Conversion Book Three: 'Til Death

by S. C. Stephens

  I nodded. “Go get him.” He had the door open before I even finished nodding. I heard yawns and whispers from my mom and sister as I felt my husband streaking to meet up with my son. I was still holding my breath. Nika was still sobbing uncontrollably. Staring at the door below me, I felt my mom and Ash stumble from their room to enter the hallway with me.

  “Em? What’s going on?”

  Ashley reached out for a distraught Nika and I woodenly handed her over, still not pulling my gaze from the door, waiting for Teren to burst through it with our wandering son. I could feel him closing the distance as Julian’s slower blurb sped towards his.

  My mom put a hand on my back, asking what was wrong. I couldn’t speak, and only Nika answered. In between sobs, she got out, “Monster took Julie.”

  My stomach tightened at her words. No. She must have had been having a weird dream, like the dream I’d awoken from. Kids were rarely taken from the homes, from their beds, especially vampire children. That just couldn’t have been what happened. He must have heard something and wandered away. With his super ears, he could have heard something blocks from here. Maybe he’d drifted farther than he’d intended and was streaking back to us because he was scared. Feeling Teren almost on him, I closed my eyes. Nika’s wailing in the background amplified my stress. For the first time since my death, I felt a phantom thumping in my chest. A fake heartbeat.

  Just as Teren was almost on him, everything I’d ever known…changed.

  My eyes flew open as I gasped. “No,” was all I got out before I lost the ability to stand up straight. Falling to my knees in front of the stair’s railing, I gripped it with every ounce of strength I possessed; it snapped in two.

  My mother’s arms were instantly around me as I clutched my stomach. “What’s wrong, Emma?”

  Her warm, pudgy body gave me no comfort as I rocked back and forth on my heels. Shaking my head, I could only mutter, “No,” over and over, like it was suddenly the only word I knew.

  From somewhere in the night, a yell ripped through the quiet streets. I knew my husband’s voice and covered my ears. No, this could not be happening. Even my mother heard his scream and started shaking. Maybe not registering that he’d made that sound, she asked, “What’s out there?”

  I had no answer for her; I had no coherent words at all, only the beginnings of a long grief-filled wail of my own. Hearing my daughter’s pained cries behind me, I clamped my hand over my mouth and forced myself to not scream. It was hard. I felt like my entire body had shattered into a thousand pieces. Tears stung my eyes as a face in my memory filled my watery vision.

  My son. My first born. My carbon copy of the man I loved…was gone.

  Sucking in breaths, trying to not scare Nika anymore than she already was, I ignored my mother and sister’s concerned questions and panicking voices. I felt my husband’s presence stop in my head, felt his location jerk back and forth aimlessly. Julian was gone. The blip of him in my head that told me where he was at every moment and time, had vanished. Like someone had thrown off a light switch, it had just stopped spouting his location to me. By Teren’s scream, I knew he’d lost him too. That only meant one thing in my mind:

  Julian was dead.

  Hyperventilating on the air I didn’t need, I felt cool tears surging down my cheeks. Staring at everything, but seeing none of it, I started muttering, “He’s gone…he’s gone.”

  Nika started wailing my name and I heard Ashley coo in her ear, rubbing her back. I felt Teren start to return to me in a circular pattern, back and forth, searching, searching for our son’s body.

  I shot to my feet, startling my mother back a step. No…I couldn’t stomach my son’s lifeless form being brought back to the house in my husband’s arms. That would surely unhinge me. I had to find him. I had to see where and how and….why.

  I started to streak downstairs, but my mom clenched my arm. I turned back to her, not even seeing her.

  “Emma? What happened?” Her voice was clipped, short, her eyes murky with unshed tears. Looking at her for the first time since noting Julian’s absence, I finally heard the hearts thumping around me. All three pulsating beats in the hall were hard, surging with adrenaline. For an odd moment, I wondered if Julian’s heart had surged…before it stopped.

  Not feeling like it was even me speaking, I shakily told her, “Julian left the house.”

  Her eyes widened as tears flowed down her cheeks and she pushed my body towards the stairs. “Then go get him!”

  I shook my head, looking between her and my sister. “I can’t.” I shrugged, feeling pieces of my soul crumbling apart.

  Ashley held Nika to her tight, my daughter wrapping every limb around her as she cried for her brother, her twin. “Why can’t you? Where’s Teren?”

  Her eyes looked around for him while I shrugged again. “He’s searching, but he doesn’t know where to look.”

  My mother grabbed my face, shaking me from my daze. “You can feel him, go get him, Emma!”

  I blinked, a sob rising in me. “I can’t…I can’t feel him anymore.”

  My mother’s mouth dropped as fat tears splashed on her skin. “No…does that mean he’s…?” She couldn’t finish saying what I most feared and the unspoken word reverberated in the air.

  I nodded, not able to say it either, especially with Nika listening.

  Both Mom and Ashley gasped, then choked on their grief. Twisting from the sight of so much internal damage, I made to flee from it – towards my grieving husband who was madly searching where he’d last felt our son. “I need to help Teren…find his body.”

  I could not believe those words had just left my mouth.

  As my vision clouded to a point where I couldn’t even see the stairs anymore, I flew myself down them. My hand reached out for the knob of our once beautiful front door; every once beautiful thing seemed dull and lifeless to me now. Twisting the knob so hard the metal warped, I nearly pulled the elaborate decoration off its hinges. My daughter’s voice stopped me a split second before I streaked away.

  “Julie’s so scared, Mommy.”

  I gasped, twisting my body to stare up at my daughter. Her tiny head was resting on Ashley’s shoulder, her light hair mixing with my sister’s darker shade. I took a step back to her, feeling like my legs were Jell-o, and any second I was going to cave to the floor again. Staring up at her, disbelieving, I murmured, “Do you feel him, sweetheart? Do you feel what he’s feeling…right now?”

  The hope blossoming in my chest was nearly as painful as dying had been. At that moment, I would have preferred another conversion. Every breath in the house stopped as everyone focused on my daughter, the one person on this earth who would know with absolute certainty if my son was still alive. Ticking the long seconds off in my head, I held my breath, terrified of her answer.

  Nika swallowed repeatedly, hiccupping with her fading sobs. Finally, she nodded. “He’s scared,” she whispered.

  My hands came to my mouth as a sob broke free from me. If he was scared…he was alive. I felt streaks rushing to me in my head. So many were moving towards me at one time that it felt like my world was imploding. The other vampires had felt the disconnect with Julian and were racing here, to find out why. I’d have no answers for them once they got here, none but – he’s alive.

  But my husband was my main concern. He believed our son was dead; I couldn’t just let him continue to believe that, it would eat him alive. Wishing I could call him to me with just the connection we had, I hovered at the door. Torn between flying to him and flying to my daughter, to question her on everything she knew, I debated. Just as I started to move towards Nika, I felt Teren’s presence shift towards mine. Our pull kicked in when he did. A dull sense of homecoming started to burn in me but I ignored it. This reunion wasn’t going to be our usual sweet one. This one would give me no satisfied peace. I didn’t think I’d ever feel satisfied peace again.

  Maybe sensing his family approaching, Teren was blurring back to me, to str
ategize on how best to find where our son lay lifeless. I twisted back to the door, eager to tell him that Julian wasn’t gone. He may have vanished, but he wasn’t gone.

  He phased into the house, nothing more than a trick of the lights to any human eyes. I inhaled him as he went past, the world dancing off his skin as a small rush of reunion washed over me. It was nothing though, nothing compared to the void in my chest. Dirt, grease and garbage filled my senses as he stopped just inside the door. His bare chest streaked with mud, his hands dirty, his slacks filthy, I had to assume that Teren had been ripping apart…everything. Anything he could to find our son. Glancing down his body, my eyes watered at the blood smeared across his bare feet. He’d already healed, but he’d ripped his skin apart, searching in vain.

  Tears fell from his eyes as he looked back at me as I closed the door; his eyes watched the wrought iron ominously as it cut off the path to our lost kin. “Emma,” he croaked out, “I couldn’t…I couldn’t find him. He’s gone. He’s not there anymore. I could smell him, but it’s windy tonight…it was faint…and then it just stopped.” Tears ran down his face and he started to breathe heavy, like he was hyperventilating. “There’s nothing there…”

  He didn’t mention the disconnect we’d all felt, he didn’t need to. A lonely ache filled my body that I no longer had that bond with Julian. It was like someone had come up and severed a nerve in my body and half of me was numb and useless. The emotional pain of separation was so great, I felt an actual pain in my silent chest.

  My hands were immediately on Teren’s face, tears falling in the space between us. “He’s alive, Teren.”

  He peeled his eyes from the door to stare at me; I could see that same painful hope I’d felt earlier blazing in them. “What?”

  I twisted his face around to our daughter, silently crying on Ashley’s shoulder. “She feels him…he’s alive.”

  Teren’s jaw dropped open as he looked up at the only connection to our son. “Baby, is Julian okay?” he whispered, his voice warbling.

  Fat tears sliding down her cheeks, she shrugged. “He’s scared, Daddy…really scared.”

  Teren closed his eyes, moisture squeezing out between his lashes. Lifting those wet lashes, he narrowed his eyes at Nika. “Is he…hurt? Does he feel pain right now?”

  Nika raised her head, tilting it. Slowly, she started shaking it. “No…just scared.”

  Teren exhaled, crumbling over as he dropped his face into his hands. “Oh, thank god,” he muttered. Glancing up at me, his voice wavered, “I thought, I thought he’d…”

  Nodding, I threw my arms around his waist. I’d thought that too. We clung to each other as I felt his family draw even nearer. Nika crying amid the sniffles of everyone else in the home drew our attention and we separated, blurring up to her. Feeling calmer now that I knew that he was still breathing, that he wasn’t in pain, I pulled Nika from my sister. Her arms wrapped around my neck as she attached to me. Teren’s arms encircled us both. Just as my mother and sister joined our group hug, the front door burst open; it cracked the wall it hit it so hard. Both Mom and Ash jumped, but Teren, Nika and I only looked down. We’d felt her approaching.

  Blood red tear tracks down her pale white skin, Halina flew into the entryway. Her eyes were on us immediately. “Teren?” was all she got out before her voice closed up.

  Releasing us, Teren shook his head. “He’s alive. Nika feels him.”

  “He’s scared,” I whispered, tears dripping off my chin.

  Halina staggered, her hands coming to her face as she swayed for a second. Then her head snapped up. “Where is he? Why can’t we feel him?”

  Teren looked back at our daughter. “I don’t know,” he whispered. Nika looked over to him and held her hands out. Teren scooped her up, walking her downstairs. As our entryway again filled back up with people, he stroked her back. She wrinkled her nose at the smell emanating from him, but didn’t stop clutching him. Meeting eyes with his great-grandmother, he set his lips in a hard line. I could feel a tension in the air as I stepped beside him.

  Imogen and Alanna flew into the house, both still dressed in pajamas like they’d been aroused in the middle of the night from a deep sleep. I suppose they had; Halina was the only Adams that stayed up all night long. Their questions filled the air as Teren stared at Halina.

  “He’s alive, just vanished,” I quickly told Alanna, my arms enfolding her in a quick hug. She asked more questions, but her eyes were on her son having a stare down with the pureblood vampire.

  When Imogen and Alanna’s questions were answered to the best of my ability, which was mainly that we didn’t know anything, we all turned to stare at Teren. His jaw was clenched as he unwaveringly stared at the teenage vixen. She unflinchingly stared back.

  My mom ran her arms around Ashley, asking her what was going on, but no one answered her. In the quiet that followed, Teren asked in an oddly calm voice, “Did Gabriel do this?”

  Halina blinked, pulling her head back. She eyed Teren up and down. “No,” she said confidently.

  Teren tilted his head. “Before he turned back, Julian was headed down south…to Gabriel.”

  Halina shook her head. “He did not do this.”

  Teren narrowed his eyes. “Who else could shut the bond off?”

  Halina looked up at Nika, then back to Teren. “He wouldn’t,” she whispered.

  As I held my breath, debating whether or not Teren was right, he leaned into Halina. “He’s always wanted to test them, to test their bond. What better way than to take one?”

  Halina looked around at all of us watching her. “No, he wouldn’t…he couldn’t.” She added in a whisper. Her head snapped back to Teren. “He was busy with the raid, Teren.”

  Nika raised her head, staring down at Teren. “Monster Daddy, not Grandpa.”

  Teren looked up at her, shushing her and stroking her hair. Not looking convinced, he kissed her head as he twisted back to Halina. “Gabriel knows a lot of people. I wouldn’t put it past him to ‘ask’ someone else to do it. Especially when we all assumed he was ‘busy’ with the raid. What better alibi could he have?”

  Halina bristled, her back straightening. “He is not responsible for taking Julian, and we are wasting precious time.”

  Teren sniffed, then kissed Nika’s head again. “I will end him if we find out differently.” He raised an eyebrow at Halina pointedly.

  Twisting her lip, she crossed her arms over her chest. “If he is involved, you won’t get the chance.” She raised her eyebrow right back at him, her intent clear. If Gabriel’s hand was in any way involved with our son’s disappearance, in love with him or not, she’d destroy him.

  Just then the front door slowly opened. Every vampire in the house turned to the silently swinging door with a growl in their chest. Teren handed Nika to my mom and blurred to the door, his hand going to the throat of the person walking through it. Halina joined him, reaching out to pull the body in.

  A scream was stifled as Teren’s hand clenched around windpipes, then his entire body was shoved back a step. Her hands on her throat, a stunned Starla gazed at Teren wide-eyed. Standing in front of her, crouched down in a low, defensive position, Jacen growling a warning at Teren and Halina.

  The tension in the air silenced as Starla blinked at everyone staring at her and rubbed her neck. Twisting her lips, she stepped up and popped a bubble in Teren’s face. “That hurt, vamp boy.”

  His eyes narrowing, he lifted his chin. “What are you doing back here?”

  Jacen stepped in front of the debutant, his blonde hair disheveled like they’d also just woken up, although they hadn’t rushed over quite like the others. “We heard the commotion when everyone left the house.” He paused, his sky blue eyes sheepish. “We’re your protection…so…you know, we’re here to…protect.”

  Halina scoffed and rolled her eyes, slamming the door shut so hard Nika flinched. My mother rubbed her back as Ashley cooed in her ear. Crossing her arms over her chest, Halina mu
ttered, “You’re doing a great job.”

  Jacen glared at her, his arm circling around Starla’s trim waist. “We came as soon as we could.”

  Starla looked down. “We were…busy.” Halina scoffed again, flicking a spritzed point of Starla’s bedhead do.

  Teren ran a hand down his face as he looked around the assemblage. Focusing on Ashley, he pointed at the phone in the vicinity of the kitchen. “Call Ben,” he twisted back to Alanna, “and call Dad.” His pale eyes focused on every other set of pale eyes, then lingered on mine. “Tell them to get over here. We need everyone.”