Chapter 8
He stepped so softly I couldn’t hear it.
I followed him, making myself as light as possible.
I barely allowed myself to breathe. We pressed against the side of the cave’s entrance.
Vander took the metal star from his belt and held it up to the sunlight.
A beam reflected off the shiny surface into the dark cave.
Vander tilted his head, signaling me to come to his side.
I pressed my shoulder to his and peered around him.
The light shone on a figure huddled in an upright ball in the corner.
Her long brown hair was matted and full of sticks and leaves.
She swatted at the back of her head where the light shone, letting out a guttural growl that resembled a large wildcat.
Smoke rose off her scalp from the sun’s reflection.
With a sudden jerk, she turned her head and hissed at us.
Her elongated canines glistened, pressing against her bottom lip.
My skin crawled, and I angled myself behind Vander once again. Visions of the vampire who’d chased me through the woods days before swam across my mind. I hadn’t seen his face, but if it was as terrifying as hers, I was glad I hadn’t. There was evil in the way her expression twisted unnaturally.
She turned back around and pawed at her hair, rocking steadily.
Vander replaced the pointed metal star on his hip. “Wait here.”
You’re going in there? I wanted to protest but clamped my teeth together. He knew what he was doing. Each step closer to her made my heart pound that much harder. I silently prayed she didn’t hear his approach.
He tossed a handful of dirt at the wall next to the vampire.
She scrambled to her feet, and he was at her back with his arm hooked around her throat before she ever had the chance to turn.
He shoved a blade into the side of her neck.
Blood spurted out in a stream. So much I could hardly believe it.
Then he dragged her limp body to the edge of the darkness.
With masterful execution, he tied her hands and feet behind her back.
I knew how to tie a knot, but it would take me a few minutes to bind someone up. He’d done it in ten seconds, maybe.
Drawing the dagger from his belt, he stepped into the light and held out the handle to me. “She’s going to wake up in a few minutes.”
Hesitantly, I wrapped my palm around the hilt of the dagger. It was made of smooth ivory bone, capped with a golden serpent’s head. I brushed my fingertips over the name engraved down the center of the silver blade. “VIPER.” It was superbly done. Beautiful.
I watched in terrified wonder as the neck wound on the vampire’s body began to knit itself closed, not fully but enough that her eyes flashed open. She bucked and hissed, struggling against the bonds. “Let me go!” she wailed.
Vander jerked her up off the ground and faced her to me. The vampire slammed her eyes shut and turned her face away from the sunlight.
“Shove that dagger through her heart,” Vander commanded.
“No, no, no, no,” the vampire cried, trying to throw herself further into the cave. “No, please. Please, I won’t hurt anyone. I will stay here away from humans.”
“She won’t,” Vander countered. “You can’t listen to them.”
“Please, have mercy, girl. I am not like the others!” She wailed and crooned. “I swear it. I drink only animal blood!” She thrashed and threw her head back into Vander’s chest.
I knew what she was, knew she was deadly and had killed people, but a small voice in the back of my head wanted to let her go. It felt wrong... she looked so human. I would never kill a woman helpless and bound. I’d never faced a vampire that wasn’t trying to eat me.
“She doesn’t,” Vander said forcefully. “None of them live off animal blood. They can’t. It makes them ill, slow and weak. They will always crave human blood. It’s what they are. She’s not like us.”
I raised the dagger slightly and she screamed, the high pitch pierced my ears until they rang. “Please, no. Help! Help!”
“Shut her up, Aesira, now!”
My mind drifted to my grandmother, screaming much like this vampire...
“Help!” Grandmother had wailed, lying in a pool of her own blood.
I’d crashed to my knees, gasping through sobs, and had pressed my hands over her neck wound.
“Go in.” Her voice was raspy and gurgly.
Blood splattered across her cheek and stained her ivory nightgown.
My own body had felt cold, and I couldn’t stop shaking.
“Daddy!” I screamed. “Daddy, help!”
I hadn’t seen where the vampire had gone. Tears spilled onto my grandmother’s face. “Go inside,” she breathed. “Go inside now, Aesira. Lock the door.”
“I can’t leave you,” I cried.
The back door slammed against the house and my father stood in the threshold. Horror gripped his features.
“NO!” he roared. I turned and the vampire was there, coming down on top of me. I threw up my hands, shoved them against his gnashing jaw. I screamed, kept screaming. I remembered how my throat felt like it was on fire.
“Aesira!” my father’s voice echoed in my mind, then faded to Vander’s voice. Vander called my name again, drawing me back to the here and now. “Do it.”
Shadows suddenly surrounded the vampire, and like she’d turned to black smoke, she slipped through the ropes and came at me.
I gasped, stumbling backward into the sunlight.
The warmth of the rays spilled across me, and her solid form returned.
Her face twisted into grotesque rage, and she snapped and clawed at me, waiting at the edge of the shade.
Clenching my teeth, I stepped forward and drove the dagger into her chest. Tears burned, and I kept pushing.
Until the hilt stopped against her skin.
The vampire let out a shriek, then her jaw went slack, and her head fell forward.
I jerked the dagger free and stepped back.
Slowly, grayness crept over her alabaster skin, up her neck until it reached her face, and down her arms, her fingertips, until she hardened into stone.
Vander threw her down, and she cracked, breaking into several large pieces.
Fury radiating off him, he stepped over the crumbled stone and snatched the dagger from my hand.
He marched at me. I backpedaled into the cave wall, the rough stone bit into the skin of my back.
“Don’t ever hesitate like that again. She would have taken you to the ground and ripped into you if the sun wasn’t out.
It takes one single bite to turn, and if you are ever bitten, I won’t hesitate to kill you. It would be a mercy.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“You hate them. Use that hate. Vampires are not human. There is no reason to feel sorry for what we do.”
Every word was a lashing.
“Haven’t you known people who begged for mercy from a vampire and didn’t get it?”
A tear rolled down my cheek, unbidden. I nodded. “Yes.”
He went quiet for a moment. His expression softened slightly. “Next time will be easier.”
I gulped, staring at the pieces of the vampire on the cave floor. I truly didn’t want there to be a next time.
“How did she shift to smoke like that?”
“It’s shadow walking. They can do it for a split second. Luckily for you, not in succession.” He stepped out of the cave and wiped the bloody blade clean on a patch of moss. “We’re running back. And I’m not going to slow down for you this time, so keep up.”
My legs felt like they were going to snap by the time I made it up the tower stairs into my new room.
I collapsed on my bed, covered in sweat, and pushed my hood to let it fall on my back.
Vander vanished into his side of the room, and a few moments later, he appeared again at the end of my bed.
“I have to go speak to Commander Locke. I’ll be back soon. Stay here, please.”
“He says ‘please’. That’s new.” I didn’t know if I could get off this bed to go anywhere anyway. My arms were spread out wide, and I stared up at the ceiling.
He hovered somewhere near the exit. “Would you rather I didn’t? Because I won’t if you’re going to comment about it.”
I’d say he was amused rather than annoyed by the look on his face. “No, sir. Actually, I’d prefer ‘pretty please’ but I’ll settle for a simple ‘please’, thank you.”
He shook his head. “That mouth is going to get you in trouble one of these days.” He paused in the doorway. “Are you... well? Killing your first vampire could be shocking.”
“I’m fine. I’m good at suppressing trauma with vampires at this point in my life.”
He peered over his shoulder. “You’re sure? I’m not going to come back and find you crying, am I?” He cringed like he didn’t do well with tears and the like.
It wasn’t my first encounter with a vampire. It’s not like I was sad to have killed one either. “Viper, I hate vampires. I’m not going to cry over killing one. I’m sort of proud, actually.”
He nodded and the door shut quietly behind him.
I laid there until I smelled my own body odor.
I needed a bath. It had been days and the sweat and blood didn’t help.
On stiff legs, I hobbled to the washroom and stood at the edge of the copper tub.
We had a tub in the house but only used it when the river was too cold.
We had to fill it with buckets of water, then heat it with a fire.
It took hours. Most of the time I used a bowl of water, a washcloth, and soap to wipe myself down.