Chapter 3

"Keep the body your workshop," Lorene told Nikolas once they made it home. "I've sent the text messages to her last few contacts to make it seem like she's staying with an old friend for the next few days. It's better if we have some time before the cops start looking into her disappearance."

Nikolas silently carried the girl's body as it slowly changed beneath the surface of her skin; much to the ire of the witch's familiar as she came down the stairs. Animals were more in-tuned to the darkness that dwelled within the world, and she could tell it would awake as a predator that would dye the world scarlet.

Nikolas brushed past the feline and carried her into the basement.

Lorene picked up Mitra and cradled the familiar close to her chest, soaking in the warmth from her fur as they made their way up the staircase adorned with an oak rail and into her study.

"We're going need to get started on counter-measures, including a circle to put the body in, just in case it wakes early," she told her familiar. "With Nikolas being the way he is, I don't trust his judgment and he's liable to make a mistake."

Flicking on the chandelier lights above them, Lorene set the feline down and pointed to the pile of text she had lying on the floor. "Look through those and find the books that deal with curses and undead for something that could be used against vampires."

While Mitra perused the books on the floor, Lorene rifled through the desk drawer for the chronicle of sorts that held the notes compiled by her ancestors on the Nox-Cruor. She had perused it when the flask was stolen, but now she needed to do an in-depth review so nothing caught her off-guard.

Normal vampires were apex predators of the night. They were built for the sake of hunting and fed off blood. It was all they needed to survive and thrive, their bodies reconfigured solely for that purpose.

They could specifically hear the beating of a heart within a quarter of a mile, see it flowing through the circulatory system beneath the skin, and smell the scent of fear as its prey fled from it. Their strength and speed was effectively thrice that of a normal person, as any limitations the body had were removed. Anything damaged could be replaced or regenerated depending on the amount of blood ingested.

But for all their inherent strength and speed, vampires had such a low rate of propagation they couldn't inflate their numbers beyond a certain point. The typical reproduction organs were no longer functioning, so they couldn't give birth. They could only inject their blood into others to grow their numbers, but the potency dropped the more it passed along, ensuring they couldn't hunt humanity into extinction.

In addition, magic made for the purpose of hunting and killing their kind could be found in nearly every culture. It had been used to successfully trim their numbers down to a minimum over the centuries. Those that remained were few in numbers, and some combination of powerful, clever, and cautious.

It was different for vampires born of the Nox-Cruor. They could metabolize magic and utilize it if they fed off it. Blood was life after all, and the blood of someone who practiced, a theurgist, was rich in life and power.

That was one of the reasons Lorene made the golems in the form of jaguars in the first place. The sheer mass and weight combined with the speed and strength of the beasts would at least be able to keep up and maim the Schwarzert if it had taken the blood and changed itself. She didn't expect entropomancy of that caliber.

Worse, the blood didn't lose potency as it transferred from body-to-body. That meant entire bloodlines could be born from a single vampire. That reason alone meant trouble on a global scale and necessitated the extinction of their kind, with her ancestors harvesting the blood as a prize.

Lorene fought the urge to destroy the body while it was still in the midst of changing. It was the logical thing to do, the smart thing to do, and the safest thing to do. But she couldn't while Nikolas was so invested in it. She could tell from the look in his eyes that he would kill himself if she did.

Mitra mewled to grab the witch's attention. She was sitting on the ground with both her paws on a hardcover book, with a cardinal red hue and the title in gold.

"That's the one." Lorene ran the back of her fingers along her familiar's spine with one hand while picking up the tome with the other. "Thanks Girl."

She sat back at the desk and opened the book. It was more a rehashing of what she already knew to an extent, but there was a plethora of information in general. The first feeding would be fatal no matter what, which was going to be a problem they needed to work through immediately to prevent Nikolas from dying.

Their kind was also weak to symbols of purification, obviously, but the question was how she could use that information to bind the vampiress once it woke. It had to be two-fold at least; something on the interior and something on the exterior. While she wouldn't feel safe at all, some of the measures she could take would help.

A simple circle with something mixed into the paint would be ideal for the exterior. Devil's Bane and Aconite were both purifying agents that could be found in around the manor for that. Those herbs could also be mixed with Nikolas' blood to dull the vampiress' instincts.

They also needed some way to destroy it in an instant as a safeguard. The sun was the best source she could use, since it was seen as a symbol of purity in magic and nearly every culture, with the strongest point being the hour of sunrise. If she could capture the first light of the day and have it bound to something, it would be an effective measure.

Lorene pulled out a notepad and pen from the desk drawer and sketched the design for a magic circle that she could use to capture sunlight as it rose above the horizon and then bind it to a cluster of quartz. Nothing less than perfection was tolerable in this case. When she came upon a design she was satisfied with, the witch held it up for her familiar to judge. "What do you think?"

Mitra expressed her approval by nuzzling her hand.

Lorene returned the affection in kind until she noticed it was already one in the morning. "We don't have a lot of time."

She moved over to the trunk next to the glass cases containing the majority of her art supplies. Her hobby in painting and crafts came in handy for her witchcraft, which was probably why her father had been so adamant she joined the art club when she was in middle school. She took what she could with her as she made her way downstairs, relying on Mitra to bring the rest.

The Working Room was the label Lorene's mother had given the sunroom since the majority of the ritual work was done there. The hardwood floor was uncarpeted and even, while the moonlight poured in from the glass ceiling and decorative lamps lined the walls with a low intensity that matched the candles that stood tall on their holders when lit. The witch took a large roll of watercolor paper that was almost the same height as she was from the closet and carefully spread a sheet in the center of the room, beneath the circular glass pane that served as the crown of the rest that formed the roof.

From there, she brandished her brush and dipped it into the black paint. Her circular strokes were steady as a black circle was drawn on the paper, joined by six others that formed the nodes that were then joined by two thick lines to form a dual layer. They would ensure that the magic being used stayed within the circle.

Lorene then painted lines from each of the nodes inwards. The thick and black lines only came to a stop when they were mere inches away from converging in the center of the circle, each of their tips replaced by the head of an arrow. The arrows would channel what flowed from the nodes and directed them towards what waited at the center.

Mitra arrived with a jar of gold powder and set it down next to her mistress.

Lorene mixed it into the yellow paint with gentle twirls until the paint itself glimmered and used a thinner brush to paint twin trails of aureate ropes that entwined in the space between the two layers of the circle. The brightly colored lines connected at the nodes and then flowed inside the black circles to connect to the continuing pattern between the inner and outer perimeters that formed the boundaries. All together, they formed a complete a circuit with a circle knot, meant to bind the sunlight and keep it flowing through the circle.

To finish she took a larger brush, dipped it in the gold-mixed paint, and made a third circle that connected the arrows just under their necks without overlapping. Then she placed a dot at the point where the points of the arrows all led to, creating a circumpunct with the arrows passing the outmost layer to drive the energy to the innermost core. The witch wiped the sweat off her brow and stood to inspect her work.

The nodes would have mirrors placed on them at an angle to catch the sunlight and direct it to the center. The gold powder caught the direct rays inside the Celtic circle knot pattern between the layers and sent them through the arrows and into the circumpunct, another symbol of the sun. All that energy would coalesce into the object she placed there and be bound once the sun rose.

Lorene reached for a small bottle that had a number of clear quartz and a thin bundle of twine. She wrapped the twine around the bottle in a chaining pattern and closed it off with a single knot of esoteric design on the top. Then she set the bottle down in the center point of the circle.

"Phew," she said, sitting on the couch next to her familiar. Everything she'd done today left her exhausted. She needed a break before she fetched the mirrors, and then she needed to design a circle to hold the vampiress in before it rose. And then check on Nikolas, and prepare more golems.

There was so much to do and so little time, but a yawn convinced her to take a three-hour nap.

"Wake me up in time to move the Evestra, will you?" she asked her familiar. "If the sunlight touches it, then it will go bad."

She heard a mewl in response and then dozed off.



Nikolas stared at the body lying on sheets in front of him with reddened eyes. He took them from his room while Lorene was upstairs. It wasn't like he was going to be getting any sleep anytime soon, but it was all he could do for now.

If it weren't for the fact that she was pale, and the absence of her breathing, Rayne would have looked like she was asleep. But the reality was that she was being changed in body, if not mind—twisted into something that was inhuman. While he hoped that she could retain her sense of self, it didn't change that her life wouldn't be the same as before.

Everything he'd done until now to prevent her from being targeted had been for naught. He had pushed her away with magic to keep her out of his world, and out of the danger that came with being associated with him. Now she was part of it permanently, unless they came across some sort of miracle in a bottle.

There was a curse upon his family in the form of a bogeyman that stalked them throughout the generations. It was only known as the 'Schwarzert' and when its shadow was upon you, there was no escaping it. It was a lonely life since anyone he met and befriended would just end up being left behind months later and forgotten as they fled from some terror they couldn't see until it was too late.

Then he came to Lorene's place and was told that it would be his new home. His parents told him they were allies and he wouldn't have to run away again. Nikolas felt it was almost too good to be true until enough time passed and things seemed to be at a standstill for once.

For the first time ever, he had a home that he didn't have to abandon every month. He had an older sister in Lorene, who always seemed to support him alongside her parents. He fell in love with Rayne, his first friend and the only woman he had ever been intimate with….

And then Schwarzert came and brought those halcyon days to a close, taking away both of their families.

Nikolas was brought out of his melancholy when there was a strong knock on the door at the top of the stairs. "It's unlocked."

Lorene entered, descending the stairs with a paper in her hands. "We need to be getting ready for it—"

"Her," Nikolas corrected. "Rayne is a person. Don't dehumanize her."

Lorene shook her head. "I'm not going to argue with you when we're pressed for time as it is, so stop sulking around and help me get ready. Since you're the one who wants this so badly, you're going to be her blood source. That means we need to keep you alive through the first feeding…."

Lorene trailed off, choosing her words carefully. "If we do this right, then maybe we can save what remains of her humanity. We can buy time to save the person she was to you."

"Whatever it takes," Nikolas said.

He would do whatever he had to in order to save her.

He refused to lose her like this.