“Where do we get water born of starlight? It doesn’t sound that easy to me,” Raven turned on the headlights. She drove slower than the speed limit, not wanting to risk getting pulled over. She wanted to find a place to rest, but it needed to be away from civilization.
Claire shrugged, “Water knows a few places. There’s the arctic. People don’t really go there or the tops of mountains. We just need a single bottle of pure water. Mindy knew all along. Earth told her, and she told Water.”
Raven sought Mindy’s eyes in the rear view mirror, “How long have you been able to talk to the Elements?”
Mindy put a finger on her lips in thought. She looked genuinely confused. She said, “Jade.”
“There’s a reason the water not touched by man hasn’t been touched by man,” Raven said. She was starting to get a headache. The tension of the past few days and lack of sleep was getting to her.
“Water can carry me to the arctic with the bottle. I’ll fill it and come back.” Claire had the enthusiasm and excitement of youth. Also the innocence.
“You’ll die of exposure before you’d get halfway there,” Raven said. She ran her hand through her hair, “Can Water bring it to you here?”
Claire closed her eyes and communed with water. A little grumpy, she said, “Yes.”
“Fine, that’s settled then.” Seeing a rest stop, Raven said, “We’ll stop here for the night.”
“Bathroom,” Mindy said.
Claire twisted her finger around a strand of dark hair. Joking, she said, “Finally! Things are getting back to normal around here.”
They all laughed, even Mindy.
With new hope and purpose, Raven parked the car, and they all got out to stretch their legs. The sun was sinking behind the trees. Little did they realize that an army of vampires was heading their way, and they would soon be fighting for their lives.
Chapter 15
~~ Raven ~~
After taping garlic all over the van, Raven said, “I’d like to see them get through that.”
Claire shuddered, “I hope they can’t.”
They ate dinner by flashlight. Claire tossed a couple of grapes into her mouth, “So, I might have been wrong about the fruit.”
Raven’s mouth dropped open. “Claire. I can’t believe you said that. Wait, I need to record this. Raven pulled Mindy’s drawing pad of paper out of the net behind the driver’s seat. How exactly did you put that? Might have been wrong. Can you autograph it for me? In case you get amnesia or something?”
Mindy giggled which set Claire into peals of laughter. At first Raven’s smile was just a begrudging go along with it smile, but then Claire threw a grape at Raven which bounced off her nose. That started Mindy laughing so hard she was gasping. Claire made a little yipping sound while she was laughed which made Raven start off which made Claire laugh harder. Soon tears were rolling down Raven’s cheeks.
Grabbing a grape of her own, she pinged it at Claire, hitting her on the top of the head.
“More. More.” Mindy clapped, her eyes shining with delight.
“The princess has spoken,” Claire said, taking a half bite of grape. She threw it so that the fleshy side hit Raven in the cheek.
Raven rubbed her cheek, laughing so hard her stomach hurt. “As royal princess of the Gray clan, I declare grapes to be heretofore banned from…”
Mindy tossed a grape that bounced off the top of Raven’s head.
“Pee.” Mindy said, her eyes shining while she giggled.
Raven and Claire suddenly stopped laughing. Claire leaned against the window, a hand around her eyes as she peered out of the van into the darkness.
“Maybe she should just go in here,” Claire said.
Raven spoke to Air. Air whispered in her ear. With a nod, she grabbed the shopping bag and pulled more garlic cloves out, “It’s safe. We’ll make a run for the restrooms. While we’re in there, we’ll do a little decorating.”
They did their business and taped garlic to the walls of the restrooms. Mindy pointed to the door and said, “Uninvited. No vampires.”
Raven tousled Mindy’s hair and gave her a sideways hug. “That’s right Min-Min.”
They trouped back to the van, getting settled in for the night. Raven read The Monster at the End of This Book to Mindy. Not for the first time, but the irony was not lost on the older sisters.
They lay in the dark and tried to sleep. Tossing and turning, Raven couldn’t get comfortable. Her anxiety rose with each passing minute of the clock. Air was keeping watch. With a sigh she rolled over again, punching her pillow.
Claire whispered, “Do you think they’ll come tonight?”
Raven thought of Jade’s fangs glistening in her mouth and her blood-red eyes. She had no idea but said, “No. I’m just worried about Jade. If she takes the oath…”
She couldn’t say it aloud—that they might not get their sister back. The thought was too terrible.
Claire stretched and yawned, “She won’t. Jade’s responsible. It’s her duty to return to us. Water is on the way back.”
The bottle was open and sitting on the passenger seat of the van. The window was rolled down slightly, just enough for Air and Water to pass back and forth.
Eventually Claire fell asleep. Raven stared at the ceiling of the van. She jumped at every sound. Finally succumbing, she fell into a restless sleep.
Sometime in the night, Air tickled her nose. Wakeup, wakeup, wakeup, wakeup. Startled awake, Raven sat up quickly.
Shaking Claire, Raven said, “Claire. Vampires.”
Claire rubbed her eyes, “What? They’re here?”
“Air said they’re about fifteen minutes away.” Raven found her jacket and dug into her pockets for the keys.
“Wait,” Claire said, “We’re just going to drive away? But the restrooms here are vampire-proofed.”
Crawling over the console to the driver’s seat, Raven said, “That’s just a guess. Until we know how strongly they react to garlic, our best chance is to make a run for it. Wake up Mindy and get her buckled in.”
Claire was gentle with Mindy. Raven was touched at the changes in Claire since Mindy’s near-escape from death. “Come on, Min-Min. We’re having an adventure. I just want to get you buckled in and then you can go back to sleep.”
Making sure Mindy had a tight grasp on her teddy bear, Claire helped her into her seat before she grabbed the middle seat next to the window. Buckling herself in, Claire said, “Okay, Raven, we’re ready.”
Raven turned on the headlights, and slowly accelerated out of the rest area parking lot. Her eyes were gummy and scratchy, and she felt tired all over. They drove into the darkness. She was concentrating on the road when a thump suddenly hit the top of the van.
Claire squealed as a face hanging upside down appeared in the window beside her.
Raven braked, but didn’t stop. She rounded the corner to find vehicles blocking the highway. Braking hard, the van still didn’t stop in time. Raven slowed it down enough to prevent serious injury, but even with her foot heavy on the brake, the van hit the Prius the vampires had used to block the road.
“They’re everywhere!” Claire cried out.
Raven blinked. Her heart was pounding, her adrenaline charged. The van was still running. That was something. Hands pounded on her window, scaring her into a scream. A laughing face appeared, its lower jaw covered in blood, whether from feeding or injury Raven didn’t know. She didn’t want to know.
“Raven, do something.” Claire wrenched at her seatbelt as more faces sneered at them from the darkness.
Mindy hugged her teddy bear and cried.
“They can’t hurt us,” Raven said. “They haven’t been invited. We have garlic. We’re okay. Just sit tight.”
Seeing Claire push her way out of her seat, Raven said, “Get your seatbelt back on, we’re not done yet.”
Raven threw the van into reverse. She didn’t have time to wait for Claire. As soon as Claire was sitting down, she punched it. D
riving backwards was terrifying, especially on a curvy road without lights. Raven hit a few vampires. She could hear the thumps against the car.
They were at the curve and she had to drive really slowly. She couldn’t see behind her, and the roads were dangerous. As she pressed on the gas, she realized that the van was no longer moving backwards. The van was rising in the air. Even if she’d run over a dozen vampires, there were a dozen more to take their place. They were lifting the van and now it was moving off the road.
Raven put the van in forward. Nothing worked.
Claire scrambled back to Mindy and the two younger sisters clung to each other. The child part of Raven wanted to be back there with them, crying and waiting for Mom to save them. Mom wasn’t coming.
The van tilted as the vampires released the van on the edge of the road. Raven said, “Claire, they’re going to roll the van. Hang onto Mindy.”
That was all she could say before she found herself slammed against the door. The van slid down the embankment before falling on its side. All Raven could see were the hints of faces flashing in the moonlight. Hundreds of vampires surrounded the van.
Raven reached for the Keeper’s bottle that had rolled off the passenger seat to the driver’s side of the car. She jammed it into her coat pocket. Her head hit the side door as the van fell completely on its side, pushed by a hundred vampire hands. They were strong.
She could hear her sisters screaming as the van came to a firm stop against a tree. Thumps and bumps echoed from above as vampires jumped on top of the van which was now on its side.
“Is everyone okay?” Raven yelled to the back.
“Define okay,” Claire said with a shaking voice.
“No bleeding. No broken bones?” Raven asked.
“I’m okay.” Claire said.
“I’m okay.” Mindy said, a slight waver in the tone of her voice, a precursor to a sudden torrent of emotion.
“Hang on. I’ll be right there.” Raven removed her seatbelt. Movement in the van was strange. The van was on its side with their duffel bags now resting on the windows. Claire had unbuckled herself and was now helping Mindy free herself from the restraints. They couldn’t see anything in the dark.
She took a deep breath. She needed to focus. By standing, she could reach the glove box and a flashlight. She turned it on. The beam reflected off the passenger window which was now the top of a van. A hungry face peered in through the window.
Raven was proud of herself when she didn’t scream. Swallowing hard, she squeezed and climbed her way to her sisters. Mindy had a lump on her head from a bag of foodstuffs that fell. All of the sisters had seatbelt bruises.
“Wow, you don’t even have your driver’s license and you already wrecked the van,” Claire said. With a hysterical laugh, she said, “Mom’s going to ground us all until we graduate.”
From above, something started pounding on the windows.
The whole situation felt surreal, like something that couldn’t really happen.
“They’re coming in,” Raven said.
“But we didn’t invite them,” Claire sounded betrayed. Raven understood. Sometimes life had a way of moving in a consistent path for so long that when things went sideways, it was a shock. She still remembered the day after her Dad’s death, how strange sitting in the kitchen without him felt, how weird it was to see his World’s Best Dad coffee cup sitting in the dish strainer waiting, but he would never use it again.
Another heavy branch thudded against the window, cracking it into a spider web pattern. “Put your heads down,” Raven gathered her sisters to her, holding her arms around them and using her body as a shield. Mindy was protected best with Claire and Raven both shielding her.
The window broke, raining down sharp little pebbles of glass onto the sisters. Raven shook her head, pulling pieces of glass out of her hair. That was when the fight began in earnest.
The vampires thrust the stick through the window waving it to poke the sisters. The stick hit Raven across the face, and knocked the flashlight out of her hands. A sing-song voice taunted them, “Come out, my tender morsels.”
Raven grabbed the stick, pulling it with all of her weight and tearing it out of the vampire’s hands. Mindy wailed. Claire hugged her sister, “Hush, Min-Min. It’s okay.”
“Get the light,”
Raven felt a dozen eyes on her. The vampires peered down into the van. One knelt at the edge. This one held a gun, “You know, it’s not all about stakes and garlic. We have our weaknesses, but yours are so much bigger.”
“If you shoot us, you can’t eat us,” Claire said. Her jaw jutted and she stared at the vampire with that same look she got when someone told her she had to eat her peas or watch Mindy for a few hours. Raven was proud of Claire. Sometimes a person’s biggest weakness was also their greatest strength. Claire might be stubborn and proud, but she was also tough. Raven grabbed Claire’s hand and squeezed as a show of support.
The vampire said, “We’d shoot you last. You can watch your sisters die…or you can come out.”
“Give us a few minutes. We’ll come out,” Raven leaned to Claire, “Just do as they ask. Get anything we need together, clothes, jacket, food, and then we’ll go out.”
“But they’re evil…” Claire was going to go off on a Claire diatribe about how they shouldn’t give in to evil people, but Raven cut her off.
“Yes, they are, and evil people don’t play by rules and they don’t have a conscience so we do what they say and live another ten minutes,” Raven was on her hands and knees shining a light and searching the van for something.
Tearing the tape away from a clove of garlic, Raven peeled it while Claire begrudgingly searched for clothes and Mindy waited wide-eyed and frightened. Raven slipped the garlic into Mindy’s mouth.
“Eat this,” she said, while she bit into her own, her mouth recoiling from the caustic taste.
Mindy made a face, “Ewwww.”
Raven passed one to Claire, “Chew it down.”
Claire nodded solemnly, and took the garlic.
Raven hoped that her plan would work. They gathered the duffel bags with their belongings. The vampire at the top peered down, “You’re out of time. We’ll pull you up.”
“I’ll go first,” Claire said. She climbed the seat and held up her hands for the vampires. Their fingers were cold but gripped her skin like iron bands.
~~ Claire ~~
Claire stood in the darkness surrounded by monsters. She limped away from the van. Her ankle had twisted when the vampires dropped her to the ground. Mindy came next.
“They smell like a cess pit,” a young vampire who looked about Claire’s age circled her, sniffing the air like a beagle. Claire thought of the garlic and felt instantly grateful for Raven’s quick thinking.
Raven was passing their duffel bags up. One of the vampires on top of the van threw the first one at Claire, knocking her over. She landed on a rock. The jarring pain and laughter shocked Claire into motion. She picked up the duffel bag and swung it at the nearest vampire.
The vampire grabbed the duffel bag, yanking it away from Claire and threw it on the ground. She wiggled her finger back and forth, “Now, now. You’re our dinner guests. I don’t like my entrees to be too spicy.”
Under the light of the moon, Claire could see the vampire’s smirk. It reminded her of the boys at school laughing teasing her because of Mindy. She had punched one of them, and her Mom got called into school.
Claire hated those boys and hated the vampire and hated everything else in the world that was unjust and unkind. She hated that she was embarrassed by Mindy, that she couldn’t be like Jade and just not care what everyone thought. She hated that Jade called her spoiled because she didn’t want to help Mindy.
The vampires were pulling Mindy up now, her fearful cries piercing the thin vampire laughter and chatter. Claire let her anger win that time. She punched the vampire right in the stomach. She might as well have been a twig trying to knock over an oak
. The vampire grabbed Claire by the throat and shoved her back, using her leg to trip Claire. Claire fell to the ground with the vampire coming down with her, strangling her.
Claire heard Mindy’s voice yell, “Stop.”
The vampires mocked Mindy with squawking squeaky voices, “Stop. Stop. Stop.”
Claire wanted to punch the vampire again, but she was getting the life choked out of her.
The ground suddenly gave way and Claire felt herself falling. The vampire fell with her. They were in a strange collapsing tunnel, falling at a tremendous rate. A rock wedged itself between Claire and the vampire, forcing the vampire to let go. Claire kept falling at a tremendous rate, but the earth always held her in a strange embrace that kept her from hurting herself.
Then it was over.
Claire was hanging upside down in a tunnel. She felt a small breeze blowing from the tunnel below her. She decided to crawl further down to find the breeze.
She felt claustrophobic. Mindy might like tight spaces. Claire did not. She wanted to be free, tossing about on the ocean waves, not trapped beneath a mountain of dirt. Claire shook with fear as she inched her way down hoping that the slight air would be enough. Stars blinked across her vision, and she wondered how much oxygen she had left.
She had felt less frightened facing the vampire. The vampire might have been killing her, but Claire’s driving emotion then was anger. Now she was alone in the dark at the bottom of some weird tunnel, and she felt as if she’d been put into a grave.
“Raven?” Claire called into the dark. She pushed her way forward through the dirt and rock, crying out for her old sister.
When no one answered, she began to panic.
~~ Mindy ~~
The vampire was killing Claire and the rest just laughed and laughed. Mindy hated that they laughed at Claire. She remembered how hurt Claire was when the boys at school laughed at her. It was Mindy’s fault. She couldn’t think the words fast enough. She didn’t have the capacity to even realize what it was to think words, but she knew somehow that a flaw in her own self caused Claire’s pain.
A Time To Kill (Elemental Rage Book 1) Page 16
