Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 142916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 715(@200wpm)___ 572(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 715(@200wpm)___ 572(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
“Someone else is controlling the weather,” she mused. “That must be the answer. As powerful as each demon is alone, even together they couldn’t possibly do that. Someone else with your skills, Tora, is most likely commanding the weather we’ve been getting.”
Tora dropped her hand and rubbed her arms as if suddenly cold. Silke knew Carpathians controlled their body temperatures. More than once, Tora had done so for her.
“You know about the gate I guard. That’s why you have the tarot cards. There are four gates, and a Carpathian woman guards each of them. You have the ability to keep demons from escaping the underworld, and together the two of us have kept that gate intact.”
Silke had been to the gate on several occasions to ensure no demon had found a way through. Time and again, she’d sealed the ground around the gate. Lately, she knew Tora was concerned that whatever was behind the gate was weakening the ancient wood and the spells. She’d never seen whatever was being held there. Tora referred to him as a beast.
Another Carpathian woman, Gaia, lived in the underworld and seemed to be Tora’s friend, but Silke had never seen her. She knew the area the beast had at his command was tremendous, stretching from Siberia, Italy and Algeria around to their little village. The beast and his companion seemed to travel from gate to gate. Silke didn’t understand how he could be so dangerous if a Carpathian woman was his companion.
“It’s difficult for all of us guarding the gates to comprehend just how lethal the beast is. His name is Justice—at least that’s what he was called when he chose to save members of his family and remain behind in the underworld. He fought off the demons while his family escaped. All of them were horribly wounded, as was Justice. He blocked the portal and shut it down so the demons couldn’t go after his family, thus trapping himself in the underworld.”
“He sounds like a hero, not a beast,” Silke said.
Sorrow flashed across Tora’s face. “He is a hero. He was the thing legends were made of, even in my world. Justice was Carpathian at one time.”
“I don’t understand. Is he vampire? Did he turn while he was trapped in the underworld? How could your friend stay with him?”
Tora shook her head. “Justice isn’t vampire. Our species can live very long lives. Some believe we’re immortal, but we can be killed as you well know.”
Silke had seen Tora after several battles with vampires. She’d been close to death on two of those occasions. Silke had managed to aid her in dispatching the vampires before attending to the wounds and giving her friend blood. Several times over the years they had gone into battle together and prevailed, but their wounds had been numerous.
“Centuries of a gray, emotionless existence, when life has been nothing but hunting and killing your friends, family, and other Carpathians who turned vampire, seeing the horrific things vampires did to their victims, takes a tremendous toll.”
Silke imagined that the life of the Carpathian male was grim and endless. She was surrounded by people in the village she loved. She was an orphan, but she’d always been cared for. She had Tora as well as the elders in the village who were generous with their time, attention and advice. Fenja Reinders, a single woman in the village, had always wanted children. She had taken Silke in when her mother died. She was the local midwife, assisting women giving birth, and had been present when Astrid slipped away. The village had decided she would be the best choice for raising the orphaned infant, and she’d readily accepted the task.
Silke loved her as she would have her birth mother. Fenja had raised her with kindness and love. She couldn’t remember a single time when Fenja had yelled or lost her temper. She had lovingly told her the stories of the Battle of Baduhenna, making the stories exciting and every hero or heroine larger than life. She’d taken Silke to the forest and introduced her to the plants and trees, carefully and patiently teaching her which were poisonous, edible or could be used for medicine. She’d taken Tora into her heart and given the girls plenty of time to train in the skills Silke needed as the demon slayer.
“I can’t imagine what kind of life those men have led.” Silke’s heart ached for the warriors. In modern times, the story of Carpathian males hunting vampires and sustaining near-fatal wounds, yet going back over and over again to do the same thing, should have been more like a grim fairy tale, but Silke had always considered those stories reality. Perhaps it was the way both Fenja and Tora regaled her with tales of the past so often that those stories became believable to her.