by D L Blade
Deep breath, Mercy. You’ve been in way worse situations than this. If you can relax, you’ll be able to muster an idea of how to get out of this situation.
“Focus,” I muttered to myself. “Just focus.”
I sucked in a breath and slowly released it, hoping that would slow down my heart rate. Each breath I released burned my dry mouth. I assumed I’d been six feet under for at least two to three hours. I wasn’t sure how long it would take for me to consume all the oxygen, but I couldn’t imagine it being much longer than this. The air was thick, and it became harder to breathe with each minute that passed.
It’s not like I could die in here. It would just really suck to be stuck in a wooden box for eternity.
I hadn’t died and come back yet since I had become immortal. I wondered how that would play out. Would I pass out, open my eyes again, pass out, wake up, and repeat that over and over again until I lost my mind?
My muscles quivered just thinking about the two creeps who had put me down, but I also cursed myself for being so stupid. I should’ve been paying better attention to my surroundings.
It wasn’t about getting out of this situation so I didn’t suffer . . . it was about getting out so I could make them suffer.
Come on, guys. Where are you?
I looked around the wooden coffin they had forced me into after they’d injected me with God only knew what, which had crippled my powers. Once the drug had worn off, I’d opened my eyes to this nightmare—I had been buried alive.
I knew this was going to happen, eventually. It was the only way they knew of to stop me, as long as the dagger was hidden away from their grasp.
I currently had my palm open so I could use my powers to light up the walls around me.
Man, it’s hot in here.
Sweat dripped down my forehead, and the taste of salt consumed my senses as it touched my lips and entered my mouth. I rubbed the sweat off my lips with my other hand and looked around the small and cramped space. The earth was slowly seeping through the cracks every time I shifted my body.
This wasn’t one of those fancy, metal caskets stuffed with white cushion padding they use at most burials today. This was a tattered, wooden coffin that looked like it came straight out of the Stone Age. The wood had split in several places, and I feared the whole thing would crumble on top of me if I so much as sneezed.
I placed my hands on the top of the lid and applied some pressure. When I pushed, even slightly, the wood cracked, causing the dirt to seep through again.
I couldn’t use my powers; it would have only caused the ground above to crush me, then I’d die of suffocation over and over again for eternity.
Now, that would be worse than passing out.
I didn’t have much time.
I watched the earth slowly fall through the crack near my chest, the dirt and small round pebbles hitting my chest.
That’s it! I beamed.
Earth.
Ezra’s element.
Without skipping a beat, the tip of my finger reached for the earth. I pressed my index finger deep into the soil through a small hole right above my chest. I focused on Ezra. He was the ground we walked on. He’d feel it.
“Ezra, I’m right here,” I whispered quietly. “Where are you guys?”
My pulse pounded faster when I closed my eyes and brought myself into a state of meditation in order to focus on what I had needed to do to reach him.
This needs to work.
I kept my finger on the soil for what felt like hours, but time seemed to move differently in there, or the lack of oxygen messed with my head.
Oh, crap.
The coffin cracked, the dirt poured in, and I had to remove my finger to cover my face.
Panic rose in my throat. What had I done?
I felt a jolt but kept my hands hovering over my face. The coffin rattled, and the lid blasted high in the air like an explosion. I moved my hands to see the earth and wooden coffin parts swirling around the hole I had been in, as if I were in the eye of a tornado. I drew in a deep breath of fresh air and briefly closed my eyes while still in the center of the dust devil. When I opened my eyes again, I saw my coven standing around it, with Ezra’s hands outstretched, his eyes glowing an ashy brown color.
He lowered his arms, releasing the earth, as I reached for the top of the hole I had been in. Caleb reached for me and pulled me out.
“Oh, thank goodness,” he cried as he pulled me to his chest, holding me tightly.
All of the tension I had held in was finally released. “Thank you, guys. Thank you.”
The lightheadedness dissipated as my powers healed the trauma my body had experienced while buried alive. Being immortal didn’t make me invincible. I still felt pain just like any mortal would. I also felt fear and anger, sadness and hopelessness. Right now, I mostly felt anger. Heat flushed through my body as I looked around to see if the vampires were nearby.
The coven ran to me and pulled me into a group hug. “They’re probably long gone by now,” Simon said as he released our embrace. “Unless they’re that stupid.”
“They’re that stupid,” I said through gritted teeth as my attention left Simon and focused on the two vampires who had stuck me inside the coffin running from the cottage next to us.
“Seriously, they buried you in their front yard?” Leah asked. She shook her head as the two idiots fled the scene.
I frowned at that thought. They had been here the entire time, knowing I was suffering right outside their own door.
Caleb gestured in their direction. “They’re all yours, Mercy.”
A smirk replaced my frown as I raised my hands, energy flowing through my fingertips, and pulled my hands forward, blasting my force in their direction. The force of my magic slammed into their backsides, sending them airborne. It only took a minute for the pair to stand on their feet again, facing us with fangs out and fire burning in their eyes. Caleb handed me my stake and I ran toward them. The vampires froze in place.
Once I reached them, they fell to their knees, pleading.
Oh, come on.
“Please don’t kill me. I don’t want to die,” cried the one who had mocked me earlier as he grabbed my throat to toss me into the coffin. “Just turn us human,” he pleaded.
I chuckled at his words. That was what I had offered them as they shoveled dirt over me for thirty minutes. I had given them an out. I had warned them my coven would find me and that they’d be hunted down until I stuck a stake through their hearts.
They hadn’t listened.
The second one held up his hands in defeat. “Please, I have a wife and—"
Poof! He was dust.
Caleb stood there holding his own stake. The first one closed his eyes, but when he opened them again, they were red.
“You’ll pay for that, bitch! And when you do, I’ll make you all suffer,” he threatened, flashing his sharp and deadly fangs.
I leaned down, placed the stake to his chest, and shook my head. “Have fun in hell, asshole.”
My stake impaled his chest with a quick thrust, and I watched him turn to dust. He would now join his friend in whatever afterlife those creeps went to.
“Well, I’m ready for dinner,” I stated, but felt my voice crack. “Actually, I could really use some water.”
“Water, yes, but food will have to wait. Something happened on Main Street a couple hours ago. There are police everywhere,” Caleb explained.
“East Greenwich?” I asked.
Caleb nodded.
“Vampire attack?”
Leah shrugged. “We don’t know yet, but Lily told us someone died.”
My stomach twisted into knots. Was this someone we knew?
“What time is it?” I asked Ezra, who stood next to me.
Ezra looked down at his phone. “Midnight. Lily told us it happened around ten, just a few hours after you went missing.”
Caleb reached into his pocket and pulled out my phone. I had dropped my purse when th
ey attacked me. I didn’t even have a moment to defend myself before the needle had pricked my neck.
I had planned on meeting the coven for a couple rounds of pool when they’d snatched me. We were right outside of downtown Providence. Not once since this all started had they attacked so close to our town. I hadn’t expected it.
“Let’s go, then,” I ordered, and we hurried to Simon’s car. As much as I didn’t want the attack to be from a vampire, it was the only way we’d find the ones that had to go. The ones that refused to turn human. The ones like the two we had just killed.
They were worthless, evil, and undeserving of our mercy.
“What happened,” I asked an officer, my eyes narrowing in on his badge, “Officer Shields?”
The officer was handsome, for a guy who looked to be around forty. His mustache was shaved thin and his hair was light brown with a few silver streaks along the sides of the head, right above the ears.
He leaned against a Victorian-style, steel light post next to Tippy’s Pancake House, writing something on his little black notepad. Yellow caution tape had been wrapped around the post and it stretched all the way over to the other side of the parking lot.
He ignored me, of course. I was just a teenage looky-loo, and he most likely had orders to keep things quiet until they received the official report to release to the public. I glanced past him, but all I saw were a dozen or so cops inside, moving around and conversing with each other.
“Is Tippy okay?” I asked. “I mean . . . Ryan Harrison?” When he didn’t respond, I kept prying. “Look, I live right down the street. I just want to make sure it isn’t someone I know.” He glanced in my direction, shook his head, and walked away. “Don’t worry,” I mumbled to myself. “We’ll find out soon enough.”
The thought of it being Ryan, or as we call him, “Tippy,” made my heart sink. It was his restaurant, and it had happened around the time he would have been locking up.
Lily appeared from behind the building. “I asked a few detectives on the other side, but they aren’t giving me any answers. You?”
I shook my head. My stomach was in knots again, thinking it could be someone we knew. Maybe even a close friend.
I turned my attention toward the parking lot to search for Caleb, who was trying to get answers, too, but when I shifted to the right, I bumped into him.
He crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head with a slight side smirk. “The Mercy I know wouldn’t have given up so easily.” He winked at me and sauntered toward Tippy’s, crouching under the caution tape near the front entrance.
“What are you doing?” I uttered in a near whisper. “They won’t let you in there.” Caleb reached the doors as they opened with the backside of an officer, pulling the front of a gurney. Once they emerged from the doorway, I immediately eyed the black tarp over the shape of what I assumed was a body.
A year ago, a corpse would have made my skin crawl and I’d have cowered at the sight of it, but not anymore. This last year, we’d cleaned up or reported a few dead bodies, mostly between Boston and Salem. The unsettling feeling inside me wasn’t caused by the fact someone had died in my city. It was caused by the thought it could be someone we knew.
But why here? And why now? The only time they had ever come here to East Greenwich was because of me. We’d made a treaty with them six months ago that I would leave them alone as long as they didn’t kill a human or turn one against their will. I had even given them a choice before driving a stake through their chest. Well . . . most of the time.
The choice was simple—become human again or die. The ones that were just downright evil always chose death or tried to fight me before I ended it for them.
Vampires like Dorian were proof enough that there were good ones among the fold. It had just taken me a while to convince the rest of the coven. Most of the vampire clans listened and obeyed this new “law,” but there were a few bad seeds. And those bad seeds were the ones that kept us fighting.
Caleb moved to the side and let the cops walk by, but Officer Shields spotted him as he exited Tippy’s.
“Hey, get on the other side of the tape. Now!” Shields warned.
Caleb threw his hands in the air in defeat. “All right. All right.”
“The Caleb I know wouldn’t have given up so easy,” I teased as he joined me back in the parking lot.
“No! Ryan!” a female voice shouted from my right. Caleb and I turned our attention toward Tippy’s grandmother, Joanne, as she ran toward the restaurant. “No!” she screamed again, pressing her hands to her chest as if she were experiencing chest pain. Her legs gave out from under her, and her knees hit the pavement. An officer ran toward her to assist and give her aid.
Oh, no.
Her words shattered my heart. Tippy was my friend.
I turned back to Caleb and slowly wrapped my arms around his waist. The world seemed to slow down as I wiped a single tear rolling down my face, and a sudden coldness hit me at my core. I looked up at him. “Why?” I turned to look back at Joanne again, who was now trying to push past the officers lining the caution tape. “Why would anyone hurt Tippy?”
Joanne almost collapsed to the floor again, but the officer held on to her shoulders, keeping her on her feet.
He escorted Joanne over to a police car and sat her in the passenger’s side, and she buried her face in her hands.
“Would a vampire really do this?” I asked Caleb while choking back a sob.
He shook his head. “We’ll find out. Don’t worry.”
We knew we weren’t going to get any answers tonight, so we headed home to sleep. However, sleep was impossible for me. It was four in the morning, and I still had Tippy and his poor, sweet grandma on my mind.
I browsed the news on my phone, and our local news channel reported what they had learned from the scene so far. Tippy had been killed shortly after ten in the evening after he’d locked up the restaurant. A couple had come to eat there, didn’t realize they were closed, and had seen him on the floor through the window, covered in blood.
Evidence showed that he was in the middle of mopping the floor when someone had broken in and taken his life. Someone had shattered the back window by a corner booth, and muddy footprints lined the walkway that led to where they’d found Tippy’s body.
They didn’t release any information on how he died, but Caleb would be following up with our medical examiner friend, who had been helping us this last year.
“We need to have a connection that allows us to determine if it’s a human or a vampire attack,” Caleb told me a year ago.
Brown University had asked Melissa to speak to the pre-med students in the spring, and though it was a bold move for us to fill her in on what we were, we had approached her after the seminar and shared with her a world she hadn’t known existed. She, of course, freaked out at first, but she was also happy to know the truth.
We had to know if the victim was attacked by a vampire so we could be the ones to handle it. It would put the police force in danger if they were tracking a creature they didn’t know how to take down.
I sent a text to Caleb, as I was sure he wasn’t sleeping, either.
Me: I’m coming with you tomorrow. Tippy was my friend. I want to be there for this one.
Caleb: I’ll pick you up at ten. Try to rest. We had a long night.
Me: Night.
I closed my phone and rolled over onto my side. Whoever hurt Tippy was going to pay. Whether it be behind bars or in a pile of ash.
Caleb and I reached the backdoor to the morgue, and we waited on the side brick wall for Melissa to inform us once she had the cameras down. Surveillance was on every corner of the morgue, and we couldn’t risk Melissa getting in trouble for sneaking us in.
Melissa texted Caleb, telling him the cameras were down and that she was on her way to get us. Once the door cracked open, she waved us in and led us to the autopsy suite.
A cold snap hit me when we entered the suite and a shiver ran up
my spine, so I wrapped my sweater around my waist. Melissa zipped open the yellow bag which held Tippy’s body, and my heart sank when I saw his still and lifeless face.
“Vampire,” Melissa said. “See the bite marks?” She pointed to two red holes on the side of Tippy’s neck.
I glanced up at Caleb and back to Melissa. “Drained to death?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No. I was at the scene last night taking photos. The amount of blood on the floor is about the same amount that was missing from the victim.”
When I glanced up at Caleb, he looked as confused as me.
Melissa saw our expression and continued. “He didn’t drink from the body, Mercy. His fangs pierced the carotid artery, and he bled to death on the floor. The vampire attack victims I’ve examined in the past were drained.” She pointed to the bites again. “The vampire who did this did it to kill, not feed.”
I caught my breath and stared at her, wide-eyed. Caleb must have seen my shock. He inched toward me, bringing his fingers to mine and lightly rubbing my palm to help me relax.
I didn’t mind him touching me. I cared for him, and we were always going to be in each other’s lives. He wasn’t touching me in a romantic manner. He was showing me he cared. He knew Tippy was someone I knew, and even though I had to put on a brave face so I could focus on this murder case with my coven, it still hurt to learn he was dead.
Not just dead but slaughtered by a vampire.
I just couldn’t understand why a vampire would randomly kill a human. Did Tippy know him? Were there more vampires in our town than we thought, or did someone go out of their way to come down here and take his life?
Vampires didn’t attack like this unless there was a reason. They’d kill if someone betrayed them. They’d drink if they were hungry, but they never wasted the blood.
Maybe they had been interrupted by someone coming to the café and they couldn’t finish?
