Vampires
“Lucille.”
Blake’s voice slices through the fog in my skull. Not spoken aloud. It materializes inside my head, a whisper that echoes through the hollow chambers of my mind.
“For you I rose from the grave. But I went beyond my power. I cannot hold the other three much longer. Neither have I any power left to kill them. Hide, Lucille. Hide.”
The voice fades, leaving behind only the thunder of my pulse and the wet rasp of my own breathing.
I push myself upright, the movement sending the world spinning violently.
My hand flies to my throat, pressing against the torn flesh.
Blood oozes between my fingers—slower now, but still flowing.
The wound aches with a deep, thrumming poison.
Thomas’s bite burns different than Blake’s.
Where Blake’s brought pleasure, Thomas’s brought agony.
A searing, festering fire that crawls through my veins like liquid death.
I look down at the smear of ash on the slate, the charred remains of Thomas’s clothes, and the horror crashes over me in a wave so cold it steals my breath.
Thomas was a vampire.
A creature of nightmare and legend, and he bit me. He drank from me. If the shadows had not—
My stomach lurches. I double over, retching, but nothing comes. My body shakes with violent tremors.
Vampires. The masters. All of them. They are all vampires.
The word echoes through my mind, impossible. Vampires. Real. Living—no, not living. Existing. Hunters. Predators. Monsters who drink blood and live forever and—
I press my fingers to the wounds on my neck. The pain is real.
The shadows. The dreams. The man with the silver hair and the violet-blue eyes.
Blake.
He is a vampire too. He rose from the grave for me. He killed Thomas for me. He spoke inside my mind.
I sway on my feet, my vision swimming. This cannot be happening. This is not real. This is another nightmare, another twisted hallucination born from stress and exhaustion and the horrors of this house.
I will wake up. I am going to wake up, drenched in sweat, safe in my bed, and all of this will dissolve like morning mist.
That is what I tell myself. That is what I cling to as I take a shaky step toward the edge of the roof.
“I am dreaming,” I whisper to the wind. “This is just a dream. A horrible, impossible dream.”
Another step. The edge looms closer. The cemetery sprawls below, the tombstones like crooked teeth, the ground too far and too close all at once.
“In dreams, you fall,” I continue, my voice trembling. “I have had those dreams before. The ones where you fall and fall and wake up gasping.” I swallow hard. “I just need to wake up.”
I take a breath. Then another.
And I step off the edge.
The wind roars in my ears. My body plummets, weightless and falling, the ground rushing up to meet me. The air whips my hair across my face, tears streaming from my eyes. The world blurs into streaks of grey and green and stone.
It is a dream. It is a dream. It is a—
A wave of darkness engulfs me.
Wings beat against my skin, leathery and soft. Hundreds of them. Thousands. A storm of bats descends, their bodies forming a living cushion beneath me, lifting me, carrying me. They surge upward, their combined strength bearing my weight, and I am flying.
I scream, but the sound is swallowed by the rush of air and the frantic flutter of wings. The bats carry me across the grounds, over the rooftops, toward the isolated tower that looms at the edge of the manor. The isolation tower—the one where they send girls who bleed.
The bats pour through the highest window, a river of darkness flooding into the dusty attic. They deposit me on a bed of white sheets, old and yellowed with age, and then they are gone, streaming back out into the twilight sky.
I lie on the bed, gasping, trembling, my hand still pressed to my throat. The ceiling spins above me. Dust motes dance in the dim light. Old furniture looms in the corners, draped in white sheets like ghosts.
—
Hours pass. Or maybe minutes. Time has lost all meaning.
I drift in and out of consciousness, my body heavy, my mind a tangle of nightmare and reality. The wound on my neck throbs with a dull, persistent ache.
Voices. I hear voices.
“Lucy. Lucy, can you hear me?”
Jenny’s face swims into view, her brow furrowed with worry. Behind her, I see other girls—their faces pale, their eyes wide.
“Where am I?” The words scrape out of my throat like broken glass.
“The isolation tower,” Jenny says, her voice soft. “We heard a window breaking. We came up here and found you—bleeding, covered in dust, surrounded by bats.” She shakes her head. “Lucy, what happened? How did you get here?”
I touch my neck. The wound is still there—tender, raw, undeniably real.
“I cleaned it and applied a salve that numbs the pain.” Jenny says.
The evidence is right beneath my fingers.
It was not a dream. None of it was a dream.
I sit up too fast, and the room tilts. Jenny steadies me, her hands firm on my shoulders.
“Slowly,” she says. “You have lost a lot of blood.”
“The masters,” I manage, my voice hoarse. “Thomas. He—”
“I know.” Jenny’s voice drops to a whisper. “I know what they are. I have suspected for a while. He bit you. I saw the mark.”
I nod, the movement making my head swim. “He is dead.”
Jenny’s eyes go wide. “What?”
“The shadows. They—” I stop myself. I can’t tell her about Blake. Not yet. Not when I do not understand it myself. “They killed him. He turned to ash.”
Jenny stares at me for a long moment. Then she exhales, a shaky breath that sounds like relief. “Good,” she whispers. “He deserved it. They all deserve it.”
She glances toward the window, where the sky is beginning to bruise with the colors of dusk. “The other girls… I told them you were feeling sick and needed rest.”
“Mag,” I say suddenly.
Jenny’s expression flickers. “She doesn’t know about Thomas. She doesn’t believe he is—” Jenny hesitates. “She cares for him, Lucy. She won’t take the news well.”
The realization hits me like a physical blow. Mag loved Thomas. Or thought she did. When she finds out he is dead because of me…
“I can’t go back down there,” I say quickly. “Not yet. I need to be alone. I need to think.”
Jenny studies my face, and her expression softens. “I understand. I will tell the others you are resting. No one will disturb you.”
She stands, pausing at the door. “Lucy. Be careful. This place—this house—it is not safe. And whatever happened up there, whatever killed Thomas, it may not be done with you yet.”
She leaves.
I move to the window, my legs shaky, my body aching. Outside, the sun bleeds into the horizon, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink and deep violet. The manor sprawls below, dark and silent. The cemetery is hidden from view, lost behind the curve of the north wing.
I press my fingers to the wound on my neck. The skin is tender, but the bleeding has stopped. The evidence is right there—proof that everything was real.
The shadows. The bats. The bite.
Blake.
I whisper his name into the twilight, and the wind carries it away.
The last light of dusk fades, and the stars begin to emerge, one by one, scattered across the darkening sky like diamonds on black velvet.
I stay by the window, watching the night fall. And I think about vampires, and shadows, and a man with silver hair who rose from the grave for me.