My vampy sense goes haywire when I hit the second floor landing. We are not alone. Not by a long shot.
Purl slinks out into the hallway, her tail puffed out like a beaver's. Relief that my cat is all right floods through me. Her ears pinned back, she crouches like a silent hunter, that puffy tail swishing about agitatedly. She knows that there are vampires hidden in the shadows too. I give her a nod, and she acknowledges by glancing back at me.
I freeze, attempting to pick up any indication as to where our assailants are hiding. The only sounds I hear are the air conditioner and my niece's protests about being awoken in the middle of the night.
I've been in situations like this too many times in my life. As a child, I was shaken awake by my mother, then later Meghan, to sneak out in the middle of the night. My sense of security was shattered each time.
Graeme comes out of Amelia's bedroom, cradling his blanket-wrapped, droopy-eyed daughter in his arms. I nearly sob in relief that she hasn't been snatched from her bed in the middle of the night.
Amelia holds the camouflaged teddy bear to her like a lifeline. "Auntie Edie," she asks in her cherubic voice, "what's going on?"
Graeme looks frightened since he knows exactly what's coming next. I notice that he has a duffle bag strewn across his shoulders, a panic bag that we keep for situations like this. He's at least in a decent headspace.
He nods, acknowledging that he's ready to run.. He knows better than to dash out in the night by himself until I give the word.
"Daddy and Cousin Carl are taking you to a safe place," I say gently. "I'll be right behind you."
“Hey, Amelia,” Carl says lightly, trying to calm the look of terror that she gets at my words.
Sensing his need for comforting, Purl jumps to Graeme's shoulder like a silent sentry.
"Listen to everything that Carl and I tell you, okay?" I tell Graeme. "I have no idea where they are yet, so I’m going to try to smoke them out."
They could be in the attic, or hiding in one of the four rooms upstairs, or using their glamour to blend in with their surroundings. And I'm helpless to figure out where that is until they show themselves.
"Come out," I call to the darkness. "I know you're here for the Harker."
At first, I think our attackers are going to remain hidden in the shadows, which is smart because I'm in a very bad mood. My ear perks at a slight rustling behind us. From my right hand, I throw a stake in that direction, right next to Graeme. Just behind him, masked in the shadows, is a vampire that was about to grapple my brother-in-law. The stake catches the vampire in the throat and he reels backwards, clutching at the mess in his neck. He makes warbling noises, clawing at the stake in an erratic frenzy.
Even before he hits the floor, I'm already removing a replacement stake from my pocket. Sword in left hand, stake in right.
"Stay close," I tell Graeme as I back down the stairs. I motion for Carl to take the back so we can keep Graeme and Amelia between us.
My cat hisses at something behind me.
I don't hesitate, spinning around and jabbing my stake into the chest of the vampire swooping down. The dying female vampire tumbles backwards, rolling down the stairs in a heap. Her dead body bangs against all of the stairs on the way down. Well, if they didn't know that I'm here, they do now.
"Get out of here," I hiss to Graeme, pressing myself to the wall. I grab Carl and usher him forward, pushing him down the stairs myself. "I'll be right behind you."
Or not.
They hit the first floor, and I'm swept to the side by a blur of a person. I smack into the wall, denting it with the force of my body and the stake in my right hand clatters to the floor. I’m so shocked, I retract Glimmer as I slump forward. I should have expected that, but it still pisses me off.
At least my shoulder isn't dislocated again.
"God damn it, will people stop throwing me into walls?"
My assailant wrenches my hands and roughly hauls me up face-first against the wall. I cry out when I crack the dry wall once again. My hands are immobilized, my left palm into my back. I can’t resummon Glimmer without spearing myself.
"You always were the more annoying Harker, weren't you?" a low voice rumbles in my ear.
I freeze, instantly recognizing the voice. I remember him draining my blood, cutting open his own hand, and holding it against mine. His vampire blood runs through my veins like a cancer. He's the one who infected me. The one who killed Meghan.
"Y-you…" I stutter. The words feel like marbles in my mouth and I can't form anything correctly, except for a name. "Anthony."
From my limited perspective against the wall, his scarred face swims into view. He's as ugly as I remember him, with those candle-wax melted scars and his droopy eyes. My hands clench and unclench behind me. If only I could get my left hand free and cut that smug smile off his face.
"Poor Little Harker," he croons. He holds my wrists with one hand and strokes the side of my face with the other. "Such a tough job trying to save the world."
"From vermin like you, you fucking asshole," I snarl.
He pulls me from the wall and then backhands me so hard I fall to the floor in a heap. I've been hit a lot by vampires, and it takes a stiff punch to knock me down. He hit me pretty fucking hard. My teeth loosen at the impact and blood sprays in a wide arc.
I hope Carl is protecting Graeme and Amelia, because this is not a good sign for me.
I cough and splutter up a mound of blood. It drips from my mouth onto the hardwood floors. Shit.
To my horror, Anthony kneels beside me and dips two fingers into the blood that I spat out. He brings it to his lips, sniffs it tentatively, and then sucks on his fingers. His eyes flutter into the back of his head. He really likes the taste of my blood. I've never seen a vampire do that before.
"You shouldn't waste your precious elixir like that," he says, on the edge of ecstasy, disregarding the fact that he punched me into the ground. "It's divine. It tastes so good, even though it smells like shit. Ripened. So much better than it was a few months ago."
His eyes focus back on me and a smile splits his face, scaring me more than I've been in a long time.
"But not quite ready. My sources were wrong."
Exactly what Victoria said earlier. What does that mean? That they're going to kidnap me and wait for me to…cook more?
Thanks but no thanks. I have other plans, plans that involve driving a wooden stake through his heart. My muscles tense, and I try to prep myself for a fight. I'm too exhausted and too spent from the day's events to really hold my pyrokinesis spell in my head to fight back like I did at the coffee shop. Apparently, spilling coffee on me will cause me to meltdown like Chernobyl (geez, was it only yesterday?), but having my family threatened by the vampire who destroyed our lives isn't enough for me to burn him up.
As if reading my mind, he grabs my chin and forces me to my feet in a painful assertion of dominance. He pushes me against the wall and pins my arms and legs against his thick, heavy body, careful of my left hand.
"You're mine, Harker," he sneers at me. He twists my head to the side, exposing my neck to him. "Even though you aren't ready yet, I can still drink to make myself more powerful."
Instead of doing anything cool, a low whine issues from my throat. I focus on my anger at the fact that I'm showing weakness in front of him, which compels me enough to bring up my knee and connect it with his balls.
Oh yes. Vampires may be immortal and super strong, but if you have a blunt object connect with their family jewels, they will still let go of you to cup their testicles in reflex.
Anthony roars in pain and tosses me aside. I have a split second of satisfaction before I hit the upstairs railing, break it, and land on the sharp remnants. I cry out when the splintered wood punctures my right side. My whole body spasms around it and it suddenly feels like I'm wheezing through my left lung.
Shit, that's not good.
"Fuck…" I say aloud, realizing that this is an extremely bad
injury, one that will require me to go to the hospital. If I make it out of this. I guess I can get satisfaction out of the fact that Anthony can't have me ripened.
Didn't think that one through, buddy.
"Edie…" a voice calls out to me, beckoning me. "Do it."
Meghan. Despite the fact that I'm breathing shallowly, my breath comes out in little white puffs. She's here.
I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to use my power here. Uncontrollably. But what choice do I have?
I try focusing on the spell in my mind, but like a few seconds before, I can't hold it in my mind. I'm too exhausted.
"Edie, honey. Focus…"
My eyes snap open. That was a different voice, yet it’s still one that I recognize. "Mom?"
"Focus, baby…"
I feel the light, feathery touch of hands along my left arm, the one that's scarred up. The hands are gentle on my flesh, cool though not uncomfortably so. They're willing me forward, giving me strength to continue.
Then, I feel it. The little flicker of fire within me. I embrace it, feeding it my spirit and pain, and it burns to a cinder. I weakly mutter the Latin spell, hoping that it's enough for it to work.
My skin becomes hot as my insides turn to flames. It's not uncomfortable as long as I control it, which I'm trying to do. It could either save us, or destroy me.
Corporeal hands grab me and I scream in pain as I'm hauled off the railing. Everything swims in front of me. I'm being held by another vampire, although I can still see Anthony still clutching his man-parts.
"You bitch!" he spits.
"It's your fault," I taunt.
The vampire holding me must not be able to speak English because he's snarling like he's some sort of animal.
It's too late for him though. My burning skin surprises him, even as he wields me like a shield. I simply place a hand on his chest. I have no idea what I look like at this moment, but it must be fearsome because his face twists into fear.
"Ashes to ashes," I murmur. He combusts with a little explosion and his body starts to disintegrate from where my hand is on his chest. He screams and I leave him to face the crowd of other vampires. I call the power to my hands and they burst into flames. "Dust to dust."
I close my eyes and release it, setting the vampires—and my house—aflame. Over the pounding of my heartbeat in my ears, I dimly hear them screaming at their demise. I hope Anthony is one of them.
I lose my grip on my power, and it leaves me. I crumple to the floor again and heave up whatever's left of my Hamburger Helper dinner. My first thought is that I should clean up the puke, although with the house catching fire, the hardwood floors are the last thing I have to worry about.
I feel drained. This display of my pyrokinetic power has left me feeling like I am boneless. Between that and my punctured side, I can barely breathe or move.
Please let Anthony die.
There's a loud warbling noise, and I dimly realize that the fire alarm is going off. I don't have the strength to move, let alone run or summon up a water spell, so my only chance of surviving this is if a firefighter comes and rescues me.
It probably will be too late. Whether it is the fact that I'm drained or I've been preparing for this for five months now, I am at peace with the idea of it. I got Anthony. Amelia is safe for now.
I'll stop hurting soon enough. The thought calms me. I'm ready for death.
21
Edie
My eyes flutter closed, only to be reopened when I scream. There's a painful shock of pressure on my side as someone roughly picks me up in their arms.
"Godammit, Harker, you're not dying on my watch."
"J—jude?"
The white scar on his forehead is bright, standing out in the red-hot hell we're in. Somehow, even without a car, he got back to Austin, still stalking me like some sort of Edward Cullen knockoff. And I'm so glad to see him, despite the possibly that he could be chums with Anthony.
He huffs even though my weight is nothing for his vampire strength. "Did you get all of them?" he asks.
"I…don't…know," I wheeze. I press a hand to my back where I'm bleeding.
His face crinkles into concern. "You're hurt badly," he says.
"It was…bound to happen…”
There's a spark of humor in his eyes as he regards me. "See why you should keep me around, Harker?"
"Glad you're…here now…" I admit truthfully. "You're not on Anthony's…side…" I mean for that to be a question, but it comes out as a statement.
He doesn't answer, and that's reassuring enough for me at the moment.
He shifts me in his arms. "Let's get you out of here."
I decide it would take too much strength to agree so I lay back and hope he can take me out of there. Since the fire is supernatural, it has spread rapidly across the house. I've destroyed my family home. The weapons room with priceless relics and what remains of my family's history is going to be destroyed, along with Graeme's and Amelia's things. I know that at certain times in the past, my ancestors have had to sacrifice a few pieces of history due to fire, but this is going to be a huge chunk of it. I'm going to lose all my weapons, my journals, Meghan's fighting outfit—everything. Graeme and Amelia are homeless now.
And it's all my fault.
I try running through different scenarios in my mind to see if there's any other alternative. Tears prick at the corners of my eyes as I know that I'm losing a piece of myself with this house.
Jude picks up my distress. "You're alive," he tells me. "That's all that matters."
Without waiting for my reply, he swiftly makes his way down the stairs, dodging falling embers and fire that's devouring the house. We're out on the front lawn faster than I could have moved had I been uninjured. I don't see any vampires, but that doesn't mean that they were all incinerated. I know better than that.
The quick travel leaves me a bit disoriented and I numbly watch the roof of the two-story house collapse on the western side. Had we been in there two seconds longer, we would have been barbecued.
I wish that I could turn my power back on, that I'd been practicing my water abilities more before now. If I wasn't so drained, if I knew how to control that part of me more, I could douse the house and save some of it.
My body won't let me do it.
Jude heads to my Lancer, ignoring the crumbling house as if he has one thing on his mind. "Keys, Harker."
“You always…want to drive…” I wheeze.
With my right hand, I fumble in my front pocket for the keys. He unlocks and opens the door, setting me in the passenger's seat much like a mother places her baby in a crib. Gently. He spots a towel in the back seat and bundles it up to apply pressure to the gaping hole in my side.
"You're going to need to get that looked at," he tells me.
"I'll be fine," I say. "Graeme…can look at it." Once my superhuman ability to heal kicks in, I'll be fine, I just need to last until then.
Jude regards me in silence for a second, his face soft. He genuinely is worried about me, not that I can blame him with my guts spilling out all over the place. He looks like he’s about to say something, maybe to kiss me, then thinks better of it and closes the door
I sink into my seat, angling myself to allow the towel to push into my side, even though it hurts like a son of a bitch.
Jude gets into the driver's seat, turns on the car, and peels out of the driveway onto the road as soon as we hear the sirens of the fire department a few blocks away. If it wasn't for Jude, I'd be trapped under piles of burning slabs.
Thank you, I say silently.
As if hearing my thoughts, he glances at me.
Once the firefighters get there, I know what will follow is a load of paperwork and interrogation about what happened. I know Fire Chief Jeff Mann, and more importantly, he knows what I am and has covered for Meghan and me in the past. But this is going to be a huge headache for all of us involved, most notably Graeme.
"Graeme and Amelia?" I ask
. “Carl—"
"They're fine," Jude says, cutting me off. "I passed by them on my way here. They were on the road and no one was following them." He leans over towards me, and I'm momentarily disoriented since I have no idea what he's doing. Something is dropped into my lap, and I realize that he handed me my purse. I must have left it in the passenger's side when I ran into the house.
"Call them," he says.
I try not to notice the tremble of my hands as I take out my phone and dial Graeme. This is a conversation that I'm dreading.
Graeme answers on the second ring. "Edie!" he shrieks into the phone. "Are you hurt? Are you—"
"I need a bit of…patchwork from you," I say, glad that my voice isn't betraying the extent of my damage. Hopefully that means it's healing already. "Are you guys okay?"
"Yes, we're fine," Graeme says in his matter-of-fact way. "Carl left to go check his mother.”
“You’re safe?”
“Amelia is more frightened than anything. But your cat hasn't left her side."
My heart breaks for my niece, who now doesn't have a home. I clear my throat, ready for his horror at that. "The house is destroyed," I blurt out, my voice cracking on the last word. I think that maybe I should have let him down easier.
There's stunned silence on the other end. "As in the vampires wrecked it?"
"It's burning…to the ground…at the moment." I massage my forehead. "I used some fire magic…and it got out of hand."
More stunned silence. Such a bad idea to tell him like this. Why the hell do I not have any tact?
Graeme takes a shuddering, heavy sigh. "But you're safe?"
I glance at Jude. "Yes," I say. The vampire glances my way curiously. "The fire department is on the way too."
"Shit," Graeme says, reaching the same conclusion about how bad of a headache it's going to be. "All right, I'll give Jeff a call," he says. "This is going to be a nightmare to deal with."
My exact sentiments. I close my eyes and wipe my tears away. "I'm so sorry, Graeme."
There's another long pause on his end. "There's nothing to be sorry about," he tells me gently. "You saved our lives, Edie."
Legends of the Damned: A Collection of Edgy Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels Page 34
