Stolen Nights Read online

  ‘Lenah,’ he said gently. His touch warmed my fingers. ‘When you performed the ritual for Vicken, you alerted the Aeris.’

  ‘The Aeris?’ I said with surprise. I had only heard of them in ancient vampire texts and Celtic mythology.

  ‘What you both have done with the ritual, it must be reckoned,’ Suleen said.

  ‘A reckoning? Like a trial?’ I asked. Rhode wouldn’t look at me; his arms were folded across his chest. The muscles in his forearms contracted, drawing my eyes down for a split moment. Then, he swallowed. I watched, just to prove to myself he was human, that he was real. His chest rose and fell in an easy rhythm. We had both performed the ritual, we had both intended to die, yet here we were together – both very much alive. Both human.

  ‘Lenah,’ Suleen said, ‘you must focus right now. This will affect both of you –’ he placed his warm palms on my shoulders – ‘indefinitely.’

  I wanted to tell Suleen and Rhode about the blonde vampire. About Kate’s death and the horror unfolding down on Wickham campus.

  The watery shield still hovered in the air, but Justin was gone from the other side. All that lay behind it was the rippled green of the darkened trees speckled with silver glints by the moon. The knot in my chest tightened again when Suleen spoke.

  ‘Rhode must explain to the Aeris why he manipulated the elements to perform a ritual to turn a vampire into a human. He must explain why he passed this information on to you, so you could perform it as well.’

  ‘Well, that’s easy. I was losing my mind. Going insane. Tell him, Rhode.’

  Rhode sighed, then spoke for the first time. ‘Lenah . . .’ It didn’t even sound like my name – it sounded like a swear word, a rotten curse spat out, wishing to be forgotten.

  ‘You never said this ritual was elemental magic,’ I said to Rhode. Elemental magic would be the only reason the Aeris were involved. For they represented the four elements of the natural world: earth, air, water and fire. Not human. Not spirit. The Aeris exist as the earth exists.

  ‘We have to do this, Lenah,’ Rhode said. His voice was calm. ‘We have to clear up our own mess.’

  ‘It’s time,’ Suleen said, and finally moved out from between us. Suleen looked towards the middle of the green but I kept my eyes on Rhode. The long trunks of trees behind him were a blur. The flat summer leaves were nothing but a wash of darkened emerald to me now.

  ‘You won’t even look at me?’ I asked quietly. ‘Did you know the Aeris were coming?’ I didn’t dare move closer to him. ‘Why didn’t you come back sooner?’

  Again, his silence was his answer.

  ‘I don’t understand you,’ I said.

  ‘I didn’t want to come back,’ he snapped. ‘I had to.’ He lifted his eyes to mine. ‘For this.’

  His words cut into the centre of my chest.

  He hadn’t wanted to come back?

  It was then I glimpsed a white light out of the corner of my eye. I knew that light – it was supernatural.

  Rhode’s words hung in the air, stinging me like a burn. There was a large expanse of land before me and the archery targets sat deep in the distance of the plateau. My blood pulsed in the base of my throat; I brought my fingertips to my skin to feel it. The white light in the centre of the green grew to be as long and wide as the field that stretched before me.

  At first it was difficult to see anything discernible in the whiteness, but eventually the fuzzy forms took the shapes of human bodies. Four female bodies. The Aeris stepped forward.

  Their dresses were flowing, and it seemed as though they were made from water. The hue of their gowns changed colour every few seconds; one moment they were blue, then a darker blue, then red. I wondered if it was a trick of the light. One of the women had impossibly white eyes and her hair drifted around her head as if she was underwater. The woman next to her had hair that fluttered around her like crackling flames, a bright red. When she looked at me, her gown flickered a poppy orange. Fire.

  Behind the Aeris were hundreds, no, thousands of shapes that looked like regular people.

  The four spoke together: ‘We are the Aeris.’

  Their light took over the entire sky now.

  ‘Who are the people behind you?’ I asked.

  ‘These,’ Fire replied, gesturing behind her across the field of people, ‘are your victims and the victims of the vampires you made.’

  My victims? I shook my head quickly. It couldn’t be.

  Yet there they stood. They were amorphous, their identities shielded by the light. Included in their masses was a bright being no more than three feet high. A horrified chill ran through me.

  A child.

  She was the child I had killed hundreds of years ago.

  Looking from Rhode to me, Fire said, ‘Your lives are destined to be intertwined. You are held together by a power that cannot be undone by the Aeris.’

  ‘Destined?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, Lenah Beaudonte. You and Rhode Lewin were born under the same stars. The course of your lives has brought you here – together, as soulmates.’

  ‘You never interfered with us before,’ Rhode said.

  ‘You, Rhode, were meant to die when you performed the ritual to make Lenah human. Yet your soulmate tied you to this earth. When you went out into that sunlight, you were meant to die. But you could not. Not without Lenah.’

  ‘And the same for me?’ I asked. ‘When I was performing the ritual on Vicken?’

  She nodded. ‘So now we have come to undo what you have created with this ritual.’

  I wracked my brain trying to understand what she was saying. Fire’s hair crackled. ‘You cannot manipulate the elements in order to bring life out of death. Not without consequence.’

  ‘So you’ve come to punish us?’ I asked.

  ‘We have come to hold you responsible.’

  Fire gestured towards the ghostly figure of the child to illustrate her point. There was nothing to say. Nothing I could possibly try to defend.

  ‘It was our nature then,’ Rhode said plainly. ‘To kill.’

  ‘We are not here to hold you accountable for your endless murders, as heinous as they might have been. The Aeris are not responsible for, nor do we police, the vampire world. Vampires are dead. Supernatural night wanderers. We cannot hold you responsible for the killings you performed in that world,’ Fire said as she paced between us. ‘What interests me is what you have done to become human. It is against the laws of nature to manipulate the elements. You forced yourself back into this natural world with the ritual, and once you did you became our responsibility. You will not go unpunished.’

  Rhode said nothing. I was unable to keep my eyes away from the thousands of figures collecting behind the Aeris. All of those people . . .

  Fire faced me and clasped her hands together at her waist, then let them hang. She moved her eyes to mine. My legs were so weak they shook and I wondered if I would fall to the ground right there.

  ‘The choice is this: either you can go back to your natural states – Rhode will return to 1348 as a knight under Edward III. You, Lenah, will live your life in 1418 as it should have been.’

  ‘When we were human?’ I asked incredulously.

  ‘Natural states means when you each had a white soul, a pure soul,’ Fire explained.

  ‘You’ll send us back in time?’ Rhode asked.

  Fire glanced behind her at the crowd of our victims. A question rose in my mind.

  ‘What about all of them?’ I asked, gesturing.

  ‘When you go back to the medieval world, these souls will return to the natural course of their lives too.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said.

  ‘Every person you murdered will live again, as will those killed by the vampires you created. They will never meet you – because you won’t become a vampire. It will be as though you had never met.’ She looked at both Rhode and me.

  In 1348, when he became a vampire, Rhode was nineteen. I wouldn’t be born for another
fifty-four years. He would be dead by the time of my birth or, at best, a very old man. That was their purpose. To send us back so that we would remain apart.

  ‘It is a balance, Lenah. All the four elements of the world create balance. You were made a vampire against your will. You are Rhode’s original victim so it is your choice to decide his fate.’

  ‘What is the other option?’ I asked.

  Fire stepped to the edge of the white light. Her pupils were bright red but the iris around them glowed a pearl white. I held my breath until my cheeks and whole body tingled.

  ‘You and Rhode have unleashed a chain of reactions that cannot be undone unless you separate. You may either go back to the medieval world or you may remain here. If you choose to stay here, you and Rhode may not commit to one another.’

  ‘Commit?’ Rhode asked. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Commitment to love is a choice deep within the soul. If you choose to bring your lives together in this world, we will know.’

  Could we touch? Talk? Kiss . . . ? All these questions popped into my mind.

  ‘You may talk, speak, interact, but you may not commit to be the couple you once were,’ Fire said, reading my mind.

  ‘But how will we know if we’ve committed to one another? If we’re the couple we once were. I can’t just stop loving Rhode.’

  ‘You have always, always loved whoever you wanted, whenever you wanted. Rhode, Vicken, Heath, Gavin, Song and Justin. But who filled up your soul? How many of them have you committed to? You didn’t share a life, you didn’t grow with them as you did with Rhode. It’s over, Lenah. You must do to Rhode what you’ve done with the rest of the men you’ve come across. Keep him at arm’s length.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I barely said, knowing deep in my soul that she was completely right. Had I used everyone except Rhode? I had, hadn’t I? Fire took another step towards me and I could feel the heat emanating off her.

  ‘Like the whitest of shores on a beach that stretches as far as the eye can see. You want that ocean. You see that ocean. But you can never go back in. Ever.’

  I swallowed hard, unable to formulate the words I so desperately wanted to say. I wanted to convince her. Could I keep Rhode at arm’s length? Could I pretend we didn’t have the history we had? The silver light around my victims pulsated behind Fire’s head, reminding me of all that I had done to deserve this moment there on the archery field.

  ‘And them,’ I asked with a nod of my head. ‘What happens to them if I stay?’

  ‘You see this light around me?’ she asked.

  I nodded again.

  ‘Your victims – they have white souls. And they will keep them.’

  I imagined my soul to be black and hardened, like a lump of coal.

  ‘And if I return to the medieval world? If they go back to their lives?’

  ‘Then they will be left to their own choices. The fate of their souls will be their own.’

  I had already decided their fate. They were safe where they were, safe in that light. How could I release them into a past I knew nothing about? Was I being selfish? Did I want to protect their souls or my own? I knew more than anything else in the world that, if I had a soul, Rhode and I were meant to be together.

  ‘What is your choice?’ Fire asked.

  I looked at Rhode. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. I wanted to kiss his mouth, even now, even with the Aeris’s decree that we would never be a couple again. Just seeing him there, knowing I could be near him when I had been so convinced of his death . . . I didn’t want to go back. No matter what we had to face, if Rhode was by my side, even at arm’s length, I could do anything.

  ‘I choose to stay,’ I said, looking into Fire’s poppy-coloured eyes. ‘Here and now in Lovers Bay.’

  In my mind, a perfect apple orchard painted in thick swirls of colour dissolved as though left out in the rain.

  ‘And they’ll be safe?’ I asked, meaning the people behind the Aeris.

  Fire nodded, then said, ‘You must fight her, Lenah.’ She didn’t need to tell me whom she meant.

  She took a step back into the light and her distinct form began to blur.

  The white light dimmed too and Suleen, who stood beside us, held a hand out towards the Aeris. He turned his palm left, then right, and then made a fist. He was performing some sort of communication that I did not understand. Fire mimicked these gestures. A palm left – right – then a fist. She and her sisters were almost gone, fading into the scenery as if they’d never been there.

  Rhode was watching Suleen, but I couldn’t stop staring at his chest rising up and down. I had stared at it for hundreds of years, wishing we were both alive, breathing and living together.

  You cannot commit, Fire had said.

  I jumped forward, past Suleen and towards the vanishing Aeris.

  ‘Wait,’ I yelled. ‘Wait!’

  I threw my arms out towards the light, but it dimmed, leaving nothing behind but misty cobwebs. The Aeris were gone. Fire was gone.

  Rhode stared around the archery plateau, now shrouded in darkness. Sunset had long since fallen over Wickham campus.

  ‘We have to do something!’ I cried to Suleen.

  ‘You did,’ Rhode said. ‘You chose to stay.’

  There was sadness in his voice, anger too. I just couldn’t part with Rhode, not when it came down to it. I couldn’t go back to the medieval world without him.

  The grass under my feet was grey, the sky black. I swallowed and a lump in the back of my throat hurt.

  ‘Your hundreds of years of experience on this earth must be your conscience now. Stay away from one another,’ said Suleen. His even tone broke the spell of my thoughts.

  Rhode met Suleen’s eyes. A tremor travelled from my shins to my knees to my thighs. I needed to grasp something hard, clench it in my fist and break it.

  My mind sped up, as though coming back to the world I’d existed in before the Aeris came from their white world and lit up the archery plateau.

  Justin.

  I spun around to look back at the edge of the plateau, where Suleen had conjured up the water shield. But Justin had long gone. I suppose I could not blame him. I would not have wanted to linger at the scene either.

  ‘There is no other way, Rhode,’ Suleen said.

  Rhode replied in Hindi – a language I had not learned. Despite the twenty-five languages I could speak fluently, Rhode chose one I could not understand.

  He walked past me and descended the hill without looking back.

  Was he leaving? Forever?!

  ‘What did he say? What?! Rhode!’ I yelled, and followed. Suleen caught my arm. ‘No!’ I screamed. I pushed against his strong grasp but he easily held me back.

  I watched as Rhode ran across the meadow, then on to the pathway.

  ‘Rhode!’ I screamed. This heartache made me feel sick. ‘Rhode!’

  He did not look back.

  I could not tell him about the blonde vampire. I could not say, Stay, for I love you. I’ve always loved you. Stay and we can do this together.

  Because without a second look, without a glance, he was gone.

  CHAPTER 3

  1730, Hampstead, England – the Heath When the years of vampirism began to chain my mind to madness, I yearned for my parents’ apple orchard. I ached for the succulent red apples dangling from the branches. For almost three hundred years I begged Rhode to accompany me back to Hampstead. When we finally made the trip, I wore black for the occasion. My hair fell in long tendrils over my shoulders; my ribs were constricted by a corset. The 1730s was the era of panniers, wide hoops attached to a woman’s hips underneath her skirt. Women were meant to take up space, to be a spectacle, to be admired. It was a time of opulence. I loved this era most of all. I could shine when the light of the sun was no longer upon me. As for the men, many wore wigs, powdered white. But not Rhode. He always wore his hair long, black and tied at the nape of his neck. The leather of his black boots reached almost to his knees.

>   We were gorgeous Angels of Death.

  ‘Three hundred and twelve years since I stepped on this land,’ I said, glancing at Rhode.

  ‘Same for me,’ he replied.

  A brilliant sunset descended over the heath, washing the fields in a tangerine light. Behind him, set off by a field, was the stone monastery where I’d spent so much of my childhood. The Hampstead sunset daubed blood-red hues over the grass. As a vampire, I was relieved to know that the daylight would start to dwindle soon.

  ‘Are you sure you want to see this?’ Rhode asked.

  I nodded, moving my eyes from the monastery to the lane ahead. I had often padded these fields as a child. Images of dirt caking my toes, my hair flowing behind me in the wind and the rich earth burned in my mind. The wind brushed through the branches again and a shower of leaves layered the ground. The earth seemed to shiver as though it knew something unnatural was walking its lands.

  As Rhode took a step, his sword clicked against the side of his leg. I lifted my hand and gently intertwined my fingers through his. Even though almost every finger wore a jewel, he chose to rub his thumb over the onyx – the stone of death. We stepped down the long, tunnelled lane and headed towards my family’s home. As we passed the monastery my eye followed the grey stone and well-kept grounds. After three hundred years, it was still a place of holy reverence.

  Was it possible Henry VIII had spared it? That it had escaped the dissolution of the monasteries in the sixteenth century?

  ‘It is a church now,’ Rhode said, and when I looked properly I could see that the monastery of my childhood was no more, though the core of the building remained the same. I could hear the sounds of a service from inside, soft murmuring and chanting.

  When I was nine years old, I used to hide underneath the stone-framed windows, my feet pressed into the scratchy ground. I would listen to hundreds of haunting voices. The hum of the monks’ soft tones would echo out into the field, sending a vibration through my chest.

  One night, my father had told me the light from the monastery was the most beautiful light in the world. ‘Candlelight,’ he had said, ‘is a human’s beacon to God. A little piece of God on earth.’