The Secret Ingredient Is Love. No, Really

by RoAnna Sylver

  Cruce paused in his assault long enough to cast a furious glance at them, then back to the Witch. Letizia still had her hand raised, fingers spread as if summoning something into her grasp.

  “You,” he snarled, eyes flashing white. “Stealing my thralls?”

  “Can’t steal something that was never yours,” Letizia snapped, but Cruce whirled away from her, bearing down on the still-struggling Nails. He raised his own hands, and she straightened like a marionette pulled by his strings.

  But in his rush to regain control over Nails, he’d ignored Maestra—who promptly sank her teeth into his shoulder. He bellowed, but dropped Nails to the ground. In an instant, both girls sprang away from him, dancing around each other, touching each others’ arms and faces as if ensuring they were both real and alive.

  Once satisfied, they stopped and turned back to face Cruce, fangs bared in twin smiles.

  “No!” he snapped, an edge of panic in his voice instead of rage. “I command—”

  As one, they leaped upon him.

  “Jasper!” Jude cried out at last, still trying to support Pixie and praying the furiously fighting vampires kept their distance. “Over here! Help!”

  But Jasper didn’t respond. He was standing some distance away, not nearly far enough from Cruce’s slashing claws for safety, motionless, as if he’d been caught in Letizia’s spell too. He stared at Felix, who’d picked himself up off the ground but still hadn’t joined in the fight raging around him. His own fight seemed internal, every shred of will dedicated to the incredible effort of resisting Cruce’s commands.

  Jude could only watch helplessly, Pixie’s feet resting on his shoulders, as Cruce leaped forward with a screech, past Felix and toward Letizia—and the lone human standing motionless in the middle of the chaos.

  And still, Jasper didn’t move. Neither could Jude.

  But someone did. A dark shape flew into Jasper, but not to attack. In an instant, a pair of inhumanly strong, grey-skinned arms wrapped around him, pulling out of Cruce’s path of destruction. As the vampires continued to fly at one another, heedless of anything else around them, Felix curled his leathery wings around Jasper, shielding him in a protective cocoon.

  They stayed like that for a few seconds, blocking out everything around them, hidden from view. Then Felix unfurled his wings, pointing across the cave at Jude and Pixie. Jasper followed his direction, mouth falling open as soon as his eyes fell on them, but his eyes cleared fast, as if he’d finally remembered where he was and what needed to be done. Jasper hesitated just long enough to look into Felix’s face one more time, clinging to his ragged shirt with tight fists. Then he turned and ran toward the cross.

  “I can’t get him down,” Jude said as Jasper ran up, desperately looking up at Pixie, at a loss to do anything else and hating every moment. “I can’t get Pixie down, there’s nails in his hands, God, I can’t—how do we do this?”

  “I don’t know,” Jasper admitted after taking a long look, admirably calm even with the battle behind him. Or maybe just dissociating, Jude thought with a stab of unbidden envy. It was a very tempting idea. “They’re certainly in deep, aren’t they?”

  “I—I didn’t expect this,” Jude stammered. “I don’t have anything to get them out with! But maybe if you boost me up, I can—”

  Something swooped down on the cross like an enormous bird of prey, black wings spread overhead. Jude looked up to see Felix perched atop it, his eyes fixed on Pixie in a calm focus that Jude instantly recognized, despite everything. Fangs didn’t matter, or wings, or claws. This was Felix, the medic, entirely absorbed in the puzzle before him, the pause before the decisive action.

  “Get ready,” he said in a rough whisper, like nothing Jude remembered, but undeniably the voice he couldn’t forget.

  Jasper let out a small, wordless sound. Beside him, Jude was trying to form words himself, ask what he was getting ready for, but before either of them could, Felix’s hands flew to Pixie’s. In one fast burst of motion and smoke—his skin was sizzling, Jude realized, horrified—he seized the silver nail head in the center of Pixie’s left hand and pulled it out, dropping it to the cave floor with a clink. His face twisted in pain, but he didn’t hesitate. A second later he’d done it again, removing the second nail with his claws and a strength that made Jude dizzy to imagine. But Jude couldn’t believe anything else was happening either, and all he and Jasper could do was catch Pixie as Felix carefully lowered him down.

  “Thank you,” Jude managed to say, still staring up at the half-human face he never thought he’d see again.

  “It’s not over yet,” Felix answered, eyes resolved despite his still-smoking hands. Then he spread his wings and leaped from the cross back into the melee.

  Cruce was outnumbered but not overpowered. With a maddened roar, he snatched Nails in one hand, flinging her away and into Maestra, who toppled right over onto the ground. Cruce staggered backwards, wavering on his feet. Something in him seemed to have snapped the moment his control over the pair was severed, leaving him somehow weakened. But like a desperate animal, even—perhaps especially—when injured, he was dangerous.

  “Don’t test me, you miserable little vermin,” he snarled, looming over the girls with pure fury and hatred in his eyes. “I broke you once, I’ll do it again! Or better yet, I’ll break him again, and make him—”

  “No.”Cruce barely had time to react to Felix’s voice before he appeared, tackling him with a full-body slam, sending both of them somersaulting across the floor, until they came to a very sudden stop. Felix pinned the larger vampire against the wall, fangs bared, and growled his words directly into Cruce’s face. “You won’t.”

  Cruce smiled, seeming completely unbothered by Felix’s flashing eyes, fangs, or claws. “Are you volunteering, then?”

  Felix’s face twisted into a monstrous grimace, something so chillingly inhuman, Jude thought, he should have been overwhelmed with terror. Should have been. Wasn’t. “I do not take orders from you.”

  “Maybe not,” Cruce returned, and the disturbing calm in his voice set off warning bells in Jude’s mind. Cruce shoved Felix backward, flinging him away as if he weighed nothing at all. Letizia moved to pursue as Cruce blew past the freed but bewildered-looking girls. He veered into her path, dealing her a vicious shoulder-check that sent her flying. Before any of them could move, he barreled toward Jude, Jasper—and Pixie.

  The impact broke Jude’s grip, and he fell to the ground, slamming against the stone cave floor as Jasper did the same a few feet away. A shock of pain shot through his entire body, but all Jude could think about was Pixie, now in Cruce’s grasp. Back in his grasp, he thought, stomach twisting as he tried to force his double-seeing eyes into focus.

  “But I have my orders.” Cruce finished, with a satisfied look down at Pixie’s still-unconscious face. His huge hands kept Pixie dangling around a foot off the ground, and from where he lay, Jude could see Cruce digging in his claws. “And I can at least follow one.”

  As Jude struggled to his feet, he reached into his jacket pocket. There was no soft, warm bat inside this time. Instead, his hand closed over smooth, cold glass. His last hope. Pixie’s last chance. If Jude didn’t take this last shot right now, it wouldn’t even matter; Pixie would never get to drink it, Jude would never see him again, and none of it would mean a thing.

  Clarity. He’d started out facing down his nightmares in a parking lot, only comfort the satisfaction that he stood between them and his friends. Now he was doing it again. But this time, he wasn’t alone—and he didn’t freeze. He flung the bottle with all his strength, right toward Cruce.

  It whistled as it flew through the air, turning end over end until it smacked against the huge vampire’s shoulder. Cruce let out a surprised grunt and flung up one wing in a protective shield, but the glass bottle crashed to the ground and shattered, spilling red sauce across the cave floor. By the time Cruce looked up, his face had twisted into a wicked scowl, and Jude was just lowering his a
rm. Still hurting, still exhausted, but smiling.

  “What?” Cruce scoffed, mocking laugh ringing through the vast cavern. “Was that supposed to hurt?”

  “No,” Jude said in a low, completely calm voice that made Cruce stop laughing immediately. Jude’s heart slammed so hard his chest hurt, his ears rang, every cell in his body felt alive with terror and exhilaration and confirmation. This was right. This was exactly where he belonged. “It’s supposed to get your attention.”

  Cruce snorted, glancing down at Pixie’s limp form, upper lip curling to reveal his long, lethal fangs. Jude didn’t flinch. He never would again. “Trying to distract me from your little friend?”

  Jude smiled, and took a step back, hands raised. It was a dramatic gesture, a third-act showstopper Jasper had to be proud of, something Jude would never have attempted in his old life. The life where days stretched on without end, where nights were filled with bad dreams and waking fears, where isolation ruled, and he felt alone even standing right in front of the people he loved the most. He wasn’t alone now. It felt good.

  “I’ve got more friends than you.”

  Cruce followed the sweep of his arms, eyes going wide as Jude backed up to stand beside Jasper. Letizia and Felix—her steps smooth, his jerky and uncertain—moved between them and Cruce, shielding the humans. Nails and Maestra stepped forward, holding hands and eyes aglow. Slowly, the wide, mocking smile slipped from Cruce’s face until he looked lost.

  “So, how about it, Cruce?” Letizia’s teeth snapped together as she bared them like a hungry wolf. “Do you like these odds? Seven against one, wouldn’t you call that a fair fight?”

  “Seven or a thousand,” Cruce shot back, though his voice carried a definite note of hysteria along with the fury. “It doesn’t matter! Not as long as the one is me!”

  Someone started to laugh. Soft and faint. It took Jude a moment to realize where he’d heard it before and where it was coming from now. When he did, his breath caught in his throat.

  “Don’t you get it?” Pixie asked, smiling up into Cruce’s half-livid, half-panicked face, even as his captor’s hands tightened around him. “We win.”

  “Shut up!” Cruce’s voice came out in a strangled shriek. His eyes were wide now, not luminescent. “You haven’t won anything. You have no idea the Hell you’ll be in, once—”

  “We might not always win,” Pixie said, voice growing stronger with every word and, with every word, Jude’s heart beat faster. “But you’ll always lose.”

  “Shut up!” Cruce shouted again, letting go of Pixie with one hand only to clamp it over his mouth. “Or I’ll make you be quiet!”

  Jude didn’t need to see the lower half of Pixie’s face to see his smile grow. His eyes grew brighter—not with a vampire’s hostile flash, but with victory—until he jerked his head back, and sank his small fangs deep into Cruce’s bare hand. The agonized, ear-splitting screech that followed was the most satisfying sound Jude had ever heard.

  Cruce staggered back and Jude rushed forward. He’d spent the best years of his life running toward the flames, toward danger instead of away, and now he ran straight for the huge, furious vampire—and Pixie. Cruce’s grip finally opened and he wrenched his hand away from the small, relatively dull-but-all-the-more-painful teeth, recoiling and throwing Pixie toward the ground—

  Jude got there first. Pixie fell into his arms, safe at last, and Jude was sure he saw him smiling. Now he half-carried, half-dragged Pixie backwards and away from Cruce, who didn’t follow. Cruce stepped backwards in the opposite direction, away from Pixie, Jude, and everyone else. His face was a mask of pure, unadulterated shock and, for the first time, Jude saw something aside from malice or cruel glee in his eyes. Fear.

  Then he was gone. In his place, a huge black bat flapped in midair, before screeching and shooting away across the cavern.

  “Get him!” Maestra yelled, and the girls transformed with ecstatic grins, erupting into a flurry of wings and shrieks as they pursued Cruce’s flight like bats out of Hell.

  Within seconds, the three of them were gone. They disappeared into shadowed tunnels across the cave, but their echoing screeches remained. Letizia and Felix made no move to follow, standing with Jude and Jasper as if they were every bit as overwhelmed and exhausted as the humans.

  It was over. The air was still. Jude could breathe.

  “Thank you,” said Pixie, weakly curling his fingers around Jude’s shirt before passing out again in his arms.

  They should have been out of the caves long ago. Evil apparently vanquished, or at least driven off, there was nowhere Jude wanted to be except home, safe behind his seven locks.

  But Pixie was in no condition. His scarf was missing; Jude’s panicked brain latched onto that first, as before. Now, the reason Jude had never seen Pixie without it became horribly obvious. A huge, brutal-looking scar took up the entire right underside of his jaw and continuing down his neck. It wasn’t a clean line, like a knife’s cut. Instead, it looked like he’d been mauled by an animal, something that crushed his throat with ripping teeth. Jude felt sick just looking at it. He’d always envisioned vampire bites as relatively small, just two puncture wounds. This was something else entirely, and he couldn’t stand to look for long.

  As he held Pixie, Jude automatically covered the terrible scar with a hand, acutely aware of the lack of a pulse under his fingers. Pixie had always kept it hidden. He’d probably hate the idea of it being exposed right now, and, somehow, covering it made Jude feel less useless. But that was far from the only problem.

  The gaping wounds in Pixie’s hands didn’t bleed, instead oozing a thick, sluggish and black substance, like what had leaked from Cruce’s neck during the battle. Even that soon stopped entirely. While brutally deep, the punctures looked almost cauterized, as if the nails that had pierced them had been red-hot. Apparently silver was another piece of the myth that was true.

  He still held Jude’s shirt in a weak grasp, but his eyes were shut. Jude had never seen anyone hold so still, even when sleeping. Sleeping people tended to breathe. And they were warm—so was Pixie, usually, in bat form at least. But his unhealthily-pale grey skin was cool to the touch now, and that, combined with the unnatural stillness, no breathing, no heartbeat…

  For the first time, his brain understood in no uncertain terms. Pixie was dead. And if they didn’t do something fast, he may somehow end up in whatever second death awaited unfortunate vampires, one from which there really was no return.

  “I don’t know if it’s safe to move him,” Jude said, own heart pounding as adrenaline continued to surge through his veins. He knew this feeling, holding someone possibly grievously injured in his arms, and being so afraid of making it worse. He’d been here before. Last time it had been Jasper, as a fire raged around them. Now, there were no flames or smoke, and Jasper was right here with him. And Felix, whose presence Jude could barely wrap his head around, who’d yet to leave Jasper’s side. He also had yet to venture close enough to Jude to touch, or even meet his eyes for more than a half-second, and that alone gave Jude a cold pang of distress. But now wasn’t the time, he looked as worried as Jude felt, and none of it gave Pixie a better chance of survival. “He doesn’t look good at all.”

  “I can hear you…” Pixie shifted slightly, and Jude let out a rush of breath, a wave of relief shaking him to his core. He didn’t open his eyes, and his words came out in an almost-unintelligible mumble, but with an accompanying ear twitch as if to demonstrate.

  “He needs to feed,” Letizia said without pretense, a rare urgency in her usually-languid voice. “Any of us would after what he’s been through. Or even a lot less for that matter.”

  Jude shot an increasingly anxious look at the red spatter across the cave floor, dried and useless. “I brought sauce, but the bottle shattered when I threw it. It was all I could think to do, I’m sorry!”

  “S’fine,” Pixie murmured, words barely audible and lips barely moving. He slowly opened his eyes, blinking
a few times in what seemed like an exhausting effort, and gave Jude a weak smile. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “You’re not fine!” Jude’s voice came out higher than intended, with a definite edge of panic. “You were almost—you just really need blood. It heals you, right? That’s what you need right now?”

  “Not gonna…” Pixie started, then trailed off, seeming to forget what he’d been in the middle of saying. His words came out slurred and halting and his eyes drifted out of focus. “Mm-mmnnnn.”

  “I can do it,” Jasper said in a low but determined voice, with a matching expression of grim resolve. “I’ve done it before.”

  Pixie shook his head and made a distressed, protesting noise, and Jude felt much like doing the same. But that wouldn’t solve anything, the only thing that would help was figuring this out, fast, and he desperately cast about for a solution.

  “If we can just get him back to my place, there’s more there—or somebody can run back and get it. You,” he said, looking up at Letizia, aware of the obvious worry on his face and not caring. “If I give you the key, can you fly back to my apartment and get the sauce from the fridge? Wait, do you need me to invite you in? Can I do that from here, just give you permission now?”

  “I could,” she said, voice and expression grave. “And it wouldn’t take long. But I still don’t know what condition he’ll be in by the time I get back. He needs help, now, and we’re lucky anyone here can give it to him. What’s your answer?”

  Jude didn’t give one for a few seconds, or even move. He knew the answer, but couldn’t bring himself to say it. After every surreal thing out of his dreams and nightmares, even after the fight against a monster, even seeing Felix, returned but transformed, this was somehow on another level. When Jude had started his quest for answers—no, his vendetta, really, against all things fanged… this had been out of the question. The one thing he swore would never happen, the line he’d never cross. It should have been simple, but nothing was.