Myrddin's Magic - Book One of the Magic Trilogy

Chapter Fourteen

Amalie was nervous walking into the boardroom at Merlin Enterprises that evening. Although she had Killian beside her, she was a little overwhelmed to know that she was meeting twenty different vampires. She thought back to her conversation with her mother, and wondered what her mother would have thought if she knew what was really going on. Somehow, she didn't think that her mother would be very impressed with Killian's desire to use her as bait.

Killian took a seat at the head of the table, and he seated Amalie beside him. The other vampires in the room stopped talking to each other and looked at Amalie. Her face burned red in embarrassment, and she got out a pen and paper to take notes. "You don't have to, cariad", said Killian. "We don't minute these meetings." Her face flushed even brighter, and Killian smiled at her, reached out his hand and smoothed his thumb across her cheekbone. "You'll be fine", he said.

"How did you know I was nervous?" she whispered to Killian.

"Easy", he said. "You smell of fear. And there is no point in hushing me, cariad, since every vampire in this room knows what you whispered to me. Do I need to remind you that vampires have excellent senses of hearing?"

Amalie turned red again.

Killian introduced each of the vampires to Amalie. There were so many of them that Amalie knew she would never keep their names straight. She wished that she could write down their names so that she could remember them, but since she wasn't taking minutes at the meeting, she decided that it didn't matter if she got Brandon mixed up with Patrick, or Victoria with Priscilla.

"Everyone", said Killian in a louder voice as everyone turned away from their perusal of Amalie. "For those of you who don't know, fifteen hundred years ago a seer gave me a prophecy. In this vision, she told of a war that would happen, a war between good and evil. She said that the outcome of this war would affect the way that the Otherworldies would live their lives. She also said that there would be a woman who is part fay, part shifter who would play an important part in this war. The seer told me how to recognize the woman. That time for war has now come, and that woman who the seer had identified is sitting in front of us. Her name is Amalie Le Beau and, for anyone who is interested, she is now under my protection."

"What is this war?" asked Patrick, a master vampire who had been adopted by Killian over five hundred years before.

Killian overviewed what they had discovered about the rogue vampires, talking about what they were doing and, perhaps more importantly, what they wanted to do. "While I agree that living a life where we are hiding our true nature isn't the preferred option, making humans our slaves isn't the way to get ourselves accepted into the mainstream."

"I wasn't alive fifteen hundred years ago", said Brandon, "but I've heard that vampires and other supernatural creatures were accepted. Is that true?"

"Yes. Back when I was turned, vampires, fairies and shifters were accepted members of society. I chose to become a vampire because I wanted to live a long life and to build upon the knowledge that I had already learned. It was a conscious decision that many of my friends and I made. Since then, Christianity became the norm in many cultures and with Christianity came a fear of those who didn't die, like vampires; who didn't have Christ's body shape at all times, like shifters; or, who had powers and magic above and beyond what Christ had, like the fay. So, with the acceptance of Christianity came a fear of the supernatural. While we have become popular with current pop culture..."

"We sparkle!" said Brandon as the rest of the vampires laughed. Amalie smiled herself. She had also read the popular book trilogy which depicted vampires as having glittery skin.