by Jen Pretty
The city came into view, with thousands of lights, just like the stars had been in New Brunswick, these lights twinkled and lit up the city, defining its edges where darkness reigned.
We grabbed our suitcases and moved through the crowd towards the airport.
Zander was leaning against a post, his arms crossed, and his chin dropped on his chest as if he was asleep. Since I knew vampires didn't sleep, it was a strange pose for him to be in.
"Hey, Zander," I said as we approached.
His eyes flicked open, and a smile pulled his lips for a second before his eyes shifted to Falcor and the smile fell. "You guys ready to do this?"
"Well, I am," I replied
"Of course," Zander said, taking my bag. "I got my rental back. I can drive us."
"Perfect. Thanks, Zander."
"No problem," he said.
"Do you two need a room?" Falcor asked sarcastically.
I shot him a scowl, but Zander one-upped me.
"That's in poor taste considering her boyfriend is a murdering monster locked in a dungeon and only she can save him."
I prayed no one around us had heard him, but the rest of the travellers seemed too preoccupied with their luggage. It worked though as Falcor looked a bit guilty which was a weird look on him.
"Let's go. I need to get this done ASAP."
We followed Zander out to the lot and climbed into his fancy rental car. Zander had looked up the cemetery too, so his GPS called out directions as we all sat in silence and watched the city go by.
A feeling of anxiety pressed on my hard. This was Nick's only hope. I had to do this for him, for all the times he had saved me, I would save him.
The car wove through neighbourhoods that seemed to get more and more decrepit as we went until the car pulled to a stop on the street in front of a tiny old weathered church with no windows, surrounded by a large cemetery of moss-covered headstones. There were houses around, but most of them had to be abandoned, they were so run down.
I stepped out on to the dew-soaked grass and let my eyes drift into the darkness. The moon was full, granting enough light to see by, except when a cloud moved across. Then the eerie light was dimmed so I could barely see a few feet ahead.
Somehow my feet covered the ground smoothly, carrying me across the darkness and deep into the sacred ground as if an unseen force was drawing me.
I could hear Falcor and Zander muttering behind me, but they fell back as I disappeared between the graves, their low voices drifting away on the wind.
I felt a tug deep in my stomach and opened myself up to the magic that wanted to pour out. The warmth grew, the pulling getting harder until I let the first spark fall from my fingertips and into the grass. The flood gates flew open and suddenly the darkness was stamped out by the tendrils of magic weaving between the tombstones. I followed the pull, bur sparks dancing ahead of me as I was led to a crumbling, moss-covered grave near the very back of the cemetery, almost hidden in the tree line.
My magic converged, deepening the glow as it carefully marked out the rectangular shape of a single grave. The stone marker was too weathered to read, but it was on a few moments before a form rose like the wraith that it was, thin and transparent like a sheer curtain. The features were feminine, though aged and weathered.
I fell to my knees on the very edge of the grave and checked all my pockets but didn't have a knife. Instead, I pulled the stupid necklace I had found at one of the first murder sites out, forgetting completely I had put it in there. I was about to rise and find Falcor, but crows scratching call proceeded his appearance at my side. He hadn't appeared in the air, like usual. He was standing at my right hand and by his feet, a knife sparkled in the glow of my magic.
Crow hopped onto the grave and I scooped up the knife. It was heavy in my hand, made of solid steel and carved in an intricate pattern. I took a moment to wonder where the heck Crow had found it, but then I brought it to my skin, still gripping the star-shaped pendant in my right hand and pulled the blade across in a quick practiced movement.
Blood welled and spilled out, but, to my shock, the wound didn't heal right away. Blood ran down my arm, dripping from my fingers and covering the necklace on its way to the grave and I took another look at the markings of the knife.
"Thank you, Black Crow, for your sacrifice and for bringing me here."
"Uh, yeah, no problem," I said, my eyes still watching the blood seep from the cut I had made.
"You will heal, just a bit slower. It will give us more time to chat."
I finally looked up at the older woman before me. She was opaque now; her white hair was curled in an old-fashioned style that made me think of Margaret. Otherwise, the woman looked nothing like her, but just that one thought crept in and sadness overtook me. I pushed it aside.
"I need your help with a situation."
"Yes, I am aware of your reason for coming here today."
I could feel my magic draining, I still had a lot on reserve, but it was as if I was in the Sanctuary and my magic was being eaten up. "Are you doing that?"
"I am quite old, dear, I need a lot of magic to come back."
I nodded, noticing the bleeding had slowed.
"We don't have much time. You have to use the blade to kill the beast."
"This one?" I asked, holding it up.
She nodded. "You must plunge it into his heart."
"But will it hurt Nick?"
The old woman scowled at me for a second before her face went passive again. "Not nearly as much as the vampires deserve. But it won't kill him."
I had my reservations, but as my magic was more than half gone and my fire wasn't much more than a candle, I would have to trust the witch. "Thank you," I said.
The wraith was slipping away, but I heard her final words. "Keep an eye on the vampires, they aren't always what they seem."
Then she was gone. I took a moment and thought about how similar her words were to Colvin's words of warning about Falcor, but I was so exhausted, I crumpled to my side, my eyes shutting as the cold damp from the grass seeped into my clothes. The cold chill I felt could have been from the dew, but for some reason, I felt like it was something much worse.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I woke up in the passenger seat of the rental car, my face pressed against the glass of the window. I raised my hand and realized I was still gripping the knife that Crow had mysteriously delivered. The same one that would stop the monster and save Nick. Hopefully.
I clutched it to my chest and peeled my face off the window glass.
"Hey," Zander said from behind the wheel, his eyes flipping back and forth between me and the busy city street.
"Hi," I replied. "I got the solution."
Falcor snorted from the back seat. "Yeah, you cut me when I tried to take it away from you."
I liked back at him, craning my neck into the space between the front seats. "You look fine."
He held up his hand, showing a long slice from his wrist to the end of his middle finger. My stomach jumped and lurched as the flame of my magic tried to reach out to him. I had never felt a pull to a living person before, so I let it out a bit.
"Holy shit!" Zander cried as my magic filled the car and we swerved abruptly before Zander righted the car. "Warn me when you are going to do some magic shit."
I kept my eyes on Falcor though as my magic dissipated and the long slit on his hand repaired itself. The skin pulling back together and stitching seamlessly.
"Neat trick," Falcor said, his eyes studying his hand in wonder.
"Who knows what my next trick will be," I said, returning to face front in my seat and resting my head back against the glass. My life had certainly gotten stranger in the last months. Apparently, now I could heal people. It hardly surprised me, but I did feel drained. The light feeling I used to get after raising a wraith lingered for longer than I expected. The magic only trickling back in slowly instead of the deluge I was expecting. I wondered if it was because I gave the m
agic to Falcor. It felt the same as raising the old witch.
I glanced back at Falcor and he was still staring at his hand, but his eyes were unfocused as if he wasn't quite looking at his hand, more like through it.
The car rolled to a stop, and I glanced up to find we were at the front gate to the vampire's mansion. The gate wasn't up though. It had been flung open by something or someone.
I remembered the words of Falcor's uncle about the king. A sick feeling fell into my stomach and I worried about what I would find inside the mansion.
"Should I go in?" Zander asked in a whisper.
"Yes," I said, with more confidence than I felt.
The drive-in was dark, the headlights cutting a path that had been once lit by small lamps on either side of the driveway.
When the house came into view, it was dark too, not a single light on. I knew vampires could see in the dark, but the eeriness raised my heart rate and made my palm sweat where it gripped the knife.
I took a deep breath as the car came to a halt in front of the tall mansion and as I swung the door open. Crow's scream broke the night air. He was perched on the peak of the third story turret, back-lit by the moon, but the lingering fog made him look blurry.
I stepped up to the house, Falcor right on my heels. I wasn't sure where Zander was, but I hoped he was staying in the car.
Goosebumps rose on my skin, prickling a sense of dread that churned my stomach. The door was agar, but only blackness met my eyes.
I reached into my pocket to pull out my phone, but Falcor created one of his light balls and sent it in ahead of us, bringing the scene into sharp focus.
Ash littered the foyer, thick and black. The floor and walls were coated as if the ash had blown in from the doorway.
"What the hell is that?"
"Vampire," Falcor said.
The flame of magic inside me flared to life, pressing forward, but not to get out, more as if I wanted my feet to move faster.
I rounded the corner toward the king's office and found another vampire bomb had gone off in the hall.
A groan reached my ears and my feet moved faster toward the sound against my will. I wanted to get the hell out of the house, but the sound was human. Or at least alive and in pain.
I rounded the corner and fell to my knees. There, staked like Jesus on the cross to the back wall of Eamon's office was Nick. Wooden stakes were through his hands and feet as well as his stomach, dangerously close to his heart. His eyes were closed, but as I approached, his nostrils flared and his head whipped up, his dark eyes landing on me.
A scream came from his throat as he fought against his restraints. I couldn't imagine who had put him there, but I was stuck, my feet rooted to the ground.
"Do something," Falcor cried from behind me.
I spun to look at him, but he vanished, shifting away.
When I spun back around, I realized why. Nick had wiggled the stake from his right hand free and was meticulously removing the others one by one, his eyes trained on me.
I felt like a rabbit cornered by a mountain lion. My hands shook, but I remembered the knife and held it just behind my thigh, so he wouldn't see it. Not that I thought he was capable of higher thought. He was wild.
When he removed the last stake, dropping it to the floor, his body coiled as he prepared to launch himself at me.
"Nick," I whispered.
His mouth twisted into a snarling grin.
I took a step back and the corner of his lip ticked up, glee lighting his eyes as they met mine. It was the first human look I had seen since he was taken over by the evil thing brought forth by the idiot warlock. But it wasn't a great one.
Between one blink and the next, Nick launched himself at me, his teeth gnashing and face contorting into a look of pure rage.
My magic unleashed itself, surrounding us in a blue wash as his body collided with mine. My arm came up and blocked his face as I was thrown to the floor, Nick riding me down.
My head bounced off the glossy mahogany floor, ringing through my skull with a sickening thunk and Nick’s nails bit at my shoulders as he reeled back and dove toward my throat again. A scream tore from my throat as I remembered the knife in my hand.
I gripped the hilt and shot it upward, slashing the side of his chest, not even close to hitting his heart.
He hissed and then screamed again, the sound sharp and angry, before taking another open-mouthed plunge toward my throat. My arm caught his decent as I thrashed beneath him and his teeth latched onto my forearm with a sickening crunch. The muscle and tendons in my arm severed until his teeth ground ageist the bone. I screamed again, taking another swing at him with the knife, but he was pressed up against me and there was no way I could get heat right angle to stab him.
Tears ran from my eyes and the panic that tried to take over wasn't going to be helpful. I thrashed and bucked again, while he drank from the open wound on my arm.
Falcor appeared above us, his hand open. "Hey!" he yelled, momentarily distracting Nick from my bloody, ruined forearm. Nick lifted just enough that I could bring the knife up between us and when he turned back, he launched himself at my neck one last time, impaling himself on the sharp blade of the knife.
His face went shocked for a moment as we both realized it found its mark.
A moment of silence fell upon us as he sat up and looked down at his chest.
Then the screaming began. Nick's yell of pain mingled with angry screams that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. His body shuddered and writhed as Falcor slid behind me, pulling me out from beneath the vampire as his blood began to spray out from around the knife like a geyser.
We watched in morbid shock and Nick collapsed to the ground, his body writhing as he screamed.
"Get me out of here," I said as fear overtook the adrenaline that had been keeping me from panic.
A moment later we were in a house I didn't recognize. The sudden silence split my ears as I collapsed to my knees exhausted and hurt. My arm was healing, but the pain was bone-deep. New tears welled in my eyes as the truth of what I had done overwhelmed me.
"I stabbed Nick," I moaned, dropping my head into my hands and letting the sobs wrack my body. Falcor said nothing, leaving me to work through the terror and sorrow. The feeling of the blade slicing through Nick's chest, gliding across muscle, and bone would be forever etched in my memory. Along with the look of anger and then pain on his face. The damage to my arm would be gone by tomorrow, but the memory of that day would linger.
Eventually, I managed to rise and Falcor guided me gently into a bathroom and handed me my suitcase. He must have gone and got it, though I didn't notice him leave.
I flicked on the shower as Falcor shut the door without a word, then I broke down a second time under the hot spray of the shower, replaying what had happened and praying that Nick would be alright, though I wasn't sure I wanted to see him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Screams and horrible images haunted my dreams, but I managed to sleep a few uninterrupted hours. When I woke, low voices spoke from beyond the door. I finally took a moment to look around and assumed I was in a hotel room. I hoped that Falcor had paid for it and hadn't just shifted us into a vacant room.
My feet met the cold floor and I stopped over in the bathroom, telling myself if I pretended the day was normal, it would be. I brushed my teeth and tied my hair back in a ponytail, then dressed as I always did, in jeans and a t-shirt, with a hoodie over top.
The bags under my eyes were probably permanent at this point and I didn't quite have the energy to care, so I left the bathroom and moved slowly to the door, pressing my ear against it.
The voices were too low for me to hear, but one had the timbre of Falcor's. I couldn't decide if I hoped the other was Nick's or not, so after another moment of hesitation, I pushed the door open and three sets of eyes trend to face me.
"Hi," I said. Falcor, Nick, and Zander stood before me. Falcor looked mad.
I tur
ned my eyes to Nick. "You okay?"
He grinned, but it didn't reach his eyes... or show his teeth. I flinched back at the thought but pressed my feet to walk forward.
"I have something I need to tell you," Nick said.
Falcor growled. "It could wait a day. You just chewed the hell out of her last night."
I glanced between them, trying to figure out what I was missing.
"Now is the perfect time, actually," Nick replied. "You can see it in her face." He took a deep breath but didn't move towards me. "I'm going to stay and take up the throne."
The words seemed foreign, a scrambled piece of information that I couldn't make sense of.
"What?" I asked.
He reached out toward me and I stepped back. His face was sad but resigned. "I think it's for the best."
"What?" I said again, still confused. He would be king of the vampires?
"Our people need a leader who can set things straight, I didn't even know how bad things were. I thought it was benign, but my father has ruined the relationship we have with the witches and warlocks. If I don't put it right, we could be back to war."
I shook my head. It was as if I had left my body and was looking down on myself. Nick was leaving. Or rather staying in Phoenix.
"What about me?" I asked, stupidly.
"I'm sure Niri will find another, more suitable, vampire, to help you." Nick took another step forward, and I tripped backward. "You are afraid of me now, anyway."
"No, I'm not," I said, taking half a step forward.
"Don't," Falcor said a note of warning in his voice.
Nick sighed and then flashed his fangs at me.
Fear overcame me, sending my legs into motion before I knew what was happening. I tripped on my feet and landed on my ass. "Fuck," I said. "That doesn't mean you should leave or stay here or whatever."
Nick bit his lip and pushed his hair back from his face. "We'll still see each other."
I scoffed. "What about Colvin? He needs you too." It was a desperate measure. I was a desperate woman.
"He'll have you, and I'll see him when I can."
