Chapter 18 #2
The vampire cuts through a door that he jangled open with his keys, and I slip in behind him right before it can slam shut. If Sophia was chasing after me, there’s no shot she’s finding us now. The thought is relieving and terrifying all at once.
This corridor is darker than the last, and there’s only room for one patient at the far end—a room with no door but rather bars like a cage in a zoo. There’s a bed and a rocking chair inside.
Silence gutters in as I listen for the vampire. But all I hear are my own footsteps. And…
A voice. Coming from that solitary room at the very end. A woman, talking to someone. Low and whimsical. Or talking to herself? I’m a foot away from an answer when pain radiates across my jaw. I slam into the ground, the vampire lunging to land another blow.
I scramble up and away before he can make contact, grasping for my stake—
Only to find it gone.
My blood stops.
The fall. In the hallway outside. It must have slipped out of my back pocket—
Shit, shit—
Dodging the vampire’s next blow, I bolt back down toward the door we entered, only to find it locked. I have no key to get out.
Need to find wood, need to find wood—
“I love it when they run,” the vampire purrs, stalking toward me.
“That’s my damn line,” I huff.
I tug uselessly at the steel handle before I give up and scan the abandoned corridor. The orderly advances on me slowly, a malevolent gleam in his eye. He knows I’m trapped. I know I’m trapped. And with nothing but that padded cell, a discarded mop, and a bucket—
The mop.
Perfect.
I let the vampire draw nearer. He takes his sweet time, likely reveling in the scent of my fear. That’s fine by me, though. It’s the distraction I need. Something glints in his palm, but I don’t have the time to dwell on it. I cut left and dive for the mop and bucket.
He’s faster than any being should be, catching my foot and throwing me down, the floor rushing up to meet me. Though I try to claw myself away, he steps toward me, fangs protruding and gleaming under the fluorescent lights.
But I’m close enough now to knock the bucket over, and with it, the mop comes crashing down beside my head. I snap it in half over my knee and drive it up toward the vampire. His cold hand is still wrapped around my ankle as the jagged end of the makeshift stake plunges through his heart.
Relief and satisfaction ripple through me, but I feel a jolt of pain at my ankle too. Panting, I kick the dying, croaking vamp away from me and find a hypodermic needle shoved into the sensitive flesh above my sock.
“God damn it,” I heave, pulling it out with a wince.
I eye the blood seeping from the vampire’s chest wound.
Am I desperate enough to heal whatever I was just dosed with?
I’ve never drank vampire blood before…I read the label on the needle—just Valium—and decide not to start today.
I whip out my lighter and set the vampire’s body aflame by his scrubs.
Hot licks of fire curl toward me as the body shrivels and burns before it dissipates into nothing.
“Vampire’s feast,” that melodic voice at the end of the hall titters. “She was almost a vampire’s feast.”
“What?” My head is tilting and whirling. Whose voice is that? “No. That was…That was a—”
“Crafty little kitten. Nearly a vampire’s feast.”
I walk down the corridor until I come to the cell and find a woman perched on the lone bed, facing the padded wall. Even as the world begins to wrinkle around me, I can tell she’s elderly. Behind the gnarled, thin-lipped exterior is the serene expression of a kind older woman.
“Who are you?” A patient here who knows about vampires?
Perhaps she’s a lymantrian, or a mortal who’s seen more than she’s supposed to.
Either way, she doesn’t belong in this facility.
I scan the empty wing…Maybe there’s more to Shiloh than I thought.
Maybe it’s a question for future me, who isn’t slowly growing more and more sedated.
“Into a vampire’s feast was she nearly made. The words were cast, and though I fought, I’m the one who paid,” she sings to herself.
“Okay.” I’m so woozy I have to brace my hands on the wall outside her cell. That Valium dose was massive. “Ma’am, can you tell me—”
But a second later she’s an inch from my face, her wrinkled, paper-thin skin pressed against the bars of her cell. Her eyes are milky, clouded with cataracts, her teeth broken and cracked. The woman cackles as I stagger back, my heart racing, my hands balled into fists.
“Beware, little hunter,” the woman hisses. “Thane’s coming for the last of ’em.”
Everything is blurring. “Did you say Thane?”
“I had one of those once too,” she warbles.
One of what? But I can’t even form my next question around the dizziness. Somewhere far away I hear the door at the end of the hall slam open and the metal handle clang to the floor.
“Viv?”
That’s Reid’s voice. That’s Reid—
For a moment my mind sputters. Wheels spinning in mud. Then, where fear and confusion and horror were swirling moments ago, only soft white clouds float. I breathe in a mellow, dopey breath.
“Viv,” Reid says again, rushing toward me. He yanks me to face him by my arm.
“Oh. Hi.” I have the funny feeling I was going to tell him something, but I can’t remember what just happened. And Reid…Reid’s looking really angry, which is making his dimple extra prominent. “What are you doing here?”
His brows furrow as he studies me. And then his entire face shifts into an expression I’ve never seen on him. “Are you…high?”
“Fought the vamp. He died. But he stuck me with that thingy.” I point limply at the scorch marks on the floor and the discarded syringe.
“Fucker,” Reid breathes. “Come here.”
I step closer to him, and he takes my chin in his huge hand to study my pupils. My cheeks and jaw heat with the surprisingly gentle touch.
“That patient over there told me to look out for the High Thane,” I tell him.
“Sure she did,” Reid says. “Let’s get you out of here.”