by Mia Archer
Not that I believed in it much now. It was all stories and the supernatural. Things that go bump in the night.
Like vampires.
I wondered if Selene thought the same thing before she died.
Those hazy clouds off in the distance rippled and rumbled and light played across them as though there was lightning moving through. That was sorta trippy. Was I high or something?
I’d been at a party.
Party. Another rumbling. That voice echoed through my head. Damn it. Where the hell was I? There was something important about those words. Vampire. Party. Vampires.
I was supposed to find the vampires. Make them pay. But they got to me first…
I felt like I was flying down a tunnel. I was surrounded by a haze I wanted to push back against. There was something just out of reach pushing against me and fogging up my brain.
Sort of like being drunk, but more intense. Not that I’d been drunk before tonight. I wasn’t even sure I’d been drunk tonight. Or that night when Ivy gave me that weird vampire drink.
I pushed against that feeling pressing against me. The darkness around me rippled and pressed in, but I pressed back.
Pressing back felt like magic. It felt right. Comfortable. Even if it couldn’t be the magic. The magic had forsaken me.
I pushed more, working with my mind and not my physical body, and it seemed like the foggy darkness bounced and shattered.
Light pierced my brain. I had one hell of a headache threatening, but it hadn’t quite gone running through my brain.
Yet.
I blinked a couple of times to try and clear the brightness away, but it didn’t disappear. Then it hit me that I was blinking. I was in control of my body again, and I was actually getting some input from something other than my untethered mind.
I didn’t like what I saw.
Amber hovered over me with a worried expression. Not good. Memories of the house party came flooding back. Screaming. People being pulled into the darkness behind the house. Amber screaming about the vampires killing people.
Oh yeah. There’d been vampires there. I’d known they were out there, but knowing they were out there, flirting with one who still looked human, and being confronted with the reality of fucking vampires hunting me down were very different things.
“What the hell’s going on?” I groaned, almost afraid of the answer.
“There are these crazy girls who took all of us to some creepy rape basement or something and things are not. Good,” Amber said.
“You mean the vampires?” I asked.
I figured there was no point sugar coating it. There were vampires out there. Amber didn’t have the advance warning I did, but she saw what happened at that party.
From the way Amber was staring she didn’t like being reminded of the bloodsuckers who’d taken us captive.
I didn’t like being reminded of it either, but if something hissed like a vampire and had fangs like a vampire and raided a party in the middle of the night like a vampire it felt a little silly to try and pretend they were goths with a sun aversion and blood packets pulling an elaborate practical joke.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Amber said.
I tried to pull myself up, but everything went wobbly. My vision doubled and it was almost like I was looking at some picture of space or something with stars and gas clouds lighting up in the distance. A moment later it was gone and I was back in reality.
That was weird. I wondered what the hell that place was.
Amber put an arm around me and with her help I managed to pull myself up. I looked around the room and didn’t like what I was seeing.
We were trapped in a room that was almost completely devoid of furniture. There were a couple of chairs and a table off to the side. A table that looked like it still had the remains of something red and sticky all over it as well as on the floor around it.
I tried not to think about what that might be, though given the circumstances it was pretty obvious. I really hoped I wouldn’t be the next person to mess up that table.
“Yup, seems like your classic serial killer den,” I said. “Where’s the pit and the lotion?”
I looked at Amber and the other two girls. None of them seemed as amused by my humor as I was. One girl, a redhead, was rocking back and forth with her arms wrapped around her body sniffling and trying not to cry. A brunette wasn’t trying to hide her crying.
I suppose the one good thing about this whole situation was I couldn’t see any sign of the pricks who’d brought us here. That meant I had time to think. Figure out how to get the hell out of here.
If I could get out of here I could call the coven and a world of hurt would fall down on these vampires.
“Is there any way to get out of here?” I asked. “Did any of you see anything about how they got in?”
The other girls were going to be useless. One stared straight ahead, obviously catatonic. The other kept sobbing. Amber shook her head. Damn. I didn’t figure it would be that easy, but it would’ve been nice if it was.
“There has to be some way to get out of here,” I said. “As long as they’re not here we have time to escape.”
“One of them looked like Diana,” Amber whispered.
I stared at her. Okay then. If she was so far separated from reality that she couldn't admit that actually was Diana then I wasn’t going to push.
I needed to focus on escape. We still had time. At least I hoped we had time. There was always the chance they were watching us. Toying with us.
That seemed like the kind of asshole thing a bloodsucker would do. Oh how I wished I had a nice stake.
I tried to stand, but nothing happened. Not that it mattered. All that talk about getting out of here while we weren’t being watched was completely useless when the vampires walked through a hidden door. They grinned at us like a bunch of wolves looking at a delicious meal.
On the plus side I knew where their hidden entrance was now. On the minus side I had no idea how to open it, or how I was going to get past the vampires to get through to that door.
“What do we have here?” Diana asked. “A group of tasty morsels just for us?”
She looked us over with an unpleasant gleam in her eye. Then she looked at me in particular. This was all about me. I felt horrible for the other girls trapped here, and I reminded myself that this was all Diana’s doing. Not mine.
I really didn’t like the look on any of their faces. They stared at us with the same intensity I usually reserved for a Twinkie or something else really unhealthy when I was trying to lose weight and my willpower was failing me.
“Need to get out of here,” I groaned.
“You, the redhead,” Diana said.
I felt like someone had smacked a giant gong right next to my head. The entire world spun around me as though I’d had way too much to drink.
And I saw that same haze again for a moment. The stars and the nebulae and the crackling angry red lightning. Then it was gone.
There was something about her voice that was so fucking compelling. I wasn’t even the redhead and I felt an overpowering urge to do everything this girl wanted.
The only thing that kept me from trying to get up again was the command wasn’t directed at me. That made all the difference. I wanted to do what she said, and she didn't tell me to get up.
It was like the world’s most fucked up game of Simon Says ever.
The catatonic rocking girl, a pretty redhead in a halter top that showed off her considerable assets, stood and stepped forward. She’d gone from catatonic to a trance.
She walked willingly to that bitch, which isn’t something I’d be doing if I was in her shoes.
Or maybe I would. There was the overwhelming strength of that command to consider, after all. If I wanted to go over to her when she was beckoning someone else then who was to say what would happen when she was focusing that on me?
I was all fuzzy in the head again. Like when I was float
ing in that weird void.
“Do you enjoy being here tonight?” Diana asked.
The girl looked down and shook her head. Diana’s eyes flashed red as she reached out and caressed the girl’s cheek.
“Darling, what’s your name?” she asked, her voice filled with a smarmy confidence that never quite reached her eyes.
Interesting. It was almost as though she wasn’t used to the whole vampire routine. Almost like someone trying on a role for the first time. No different than all the asshole poseurs walking around campus desperately trying to shed whatever their high school image.
“My name is Sadie,” the girl said.
“Now Sadie darling,” Diana purred. “I’d be very happy if you told me you enjoyed being here tonight. Could you be a darling and make me happy? I know you want me to be happy.”
Damn. her voice was like a lover’s caress. It washed over me and made me want to leap across the room and shove this Sadie girl aside so I’d have a chance to please this asshole even though my brain was screaming that this was all so wrong.
That fog was moving in again. Whispering to me. Telling me how nice it would be to make Diana happy.
Only this time it wasn’t as intense. This time when I pushed back it gave way just a little more, and Diana frowned and shook her head. Almost as though she’d felt it.
What. The fuck.
“Damn it!” she shouted. “You’re distracting me Sadie!”
I blinked. The transition from wannabe smooth talker to pissed off monster was almost instantaneous, only she wasn’t like any monster from the movies.
No, this was the boring sort of monster people saw all the time. The sort that could walk through society with no problem because they were so ordinary. She was an abusive bitch who wasn’t getting what she wanted from the girl she was abusing.
I shivered. Not good. Very not good. And I couldn’t help but feel that me pushing back against her suggestion, somehow, impossibly, was the reason why she was so angry.
Only poor Sadie was the one who was going to suffer the consequences.
27
Lisa
Diana looked down on the poor girl, Sadie, with pure fury glowing in her eyes. Not that her eyes were actually glowing, though come to think of it I wouldn’t be surprised to see a vampire with glowing eyes.
A detached part of my mind was coolly cataloging all the differences between the assholes in front of us and what I’d seen in the movies and read about in the books now that I was seeing them acting like vampires and not trying to hide what they were.
These girls didn’t sparkle, for example. A damn good thing too. I would’ve had a hard time taking them seriously if they did. Honestly, who makes a relentlessly seductive killing machine look like they just got hit with a glitter bomb?
I shut down that analytical side. The animal side of me, the part that knew these girls were the predators and I was nothing more than a delicious Twinkie to them, took over as my fury reached a breaking point. Diana slapped Sadie across the face and she went flying into the wall.
“Do you see what you make me do? You aren’t supposed to resist me you bitch!”
In an instant Diana was on her. Super speed. The analytical side of me chimed in long enough to note that was something vampires did do before pure gibbering terror took over again.
Diana reached down and grabbed at Sadie’s throat. The girl whimpered in terror as Diana’s fangs descended. Sadie’s feet kicked frantically as Diana sucked from her neck, but those kicks slowly grew less and less powerful.
I was reminded of the time I saw my dog kill a baby bunny in our back yard. I’d stared in horror as it the cute furry bloody thing twitched less and less, until its body finally shut down. It was odd to watch the same thing happen with a human. Her legs kicked a final time and then Sadie was still.
The room was silent except for the terrified sniffling of the other girls around me. I realized with a surprised start that some of that terrified sniffling was coming from me. Tears ran down my cheeks as I stared at that poor girl who’d just had the life sucked from her.
Which one of us was next?
“I’ll enjoy the rest of you later my darling,” Diana said. “But first, the rest of the fun.”
She’d enjoy the rest of her later? I looked closely. Saw Sadie’s chest rise and fall. Her breathing was shallow. She’d lost a lot of blood. Probably more than a person could lose and still be in the land of the living for long.
Not that it mattered all that much. Diana would return to finish the job soon enough. After she was done with the rest of us.
The other vamps seemed to be hanging back. Like they were nervous about something.
Elle moved down the line to the second girl. The sobbing brunette next to Amber. She was pretty enough, though she maybe went a little heavy on the makeup. Makeup that was running down her face now as she sobbed and begged for mercy.
Elle held her hand up to her face. “You will obey my every command.”
Elle’s tone was so cheesy that I had to fight not to laugh. Something told me provoking the vampire who could kill me wasn’t a good idea, even if her attempts at being scary seductive weren’t exactly working.
The girl kept right on sobbing and shaking her head. Repeating over and over that she wanted to go home. My heart went out to her.
Elle’s eyes narrowed. Her anger was quieter than Diana’s but it was still there. In an instant she was on the poor girl. Amber and I screamed as Elle pressed the girl against the wall and attacked her neck.
When the girl’s twitching was done there was no shallow breath left in her. Elle didn’t show the same mercy as Diana, if that could be called a mercy. When she pulled away her face was red with the girl’s blood as she fell to the floor.
That left two. Me and Amber.
Diana stepped over to us. Looked between the two of us with her arms crossed in the same way I might look down between the fried chicken and fish at a buffet.
I took Amber’s hand. Gave it a squeeze to let her know I was there for her even if it didn’t look like either of us was going to be there for the other for much longer.
“Why are you doing this Diana?” Amber asked, finally finding her voice again.
I screamed for the magic. Tried to force it to come to me even though I knew that’s not how it worked. The magic came when it was ready, and it seemed in this case it was ready for me to die.
Diana’s hand ran along Amber’s cheek for a moment before she pushed her away and her eyes fell on me. A cruel half smile turned her lips up.
“I think I’ll choose you, my dear,” she said. “After all, there’s something about you. Ivy was right to be fixated on you. Now rise.”
I didn’t think I’d be doing any rising even if her trick was working on me, but the funny thing is it didn’t.
The first time she did it with that Sadie girl it felt like I’d do anything for her if she asked, but I’d fought it off. Now her request rolled off of me. I felt that darkness, that strange void, coming for me, but my my mind had practice pushing it away now.
So I pushed the compulsion away as it threatened to overwhelm me. If this bitch was going to kill me then she could kill me, but she was going to do it on my terms. Not hers.
“No,” I said.
Her eyes narrowed. “What did you say?”
I glanced around the room. Particularly to Sadie who was still breathing shallowly, and to the other nameless girl who’d never had a chance.
I could be joining both of them very soon, but again, if I was going to join them then it was going to be on my feet.
Well, I was literally sitting on my ass. I’d be metaphorically standing on my feet flipping this bitch the bird.
“I said no. I’m not going to do anything you fucking ask me to do. If you’re going to kill me then kill me, but get it over with and stop with all the wannabe master vampire stuff. It’s pathetic,” I said.
She was on me in an instant. Pain flared in pl
aces I didn’t even know existed. I wondered if I’d broken something, or if I was simply sore from being manhandled around campus while they were carting me to wherever the hell we were.
I hit the wall and stars danced in my vision. For a moment it made her face look like she really was sparkling, and I couldn’t help but giggle. A sparkling vampire. Seriously. Who ever fucking thought sparkling vampires would be sexy or terrifying?
“Do you think this is funny bitch?”
“I think you’re pathetic, and no amount of throwing girls around or trying to intimidate them is ever going to work,” I said.
Then for good measure I spit in her face. Oh dear. I was getting saucy. Then again if she was going to kill me anyways why not go out letting her know exactly what I thought of her?
Diana stared in astonishment. Her grip tightened with one hand as her other hand moved up to her face and wiped the spit away. She looked down at her hands, and the disbelief on her face was almost enough to make me giggle again.
Almost. I didn’t want to set her off when she was already squeezing my arm hard enough that it felt like all it would take was a little more pressure to snap the bone.
“Did you just spit on me?”
“Whoa Diana! Looks like you’re letting the food get to you,” Elle whooped.
“You shut the fuck up!” Diana shouted, spit flying from her mouth and revealing her fangs.
“You’re going to pay for that, bitch,” she said. “You had your chance and you threw it away. I’m going to make you regret you ever did that. You’ll never come into my dreams again if I kill your ass, and Ivy doesn’t ever have to find out I was the one who took care of you.”
There was something there. Mentioning Ivy was enough to get the other vamps in the room shuffling and glancing towards the door nervously. As though they were second guessing what they were doing down here.
Or maybe they were worried about what would happen if Ivy found them.
