by Mason Sabre
Yvette frowned. This wasn’t the work of ghouls. They never made this kind of mess. They didn’t rip limbs and organs from people. They killed for food and survival—at most, they drained the body—but this was different. This was a kind of massacre.
There was another door inside; open, no lock. On the ground before it was a silvery pool—a mixture of silver and blood—and there was something in it. She bent closer to get a better look.
It looked like …
Oh god. She jumped back. The bloody end of a finger lay in the puddle, nail still attached. Her eyes flew back to the arm lying on the ground. Two of its fingers were missing—the one that had held the ring and the one next to it.
Heart racing, Yvette crept inside, making sure that the door was wide open and couldn’t close behind her. No one would hear her in here. She was reluctant to go in too far. As she stepped in, a body just to the side of the door caught her eye. Ryan. His shirt was torn where his arm had been, and he was missing half of his face, torn away. Like the girl outside, his shirt was torn down the front, heart missing. Who would do that? Or rather, what would do that.
The mausoleum was more of a Tardis than a tomb. It was bigger than it seemed outside. Yvette didn’t recall it seeming to go so far back. In the middle, raised on a stone plinth, was a coffin. The case itself was made of stone, poor stone at that, but threaded in it were lines of silver. Someone had tried to make sure that whoever was in there would die an awful death should they wake once more. Now, the lid was raised, revealing a wooden interior. An empty interior.
Oh shit.
Yvette’s breathing quickened and she went dead still. Something was very, very wrong here. Wasn’t there supposed to be a body in there—of the very vampire who had turned his back on them all and allowed them to slowly rot on this earth? Her very own predecessor. Had somebody stolen the body? Had someone been protecting the tomb and its inhabitant, and this is why these kids got killed?
There was no sign of the other boy. Maybe he had run like the girl had. Yvette found herself praying he had escaped, although that would mean Human law enforcement making an appearance soon.
Her eyes darted around the chamber. Small alcoves dotted the walls of the tomb, each holding a small jar. Swallowing hard, she reached out to the one closest to her, her hand hesitating mid-air. What if these were body parts? It was too much like that shit they did in Egypt, where they mummified the person and then put their body parts in jars around the edges. Carefully, she lifted the jar. Porcelain. The hand carved design on the outside was delicate, intricate detail meant to impress—and that it did. She slid the lid back, revealing the darkness and the contents inside one second at a time. Lined with silver, whatever had been in the jar before was now liquid. She closed it back up again and set the jar back into its niche.
Yvette walked around the coffin, heart sinking. Seems the other boy hadn’t made it after all. Shrouded in the dark shadows, he lay face down, unmoving, in a pool of blood. She didn’t need to look at him to know that he would be dead the same way as the other two. Youth wasted again. All for the sake of opening this god damn coffin to see what was inside.
There were markings on the inside of the coffin lid. The first layer of the inside of the lid had been peeled away, and inside that, on the layer beneath were scratch marks. Her predecessor had tried to claw his way out. At the bottom, where the body had been, there was no comfy pillow for the dead, no silks or linens, just cold stone. And whoever had been here had been alive.
Yvette dug her hand into the grains of sand that lay on the hard bed inside and scooped some up. With a yell, she instantly yanked her hand back again. “Shit. Fucking silver in the sand.”
What kind of bastard deserved this?
She touched the grooves in the lid, examining the claw marks, and tracing them with her fingers—they were old. She frowned as she examined the hole through the centre of the lid.
“He was staked …”
She’d barely uttered the words when the coffin lid was snatched from her hands and slammed down onto her hand. Yvette screamed, her fingers trapped painfully between the lid and the rim of the coffin. Her scream caught in her throat as she stared in horror at what stood opposite her, on the other side of the coffin. The gruesome remnants of a corpse faced her, its lipless mouth contorted into some kind of bloodcurdling grimace.
“Give me the girl,” it rasped.
Chapter Four
Beautifully grotesque. That was what he was as he stood before Yvette. There was no other description more fitting. Whittled away and back hunched, he barely shuffled. He used the edge of the coffin to support himself, his skeletal legs struggling. His paper thin skin stretched painfully across a hollow face, his eyes bulging big and protuberant from their sockets.
“You're m-meant to be dead,” Yvette stammered. She knew right away who he was. You're meant to be dead was the only thought that came to mind as she looked at him. His death was why she was aging. She stared at this creature, mesmerised by him, a grandfather of sorts. The elder of her bloodline.
“That is what they told you.” His voice was hoarse, each word scratching at his throat. “Where is the girl?”
“The g-girl?”
Yvette pushed the lid open, eyes on the creature as she freed her hand. Her fingers were bent in the middle, and she rubbed at them, bringing them back to life and letting the blood flow into them. Perhaps broken just now, but in a moment, they would be fine. Even though she still aged, she had at least gained the healing properties like all vampires … as long as she fed, of course.
“The girl …” He lifted a weak hand, his movements slow and laboured. But even as she watched him, the skin around his wrist and arm thickened, almost as if it had a life of its own. The skin formed across his arm where the veins ran along the withered muscle. It smoothed out, bringing colour back to his flesh. His fangs were exposed, held in receded gums inside a lipless mouth. “They came here. They disturbed me and brought me back. I must have the girl. I must complete the ritual.”
“They? The kids outside? You killed them,” Yvette shot. “All of them. You took out their hearts.”
The creature before her shuffled around the coffin until he was in front of Yvette. She stopped breathing, thinking she was probably an idiot for not running. He stared at her with lidless eyes, sending shivers up and down her spine. “They chose to come in here. They have to pay the price. It is written that way.”
She swallowed hard. “You're m-meant to be dead. There's no price.”
The creature laughed, a thick, brittle laugh from deep inside his chest. He held onto the coffin, rocking with the movement of his amusement. “They still speak their lies.” He paused a moment. If he had eyelids, Yvette suspected he would blink long and hard. “Where is Jacob?”
“Jacob?”
The creature ran his dry, shrivelled tongue along his partially formed bottom lip. “You do not know of Jacob?” he said hoarsely. “Are you not vampire?”
“I am, but I do not know who Jacob is,” Yvette said, still struggling to grasp the fact that she was talking to an ancient vampire who should not be alive. What’s more, even in this decrepit state, this being’s presence was more imposing, more commanding, than anything she had ever experienced. “There are few vampires in this area. It is toxic lands. There are only a few left from your line.”
He gave a slow nod. “It is a shame there are any in my line.” His clothes hung on him. Maybe they had fitted him once, but now the odd, ruffled shirt hung like a sack, slipping down one shoulder and revealing sunken skin around his collar bone, the bones in his neck sticking out where his flesh withered. His loose pants flapped as he moved forward stiffly. Yvette quickly stepped out of his way so that he could keep a hold of the coffin to support himself, vaguely realising that this weak-looking creature had just dismembered and murdered three kids. She should be running for her life—yet she felt compelled to stay exactly where she was.
He stopped when he rea
ched the part of the coffin where his head had been and turned to Yvette. His gaze locked on hers, he held out a withered hand to her, the skin on his long fingers so translucent that the bones underneath were visible. “Take my hand, child.”
As if of its own accord, her hand lifted to his, something urging her to comply with his request. She hesitated mid-air, her hand shaking from the effort of trying to control it. The logical part of her brain was screaming at her, asking what the hell she was doing, while the vampire in her wanted to answer her master’s call. She told herself she wasn’t afraid of him. He may have mutilated those kids, but they had been fragile Humans. Yvette was stronger than this weak, frail vampire facing her. She could easily snap him in two if it came to that. He was her ancestor, her vampire ancestor, the creature who had created her maker's maker. He wouldn’t hurt her. It wasn’t allowed. To take the life of one below would be to destroy part of himself, too. Yvette put her hand in his, and he placed his over hers. Thin, bird-like fingers wrapped around hers, yet she was shocked by the strength in them—a power that lay dormant.
“You are one of mine,” he hissed. “I can feel it.” Dull blue eyes met Yvette's gaze, and she felt incomprehensibly drawn to this vampire. She wasn’t repulsed by what she saw, or even afraid. Pity bubbled in her chest. Who had done this to him? Who had told the world he was dead when he hadn’t been? He’d been buried alive and kept as weak as was imaginably possible for a vampire without actually being killed. How long had he been in this tomb? Three hundred years? Alone and rotting away? The problem with being immortal was being trapped somewhere. It could be forever. Would this be her fate one day? When she had aged so much that her body was old and frail, but her mind still lived strong, immortality locking her into a defunct shell that should be dead.
“You must bring the girl to me. There were …” He stopped talking midsentence and rocked backwards. Yvette grabbed for him. “They awakened me … There were four of them.”
“You killed these kids,” she said cautiously. “You drained them and took their hearts. I can’t just bring you a girl so that you can kill her.”
“It is written …” He swallowed then coughed, his entire chest seeming to rattle from the force of it. “Upon here.” He traced a hand across the top of his coffin. “They must pay the debt they owe.”
“You c-can't just kill a girl because it says so.”
“If she does not come to me, we will all suffer the same fate. Do you wish to die for this girl?”
No, she did not. She didn’t want to die at all. That was the whole point of her turning—for Troy, too—so that they wouldn’t die. So that she would never have to deal with death again. “I can't just let you kill some innocent girl. There has to be another way.”
“It is written.”
She was young in terms of vampire years—an infant. She was not too familiar with all the ancient laws, and the fact that she seemed to be heading toward death anyway hadn’t given her any motivation to try to learn more about their old ways. But talking so casually about killing people—kids no less—went against everything she believed in, or stood for. “So? It doesn’t mean we have to listen.”
“It has to be this way.” He was resolute, unyielding in his demand.
No. She wouldn’t accept this. She wouldn’t just hand this girl over so that he could rip out her heart. He was healing right before her very eyes, with every moment that passed, she watched in fascination as the skin on his face and arms thickened and missing parts materialised. The lids on his eyes had formed and he had lips now, thin grey lips that closed when he talked, taking away the hiss from between each word. “Your body is healing, though. Maybe it can go all the way? Maybe you don’t need the girl.”
“No.”
“I can't just give you a girl to kill,” Yvette said desperately. “It isn’t right.”
“Are you not of my line? Blood from my blood?” His deep eyes penetrated her very essence. Almost like he could see right inside her. Her thoughts, her being ….
“Yes, I am, but …”
“Then it is not your place to defy my orders.” His lips set in a harsh line. “Are you wishing to challenge me, child?”
If she could have just screamed, she would have. This wasn’t right. But inside herself, she knew that if he really ordered it, if he commanded her, she would have no choice but to do as he said. “No. It's just …” She turned from him, pulling her hands out of his loose grasp. She needed to break eye contact so that she could have a moment to think about this. There had to be something else they could do. Some other way. “I am of your line,” she said, turning back to him suddenly. “That means I carry your blood.”
He nodded slowly.
“What if you feed from me?”
There was a slight pause. “I need the people who awakened me.”
“But we could try.” Anything that might save the girl’s life. He could drink from her later, turn her, but Yvette could not let him take her life. “You don’t know that this won’t work instead.” She was sure it would. She moved back over to the creature and eagerly pushed up her sleeve. “I have fed, and I am your blood. Maybe this can work.” She thrust her wrist towards him. “Please. If it doesn’t work, then maybe the girl?”
He stared at her arm for a long moment—ravenous, three Human kids barely having sated the hunger of an ancient vampire that had not fed in centuries—then curled cold fingers around her wrist. He stood steadier than before, but still he hunched over. His eyes fastened on the delicate veins that ran just under her white skin and slowly brought it to his lips. He didn’t bite at first; instead, he pressed her flesh to his nose, inhaling the scent of her. She tensed as she watched him. He wouldn’t kill her. He couldn’t. She had to trust in his sense of adherence to their laws. He seemed to be dead set on finding the girl and following vampire diktats, so she could only trust he would not kill her. Just as she couldn’t kill him—unless it was in self-defence.
This creature was her line. It made sense now why her own maker’s death hadn’t caused her death along with it. Because their foremost maker was still alive. If he died, however, it would then certainly mean the death of them all. That was what the stories said. They had thought his death had brought about the aging, but Yvette could see now that his death would have meant their own end, too. Why had she been so blind? It was the fact that he was starved and draining in his tomb that had made them age. He was just the mere husk of a man. The people who had put him here had lied. What else had they lied about? It was said that he had been staked through the heart. There was a space for it, but there was no wood, no stake, nothing. What had been in the jars? It was supposed to be parts of his body so that he could not come alive again.
The creature licked along her skin with a dry, bristly tongue, like sandpaper across her skin. Yvette braced herself as she watched his lips curl back and his fangs extend. With a hiss, he gripped her arm tightly and pierced her flesh. Yvette gasped, the sharp pain from the bite quickly subsiding and turning into a feeling of such exquisite ecstasy that Yvette’s eyes rolled back in her head. Troy was the only vampire to have ever bitten Yvette after her maker. Only he had shared blood in moments of intimacy. The bite, the giving of life, it was something close to orgasmic between them. Yvette let her head fall back in pleasure. So much power flowed through her veins, stealing her words, her thoughts, and her entire sense of being from her. He could drain her right now, and she wouldn’t fight it. She would die in his arms happy and content. Maybe the Humans had, too, she thought vaguely through a hazy bliss.
He drank from her, long and deep, creating a wholeness inside her that she couldn’t understand. Unable to keep her eyes open, she gave herself over to the ecstasy that she had only ever experienced with her husband.
When he had finished, he licked across the two small wounds and sealed them. Then, placing a small kiss on her wrist, he let go of her arm. She tried to look at him, but her mind was delirious and drunk on whatever he had done, he
r body weak. He lowered her to the ground, leaning her against the cold stone that held his coffin. “Thank you,” he said. His voice was thicker now, deeper words that fitted a man much younger than the rotting corpse she had encountered. She blinked long and hard, trying to focus herself. “You will heal in a moment.”
A small, shocked cry left her lips as the ground beneath her suddenly started to shake. Surprisingly, the ornaments in the room didn’t move or wobble. Power surged all around them, an energy bouncing off the walls and fuelling every part of them. Instinctively, Yvette clung onto the creature’s arm. So many images flashed across her mind, things that she didn’t understand. They weren’t her memories. She heard the distant echo of someone shouting, a stranger’s voice, and then, just like that, it stopped.
Yvette opened her eyes, feeling like centuries had passed when, in truth, it was less than a minute. She looked up at the creature … and froze. Her breath caught in her throat at what now faced her. No longer was she staring at a half-formed, half-decayed, gruesome-looking creature. What now faced her was one of the most gorgeous men she had ever laid eyes on. Tall and lean and preternaturally beautiful, he sat in the corner watching her with the most incredible blue eyes she had ever seen, the colour otherworldly, mesmerising. Framed by thick dark lashes that Yvette would have killed for, they gave him and almost angelic appearance, belying the fact that he had just massacred three Humans. His hair was thick and black; unlike the wisps he had had before. It was dark, like Raven’s, except his was short. High cheekbones and delicate, perfect features spoke of a man who had once been an aristocrat. Young, he couldn’t have been more than in his late twenties when he had turned.
Yvette snapped her gaping mouth shut and reminded herself of the danger this beautiful façade hid. “It worked?” she asked hoarsely, pushing herself up on weak legs and arms.
His gaze never wavered, his expression emotionless. “I still require the girl’s life.”
