“No,” I said, “everyone else is here. I want to be here too.”
“Rachel I don’t think…”
“Cut it out Ian,” Holly said, cutting him off, “she can think for herself. If she wants to be here, she should be here. Trust me, she’s seen worse.”
“Was I talking to you?” he snapped back at her, making the same low guttural noise vampires make when they come under threat. Holly’s eyes darkened as she flashed her fangs, and taking a giant step forward came face to face with Ian, so close that their noses were almost touching.
“Do you want to fight?” she said, her voice reverberating through the windowless cavern. “You watch your fucking step here, I’m warning you. Cross the line and I will end you!”
Ian laughed. “You’ll end me? Over this? Daniel, put your wife on a leash. She’s PMSing.”
Holly growled and in an instant she had Ian by the throat and pinned to the nearest wall. The bone in Ian’s neck cracked a little as her tiny delicate hand squeezed with all the strength of a spiteful python.
“When this is over,” she breathed, “I am going to set things right. You’ll either be dust or be in the ground wrapped in blankets of holy water, burning alive for eternity. Better tell me now which one you prefer so I can make plans. I wouldn’t want to disappoint you.” Ian actually looked a little frightened but held his voice steady just the same.
“Promises, promises,” he said.
“Hey, stop it!” I said addressing them both. “Let’s just get this over with.” With that Holly’s eyes returned to normal and she let Ian go. He came and stood next to me, his hand on my shoulder as Angus motioned for us to stand up on a platform at the far end of the room. He joined us and Daniel reached for a rope that was hanging from the ceiling.
Standing at about 6’10” with long muscular arms Daniel had no problem reaching up for it and tugged the old rope with little effort. As he did, the floor slowly began to open up. The ancient surface groaning and screeching to expose whatever lie underneath it sent shivers through me, and I crossed my arms at the waist, hugging myself tightly. That sound, like nails down a chalkboard, was a sound that was bringing the one person in this world who I loved more than anything closer to his death. Whatever was inside the coffins that were emerging from the long buried ground would bring all of this to a close very quickly. It would be over. The life I thought I was going to have was hastily changing into something else. Something empty and ugly. Something meaningless. I closed my eyes for a moment, not wanting to see.
Angus motioned for Daniel to stop when the coffins were up far enough that they could be accessed and then quickly went to the first one, opening it and peering inside. I couldn’t see directly in but he reached inside with both hands and then took his wrist to his mouth, piercing it until the blood ran. Carefully he held it over the coffin and a moment later a vampire emerged.
The newly awakened vampire didn’t seem weak or disoriented in any way. He simply sat, staring straight ahead as if waiting for something or someone to give it some direction. Its eyes were permanently darkened and fangs continuously bared.
“Why do they look like that?” I said to Holly.
Holly answered my question only half looking at me. Her icy gaze rested on Ian most of the time as she spoke. “They’re bred that way. They can never come out of that state, they exist in a state of blood hunger, that’s why they’re so good at what they do.”
“Doesn’t that put the humans in danger?” I asked trying to get her to focus on me.
A quick glance at the beginning of her explanation was all I was allotted. “No, Angus controls them. They don’t do anything without his permission. He has a mental link to them at all times. He created them.”
“Sounds a little too much like revenants to me.”
“They are revenants in a sense. These are people who were picked for their ruthlessness as humans. Most of them were killers when they were people. Sociopaths with no conscience. It helps both us and human society for them to sleep until they’re needed. Some people make good vampires, some are better hunters, but some end up in the wrong place all together.” Ian’s glare back at his sister was just as hard and aggressive as hers.
“When is the last time they were needed?”
“They haven’t been out in about twenty five years.”
“What happened then?”
Ian looked like he was going to say something, like he was going to give an answer to that question but Holly bared her fangs once again. “To catch a demon,” she said.
“Demon? There are demons?”
Holly sighed as if she was tired of being asked questions. “Yes, Rachel. Unfortunately there are demons, and they make messes wherever they go. They look like humans, or sometimes masquerade as vampires if they’re talented enough, but they just fuck with everyone’s lives and you don’t realize it until it’s too late.”
I knew Holly didn’t want to hear any more from me, but I had to ask. “Did they catch it?”
“No, she got away. That’s the last time the hunters were out so they’ll be restless. They didn’t make a kill last time.”
“And Gavin will be their kill…”
Holly said nothing this time, simply nodded. Ian squeezed my shoulder and inched me closer to him, his pained expression giving way to reddened eyes upon hearing the words spoke aloud. Ian seemed to forget all about his sparring with Holly and was smacked back into reality by the awful truth of what was happening here. These things were being sent out to kill his brother.
One by one the catatonic vampires perched upright in their coffins, exposed to the world for the first time in a quarter century and simply sat, obediently awaiting something.
“Ok, we can feed them now,” Angus said to the guard who had escorted us down. I chided myself for not having seen this coming. Of course they would need to feed.
Before I had a chance to turn away a group of confused and trembling humans were led in. They were naked and within a moment of seeing them the smell of their fear filled the air. My stomach growled and my tongue immediately and instinctively slithered over my lips. I felt the hunger from the others too. All of us, young and old, were salivating, but this meal wasn’t for us.
Ian’s eyes had turned black from the hunger and I felt mine flood with heat a moment later. These people were about to be slaughtered in front of us and I was ashamed to know that I would enjoy watching. That smell was too much and I turned to Ian who had lowered his head to the floor, feeling the same conflict within himself.
“Why don’t they blood influence them?” I whispered to him wiping my dampened hands on my jeans and clamping my jaw down tightly. “They’re going to suffer this way.”
Ian grabbed my hand and drew me into the corner where he put his arms around me, cocooning me against the sound. Gently, he moved my hair back off my ear and whispered. “Yes, they are. The hunters can’t feed that way. Fear tracks fear. They need to taste it to track it.” The others were so engrossed in what was happening that nobody noticed Ian and I huddled against the wall. “Try not to listen.”
The smell of fear grew and grew until finally it came to a head. Angus shouted a command that I didn’t understand and all at once the room was in an uproar. Growling and screaming filled the room and Ian held me tightly as it did. I clamped back onto him at first with my head turned toward the wall, but then the sound filled me with nervous excitement. Suddenly it was the only thing I wanted to see. I had to see it. I wrestled my head away from Ian’s chest and peeked out from beneath my long hair that was slightly obscuring the view.
The hunters had more fangs then they’d had moments ago, in fact, they had entire mouthfuls of fangs, so many fangs that their jaws were unhinged at an awkward angle. One of them lunged for a victim, a naked man who made a pointless attempt to get away, stumbling and crashing down hard on his knees as he did. He screamed in pain, and then turned to see the hunter coming at him. He tried to scream again but before the sound could
leave his throat the ravenous monstrosity that was the hunter straddled him, cocked the man’s head back and tore his throat completely out with one swift motion. The enormous mouth clamping down with all its fangs on the man’s neck tore his head almost completely off. The beast fed with intensity, closing his himself over the gushing mass of tissue, some of the crimson seeping onto the floor as he was not able to catch it all. The creature then held the dead naked torso to himself and kept sucking, chewing on the remains of the skin as he did. When he was finished he stopped to look around for a mere moment before another victim caught his eye.
Just then Ian noticed I had been watching and spun us around so that my head was facing the wall again. “Rachel, don’t.” I was still fascinated with the whole process however and tried to turn my head back again. Ian tangled his hands in my hair and forced my head toward the wall so that I couldn’t move. “Rachel, don’t,” he said again. Then he sighed, “Rachel…” his voice changing to a low, primal growl as his lips brushed against my ear ever so slightly. “Rachel…,” he said once more, pulling me even closer to his body as the smell of the blood took us. “Mmmm”.
I was overcome with the urge to bite him all of a sudden and my lips were close to his cheek. I opened my mouth and scraped the side of his face with my extended fang. Our bodies were pressed so closely together that as I nipped him I felt him harden through his jeans against my stomach. He growled out my name softly once again and then said, “Come with me?”
“Yes,” I breathed out. We did a quick check to see if anyone was looking but they were all entirely engrossed in watching the reawakening of the hunters. Drunk on the smell, Ian grabbed my hand and quickly led me back up the stairs and into an empty room that I immediately recognized. The council room.
He led me to the table and lay me down on top of it, both of us breathing hard and fast. Ian looked at me with darkened eyes, excited from the bloodlust, and smiled. “I’m taking you right here,” he said. Twisting my neck to the side he growled again as he ran his tongue slowly up and down my jugular vein teasing me. I shuddered underneath him, grabbing his head and forcing his mouth to my neck. Then he struck. Hard. So hard that I actually shrieked in pain. As he bit down he shook his head slightly, like a dog with a chew toy, and pressed his firm body as tightly against me as he could.
“Yes,” I whispered, “Ian, yes.” The room was spinning as he continued to clamp down onto the vein, drinking with a fevered intensity that caused him to grind himself up against my pelvis. The blood in the air had consumed us and we were lost. Drunk on the smell and drunk on each other. Lost so deeply and passionately that I never wanted to be found. I opened myself up to him completely and he began kneading my breasts roughly with his firm and steady hands. I heard myself moaning as he tried to undo my belt. He couldn’t undo it fast enough. I reached down to do it myself but he grabbed my hands pinning them over my head as his mouth came down on mine, muffling my hard cries.
He stayed there for a few moments, pinning me to the table, before letting go so he could begin to slide my shirt up to expose my breasts. Suddenly I had a flash of the last time I had been in this room. It was with Gavin. He had saved my life. Another vampire had been about to kill me and he had sensed I was in trouble. He had come running, sword in hand, and saved me. And here I was, back in the same room getting ready to give myself to his own brother and he wasn’t even dead yet. This was wrong.
“Ian stop,” I said. He simply growled again and rubbed his fangs up against my now exposed stomach. He wasn’t listening. In a flash of anger and panic I screamed at him with everything I had in me. “Ian! I told you to stop!” Ian stopped in mid lick, my blood still dripping from his mouth that was gaped open, looking at me in shock as he realized I was actually serious. We both said nothing for a long moment. “You need to get off me.”
Ian crawled off me as quickly as he could and his eyes returned to their normal state. I felt mine do the same. “Rachel. Oh my god. I’m sorry,” he said straightening his clothes, then taking me by the hands he helped me up off the table. “Did I hurt you? God, I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. I can’t believe I acted like that.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Fuck, I knew we should have left. I should have gotten you out of here right away.” From outside the door there was a banging sound, someone was coming. Holly burst through the door first, Daniel by her side, followed by her parents.
“What’s going on here?” she said.
“Nothing,” I told her. “I’m going home.”
“No Rachel, don’t go,” Ian said. I could tell by the looks on all their faces that they knew exactly what had happened. Holly looked like she was going to attack Ian once again.
“What did you do to her? Her husband, your brother, is still out there.”
“Holly relax,” I said, “Nothing happened and he didn’t do anything wrong.” My voice broke just then and before the tears had a chance to start falling I quickly raced out the door and out of the sanctuary.
Chapter Fifteen
As soon as I got off the sanctuary grounds I broke into a full out run. The dark, moonless night was only slightly tricky for me as I navigated the trees on my way home at full speed. I was becoming more agile as time went on and had greatly improved my ability to see things a fraction of a second before they were in my path, thus letting me avoid them. I was still new however and sometimes this resulted in my tripping over a branch or smacking into a tree. I don’t know if it was my newness or the fact that I was sobbing as I ran away from everything that caused me not to see him. He was ready for me however and caught me, stopping me in mid stride.
My legs hung in the air as I felt a pair of arms gripping me tightly. “Don’t be scared,” he said, “It’s just me.” For a brief instant I was sure Gavin had caught me once again, but the thick accent jarred me back into the present.
“Duncan?”
“Aye,” he said, gently setting me back down on the ground. He reached down and pulled some leaves that had caught in my hair from the run and brushed the dirt from my shirt. “Why are you running all through the woods at this hour? Shouldn’t you be home with your creature talker?” It was then he noticed I was crying. “What is it girl? What’s the matter there?” His Scottish accent was as thick as I remembered. Gently reaching down he wiped the tears away, but they kept coming. “Come on in the house,” he said putting his arm around me to lead me home. “We’ll put on the tea and you can tell Duncan Archie all about it.”
I sat down at the table as Duncan made himself at home, rummaging through my cupboards and opening my fridge. Being as old as he was, he was obviously familiar with ‘Cape Breton House Rules’. Friends and relatives are welcome to come in and paw through your food, preparing whatever they want and eating and drinking as they like. He went through everything, mumbling to himself about how I need to organize my shelves better and whispering under his breath, “A cat couldn’t find her kittens in these cupboards.”
He turned to me in the middle of his search and held up my box of tea. “The one with the crown on the box is not worth shit all,” he said. “Buy the one with the rose, you’ll be glad you did. This here is swill, but it’ll do in a pinch.” He roamed all about the kitchen and at one point passed the bedroom which was just off to the side. “Holy Mary, mother of god. I see a little girl with a big temper. Is it you?” I nodded.
Duncan finally sat and placed two cups of tea on the table along with something I knew he hadn’t found in my cupboard. Maple Leaf Cookies. I stopped stirring for a moment and stared at the plate. “Do you just walk around with those?”
He smirked. “Oh just have some, you know you want to.” He was right, I did. Taking a bite I felt the maple flavor hit my tongue as the sweet buzz of sugar comforted me. Not as much as when I was human, but enough to make me feel slightly better. Duncan took one and dipped it into his tea as he spoke. “You’re all alone here girl. Where’s that fella you married.”
> “Gone,” I said. “And he’ll be dead soon. They sent the hunters to…”
“I see.” Duncan gave a heavy sigh and stirred his tea once again, keeping his eyes firmly on the circles he was making in his cup. “I’m going to give you some advice child, and I want you to listen.” He spoke to me in a way that made me feel like I had to sit up in my chair. With my hands folded in my lap I stared at him intently, waiting for whatever he was going to say to me and knowing instinctively that I should take whatever he had to say seriously.
“When they kill that creature talker, and they will, get as far away from here as you can. If you need help to get away come find me. They might be able to kill you, but god help them if they try to kill me, and if you’re with me nobody will touch you.”
I felt a chill crawl up my spine as the words hung in the air. “Duncan,” I said, “Angus just told me that I had the protection of the clan. That everything Gavin has done is no reflection on me.”
“And I’m sure he means it right now. Angus is a good man and a good leader and that’s the reason you have to be careful. Things aren’t the same for you as they are for the others, Rachel.” Duncan lifted his head and locked eyes with me so intensely that I could feel him boring a hole right into my very being. “You’re different. You know that don’t you?”
This was the second time in a short while that someone had said that to me and I was starting to get annoyed. Sure I had been different when I was a crazy recluse, but being transformed had put an end to all that hadn’t it? And if he was talking about my being French Acadian, well they should have thought about that before I woke up from that death sleep six months ago.
“Duncan, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying if you need a place to hide, or need someone to help you then it needs to be me you come to and nobody else, girl. Others will protect you to a point, but I will protect you no matter what. Nothing you ever do would stop me from defending you…nothing!”
The Vampires of Soldiers Cove: One Crow Sorrow Page 9
