“Thank you, captain.” Sloan stopped in front of the soldier now with her hands still on top of her head. “You’ve cleared my conscience for what is about to happen to you next.”
Captain Tensor looked like he was about to say something. The words never escaped his lips. Instead, a howl permeated the air around the entire group. A howl so chilling, it even made Sloan shiver in its presence.
Easy girl, he’s on your side, Sloan reminded herself. At least, I hope he’s still on my side.
The howl came again, now so close, soldiers were looking all around them for the origin of such a noise. Then, a black mass materialized from over the east wall. Everyone gasped and shouts ripped through the air as musket fire erupted in a volley of sparks and smoke.
Sloan ran from her spot near Captain Tensor. She almost forgot Elwood’s sound advice. Before she turned to join her friends in the ring, she placed a swift kick to the captain’s nether regions. He crumpled to the ground like a marionette with broken strings.
“Wait, don’t shoot him!” Sloan slid back into the ring under the ropes. She placed herself in front of Kimberly’s two guards, who were struggling to find targets in the mayhem happening outside the ring. “He’s a friend.”
“Are you crazy?” With wild, wide eyes, Kimberly was looking at the monster Aareth had become. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“What have you become my friend?” Edison looked on with a sadness Sloan had never seen from the energetic scientist. “What have you become?”
“You have to trust me on this one.” Sloan grabbed both rifles Kimberly’s guards held, one in each hand. She twisted the muzzles up, bending both weapons so they would be incapable of firing a single round.
The two guards looked at one another with wide eyes.
“Kill them!” Captain Tensor’s voice found room over the sharp rings of gunfire. “Kill the traitors in the ring.”
Sloan and the rest of the group in the ring hit the canvas as rifles swung toward them and sent a shower of lead in their direction. Sloan chanced a look over to where Aareth was tearing soldiers limb from limb.
He was a mass of black fur, bloody teeth, and claws. Wherever he turned, death followed in his wake. He had already worked his way through one side of the triangle ring and was making short work of the next. In seconds, he would be on the final section where Captain Tensor was still shouting to his men to ignore the beast and kill everyone in the ring.
Sloan knew she couldn’t let her friends lie there and be targets for the soldiers to pick off. As tired as she was, she forced herself to her feet once again.
Her muscles screamed at her, but there was no other option. Sloan needed to be a shield for those who couldn’t protect themselves.
Bullets ripped at her arms and legs. They felt like punches that brought a stinging sensation with them, but in a heartbeat, the pain was gone and Sloan’s body was already beginning the healing process.
“You!” Captain Tensor ignored Aareth, who had already rounded the corner and was tearing into the men right next to the captain. “This is all your doing!”
Captain Tensor reached into his belt and pulled out a flintlock pistol. With a smooth, practiced motion, he extended his arm. His left eye closed as he took aim.
Sloan had to give the man credit. Aareth was baring down on him and still the captain held his cool.
That was the last thing Sloan remembered as the bullet from his pistol struck her in the head. She stumbled backwards, and everything went black.
Chapter Fifteen
Sloan
“It’s obvious he’s not going to recover. All we can do now is make his last few moments as comfortable as possible.”
“And what about her and that huge wolf thing outside?”
“Sloan’s vitals are stable; she was just knocked unconscious. Aareth is another matter. We’ll have to do tests to see if he can change back to his human form at all.”
Sloan blinked her eyes open. She was in a room with a wooden ceiling and brick walls. She was lying on her back on some kind of table. Sitting up brought another wave of soreness that washed over her body.
“You should really get some more rest.” Edison rushed to her side, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Your body has been through a tremendous amount of trauma in a very short amount of time.”
“Who? You said somebody wasn’t going to make it.” Sloan pushed off Edison’s hand. “What happened to me?”
“You took a bullet in the skull, and all it did was knock you out,” Kimberly said, moving to stand next to Edison.
The mayor of Term’s face was still bruised and bloodied. If the gargoyle harbored any ill-will toward her or Edison, she didn’t show it.
“You’ve only been out for a few minutes.” Edison cleared his throat, preparing himself to say whatever was coming next.
“Aareth?” Sloan half-ran, half-stumbled to the window. She was on the second story. When she looked outside, she confirmed as much. Her view gave her the perfect line of sight to a rising sun and the black wolf creature in the backyard.
“He’s fine. It’s Doctor Livingston.” Edison motioned to a door that led into an adjacent room. “He took a bullet to the chest during the fight. He’s—he’s not going to make it.”
Sloan gave Edison a look of hate he didn’t deserve. She rushed into the next room as fast as her wobbling legs would take her. It was a study, with bookshelves lining the walls and a fireplace in the corner. Chairs had been moved to the side for a bed to be brought in.
Oliver lay in the bed, pasty white, with beads of sweat trickling down his forehead. His glasses were gone, lost somewhere in the rush to bring him upstairs, no doubt. He opened his eyes when he heard Sloan approach.
“A bullet to the head?” His breathing came in short and shallow gasps. “I would never have thought you were going to become what you are now. You are amazing, Charlotte Sloan, and what this world needs now more than ever.”
Sloan could feel the sting of fresh tears force themselves to the front of her eyes. She was too strong to blubber, but she couldn’t help the hot drops of salty sadness slide down her cheeks.
“There has to be a way.” Sloan looked back into the room where Edison and Kimberly stood. “Edison, do to him what you did to me. Give him some of the vampire elixir and the Phoenix Serum. We can still save him.”
Edison walked into the room, his expression already telling Sloan he didn’t have good news. “We don’t have any, and neither do we have the ingredients. Even if we did, it would take hours to create.”
“No, no there has to be a way!” Sloan grabbed Edison around the collar of his shirt so hard, the action pulled the scientist in close to her. “Find a way. We’ve lost too much already. Marcus is dead, the Ahab girls are growing up without a father, Aareth is a monster, and I’m … I don’t know what I am, but we can’t lose Oliver, too.”
Edison didn’t try to free himself from her grip. Tears also pooled in his own eyes. He shook his head.
Kimberly placed a massive grey hand on Sloan’s clutch around Edison’s collar. The gargoyle’s grasp was firm but not forceful.
“Easy. We’ve all done everything we can. Though I don’t know the human well, and neither do I necessarily like him, the one you call Edison has tried his best. All we can do now is to be with your friend while he passes to the world beyond. Let his last moments be around friends and laughter, not strife.” Kimberly released her hold on Sloan’s hands. “If not for your own sake, then do it for the one who waits on death’s door.”
A lump the size of Elwood had worked its way to Sloan’s throat. She released her shaky grip on Edison’s clothing.
“I’ve instructed my men to release the one you call Ashley and bring her here,” Kimberly said as she left the room. “This time should be among the friends he knows.”
Somewhere in the back of Sloan’s mind, she knew she should thank the gargoyle, but all she felt at that moment was a numbness that came with shock
and loss.
“You never would go out with me.” The doctor coughed. “Why would you never go out with me?”
Sloan sat on the edge of the doctor’s bed. A smile, not from joy but of pure surprise, crossed her lips. She took his hand in her own.
“I thought you were shady.” Sloan wiped a tear from her cheek. “And I don’t mix business with my personal life. Not that I have much of one of those anyway.”
“Yeah, well, I guess I was kind of shady.” The doctor inhaled a short, painful breath. “I was leading a secret organization known as The Order against the queen you served.”
Sloan sensed someone behind her. She turned to see Ashley and Elwood had joined Edison in the doorway.
Ashley’s shoulder-length brown hair bobbed in the wake of her movement. No tears pushed forth from her eyes, but the deepest look of sadness Sloan had ever seen had rested on her face.
The undead woman, raised from one of the very first experiments Leah Noble had ever started, walked around the bed and sat opposite Sloan, next to the dying doctor’s side. He took her hand in his own.
“You keep on fighting for what you know is right,” the doctor said through labored breathing. “All of you fight for a world free from the rule of dictators.”
Edison picked up Elwood, and the two took a spot at the foot of the bed. Fat tears were running freely down Edison’s cheeks; Elwood was sniffling and nodding along with the doctor’s words.
“If I had known who you really were…” Sloan gently squeezed Oliver’s cold hand. “If I had known the man you were, I would have said yes.”
There were no more words from the doctor. His chest stopped moving, but a smile touched his lips as he entered the world beyond.
A howl ripped through the air, this time not one filled with fury, but with sadness.
Chapter Sixteen
Sloan
“My men are guarding the house now.” Kimberly sat in a massive chair behind an even larger desk in her office. “I’ve called all of them back. The sheriff’s office is empty now. They’re cleaning the backyard. We have to decide what we’re going to be doing now.”
“We?” Sloan caught the word the gargoyle had so discreetly inserted into her conversation. “You’re not pissed I beat the living crap out of you?”
Kimberly raised an eyebrow. She stretched with a wince as the bruises and cuts across her body reminded her of the hell she had just endured.
“A few hours in my stone form and I’ll be healed like nothing ever happened. I’m not as fortunate as you to have an instant healing factor, but I manage.” Kimberly drummed her taloned fingers on the desk in front of her. By the many marks in the wood’s surface, this was a common occurrence. “And I did say ‘we,’ any enemy of the crown is a friend of mine. By the looks of it, friends are going to be in short supply.”
“Thank you.” Sloan lowered her guard enough for her to take a seat in one of the two overstuffed chairs in the gargoyle’s office. “Before we go on to make plans, I need to know if you’ve heard of a young man. He’ll be traveling with two girls, one his own age and one a little younger. They would have reached Term around the same time you caught the others.”
“Can’t say that I have, but I can put the word out.”
“Thank you.”
“Do these lost souls mean something to you?”
“They’re friends, and like you said, friends are in short supply these days.”
“Agreed. In the meantime, I’m sure you’ll want to bury your dead. You’re welcome to use my manor until we decide what’s to be done about the next attack.”
Sloan didn’t have to ask what the gargoyle meant. She knew too well how the queen’s military operated. If there was ever a move against the crown, it was met with a swift answer. Within days there would be a much larger force sent against Term to stem the swell of insurrection. Sloan shuddered at the idea of an army of vampire soldiers descending on the town. But that was silly, wasn’t it? There would be no way the queen or her sister would be able to turn that many soldiers so quickly.
“I won’t leave you alone to fight the force that’s coming.” Sloan looked straight into the gargoyle’s grey eyes. “But neither is Term my home. If my other friends don’t show up, I’ll have to leave and search for them.”
“I understand.” Kimberly got to her feet with a wince of pain. “Term is not your responsibility, and I don’t expect any favors, but be sure a war is coming. The queen hasn’t been content to build wealth behind her walls; she wants more.”
“You won’t find any argument from me.” Sloan also rose with a similar wince. “I just can’t concentrate on a war now with the fate of my friends still in the balance.”
“You may have to.” Kimberly walked to the door. “I’m going to take a few hours to rest and heal. “I’ve already instructed my men to give you whatever you need. Mourn your loss and put your house in order. Tonight, we’ll discuss what needs to be done about the coming force from New Hope.”
Without another word, or even waiting to see what Sloan would say, Kimberly walked out of the room. She left the door open. Elwood’s sniffling could still be heard in the next room, along with Edison’s words to the small gnome.
“He was a great friend, Elwood, and we will always remember what he stood for,” Edison said, comforting his helper. “But chin up. We have work to do. He deserves a hero’s burial just as much as anyone who died in service to the crown.”
Sloan crossed a hall and walked into the room where she had first woken up from her head wound. Edison was crouched down next to Elwood, wiping away the small droplets of sadness from the gnome’s face. Sloan’s stomach twisted as she saw the red mark around Edison’s neck where she had twisted his collar.
“Edison,” Sloan began, trying to find words that didn’t exist. There was no excuse for her treatment of the inventor. “I’m so sorry, I had no right to lay hands on you. You’re my friend and—”
“There’s no need to apologize.” Edison stood, raising his collar to hide the red marks around his neck. “I felt like doing the same thing. If there was any way to save him, I would have.”
“I know.” Sloan licked at her dry lips. She was barely able to think, let alone plan what was supposed to happen next. “We need to bury him. Ashley—is she all right?”
“More than you know.” Edison beckoned Sloan over to a window that overlooked the rear of the property. He pointed to two figures: a woman and a wolf. Everywhere around them the yard teamed with activity as Kimberly’s men cleaned up the dead soldiers. All of them gave a wide berth to the woman and her wolf.
“I don’t know how much she’s capable of feeling since she doesn’t have a heart anymore.” Edison looked out through the glass as if he were speaking to himself. “I hope for both of their sakes there is something left in her that remembers her time with Aareth.”
Sloan held no regret in her heart for her hand in reuniting the pair. Her brief kiss with Aareth was nothing more than two lonely people looking for comfort, she knew that now.
“Let’s give them some time.” Sloan looked over to Edison. “I’ll prepare arrangements for the funeral. If you’re up to it, it would be great to get some answers as to what exactly is happening to me, and then what’s going on with Aareth.”
“Elwood and I are on the case.” Edison winked. “We’ll get to the bottom of why you’re able to stop a bullet with your skull, I promise.”
Chapter Seventeen
Aareth
Aareth sat on his rear haunches, looking at the impossible woman in front of him. Fear, wonder, apprehension, dread, and a multitude of other feelings cascaded through his soul as he watched the woman he’d spent a lifetime loving appear in front of him.
Brenda had shorter hair now, her body was toned like a warrior’s, and her eyes were a bit clouded, but there was no denying it was her. It was his Brenda. The same woman he had held in his arms when she died, the same woman he had dreamed about for what seemed every night s
ince her death.
Brenda exited the manor, making her way toward him slowly, not like she was frightened by his appearance, but like she was trying to remember something before she arrived in front of him.
She was wearing boots with black pants and a black tank top. The tattoo on her wrist that matched the same one over Aareth’s heart showed clearly—ancient warrior helmets binding them to one another.
More than anything Aareth wanted to run to her. He wanted to hug and kiss her. It was all he could do to manage to stay put. To not run to the love of his life whom he had found and lost and found again was a torture all on its own.
“I know you.” Brenda took the last step toward Aareth, placing herself directly in front of the beast he had become. Her words were slow as if she were fighting a mental battle to pull them from her life long lost. “How do I know you?”
She looked deep into his eyes.
Something was happening to Aareth, something that would be beyond his understanding for a long time to come. The presence of the wolf inside of him, the one that was a part of him now as much as the human side of him had ever been, was receding. It was leaving now, not because it had been defeated, but because it understood it was not needed.
Brenda reached forward with the palm that was inked with the tattoo and placed a cold hand on the spot over Aareth’s heart that held his own tattoo. At once, the internal change took on a physical form. Dark fur fell away from Aareth’s skin. His muzzle receded, along with his paws and claws. Dark brown skin rippled across his naked body as he changed back into the form he had known since birth.
In the space of a few seconds, Aareth stood as a man in front of his wife, as naked as the day he was born.
Brenda slowly took back her hand, still not showing any sign of recollection, but instead the beginning of understanding.
The Complete Vampire Project Series: (Books 1 - 5) Page 42
