Chapter Thirty-Two
They gave me two stakes. Cassie had a wealth of super-human strength and stamina. I had two silver stakes. “This hardly seems fair,” I told Claudiana as she watched, once more seated on her throne. Beside her, Chase was still standing on his knees. A silver collar was around his neck, attached to a leash, which Claudiana held in her hand. He was staring at me, his face a mix of emotions too complex for me to try and decipher. I didn’t try and speak to him. He didn’t try and speak to me. We didn’t need words.
“Don’t worry, Kayla.” Cassie turned to me, smirking. “I’ll go human slow.”
“I’d rather you just get it over with quickly,” I told her. “Unless, of course, you think I might pose a threat to you.”
She smiled wide, baring her fangs. “Silly girl,” she said, and charged.
It had been a long time since I’d fought a vampire like this, one on one with nothing but two stakes and what skill I had. She came at me so fast her feet lifted off the ground; she seemed to float towards me, fangs bared, hissing, ready for the kill. I ducked out of the way, rolling on the ground and ending back on my feet. She stopped, surprised that I’d moved fast enough to get out of her way. She obviously didn’t remember the long hours we’d spent training on that same maneuver. It was hard to move faster than a vampire, but it could be done, especially if the vampire was so young.
I clutched both my stakes in my hands, gripping so hard my knuckles turned white. I would have thrown one if I wasn’t so terrified of wasting one of my only weapons. There was no guarantee that I would hit her if I threw it.
“You look frightened,” Cassie observed. She was still smiling at me, the way a cat would smile at a mouse at dinner time.
“You look nervous,” I retorted. That wiped the smile off her face. It was replaced by a look of rage.
“I will tear you apart like a doll,” she threatened.
I merely raised an eyebrow at her. “Bring it on.”
I didn’t feel nearly as confident as I hoped I sounded. The roll had cost me a lot; the open wounds on my back were screaming in agony. I wasn’t sure how much fight I had left in me. I could only hope that at the end of this thing she was as dead as I was.
Cassie flew at me once more, using her fingernails like talons to claw at me. She swiped my side, the same side that had been opened by a vampire’s sword not too long ago. I felt the blood welling in the wounds and running warmly down my side. She stopped and, making sure I could see what she was doing, brought her hand to her mouth. Her fingertips were stained red with my blood. As I watched, she licked them one by one. Seeing that made something in me...snap. Without thinking I tossed one of the silver stakes; I missed by less than a centimeter, the stake burying itself just below her heart. She paused, like she couldn’t believe I’d managed to hurt her yet again. It hadn’t pierced the heart, so she was still alive, but the silver being so close to the heart would slow her down, making her have to move at an almost human pace.
She reached down and pulled out the stake. Blood welled to the surface of the wound. She threw the stake to the ground. Even though she had taken it out, the poison of the silver was still in her system, working its magic against her. She knew that, and it infuriated her.
“You’re going to be so sorry you did that,” she told me, glaring daggers at me.
I just shook my head, the motion actually making me a little dizzy. Too much blood. Too much of it was gone. “There’s only...one thing I’m sorry about, Cassie...”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“The fact that I...didn’t kill you...when I had...the chance...”
Her face contorted in fury and she let out an animalistic scream. She flitted towards me, moving faster than a human, but not nearly fast enough for a vampire. The silver was definitely doing its job.
I caught Cassie head-on and the two of us tumbled to the floor. Both of us were a little stunned by the impact. All the silver in her system, from the bullets, arrows, and now the stake, was impairing Cassie in much the same way alcohol would. Her reactions were getting slower. My excuse was that I’d simply lost too much blood at this point. I did, however, manage to get moving first after our crash to the floor. I sat up and saw that I’d impaled her with the second stake. It was shoved right at the base of her neck. I felt a stab—pun intended—of disappointment. My hand couldn’t have been a few inches lower when she hit me?
With what little strength I had left I pulled the stake from her throat. Without a thought, without waiting, I shoved it into her heart. Her eyes went wide. Her mouth opened in an “O” of surprise. She looked at me, and started to say something. Blood ran in little rivulets from the corners of her eyes. I had a moment to realize those little rivulets were her tears, and then she turned to ash beneath me.
I flipped onto my back, overcome with exhaustion, both physical and mental. The stake was still in my hand. I couldn’t bring myself to let go of it just yet, maybe because I sensed that I was not yet out of the water. And indeed, when I tried to sit up and looked to Claudiana’s throne, I saw that she had gotten to her feet. What blood she had in her system had risen to her face, coloring her cheeks in rage.
“Vi opake djevojke!” she cried, reverting for once to her native tongue. Although I had no idea what she said, I knew it was probably insulting to me in some way. In a fury Claudiana swept down the steps from her throne. “I will not let you ruin everything for me, you little bitch,” she hissed. She appeared beside me, grabbing my throat and lifting me up so that she was eye-level to me.
Despite everything that had happened earlier, I knew that this moment was it for me. I looked into Claudiana’s eyes and I saw myself dying. My time was up.
I didn’t panic as she grabbed a handful of my hair and wrenched my head to the side. I didn’t cry out as her dainty fangs pierced the skin of my throat. She drank greedily, lapping up any blood that I had left in me, which wasn’t much. I grabbed on to her tightly; she was the only thing I could focus on. The room around me was growing foggy. Sounds were fading. Light was dimming. I could feel the blood leaving me, weakening me. I started to grow cold.
My eyes rolled back into my head; my eyelids were so heavy I had no choice but to close them. My grip on Claudiana weakened. As I grew more limp in her arms she started to lower me to the floor. I could feel myself going. I had maybe seconds now.
I was so cold. It was so dark. It was so hard to stay awake. I could hear voices calling my name. Just let go. Embrace the darkness.
Finally, it was too much, and I did what the voices asked.
I let go.
--
Winter
I rubbed Thorn’s back comfortingly as she sobbed. She held Shadow’s hand tightly, her face pressed into his chest, as though if she cried enough on his wounds, her tears would bring him back. Ardian and Frithick both sat silently, listening to, but not really hearing, Thorn’s sobs. I was the same way. Though I comforted her, my mind was miles away, deep within the catacombs of San Francisco, wondering what was happening, who was living...
...and who was dying.
Suddenly there was a shift in the air; the magical balance had tipped. I looked to Ardian and Frithick. Both were alert. They had felt it, too, then. I looked towards the corridor that our friends, our family, had disappeared into hours earlier. Something bad was happening down there. No, more than something bad.
Something terrible had happened.
I could feel a presence coming towards us. Ardian, Frithick, and I moved to our feet. Ardian and I hissed into the darkness as a warning while Frithick shifted into his wolf-man form. We were prepared to fight whoever threatened us here.
A vampire emerged from the shadows holding his hands in the air as a sign of surrender. Even so, I did not relax, especially since I recognized this particular vampire.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded. “Don’t you have lives to be ruining somewhere?”
Mikhail kept his hands poised in the air. He paused a few yards in front of us, afraid to come any closer. “I know I’ve made a terrible mistake,” he said. “I’m here to make right what I’ve done.”
I scoffed. “Nothing you do can make any of this right, Mikhail.”
“You can believe that if you want,” he said, “but if all of you do not come with me now, then your master will die.”
He flitted towards the door, appearing at the mouth of the corridor. He looked back to us. “Are you coming or not?” he asked, and then disappeared into the darkness.
--
Chase
I watched Claudiana’s face as the female vampire died and knew what she was going to do before she even moved. I struggled against the chains that held me as Claudiana approached Kayla. “Kayla!” I shouted, straining against the chains. It was no use. The silver touching my skin was making me too weak to break them. I could only watch in a kind of fascinated horror as Claudiana grabbed Kayla and sank her fangs into the pale skin of her throat. From where I was I could see the blood well up from the bite wounds. Claudiana lapped greedily at the blood like an animal.
It didn’t take long at all for Kayla to go limp in the child vampire’s arms. I saw what was happening, but I refused to believe it. I couldn’t, wouldn’t, think of Kayla dead. Closing my eyes to block out the scene in front of me, I gathered up what little strength and power I had left. It would have to be enough.
I thought of that side of me I tried to keep under the surface all the time. The wolf. I thought of how I felt as the wolf. Of how my body was different from the wolf’s. In mere seconds I started to shift. I had a moment to internally celebrate—I was shifting while being tied down by silver—and then I was no longer thinking clearly. I shifted into my wolf-man form.
It was fairly easy to break the chains tying me down. Once I was free, I reached up and tore off that fucking collar. At the noise of the chains breaking, Claudiana looked up from Kayla’s...from Kayla. She hissed and prepared to attack. I swiped at her, my claws opening up wounds on her stomach. Blood flowed freely from the wounds, staining her prim little dress. She lunged for me again, and once again I clawed her. More wounds appeared. More blood flowed. I could see the rage her in her eyes. She was growing weaker. Blood is what animates a vampire—even they could bleed to death. Take away the blood, and there’s nothing to give them life any longer.
“You can’t kill me,” Claudiana hissed, her blue eyes, cold as ice, narrowed at me. She was holding her wounds, which were already starting to heal. Still, she could not replace the blood she had lost, not without feeding. I lunged forward, clawed again, opened another set of wounds, spilled more blood. As long as I could keep her injured in some way, maybe I’d managed to kill her. I was too weak to fight her for real. I’d definitely lose.
These thoughts served only a momentary distraction, but a moment was enough. Claudiana zipped past me and then grabbed me from behind, forcing me once more to my knees. She leaned my head back, using the super-human strength one as tiny as her shouldn’t be able to possess, and bared her fangs. “This is to pay for the blood you cost me,” she said, and bit me.
I’d been bitten by Claudiana before, numerous times, but before it had always been to humiliate me in front of her friends, or to teach me a lesson. This time she was out to kill me.
I shifted back into my human form beneath her hands. Losing blood made it too hard to maintain the wolf for any amount of time.
Claudiana drank just as greedily as she did before, not caring that she spilled more blood than she actually imbibed. Whatever was left of her mind had finally gone, I think. She wasn’t interested in just drinking blood anymore. She simply wanted to kill.
As she drank, I could feel myself getting weaker. Why was I suddenly so cold? I wondered briefly if this was what Kayla had felt just before... I couldn’t bring myself to finish the thought. Then, all I could really think about was Claudiana. I gripped her hands where they held me in place. Her skin actually felt warm to me now.
Suddenly Claudiana was gone. I dropped to the steps, hitting my head on the jutting concrete. It didn’t matter, though. Claudiana had stopped drinking. I was still alive. But I was weak, and I didn’t know how long the whole being alive thing would last.
I was only a few feet away from Kayla. With a great amount of effort I pulled myself up and started to crawl to her. I could already feel the wound in my neck stitching itself back together, but it was the same basic principle as it had been with Claudiana: the fact was that I’d lost a lot of blood. The question was, would the wound close itself before I lost what little I had left? I knew with less blood the healing would take longer. I didn’t want to die as Shadow had.
I collapsed to the floor by Kayla’s side. I forced myself to examine the wound in her neck. There was no blood pooled underneath her; indeed, only a few drops had seeped from the wounds after Claudiana had gotten through. She’d drained Kayla dry. With my throat constricting in an effort not to cry or scream my rage or a do a weird combination of both, I scooted across the few inches of concrete floor separating us. I moved so that I was laying on my back, my side pressed against hers. I took her hand. Dark shapes flitted overhead, moving at speeds too fast for my weak eyes to follow. I had a moment to think, Oh, great. More vampires.
The world went black.
--
Kayla
When I opened my eyes, it was dark.
I tried moving, and found that I didn’t have very much room at all. I felt around, and discovered that I was surrounded on all sides. They were comfortable sides, though, with satin lining. I even had a little pillow... Oh.
I was in a coffin.
Immediately I started to panic. I had just raised my fists to begin beating on the coffin lid when it disappeared. I could only stare in shock at the faces that looked down at me.
The first one I noticed was Stavros. I must really be dead, I thought. There’s no way he survived. Still, I took a moment to study him. A smile graced his lips, a wide smile but still enough to hide his fangs from view. His brown hair was pulled back out of his face, the first time I’d ever seen it that way. And I noticed other things, too, things I’d never noticed before. He had a small scar above his eye. It was small, yes, but I didn’t see how I could have missed it before. And what about all the small imperfections in his skin? He looked almost like a normal person now. What had happened?
Stavros was still smiling as he held a hand out to me. “Welcome back,” he said.
I moved so fast. I simply thought about taking his hand, and suddenly my hand was in his. I thought about standing, and then I simply was on my feet in the coffin, Stavros’ hand still in mine. I thought about being on the floor by his side, and then I was. I imagine my eyes must have been the size of dinner plates, because Stavros chuckled. “It does take some time to get used to,” he said.
Still in shock, I glanced at the other people in the room. Winter was next to me, smiling just as wide as Stavros was. There was something akin to pride in both vampires’ eyes. Pride and...happiness. I spotted Thorn and Tempest. The younger dragon had a tight hold on Thorn’s arm. Thorn’s eyes were haunted and sad, but still she smiled as she saw me looking at her. Then there was Ardian and Frithick, both smelling of regret and sadness. Funny, I could smellthe emotions coming off of them in waves. Still, both of them managed to smile. Ardian gave a little bow of his head, while Frithick said, “Welcome back, princess.”
Nick was there, too—Nick, who I’d thought was dead for sure. He did not smile at me as the others had. He looked...angry wasn’t the right word, but he definitely wasn’t happy. I stared at him a moment, trying to figure out why he wasn’t as happy to see me as the others had been. As I watched him, I could see the color changing in his skin as blood flowed to and away. Minute details, but fascinating ones. I could see his pulse beating in his neck, a sure, steady rhythm. And there was something else about him—fear. I could smell his fear. His fear of me.
“Nick...” I said, taking a step towards him. He jumped and took a step back. As I watched in hurt and confusion, I heard, almost like a whisper:
...hope she doesn’t come any closer...bad enough working with blood-suckers...now she is one...she’ll never be the same...
I knew, almost immediately that I was hearing Nick’s thoughts. It all suddenly clicked for me. I was a vampire.
I was a vampire.
I’d known it the whole time, of course, but it just hadn’t registered. Nick’s thoughts, though, were like a slap to the face. It was suddenly crystal clear. The coffin. The looks of pride on Stavros and Winter’s faces. My quick movements and thoughts, the way I reasoned through things so fast. My sudden telepathy. I remembered—though the memories were so dim and painfully human—what had happened in San Francisco. I remembered what Claudiana had done. She’d killed me. And then someone had saved me. I wasn’t sure who’d turned me into a vampire, but they’d brought me back. I hadn’t been ready to die. And now I never would.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but as I turned my attention away from Nick to the one person in the room I hadn’t looked at yet, I couldn’t help but feel joy. Thank God for vampires, I thought as Chase moved towards me. He looked great, as if San Francisco had never happened. But there was something...off about him. I couldn’t put my finger on it, and I all but forgot about it as he pressed his mouth to mine. The kiss progressed at a super-human speed, both of us moving too quickly for eyes to catch. Then, all of a sudden, I felt it. Fangs clicking against fangs. I pulled back in shock.
Chase smiled at me, showing long, white, glistening fangs. I could only marvel. “I thought therianthropes couldn’t become vampires,” I whispered, my voice full of wonder.
“It’s because I was born a werewolf,” he told me. While he spoke, he touched me; a caress of his hand against my cheek, his fingertips running up my bare arm. It was like he couldn’t get enough of me, like he’d never go that long without being near me again. I knew exactly how he felt.
“But what does that have to do with anything?” I asked. I noted the way his eyes, so blue before, were even more vivid in color now. His hair, a true black, and his pale skin, made his eyes the most electric blue imaginable. Being a vampire had been very, very good to Chase.
“Do we really have to talk about this now?” he asked as he lowered his face to mine once more.
I smiled. “No, I suppose not,” I told him, then captured his lips with mine. Somehow we still managed to hit our fangs together, but that was all right.
We had eternity to practice.
Fin
