My stomach dropped at the mention. My mind briefly returned to my days in the coven, the veiled talk of second sight and talent. I thought it had all been answered by Monica.
Perhaps there was more than even she knew.
Slowly, I crouched, extending my sword toward the ground with my free hand rising in surrender. Just as I did, however, Monica shut her eyes. “I think he owes you one,” Monica said, before whispering a few indistinguishable words under her breath. I only belatedly realized what she meant to do.
‘I’m sorry for this, Peter. ’
A violent force knocked Ian from Monica, the blade in his hand nicking the side of her throat, but failing to draw more than a few drops of blood. Ian spilled onto his back and Monica backed away from him, looking me in the eyes as the world stopped for the briefest of moments. Struck mute, I could not fashion a thing to say as I had no idea what should be done. My mind had already been compromised. The words which escaped my mouth were the only ones which could break through the madness. “Get out of here,” I said. “Swiftly. Run.”
Monica nodded once, then spun around and sprinted for the doors.
Ian growled and rose to his feet. He pocketed his knife, his gaze meeting mine once he steadied himself. “So be it,” he said. “We wander down another maze.”
I took hold of my sword’s hilt with both hands and stalked forward, my fangs descending. “You leave her the fuck alone. This is between you and me.”
He laughed, his eyes narrowing in return. “Yes, it is, dark one. Yes it is. But this lesson must continue.” The predatory sneer enveloped his countenance once more. “Now, come and rescue your witch.”
With a salute, he spun around and dashed toward the doors where Monica had disappeared. Inspired into action, I ran for the room’s entrance as well, arriving there well behind Ian and just in time to see Monica turn down a corridor and speed deeper into the building. I frowned. “Foolish woman,” I said. As Ian gained on her, I heard her heart race from more than exertion. It pushed me forward, pursuing them with all the drive I had in me.
Reaching the end of the corridor, I whipped around in time to see Monica crash through a set of double doors. Ian followed directly behind her and as the doors whipped shut behind him, I saw what looked like a set of stairs on the other side. This was confirmed to me moments later when I burst through the barricade. Upon reaching the staircase, I heard commotion from below me. Vaulting the railing, I jumped onto the landing below and spirited down the final set of stairs. Another set of swinging doors separated me from the chase, but as I raced into the adjoining corridor, I saw I had closed in on them.
Ian shot a glance at me over his shoulder and winked.
I scowled and resumed my sprint. Monica turned down another hallway, with Ian nipping at her heels. For a fleeting second, I considered sheathing my sword in favor of closing the distance more swiftly, but no sooner did the thought occur to me than a collective of vampires emerged from one of the open rooms, a large one which resembled a kitchen at first glance. I skidded to a stop mere feet away from them and jumped back when they each drew swords. Five of them. They sneered at me with fangs exposed and vicious looks on their faces.
Ian disappeared where Monica had headed. I spared as much a glance at them as I dared and looked back to my antagonists to see them circle me and grin. Anger bubbled to a full-boil rage as I surveyed the lot of them and flipped my blade to ensure the sharp end faced them. This would be no mere beating. My steel would taste vampire flesh tonight.
Just the same, I let out a growl to ensure they knew I was not trifling with them. “Get out of my way now,” I cautioned, my eyes jumping from one immortal to the next. They snickered in response and closed in on me, swords raising and preparing to engage. Impatience spurred me into action when they dared to claim one more pace forward. I swung my sword at the first duo and with this, our fight commenced.
They charged at me in response, leaping in a feat of gymnastics unlike any I had witnessed before. Astonished though I was, I sensed the urgency of my watcher calling for me and focused on that far more than I did their exhibitionist behavior. When the first creature landed, I dodged a punch he threw and kicked him onto the ground. My blade slid through his back, but I had no time to relish the victory as he turned to ash. His partner made his move and two others behind me ensured this would not be an orderly battle.
One narrowly missed me. He had attempted a diving tackle, but fell to the floor when his arms caught nothing but air. Another’s sword cut through the air as I slid to my knees and arched my back, avoiding its sharp edge. The third, I caught off guard. I sprang to my feet and whipped my blade upward before he could block the blow. His head was severed in one slice, his body ashes at my feet within seconds.
The downed one, I decapitated in mid-air when he sprang for me again. The fourth met his end when I kicked him down and impaled him through the chest. As I tore through each creature, the symbiotic union I had experienced while holding my katana taunted me again, a hum gaining volume. The sensation became stronger when the fifth vampire charged forward to engage me. The focus of the seer united with the training of the assassin. Both Peter and Flynn spoke with one voice, the fissures of my psyche in one accord if just for a short time.
For the first time, I connected with Peter.
The seer; the one who had been bestowed these gifts in the first place. The brief moment of contact threatened to taunt me into further examination, but the last vampire fell and left me with the hallway and the knowledge that my watcher was in peril. At the same time, I also became aware at how deathly quiet the world had become, a notion which caused my heart to sink. “Monica?” I called out, running for the end of the corridor. “Monica, damn it, speak to me!” I both thought the command and spoke it. “Call to me so I can find you.”
‘Peter!! ’
The voice of my watcher exploded in my mind, but an audible scream cut off the transmission, so ear-shattering I could make it out without my vampire hearing. I rounded the corner and the world before me appeared as though looking through a glass darkly. My hand pressed against the wall for support and immediately, I knew what was happening. The first vision.
I stopped just as I had seen myself doing. The voice spoke as it should have. ‘She is delectable, Flynn. A bit of a burden on your conscience, though. Are you sure you really want this one? ’
I forced myself forward two more steps. ‘You leave her the fuck alone or risk coming face to face with the angel of death himself, ’ I replied. The sense of déjà vu the words brought with them only disquieted me further. This could not be actually happening.
‘As you wish. We will have our discussion, but later, ’ Ian said. ‘When you recognize I am not your true enemy. ’ The chill lifted, as I knew it would, and when I came to a stand again, my heart dropped the same way it had a mere two days beforehand. I ran, knowing what lay ahead, and felt tears sting my eyes. I had failed her. After all of this, I could not keep her safe. I sped into the room I had seen myself enter, but this time, my mad dash was brought to abrupt halt at what I saw before me.
My tepid blood turned frigid. “Fates be damned,” I murmured, sword dropping to the ground and eyes wide with shock. For as much as my stomach still twisted in fear, the surreal drove me into a state of limbo from which I could not force myself even if I had all the focus in the world. My mouth hung agape. “What manner of beast has done this?”
The entire room had been painted in blood spatter, crimson tossed around haphazardly as though a crowd of young children had made the walls and tile their canvas. My fangs remained extended, the sheer gore of the scene more than my instincts could handle. While I had suspected Monica’s friends had perished, I could not have imagined their demise in my wildest dreams.
Wesley hung from the ceiling exactly as I had envisioned him, throat cut and still dripping blood. The ghastly expression remained his death pose, eyes open and staring into oblivion. Jesse’s limbs had been stretched
to the side, suspended as though being drawn and quartered in midair. Gashes from his wrists and legs ebbed blood in a slow trickle. Mark’s head lay feet away from the rest of his corpse and of all the bodies, his looked the most dignified. Still, the brutality of his death meant his life’s essence had contributed more quickly than the others’ to the lake overtaking the rest of the room.
I stumbled backward, still failing to smell Monica’s scent in the midst of it all, which registered enough for me to realize that meant there was yet hope. Turning, I reached for my blade to pluck it off the ground, but slid on a smaller pool of blood and fell. The puddle of sticky crimson called to my thirst, ensuring I would not be able to retract my fangs. I fought for the wherewithal to come to my feet and stumbled for the doorway, hands and legs now covered in blood.
The saturation wrapped me in a haze. Drunk with desire, I clamored back into the hallway, clinging to one thought. I had to find her. She could not have gotten far. She must be in the building some–
“Oh, little vampire?”
The familiar voice knocked me from my stupor. I turned, an impossible sight filling my line of sight.
He smiled broadly, not holding his crossbow, leaving his hands conspicuously free. Another man strolled to a stop beside him. Before I could do so much as squint in their direction, a psychic lock with more force than I had weathered to this point bound me and forced me to my knees. Julian reached behind his back, producing a set of chains which he hurtled at me, riding a telekinetic wave to where I knelt. I hollered in offense as the sting of silver enclosed my wrists and ankles, unapologetic in the way the shackles burned my skin.
“Still a demon after all,” the unfamiliar man said to the seer who accompanied him. His hair a salt-and-pepper color, he was clearly Julian’s senior, though I had no notion how. He stood at the same height as the German seer, a leaner build but no less an intimidating force. The two men closed in on me, both glaring through narrowed eyes.
I shook my head. “No,” I said. “Release me. Julian, please. Whoever you are, this is urgent. You must let me go.”
“We’ll do no such thing, Mr. Dawes,” Julian’s accomplice said. “You’re mine now.” His arms were raised and for the first time, it occurred to me it was his outstretched hands which kept me locked in place. Hate saturated his stare and his next words dripped with venom so thick, they should have pierced my skin to poison me. He came to a stop mere inches away and looked downward, lowering his hands.
“We’ve never had the chance to be acquainted,” he said, “So, let me introduce myself. My name is Malcolm Davies and I am the presiding chairman of the High Council. You are the vampire they call Flynn. And you are also the bastard who murdered my daughter.”
Part Five
The Reckoning
“My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,
So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.”
Emily Dickinson
Chapter Twenty-One
“Mr. Davies, please listen to me. Your larger concern is elsewhere in this building. An elder vampire has taken Monica and I do not know what he–”
“Shut up,” Malcolm Davies said as he regarded me, loathe piercing through me like daggers. As his green eyes blazed fury at me, all I could think about were the green eyes of his daughter and the urgency which still screamed within my mind. It seemed far removed from the man staring down at me.
He continued to speak. “I’ve had enough of your lies and your trickery. You’re a disgusting creature that should have been destroyed years ago.”
“Damn you!” I shouted. “I care little for what you think of me! Your daughter is in trouble! She walked inside this building with me and was abducted by our adversary.” A wave of emotion crested over me, my teeth gritted while tears of frustration welled in my eyes. I swallowed down the lump forming in my throat. “Please find her. I implore you. You do not have to release me, simply do not let him kill her.”
“Malcolm, come and look at this.”
Malcolm glanced up, regarding Julian who had disappeared somewhere behind me. With a nod, he strolled past, not acknowledging my words with so much as a grunt before disappearing. I bowed my head, focusing on my fangs and directing my attention away from the pervasive scent of blood. It took several moments, but they slid back into place at last.
This left my watcher. I sighed, building upon the focus I had already established and feeling for the link we shared with one another. While it could not confirm her status, it also did nothing to settle me when transmitting a message brought dead air in response. I needed to get out of there. If Julian and her father were going to be of no help to me, I would have to find her myself. I wriggled my wrists and fought the reflexive hiss the touch of silver against my bare skin brought with it. The last time I had been bound in silver, I had been at my watcher’s mercy. If the Fates were kind, this time I would have more success.
Indulging a deep breath inward, I fought to draw energy toward me the same way I had while feeling the walls. My first attempt to break the lock resulted in nothing but resistance. Still, I made another attempt and just as I felt the hold begin to relent, a set of footsteps raced toward me. “Oh no you don’t,” Malcolm said charging up from behind and grabbing me by the collar of my shirt. The force of his grip coupled with his superior psychic abilities brought me to my feet. In a sheer act of will, he hurtled me into the other room. When I landed in the lake of blood, my fangs descended again. I moaned when some splashed onto my face, but was spared from rolling onto my stomach and lapping at it like an animal.
Malcolm pulled me back to my knees and walked to my side. “You sadistic son of a bitch,” he said, “You knew he called me, didn’t you?”
I looked toward the gruesome sight of the dead trio once more. My head swam with the need for sustenance rearing its ugly head again. “I have no fucking idea what you are talking about,” I murmured.
“He called me!” Malcolm pointed to where Wesley hung. “He told us you were here. Mentioned the possibility of looking for some accomplice of your maker’s here… Ian was his name, I think. And I’d be willing to bet you were waiting for him, judging from how close to sunset we are.” He shook his head with disdain. “Didn’t count on getting caught, did you?”
I laughed. “I did not kill any of these men. I received a vision to be here and arrived as quickly as possible with Monica.” Monica. Evoking her name again reminded me of the panic. “We were trying to stop Ian. Please, you must look–”
“You didn’t kill him? Please.” He nodded at me. “You were covered in their blood when you walked out of the room.”
“I was searching for Monica and I slipped.”
While I expected another verbal jab, my normally-keen reflexes were dull to the action when Malcolm reared back and kicked me in the jaw. I fell backward, my glasses flying onto the floor when my head impacted with the tile. I slid when I wriggled and another whiff saturated with the scent of what I laid upon inspired a groan. It was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain any concentration. The pain afflicting my eyes until I clenched them shut only made matters worse.
Malcolm paced to the other side. “Stop playing games with me, Mr. Dawes. I’m not ignorant. Your little lie was dismantling and it was time for you to clean house before you moved on. If your crony made off with my daughter, I’m only blaming you for the company you decided to keep.”
I shivered. “That is utterly absurd. Please, there may still be time–”
“No, you are absurd. Killing Lydia? Luring Monica into the dark with you? Making up some story about the High Council being in trouble to try and fool these three when your partner turned on you?”
“I did not touch Wesley, nor did I harm Mark or Jesse and I sure as bloody hell w
ould be rescuing Monica if you would fucking let me go.” Drawing from the remnant of inner strength I had left, I rose to my knees again. “You shall not stop me from try–”
“Enough!” Malcolm kicked me again. I spilled to my side.
“Spiteful being!” Gods, each encounter with the blood on the ground was unraveling me. My teeth ached with wanton need. I became aware of what a mess I had to look like by then. All I could think about was licking myself clean. I stole so many breaths, I must have sounded to be hyperventilating. My voice became weak; pitiful. “You are so bent on exacting revenge you would kill your only child. Monica shall surely be dead if you will not listen.”
His foot landed on my stomach. I moaned, this time from pain. “What type of a fool do you think I am??”
“One who has sight, but no vision!” My head was pounding, room spinning all around me. I could not tell if the droplets running down my cheek were tears or remnant from the floor. “Run me through and end me as you wish to do. But gods, look for her. Look for her, Julian. Please…” My lips motioned to form words, but language was becoming hard to manufacture. I blurted the final thought I could manage to summon. “I love her.”
“You soulless demon, as if you could know love.” Shoes scuffed on the floor, Malcolm and Julian’s voices becoming almost indistinguishable. I could not make out their actions, and wondered if a sword was indeed on its way to ending me, but words like, “sentencing” and “trial” and “public example” floated through the air. I became aware of incomprehensible noises passing through my lips and finally ran my tongue around my mouth and wherever else it would reach to lap up what little blood I could manage. I could have sworn I heard Malcolm say the word “pathetic”. Had I been in his position, regarding my state, I would have agreed.
Rebirth of the Seer Page 28
