Chapter 126Of Drinks and Treasure

The others were around me, looking at the mold in my hand and the book in Nuru's hand. Afentis looked thoughtful, as if already pondering how to use this mold to make the key. Faith giggled softly until she got the backpack off her shoulders and opened it again. She put both in gently, making sure the mold wasn't damaged and wrapped a scarf around it.

"Do you want these as well?" Faith said with her hand motioning toward the other objects.

I nodded. "Yes, even if only to see if they're relevant. Got enough room in that backpack?"

Faith giggled. "They'll fit."

Afentis stepped forward. "Pouring molds is not easy. And I don't think tin will be strong enough to make a key that small out of."

I tried to get my mind around his words. "You mean making the key ourselves?"

He nodded. "But I don't think we can. Though with patience I might know a way."

The possibility of doing it myself hadn't even entered my mind yet. But now it did. It would be wonderful to make the key myself and possibly even keep the key with me. I loved to work with my hands, making stuff when I had to in school. And now it didn't matter if I did something clumsily. Well, less anyway.

My head was feeling light, I wondered why. The thoughts in my head were swimming around, barely keeping attached to a single subject for more than a few seconds. I usually didn't have a problem focussing, but now it felt as if everything just slipped away. I wanted to take the next step, to see if there were any other places in here with anything still left.

I wobbled on my feet, Nuru grabbed me and held me steady.

"You must drink." She whispered in my ear. It was loud enough to echo in the silence.

Faith and Afentis kept quiet, feeling this was not for them to meddle with. And worst of all, Nuru was right. I did need blood. And the focus I had needed to move the trajectory of that stone had pulled the last strength from me. I was standing on willpower alone. I had to listen to her.

Nuru guided me down, sitting on her knees and holding me in her arms. "It's alright, Miss Amy. My blood is yours to take."

I shook my head. "No... It's yours to give."

But my instincts took over. It felt different, so very different.

She offered her neck knowingly and willingly. My sharp teeth piercing the skin without so much as a whisper from her lips. But I didn't bite deep. The blood flowed very slowly, like a wide, easy river. From the depths of her heart to mine. And it was warm. So much warmer than I had ever felt before. It's sweetness dragged me into a dark abyss, an embrace of velvet silence to cover my senses.

Time passed more quickly. Each of her slow heartbeats gave me a little more blood. But it was so slow it would last forever. Footsteps passed me by and nearly didn't make it through the noise of bliss.

The moment came where I had to let go. It felt natural, I had enough. The blood filled me much more than it ever did before. Was it the slowness, the richness. Was it her?

I let go, scratching my tongue a little to heal her wounds. She felt weary for a moment but stood up, together with me. She had changed, appearing more like we found her, though her eyes looked less glazed over.

Now she was doing the same as me a few moments ago. Holding herself up.

Faith finally moved and got another bottle out of her backpack. It looked thicker than the other one, it was a breakfast drink or something. Nuru took it gently and opened it after two tries. She drank greedily but didn't spill a drop. She looked better when she handed the bottle back to Faith. Still a bit weak but at least some of the fire had returned to her eyes.

I hadn't moved. Her blood burned in my veins with a gentle warming flame. The place looked much brighter all of a sudden, the sharp shadows of Faith's torch a lovely play on the walls. There was nothing else in this room. Not even a lot of dust.

Afentis supported Nuru a little when we moved out of the room. I felt very intense and wanted to finish up our search as quickly as possible. The Abbey was larger than I had expected, but there was nothing to see. Mostly nothing but empty rooms with no more than a desk or a bed.

We found a single roll of parchment in one of the rooms that wasn't in too horrible a state. Still, it was unreadable to me.

Latin.

Afentis promised to translate it later. We didn't have anywhere to keep it, so I just held on to it, searching through the last few rooms. The blood calmed down a little through those minutes passing. We must have spend another hour down there until we decided together that we had searched all.

Three pairs of vampire eyes looking around were not likely to miss anything.

After we headed back up the spiral stairs we came to an interesting problem. Would we leave the opening like this?

Afentis frowned. "I think I could cover it with rubble. It wouldn't be completely invisible. But it should be enough."

I smiled. "Thanks. We'll go back to the castle."

Faith carried most of Nuru's weight when we slowly hovered up and headed for the castle. The air was colder now, it felt as if it was going to rain later tonight. The ground below looked only mildly damp, no rain had fallen yet today. There was a promise of downpour hanging around though. Nuru smiled gently as we carried her to the castle. She didn't look too bad, but she looked very tired. How much had she slept while researching all the information from the books.

When we arrived at the castle, in a sort of common agreement, Faith and I walked her to my room. We put her on the bed after gently removing her dress, keeping her almost antique underwear on her. There were no complaints from her, she just moved like a robot, letting us do our work to help her to bed.

Faith smiled as we saw her to sleep. She entered her dreamland so quickly we could both see she needed it.

"You know" Said Faith. "She's more of a treasure than anything else we found there."