by L.H. Cosway
Whitfield looked her up and down, a calculating gleam in his eyes. “Perhaps I’ll spare your limbs and simply obliterate your heart.”
Rita stared at him in confusion, but before she could react Whitfield used his vampire speed to vanish. When he reappeared he was standing directly behind Noreen. In a flash of movement, he raised his sword and plunged it right through her chest.
For a moment, time stood still.
Noreen fell to the ground with a throaty gasp, blood pouring from the wound as Whitfield pulled his sword out of her and thrust it back in a second time. Gabriel and Alvie stared at Noreen’s prone body in confusion. Whitfield approached them so fast, leaving Noreen on the ground bleeding, that they barely even registered his presence.
Nobody moved a muscle; each of us was in too much shock. Whitfield’s cold stare met mine as he growled, “She destroyed my house, so I killed her mother. Wait and see what I’ll do to you for murdering my daughter.”
Then in a flash of vampire speed, he and the rest of the vampires left standing were gone. Disappearing as though they’d never even been here at all.
“Mum …” The word tumbled brokenly from Rita’s mouth. I felt her despair deep in my gut. She rushed to Noreen’s side, taking her into her arms, blood going everywhere. Tears spilled from my eyes because I knew there was no saving her.
I ran to Rita, throwing myself onto the ground beside her.
“I…love…you,” Noreen gasped, her final words coming out ragged and weak.
“It’s fine. You’re going to be fine,” Rita said, preparing to mutter a healing spell.
Noreen placed her hand on hers, stilling her. “Too late,” she croaked. “Remember I’ll always be there…in your heart. Never forget.”
Noreen’s death came fast. I practically saw the life leave her body between one second and the next. There was no time for Rita to save her like she saved Finn in the church. Her eyes remained open, but they were unmoving, and moments later I knew she was truly gone. Rita clutched her desperately, big, heaving sobs wracking her body. Alvie was on the other side of Noreen, loudly bawling. She’d been just as much of a mother to him as she’d been to Rita.
Gabriel threw his arms around Alvie in an effort to calm him, but Alvie pushed him away, lost in his anguish. Suddenly, I felt Rita begin to shake. The scent of magic, incense and spice, filled the air. Her gaze cut to the people around her, and my heart stopped when I saw her eyes. They’d gone completely black, except for a swirl of purple in the centre.
Her voice came out low at first when she whispered, “Get away from her.”
I was the only one who seemed to have heard her. Fury seeped from her every pore. “Get away from her. All of you!” she wailed, her voice reverberating throughout the entire street.
I still hadn’t moved, but Rita’s sudden anger got me going. I started to feel hot, as though my skin was burning from the inside out.
“I said MOVE!!” Rita yelled, and everyone finally got the message.
As we scrambled away, a sizzling, crackling wall of magical fire began to rise around her as she clutched tightly to Noreen’s lifeless body. The flames were all purple, just like the swirls in her eyes. Somehow, the fire smelled of sadness and rage. I wasn’t sure how to describe it, but it reminded me of rain when it hit the pavement during a sudden downpour.
Ethan slipped his arm around my waist, pulling me farther away from the fire.
“What’s wrong with her?” I asked helplessly.
“She is grieving,” Ethan answered. “The grief of a witch can be a powerful thing. It makes itself known in unimaginable ways.”
Everybody else stood still, staring in awe at the cocoon of fire that Rita had constructed around herself.
I started to panic. “She’s going to burn if she stays in there.”
“She won’t,” Gabriel said. “The fire belongs to her. It will only burn the people who try to get past it. We need to leave her to her grief. She’ll drop the flames eventually.”
All around me, Pamphrock and his remaining slayers were tending to one another’s injuries. It was only at that moment that I remembered the wound on my neck where Eliza bit me, and the fact that not only was I covered in vampire blood, I was also covered in my own blood. Ethan still stood with his arm around me, but I sensed his gaze on my neck almost as soon as he noticed the blood.
My heart hammered when I turned around to see his black eyes bearing down on me and his fangs extending from his mouth.
13.
I backed away from him slowly. “Hey now, relax,” I said, making sure I had my razor handy. Ethan’s eyes were so full of need they practically glowed. His sharp fangs glistened under the shine of the streetlamp, and I was torn between enchantment and terror. I wasn’t in my right mind. Ethan helping me kill Eliza caused my brain to go loopy. Surely, that was it.
I shook myself from the trance and held out the blade to keep him at bay. Thankfully, Delilah yanked him back by the arm and gave him an almighty whack across the face, which seemed to snap him out of it.
Broken from his bloodlust, Ethan put a hand to his cheek in surprise, glaring at Delilah. “What did you do that for?”
“You were about to bite her, you idiot!” she bellowed at him. “Have you lost your mind?” At this, her eyes trailed to my neck, registering that I’d already been bitten tonight.
“It was Eliza,” I stated flatly. “I killed her.”
“Yeah, I gathered as much from what Whitfield said. I didn’t know she bit you though. What happened?”
I suddenly noticed that everybody had gathered around me now, except for Pamphrock and his remaining slayers. Alvie was still sitting just outside of Rita’s cocoon of fire, weeping. In my heart, I wanted to join him, but there was no time for me to be sad. I needed to stay strong.
“Her eyes and skin turned silver,” I explained. “Then she started to shake as though she was transforming.”
“Are you okay?” Finn asked, coming to my side and putting his hand to the small of my back in a concerned gesture. Ethan gave a barely audible growl. He stopped when Delilah’s reproaching green eyes landed on him in silent warning.
“I’ll live,” I answered, turning to look at Finn. He had a small cut on his jaw, and there was blood on his clothing, but it was too dark to be human. Vampire blood was a shade deeper than ours.
Nobody said anything then. We fell into a state of quiet distress. Ethan, Lucas, and Delilah had just fought and killed people they used to consider their friends and allies. Finn, Gabriel, and I just saw a woman we’d all come to love die in front of our eyes. Not to mention I’d killed for the very first time in my life.
Before I discovered this new world, I never thought I’d have to kill. Now it had become this necessary evil that I had to embrace if I wanted to survive.
After a while, Gabriel went and picked up Alvie, carrying him into the RV. When he came back out, I assisted him in a small spell to clean up the remaining evidence of the fighting. Ethan, Lucas, and Delilah retired to their own house for the night, and all that remained on the street was an atmosphere of muted trauma.
I’d all but forgotten about Emilia taking Rebecca. Pamphrock, Finn, and the slayers left immediately to go and retrieve her from the Petrovsky Manor, though I had no clue how hard of a task that was going to be.
Soon the street was empty, with just Gabriel and me sitting on the wall at the front of Finn’s house keeping a watch over Rita. Ira sat by our feet, still in his animal form. He obviously wasn’t ready to change back yet.
We sat there in silence, tears streaming down both our faces now that we finally had the chance to embrace our grief over losing Noreen. She’d been a maternal presence in our little group, always there to give guidance and advice. I really didn’t know what we were going to do without her.
We were going to be so lost.
It wasn’t until hours later that Rita finally let down the wall of flames she’d surrounded herself with. We’d had to put a gla
mour on the entire street for fear of anyone seeing her magic. Gabriel organised for Noreen’s body to be taken away while I brought Rita into the RV and put her to bed. She didn’t breathe a word the whole time, and although the purple swirls had receded from her eyes, they were still disconcertingly black. Her body felt cold, and her face was an empty canvas, devoid of emotion. I knew she was waiting until I left to start crying. Just as I closed over the door to her room, I heard her weeping into her pillow.
I sat in the small kitchen area and drank a cup of tea, too afraid to leave her on her own. It was about two in the morning when someone stepped into the RV. I glanced up and saw Finn standing there, looking exhausted.
“Gabe said you were in here. Come into the house. You need to sleep.”
He motioned me out of the vehicle, but I stared apprehensively at Rita’s bedroom door.
“I’m not sure I should leave her. She seems … well, not herself.”
“The girl’s mother just died. What do you expect her to be like? Swinging from the rafters?” Finn tried to make a joke, but it fell flat. It was way, way too soon for jokes.
“No, I just … I feel like she might do something dangerous, like go over to the south side to try and kill Whitfield.”
“Gabriel and I will watch her then. We’ll take it in turns. You’ve been with her for hours.”
I ran my hand through my hair and rose from my seat. “Okay,” I whispered, feeling the need to sleep forever. As Finn led me inside the house, I asked, “So, what happened with Emilia?”
He shook his head. “That’s a whole other shitstorm. She’s put a spell over her house, so nobody can get in or out. Pamphrock has at least a hundred slayers surrounding the place, waiting for her to drop the spell so they can get in and take Rebecca back.”
“I feel terrible,” I said, grimacing. “I should never have involved her in all this.”
“Listen, what’s done is done. At least we know where Rebecca is. And as you said, Emilia just wants to mother her. She doesn’t want to harm her. The main thing is that the spell was successful. You should be congratulating yourself for that.”
“Yeah, the spell worked, and then everything else went to hell in a handbasket. I’m seriously starting to believe I’m hexed or something.”
Finn stroked a hand down my cheek. “Stop beating yourself up and get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“See you in the morning,” I told him, before trudging my way out of the RV, into the house, and up the stairs to my bedroom.
Despite my exhaustion, I didn’t sleep right away. Instead, I cried for Noreen.
I knew this feeling of grief all too well. It consumed me after Matthew killed himself, and I felt it creeping in again. The hurt claimed my insides like a plague, but somewhere in between all the tears I shed, I drifted off. I’d hardly call it sleep because it was too much of a restless state. In my dreams, I saw myself plunging a stake into Eliza’s heart and Whitfield stabbing Noreen with his sword. The images spun in a constant loop. Over and over.
The next two days were awful. Rita hardly left her room, acting out whenever I tried to do anything for her. She barely ate a thing, and her eyes stayed that unnerving shade of black. Alvie made a phone call to Noreen’s close friend, Hayley, to inform her of her passing.
Hayley ended up coming to the house with her partner and foster son, as well as her foster son’s girlfriend, who turned out to be none other than Florence! I couldn’t believe it when she appeared, and I saw in her eyes that she’d been through her own share of troubles since we last spoke, but she was clearly doing fine now. And with a boyfriend to boot. His name was Frank, and he was very handsome. I swear I hugged her for a full ten minutes.
“You have no idea how good it is to see you,” I breathed.
“And you,” Florence replied. “I’ve missed you like crazy.”
“You have to tell me everything that’s been going on with you.”
“I will,” she said. “You wouldn’t believe all that’s happened.”
The purpose of their visit became clearer when we sat down to talk. My magic sensed that though Hayley was human, her partner and foster son were not. I had no clue what was different about them, but I suspected Frank’s supernatural side was what drew him and Florence to one another. Frank couldn’t be older than nineteen, but there was a wisdom in his eyes that went far beyond his years. There was a kindness in his eyes, too, and I was relieved that Florence had found someone like him after being brought up by the likes of Terry Vaine.
Hayley explained that, because Florence was an empath, something I’d only discovered about her when I went to see her at her grandmother’s house, she had the ability to heal emotions. Hayley went on to suggest that Florence could heal some of Rita’s grief so that she wouldn’t be in danger of being taken over by the dark side of her magic. Clearly, Noreen had expressed her concerns about her daughter to her friend before she passed away.
It wasn’t smooth sailing though. When Florence tried to heal Rita, she ended up fainting from the effort it took. The sadness in Rita was so thick that even an empath couldn’t wash it away fully.
Ethan came over just as I was nursing Florence back to health. He was surprised to see her and offered his blood to bring her strength back, but I declined. I wasn’t going to give Florence vampire blood without being able to ask for her consent first.
He stood on the other side of the room and watched me while I dabbed her forehead with a cool, damp cloth. I realised I was wearing the Keep Calm and Carry Garlic T-shirt, which he appeared wryly amused about.
“I haven’t had a chance to do any laundry,” I explained.
“I’m not offended. Garlic isn’t harmful to us. I think some vampire was having a laugh with a slayer once and managed to convince them garlic was a good defence against our kind. Though I will admit I’m not a fan of the smell.”
I nodded, and a few moments of quiet passed before I asked, “How have you been?”
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that question?” There was a tenderness in his voice that had emotion clogging my throat. I had been through a lot the last few days. Then again, we all had.
“I’m coping,” I replied. “But I was referring to your exposure to sunlight the morning in the cave. I hope you haven’t been very unwell.”
He appeared touched that I even remembered he’d been exposed to the sun, given everything that had happened since. “I was a little under the weather for a while, but I’m better now.” There was a pause as he considered me. “Still no sign of your father?”
I shook my head, my stomach sinking at the reminder. It had been days now. Surely something had gone wrong.
“Come here,” he whispered, opening his arms to me. Noreen’s death had my emotional state wrung dry, and I couldn’t resist the comfort Ethan offered. I left the damp cloth on Florence’s forehead as I went to him, and he wrapped me in his strength.
“I still can’t believe Noreen’s gone,” I whispered.
“You must allow yourself time to grieve. I’m here whenever you need me.”
I sniffled, lifting my head to meet his gaze. “Really?”
“As much as I wanted to, I cannot abandon you,” he said tenderly, and my heart melted. I snuggled back into his embrace, allowing his solidity and comfort to surround me, if only for a few blissful moments.
***
Another two days passed. After regaling me with everything that happened to her since moving in with her grandmother, Florence returned to Chesterport with Frank. I swear those two made the cutest couple. I was glad to know she was doing well, that she’d found a tribe.
Rita was doing a little better, too. We even managed to get her to leave her room long enough to attend Noreen’s funeral, which Alvie and Gabriel had arranged. She was still lost in grief, but it was less extreme now. I’d never forget the imagery of her out on the road, surrounded by nothing but purple flames.
The day after the funeral Rita and I were eat
ing dinner in the RV when I tried bringing up Emilia and Rebecca. The spell around Emilia’s house still hadn’t let up and Pamphrock was beginning to think he might need to find a witch or a warlock to try and counteract the spell.
“Do you know what, Tegan?” Rita burst, interrupting me midway through my account. “I’m so sick to death of hearing about your problems. Nobody cares, so just shut up.”
I frowned at her, taken aback. “I wasn’t talking about my problems. I was telling you about Rebecca.”
“Yeah, and it all connects back to you. Emilia’s a selfish, evil bitch and she’s your grandmother, boo fucking hoo. Just get the hell out of here. I’m sick of listening to you.”
Rita’s eyes flashed purple, and I rose from my seat, completely shocked by her behaviour. Losing Noreen changed something in her, and I was at a loss to know what to do about it. Rita had always spoken her mind, but now she seemed to be going out of her way to be cruel.
When I stepped outside, I heard her smashing something to the floor. It sounded like a glass shattering. My heart clenched for her. I tried not to feel hurt by her harsh words because I knew she wouldn’t say such things if she weren’t in so much pain. I just hoped that she’d heal with time.
It was drizzling, but I didn’t feel like going back inside the house. I needed to walk and clear my head, figure out a way to bring the old Rita back. I wanted her to be my friend again.
I walked and walked, with no real destination in mind. Since the majority of Pamphrock’s men had been focused on the whole Emilia Petrovsky predicament, there weren’t as many slayers out patrolling the streets.
This meant that Theodore’s chaos mist had started to take a hold of the people again. Yesterday, Finn’s next-door neighbour, a usually polite and reserved woman named Maria, tried to beat up her teenage son in a fit of rage out in their front garden. Knowing exactly what had happened to her, I’d gone over and used my magic to push the mist out of her. A bit of an awkward conversation ensued, with me not being able to properly explain what had just happened. She thought that maybe it was early menopause, and I had to just let her think that.
