“Do you remember your name?” her accented voice echoes.
You pause. “Cristina Nichols…”
The brick walls drip, the torchlight flickers. You stand half in and half out of this final vision as the luminous black, green, and red lines churn over the dungeon’s rough-hewn bricks.
Kanesae is showing you, and now you understand that this is what she’s been doing all along…
She’s never looked more real, more flesh, than at this moment. She’s dressed fully in her black habit now, her face aglow in the white wimple, her fangs shiny as diamonds.
“Do you remember back at the house?”
You slowly shake your head.
“The ruse worked,” Kanesae informs. “Thanks to selfishness and greed—the hallmarks of humanity.”
You see now, the upper room. Paul drinking the flagon’s precious blood himself.
“It was not the blood of the Prince in the flagon. That was the secret.”
Your eyes widen, and you see…the past.
You see Kanesae in this chamber so long ago. On the stone slab she is cutting the head off of a dog, and draining its blood into the flagon.
“Then…where did you hide the Prince’s blood?” you ask.
Kanesae grins. “In me, and that’s where it’s been, for thirteen lifetimes. Until now.”
You look down at your belly, which feels full and hot inside. The two men at the hospital were but tidbits, while your first meal proved the most paramount.
More of the vision pours into your mind. You see Kanesae so long ago gashing the throat of the man on the slab, letting his blood flow into the chalice, then gulping it down. Then she shows you what you did at the house: Kanesae cutting her own wrist and filling the chalice with what gushed out.
And handing the chalice to you.
“The diversion succeeded,” she says, “just as the Prince whispered it would so many centuries ago…”
You stare at her.
“The past is done.”
The weaving colors fade—
“All that awaits is the future, its darkness like ripe fruit set out for us…For you.”
—and then the vision dissolves and you’re back on the streets of this monolithic city in the middle of a hot, star-filled night.
You can hear every heart beat.
Kanesae leads you through alleys and byways, through black streets and across rooftops, and then…up a stairwell.
She pauses at the landing and smiles. Is there a tear in the nun’s eye? “Me enamourer ad infinitum …”
You look back at her. You suddenly feel strong, audacious, and without fear.
“Do you remember your name, my love?”
“Drwglya,” you breathe.
“Let us begin…”
You turn to face the door in the hallway that reads FREDRICK, and you raise your hand to knock.