Chapter 33
“Are you okay?”
Oliver looked up into the human face of a girl, pallid and worried, her sandy hair falling to her shoulders. “Is Clare okay?”
It was Natalie Spriggs, he realized.
He sat up so fast his head spun, then realized there were another four humans, their white garments tattered, kneeling around them.
Clare lay beside him on the ground, deeply asleep, or worse, in a coma.
And then he saw the deep bite marks on her neck. A thin thread of silver venom streaked her skin around the bite, signifying she had been turned.
Oh gods, it was all coming back to him now. He had done this. He gathered her in his arms. Stroking her hair away from her face, he sealed the wound with his lips.
After a moment Natalie said, “Is she going to be okay?”
How could he answer that? She was between states, between human and vampire. This could last for days. He had no real idea if Clare would survive this, and yet, somehow, he sensed she was strong enough. “I don’t know,” he said out of tight lips.
He listened to her heart, stroked her soft cheek. Her skin was not cold, and there was a slight color in her cheeks. There was hope.
“What happened to us?” One of the humans was staring at his companions in utter bewilderment. It appeared they had no memory of what had happened.
But he had.
They had broken the Dark Dimension. But at what cost?
Oliver stared around the grassy hillside.
The air was full of the sound of birdsong, and the soft fall breeze blew a golden leaf from a nearby oak tree.
It floated onto the grass beside him. Below them in the valley he could see the rooftops of Tween, little puffs of smoke swirling up from so many chimneys.
The neat rows of houses glowed in the fall sunlight.
It was all so normal, so benign, the humans blissfully unaware of the horrors they had narrowly escaped.
His gaze scanned the horizon, and he detected the haze above Motham City in the distance.
And then his eyes alighted on a little dip in the grass nearby. There was something so familiar about the vegetation around here, the view… And then with a jolt, he realized. Right here, where they sat, was where his family’s farmhouse had once stood.
His first childhood home. Where he’d shared such happiness and laughter with his father and mother, and Effie.
He glanced down at the ring on his left hand, and a sudden certainty filled his heart. It was going to be okay.
Clare was going to be okay.
One of the humans cried out, “Oh my god, look up! What are those creatures in the sky!”
Oliver’s eyes darted upward… To his relief, he saw a group of gargoyles, headed by Grayson Lightfoot, circling lower. They landed nearby, folded in their huge wings, and bounded over.
The humans huddled together.
Grayson’s face was etched with deep concern as he strode over. Meanwhile, another of his team was reassuring the cowering humans. “It’s okay, we won’t harm you. We’re here to take you back to Tween.”
“What happened?” Grayson knelt down, his eyes on Clare’s prone body.
“Too complicated to explain right now. We must get Clare to Waldo. She needs to recover from this ordeal.”
Grayson nodded. “Waldo contacted us and told us we needed to get here fast. As we flew toward you there was a flash of light, then a huge mushroom cloud came out of nowhere. And then everything just returned to normal. And now you’re all sitting here looking like stunned mullets.”
Oliver didn’t crack a smile. He was too exhausted.
“Do you want to fill me in?” Grayson asked.
“It’s a very long story.” And one he wasn’t willing to share right now.
He had no idea how much venom he had injected into her, but he was sure it was a lot.
What happened if a vampire turned a necromancer?
He had no idea if it had ever happened before.
And yet, the ring was warm on his finger, reassuring him, as if his family were watching over him.
Crazy maybe, but the hope in his heart remained.
Grayson radioed over to a couple of gargoyles with red crosses on their uniforms. “We have our ambulance service here. A sling stretcher—we’ll fly her back.”
The gargoyles gently placed Clare onto the stretcher.
Once he was satisfied she was comfortable, Oliver went over to the humans—gods only knew where his PD badge had gotten to.
“You’re going to have to take this on trust. I am Chief Inspector Oliver Hale from the Motham police department.
You have been through a huge ordeal that you may not ever remember.
But trust me, these gargoyles are friendly forces, and they will escort you back to Tween.
They will leave you at the town gates and alert your families that you are safe.
I would urge you seek medical assistance, but not at a Tween clinic under any circumstances.
They are affiliated with dark corruption. ”
The humans stared at him blankly for a moment, then finally nodded. They deserved more from him, but he had very little left to give. “Motham police will be in touch shortly to explain everything. In the meantime, your families will be—mostly—pleased to have you home. All the best.”
And then he strode off, shifted into his vampiric form and took to the sky, following the stretcher bearers who carried Clare back to Motham City.
As her senses awoke from a beautiful, dreamless sleep, Clare’s brows furrowed.
She felt—different.
Stretching her arms above her head, she yawned. It was weird, but she felt like she was truly comfortable in her own skin for the first time in her life. Finally, she opened her eyes and looked around.
Where was she?
And then the door opened, and in walked Oliver, with a steaming mug in his hand.
His face lit up. “Oh my gods, I go to make myself a cup of tea and that’s the moment you wake up.”
“Oliver,” she breathed. He was by her side in no time. Putting the mug down, he knelt by the bed. Taking her hand, he kissed it repeatedly, then laid it against his cheek. “My beloved,” he murmured over and over. “Let me look at you.”
They gazed into each other’s eyes, and Clare realized that her vision was enhanced in a way she’d never experienced before.
Every detail of Oliver’s face was heightened.
How beautiful he looked, with his dark eyes, his silver hair disheveled, his joyful smile belying every one of his two-plus centuries.
She studied the lines around his eyes, the furrow between his brows, the length of his lashes.
The burgundy light in the depths of his midnight eyes.
In turn, his gaze panned her face, brows furrowed.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“Just checking you’re okay.”
“I feel amazing.”
“No aches and pains?”
“No.” She sat up, “I’ve never felt better. Oh, wait—my shoulder blades feel a bit weird, though.” She wiggled them.
“In what way?”
“Kind of—weighted, I guess. Heavy.”
His lips twitched. “Hmmm. What do you remember?”
She frowned. “Um… bits and pieces, but it feels like a dream. There was the most horrible stinking ugly beast and Matteus was there and… and I think I cut my arm with a knife and fed the humans. Or did I dream that?” He shook his head, and her eyes flew wide. “Oh gods, Oliver, are they okay?”
“They’re fine. I mean, as fine as you can be when you’ve been sucked dry most nights for weeks. But they will be fine.”
“Natalie?”
“She’s recovering at home with her parents. She wants to see you sometime—to apologize.”
“She doesn’t need to apologize. I’m just glad she and the others are safe.”
“She really doesn’t remember much of what happened. None of them do, and frankly Clare, that is for the best.”
Clare’s brows furrowed as more memories surfaced. “And Oliver… you were there, they were going to…” Her free hand flew to her mouth to stifle a cry.
“Shhh, it’s okay, they didn’t. You saved me, Clare—and together we saved the others…”
They sat for a moment while she took this in.
“There is one thing you need to know,” Oliver said. “Apart from the fact that I love you.” He sighed, cradling her hand against his cheek.
“Oh, who is this big softie?” Clare teased, lapping up the attention.
“I really don’t know. You turned a grumpy old guy into… a complete marshmallow.” His face became suddenly serious. “Talking of turning, what I was trying to say was, I—I turned you, Clare.”
Her chin retracted. Well, no wonder she felt different today. “Oh…”
“Things had gotten pretty desperate. It was our only choice.”
Memories flooded back, of her throwing herself on his chest, begging him to bite her, turn her.
“We would have died if you hadn’t, Oliver,” she said in a whisper.
“So now you remember what happened?”
She nodded, sat up higher. “The Dark Dimension. Did we—destroy it?”
A smile lit up his face. “Yep. We did. And you were right. We had to jump off that cliff into the unknown. You and me, babe. And this.” He held up his ringed finger.
“The Hale crest… I like to think that my clan embedded a legacy into this ring. It was all that was left in the burnt embers of our farmhouse when they were killed, the one thing I salvaged. Now I wonder if it was biding its time, waiting for the moment when you and I finally met. Waldo says we may never know the full depth and breadth of the magick, but we do know that it saved us, and destroyed the Dark Dimension.”
“That gruesome beast, Igor or whatever he was, what happened to him?”
“Banished to the depths of hell, where he will see out eternity.”
“And the grimaalds?”
He huffed a laugh. “Gone.”
“Gone where?”
“When their dimension was broken asunder, they all ended up in the Avella Hills.”
“Oh gods, no, Oliver, they’ll wreak absolute havoc.”
“It’s okay, Clare. A plague of brittleback toads appeared in the river that runs into Tween from the hills that very same day. A huge flock of crows descended, and proceeded to eat the lot of them.”
“Were the toads…”