Karhi Emelyn

Why had he done that?  What had possessed him to kiss her?  Had it been the surge of adrenaline from putting Saeran in his place? 

He enjoyed Sloane’s company.  They were finally getting on the same page, and they were becoming friends.  It was nice to spend time with someone who understood what it was like to be fucked up, but differently fucked up than himself.  He could talk to his siblings if he needed to rehash similar experiences.  With her . . . there was no sympathy.  Empathy, sure.  But neither of them ever felt sorry for the other.  It was a refreshing relationship that wasn’t quite as barbed as his relationship with Luna.

He knew Sloane liked him—he felt it in their interactions both in how she acted and in the steady tug of her emotions.  He knew they each found each other attractive, too. 

But did the kiss signify something?  Did he want it to?  He was the one who had done it.  He should know!  And yet, he didn’t have a fucking clue.

Soon enough he arrived back at the war room (still a ridiculous name) and had to put the thoughts out of his head.

Inside, it was just Hazel and Aoife looking over the map of the castle.  There were lights all over the buildings and grounds.  Hazel tapped the table when Karhi entered, and the sand collapsed back into tiny dunes and valleys.

“Karhi,” Hazel said, stepping around the table.  “Besides her first and last name, her childhood in Phoenix, her adoption, her grandmother, and her turning—what do you know about Sloane?”

Karhi eyed Hazel.  “Why do you ask?”

“She and her family seem to exist in a very limited sphere in records.  Which I’m sure isn’t all of her own doing,” Hazel said.

“Of course not.”

As a five-century-old vampire, Karhi had connections. After turning Sloane, he’d made sure that her records were pristine, any unnecessary entries deleted.  She no longer had any criminal record—though, that list had taken a long time to rearrange and change.  A few counts of petty theft, one charge of grand larceny, several counts of vandalism, several assault charges, and two charges of grand theft auto.  That last one, they were both filed by the same person, and both dropped. 

Hazel nodded.  “Did you modify any of the information between when she was born and where her mother died?”

Karhi shook his head. 

“In the period of time after she was born, after the birth certificate was written, and the death certificate of her mother was written, there is no record of her.  There exists no record of her elementary school; no record of her grades; no record of her mother claiming her on her taxes.  And pulling on that thread, I found no records of her family past Elizabeth.  It’s as if the Briallen family has been completely eliminated from history—an erased family tree.”

Karhi had noticed the same thing, but he had attributed it to poor record keeping.  There were many immigrants to America with no family lineage.  Elizabeth had been from Sweden.  The 1940s were hectic for immigration and things slipped through the cracks.

It was curious, though.  It almost seemed to be a family trait.  Elizabeth had disappeared after their relationship dissolved.  He only found her through her marriage to Sloane’s grandfather. 

On top of that, Sloane had the ability to disappear off the face of the earth.  Her disappearance to Phoenix two months prior attested to that.

“And her abilities are . . . odd,” Hazel said.  “A linguipath, a—”

“A what?” Karhi interrupted.

Aoife glanced at Karhi, raising an eyebrow.  “Yeah, didn’t you wonder why she knew so many languages?”

“I mean, four languages is quite a few, but I didn’t think much of it since she grew up in a multi-lingual household.” 

Aoife blinked.  “Four?”  She shook her head.  “No, no.  Last I knew, she was at seven?  English, Swedish, Arabic, ASL, Spanish . . . maybe French?”

“And Finnish . . .” he said.  He had known English, Finnish, ASL, and French.  The French came from Mickey and Bell.  He only heard it when she was on the phone with them.  Their parents were from France, he thought?  But now knowing she also spoke Arabic, maybe they were from a French colony like Morocco or Algiers?

“Yeah.  She’s a linguipath.  It doesn’t surprise me that she never mentioned it.  If it couldn’t earn her money—”

“She didn’t care,” Karhi said, rubbing his temples with his fingers.  Of course she would never have mentioned it.  She was infinitely practical and languages, while useful in general, had never been all that useful for her.”

“Exactly.”

“That woman.”

“Absolute pain in the ass,” Aoife agreed.  She looked at Hazel.  “Apologies, my queen.”

“She’s an odd one,” Hazel said, waving the apology off dismissively.  “Anyway, as I was saying, her abilities do not line up in any way.  Linguipath.  Healer.  Cursebreaker.”

Karhi hadn’t really thought about it like that, but, even if he hadn’t known she was a linguipath, it would still be odd.  Any powers, parahuman or vampire, tended to be related.  Mira was a skilled neuropath with multiple abilities, which was rare, but they were related.  She could read minds, use telepathy, control minds, and influence emotions.  She couldn’t do unrelated things, like negate someone’s abilities or turn invisible. 

Vampire abilities similarly had to be related, though multiple abilities were so rare as to be almost unheard of (with the exception of the ‘bae since, as energivores, they worked under different parameters).  Karhi was certain that the only vampire he had heard of with more than one ability was Savita.  She could read minds, use telepathy, and influence emotions.  Most vampires could only do one.

Though Savita was another odd case because typically vampires couldn’t do magic, either, and Savita could.

Sloane’s three abilities were not at all related and didn’t make sense.

“Usually parahuman abilities amplify as vampires.  Though a linguipath wouldn’t really have much to enhance.  It’s a limited power,” Hazel said.  “But as a healer or a cursebreaker?  Those abilities are not quite so limited.  And it doesn’t look like she was particularly powerful as either of those things as a human.”

“Are you familiar with her healing abilities as a human?” Karhi asked.

“I am,” Aoife said.

Hazel nodded, motioning for Aoife to continue.

“It only occurred to me within the past couple days,” she said.  There was a self-deprecating smile on her face.  “I’ve spent centuries with vampires.  To me the ability to heal as quickly as she did wasn’t strange.  But when I reflected, I realized it wasn’t normal.”

It was easy to forget about how human bodies worked.  Karhi had had to reel himself back on his assumptions in the past, even chide himself for hubris.  Apparently he wasn’t the only one.

“Almost six years ago, Mira was pregnant with her child,” Aoife continued.  “I’m sure it surprises no one that Sloane was prickly even as a human.  She had hurt someone’s pride, and he went after her and Mira when he saw them out shopping, I believe.  He held a gun to them and was going to shoot Mira.  Sloane got in the way and pushed Mira out and wound up with a bullet tearing through the flesh of her arm.  It was just a graze.

“I was down at the time with Sevilen.  I had been looking for them, and I came up on the altercation after sniffing out the scent of blood.  I killed the man and helped take Sloane back to Mira’s house and treat the wound.  It just barely missed the bone and the brachial artery.  She was fine, just needed to keep it from getting infected.

“I saw her a year later, not long before she was adopted, and the scar itself was barely even noticeable.  It was there, but not as apparent as it should have been.  I’m sure now it’s probably almost gone, if not completely gone.”

Interesting.  So her healing ability wasn’t drastic.  She wouldn’t survive a fatal blow as a human, but she would recover more quickly after stabilizing.

“Abilities like that,” Hazel said, “minor healing or something like a little extra luck when finding parking spaces or always getting green lights—abilities that don’t rise to parahuman levels, but still have some magic behind them, they get burned off when someone is turned into a vampire.”

Karhi’s brow furrowed.  “Burned off?”  He’d never heard of this, but he also wasn’t very familiar with humans having bits of magic within them that didn’t rise to parahuman levels. 

“There’s a theory that it has to do with how vampires typically don’t have magical abilities.  What I described is like magic that sticks to people just from existing.  Like particularly stubborn bits of lint or fluff.  It’s not linked to someone fundamentally like being a parahuman is.  So, when a human is turned, that magic burns off.”

“That magic burnoff doesn’t have anything to do with the types of powers a vampire gets after they’re turned?” Karhi asked.  Though he couldn’t remember having any ability to make people forget things when he was alive.

“Typically, powers you see are either amplifications of existing parahuman abilities or else they’re random.  There are also some theories that for non-parahumans, the circumstances of their lives as humans can influence it.  For example, Lunette had cystic fibrosis as a human, and it was painful for her.  Her cruciopathy could come from that chronic pain.  But, beyond things like that, vampire powers appear to be random.  Like yours.”

Karhi hadn’t heard this much about magic theory in years.  It wasn’t any easier than he remembered.

“The cursebreaking?” Karhi asked.

“Cursebreaking is another ability that we don’t know a lot about.  It’s rare, and to our knowledge, we haven’t come across it in vampires.  It seems to be an ability purely reserved for other creatures—you see it in the Fey, elves, yokai—things primarily not from the Mortal Realm.”

“Humans?” Karhi asked.

“If so, it wasn’t anything significant enough to be flagged,” Hazel shook her head.

“So . . . what you’re saying is that her healing ability should have burned off, and cursebreaking shouldn’t even be possible.”

“That’s what it amounts to, yes,” Hazel nodded.  “But it seems that the opposite is true for her.  She’s a healer, and her cursebreaking abilities as a vampire are strong enough that they’re breaking down the magic in my castle.”  She rubbed her temple with one hand.  “Savita says that she’s an anomaly to vampires.”

“If it was going to be anyone, it was going to be Sloane,” Aoife muttered.

She wasn’t wrong.

“Aoife?” Hazel said.

“Yes, my Queen.”

“Do you know of Sloane having known any other military generals outsides of yourself prior to her becoming a vampire?”

Aoife’s brow furrowed.  “What?”

Hazel shook her head.  “A joke she made.  Never mind.”  She looked at Karhi.  “Her family history is shrouded in mystery.  She has an innate ability to heal that enhances her vampire healing.  Cursebreaking is an ability that has never been seen in a vampire.  She has soulsilver.  She is Free.  If Savita hadn’t been in her head not an hour ago, I would currently be evaluating if she was a threat to my house.”

Karhi bristled, ready to argue, but Hazel held up a hand.  “However, Savita was in her head and determined that she is in the dark like the rest of us as to what combination of events led her to this.  She wants to turn Alice and leave, which is all we want, as well.”

Karhi let that mollify him, but it left him tired.  He wanted to leave, too.  But he had a job to do that . . . wait.  “Hazel,” he said.  “Why wasn’t I involved in the remaining interrogations?”

“Ah,” she said.  “Yes.  I learned that Faren and Mira’s abilities are more well-suited to each other.  Your fuscopathy is excellent for interrogations but they pair together with less work.”

That did make sense.  Faren was an empath, like Karhi’s brother Zeren, though dialed up to eleven.  And Mira was powerful.  They would probably be better suited together.  And it got him out of interrogation duty, too.  “Fair enough.”

“Yeah, we had to—oh.”  Hazel stopped, caught off guard.  Then she chuckled.  “When you get used to justifying your decisions to people with egos in play, it’s always disorienting to work with someone confident in their own abilities.”

“Having an ego has rarely gotten me anywhere pleasant.”

Hazel started to say something, but before she could, her phone went off.  She checked it before saying, “Lavender has results.”

They went back to the kitchens.  As they walked in, they found Faolan on his way out.  When he saw them, he bowed to Hazel.  “Your majesty.”

“Faolan,” Hazel said.  “I needed to talk to you anyway.  If you’re not in the middle of anything, would you accompany us?”

“Of course, your majesty.  I was looking for the Princess.  I thought she might be here.”

“I think she’s with Cyly,” she said.  “She wanted to be around for Alice waking up.”

“She’s not.  She left to get something to eat.  It’s fine, we probably just missed each other when she was on her way back.  I can accompany you.  It wasn’t pressing.”

They went into the kitchens again.  Faolan waved at some of the people working at the prep stations. 

The walked into the lab to find Lavender working at a computer on one side of the room, close to the fume hood.  She looked up when they entered.  “Have you found Benjamin Forest?” she asked.  She looked exhausted.  It had only been a few hours since they saw her.  What had happened?

“No,” Aoife said.  “I have the castle scouring for him, but we have found neither hide nor hair of him.  The room that he was staying in is sparsely furnished, and the bed doesn’t even seem to have been slept in.  Amara doesn’t have any leads, either.”

“If he ever existed,” Lavender growled.

“Lavender, I have spoken with him.  As have many of your own employees.  I apologize for my oversight, and we’ll put precautions in place to prevent this in the future, but it’s also not something we’ve encountered before.”

“Ben Forest?” Faolan said.

Everyone turned to look at him at once. 

“Do you know him?” Lavender demanded, standing up as if to lunge at him before holding herself back.

Faolan eyed Lavender warily.  “Yeah, of course.  He and I are friends—his first child, Siobhan, is also halfvampire and I grew up with her.  It’s how he got into nutrition to begin with since Siobhan had so many allergies when she was a kid.  But he’s been on vacation with Siobhan mountain-climbing in Chile since . . .”  He thought for a second.  “Whenever Amara got back from that mission.  He’s not back yet.”

“I saw him myself last week,” Aoife said.

Faolan shook his head.  “I received an e-mail from Siobhan yesterday with pictures of Ben and her mom, his wife, next to an alpaca.  They’re still on vacation.  They’re due back in Ireland after the New Year.  You can double check with his boss, Dr. MacPherson, since she would know best, having approved his time off, but that’s what I know.”

“We need to put Amara under immediate protection,” Hazel said, looking at Aoife.  “Please find her and make sure it’s done.”

Aoife nodded.  “Of course, your majesty.”  She left without a word.

“Lavender, you called me saying you had results on the blood,” Hazel said.  She didn’t look concerned, but Karhi knew from the tightness around her eyes that she wanted to move quickly.

Lavender, who had been quietly fuming in the corner, seemed to deflate.  “Yes.  I tested the blood to see if we could find any remnants of DNA indicating there was a gelled capsule used to release the dead man’s blood into the healthy, regular blood.  I could not find anything like that.  I did find some vegetal DNA, but that’s it.”

“Vegetal,” Hazel repeated, brow furrowing.  “What does that mean?”

Lavender shook her head.  “It means we’re back at square one.  We don’t know how the dead man’s blood got into the prince’s drink.”

“Wait,” Faolan said.  “Can you explain what you were looking for?”

Lavender looked annoyed, but she explained what their early conversations had included, regarding Karhi suggesting that a pill capsule had dispersed the blood.  “But there’s no DNA to suggest a capsule.  Those would have bovine or porcine DNA.”

“What about for the vegetarians?” Faolan asked.

Lavender looked at Faolan like he was stupid.  “We do not allow any unturned vampires to eat vegetarian diets.”

“I know,” Faolan said, voice sharp but not quite angry.  “But vampire children are not the only people who use these capsules.  In Ireland, we have staff that are human, too, that we make medicine for.  We have capsules made from vegetable products because typical capsules are not vegetarian.  And even on top of that, those capsules are not halal or kosher.”

Lavender’s mouth snapped shut.

Faolan raised an eyebrow.  “You’re saying you don’t have any Muslim or Jewish people in this castle?”

Lavender didn’t have a good reply to that.

“Wait . . . is Amara Muslim?” Karhi asked.  She was Egyptian—there was a large chance the answer was yes.

“Yes,” Faolan said.  “And she makes sure all the food she eats is halal . . .”  He trailed off, eyes widening.

“Does she need pill capsules?” Karhi asked. 

Faolan pressed his lips together tightly and nodded.

“That she presumably brought from Ireland when she came out here?”

“No,” Hazel said, her voice a harsh whisper.

Karhi looked at Hazel.  Her eyes were wide with horror.

“What?” Karhi said.

“She can’t be the one behind this.”

“But . . . she would have the best resources to trick us,” Faolan said, looking at Hazel.  He didn’t look as stunned as Hazel, but he certainly seemed unsettled.  “I don’t know why she would do this.  But she would be the best equipped, considering her . . .”

Hazel pressed her hands to her temples.  “No.  We took her and her sister in after their parents were killed.  She wouldn’t.  She’s been—”

“Your majesty,” Faolan interrupted.  “All due respect, but we need to find her and put her somewhere safe.  We can figure out the rest of the specifics afterwards.”

“What’s so special about her?” Lavender asked. 

Hazel shook her head.  “That information is confidential.  I need to alert Aoife.  I also need to move Alice and my son.  If something is going on, Alice is a ripe target.  Lavender, I need you with Alice.”

“Yes, my queen,” Lavender said.  All of her shortness and frustration from earlier was gone. 

“Please keep it very quiet,” Hazel replied.  “I don’t want to ring an unnecessary alarm, but something isn’t right.”

“Yes, of course, my queen.”  Lavender bowed and left.

Hazel looked at Faolan, who was rapidly typing something on his phone.  “Faolan.  I need you to get Sevilen.”

“I have already texted Sevilen to meet me in the armoury, my queen,” Faolan said, not looking up from his phone.  “Where is his Majesty?”

“He was checking on some fortifications.  I will have him meet you in the armoury.”

Faolan nodded.  “Thank you, my queen.”  And then he was gone.

Karhi noticed how quickly things had changed from “your majesty” to “my queen”.  It reminded Karhi that when it came to serious matters, Hazel’s subjects trusted her judgments.  And Hazel trusted that her subjects would do what she asked without needing oversight.

“Karhi,” Hazel said.  “I would like you to stay with me for now.”  She started walking towards the lab door.

“Of course.  Where are we going?”

“I need to pull Faren and have him mobilize the ‘bae.  I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t have a good feeling about all of this.  We may need to prepare for a fight.”