‘Prophecy doesn’t wait forever, you know.’
I gasped, whipping around. He had gone. I turned back around. Kaspar’s face turned from a frown to a scowl and his eyes plunged to a glossy black. I noticed his hands clenching into fists, the veins on his arms protruding as he clenched tighter and tighter.
I didn’t like that expression and walked away a little bit. First Fabian, then the figure in my dreams mentioned Prophecy, now this. I was no Sherlock Holmes but it didn’t take a genius to work out that they were linked.
An arm snaked its way around my shoulders and spun me back around.
‘Time to go,’ Kaspar said.
I glared up at him, meeting his cold, uncaring black eyes.
‘I want answers.’
He grabbed me by the elbow and started to pull me away. ‘Want doesn’t get, Girly.’
My mouth fell open. He pulled me towards his car, easily dragging me despite my resistance. ‘I have a right to know! All this shit, it’s about me, so don’t keep me in the dark!’ Kaspar pulled the door open for me and prodded my side until I clambered in. Slamming the door, he darted around to the other side and got in the driver’s seat, wrenching the seatbelt around himself. The others were already pulling away and following them he accelerated down the driveway, speeding away from the place that had become my prison.
I refused to look at him. I could tell he was pissed. Very pissed. So was I.
As soon as Varnley was out of sight, Kaspar spoke. ‘Fire away,’ he said, exhaling.
‘What’s going on? You mentioned a council. It’s going on right now, isn’t it? What’s it about?’ I stopped myself, catching his expression. It was almost mournful.
He sighed, jaded. ‘The meeting is about you.’ I was taken aback by how weary he sounded – this wasn’t the young, witty, arrogant teenager I knew.
‘But why now?’ I could take a guess at that answer, knowing it was something to do with the cloaked figure, but I couldn’t tell him that and I wanted to know more.
Again he sighed. ‘People are getting worried. They don’t think your father will let this go on much longer. If he were to do something and we retaliated, we could have a war on our hands. And if we are involved in a war, so are the other dimensions.’
‘Dimensions?’
‘There is a reason I told you not to turn around.’ he retorted, raising an eyebrow at me. I kept silent, finding the dashboard very interesting. He continued. ‘We can’t force you to turn into a vampire because you’re a political prisoner. If we do, we breach treaties we have with both the humans and other dimensions. But we can’t just continue waiting, because we have reason to think your father might make a move.’
‘What’s the reason?’ I asked, unable to mask the urgency and intrigue from my voice. Prophecy. What was meant by that? But he didn’t answer and I changed my tactic, knowing I had to take advantage of his sudden openness. ‘What’s there to stop me from just waiting until my father comes? Then I don’t have to turn.’
He made a rumbling sound in his chest that sounded like the beginning of a half-hearted laugh. ‘Don’t bother even entertaining that idea, Girly. I highly doubt your father could raise a force large and dumb enough to face us and if, by some miracle, he did, we would just move to Athenea and you would be coming with us.’
He might as well have pricked me with a needle as my bubble of hope burst with a pop. I sighed and remained silent for a while, watching the trees rush by in a blur. They were thinning and the one-track road was widening out, a white line marking the divide between the two lanes.
‘What’s Athenea?’ I asked after a while. He didn’t answer. ‘That Fallon guy was from there, wasn’t he?’ He nodded, mute. Realizing he was closing up again, I asked one more question. ‘Who was that cloaked person?’
He pursed his lips. ‘A very unpleasant man.’ I edged away towards the window, alarmed at the force he used to jam the gear stick across. ‘I’m not telling you his name, if that’s what you want,’ he added, glancing across at me.
I slumped back into the chair, disappointed and disheartened. It was a hopeless situation. Somewhere along the line there would be a war, and the worst thing was it would all be my fault. But even knowing that, I knew I couldn’t face turning. Not yet. I just need time, I thought desperately. Why is it the one thing I don’t have? I looked up at Kaspar, tears pricking my eyes. He seemed distracted, caught up in his own thoughts.
‘There must be a way out. There has to be!’
I had to say it aloud just to believe it. I glimpsed Kaspar as he turned away from me slightly, as though he were guilty of something.
‘Yeah, there is. If you turn and become a vampire willingly, your father would drop it. He couldn’t do anything. It would have been your choice. Problem solved.’ He said it with a flickering of hope, although his tone told me he hardly dared to believe any such thing could ever happen.
I snorted. ‘Then we’re doomed. You don’t know my father. He has the compassion of a walnut. He wouldn’t care if it were my choice; he would still find some way to blame you.’
‘Don’t say that,’ Kaspar muttered. ‘Every father wants their child to be happy, and if vampire-kind was your happiness, then he would respect that.’
I shook my head. ‘Even if that were so, how could I be happy as a vampire? There is no chance of me actually liking the idea of living forever. It’s hopeless!’
Kaspar faced straight ahead, glancing in his side mirror. He spoke softly, something like caring in his voice. ‘You don’t know that, Girly. One day you might just find something worth living an eternity for.’
I sucked in a long, slow breath. ‘You haven’t. You’re just as torn up as I am. Why endure the pain of forever?’ I whispered.
The car slowed a little, as the tree line receded and we neared the coast. ‘No. I haven’t yet. But that doesn’t mean I won’t. Or that you won’t. For all we know, we might just be staring at that something right now …’
I rested my head up against the cool window, watching as my warm breath coated the glass in a misty layer. ‘You can’t promise me everything will be okay, can you?’
‘No,’ he choked. ‘No, I can’t.’
It was some time before the conversation restarted, and he forced me into it.
‘Did you just bloody go through red lights at ninety?!’ I screeched, gawping at the speed dial.