The Vampires of Soldiers Cove: Sacrificial Children

by Jessica MacIntyre

  Ely raised his hands skyward in a gesture of concession. “Very well. One hundred.”

  Gavin’s mind was reeling. One hundred years? How could he possibly live without her for that long? “That’s too much.”

  “A century for everything she’s done is getting away easy,” Rose said.

  “Fine,” Rachel said. “A century, but no holy water. I’ll stay put, you have my word. Are we agreed?”

  Ely came forward and shook her hand. “Agreed. And in the meantime I have control of your clan. It’s the only way I can assure the safety of my own.”

  A pause. “Agreed,” she said.

  Rose seethed but said nothing.

  “You have thirty minutes to say goodbye.”

  Ely exited out the front door and it clanged shut loudly behind him.

  Rachel, weak and teary eyed stood before him, looking into his eyes and taking his face into her hands. “It’s for the best.”

  “I don’t like it. I don’t trust them to keep you safe.”

  “Without the holy water we’ll be able to communicate, for a little while anyway.”

  “Rachel, don’t do this.”

  “What’s the alternative Gavin? We fight them? That would end up with one or both of us dying and we can’t chance that. A temporary merger is better than a war. Jade needs you. You need to be there for her.”

  “Jade needs her mother.”

  “She’ll have you and Holly will step in for me wherever it would be needed.”

  There was no doubt that the arrangement made sense, but in his heart Gavin couldn’t help but feel afraid. He swore to himself that he’d not go a century without her. Taking her in his arms he vowed that one way or another he would see her again. They would be together, even if he had to kill to make it happen.

  Chapter Five

  (One year later)

  The sound of two shovels at superhuman speed hitting dirt and striking bone echoed through the night as Gavin and Duncan dug and threw dirt into a pile next to them. They would have to be quick if this was going to work. As quickly as they could they scooped up the shrouded figure, the lack of holy water on the sheets enabling them to work without gloves, laying her gently on the ground as they refilled the hole before taking off with their stolen pendants back through the woods and onto the grounds of the Soldiers Cove sanctuary.

  Ely had been appointed the new leader after Rachel’s ‘death’and now the clan was under his control.

  Duncan had tried to challenge him, but to no avail. Now here he was with Gavin, undoing the shroud and looking down upon the withered face of his only child.

  Gavin felt the panic rise in his heart. “She doesn’t look well,” he said.

  “I’ve seen worse. Take heart. She’s been underground for an entire year, and you did communicate with her for the first few weeks. She’s just sleeping. You know that.”

  Gavin nodded. He had indeed communicated with her for the first little while, until one day she suddenly stopped responding. Gavin knew she couldn’t live out the century being fully awake and had in the end decided on death sleep. In that time she grieved for her son, as did he. Gavin desperately wished the process would end. There was no release into death sleep for him however, he had to care for Jade, something he was sure he was doing a poor job of. The work of it had mostly fallen to Holly and Duncan as Gavin spent endless days in bed, sometimes unable to move or speak. He was useless without her and her absence caused him crushing physical pain. It was an agony he could no longer bear and so he had convinced Duncan to help him dig her up. One year without her had almost killed him, he couldn’t imagine ninety-nine more.

  Gavin opened his wrist to her and let the drops of blood fall into her mouth and as he did he felt a relief wash over him. Soon she would be awake, soon they would be together and once they were everything was in place for them to leave. They were going to leave and take Jade with them, go to another country, start over. Everything was booked and in place for tomorrow and Gavin had the tickets in his wallet, he had been carrying them around for weeks. His entire body shook with anticipation of her awakening.

  The first few drops had no response and so he opened up his wrist and tried again. Holly was there too, standing by with bagged blood and all the paraphernalia needed to attend to them both in secret.

  “Keep trying,” she said. “Sometimes it takes a while.”

  He did. After the fifth attempt he looked over at Duncan and Holly, who had been watching intently. Holly came over and examined Rachel, then looked at Duncan and shook her head, ‘no’.

  “What? What’s wrong?” Gavin said.

  Gently, Holly placed her hand over Gavin’s and lovingly stroked his arm. “She’s gone.”

  “Gone? What the hell do you mean she’s gone? She’s right here, she’s not dust, she’s alive. Why won’t she wake up?”

  “She’s starved herself to death Gavin. And it must have been fairly recently because she’s not dust yet, but it’s going to happen. She’ll turn probably in a matter of hours now that she’s been exhumed.”

  Gavin could scarcely wrap his head around what Holly was trying to tell him. “She wouldn’t do that.”

  “It looks like she has.”

  Tears were falling now. “But why?”

  Gavin looked up to see that Duncan was now in tears as well. “Maybe the thought of living without her children was too much. Ryan is gone, and by the time her sentence would be over, if Jade hadn’t been turned, she’d be gone too. Perhaps that’s what did it.”

  The room was silent for many long moments as they all sat, stunned at the realization.

  “I have to take her,” Gavin said, scooping her up once more.

  “Where are you going?” Holly asked as he was halfway out the door.

  “To the place where she belongs.”

  ***

  Gavin sat and gently cradled Rachel, now gone, in his arms and leaned up against the trunk of the old tree. He was so close to their house he could see the lights burning off in the distance. He wished he could take her home to her own bed as he’d planned, but this was the next best thing. This would be her one true final resting place.

  His voice quivered with tears as he prepared to say his last goodbye, unwrapping the shroud so he could gaze upon her face as long as he could. He’d hold her until she turned to ashes and then burry her here.

  “Do you know where we are?” he said, running his fingers through her soft hair one last time. “This is our tree. This is where we met. Where we made love for the first time. God, Rachel, I love you so much. I can’t believe you would leave me. All you had to do was wait. I should have come sooner.”

  As much pain as he was in he knew that once the breaking of the blood bond was complete he would never survive it. Watching Holly go through it was bad enough but that coupled with the Blood Bond Syndrome would kill him. Gavin reached up and broke a sturdy branch from the tree with no effort at all, knowing it would make a good stake. Once she turned to dust he would pierce his own heart, relieving him of his agony once and for all.

  He didn’t worry about the afterlife or what might be waiting for him on the other side. The gates of hell could open up and swallow him and it wouldn’t hurt half as bad as he knew he would once she was finally gone.

  He sat, quietly, watching the sun catch on the horizon and knowing it was the last he would ever see. For a moment he was grateful that she was still in his arms, gone but whole for now, and he leaned down, kissing her forehead for what he was sure would be the last time. “I love you,” he whispered. “I love you, Rachel.”

  Although he expected to hear quiet, a tiny whimper came from her lips as if she was answering him. “Rachel?”

  The whimper turned into a moan and all of a sudden she was alive. “Hold on,” he said, panicking as he opened his wrist to her.

  Greedily she grabbed it and started ingesting the blood with the mindset of an animal who’d been deprived during a long hibernation. She took her fill unti
l Gavin felt himself beginning to weaken. He had to get her out of here before he himself became too frail to stand. He couldn’t help her if he couldn’t help himself and so with what strength he had left he helped her to her feet and walked her through the woods in the direction of the house. Nobody was there, even though they had left the lights burning, and he placed her in the front seat of their car then quickly ran inside, grabbed the keys and jumped behind the wheel turning the engine over. They would go far away, just the two of them. Jade would do better being raised by Holly and Duncan than living on the run and although painful he made peace with that thought. In time he was sure Rachel would too.

  Slumped over in the front seat he stroked her hair once again, she was already beginning to look like herself again, regaining some of her color and examining him with widened eyes.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Away,” he said.

  “Are we coming back?”

  “No.”

  With that Rachel put her head down and fell into an exhausted sleep as Gavin headed toward the horizon, leaving Soldiers Cove in the past.

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