For The Sake of Revenge_An Alaskan Vampire Novel

by DL Atha

  Deciding a little insurance was best, I tasted my own blood with my tongue, and he went crazy beneath me. With bared fangs, he flexed his neck upwards, straining to get to me.

  He was past reason, and I couldn’t find a coherent thought anywhere in his consciousness. I took a deep breath and jerked the stake as hard as I could, feeling it slide out of the ground beneath him, through his body, and out into the air over my head.

  The force of my pull would have thrown me backwards if his hands hadn’t erupted through the ground to catch my back. So frenzied by my blood, he’d buried his fangs deeply into my wrist just as the stake had cleared him.

  His body followed next, coming up out of the ground like the trunk of a tall tree as he rolled from the ground onto me, pinning me with his weight. His body was cold and wet; my t-shirt rubbing against his naked skin was no protection against the iciness of his body. I shivered beneath him out of both terror and exposure. My fate was sealed, my wrist bore his mark, but that didn’t mean that I’d die well.

  I’d chosen this but I couldn’t stop the few warm tears that slipped out of my eyes from the pain and the fear, mingling with the mist before finally cooling on my cheeks.

  He drew heavily on my wrist until I felt the tips of my fingers start to tingle and then finally go numb. A moment later, he angrily pulled his fangs out and plunged them into another artery. Only seconds had passed before I sluggishly realized that the second artery had collapsed beneath his hungry lips.

  Lying beneath him, my head was spinning, and my vision starting to tunnel as he lifted his head from my arm. He studied me for a moment before he touched my chin with a finger, rolling my head to the side to look at him. Through the blood bond, I was vaguely aware that he was calmer, the hunger that had filled his head still present but through its red haze rational thoughts began to surface.

  “Where is your home?” he asked, speaking both internally and aloud.

  I was past speech, past forming collective sentences or complete thoughts, but his mention of home brought images of my childhood to mind.

  I saw Mom standing on our porch, waving to me as I ran to the school bus, my grandmother cleaning fish in the backyard. Images of Peter driving me home in his dad’s restored convertible mustang, my arms waving wildly back and forth in the wind as he took the curves a tad too fast.

  Long-forgotten images of my dad surfaced to ripple across my slowing mind. He and I riding bikes to and from town, groceries stacked up in the little baskets above our tires. Dad smiling at me as we swung on the front porch, the warmth of his cradling arms while we watched the silver moon rising from the ocean.

  With a map of the island and of my house in his mind now, Adrik brought my body back closer to his, penetrating the skin of my neck as he sliced his fangs into a hardier vessel. More tears slipped out of my eyes from the pressure of his bite and trickled down my face, leaving warm little trails across my cold skin.

  The stake that I’d pulled from his chest rolled out of my palm, landing with a dull thud by my head, which seemed buried in sand. I was numb from the waist down except my feet which ached with a chill that had settled into the bones. It hurt to even breathe.

  Death hovered around me, and I wished for the warm, yellow comforting light that those near death described, but it never came. I suppose that beautiful feeling is reserved for those not cheating the grave.

  “I’m so cold,” I felt my lips move, whispering to nothing and no one in particular.

  “Soon, Joel’s blood will warm you. It will flow through you like a fine wine.” Adrik’s words sounded like molasses dripping from a bottle somewhere in the distance. His wet lips brushed mine. They were warm against my cold skin, and I sighed when he pulled away from me—warm with my blood.

  I’d never felt so much pain and even in my darkest days with Joel, I had never felt so much cold or so empty. Pain traced the length of my numbed limbs and I hardly realized it when Adrik jerked me from the ground. He was standing now, dirt and mud still dripping from his body. I swung easily in his arms as he began walking.

  I remember nothing of the trip to my home. I recall only watching the porch-swing from a distance shudder in the wind as Adrik laid me on the ground in the forest bordering my yard and the sounds of him digging deep into the earth.

  I drifted amidst an inky blackness until I felt myself being shoved into a wet, earthen hole Adrik had dug. I began to fight him, preferring to die in the warmth of my bed rather than this sodden grave. “It is safer this way and it is a necessity. You must lie in native ground for the passing of six months’ time,” he spoke. I fought him anyways because I was too far past reasoning to truly understand.

  The tomb tunneled into the ground at an angle so that I could only make out a sliver of silver sky as Adrik pushed me through the entryway and into the cavern he had created. The root systems of the plants overhead trailed across the skin of my face, tangling in my eyelashes and tickling my lips. I tasted dirt on my tongue and felt the grit between my teeth as I was buried alive.

  Panic started to overtake me even more, and with the little strength that remained, I clawed at the earthen roof over my hand. At least I think I did, perhaps it was only wishful thinking that I could still move my fingers. Adrik grasped my hands in his, jerking them down as he whispered to my sodden brain.

  “Focus on the one for whom you accepted the vampire mark. See his face, remember his scent. Relive his hands upon your neck, his breath on your face. Think of the loved one he took from you and see her broken body. Make his countenance your last image, and it will bring you across death quicker. You are marked now. It matters not how you die or where. I will not leave you.”

  I quit fighting him and did as he said, and despite the pain and the cold, I could feel the heat again of my rage as it traced my numbed limbs. I pictured Joel’s face inches from mine; I let his shouts fill my ears. I relived his every slap and felt again his doubled-up fists.

  I let the terror of his rampages regain a foothold in my mind, remembered how I’d shaken with fear. Felt my face flush with shame when Joel slapped me the first time in our little apartment.

  He’d laughed at me, my skin swollen with the imprint of his hand, that night as he’d shoved me down into the bed. And that’s the way I pictured him in my mind now. Cold green eyes above high cheekbones that arched over a cruel mouth that could speak words that would make the devil blush and with the same tongue talk the pants off nearly any woman he wanted.

  It was the face my mother had looked up at as she fell to her death, and I focused on every detail and recommitted to memory his every feature and line. Hate kindled deep in my chest and I let my mind run with the possibilities for his future sufferings.

  My thinking was so tunneled that I no longer felt Adrik browsing the contents of my thoughts. I didn’t see it coming when he snapped my neck. My last breath flowed out of my body; I felt it blow across my lips even as he slipped his fangs into the underside of my upper arm.

  Chapter 17

  It took thirteen long and agonizing days for my body to catch up with my mind, and by the time I could first begin to stretch my muscles, I was burning with a hunger so intense that fire would have paled in comparison if it had been licking at my skin.

  On the final evening of my confinement, I’d pushed up through my shallow grave into the fresh air of night with blood on my mind, specifically Joel’s blood.

  Joel’s smell lingered in the yard around my home; I suppose he’d made a few visits to check out the rumors of my leaving, and the perfume of his blood drove me to distraction. The scent swirled through the remains of my lungs and coated the insides of my mouth. I licked my lips at the thoughts of what I’d do to him.

  Adrik had urged patience, warning of the need for greater control before I took revenge. Angry, I lunged at him when he dared to contain my dark desires. I hissed menacingly in warning that he should leave me to my own plans and bared my fangs. He raised his eyebrows at my threats and returned a h
iss so loud that it hurt my ears, but I was too headstrong and heady with my own strength that I dismissed his.

  I twisted gracefully through the air, landing within inches of where he had been, but he was gone before my feet had even settled into the soil. Behind me, he reappeared with his fangs at my neck, and I realized how easily he could have severed my head if he’d wanted to.

  “I know how you crave to taste him. And you will but take the time to enjoy it. Revel in the blood of another this night. Surely there is someone else worthy of our particular brand of pain? Your first kill will be difficult to control.” He spoke the words into my ear. The blood bond hadn’t survived the transition, and I was alone in my mind.

  It was an easy choice. I had no second thoughts as I slipped through the forest towards a modern residential district just off the main highway. The unhelpful Detective Scott lived in a moderate home at the end of a cul-de-sac. The streets were dead, all of the neighboring homes darkened by the late hour, as I walked barefooted up to his front door. My knock echoed loudly in his entryway.

  Behind the door, I heard the rustlings of bedcovers being thrown back. Adrik had melted into the shadows of the porch, and I stood alone. I knocked again, hearing the man inside slide something off a counter. I assumed it was his gun, and I smiled at its uselessness.

  “Who is it?” Kendrick called from behind the door, and I put my face directly in front of his peephole.

  “It’s Tamara, Lena’s daughter. Can we talk?” I spoke hesitantly, wanting to sound weak.

  He sighed heavily and muttered something about stupid women. “It’s three fricking a.m. It can wait until morning, Tam. Go home.” He turned away from the door.

  “Please. I need to get something off my chest. I really need to see you,” I pleaded, letting some of my desperate hunger bleed into my voice.

  Behind the door, his heart beat confidently, and I shook a little in anticipation. He sighed, a curse word hanging in his throat. I heard his hand run through his hair. I remembered his arrogance, and my mouth watered.

  I could smell Kendrick everywhere. On the doorframe where he passed by on his way to work each morning. From a chair at the distant end of the porch where his scent mixed with coffee. That’s where he began his days; behind me, I could hear the ocean driving away at the shore. No doubt, he had a lovely view of the coast. A shame he wouldn’t see it again.

  His smell was consuming, and suddenly I wanted in this house badly. Grasping the doorknob, I twisted it. Naturally, it was locked, and I shook it violently in my hands. It seemed little to stand between me and what I now wanted so badly. I raised my hand to force the door open, but from the corner of my eye, I saw Adrik and he shook his head at me. Kendrick had to invite me in. It was part of the magic that protected humans. My fangs were descended, cutting into my tongue in my anger, and I tasted blood oozing into my mouth. Reluctantly, I pulled my hand from the doorknob and waited for the human, my former classmate, to open the door.

  “I hope to God this is important,” he muttered as he slid the bolt lock out of place and opened the door.

  “Thanks, Kendrick,” I said, my head down a little so he couldn’t see my face too well in the shadows of his blinding front porch light.

  One large hand rested on the doorframe, his gun held casually in the other, he was only a little nervous, and it barely tinged his flavor. He should have known something wasn’t right by the way I’d shaken his doorknob, but he’d been lulled into a false sense of security over the years. Taking a quick survey of the yard and completely ignoring me, the real danger, he motioned with his hand to come in. But I needed to hear the words.

  “Can I come in?” I asked.

  “For the love of all that’s holy, Tam. Why do you think I’m holding the damn door? Get your ass in here,” he spit out. “Just take your shoes off.”

  It’s an Alaskan custom that you don’t wear shoes into someone’s house. It’s very rude.

  “I’m not an imbecile,” I said as I stepped across the threshold, angry that he thought I had no manners. “I didn’t wear any.”

  For once, the detective had nothing to say to me as his eyes dropped to stare dumbly at my naked feet. His puzzled look slowly morphed into confusion as his gaze traveled up the rest of me.

  My skin was pale, ashen with hunger. The tattered remnants of my clothes were heavy with mud and leaves. Twisted dreadlocks of hair hung around my shoulders and dripped large dirty raindrops onto the perfection of his floor.

  He brought his gun up, the holster dropping with a clap onto the tile at his feet. The leather case was soon followed by the weapon itself. His hand remained lifted in the air; his brain not quite up to speed that I had knocked the gun from his grip. He started to speak, but I slipped one hand hard around his neck, cutting off his air before he could tell me to leave.

  He went limp in my hand, his eyes rolling backward into his head as he lost consciousness, and I lowered him to the floor, not bothering to get any farther into his house. I was simply too hungry. The artery in his wrist split easily under my nail and I bent my head to taste the red stream. The flavor was so powerful it made me dizzy.

  Regaining consciousness as I loosened my grip on his throat, he began to fight, and I smiled as I flung one leg across him, pinning him easily underneath me. One weak scream escaped his lips before I clamped a dirty, bloody hand over his mouth.

  Maybe it was the taste of his own blood that stained my skin that caused him to fight harder or the sudden realization that death was sitting on his chest. His eyes went wide, and he thrashed violently for a few moments before he became too weak from the blood he was losing all over the tile floor.

  “Why?” Kendrick kept mouthing against the palm of my hand.

  I leaned down so he could get a good look at my face and hear my words over the terror that was overshadowing his mind. “You’re a detective, Kendrick, but apparently not a very good one. You’re asking the wrong question. Right now you should be asking how. How is this happening? How is Tamara holding me down so easily? How did she get fangs? That’s what you should be questioning. Not why! The why is simple. You didn’t pay enough attention to my mom’s case and I had to go to extreme measures. If you had asked more questions when my mom was killed, you wouldn’t have to ask questions now.” With my every word, I tapped his forehead for emphasis until his head was ricocheting from my touch.

  I think I saw a light bulb go off in his eyes just before I brought his arm up, the artery still pumping, to my mouth and let his heart pump his life into my mouth while he watched.

  Exsanguination is not an unpleasant way to go. It can be rather slow, depending on the artery of course, but not particularly painful. It seems you just drift slowly away as your vital organs get less and less blood. Your vision tunnels, and you lose sight of what’s killing you.

  Kendrick Scott, former classmate and bad detective, struggled weakly for a while longer until that peaceful, ‘I’m dying’, calm came over him. His pupils dilated slowly until they fixed and the dullness of death took the shine from his eyes.

  Dead now and no longer in danger of turning him vampire, I sunk my fangs into his neck, retrieving every drop that I could find. I did the same at every juncture of his limbs where the arteries ran close to the surface of the skin. And when it was over, I backed slowly away from the body, only mildly shocked at what I was now capable of doing.

  Adrik had been right to find a stand in for Joel for my first kill. I’d been so hungry that my lust would have gotten out of control with Joel, and I would have killed him too quickly, as I did this man. I didn’t hate Kendrick; I didn’t like him, but I didn’t hate him, and so his death didn’t excite me the way Joel’s would have. Still, I’d killed him so quickly. His blood had pumped out in rhythmic gushes from too large an incision and an immediate need to fill my hunger.

  “I want more,” I said to Adrik as I returned to the porch, leaving Kendrick’s body lying on the floor of his entryway.

  He shoo
k his head, a decisive no. “Slit his throat and anywhere else you marked him,” Adrik said. “We cannot let our presence be known.”

  “No one’s going to think of me when they see him,” I laughed, drunk on the power of taking his life.

  “Your beloved Peter might,” he hissed back at me.

  He was right. I could see that despite the haze of invincibility that clouded my mind, so I did as I was told.

  With Kendrick’s body taken care of, Adrik took my hand and pulled me into the woods that nestled the cul-de-sac in a cloak of darkness. I scowled, dreading to return to the dank tomb Adrik had created for us. It was a necessary evil, our protection at least until I could travel. Six months, and I’d be free of Sitka. For now, we would sleep beneath the earth.

  But the night was far from over. It was barely past two a.m., and the sun didn’t rise till nearly eight. I’d forgotten for the moment the coming of the dawn and the power of the sun. The knowledge that I’d lay paralyzed in the ground again in a few short hours was eclipsed by the fresh blood that filled me.

  I wanted to careen through the woods, chase the wind that teased my skin. Scents of the previous day’s hikers rushed around me, and I wanted to track them down in my state of euphoria. Adrik held me back, whispering caution. A small island is no place for a vampire so we’d have to be careful. Bodies stack up quickly in such a place.

  For a moment, I considered defying him and giving in to the feeling of freedom that came with my nearly indestructible body, but the memory of Peter held me to Adrik’s side. He’d certainly think of me if too many people were found dead in so small a time frame. Adrik needed less blood than I, and he’d already killed once, a young hiker still out in the woods at the wrong time, since I had released him from the grave.

  We traveled the rest of the way through near silent woods, the quiet broken up only by the occasional crack of a stick underneath our feet and the call of a few birds.