by Kiersten Fay
“Men are coming,” Bray informed her.
She was sandwiched between him and the freezing lake. Eyeing the water ominously, she asked, “Should we swim for it?”
“That’s a long swim. And these dogs would follow us. We wouldn’t get far. Even if we did make it out of their reach, I’d risk you freezing to death.”
The dogs inched closer, yet didn’t attack. Corralling us?
“I hope you’re not one of those bleeding-heart animal lovers,” Bray said to her.
She replied coldly, “If it’s us or them? I chose us.”
“Good.” He lunged, gripping one of the dogs. A crack rang out along with a shuddersome whimper. The remaining four dogs set on Bray like a finely coordinated team, each one taking a different limb.
She ducked behind a tree trunk. Fighting off ravenous beasts was not her forte. She’d likely lose an arm, or the very least, get in Bray’s way.
Another gruesome whimper was cut short. The sound spiked the hairs on the back of her neck.
Voices hollering from somewhere close by. Flashlights glinted from behind trees, playing tricks with the shadows. Her mind reeled. Without thinking, she reached for a downed tree limb, roughly the size of a bat.
Just then, Bray let out a harrowing groan of defeat. Cora had never understood the expression blood turned to ice until this very moment. Every part of her body seemed to freeze with it. She forced herself to glance from behind her hiding place to where Bray now knelt. Three of the dogs were backing away from him. Two of them lay lifeless. Something protruded from Bray’s neck. Even without a clear view she knew it was a dart, designed to drop a vampire in seconds.
He managed to choke out, “Run, Cora,” before he fell over, unconscious.
She had a heartbeat to rebel against Bray’s order, not wanting to leave him. But there was no helping him if she was caught as well. Dropping her makeshift weapon, she sprinted into the night. Unfortunately, in the last few minutes she hadn’t gained a vampire’s ability to see through darkness.
She stumbled and tripped, and it was all but too easy for the humanoid figure that gave chase to reach out and snatch her back to where the dogs were now wagging their tails, a job well done.
There were only two men—two!—who had run them down so effortlessly. She couldn’t gather their features with the flashlight pointed in her face. However, she got the distinct impression that neither of them were vampires. Adept hunters? Yes. Skilled trackers? Obviously. But not supernatural by nature.
“Is it her?” The one gripping her by her nape asked.
The other held out a piece of paper next to her head. “Looks like it.” The flashlight came closer. “Is your name Coraline?”
“No.” She offered them a bogus name that she’d later have no recollection of.
“Then why did that guy call you Cora?” the man holding her challenged.
“He didn’t,” she said. “You heard wrong.”
“So this ain’t you?” The man turned the paper around and presented her with a photograph—from her wedding day! The couple standing around that five-tier gourmet cake with frosted roses and silver bows appeared so happy. Winston stared down at her with what she had taken at the time as love. Devotion. Now his expression appeared false. Sinister.
“No, that’s not me. Do I look like someone who’d wear a lace wedding dress?” Cora attempted a scoff, but the sound fell flat.
The man at her front grunted. “Tie this lying bitch up. I’ll get the big man.”
Once both she and Bray were secured with their arms behind their backs, with extra rope used on Bray, the men started a fire, which made it possible for Cora to see them more clearly. Both were blond and had a scruffy look about them, but that could be because, she assumed, they’d been hightailing it through the forest. Or maybe they were just unhygienic in general.
One of the men had a faint scar on his upper lip and a crooked nose, as if he’d been badly beaten at one point in his life and hadn’t healed right. The other had shrewd yet straight features, suggesting he might be better with words than fists. However, there was something about him, the way he held himself maybe, or the savage glint in his eye that gave the impression he was the more dangerous of the two, the one to be wary of.
She focused on the dogs, who were just about finished marking the place. They were clearly mutts with matted hair that could use a good wash and a brushing. Two were short-hairs and had light-colored fur. The other was black and shaggy with floppy ears and a set of feet too big for its body.
Neither of the men acknowledged the animals Bray had killed, as if they were an unimportant loss, but, in turn, the surviving dogs sniffed around the carcasses, nudging them with their snouts as though they were trying to wake their four-legged comrades. The black dog appeared to comprehend what the others didn’t and opted to lie down, seemingly in mourning. Finally the others followed suite, softly whimpering.
For those few moments, the three mutts seemed to contain more humanity than their human counterparts, who, for several minutes argued whether to head back now or wait till first light. Apparently they hadn’t slept at all while on the trail.
When the argument shifted to who would be carrying the unconscious, muscle-packed vampire, they opted to stay till Bray woke.
“What about the sun?” Cora asked. “He’s a vampire.”
“You don’t know much about vampires, do you girl?” said the man with the crooked nose. “That whole sun business is a myth.”
Her breath caught, and she hoped they hadn’t heard. Were these just a couple of hired goons, opportunistic bounty hunters who had no clue about vampires or why they’d been sent after one? Or were vampires so secretive about that particular weakness that they even kept it from their human drudges?
Bray hadn’t had any problem with telling her, though. But then, they were bonded. Maybe he’d felt compelled to. Contrarily, Mace had no problem keeping the secret, even when she’d asked about his dose.
Shelving her ire, she demanded, “Who sent you?”
If these men were merely bounty hunters, motivated by money, there was a small chance—miniscule really—that she could plead with them. If that was the case, her odds were better than if they were vampire minions: humans who pledged themselves to vampires in hopes of one day joining their numbers.
“If you don’t know who sent us, then you’re in a whole lot more trouble than you think,” Crooked Nose answered.
No, she knew just how screwed they were. Still. “You don’t know what they’ll do to us. What they’ve already done!”
“You’re hankering for a gag, sweetheart,” the man with the straight nose exclaimed. “Shut it or you’ll find my sweaty sock in your mouth”—he leaned forward—“or something else entirely.”
She shrank back at the lewd twinkle in his eyes and did not speak again.
Chapter 30
Before the doctor and his horrendous underground laboratory, there had been a total of five times in Cora’s recollection where she had felt true hopelessness, utterly despair, to the point of breaking.
The first was when her parents had died, leaving her, a ten year old child, alone in this callous, fucked-up world. The second had been shortly afterward, when Edgar had abducted her and held her against her will. The third, oddly enough, was just after she was free of him, sent back out in the world with new scars and still no clue as to how to take care of herself. The fourth had come a few years later at the hands of a lecherous vagrant who had happened upon her while she’d slept in an alley behind a noxious dumpster that smelled of feces and refuse. And yet, to this day, all she could recall was the stench of liquor on the man’s breath.
She’d been fourteen at the time, had barely escaped with her life—and had never again slept out in the open.
She rarely allowed herself to think of that grisly night, or how far she had run, the needle-sharp cramping in her legs, the burning in her lungs as she forced herself to block out the pain and keep going,
even knowing there would be no escape from what she had lost that night.
After that night, she had searched out a gang to join, hoping for a measure of protection and unwittingly bringing her to the fifth time a sense of bone-deep helplessness had engulfed her.
Within the gang, she had met a girl named Emily, one year older than her. They had bonded the way only kindred spirits could. Sisters from the start. Neither had any doubt that they’d be lifelong friends and vowed to always watch the other’s back. But one day, while Cora had been out stealing, scavenging for food, and begging for change, a rival gang had invaded their territory. Cora would never know exactly what had transpired that day, where the other gang had gotten all that fire power, or why Emily hadn’t ducked out the back entrance and beat feet the way they’d agreed to do if such a thing occurred.
All she’d ever know is that Emily’s brains would forever decorate the beat up old sofa the two of them had painstakingly lugged in from the dumb, and that you can’t bring someone back to life with hot tears and desperate cries.
Cora blinked away fresh tears and readjusted her position on the ground to keep the ropes around her wrists from pinching. Right now, hopelessness bloomed anew, till she nearly couldn’t breathe under its suffocating weight.
Bray was still out. Twice his eyes had briefly cracked open, rolling blearily in lethargic confusion before closing once more.
The sun would rise in an hour’s time, judging by the waning sky. And when that happened…
Mentally, she tried to rally. It would do no good to crumble now.
For the last few hours, the man with the crooked nose had slumbered a few feet from her with his hat securely over his face, while his comrade fed the fire and kept watch.
Covertly, Cora had been working on her ropes, trying to loosen them. Unfortunately she had made little progress. These men knew their way around a knot.
Harder than before, she jostled her arms in an attempt to relax her binds. She succeeded only in chafing her skin. How much repeated damage could her flesh take before her body said fuck it and gave up repairing itself? She’d been tied up, tied down, and restrained more times in the last month than in the whole of her life!
Envy crested when she recalled how easily Sadira had shed her restraints. A simple chant. A spark of power. Bam.
Cora wished to the goddess that she had such talent.
She stilled.
Maybe she did.
Such power you have. What a rarity. Sadira’s words echoed like a gong—and, more importantly, so did the exact words of Sadira’s incantation.
Could she mimic Sadira’s spell to free them?
It wouldn’t hurt to try.
But before she did, she would need Bray to be alert and ready to attack…if she was successful.
After a good twenty minutes later, when his eyes finally cracked open with a hint of coherency, she tried to catch his gaze before he inadvertently alerted their captors that he was awake. But when he tried to move his arms and found them restrained, he—and subsequently Cora—was engulfed by pure, concentrated panic. He turned wild and ferocious.
Cora shrank back by the unexpected intensity.
The tendons in his neck strained. The muscles in his biceps bulged. The fibers of the rope crackled as they stretched, but held true. His body gave a violent jerk as he let out a harrowing snarl, his fangs prominent and threatening.
The man keeping watch stood and kicked his friend with the tip of his boot. “The vamp is up. Let’s head out.”
At his voice, the dogs jumped up and began perusing their immediate area, sniffing the air. The man with the crooked nose shed his grogginess and pushed to his feet, fixing his cowboy hat back on his head.
When they approached Bray, he hollered his frustration, jerking more fervently, like a wild beast that knew he was about to be caged. The pure, crippling dread that wafted off him made Cora nauseous. For the last five years, his life had been a dreary existence of isolation and starvation, his home comparable to a torture chamber. The thought of returning to his dreary cell must be more terrifying for him than Cora could imagine. As it was, Cora would rather die than go back there. However, it wasn’t she who would soon whither in the sun.
Together, the men hauled Bray to his feet. One held him by the ropes at his back while the other moved to Cora and lifted her to stand and then cut the ropes at her ankles so she could walk. They left Bray’s feet tied, adjusting them like that of a prisoner so he could only waddle.
She tried to will Bray to look at her, but his stark gaze was focused on the Persian-blue sky. Was he contemplating his impending demise?
At the thought, pain squeezed the cavity of her chest. A mere twenty-four hours of freedom was all he’d been granted.
She might have been the catalyst to his escape from that hellhole, but unless she could accomplish Sadira’s spell, he was doomed nonetheless. Bray gave her credit for his liberation. Would he also credit her with getting him killed?
She bit back a sob.
Bray glanced at her then.
As a show of courage, she drew back her shoulders and mouthed the word magic coupled with a significant look.
Gradually, a fraction of panic slipped out of him, backfilled by confidence…in her. Finally, he inclined his head in a barely discernible nod.
She had a hard time swallowing the sudden anxiety that had built in her throat. This time their survival really did rest on her. And if she failed?
She slammed that thought into a box with the rest of her doubts and mentally locked it. Now that Bray was a little more in control of himself, her determination was renewed. As long as both of them still breathed, they would fight to survive.
The men hadn’t noticed their exchange. They were busy snuffing out the fire and gathering their meager belongings: a couple of half-packed knapsacks. While the straight nosed man inventoried the items within, she inconspicuously tried to catch a glimpse. She spotted a knife, some extra rope, and a gun. She couldn’t tell if was a tranquillizer gun, or the killing kind.
From the corner of her eye, she saw one of the dogs lift its snout and sniff the air. It was then that she caught the scent of burning wood.
She wasn’t the only one.
“Look there,” the man with the straight features pointed towards a pillar of rising smoke. “We must be near a town.”
The other man jeered, “There aren’t any towns out here, fool. Just mountain folk.”
“Well then we’re near a cabin, or something. Smells like breakfast, don’t you think?”
Crooked Nose adjusted his hat and gave a menacing grin. “S‘pose we should find out.”
Clearly assuming Bray was no threat to him, Crooked Nose shoved him in the direction of the smoke. Bray let out a deep, rumbling growl that would have terrified Cora if it had been issued upon their meeting. But, instead of taking the sound as a warning, the cocky men laughed.
“Be a good boy, vampire, and we might let you feed on whoever’s tending that fire.” Crooked Nose whistled a command and the dogs took off ahead of them.
Before they all headed after them, Bray gave her a questioning glance. She nodded, silently communicating that she was about to cast her spell—or rather, try to. And though he had no idea exactly what she intended, he seemed to believe wholeheartedly that she could do something. At least, that’s what the small curve at the corners of his mouth told her.
She hoped he was right. Goddess give me strength.
Obeying the men’s direction, Bray took the lead. She rushed to position herself behind him, blocking their view of his ropes. She planned to work on his first.
The sky was growing brighter, bringing on a sense of urgency. Bray had lasted only a couple hours last time before becoming considerably weakened. For her spell to benefit them—if she could actually cast it—he would need to be at his peak. Everything would depend on his reaction time. He’d have to disable the men before they could get another dart in him. If he was knocked unconsciou
s now, even if he managed to immobilize the men beforehand, Cora would be helpless to save him from the sun. There was no way she’d be able to drag him to safety in time.
Here goes nothing.
Under her breath, she began the incantation and was relieved when it appeared neither man could hear her. But her relief was but a faint glare against the shadow of disappointment. When the spell was finished, Bray’s ropes remained intact.
Her shoulders sagged with her discouragement, and she fought against a quivering lip.
“You can do this, Cora,” Bray blurted. He must be sensing her dismay. Not surprising, considering she was drowning in it.
“I can’t,” she choked out.
“Yes you can. Keep your knees up. Just one step after the next. Keep trying.”
She caught his drift. He was giving her encouragement while making it sound as if she were notoriously bad at hiking so as not to arouse suspicion. Clever vampire.
“No talking,” one of the men shouted from behind.
One step after the next? Was she forgetting a step? Was there something Sadira had done that she had failed to notice? At the time, Cora recalled a mystical power billowing and coursing through Sadira, and by proxy through Cora—the same sensation she had felt when she’d ordered Bray to pick himself off the ground but that was missing at the moment.
It had been almost foreign in its newness, yet familiar and oddly natural.
Had she called upon it from an outside source, or from within? Perhaps it was something that had always been there? Buried under years of neglect. She just had to dig.
She shifted her attention inward, seeking something mystical that had before gone unnoticed. Something that made her unique. Remarkable. Something once bound, but was now free to be tapped.
Surprisingly, now that she was looking for it, it didn’t take long to find.
A spark bloomed in her chest, startling her into a stumble. Bray craned his head around to give her a questioning look over his shoulder. She responded with what she hoped was a reassuring smile.
