Vampires Not Invited: A Night Tracker Novel

by Cheyenne McCray

  “Clean up that Doppler mess,” I thought I heard Volod say as he walked away from me.

  I had to force myself to calm down to keep from hyperventilating.

  The pressure of the head cage was more than enough to remind me that I shouldn’t lose consciousness. If there was a way to make it out this situation alive, I had to stay alert—as alert as possible in my circumstances—and I had to keep calm. Very calm.

  I didn’t move my head but I looked around me with my gaze, the best I could. For the first time I saw that there were other prisoners. Other paranorms.

  They weren’t wearing rebreathers, but they all had head cages. Their wrists, elbows, and ankles were shackled and attached to rings suspended from the ceiling and pulled taut. A solid bar was attached to their ankles, separating them. They were going nowhere.

  A horrible sick feeling churned in my belly when I saw a Doppler female hanging from a head cage, her neck broken from probably passing out, hanging herself before the chains of the shackles could support her.

  Is this my fate?

  “Don’t look,” a Shifter female said from across the room from me. The Shifter didn’t move her head as she spoke. “She wasn’t the first to succumb, but I’m hoping she’s the last.”

  Being a Night Tracker, being who I am, I wanted to reassure her that everything was going to be okay. At that moment I wondered if that would be a lie.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Breathing the same oxygen over and over through the rebreather made me lightheaded.

  “Nyx,” came an urgent whisper close to my ear.

  My whispered name startled me enough that I almost lost my footing on my block.

  “Do not move,” the familiar voice said. “It is me, Negel.”

  Negel couldn’t be here. Was the lightheadedness causing me to start hearing voices?

  I couldn’t turn my head, but even from the corner of my eye I saw nothing.

  “I’m in glamour,” he said. “No one can see me.”

  “Then I’ll just sound like I’m talking to myself.” I sounded slightly drunk, my muffled words slurring through the face mask.

  “I heard Volod tell you what this head cage will do to you, so I fear I cannot help you.” If I could see him I was sure he’d be wringing his hands. “Not yet. Somehow I will though. I will save you.”

  What could a Sprite do to save me? “How did you get here?”

  “I hid inside Volod’s limousine when he drove from the city to this place.” Negel said. “He was alone in his car so I sat across from him. Sprite glamours are too strong for even Vampires to sense us.”

  “You rode in the limo with Volod?” I half laughed, half choked. I was afraid I was getting delirious.

  “Yes.” Negel’s voice was serious while I had the insane urge to giggle. “When we arrived I slipped out and followed him to this room.”

  “My team.” I had a hard time swallowing with as little oxygen as I had. “I need you to take a message to them. I’ll tell you where they should be waiting for me.”

  All of my words were hard to get out and probably would have been hard to hear if he wasn’t a Sprite. Those huge ears apparently came in handy.

  “Tell them what you have seen and that I said to go to Rodán now.” My tongue felt thick and heavy. “They have to come up with another plan because Volod believes they are outside. They must leave now.”

  “I will do this,” Negel said. “And then I will come back and help you, Nyx of the Night Trackers.”

  “Don’t.” I wanted to shake my head. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. Go back with them to the city.”

  “I will go find them now,” Negel said. “But what I do after that is my choice.”

  It was too hard for me to argue. I felt tired, lethargic. “Be careful,” I said.

  “Don’t lose hope, my friend,” Negel said and then he was gone.

  I don’t think I’d ever felt so completely alone before as I stood there with the head cage and rebreather on. Bound, shackled, helpless.

  My internal clock didn’t seem to be working because I had no idea how much time had passed as I stood, staring straight ahead, not moving. It felt like a few hours had gone by, but I just wasn’t sure. It was as if the gas had screwed with my mind.

  Had it been an hour? Two? More?

  Whatever amount of time, it had to be before dawn because I hadn’t shifted. I couldn’t even sense what time of day it was—if sunrise was coming soon. I wondered if I could survive shifting into my human form, if that would trigger the spikes in the head cage. I change not only in appearance, but my body shifts into a slightly different form.

  The click of the door being opened was muffled. I couldn’t turn my head to see who had just come in.

  Volod walked in front of me with Vampires to either side of him, four total.

  “Take her down.” Volod gestured to me. “But do be careful. I would hate to lose my prize.”

  I swallowed, finding the action even harder with the rebreather.

  Two of the Vampires took me by my upper arms and raised me while another unfastened the head cage and the fourth kicked the box out from under me.

  Breathing became more difficult with every moment. When the Vampires set me on my feet, my knees gave out. But they had a hold on me and didn’t let me fall.

  They fastened a chain between the cuffs on my legs so that I had just enough space to shuffle, like a prisoner on a chain gang. It never occurred to me how humiliating it would feel to be forced to walk this way.

  The gas mask itched, and the rebreather tank felt cumbersome and heavy on my back. The head cage had given me an intense headache and I had a never-ending dizzy feeling.

  While I shuffled past, the other paranorms who were in the room watched me. Their eyes looked sad, as if they already knew my fate.

  My body ached with tension that grew and grew as we went through a doorway that led to a stairwell with concrete steps. It reminded me of just days ago when Joshua, Olivia, Angel, and I had gone to Volod’s penthouse. The Vampires were careful to make sure that I didn’t fall down the steps and had to support me half the time because my legs really didn’t want to.

  With all my being, what I was really wishing I had were my abilities and one of my daggers. I could take Volod and all four of his Vampire thugs out at one time.

  Especially Volod. When it came down to it, I was going to take immense pleasure in dealing with him.

  And I would. If I died, I would take Volod with me. Regardless of whether I lived or died, Volod was going to be history.

  My stomach clenched and unclenched as we went down the stairwell from the upper part of the pyramid. We were in the same part of the pyramid where I’d seen norm and paranorm prisoners the first time I’d come here.

  After several flights of stairs down, the Vampires stopped with me on a landing in front of a door. One of the Vamps opened the door and the others half pushed, half dragged me over the threshold into a long dark hall.

  The longer it took, the more my heart raced and felt like it pounded inside my throat. Through the gas mask and my foggy vision, I realized that I’d been here before. This was the same hallway with the room where I had overheard Volod speaking with Drago. That had been only yesterday but it felt so long ago.

  We passed that room coming from the opposite way I had the other night so that we were headed out toward that huge ballroom where the Vamps had held their frenetic rally.

  As they pushed me onward, the muffled sounds of laughter and beings talking came to me through the mask.

  No.

  No. They were taking me to a roomful of Vampires. A place where a hundred Vampires could tear me to pieces.

  Cheers, heckles, and laughter came at me in a rush as I was shoved and pulled into the ballroom. Through the glass of the mask, I could see too many Vampires. It looked like another cocktail party, only this time I imagined there was a different reason to celebrate. Probably my capture. Maybe my death.

>   The louder the Vampires became, the sicker I felt.

  I was taken to the front of the ballroom, before the fireplace. The same spot where Volod had showed the red box to the crowd that had gone into a frenzy with every word Volod had said … just last night.

  Danut stood to one side, fury on his features. Drago was beside him with his sister and Volod’s lover, Elizabeth.

  Volod stood in front of me as I stared out at the rows of Vampires. Fangs looked long and white, prepared to sink into their evening meal. Would I be one of their appetizers?

  The Master Vampire raised his hands and the room quieted.

  “First, before we proceed, I believe we must show this creature the Vampire way of justice.”

  “Justice, justice, justice,” the crowd chanted.

  Volod stepped toward me. An eerie sensation crawled up my spine before acute fear as the Master Vampire bared his fangs and grabbed me by my shoulders.

  I wanted to scream. Wanted to jerk away. Wanted to hurt him. But I was powerless.

  Volod was a blur as he dove for me.

  I did scream then as he buried his fangs deep into my neck.

  The pain was intense at first, a burning wildfire sensation. Gradually it dimmed and I could feel Volod drawing blood from me and taking it for himself.

  I hoped the Drow half of my blood killed him.

  The lightheaded, dizzy feeling grew stronger and I started to slump. But Volod had hold of me in his vise grip and didn’t let me fall.

  Blood was on his fangs as he raised his head. I wanted to kill him so badly I could taste it, as much as he had just tasted my blood. He went for my neck again and I stiffened, but this time I felt his tongue as he licked the wounds and the blood around them.

  “So that is what Dark Elves taste like.” Volod licked the rest of the blood from his lips. “Tastes like chicken.”

  I was in such a fog that I barely heard the Vampire laughter as I stared at Volod with hate suffusing my entire being.

  Not only was he doing his best to humiliate me in front of these Vampires, but he had violated me by taking my blood. That violation was a sick, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  The Vampires who had brought me here half lifted, half forced me to step up and onto a stool. Two of the Vampires kept me steady while the other two rigged something to the ceiling, then attached it to my head cage.

  “Today we show the paranorm world that we are serious about our threats to their way of life,” Volod said.

  Vampires cheered and called out and jeered at me.

  “Paranorms have been a threat to our very existence for over a century,” Volod continued. “But no more. Never again will they get in our way. Tonight will be all the proof they need that our rule will be absolute.”

  Screams of laughter mixed with shouts of anger.

  “Death to all paranorms!”

  “Feed on them, bleed their powers.”

  “No more synthetic crap. Nothing but the real thing.”

  “Let us rip into the lavender monster.”

  There were more important things at risk than even caring about being called a lavender monster. Not only my life, but lives of countless paranorms.

  Volod raised his hands again and finally the Vampires settled down. “We have another special guest.”

  The room went totally silent.

  Hair prickled at my nape and goose bumps spread across my skin. The Vampire bite on my neck tingled. I had a strong feeling, a strange feeling, that this guest would not be who I expected, but some being who held my life in the palm of his hand.

  Why I felt that way, I didn’t know. But I waited with everyone else.

  Rodán strode into the ballroom surrounded by four large Vampires.

  Frenzied hisses, screams, and howls met Rodán.

  The shock of seeing Rodán was enough to make me wobble on my perch. Volod reached for me and clamped one hand on my calf. “Don’t die on me just yet,” he said as he steadied me.

  “Nyx.” Rodán’s calm veneer looked like it had cracked a little as his eyes met mine. “I have come to negotiate your release.”

  Vampires burst into laughter.

  “We don’t negotiate with terrorists.” The shock I felt edged my voice even if I was hard to hear through the gas mask. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “As I said at the council meeting, I don’t care what you call me, but I am not a terrorist.” Volod’s features were tight. “I am the leader of my brethren and we have no need to negotiate.”

  Was that fear in Rodán’s eyes? Fear for me? I’d never seen Rodán scared of anything.

  “I warned all in the Paranorm Council meeting what the new order is.” Volod drew a syringe full of green fluid from out of his jacket pocket. “I detailed what will happen to those who don’t follow my command.”

  More voices cried out for the horde of Vampires.

  Two Vampires took hold of my upper arms on either side of me and kicked the support from beneath my feet. My heart pounded. My body trembled. I was going to hyperventilate. If the Vampires let go of me, I was as good as dead.

  I looked at the needle. I might be as good as dead, anyway.

  “Despite my warning, in less than two hours’ time,” Volod continued, “your Tracker invaded my compound, and I know you have others outside. Apparently you, Rodán, the council, and even your Trackers did not take me seriously. You defied my law, a law which came with consequences for ignoring it.”

  The crowd became frenzied, their madness a tangible thing.

  My stomach churned as Volod raised the syringe he had taken from his pocket. “In less than two hours you show defiance.” Volod’s expression grew dark. “You will now experience what happens when my law is ignored. This will be the sign for all paranorms that not living the new law, my law, will result in dire consequences.”

  “Kill the purple one,” someone shouted and others took up the call until it became a chant. “Kill the purple one.”

  “Set her free.” Rodán spoke coolly, evenly, as if Volod didn’t have a syringe filled with the virus in his hand.

  “Oh, I intend to release her.” Volod neared me. “But she will now become a symbol for all paranormkind to see the power I possess and to see that I have no fear in using it.”

  I’d never seen helplessness or fear in Rodán’s eyes until that moment. If he tried to stop them, the Vampires would let me go, the spikes would enter my brain, and I would die. If Rodán didn’t stop them, Volod was going to inject me.

  There was no way out.

  “Leave her be.” Dark storm clouds churned in Rodán’s eyes and the look on his face was pure fury. “If you harm Nyx, there is no place you can hide where I will not find you.”

  The crazed audience laughed.

  “Threats, Rodán?” Volod grasped my arm. “Out of all of the paranorms who could walk into my lair, this is the one I will enjoy annihilating most.”

  I gritted my teeth. I couldn’t see but I felt Volod’s hands on me as he stretched out my arm.

  Sweat broke out on my skin. My heart raced so fast my chest hurt.

  My gaze met Rodán’s as my whole body trembled. I couldn’t read his expression, but his eyes told me how much he cared for me, feared for me.

  “Kill her, kill her,” came the chant from the crowd.

  Volod positioned the tip of the needle by one of my veins. “I want you to watch.”

  “No,” I said. “Please don’t.”

  “Too late for begging.” Volod jabbed the needle into my arm and injected the virus into my veins.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The fluid felt warm as it entered my veins, and the heat of it spread throughout my entire being. The Vampire bite burned as if I’d been branded.

  Yet I was numb. Completely numb.

  The Vampires had increased their frenzy. I was vaguely aware of their crazed shouts and expressions.

  “According to the scientist’s records,” Volod said, “you have forty-eight hours
before you become contagious and then ill shortly after. However, for all we know it could take less time.” He smiled as he added, “Our records indicate that your human half will not compensate for your paranorm half. You carry the mutated gene.”

  Volod looked from me to Rodán. “You might want to quarantine her from the world as she dies a slow and very painful death.”

  Rodán said a word in the language of the Dark Elves that was so dark, so foul, that I expected the room to go black and everything begin to shake with Rodán’s wrath. Light Elves do not say curses, but Rodán was not like other Light Elves.

  Even though he couldn’t possibly have understood the word Rodán had spoken, Volod looked amused. “The next time you cross me, more paranorms will be injected. You will not be told which ones. They will infect every paranorm they come close to. There will be no time to quarantine.”

  Volod continued, “You will not find out until sickness and death begins, and by the time you discover those who are sick they will have infected numerous others.”

  The Master Vampire’s expression changed and he no longer looked amused. “You see, I don’t care about your little paranorm world.”

  “Return the serum and antiserum,” Rodán said. “To use it would be genocide.”

  Volod shrugged. “I am rather indifferent as to whether your paranorm world continues to exist, unless it can improve the Vampire way of life. If it harms my world, the paranorms can be vanquished.” His voice and his words were cold as ice. A being with no regard for the lives he could easily take.

  “The choice of whether your world goes on or is ended is the choice of your leaders.” His gaze settled on me and he had a hard, cruel smile. “So the purple one becomes my message to the paranorm world.” He turned and focused on Rodán. “You, Rodán, are but the mailman. Yes, she is the toxic package.”

  The Vampires in the room started clapping and laughing. The sick feeling in my belly magnified.

  Rodán’s fingers twitched as if he might cast some kind of spell, but he didn’t move, didn’t change his expression. “Tell me what you want in exchange for her life. Give her the antiserum. Inject me. I will be your message, not her.”