Blood Haven: Year Three: A Mayhem of Magic World Story

by Nicole Zoltack

  “Get off me, you—”

  I quickly transform into my human form, making sure to have a knee on his belly, my arms still holding down his shoulders.

  “How about you not go around and fight my friends?” I ask him almost cheerfully.

  “Your friends are doing their best to slaughter—”

  “I don’t know who started this,” I say, my tone turning grim, “but you can help to stop it.”

  “Are you crazy? There is no stopping this.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong.”

  My elbow rains down right on his temple, and the vampire is knocked out cold. It won’t last long, his unconsciousness, and he’ll go right back to fighting, but I don’t know what to do. If I had access to magic-dampening cuffs from Magical Prison, that would be amazing, but honestly, I probably would need more than the entire prison has, and I would need to use them on vampires and werewolves alike.

  Hmm. Silver is a weakness that both vampires and werewolves share, and it’s not as if I have any silver on hand. Also, I don’t aim to kill, merely to stop.

  Stop them, and then what? Talk to them? This is not going to be something that can be talked out. The hatred is too deeply seated, too ingrained. I honestly think that this generation might be lost.

  No, no. I can’t have such a defeatist attitude. There has to be hope.

  Let's see… A fire might cause the vampires to flee, but there are so many trees nearby. I don't want to risk destroying so much of the landscape on the chance that vampires will leave.

  Most of the other weaknesses of vampires will kill them, such as decapitation. Yeah, that's not going—

  A head with a fang-filled mouth flies by me. My stomach churns at the sight.

  Think, Julian, think!

  Wooden stakes kill vampires, but I think they’re only fatal if driven through the heart. I don’t want to be particularly cruel, though, so the idea of pinning vampires to the ground with stakes through their wrists holds no appeal to me.

  Is it the wood itself that is harmful to the vampires, or is it nature? My gaze shifts to one of the trees that is covered with a few draping vines. It might not work for long, but if I can slow down the fighting, reducing the number of players, that has to help.

  The vampire remains unconscious, and I drag him over to the tree. He’s just beginning to stir as I finish tying the knot in the vine to hold him in place. Wait, no, he’s unconscious yet. His head must’ve just rolled to the side. That’s good, I guess, but now I can’t see if the vine will actually hold him back.

  Honestly, I’m grasping at straws, and any one of those straws might break the camel’s back, but there’s only so much I can do.

  Leaving the vampire, I head back into the thickest part of the fighting. I try to block werewolves from attacking, try to trip vampires not that they’ll fall, but so they’ll stop attacking the werewolves. As far as I can see, there are battles going on, and the number of bodies lying on the floor, wounded or dead, belong to far more werewolves than vampires.

  Fleetingly, I think of Bellanore Shade, a werewolf I had a crush on before I knew what love truly was and Romelia came into my life. I don't see her anywhere, and I hope that means she's not here instead of her being one of the wounded or dead werewolves.

  Romelia. She’s not here. She can’t be. She has to be safe. I would know if something happened to her, wouldn’t I? There are times when I think I can almost read her mind or feel her emotions. It’s been so much stronger after the wedding, after we drank our combined blood, but even before that, we’ve shared blood several times, her drinking from me on occasion to help satisfy her thirst for even a little bit and my drinking her blood so that I wouldn’t die.

  Right now, though, I don’t have any filled vials of her vampire blood.

  Maybe instead of trying to get the vampires to stop fighting with the werewolves, I should just make the vampires bleed so I can take their blood to help heal the werewolves.

  It’s a twisted thought, questionably gray morality at best, but I’m desperate, and you know what they say about desperate times and all of that.

  A claw rakes down my leg, and I whirl around. The location of the attack is a clue, and sure enough, it’s a werewolf who struck me, not a vampire.

  I bare my canines at the werewolf. I don’t immediately recognize him.

  “Why are you attacking me?” I growl, backing away a step.

  The werewolf advances. His amber eyes look a bit crazed, and he lunges, jumping into the air.

  I sidestep him, and that’s more than enough time for a vampire to dart forward and slash the werewolf across the face. The werewolf goes down hard, and the vampire casually stomps on the werewolf’s furry throat.

  Shocked by the turn of events, I cautiously approach at an angle so I can see both of their faces.

  "I'm not helping you if that's what you're thinking," the vampire says evenly. "I noticed that you've been trying to stop the fighting. A bit stupid if you ask me. There's no stopping it. You're going to get killed, especially…"

  The werewolf is pawing at the ground, trying to shift onto his side so that he might be able to claw at the vampire’s ankle.

  The vampire just sighs and applies more pressure on the werewolf's throat. "Where was I? Ah, yes, he noticed what you've been up to as well, and he doesn't take too kindly to it. Honestly, if you want the fighting to stop, just look away. You stay here, and you will end up maimed, wounded, or dead."

  Just when I start to think that this vampire might not be so bad, he crouches down, grips the werewolf’s head and twists so viciously, the neck snaps, and the werewolf dies.

  The vampire winks at me and takes off.

  In a slow, shocked daze, I turn around and survey the amassed chaos. So much bloodshed. Far too much unnecessary death. Destruction, devastation, anarchy everywhere.

  And that’s when the realization sets it.

  This isn’t just one battle. This isn’t a free-for-all.

  This is the start of a war, a war the demons want, a war to remove turned vampires and werewolves from the face of the Earth.

  Chapter 11

  Romelia

  I swallow a few times. The aftertaste of the potion is terrible. It’s like acid is corroding my insides, and I shudder and suppress the urge to gag.

  My vision darkens a moment, and I reach out to grab something to hold onto so I don’t fall over. My hands don’t touch anything, but I manage to recover my balance anyhow, but then my feet stumble. I don’t even mean to move, but I can’t stand upright. My body feels like it’s on fire.

  The potion. It’s working. It has to be. Whatever is affecting Mercy is now assaulting me.

  So why isn’t she waking up?

  Is she waking up? I can’t even see. My eyelids feel glued shut.

  Forcing my eyes open, I glance around and blink against the light. It’s not even bright in the room.

  My mind feels heavy, like a fog has rolled in, and I can’t think clearly. There’s a brown-haired, brown-eyed werewolf looking at me, and I know I should know his name. I think I even called him by it, but for the life of me, it’s escaping me.

  "We haven't formally met," he says soothingly, and I don't know if that's true or not, but he's holding out his hand.

  Of course, right when I go to shake his hand, my vision starts to turn blurry again, and I miss.

  He takes my hand and shakes it. "I'm Bermon Von Hagen, Julian's best friend and cousin. You're—"

  “Hey,” a groggy voice says.

  I glance over to the see the blonde lying down blink a few times. She’s pale yet, very pale, but her eyes are open enough for me to see that they’re blue.

  “I’m Julian’s best friend,” she murmurs. She puts a hand to her temple. “What happened?”

  “You fought a vampire and almost died. You would’ve died if not for Romelia here.”

  The she-wolf eyes me, her expression emotionless. Then she beams, her face shining bright. She str
uggles to sit up, and Bermon rushes to help her.

  “I have a feeling you’re going to make me regret a bunch of things I’ve said and done, aren’t you?” she asks, her tone almost accusatory.

  “I don’t know,” I mumble. “I guess that depends on what you’ve said and done.”

  She sways a bit. “I need something to drink, to eat. I feel like I haven’t eaten in days.”

  “Can you watch over Mercy?” Bermon asks me. “I’ll get you both food. You look a bit pale, Romelia.”

  “How can you tell?” Mercy asks. “I’m not joking. Vampires are all porcelain-skinned like fairies.”

  "She looks paler than she did when she first came here," Bermon says. "Now, don't harass your vampire hero."

  Mercy snorts and waves him away.

  “I’ll also make sure no one heads this way,” Bermon murmurs in my ear, and he’s off, racing away.

  I sit on the edge of whatever it is Mercy’s lying on. I’m so out of it that I can’t even think clearly. Words escape me, and my vision isn’t right.

  "I'm trying to remember everything," Mercy says slowly. "I feel like there are huge chunks of my memory that just isn't there."

  “My cousin, Tyra, apparently challenged Julian. He refused—”

  “Because you two got married,” Mercy says slowly. “I didn’t dream that part, right? You two are married?”

  “We are,” I confirm. I don’t know why, but I yank off the one glove. The wrong glove. The rings are on my other hand. I remove the other one, and I hold up my hand.

  “So Julian refused, and that’s when I stepped in because she wouldn’t back down, but I don’t understand. I’ve fought so many vampires before. Well, um, not that many. A few. A couple. More than a couple. Um…” She rubs the back of her neck and coughs slightly.

  “How do you feel?” I murmur.

  “Uh…”

  “You do feel better, don’t you?” I ask. It’s so hard to concentrate so that I can see singles of everything instead of doubles.

  “Yes, I think so. I mean, I’m awake, so that’s good. I just… I’m so confused.”

  “Ignore your mind. Your body,” I press.

  She lifts her shirt and starts to remove bandages. Her wounds are slowly healing, slower than a vampire would heal, but the wounds are getting smaller.

  Good. The potion is working.

  I wince, doubling over.

  “What’s wrong?” Mercy asks, alarmed. “I really am sorry for being so… I was worried about Julian. He seemed obsessed with you right from the very beginning, and I was afraid that you compelled him to love you. Ridiculous, right? Why would a vampire want a werewolf to love her? But I didn’t think love could happen so quickly. I was certain that it couldn’t be love. I didn’t—”

  “You didn’t understand it, so you thought it was fake, false, a fiction,” I say flatly. My stomach feels like it’s on fire, and if there’s one thing all vampires fear, doesn’t matter how old and powerful they are, it’s fire.

  “Are you okay? Do you need anything?” Mercy asks, touching my back.

  “I’ll be… I’ll be okay.”

  Faintly, as if from a long distance, I can hear a voice. Bermon. He's talking to someone.

  I stiffen, and my mind goes white. I can’t think or breathe for a moment. That’s how bad the pain is.

  “You need to slow down,” Mercy urges.

  “Is someone coming?”

  “Bermon is going to talk them out of coming here,” she says soothingly. “You don’t need to worry. Err, maybe you do. You’re bleeding.”

  My hands are on my stomach, and I hold them out. My palms are red, and I know precisely what’s going on.

  Every little bit of pain that Mercy had, every bit of the curse or demonic influence, everything down to the cuts and bites and the like, have all transferred over to me.

  “Don’t worry,” I mumble. “I’ll be…”

  “What did you do?” Mercy asks suspiciously. “Bermon said I owe you my life, that I would’ve died if not for you. How? What did you do?”

  “Tyra, the vampire who challenged you… She’s been going through a rough time lately.”

  “Aren’t we all?” Mercy snorts. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  I blink a few times, but my vision is so blurred that it unnerves me, and I opt to just keep my eyes closed for now. "She's a living vampire like me, so she has a demon for a father. Lately, her demon side has been trying to take over her. I didn't… It hasn't happened to me, and I hope it won't. I don't know why she's going through this. As far as I know, no one else is, but…"

  “So it was something demonic that she did to me.”

  I nod.

  “And you… what? Wait. You’re bleeding right where I was hurt!”

  “I took a potion to transfer what happened to you to me. Don’t worry. Vampires are better healers. I’ll be… I’ll be fine.”

  “Yes, you will be,” Bermon booms in his deep voice.

  I cringe. He's way too loud for my pounding head. At least I'm not vomiting, and I haven't had a seizure.

  Not yet at least.

  Think positive. I have to think positive. I’ve saved Mercy.

  Now, I just need to save myself.

  The scent of something washes over me. Something? Why can’t I tell what it is? Just how messed up am I?

  “Here,” Bermon says, and I can hear him handing something over.

  My hands hold out, but he must be giving something to Mercy first. My face, it feels numb. My tongue fills up my mouth more than normal, and my head is so very heavy. My eyelids refuse to open.

  “She doesn’t look good,” Mercy murmurs.

  “Romelia, can you hear me?” Bermon asks. “Maybe she needs blood.”

  “Romelia, you can have some of mine,” Mercy offers.

  “No!” Bermon shouts, and I wince.

  “Hush! You’re upsetting her!”

  “I didn’t mean to. It’s just that I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to give her your blood. You’re recovering still—”

  “I’m fine,” Mercy insists.

  “Yes, well, maybe, but the fact of the matter is that you had that demonic influence thing going on, and now it’s gone, and I just don’t think it’s smart to push the envelope.”

  Mercy huffs. “Fine, Mr. No Fun.”

  “You think it’s fun to offer blood to a vampire? Since when?”

  “Look, things change when the vampire in question saved your life, and besides, it’s just one vampire that I don’t mind so much. The rest of them are still bloodsucking…” She coughs slightly. “Romelia, here, let me feed you. Open up.”

  “She should sit up first,” Bermon says. “We don’t want her to choke.”

  “She’s not a baby,” Mercy argues. “She knows to chew first and then swallow.”

  “So now you’re a baby expert?”

  “Hardly.”

  There’s a slightly different tone to her voice. Is she nervous?

  Someone helps me to sit up, and I squint my eyes open. The concern on Mercy’s face unnerves me, and she holds up a sandwich.

  “Wouldn’t have been my first option,” she says with a shrug.

  I shrug back, lean forward, and take a bite. The bread tastes like sandpaper, the innards like mush, and the more I chew, the gooier it tastes until I can’t take it anymore. I try to spit it out off to the side, but instead, I end up being sick.

  Bermon mutters a curse, and he reaches around me and places his wrist to my lips.

  "No," I murmur, shaking my head, trying to push his arm away, but I'm weak, so very weak.

  “You need blood, not food,” he says firmly.

  “We should’ve bandaged her wound,” Mercy says angrily. “What was I thinking? I should’ve done that when you went to get food!”

  She rushes about as Bermon maneuvers his wrist back in front of my mouth.

  “It’s all right,” he says.

  “No, it isn’t,�
�� I mumble. My stomach is roiling, and chances are high I’m going to be sick again. “You can’t… I don’t trust…”

  “Take as much as you need,” he assures me.

  “And if I need…”

  “Take it all,” he says simply.

  Mercy doesn’t stop her machinations, so I assume she didn’t overhear him because there’s no way she would let him do that.

  “No.”

  “You might have to.”

  "Then, I'll die."

  “You will not,” Mercy says firmly. “Move away, Bermon. Lie her down. There. Okay, now I have to clean this… Just to be safe. I don’t think it’ll get infected, but you never know.”

  She washes the wound, and I’m too weak to yell even though it hurts terribly. Bermon holds my hand, and I can just feel more and more blood gush out of me. Something is tremendously wrong, and it’s not hard to recognize the facts as they are.

  Mercy is recovering, yes, but I’m not healing.

  I’m the one dying now.

  Will blood help? Possibly, but I’m not myself at all, and my control…”

  “A goblet,” I mumble. “Get a goblet.”

  “A goblet?” Mercy asks.

  “Romelia, we don’t have goblets here,” Bermon says soothingly.

  How can he be so calm and relaxed? Does nothing affect him?

  “A cup. Get a cup,” I murmur.

  Liquid splashes onto the floor—more blood from my wounds? Or maybe the contents of the cup, but a cup is shoved into my hands.

  “Cut your wrist. Let the blood fall into the cup,” I say, not caring who volunteers.

  The two argue over it, and eventually, Bermon wins. I drink his blood, gulping it, feeling my thirst ebb away, feeling better, feeling better…

  Feeling worse.

  I vomit the blood.

  A dim ringing sounds. It’s familiar, the music.

  Mercy pats my side. “It’s her mom calling. She’s called five times now. Should I answer.”

  “No,” I mumble. “No, don’t. I… I think I’m going to go to sleep.”

  “No!” Mercy shakes me. “Romelia, don’t sleep. You might not wake up!”

  But my eyelids are already closing.