by Candy Crum
I fought the urge to roll my eyes. She didn’t know him even half as well as I did. There was plenty more to shake her head and roll eyes at. “What is the plan now?”
“He plans to try to turn you,” she said.
My eyes widened. “What?”
“He thinks that if he turns you, that you will be some fucked up, hybrid Immortal-Vampire and you’ll be able to take Khia and anything else on that gets in his way. Those other Vamps upstairs are in with him and completely believe that it can be done.”
“Oh, my God,” I said. “I have to get out of here. That cannot happen. Not because I have a problem being a Vampire—I don’t. In fact, I’d prefer that to the reality of it. Vampire blood kills Immortals!”
“Don’t get all sentimental on me. There is no way for me to get you out of here, and even if I do, I’m taking you to Khia. There are too many of them up there. I think that’s why he has them here. He knows that I don’t agree with this stupid plan of his. I should never have turned him. He was a pathetic piece of shit as a human and even worse as a Vampire. Now, he’s immortal. I’ve made it worse. I just cursed the world to deal with that for eternity. I’m such a dick.”
“Why did you turn him anyway? I know you don’t love him.”
“Love?” she laughed lightly. “That’s funny. There isn’t anything about him worth loving. It was an accident actually. I drained him and left him for dead, but I guess he wasn’t completely drained. He ended up surviving and turning.”
“Fantastic,” I said. I felt a shift in the Vampiric energy upstairs. “They’re coming. If they see you down here with me, they’ll think you’re going to try to bust me out, and they’ll kill you.” I couldn’t believe the words that were about to come out of my mouth, but she was my only hope. “I’ll drop the barrier and pretend to still be knocked out. That will explain why they didn’t hear us talking. You grab me by the throat, and when they walk through—” I sighed “—act like you’re going to bite me.”
A look crossed her face, and I couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but it seemed that she was shocked that I would help her after what she’d done to me. She nodded and that was that. I dropped the barrier and slumped back over in my chair. I felt her dark energy flaring, and she lightly grabbed me by the throat. As soon as I heard the click of the door, Casi growled before getting ready to plunge her teeth into my throat.
Just as I had expected, it was Jeff that pulled her off of me before she could. “Casi! What in the hell are you doing? I appreciate the enthusiasm, but it’s going to be Jacques or Byron that turns her,” he said. “I want her under our control.”
I “drowsily” looked up, trying to make a good show of my “just waking up” act. It wasn’t really that difficult because the Vampiric energy in the room made me feel like I was drowning. They were all a huge weight on me. My body no longer tingled, it ached all over. Some of those Vampires were older and very strong.
“Hello again, Kailah,” Jeff said. “How are you? You had one nasty bump on your head.”
“I’m doing fantastic actually,” I said with a smile. “The way my hands are tied behind me popped a spot in my back that I haven’t been able to get for a while. Shoo! That was really annoying.”
He shook his head and smiled wider. “You get more and more beautiful every time I see you. And your sarcasm never ceases to amaze me. Why couldn’t you have been this cool when I was dating Rachel? We could have been great friends,” he said with a waggle of his eyebrows. “How is dear Rachel by the way? Has she tried to kill you yet?”
“First—I take offense to that. I have always been this cool. I’m absolutely hilarious. You just recently developed a sense of humor is all. As for Rachel… Oh, she’s doing great actually. We went and got our nails done earlier in the bright and sunny afternoon before our dates.”
“Our dates? And wait, that’s not possible. How was she out in the full daylight?” he asked. “We can go out in low light and heavily cloudy days, but not in the afternoon.” The look on his face was priceless as he realized that, not only was Rachel not a Rogue, but she was also out on a date with another guy.
“Ah! Picked up on all that emphasis, did you? Wait, do you know what emphasis means?”
Boy, did he look pissed. I was a being a bit heavy-handed with the sarcasm, but I didn’t care. I was probably going to die anyway. There sure as hell wasn’t any way I was going out without a few good jabs.
“Kailah, you should tread lightly and not piss me off,” he said. “Now, answer me. How was she out in the light? She should have turned.”
“Oh, you tried to turn her? Wow, you did a really bad job. She’s perfectly healthy and perfectly alive for that matter. The guy that beat your ass earlier? Yeah, she’s on a date with his brother. Twin brother actually. In case you didn’t get the emphasis on that one, it meant ‘way hotter than you.’” A smile crept across my face. I couldn’t help but twist the knife in further.
He smiled again. “Well, I won’t be making that mistake again.”
I shrugged like it didn’t bother me, but really, it chilled me to the bone to think that he might succeed in turning me. I wasn’t sure what would happen if he bit me. Would my body purify the venom? Would I purify him when he bit me? Would he succeed? Or would my body overreact like it always does and just end up purifying me instead? There were so many things that could happen, and it terrified me.
With me being so young, and still mostly human, I wasn’t sure what the rules were. Aeric only said “Immortal.” He never specified the age, or if it was human-Immortals, like myself, or purebloods that don’t have to go through the change, like Wendy and Sayen.
“Jeff,” one of the other Vampires, a guy, said.
“What?” Jeff asked.
“How did she get the gag off herself without using her hands?”
My heart skipped a beat as a bad feeling crept over me again. I forgot to have Casi put the gag back on.
“Yeah, Casi, how did she get the gag off? She was passed out when we got in here. Or, so it seems that she was,” Jeff said.
She didn’t do what I figured she would. She didn’t try to make up a lie. Casi would have been able to do it, too. She was smooth and confident. She could have let a perfectly believable lie roll out without any effort at all.
Instead, she defended me. “You can’t do this Jeff. Let her go.”
“Grab her,” Jeff said.
Two other male Vampires that I recognized as being much older and stronger quickly subdued her. She struggled against them, but she was no match.
“I told you not to cross me, Casi. Don’t you understand what I’m trying to do here? Khia was going to kill us either way. If we can use Kailah, Khia can’t do anything at all. Plus, once finished with the Immortals, we can use Kailah to live among the humans. They’ll bow at our feet, and we will claim the world as ours instead of living in the shadows. We have the upper hand now. I can’t believe that you would doom us all. It’s touching that you would help her. Touching, but very stupid,” Jeff said.
He held up the same gun that Casi shot Aeric with. He pointed it at her head and pulled the trigger.
Chapter Two
I expected there to be brains everywhere, but there wasn’t. The bullet went just through her forehead and stopped. I figured it must not have been a very powerful gun, or her skull was powerful enough to slow it down to the point that it couldn’t exit out the back.
Casi instantly passed out and went limp in the other Vampires’ arms. Guilt and dread filled me. I hated Casi, but at the same time, I knew that she was only trying to help in her own way.
“Let’s go figure out how to handle this mess,” Jeff said. “We’ll be back for you shortly, so don’t get too comfortable down here.”
They walked out and closed the door behind them. They didn’t notice the window being open, and for that, I was really grateful. I knew they probably would have actually killed Casi for that one. Plus, since it was open, I had a chance to u
se what little access I had to the water’s energy to try to do something. I wasn’t sure what yet, but I hoped that something would happen like the last time.
When I had touched water’s energy, things started to make sense, and I knew things that I didn’t know before. I assume it was whatever water using spirit was around that I could actually channel and was gaining the knowledge from. I closed my eyes and focused on Aeric. I had no idea yet if Casi kept her word. I was kind of afraid to ask. She could have killed him for all I knew.
I only hoped that I could force a vision of some kind, or maybe find the mental link between Sayen and me and figure out what was going on. Maybe I could send her flashes of where I was. I doubted that I would be able to do anything that extreme yet, but I knew that I had to try. One would think it would be easy to find a natural bond between the two of us, but I’ve quickly discovered that it isn’t.
The wind blew through the window, and I remembered that I had one surefire way of connecting to Sayen. My great-great grandfather was an air using spirit. I quit focusing on Aeric to focus on my grandfather. I knew if nothing else, he would be able to tell me something. He appeared before me in almost no time at all. I was beginning to think he was there with me all the time.
Though my powers were dwindled to almost nothing, he still came to me easily. His brows furrowed when he saw the situation that I was in. I knew if I said anything that the Vampires in the other room would hear me, so I mouthed the words, “they will hear me,” and he nodded in understanding.
He placed his hands on both sides of my face and closed his eyes. The world around me shifted as he pulled me into another illusion. The dark green blades of grass came into view, and I was happy that he once again chose this place to bring me to. The sun was shining and everything was incredibly warm. The wind whipped lightly around us, and I knew that it was because of him.
The freedom of this place made me feel at ease. If nothing else, it was a wonderful escape from the bonds of the dire situation that I was in back in the real world.
“Things have gone terribly wrong, little one,” he said.
“I know. Is Aeric still alive?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yes. The dark one kept her promise and removed the bullet. She was able to flee before he healed.”
“I know where I am, but I’ve never been here before. I have absolutely no idea how to give directions to get here. All I can tell you is that I’m in Seymour at Jeff’s parents’ house. Can you tell grandma?”
“No little one. When you were born, my path changed. I am yours now. I’ve tried to get to Sayen many times—now being one of them—but I haven’t been able to.” I felt bad that I was what separated them after all of those years. “She figured one day I would be pulled in another direction. We’ve both accepted it. But now is not the time to speak of these things,” he said as he laid a hand on my shoulder.
“I know. I’m sorry. I just can’t stand the thought of going back to the real world.”
“Its fine, Kailah. I understand that, but you can’t be allowed to die. If you are bitten by a Rogue, you will die. If you are drained and fed Vampire blood, you will die.” My eyes widened at his statement. “This isn’t the first time someone has attempted to change an Immortal. It has always ended the same. The Immortal soul overreacts as it begins rejecting the change and eventually flees from the body. The spiritual blood tries to purify what it can, but it eventually fails, and all that is left is the broken shell of a human. Even when mortals are bitten, only the strong survive. When an Immortal regresses to a mortal state, once the spirit flees, they are too weak for the change. They simply parish. You are far too young to even attempt to fight it. Even Sayen would die if she were bitten by a Rogue.”
His words sank in. I was about to die. There was no way they would be able to get to me in time to save me. If Jeff was really coming back as soon as he made it sound, then I was a goner.
“There has to be a way to find the bond,” I said.
“There is. Sayen was given the gift of telepathy by siphoning some of Khanae’s spirit. It was given as a gift as Khanae wanted Sayen to have that link to her. That is the only reason why she is capable of it. Khia killed a young, pure-hearted Vampire and completely lifted his power for hers. Between the telepathy and the natural link that you have to her, it’s possible that you can get her attention. Though you can’t talk through the bond because you don’t have the gift and the distance is very great, maybe you can use this plane so that Sayen can use her abilities to seek you out. I can’t go to Sayen on my own and tell her where you are, but I can be a bridge between the two of you. It is part of the spiritual power of the wind. Hold my hands,” he said.
I did as he asked.
“Now, concentrate on Sayen. Once you’ve found her the first time, you should be able to from now on by yourself with only a little concentration. You know where she is. Concentrate on the location. Try to feel for her. She is looking for you, too, but there is something in her way.”
I did as he asked and concentrated on her. Using his power, I imagined the wind carrying my thoughts along an imaginary rope that ended in that house. It seemed as though it took forever, though there was no real way to tell just how long it had been.
“Sayen,” I said through my mind.
“Kailah?” she asked. “How are you speaking through the bond? That’s impossible. How are you? Where are you?”
“Jeff has me in his basement. I know it’s in Seymour, but I’ve never been here, so I have no idea how to get here. Rachel can tell you. He’s planning on trying to turn me.”
“Kailah, the real world is shifting, you must hurry,” my grandfather said.
“They’re coming for me grandma. I’m sorry I got into this mess. Tell Amanda that I love her very much. Tell Aeric I’m sorry that I didn’t listen. I love all of you. Thank Khanae, Brett, and Aeric for everything they tried to do for me. Tell Rachel to be careful and to let Brett take care of her. I know he will. Goodbye.”
“Kailah, wait!”
I didn’t wait. I closed the window of communication between us. I didn’t want her to see what was about to happen. My grandfather kissed my forehead.
“Be strong and let your power guide you. You still have a chance. Don’t give up, little one. I will be here for you.”
With that last sentiment from him, I pulled out of the illusion and readied myself for what was about to come. I could hear them coming, and I could feel the elements around me quivering. The spirits that surrounded me knew what was coming. They see all. They knew what was about to happen, and they were furious. I was a gateway to the living for them. My loss was their loss, and the hike in the elemental energy around me told me all I needed to know.
A small amount of power returned, and I could sense the spirits. Never had I felt so many at once. The room grew cold with their anger, and though I couldn’t see them, I could feel them touching me. It was erratic, and I couldn’t make anything out of it. There was no spike of intelligence that came with it like with the water. There was only malevolence. They begged me to use them, but I had no idea how. I tried to gain as much energy from them as possible, but my concentration was broken as soon as I heard the click of the door…
Chapter Three
“Well, I really hope that I didn’t keep you too long,” Jeff said.
“Oh, no. Not at all. I had a little me time, and that’s what really matters. I’m quite fine, thank you. A little thirsty, though. Could I get a Pepsi or something?” He gave me a look that suggested he was in no mood for my shenanigans. Still, I couldn’t help myself. I covered discomfort with humor. “Is that a no, then?”
As scared as I was with knowing what was about to come, it seemed clear to me that I couldn’t let him know that it bothered me. I struggled to keep my heart steady, so it didn’t give anything away, and I used my sarcasm reflex to keep me sane.
“Well, we’ve discussed a few things and some new decisions have been made,” Jeff said.
He leaned over me, placing his wretched hands on my thighs for support. My legs became cold under his hands, and it took everything that I had to stifle a chill. His eyes were cold and dark as they stared into mine, and my entire body was on fire with the crackle of his negative energy buzzing so close. It felt as though I could turn him to dust at any second, but I held back. I knew if I did that, I’d probably be slaughtered in an even worse way than what I was about to be.
“Jacques here is over five hundred years old,” Jeff started.
I quickly interrupted him. “Then what in the hell is he doing hanging around a peon like you? You’re what… a few weeks old at best? Maybe a couple of months? You’re an infant!” I said.
His nostrils flared, and I could tell that irked him more than just a little. “He believes in my cause. He’s seen the destruction that your kind leaves behind. He’s also seen the persecution of our kind by humans. He wants to see it all end.”
“First of all, Jeff, you can’t talk about Vampire Rights when you’ve only been one for a few weeks. That’s like having a single homoerotic thought and then leading a revolution while talking about the struggle of your people. It makes no sense. They struggled long before you thought a boy’s butt looked good in his Levi’s. Vampires struggled long before you came along, and just because you came up with a crackpot scheme—which, by the way, will not work—doesn’t make you one of them. I would assume you would have to actually earn that. How you climbed to the top so fast, I’ll never know. But that guy—” I pointed my head to Jacques “—has earned it. He could squash you. Which is why it bothers me that he is sitting back and letting you order him around.”
