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.’
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