Sabrina and the Gargoyle

by Marie Dry

  “Some of it was arranged marriages, but there are rumors of women forced to bear children of the strongest hunters in centuries past.”

  She shivered at the revolting picture his words brought to mind. “That’s horrible.”

  “That’s vampire hunters.” He opened his hand to reveal several knives and some type of gun. “I brought you some weapons.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about guns.” The first chance she got she’d learn, though.

  He lifted her dress and strapped a small knife to her thigh. He went higher and attached another one around her waist. His hands glided, caressed down over her hips. He stood back and again she noticed him compensating for his knee.

  “The pistol is easy, you click off the safety, point, and shoot.” He showed her how to put the safety on and off. “Keep the knives and the pistol with you at all times. When you shower, keep them in the bathroom with you. The knives have silver in them, so use them on any vampire coming at you.”

  She nodded and they went downstairs. “Does your knee hurt?”

  “No,” he said shortly.

  She knew he lied. He had to be in agony.

  They found everyone in the large living room, standing around, making concerted efforts not to turn their backs on each other. Everyone held a glass of some kind of what she guessed to be alcohol, some could be blood, but she refused to think about that. No one drank.

  “Ah, Sabrina, shall we go in to dinner.” Simon offered her his arm and Mark rudely pushed him away. Simon smirked and led them into a big lavish dining room with a glass table. “A bit possessive there, half pint.”

  “I didn’t marry Sabrina for breeding purposes,” Mark murmured, oh so polite.

  “Don’t call him that,” Sabrina snapped at the same time.

  Simon stiffened, but ignored them and went to the head of the table. The various factions spread themselves to ensure they could cover each other.

  The shifters, vampires, and vampire hunters eyed each other with open hostility.

  Two hunters carried in tender roast beef, vegetables, and even a salad. Silence reigned as they passed the dishes around, everyone looking a bit cautious of the food. They really didn’t trust the hunters.

  The vampires sipped what was in their glasses, disdaining the food. She knew they could consume food if they wanted. Christopher had eaten enough of her koeksisters to prove that.

  “Any news on the witch,” Simon asked.

  Herman paused in the act of taking a bite of tender roast beef. “What witch?”

  “She’s gone into hiding. We lost her trail at Cape Point, but we’ll find her,” Christopher said with dark purpose.

  Sabrina had never seen him look this grim. He must really want to catch that witch. This was not the carefree man her cousin fell in love with, no this was a predator.

  “A witch helped the wannabee vampire hunters to find Sabrina,” Mark said to Herman. “She also made it possible for them to drive up to Sabrina’s house in broad daylight and take her, in full sight of Samuel and her neighbors.” His hand lying next to hers on the table clenched into a tight fist. “She assisted with the kidnapping of a human. If the witch council doesn’t get her, we will.”

  “I can deal with the little shit for you,” Simon said. He looked very interested in getting his hands on the witch, but Sabrina had to wonder if it was for the same reasons as Mark and Christopher.

  “Careful, hunter, having your nose everywhere might just get your face disfigured,” Christopher said, very softly. Herman looked about ready to go for Simon’s throat as well.

  “We cannot afford to waste time with her now,” Mark said. “When this is over, Christopher will find her and eliminate her.”

  Christopher nodded.

  “Nee.” Everyone turned to her and she blushed. She’d spoken in Afrikaans without thinking. It was daunting to receive the attention of several very large, very dangerous men. For the first time, she realized that any one of them could grace the covers of magazines if they wished. That aura of danger along with their masculine good looks would make them very popular among women. She would have to ask Mark or Christopher later if they dated human women. “You can’t just kill her. Please give her a chance to explain. She couldn’t have known what they’d do to me.” Their way of killing whatever bothered them couldn’t be allowed to continue. “You people need some kind of government. You can’t just kill everyone you don’t like.”

  “Yes we can,” some of them muttered.

  “For all you know the poor witch needed the money so badly, she couldn’t refuse the job.”

  “I don’t care, Sabrina. Her actions caused you harm and I want her dead.”

  “I agree with Mark,” Christopher said. “She needs to die before she hooks up with any other vampire hunters. Who knows what tricks she could learn in the time we catch up to her?”

  “Hunters don’t consort with witches,” Simon insisted.

  Sabrina ignored the others and looked at Mark. He was the real power here. “I can’t live with the idea of that poor woman being killed because of me. Please, Mark, for me.”

  He looked at her for a long time, and she realized she should probably have waited until they were alone. She tentatively touched his hand still clenched tight next to his plate. His gaze rested on her slender hand on his bigger rougher one, and then he nodded.

  “All right, Sabrina. Christopher will capture her, and we’ll interrogate her, but you will not object to any of my methods. If she’s a danger to us, I’ll execute her without hesitating and no amount of tears or begging from you will change my mind.”

  “And if she’s not a danger?”

  “Christopher will take her blood and make sure he can track her at any time. One transgression, and she dies. Her actions harmed you. I will not forget that.”

  “I don’t want her blood,” Christopher said without looking up from his plate.

  How true were the stories about vampires needing blood to survive? She looked around the table surreptitiously. All the vampires now ate with as much appetite as the hunters and shifters. When she still thought he was wholly vampire, she’d asked him if he suffered from the thirst like in the movies and he’d said no. That meant they did take blood, probably frequently.

  Mark held up his hand and everyone became quiet. “We might as well get to the reason we formed this unholy alliance. We know young women have been disappearing, and we’re aware that the numbers are much bigger than reported on the news. Some of you have never encountered the drogge before.”

  One of the vampires nodded. “Count yourself lucky.”

  Simon ignored the vampire, even though he was the one they talked to. “We do however have an old manuscript, written by an ancestor of mine, and he said the reason there are so few hunters left are that the drogge destroyed thousands of them six hundred years ago. If they’re around, I want to know what they look like and how to fight them.”

  “No one knows what they look like. My father fought them and died trying,” Mark stopped talking and clenched his hand around his knife. “They took my mother and we found only ashes left of her.”

  Sabrina placed her hand on his balled fist and could’ve wept. That must have been terrible. To see your own mother like that, to lose your father to the same monsters. Maybe that was why he never talked about his parents. Sometimes she got the impression that he enjoyed her stories about Ouma and her parents and living at the Bo-Kaap. As if he’d never known a childhood or family life and enjoyed hearing what it was supposed to be like.

  “Because I inherited royal blood from both the vampire and gargoyle lines, I can sense the drogge.”

  “What?” Herman said.

  “No shit?” one of the hunters said.

  “That’s why your mother didn’t kill you? Because you had this ability?” Simon said, proving once again that he was dangerously well informed.

  “Yes,” Mark said, his voice expressionless.

  Sabrina dr
ew in a shocked breath. When he said his parents protected him, at first, she’d assumed they loved him, then she’d wondered if maybe he wasn’t as close to his parents as she was to her mother and grandmother. Now she had strong doubts.

  “Any idea why that cause you to sense them?” Simon asked.

  “No one knows. My father hunted them and could feel them when they got close, but I can feel them from a considerable distance.”

  “Have you been able to feel them in the city? I know you’ve been appearing and disappearing at different spots for the last few months.”

  Mark shook his head. “No, though, I sensed their presence in some women.”

  “They might have protection spells around their hiding place,” Christopher said.

  “That’s my feeling as well,” Mark said. “The fact that all the women are young and beautiful and from socially prominent families tell me they have a few things in common with the gargoyles.”

  “They’re snobs as well,” Sabrina murmured. Those gargoyles had better hope she never got the chance to hurt them because she wouldn’t hesitate. “They both kidnap innocent people.”

  “So the women are our ticket to the drogge,” Herman asked.

  Mark nodded. “I’m keeping track of one of their victims. It’s too late to save her, but if she can lead us to them, maybe we can save the rest of their--”

  Several vampires appeared in the dining room and everyone went for their weapons.

  Christopher held up his hands. “Stop, they’re not here to fight.”

  The vampires all looked the worse for wear and one of them were supported by two others. “We got the coordinates for this place at Mark’s human’s house. They’re killing us out there.”

  Mark had jumped to his feet. Now he put away his gun and went to the injured vampire. “What happened?”

  The vampire shuddered. “One of them touched me, and it felt as if he drained me, as if I was a battery and he was charging, using me. One moment, I was alone and the next he stood in front of me. No disturbance in the air, no warning that someone was about to come in.”

  “Did you get a good look at them?”

  “There was only one, freakishly tall and strong. I never saw him coming. If Jan and Joachim didn’t come to find me I’d be dead right now. The more he drained me, the stronger he got.”

  Christopher’s phone rang. He answered it and paled. He spoke in quick jerky sounds and then pocketed his phone. “Fifteen vampires died in the last half hour. We need to catch the drogge now while they are hunting. If we go out, we can catch them feeding.”

  “No,” Mark said.

  Everyone stiffened and turned on him. Sabrina battled between the urge to move between them and Mark or get under the table.

  “You want us dead because we wouldn’t accept you, half pint?” one of the vampires asked.

  “No, I want to prevent you becoming food. You all know how strong my father was. He had six vampires with him the night he died. If you go out, all you’ll do is give them a convenient food source. We stay inside tonight and tomorrow we’ll try and find them. I’ve monitored the women and the drogge seems to stir mostly at night. They’re still strong in daylight, so don’t underestimate them.”

  They stared at him and, for the longest moment of her life, Sabrina thought all these dangerous men might try to kill Mark. At last they relaxed their stance and nodded.

  “We’ll do it your way, half pint, for now.” The vampire who spoke pointedly turned his back on Mark.

  Simon and his hunters, who’d jumped up with weapons drawn when the vampires appeared, sheathed their knives and lowered their crossbows.

  “We will retire for the night, breakfast will be ready at six tomorrow morning,” Simon said and he and the other hunters left.

  Everyone left in the dining room reluctantly agreed to wait until daytime and silently went to their beds. Sabrina and Mark went up to their room and for the first time she saw Mark walk with a slight limp. In their room he locked the door and barred it with a chair under the knob.

  “What if a vampire tried to appear in the room. Locked doors won’t stop them,” she asked.

  “I’m blocking anyone from coming in that way,” he said and shrugged off his jacket.

  “Why do you always wear a suit? Wouldn’t combat clothes or something more casual be easier to hunt the drogge with?”

  “My father never wore anything but bespoke suits. He taught me how to dress and I suppose it stuck.”

  She sat down on the bed, a little dazed. “Will that vampire be all right?”

  Mark hesitated.

  “Don’t lie to me, Mark.” Knowing how he’d manipulated her mind made the thought of him lying to her about anything unbearable.

  “I doubt he’ll live. He’s in much worse shape than he looks and, unfortunately, there’s no way to give him back what the Drogge took. It’s like trying to cure old age.”

  The thought of that poor vampire sucked dry was too terrible to contemplate. “Will he become like Jo?”

  He came and sat down next to her, facing her. “No, the vampire mind is too strong. He’s drained and, if he makes it, he’ll be weak for a long time, but he won’t become evil.”

  Sabrina shivered and he drew her into his arms. “Christopher will make him comfortable at least. That’s all we can do now.”

  “That’s horrible, I feel so helpless. We should be able to help him. What about the gargoyles, they have healing powers.”

  “They can only heal women and rarely use it on females they are not committed to.”

  She nodded and went to get ready for bed, feeling heavy and sad. He joined her in the bathroom and it was a surreal moment, standing next to him, both of them brushing their teeth. She stood next to a half-vampire, half-gargoyle who brushed his teeth with exquisite care. He pulled his lip away from his teeth to get at a white pointy incisor.

  She rinsed out the toothpaste from her mouth before she choked. Carefully putting down the toothbrush, she giggled. He lifted a brow, but continued to meticulously brush a slightly longer than normal incisor. Sabrina laughed harder.

  He finished brushing, rinsed, and turned to her. “Tell me the joke.”

  She could barely get the words out. “You’re brushing your t--t--t--t--teeth.”

  “Doesn’t everyone?”

  That set her off even more. “I just never thought vampires would be so meticulous about it, but I should’ve known.” She went off in gales of laughter again. Imagine a vampire smiling to reveal a mouth full of yellowed teeth.

  Shaking his head, he picked her up and carried her to their bed. “I want to make love to you. I have to make love to you,” he said, sounding so driven that her laughter dried up.

  She stared up at him, at the desperation in his eyes. How many deaths had he seen while hunting the drogge? How much rejection did he endure during his lifetime?

  She brushed a finger over his thin sculpted lips. “I need you too, I want to feel alive, I want to forget to be frightened.” She wanted to pretend he loved her, that they were a normal couple on their honeymoon. Looking forward to spending their lives together and starting a family.

  “Tonight, we’ll both forget the horror stalking us.” He kissed her, a gentle coaxing kiss unlike the deep claiming kisses he normally gave her.

  She moaned, put her arms around him, and kissed him back.

  “I love your skin. I want to caress every inch of it,” he murmured against her lips. Suiting action to words, he drew reverent hands over every inch of her he could reach while still kissing her.

  It started out as slow gentle lovemaking, but they were both desperate, starved for oblivion, and they tore off each other’s clothes, kissed and sucked and bit responsive flesh.

  He moved over her, kissing her neck while she halfheartedly tried to stop him when someone knocked at the door.

  “I’ll kill them,” Mark said and jumped up from the bed. He was clothed and Sabrina gasped when her nightdress and robe
suddenly covered her. How did he do that?

  “Get behind the bed, Sabrina.”

  She didn’t argue, just slid down the side farthest from the door and crouched there.

  Mark swung open the door and moved to the side faster than she could blink. She couldn’t see who was at the door, but she saw Mark relax.

  “The drogge are on a killing spree, they’re killing anything that moves,” Christopher said.

  “We’ll come down,” Mark said and closed the door.

  Sabrina jumped out of bed. “Just let me get my tekkies.”

  “Your what?”

  “Uhm, my trainers.” She grabbed her Nikes and a pair of jeans. They quickly dressed. “How did you make my pajamas appear on me?”

  “Illusion, I can’t make actual clothes appear on you.”

  “Good to know,” she murmured.

  Imagine thinking she was dressed and then being naked when Mark wasn’t around. She shivered. How many people did those things kill tonight? She had no love for the gargoyles, but she didn’t want even them killed. “Do you think the drogge went to the farm? What if they got Mikaela?”

  “They won’t go to the farm. Let’s go.” He held the door open for her, and they went downstairs.

  She hesitated when she saw the two guards outside their door. Remembering what they’d been doing when Christopher knocked, she had to concentrate not to cover her burning cheeks with her hands.

  “I had a glamor over us,” Mark said, so soft she hoped the two guards didn’t hear.

  They went downstairs to hear the grim news. In two hours that night, twenty-seven vampires had been killed and five shifters. Simon was close lipped about any casualties among the hunters, but his stoic reaction convinced her he’d lost men as well. The police were inundated with humans who’d disappeared.

  Nicholas appeared with more vampires to join their cause. The temperature dropped to a chill the moment he appeared. Before now she’d only noticed that happening with Mark.

  “Changed your mind vamp, suddenly found the courage to fight the drogge,” Simon asked.

  Nicholas carefully lowered an injured vampire to a chair and turned to face Mark. He stopped a moment to give Simon the finger.