Drown Under Earth - Shadows of the Night 3

Chapter 31

Hi!

Anna's trying to find a way out of the mess she's in. Will she be successful? See for yourselves! Read, vote, comment if you like! :-)

Lara

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Chapter 31

I awoke in a tangled mass of sheets, a damp layer of sweat on my forehead and nape. Another nightmare. The very end of the dream was rounded off with the death of my parents. I watched them die, crouched in the stuffiness of the wardrobe I was hiding in back then.

When the vampire, their murderer, turned around, however, I found myself staring at a huge black bird's head. A raven, to be exact. Its beady, pitch-black eyes were watching me with a sort of indifference I had only ever seen in nature. Somehow I knew that its intentions were neither good, nor bad. I remembered my dream-self thinking that it had no intentions. It simply existed.

If the dream had less sense of reality, I would have congratulated my subconscious to its extraordinary accomplishment and reflected about the incredible imaginative capacities of my mind in awed silence. As it was I couldn't do that.

I pulled the white cloth of the blanket to me, thinking. We had a vampiric killer on the loose. It wouldn't take many more deaths and New Yorkers of all living races would go to the barricades. Then we would all find ourselves on the verge of a new war. The incident in the Red Zone was only a foretaste of what could come soon.

On top of that, I was being observed by flunkies of Raphael Medici, who was about to put his plan to murder Alexander into reality, with my help.

If this went on any longer, the twin problems of the murder case and the Raven's blackmail would tear me apart. I threw the blanket to the side in a rash movement. I was through with laying low and waiting for something to happen. I had to come up with something, and I better be fast.

* * *

The cappuccino didn't taste as good as anticipated. I went over what little of my plan of action I put together so far. Apart from his ridiculously high power level, the Raven's main forte was to pop up and take his targets by surprise. His greatest strength was simultaneously his greatest weakness and my chance to catch him: I knew that he was going to attack Alexander, and I knew when – and soon enough where – he was going to make his move. I had to make use of that.

I recapitulated. As far as I could see, there were only two reasons the Raven had been able to avoid being captured for so many years. One, he was a powerful witch that could sense other magical beings' auras exceptionally well and in a wide radius. Two, he was a brilliant strategist. He never put himself in a situation that was likely to end in his arrest, making unexpectedness, the famous 'moment of surprise,' his secret weapon. Combined, those two trademarks made the rogue witch practically invincible. What was more, they showed that there was a cunning mind behind this mask of a maniac. Apparently he was not as deranged as I thought he was. My plan had to be elaborate enough to deceive him.

I had one more advantage that I could make use of: the fact that Raphael missed a small, but significant detail. He turned to me, guessing that I was eager to get rid of the head vampire of New York myself, and manipulated me into assisting him to kill Alexander. However, he did it without knowing about my bond with the head vampire. As much as I wished for its nonexistence, it was a factor I couldn't neglect. I could damn well make use of it, for once.

So far so good, I thought, sipping another hot mouthful of coffee.

The tough part was about to come. Raphael overlooked a vital piece of information. I wasn't going to make the same mistake. I needed more information on how to best the rogue witch, and there was only one person I could think of that I could ask without risking to bring the Circle's attention on me: Giuliana.