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“Not surprising.”
“Why is that not surprising?”
“Because a Vessel would be drawn to the old tongue. You’ll need it as a tool to defend yourself.”
I closed my eyes, shutting him out. I needed a moment to come to grips with all of this. At the same time, I wanted to know more. Something inside itched to understand everything. I opened my eyes. He waited patiently. Watching.
“So,” I sighed, “why would demons want a Vessel? What does that even mean?”
I knew I didn’t want to know the answer. But I’ve always been too curious for my own good. His placid expression tensed with agony for a split second before straightening into a mask of indifference.
“Because once a demon bends a Vessel’s will to his own, he can possess her at any time and control her without interference from the Vessel herself or from a Dominus Daemonum. Her power becomes his power. The demon can commit untold horrors. There are no rules or limits barring what can be done when in possession of a Vessel. Hence, the demons’ attraction to her.”
My heart beat a feverish pattern in my throat. How I found my voice, I do not know.
“Rules?”
“Yes, there are rules.”
“For demons?”
“For demons. For everyone.”
There was more to that statement.
“If I’m a Vessel, why haven’t they been after me my whole life?”
“Because a Vessel willaperioon her twentieth birthday.”
I frowned. “Are you testing my Latin skills?”
He didn’t respond, just waited patiently. I had no patience, rolling my eyes.
“What does that mean that the Vessel willopen?” I emphasized the word so he’d get that I was smarter than he thought. The left side of his lips lifted a fraction, barely a half-smile. “And why on my twentieth birthday?”
“Aperio refers to the very moment you become exactly two decades old.”
I pondered this a second. My mother used to tell me how the full moon brought me early into her arms. I was definitely born at night. In the recovery room lit only by the luminescent globe high in the night sky, she sang to me a lullaby. She had painted this scene as she remembered it. The moment was frozen forever in shades of indigo, blue and pearly white over the mantel at home.
“I can only speculate about the age,” he explained. “In numerology, twenty represents a call for spiritual upheaval, political revolution, or economic reform.”
“That can be bad or good, depending on what the upheaval or revolution is about.”
“Yes. A priest I once knew, an enlightened man, said it represents the source of all energy in the world, but he thought it ominous because it also represented the universal fight.”
“Universal fight? What’s that?”
“War.” His voice dipped low, soft, his obsidian eyes capturing mine.
I didn’t breathe, couldn’t.
An autumn breeze fluttered past, lifting wisps of hair around my neck. I heard leaves scraping along the pavement behind me, but I was transfixed, unable to break away. Someone passed on a bike.
His gaze broke from mine to follow the biker, then he continued. “In Hebrew, this number is represented by the lettercaph, in the form of an opened hand, meaning to seize and to hold.”
“I don’t understand.”
My mind reeled, trying to process everything he was telling me in his easy tone as if talk of universal turmoil was an everyday occurrence. Who am I kidding? Of course, it was.
