Chloe’s hands tightened on the wheel as she manoeuvred out of the car park and headed back the way they’d come. She couldn’t take Zack anywhere near another clan. Getting him back to Shady Pines was the priority now. It pained her to acknowledge it, but whether or not Amira was in any kind of trouble, it wasn’t her duty to save the girl. Not at the expense of protecting Zack.
“Shit,” she hissed, wondering what to do as she drove. Passing the Midnight clan’s turning, she slowed a little and cleared her throat to make sure Kenny knew she was giving him an order. “Tell me when we get close to where she went into the woods.”
“Why should I?” he muttered. “You’ll only kill me when I do.”
She ignored his insolence. Her command had gotten through. He wouldn’t be able not to tell her when they got there.
“Larry,” she said. “Winter is your clan.”
His eyes widened as she glanced at him in the mirror. “Right. So, does that mean she’ll be okay?”
She tried to smile but it just wouldn’t come. “It means you’ll have some sway with them. You can tell them you brought her and she’s yours. They should give her to you.”
If she’s still alive, she thought. Her stomach twisted up just thinking about it. If Amira got hurt she was going to come back and burn their whole town to the ground.
Larry was quiet for a few seconds. “So, I need to go find her. And they’ll probably try to get me to bring them Zack, right? Since he’s so important. But they should set her free.”
She let out a sigh. “I wish I could come with you, Larry, but it’s just not possible.”
“That’s okay.” He glanced at Kenny. “What about this idiot?”
Chloe kept her mouth shut. She wasn’t putting the second part of the plan into place until they got to the place to let Larry out.
“They’re going to kill me,” Kenny spat out. “Isn’t that obvious?”
Chloe rolled her eyes. “Not as long as you do what you’re told.”
He started muttering too lowly for her to hear, but she was about ninety percent sure it was a long string of curse words aimed directly at her.
“This looks like the place,” Zack said suddenly.
“We’re almost there,” Kenny put in, growling as he spoke.
Chloe slowed to a crawl, glancing around. It was dark out there; the headlights were all that illuminated anything. She didn’t know how they could both be sure.
“Over there,” Kenny said, pointing across the road.
She couldn’t see anything particularly different or striking about the area he was pointing to but Larry was already opening his door.
“Wait, Larry,” she said, stopping the car to turn and look at Kenny.
“Kenny, you are to follow Larry’s orders obediently and go with him. He tells you to jump, you ask how high.” She bit at her lip. It was an imperfect order, but she could think of no way to make it any clearer.
Larry frowned at her. “I don’t want him slowing me down.”
“You might need a bargaining chip. One of Midnight’s vampires should do the trick,” she explained. “They don’t know what’s happened tonight.”
Kenny snorted.
She smiled at him. “Oh, yeah. Kenny, you will keep your mouth shut and only speak when spoken to, and you will say nothing about anything that happened tonight.”
That should do it, she thought. Larry got out.
“Hurry the fuck up, Kenny.” He ran into the woods and Kenny dashed grudgingly after him.
Alone in the car now with Zack, Chloe started the engine. “Time to get you back to Shady Pines.”
Chapter Forty-Four
The cemetery was deceptively large, and Mark was starting to think he was running in circles by the time he caught up to his brother. Mitch turned swiftly and smiled at him, trapped by a wall at his back and by the barrel of the gun pointed at his chest.
“Brother. Glad to see you.”
“I doubt that,” Mark murmured, wishing his hand didn’t feel so unsteady on the gun. Now that the moment he’d dreaded coming his whole life was here, he couldn’t quite make himself believe it.
Mitch straightened, grinning. “Did you really think I was hurt?”
Mark pulled the trigger, shock flooding his system. Mitch caught the bullet out of the air in his hand and threw it on the ground. His grin only widened as he advanced on Mark.
“This night is far from over, but you’re not going to see tomorrow. It’s funny how much you believed you’d kill me one day. I saw it in your head when we were five, you know. It made me laugh.” He came closer as Mark tried to move and found himself rooted to the spot. “Mark who would never hurt a fly. Thinking about murdering his own brother. Okay, think it one last time before I snap your neck and pull that self-righteous head from your body.”
Mitch’s will was stronger than ever; Mark couldn’t move a muscle. His weakness had clearly been a ploy. He’d never been injured at all. He’d let Zack get away because he was arrogant enough to believe he’d find him again easily. He’d pretended to be hurt to take Mark out of the picture. The reason made Mark laugh, and once he got started, he couldn’t stop.
Mitch’s annoyance was written all over his face. “Fucking stop that. You look like a moron.”
Mark bent over, breaking Mitch’s will with his outburst. His brother wasn’t willing to share the power that turning Zack would grant him with anyone. Did he really think blood ever meant anything to Mitch? No, he wouldn’t turn Zack until one last person was wiped out. The only question was why hadn’t he done it sooner? He doubted he’d find the answer even if he delved into the murky depths of his twin’s brain. Whatever the reason was, it didn’t matter anymore.
Mitch began prying the gun from his fingers as he got a hold of himself. His laughter dried up as his resolve hardened. It would be easy for his brother to kill him. He wasn’t going to make it a single bit easier.
“Audrey will never let you turn Zack.”
He snorted. “I don’t see her rushing out here to stop me.”
“Oh, yeah?” He’d distracted his brother’s train of thought, instilled enough doubt, to crawl out from under his iron-gripped will. He was at least a little bit afraid of their older sister and always had been.
He broke away and aimed the gun at Mitch’s eye. He fired and ran the second Mitch’s stranglehold on his willpower was retracted by the shock. Mitch howled in pain as Mark took off into the night, to find a way to stop his brother once and for all.
Chapter Forty-Five
Zack brought out his phone when it started to vibrate. Someone was calling him and he didn’t know the number. He glanced at Chloe.
“Who is it?” she asked.
He supposed he should answer it and find out. “Hello?”
“Zack Harrison?”
“That’s me,” he said, wondering if he should recognise the voice.
“Where are you?”
“Who wants to know?”
“It’s not important who I am.”
He snorted. “Aye, okay then.”
“Hang up, Zack,” Chloe told him.
“Is that Chloe Duncan?”
“Tell me who you are or I’m hanging up right now.”
“We are the necromancer’s Council.”
He wondered if the guy was telling the truth.
“How did you get my number?”
“That’s not important.”
“Then what is?”
“It’s important that we know you’re with necromancers, and have not been turned into a vampire.”
“Why, exactly, is that so important?” He wondered if this anonymous person would at least give him some answers, since no one else seemed to want to.
The line died and he hung up. “Weird.”
“Who was it?”
“He said the necromancer’s Council, but I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me anything.”
“Sounds like the Council,” she said.
�
�So, really, why is it that I’m so damned important?”
She bit at her lip and he knew she had that information.
“Why am I not allowed to know?” He knew why, sort of. He probably would have a mental break and not remember the answer anyway. It was probably horrible. Maybe he didn’t want to know.
“It’s pretty crazy.” She sounded hesitant.
“Sounds like me, then.”
She snorted. “You’re not crazy, Zack. There really are people out there who want to hurt you.”
“Clearly.” He folded his arms so his gloves weren’t quite so obvious. “My own brother being one of them.”
“Virtually every vampire on the planet being one of them.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Every vampire?”
She shrugged. “I’m sure your sister and your other brother…”
He sat up in his seat. “My other brother.”
She glanced at him. “What is it?”
“Mark was there. He was at the cemetery.” He couldn’t understand what had happened. It was as if the moment Chloe showed up everything went from messed up to okay in a heartbeat. Something wasn’t right. Dread crawled over him. “I don’t think Mitch was dead. Or whatever you call it when a vampire is killed.”
She shook her head. “What happened exactly?”
“Mitch tried to shoot me. The gun didn’t go off. I shoved him into the grave and it did. He shot himself falling. And we just left him there.” Something was very wrong. He knew it in his bones. None of them should have left the graveyard without checking to make sure the bad guy was fatally wounded.
“Shit,” she whispered, her eyes widening as if she was coming to the same conclusion.
“He’s going to come after us, isn’t he?”
She nodded, her expression tightening back up. “Hopefully we’ve covered enough ground to make it hard for him to catch up. Only an hour or so until dawn. There’s no way—”
“No way what?”
Her gaze drifted upwards, taking in movement in the sky above, and she gaped. “No way!”
He followed her gaze to the flying bat in the distance, coming towards them. It was getting bigger and bigger as it advanced, its shape changing as it dropped into the road in front of the car. He blinked. He had to be seeing things.
“Lock your door.” Chloe locked hers and pushed the gas pedal harder.
“Is that… Mitch?”
The human shape the bat took was familiar, bloodied and grinning. He could barely process what was happening even as Mitch’s face came into focus. He lost his breath as he took in the mess that had become of it.
“What happened to his eye?”
Chloe gunned the engine and he was pressed back against his seat. Mitch didn’t move a damned inch as they came at him. They hit him with the car and the last thing Zack saw before he passed out was that damned bloodied empty socket.
***
The impact rattled through Chloe’s arms as Mitch’s body slammed into the hood of the car. The windscreen cracked and then he was gone from her sight, leaving a dark stain and crumpled metal in his wake. She cursed under her breath as she drove on as fast as she dared. Nothing mattered now. Nothing was more important than bringing Zack home.
She couldn’t kill the nagging suspicion that she wasn’t going to be able to get away from the maniac vampire who’d shape-shifted into a damned bat. He’d caught them up once, she doubted hitting him with Kenny’s car would do much to dissuade him.
It didn’t help that Zack had retreated into one of his episodes, he was muttering to himself, his glazed over eyes staring through the cracked windscreen. She couldn’t process the words that were coming out of his mouth. Her heart was hammering too loudly, it was the only sound she could hear above the growl of the engine being strained to its limits.
She checked the rear view and wished she hadn’t. Mitch had stayed in human form but he was catching up with his enhanced supernatural speed. There was no way in hell she would make it all the way back to Shady Pines with Zack.
Her thoughts spun as she tried to find the way out of this nightmare. There had to be something. Back up had to be on its way. If keeping Zack alive was so important to the necromancer’s Council they would send reinforcements. They had to.
But she couldn’t bank on that. She had to find a way out of this.
A gasp tore from her as Mitch landed on the back of the car. The crunch of metal and the sharp sound of his laughter cut through the engine and her heart. She did the only thing she could think of, pulling an emergency stop manoeuvre that caused the car to swerve as she hammered down on the brake. Mitch was thrown from the back of the car. She couldn’t waste a precious second. Getting out, she picked up the only weapon she had available to her; the umbrella she’d used to kill Bridget.
By the time she ran around to the back of the car, Mitch had disappeared. She spun around, but not fast enough to avoid his blow. Her knees went out from under her, and she fell to the gravel.
***
Mitch threw Chloe in the truck after debating for a second over just putting her in the back seat. In the end, he decided she’d be too much trouble. Unlike his nephew who was just muttering away incessantly to himself in a glassy-eyed stupor in the passenger seat. He’d pried the umbrella out of her hands before he closed the boot. They’d all heard how she’d killed Bridget. He threw it in the back seat, smirking as he closed the door. The thought of keeping it as a trophy amused him. He got into the driver’s seat and started the car. It took a bit of convincing to come back to life, which luckily, he was highly skilled at. He hummed under his breath as he turned the car around and drove them back to Midnight Clan’s house. A smile formed as he realised his plan was pulling together perfectly.
Chapter Forty-Six
Mark could see his brother was going after Zack, but he didn’t follow. The plan was to get him back to the mansion. He wouldn’t just do this anywhere. There was some element of ritual that he needed to make it work, to use Zack’s turning to supercharge his own abilities. Place was important. It had to be done somewhere that death lingered. The graveyard had been his first pick. The mansion was a worthy substitute.
He racked his brother’s thoughts to find out where he’d hidden the key to Audrey’s cage. The information was given freely enough for him to wonder if Mitch could feel him poking around. It didn’t matter if it felt like a trap, he had no alternative. The world could end if Mitch got what he wanted.
He ran back to the mansion and made his way to his brother’s bedroom. The key was lying on the bedside table, glinting in the darkness of the room. He picked it up and moved quickly to the room he’d found his sister trapped inside.
She stood up when he entered, and breathed out a sigh of relief when he produced the key.
“Finally.” She reached out to take it from him.
He handed it over once he realised how awkward it would be to open it himself. He’d never quite gotten the hang of levitation. It was a rare talent few vampires ever actually developed, at least as far as he’d been told.
“Mitch is on his way back here with Zack right now.” He didn’t like to be the bearer of bad news, but there was no use sugar-coating it. “He got away from me.”
“Shit,” she cursed as she freed herself and jumped down.
“I’m hoping you’ll be enough to take him by surprise.”
“I doubt this will be much of a surprise,” Audrey told him.
Mark checked in on Mitch’s thoughts. “He’s here.”
***
Mitch smiled broadly at his nephew when he suddenly snapped out of the weird trance he’d been in on the ride back to the mansion.
“Wakey-wakey, Little Z.” He stopped the car.
Zack seemed disoriented, and more than a little freaked out. “Where’s Chloe?”
“Your girlfriend’s asleep in the boot. I guess the night took its toll on her.” He opened his door and looked at Zack. “You’re going to carry her into the
house.”
The order got him moving and Mitch congratulated himself as he got out the car. He might have lost the gun, but that had just been a convenient surprise that landed in his lap. There were a million other ways to kill someone and he just needed one.
***
Zack did as he was told, the whole time trying to stay calm. It wouldn’t do him any good to blackout right now. He avoided looking at Mitch’s bloodied eye-socket. He lifted Chloe out of the boot of the car when he was ordered to. She was unconscious and a patch of her hair looked damp with blood. She was breathing though, and her pulse seemed strong when he lifted her close and felt her heart beat against his chest. Relief that she wasn’t hurt too badly was washed over with worry about what was coming next.
“Why do we need her?” He was afraid of the answer, but he had to ask. Getting Chloe out of whatever part Mitch had her marked out for tonight had to make up for dragging her into this mess.
“You’re going to be hungry when you’re turned, Little Z. Can’t have you starving to death when you’ve just been re-born now, can we?” He smiled and motioned to Zack to get moving.
Zack’s heart sank. There was no way out of this and it was all his fault for being desperate for answers. He never should have left Shady Pines. If he’d known what would happen, he would have convinced himself it didn’t matter. He didn’t need to know this badly.
“I won’t hurt her.” He mostly said it to convince himself. He didn’t know that he would retain any of his human thoughts once he became a vampire. He couldn’t be sure he’d feel the same way that he did now. For all he knew, Mitch had been a stand-up guy before he’d been turned.
Mitch snorted behind him, but he didn’t bother to tell Zack he was only kidding himself.
Swallowing, Zack entered the mansion for the second time that night. He glanced down at Chloe. I hope you wake up and stop me. If I can’t stop myself. Dread filled him as he moved on Mitch’s command. His thoughts spun as he tried to think of something he could do to stop the guy before it was too late. Even if he had a weapon, he was sure the mind-control Mitch had been using on him would ruin any attempts he might make to attack.
Sweet Oblivion (Shady Arcade Book 2) Page 11
