The Twin Prophecies: Rebirth - Special Edition Page 5

  To their left, where his hand was raised, was still the farmland of the Ianto tribe, but it bled into the dusty ground of the Edi village’s center, and next to that was the Furla village. It was like watching T.V. with picture-in-picture, except they were in the pictures.

  Dr. Tesla stepped aside so the children could have a clear view. To their left, the Ianto people continued to tend their animals while some pulled a leafy vegetable from crop beds surrounded by tall, waist high grass. Straight ahead, the sick Edi girl was still on the stone table, but her screams had given way to guttural moans. To their right, the Furla elders remained seated around the fire.

  “What none of them knew was that they were being watched from above.” As Dr. Tesla spoke, Jack and Violet looked to the sky. It was the only thing that remained unchanged from left to right. The moon hung low covered by thin wisps of clouds.

  “Who was watching them?” Violet asked, still eyeing the moon.

  “The angels. Bored angels who got tired of watching humans, magical or otherwise, destroy everything around them, including themselves. The story goes that they had a bet going on this peace agreement between the tribes. Surely, if beings with the power to heal and control the elements could come to an understanding, there was hope for all humans. But when they learned what the Ianto and Edi tribes had planned, they decided to punish them. They cursed the Ianto tribe, turning them into lycanthropes, more commonly known as werewolves. They were doomed to turn into these vicious creatures once a month during the full moon.”

  Instinctively, the children looked towards the Ianto farm. All of the people had disappeared, but they could be heard. They’d dropped to their knees, hidden by the tall grass. Their moans and screams drifted up from the crops as if they were escaping from hell. Their cries of pain quickly turned animalistic, like growls and groans intermingled with the sharp crack of bones breaking. It was a symphony of torture.

  “What’s happening to them?” Violet whispered.

  “They’re changing.”

  Suddenly, there was silence. Jack reckoned the quiet was more frightening than the screams. Dozens of wolves suddenly rose up from the crops, standing on their hind legs. They were three times the size of an average man. Their fur shone in the moonlight and their howls saluted it. The livestock, which had been whinnying in panic during the whole ordeal, found that their homes had become prisons. The simple fences of wood and stone now served to trap the donkeys, cows and goats as the werewolves charged.

  They were fast, reaching the animal enclosures in two leaps. They fell upon their prey with deadly precision. Jack and Violet turned their heads. “Stop!” Violet cried. Dr. Tesla paused the construct by holding out his left hand and removed it by swiping his right, but he hadn’t done so before the children heard the sounds of flesh being torn. The landscape in front of them was now divided evenly between the Edi tribe’s village center on their left and the Furla elders conversing on their right.

  “Next, they punished the Edi. Everyone in the tribe was suddenly struck ill and even with their advanced medicine and spells, they could not cure it. The entire tribe was dead within two days.” They watched as the Edi people fell to the ground almost simultaneously. Dr. Tesla continued, “The next night, all the corpses rose.”

  “Like zombies?” Jack asked, a little too anxiously. Violet shot him a look that said he was being obnoxious.

  “No,” Dr. Tesla said, still watching the Edi tribe. “Like something else.”

  The Edi staggered to their feet. Of the three tribes, they’d had the darker complexion - olive skin from their time spent in the sun they worshiped. Now, as they awakened from death, they were theatrically pale. They looked around at each other in confusion, holding up their hands to inspect their new skin in the moonlight. The girl that was being treated on the table had also awakened and stumbled off the table, nearly falling to the ground.

  The Edi began to sniff the air curiously, their heads whipping sharply from side to side as they tried to locate the scent that had their attention. Then, they figured it out. The sick girl was covered in the dried blood they had believed would cure her. Before she knew what was happening, over a dozen Edi fell on her like a wave. She screamed only once.

  “Vampires.” Jack said.

  “Yes,” Dr. Tesla confirmed. He raised his hand to pause the construct. “Cursed to live forever, thirsting after the blood they believed was the key to life and unable to ever enter into the sunlight they honored.” He removed the scene and only the Furla tribe remained, seated around the fire.

  “What the angels hadn’t counted on was that they had created something far worse. The Ianto werewolves were only so for one night out of the month. The rest of the time, they were humans. They traveled to other parts of the continent to recruit.”

  “Recruit more werewolves?”

  “Yes, Jack. They discovered that sometimes - not all the time – but sometimes humans survived their attacks and when they did, they also turned during the full moon. They built an army. Meanwhile, the Edi vampires quickly realized they wouldn’t last long feeding on each other so they did what all species eventually do – adapt and evolve. They figured out that feeding their blood to someone they’d almost completely drained would turn that person into a vampire.”

  Dr. Tesla pointed to the Furla village. “The fighting didn’t stop. In fact, that is when the true fighting began.”

  Werewolves sprinted from the trees and vampires soared from the sky. The Furla cast spells that sometimes stunned, wounded, or killed their attackers, but most times they failed. There was no discrimination; everyone attacked with equal hatred. It was a massacre.

  Violet couldn’t take any more. She put her hands to the sides of her head and pantomimed removing the glasses. Her vision blurred briefly, but when it cleared she was back in Dr. Tesla’s living room seated next to Jack. It was dark, but she could make out that he and Dr. Tesla still wore their glasses. Violet rose on unsteady legs and felt her way over to the loveseat. She sat just as Dr. Tesla and Jack removed their glasses. Dr. Tesla reached for the remote and raised the lights and shades. It was now dark outside and the light drizzle had increased to a steady downpour.

  “Dr. Tesla,” Jack began, “I still don’t see what a fairy tale has to do with…”

  “It’s not a fairy tale. It is real; a history hidden for thousands of years. I thought I was clear. That wasn’t a movie. That was very advanced technology mixed with magic to produce a living history.”

  Violet shook her head, looked from Dr. Tesla to Jack, and said, “Wow. Your psychologist is crazier than you are. That’s gotta sting.”

  “Listen to me, both of you. The angels were punished for their interference and banished to Earth to live as humans, but they are not. They’re fairies granted immortality and magical powers either to help defend themselves against the monsters they created or as a punishment because God has a sense of humor. No one knows how to kill them or if they can even be killed.” Dr. Tesla turned towards Jack, whom he sensed was more receptive.

  “The fairies joined the fray and so began a supernatural war that lasted millennia. Finally, realizing that continued fighting put them all at risk, they all agreed to an alliance – for real this time; vampires, werewolves, witches, warlocks, and fairies, all working together to preserve their greatest secret: their very existence. For almost two hundred years, The Alliance has worked to keep the peace and protect our secret. At the head of it, a governing body known as The Trust. The Trust is made up of one vampire, fairy, werewolf, and a witch or warlock. For the past twenty years, I have acted as the head of The Trust.”

  “What are you?” Jack asked, thinking, if he says Batman, I’m outta here.

  Dr. Tesla took a deep breath and said, “I’m a warlock.”

  “No, you’re insane.” Violet said, tossing the glasses onto the coffee table. “You have exactly five minutes to tell me what your Comic-Con delusions have to do with my parents or I’m calling some cops.”
>
  “I’m getting to that. Perhaps if I could just…” Dr. Tesla gestured towards the screen.

  “Oh, no,” Violet shook her head. “I’m not going back in there.”

  Jack agreed. “Yeah, if we do that again, I might throw up.”

  “Very well, then.” Dr. Tesla rubbed his hands against his pants and took a deep breath. “Shortly after I became head of The Trust, a set of twins, warlock and witch, began to abuse their powers. Their names were Lincoln and Ashlyn Bale. The early reports were nothing more than rumors, but it was enough to put them on our radar.”

  He placed his own virtual reality glasses on the coffee table, reached into his shirt pocket and put on his regular glasses. “To help provide guidance and protection to The Alliance, the fairies granted the gift of prophecy to the acting head of The Trust. It is a temporary power meant to help balance the scales against those outside of The Alliance freely practicing and perfecting dark magic. The first prophecy revealed to me was about the twins.”

  “One of the twins - it was not clear which - would rise to great power and bring about the end of civilization as we know it. That plus the rumors gave us enough cause to begin an investigation. We placed people in their lives to watch them and report back to The Trust their findings, but the twins were slick. They covered their tracks thoroughly and only entrusted their closest associates with the true nature of their dealings. Then, three years later, another prophecy: one of the twins would grow to see the error of their ways and try to stop the other. It didn’t reveal the identity of other, nor did it say which would succeed. During this time, our investigation uncovered disturbing practices by the twins, but few with concrete proof. After much deliberation, it was decided that the best course of action was to end their lives.”

  “You killed them?” Jack asked. His eyes were wide with disbelief.

  “You have to understand what was at stake – the end of the world as we know it. The Alliance’s primary goal is keeping the knowledge that we exist secret. The ramifications if we fail are unthinkable. We struggled with the best course of action. We had no idea which twin would eventually change so how could we justify punishing them both? But we had to consider the crimes that would be committed by the remorseful twin before they saw the error of their ways. It was clear from our investigation that they were both guilty of abusing their power and weren’t showing any signs of stopping. In fact, they were escalating in scale. ”

  “It was not a decision we came to lightly, but we arrived there all the same.” Dr. Tesla sighed heavily as if just the weight of the memory was too much. “When the execution was about to be carried out, it was revealed that a witch even more powerful than the twins had placed a protective charm over them. They could not be killed as long as this witch was alive to feed the spell. The witch was their mother, Grace Bale. It had gotten too complicated. We weren’t prepared to take three lives. Left with no other choice, the Fairies suggested a ritual so dangerous it hadn’t been used in centuries, and hasn’t been used since. Unable to kill them, we cast their souls from their bodies, leaving behind, well … a shell.”

  Violet said, “I’m not saying I believe you, but if I did, that’s pretty barbaric.”

  “What they had done and were capable of… it wasn’t just about protecting the supernatural world. We needed to protect the entire world. A soul isn’t just a puff of smoke or mist, nor is it a tangible thing. It’s more like… an essence, and you can’t just do away with it. Their souls needed a place to reside. And so, before the ritual was performed, we approached humans that had been trusted with the knowledge that beings like us exist. Two couples, both expecting, were asked to make a sacrifice. They were asked to give not only of themselves, but of the thing most important to them.”

  He looked nervously from Jack to Violet. Not only was Jack more open to his story, Dr. Tesla could tell that Jack was also putting together the pieces more quickly than Violet. “No,” Jack said, shaking his head.

  “What?” Violet’s brow furrowed in confusion.

  Dr. Tesla continued, “To protect us all, humans and supernatural beings alike, they agreed to let us place the souls of Lincoln and Ashlyn in their unborn children. Their souls were placed into the two of you.”

  Chapter Five

  It’s Not Like They Had Anywhere Else to Go

  He’d finally rendered Violet speechless; there were no sarcastic remarks at the ready. Jack studied Dr. Tesla’s face for a moment and in a voice barely above a whisper he asked, “Why us?”

  “You believe him?” Violet shrieked, looking at Jack and shaking her head in disbelief.

  “Your parents were committed to the cause. They understood the ramifications of having our kind exposed. They also knew of the destruction Lincoln and Ashlyn were capable of.” He turned to Violet. “Violet, when your mother was a young nurse she witnessed a battle between a vampire and one of our Hunters, a witch. She tended to the witch in secret and saw her back to health. She promised to keep the secret of what she’d seen and became a valuable ally to The Alliance.”

  “What are Hunters?” Jack asked.

  “Why do you keep playing along with this?” Violet asked Jack.

  Sensing that he might have his own ally, Dr. Tesla rushed to answer Jack’s question. “Hunters are members of The Alliance, supernatural and human, trained to… well… they’re like our police. Regular human police aren’t necessarily equipped to go after a vampire or werewolf. Jack, your parents were both raised by Hunters. They’ve known about the existence of our kind since they were younger than you are now.”

  Jack leaned back on the sofa, thinking about his parents. His mother knitted baby clothes for her co-workers and took cake decorating classes. His father loved any sport that involved a ball and he wore an apron that read Licensed to Grill at family barbecues. They were so normal. He thought about his mother’s love of trashy romance novels and his father’s refusal to read anything but non-fiction or history books. Jack couldn’t imagine his father entertaining the notion of vampires and witches.

  Then he thought about the grandparents he’d never met. How his parents explained they’d met as children when their fathers worked together. How both men had died on the job, working on fishing boats, but his parents never talked about it in any detail and became guarded if ever he asked too many questions. There was an air of secrecy surrounding his grandfathers. “Their fathers were Hunters.” It wasn’t a question, but Dr. Tesla sensed Jack had tossed it out for confirmation.

  “Yes, Jack. Your grandfathers were Hunters. That is how your parents met.”

  Violet stood up, crossing her arms across her chest. “I want some kind of legal second opinion. I want someone to look over those papers. I don’t believe, for one second, that my parents would have left me to live with you.”

  “Violet.” Dr. Tesla took a step forward and Violet retreated, stopping only when her legs met the edge of the love seat. “Your mother was one of the most compassionate, most brave women I’d ever met. The Alliance cannot exist without assistance from the human world.”

  “Your parents were both expecting at the time Lincoln’s and Ashlyn’s souls were removed. We had a very limited amount of time. As I said, we needed to find a place for them. Knowing your parents as I did, and knowing how committed they were, I asked them to make this sacrifice. We explained how little we knew of what to expect, but we also explained the damage of not doing anything and allowing the twins to grow in power. They agreed.”

  “Why would they do that?” Jack asked.

  “Because they believed, as I do, that Lincoln and Ashlyn were the way they were due to their mother’s influence. They’d been corrupted. It was the Fairies’ belief that the souls could be reset and that they’d have a second chance. We all believed that with proper love and guidance and a normal human life, things would turn out differently.”

  A chill settled into the room as Jack and Violet considered what Dr. Tesla just said. Both were thinking how their lives
had been anything but normal lately. “You were both born perfectly healthy and were happy children. We watched, of course, from afar. Because warlocks and witches tend to first experience signs of their powers around the age of fifteen, we thought it would be wise to monitor you each more closely. Jack, after Bobby’s accident, your change in behavior at school, and the truancy, well, your parents thought that sessions with me would be the best way to do that.”

  Violet sat, looking shell-shocked, and said, “But we’ve never met. How did you plan on watching me?”

  Dr. Tesla didn’t answer. Instead, he stared past the children towards the doorway. They both turned. There, dressed in black second-skin tight pants, black boots, and a short black leather jacket, stood Kalina.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Hello, Violet.” Kalina entered the room, her footsteps muted by the plush carpeting. Violet wondered why they hadn’t heard her coming down the hall or opening the door. How long had she been there?

  Jack never took his eyes off Kalina as she walked around the furniture, stopping to stand at the opposite end of the sofa closest to Dr. Tesla. Dr. Tesla was the only one not staring at Kalina. He closely watched the interaction between the children instead.

  “Who is this?” Jack asked. “Your shrink?”

  Violet glanced at Jack long enough to show her annoyance, then went back to staring at Kalina who had never taken her own eyes off Violet.

  “She’s my tutor.”

  Dr. Tesla spoke carefully. “Before your diagnosis, when your grades were slipping and you’d become distant, your parents worried, as did Jack’s - as did we all - that perhaps the magic in your souls was emerging. Introducing you to Kalina seemed the best way to get you the help you needed and also watch you more closely.”