Tea With The Devil's Apprentice

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Chapter 8: Tea With The Devil’s Apprentice 2

The man lifted the kettle off the hook in the hearth. Steam rose from it as he opened a small chest in the corner of the room and acquired a small cup.   He ladled some of the liquid into it then handed it to Demitri; who stared at it skeptically. 3

“What is it”, she asked wrinkling up her freckled nose. 4

She’d been there for three days and nights, just sitting there, reading the books the mysterious stranger had given her to pass the time. She’d been there, shackled to the hearth floor, by long spokes that had been pried into the ground. She had given up on the first day she had been locked in to get out. The spokes were ground in hard and she was convinced no one her size could pull them out. 5

Steam rose from the small cup, and wonderful fumes of bay leaves and nutmeg exhaled from the cup into her nose. It smelled somewhat like the Faerie Milk that they drank for festival days. 6

“It’s poison, my dear, drink one drop and you’re dancing with the devil,” the man said sarcastically.   7

She raised an eyebrow and looked down at the liquid. 8

“Tea! It’s tea! My god its tea!” he said exasperatedly. “I just thought you would like some tea. What else would it be? Poison? Ha! Killing you would just put me in a lot of trouble with the Queen. And it’s not very good to get in trouble with her.” 9

“So, why are you doing this”, she asked Demitri. 10

“Do you need answers for everything, girl”? 11

“No, but I want to know why I’m here, what I’m here for, and who you are. I noticed when you first grabbed me that you were not human, but it was not until last night I found out you were a vampire. So if you don’t want to drain me dry of my blood then why am I here? And another thing, how id you know that I was not a human like my father?” 12

“So many questions”, he cried his hands on his head. “And you are mistaken if you believe it was I who abducted you. No, my dear, that was not I. It was one of my fellows, Romericco the Red.”13

“Why”, she screeched louder. If he wouldn’t kill her then she obviously wanted to find out why. “Why, why, why, why”, she said in the manner of a spoiled two year old. 14

“Fine! If you will stop that infernal racket I will tell you why.” 15

“Who are you”, she asked. “You obviously know who I am.” 16

“My title is Darius of Winged Daemons. Apprentice to the Queen of the Daemons. 17

“Don’t you have a human name”? 18

“No, I’m afraid. She changed me so long ago that I have forgotten my sire name.” 19

“Who is the Queen of the Daemons”? 20

“Ursula is her name, though no one is aloud to address her so improperly. To me she is simply, ‘my lady’.” 21

“Why do you do her bidding”? 22

“I do it because I am bound to her for eternity. When I was around twenty I was foolish a made a bad decision. Now I am in her dept for my immortal life.” 23

“Why am I here”? 24

“Ah…the magic question. You are here because you have been chosen for the renewal ceremony.” 25

Demitri felt her stomach drop. This guy was talking about devils and vampires and ceremonies…this couldn’t be good. “Ceremony”, she asked. 26

“Yes, the ceremony. It occurs only once every fifth teen years when five moons come together and allow the queen to be revitalized. To do this she must devour an unpolluted supernatural soul. So you see, you’re very significant to all of us. Your death will bring all of us the renewal of life.”27

Demitri gulped. No doubt she was startled, and on the verge of tears, but she could not show this creature this.28

“You see my dear” he continued, “The Queen is our Elder. She has only made a few vampires directly from her own blood. Three, I think, in this lifetime. One was staked a few centuries ago by a mob of peasants. Romericco the Red, and I are the last of her direct bloodline. As direct members, we are bound to her mentally and bodily. If somehow she does not receive a soul by the time fifth teen years have passed, she will not be the only one to die. We shall expire with her. So you see, we are dependant on you.”29

“So what makes her so important?”30

“You see, she is the ‘Eve’ of all vampires. The mother, if you will. Romericco and I, you could say are her ‘Cain and Abel’. And our line continues on from myself. I have blood children of my own, and they have children who have children, and so fourth. Thus, or population grows every day.”31

“And your partner, Romericco, he has no um…children?”32

“No. He could never bring himself to make another.”33

“Why?”34

Darius sighed. “He hates being a vampire. He wishes to die”.35

Demitri smirked. This vampire apparently had some wisdom.36

“He’s the one that has been leaving books for me, hasn’t he?”37

“He does take pity on those who are selected for the ceremony. Though, he is really not allowed to show compassion towards a human. It is a rule of being a vampire.”38

“There are rules?”39

“Oh yes. Regulations, many of them.”40

“Like what?”41

“There are so many. They are more just guidelines, however three are punishable by death. Those would be: refusing to obey the order of an elder, killing another of your kind, or coupling with those not of the same magickal race.”42

“That would mean dating someone that is not a vampire?”43

Darius shifted uneasily. “Precisely” he gulped.44

They were silent for a moment. Demitri began to think. This was no dream, no joke. She was really fixed down to iron stakes poking out of the ground talking to a vampire that would be a co-conspirator in her murder. In fleeting contemplations, she thought about her life, her father, and the ever-beckoning throne. If she died, the new heir would become Queen eventually. That heir happened to be Katie-Belle. She decided not to worry about the swelling rage that grew inside her at the thought of Katie-Belle. She looked down at the crude shackles that bound her to the earthen floor of what looked like a thatch hut. The spokes holding her down were thrust into the ground. She whimpered in disgust when with a closer look, she saw what looked like dried blood on the cuffs around her wrists.45

Darius meanwhile was looking at her intently. He spotted the books next to her, and picked up the one on the top of the stack.46

“Poetry?” He asked with a twisted grin. “Romericco and poetry are not a good combination,” he muttered. Demitri looked at him, a lump rising in her throat. She mentally tried to smooth the cracks in her face that would likely soon be stained with her tears. She looked the vampire in his icy eyes and said softly “leave me”.47

Darius rose, and left the hut, a cool wind bustling in and caressing Demetri’s face as he opened and closed the door behind him. She had the sudden urge to rip one of the spokes out of the earth and impale it into his chest. She stared at the fire, as the embers burned low as the night grew older. She cried, her tears stinging her white cheeks and falling onto the pages of the old books that she had been trying to comfort herself in. Her tears eventually disappeared as she drifted out of consciousness.48

Demitri craned her short little neck as she listened to the trees rustling.49

“Mummy” she called. “Mummy I’m frightened…where are you”50

She turned herself around, her cotton dress stained crimson. “Mummy?” she whimpered as a figure emerged from the bushes. It was hooded black against the starry sky, camouflaged by the embrace of the night. The figure reached across its chest, and Demitri saw a glint of silver, then the grin of a bloodied jade dagger as it slipped coolly from its sheath. It began to step toward her.51

“Demitri! Rose! Where are you” a familiar voice called. The figure stopped in its tracks, turned on its heel, and burst back through the forest.52

From another path leading to the clearing, a light suddenly illuminated the surroundings.53

“Demitri!” Her father shouted running to scoop up his little daughter in his arms. He held her tight and stroked her soft red hair. “Where is Mummy?”54

Demitri looked at her father, her eyes wide and glassy. “I don’t know Daddy."55

Her father’s face fell and he embraced his daughter again. “It’s going to be alright sweetie.” More lights were clambering into the clearing. A chorus of voices entered the clearing.56

“Look!” One of the men answered, pointing at her father’s hands.57

“Blood!” Another cried. “She’s covered in it!”58

“Are you hurt sweetheart?” Demetri’s father asked.59

Demitri shook her little head and buried her face into her father’s shoulder. “I want Mummy!” She cried, tears spilling over the blood on her cheeks.60

She felt her father’s embrace, and her wet tears as the scurried and stung down her cheeks.61

She was suddenly aware that her vision was broken, and a new blurry one approached. She saw the dark of the hut, pitch black, aside from a few smoldering ashes in the fireplace. She felt the tears down her cheeks. They had been real. The tears were not the only things that had been real. In the dark, she felt someone embracing her curled and quivering body. For a moment there, lying in the stranger’s arms, she felt to deranged to say anything. After three nights of feeling so alone and so unsure about what would happen to her next, Demitri felt an easy sleep coming on.62