I go for the back door. It’s unlocked. Once I’m inside the first thing that strikes me is how silent the house is. Makes every step I take seem louder, every creaking floorboard feels like a trigger. Any second someone is going to come out of the basement with a gun levelled at my face, ready to fire. It doesn’t happen. I’m suspicious.
Something’s off. I go to the door and let it swing open, and the dimly lit room below seems to be empty. At least at first glance. The glimpse of a foot on the ground, a splash of blood on the floor shows me otherwise.
I walk down the stairs, ready for an attack. I’m beginning to think I’m wrong about where they took Nadine. At least, I hope I’m wrong. Rushing down the rest of the stairs, I peer around. There are four men dead on the floor. Blood, everywhere.
Relief fills me that Nadine isn’t among the dead. Then I begin to wonder where the hell she is if it’s not here. There aren’t too many places they could have taken her. I’m just going to have to run through the list. Taking the stairs two at a time, I keep focussed on what I need to do. It’s important to stay on track. I can’t have Tristan push his way back into control. I can’t give him any sliver of opportunity.
The darkness that falls as I look up to the exit makes me stop and stare. My instant reaction that the door was closing is proven wrong. Two figures are standing in the doorway, blocking the light. One of them is Mad, and I wish now that I’d turned his gun on him when I had the chance, because the other is Nadine. She snatches her arm out of his and he pokes the gun into her side. I go rigid. She’s not like me, she won’t heal if he shoots her. He could kill her.
“Con, how nice of you to join us.”
“Let her go. It’s me you want.”
“I wonder if bullets work any better on her,” Mad says, pushing Nadine forward.
She stumbles and I catch her.
“No.” I stare at him. “Give me the gun.”
He laughs. Too far away for compulsion to kick in. Shit.
Nadine whispers a word and holds out her hand. The gun flies into it and she smiles wanly as she points it at my old friend.
“This is for kidnapping me, and for trying to kill me.” She fires. I hold her steady when the recoil makes her jerk backwards. Mad goes down hard, screaming. The bullet pierces his eye and blows out the back of his head, spattering the wall behind. The sound makes my stomach turn, though I don’t see his brain matter and I don’t want to. He falls to the ground, shuddering. Nadine’s hand shakes as she drops the gun and moves to the door, hesitating before stepping over the dead body of my former friend.
“Fuck,” she swears as she steps over him.
“I’m glad you’re okay.” I suppose I should get to the point. “I lost my charm.”
She turns and frowns at me. “I just killed five men, Connor. This is hardly the time for jokes.”
Christ. She’s covered in blood. I glance down at the mess she left down the stairs. “You did that?”
Clearly, they didn’t know about witches.
She sighs. “They were making threats about all the nasty shit they were going to do to me. I had a few spells up my sleeve. Some of them hit a little harder than I meant them to, but I had chains to get out of so I couldn’t waste time knocking the creeps out only to have them wake back up before I could escape anyway.”
“Okay.” I nod, taking in her pallor and the tremor of her lips as she blows out a breath. “When I said I lost my charm, I actually meant the pendant that stops my demon from pushing to the surface. I wasn’t being funny.”
“I probably would have remembered that if I hadn’t just shot that guy.”
She takes a few deep breaths. The tension in her face melts away and is replaced by the steely determination I’m more used to witnessing from her.
Time to drop the big bomb.
“We need a couple of charms actually. Need to get back to Dawn’s place too. There’s a vampire tied up in her bathroom we’re going to have to deal with.”
“I knew this was going to be a shitty night.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Turns out, my old boss is one of the men Nadine killed with her spells. I don’t usually believe in coincidences, but after the night I’ve had I’m grateful for this one.
“His head burst open. One of the other guys started puking his guts up.” She’s been in the mood to chat on the walk to Dawn’s house. Given the night she’s had, I don’t blame her.
“What was the spell supposed to do?”
She shrugs. “It was supposed to blow his mind. Kind of a new one I’d been working on. Was not perfected yet, at all. I figured why not try this shit out while I don’t give a crap about the guinea pigs I’m using.”
“Worked out well.”
“I thought so.”
She isn’t freaking out about killing people. I thought it was something that would bother her. It isn’t like this was just a shitty night for her. She isn’t like me. Maybe it’s shock. Aye, that could be it.
With a sigh, she follows me into Dawn’s building.
“This girl you gave your eternal soul up for,” she starts, “does she know?”
“Know what?”
“About your past. The whole mob thing.”
I shake my head.
“You have to tell her.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m leaving.”
She sighs loudly. “Don’t be stupid.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes. You are. I just killed the problem, Connor. It’s gone.”
She isn’t wrong, but she doesn’t get it so I don’t try to make her get it.
Dawn’s door is unlocked. She turns her head our way as we come in, hope lighting up her eyes when her gaze falls on Nadine.
“You found her.” She smiles. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Thanks,” Nadine says, motioning to her bloody clothes. “None of this is mine, thankfully.”
“Can you make charms for them?”
She nods. “I need something to use for them. Preferably something meaningful. I don’t have my crystals.”
I check on Nisha while Dawn leaves the room to find things for the spell. She’s still out cold in the bath, her mouth taped shut and her hands and legs bound. Harmless right now, but she won’t stay that way for long. We need those charms.
Dawn comes back into the room with two things in her hands. I recognise both.
“This is for Connor,” she says, giving my sister the dried rose I’d given her when it was still a vibrant shade of red. “This is for the girl.” It’s a bracelet with a musical note on it, something Nisha had found once when she’d poked around Dawn’s things. The girl had a nice singing voice. That’s what had brought her to Nisha’s attention in the first place. They’re good choices, meaningful.
“Okay. I’ll do these in the other room. Give me a few minutes.” Nadine goes into the living room.
Dawn’s gaze falls on me. “What happened to her?”
“She killed some men tonight.”
“Bad guys?” Dawn’s brow creases.
I nod. “Killers.”
Dawn folds her arms. “Are you still leaving?”
The pain in her voice is sharp. It cuts through me like a knife.
“I have to.”
“Why?” Her big dark eyes plead with me. “Give me a real reason.”
“I’m not who you think I am. You won’t be happy with me.”
“Then tell me who you are.”
She doesn’t understand. It doesn’t matter how badly I want to stay. I have to go.
She shakes her head when she realises I’m not going to answer. Going into the living room, she closes the door on me. I pick up my jacket. As soon as I have my charm, I’m going to leave. A few seconds later, the door opens and she comes out with the dried rose in her hand.
“I want to say something before I give you this.” She gazes at me. “We all do bad things, Connor. It’s who we are. We’re not saints, we’re not good all the ti
me. We can’t be. You might have killed people. You had your reasons. You’ve also saved people. If it wasn’t for you, I’d still be trapped with that demon. I don’t want you to go. You don’t need to.”
I take the charm when she gives it to me, putting it into my pocket. Her words sink in slowly, while Nadine passes us to take the charm to the girl in the other room.
“Nadine says she’ll keep making charms until we can find a way to get that demon out of you for good.” Dawn takes the jacket out of my hands. “And for Rob and the girl Nisha was controlling. We’ll find a way.”
It can’t wrap my head around what she’s saying. Can it really be this easy? I put my arms around her when she takes a step closer. She smiles, knowing she has me. I guess it can, with the right woman.
“Keeping you out of hell is my purpose from now on,” she tells me. “I can’t let you out of my sight.”
“Then I won’t let you out of my reach.” I kiss her and the cough from my sister is the only thing that breaks the moment.
“She’s awake. Her name is Everleigh. Come with me if you want a proper charm made tonight.”
“I think I’ll stay here…” I don’t want to be apart from Dawn for another second. We have a lot of catching up to do.
“And I think you’ll be wanting a charm that can stay on when your clothes come off.” Nadine rolls her eyes at us.
Damn it. She has a point.
Dawn smiles at me. She leans in and whispers, “You have hands, don’t you?”
It makes me smile. “Aye, but I want to use them both on you.”
She steps back, taking my hand. “I guess we’re coming back to town with you then.”
“She won’t mind if we crash in my old room for the night.”
“So that was your room. I wondered.”
“You’ll need to bring the vampire. She’s hungry, apparently. And she doesn’t know why she keeps biting her tongue,” Nadine mentions as she steps outside.
I groan at the thought of training another new vampire. “Rob’s going to think I made him a girlfriend.”
Epilogue: Dawn
Connor still does his best to convince me how much of a monster he used to be. The things he did, the way they felt. It’s like he’s trying to push me away, and maybe if I hadn’t spoken to Nadine I might have let him. All I can do is keep telling him he’s not the same person he used to be. Maybe one day he’ll realise I’m right.
The slip of paper is temptation in concise lettering. I’ve tried mouthing the words, getting used to rolling my tongue over every syllable. It’s committed to memory now. I knew what it was the moment I found it. It’s the spell that will push the demon out of Connor’s body, the spell that will make him like me. I hide it in my handbag and tell myself I’ll have the guts to use it today. I’m not sure that’s true.
“Dawn?” His voice pulls me to my feet.
The basement apartment we found and bought with money Connor ‘acquired’ from his old boss is huge. Kind of has to be for three full grown vampires and a girl who used to be one.
“I’m in the bedroom,” I call out, smoothing down my dress.
Rob and Everleigh are out for the night on a double date. Their feelings for each other seem to swing up and down depending on the weather. Tonight, they were arguing like cat and dog before they left, yesterday they were joking around watching TV together. It’s kind of cute, when it’s not bugging the crap out of me.
“Wow,” Connor says when he opens the door.
I smile. “New dress.”
“I like it,” he tells me, coming inside and closing the door.
He pulls me to him, inspecting the dress with his intent gaze. It’s just a royal blue skater dress, kind of plain. Nowhere near as overt as the garments Nisha used to pour my body into. But he murmurs his appreciation in my ear as his hands move under the skirt.
I lean in to him as his lips press against my throat. I feel the slightest nip of his fangs before he moves back.
“What’s the occasion?”
I shake my head. “No occasion. I just wanted to look nice for you.”
He considers that for a second before he puts his lips on mine. The heat of the moment burns away all thoughts of the spell and what it would mean. That’s for later. This is for now.
***
He’s sleeping when I get ready to do it. I put a hand on his chest and he doesn’t move. It’s nerve-wracking to try this with him. He’s a vampire. He doesn’t sleep like a human does. His chest doesn’t rise and fall. His muscles don’t move. He’s still, dead. Like me.
I take a needless breath and begin. The first three words are barely out of my mouth when his hand grabs my wrist, pulling me in. He opens his eyes as I try to pull the rest of the spell from my shocked brain. The words refuse to surface. I’ve lost them.
“Don’t,” he tells me, clasping his hand over my mouth and flipping his position to overpower me on the bed. He lets out a sigh as he loosens his panicked grasp. His eyes are wild as he looks me over. “You can’t ever do that. I mean it. Never.”
He moves his hand from my mouth slowly, as if he’s afraid I might finish the spell anyway.
“What if Tristan comes back, Connor? The charms…”
He shakes his head. “We’re going to find a way to do this that doesn’t endanger you.”
“But…” I can feel myself begin to tear up. Damn it, why did he have to wake up?
He lies down beside me and wraps his arms around me. “I can’t let anyone hurt you. I won’t.”
“I don’t want to lose you. I love you.”
“I love you, Dawn. More than anything. And that’s why I can’t let you ever do that spell.”
“You did it for me.”
“My soul was already hell-bound. I knew that. It didn’t matter.”
“How do you know?” How can he know that? How can anyone? “You’ve done a lot of good. No matter what happened in the past.”
He sighs softly and rubs my arm. “I don’t know. I never would have thought I deserved you. It changed everything for me. You did.”
“I can’t stand the thought of you going to Hell.”
“I don’t have plans to go there anytime soon,” he says, trying for a smile.
“This isn’t a joke.”
“I know.” He kisses me. “And I promise you, I’ll find a way to fix things. But you have to promise me you’ll never try to make the same trade I did.” He gazes into my eyes, waits for me to hold his stare before he speaks again. “I’d be devastated if you did that. I couldn’t live with myself. Promise me.”
The weight of his words wore me down. “I promise.”
I want to cry knowing I can’t help him the same way he helped me. I can’t save him.
“Hey. You don’t need to worry about me,” he says. “And it’s not because I don’t care anymore. It’s because I do. You made me care, Dawn. I’ll find a way to be with you. No matter what. Hell is just one big crazy prison, it’s not inescapable.”
I feel him wipe a stray tear from my cheek and I close my eyes. I have to believe there’s a way. If there is, he’ll find it.
“Promise me,” I whisper.
“I promise.”
Author’s Note/What to Read Next
If you enjoyed this novella and want more, you’ll be happy to know you have a few options:
Firstly, the story is set in the same world as my entertaining and completed nine book urban fantasy series, the Gallows Novels, which you can find on Amazon, here:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B078TJMJY4?ref=series_rw_dp_labf
You can get three exclusive Gallows short stories when you sign up to my email list:
http://sharonstevensonauthor.com/newsletter/4592662273
If you need romance with your paranormal suspense, make sure you check out Awaken, another standalone PNR novella set in White Oaks Vampire Brothel, and Twisted Magic which is a dark PNR novel set in the same place:
Awaken: https://www.am
azon.com/dp/B078PQJLSG
Twisted Magic: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071L311Y2
A Note About This Novella
New Dawn was originally intended as a short story inspired by a reader who was interested in finding out more about the vampires in the Gallows novels world who lose their demons, but it quickly spiralled into a longer story.
There’s potential to expand this into a series, but that is only something I can consider if there’s enough interest. So if you loved it and want more from these characters, let me know by leaving a short review and spreading the word about the book to friends who might like it too.
Thanks for reading!
Also by Sharon Stevenson
The Gallows Novels:
Blood Bound
Demon Divided
Fate Fallen
Curse Corrupted
Hell Halved
Spirit Splintered
Heaven & Hell
Reality Ruptured
Prophecy Passed
Short works in the Gallows series:
Back from the Dark (novella, best read after Fate Fallen)
Double Dare (newsletter exclusive short story, set before Blood Bound)
False Front (newsletter exclusive short story, set before Blood Bound)
Shadows Grove (newsletter exclusive short story, best read after Spirit Splintered)
Box Sets in the Gallows series:
The Gallows Novels: Books 1-3
The Gallows Novels: Books 4-6
The Gallows Novels: Books 7-9
The Raised Series:
Dead Man Running
Death Magic Rules
Restless Spirits
Limitless Magic (coming soon)
Short works in the Raised series:
Walking Away (novella, coming soon)
The Shady Arcade Trilogy:
Amnesia Bites
Sweet Oblivion
Beyond Shadows (coming soon)
New Dawn Page 9
