by Jade White
This was the physical manifestation of the dream she had experienced and it was beginning to freak her out. Part of her wanted to tell him they should just come back during the day, but she knew there would probably be traps all over, waiting for her.
When they drove past, she was surprised they didn’t immediately rush the car or that they didn’t seem to notice he was there. She thought that it was strangely inobservant of them, for creatures that had been such great trackers up to this point. What had turned them around so much? What had made them so incredibly incompetent toward them right now?
“They can’t smell me because I’m in the car,” he said after a moment. “I’m guessing our motorcyclist friends didn’t get back to them with the description of our car. Or, they figured we’d ditch the car for something else.”
She was beginning to realize that this was going to be their dynamic from now on. She was going to say something and he was going to just read her mind no matter what. She knew there was going to be a point where he was going to have to stop, but she figured that right now wasn’t the time to argue with him.
“Are you ready for this?” he asked her.
“I think so,” she said, not sure what that meant, but she felt like she was about to throw up.
“Okay, good luck,” he said to her, leaning across the seat and placing his lips on hers and she didn’t realize that they were actually kissing until it was too late.
He was pulling away and she reached out to touch him as he headed off into the distance. She closed the door and slipped over into the driver’s seat, waiting for whatever signal he was going to give her.
She didn’t know what he meant exactly, but he wasn’t going to give her any more details other than that. She was truly horrified to think about what kind of signal he would come up with on his own. It would probably be something ghastly and obscene. Maybe the signal would be vanishing for another nine months.
She knew she was bitter and she looked back at Blake who was sleeping through all of this.
She didn’t like the idea of him being all alone out there, fighting an army of vampires by himself, but it sounded like this was what Victor Titus lived for and this was the great final battle he had been setting himself up for. She wasn’t sure how she wanted to take that, but she had faith in him.
Close to the church, she watched as an enormous blossom of flame rippled through the sky and she thought this had to be the signal she was waiting for. He must have done something right, because the explosion looked like it was going to illuminate everything for a mile around the battleground. She looked at the glow of the church and the sudden appearance of all of the shadowy figures lit up by the explosion.
She wondered how many vampires had been caught in it and if Victor was okay. Watching that explosion reminded her that she was working with the best and she didn’t need to be nearly as terrified as she currently was. There was room for confidence and she had to keep her faith in him.
With the ball of fire, she knew they were going to be fine and that this was going to be the day they saved their son. Faith was restored in her and she could feel the courage swelling inside of her, coming to life like a wildfire, igniting in the glow of the fireball.
Plunging the keys into the ignition, she started the car. She knew what her role in the plan was and they were both counting on her to make the most of his distraction. Whether Victor survived this or not was irrelevant. No matter how painful of a thought that was, the only thing that mattered was that she had to get inside of that church and get Blake to that holy water. Everything else was expendable and that meant this car they’d been driving in was probably going to be the first casualty of this coming conflict.
Revving the engine, she looked over her shoulder at Blake. She hoped he wouldn’t see anything that was about to happen and she really hoped this wasn’t going to be something that scarred him too much. She wanted him to come out of this undamaged, with his mental stability. She was going to have a lot to explain to him one day, but right now, she just wanted her baby. She just wanted everything to work out for the best.
The back tires of the car began to whirl and hiss as she put the pedal to the floor. She knew she was going to be just fine when she made it there. She took a deep breath and looked in the direction of the church, letting go of the brake and speeding off towards it. She could feel the car lurching angrily forward, hungry to get some action. The whole car began to roar forward and it was going with the speed and ferocity of a wild animal, charging her enemies and going toward them with abandon and wild desire.
She could feel her heart pounding and she knew this was going to be terrifying. This was something she never would have imagined she was going to do in her life and here she was, driving like a reckless woman toward the heart of the action.
As the church drew closer and closer, she could feel her whole body shivering in nervous anticipation. This was going to be the most intense moment of her life and she couldn’t believe she was actually doing it. She couldn’t believe there was nothing between her and the church but an open road; there was going to be a horde of vampires there soon.
She could see the flickering light of the fire lingering from the explosion Victor had caused and there was even more that was disturbing to her. She could see something truly intense happening in the cemetery and as she watched the shadowy figures dashing across the road, she could see a thick, dark cloud of gray drifting over the cemetery, creating a literal fog of war, keeping them from being able to see what was happening.
She looked at the cloud and felt her heart beat getting faster and faster. She knew it was only a matter of time before she passed into that cloud of ash and dust and she would be speeding toward the church’s front doors and there would be no way to see the vampires as they were darting across the road.
What was she doing? This was insane. She was going to hurt herself or Blake. This was not what good parents did and this was not going to be a good ending for this drive. She quelled the scream in the back of her throat and refused to give in to it. She wasn’t going to wake up Blake and she was going to make sure he was sleeping soundly through the majority of this. She wanted to make sure he got out of this unscathed and that he wasn’t worried about any of this when he opened his little eyes.
As she entered the thick cloud of dust, she looked around and couldn’t help but feel terrified for the fact that Victor was out there. He was out in the thick of it, fighting for both of them to be safe. There were countless figures out there in the haze. She didn’t slow down for any of them, even if Victor was one of them.
She was going to go through all of them if she had to; there was no stopping her now. She wondered what the explosion had been and she hoped that everything was safe and okay with Victor. She didn’t want anything to happen to him, but she knew he would be fine. He was competent and strong. She had faith he would be fine.
There was a loud bang and it rattled through the car as she hit the gate leading to the church and she started to ascend the slope, feeling the car lifting up as they were heading closer and closer to the building that was going to be their final stop.
She knew this was the most insane thing she’d ever done and she was truly horrified of what might happen when she got out of the car. It wasn’t like she could just roll down her window and order some holy water.
She was going to have to unbuckle Blake, take him out of the car and up the steps to the church. She was going to try and put them as close to it as possible, but she knew there was really no getting past the fact that she was going to have to unbuckle her baby and get him out of the car, and that she was going to be extremely vulnerable in that position. There would be no one around to help her when she was alone in that situation.
The fog of the dust and ash began to clear and she saw she was rolling over the grass, heading to the top of the hill where the church was waiting for her. She could feel the terror inside of her growing with every passing moment. She wasn’t
ready for this and she was afraid she wasn’t going to be able to make it. She wasn’t going to survive it, because there was a figure standing right in front of the church.
The vampire was a tall man with a body very similar to Victor, the kind of build she had come to associate with vampires. He was standing there, his brown hair long and greasy looking, as he watched Shawna coming up toward him faster and faster.
She didn’t know what he was waiting for, but she knew nothing was going to stop her from plowing into him.
There was a smile spreading across the thin lips on his pale face and she could feel the scream building up in her throat. She knew they were going to collide and she was afraid of doing it. She was afraid of hurting him. But when she saw him standing there, holding up his hands like he was ready to embrace her, she knew she had no choice but to hit him at full speed. She was going to destroy him when she hit him at the speed she was traveling. She closed her eyes and felt the car lurching forward.
There was no saving this vampire and she immediately knew that it was Flavus. This was the vampire that had been hunting Victor for all of these years and she was going to put him in the ground. Well, she was going to render him to ash.
The car hit him with all the speed that she was traveling. She applied the brakes so she wouldn’t run into the building, but there was no slowing down when she hit the vampire. Flavus was thrown away, hurled toward the building and there was nothing to break his impact except for the closed doors.
The doors of the church were flung wide and he vanished into the dark of the building. The impact was so powerful that she thought she may have killed him. There was nothing she could understand about him. He hadn’t turned to ash and all she could think about was that there was probably a reason for that. He was probably seriously wounded, but she didn’t know if there was any way he could have survived.
He had to be dead. She looked into the church, her headlights shining straight inside and she couldn’t see a thing. She couldn’t see any sign of him. Her palms were sweaty and her face was flushed as she tried her hardest to get her breath back.
She tried to get a hold of herself. She was still here and he was gone. She figured there was no way he was still alive and she had to get out of here. She had to get Blake inside.
Struggling to open the car door, she had to sneak out through the tiny crack in the door because it banged against the wrought iron railing that led up the steps she had crashed into. She finally got out, went around and opened the back door to get Blake out of the car. She tried her hardest to block out the snarls and shrieks coming through the cloud of ash that was growing stronger and bolder with every passing second.
She knew Victor was still out there and that he was still putting up the fight necessary for them to keep their child alive. He would never give up.
Blake seemed like he was entirely unaware of everything. He was still asleep and she gently unbuckled him, pulled him out of the car seat and took him from the car. All she could think about was that they were standing out in the open, surrounded by vampires.
They were so close and she needed to get him to that holy water; first she needed to find it. She looked back out at the cloud of ash and there was lots of movement, but she couldn’t see anything.
Heading into the church, she made sure the car was still on and the lights were shining inside for them. Taking the steps carefully, she headed inside the church. She knew that they were safe, finally safe, the monsters were outside and there was nothing she had to worry about. They were going to be safe inside the church, which was what Victor had told her. She just needed to make sure they found the holy water.
The basin was waiting for them and as she approached it, she didn’t think it was anything special. In fact, it didn’t look like much at all as she stood in front of it and stared into the clear pool of water standing by the hallway.
Shawna had never really been a religious person, but she had seen the movies where people dipped their fingers in holy water and did some kind of gesture with it. She didn’t know the specifics, but she thought she could figure it out. As they walked into the church, she could hear the insanity continuing outside.
The basin was cold to the touch as she adjusted Blake in her arms. He was starting to wake up and she was seriously beginning to wonder how they were going to get out of here. They had talked about getting him blessed by the holy water and that had been it. There had really been no talk about them getting out of this place and that was really starting to get at her. She didn’t want to be locked in here for the rest of her life. She wanted to get Victor and run.
She thought they would be able to get to the car and be able to drive out of here. They might still have a chance, but she had banged up the car pretty badly hitting the steps of the church and ramming into Flavus.
She was no car expert, but she was fairly certain things were seriously messed up with the car and there was no escaping the damage she had done to it. She took a deep breath and kept her fingers in the water, wondering if it was safe to touch him right now.
If there was one thing Shawna knew about herself, it was the fact that she was not a religious person. No matter how hard she had tried to get into the movement over her life, she had constantly been a disappointment to her parents and to herself when she tried to believe in something beyond her that existed in a metaphysical world.
She felt like it was all fairy tales and when she thought about it now, it seemed so foolish that she wouldn’t believe in God or anything like that. Right now, she was surrounded by vampires and they were trying to kill her child. She needed a chance to believe.
In those moments, holding her son, she knew she was going to pray and she did with all the emotion and all the passion that she could muster for herself. She couldn’t bear to think about a world without her son or where they were constantly running from vampires.
She didn’t want that and she didn’t want to run away from everything. She wanted the life that she had prepared for them and she wanted to be able to say that she had given her life for everything she could. If she couldn’t count on some unseen father figure to give her a chance here, she hoped there would be a chance that maybe she would be wrong. She hoped the cynicism and the bitterness would melt away for once and this would truly work for her.
Touching her wet fingertips to Blake’s head, he hardly reacted and nothing happened. There was no swirling and swelling moment where she thought she would be able to feel some holy connection that meant they were safe.
There was no golden light shining down from the heavens; nothing like that. She could feel nothing, but the exact same feeling she had felt again and again for every day of her life.
Terror seeped into her and she dipped her fingers into the water again and she touched his forehead one more time, just to make sure she had done it right. As she looked at Blake, she expected something to happen. How did she know it had worked? How did she know they were going to be safe? Her heart began to race as she heard clapping from the far side of the sanctuary.
Flavus didn’t look so good. He was the kind of man who was clearly a vampire and there was really no hiding the fact. His face was pale, blackened and bruised from the beating her car had given him. As he walked, there was a limp in his step which might suggest that her car had been a little more powerful than she had expected, but the fact that he was still alive alarmed her.
“Did you really think that would work?” he asked her in a cold, vicious voice.
His voice sounded like it was coming from another planet, like it wasn’t really a voice any human should ever have. She took a step back, clutching Blake and feeling the terror welling up inside of her.
“You think the superstitions of a thousand year old tradition is actually anything more than people making themselves feel good? You think Victor knows anything about our people? I’ll give you a hint, little girl, he has no idea. No one knows a thing about our people and that’s what makes us so terrifying to
everyone. We’re enigmas. So holy water and a little hope isn’t going to save your child.”
He reached out, his hand stretching so he could almost pull Blake toward him without even touching him. It was a horrifying gesture, but as Flavus reached out to point his hand at Blake, they both watched as his hand began to smoke and she realized that her prayers had come true.
Shawna watched the disappointment and the horror spread across Flavus’ face as he realized that the blessing had worked for her child and there was no way he was going to be able to touch Blake.
Withdrawing his hand, he looked at it, smoking and smoldering and she watched a smile spread across his face. It was the dangerous kind of smile that said to her that in his defeat, he was going to be trouble. In his defeat, he was thinking about how he might go down in glory. She didn’t like the look on his face at all. There was something about it that was venomous and lethal. She wanted to smack him and tell him to behave, to accept his defeat with humility.
