Alone (31 page)

She raised an eyebrow.
“You shot me three
times and you get to ask the questions? I don’t think
so.”

The woman spoke
as though all he had
done was rear-end her car.

This was insane. She would have
looked like an attractive, smartly dressed woman if it wasn’t for
her face
.

S
he flew at him.

Her body blocked out the moon. A moment
later, she smashed James to the ground, knocking the air from his
lungs. The hand holding the gun cracked against the ground and
instinctively he tightened his grip.

A
blast exploded next to his head, the
gunshot ringing out in the still night. His ear rang from the
concussion of the shot.

The woman-thing perched on his chest,
crushing him. She looked down into his face as he desperately tried
to gasp for breath.

“
Well that was stupid,” she said,
her lips curled in a horrific snarl-smile. “You almost did my job
for me.”

She lowered her head toward his, yellow
eyes searching his face. Her full lips hovered inches from his. Her
tongue snuck out and she slowly traced his upper lip in a cold
embrace. James shrank in revulsion.

“
Shame you have to die,” she
said, her mouth almost touching his. “You’re a handsome
one.”

S
he lowered her mouth to his throat, her
sharp teeth ready to tear the flesh. James resigned himself to a
quick death, but a name, distant and muffled, was
shouted;

“
Madeline!”

Serenity?

The
thing sitting on his chest sat up,
suddenly alert, distracted.

Then, with a swipe of her fist, she
knocked him out cold.

Chapter Twenty-three

Serenity knew she would
feel
terrible
later
about
what she had put James Bently through, but right now she didn’t
have the luxury of time to care. She had known James would try to
protect her and he had bought her enough time to do what was
needed.

The moment Serenity saw him standing on
the pier she knew Madeline must have also been aware of his
presence. As soon as Madeline’s attention turned, Serenity ran for
the cylinder. A ladder ran down the side, but Serenity needed to
climb over the edge to get herself into the pipe and the climb was
awkward. There was a moment where she thought she might slip and
fall and the fear of plunging to her death clutched at her heart,
but then she got a solid hold of the ladder and started her
descent.

Near the top, the ocean’s waves pounded
against the metal. As she climbed deeper, the sound became hollow,
but still loud and resonating.

She didn’t need to climb too deep, but she
needed to be far enough from the top. Her fingers traced the metal
of the ladder, searching for the one thing she prayed would bring
everything together—something sharp enough to do the job. Serenity
ascended; hand over hand, deeper into the pipe and into the dark.
She used her feet to search for the next rung, certain at any
moment the vampire would fall upon her before she could carry out
her plan.

Above her, three muffled shots went off in
succession. She prayed for James’s safety, hoping his shots had
been enough to slow her down. She couldn’t bear the thought of
another death on her conscience.

Serenity
desperately traced the metal struts
and joins of the ladder. She only needed a little imperfection;
just enough to reopen what Madeline had started.

She ran her fingers over the
steel like a blind man, panic threatening to take hold.
Nothing was ever
this perfect on a construction site. She didn’t need much but if
she didn’t find anything, she would resort to tearing the wound
apart with her teeth.

At last
her ring finger found what she
searched for; the smallest piece of sharp metal, a joining on the
ladder that someone hadn’t filed off. Her heart jumped, a fresh
spurt of adrenaline making her head spin.

The prong
was small, but
enough.

Time slipped away like sand; the vampire
would be there at any moment. Serenity placed her bitten wrist
against the sharp piece of metal. She took a deep breath and
slashed the wound, sucking air between her teeth as pain ripped
through her arm. She tore down; opening the wound even deeper than
before.

Blood poured from her wrist in a dangerous
torrent. Dizzy with pain, Serenity concentrated on holding onto the
ladder and doing what was needed.

With the blood running freely, Serenity
held her arm away from the ladder, allowing the fluid to spill
through the air, down to the base of the cylinder and the bedrock
it stood upon. She had no idea how much blood she was losing, but
from the dizziness and nausea, Serenity assumed the loss was
substantial.

Have I gone too far? I
might bleed out here in this metal pipe.

Terrified
, Serenity pulled her arm back
against her body. She wrapped her other arm around the back of the
ladder, hugging herself against the cold metal, and then used both
hands to rip her thin t-shirt. She managed to tear a strip and
wrapped the material around her injured wrist, holding it as tight
as possible to try and stop the flow of blood. She couldn’t just
wait here, bleeding out. Madeline would smell it.

Satisfied she had done all she could,
she lifted her face to the open air and screamed:

“
Madeline!”

For a moment
, there was nothing and the
world seemed to pause, then she saw the vampire above her,
silhouetted against the moon.

Serenity’s breath froze in her chest and
her heart stopped. She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed as close
to the ladder as possible, hugging the metal, willing herself to be
smaller, to disappear. She linked her arms around the back of the
ladder, using her uninjured hand to stem the blood flow on her
injured wrist, wrapping it tight, praying that would be
enough.

The vampire did exactly as Serenity had
predicted and leaped down the pipe. Madeline followed the
overwhelming scent of blood; the small pool collected at the base
of the cylinder. Serenity’s blood.

Serenity held her breath, praying
Madeline wouldn’t pick up her scent as she clung to the wall. Had
her wrist bled enough to distract Madeline? Was it still
bleeding?

The vampire leapt down the
pipe.

C
ertain she had been noticed, Serenity
clung to the ladder utterly still, her breath trapped in her lungs.
She waited for Madeline to land directly on her; braced herself for
the impact, expecting razor claws to tear through her clothing and
into the flesh of her back, for Madeline’s teeth to sink into the
exposed part of her throat.

The vampire flew straight past, so close
the air swept around Serenity. Then she was gone, disappeared into
the depths of the pipe.

Serenity exhaled as quietly as possible;
scared she would sob or cry with the next breath. Giddy with
relief, unable to understand how she hadn’t been heard when her
heart pounded like tribal drums in her chest.

She had forgotten the movement of the
ocean around her, how it pounded against the walls of the cylinder,
camouflaging the sound of her beating heart.

Serenity pressed her head against the cold
bars of the ladder and squeezed her eyes shut. She resisted the
impulse to start scrambling back up the ladder as fast as possible,
to get the hell out of there.

All she could do was press her forehead
against the ladder and pray Sebastian would do as she had
asked.

A scream of frustration echoed up the
pipe. Madeline had reached the bottom and discovered Serenity’s
trick. The vampire knew she’d been out-smarted. With another scream
that vibrated the walls, drowning out even the pounding of the
ocean on the exterior of the cylinder, she leaped back up the
ladder toward Serenity; ten feet, twenty, closer and
closer.

She needed to call to Sebastian but terror
trapped her voice.

Madeline
’s cold fingers wrapped around
Serenity’s ankle and Serenity screamed. The vampire used Serenity’s
leg to pull herself up, one cold hand after the other. She was
certain Madeline would pull her down with her. The vampire’s grip
on her ankle was too strong, and Serenity thought if she didn’t let
go of the ladder, Madeline would tear her leg off, ripping tendons
and nerves and skin.

“
You think you can trick
me!” Madeline screeched at her; her anger terrifying.

Serenity lifted her head to the sky.
“Now!” she screamed up to Sebastian.

Above her came the sound of metal tearing
and the ladder jolted beneath her, but there was no longer time.
Simply removing the ladder would not be enough to trap Madeline at
the bottom of the pipe.

In a flash of inspiration, Serenity
remembered something. She didn’t know how she found the strength,
but she let go of the ladder with one hand and reached into the
back pocket of her jeans, her fingers wrapping around the thin
silver chain still nestled there.

Like a giant spider, Madeline clambered
over Serenity until her face was level with Serenity’s throat. The
vampire opened her mouth, a wide, gaping hole filled with deadly
sharp teeth.

In a last moment of strength, Serenity
tore the chain from her pocket, wrapping the silver around her
fingers, terrified she would drop it. Blood pounded in her ears and
she was blind with terror. The vampire’s cold lips pressed against
her throat and Serenity took that moment to act.

“
Take that, Bitch!” Serenity
screamed and shoved the necklace deep into Madeline’s gaping mouth,
forcing her hand into Madeline’s throat. The vampire’s teeth locked
around her wrist, but then the pipe filled with the sound of
sizzling flesh and Madeline screamed.

The vampire’s teeth sunk deeper into
Serenity’s already injured wrist and Serenity screamed in
synchronicity with Madeline, fresh pain spearing up her arm. Like a
fire-breathing dragon, Madeline exhaled a long, slow stream of
smoke as her teeth unlocked. The vampire fell backward with a
horrific gurgling screech, plummeting down to the
seabed.

From the bottom of the pipe, Serenity
heard a strange, distant mewling and the smell of burned flesh
assaulted her nostrils. She froze in terror, certain she would hear
Madeline scurrying back up the pipe; that the vampire would quickly
recover and come after her to rip her to shreds. But only silence
met her straining ears and after a few moments even the mewling
stopped.

Was
it over?
Serenity sobbed against her arm. She
was faint from blood loss and her leg felt as though someone had
literally tried to tear it from her body. She wouldn’t be able to
put any weight on the limb.

“
Serenity?”

Sebastian’s voice echoed down to her
and she cried out in relief.

“
Pull up the ladder, Sebastian,”
she managed to call up, though her voice sounded weak and shaky.
“Quickly!”

Again, the ladder shifted and she held on
tight as Sebastian pulled the ladder up the pipe, removing
Madeline’s only way of escaping. Even a vampire wouldn’t be able to
scale the sheer walls of the pipe without some kind of footing and
there wasn’t enough space at the bottom for her to get a run up to
jump, especially not injured.

Within moments, Serenity found herself at
the top of the pipe. Sebastian used one hand to hold the ladder and
the other to pull her up and over the side. Her leg was a mass of
pain, but Serenity’s relief at being out of the dark pipe and back
in Sebastian’s presence meant she barely noticed.

“
Are you okay?” he asked her
gently, his eyes seeking hers as he carefully helped her to the
ground.

She nodded. “My leg and wrist are hurt,
but otherwise I’m fine. Please, get rid of the ladder.”

He let go of her hand and pulled the rest
of the ladder up out of the pipe. As though holding a javelin as
opposed to tens of feet of metal, he lifted the ladder above his
head and plunged it off the side of the pier. Quickly, the metal
disappeared beneath the black water.

Serenity’s thoughts turned to James. Aware
of the possibility that Madeline had killed him, she hoped he was
okay.

She could tell herself Sebastian would
never have allowed Madeline to kill the police officer, but she
didn’t know how much Sebastian was aware of what had happened.
After all, the point of the plan was for the consequences of
Sebastian’s actions to be hidden from him, so whatever ancient law
he abided by would not be broken.

Serenity might think she’d been protecting
Sebastian, but in truth she had manipulated him. Except, she
remembered what he’d told her in the hospital. ‘I can’t save you,’
he’d said. ‘You’re the only one who can do that.’

In an instant
, Sebastian stood at her side.
“What happened down there, Serenity?”