Chilling Cadence

Nine

Cadence headed straight to Bibliophile the next morning with Grimm on her heels. Her heart was still racing from the conversation they'd had last night. She had barely been able to sleep last night, despite having been so tired before. She had never thought of the possibility of a Necromancer being the summoner. She had assumed it was some human or Witch who was not strong enough to control the Cyhyraeth. But the idea of it being a Necromancer changed things.

Ruth looked up from ringing up a customer’s book to say, “Hello, welcome to Biblio—” Only to cut herself off at the look on Cadence’s face, her eyes flickering to Grimm who was behind her.

Cadence waited as Ruth bagged the woman’s book and handed it off to her, giving her a sweet grandmotherly smile as she sent the woman on her way.

“I knew that you would come,” she said, her eyes on Grimm. “I saw your familiar last night in my dream. Grimm, right?”

Grimm slunk forward, his tail swishing this way and that, his head tilted curiously. He jumped onto the counter, his yellow eyes glowing as he studied her.

“So, you are a mortal gifted by the Fates. One who can peer into the abyss of life and death. Your kind are rare.”

She looked a little surprised to hear him speak. Grimm’s voice was deeper than his cute appearance would ever have you believe, it was gravelly and coarse, something that could invoke fear in humans and Witches alike. Grimm was no mere familiar, he had once been a king of Hell, a demon who was powerful enough to slay Lucifer if he had wished to. A demon angels had feared.

Ruth recovered quickly. “You aren’t the first Familiar to tell me so.” She cleared her throat, turning to look over at Cadence. “I assume this is about our…”—she looked in the direction of a shelf of books where a couple was reading through the synopsis of a book they had found together—“infestation.”

Cadence came close, lowering her voice so that the humans couldn’t hear. “I’ve been thinking about it all wrong. Grimm and I were talking last night and we think there may be a Necromancer involved.”

Surprise flickered across Ruth’s face. “And this is a big deal, right.”

“If we’re right, it’s a huge deal. Grimm and I are going to see if we can track the Necromancer down, When Lorelei wakes up—”

Ruth cut her off. “Wait here. I’ll go get Lorelei.”

Cadence watched in surprise as Ruth disappeared into the back room. Cadence’s Grandmother had always told her that Vampires fell into the Dead Sleep during the daytime. It was the only time when they were utterly defenseless. Their entire body reverting to its true state: dead. It was only when the night came that those corpses became animated, searching for blood. Her Grandmother had never mentioned a Vampire who could walk in daylight before. None of the Witches of the New York Coven had ever mentioned such a thing either, and some of them had encountered quite a few Vampires in their day. Some of them had even killed one or two of them.

Now that she really thought about it, when she had first come to Glasskeep, Lorelei had been the one who had come to her even though it had been in the late afternoon when she had arrived. She had been so afraid upon seeing her and she had been so preoccupied with living ever since that she hadn’t given Lorelei’s odd behavior a second thought.

“Vampires aren’t supposed to be able to walk in the sunlight,” she whispered to Grimm, waiting for his answer.

“No, they aren’t.”

Brief relief flood through her body. So those studies weren’t wrong. Vampires couldn’t just walk around during the daytime. After that relief, came more dismay.

“How come Lorelei can?”

“She is not a normal Vampire,” was all Grimm said.

Cadence fixed her mouth to ask more, to demand that he explain what exactly what Lorelei was. The idea of a creature that was already immensely powerful seemingly not having a weakness terrified her. When her Grandmother had told her stories of Vampires, she had always ended them by making sure to tell Cadence that they slept in the day and were completely vulnerable when they did. If she could walk in the daylight, was she also immune to holy objects? Could she walk on consecrated ground? There were so many questions that Cadence needed answers to.

But the door to the back room opened and out came Lorelei. Cadence started a little at the sight of her. There were deep, dark bruise-like shadows under her eyes that made the pallor of her skin stand out all the more. Her normally blood-colored lips were ashen and pale, the typical blue fire of her eyes was all but dimmed. When she moved, she grimaced as if each movement was…painful.

Cadence knew right then she had been silly to have been so afraid. In nature, there were rules. No one thing could be too powerful. In return for Vampires being beautiful, living forever, being stronger and faster than all creatures, they had to drink the blood of the living and hide away from the sun, be cursed by religion for the rest of their days. In return for Witches being able to call upon storms and use the power of gods, bending nature, and the very fabric of reality to their will, they lost parts of their souls with each spell until nothing was left.

In return for being able to walk in the sun, she was cursed to feel the pain of dragging around her dead limbs, her vibrant, undead beauty taken away from her so that she was a shell of her former self in those moments.

When she was like this, Cadence didn’t fear her as much as she normally did.

She watched as Lorelei braced herself against the doorway, her eyes flickering to the couple who had moved from one bookshelf to another and had yet to notice them before she returned her gaze to Cadence.

“Come with me.” Her voice was a rasping whisper and Cadence could see it took effort for her to speak.

Cadence scooped Grimm up in her arms and followed Lorelei more fearlessly than she would have had it been nighttime. Cadence was currently more of a danger to Lorelei than the Vampire was to her.

They made their way through the storeroom. They reached a staircase that led down to the basement that Lorelei dwelled in. The inside was dark, lit only by candles that were held safely in a candelabrum. Vampires despised light, so it made sense Lorelei wouldn’t desire fluorescent lights or lamps.

Cadence blinked, waiting for her eyes to adjust. When they did, she studied the surroundings, surprised to find there wasn’t much to see. A desk holding the single candelabrum and the chair tucked into that desk. The desk was filled with papers and folders that were neatly stacked. In the center of the room was a single mahogany coffin. Cadence studied it with the utmost interest. It wasn’t everyday one got to see where a Vampire slept in real life. The people who did usually didn't live to tell the tale.

Lorelei braced herself by the coffin, breathing hard. That was something new; Vampires didn’t breathe. Cadence watched, unable to contain her curiosity, as Lorelei sat on the coffin, her eyes closed, her face contorted in what could only be described as agony.

“Are you…okay?” Cadence asked in spite of herself. She was scared of Lorelei, sure but in reality, the Vampire had never done anything to harm her even though she had had every opportunity to do so if she wished. It wasn’t like she hated Lorelei. Certainly not enough to relish in watching her suffer.

“I will be after I’ve slept.” Her lips pursed, a spasm of pain flickered across her face before she controlled her expression again. “Ruth said you had information on the Cyhyraeth.”

“Ah, yeah. Grimm and I were talking last night and Grimm mentioned that the summoner might be a Necromancer.”

Lorelei’s eyes popped open, alert. She looked a little more like herself now. “A Necromancer? Are you sure?”

“Not quite. But we’re going to look into it. It’s rare for a Necromancer to summon a Cyhyraeth, so I hadn’t considered it before. I thought if a human was attempting to summon something or if a Witch had made some kind of mistake, it would open the veil a Cyhyraeth needed to enter into this world. Cyhyraeth’s are extremely difficult to summon directly and the Necromancer who can successfully summon and control it has to be extremely powerful.”

Lorelei’s eyes narrowed. “How powerful?”

Cadence looked directly into Lorelei’s eyes. “As powerful as a Nightingale.”

Cadence watched as Lorelei’s pallid, cracked lips thinned. Now that she was seeing them up close, she could see an odd sheen on blue behind the unnatural paleness of her skin and lips. Vampires were corpses that could come to life at night, but she had never truly thought of Lorelei as a dead thing until right now. As she was, she was without a doubt dead.

“If you’re going to seek out a Necromancer as powerful as a Nightingale, don’t go alone. Take Rev with you. In a situation like this, Rev can guarantee your safety just as well as I can.”

LORELEI DIDN’T EXPLAIN her words further as she all but shooed Cadence and Grimm out so she could rest. She really had started to look worse and worse the longer they stayed. Her pale skin had begun to turn blue and c***k; her hand that was curled around the coffin to brace herself had begun to c***k and Cadence could see her skin peeling away at her knuckles. The deep bruise-like shadows seemed like they were stretching away from her eyes and seemed like they had melted down her eyes, spilling like ink from a pen.

She had looked so awful, Cadence felt bad staying as long as she had. Even with her curiosity about what Lorelei had meant about Rev, she had made her way from the basement, through the storage room, and back into the main area of Bibliophile.

When she got to the main area, Jaxon Cavanaugh was manning the counter instead of his grandmother. He didn’t look too surprised to see her as she closed the storage room door behind her.

“You’re going to look for more clues on that Necromancer, right?” he asked, suddenly.

Cadence had swung open the shop door and this point, one foot out. She turned back to look at him and found that he was watching her with open curiosity.

“Yes.”

“Aren’t Necromancers dangerous?” he pressed. “Should you be going alone?”

Cadence bristled a little but he seemed genuinely worried, so she swallowed her annoyance. “Lorelei already told me I should go with Rev. I’m heading to the church now. Besides, Lorelei will find me when she wakes up” She turned, about to head out.

“Would you mind if I tagged along?” Even though he had asked, he was already coming around the counter. The smile on his face was open, guileless but Cadence could not help the mistrust that rose in her. It was no fault of his, probably. Cadence generally didn’t trust men as good-looking as Jaxon Cavanaugh anymore than she trusted women as beautiful as Lorelei Darkhe. It was one of the oldest rules her Grandmother had instilled in her. If it’s too beautiful, it’s deadly.

“Why?” The mistrust swirling in her head had come out in her voice.

Jaxon held up his hands, almost in surrender, a grin stretching across his face. “I heard from the other Witches in town that your bloodline is something else. Nightingales are supposed to be super powerful, right? Even Lorelei’s been shoving it in Darius’ face that she had a Nightingale under her Protection. I’m curious to see your work. That’s all.”

There was a lot about what he said that sprung questions to mind but Cadence didn’t ask any of them. She would just ask Lorelei when she saw her later tonight.

She sighed. “Fine.”

The more hands she had on deck, the quicker they would be able to find out where the Necromancer was if the Necromancer was around at all. She wanted to be done with all of this as soon as possible.