A Wind of Change (8 page)

I
woke
up to a burning sensation in my right upper arm. The pain was blinding. I gripped my shoulder to soothe it, but it only intensified the pain.

I sat up slowly, wincing as I opened my eyes. To my horror, I found myself in Michael’s large circular bed. My heart hammered as I scanned the room, but I found some relief in the fact that he wasn’t here with me. I was also still wearing my own clothes, which gave me some comfort.

I moved my ripped shirt and looked down at my shoulder. The skin surrounding my right bicep was red and swollen, and etched into it was a black cross.

I almost yelled.

What the hell is this?

It was hurting so much, it felt like someone was still inking my skin.
What is the meaning of this cross? Why would they brand me with it?

Although overwhelmed with doubts and questions, I didn’t spend any more time staring at my arm. I was alone. Michael was nowhere in sight, nor was any other vampire. I climbed as quietly as I could out of bed.

I have to find my sister and Hassan. And we have to escape this nightmare.

The door was ajar. I was about to push it open wider and slip out when something caught my eye on the dressing table a few feet away from me. Leaving the door reluctantly, I approached it.

As I stared down at two objects wrapped in brown paper and covered with a piece of parchment, my mouth fell open and my stomach somersaulted.

A note was written in jerky black handwriting on the parchment:

“For your mother and brother.”

I snatched up the note and stared at it, my hands shaking. I read the words over and over again, just in case my eyes deceived me. Then I dropped it and picked up the first object wrapped in brown paper. I tore off the paper to reveal a black silk pouch. I loosened the opening, and found myself staring down at a pile of gold coins. My heart beat faster as I reached for the second object. It was much smaller than the first, and cylindrical. I tore through the brown paper and found myself holding a thin glass vial filled with a transparent amber liquid.

What is this?

I looked around the room, breathing heavily, then back down at the objects.

How do they know about my mother and brother? What are these things for?

I jumped as a deep male voice spoke from the door.

“How are you feeling, River?” Michael asked as he stepped into the room. His blond hair looked wet, like he’d just taken a shower.

I felt all the blood drain from my face. “How do you know my name?”

Michael’s smile broadened. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a crumpled-up tag and placed it in my palm. I recognized it instantly as the airport label that had been on my backpack. It contained my full name… and my home address.

They know where I live.

“What are these?” I gasped, stumbling back away from him and ripping up the tag.

He eyed the gold coins and the vial. “Gifts from The Oasis.”

“My mother and brother aren’t here. Why would you give them these gifts?” I breathed, fearing that they were going to kidnap them too. Or had already.

Michael shook his head. “You need not worry about your family in New York. We don’t go that far for humans… at least, not usually. We have plenty of healthy humans to choose from in our proximity. As to how they will receive their gifts, we will send one of our witches to deliver them. Would you like that?”

“No!” I grabbed the coins and the vial from the table and held them behind my back. “Please! Don’t go near them. I’m begging you. My brother is sick—”

Michael held up a hand. “Very well. You might as well keep the gifts then. Not that they will be of much use to you around here…” He walked over to the table and opened one of the large drawers. He pulled out my backpack from it and handed it to me. I grabbed it from him and stuffed the gifts inside, then shoved the bag into one corner of the room.

“Where is my sister?” I repeated for what felt like the hundredth time.

“Your sister is fine.”

“Take me to her!” I shouted.

Irritation sparked in his eyes, but I didn’t hear his response as the front door to his apartment clicked open. Footsteps shuffled down the corridor, and then the bedroom door pushed wide open. Standing before me was Jeramiah, accompanied by a short woman just as deathly pale, and bound in chains. Blood was smeared around her mouth and her eyes looked unfocused as they fell on me.

I backed up against the wall, wishing there was a window in this damned place that I could leap out of. But there were no windows anywhere here. We were underground, in the middle of a desert.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Jeramiah said, looking at Michael. “Position her.”

Before I could even attempt to get away, Michael grabbed me and wrestled me back onto the bed. He pinned me down with his knees and hands, spreading out my body so tight I couldn’t even budge an inch.

The woman began to growl frighteningly, a guttural sound that came from deep within her throat. She clanked her chains and Jeramiah restrained her as they both approached the bed.

“River,” Jeramiah said. It disturbed me to no end that now even he was addressing me by my name. “I would advise you not to struggle. Faye is a newly turned vampire. That means she is particularly… unpredictable. She’s not as strong as me, so I can control her, but only if you cooperate. If you don’t, you might find yourself bled dry. Understood?”

My eyes widened in terror as he loosened the woman’s chains and she leapt on top of me. Baring her fangs, she dug them right into my neck, in a different spot where Michael had drunk from me before.

I groaned, my body stiffening as I seized up in pain.

I’d experienced needles and injections before, but these vampire teeth felt so thick compared to them, and they dug so deep into my flesh, I worried that they were going to hit bone.

I wanted to scream out, but I remembered Jeramiah’s words and so I bit my lip.

“Don’t suck!” Jeramiah said.

He must’ve done something to hurt the female vampire, because she moaned and stopped sucking so hard.

“Release now.” Jeramiah spoke again.

A freezing cold substance shot into my neck. Pain lit up every nerve in my body, and all my limbs began to shake.

What is happening to me?

“Enough,” Jeramiah ordered, clanking the chains, and Faye pulled away from me.

I found myself staring up at Jeramiah and Michael, who were looking down at me, but soon their faces were a blur. Everything was a blur. I could barely even form a coherent thought. All that I was aware of was the pain now coursing through my veins and the coldness, the biting coldness that seeped right through to the very marrow of my bones.

My mouth felt dry and my heart began beating so fast I thought that it would give up. It felt like my windpipe was closing and I could barely breathe.

Something touched my face—an ice-cold hand. Michael’s perhaps. “You’re going to be just fine, River,” he said.

Cold tears streamed from my eyes as pain washed over me in waves.

I’m going to die.

I’m going to die.

And yet hours passed and I didn’t. I still hung on in that strange place between consciousness and darkness.

There was no way I could have guessed how much time passed. It could have been hours or it could have been days. Moments merged into each other, passing in one long stream of pain and torment.

It was only once the trembling started to subside that I found pieces of myself again. I found it easier to think, easier to be aware of what was going on around me, and once my vision had returned, my breathing became more even.

But the coldness, the bitter coldness… it never left me. It seemed to have settled permanently in my bones. Into my very being.

I didn’t understand what had just happened to me, but as strength flooded back to my limbs and I was able to sit up, one thing I knew for certain:

I was no longer the River I’d known.

A
side from the aching cold
, my senses were surrounded by a myriad of stimuli. I could hear noises in other rooms around the atrium that I hadn’t heard before, pick up on a variety of scents I hadn’t detected before, and my eyesight felt ten times sharper.

I stood up from the bed and stared at myself in the mirror. My tan skin looked dull and pale. Too pale. My turquoise eyes had an odd vibrancy that hadn’t been there before. I bared my teeth, fearing that I was about to see fangs… but they looked normal.

Michael got up from a chair in a shadowy corner of the room. He approached and I caught sight of him in the mirror as he placed his hands on either side of my waist.

“What am I?” I whispered, moving away from him.

“You are a half-blood…
my
half-blood.”

“What is a half-blood?”

“Come with me,” he said, ignoring my question. “You need to warm up. Since you’re not fully a vampire, your body needs some heat or it can become very uncomfortable. You feel the cold, unlike us.”

I was still in a daze. I couldn’t even find it in myself to object as he took my hand and led me out of the bedroom, down the corridor toward the room he had kept me in before. The sauna. He stepped inside with me, fiddled with a panel of dials and buttons, then closed the door. The room began to heat up quickly. I stopped shivering so much, and the deep ache in my bones subsided a little.

I had so many thoughts fighting to burst out at once, I didn’t know which to ask first.

“Why did you do this to me?”

“I understand that it’s a shock now,” he said. “But you will come to thank me for choosing you as my half-blood.” He leaned in and brushed the back of his hand against my cheek. “I promise.”

“
Your
half-blood?” I breathed.

“My half-blood.”

I stood up and moved away from him. “What is this tattoo you placed on my arm?”

“We all have them.” He rolled up his sleeve and showed me an identical brand on his right upper arm.

“Did you etch this into me?”

“That’s not important. What is important is that you listen carefully to what I’m about to say. If you want to survive in this new body of yours, you’ll need to learn to depend on me. I can show you how to live without pain, and how to enjoy your life.”

I backed away as far as I could from him in the wooden room.

“There are certain rules,” he continued, “that you are designed to abide by. My rules. If you disobey me, very bad things can end up happening to you… and your sister.”

I choked up. “You have given me no proof that she’s even still alive.”

“I’m telling you that she is still alive. And she will remain alive and well, provided you do as I say.”

“What do you want from me?”

He paused as he eyed me over. “First, I want to show you that you will enjoy having me as your master. I will be good to you and you will enjoy submitting to me.”

This man is crazy.

“Come here,” he said.

I didn’t budge.

His eyes darkened. “Come here, River.” His voice was dangerously low. “I won’t ask you again.”

I remained rooted to my spot.

I wasn’t going to submit to this monster.

When I still didn’t respond, he leapt up, grabbed my arm, and pulled me out of the sauna. He began striding down the corridor, dragging me along behind him. To my shock, I found that I could keep up without difficulty. Before, even his walking had been so fast, I could barely keep up.

He stopped at the door right at the end of the corridor, and pushed it open. It was dark but, bizarrely, I could see everything clearly. It was a small room, bare except for what looked like a huge freezer in one corner.

He moved so fast, I barely realized what happened next. He dragged me over to the container, lifted up the lid, and wrestled me inside. I submerged in icy water—so cold my body seized up. My breathing came hard and fast as the agony intensified in my bones.

“No!” I screamed.

He slammed the lid shut above me. The container was so filled up with water, even my mouth was submerged. I was forced to breathe through my nose.

I bashed against the lid, but it wouldn’t budge. I kicked, and realized that I was too short to even feel the bottom. I moved my body as rapidly as I could, trying to generate warmth. I wondered whether even as a human I would feel as much pain as this. No matter how much I moved around, I was unable to conjure up even the slightest bit of heat.

I had no way of knowing the time, but it felt like an eternity before Michael raised the lid again. My body had become so stiff I was barely able to keep myself above the surface. If he’d come even ten minutes later, I was sure that I would have drowned.

He reached inside and picked me up, and set me down roughly on the floor. Unable to stand, I collapsed.

He bent down to my level, touching my forehead with his palm.

“That was uncomfortable, wasn’t it?” he asked softly.

I was in too much pain to even respond.

“River, I’m sorry. I don’t like to do this to you. But you need to learn to do as I say.”

He scooped me up in his arms even as I shook, and carried me out of the dark chamber. We re-emerged in the corridor and he headed back to the sauna. He set me down on one of the wooden benches and I backed up against the wall as he turned the dial up high. He didn’t say a word as I sat in the corner, still trembling, until the sauna grew hot enough for the pain to begin to subside. The shock remained with me much longer, however. I was still breathing in rasps, my body still in some kind of trauma.

He reached for a towel and handed it to me.

I clasped it in my hands and buried my face in it. It was the only barrier I could form between him and me in that small room.

“Now,” he said, after perhaps twenty minutes had passed. “Come here.”

Even after the pain he’d put me through, I couldn’t find it in myself to give in. Instead I shot him a glare. “I know your type,” I spat. “Who were you before you became a vampire? Were you bullied at school? Unable to get girls based on your winning personality alone? Stay away from me, you creep.”

He got to his feet slowly, and closed the distance between us. As he extended his fingers, claws shot out. He pressed his forefinger against my cheek, cutting a thin line. The blood seeped down my cheek, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing that I was in pain. I kept my face as expressionless as possible, even as my cheek stung.

He bent down closer, his face mere inches away from mine.

His lips parted and he was about to speak when instinct took over. Stiffening my fingers, I thrust them toward his right eye.

I was shocked that I met my mark. I’d expected his reflexes to be too quick for me to do any damage. Perhaps he just thought me so weak that I wouldn’t even attempt to fight back.

He groaned in pain and clutched his right eye, giving me the two seconds I needed to push past him and scramble toward the door. The door was closed, but the lock had been damaged thanks to that Joseph man who had stormed out of here earlier. I started dashing along the corridor, skidding and slipping on the shiny floors as I ran with speed that took my breath away. I headed straight for the exit of Michael’s apartment. My heart pounded as I slammed up against it. I gripped the handle and try to open it, but it was locked.

Oh, God.

I looked around frantically for a key, but found none. I couldn’t spend any more time looking. I kept expecting Michael to race up to me and grab hold of me at any second. I gripped the handle again and pulled down as hard as I could. To my shock, the handle snapped off and I was able to push the door wide open. I might not have had the strength of a vampire, but whatever I had become, I was stronger than I could have imagined. It was an uncanny feeling to possess such strength while having done nothing to earn it. It was like… magic. My whole body had transformed into this bizarre species that I hadn’t even known existed until only hours ago.

I could hear Michael cursing in the background as I dashed off down the wide veranda. I must have hurt him quite severely.

I’d had to defend myself once like this before, in my neighborhood back home. I’d gone out to the convenience store too late one evening, and on my way back, someone had tried to mug me. I’d jabbed him in the eye. God knew what would’ve happened that night had my reflexes not been so fast.

I had no idea where I was running to. I just kept speeding as fast as I could.

I threw a look over my shoulder, fearing that Michael would already be chasing me. Thankfully he wasn’t—yet. I ran round and round the circular veranda, and when I reached the elevators, I entered one and traveled upward to the very highest level—the one directly beneath the trapdoor that Michael had brought me down through. I hurried up the winding staircase and began fumbling with the latches. The metal clanked and was so noisy, it was a struggle to work in silence. Every time a voice came from down below, my heart jumped into my throat.

Please, open up.

I have to escape.

I still had no idea where my sister was, but if I went looking for her, I would end up getting caught and then there would be no hope for either of us, or Hassan. I had to call for outside help, somehow get the attention of those tanks that were set up not far away. I believed now more than ever that they had to know about this coven of vampires. Otherwise why would they be so near?

This door proved much harder to budge than Michael’s door had been. But to my relief, just as an elevator creaked, I managed to open it.

As soon as my feet dug into the sand of the desert, the brand in my right arm began to burn. I had to pause for a moment to get a handle on the pain before hurrying forward again through the dark. I bit my lip, trying to focus on the boundary in the distance, where it appeared the sun was out. After I had traveled perhaps five miles, to my horror, I hit an invisible barrier. I didn’t know what I’d been thinking. Perhaps, as a half-blood, I would be able to walk right through, just as the vampires seemed to be able to do. But that wasn’t the case. I ran all around the area hoping that there would be at least one weak spot, but it was hopeless. I tried screaming and shouting for help. Nobody answered. The tattoo on my arm continued to burn mercilessly. I looked back toward the entrance of The Oasis and was relieved to see that nobody had followed me out yet. Perhaps the groaning of the elevator had been someone descending to the lower levels, not coming up to me.

The thought of willingly returning down there made me shiver. I was surprised that Michael hadn’t already followed me out here, but I suspected that he would be looking for me around the atrium, perhaps with a dozen other vampires, just waiting to punish me.

Still, I had no other choice. There was no way I was going to break free through this barrier.

I hurried back across the sand, hoping that at least nobody had noticed me come out here. I reached the entrance, but before climbing back down the iron staircase, I looked around to see if anyone was on the platform beneath me. There was nobody. Gathering all the courage I could muster, I began my descent down the staircase, easing the trapdoor shut above me. Once I touched back down on the floor, I crept to the nearest wall of glass and looked around at the atrium. I could see several vampires milling about along the verandas, but nobody seemed to be in any particular hurry.

With their sense of hearing, I would’ve been shocked if nobody had detected me leaving, not to mention hearing my screaming above ground. Perhaps nobody had paid it any mind because for whatever reason, half-bloods couldn’t pass through the invisible barrier the same way vampires could.

I took a deep breath as I walked back into the elevator. It was clear there was no escaping to bring help from outside. I had no choice but to figure out how to help myself from the inside.

I had this time away from Michael—time I couldn’t help but think would be horribly short-lived—and I had to do what I could to locate my sister and Hassan. I prayed that Michael hadn’t been lying to me when he’d said that my sister was okay.

I descended all the levels of the atrium until I reached the ground level. I had no idea where to even start, but I figured that the ground floor was the logical place. I ran into a rose garden and crouched down among the bushes, barely even breathing as I listened as hard as I could. I was hoping that I’d overhear some snippet of conversation that could give me an idea as to where she could possibly be.

There were a number of conversations going on in the chambers surrounding me. But one in particular caught my attention, perhaps because it seemed to be the closest one to me, only ten feet away. Keeping low against the ground, I crawled through the bushes.

Ouch.

I looked down at my forearm to see a line of blood. I instinctively raised it to my lips and sucked on it, hoping that my saliva would help it clot faster. I almost choked. My blood tasted… horribly bitter. Then I noticed something that made me doubt my eyesight. My wound was beginning to heal before my very eyes. Soon I would never even have guessed that I’d scratched myself in the first place, had it not been for the bloodstains on my skin. I reached up to touch my cheek where Michael had cut me earlier with his claw. The skin felt completely smooth—again, as if there had been no cut in the first place.

This isn’t real.

What other powers does my new body possess?

I tuned in again to the voices surrounding me, particularly the conversation going on ten feet away. It was hard to make out what they were saying, because there were multiple conversations going on at once and the voices blurred into each other.

I moved closer, looking all around me to be sure that there were no vampires, before leaving the rose garden and heading straight for the veranda. I kept close to the wall until I reached the door where the conversation was coming from.

From the sound of it, they were eating and talking at the same time. A delicious smell wafted from the room. Even though my stomach was in knots, it still grumbled. I hadn’t eaten properly since the day of the dig, before Hassan and Lalia had been kidnapped.