Wards of Night by E. M. Knight

Author:E. M. Knight
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Edwards Publishing
Published: 2016-04-20T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Eight

PHILLIP

“…deserve to have their lives back.”

I stop the video there and look at Raul. “That’s quite the riveting speech she gave.”

My brother grunts. “You know, I almost wish she had it in her to do it… or at least to try.”

“You don’t think she would?”

He smiles sadly. “Not after the transformation takes hold. She’ll be like the rest of us. Some might try to do good, but it goes against our nature. We are creatures of the night. And the night is dark and full of terrors.”

I laugh a little. “You’ve been watching that TV show again, haven’t you? What’s it called? Game of…?”

“Game of Thrones,” he says. “And maybe. It’s a guilty pleasure.”

“What Mother would say if she knew…”

“Mother has her own problems to worry about. Anyway, that’s not why I came. Have you made any progress with your search?”

“You mean your search,” I correct. I sigh. “And no. There’s no such thing as an antidote to vampirism. It can’t be reversed.”

“You need to look harder, Phillip,” Raul says. “I know there’s something there. There has to be. I can feel it!”

“For all your protestations, you’re a lot like James, you know that?” I rib him gently. “All passion and energy, just less of the anger.”

“Oh no,” he said. “There’s anger here.” He touches his chest. “Lots and lots of anger. Believe me.”

I turn back to the computer. “There’s no antidote,” I repeat. “But I did find this,” I pull up a scanned image of an ancient parchment.

Raul’s attention instantly goes to the screen. “What is it? How’d you get it? Those letters…” his fingers run along the screen. “It’s Arabic, isn’t it?”

“It’s the same alphabet, but not the same language,” I say.

“Well, you’re the master of tongues! What does it say?”

I grimace in annoyance. “Unfortunately, I can’t read it. Not properly. Bits and pieces of it make a little sense—”

“Get on with it,” Raul growls. His hands tighten on the back of my chair.

“As best as I can tell,” I begin. “It speaks of a ritual. Conducted by the ancient pharaohs of Egypt. They believed,” I clear my throat, “they believed some of our abilities came from the Sun God. But that when they tried to transfer the Sun God’s abilities onto humans, an evil spirit interrupted the procedure and infused those powers with night.” I shake my head. “Like I said, I can’t make much sense of it. But it’s definitely speaking of what we are.”

“This is our origin?” Raul marvels.

“It could be.” I admit. “And just as easily, it could not. But the reason I’m showing this to you is that I think — I think! — that the ritual they’re describing is an attempt at exorcising the bad spirits from the human form and restoring the Sun God’s gift to what it was meant to be before it became tainted.”

“But then that’s it!” Raul exclaims. “That is the solution. That is the cure!

“No,” I say. “You’re jumping to conclusions. For one, more than half of the description of the ritual is missing.

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