The Vampire Gift 4: Darkness Rising

by E. M. Knight

  “Oh?” he asks. “How? Please tell me how on this blue earth anything could have possibly gone worse?”

  “James could have killed him,” I say. “You could have been dealing with the fallout of Carter’s death.”

  “Carter was in no risk. Trust me. He knows how to look after himself.”

  “James was pretty angry,” I say. “Something to do with you and April, I think.”

  “Well, of course it has to do with us!” he explodes.

  I back off. “I didn’t mean to get you defensive.”

  Phillip shakes his head. He pushes his glasses higher up his nose. “It’s not your fault,” he says grimly. “It’s just… I can’t help but feel that everything is spiraling out of my control.”

  “Maybe control isn’t what you need right now.”

  “Thank you for your sage advice,” he says drily. “Therapist.”

  “You’re calling me names now?” I ask. “What’s gotten into you, Phillip?”

  “If I can’t joke around with my own brother, who do I have left?”

  I grunt. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “And I’m just stressed,” he admits. He offers a thin smile. “It’s hard work, trying to keep so many people appeased at once.” He looks at me. “I don’t envy Eleira when it comes time for her to become Queen.”

  “She’ll have us for support,” I remind him. “And others. As do you, now. But we’re a long way away from that day.”

  Phillip exhales. “I know.”

  The door creaks open. Both of us look toward it.

  Eleira peeks in.

  “Guys?” she says. “I’m ready.”

  I nod and look at Phillip. “Time to do this.”

  “Yes,” he says, pushing himself up. “It definitely is.”

  ***

  The recovery ward where Mother is sleeping has been transformed into a room of white. The floor, the walls, the ceiling have all been painted over.

  “Deanna’s idea,” Phillip tells us. “She thought that since The Narwhark struck at her after traveling in a pool of shadows, the white might give advanced warning if it came again.”

  I look at him. “And you thought it would help?”

  He shrugs. “It doesn’t hurt.”

  The Queen is lying peacefully on the bed. To my immense relief, there’s not a hint of the corruption that plagued the fledglings’ bodies.

  But that doesn’t mean her mind isn’t going through its own hell.

  The vampire doctor who’s been presiding over her offers a quick summary of all he’s observed and then leaves. In short, there is nothing wrong with her that he can tell—aside from the glaringly obvious inability to wake up. But the condition hasn’t shifted one way or the other since she’d been admitted, and I take that as a hopeful sign.

  When he’s gone, an instant glow surrounds Eleira. I watch as she seals off the entrance to the room.

  “Now no one can tell what happens in here,” she says.

  I nod.

  The three of us approach the bed. Morgan is so very still. For a second I see her as a vulnerable young woman and nothing more. The visual is not ruined by all the associations that I attribute to her.

  And there, for the first time, I actually realize: she might not make it. Without the vial of pure Ancient blood, she may yet still succumb.

  For a moment, my heart is on the verge of breaking.

  And then I remember myself, remember who she is, remember all that we’re up against… and my steeliness comes roaring back.

  “I’m going to probe her first,” Eleira says. “The shield is still on her mind, I’m sure of it, so I probably won’t be able to get in. Still—I think it worth a try.”

  “Go ahead,” Phillip says.

  I watch as a softer glow surrounds Eleira. The woman I love reaches out and holds her hand right above the head of the woman who gave birth to me.

  Eleira hesitates. Then, in the most subtle shift, determination gleams in her eyes, and she clamps her hand straight down.

  The glow from around Eleira flows down her arm and into the Queen. It envelops Morgan’s body like a cocoon, until both witches are surrounded by that pale blue light.

  Eleira’s eyes flutter closed. Everything is silent. Everything is still.

  I divert my attention to Phillip. His hands, I notice, are gripping the fabric of his trousers tightly.

  Mine are clenched into fists.

  A minute passes. Then two. Then five, then ten.

  My anxiety about all this starts to play up. What is taking so long?

  But Eleira has my full trust, and as hard as it is to stand by and do nothing, I have no other choice.

  After another few minutes, Phillip comes to my side of the bed. “This must take a while,” he says. “Let’s give them space.”

  I nod and walk away to a farther part of the room.

  “I don’t like this color,” I tell Phillip in the barest whisper, looking at the wall. “White does not suit vampires. It seems almost… blasphemous.”

  “Deanna insisted,” he says.

  “Where did you even find the paint?” I wonder. It’s a trifling detail, but—for now—it distracts me from the more pressing issues looming overhead.

  “You wouldn’t like it if you knew,” Phillip says.

  I crook an eyebrow at him. “Try me?”

  “Carter produced it.”

  I wince. “He’s dangerous. You know that, right?”

  “Of course, I do,” Phillip bristles. “I’m not an idiot.”

  “I didn’t say you were. Only that… well, we both have to be careful around him. More careful,” I correct. “He’d always been Mother’s opponent at the Royal Court table, remember? Back in the days she took their advice? I think he relishes that role. He might be antagonizing us just for the sake of antagonizing us.”

  “I’ve considered that,” Phillip says. “Trust me, I’ve mulled it over many times.”

  He looks away.

  An odd suspicion creeps up. “Phillip?” I say.

  “What?” He won’t meet my eyes.

  My younger brother avoids like that only when he’s hiding something.

  “Why did you and Carter have that silent… exchange? When the question of giving April stored blood came up?”

  “There was no exchange,” he says, too quickly. “What are you talking about?”

  “That confirms it!” I say. “You’re holding out! What do you know? Is it the map you gave James? Is something wrong?”

  “It’s not the map,” he grumbles softly. He actually sounds quite guilty.

  “Then what?” I ask.

  “Just… can we just drop it? It’s nothing, okay?”

  “Phillip.” I walk closer to him. “Did Carter do something I need to know about?”

  Phillip looks at me. For a second, I think he’s going to admit some great secret…

  Then he breaks away, shaking his head. “It’s nothing.”

  Standing so close to him, I get an acute sense of his vampiric strength. It’s grown leaps and bounds since I’d departed for The Crypts.

  Something is not adding up.

  I’m just about to ask him of it when Eleira gives a tiny squeak and rips her hand back.

  Phillip and I are beside her in a flash.

  “What happened?” he demands. “What did you see? What did you sense?”

  “There’s—nothing,” Eleira grunts. “Her mind is like a sealed vault. I tried as many different ways as I could, but I could not get through.” She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, you two. I couldn’t learn any more. As we see her now… is all we know.”

  “That’s fine,” I say, although inside, a tiny piece of hope shrivels and dies. “We weren’t expecting you to find anything.”

  “I just thought...” Eleira begins. “I thought that after what I did in the Paths, after what Riyu taught me, after all the experience I’ve had I’d be more capable.” The frustration is clear in her voice. “I gu
ess I’m still just a hedge witch.”

  “For a hedge witch you’ve done some pretty impressive things,” Phillip says with a smile.

  Eleira looks at him in gratitude, “Thanks, Phillip.”

  Mother’s unmoving form is the ever-present shadow that ruins the sincerity of the moment.

  “I guess there’s only one thing left to do,” Eleira says. She starts to roll up her sleeve.

  I can’t help my worries from coming to the surface. “Hold on,” I say.

  Eleira stops. “What?”

  “What if...” I glance at Phillip. “What if something goes wrong?”

  “Then we’ll find another way,” Eleira says, determined. “Morgan has a whole stack of books about magic. I’m sure Phillip has read some of them. Even the ones that fell with the castle can be recovered. We’ll go through them, think of a different way—”

  “No,” I cut her off. “I mean, what if something goes wrong with you?”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t understand what you mean?”

  I hate what I’m about to say next, but I have to anyway. “You’re more important than Morgan. Not just to me, but to the entirety of The Haven. What if this—” I gesture at my Mother’s body, “—is a mistake? Worse, what if this is a trap?”

  “A trap? How so?”

  “The Narwhark stabbed her. Maybe the Narwhark, I don’t know, injected some type of special poison that would do something to you?”

  “To me? Raul, Morgan was the one it stabbed.”

  “I know, I know, but what if? What if it knew… that things would proceed this way? What if it somehow planned for it?”

  “Now you’re just sounding silly,” Eleira says. She glances at Phillip. “Isn’t he?”

  “It is a little far-fetched,” Phillip admits.

  “The Narwhark is conscious, it has a sense of itself, and, yes, I’d even say it’s intelligent… but it’s not prescient, Raul. You can’t confuse the two.”

  “And what about the book?” I ask. “The Book of the Dead? It was just a simple object, a leather-bound tome, nothing more, right? But then your blood touched it, and it was activated.”

  “What are you saying?” Eleira asks.

  “That we’re still dealing with dark magic! You said so yourself: it’s different from what you channel. It’s a force of power all on its own. It’s unpredictable! And your blood is precious, Eleira. So precious. It’s also special, unique. You’re a witch, and you’re a vampire; you’ve drunk straight from The Ancient. There’s nobody else alive who can claim all those things.”

  The two of them stare at me as if I’ve gone mad.

  “…so?” Eleira asks. “What’s the alternative? We just leave her?” She shakes her head. “I can’t do that.”

  I rake a hand through my hair, frustrated. Why can’t I give proper voice to my thoughts?

  “No,” I say. “Maybe—I don’t know, hell, maybe I should go back to The Crypts. Talk to Logan. Get another vial of blood.”

  “What you told us of the way he gave it to you,” Phillip says, “really made it sound like a one-time thing.”

  “I know, I know, I know!” I want to rip my hair out. “But look, Eleira is so important. Can we really risk it? Can we risk her, yet again?”

  She reaches over and touches my arm. She looks me dead in the eyes.

  “Raul,” she says. “Do you trust me?”

  I stare back into the beautiful sea of her irises. I could get lost in them forever.

  “Yes,” I say finally.

  “Then trust me when I say I’m not putting myself in danger. We’re dealing with dark magic, yes. But I have more experience with it than most. After all, I leached it out of your leg.”

  I blink, startled. “You what?”

  “I wasn’t going to say anything,” she continues, almost shyly. “But I thought of the way while we were in the Paths. When I made the portal that brought you back to this world. I created a sort of… flute… for it. When you made the jump, the dark magic ravaging your body was pulled out.”

  I stare at her in disbelief. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I...” She looks away, almost looks embarrassed for a moment. “I didn’t think you would believe me.”

  I act without thinking. I hop the bed, land on her side, pull her into me, and kiss her hard. She’s stiff for the first second, but then melts right into the kiss. And for once she responds with just as much vigor, just as much passion, as I feel.

  Phillip clears his throat, making us break apart.

  “I would have believed you,” I tell her solemnly. “And I’m sorry. I’ll never doubt you again.”

  “If you’re just about done…?” Phillip prompts.

  I look at my beloved woman. She nods. I let her go.

  She bites a small cut in her wrist, lets the blood pool into a drop, and brings it to Morgan’s lips.

  The single bead slides down her delicate hand, leaving a shiny red trail. It stops right between Mother’s sealed lips.

  I hold my breath.

  The drop of blood splits and flows both ways, coloring the Queen’s lips a scarlet, lively red. The tiny stream trickles down both sides of her face and stains the pillow she’s asleep on.

  “Come on,” Eleira whispers. “Come on.”

  She clenches and unclenches her hand into a fist. The flow of blood increases. More of it follows the path of the first bead.

  Morgan doesn’t drink.

  “Open her mouth,” Eleira says. “She’s not going to do it herself.”

  I move to help. But as soon as my fingers graze against Mother’s skin, I know there’s going to be a problem.

  It’s hard as rock.

  Alarm jolts through me. I try to pull her lips apart but it’s impossible. Morgan is not only as still as a marble statue—she’s as hard as one, too.

  “What’s wrong?” Phillip asks.

  “What the hell’s the doctor been doing?” I demand. My anger at his incompetence is staggering. “Why the hell do we even have a vampire doctor in the first place? Vampires don’t get sick!”

  “He was the one who looked after any of our humans who fell ill,” Phillip says. “I thought you knew that.”

  “Well, here, he’s useless!” I exclaim. “How could he say there’s been no change? Feel her skin—it’s hard as rock!”

  I grab Phillip’s hand and make him touch Mother’s arm. He gives a nearly inaudible gasp.

  “This isn’t going to work,” Eleira says. “Is it?”

  I turn away in disgust. Despite my earlier protest, in my heart of hearts I believed…. I truly did… that this was all it would take for Morgan to be saved.

  Was I blinded by hope? By desperation?

  Or was I simply a fool for believing any of it?

  “Take your wrist away,” I tell Eleira darkly. “This whole venture has been a failure.”

  It has also been a distraction from what’s really the most important issue of all.

  “It’s time to prepare The Haven for war.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  PHILLIP

  THE STRONGHOLD

  I break away from Raul and Eleira as soon as we’re out the door. The sense of utter failure is nearly too much for me to bear.

  I race through the halls, ignoring any vampires I see. None except the doctor knew that Eleira, Raul, and I had tried to revive the Queen. So, at least, our failure will not be common knowledge.

  I burst into my room and slam the door shut behind me. Seeing Eleira bleed, smelling her blood, sensing its potency—was too much. It awoke the vampire within me, and the being roared to life with a hungry vengeance.

  And now, it demands to be fed.

  My hands shake as they work to put the deadbolts into place. I triple check to make sure all the locks are properly done. I can’t have somebody walking in on me.

  Then, savagely, I race across the room to the secret cubby, pull it out, and look upon all the bottles of blood I have.

&
nbsp; I take one. Empty. I take the next. Also empty. I growl. I’ve gone through them before. I grab a third—empty, too! A fourth—there’s nothing there!

  Quickly I go through all the bottles in this compartment.

  They’ve all been entirely drained.

  The vampire rages within me, demanding proper nourishment.

  My hands start shaking more. A series of chills wash through my body. Okay, Phillip, I tell myself. Stay calm. There’s a backup store still left.

  But where? My eyes scan the room. The drawing of its interior is locked away in a chest on the opposite side of the stronghold. I try to summon the memory of it in my mind, but my mental faculties fail me. My brain seems to be working at a fraction of its usual function..

  All I know, all I can think of, all I conceive is that horrid, all-encompassing hunger, the thirst, the longing that I absolutely must quench.

  I fly in a mad circle around the room, trailing my hands over every inch of its interior. I’m looking for the gap, the tiny, unperceivable space that will reveal the location of the other compartment.

  But a witch’s spell hides it. I know that much from the very first time I ransacked this room. The cubbies in the wall only reveal themselves to the one who has the key and can touch it to the cloaked keyhole.

  So my search proves fruitless.

  I curse. I scream. I rage in frustration and aggravation and annoyance. I hate being foiled. I hate not being able to feed freely.

  I need the blood. Each minute that passes without it, I lose more and more of my conscious self to the rampant creature dwelling inside of me. The one with only one base instinct.

  The one that knows only what it is to feed.

  The struggle is long-since out of my control. And even if I wanted to—would I reel it in? I revel in the strength the vampire gives me. I’m addicted to the instant rush of courage and daring and fearlessness. When I give way to that part, I am powerful. I am strong. I exist on a plane above all others, in a realm all of my own, where none of the pathetic vampires of The Haven can touch me.

  And to think. They used to call me “weakest.” They used to make fun of Phillip.

  Well, Mother always knew, didn’t she? She always knew I could rise above them all.

  Suddenly, I remember—Carter’s gift!