Blood Descendants (St. Clair Vampires Book 1) (33 page)

“
Mom?”
I said, before I could help myself.

My voice cut through
the silence and the moaning stopped. The woman’s body stiffened
and her head came up slowly. Her skin was bruised around her mouth
and left eye. Her complexion was lighter than mine but I could see
that we shared the same nose. Her eyes, however, were almost milky
white. I sucked in a breath and turned away before I started to cry.
This woman had been severely beaten and tortured.

“
Cheyenne?
Is that you?”

The woman’s voice
was almost phantom-like. Kind of like that voice you hear in your
nightmares; the voice that is chasing you down a long and endless
hallway.

I started to move
forward when I was stopped, not by a member of the group, but by the
next thing that came out of the woman’s mouth.

“
Cheyenne,
baby? Mommy's missed you.”

She began to ramble on
and on about missing me and wanting to start over, but never once
asked to be released from her prison. The entire situation was eerie
and had an ominous feeling. Chloe’s face was streaked with
tears as the truth became clear…regardless of the outcome of
our mission, our mother was lost to us forever.

Zander signaled for us
to remain quiet as he and Jordan approached the stage. It seemed too
easy to break in and we still needed to get out of here. After
checking for booby traps, Zander and Jordan returned to the group. We
walked a small distance from the stage so that we weren’t
overheard before they began to talk.

“
She
is definitely our mother but something isn't right. I've never seen
eyes like that,” Zander looked pained.

“
There
doesn’t seem to be a trap on the stage. We should just cut her
loose and get out of here,” Jordan grabbed Tabitha’s hand
for comfort.

Chloe and I stood
together waiting for the judgment call to come when our mother
started to scream. The sounds were primal and ragged. She was no
longer the concerned questioning mother. No, this person was much
different. She was sounding an alarm.

Too late we realized
that we had walked right into a trap. Violeta leapt onto the stage
and silenced our mother with one clean slap across the face. She
ripped the post out of its base and flung the unconscious woman over
her shoulder. If I hadn't been afraid of Violeta before, I would have
peed on myself just now.

Zander shut off the
light, drowning the room with black, inky darkness. I felt a hand on
my elbow and knew that Tabitha had my back. We swiftly took off in
the direction opposite of the way we came. Jordan had studied the
blueprints of the compound thoroughly. He had bribed the architect to
obtain the remodeled version. I was certain that he was taking a
secret passage…one that Grigor wouldn’t realize that we
knew about. I could only hope that we were right.

The floor began to
slant downward as we ran through an underground tunnel. The air
quickly changed and Violeta’s relentless training kicked in as
I had to recall my lessons in balance and coordination. It grew
cooler the farther down we went, but it was also more humid. Chloe’s
energy reached out to control the amount of moisture in the air.

About half a mile from
the basement floor we stopped and Zander turned on a flashlight for
Chloe and I. We had arrived at a fork; a cast iron gate that led to a
path which went deeper into the Earth and a wooden door that led to
an even darker incline. I had hoped that we were going to go back up
when I heard noise from behind us.

It sounded like
hundreds of footsteps approaching, but I knew it was just the echos
making it sound that way. We stood there letting our scent penetrate
the ground and stone around us. One of the Vampires was going to
continue in the opposite direction of the group, carrying our scent
with them to help us elude Grigor’s people.

Both the iron gate and
the wooden door broke open at the same time as the light was
extinguished. Tabitha pushed me toward the wooden door as she ran
through the iron gate. She would be the bait while we escaped.

The sound of large dogs
and running vampires filled the small chamber and proceeded past the
iron gate in pursuit of Tabitha. From experience, I knew they would
have to be extremely fast to catch her, but wasn’t so sure that
they couldn’t. If Tabitha or anyone else, I would kill Grigor
with my bare hands.

As if on que, our
mother awoke and began to scream again. This time, being closer to
her than before, I could plainly hear what she was saying.

“
Grigor,
damn you! I kept my word! I brought the little brat to you! Now give
me my sight back! Embrace me!”

Her words stopped me in
my tracks and Jordan ran right into the back of me. I ended up
landing on the ground, hard, with almost two hundred pounds of
Vampire on my back. I couldn’t breathe and panicked, sucking in
so much air that the walls of the tunnel began to shake. Zola,
because I refused to think of her as our mother any longer, stopped
screaming for the lack of oxygen. Jordan threw me over his shoulder
and began to run while Chloe tried to reverse the effects I was
having on the air supply.

“
Calm
down, Sis, before we all pass out,” she was saying as we raced
towards the surface. “Calm down and everything will be okay.”

Her breathing was
pained and labored and I tried to concentrate and calm myself. I held
onto Jordan for dear life as I deflated my lungs and tried to inhale
slowly. This time, although it hurt like hell, I was able to get a
bit of relief.

We rounded a corner and
I struggled against Jordan’s hold. He let me down, mid-stride,
and forced me to start running. We ran at top speed until we came to
a door that led to a large room.

There was light in the
tunnel allowing me to see Zola regain consciousness, bouncing back
and forth over Violeta’s shoulder. She looked right at me with
her milky eyes and smiled.

“
Hi,
you little brat!” she spat in my direction. “It’s
about time you were worth the cost of labor.”

Violeta and Zander had
stopped at the door and, just as she set Zola down, I grabbed her by
the throat. At first no one moved to stop me. Violeta looked at me
with pride and admiration while Chloe and my brothers looked on in
sadness. It was Zander who stayed my hands and separated us.

The room around me was
eerily quiet. There were several sets of bunk beds and three cribs.
We were in a nursery and I feared Zola was the mother of the former
inhabitants. I walked over to the nearest crib and saw the blankets
were rumpled in a pile, the slats on the side covered in dust and
cobwebs. Each bunk bed, however, was well made with hospital corners
and fluffed pillows. It looked like this room was meant to house
about 8 children, but none of them were to be found.

“
You
were the one he really wanted,” Zola continued, blood trickling
out of the corner of her mouth. “The Prophesied One! Not the
others. I delivered all of the others for nothing. All of them were
worthless, little brats. All of them but you, Cheyenne! Well, now he
can have you!”

I crumbled to the
floor, horrified by the realization that my mother had betrayed me.
This woman, who had brought me into the world, did so for her own
gain. I thought of Efia and Pleasant, of their love and loyalty,
wondering how they could be related to her.

I was The Prophesied
One and, for that reason, this woman hated me. She continued to spit
insult after insult at me. I wondered why no one shut her up. Their
faces, sad but determined, offered nothing but love and support. I
needed to hear this; I needed to know that this woman did not love me
and I needed to hear it in the worst way.

The last three months
of my life raced through my mind. I recalled running away from
Tabitha in New Mexico, believing that my mother was finally sending
for me. Meeting Chloe for the first time and wondering why she had
only been concerned with killing Grigor but not saving her mother. I
would say that I had an epiphany if it wasn’t for the fact that
I felt so stupid. Everyone knew but me. Everyone knew this wasn’t
a true rescue mission. We just had to remove her so that she would
stop producing children for Grigor.

It had been a trap all
along and Tabitha was still out there. A trap designed to capture me
and me alone. If I had just listened, my family would be safe at the
compound. Chloe would be safe and Tabitha wouldn't be hunted like a
dog. I didn’t want to think about it.

Standing, I walked
straight up to Zola and slapped her, twice, hard. I was reaching back
to slap her again when I heard laughter from the corner of the room.
We all turned towards the sound as a tall slender figure emerge from
the shadows. Grigor stood in an all white robe with gold accents.
Identical to Efia's dreams, he looked like an angel until you looked
more closely. He was the epitome of pure, unadulterated evil.

“
My
Lord,” crooned Zola. “Here she is. I told you I would
deliver her to you.”

From behind us we heard
more noise. This time it was not laughter. The dogs we encountered
earlier had been joined by their Vampire handlers. We were thoroughly
surrounded.

“
Lord
Oleander, they must have had an animal with them earlier. We found no
trace of another intruder,” one of the Vampires who had just
entered must have followed Tabitha's scent in the opposite direction.
She had lost them.

“
No,
they had…,” Zola began.

Reaching back, I
punched her with all of my strength. If it was my sentimental nature
that had us trapped, I would do everything in my power to make sure
Tabitha got away safely.

Her body sagged to the
floor. After all of the years praying for my birth mother, the hatred
I felt was a startling change of emotion. I hated this woman and
really wanted to do her harm. I did manage, however, to control my
energy so that Grigor was unaware of its existence. Knowing I was an
Elemental Vampire, with control over more than one element, would
only make me more valuable to him

Three of Grigor’s
Vampires placed themselves between Zola and me. They were obviously
ordered not to hurt me because the others appeared to be manhandling
my family.

“
So,
this is The Prophesied One? The One that will become the greatest
Vampire ever. And a girl at that!”

Grigor said the word
'girl' like it was an affliction. His eyes were black orbs, without
conscience or sympathy and we were doomed unless I thought of
something.

He walked over and
placed his hands on the side of my head. He was trying to tell if I
had any powers and I prayed my training paid off…I held on for
as long as I could, then passed out.

Chapter 24

“
Chey,
wake up. Chey,” Chloe’s face was so close to mine that my
eyes had to cross to look at her.

We had been moved into
another room; alone. There was a couch with expensively embroidered
pillows, a table and a high window that was so small that even Chloe
was too big to fit through. The door looked like it was thick and
reinforced with steel. There was also the sound of a motor or
generator.

“
Where
are we?”

“
I’m
not sure. They brought us here right after you passed out. Good work!
Grigor has no idea about your powers.”

Admiration shone in
Chloe’s eyes as if I had done something more than simply faint.
I couldn’t stand to look at her. If it weren’t for me and
my need to find our mother she wouldn’t be there with me.

“
Where
are the others?”

“
Grigor
took them. He’s going to kill them, Chey.” Chloe broke
down, then. Gone was her hard-as-nails attitude, replacing it was the
15 year old she truly was.

“
No,
Chlo, he isn’t. We'll figure something out.” I hoped I
was right.

I stood up and walked
to the door, feeling it with the palm of my hand. I wasn’t sure
why I did that, but I could feel the air from inside the steel.
Remembering my nerdy science teacher trying to get students to join
the science club. He had said that very few things were 100% air
tight. Most things have air in them, he had said. If he were right,
then I could manipulate the air in the door. I reached out with my
powers to look for air and found minute molecules of it throughout
the door. It might just work.

The sound of a key in
the door stopped me from telling Chloe what I had discovered. I
jumped back to the couch, not wanting to give my plan away, and
waited to see who was there. The door swung open to reveal Raphael
and his twin flunkies. The three of them looked from me to Chloe and
back, as if trying to choose between the two of us. Raphael appeared
to be sizing Chloe up as if she were some sort of prize show horse

“
So,
we finally meet. I am Raphael,” his arrogant tone was not
simply an act, he actually believed it.

He walked over to me
and extended his hand. I held his gaze, refusing to be the first one
to look away, I was rewarded when his sea foam green eyes dipped
slightly from my glare. Satisfaction welled up inside of me.

“
Well,
we have been waiting for you for quite some time. Grigor says that
you are the key to our longevity, kind of like a savior of sorts.”

“
What
do you want with me?”

“
Your
blood”, Raphael said, as if it was common knowledge.

“
You
and your family have just the blood that Lord Oleander needs to cure
himself and his flock. He is thinking about breeding one or the both
of you, but your mother proved more trouble than she was worth. He
should simply drain the lot of you and be done with it.”