"Hey! Back off, fiery witch from hell! You think I like this? You think I like running from magical beings?" I snapped at her and then ran a hand through my hair. She wasn't the only one on edge. "You said that my friends would've died if we hadn't left. Why? What would've happened?"
"When he tried to drain you, you would've defended yourself. You still don't know your powers. Your reaction would have been stronger than you wanted and would have not only killed him, but your friends too. I stopped it from happening. I stopped him from figuring out who you are, at least until we can figure out how to blanket your powers to him."
"Oh! So I can go back?" At her dark look, I added, "Sometime?"
Saren rolled her eyes. They looked like sparklers waving in the air. Then she stalked off with her leather-clad legs rubbing against each other.
I took in the sight of her black hair flowing behind her, sleek and shiny with her blue leather outfit. "You look like a superhero right now. Did you go for that on purpose?"
She sighed in disgust. The blue leather transformed into a black-colored outfit. The fabric was loose and seemed to flow behind her, billowing in the wind. She kept going.
"Can I do that? Can you show me how to do that?"
She barked over her shoulder, "We have work to do."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
"Not to be a nag, but where are we going?" I followed behind Saren as we walked down another set of streets. We'd been walking in circles for the last hour. I wasn't sure if she was aware of the attention she was attracting dressed like a rich person in the back streets that accumulated the back street type of person. A few homeless. A few drunks. More than a few illegal activities were going on around us.
Saren kept trudging around and cursed underneath her breath.
She whipped back to me now. "What do you think I'm doing? I'm mixing your scent with all these other things. He's good. He's going to be able to pick your scent out of all these places, but I want him confused."
"I get that, but where are we going? Shouldn't we go?"
She rolled her eyes. "You are so human, it annoys." Then she grabbed my hand and we were whisked into another teleport. When we stopped, I looked around and saw only cement floors. There were no windows, just open areas in brick walls. A tree had grown in the corner of our room with vines that climbed up the wall and onto the ceiling. A few flowers intermingled among the vines.
"Where are we? Is this some magical place?"
"It's an abandoned castle, used by a coven that was killed off in the early 1800s." Saren left for another room.
I followed, wide eyed. "Castle? Are you serious? I didn't think we had castles in America."
She stopped and glanced over her shoulder. "We're not in America anymore."
My eyes went even wider. "What?"
Then she kept going, down some steps that looked like they had been put together with brick and cement by hand.
"Where are we?"
"It doesn't matter." She strode through another opening and then paused before an altar. A moment later, she lit candles on it. A banner hung from it with a sign that looked like a hand surrounded with weaving loops of rope. A tiny blade of grass grew out of the middle of the hand.
"What does that mean?"
Saren stopped and looked where I pointed. The hand seemed to turn till it was pointed at me. It looked like it was stretched for my hand to take it in a hold. Her voice was quiet. "It's the sign of the Immortal."
"The sign of me?"
"No. It's the sign of its creator, the true essence of the Immortal, what created it from the thread."
I swallowed. "You told me before not to talk to Blue. Then before that, I was told that Jacith wasn't the real creator. The vampires all think he is. They think he's some super powerful. I don't know, but Roane told me before that Jacith created the Immortal. What's the real story?"
Saren watched me for a moment and then the air circled around her. It picked up speed and her eyes gleamed. Dust picked up from her feet and moved upwards. It covered her entire body until I couldn't see her through it. Then it stopped and everything fell back in place.
Saren didn't look like Saren anymore. The black hair was gone. The fire eyes had been replaced with soft almond ones. The black outfit was now a white robe wrapped around her body. Her hair was a golden wheat color, braided in crowns on top of her head. She smiled and I knew then this was not Saren.
"My name is Sireenia. I am a sister to Saren and Stepianhas, your last guide."