Chapter 10
Empty your head, Muriel said at the start of each of their sessions, Tina remembered. Think of black velvet. Let all the memories, the images that haunt you become fine sand and blow it away. She did that, or at least she tried to, as Prva’s thoughts invaded her mind, poking and searching, but not as painfully as in Abbas’s session.
She didn’t know how much time had passed, not when here and there her heart got out of control and it twisted time, but if felt so long and after Prva’s presence in her head retracted and those blue eyes stopped scrutinising her, she could feel a thin layer of perspiration on her brow and tiredness that clung to her bones.
“You have some memory problems?” Prva’s fingers released her hand.
Tina nodded, but only because it seemed the right thing to do, not because it was true.
“That explains the blank spaces.” Prva leaned back on the pillows. “And you are useless to me. And to Angelica.”
“That’s not true. She could be of use.” Angelica surged forward, she glared at Prva. “I’m interested in her blood, not her mind.” Her gaze found Tina and she floated toward her. “And the girl might be tricking your senses, sister.” She drove her arm into Tina’s body.
Tina gasped and doubled down. A feeling of thousands ants nibbling on her flesh from inside spread from every spot that that white intangible hand touched her. She fought against the nausea and pain that choked her. She held on to blackness and emptiness, trying to suppress the memories of Damon and Abbas, hiding them in a remote corner of her mind. A tear slipped down her cheek.
Somebody’s hand wrapped around her waist and she was hauled backwards, away from Angelica’s presence. She tried to straighten, to... She didn’t know exactly what else she wanted to do. Her mind... She cradled her head, her breath coming in and out in short, shallow puffs.
“She’s my property,” Haniel said. “I agreed to lend her to you, but I didn’t agree that you could render her useless. And you can forget about getting her into your lab now.”
“Hold your tongue, you insolent child.” Angelica leaned forward, her hand reaching out for Tina.
“She’s mine.” Haniel pushed Tina behind his back.
Tina leaned on Haniel, her knees shook, her body trembled and she had trouble standing up. What had that thing done to her?
“You are mine, and what’s yours is mine, too.” The first hints of greyness sullied Angelica’s white form.
“No, I’m not.” Haniel glared at Angelica.
“Are they going to fight?” Gabriel climbed up in Prva’s lap, and curled up there.
“No, they are not.” Prva patted the boy’s head.
“No, he isn’t yours.” Uriel stepped between Haniel and Angelica. “We made a contract, remember.” He threw down the short jacket he wore. “I tied myself to you for my brothers’ freedom.” He rolled up the right sleeve of his thin white T-shirt, exposing his arm and the red and black tint that wove around in circles and small letters the biceps. “Remember this?” He showed it to her. “Our contract. I am yours and what’s mine is yours, but no matter how much you like to forget, they are not yours anymore and what’s theirs is not yours either.” He covered his arm. “You know perfectly well if you insist doing that our bond will break.”
“Fine!” Grey shimmers framed Angelica’s body before she abruptly turned away.
“I assume we are done?” Uriel turned toward Prva.
Prva nodded and with the wave of her hands dismissed them.
“Come on.” Haniel put his hand around Tina’s body, dragging her with him.
“What’s happened to me?” Tina asked; a wrinkle appeared above her nose bridge. “I feel so tired.” At least she had stopped shivering and she could walk on her own, but something told her that it would be better if she pretended to be weak.
“Angelica’s touch can suck your life energy. I don’t know how that could be possible. Damon’s blood in you should prevent that,” Haniel whispered. They had already passed the first three rows of benches. “Except... Angelica must have adjusted her vibration level to the blood that she took from you.
“Vibration level? What’s that supposed to mean? And how could --”
Haniel covered her mouth and in a low voice explained, “Everyone’s blood has a different vibration, but only few Bloodeaters can feel it. Muriel can and he can feed on people’s life energy if he sets his vibration higher that his target, if he chooses too. He never does since his empathy is too strong, and the risk of draining someone to death too high. But Angelica does it all the time. It’s the only way for her to feed.”
“Uriel,” Angelica called. “If I can’t get her, then bring me Petsha. I know he’s here on the estate somewhere. I have been feeling him since yesterday.”
“I meant to talk with you about that, dear sister,” Prva said. “I made a contract with Petsha.”
Tina wanted to turn back, but Haniel with his long strides didn’t allow her.
“Keep walking,” Haniel grumbled.
“I won’t hunt him or his Akilueteers as long as he keeps their number low, stays discreet enough and doesn’t interfere with us,” Prva continued. “So I’m afraid, he has no reason to come to your lab anymore.”
“How dare you!”
Tina glanced over her shoulder and instead of a white angel she saw black tendrils in the shape of a woman with spread dark-feathered wings that reminded Tina of an animal about to strike. “What’s going on?”
“Ladies,” Uriel intervened. “Don’t get too agitated, please. There are children here.”
“It doesn’t concern us.” Haniel’s step became more rushed. “And there’s no way I’m going to be in the middle of Prva and Angelica’s fight. Those can be quite fierce.”
“Don’t get your feathers ruffled or I’m going to use Restrain on you,” Prva commanded. “You should have known that since I promised you I wouldn’t kill him and with the way he arrogantly multiplied his minions despite my warnings, I had no choice. Just find yourself a new Akilueteer and this time don’t let him loose like you did Petsha.”
“I can’t. You know perfectly well that I can’t when you keep me locked here.”
“I don’t see any problems,” Uriel said. “Next time we hunt, I’ll bring you one.”
“Not just any Akilueteer will do. You are both aware of that!”
“Order Petsha to bring you some of his ‘vampires’, then. If the price is right, I’m certain he will oblige,” Prva suggested. “I’ll give you some resources, but for that you have to make me more Numuns, since I only have twenty-one of them and some of them refuse to grow up, don’t you my darling?”
“Yes, ma’am,” a small boy’s voice said. “But that’s just because the world becomes boring when you grow up.”
“And you like us anyway, right? Even if we stay small.” One of the young girls chipped in.
“You are correct, darling. I love you no matter how tall or grown up you are.”
#
Muriel sat with his knees against his chest, his gaze fixed in front of him. And there just in front of him, long brown ears were visible over the tall grass that waved in the soft breeze.
“Is that a rabbit?” Tina craned her neck to see better. She and Haniel sat on the bench behind the house, enjoying the smell of the grass in the warmth of the early summer afternoon. “What is a rabbit doing here?”
“It came to chat with Muriel.” Haniel leaned on the wall of the house behind him, pulling his fedora down on his face so that only the lower part of his wide sunglasses could be seen and grimaced. “What are we doing here anyway? Let’s go in. The sun is too annoying.”
“You can go in anytime you like. I don’t know why you insist on keeping me company.” Tina glimpsed the sun among the clouds, regretting her decision in the next second as her eyes hidden under dark lenses started to tear and burn. From the pocket of her brown and pink hoodie she took a handkerchief and dabbed her eyes with it. Her sensitivity to sun still lingered, and Uriel said that it would probably never completely disappear, but at least now she could spend time outdoors without fear of sunburn, which before she had gotten as soon as the sun’s rays directly brushed her skin. She looked at Muriel again. “Does Muriel talk with animals?”
“No, he doesn’t really talk to them, he communicates with them with his mind.” Haniel pulled his right foot up and leaned on his knee. “He can do a lot of things, our Muriel. He makes me jealous sometimes.”
Tina looked at him.
“I don’t really mean it. I love him too much to be jealous of him.” Haniel directed his gaze at his boot, playing with the zipper. “But... but I am the weak one. I’m not strong as Muriel is, and my swordsmanship and close combat skills suck compared to Uriel’s. I wish I could be half as good as he is. I’m not good for anything.”
“How could you say something like that?” Tina’s hand sneaked under a fall of hair tied in a low ponytail and she splayed her fingers on Haniel’s neck. “I have never met a person who knows as much about computers as you do, and not just computers... about any machine, really. I bet you could build a car or even something small and complicated like... like... a micro-camera from scratch. ” She expectantly looked Haniel. “Couldn’t you?”
“Well, if I had the right tools and parts I --”
“You see.” Tina gave him a wide smile. “And you are always here to support me. A lot of times I feel like you are the heart of your family, and not to mention you are very kind.”
“Being kind...that’s a fault, not a good quality, not in Bloodeaters.” Haniel pushed the brim of his hat up. “And Uriel is the heart of our family. He’s the one who takes care of Muriel and me. He’s like a parent, sacrificing himself for our sake.” He gave Tina a small smile. “He raised us, you know. And not just us. He also raised the first Numuns triplets. He volunteered to do that in exchange for us; for a place among the Damned and for Prva’s protection.” A one-sided grin appeared on his face. “But if he had known that that would get Anael on his back bugging him, making house calls all the time, he might have thought twice before taking that step.”
They both looked sideways through the half-opened window of the living room where, in the sunbeam that forced its way through the narrow opening, she could see the outline of a person with a book in his hand on the couch and somebody sitting cross-legged on the table, the right hand moving up and down -- it seemed that Anael was playing with her knife again.
“She can be so annoying... but in a way they are part of our small family. And now we have you too.”
“Do you?” Tina leaned back.
“Of course... aren’t you?” Haniel tilted his head. “If you want to... I know you have a family already. You call them here and there. Your dad, right?”
“Yes, my dad,” Tina confirmed, even though she had stopped regarding her dad as family since that day at the graveyard after her mother’s burial when he had left her standing there with her grandma, his wife on his arm. She tensed her jaw.
“What about your mom?”
“My mom?” Tina’s fingers played with the side seam of her dark-blue denim. “She died.”
“I’m sorry.” Haniel’s hand descended over hers.
“It’s okay. It was a long time ago, when I was still in high school.” She sighed. “And it’s not like she was a big part of my life anyway.”
“Oh. How come? Or shouldn’t I ask?”
“No, it’s okay. She just wasn’t mother material, I guess. She was more of a hippie. She loved to travel and she couldn’t stay in one place for very long.” Tina smiled at the memory of a round face under a big straw bonnet, of the hand that tugged Tina behind her and a wide smile. It had been a long time since she had thought about her. Not because she had forgotten, but because it was easier that way, because it hurt to remember her, because there was so much regret. “She was fun and it was great when she came home from her travels bringing me all kinds of cool presents, but...” The corners of Tina’s mouth turned downwards. But it had broken her heart every time she had seen her mother’s back as she went off on another one of her journeys. Always showing her back, always leaving her behind with promises that this was the last time. Until it was the last time, because after they brought her back in the coffin, she hadn’t left again, had she? And Dad was the same... he left her, too. He left her for them.
But it was all right, it was okay, as long as she had her grandma, she could manage, but now Grandma had left her too.
“Tina, are you all right?” Haniel moved closer.
Why had the people she cared about always left her behind?
“Tina?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Tina somehow managed to curve her lips in a smile. She was fine, she repeated to herself. She was always fine no matter what, because ‘what doesn’t break us makes us stronger’, or at least that what her grandma liked to say. So, she was fine. She had to be. “It just... sometimes I’m sorry that I didn’t go with her on one of her trips. But I was worried about school. I didn’t want to miss a year. And my grandma said that there was plenty of time, that I should go with mom after I finished high school. But then it was too late.”
“I’m sorry.” Haniel took hold of her hand.
“It’s okay. I don’t regret anything... well, I try not to.” Tina hung her head, staring at the tips of her sneakers. “There’s no point regretting something when you can’t change the past,” she said and she meant it. She always tried not to regret her decisions, no matter how wrong they were. Things happened and after they were done there was nothing she could do, and regrets would only make things worse. “In life you just have to grit your teeth and go on... otherwise... giving up... that’s...” Fingers touched her free hand and when she looked up, Muriel’s serious eyes shone down on her.
Tina swallowed the lump in her throat. “I’m fine. I really am.”
Haniel released Tina’s hand and moved aside to make space for Muriel.
Muriel sat down between them and leaned his head on Tina’s shoulder, his hand still holding hers. “Uriel thinks the same. No regrets, because all the things, bad and good, are the ones that made us what we are.”
“I remember when he said that.” Haniel kicked the sand under his feet. “He reassured me with those words when I felt guilty that he had to be Angelica’s test subject for my sake.”
“Not just for your sake. For mine too,” Muriel said. “But it’s okay. You know what Uriel also says.”
“Yeah.”
“What does he say?” Tina asked.
“He says that without us he wouldn’t have a reason to live, that we are the ones who keep him going.” Muriel sighed. “I do wish sometimes that we were one person as we were meant to be, that Angelica hadn’t experimented on us and divided as she did, to be whole...” He squeezed her fingers. “But then I think about the world without my brothers and I see... Uriel is right, we do make each other stronger, we complete each other and I wouldn’t change the way we are. Three parts of one whole.”
“Three parts of a whole,” Tina repeated, hating how Muriel’s voice croaked. She ran fingers of her free hand through Muriel’s bangs.
After a moment of depressing silence she spoke what was on her mind, “She divides everything into three? Those three Numuns: Anael, Nat and the other one. They were divided too, weren’t they?”
“Yes, because she’s afraid that otherwise they would have been stronger than her,” Haniel said. “And they would have. All the Numuns, and us too. ”
“Always into three?”
“Always,” Muriel nodded. “But if she had known how strong we would become, she would probably have divided us into five or six parts. She’s always looking for a way to create powerful beings, but because she can’t control them... I think she’s afraid her creations will turn on her.”
“I don’t like her. She didn’t create you. You existed already without her meddling, not as three but as one,” Tina said. “And the other day, in Prva’s hall, she acted like you owe her for what she had done to you. I mean...” How dare she?
“Yeah,” Haniel agreed. He leaned his elbows on his knees. “I’m quite depressed right now.”
Tina sighed and looked at Haniel over Muriel’s hand. “Actually, I’m more pissed than depressed. And I’ll take anger over sadness anytime.”
“Easier to deal with?” Muriel asked.
“Probably.” Tina furrowed her brows. She had never thought about it that way. She brushed hair away from Muriel’s face and tucked it behind his ears. “Hey, you coming here... Does that mean that I’m forgiven for what I did to you?”
Muriel nodded.
“Would you at least tell me what I did, so I won’t do it again?”
Muriel shook his head.
Tina’s lips made a pout. “But how would I...”
A dark shadow was cast over them, blocking even the weak rays that managed to penetrate the thicker and thicker clouds.
Tina looked up.
The dark-grey intangible shape looking like an electric ray floated above them. It stopped and its tendrils shot down at them.
Haniel jumped up, pulling Muriel and Tina with him before shoving them to the ground.
The tendrils slammed against the bench, the wood crashed under the impact and pieces of wood and splinters cut the air.
Tina picked herself up, looking at the thing above them. “What the hell is that?”
“One of Angelica’s Shadows.” Muriel glared at the thing.
Haniel’s hand wrapped around Tina’s, he pulled her toward the back entrance that led into the kitchen.
The dark, floating thing reached out for them again.
Tina’s heart sped up. She curled her free hand around Muriel’s wrist and pulled both the boys behind her and out of the way. From the corner of her eye she could see a silhouette at the living room window. She turned and saw Uriel and Anael standing there, a ball, its carving similar to the cubes Muriel had used at the nightclub’s door in their hand. They were pointing it at that thing and like a ribbon silver electricity rose from the boxes.
Tina’s heart slowed down and the silver lighting cut through the air and its threads wrapped around the Shadow, squeezing it until it became a black dot in the sky.
“Go get a jar,” Uriel ordered.
Haniel wiggled his hand out of Tina’s hold and rushed into the house, to reappear with an ordinary glass jar and a cap. He strode to the living room window.
“Don’t tell me you are going to use that?” Tina couldn’t stop staring at the jar.
“Of course,” Uriel somehow lowered the dot, which was actually a fist-sized, jelly-like blob and directed it into the jar, which was sealed as soon as the thing touched the bottom; the electricity that held the blob died away. “How do you think Angelica stores them?”
“In jars?”
“Yes.” Uriel put the ball in the pocket of his cargo.
“Angelica should have kept a better lock on these things. They are so annoying. Prva is going to have a fit when she finds out about that,” Anael leaned thorough the window and took the jar from Haniel “Especially when next week a Decennial Gathering starts. How will it look to have these things flying around and attacking the Elders?”