by Raven Steele
Near the front of the pack, Charlie stood in a heated debate with a tall and broad-shouldered man with red hair. I quickly slipped inside.
“You should’ve told me!” Charlie yelled.
The man with red hair shook his head. “We need them alive. I can’t trust that you will have the restraint to make that happen.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Charlie said and shoved past him to exit through a glass door.
While the rest of them continued to dress, I took my place among them as if I was meant to be there. I removed a black, full-body suit from off of the wall and pushed my feet through the leg holes. The leather-like material was thick yet felt incredibly light. I wondered what we might be encountering to need something like this. Maybe I was in way over my head.
“Who are you?” asked a woman with dark skin. Her long dark hair had been pulled up into a tight ponytail.
I pulled the sleeve over my arm and zipped up the front. “Charlie asked me to join.”
“Are you from the Skystead office?”
I nodded and held out my hand. Skystead? The Deific must have a division on the west coast. I’d been there once with Boaz. It was a beautiful coastal city, much sunnier than Coast City. “Name's Eve.”
“I’m Kelley.” She shook my hand.
“So what are we up against?” I asked her.
“Vampires. A whole nest of them living right under our noses.” She motioned me to follow her. “Is there a weapon you prefer?”
I looked them over, knowing exactly what I wanted. I skipped over the guns, knives, and daggers, stopping only when I found a crossbow near the bottom of the wall.
I picked it up. “This will work nicely.”
“Good choice for vamps. Wooden arrows are over there on the shelf.” She nodded toward a few rows of black shelves a good head taller than me. “Personally, I’ve never liked them. I prefer the Colt 45-70 Peacemaker. No matter what kind of bullets, it always brings the peace.” She smiled and patted the side of her hips where two handguns were holstered.
While I found the arrows, Kelley explained to a few of the others who I was. None of them questioned my presence. Maybe people came from the Skystead office often? Still, it confused me how they could be so trusting.
The glass door opened, and the redheaded man Charlie had been speaking to earlier stuck his head in. “Let’s move!”
I finished placing the rest of the wooden arrows into the quiver on my hip and followed the others out, keeping my head down in case Charlie saw me. Our footsteps echoed as we descended all three flights of stairs.
My heart pounded, and I could barely catch my breath. It wasn’t the fear of danger I was about to put myself in, but more the fear of using magic. I hadn’t used it in almost two years and didn’t want to, but what if I had to use my abilities to save my life or the lives of others? I gripped the bow tighter, hoping that time wouldn’t come.
Outside, three black SUVs were parked on the curb, their engines idling. Charlie sat in the passenger seat of the first one, staring straight ahead. When told, I climbed into the backseat of the last vehicle with two men. As soon as the doors closed, the driver, a woman, pressed on the gas. Kelley sat next to her in the front passenger seat.
Even though the car was full, no one said a word. The air felt heavy, and I could practically taste the nervous energy on my tongue. The weight of the crossbow helped calm my nerves. Had I not learned how to use it, I may not have come.
We had only been driving for ten minutes when the car came to a stop in a rundown part of the city. Many of the small homes looked abandoned with their windows boarded up and grass as high as my knees. I was glad it was daytime.
“Everyone out,” Kelley ordered. “Cut through a couple of backyards to your right until you reach a home with olive green siding. When you get the go-ahead, swarm the place like it’s a frat house on homecoming night. And remember, we’re trying to take at least one of them alive.”
Kelley jumped from the SUV, followed by the others. I was the last one out. Charlie was already scampering across the backyard of the vacant home in front me. I was pretty sure he would be upset if he knew I was here, but he’d said once that he wanted me to choose which side to fight on. This was me doing just that.
I waded through tall grass then ducked through a broken fence like everyone else. The house we were descending upon looked worse than the neighborhood. Overgrown trees and shrubs had grown all around the warped structure, breaking even the back porch and a few of the windows. Little daylight touched the partially collapsed roof. Vampires must love it here. From what Boaz had told me, most vampires didn’t live a life of luxury like him. They chose to exist in the shadows, hidden from both mankind and other supernaturals where they felt it was safer. Boaz had never feared others. I knew now it was because he could use magic where other vamps couldn’t.
Kelley signaled with her hand for us to stop. I froze, partially blocked behind a shed. Charlie turned to me just then, but I quickly lowered my face and waited several seconds before I looked up again. Charlie was back to focusing on the house, seemingly unaware of my presence. I exhaled the breath I’d been holding.
“Get ready,” Kelley whispered.
I unhooked an arrow from the quiver on my hip and loaded it into the crossbow, careful to keep my finger off the trigger. A few men closer to the home pulled down what looked like binoculars over their eyes. Night vision goggles.
A moment later, Charlie motioned for these men to go into the house first. They carefully stepped around the broken steps and onto the porch where one of them attempted to open the back door, but it was closed tight. Had I wanted to use magic, I could’ve easily opened it, but fear clenched my heart at the very thought.
Charlie made a motion with his hand I didn’t understand. The lead man near the door shoved his shoulder into the door, knocking it down and making me jump. Kelley gave me a funny look, but I ignored her and tried to calm my racing pulse.
As soon as the men with the night goggles had gone inside, Charlie ducked in after them, indicating with a small nod that the rest of us should follow. When it was my turn to go inside, I hesitated for the briefest of moments when faced with the darkness within the home. Maybe I should’ve waited. Without my magic, I was only as good as the aim of my arrow, which wouldn’t be that great without light.
Kelley nudged me forward, so I stepped inside. The air was unusually cold, but then I heard the gentle hum of an air conditioner coming from somewhere within. Behind me, Kelley turned on a flashlight. Its beam lit up small sections of the room. A yellow couch covered in dust; crumpled up potato chip wrappers. A TV had fallen over on its side onto what I thought was brown carpet, but other parts of the floor were more gray in color. To my left was a narrow kitchen. I turned on the small light attached to the top of my crossbow, illuminating the space. Dishes were piled high in the sink. By the looks of them, they hadn’t been used in years. Vampires had no need for them.
A series of popping sounds made the other three in the room with me freeze. It wasn’t like a gun going off, but more like someone cracking their knuckles, only louder. I couldn’t see Charlie or the others, as they had already moved farther into the home. Kelley stood to my side, shining her light into a hallway. I raised my bow in that direction, my finger hovering over the trigger.
In a split second, everything changed. Kelley reacted much quicker than I did. She spun away just as someone, or some thing, attacked her. I wasn’t as lucky spotting the lightning-fast, inhuman movement, so when it slammed into me, I flew back into the wall. I didn’t mean to cry out, but it had been so long since I had experienced any kind of physical pain that I couldn’t hold back the surprise.
I gritted my teeth and slid up the wall, back into a standing position, readjusting my bow to face forward. My small beam of light caught flashes of movement: an elbow to a cheek, a knee to a stomach, a splatter of blood across the wall. A gun went off. Kelley’s peacekeeper.
Do some
thing!
I waited a few seconds for the pain in my back to heal and then raised my bow at eye level and tried to focus on something, but everyone moved too fast. Screams were coming from below, probably in a basement.
Just then, my bow was knocked from my hands. At the same time, a fist that felt more like a rock smashed into the side of my head. I collapsed to the ground, my vision swimming within a dark pool that was more red than black. Someone cold and heavy was pressing down on me, clawing his or her way toward my neck. I tried to fight it, pushing and shoving, but I was no match for the vampire.
I smelled its breath, a mixture of basement mold and rusted iron pipes, before I felt its tongue lap at my forehead just above my right eye. The vampire’s body stiffened. He lifted up off me as if he wanted to get a better look at my face. The light from my crossbow caught the male vampire’s expression. It wasn’t hunger like I expected, but fear.
“What are you?” he asked, his milky-blue eyes wide.
I reached for the crossbow, but before I could grab it, the vampire was scurrying away from me and out the back door. One of the Deific’s men bolted after him.
“Help me,” a voice grunted.
I picked up the crossbow, rolled onto my stomach, and pointed it toward the hallway. Kelley was just inside, trying to fight off a vampire who had her pinned to the ground. My vision was still blurry, but I fired anyway, aiming just above her.
The arrow pierced the vampire in his shoulder. The blow wasn’t enough to kill him, but it did give Kelley enough time to grab her gun and restore peace. His body burst into ashes and sprayed through the air. Kelley ran past the cloud, disappearing into the hallway and leaving me alone in the room.
I pulled myself into a sitting position, my back against the wall. Not far from me, the light from my crossbow shined on a body in a black jumpsuit lying on the floor face down in a growing puddle of blood. I instantly thought of Harriet, and my heart sunk into my gut. This was all my fault.
I attempted to move to help the woman, hoping she was still alive, but my vision continued to blur until the whole world turned black.
Chapter 35
“Wake up! Open your eyes!”
I heard the distorted voice, but I couldn’t open my eyes.
“How bad is the wound?” the same voice asked.
There was a pause and then, from someone else, “What wound? There’s nothing here. Maybe it was someone else’s blood?”
“I don’t think so,” the first voice said.
This time I recognized it. Charlie.
He touched my head. “Perhaps you’re right. Go ahead and go to the car. I’ll try to revive her.”
There was movement near my face and then a whisper. “Eve, I know you can hear me. I sense it. Open your eyes.”
I focused hard on my eyelids until they fluttered open. Charlie’s face hovered just over mine. There was a scratch on his cheek and blood near his hairline.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I scooted away from him, remembering the woman who had been laying near me face down in blood. She wasn’t there now. My back pressed against the wall of the dirty, rundown home. No one else was around, but there were voices outside.
“The woman?” I asked.
Charlie glanced to the same spot on the floor I was staring at. “She’ll be okay. She’s getting stitches now.” His head swiveled back to me. “What are you doing here?”
My gaze slowly met his. “I came to help.”
“And you passing out, was that you helping?”
“I didn’t mean to.”
Charlie stood and held his hand out to me. “Like I said before, you’re not ready for any of this. Finish your training with Dr. Skinner and the children.”
I accepted his hand and let him pull me to my feet. “But I need to do something, like now. I need to make things right.”
“You dying an early death isn’t going to help that,” he pointed out.
I opened my mouth to tell him I couldn’t die, not easily anyway, but a figure appeared in the doorway.
“We’re ready,” said one of the men who’d been wearing the night goggles earlier.
“Good. We’ll be right there.”
When he was gone, I asked, “Did you find who you were looking for?”
Charlie’s expression fell. “There were only five vamps here, and we dusted all but one. It’s my understanding that this last one had contact with you right before he got away. And he said something to you?”
I shivered, remembering how the vampire had licked my forehead. “He asked me what I was.”
He frowned and headed toward the front door. “As in, he sensed you are a witch? I didn’t think that was possible.”
I should’ve said something then about being an immortal, but Charlie was already out the door, pondering the vampire’s interaction with me. Had he known the truth about me, he probably would’ve guessed that there must be something in my blood, something the vampire tasted, that made him fear me. I needed to figure out what that was and soon.
The next morning, I arrived to work with the children early. The Academy was smaller than I expected and looked more like an office building than a school. Inside, there was no reception area, but rather a great room surrounded by several classrooms with glass windows. The huge, circular room consisted of brightly colored boxes, a big plastic jungle gym, and all kinds of toys. Some of the classrooms were filled with desks, while others were full of large foam shapes and various sized balls.
A short Spanish woman in one of the smaller rooms was arranging desks into a semi-circle. She had auburn hair, cut into a bob, that fell to her pointy chin. Her nose was just as sharp, but her gentle brown eyes softened the rest of her well-defined features. She bounced and swayed around the room, dancing to a whistled tune I didn’t recognize.
I really hoped I wasn’t wasting my time. I should be back at the Deific learning to fight, but if Charlie trusted Dr. Skinner’s methods, then I would do as he asked, at least for a week. After that, I was going to do something a little more proactive. I was still embarrassed for the way I’d handled myself yesterday with the vampires.
I tapped the window and waved at the whistling woman.
The woman poked her head out and said in a Spanish accent, “Can I help you?”
“Yes, my name is Eve. Dr. Skinner sent me here to work as a teacher’s aide for the next few weeks.”
The woman yelped and threw her arms around me. “That’s right! I completely forgot. I’m so glad you’re here. You are going to have so much fun. Are you excited?”
I tried to keep still, but the woman was incredibly strong for her small frame.
“I am excited,” I said once I caught my breath.
The woman stepped away. “You have no idea how much of a difference it is to have another pair of hands. I’m Mamita.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said.
“It’s wonderful to meet you, too. The kids will be arriving in the next fifteen minutes so let me show you around before they come.”
After Mamita had given me a tour of the place, which wasn’t much more than I’d already seen, she set me in a chair by the front door where I could watch the children as they arrived. Ten minutes later, a boy who looked to be about eight years old walked in. His straight hair was cut short and combed neatly to the side. He had a difficult time walking, one leg shuffling awkwardly over the other, and many times I thought he would trip, but he managed to stay upright.
After hugging who appeared to be his mother, he headed straight for a small TV in the back of the great room but not without casting me a sideways glance. He wouldn’t look directly at me, but his hand came up just a little, and he waved briefly. I waved back, but I couldn’t be sure he noticed.
After him came a steady stream of many more students. Each child had some kind of a physical problem, and each one was unique. One boy came in with the aid of his driver and promptly laid down directly in the middle of the floor and fell
asleep until a teacher woke him up minutes later. Another heavy-set girl eagerly entered through the door, opening it with such force that it banged against the wall behind it. She moved toward the TV that was playing a Disney movie and asked the teacher to turn on the captions. Meanwhile, a younger girl with long blonde hair spotted me instantly. She sat on the floor at my side, mouth gaping open. I said hello, but she didn’t respond. She merely smiled.
The day went by quickly. I observed doctors and therapists who came in and out at various times throughout the day to work with specific students. They were all patient and kind with the children who at times seemed rude and abrupt. It didn’t take long for me to realize this was because most of the children had a difficult time understanding the teachers and, at the same time, make themselves be understood.
Every child had their own special ability: some could write beautiful poetry, others were math whizzes, several could draw amazing pictures, and one older girl shocked me with her ability to play the piano.
At first, I didn’t know what to think of the children. I asked myself, ‘Why’? Why were all these children born with such challenges and trials? But the children didn’t seem to be bothered by their handicaps. They all seemed happy and content with what they’d been given.
After just a week, it dawned on me that the children were meant to teach others around them the real meaning of love and compassion. The children had no sin, no guile, no secrets, and no second agendas. They were pure in heart and spirit, and they reached out silently, hoping others would see past their outward disabilities to their beauty within. Their love was unconditional and held no boundaries.
The children changed my whole outlook on life and, for the first time, I felt what I could only describe as joy. I was excited to see the children each day and share in their happiness when they accomplished even the smallest task. But when the children went on outings, I was hurt by how many people looked right past them, failing to notice what they were trying to teach the world. Their adult hearts were closed to things they felt they couldn’t understand. It made me sad to see how they were all missing what I now considered to be the most beautiful things on earth.
