Page 89 of Envious Of Fire
Elias comes right up to the desk, his hands gripping the edge. She lifts her face, startled. “Whatever you’ve got in that vault,” he says, and now it’s his own voice that carries the ice of his mother’s, “I hope it’s doing you real good, along with all of your other riches and treasures and useless collections that go to waste in storage someplace. In the end, it isn’t any gold or money these vampires want. It’s blood. And they’ll come after mine next when they’re through with you … if we don’t take a stand now and use every bit of leverage we’ve got.”
His mother closes her eyes again, remaining still. After a while, it finally occurs to Elias that he has hit a wall with her. No amount of words will help. She won’t budge. Coming here was a waste of time. Elias nods, accepting that fact, then moves awayfrom the desk, heading for the door, prepared to leave behind his mother and her cold eyes for good.
Until she says: “It isn’t a weapon.”
Elias stops, glances back at her, waits.
She takes a breath, then meets his eyes. “It’s … a book.” She cradles her head in her hands, mutters something to herself, perhaps about throwing caution to the arid desert wind, then rises from her chair once again, this time more pensively, gently. “I had my suspicions about them for a long time. I once thought they were mafia. Or a dangerous organized gang unit. I could never imagine what I was up against was …” She shakes her head and perhaps decides not to finish that sentence. “They are very dangerous, Elias. They don’t make threats. They make promises. I have seen … disturbing things. I am convinced they control the police, too. It would be a terrible mistake to underestimate their reach. They can eliminate any one of us in the blink of an eye. The only power I hold over them, if any, is my standing, my reputation, and my diplomacy. But fear can truly cripple even the bravest of us. I have fought for what we have. Fought tirelessly. But what does any of it mean if it can be so easily taken away? How can we stay standing when there is always a more terrible force standing over us? A force that is literally invulnerable? A force I can never hope to defeat?”
It’s then that she clutches her silver choker necklace, as if it brings her peace of mind to touch it. Perhaps it’s only now that Elias remembers his mother always used to wear gold jewelry. But these past few years since the Scarlet Sands was built, only silver adorns her neck, silver on her wrists, on her fingers.
Suddenly it seems quite deliberate.
Has Elias not been paying attention?
“Son …” She keeps twisting her fingers around the silver choker. “Son … if you could only pay witness to the bizarre conversations I used to have with myself every night before Iattempted yet another restless night of sleep … I believed I was going insane. The things I considered doing … I considered checking myself into a hospital, leave the hotel and casino, run away to Mexico … I was losing myself.”
“I remember,” says Elias quietly.
“Yes,” she then says, “I work with them … but perhaps not in the way you think. Our relationship is merely to keep peace. I am a pawn in their game. And I foolishly thought they could become a pawn in mine … if all went to plan. Did you wonder how we got on that list of Protected Blood in the first place?”
The thought had certainly passed through Elias’s mind this past week, more than once. He almost brought it up once or twice to Kyle, but with their determination to move on with their lives, the timing never felt right.
“It was at my lowest that I finally had an epiphany … at my worst. I thought to myself … well, I am in an unconventional situation. Perhaps it merits an unconventional solution. So … I utilized my resources to secure myself something I felt could finally arm me against them.”
“A book?” asks Elias softly.
“An ancient text. Several hundred years old, maybe older. I decided against having it analyzed or examined by my people. I don’t know who to trust, who might be working for them, who might be … one ofthem, right under my nose, undetectable.”
“What’s in the book?”
“I don’t know. I can’t read it.”
With every answer, Elias grows more confused. “You mean it’s in another language?”
“I mean I can’t read it. The moment I try, my head spins, I feel sick, my bones ache … I can’t even describe a single word or illustration in its pages. There is something treacherous anddarkabout that book, Elias. It … It scares me.”
Elias shakes his head. “I don’t understand. Then how didyou think this was going to arm you against the vampires?”
“Because it was allegedly written by those who had made it their life’s mission to end them. A secret society of hunters, if you will. Or so I’ve come to learn.” She meets his eyes. “I know you think your father would have fought these people off …”
“They aren’t people.”
“… but I have not been as submissive as you think. I made moves of my own. To protect us. I made deals, long ago, to secure our safety. I refuse to be their pawn. I’ve been fighting for our freedom from them foryears. But … until I can make use of that book, I must play it safe … and so must you.”
“Then perhaps that’s the reason I’m here.” Elias leans in. “I think we can make use of that book.”
She scoffs at him, face wrinkling up. “But how on earth? It is entirely unreadable. It is like a … a bow without arrows … or an unloaded gun. Perhaps useless.”
“Maybe that depends on who’s reading it.”
She gives him a look. “You think you can read it?”
“No. But I think one of my friends can.”
She squints at him, perplexed.
“Take me to the vault,” he says, and perhaps it is the first time that his mother seems to acknowledge the request without instant indignation. “My friends are not what they seem to be. Nowhere is not what you think it is. And Kyle …” He grimaces as he fights back tears. Then at once the tears can’t be stopped. “Kyle needs me, Mom. You’re not the only one in this battle.”
