by Lucinda Dark
Satrina dropped her arms and pushed against the balcony doors, stepping out onto a precarious platform that overlooked a massive garden. I frowned as I gazed out across the lawn. Like the room behind us, the garden, too, was in ruins. There wasn’t an inch of green in sight. In fact, the bushes and trees were barren. A lone stone fountain sat desecrated in the center of the entire enclosure, muddy water festering in the lower levels. I glanced at the woman at my side but decided not to ask why we were standing in such a place. There were other things I needed to know. More important questions that needed to be answered.
“Satrina.” She didn’t look at me, but I continued. “What does this…” What would I call this? The turn? The transition? I gritted my teeth, clenching my fists at my side. “What does this change mean for me? I feel like there’s something beneath my skin—just out of reach—and it’s trying to take control.”
Her hands came up and settled against the terrace railing. “I don’t know, Barbie,” she whispered. The words were so soft and a wind whipped down from the sky between us, stealing them away. I heard them but just barely. She slowly turned until her eyes met mine. “By all means, you shouldn’t exist,” she said. “The creature you speak of is most likely your vampire—like how Torin’s is somewhat separate from his conscious, yours is as well. Think of it in psychological terms. The ego versus the id. You are your ego, your logic, and ambition. Your vampire is your id—she desires pleasure. She is your base—your new supernatural survival instincts. That is as best I can explain her.”
“Can I exorcise her?” I asked, though in truth, I already knew the answer.
The look Satrina shot me was the final nail in my not-so-proverbial coffin. “You would have to be insane to attempt such a feat,” she said. “A vampire cannot be exorcised from its host. They are woven into your DNA now. Attempting to do so would ultimately kill you. However…” She tapped her delicate but sharp nails absently. “Whatever happens to you now is uncharted territory. What I do know is this: you will begin to crave blood and if your vampire side merges with my demonic spirit inside of you, you will begin to crave sex. Before, it was just a way to release the power. But that’s not what it is for me. For me, sex is the acquirement of said power. It is how I feed. There is a reason that there are no hybrids of supernatural beings. One always wins out. Your friend—Torin—is a different matter. He was created using forbidden magic. For you, we simply have to wait and see which side wins out.”
“Well, that’s just fucking great news.” It wasn’t. It really fucking wasn’t. My shoulders dropped and I reached out, setting my fists against the railing as I looked out over the dead garden. “Should I … should I fight it?” I asked.
“There is no fighting it,” she said. A deep chill settled in my bones. “You cannot change what you are. There is no going back.”
My eyes burned with the effort to hold back my tears. With each word she spoke, my hope broke apart. “Then—” I stopped, choking off the word as I squeezed my eyes shut. I swallowed roughly, sucking in a shuddering breath and letting it fill my lungs until they ached with the force. “What do I do?”
Never had I wanted someone to tell me what to do so much. Even when my parents had been alive, I’d always wanted to do things on my own. I was born to be independent. I was always breaking their rules. In that moment, I would’ve given anything in the world if someone would have just told me what it was that I was supposed to do.
A soft hand fell on my shoulder and one single tear dripped free from beneath my lashes, sliding down my cheek to my chin, dangling there. “Choose,” she said. “Choose which side will win and feed it. Either way, I would recommend you give into the fact that you will need training. You have to master the vampire inside of you now before anything else.”
Blood or sex. Two options. Vampire or demon. I opened my eyes as the tear dropped from my chin and landed against the railing. It wasn’t a tear at all, though. I blinked and straightened away from the railing, backing up as I stared at the single dot of blood amidst the dirt collected on the once white railing.
“Barbie?”
Satrina’s voice echoed in my head, morphing and shaping into something different. Something deeper.
“Barbie?”
She disappeared. As did the rest of the dead mansion she’d called forth to be our meeting grounds, and I realized it wasn’t her voice at all, but someone else’s. A man’s.
“Barbie, it’s time to wake up. We’re here.”
My eyes shot open and I jerked as a violent hunger ripped through my gut. My vampire roared to the surface, ravenous. Maverick took one look at me and backed up, turning and calling for Torin. I gasped, my throat on fire. Acid dripped into the back of my mouth, coating my tongue with agony.
“What? What is it?” Torin was there as I scrambled to unbuckle my seatbelt and get the hell away from them. Away from Maverick. “Shit.” As much as I still wanted to hate him, when Torin’s arms came around me, my whole body strained against him.
“Don’t let me hurt him,” I whispered, hoping Maverick couldn’t hear me. “Please don’t let me hurt him.”
Torin turned and said something to Maverick that I couldn’t hear, but whatever it was made him leave. I sighed, collapsing against Torin’s chest as I clenched nails that were no longer nails into his forearms. My fangs descended and when I looked up at him, his soft green gaze met mine.
He tilted his neck to the side, and I didn’t have to think anymore. I simply took. Sinking my fangs into the side of his throat and swallowing as liquid fire melted against my tongue and flowed into my stomach. I groaned, holding onto him harder. His lips moved, but I wasn’t listening. He spoke, but I didn’t hear.
It wasn’t until later when I finally pulled away from him and turned my eyes down that my brain finally connected the words he’d said, the promise he’d given me as I fed. It was one word.
“Never.”
Chapter 3
Torin
Living in a body I hated was once my deepest secret. A body that was neither fully human nor fully vampire. It was a body built by blood and sacrifice and death. I thought I’d found a balance between those parts of myself. Now, I’d given the fate of both halves of my nature to her, the woman I couldn’t live without, and I hated myself even more than before. I could see her struggling with it. With the hunger. She cursed me, punched me, claimed that she hated me. All of that, I could handle. All of that, I could accept. But her pain? That was what hurt me the worst. And I couldn’t change a thing about it.
Asleep once again after her latest feeding, Barbie slumped against the window of the SUV I’d had waiting for us at the airfield. Maverick glanced back and sighed. “What the fuck are we doing, Tor?” He looked at me. “I mean, what the actual fuck are we going to do?” His fists flexed against his thighs as he clenched and unclenched them.
“We’ll do what we need to,” I answered. What else could we do?
“I mean…fuck…” Maverick hunched over and scraped the flat of his palm over his head. “School? We can’t be fucking with that right now. There’s more important shit we have to deal with.”
“It’ll be too suspicious if we don’t go,” I reminded him. And I couldn’t exactly control everyone we came across. As it stood, my abilities were stretched thin by more than three people at a time.
“And what about your sister?” he asked, lifting his head. “Is she going to magically appear while Barbie’s staying with you? I don’t want her anywhere near your family.”
Neither did I. “Katalin won’t be an issue,” I said. “From what information I received, she’ll be staying in Europe at least until graduation.”
“At least there’s fucking that,” he grumbled, sitting back against the seat. His fingers twitched and jumped across his thigh, drawing my attention. I didn’t think he was aware of the movements, but he couldn’t seem to sit still. Even when he was forced into a stationary position as he was now, he practically vibrated with untapped e
nergy. It was one of the main changes I’d noticed in him over the last two weeks. That and his scent. What had once been pure human now smelled like…a bonfire. It was the strangest thing. I cast a glance his way, particularly looking at the place I knew his medallion rested under his shirt.
I pressed my lips together as I watched the speedometer race up and past 60 mph. Clenching my hands on the steering wheel, I prepared myself. “You need to go back sooner rather than later,” I said. “Barbie needs to stay away from you until she’s better at controlling the hunger.”
As expected, his head whipped towards me. I didn’t look over as I continued to drive.
“We’re this close, Tor,” he started holding his hand up and pinching his thumb and forefinger close together, “to fucking losing her. She’s struggling. Don’t make it any harder than it has to be.”
“What do you think I’m trying to do?” I asked, finally looking his way. “I’m trying to make this as easy of a transition as I possibly can.”
Even when I wasn’t looking at him, I could feel the burn of his stare for several long minutes. Finally, he sat back against his seat and huffed a breath as he scrubbed rough fingers down his face. “Hopefully Esperanza will have some answers.”
“That’s where we’re heading first,” I said.
He nodded. “Good. I need to ask her about the beast.” He lifted his hand to the medallion, clenching the metal through the fabric of his shirt.
Yes, I thought to myself. He needed to ask her about the beast, and I needed to ask her what the hell she’d been thinking, giving him something so dangerous.
Neither of us, however, ever got the chance because nearly an hour or so later, we pulled up to where an old Victorian house should have stood and sat in silence as we stared at the wreckage.
“Fucking shit…” Maverick breathed as he stared out of the windshield as I pulled into the driveway. Or what was left of it. A low groan from the back, followed by a flurry of blonde hair popping up over the seats, announced Barbie’s revival. She sat up as a yawn stretched her mouth.
“Where are—what the fuck?” She cut herself off as she caught sight of the still smoking building in front of us. “Where are we?” she asked.
“Esperanza’s,” I answered. Except Esperanza’s was no more. The three of us sat for several seconds in cold silence and then, one by one, we unbuckled our seatbelts and got out of the SUV.
The once beautiful Victorian manor was now reduced to a pile of ashes. The three of us stood outside and stared at the charred mess. The foundation of the house stood empty. Half burnt wooden pillars stretched up towards the sky like blackened fingers crawling from the grave.
“Shit.” Maverick's curse made me jerk my gaze to the side. He took a step towards the house before turning and pacing away. “Fucking shit!”
Barbie gaped at him, but then she didn’t know what I knew. She didn’t understand Maverick’s sudden bout of insanity. Esperanza was the only one either of us knew of that could help guide him through what the medallion would do to him.
“This was Arrius,” Barbie said after a moment.
I swallowed as I nodded. “Katalin tried to warn me,” I said. And I hadn’t listened. “She must have told him about her.”
“Why?” Maverick took a step forward on shaky legs. His hand remained clenched in his shirt, fisting the medallion. “Why would he do this? Because she helped you? Us?”
“He’s been looking for her for ages,” I answered. And she’d managed to stay hidden, but I’d been greedy. Seeking her out. Searching for the witch who’d helped birth me and her guidance.
“We should…” Barbie trailed off as she walked forward, climbing the blackened mass of what had once been the front porch. “I don’t even know…her body?” I watched as she closed her arms around herself and stared into the depths of the building. While some of the furniture had made it through the fire that had so obviously engulfed the place, none of it was without scars. A half burned chair sat on its side in the front entryway.
“There’s no body,” I said.
“How do you know?” Maverick asked. “We haven’t even started looking.”
“It’s still smoking,” Barbie commented lightly, looking up as some of the dark wisps curled into the night sky. “They must have been here recently. She could still be—”
“It’s not smoke,” I said, interrupting her as I inhaled deeply. “It’s just ash and…” I paused, reaching out and setting a hand gently on one of the still standing pillars. Just as I expected, it was cool to the touch. “It’s cold,” I finished. “This happened less than half a day ago at minimum. Some fires can burn for several hours or even days if no one is around to stop it, and Esperanza,” I stopped, gesturing around to the barren road empty of other residences, “wasn’t the most social of creatures.”
“How do you know there’s not a body?” Maverick repeated, coming up to my side as he stepped through the front doorway. As soon as he cleared it, the frame cracked and crumbled to the ground, collapsing in a rising wave of deadened cinders.
We all turned and stared at the pile of broken and burned wood as I answered. “When a black witch dies,” I said. “There is a mark left on the Earth. Sometimes, it’s a burning symbol. I sense nothing, though. She’s still alive.” Which left me wondering where she would have gone and how she would’ve gotten away.
“She’s alive?” Maverick released the medallion and turned towards me. He reached out, grabbing me by my shoulders. “You’re sure?” he demanded, gripping me tightly.
I nodded. “I am.”
“But now that means she’s missing,” Barbie pointed out.
Maverick dropped his arms and turned towards her. Like two planets circling a star, we were pulled towards her. She kept her fingers clenched on her arms as she gazed out over the remainder of the house that we’d been to time and time again.
Bits of wallpaper fluttered down along with the soft puffs of ash. A piece of that ash landed on Barbie’s cheek and when she reached up to wipe it away, all she did was smudge it across the ivory surface of her skin.
For a moment, I stood there, spellbound. With ash on her cheek and resignation in her eyes, she focused on the rotting emptiness of Esperanza’s house and then turned to me. The sorrow I expected in her gaze, however, was missing. When she spoke, she spoke with anger. “What the fuck are we going to do about this?” she demanded.
Maverick looked to me as well, and for the first time, the reality of the words I said hit me. “We’re going to kill him,” I said. “We’re going to kill my father.”
“How?” Maverick asked. It was a fair question. This wasn’t like planning a hunt. This was Arrius Priest, vampire mastermind. The man who’d killed dozens of women simply to create me.
“The hunters,” Barbie said, drawing our attention. “There have to be others. He was hunting them down, wasn’t he?” She looked to me and I nodded. “Then there have to be others still out there. Those who managed to survive. We just have to find them.”
“Mav?” I looked to him. He was the computer expert, after all.
Sucking in a breath, he nodded. “I’ll look into it, but we might have to take a trip to your old hometown,” he said, directing that last bit to Barbie.
“What? Why?” She clammed up, her whole body tensing as her shoulders inched up towards her ears.
“Because it’s a starting point,” he explained. “They must’ve been in contact with other hunters to learn all of the things they did. Your mom was a history professor, wasn’t she?” Barbie gave a half jerk of a nod. “We’ll start with her work. See if there was anyone who might lead us to others. The survivors.”
“You’ll have to be careful,” I said, turning to Barbie and fixing her with a look. “If they find out what you are now, they might not be willing to listen.”
Barbie bared her teeth at the reminder, but it wasn’t something she could deny. She was changed now. Transitioning into a vampire—or at least a partial one.
And just like she’d been suspicious and willing to kill me in the beginning, they would be of her now, too.
Clouds rolled overhead and, in the distance, a rumble of thunder sounded. A drop of rain hit my cheek and caused me to look up. “We should get back to the car,” I said, taking a step back as more rain began to come down. Neither Barbie nor Maverick said anything as we trudged back down the sinking, half-charred porch, carefully stepping as we headed towards the SUV. Collectively, though, I felt a bond between us.
Barbie might have hated me. Maverick might have been torn by his decision to step into the dark along with us—terrified about what it would mean for him—but together, we were bound.
Katalin had been right. I had been born to be a pawn, but if I was to be a pawn, I was going to be the deadliest piece on the board.
Chapter 4
Barbie
It rained throughout the rest of the week, coming down in sheets, sometimes subtle and quiet. Hardly noticeable. Other times, like now, it came down in long, annoying, ceaseless drags. The raindrops, as they slapped the glass windows outside my bedroom at the Priest guesthouse, deafened my newly sensitive ears, growing louder and louder the longer it went on until it drowned out even the sound of the fan on the dresser.
In the months between my family’s deaths and being ushered to the McKnights, when I’d stayed in the group home, I’d done things like get high or drunk. The kids that had come through there had all lived hard lives, dealing with their issues in the same fashion as those who had come before them—through drugs and alcohol. It had led to my first sexual experience, but it had also led to copious other firsts. Being a vampire—or partial dhampire I suppose—was the exact opposite of being drunk, but similar to being on drugs. My brain had been rewired. Everything was sharper and slower. Magnified times a hundred, maybe a thousand. I couldn’t be sure. The longer I lived like this, the more normal it became. It’d only been around a week or so since I’d woken up, but I was already forgetting what being purely human had been like.
