Chapter 41 #2
I froze in horror watching him as he jumped off the stage into the crowd and started running. With remarkable agility, he rolled and dodged Vampire attacks swiftly, thrusting the sharpened stakes into their hearts.
Meanwhile, Diana and Ivy worked in tandem on stage. Ivy was holding some sort of purple light, burning Vampires who got too close, while Diana expertly thrust stakes into any Vampires approaching them. Their accuracy wasn’t as precise or deadly as Donovan’s, but they were still trained killers.
The scene descended into chaos and carnage as Vail grabbed my hand, and together, we bolted toward our car outside the crowd.
We struggled to push through the throng of bodies, but were trapped, with no means of dispersing.
As we reached the edge of the crowd, Vail halted, as if hitting an invisible barrier.
I crashed into her, feeling an unseen force push us back into the midst of the crowd.
Glancing down, we discovered a circle of salt surrounding the venue.
It was a witch’s circle, and we were trapped inside with the crowd while the band was killing everyone.
I had an impending feeling that if we didn’t do something soon, we were going to get caught by one of the Slayers.
Vail knelt on the ground, her purse open in front of her.
She took out her spell book and some bottles containing various swirling liquors and dried herbs.
She flipped through the pages of the book.
“What are you looking for?”
“I need a spell to dismantle another witch’s circle,” she replied, her fingers delicately tracing the arcane symbols on the pages. “This is going to be tricky.”
While Vail worked on finding the spell and mixing potions from her purse, I looked around for Connor.
I spotted him taking a stake out of the chest of a dead Vampire lying on the ground.
Connor’s T-shirt and face were stained with dark blood.
He looked up, and our eyes met. A chilling intensity radiated from him, and he gave me a soft smile.
He looked like a killer; pure fury blazed in his eyes.
I managed a shaky smile in return, masking my fear the best I could.
He came over to me, and I flung myself into his arms.
“What’s happening?” I asked him, clinging onto his chest. He held me close, and the wooden stakes tucked into his jeans poked my belly.
“It’s an ambush. Sam planned it. I didn’t know anything about it until right before we went on stage, Ivy told me,” Connor said. Anger filled his voice.
“Why?” I asked him.
“I didn't have time to ask him what he was thinking, but he's an idiot,” Connor responded, frustration evident in his tone.
“Here.” He retrieved a wooden stake from his jeans and placed it in my hand.
“This will protect you. If a Vampire comes too close, just stab,” he instructed, gently poking my sternum to demonstrate.
“Right here, okay? Just like I showed you.
You have to do it hard to get past the bone, but it's sharp enough, so don't be scared.”
I stared down at the weapon in my hands, the tip stained with dark red, and gripped it tightly.
Blue flashed at the corner of my vision. I turned, and Vail stood up, the witch's circle behind her ablaze with a wall of blue flame.
I grabbed Connor's hand and turned him toward me. “We need to get out of here. Are you coming with us?”
Before he could respond, a Vampire seized him from behind and threw him to the ground, knocking the breath out of him.
Just as the Vampire prepared to lunge at Connor, Vail shot her hands forward, unleashing a blast of wind as powerful as a wall that sent the Vampire crashing back into the crowd.
Vail had saved Connor, and I stood there, frozen, watching it all unfold.
Connor looked to Vail in surprise. “Thanks for that,” he said.
She reached down, extending her hand and helping him up. “Are you coming?” she asked him.
Connor glanced at me, and I knew his answer. I had turned down his request to be his girlfriend, and he didn’t need to say a word.
“Sam’s dangerous, Connor,” I said, noticing the hurt flicker in his eyes at my words.
I ran past him, taking Vail’s hand, and jumped through the blue flames into the forest. I watched as other Vampires followed suit. One was hurled over, heaving violently as streams of blood spilled from him. The humans here had Retch in their system.
We reached Vail’s car and quickly got in, driving away from the chaotic scene behind us.
“What about everyone else?” I asked, looking back at the carnage in the woods. The blue flames were high in the sky, and I couldn’t see past them.
“The flames should burn away the witch’s circle soon, so they will be okay,” she said, her gaze locked on the darkness ahead as she accelerated.
“I hope nobody else gets killed in the meantime,” I told her. I was talking about Vampires, but deep down, I knew I was really referring to Connor.
I turned back, focusing on the road as the city lights came into view.
“That was a close one, Rosie,” Vail said, glancing at me.
“Yeah, it was. But is it crazy that I feel exhilarated?”
Vail ignored my comment.
“Thanks for saving Connor,” I added.
“I did it for you, and if it wasn’t for you, I would have left him for dead,” Vail admitted bluntly. “Connor is really scary. Did you see the look in his eyes when he stabbed those Vampires? I don’t think you should see him anymore.”
“I can’t do that. You know I can’t. We need more information about the Slayers and Sam.”
“I think we’ve got all the info we need from Connor.”
“I believe there’s more to uncover.”
“So, what’s your plan? Never tell him that you’re a Vampire?
Live a long life together and hope he won’t ever notice that you’re not eating or aging?
Rosie, you can’t keep living in this make-believe world you have in your head.
Wake up! We almost got killed tonight, and it was your fault,” Vail accused, her words like a slap in the face.
“No, it wasn’t. You wanted to go as well!” I retorted defensively.
“You’re a fucking Vampire, Rosie, and Connor is a fucking Slayer. I don’t know how to make it any clearer for you,” Vail exclaimed, frustration evident in her voice.
“Well, he’s a pretty shitty Slayer if you ask me. Not realizing that I’m a Vampire,” I muttered under my breath, crossing my arms in defiance.
“I worry that you’re going to get yourself killed,” Vail said quietly.
“I won’t. Connor would never hurt me,” I insisted, trying to reassure both Vail and me.
“Connor doesn’t even know you.”
“He is not a bad person.”
“But he does bad stuff to people like us,” she said, her tone filled with resignation.
In that moment, I couldn’t confess to her that she was right. Connor scared me tonight. Seeing him with those weapons, killing Vampires, it frightened me to the core.
“Why do you even care?” I asked her, frustration lacing my tone.
“Why are you bringing this up? It isn’t my fault you came with me tonight!
If it were up to me, I'd just leave. I'd skip town, but I can’t because I know that this is important to you. If I’m going to be here, I'll have to live with the feelings I have, and it’s hard. ”
“I've been thinking about why I decided that I wanted to go so bad and why there were so many Vampires there tonight,” Vail said. “I think someone put a spell on the flyers. A Vampire-summoning spell.”
“The same witch who put the circle around?”
“Yes. I think it was Sam,” Vail said, her voice filled with suspicion.
“But he’s not a witch.”
“I think he might be,” she said. “Did you notice? He wasn’t there when they were killing everyone. It was like he vanished. And did you smell the fire when we walked through it?”
“Burning plastic?”
“Yeah, I think that’s Sam’s magic.”
“So, Sam set us up? He wanted a massacre?” The thought made my blood boil.
“Seems that way. He made a Vampire-summoning spell and a witch’s circle to trap us all. That’s some advanced magic, Rosie.”
“But why would he do that? What does he gain from it?” My mind raced to find a motive.
“Power, control, maybe he’s trying to prove something. Who knows? But it’s clear he knows what he’s doing, and we need to be careful,”
As the city lights illuminated the car, I turned to Vail. “What do we do now?”
“Stick to the plan; we have to figure out Sam’s game and stop him.” Her grip on the steering wheel tightened. “And you need to decide what you want Rosie. If you keep your relationship with Connor, you might be putting all of us in danger.”
“I know,” I whispered.