Chapter 21: 21__A mind like a maze

*The darkness was thick, the single streak of light in it going in and out of focus several times. Rogan tried to keep his eyes open, tried to see through the dark. The space he was in was tiny, suffocating him even as he tried to draw breath.*

*What was that streak of light? Raising his hand, he reached out for it. Cold wood stopped his fingers. Stunned, Rogan looked at his fingers. They were little. Far smaller than he’d thought they’d been for the past few centuries.*

*Shaking his dizziness away, he looked back at the streak of light and finally, he understood. The darkness, the light, his hand. He was back here. Six centuries ago.*

*In the closet.*

*Gasping for breath, the child in the closet tried to find escape. Lost in the darkness and looking for a way to make the streak of light, the gap in the closet a little bigger. To Rogan, twisting and turning in tumultuous sleep in his bed, it felt like his soul were trying to escape his body. He jerked around, held captive in his mind. Dragged back to the one day he wishes he could erase from his memory.*

*His mind filled with the images, making him tremble both in and out of the dream. He hated this dream. He’d had it hundreds of times and he still hated it like he were seeing it for the first time.*

*He clenched his jaw in rage. He would change it. He could change it!*

*If he only got out of this closet, things would end differently!*

*His fingers clawed at the wooden door, but they didn’t open.*

*His mother. His beautiful, lovely, powerful Enchantress of a mother. She’d locked him in. She’d sealed him in with a spell that his young, inexperienced magic couldn’t break.*

*He wanted to protect her, but she’d sealed him in here, leaving him helpless to stop what would happen next.*

*All movement ceased when it began. The moment he dreaded the most.*

*“Give him to me!” sounded the roar through the little forest home where Rogan lived with his mother.*

*With his heart clenching in that old fear, that old panic he knew the taste of, the child clambered against the door of closet, one eye peaking desperately through that thin gap.*

*“Give him to me!”*

*The child froze.*

*“Mother,” was always the whisper that left his mouth. With a paled face, he stared.*

*He saw her though the gap. Saw her bruised face, her wildly tousled golden-blonde hair and the power she held in her hands. She stumbled before her enemy, but didn’t give up. Raising her hands, aglow with purple power, she attacked him.*

*The child in the closet tensed with hope as he always did. Hope that was always shattered moments later when the enemy, breaking through the Enchantress’s weakened power, threw her against the room, breaking her last defences.*

*“Give me my son, Donna!” the man roared again, sweeping a table clean with his arms so that everything went clattering loudly to the floor.*

*That was the moment the child always stilled, his heartbeat skipping in his chest.*

*Son. Son? But… Rogan had never had a father.*

*Through the gap in the closet, he watched a man step before his mother, his hand reaching for her throat. His black hair glistened like a raven’s, curling to his neck and his crystal blue eyes were sharp. Evil.*

*“Give him to me, Donna. I’ll be damned if I let a son of mine, a son of a Vampire King, grow up practicing magic like a common wizard. Give him to me!”*

*“You don’t want him!” his mother screamed, her black eyes filled with pain. Her voice was sharp but brittle, torn from her throat, made raw with tears.*

*A fear clutched his heart and the child knew it was coming. What he hated to see was coming and he’d see it again.*

*“I don’t want you,” the Vampire King said.*

*“Darrius—”*

*“You should have told me you were a witch!” He growled, grasping her throat tightly. “You lied! Give me my son! I want him, not you!”*

*“He’s a part of me! My magic is in him!”*

*The words were the last thing she’d said. The swirling black eye peeking through the gap in the closet widened. A fat tear drop ran slowly down from its swirling depths and over a quivering cheek as the child stared. Stared as darkness triumphed over light.*

*Crimson blood sprayed across the room in an arch as the graceful curve of the Enchantress’s neck was ripped out, her life snatched by the hand of a Vampire King.*

*The Vampire King she’d loved.*

**********

Rogan jerked awake, his heartbeat like the sound of horse hooves in his chest. Dragging ragged breathes into his starved lungs, he looked dazedly about him, hands clutching the bedsheets.

His hands rose, dragging through his tousled hair as he tried to steady his breathing.

It was okay. It was fine. It was just a dream. He’d dreamt that a hundred times, once more was no big deal.

“It’s fine,” he whispered, breathing harshly in the dark. “It’s fine, it’s fine. Just a fucking dream…”

Throwing the covers to the side, Rogan got out of bed, feeling cool air blow over his overheated body.

Grabbing one end of his shirt, he pulled it off and dropped the wet garment to the floor. That image from his dream lingered in his mind and he shook his head furiously. His mother, her neck gashed open—

“Urrgghnn!” Rogan groaned savagely, clutching his face tightly as he struggled to erase the image. “Fuck you, Darrius!” He growled quietly, wishing his father were still alive so he could kill him again. Once wasn’t enough. That bastard deserved to die over and again for what he did to Rogan’s mother.

His teeth grinding, he stalked out of his chambers, heading for the kitchen. He’d drink a potion to stop the tremors and prepare for the pain.

The pain always came. After a dream in which he saw both his parents, Rogan felt the most excruciating pain tear through his body. He was convinced it was the Sorcerer and the Vampire in him warring for dominance. Clearly no one had won yet since he still experienced the pain of their war.

Tossing his hair to the side, Rogan rubbed a hand through the damp locks as he walked through his dark house.

He paused a moment, one foot on the staircase. Something occurred to him and Rogan frowned in thought.

How had he woken up?

Usually when he accidentally fell asleep, he was sucked into his mind and only spat back out in the early hours of the morning. If he’d managed to escape his mind before the part of the nightmare where Darrius dragged him out of the closet played out then… He titled his head. Something woke him up.

Rogan took a slow step down the stair, the wood cool beneath his hot feet. He took another step and another, thinking to himself.

His eyes roamed over through the dark house, but neither saw nor sensed anything that could have woken him up.

When Rogan reached the bottom of the stairs, he heard it.

Low, sharp repetitive sounds like little squeaks. Probably what it would sound like if a chipmunk did a hundred push ups or some other exercise.

At the thought of a chipmunk, Rogan’s gaze slowly crossed the wooden floor until it reached a closed door.

“Shoo! Shoo! Go away!” came a frightened shriek.

Maia.

Crossing the distance to her room in a matter of steps, Rogan turned the knob and stepped into the room. The sight was one that immediately shocked him into a statue.

“Hiyah!” Maia screeched, doing a perfect spin to deliver a sharp kick in the air.

Sadly, her perfect kick went right through her target.

She gasped when she saw Rogan and darted over to where he stood. “Rogan!” Turning back to her opponent, Maia pointed. “Ghosts!”

Not really having to time to consider that she had been fighting a ghost with human martial arts, Rogan focused on the ghoulish entity at the foot of Maia’s bed.

“Th-there are ghosts!” she whispered shakily. “Do something!”

The being wasn’t looking at Rogan. He suspected it probably couldn’t even move with him in the room.

Rogan felt his body sizzle with rage and his grip on the door handle tightened. These bastards. They’d entered his house. Tried to take Maia from right under his nose!

He ought to destroy them. Every last one of them.

But not now. Not in front of Maia.

“Leave,” Rogan ordered firmly, watching as the ghoul seemed to sag with relief and immediately zapped through the wall.

Maia frowned, swallowing to stop her dry throat from cracking like parched earth. “But,” she muttered. “I also told it to leave! It wouldn’t listen!” She looked up at Rogan, taking in his dull expression. “Is this house haunted?”

“Do you have a Vampire or Enchantress soul?” he asked her in a tired murmur.

Maia shook her head.

Rogan shrugged a shoulder. “Then it has no reason to listen to you. Didn’t I tell you to go to sleep? And yet you’re up in the middle of the night, showing ghosts your Muay Thai like it’ll do anything.”

His words brought a pout to her mouth and Maia moved away from his side so she could look up at him. “I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t anyway!”

The reason for that being him and how he’d completely dominated a kiss she’d meant to be soft and innocent. Maia looked away when she felt her face flush.

Rogan’s eyes narrowed on her. “Didn’t mean to affect you that much,” he murmured.

“You didn’t!” Maia spat spitefully. She’d felt sorry for him and sympathised with him and he’d thanked her by going and letting his Vampire side work its voodoo on her. Never again! “It was…” Maia trailed off, her attention snatched away at what she saw. A sudden smile curved her mouth. “Oh, my goodness… it worked!”

Rogan frowned. “What?”

“My… I…” She pointed at his naked chest, the deep cuts from earlier almost all gone. “I healed you! In one night!”

Her words received no response for a while as he looked at her with fatigue. “You didn’t do that. It’s not even done, my ribs still hurt like a bitch, and I can’t feel my left arm.”

“I did—”

“I’m healed and kept alive by my potions and a curse, respectively. No matter how much you wanted to, you didn’t heal me. Go to bed.”

He started walking away and she glared at the back of his head. That ungrateful chameleon! She wouldn’t be healing him again any time soon!

“I can’t go to bed!” Maia snapped.

Stopping, Rogan turned to look at her. “I don’t have—”

“Look outside,” Maia told him, her words like a dare. “Your house *is* haunted…”

Frowning at her, Rogan walked back to her room. Stepping over to the windows, he pushed away the drapes only to find a sight that would terrify any living human.

The night glowed with a horrifying light. Not from the moon, but from ghosts.

A whole fright of them. Like an army back for vengeance.