who he had learnt was the ‘muscle’ in the team. Niccoló had to assume he had hidden strength; much along the lines of Aracelle. He glanced up as she walked back into the living room after seeing Larissa and Henry out.
‘Right, Chinese or Pizza, and you are paying,’ she announced to Stephen as she held up two take out menus.
‘Pizza,’ he decided then Aracelle chucked the menu at him.
Niccoló had to get rid of the boy and he wanted answers from the woman who seemed very well acquainted with his past. He had hidden her copy of her thesis in the book he was supposed to be reading about Perfect Alignment, instead he seemed to be reading his life story with assumptions about his existence that were too close to the bone for his liking.
She had somehow gotten beneath the horror stories and he wanted to know how she had done that. He watched Aracelle glide over to her desk and slide into her seat. He watched her eyebrows lift as she read the screen before she started typing with furious abandonment. Niccoló tore his gaze away from her and back to Stephen. He seemed to be looking though the menu, then he glanced up to check Aracelle was occupied. It would only take a second to just pounce and Stephen would be out for the count for at least two hours if not the whole night.
One more look at the occupied warrior before he threw his book aside and moved his body in a fluid dangerous move towards the unsuspecting Stephen. At the edge of his senses something else moved and before he could do anything he hit an immoveable wall and something sharp slipped between his ribs.
He looked down expecting to see Stephen’s small form but instead he met violet eyes that powered into him. Just outside their bubble, Stephen was pulling a dagger from his pocket but Aracelle had already beaten him to it.
‘Unnatural speed, Aracelle, that really is something I did see,’ he muttered sucking in a breath. ‘Could you remove the dagger?’
‘No,’ she replied, ‘now, while I’ve got you here, we are going to be clear on one thing. I will not allow you to harm anyone I work with, if you do then I will dispatch you so quickly you won’t have a moment for your afterlife to flash before your eyes. Do. You. Understand?’
Power radiated off Aracelle as she spoke in a voice that would brook no argument from him. The power that flowed thought her was enough to reduce him to ashes in a second.
‘What the hell are you?’ he asked suddenly.
Aracelle ripped the dagger from his chest. ‘Terrifying,’ she replied as she sheathed the dagger. ‘You will do as I ask, do you understand?’
He bowed to her. ‘Yes, Ma’am,’ he drawled before turning on his heel and fleeing the apartment that had too many questions for his liking.
Stephen was looking up at Aracelle as he struggled to bring his breathing into line. ‘Hate to say it, but Aracelle, what the hell are you?’ he said repeating Niccoló’s question. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for what you just did.’
She sighed heavily. ‘It’s complicated,’ she said, ‘and a whole lot worse because it was you that saw that.’
‘Lying to me the whole time we’ve known each other?’
Aracelle nodded; for nearly ten years she had been friends with Stephen and keeping her true nature from him had been the hardest thing. He was a loyal friend and she was lying to him every day.
Stephen stood up and placed his hands on her shoulders. ‘Is your nature a lie?’
‘My nature?’
‘Yes, all the things that make you, you, are they a lie?’ he asked, ‘you’re gracefulness, intelligence, killer wit, is that all a lie?’
She shook her head.
‘Then you haven’t lied too much, just about what you are,’ he said.
‘Which will be enough for Larissa,’ said Aracelle, ‘she hates all demon’s.’
Stephen frowned and rubbed his bristled jaw. ‘It’s hard to look at you and see a demon,’ he smiled at her, ‘I’m your friend, you can tell me.’
Aracelle jammed her hands in her pocket before stepping over to where Niccoló discarded book sat, with a second one tucked in it. She looked at the cover and laughed.
‘What is it?’
She showed the two books to Stephen. ‘A stunning display of originality.’
‘I think you hit a nerve,’ pointed out Stephen nodding towards the thinner book.
‘It was his lung actually,’ replied Aracelle as she pulled her stiletto dagger from its sheath. The blade was dark red with the smeared blood. ‘He’ll recover soon enough.’
‘Then he’ll try to kill you for that.’
She pressed her hand to an ancient scar on her neck that she always covered up with a scarf. ‘He can try, but I’m faster and stronger.’
Stephen quickly got to his feet and pulled at the scarf she was wearing.
‘Stephen,’ she yelled, but it was too late. Exposed on her neck was a bit mark with two puncture like marks.
‘Are you a vampire?’
Aracelle grabbed her scarf and tied it around her neck. ‘If I was I wouldn’t still have these,’ she exclaimed, ‘why the hell did you do that?’
‘Because I want to know what you are,’ replied Stephen raising his voice a little. ‘Seven years I’ve known you and I’ve never even suspected a thing. Never even thought you could be anything other than human.’
‘I’ve had a lot of practice at blending in where I am needed,’ replied Aracelle, ‘a few thousand years to get it right.’
Stephen sat down suddenly before looking up at Aracelle. ‘A few thousand years?’
‘Yes,’ she nodded before taking a deep breath. ‘I’m a Seraph, as previously described. That picture I showed you of a Seraph, was me.’
‘So you predate the religious movement?’
Aracelle nodded. ‘By three thousand years. Although, by the standards of my people, I’m still relatively young, it is said we can live for eons.’
‘Whoa,’ replied Stephen. ‘So you’ll be still here when I’m long gone.’
‘I’ve seen many people that I care about leave this world, you’ll forgive me if I say I’m used to it now,’ replied Aracelle. ‘I have lived on Earth constantly since the fourteen hundreds.’
Stephen blew out a long breath. ‘That’s a hell of a life time, Aracelle,’ he said.
‘Blink of an eye to someone of my age,’ dismissed Aracelle with the flick of her hand. Then she caught Stephen’s eye. ‘You can’t tell Larissa, she despises all demons, and although I don’t like it, I am classified as one.’
‘My lips are sealed,’ said Stephen as he leant forward to pick up the book he had been reading. ‘Right, Perfect Alignment, what are we going to do?’
Aracelle shrugged. ‘I don’t rightly know what is happening; we have several possible avenues to look at.’ She took in a breath and tapped her fingers against her leg. ‘I think Zuriel is on to something in her Compendium so if you follow that up I shall look elsewhere for other leads.’
‘Should we not focus on one area?’
‘Eventually, yes,’ agreed Aracelle, ‘but we need to be looking at the right thing. Perfect Alignment has a lot of rituals associated to it; we need to the right one so there is minimal loss of life.’
Stephen smiled and nodded before he opening the book. Aracelle exhaled because for just one moment, all was right.

Chapter IV | Chapter V

The Seraph Chronicles - Chapter Two: The Fallen

Making good progress here, in terms of word count, not sure on content.... right, here goes.


Chapter I |


Chapter Two: The Fallen.

‘Be careful,’ Aracelle suddenly called out to him.

Niccoló turned to see her taking a defensive stance in front of the prince with the dagger poised for attack. If he gave her anything, it was that she had spirit. Fire burned in her violet eyes as she nodded towards the approaching creatures.

A breath escaped from his chest as he was faced with something truly repulsive; the warped faces and distorted way the light bended around the beings made it difficult to look at them. He wanted to look away.

‘Don’t take your eyes off them,’ called Aracelle from behind.

Of course, now she had said that he wanted to look away. ‘What the hell are they?’

‘The Fallen Guardians of Seraphrim,’ she replied now closer to him. He could feel her reaching out to him and then she grabbed the back of his jeans. ‘Fallen angels if you will, slaves to the devil.’

‘Kaleed?’ asked Niccoló.

‘Yes,’ she affirmed as she tugged at the waistline, ‘now keep your eyes open we need to get into an open space. Henry, start moving back toward the bar, until we reach that side street.’

‘That’s not exactly open space,’ mumbled Niccoló as he tried to focus on the Fallen before him. They seemed to be in constant, painful motion. He thought he had seen it all since his transformation to his body over five hundred years ago.

He glanced to his side to take in the fierce woman beside him, the woman he had followed because of her name. Doctor Aracelle Serafino; the name had plucked at him and then the quick search on his smartphone revealed that he was the subject of her PhD thesis not to mention the ring on her finger and now the dagger in her hand.

‘Keep looking at them,’ she urged with annoyance.

Then she switched the blade so he could feel it pressing against his back yet his usual sense of danger didn’t kick in, not from what she was doing.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

‘Trying not to stab Henry,’ she said, ‘I’m sure he heals at lot slower than you do.’

‘Your consideration is appreciated,’ said Henry, ‘there’s that turning off you mentioned.’

‘Head towards it,’ she said as her phone trilled. ‘Fuck,’ she muttered in his ear.

All he could think was ‘yes, please,’ it was an unbidden thought but then he reasoned it was all to do with the instincts that were currently primed. The primal urge that ripped thought him was to fight, to protect himself but he also felt it for the woman beside him. The woman that seemed, in mind and name at least, like the wife he had murdered in cold blood with the thirst of his transformation five hundred and twenty years ago.

Disobeying the demonologist again, he glanced to her as she dragged out her own phone and cursed under her breath.  ‘Serafino,’ she said as she pressed the device to her ear before pulling it away and holding it at arm’s reach as another female voice boomed out and screamed about being knocked out.

Aracelle was so small in stature that he wouldn’t have thought, even with all the fire that she seemed to burn with, that she would be capable of knocking anyone out.  Then she screamed and Niccoló felt his feet lift of the floor as Aracelle lunged forward.

He crashed into the wall before spinning around just in time to see her plunge the dagger into the chest the of Fallen. He saw her lips move as she muttered something and a great explosion as the Fallen was catapulted back into the other two. What really amazed him was that her phone was still in her hand and the angry voice was still issuing from it as Aracelle was listening to it with rapt attention.

‘Larissa,’ said Aracelle being the phone back to her ear, ‘Henry is with me and we’re okay, but this thing, Larissa, I think it’s worse than we could ever imagine. We’re going to need to bring Stephen in on this. We’re going to need the extra muscle.’

Larissa laughed down the line. ‘You are properly right,’ she agreed more easily that Aracelle would have thought possible. ‘Are you coming back here.’

‘No, I’m respecting your inability to do deals with vampires,’ replied Aracelle.

‘You found him?’

‘We did indeed.’

She looked up to find Niccoló glaring at her from where she had thrown him when she had summoned her strength to act.

‘I have to go,’ Aracelle declared to Larissa as she recognised the dark look in Niccoló’s eyes. It was a universal look that Larissa had down to a tee. ‘I’ll see you in the office.’

‘Sure you’ll make it?’ enquired Larissa.

‘I’ll make it.’

She clicked off the phone and pocketed it; she looked between her fugitive and vampire. ‘My house is across the park. Henry for want of a better place available I do have a spare room, and you,’ she said looking at Niccoló, ‘you have questions for me, I assume.’

‘Questions you will have to answer if you want my help.’

She found herself nodding her consent as her body and senses renegaded from her mind. Although, it did depend on what he asked. ‘Fine,’ she said placing her hands on her hips. ‘Until then, we’re all on the same side.’

She resheathed her dagger before setting off in the direction of the park. Successfully she diverted her mind from Niccoló and found herself listing everything that was wrong with her flat. By nature, Aracelle was a clean and tidy person, but that was just for herself. She wasn’t intending on having royalty to stay. In her mind’s eye she could see her DTU case file spread over her coffee table with her books open at various pages. The half-drunk glass of red wine leaving a ring on the ceramic coaster. There were a few dying flowers in the vase on her window sill. The coffee was instant and not ground. Her knickers drying on the radiator. Aracelle groaned.

‘I’m afraid my flat is in a bit of a mess,’ she turned to Henry with an apologetic smile. ‘I wasn’t expecting company.’

Henry smiled and shook his head. ‘It can’t be any worse than Larissa’s place,’ he said with a grimace. ‘Think you could convince her to get a cleaner in?’

Aracelle laughed. ‘I can safely say that I doubt Larissa listens to a word I say, unless she has to in a professional capacity. She’s a hard nut to crack.’

‘That’s not what I gathered from the phone call,’ muttered Niccoló, ‘seems you succeeding  in cracking something, possibly her nose.’ He eyed her speculatively. ‘You don’t look as if you could crack anything.’

‘I’m surprisingly strong,’ she said. ‘Took you off your feet, didn’t I?’

‘You caught me unaware,’ he replied haughtily but looked away from her.

Henry caught her eye and they both repressed a smirk. Aracelle dug her hands in her pocket as she pulled ahead to lead the prince and vampire across the empty space. The moon was thankfully at its fullest and the light beat down on the park bathing it in silver light. Aracelle threw out her hearing over the expanse of the park.

‘Too quiet,’ she muttered.

Just behind her the predator vampire stiffened before seamlessly sliding into dangerous defensive position. Aracelle’s hand flew to her dagger and she clenched the hilt.

‘More Fallen?’ asked Niccoló as he turned his head in the direction they had just walked.

‘Not more, the same ones,’ she said. ‘They won’t cross the park; Fallen can’t survive in any light, moon or sun.’

‘They couldn’t have picked a worse night to be out,’ remarked Niccoló.

Aracelle turned her back. ‘I don’t think they chose it,’ she said.

‘Then this Kaleed is watching us?’ asked Henry, his face going dark with a frown.

‘I wouldn’t rule it out,’ she said looking into the shadows. ‘Come on, it isn’t far now.’

By the time they reached her large two bedroom flat overlooking Victoria Park, Niccoló noticed something that his host had not. He had walked right though her front door. Niccoló suppressed a chuckle of amusement. To be honest, he wasn’t wholly surprised, Aracelle had blindsided him in every other action she had taken in the few short hours that he had been with her.

Her home was by no means as pokey as she would have made out; it was stylishly furnished whilst displaying that she was a workaholic as her desk and coffee table were covered with archaic text. The whole living space felt like a library. Niccoló liked libraries and the wealth of information they possessed. This room was brimming had to be brimming with information on demons and history going back to at least the birth of Christ.

He barely noticed as she exchanged a few words with her living guest before showing him down a hall to her spare room. His eyes had fallen on her case file and as he started to move toward it Aracelle was back in the doorway.

‘Kidnaps,’ she said.

Niccoló looked up to see Aracelle looking tired and wane. ‘Does the DTU usually deal with kidnaps?’

‘No, CID does then we get it if they find a trace of demon activity. In this case,’ said Aracelle, ‘well, I can’t find anything that point’s in that direction.’

She walked over and gathered up the files and closed the manila casing. He couldn’t help but notice the ‘Top Secret’ stamp across the front before she picked it up and walked over to her desk.

‘It occurs to me that I have a bit of a problem’ said Aracelle as she put the file in a desk draw and locked it. ‘I didn’t invite you in.’

Niccoló smiled. ‘How’d you cover that up with your royal guest?’

‘I told him that the invitation doesn’t have to be spoken out aloud,’ she said as she folded herself into the desk chair.

‘Inventive,’ he agreed, ‘but it does beg the question of not only who are you, but also what are you?’ He turned and pointed to a chair. ‘May I?’

‘By all means,’ she replied gesturing to the chair before looking up at the clock.

He ignored it, some things just couldn’t wait. ‘How did you get the ring and dagger?’

‘Why do you want to know?’

He frowned at her. ‘You said you would answer my questions.’

‘And I did, with another question, you really thing I would divulge all my little secrets in a single sitting interrogation a mere four hours before I have work?’

Niccoló ignored her replied. ‘The ring and dagger,’ he repeated glowering at her, wanting to rip her throat out for her audacity. Clearly, her much celebrated thesis on him had told her a single thing about him.

Dangerous, that was what he was, a murderer who had massacred an entire village for hiding what he wanted. A vampire who had drained his wife, his only love, of her life source and then seemingly killed their child. Yet, before him, this woman, the demonologist with the same name as his wife sat looking at him and challenged him with her unearthly violet eyes.

‘I told you,’ she said, ‘family heirlooms, and the name, is an old family name. It’s very heavenly, you know.’

‘Serafino is Italian for Seraph, or Angel, while Aracelle mean alter of Heaven,’ he said quietly. As if he could ever forget the meaning of that name.

He looked up and saw a smile on Aracelle’s face. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘my family have always been very proud of the original Aracelle Serafino.’

Niccoló stood up abruptly. ‘Do you have anything to drink?’

‘Coffee?’

‘No stronger than that.’

‘Red wine?’

He gave her a doubtful look.

She held her hands up. ‘I don’t indulge in the drinks that are meant for drowning your sorrows.’

‘I have no sorrows,’ he spat out.

‘Is that so?’ she asked with a challenging tone. ‘Well, I shall leave you to your no sorrows; I need some rest before tomorrow. Please don’t eat myself or my other guest, it isn’t good manners.’

He spun around and slammed his hands on her desk. ‘I am not done with you.’

‘But I am done with you, for now,’ she replied calmly stepping out from behind the oak and around him, ‘stay, go, whichever you please as you have an all-out pass to my house, but…’

‘Don’t eat yourself or His Highness, right,’ he drawled. ‘Sleep tight.’

‘You look dead,’ said Stephen Needleson as he put a coffee on Aracelle’s desk, ‘and Larissa is sporting the shiner the size of a cricket ball. I feel left out.’

Aracelle took the Columbian with a double shot of espresso. ‘You shouldn’t, I’d rather be in your shoes,’ she replied before blowing on the coffee and taking a sip. ‘Larissa’s here?’

He nodded. ‘She was down in the lobby having a hush, hush conversation,’ Stephen told her. ‘She just waved me away like I was an annoyance to her.’ Stephen took a chair on the other side of Aracelle’s desk. ‘So spill, I know that look, what dirty little secret are you hiding?’

‘It’s not little,’ said Aracelle thinking of her early morning departure.

She had left her two houseguests sleeping; Henry still in the spare room and Niccoló passed out on the sofa holding an expensive bottle of red wine that she had been saving. She had prised it from his fingers before he had spilt on the floor before leaving her home at the mercy at an inquisitive predator. She had gotten the impression that he was going to devour every grain of information on her until he had her over a barrel. It was a good job that he would never be able to achieve that.

Stephen raised his eyebrows. ‘Big secret?’ he asked, ‘sounds interesting.’

‘Sounds dangerous,’ said Larissa from the doorway, then her eyes bore into Aracelle’s. ‘You and I need a conversation.’

‘Is this the sort of conversation where I don’t get a word in edgeways?’

Larissa was glaring at her now. ‘Do you think you deserve an word in edgeways?’

‘Perhaps, given that this is more serious than you can imagine,’ replied Aracelle. ‘Also, have you decided about Stephen’s place in this, we are going to need all the help and brain power we can get.’

Larissa looked over at the other man who had been flicking his head between the two as if he were watching a tennis match. ‘Can we trust you?’

‘What sort of question is that?’ demanded Stephen as Larissa closed the door. ‘Of course you can.’

Aracelle shook her head. ‘Steph, this isn’t just me and Larissa stepping over the line,’ she explained to her young friend, ‘this is about us being so far over the line that it has disappeared over the horizon.’

Stephen glanced between the two women. ‘What have you done?’

‘Aracelle is harbouring two fugitives in her flat,’ said Larissa.

‘You started it,’ she remarked with a flick of a smile. ‘I was asleep on my couch, perfectly innocent until you called.’

Stephen held up his hands. ‘Right, both of you, instead of the cryptic remarks, how about you tell me the story from the start.’

Aracelle gestured to Larissa before leaning back in her chair. ‘I’m not entirely sure where it really begins.’

‘It begins with the fact that Prince Henry and I go back to University,’ she said before turning her attention back Stephen. ‘Henry is innocent of the crimes he has been alleged to have committed.’

‘You are certain of this?’

Aracelle nodded. ‘I am,’ she said, ‘I was digging late into the night.’

‘She has a personal interest. Henry has been accused of having an accomplice,’ explained Larissa, ‘the vampire who she wrote her thesis on and she’s already tracked him down.’

Stephen nodded in appreciation. ‘That’s impressive, how did you manage that?’

‘His Royal Highness had already done the leg work and narrowed it down to a few haunts in the city,’ replied Aracelle, ‘and in the process made him look even more guilty.’

There was a sigh from Stephen. ‘So we’re going to be working on this now?’ he asked.

‘Not in an official capacity,’ said Larissa, ‘you have to understand, we might be lucky if we still have our jobs if anyone finds out that Aracelle is harbouring them both at her home.’

‘You let a vampire into your house?’ Stephen demanded in a low hiss. ‘Are you out of your mind?’

Aracelle frowned; she hadn’t exactly let him in but she couldn’t tell these two that. It would open Pandora’s Box. ‘I didn’t have much of a choice, we were attacked by The Fallen,’ she explained, ‘and he has information we need.’

‘How can you be certain that he won’t eat Henry?’ asked Stephen.

‘He’s interested in us,’ she replied with a shrug. ‘I’ve just got to make sure that interest doesn’t wane.’

Both Larissa and Stephen stared back at Aracelle with varying degrees of shock in their eyes. She agreed that she was quite possibly mad; however, the situation could not be helped. The vampire had waltzed in uninvited and she had no way of making him leave because she wasn’t human enough. She had left herself wide open when she had refused to sacrifice her strength for this mission.

Stephen stood up and squared his shoulders; there was not much off him but he was a formidable warrior with light weapon’s and due to his spry build, he was more effective in a combat situation then most of the heavy set warriors in the DTU.

‘If you insist on remaining in your flat with Il Principe della Notte, then I will stay with you,’ declared Stephen. ‘I will not leave you in danger.’

‘I don’t think I’m in danger,’ said Aracelle absently touching the base of her neck that was covered by a scarf.

‘Well, I do, Larissa, tell her,’ said Stephen.

Larissa laughed. ‘Absolutely not, last time I told her to do something she left me with this,’ she said pointing at the bruise of her face.

‘You cannot think to leave her in danger with that monster,’ replied Stephen.

Larissa considered him for a moment before looking at Aracelle. ‘Stephen remains with you at all times, do you understand Aracelle?’

Aracelle looked over Stephen. ‘Fine,’ she said conceding after yesterday, ‘okay.’

Chapter III | Chapter IV | Chapter V