It occurred to me then that these men, while they might've been well-trained cops or maybe service men, hadn't long been vampires and had no idea how to defend themselves as such. They didn't even attempt to block me, almost as if they thought they were indestructible.
I squatted down and yanked the hair at Gut-Stab’s forehead, tilting his face up sharply. “Who sent you?”
His mount gaped, his whole body shaking. “It … it hurts.”
“Yes,” I said impatiently. “Vampires feel pain more savagely than humans. Who sent you?”
He looked down at his trembling, blood-covered hand.
“Answer me!” I yelled, but before I could scare a confession out of him, a shrill scream echoed across the grounds, rushing up from the edge of the forest to my ears like a sudden breath, carrying with it the scent of human blood and a final memory. I stood up, like a cat listening for prey. Those humans didn’t stand a chance out there alone.
“This is your lucky day,
vampire
,” I spat, and kicked him in the thigh. He moaned, rolling over to die. Hopefully in pain. I gave him one last kick in the bum, then sheathed Nhym and took off at a human run, gathering my blood-stained dress in folds above my knees. If the fabric was sticky with static before, being drenched thickly in blood certainly didn’t help. But it didn’t matter. It felt like no more a nuisance than having long hair or being cold. My mind and heart and soul made a beeline for those helpless humans and not a thing in the world clouded my calling.
As I reached the border of the Enchanted Forest, I caught the scent of the younger girl. She’d veered off suddenly away from the tree line. I had to resist the urge to call to her, following her scent instead, checking the low shrubs and ferns for signs of a lifeless body. She wasn’t dead, though, wherever she was. I could still feel her energy, and the bloody scent I caught before was in the opposite direction.
My nose guided me to the grassy entrance of the field—the section closest to the Throne Room doors, where no one had bothered to mow recently. This was supposed to be off-limits to the public, but enough of them passed through this way to the back of the manor earlier as a shortcut to the village that the grass was still a little flattened in places. I could smell the fear and the raw cinders of a recent explosion—probably the one that caused that mighty orange glow.
For a series of events that happened such a short time ago, it sure did feel eerily deserted around here. And quiet. I closed my eyes and let my hands hang loosely by my sides, feeling the air, the life, the energy of Nature from my fingertips to my shoulders. If I took my shoes off, this would be much easier, but I felt a great sense of urgency. I focused hard on the feel of that young girl, using the element of earth to amplify her last steps. And it was almost as if they glowed blue—a warm kind of energy radiating off them—one after the other, guiding my eyes to her hiding place.
“You can’t hide here,” I whispered, covering her mouth as she screamed.
She pushed my hand down. “How did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Appear out of nowhere like that.”
I looked back to where I’d been standing just a second ago. “Sorry. I’m not used to people not being used to it.”
She caught her breath, fanning herself as though she was choking on the entire experience. “I never even knew about vampires until tonight. My boyfriend, he—”
“He only just told you, huh?”
She nodded.
“Where is he now?” I poked my head up above the rock and checked for bad guys. “Did he just abandon you here?”
“I don’t even know.” She looked around too, as though she might see him. “When that girl got speared by that giant rod, he pushed me out of the way, and then he was gone.”
I caught a flash in her small human mind of a blond girl being pinned to the gravel drive by a giant spear through her chest. “Maybe he’s with the others.”
“I bet he is. But why would he just leave me? I mean, don’t I matter to him?”
I looked back at her huge round eyes, so open and full of hope and love and naïveté. “If he didn’t fight with his last breath to keep you safe, you’re better off without him.”
As that sunk in, her lip trembled and the hope died in her eyes. “But that’s not fair. I gave myself to him. I … he was my first love.”
I sat back a bit with the breath of realisation, then rubbed my brow furiously. “And he’s vampire, right? Not Lilithian?”
“Uh-huh.” She nodded, her face buried in her hands.
“You’ve been Spirit Bound.”
“I’ve been what?”
“Look, here’s the deal.” I opened her hands so I could see her face. “You’ll be bound to him forever. And I can either let you go home—back to your human life, where you’ll mourn him and probably eventually kill yourself, or I can have one of my men turn you.”
“Turn me?”
“Yep. They can bite you, right now, and you can go home, sleep it off, and wake tomorrow with a hunger for
his
blood.”
“I…” A new kind of realisation set in as she looked at me. “You’d just turn me—just like that.”
“Well, no. I can’t turn you, or else your venom would be a danger not only to vampires, but also to yourself—if anyone wanted to use it for evil. But we can go down and find out what the hell happened to all my knights, and if they’re still alive, hopefully just standing around laughing about the pathetic fight Drake’s Warriors put up, then one of them can bite you and you can be on your merry way.”
A smile cheered her whole red, tear-streaked face. “Let’s go then.” She stood up. “I’ve got a score to settle with that jerk Lucas.”
“Okay, but…” I stood too, and gently pushed her to the ground by her shoulder. “For your own safety, you need to stay here.”
“But what if they find me?
You
found me. They—”
“Then run into the forest.” I pointed behind me. “You’ll be—”
“No way. Lucas told me what that place is. It’s cursed.”
“It’s not cursed.” I started walking. “Lilith will protect you.”
“Who’s Lilith?” she called.
“Just go.”
I heard her sigh then storm off, her heavy human footsteps making enough racket to wake Mathias. But if she reached the forest before another Warrior came by, I knew she’d be safe in there. The legends surrounding the forest were enough to keep the Warriors out of there, and if they weren’t, Lilith was enough to protect a human seeking sanctuary. Especially a girl. One that’d been used and hurt by a man.
As I ventured further out into the open field, the doused fires and the icy sea air forced a smoky, foggy cloud over the land, giving me, but also an enemy, a place to hide. I walked with my sword in one hand, the other out front to feel for solid objects, inhaling the cold like a block of ice and exhaling it so quietly it was barely a cloud itself. My careful footsteps over the uneven grass yielded too much noise, though, and my sword belt added to it, clanking around against my leg as it slipped down under my belly. I stopped a moment to tighten it around Bump, using that second to scan the ground at my feet for dead bodies. It was all just too quiet. There had to either be a lot of dead things under my feet, waiting for me to trip on them, or a horde of cunning warriors laying in wait for me to fall into their trap. Either that or they had what they came here for, and left. But, if that was the case, where in the hell were all my knights?
Most of the stalls and snack carts had been upended, but from what I could see no one was hiding behind the chaos. And the echoing song of crickets across the grass seemed to be a song of reassurance that nothing was out here but me. Not enough reassurance that I’d call out to anyone, though.
With my belt tightened around my pretty, blood-stained dress, I started walking again, slowly and with controlled breaths. Falcon and Mike taught me well how to be prepared for anything to attack, so I walked also without too much fear. Tension, more than anything. And really cold ears. Of all things.
The foggy cloud wafted away with each of my steps, like steam breaking around a light globe, and as I drew closer to the edge of the cliff I could finally hear sounds of life. Or rather, death.
I sunk the tip of my sword into the ground and leaned one hand on it like a walking stick, watching over the cliffside for a moment. A true life battle sounded very different to the clinking swords and screaming in movies. It was really more grunting and whipping—the sound of a blade moving fast through the air, meeting flesh in a meaty splash, followed by the end heave of breath as the victim felt the life leave him. Or, in our case, temporarily leave him.
The beach was scattered with lost clothing and bodies. Vampires by the hundreds had clearly been slain, and as the venom rearranged their cells and returned them to human state, their limp bodies had obviously been tangled up in scuffles and the odd limb sat apart from a body here or there. The fog was thinner down there, but not so thin that I could make out the entire cove, or spot David. And not thin enough for the men down there to see clearly. Half of them were fighting blindly, while the other half were fighting a losing battle. I could smell the warmth of blood leaving their bodies, the scent rising up over the cliffside like a Sunday roast in a hot oven, making me hungry. I loved the smell of vampires dying. Especially vampires that attacked
my
lands. Killed
my
people. I would lick the taste of death off all of them, if given a chance.
“Ara.” A thick hand grabbed my arm and yanked me backward. “Watch out,” the voice said calmly, and as I looked up at him, Ryder’s eyes went to the ground at my feet.
“Oh. Thanks.” I took a calculated step away from the edge I nearly leaned over, and as the fog shifted, it revealed a bloody hand stump beside my foot—no body in sight. I covered my mouth. “That’s Lilithian.”
“No kidding,” he said absently, dragging me away by the forearm. “Those vampire bastards keep their limbs attached. Until they’re dead.”
I looked up at him. “So none of them are immune?”
“No.”
“Why would Drake send—?”
“Because he didn’t send them here to win.”
“Then why are they here?”
“Some kind of distraction, but we don’t know what for.”
“Me?”
“If that was the case, you’d be gone already. By the way—” His steps halted and he drew me a little closer, his fingers so tight around my skinny little arm that my blood stopped. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you and Falcon. Where the hell have you been?”
I thought about Falcon laying in that guest room, unconscious and unable to protect me as is his life’s mission, and buried the truth deep in the pit of my stomach. “He … I gave him the slip,” I lied.
“Why?”
“He wouldn't let me save some people in the manor.”
Ryder just rolled his eyes. “We’ve been worried. Do you know where he is now? We can’t find him and he’s not answering his phone.”
“He’s looking for me,” I lied, wishing it were true. “I left a trail that’ll lead him to the Garden of Lilith.”
Ryder let go of my arm then. “Fine. Now, what are you doing out here?”
“I came to find you guys. But now I’m kinda wondering if David’s okay.”
“David? Since when do you care about
him
?”
“You didn’t see?” I asked. “At the ball? We reconciled.”
His eyes questioned that while his lips approved. “Well, last I saw, he was fine.” He nodded toward the beach. “We backed them onto the shore. They came up over those cliffs about an hour ago and just started hacking up civilians.”
I covered my mouth again. A useless move really, because it couldn't change anything. “How many have we lost?”
“No idea. But between soldiers and civilians, the numbers top double to triple digits.”
“Oh god.” I dropped my sword and braced my hands on my knees. “How could this happen, Ryder? We—”
“The element of surprise.” He folded his arms, shaking his head. “And that is the
only
way.”
“How did they surprise us? We’ve got this island guarded better than Fort Knox.”
“An insider, we think.”
“Who’s
we
?”
“Whoever I’ve talked to while I’ve been cutting up vampires, Ara.” He started walking. “Does it matter?”
“Not right now.” I started walking too. “But it will.”
“Well, whoever it is is probably long gon—” He coughed out the last word, slowly cupping the metal blade sticking through his chest from behind.
“Ryder!” I screamed.
His eyes met mine in an infinite stare as the shock sunk through us both, and I stepped back as he plonked down in a heavy heap at my feet, his head rolling off his shoulders a second later.
“No!” I stumbled back into the fog, seeing only the feet of my attacker before a black hand reached out and grabbed my wrist.
I yanked it back, preparing to strike with the full force of my electric light, when his voice made it through the barrier of my shock and fear. “Ara.”
My eyes met his. “Quaid?”
“It’s okay. You’re safe.”