Chapter Seven
As soon as we stepped out of the stone building Sekhmet had locked me in, everything melted away but the darkness.
The blackness grew hands – thousands, millions of them, all clawing at our legs and feet, trying to drag us down into the tarry pit with them.
I grabbed Seth’s and Porschia’s hands and we ran like hell, stumbling over the grasping fingers, slimy as tentacles.
But there was nowhere to go, and we had no choice but to let them take us. I ground to a stop. “Don’t fight them!” I yelled. “Go under, but hold onto me. Got it?”
Seth looked unsure, but he agreed. Porschia squeezed my hand, her eyes wide at the hands slowly tugging her beneath the surface. We descended slowly into the thick tar, gasping for air until the last second.
We were drowning in a clawing, angry torrent of souls. Beneath the surface, we were being pulled apart, and then Seth’s hand began to slip. Porschia squeezed tight, but our hands couldn’t hold in the slippery fluid.
When we let go, it ended.
We were back in The Sand, landing on our bottoms with an oomph, with the breath knocked out of us.
Seth’s leg was twisted under my back, while Porschia was trying to stand a few feet away.
“Saul?” she yelled, frantically running from one side of the dune to the other. “Where is the tent, Seth? Where is he?”
I sat up so he could move and we went out in search of Saul. Hearing his name sent a wave of unpleasant emotions tearing through me. I couldn’t help how I felt. He got to live. He got to raise my son and be with Porschia every single day, while I sat in the Sand watching them, loving her from afar.
“Let’s split up,” I suggested. “He has to be here. He was bound.”
Porschia took off to the grove of palm trees, Seth toward the doorway, and I looked over the dunes, leaving footsteps across the highest peaks of shifting sand.
The sun was setting, casting bright streaks of orange and pink across the sky.
In the distance, there was a dark shadow.
I shielded my eyes to see it better, but it was useless.
Picking up the pace, I jogged ahead and stepped lightly down the steepest side of the dune until I could see what it was. A jacket…Saul’s jacket.
But why would it be out here?
“I found something!” I yelled.
Seth formed in front of me in an instant. “Dad’s coat,” he said, crouching down to pick up the thick fabric. “He wouldn’t have left it. Mom made it for him.”
Seth’s eyes were troubled, and an unsettled feeling bubbled in the pit of my stomach.
That feeling boiled over when Porschia let out a wail that I felt stab into every cell of my body all at once.
Seth grabbed my hand and we transported to her.
She was on her knees, bent over, holding her stomach, while heaving sobs wracked her body as she rocked back and forth.
Just beyond her was Saul’s prone body with two large fang marks on his neck. He hadn’t been dead long, and we all knew who drained him. We just had to find her.
Seth held Porschia and tried to drag her away, but she fought him. “No!” She pulled Saul close, his head lolling onto her lap. “Saul? Come on, baby. Wake up. Saul?”
His eyes stared sightlessly at her stomach.
“Wake up,” she tried again. “Don’t leave me. Please?” She lightly tapped his face and cried, holding Saul’s head and gathering his shoulders closer to her. She raked her fingers through his hair and bawled.
She was in agony.
She raged, cried, and raged again.
When she was spent, she turned to me with pleading eyes. “I want you to turn me.”
I shook my head. “That’s not the solution, Porschia.”
“You know she’s going to come after me, and if I can’t fight her, I’ll lose,” her voice broke as she continued to rock Saul in her arms.
“Please, Tage. If you care about me at all, give me a chance to defend myself.”
I looked at Seth. His jaw was set but he nodded once.
“If I do this, there’s no way to heal you again, Porschia.”
“Then lock me in here. If I make it, you put me here. I’ll stay in The Sand so I’m not a danger to anyone outside. Just... I want to end this. I want to end her.”
Sekhmet was vengeful. I knew she would hunt down everyone Porschia loved and kill them one at a time, before she turned her focus back on Porschia. I couldn’t let that happen, but I didn’t want to see her as a vampire again, either. I couldn’t do it.
“Give Seth and me one chance first.”
“What if she gets to me like she did him?” she cried out, clutching Saul’s head and shoulders. “Change me, Tage.”
She eased Saul to the sand and closed his eyelids. “I want her to feel this.” She stood up and turned to me. “Change me. Now.”