by N M Thorn
Sam raised his eyes, meeting Cole’s tormented gaze. “Do what you have to do, Mr. Adams,” he uttered dryly. Chuckling, he tilted his head, exposing his jugular. “Damian was right—once a vamp, you’re nothing more than a disgusting, bloodsucking leech.”
Pain wrenched his soul, squeezing it in its iron grip, but Cole clenched his teeth and raised his head as far as the cross would allow him. He observed the Court, his eyes lingering on the members of the opposition slightly longer.
“You can consider me a traitor and execute me as such, but I will do no such thing,” he said firmly. “Killing a human in our Court’s headquarters is not only reckless, it’s stupid. For years, the Arizona Vampire Court has lived in the shadows without attracting the attention of human authorities and staying under the radar of the Destiny Council.” He jerked his chin at Sam. “I’ve been living among humans for a few decades without exposing the World of Magic. I know how they think and how they operate, and I assure you, killing Sam Vetrov will lead to serious consequences. He’s too prominent of a figure in Blue Creek for his death or disappearance to go unnoticed.”
He fell silent, observing the Court’s reaction. The vampires tensed, their eyes lighting up with a hungry, scarlet glow. The members of the opposition shifted closer together, their fangs expanding, and a tiny spark of hope ignited in Cole’s chest.
“It’s true what your Queen said. You do have your way with words, little vamp.” Mara cackled, patting Cole on his cheek. A malignant smirk lifted the corners of Morok’s lips as he moved closer to Cole and halted before him, folding his massive arms over his chest. Mara turned toward the Queen. “Your Majesty, as we have agreed earlier, I delivered the proof you needed. Cole Adams refused to prove his loyalty to you. Now it’s your turn to hold your side of the deal and let me proceed with my plan.”
Roxana halted, her eyes darting from Cole to Mara and back. Then she huffed and waved her hand dismissively. “If his life is what you need to kill the Shadow Slayer, then he’s yours. Do what you must, goddess.”
“Roxana...” he called, pulling at the silver chains just to realize how truly weak he was.
The Queen stepped aside without so much as giving him a second look, and Mara and Morok took her place. Morok put his hands on his temples, staring directly into his eyes. A wave of his magic, as cold as a winter blizzard, spread through Cole, and he moaned, his body shivering uncontrollably. As a vampire, he had already forgotten how it felt to be cold, but now he was frozen to the core, his teeth chattering as a layer of frost expanded over his skin from under Morok’s hands.
Morok smiled, his smile as cold as his true nature. Slapping Cole on his cheek, he reached to the side with his right hand, untying the silver chain that held Cole’s arm attached to the cross.
“I’m going to remove you from the cross,” he said to Cole in such a conversational tone, as if he were chatting with his best friends at a dinner party. “Don’t try to run and definitely don’t try to fight. Trust me, you cannot.”
Supporting his body with his arm, Morok untied the remaining chains and threw Cole over his shoulder. Cole groaned, but just like the god of Lies had said, he couldn’t make even the tiniest move, frozen from head to toe. Even his vocal cords refused to obey. Morok lowered him to the floor and waved at Mara to come closer.
“He’s ready, darling. Do your thing.” He rubbed his hands together, excitement lighting up in his icy eyes. “Let’s see what’s stored in that pretty head of his.”
Mara stepped by his side, staring down at him, interest reflected in her gaze.
“You and your brother are nothing alike.” She straddled him, shifting to his chest, and Cole groaned, feeling as if someone just threw him under an asphalt roller. “He is a beast—wild and untamed, despite the name he chose for himself. And you...” She ran her fingers over his cheek to his lips. “You’re like a housebroken kitten. Pretty, but that’s as far as it goes.”
Cole groaned, trying to close his eyes, but even that he couldn’t do. She laughed, noticing his attempt.
“Hide your little fangs, kitten. You can’t use them now. You’re mine.” She placed her hands, palms down, against his chest. “Believe it or not, just a few hours earlier, I was just as close with your brother as I’m with you now.” She channeled her magic, wrapping him into a veil of darkness. “Let’s see what kind of nightmares I can find in your brain, little vamp...”
Dima... I need you to be all right... A fading thought flashed through Cole’s mind as he started to fall.
Chapter 31
~ Cole Adams ~
His fall ended as abruptly as it started. He didn’t feel the impact. Everything around felt soft and disgustingly mushy. He tried to get up, but his moves were torturously slow, his limbs filled with lead. Forcing his eyes open, he stared into absolute darkness.
A metallic odor of blood touched his nose, and his stomach twisted, his throat painfully dry. He grunted, shocked by the sudden assault of thirst. He hadn’t felt thirst as powerful and all-consuming as this since forever. Besides the smell of blood, he detected a sickening reek of decay, sweat and human excrement.
Fighting the debilitating weakness, he rolled to his stomach and then pushed himself up on all fours. As the darkness gradually withdrew, he looked around and froze, pure terror chilling his soul.
“No,” Cole moaned. “It can’t be.”
He sat back on his heels and raised his arms, staring at them in shock. He was dressed in ancient Russian armor, and his arms wrapped in chainmail were covered in a layer of dried out blood. Feeling a forceful call of thirst, he clutched his throat with his fingers and surveyed the area. He sat by the side of a large river, and every person next to him was either dead or dying, the moans and groans of pain tormenting his overly sensitive ears.
He remembered this moment of his life.
He could never forget it.
This was the moment when he lost everything just to gain something entirely different—the moment when his human life had ended, and his undead existence had started.
This was the event that was engraved in his memory forever—the moment he had been turned and tasted blood for the first time.
“You need to feed, child.” A deep male voice sounded from behind him, and he spun around, his movements still feverishly slow and heavy. “You’ll feel better after you feed.”
Cole raised his eyes, recognizing the man—his maker.
“Ruslan,” he whispered his name, belatedly realizing that it didn’t matter what he said or did. He was reliving his hardest and most vivid memory.
Ruslan lowered to one knee next to him, and his wide smile lit up his bronze face, his velvety brown eyes crinkling at the corners.
“You fought like a lion, little one, and I could not let you die,” he rumbled. “It has been centuries since I have seen a mighty warrior with a gift from the gods like you. Even though I swore I would never turn a human, you deserved immortality. I would be proud to call you my son.”
“Ruslan, where are you?” whispered Cole, gazing at his maker, a terrible surge of grief overwhelming him. “I’ve been searching for you everywhere, Father.”
His maker wasn’t here—wherever this ‘here’ was. The man before him was nothing but a distant memory, and Cole’s soul gave a painful jolt as he remembered what came next.
Ruslan walked away and came back dragging a wounded man with him. He dropped him to the ground before Cole, and the dying man stared at him, his eyes pleading silently for his life.
“If you do not feed, you will die soon, and your death is going to be torturous,” said Ruslan, squatting in front of Cole. “This man will be dead in a few minutes, anyway. Give him the gift of an easy and pleasant death.” He caressed Cole’s pale face with the back of his hand and smiled, sadness never leaving his eyes. “Feed, my boy.”
Cole looked down at the man sprawled before him, and he knew Ruslan was right—he was on the verge of crossing the veil. At the look of blood flowing from
a deep laceration on his chest, Cole’s thirst rose to the next level. A feral growl rumbled in his throat, and his fangs expanded for the first time. In shock, he raised his hand and touched the sharp tip of his fang with his finger.
“Feed,” whispered Ruslan, pushing his head down.
With a growl, Cole sunk his fangs into the dying man’s neck.
The view shook and shifted, becoming blurry. The world spun around him, and he started to fall again.
When the fall ended, he found himself standing in a dark cave. The air smelled musty and unclean, and the silence was pressing on his stretched nerves. He turned around, surveying the area, and found two men in military fatigues behind him, each holding their weapons at the ready. He remembered them. They were his friends; they used to serve together—years ago, a lifetime ago.
“Dammit,” mumbled Cole, recognizing this memory. “What am I doing back in Afghanistan, Mara? What’s the point of all this?”
He let the two soldiers walk past him and followed them out of the cave onto a wide mountain plateau. What would happen if I sit down and refuse to move? He shrugged and sat down, watching the two men heading toward their inevitable death.
“No, you don’t, little vampire.” Mara’s voice sounded in his mind as the goddess of Nightmares cackled. “You can’t fight me here. Here, I own you. You’re going to go through all your worst memories until you either do what I say or become so delusional with pain that you’ll beg me on your knees, willing to do whatever it takes just to stop it.”
“Never,” growled Cole. “I will never submit.”
“I guess we shall see,” replied Mara icily. “In the meantime, enjoy the trip down memory lane. Something tells me with the years of crap you carry in your head, it’ll be a bumpy ride.”
His vision blurred, and he wrapped his arms around his head as the world around him shifted. When he could see again, he was standing in front of a military tent. Looking back, the dark silhouette of the Hindu Kush mountain range rose against the ultramarine sky like a black wall. Cole cursed as his stomach heaved at the memory of what happened next, but now he knew that the only way out of this horrifying memory was through it.
The sound of gunshots ripped him out of his thoughts. With a heavy heart, he moved forward and walked inside the tent. The reek of death and the smell of freshly spilled blood enveloped him, spiking the thirst. Seeing all his friends lifeless, sprawled on the floor with their throats cut, brought back the anger. It wasn’t just any anger. Fury, unmanageable and inextinguishable, roared through him, bringing his vampiric nature forth.
He bolted through the tent at full speed, tearing the back wall with his bare hands. It took him less than a minute to catch up with the assailants. Silent and deadly, he ripped through them, killing all of them before they realized something was up. As his fangs ripped their throats and his claws tore their still beating hearts out of their chests, he didn’t blink and didn’t slow down. He felt no remorse, no pity—only pain and unimaginable anger. Fresh blood rushed down his throat, catalyzing his already storming rage.
A minute later, all of them were dead. He collapsed to his knees, grief and rage combining into an explosive concoction within him. Burying his fingers into his blood-covered hair, he threw his head back and screamed, but no sound came out from his constrained throat. The world spun again, and he started to fall, dreading the next nightmare Mara had created for him.
He didn’t know how long Mara kept rummaging through his memories, pulling the worst moments of his life and throwing them in his face. After a while, he couldn’t separate reality from the next nightmare the goddess had conjured to torment him. His soul cried bloody tears as with sudden clarity, he realized just how many people he had killed over the course of his long, undead existence.
Guilt and remorse reared their heads again, turning him into a giant ball of misery, and when the final change took place, he didn’t notice. Lying sprawled on the hard, tiled floor, he curled in on himself, covering his head with his arms.
“Cole, my child, open your eyes.”
He heard the deep voice of a man somewhere above him, and someone shook his shoulder gently.
“It’s okay, my boy... I’m here now. You’re safe,” the man whispered, his strong arms turning him on his back.
Cole cracked his eyelids open but could see nothing, nightmares still flashing before his eyes like some crazy merry-go-round.
“Ruslan?” he asked, his hoarse voice barely above a whisper, his throat painfully sore. “Father?”
“Yes,” replied the man, a touch too quickly.
Cole reached in the direction of his voice, blindly searching the area around him with his hand. Someone grabbed him under his arms and hauled him into a sitting position. The fuzzy silhouette of a tall man with massive shoulders broke through the never-ending chain of nightmares, and Cole moaned, reaching for him.
“Father,” he moaned, “can you make it stop...” His voice shook and faded as the painful visions intensified, and he brought his hands up, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes.
“It’ll get better in a moment, my child,” replied the man, his voice sounding on Cole’s right. “I just need you to do something for me first. It’s urgent.”
“What is it?” he asked. “I can’t see you...”
“I am here.”
Cole felt his father’s hand taking his, his strong arm supporting his back. He relaxed, leaning into him. Somewhere in the back of his mind something twitched, and a little voice screamed that something was off, but Cole was too tired and too hurt to make an effort and listen. He could no longer scream or speak. Even thinking came with an effort. He was done with fighting, struggling, surviving.
“I need you to sign something for me.” His father’s hand took his, placing a pen into his fingers. “Just put your signature right here.”
“What am I signing?” asked Cole, touching the smooth surface of the paper with his fingertips. His vision blurred, and the nightmares intensified again, now giving a splitting headache on top of the torment of his soul. He moaned, leaning forward, blood dripping from the corners of his eyes.
His father’s fingers wrapped tighter around his, supporting his hand. “Just sign right here, and I promise, I’ll make it all stop. Sign, my boy, so I can help you.”
Cole moved his hand weakly, scribbling his name on the paper. With his brain on fire, he couldn’t think or even care about what he was signing. He just wanted everything to stop, even if it meant his true death.
His father’s supportive arm disappeared, and he fell backward, hitting his head against the hard floor. For a moment, he blacked out, and when he came to, the visions stopped. He was lying on the floor of the Queen’s Council chamber. Mara, Morok and Roxana stood next to him, staring down at him with mockery.
“Roxana, darling,” sung Mara, a satisfied smirk distorting her lips. “Thanks for the assist. We have what we need.” She glanced down and kicked Cole in his side, ripping a weak moan out of him. “He’s all yours. You can do with him”—she twirled her wrist—“whatever it is you vamps do with traitors.”
Mara pivoted on her heel, grabbing Morok’s hand, and they headed toward the exit. Before leaving, she halted by the door and turned around, giving Cole another once-over.
“And by the way, Cole,” she said, poison dripping from her every word. “Your maker? Ruslan? Was that his name?” Cole didn’t reply, staring at her with murderous intent. “Well, just so you know, baby-vamp. Your maker is dead.”
She cackled, and for a moment, her youthful appearance flashed to that of an old, ugly crone. Following Morok, she walked out the door.
Roxana lowered next to him and ran her finger down his cheek, wiping away a drop of blood. She stared at the dark-red spot on her fingertip and smirked. “I’ll deal with you after I address my Court.”
“Roxana, wait,” he whispered. “Tell me what they made me sign?”
“You’ll be dead in a few minutes, along
with the hunter you refused to kill for me.” She shrugged indifferently. “Why do you care about what you signed?”
“Humor me.” Cole sighed and closed his eyes. “Like you said, I’ll be dead in a minute, so grant me my dying wish and tell me what I want to know.”
“Fine,” replied Roxana with an indifferent shrug. “I don’t know why the two gods needed it, but you just signed the deed to your house in Blue Creek, transferring it to some human... Jesse Williams is his name, I think.”
Chapter 32
~ Damian Blake ~
“Who the hell are you?” yelled Jamie. He grabbed the woman’s shoulder, ignoring the sizable gun in her hand, but Damian raised his hand peacefully.
“I know her, Jamie. It’s okay,” he said, throwing an annoyed glance in the woman’s direction. “We proceed with the plan. Finish the research and call me as soon as you know anything.”
Jamie nodded and backed away from the car as the woman slammed the passenger door shut. Damian bent down slightly and gave Jamie a nod before pulling the car back onto the road and starting to drive toward Paradise Manor.
“You’re driving in the wrong direction,” said the woman, putting her gun in the holster.
He turned to her, annoyance flaring through him. “What the hell are you doing here, Ace?” he growled. “And how did you find me?”
She pursed her lips, shaking her head with reproach. “Either I am so good, or you’re really bad at magic, Damian Blake,” she muttered, gesturing for him to make a U-turn at the light. “Make a U-turn here. Trust me, Cole will die if you don’t listen to me.”
Damian grunted and swung the car to the right, parking it at the edge of an empty plaza.
“Spill it. Who are you and what do you know about my brother?” he asked through clenched teeth, leaning toward her with unmasked threat. “And don’t tell me you’re his programmer.”
