Pentagram Of Fire Ch 12

a big thanks to my editor an to you the reader.

*

Damien had just asked me to mate with him.

I just looked at him. I didn't believe that he was serious.

"Sara?"

That brought me back to me senses.

"Damien are you serious?" I asked.

"Of course Sara, I love you!" he said and he kissed me.

"And I love you Damien so of course I will mate with you." I said.

At that Damien picked me up and spun around with me in his arms. He finally put me down.

"I will mate with you, but it may be best if we wait until after all this dies down okay?"

Damien nodded, "As long as you agree to the mating it doesn't matter when we do it as long as we do it." he said.

"Of course, but first we need to find out where we are."

Our clothes had dried out during the night I slipped the night dress back on hoping that I could replace it with some suitable clothing soon.

Damien looked at me as I was dressing.

"You know its going to be very hard to concentrate with you wearing that."

"Well it's either this or nothing at all which would you prefer?"

The grin on his face told me his preference.

"Never mind, I have nothing else to wear so you'll just have to control your self."

Damien strapped his sword to his waist and we set off. I looked around my surroundings something felt very familiar to me.

"Damien have we been here before it just it feels familiar to me."

He slid his arm around my waist, "Funny, I thought that my self."

Dawn was beginning to break, as it did the suns rays splashed upon a castle. It was then I realised where we were.

"Damien we're home! Were back at the castle!"

And so we were. We walked to the castle. The guards spotted us as we approached. The entire castle was in an uproar as the council couldn't believe that father let me out of his sight. I was pulled into the council hall and asked to tell them what had happened.

I outlined the major points of what had happened. I described how I had became separated from dad and the rest of the group. Then I told them that I believed that either the next clue to the book, or the book itself, was here.

A man on the front row of the hall stood and spoke. "That is impossible! The book could never be here, we would know it."

I stood and faced him. In an authoritative voice I said, "Either the book is here or a clue to the location of the book is here. Do you doubt my judgement?"

He looked like I had just slapped him.

"No, but I'm sure that if the book were here we would have found it your highness."

"But, what if you didn't know it was here?"

Damien stood and walked over to me.

"Sara's right! If the book is here it we need to find it."

"The only problem is that I have no idea where it is." I said.

Damien continued, "It doesn't matter. We will turn this entire castle upside down, if needs be."

The man to Damien's right said, "He's right! While we look you should go and rest your highness."

"No! if we're looking for the book I need to be there!"

He nodded, everyone was sent to look for the book or a clue to where it was. Damien stayed with me.

"Where do you want to start Sara?"

"Where's the library?" I asked.

"Why would you want to look there?"

"It's the best place to find a book is it not?"

Damien laughed, "I suppose so, yes."

I followed Damien to the library. When we entered it was by far the largest library I had ever seen. The shelves went from the floor to the ceiling, which was easily fifteen to twenty feet high. On top of that there must have been hundreds of rows of shelves.

"Wow! How many books are there in here?" I asked.

"In the last count, which was eight years ago, there were just under a million books in here. But personally I think there are more." he said.

"So, where do we start?" I asked.

"Any where you want." he said.

"What was the last book either submitted or written by either of the sisters?"

Damien thought for a good few minutes. "It was probably a spell book that I think is probably right at the top of the shelf on the left wall. The books go from oldest to youngest. The oldest are at the top. I'll get the ladder."

As he left the library I walked down the long row of books. Some of them looked very old and others looked like they had just been put on the shelf.

Damien said, "Please move. Sara."

Damien approached with a ladder that seemed impossibly long. With great difficulty he stood the ladder on its end.

"I will hold the ladder for you." Damien said.

I nodded and started to climb the ladder. It felt like it took a lifetime to get to the top of the ladder. When I got to the top my head bumped the ceiling. As I browsed the books I could barely read some of the titles on their spines.

However, one of them caught my attention. It was, "The Origin of the Werewolf and the Vampire". I pulled it out of its place, on the shelf, and climbed down the ladder.

"What did you find?" Damien asked.

"I don't think it's what we were looking for but it is something of interest to me."

I showed him the book.

"I don't think I've ever read that one before."

I laughed. "How could you possibly read all of these books. It would be impossible."

He looked at me deeply. "Do you know how old I am?" He asked.

Now that I thought of it I didn't know. I looked at him. At the very most I thought he would have been twenty five. "Twenty five or twenty six." I said.

He shook his head. "Let me think." he said.

"You need to think about your age?" I asked.

"Yes! We don't celebrate birthdays. It's easy to loose track." he said.

"Oh right!" I said.

"I am about three hundred and fifty years old since I was born on the 30th of October 1659." he said

"Wow! I had no idea that vampires lived that long."

"The only one who knows how to kill a vampire is a fellow vampire or a werewolf, the same with werewolves, only a werewolf or vampire can kill them."

"Who is the oldest vampire?" I asked.

"That would be John. He's the original vampire."

"Does anyone know where he is?" I asked.

"No. He vanished just before I was turned and no one has seen or heard from him. We think that his absence is because he took Alana's death so very badly."

I looked at the book that I was holding in my hands. I found a comfortable chair and sat down to read it. Damien went up the ladder and continued to look for the book or any clues. I lost my self in the book quickly since it was truly fascinating.

It was hand-written so there were a few things I couldn't make out. It was talking about how the first werewolf came to be. The story was that some humans experimented with wolf blood. They forced a human to take the blood and to wear a full wolf pelt. Eventually, with the help from some elementary magic,the human was able to change into a wolf each month at the full moon although it was extremely painful for him.

I looked up from the book. "Damien?" I shouted.

He jumped down from the ladder. He mustn't have been up that high.

"Yes Sara?"

"How come the werewolves can change at will now?"

"The story is that after the first werewolf was created his descendants, with the aid of the sister's magic, were able to master the change and make it part of them. They accepted it as a part of their identity and species. It's like if you didn't accept the vampire in you.

The feeding would be uncontrollable you would rip and maim anyone that would try to come near you. That's why you got the fits of rage in the first few days. But, the newly blooded vampire gets it under control and learns to feed in a controlled manner. The werewolf also has to learn the same control".

I nodded. It made sense in a weird way. Then I continued to read the book. But the part of the book concerning how vampires came to be was missing. It had been ripped out of the book! I felt the back cover of the book. On the inside back it looked like there was something underneath the facing paper.

"Damien do you have a small knife?"

He nodded and handed me a small dagger. I slid it between the facing paper and the cover board and slid the blade all the way around the facing paper. I pulled the facing paper back. Sure enough, there was a piece of paper hidden in that space. I took the enclosed piece of paper and read what was written on it,

"Find the door of fire."

"The door of fire". I looked at Damien "what is that?"

"Nothing good. It's a stone door that is covered in flames when someone approaches it. It's in the basement of the castle. People have gone through it, but they were never seen again."

As Damien was saying this a guard came rushing in.

"Your highness, your father is back."

I followed him out to meet my father. Dad ran towards me and hugged me tightly.

"Have you found anything?"

Damien said, "Yes but we can't send Sara!"

Dad let go of me.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"She needs to go through the stone door." Damien said.

Dad collapsed! Luckily a guard caught him before he hit the floor.

As he regained his senses he said, "You can't be serious."

I nodded to him.

He looked at me. "If you want to go through I will not stop you. But I am afraid that you might be killed."

I looked him straight in the eyes. "I'm going through the door!"

Damien ran off. I went to follow him but father stopped me.

"No! Leave him, lets go." Father stood and pulled me close to him. I was led out to the main hall and down into the basement. I felt like a condemned woman walking to her death. I was led deep into the belly of the castle. My father and the men who accompanied him stopped at a small door.

Dad opened it and walked me into the room beyond the door. None of the guards went in with us. It was just me and father. I looked around the room we had just entered. There was nothing in the room apart from a stone arch.

"Is that it dad?"

"Yes that's it! The flames will appear when you get closer. You don't have to do this." he said.

I turned to him, "Yes I do. We need that book!"

Dad just nodded.

"Please do me a favour. Give Damien a message from me."

I shook as I gave dad the message for Damien. He nodded and left the room. He didn't look back. I knew what I was about to do was hurting him. The outer door was bolted shut. It was now or never.

I walked up to the stone door. As soon as I was a foot from it the whole arch burst into flames. They were the most ferocious flames I had ever set eyes upon. The heat was burning into my skin. It was then the voice spoke to me.

"Jump through! Do not walk!"

I nodded to myself. I walked back a little bit and the flames went down again. I ran and jumped through the stone door. I landed on the other side and rolled to the ground. My dress was a little singed as a result of the flames erupting as I jumped through the arch.

I looked around. There was a corridor like the one underneath the Lost Palace. I walked along it. At the end of the corridor there was someone standing in a long black cloak. I walked up right behind the robed figure.

I said, "Hello?"

The person turned around and lowered her hood.

She smiled and said, "You found me!"

She had long, flowing, black hair and deep green eyes. If we stood next to each other you would have sworn we were sisters. But I had no siblings.

"And who have I found exactly?" I asked.

"It's me, Alana! The original witch and your ancestor." she said.

I just stood there and gawked at her

to be continued...