14. Noise

“How can I do that? How can I train my mind to become stronger?” Lilja was eager to know as much about this mind-control thing as she could. Even though Jyrki said she would be safe in here, she knew that the beast was still out there, probably looking for her. And she suspected she couldn’t hide in the Undyings’ headquarters forever. Vilho chuckled. “It’s mostly practice, just like you have to practice any other skill you want to get better at. There is so much more that you can do besides hurting other people. You can show them anything you want in their head, you could even make me believe I was human again, or that I was trapped in a prison. Anything”. Lilja was relieved that she could do more than just hurt and kill people, and slowly she started to understand how powerful her species really was. The thought that she could make someone believe anything she wanted was scary. But there was something else Vilho said that made her curious. “Where all vampires humans once? Jyrki mentioned the transformation, but I know that most things popular culture thinks it knows about vampires is nonsense”. Vilho nodded. “We prefer the term “Undying” over “vampire”, but otherwise, yes. Most of us we were human once, and we were bitten by another Undying. But there are very few of the so-called ancient families. All of them are born as Undyings. Jyrki belongs to such a family, but as I said, they are very rare”.

Again, a lot of information for her process. But she forced her mind to return to her own powers, they were more important than Jyrki’s family, They would help her to protect herself. “Vilho?”, she asked. “The training… How would that work? I mean, when would I start, and how do I start? What do I have to do?” Vilho looked at her for a while, scanning her face, before he answered. “You want to start right now, don’t you?” She nodded. “Jyrki told me that beast is still out there. And even though he also said I would be safe here, I want to be able to protect myself. I… I don’t like to be dependent on others”. “I see”, Vilho answered, “but I don’t think it would be wise to start your training right away. You still haven’t fully recovered from the loss of blood. Maybe we can do some first activities tomorrow, where you start searching for other minds. But first you should eat some…”

Vilho furrowed his brow and looked to the open door of the kitchen. At first Lilja wondered what was going on, when she heard it as well. An unpleasant scraping noise that echoed through the long corridors of the headquarters. “Stay here. I’ll see what that noise is”. Lilja nodded, but Vilho was already gone, Pasi and Pekka only shortly after him. She wasn’t sure if they had been uneasy or just annoyed. But she definitely would follow his order and stay in the kitchen. She would only get lost in all those corridors. With a slight sigh she took up the spoon again and started eating the stew. Over the talking she had already forgotten how hungry she was. To her surprise, the stew was still hot and tasted heavenly. Lilja had nearly emptied the whole bowl, when the noise outside started to intensify. Then she heard a scream. Her heart raced when she jumped up from her seat. Loud footsteps echoed from the corridor, as if somebody was running towards the kitchen. Lilja leapt towards the kitchen counter, catching the long, silver knife somebody had used to cut vegetables before, when somebody burst into the room.