Redeemer of Shadows

by Michelle M. Pillow

  Servaes instantly sat up. His eyes narrowed in confusion.

  “I’ll explain later. Now, hurry. We have to get our coffin and get out of here.” Hathor tugged on his arm. “There isn’t much time.”

  Servaes nodded, coming to his feet. He led her by her hand over the top of the mound. Hathor glanced at the door leading back within the passageways. Servaes ignored it, refusing to risk going back inside. He led her silently past trees and stone buildings. Then, coming to a graveyard, he whisked along old gravestones, finally stopping at a mausoleum.

  “What are we doing here?” Hathor asked, frightened. He turned to her, motioning for silence.

  “I hid my spare coffin in here after I left your house.” Servaes motioned for her to stay. He disappeared behind the old gravestones only to reappear, carting his coffin behind him. “Help me.”

  Hathor lifted the other side of the coffin. She saw the strained lines of Servaes’ face. He was weak.

  “Do you need to feed?” she asked him. “We can stop if we have to.”

  “No,” he answered a little too sharply, leading her through the streets. He concentrated on hiding them from the eyes of others.

  Progress was slower than usual, but finally they made it to the front lawn of Kennington House. Servaes collapsed on the front step. Hathor hurriedly made her way to the front door. It was locked. Pulling the cord, she rang the bell frantically, trying to wake her aunt.

  “Here,” Servaes mumbled, tired. He lifted his hand to unlock the latch. The door swung open. Hathor peered inside. Just then, the light switch came on.

  “What—?” Georgia mumbled, half asleep. The woman saw her niece’s pale face. An immense smile broke out on her features as she rushed forward. She pulled Hathor into her arms. “My dear, you’re alive. I was so worried.”

  “Georgia, we need your help, please. The sun will be rising soon. We need a place to rest.” Hathor pulled her aunt back from her, turning to direct her attention behind her to where Servaes sat wearily on the step.

  Georgia detected the change in her niece, but wasn’t scared. The old woman noticed the coffin. “Yes, yes, of course.” She waved her hands to usher them inside. “Hurry, come on.”

  Hathor nodded in appreciation. Stopping, she sensed something familiar about her aunt. She turned to look at her in curiosity.

  “Come on, Hathor,” she said. “Look at him. Help him up.”

  Hathor obeyed, going to Servaes. He waved off her attentions, standing on his own. Then, lifting one end of the coffin, he waited for Hathor to grab the other side. They hauled it into the house.

  Hathor led the way into the formal dining room, barely looking at the large table as they moved the coffin past. Georgia shrieked behind them. Suddenly, the other side of the coffin fell, jerking Hathor’s arms down. She turned to find Servaes on the floor, unconscious. The coffin splintered with its hard landing.

  Georgia rushed to the vampire’s side. She pressed her wrist against his forehead to feel for a temperature before pulling away, realizing he wouldn’t have one. Hathor was immediately next to him. She brushed back his hair.

  “What is wrong with him?” Georgia asked, frantic.

  “I don’t know. He hasn’t eaten for days.”

  “Should I—?” Her aunt offered her arm with a worried frown.

  “No,” Hathor said, thinking of the old creature’s words. Servaes was different now. “I don’t think he’ll eat.”

  Tears entered Hathor’s eyes as she stroked back his hair. She felt the exhilaration of the approaching sun. She opened the lid, revealing the torn and bloodstained satin inside the black coffin.

  “We’ll just have to sleep here.” Hathor pulled under Servaes’ arms, struggling to get him into safety. Georgia helped what little she could. “I will see you tomorrow at dusk. Put a thick blanket over us in case the coffin is broken so sunlight can’t get in. Don’t let anyone in the house, and whatever you do, don’t open the lid.”

  “Yes,” Georgia whispered with a hurried nod. Her face shone with concern and love for the two vampires as she rushed to get the blankets.

  Hathor closed the lid. Servaes’ eyes still hadn’t opened. She pulled his body close to her, exhausted. He didn’t stir. She lovingly placed her hand on his chest, feeling for the faint beating of his heart. Closing her eyes, she let loose a weary sigh and tried to find her rest.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  The sun peeked its head over the horizon, casting the orange glow of a beautiful day over the city of London. Its life-giving rays hugged the storefront windows, glaring off the shiny panes. Light glittered over the water of the Thames, touched the majestic lines of the many bridges, and lit up every roadway and turnabout with brilliantly contrasted shadows. But for some, the crisp morning was not magnificent. It was death.

  Ginger’s eyes rounded in surprise, her scream waking all of those around her from their mesmerized trance. Her body pressed desperately into the pile of vampires she rested upon. Those beneath her fought to be free. Their claws dug into her back, tearing through her flesh until her blood spilled down over them and she couldn’t move.

  Lamar, in a panic, shot straight up from the ground, bursting into a ball of flames as a ray of morning sun touched his skin. He flew through the bluing sky like a fireball, exploding into ash with the flair of a yellow, popping firecracker. The ash of his remains fluttered to the ground like falling snow.

  Ginger screamed again, crawling her way through the haphazard bodies around her in the deserted street. As the warm globe streamed higher to chase its gleaming death after the vampiress’ feet, flaming corpses shot out in all directions. Pale skin burned red, bubbling and melting from bones made of dust. Some lighted afire, and others burst apart like a terrible explosion. The feathery ash of their remains drifted to the earth, dusting over lampposts and stone, sweeping across the alleys and statues. The last of their mournful shrieks were carried away on the wind, forever silenced and forgotten.

  Ginger howled again in agony, scrambling back from the sun, trying to find solace in the shadow of a tall building. In her haste she crawled too far, coming out from beneath the shadows into the sunlight. The sun found her face. She couldn’t escape. The skin peeled back from her bones, like the rotting decay of old fruit. Her head loosened from her shoulders, rolling back onto the pavement, blazing with fire. Her body puffed into a cloud of ash, disappearing into nothingness.

  Before the full globe had risen completely to claim the heavens, all but one died a fiery death. Ash and dust covered the city street like a thick blanket, flowing over the bricks like water as the wind swept up the debris. Vincent was the only survivor, crawling from the pile into the shade of the alley, up the side of a brick wall. The sun lit against his foot, decaying his leg until only a bloody stump remained. But his body survived, his arms pulling him into the ceiling of the passageway leading into the Vampire Club. Scrambling down to the tunnels below the street, Vincent found his agonizing rest within the safety of Ginger’s pink coffin.

  By the time the human mortals awoke to bear witness to the streets, the ground divulged no evidence to the deed, but for the settling of gray dust that couldn’t be discerned from that which was carried there by the wind.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Hathor felt a lurch beneath her hand, jolting her awake. Her lids were heavy from exhaustion. She moved her palm over Servaes’ chest to feel his heart beating. It was a scant rhythm compared to the normally strong thud. Turning her weary eyes, she saw him clearly in the darkness. His lips were parted, his lids closed. His heart slowed beneath her hand, winding down like a breaking toy.

  “Servaes?” She pulled him closer, lifting her hand to slap his face. His eyes fluttered. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “I…” He closed his eyes. “Something happened when I changed you. I changed myself.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me something was wrong?” Her hands flew over him, helplessly trying to find a way to save him. “Here, take
my blood, just enough to last through the day.”

  “I’m dying, chéri.” His voice trailed off into a whisper of air escaping his lungs.

  “No,” Hathor cried out desperately, shaking him when he would close his eyes. Unnatural tears poured from her loving gaze. She felt what he said was true. With each word she uttered, the more desperately she wept until her words were an excruciating whisper. “Stay with me. Stay awake. You can’t go. You can’t leave me alone—not now, not after all we’ve survived. Servaes, please, I can’t live without you. Drink from me.”

  “I cannot,” he whispered back, unmoving. She watched his face gray with dust. Hathor was afraid to touch him, scared he would disappear into a cloud of mist if she pressed a finger to him. “Call out to Jirí once it is dark. He’ll help you.”

  “Don’t talk like that. You just haven’t eaten. You need blood.” She didn’t even stop to think before she pressed her wrist to his mouth, smothering it against his lips. His skin felt soft, too soft. “Take mine. Bite it.”

  “I cannot,” he whispered. “My fangs are sunken into my mouth. Your blood will be too weakened to sustain me now. You haven’t eaten either.”

  “Then I will find you someone,” she declared. “You just hold on.”

  “No,” Servaes protested, as she made a move to lift the lid. His hands trembled as he held them up to her. His eyes pleaded with her to stop, to come back. “You can’t. The sunlight will kill you.”

  “I have to try. You won’t last until dusk.” Hathor ignored his protesting and the feeble attempt of his skeletal hand to stop her. She cracked open the lid, fearful of what she would find. Seeing that Georgia had indeed covered them with several thick blankets, she sighed in halfhearted relief. She crawled out as carefully as she could.

  Before she shut the lid, she heard Servaes whisper, “Je t’aime, Hathor. I love you.”

  Tears kissed her cheeks like stars. Her gaze glowed eerily with her power. Nodding, she whispered back, “I don’t regret a moment. I love you, Servaes. Hold on. I’ll find a way to help you.”

  Hathor shut the lid, pulling the blankets carefully around her. It was slow moving as she tried to make her way along the floor. She couldn’t lift her head to look out, and she couldn’t hear her aunt. The sunlight tried to pierce her darkened void. It burned into the blanket, warming her skin with a fiery heat.

  Hathor felt Servaes’ body convulse weakly in the coffin. A single thread of emotion bound them together. She felt his death coming. His body was slowly turning to grave dust, and she felt her world ending with him.

  “Georgia,” Hathor yelled, her hoarse voice rising in muffled desperation through the thick blanket. In sudden insight, she sensed the woman and followed her instincts to the gardens.

  Hathor slowly progressed through the kitchen, crawling to the screen door that led to the back yard. Feeling the door give, she pushed forward with her head to hit it open. She crouched carefully down on her feet to pass over the sun-warmed stairs, holding open the door with her head. Her limbs trembled, feeble in their movements. She detected the damning heat of the bright sun on her back, soaking dangerously deeper into the blanket, searching for a hole in which to sting her. The darkness surrounded her like a black blessing. “Georgie, help me!”

  The screen door slammed shut behind her with an unsuspected crash. The wood frame snagged the end of her blanket as it bounced. Hathor’s feet tripped blindly on the steps. Her body pitched forward as if in slow motion. The blanket ripped from her grasp, falling off to the side.

  “Georgie,” Hathor screamed desperately. As the sun hit her face, the rays burned her, sizzling her skin. She weakly hit the ground, rolling.

  “Hathor?” Her aunt screeched in alarm. “Hathor what are you doing!”

  Hathor convulsed. She waited for fire, waited for flames and torture. Georgia pulled her into her arms. The sun beat down on her flesh, warming it. Her aunt tried to shield her from the sun, covering Hathor with her body. She threw her wide-brimmed hat over Hathor’s face. The light trailed through the straw in small beads of concentrated energy.

  Georgia’s body shook, powerless to help stop the onslaught of death. Fear and helplessness flowed through the old woman’s veins. Hathor’s pale skin became red, spreading with a burn all over her delicate features. Hathor cried out in pain.

  “Help Servaes,” Hathor groaned in desperation, as her world started to fade into a burning black. Her demonic eyes rolled back into her head, sinking with despair into her lids. “Promise me.”

  “Yes. Oh, Hathor,” Georgia cried. Hathor went limp, falling with the weighted mass of a corpse. Georgia struggled, her hands moving over her niece’s flesh to continue to block the sun. She was too late. The old woman cried out bitterly as she tried to gather the dead girl into her arms.

  Servaes opened his eyes with a piercing yell. He felt the sun on Hathor’s skin, burning her. He’d known it was useless for her to try to help him. Now she paid the price for her folly. Her mind reached out to him, crying to him in pain. He felt her burning flesh as if it were his own. He couldn’t go to her, couldn’t answer her cry. He was too weak to push up. He rocked as helpless as a babe in its cradle, unable to fight the flames as they licked around her. Then, he detected silence. Her mind closed completely. Her emotions stopped.

  Tears found his eyes. He was too drained to move, or he would have crawled out into the sun to join her. The tears swept over his face, falling back to his temples to dampen his hair. He knew he was dying too, decaying into the ashes of death. He lost his will to live. Without Hathor, he was nothing. He didn’t want to go on. Closing his eyes, he refused to fight any longer. He decided to let death have him.

  “I love you, ma petite,” his last breath hissed, as his body journeyed to join hers.

  Colors began to swirl in the darkness, faded at first, growing brighter as time ticked past. The image of the sun, bright and glorious, rose beneath the couple’s dead lids. The black bird from their dreams came to them, perching high on a tree limb in front of the sun. The bird seemed to smile at them, before squawking and taking flight once more. When in the air, the bird became encased in stone, falling from the heavens in an ancient rune. The rune landed in the grass, breaking apart in the softness.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Georgia pulled her hat from Hathor’s face. She rocked her niece in her arms, affectionately touching the pale beauty of her skin. The old woman wept loudly, shouting her pain to the sky. Her body shook with a violent force, her tears streamed over her face.

  Shaking in grief, she felt Hathor’s chilled skin begin to heat. With a loud sniff, her eyes shot to her niece’s face. The pale features warmed from the cold blue of the dead to a soft glowing orange. The detection of it was faint at first, swirling over the tip of her nose. Georgia blinked to see if it was real. Slowly the vampiress’ blue lips began to fill with red, painted as if by an artist’s brush.

  Hathor gasped. Her back arched off the ground and pulled away from her aunt’s hands. Her eyes shot open, the blue depths filling with vibrant spring-like colors that shot out of her. A light appeared around her body, a soft, barely detectable glow. Her voice spilled from her throat in a high-pitched wheeze, and then she took a breath.

  Falling to the earth, she turned her gaze to Georgia. Her eyes glowed like the undead, but her skin was the color of life. The sun shot through her flesh, surging with energy through her body, shooting through her like a ray of life with its warmth. Hathor again surged up, bucking violently from the ground before falling with visible fatigue to the soft grass. Her eyes cleared. She looked up at the bright fall sky, the weather unseasonably warm.

  Confusion and surprise passed over her. Glancing at Georgia in wide-eyed wonder, she saw the wrinkled face beam with teary pleasure.

  “Servaes,” Hathor gasped suddenly. She shot up from her back, running with swiftness into the house. Georgia was right behind her. Hathor went to the coffin, pulling off the blankets.

  “W
ait, Hathor. What if you kill him? He might not react to the sun the same way.” Georgia hesitated in her efforts to help.

  “I have to try,” Hathor returned desperately. “He’s already dying. I must do something.”

  Closing her eyes, a prayer on her trembling lips, Hathor threw back the lid. Servaes’ pale face was hit with the rays of the sun filtering in through the drapes. He didn’t move.

  “Help me get him outside,” Hathor entreated. Her hands were instantly on his decaying masculine form. His skin was cold. “We must get him into the sun.”

  Georgia had her reservations, but helped Hathor pull him out. Hathor’s limbs surged with force, and she lifted him over her shoulder without Georgia’s assistance. She didn’t have time to wonder at her great strength as she rushed him out the back door. Hitting the bright pull of the sun, she eased him onto his back. His pale skin was encased in the light. For a moment, nothing happened.

  Hathor fell to her knees, mumbling frantic pleas, words of love and encouragement to him. She grabbed his face, willing his eyes to open as hers had.

  “Servaes, wake up. Wake up, Servaes. Open your eyes. Open your eyes.” Hathor shook him violently. “Look at me, damn you.”

  “Ah!” Servaes gasped. His eyes burst with the light. His body writhed and moaned in pain. Hathor watched, a shiver running up her spine. She glanced to Georgia, horrified. The woman ran to her, pulling her back from the twisting and writhing being.

  His hand reached out grasping for a hold in the air. His body trembled violently with the assault of the daylight. His flesh appeared to pull and melt around him, but didn’t drip from his bones. Hathor listened to his tortured screams, paralyzed with fear.

  “Servaes!” She reached for him, searching blindly through tears. “What have I done?”

  A trail of blood came from his pale lips, moving down over the side of his smooth jaw. Then his screams stopped. His body drooped. When he didn’t move, Hathor crawled slowly forward. She reached out a finger, probing his body. It didn’t move. Feeling his chest, she couldn’t detect a heartbeat. Her own heart raced frantically out of control.