Blood Run – The Complete Trilogy – First Promise, Two Riders, Last Chance

by Dougherty, Christine

Then she slipped to the next branch and the next and finally her feet were on the forest floor. From this lower vantage point, she could no longer see Chance, but she knew where he was going. She turned to check that Peter was still in the tree. He was, but he’d come down two branches. She was warmed by his concern, but still her mind had filled with Chance.

  She turned away toward the stream.

  She hopped nimbly from rock to rock, and halfway over, she glanced up to check her progress.

  Chance stood on the far bank, facing her. The skin of his arms glowed whitely, and he had no coat. His pajama pants were tattered, and she couldn’t see his feet where they disappeared into the leaves…but she knew that they were bare. He was not troubled by the cold. Beneath his tangle of hair, his eyes were black, glittering pits. He watched her intensely, soullessly.

  Her foot slipped, and she nearly tumbled into the freezing water, her arms swinging violently, and Chance opened his mouth and hissed at her.

  Her heart froze. Her chest seemed suddenly filled with cold, liquid lead, and she couldn’t breathe. Chance hissed again, and the hiss turned into a gibbering babble–signature language of the vampire.

  He jumped lightly to the rock closest to him, his eyes never leaving hers.

  Then to the next. Promise looked down. Only six rocks separated them. She looked up again as clouds muscled over the moon, smothering its light. In the sudden darkness, with the murderous intent of his eyes hidden, he was her baby brother again. She had to do something, anything.

  “Chance,” she said, whispering. Then she raised her voice. “It’s me, honey, it’s Destiny. I know you know me, Chance. I know you can remember.”

  He tilted his head.

  “Chance, I’ve come back for you. This nightmare is over, and I know you know me. Think, honey. Remember me. It’s time to go home now, Chance. I’ve come to take you home.”

  He whimpered softly and stepped one rock closer. Now she could see his face, even in the dark. A deep, troubling orange lit his eyes.

  “Chance,” she said and held out her arms. “We have to go home now, honey. I love you, and I promised, remember? Remember what I promised you?”

  “Ahhhhmmissssss,” he said, and his voice was the sound of the wind, idiot language, random noise…then the orange in his eyes guttered like a weak candle. “Deh–dehssstiny.” His voice was frail and rasping across his vocal cords, but it was almost his voice. Her little brother stood before her, shivering in the cold. He began to cry.

  “Scuh-scuh-scared,” he said, and the lead drained from her all at once, and she jumped the last two rocks, and then Chance was in her arms. She rocked him as he cried. Satisfaction flooded her, and for a moment, she knew nothing save the boy in her arms, her beloved, her baby brother. But slowly, she became aware of the night that surrounded them.

  “We have to go, Chance,” she whispered to him. “We have to–” His head was against her chest, and he was burrowing into the opening of her coat, burrowing like a cold animal seeking heat…seeking…

  “Chance,” she said, and red alarm flared through her as she felt his mouth connect with the hollow at the base of her throat. His small hands found her arms and pinned them with nauseating strength. “Chance! NO!”

  She took a panicked step back. And fell into the stream.

  Chance fell too, still clinging to her, but when they hit the water, his hold broke. The steam was not deep–only about two feet at this part of it–but it was frigid, and the current caught at Promise’s coat and tugged, rolling her under, pulling like rough hands. In the dark, in the water, everything became a black panic. She reached out and braced her arms against the floor of the stream and then pushed herself up, her coat heavy around her. Her head broke the surface, and she heaved in a breath. A strong wave of lethargy buckled her straining arms, and she fell face first back into the water. She was going to drown in this icy creek.

  It was better than being killed by her brother.

  A hand at the nape of her neck yanked her up and back, dragging her to the bank. She tried to struggle, but her legs wouldn’t move, dragging unfeelingly behind her. She tried to throw her body to the side, to break contact with the hand at her back.

  “Promise, don’t fight.” Peter. Saving her.

  Once clear of the stream, he knelt beside her and stripped her of her soaked coat. He unlaced her boots and pulled them from her feet. “I have to build a fire. You’ll die if I don’t.”

  Her teeth began to chatter. “N-n-no f-f-fire…vam-vam-vamp…”

  “We have no choice,” he said. Then he lifted her and carried her to the base of the downed tree and laid her at the opening to the cave. She shivered uncontrollably.

  “Wh-wh-where is Ch-Ch-Chance? F-f-find him f-f-first.”

  He looked down at her, and his features were inscrutable. He shook his head, and his lips lifted in an admiring twist of a smile. He took her face gently in his hands and turned it. Chance was next to her, holding her icy, unfeeling hand. His eyes streamed with tears of misery. They steamed on his cheeks.

  “Sorry…sorry…” he choked out, his voice still rough, still not a hundred percent him, but close…so close. “Love you.”

  “L-l-love you t-t-too, b-b-baby br-brother,” Promise said, and then a cold gray curtain flapped wetly closed over her eyes. She’d fainted.

  Warmth and a crackling fire. Camping. Camping with her parents and Chance. She could almost smell melting chocolate and lightly scorched marshmallows. Her brother giggled, and she smiled. But then she felt a shock of cold confusion. Why could she hear Chance but not see him?

  Her eyes cracked open.

  Chance was next to Peter, their backs to her (why was Peter camping with them? She didn’t even know him yet) and they seemed to be consumed in flames. Her heart lurched roughly in her chest. Then Chance giggled again, his face turned up to Peter, and she realized she was looking at them across a fire. The fire Peter had said needed to be built because…because…she remembered all at once the stream and falling. Chance. Chance trying to…trying to…

  Peter turned, and his eyes found hers. He smiled. “You’re awake,” he said, whispering.

  Chance scrambled around the fire to kneel at her side. In her peripheral vision, she saw Peter turn away again, facing the deep empty of the black woods. Keeping watch.

  Chance pushed the hair off her forehead. He wouldn’t meet her eyes. She shifted and sat up. A cascade of dry leaves showered down around her. She leaned against the canopy of roots that swung up and out over them like an awning. Her clothes were still damp, but the heat from the fire captured in the small, hollowed out space was warm enough to keep her from shivering.

  She looked at Chance carefully, and he glanced at her and away. New tears sparkled in his eyes. She took his hands in hers.

  “It’s not your fault, honey, okay?” she said. “You hear me, Chance? I’m not mad. I love you.”

  His eyes came to hers, slowly, reluctantly. “Love you, too, Promise,” he said, and his voice was raspy; the candle flame still guttered deep in his irises.

  “Hey, you called me Promise,” she said. “Why did–”

  He grinned, and the tears swerved across his cheeks. “Peter…Peter said…it’s your name.”

  She smiled. She wanted to pull him to her, but not yet. Not until he’d been cured. Even as she sat with him now, she could sense the struggle within him as his eyes slid to the pulse at her throat. She put her hand to her chest. The vial was still there. Should she give him the shot or wait?

  He smiled at her again, and she decided to wait. She would watch him, she would be cautious. She glanced across to Peter, who still had his back to them.

  “Let’s kill the fire,” she said.

  He turned to face her. “You’ll be cold,” he said.

  Panic began to seep along her nerves. “Yes, I know, but…” She trailed off as something keened far off in the woods. Peter’s head swiveled toward the noise. “Chance, help me,” she said and began to
push sand and dirt over the fire. Her stomach churned with tension. She glanced at Chance and saw his head lifted, nose wrinkling as he scented the air. Like an animal.

  “Chance!” she said, sharply, but still keeping her voice low. Chance turned to her, and his eyes flared angrily. She tightened her lips but didn’t flinch. “Help me cover the fire, Chance. Help me, okay?”

  The flare died from his eyes, and he began to throw double handfuls of the thick, loamy dirt onto the fire. It guttered, smothering.

  The keening came again, closer. Peter stood abruptly, his face trained toward the sound. Promise could just make out the edge of his profile. His eyes were closed, and he, too, seemed to be scenting the wind. She shivered as the last of the fire died out, plunging them into cold darkness.

  “Promise,” he said, without turning his head, his voice a bare murmur. “Get in that hollow. Take Chance.”

  She slid backward at once, and her feet encountered the opening. She took Chance’s hand, pulling him back with her. “Come on, Chance, let’s hide. Just like we used to, remember, honey?”

  His eyes on hers became more little boy than monster, but she still felt a stirring of reservation. If he were to lose control of himself while they were in that tight space, she might not be able to do anything about it. She paused at the edge and transferred the bundled vial carefully from her shirt to her hand. Then she slipped back and down into the pitch black, drawing Chance down with her.

  Once the fire was out, the ambient glow of the forest sprang back to life, and Peter’s eyes dilated, drawing in all available light. Everything shimmered with a cold, gray corona. He would miss this part, he admitted to himself. He would miss having the heightened senses of an animal…of a vampire. He was aware of Promise behind him, sunk into the earth. Her heart, her blood. Others would be aware of it, too. They would come. They were already coming.

  It would be better to fight here, take a stand, than to try and lead them away. They wouldn’t follow him, they would find unerringly the trail of her scent, her humanness. He found that the thought made him agitated.

  No, not agitated…angry.

  He breathed deeply and let the anger sink into his mind. It was like lava, like liquid fire, and it raised the fever of vampirism in him. He would have to keep hold of it with both hands; Promise would be in mortal danger if he let himself slip too far into the disease. He breathed deeply again and then held the breath, listening.

  A sneaky, sliding footstep, dragging through the undergrowth. Directly in front of him, on the other side of the stream. He couldn’t see it, but he sensed its presence. Then the vampire came out from behind a tree. Its clothes were wasted tatters, and its hair was long and twined with twigs and dirt. Peter could not tell if this had been a man or a woman. Its eyes were trained on the space behind Peter as it came across the stream, leaping nimbly from rock to rock. Twenty-five feet away. Twenty. Fifteen.

  Peter stood, breaking cover, and the vampire’s mouth dropped open in immediate, hissing rage. It roared its surprise, and its eyes flicked compulsively from Peter to the tangle of roots that concealed Promise from sight but not from the vampire’s acute sense of smell. It hissed at Peter again and threw its head back to roar at the sky.

  Then it charged.

  It tried to angle past Peter, but he threw himself forward, tackling it around the legs. It tumbled backward, clawing at Peter’s head as it crashed onto the ground. It struggled in his grasp, and it seemed to have four legs, eight, as it twisted and slid frantically backward. It sat up and hissed in Peter’s face then swung its claws, catching him under the chin. His head was knocked back, and he lost his grip. The vampire was up in a flash and threw itself toward the tree, but Peter grabbed its ankles, tripping it up. Then he scrambled up, and in one fluid motion, he was on the vampire’s back. It snaked and babbled beneath him, but it was thin, much thinner than Peter, and it was already weakening. There was precious little blood to go around, and this one had obviously not fed in a while. Peter reached forward to grasp its head, but it snapped side to side, its neck seeming almost to detach as it snapped back over its own shoulders. Peter was horrified at the sight of it, the contortion, the very wrongness of this creature. There was no humanity left in it. It snapped and bucked a final time, and Peter was tossed to the side. The vampire scrambled forward, fast as a snake, and reached into the opening where Promise and Chance were hidden, burrowing down and in. Promise screamed, and rage galvanized Peter. He grabbed the vampire by its ankles and yanked, pulling it free of the roots, and flung it halfway back to the stream. It landed with a thump, its arm breaking on a rock, its head bouncing against the base of a tree. Its skull cracked open as easily as an egg, and still it struggled to return. Its eyes fixed again on the cave, and it began to drag itself forward with single-minded intensity. It snarled and snapped at its own trailing arm, gobbets of blood-flecked spittle springing from its mouth. Peter ran to it, Promise’s crossbow in his hands. He hesitated as it tried to stand, and a freshet of black blood poured from the crack in its head. It hissed at him in rage and swung toward him, its mouth open and teeth glowing.

  Peter released the arrow.

  The vampire crumbled in a heap.

  Peter stumbled back to the cave, dazed and spent. Promise’s scent was so strong. He should just check on her. Just take a quick look to see if she was okay in there. Maybe just pull her out for a second and–

  –Evans’ face swam into his mind…telling him to fight…fight it. He fell to his knees and wrapped his arms around his stomach. He rocked until his heart had resumed a normal beat. Until his brain had stopped screaming at him like a kettle at full boil.

  “Peter?” Promise’s voice, from the cave.

  He blinked and sat up, sighing.

  “Peter? Are you okay?” Her voice was teary, on the verge of panic.

  “I’m fine. Stay down there, okay? Don’t…don’t come out here.”

  There was a long pause, and his brain warred with itself, hoping she would stay down there…hoping she would come out.

  Finally her voice drifted up. “Okay…”

  He sat back on his haunches and ground the heels of his hands onto his eyes. They burned. He needed water. The cold water from the stream would help. He could dip his whole, burning head in it. He stood, turning.

  Five more vampires were coming through the woods.

  Peter grabbed the bow, but he’d never been trained on it, and he knew he’d be useless except at point-blank range. He looked from one vampire to the next, and as his frustration grew, so did his anger. The fire in his head flared alight again and burned from his brain even the reason why he fought. He forgot about Promise in the specific, but somehow kept his basic task in mind: protect the cave. At all costs.

  The first vampire was upon him, and he struggled to hold it as it tried to batter past him. More ruthless now than he had been, Peter lifted it and slammed it down against the base of a tree, and then another vampire attacked him from behind. Thrown into a frenzy, it had lost track of its original desire: the scent of a human nearby. It gripped Peter around the neck, and he felt its teeth skimming across his back, looking for a hold, but his coat prevented it from getting a grip. He grabbed the arms tightening on his windpipe and flung himself forward, sending the vampire up and over to land on the first one. The first one had been struggling to its feet and was slammed back to the ground under the weight of the vampire Peter slung down onto it.

  The vampires started fighting each other, biting and ripping, and Peter turned just in time to see a third vampire slipping past him toward the cave. He jumped without thought, hitting it at chest height, and they both tumbled to the forest floor, rolling even as the vampire clawed at Peter’s face, and he brought his fist around, cracking the vampire’s ribs. It howled and gripped Peter around the chest, and he was outraged to see the fourth vampire leaping across the stream. He struggled in the grip of the vampire beneath him and snapped three furious punches into its collapsing side, but still
it did not let go. Peter hissed in rage, and the fourth vampire was past him. It threw itself full length onto the ground and hung, head first, in the opening to the cave. Peter screamed again. “Promise! Promise! Look out!” Tears that boiled partly away into steam as soon as they left his eyes burned in tracks down his cheeks. He heaved, getting a leg free and screamed again. “Promise!” He shifted and brought his knee up, ramming it into the vampire’s side. It screamed in pain and finally let go.

  Peter rolled off it, toward the cave. The vampire there was buried half in and half out of the opening, and over the pounding rage in his head, he heard Promise screaming. The vampire had her. It was killing her. He bellowed and flung himself through the air and landed short of the vampires kicking legs as it slid head-first into the cave and disappeared from view.

  “Promise!” Peter screamed again, but his voice broke, cracking as his throat gave out. He scrambled forward, but a sudden weight on his back stayed him. The fifth vampire. Peter rolled, kicking and bucking, and the fifth vampire, small but wiry and somewhat fresh, held on. It twined around him like a snake, hissing in his ear. Peter tried to yell for Promise again, but his vocal cords were frozen in pain, and then…rage rolled a red filter across his sight, seeming to coat everything in blood. He freed one hand and pressed it to the underside of the vampire’s chin. It twisted, snapping its teeth together, but Peter dug his hand in until his fingers gripped its jaw like a vise. He pushed up and back, and alarm flashed into the vampire’s eyes. Peter pushed, unrelenting, his arm shaking with the strain, until its head rested between its shoulder blades. It gibbered and choked, and Peter snapped his hand to the side, breaking its neck. It fell away, still hissing, but paralyzed.

  Peter rolled and scrambled up, crawling toward the cave opening. The vampire–the fourth one–was backing out. No doubt with Promise in its hideous grip. Peter sobbed and grabbed at its ankles and yanked. “Promise,” he said, his voice a shredded whisper, breaking on the ‘o’ and dying hissingly over the ‘s’. Tears in his eyes boiled and steamed, making it hard to see. He swiped at his face and pulled the vampire free.