The Silent Soldiers Read online

turned and headed down the stairs. We entered the great room and noticed Ava was already there waiting on us. The three of us joined them at the large table. Grandpa introduced each one of us to Dakota and we in turn shook his hand. I noticed immediately how cold his skin was.

  Grandpa continued once the introductions were done, “This is Dakota Gazini. Dakota has transferred here from a coven located in Nigeria. He is one of the best archers the supernatural world has ever seen.”

  “My master turned me after he found out I was so good at what I do. My skills have only gotten better since I was turned,” Dakota said with a grin.

  “Dakota has agreed to live here with us at the mansion, and to join the Silent Soldiers. We have been in negotiations with his coven for several months now. I know you will all get along great. How old are you now, Dakota?” Grandpa asked.

  “I was fifteen when I was turned. I have been a vampire for 20 years now. That would make me thirty-five,” Dakota said as he added up the years.

  “Starting tomorrow at sunset the five of you will begin training as a group. You will be entered into the security system for headquarters in which you will be able to come and go as you please. Dakota can only train and work at night as you all know. I will meet you all here tomorrow night precisely at sunset. We have a lot to go over so please do not be late,” Grandpa said, “Ava, if you will please show Dakota to his room. He will be staying next door to you and your mother.”

  Grandpa bid his goodbyes to the group and left us alone in the great room to get acquainted with Dakota. Once I gave grandpa plenty of time to be out of hearing distance I set in to tell Dakota everything we knew so far. I told him about each of our powers, and what we were planning to do to figure out about Ava and Matts’. I told him what we knew about our first mission and the location of the Koichi Sword, and the location of the entrance to where it was being held.

  As soon as we had Dakota up to speed I asked Ava,

  “Did you talk to your mom?”

  “I did. She has agreed to help. I was right that she would rather be there to help than for me to do it on my own,” she said.

  “Let’s get started, shall we?” I asked.

  “Mom is going to meet us out in the garden. She is probably there waiting on us now. She is bringing the supplies we need,” said Ava. We walked out to the garden. Rachel was there just as Ava had predicted. Rachel had candles placed around in a circle and was in the process of sitting out other things in different locations around the circle. When she noticed we were there she told Matt to move into the center of the circle. She told us to spread out around the outside edge of the circle, and we spaced out equal distances apart. She walked into the circle to stand next to Matt.

  “Ava has told me you don’t know what your special power is, and has requested we try a revealing spell. I want you to close your eyes and focus on what it is that you want the spell to reveal. Focus only on that thought. I will cast the spell and hopefully it will reveal your power to us,” Rachel explained to Matt. I watched as Matt closed his eyes, and Rachel began chanting. Rachel moved around the circle as she chanted and spoke in a language I had never heard. As she walked to each of the candles and chanted they each lit in turn. When all of the candles were lit she turned toward Matt and said a short series of words directed toward him.

  The air around Matt began to fill with smoke. In a second he was completely concealed by the thickness of it. Rachel backed up to the edge of the circle because the smoke surrounding Matt began to get bigger. A few seconds later the smoke blew away as if a gust of wind had come through that exact area and Matt was gone. A huge dragon was standing right where Matt had just been.

  I immediately changed to my wolf form having an idea of what had happened to Matt.

  “MATT!” I screamed.

  “What the hell is going on?” I heard Matt say in my head.

  “Man, I don’t really know how to explain this, but you changed into a dragon,” I said as Matt began to turn around in circles trying to look at himself. Everyone in the circle had to drop to the ground as Matt’s long dragon tail began to whip around in circles over their head. “Calm down, Matt, before you take somebody’s head off with that tail of yours,” I said with a laugh. Matt calmed down and looked down at everybody as he towered above them. I stood and watched him as he spread out an enormous pair of wings. In a flash he shot into the sky.

  I heard him yell “Woo Hoo!” as he went out of sight into the night above our heads. We all watched in shocked disbelief.

  13

  “Matt! Where are you going?” I yelled after him.

  “Man you’re going to have to give me a few minutes to test this thing out,” he said.

  “Well don’t be long we have other business to take care of,” I told him. I looked up to find that everyone had shifted their focus on me since Matt had flown out of sight. I quickly changed back to my human form and began to explain that Matt had indeed changed into the dragon. I told them as I started to laugh about what he told me about trying it out. They all started laughing with me. A few minutes later I heard the beating of wings over head and turned to look toward the sound. Everyone looked back up to the sky as Matt let out a huge ball of fire from his mouth that lit up the whole sky. Matt made his descent slowly back to the ground and landed a few feet outside of the garden. We watched in amazement as he changed back to his normal self.

  “That was awesome!” He yelled after he changed.

  “The question is, Matt, can you still change to your wolf form, and can you change into the dragon again?” Rachel asked with great concern. We watched as Matt changed to wolf form and back to human form. Next he changed to dragon form and again back to human. To our amazement he even changed to wolf form and then immediately changed to dragon and back to human.

  “I think I’ve got it under control,” he said as we stared with our mouths hanging open.

  “Now that we have that taken care of, let’s move on to our second order of business,” I said, “Let’s see if we can summon this Callan, or whatever it is Ava called it.

  “This ritual to summon the power of Callan is definitely no easy task. It will take the concentration and focus of every person here in order to make this work. This is a very difficult and dangerous ritual. This will require a certain touch of dark magic to work, and I don’t generally deal with dark magic,” Rachel explained.

  Rachel told us to reform the circle. This time Ava was in the center and Matt was part of the circle. Rachel handed each of the four of us a candle to hold. She explained what each candle represented. She started at the first candle and said a few words and the candle lit. Next she moved counter-clockwise around the circle. Each time she came to a candle she said something in a language unknown to any of us and the candles lit. Once the last candle was lit, I began to feel a warm tingling feeling all over my body. She explained that the circle was now cast, and that we should remain in the circle regardless of what happened from then on.

  Next Rachel told us to concentrate on Ava. She told us to completely clear our mind and focus only on her. Ava began chanting at this point and the feeling we had slowly began to strengthen. As Ava got louder with the words she was speaking, the tingling grew stronger until it almost felt as though our bodies were vibrating. We continued to watch and focus as Ava’s head dropped forward as if she had fallen asleep where she stood.

  Everyone stared at Ava in anticipation except for me. I was too busy looking at the wolf’s tooth necklace hanging around my neck. I stared in awe as it glowed with a brilliant blue light radiating from the center of the blue sphere. Slowly Ava began to rise up into the air as if she was being pulled up by invisible ropes. She rose until her feet were several inches off the ground. Seconds later there was a flash of blue light. The light was so bright that all we could see was the light itself.

  When the light disappeared we noticed Ava was lying on the ground in the center of the circle. My first instinct was to ru
n to her, but Rachel anticipated this and yelled for us not to move. I looked back down and noticed the blue glow to my necklace had went out and was its normal sky blue smoke swirling around. Rachel started with the first candle and said something and blew it out. She continued around the same way she had lit them in the beginning until they were all out. She explained to us that the circle was now closed, and the ritual was complete. I dropped my candle and ran to Ava’s side. Rachel joined me next to her daughter. As Ava began to wake up we helped her sit up, and then helped her to her feet.

  “The back of my neck and my back are burning like crazy,” She said as she began to rub her neck. Rachel moved around to Ava’s back and lifted her shirt a little. We all gasped as we noticed Ava’s back. Thin black lines began to make swirling patterns up the middle of her back. I looked a little closer and realized it was a tattoo of vines with tiny little thorns all over. Beautiful little purple roses were forming along the vines that ran all the way from the bottom of her back up to the base of her skull.

  “The ritual was a success,” said Rachel proudly. It was getting rather late by this time, and we were all pretty tired from all of the excitement. That is everyone except for Dakota. The only time vampires are tired is when the sun begins to rise. We all