The Series that Just Plain Sucks: The Complete Trilogy

by Charissa Dufour

  And Josh?

  I felt my eyes begin to burn. I didn't want Josh to die for my sake or any other reason. He was a genuine friend—someone I could see watching Bollywood films with me or going thrift store shopping. We clearly had the same sort of twisted humor.

  Nik on the other hand, Nik was something else. Well I didn't want to think on that topic. I didn't know how I felt about him dying. I didn't know how I felt about him living either. Ugh. Complications!

  There's nothing I can do about it, I told myself sternly. An hour later, my arms began to go to sleep, and another hour after that, the room slowly started filling with Richard's seethe. My clothing was finally dry. The primus put his book down and began to mill about. At first, I ignored them—keeping my head drooped toward the floor. I had a crick in my neck, but I figured it didn't matter. It was only a matter of time before I'd be dead. Though I felt pressure building behind my eyes, I was too numb to cry.

  When I did begin to stir, I spotted Richard speaking to an odd-looking man with shaggy brown hair and an eighties mustache. They glanced at me occasionally, as most of the growing crowd did. Some looked at me in earnest, while others examined me as though I was a science project. Finally, when I thought the room couldn't hold any more, Emma and Isaac entered, each showing their own signs of stress and frustration. Emma's arms were twined across her chest while Isaac continually flexed his fingers to keep them from balling up into fists. They both had showered and changed.

  I waited, half expecting to see Nik swoop in to rescue me at that critical moment.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Once Isaac and Emma had taken their positions near Richard, he stepped forward with a large mask. It was made of gold, with rays shooting out of its face, like a gilded cartoon sun, except more menacing. Richard slipped it on my face and my neck stiffened as I worked to hold the heavy thing up. The eye holes were small and it blocked out most of my vision. I could still see Richard and Isaac, plus Emma's shoulder, along with pieces of other people's faces who stood behind the leaders.

  The muscles around my stomach tightened in anticipation as I expected the ritual, or whatever it was called, to begin; to my disgust, they just stood there, the man with the eighties mustache chanting quietly under his breath. It was a few minutes before anything happened, but when it did, I immediately regretted my impatience.

  The heavy mask began to glow, blinding me from my surroundings. The metal heated up, searing the flesh on my face. The pain was intense, as if my skull was on fire, burning from the outside in. I quickly blacked out, thankful to be released from the intense, nauseating pain.

  But the relief didn't last. In what felt like a mere blink, I opened my eyes to a new scene and new pains. The room looked similar—created from concrete and carefully decorated, and yet different. The people watching me were dressed in what I quickly recognized as the clothing from the fifties. The nearest man wore a brown suit and a thin tie while the woman next to him was dressed in a summer dress of lavender, with her hair up in curls and ivory combs. At first I thought my captors had gone and changed while I had been unconscious, but before the idea could sink in, I noticed that the scenery was not the only thing transformed.

  Though I still wore the Mask-of-Sheer-Agony, other sensations began to spring to my awareness. The rope binding my wrists had transformed into iron manacles. The flesh around them felt raw. I forced my heavy head to tilt back, so that I could see my hands stretched above my head. They weren't my hands. They belonged to a man and were covered in bristly strawberry blond hair. As I expected, the skin around the adopted wrists was missing, replaced by unhealthy red sores. But more than just my wrists hurt.

  I had been whipped; the streaks of liquid fire running down my back made that clear enough. Stars jumped into my vision, making it nearly impossible to see my surroundings, but I forced my eyes back on the crowd. They were waiting expectantly, a new voice whispering the ritualistic words. I couldn't wrap my mind around what they wanted. Was I supposed to die now?

  But it wasn't me! This wasn't my body they watched, slowly bleeding to death. It was some strange, red-haired man. Or a really butch woman. I would have been confused if I could pull my mind from the pain. I began to feel my consciousness slip, my vision slowly turn black.

  I must have completely lost consciousness, because I opened my eyes to find myself in an entirely new location. Instead of a concrete bunker, I was in a structure built of long logs with high windows that had been covered in thick drapery. I could hear a fire crackle over the soft murmur of yet another chanting voice.

  Through sheer force of will, I trained my eyes on the individuals. It was a whole new sort of shock to see women draped in puffy gowns. The men wore long coats, vests, and top hats. I figured it was sometime near the American Civil War. No dress could fluff quite like that without some form of a hoop skirt.

  I'd never really thought of vampires as being creatures of the past. Then again, I knew Nik was around three hundred years old. He would have worn long beards like these men.

  Yuck!

  The pain quickly tore me from these ridiculous musings. I wasn't hanging from the ceiling as I had been a moment ago. Instead, I was tied to a chair, my torn back rubbing uncomfortably against the wooden seat. My ankles, as well as my wrists, were sore from iron bindings. But this wasn't all. I felt my stomach twist around a foreign object. Once I got my head tilted down to see, I realized I had a thin sword poking out from my gut.

  Could it get any worse? I wondered. At least this time I was a woman. I could tell by the powder white breasts that were squeezed into a cinched bodice. Even without the help of a corset, these were much larger than mine could ever be.

  “She begins to fade,” announced someone from the crowd.

  “It won't be long now,” added a voice I recognized. I forced my head up to look at the man that had spoken. I recognized him. After all, I'd spent the last week with those strangely green eyes watching my every move. Just as my eyes focused, the molten metal mask slipped to the side, making it impossible to stare at him.

  What little I could see included flowing dresses, and black boots. I half expected Abraham Lincoln to give a speech.

  I had to blink a few times, trying to ignore the pain while I attempted to wrap my mind around what was happening. I had been passed down the historical timeline, like an archaeological floozy. Except it wasn't me. The last time, I'd been a man—and that was just wrong!

  What was happening to me? Was this part of the ritual or was something going drastically wrong? Maybe I was having a vampire's version of a psychological breakdown, or were these instances where vampires had tried, and failed, to bring Sedgrave back?

  I felt the tug of magic this time, just before unconsciousness pulled my mind into utter blackness. When I came to yet again, I was in a stone building with darkened stained-glass windows, hanging draperies, and gilded people. I'd never seen anyone dressed in such ridiculous finery. It was medieval finery, but ostentatious nonetheless. The men and women alike wore jewelry that could have sunk the Titanic.

  “Peace,” a female voice said from the front of the crowd. “’Twill not be long now.”

  They weren't wrong. My head lulled toward my chest—which belonged to a man, I might add. It was covered in blood from a long gash in my neck. I could feel the edges of the gash rub painfully when I moved. There was no doubt I would bleed out before long. Would I die? Was I even a vampire anymore? I couldn't be sure considering how many bodies I'd shifted through.

  I felt the ever present thirst taking the forefront in my thoughts. I was indeed a vampire, a very thirsty one! From a distance, I could hear a heartbeat. I wanted it, needed it. I lunged forward, the bindings pulling at my ankles, the chair bouncing on the stone floor. I ignored the pain radiating through my body. The sword was still in my stomach, my back still shredded to ribbons, but I didn't care. I knew it would all be healed if I could just drink. I would feel better if I could reach that beating heart.

/>   I jerked against my bindings again. My sudden movement startled the watching crowd. They hadn't expected such energy from a dying man. It didn't last long. I drooped back into my seat, fresh out of energy. Perhaps death wouldn't be so bad. I closed my eyes, willing to let this miserable existence end.

  Sadly, my eyes opened again. I wasn't in some new, foreign place. I was back in Richard's basement, watched carefully by his seethe. He took an anxious step toward me, his hands wrapped around a tall staff with deep etchings carved into it. He, too, knew the end was near. I could see it in the spark in his pasty eyes, the stiffness of his stance.

  My head lulled forward as the last of my strength slipped from my grasp. I wasn't surprised to see that Emma's dagger protruded from my stomach and my throat bled swiftly. The flesh on my back was torn as well—just as it had in my visions. All I'd experienced in my historical wandering had come to pass.

  Just as I felt myself slipping, for the last time I hoped, a sudden surge of energy escaped the mask, flowing into my sagging body. I jerked, a spasm ripping through me. Lightning exploded into my chest, up my shoulder, and out my arms and legs. I would have screamed, but my mouth—like my mind—was too lost in fog. I couldn’t find my vocal cords or my lips.

  I scrambled, searching for a way free of the fog that kept me just on the edge of panic. I knew I was in pain, agony even. I knew I was bleeding to the point of death, but I couldn't make myself care. My mind was lost, and I had to find it. I called out to me, but I couldn't reach me.

  All my hopes, my fears, my expectations. All my memories, friends, and enemies were somewhere apart from me. Just when I thought I had found myself, I felt icy fingers beginning to probe through my identity. It picked through my childhood, plucking the occasional memory from me and flinging it away.

  I couldn't tell if there was a pattern to its choices, but every few minutes another memory would be pulled from me. In their place, I felt a darkness seep into my mind. It wasn't darkness in the traditional sense—a lack of light, it was far worse, far less permeable. There is a safety in darkness, in the knowledge that if you turn on a lamp or light a candle the darkness will recede, but that was not the case with the darkness that enveloped my mind. It was like thick, black ink that slowly spread across the very essence of who I was. There was no way to clean the stain.

  I pushed it away from my mind, trying to recall the memories that had been taken by those icy fingers, but I couldn't. They were gone and the utter blackness that had replaced them would not budge.

  As my memories were tossed away like garbage, I began to lose the motivation to fight. I couldn't remember why this was bad, or why I should care. My identity, the very fabric of who or what I was, began to slip from my grasp. At the same time, the darkness I had once flinched from became a welcoming respite from the general confusion that had become my existence.

  And yet, the darkness completely failed to guard me from the pain surging through my body. The torn flesh on my back and the dagger protruding from my stomach became minor complaints—like a hangnail next to a broken tibia. Compared to the bolts of pure energy bursting through my body on regular intervals, the wounds barely made themselves known.

  It couldn't last much longer. There weren't that many memories left. I clung to a trivial memory from my childhood that had yet to be removed. It was silly really. I was in church, wearing a black little dress. My mother had sent me to blow out the candles around the sanctuary, and, like any foolish child, I'd blown too hard as I leaned over the candle. The liquid wax had exploded from the candle and splattered upwards, all over my face and dress. I'd run, crying, to my mother. I could feel her gentle, though calloused, hands—from years of wall paper hanging—wiping the drying wax from my face.

  Mother.

  Then nothing.

  Nothing but pain and blackness. Even that precious memory was gone. I was nothing but a body filled with agony and emptiness. I wasn't even sure which was worse. All that I had been, all that I could one day be, was gone. I felt my body droop, the ropes pulling against my wrists, but I couldn't remember the word “rope” or recall what my wrists looked like. I heard someone laugh, but couldn't put a face to the voice. I didn't know where I was or what I would see if I could open my eyes.

  Of course I couldn't. Or wouldn’t.

  “Is she dead?” asked a woman's voice.

  “Close. Very close,” responded a man.

  Yes. I was very close to death.

  Though the searing bursts of lightning were increasing in power and rapidity, I could feel the last of my energy seeping out of my wounds. I felt like an orange that had been twisted and squeezed until not a drop of liquid could be found.

  The blackness that surrounded me took on an even darker tinge that was more of a feeling than an image, when the throbbing lightning stopped to build up for one last blast. It filled me, pushing the darkness away, but not allowing my memories to return, which made me feel even emptier. When I was sure I couldn't hold any more power in my small body, it burst forth, tearing my skin from my body, quickly followed by layers of muscle and guts. I was unmade, destroyed of all matter.

  And then, finally, silent oblivion took hold.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  I awoke.

  It was a surprise. I hadn't really expected to wake up.

  The room had transformed, to say the least. Those who had been standing by, watching me die, were fighting for their lives against an army swarming in through the main doors. I quickly spotted Samuel grappling with Isaac. It looked strange to see a gray-haired man wrestle with a young man in his prime, but Samuel was winning. I was pretty sure Samuel was the elder of the two.

  Just to the left, Mikhail and a vamp I didn't recognize were tearing the head off one of Richard's thugs. I recognized other members of Mikhail's seethe fighting to the death.

  In the center stood a man I had never seen before. And boy, would I remember him. He was above average in height, but had a fairly slim build. That was all I could see of his physique past the dark blue cloak accented with gold circles. What stood out about him was his ability to fling bolts of blue energy at my friends—well, I should say at those that weren't my enemies. His very presence demanded attention, and that thought gave suggestion to who he might be. The warlock. That one whose existence required my death.

  Only I wasn't dead, and he was most definitely alive.

  Before I could further contemplate the strangeness of it all, a pounding heartbeat accosted my ears. I didn't stop to think. I was too thirsty, too damaged to have any sort of self-control. Of course, that was just an excuse and a pretty flimsy one at that.

  I flung my legs forward, snaring one of Richard's human servants, dragging them close enough to bite. With my legs wrapped around their waist, I managed to clamp my mouth over their shoulder. My sharp teeth pricked their skin and I drank deeply. When the blood ran out, I unwound my legs and let the body drop to the floor with a heavy thud. It took a while since I had not managed to find a main artery. When it was finally over, I began scanning the crowd for another heartbeat.

  But one face stood out from the crowd, capturing my attention.

  Of course, the smell of the blood slowly dribbling from a blood bag helped. Nik stood, his expression a mixture of regret and relief. I licked my lips, tasting the salty, sweet liquid. I wiped my face as best I could on my arm—still tied above my head. Nik dropped the bag and moved to my side, an industrial size knife in his hand. He reached up and deftly cut the thick rope that attached me to the ceiling. I collapsed in his arms. He dropped the knife and pulled me into a fireman's carry.

  “No,” I said with difficulty, the gash on my neck allowing air to escape where it shouldn’t. “We have to stop him.” Though that was the main reason I didn't want to go with Nik, there was another—a distrust I couldn't completely explain.

  “Silence,” he hissed. From my position hanging from his shoulder, I could see the battle continuing. I could also see my blood trickling down
his back. There was Josh, looking so small beside the others. He had disengaged from the fight, by staking his enemy, when he noticed us nearing the door, and followed. We had just reached the wide steps leading up to the double doors when a small group of Richard's men stepped in our way.

  Nik slowly lowered me to the ground. I couldn't see what was happening above their knees, but I knew we weren't out of the fight. Not by a long shot. Nik lunged forward, shortly followed by Josh's smaller feet, garbed in Chuck Taylors with Peanuts cartoons on them. Their feet and those of the enemy danced around, narrowly missing my body. I tried to squirm away. After about six inches I gave up and let myself give in to the misery.

  As I lay there, I noticed the growing swath of blood staining the concrete. Though I was healing, it was barely noticeable, and it seemed to be entirely focused on the gash across my throat, as though my body was prioritizing. No wonder I was so weak.

  Before I could figure out what to do about it, a foot tripped over my leg. I looked up to see a boy, barely the age of a high schooler. He stumbled to his knees and scrambled away.

  I rolled to see what was pursuing him. It was Samuel, his speckled gray hair an odd juxtaposition to his torn shirt, sculptured muscles, and vindictive anger. He leaped over me, pounced on the young boy, and tore his head from his body. The head and body dissolved into dust. I noticed other piles of dust around the room as more vampires lost their lives over me.

  My stomach began to twist and heave at the waste of it all; all over me. Samuel crawled to my side, taking a blow to the shoulder by a dismembered arm that had been hurled across the room. I turned my head, trying to find the body it belonged to. Samuel lifted me from the ground and began dodging the crowd, heading in the general direction of the door. I was too exhausted and dazed to argue or worry about the others.

  My brain was lingering in the place between sleep and consciousness. I couldn't seem to pull myself free of the haze or allow myself the respite I so desperately needed. We had just reached the door when I felt Samuel jerk and lose his grip on me. I hit the floor with a thud that was drowned out by Samuel's own fall. He landed on my feet. It was a minor pain compared to my shredded back, piercing wound in my gut, or gash across my throat—all of which were beginning to mend. The rate of blood flow had diminished noticeably but not enough to keep me from worrying.