by Am Hudson
“Why will you write what I’m thinking but won’t do what I say?” I pressed my thumb onto the tip and snapped the pen in half.
“Hello?” called a voice from under the floor.
With a sigh, I put the two halves of the pen down and pushed the rug back. “Trey, you okay?”
“Who’s there?” he asked nervously. “Please. Just make it quick. Please—”
“Trey, relax,” I said, opening the trapdoor and stepping down into the darkness. Even in the dark I could see my personal blood bank looked tired, his eyes sunken as if he’d been crying all night. “Do you need something?”
“Are you here to kill me?” He lowered his head and cried to himself for a moment. “Oh God! Why did I do it? Why? I’m so sorry, Jess. I’m so sorry.”
“Jess?” I walked a little closer, not really in the mood to explain who I was again. “Your wife?”
“My son,” he cried, then rattled his chains, trying to break loose. “Please, miss. I’ll give you anything. Anything. Just don’t kill me.”
My teeth had just about ground off as many layers as they could for one day. Telling and retelling Trey who I was and what was happening was starting to make me lose compassion for him. Which, for his sake, was not a good thing.
In a moment of probably very bad judgement, I marched over and placed one foot on the wall by Trey’s shoulder, grabbed his chains with both hands and pulled hard. But they didn’t come loose from the wall. Not even a little bit. And then I realised that, of course, if he couldn’t break free from them, how on earth would I do it?
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m trying to set you free.” I tugged again, determined, against all odds.
“So you can kill me?”
“I’m. Not. Going. To. Kill you!” I yelled, the last word ending in a yelp as I fell back on my butt, a pair of heavy chains coming away from the wall and nearly pulling Trey on top of me.
He looked at the snapped steel and I looked at him, and we both dropped our mouths in surprise.
“How did you break them?”
“I…” I looked at the holes in the wall. “I don’t know.”
He cautiously drew his arms back to his body and flexed his fingers, rubbing the raw skin under the metal left in place. “Can you break this part off for me?”
My hands were shaking a little, my head tight with a stabbing pain. I wet my lips and shuffled back in the cold dirt, shaking my head. “I don’t think so.”
“Can you try?” He offered his wrists.
“It hurts.”
“What does?”
I curled into a ball to hide my head, and Trey appeared above me, gently rubbing my back.
“What can I do? Can I—”
“Nothing,” I said. “Just go. Leave here and go to the Lilithians—tell them to offer you protection in exchange for information about the Queen.”
“The Queen?”
“Yes.”
“Are you—?”
“Yes.” I flipped my head up and looked at him, then realised he wouldn’t remember ever having spoken to me if he left here. “But… you’ll need a note.”
“Then we’ll need a pen,” Trey said, offering his hand. He helped me to my feet and slung my arm over his shoulder, hauling my weak self up the narrow stairs to David’s room.
When he sat me down on the bench at the foot of the bed, I took a moment to close my eyes and centre myself, feeling the room spin and shrink around me.
“What’s happening to you?” he asked. “You look so pale all of a sudden.”
“Just hand me that pen—” I pointed blindly to the coffee table, “—and there’s a sheet of paper under that book.”
A piece of paper landed on my knee a second later, and Trey tucked the pen half into my curled fist. “Do you need me to write something down for you?”
“No.”
I opened my eyes again, breathing through the pain. Layer by layer, as I scribbled a note down, asking Jason to tell David I was okay and to look after Trey and his family—hide them—the pain receded.
“Here.” I shoved the note into Trey’s chest.
He took it and stared at it, confused.
“Put it in your pocket.”
“Why?” he asked.
I grabbed his arm then, tightening my hold when he flinched, and wrote Jason’s address down on his skin and, in big letters:
RUN, TRAY. DON’T STOP. THERE’S A NOTE IN YOUR POCKET FOR THE MAN AT THIS ADDRESS. HE WILL HELP YOU. Love, Ara.
Trey frowned at the words. “You’re helping me?”
“Yes, but you won’t remember me once you leave this room.”
“Why?”
“There a spell in place.”
He seemed to understand that. “Thank you.” He clasped his hands in prayer and bowed his head. “You say I won’t remember that you helped, but I will forever be in your debt.”
“All very well if you can escape here.” I gave him a shove. “Now go.”
He ran to the window and pushed it open, turning to look back. “Hey.”
“What?”
“I don’t know what this is costing you—to help me this way. But whatever it is, you’re saving five lives today—not just one.”
I smiled, and Trey disappeared, leaving me alone with the dread of telling Drake what I’d done, and also the thrill that all this training was having some effect.
***
Hindsight: it’s realising you probably should have eaten from the vampire before setting it free.
My stomach growled as I crept down the tight corridor, hunting. If no one would remember me once I left their sight, no one would know I cut them and drained them. And Drake wouldn’t have to know I set Trey free.
I kept my shoulder to the wall for the most part so I could navigate through the almost pitch black, but the walls felt the same down here on the first floor as they had in the cells and torture chamber I once encountered. As much as I wanted to tell myself the southern wing was all a show, my mind still lived in the past—trapped behind its experiences—and every step I took just felt like a betrayal to my freedom.
When I reached the end of the corridor I stopped and sniffed the air. Most vampires were attending the castle tour tonight; it was set to be a big one as it was, apparently, every Friday night. Drake would be in Court right now, ruling on all the vampire issues, but when he finished he would come to find me and offer another invitation to his theatre show and tour. I would decline. As usual.
For every vampire that starred in the show or operated other areas of the tour, special effects and that sort of thing, there would be at least two vampires that didn’t attend. And the unlucky vampire in room twenty tonight would wish he had gone.
I rapped on his door and announced myself as housekeeping. The door popped open slightly and a confused head poked out.
“We don’t get housekeeping down here, bitch. Go away!”
I grinned as my hand stopped the door. Feeding from a jerk of a vampire made this so much easier.
He didn’t scream as I shoved him hard in the chest and slammed his door shut behind me. He didn’t know he had a reason to. He simply looked confused, his eyes flicking from my hands to his chest. And when he opened his mouth to speak I lunged for him, pinning him down on the floor under me.
He bent his knees and tried to flick me off, but I was too hungry, and with that hunger came an inhuman strength that was no match for his.
My hands hooked his wrists and knuckled them to the floor, and as I leaned down and pressed my lips to the fat pulsing under his skin, I quickly moved one hand to make a cut with my nail. No need to kill him. Just drain him.
He went hard between my legs and gave up the fight, his arms and hands relaxing under me. I’d never actually hunted before, but I’d heard Lilithians could hypnotise vampires the way vampires do humans—make them trust us; make them want us. So he was either under my spell, or very turned on by the idea of a dominant woman.
<
br /> I let his wrists go and drew my hair back from where it caught in my lip, sinking into the magic and lust of the kill. His blood entered my mouth so fast my spine rolled as I gulped it down, and it tasted like bitter dark chocolate, so rich that the female essence in me wanted him. All of him, even though I couldn’t say what he looked like or even what colour his hair was. He was blood, and sex, and that was all.
When his hands wrapped my hips and a pair of thumbs moved down the back of my jeans, I pulled back with a giant gasp and slapped him clean across the face. Which only made the demon huntress in me so much more enthused.
“What the hell?” He rolled up slightly, holding his cheek.
“I came for blood,” I said, swinging my leg over him and standing up. “Not sex.”
He grabbed the pocket of my jeans and swept me back down onto him. “Well, maybe I want a little payment for my blood.”
I cocked my head sideways and smiled. “Of course. How rude of me.”
He took that to mean I agreed; guess he didn’t hear the sarcasm in my voice.
While his thoughts moved on to my breasts, his hands following, I drove mine seductively into his hair and gave his skull a very slight, very gentle zap.
My body jerked up and down like a kid on a washing machine, as the man quivered and convulsed under me, his fingers seizing up around my breasts until I shoved them off. The poor baby in my belly gave a little jump and rolled over, and I did the same, lunging off my victim just as a line of urine darkened his jeans.
He went completely and very suddenly limp then. His bowels released themselves and his chest sunk, he even stopped breathing. But I knew he was still alive, and I felt not a pang of guilt for his impending humiliation. If anything, I felt energised and charged, as if I’d just avenged one of the humans he’d killed.
“You can send the receipt in the mail, jerk,” I said, kicking him in the shin as I stood up.
When I shut the door as I left his room, it was with a clear conscience. He would have no memory of me tomorrow, or how he came to wake with a major headache and faeces in his pants.
When I reached the top of the tight, curved stairwell to David’s floor, Drake was already poised to rap on my chamber door.
“Drake.”
“Oh, Ara.” He turned, surprised. “Where have you been?”
“Exploring,” I said with a shrug.
His stunning blue eyes fixed on my shoulder.
When I looked down self-consciously my heart skipped a beat. I quickly covered the fresh blood in my hair. “I um…”
“No need to explain.” He put a hand up. “Everyone craves the hunt now and then.”
“Yeah,” I said awkwardly. “I kinda got tired of being spoon-fed, if you know what I mean.”
“Perhaps you’ve tired of Trey then.” He went to push the door open. “I can have him removed and bring in a—”
“No need,” I said, grabbing his arm. “Trey’s great. I prefer his blood to that guy I just ate.” I pretended to wipe something icky off my face, even though Urine Guy was probably the tangiest and most satisfying feed I’d had since I became immortal.
“Very well.” He patted my hand; I drew it away from his arm. “But you will be sure to notify me at the first moment you tire of him, won’t you?”
“I will.” As I went to walk past, Drake held me in place.
“The tour,” he said suggestively. “I would very much like it if you came.”
“Maybe next time.” I pulled my arm free from his grip.
“Amara, wait.” His voice carried the softness and kindness of a caring friend.
With a bit of hesitation, I stopped to humour him.
“You could be here for some time. I imagine you must already be feeling isolated and likely bored,” he said softly. “The tours could be good for you—not only to see that this place of nightmares isn’t real, but you could also help out—sell tickets or greet the guests. You might find you really enjoy it.”
He sighed and stepped a little closer when I showed no signs of budging.
“Amara please. Just come tonight—see the show. And if you hate it, I’ll never ask you again. But I would really love your opinion.”
From all the stories about this evil vampire, I knew he’d grown up without a father and that his mother shunned him when he first killed, and right now he looked like the hopeful little boy he would have once been—so long ago before all his heartache. And damn it if that made the mother in me want to be there at his stupid show!
“Okay,” I said, and Drake clapped once. “But I reserve the right to walk out at any time if it’s terrible or wrought with clichés.”
“Oh, it is wrought with clichés, my dear.” He laughed, tucking my hand into the crook of his elbow. “And you’re going to love it.”
***
Two giant buses parted and drove separate ways, revealing a large group of people congregating outside the murky tower of the southern wing. Unlike the other side of the castle, the bricks here weeped black mould from the mortar, like the very stones that held up the gothic peaks were crying for the sins within them. There was something more sinister about the clock tower on this side—the way the hand moved around the numbers; the way the iron spike at the top pierced the sky.
I stepped back a little, pushed by the weighty spread of fear.
Drake moved in and cupped my shoulders from behind, leaning close to whisper. “When you were freed from this castle and taken away, Jason was left behind—believed dead by all. For many weeks the castle was unmanned—no residents, no life. Just Jason.” He angled his head to the clock tower, and my eyes followed. “I have cameras hidden on almost every surface. Nothing gets past me here, Amara. I knew he was not dead. And I also know what he did in those days following your rescue.”
A group of people near us turned when they saw Drake, and started snapping pictures, saying something about the tour beginning already.
He put his lips right to my ear and spoke quickly, the warmth of his vampire breath chilling the hairs on my neck. “Forget what you suffered here for one moment, and think instead about how Jason felt—to lift you from that car—” He pointed to where the car had been parked, “—to carry you through those doors.” He pointed to the heavy castle doors. “To lay you in that cell, knowing what he would do to you.”
I swallowed hard.
“Perhaps it will keep your mind occupied as you relive it all through his eyes.” Drake released me and stepped away, holding his arms out to his adoring crowd as he disappeared among them.
The tears in my eyes thickened thought by thought until they spilled from the corners in fat droplets. I quickly swiped them away, hiding my face in the curtain of my hair. Drake was right about everything. This castle had left scars that were never given time to heal, but facing my demons and seeing the demons Jason also faced could be therapeutic.
The tourists filed up the stairs behind Drake, while he aimed a finger at certain points on the castle walls and talked about its history. When he mentioned hanging men, all heads turned to the left, and it was only then that I noticed the three pairs of feet dangling above a wooden platform.
“How does he make it look so real?” one woman asked, her British accent catching my attention.
“Not sure. But look.” Her friend pointed. “That one’s kicking his legs.”
So I looked too, covering my mouth when I saw the true struggle for life. They weren’t props. They were vampires! I could smell their blood.
“That’s amazing,” a man said. “I came on the tour last year, and there was a woman impaled on spikes instead of hanged men.”
“No wonder Molly couldn’t come,” said the woman on his right. “She’d have nightmares for weeks.”
So would I.
The tour group moved on inside then, but I lingered back for a moment, imagining Jason standing there at the base of the steps, with me in my wedding dress, safely cuddled into him—believing that he meant to keep me safe. He lo
ved me, even back then, and it filled my gut with a horrible sensation to see things through his eyes—through his mind. Since then, I’d felt his arms around me many times—knew the softness of his touch and how stress or anguish changed that touch. If I thought back to that night, I could see now that the fear and hesitation was there in his arms. I just didn’t know what it was.
As I walked through the high doors into the stone surrounds, all the creepiness I imagined rose up to meet my expectations. The walls were grey and wet with moisture, but the eye-catching feature was the spiralling staircase leading up to a very dark and eerie-looking floor. The peaked arches here were menacing and ghostly, like something from a haunted cathedral, and on the walls by the staircase were four large paintings of sallow-faced women whose eyes seemed to follow as we passed.
Drake spoke of fictitious Vampire Lore as he led his tour through the castle, stopping in the drawing room for blood and coffin cakes before leading us all down toward the cells—the dungeons.
With each step I took, something held a memory for me. My hands slowly turned icy cold as we followed the same corridor Jason led me down after we’d finished in what I now knew was the Court Room, and though my mind took in very little detail that day, seeing it all again in a situation without fear made me realise that I saw more than I thought; each door had a small gold number on it, and as we walked, I counted them, knowing that when we reached the dark stone stairwell, the last number I’d see would be ninety.
“Ah,” Drake said, cupping a hand behind his ear and leaning toward the echoing scream down that stairwell. “I believe there is a vampire being tortured down there as we speak.”
A silent wave of excitement trickled through the crowd.
My stomach churned. If those hanging men were anything to go by, then whoever was in that chamber down there was being tortured for real—just as I was.
Drake sent the tourists ahead with the other guide, and lingered back to catch me. “What do you think so far?”
“It’s all very… informative.”
He looked down at my hand as he cupped my elbow, and frowned. “You’re shaking.”
