by J. L. Myers
Kendrick’s jaw hung open in shock, mirroring Dorian’s. They hadn’t expected this any more than I had.
Vanessa went to a stainless steel counter and slid open the top drawer. She rifled through with a clink and a clatter before both hands reversed, now filled with gleaming silver stakes. She handed me one first. “Ty tells me you’re immune to silver.”
Ty’s and my encounters on the cruise and at Pulse when I’d used one of his silver stakes had proved that. Not to mention the silver amulet he’d given me that had belonged to his mother. My fingers toyed with the amulet nestled against my almost cleavage. I couldn’t help thinking about the red, hungry eyes of the damned vampires we’d encountered. Their color was same as this hefty stone. And some of their vile blood was inside me, poisoning me.
Feeling ill and wondering what other side effects Caius’s drugging would have, I nodded and took the stake. “Yeah, I guess I have Caius to thank for that. Kendrick won’t be immune though, will he?”
“No, I’m not,” Kendrick said out loud. But through the bond his words were more personal, picking up on my rising insecurities. And being infected with their blood doesn’t make you like them. Please believe that.
“If that’s the case…” Dorian held out his hand and Vanessa handed over another stake.
Without warning there was a sizzling followed by a shout of pain. Dorian dropped the stake like it was a hot coal. It bounced with a clank against the concrete at his shoes. The stink of burned flesh invaded the frigid basement air.
Dorian rubbed at his blistered and bleeding hand. “What the hell?”
Vanessa caught and inspected his hand, which was already smoothing over. A moment later only remnants of his spilled blood was left. “You’re not immune.”
I rubbed at my temples. The first thing I saw was Marcus, a silver-faced Rolex on his wrist. Marcus is immune, I passed my words and memory through the bond. Then I conjured up details of what we’d found under the cabin ruins in Alaska. The explanation hit me like a sonic boom. “Caius used two solutions in his experiments. Both had silver nitrate and Pure Blood, but one had ingredient X.”
“Damned blood,” Ty said.
I nodded. “Yeah, and the other had X2.”
“The X probably means it’s damned blood, too.” Vanessa walked back to her workstation and flicked through a tattered notebook. “But my guess is that it was altered in some other way. Before being mixed with the other ingredients.”
“It could also have something to do with the infected before and after birth stuff,” Kendrick mused.
Dorian took all this information in his stride. Yet all I could think was that this was another thing that separated me from everyone else. Another thing that made me different. An outsider.
“So what’s the alternative?” Dorian asked, sliding a finger along a mean-looking handgun. “I’m guessing your guns aren’t made of silver.”
“No, they’re not,” Vanessa said. “But our bullets are. Not great for killing unless you’re a perfect shot and can fire off enough rounds to pretty much shred the heart. But seeing as the damned are so fast, they’ll rip your neck out before you get the chance.”
I heard Dorian mutter “buzz kill” under his breath which made Kendrick snicker.
“There are silver-coated machetes and swords.” Ty pointed to the ones hung from the wall. “But with their size they’re difficult to conceal. In the end a stake is the best weapon.”
“But we can’t touch them,” Kendrick said, his tone screaming dumbass.
“No.” Ty laughed. “Not those ones. But these…” He let the word hang in the air as he pulled two objects from the cabinet’s second drawer. Each was a stake, but they were different from the others. These ones were silver, but their hilts were coated with a thick layer of rubber.
“Never thought I’d be giving those out.” Vanessa sighed, resigned to the idea. After hearing about her parents’ tragic murder at the hands of rogues, it was no wonder. Still, I wondered if her shift to help was more to do with something else. Something more than assisting the greater good. Like my charismatically charming brother who kept sliding her sexy eyes.
“If you don’t stick yourself with the pointy end,” Ty said with a smile, “and carry the stake in a holster or pocket, you won’t get burned.”
“Good to know.” Dorian grabbed one by the rubber casing, testing what Ty said by sliding it into the back pocket of his jeans.
Kendrick muttered “smart ass” but did the same.
With each of us armed and enough bombshells to clog up my brain, I let my focus drop to the silver stake in my hands. It was unsurprisingly heavy and now the third I’d held. During our attack on the cruise, I’d grasped the one from Ty’s backpack in a desperate effort to save his life. Though back then I had taken little notice of the weapon itself. I rolled the piece across my palm. A scrawling inscription was etched into the length. The flowing words weren’t in English.
“What does the inscription mean?” I asked Vanessa who was still nose-deep in her dusty book.
She went to answer, but Kendrick replied before she had a chance to. “It’s…” The next words he spoke were in a language I didn’t understand. Maybe Greek or Latin.
“That’s Greek, isn’t it?” Dorian asked, surprising me. He shrugged. “What? It’s my language elective at school.”
“And it translates to mean,” Ty added. “Deliver back unto hell.”
My body convulsed at Ty’s words, ice undulating my muscles. Then the world around me faded. The stake fell from my hand, rattling to the ground. I swayed, knees giving way as I fell.
In a flash of confusing light, I saw a man standing at the edge of a cliff backing a forest. Covering his body were tattered clothes that appeared centuries old. His hands were outstretched, reaching for the raging electrical storm above. I tried to scream, to tell him to move. But I wasn’t there. I was merely a spectator, eyes without a body. And then it was too late. A bolt of light split from the roiling clouds, plummeting at the man in the blink of an eye. The lightning connected with his hands, sizzling through his entire body as he crumpled to the grass.
“No!”
My body jerked back and forth and my lids flew open. My vision was hazy as a familiar voice registered in my ears. “Amelia. It’s me. It’s Ty.”
Ty was cradling my shaking body in his arms. Dorian and Kendrick were kneeling around us. Vanessa stood behind them, her face showing the most shock I’d ever seen in her.
“I’m okay,” I said. Ty tried to pull me up and I pushed him away. I struggled to stand on my own and fell back on my butt. “I can smell blood.” With blurry vision I scanned everyone in the room. “Everyone’s blood.”
As I blinked, lifting my lids, Vanessa gasped. Through Kendrick’s sight I saw my red-tinted, bloodshot eyes. A sight Vanessa hadn’t witnessed, having been absent during my other visions.
“Another vision,” Kendrick guessed. He reached into his jacket and withdrew a bottle of blood. “Don’t ever say I’m not prepared.” At my hesitation he said, “And no, it’s not mine.”
Even though his preparedness came from not wanting to see me sink my fangs into Ty’s neck, I accepted the bottle. A few seconds later it was empty.
As the blood sank in, taking the edge off, I shook my head. I needed to piece together what had happened, what it all meant. This vision had been different from the last. There’d been no death. No violence. And no bloodshed. But that didn’t mean it hadn’t been confronting. The images of this stranger being struck by lightning were hitting a little too close to home. Yet I had sensed his decision. He had wanted the lightning to strike him. Who would purposely walk into that?
For once Kendrick didn’t have an answer to my unasked question. But there was something else different about the vision. It hadn’t been an urgent warning of something terrible to come. It had been an insight into a past event.
“So what did you see?” Dorian, standing close to Vanessa, looked worried.
“It was a past event,” I offered, sending this stays between us silently to Kendrick. “Not related to the damned or anything posing an imminent threat to us or anyone we know. Just some guy in old clothes in the forest.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I skidded to a halt as the forest opened up into a winter wonderland. Kendrick and Dorian stalled beside me. “This’ll be fun,” Kendrick said dryly.
Dorian clapped. “Head to head with Troy. I’m psyched. Been wanting to knock that dick around since our last fight.”
I groaned. Today we were training against the wolves. One on one while wielding stakes. How Ty saw this going well was beyond me.
I glanced around our usual secret training space. All the lush greens of white cedar and hemlock pine trees were lost to powdery white snow. The once dewy forest floor was a blanket of white just waiting to be torn up.
It was the following morning—Saturday, so we didn’t have to wait for school to finish—and the wolves were already waiting. Ty was having words with Troy across the clearing, jabbing a finger into the guy’s chest and flashing canines. Although indignant with his own canines peeking out, Troy nodded. Glued to his side, Marika sneered at Kendrick and me while ignoring Dorian’s very existence. For once she was dressed in black, with most of her body covered.
Vanessa waved us over and tension fled Ty’s warning expression. “As you all know, the most efficient way to kill a damned—”
“Or vampire,” Troy barked.
Ty glared but continued. “Is to stake them in the heart.”
I had experienced the effectiveness of Ty’s silver stake on the damned, which Kendrick had witnessed through my mind’s eye. But Dorian had relied on his brute strength, speed, and a lot of luck to kill his and Kendrick’s attacker.
I palmed the stake in my hoodie’s pocket. The entirely silver stake that I, a vampire, could touch. An unexpected questioned rolled off my tongue. “What happens when you stake a living vampire?” The words tasted like acid in my mouth. But we needed to know. If it came to it, in the end we might have to kill Caius, a living vampire. All I knew so far was that we didn’t disintegrate like the damned.
“They die a painful death as a result of the silver burning the heart and preventing repair,” Vanessa answered sounding clinical. “If the heart doesn’t stop from the damage, the blood loss will eventually have the same effect.”
I swallowed, knowing that Ty had actual experience in this. The times he’d assisted his father in killing rogue vampires. Even more daunting than that was the memory of the night he had almost killed me, too. I would have been his first.
With an uneasy smile I nodded to Ty. “Let’s get started then.”
We walked into the center of the clearing, leaving sunken boot and shoe prints in the snow. Light pattering rain began to fall.
Ty nodded to Troy. “First, you need to know where to hit.” He motioned towards Troy who at Marika’s curled lip removed his shirt to expose his buff torso. Ty took a stake from the back pocket of his jeans and directed the tip at his chest. “You need to hit here, before the base of the pectoral, between the 4th and 5th rib.” His gaze narrowed. “If you misjudge even half an inch, you’ll strike a rib, or worse, the sternum.”
“Neither of which will kill or really harm your opponent,” Vanessa chimed in. “But will more likely just piss them off.”
Under Ty’s direction Dorian was set against Troy and Ty took on Kendrick. “Now this is training. Not battle. Hits are fine.” He leveled flashing eyes at his pack. “But if any skin is burnt by silver you’ll be answering to me.”
With Vanessa separating Marika from me, we watched from the sidelines atop a fallen tree. The log was sheltered by a few oaks and almost clear of snow. First the wolves, still in human form, were armed, showing us in one-on-one combat how to hit our mark. Ty was all business, but you could tell Troy loved every time his stake hit the kill point on my brother. Kendrick was behaving too, for now.
Vanessa barked out tips throughout the sparring, not missing a single mistake by Kendrick or Dorian. I kept my focus on the guys, picking up weaknesses and strengths. What moves worked and which came up short. Beside Vanessa, Marika mirrored my intent observation.
After round one, the tables turned and my best friend and brother were the ones armed. Following an hour of that, their bodies dripped sweat and mud from the ground they’d shredded up. Kendrick’s frustration every time he missed the mark on Ty was met with a curse. Though to his credit he got in a few wins. Troy reacted to every correct hit from Dorian with a roar of rage. Each time the outburst got louder, teetering closer to an unstoppable edge. As Troy was about to blow his top and actually take my brother down, Ty called a stop.
“That was good,” Ty said, walking over with the others to the log where we sat. “But now…”
I pushed off my crouched perch, dumping my phone and iPod on the log. I knew what was next. “It’s our turn.”
Marika stood and dusted snow off her hands before pulling out her own stake. “Challenge accepted, leech.”
She jogged into the clearing and I followed, pulling my own silver stake from my belt. With my pulse racing I grounded my feet as Marika launched at me. She moved like the wind. But her stance gave her away.
I dodged just in time, elbow jutting out to connect with her ribs. The hit made her snarl but she didn’t falter, swinging out a leg as she dropped to the ground. Off balance, I staggered. The fact that I hadn’t seen that one coming cut through me with irritation.
The rain began to pelt down harder and I spun on the spot. Free fist ready, I delivered a blow to her cheek. The hit caught her off guard for a moment. Which was all I needed. I threw my arm forward, directing the stake at Marika’s chest.
Before I reached the kill spot her hands came up, knocking the stake free. It flew through air into a wide oak. It’s branches trembled at the embedding force, dusting snow like icing sugar through a sift.
Not stopping to berate myself, I back flipped to the tree. I tugged the stake free, but I didn’t have a second to waste. Marika was coming for me.
As I spun to face her, a deafening crash rang out. A lightning strike plummeted straight for us. I leapt away as it struck the exact spot I had been standing. The force sent me flying straight at another tree and cracking it in two.
With a groan I stood on aching legs.
You must accept the light. Madam Dorothy’s words blew through my ears with the wind. I fingered the amethyst pendant tied around my wrist, shivering at the memory of her cryptic telling of my future. For the first time ever her declaration made sense. I knew what I needed to do. The vision yesterday had painted a clear picture. At the time, I hadn’t understood the vision or the strange man’s will to get struck by lightning. I’d felt an unnerving sensation at my own close encounters with the storm-created force. That unnerving sensation was lost to me now. Right now, I knew what I felt. It was an unrelenting pull towards the storm, towards the power within the lightning’s volatile strike.
“I’m over this crap,” I spoke to myself, and I meant every word. I took off past the clearing and through the thicket.
“Amelia, stop!” Kendrick screamed, bounding through the trees after me.
I ignored his call, maneuvering through the incline of the thick, snowy forest, dodging, weaving, and jumping. I burst from the tree line, pulling to a stop at the edge of a rocky, plunging cliff.
“Come and get me!” I screamed up at the angry coiling clouds.
“No!” Kendrick’s scream echoed. Other feet pounded along with his, but only he knew what I planned to do.
With my arms outstretched to the blackening sky, Kendrick sprinted past the tree line.
Too late.
A crack split the sky, blasting through my ears as a strike of lightning shot straight at me. It connected with my palms and surged through my body, turning every bone and muscle to liquid. Everything disappeared and I collapsed.
Somehow, even in thi
s darkness, I wasn’t unconscious. I could hear nearing steps. Smell the crispness of winter. Sense the storm receding.
I forced my lids open as Kendrick reached my side. He grabbed my arm and recoiled as static shot free. I watched my arm in fascination as blue lightning danced over my skin.
Ty and Dorian met us on the cliff’s edge then, and Ty dropped to his knees, reaching out to take me into his arms. “Are you hurt?”
“Don’t touch her!” Kendrick shoved him back. “She’s a live wire.”
With shaky hands I pushed my body from the ground. “I think I’m fine,” I said, brushing myself off. The static rays had slowed and now seemed to be sinking into my skin. They faded out, becoming lighter and lighter until they all disappeared.
“What the hell happened?” Dorian asked as Marika joined us along with Troy, who was carting Vanessa on his back.
I raised my eyebrows to Kendrick in question, hoping his vampire knowledge would somehow explain this. He shrugged, completely lost.
“The lightning,” I said. “It’s what I saw in the vision of the man. I knew I needed to let it hit me.”
“You could have gotten yourself killed.” Ty’s voice was rough as he watched me, his face revealing the pure terror I’d just subjected him to.
“I wasn’t afraid.” I recalled all the past close encounters. How the lightning had reacted to my fear, anger, or a threat. It had always been coming for me. “It was all leading to this. I knew I needed to do it. I needed to seek it out.”
“But why?” Vanessa asked, frowning at me like I’d gone totally batshit.
“Aren’t you the one who knows everything about creatures that go bump in the night?” I quipped.
“I do. But this?” She waved her hands, indicating my entire body. “It isn’t in any book I’ve ever read. It’s not normal.”
“Nothing about any of you leeches is normal,” Troy said.
“Amen,” Marika added.
I ignored them both, feeling powerful and hollow at the same time. “What am I?”
