Nadya/Nadia Ch. 07

She knew from unfortunate experience it was easier not to see some things in the first place than it was to forget something once seen. Not to mention dreamers often dreamt of what they did—witches dreamed of spells, mages dreamed of draining witches, and an incubus, well, she didn't need or want to see Elijah at 'work.'

She shifted uncomfortably in her box. After what seemed like an eternity, the van finally stopped and the back doors opened. Her box was pulled out of the van and carried up some steps. A door opened, her box was placed on the floor, footsteps retreated, and a door closed.

Almost there.

She would have to visit the dreams of the coven again and urge them to forget they'd ever met her or brought her here, but first she had one final leg of her journey to make.

She very carefully sent the smallest tendril of her magic out and found traces of Elijah's. It wasn't recent; he hadn't come this way in at least a few days. His magic wasn't completely unknown to her though, and she hoped this little bit would be enough. She only had one chance to get this right and it would take nearly all her strength. If it didn't work she'd either be stuck in her box until what little magic she could still channel rebuilt its reserves, or she'd have to open the box and risk alerting those that hunted her she was alive.

She gathered as much of Elijah's magic as she could and combined it with her own meager supply, finding the spell he had used to move himself and Nadya to his actual house. Weaving the two magics together she willed them to follow.

Her crate jostled and settled, and she felt the cooler temperature even from inside her box. She'd made it. She rested for a few minutes, and when she was ready, tested the wards outside her box. They were strong, Elijah had done well in hiding his home, but there was a weakness in them. She frowned. Even as distracted as he might be by the witch he should have sensed any weakness and repaired it. There was no point in having the wards if they didn't work properly.

She touched a symbol on the lid of her box and felt the magic surge. It found the border of Elijah's wards and spread. When the magic finished forming a secondary barrier that had no weaknesses or gaps the lid on her box opened and she sat up, taking in the snow covered view in front of her. Her magic, a grey color, her original white having been tainted by the black magic of what hunted her, formed a dome over a large house and a huge tract of forest.

Elijah's green magic glowed brightly over the grounds and she discerned the weakness she'd felt in his wards formed a path straight to the door of the house. The house itself was not warded at all. Well, that made things easier for her, but the fact that such a path lay open and the house was completely unprotected could not mean anything good. She climbed out of her box, detached a part of the lid that still had a symbol on it and made her way up the path between the wards.

When she reached the front door it opened to her touch, and she pressed the symbol on the piece of wood she held to it. Magic surged forth a second time and flowed over the house. It was done. The two levels of wards that let her exist were in place, the two barriers feeding on one another and becoming stronger. One level of wards kept things out; but the other kept her in, because that which hunted her also called to her. Done traveling, and as safe as she could make herself, she relaxed as much as she was ever able to relax.

She closed the door behind her and called, "Elijah? Nadya?"

She didn't get an answer, and moved through the entry way into a large living room, then past that into more rooms. She found the kitchen, the dining room, a small library, and a cozy den, but no Elijah, and no Nadya. A hall led to even more rooms and she was debating whether to explore that way or head upstairs when she heard a faint voice singsonging something from down the hall.

She went in search of the voice and was stunned by what she found. The room had been cleared of furniture except for a small, round table and a row of long, rectangular tables against one wall, laden with dying sunflowers, pools of hardened, melted wax, and trays of food that was now stale and starting to go bad. A single chair had a long, blue dress draped over it, and on the floor lay Elijah.

He was barefoot and shirtless, wearing only a pair of loose, black pajama pants. He had dark circles under his eyes, one of his sunken cheeks had a large bruise on it, his lip was cut, his arms were scratched up and his chest and hands had been badly burned. His hollow, empty eyes stared up at nothing as he sang in a toneless voice.

All through the night,

You are revered and you know no fear.

All through the night,

From you and me, bad dreams disappear.

"Elijah, what happened to you?" The Dream Walker crossed the room to the incubus and dropped to her knees beside him. He didn't seem to notice her.

She had inadvertently seen more of Elijah than she'd wanted to in the dreams of the witches he'd saved once or twice, and close up she was even more shocked at his appearance. His face was hardly more than skin tightly stretched over his skull. His normally robust, muscular body was shrunken and his muscles had withered. His stomach, typically flat, was concave, and she could see every rib. Everything about him seemed to be collapsing in on itself.

She reached out and touched his cheek, turning his face towards her. He didn't resist her, but neither did his eyes focus on her. He continued his song.

All through the night,

There is no end, and time is beguiled

All through the night,

I'll find your dream, and we'll stay there awhile.

Mindful of his burns, she picked up one of his listless hands and cradled it between hers, wishing she had enough magic to heal him. But she'd spent what little magic she could muster to get here and it would be a while before she could do anything, much less something requiring as much power as healing.

As Elijah reached the end of his song and started it over again she sang with him.

All through the night,

I'll keep you safe, and stay with you.

All through the night,

You dream the dreams, that I'll make come true.

Hearing someone sing with him brought him out of his trance and his eyes tracked to hers.

"The witches are gone," he told her.

"We'll find her again," the Dream Walker promised.

"All the witches. All the witches are gone."

"We'll find them both."

"No," he said, frustrated at her not understanding what he meant. "All of them. They came and took her, and now they're all gone."

"Who took her?" the Dream Walker demanded sharply.

"The witches," Elijah replied.

"Elijah, what are you talking about? Who took the witches?"

Elijah sighed. "The witches with silver eyes. The woman said they were dead, but they were here and they took her." Having said what he wanted, his gaze unfocused and he started slipping away from her.

"Elijah," the Dream Walker snapped. "Stay with me. Tell me what happened."

His eyes met hers again. "Am I dreaming you?"

"No," she whispered. "I'm real."

"I hurt," he said plaintively. "What's happening to me?"

"You've lost your passion. An incubus can't live without passion. You're dying."

"Oh," he said simply. And then he did slip away from her, lapsing back into the trance like state she'd found him in, but this time he was beyond even singing the lullaby. She shook him, shouted at him, even slapped his unbruised cheek, but she couldn't rouse him again.

"This is not how it ends for you, my boy," the Dream Walker said. She shifted so she could cradle his head in her lap. "I'm going to fix you. I never got to be your mother before but I'm here now, and I'm going to fix everything ."

*****

Strygoi magic would never have accepted an incubus.Nadia wasn't sure why that bothered her so much. Other than the brief flashes of memory Ember had triggered when they'd touched the mark on her foot together she couldn't remember a single thing about him.

The other strygoi picked up on her distress and the upbeat, playful mood in the tower sobered.

"Do you want to go to the kitchen?" Musette finally asked. "Ciaran always has snacks for us."

"The boys are probably wondering what happened to us, too," Myth said. "They'll have felt some of what we felt through the mark. I'm surprised they're not beating the door down."

Nadia wasn't hungry, but wanting a change of scenery if nothing else, she got dressed and agreed to go to the kitchen with them. She didn't bother with shoes or socks since no one else was wearing them, and she expected them to 'poof' to the kitchen.

"Are you coming with us, Selene?" Nadia asked.

"No, child," Selene replied. "I must remain here. Come visit me later, and we can talk some more. I'm sure you still have questions, and I'd like to meet Nadya, too."

"Why didn't we just 'poof' there?" Nadia asked, surprised when the women led her to a long, spiral staircase.

"See, I told you it was called 'poofing,'" Ember said triumphantly to Musette.

Musette rolled her eyes. "We can't just 'poof' somewhere if we don't know it's clear. There might be other people where we want to be, or something in the way. It's why Ember had to look through your eyes before we could come to get you. We can always 'poof' back to Selene's tower because she keeps it the same for us all the time."

At the bottom was a single door, which Raven opened and waved Nadia through.

"Wait—" Viktoria called, but it was too late.

Nadia stepped through the door and six black eyed vampires rushed at her. Flashes of Mordecai and what he had done to Nadya flashed through her mind, and without thinking, Nadia screamed and threw out her hands.

All six men were all picked up and thrown back, some toppling furniture over, others crashing into walls and sliding to the floor.

"What'd we do?" a red haired vampire complained from his place on the floor. "I thought only Stryx got tossed through walls."

"Fuck off," a man Nadia guessed must be Stryx retorted.

The strygoi rushed past Nadia, each going to one of the fallen vampires.

"Nobody said the 'f' word, did they?" a blonde man asked, rubbing his head.

"Or the 'a' word?" a man with long black hair asked.

"What about the 'c' word?" a different voice wanted to know.

"I'm sorry," Nadia apologized. "I didn't mean to do that. You startled me."

"We've had worse," a man with tan skin and oriental features said. "Don't worry about it."

The men got to their feet and the whole group made their way to the dining room and sat around a large table. Nadia and Raven sat next to one another while each vampire pulled his strygoi onto his lap.

"They're really very insecure for being such alpha vampires," Raven murmured.

"Where is your vampire?" Nadia asked.

"He has some work to do before I accept him," Raven smirked.

"It's almost sunset," a tall man with shoulder length black hair and the bluest eyes Nadia had ever seen complained. "You've been gone the whole day."

"That's Ember's Light," Raven said. "Don't mind him. He's always surly."

The man sighed. "I have a name."

It was clearly an old argument, because the four words were chanted in unison by all the strygoi even as the man uttered them and he scowled as they all burst into laughter.

"See?" Raven asked rhetorically. "Surly."

"They named me Bijou's Soothing," the blond man offered.

"Are you all named for your strygoi?"

"Those of us fortunate enough to have found our Dragas, yes," a man with curly brown hair said. "Part of a bargain we struck with them was that they got to choose a name for us. They call me Myth's Wisdom."

"What bargain?" Nadia asked.

"They don't like it when we're naked," Myth explained. "They make us wear these clothes." She waved a hand at herself to indicate the scrap of a dress they all wore. "And we didn't like it when they kept saying we belonged to them, so now they're ours instead."

"We do like you naked, but only for us. We are jealous creatures," the red haired man said. "I'm Musette's Seer."

"What are the f, c, and a words?"

"Forbid, can't, allow," Raven replied. "We don't like those words."

"Every time one of us says one of those words to one of them they all turn strygoi and find some trouble to cause," Myth's Wisdom explained. "We're trying to eradicate those words from our vocabularies, but it isn't easy."

A tall, muscular man with long braids that fell to his waist and skin the color of night came out of the kitchen carrying a variety of pitchers that he placed on the table. He went back into the kitchen and returned carrying a tray piled high with sandwiches. All seven strygoi jumped up and ran to the dark man as soon as his hands were free, hugging him and patting him affectionately. The vampires looked like they wanted to tear the man apart with their bare hands, but didn't interfere.

"That's Ciaran," Raven said when she returned to her seat. "We adore him."

"They adore me because I feed them," Ciaran laughed. "But not after midnight."

The man with the brown skin and oriental features got up and examined the sandwich choices.

"I thought vampires didn't eat food," Nadia murmured to Raven.

"They don't, but that's Leilani's Yum," Raven said, as if that explained everything.

"When a strygoi bonds with her vampire she can share part of her magic with him. The names we give them have to do with the strygoi gift," Leilani explained. "I am a caterer, and my gift to my Yum was the ability to taste what I eat. Now he's forever finding things he's never eaten before to try."

Nadia watched with amusement as Leilani's Yum picked out a sandwich and brought it to her. She took it and separated the bread slices to see what was inside it.

"He's half Japanese," she said when she noticed Nadia watching her. "He has some strange tastes in food. I just like to know what I'm in for."

"That's supposed to be the extra crunchy peanut butter," her Yum said.

"You can't taste extra crunchy. Crunchy is not a flavor, it's a texture." Lilith sighed. "He was disappointed to find out all the different colors of M&Ms taste the same, too." She took a bite of the sandwich and her Yum's eyes rolled back in his head.

Nadia laughed. "I wasn't expecting vampires to be like this."

"Most of them aren't," a man with swarthy skin and black eyes said. He radiated danger even before Nadia realized he wore two swords on his back. "You should be wary of any vampires you meet outside of this compound."

"That's Viktoria's Darkness," Raven said.

A seventh vampire strolled into the dining room and started to make his way to Raven. Nadia gasped as she recognized him as the vampire that had bitten her at the club, and sent Nadya away so dismissively the next night. There was no mistaking the blond haired, blue-eyed angelic looking man, or the smirk on his face when he saw her.

"What's wrong?" Raven asked.

"That's Alaric. He bit me," Nadia murmured quietly.

As one, the strygoi went unnaturally still and Raven turned a murderous glare on the vampire. "Did he? And when did he do that?"

"It was the night before Nadya met Ember at the club."

"You said you didn't want the bond," Alaric said, holding up his hands.

"So you fed on another strygoi, let her go, and didn't tell anyone you saw her?" Raven asked.

"If you don't want me I'm free to feed on whoever I like," he informed her smugly. "I made her come, it's not like I just fed. I paid for her blood with my tongue. She didn't mind."

Nadia couldn't decide if she was more embarrassed or infuriated. He knew what she was and hadn't told her? She could have had all her answers a week ago! Before she could do or say anything though, Raven was gesturing at him.

"No!" he yelled.

But it was too late. In a flash the vampire was gone and a golden cat with blue eyes sat on the floor.

"Since you're so obsessed with pussy, you can be one," Raven spat at him.

A pitcher of water floated off the table and upended its contents over the cat. "Now he's a wet pussy," Myth said.

The strygoi all dissolved into giggles, and even the surly Ember's Light had a small smile on his face as the wet cat tried to find traction on the smooth, tiled floor to flee the room.

"How did you do that?" Nadia asked.

Raven shrugged. "My mother was a witch, my father was a shifter. He bit her while she was pregnant with me. Shifter magic is just instinct."

"Was that your strygoi gift to him?"

"No, we're not bonded," Raven explained. "Shifter magic is in my blood, and so is strygoi. I'm not as strong as I will be if I ever accept that idiot. Shifting him like that only lasts a short while, and I can only do it when I'm around the sabat and I can pull on their magic."

"Seeing you shift him into a cat never gets old," Ember said. "You can always use our magic for that."

"Can you shift him human again if you want to, or do you have to wait until the magic wears off?"

"I can shift him back," Raven said. "I just look at the magic that's cat and take it out."

Nadia suddenly felt exhausted, and an odd tugging sensation in her mind. "I think I need to go to Selene," she said.

"What's wrong?" Raven asked.

"Take me to Selene, please."

Raven put a hand on Nadia's arm and they disappeared from the table to reappear in Selene's room. The rest of the strygoi appeared one by one.

"I think Nadya is trying to come out. She's never been strong enough to push me back before. She doesn't usually know where she is or what's been happening when she comes out. She might not know we left wherever we were. I have a notebook in my backpack. She can read it."

Nadia doubled over and when she straightened again her hair was not so dark, and her eyes were blue. She blinked in confusion at the women gathered around her as one by one they let go of their strygoi sides.

"Nadya?" Selene asked from her bed. "Do you remember what happened or know where you are?"

Nadya spun to face her. "No, well, I'm not sure. Where am I?"

"Safe," Selene said. "Nadia said you might be confused, but you don't need to worry. You're safe here."

""Where's..." she trailed off, trying to remember a name.

"The incubus isn't here," Ember said. "You're at our house now."

"The incubus?" Nadya frowned.

"Wow, it really sucks to be an incubus," Musette said.

"Look at your feet," Ember told Nadya.

Nadya looked down. A bruise on the top of her left foot faded and as a new bruise appeared on the top of her right foot. She looked up in confusion.

"Your incubus marked you," Ember explained. "When you want to see, touch the mark on your foot."

Nadya bent to touch the mark on her foot but Ember stopped her. "You might want to wait to do that until you're alone."

"Why?"

"It will show you memories, some of which you might not wish to share with the group."

"Hey, I've met some of you before," Nadya said as she looked at the women around her. "You were in the taxi, and took me home." She said this to Ember and turned to Raven."You're the vet I took my neighbor's cat to a couple weeks ago. And I saw you two in the waiting room." She pointed to Bijou and Viktoria. "And you work at the salon I went to." This was directed at Musette. "And you have a bookstore." She pointed at Myth.

"I'm Leilani, and that's Selene," Leilani said. She completed the introductions adding names to the faces Nadya recognized. When they weren't glowing silver the women looked remarkably different.

Bijou had skin almost as dark as Ciaran's, and Myth's skin tone was golden brown. Viktoria had shockingly light colored hair—it was a platinum blonde and a little hard to get used to after seeing it black all day. Raven's eyes were a purple-blue color with a gold ring around her pupil. Ember and Musette were identical twins except for the color of their hair. Ember's was flaming red while Musette's was a golden blonde. Leilani had tattoos that wound up and down her arms.