Chapter 24
Chapter
Twenty-Four
THE SNOW IS OVER A foot and a half deep now. As darkness blankets the town of Silent Bend, the ominous clouds overhead continue to circle. The thunder ripples through the sky. The flakes continue to fall.
The gauge on the front porch reads two degrees.
The last text I received from Luke said roughly ninety percent of the population had evacuated.
I breathe just a little easier.
Samuel drives the tractor I didn’t know we had, clearing the snow from the driveway. He’s also worked at clearing the snow from the roads leading to our House from the main highway.
He comes back with reports that the snow trickles off immediately outside the borders of Silent Bend.
When there is little more we can do to prepare for the King’s arrival tomorrow night, I stand in the library, next to the fire. My eyes fix outside the window, though it’s pitch black and my human eyes can’t see a thing.
“What do you know about curses?” I ask quietly.
Markov sets his bourbon on the side table and crosses an ankle over a knee. “Very little.”
“Please, tell me what you do know,” I encourage.
He takes a moment to collect his thoughts. All two hundred years of them. “I knew my father was a vampire. He could barely be called a man, himself having resurrected at just fifteen years old. My mother was a woman he raped in the local village and kept in captivity until she gave birth to me.”
And even just these short statements he’s shared are enough to make me understand why Markov is the way he is.
“As soon as I was old enough to be weaned from her breast, he drained her dry, and he told me the story as I grew up of how he threw her body into the frozen river. How she broke through the thin ice, and slipped under the surface. He watched her body slowly float down the river, beneath the sheet of ice.” He grabs his glass again and takes a sip.
My eyes slide over to his face. His eyes stay fixed on his glass, and while his expression is eerily calm as he tells this terrible story, there’s something different there. In the slight tightening around his eyes. In the downturn of his lips.
“She floated away, down the river, never to cross his mind again,” he continues as he sets his drink on the coaster again. “But from that day forward, my father would never be warm again. His skin was ever as cold as the ice water he threw her into.”
I find myself rubbing my hands over my arms, attempting to warm my own flesh.
“We as a species aren’t the warmest creatures,” Markov says as he looks up at me. “But he was frigid. There was nothing natural about it. My father cursed himself.”
“What happened after that?” I ask, morbidly curious about the toddler Markov and his demented, young father.
“He raised me as a vampire, though I was still human,” he says, and when he does, he looks away from me.
“Taught me to hunt. Not animals as the rest of the few people I knew did. No, we hunted those like me. Beings with heartbeats and two legs to run on. Beings with lungs and vocal cords with which to scream. And he made me drink their blood.”
My stomach rolls. I feel my face pale.
“I became so good, I could hunt anyone by the time I was eleven. He taught me well. Trained me to be the most deadly vampire there ever would be when I reached a prime age to resurrect. But my father, he made a mistake.”
“What was that?” I hardly dare ask. My hands shake just slightly and I lace my fingers together to attempt to calm them.
“He taught me too well,” Markov says as he stares into the flames. “I grew bored with such easy prey. They moved too slow. They didn’t fight back. So one night, I set out after new prey. A challenge.”
I feel my stomach drop. “Your father.”
Markov gives the smallest of nods. “Yes.”
He does not say more for a long minute. He stares into the flames, and I can only imagine the carnage he’s seeing in his mind’s eye. The blood. The ice-cold flesh.
“I know very little about curses, my dear Queen, but I lived with one for the first eleven years of my life. So you understand, being what I was, I felt no rush to resurrect and become like him.”
Yet I know something had to have changed in the last two hundred years he’s been a Born. Because Markov loves being a vampire.
There is so much history to the members of my House.
Anna, who pretended to be a boy and fought in the Revolutionary War. Samuel who was bred and groomed to be a vampire. Lillian, a fashion designer, mugged and murdered in the streets. Nial with a simple slip on the ice. Cameron, so very human, making such a human mistake with drugs.
And Rath. Who was devoted to my father, but whom I know almost nothing about.
Another jolt of thunder rips through the sky.
“Why does it look like I am about to receive my own curse?” I breathe quietly into the night. “What have I done, Markov?”
And he doesn’t have an answer for me.
NO ONE SLEEPS THAT NIGHT, or rather, day.
Most of my House members stay in the ballroom where Cameron is attempting to keep everyone entertained with a game of Charades.
Lillian cuts out a beautiful fabric, not using a pattern, just creating it from her head.
Nial humors Cameron and plays along absentmindedly.
Anna is not here. She’s out looking for Jasmine.
By morning she returns, somber faced at being unsuccessful in finding her yet again.
We have just hours until the King arrives.
Yet I find myself leaving the Estate.
This may be my last chance to venture out into the daylight world without experiencing pain.
I climb into the Jeep and drive down my long driveway. The snow is once again a few inches deep where Samuel plowed. But the tires on this vehicle handle it with no problem.
I’m not sure where I’m going. I wander through town. Every shop is closed. Fred’s. The grocery store. The school is shut down. When I find the church at the end of Main Street with its lights glowing and several cars parked outside, my heart drops slightly.
There are footprints all over in the deepening snow. And there is a sign out front that says “Shelter and Food.”
Their pipes must not have frozen yet, and they’re staying warm enough. My curiosity gets the best of me. I park on the side of the road and climb out.
My boots sink deeply into the snow and I can’t help but think it looks almost gray. Like there’s ash mixed into it. I glance up at the skies just before I reach the grand front doors.
The clouds still swirl above the town. It’s a terrible sight. Terrifying. And the snow just keeps falling from the sky.
Placing my hand on the door, I pull, and let myself in.
The pews have all been moved to the sides of the chapel, and the center of the room is filled with cots. Extension cords run all over the place and I see space heaters plugged in everywhere. It’s warm inside, enough to get away with only wearing a jacket.
About a dozen people are strewn about the building that I can see. They lie on the cots. They talk quietly to one another. No eyes turn to me as the door was quiet and my entrance quick as to not let any heat out.
Off to the side, I see a doorway open up into a kitchen.
And there, helping serve up what looks to be a stew, is Luke.
He smiles at an older black woman as he hands her the bowl. She says something and it must be a joke, because he laughs in response. He hands another bowl to a little boy next, still talking to the woman.
Sheriff McCoy is a good man. He’s brave. Just taking this job was a risk. He told me once he got the position because Jasmine killed his predecessor. Here he is, ever at risk. Most everyone has left, but he’s here, taking care of the people of Silent Bend in a way I cannot.
I’m startled when a hand rests on my shoulder, and I look to find Mayor Jackson staring at me with dark eyes.
“Alivia, I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced yet,” he says with darkness and wariness. “I’m Leonard Jackson.”
I accept the hand he extends and shake it. “Alivia Ryan, but I suppose you know that.”
“I do,” he says with a nod. “Sheriff McCoy has been keeping me updated on…things.”
“Oh,” is all I can come up with. His presence, meeting him, has caught me off guard.
His eyes grow sad, distant. And he takes a small, half a step away from me.
“I’m sure you’ve heard about what happened to my wife nearly three months ago.
Luke doesn’t know much, not really anything.
But I have to ask you, because I’ve heard how allegiances have shifted.
Was it a member of your House who turned my wife? ”
And I see it there. The sorrow and grief this man has gone through.
I can only imagine. Seeing her seemingly dead, only to have her wake up with a Debt she can’t fight or refuse.
“I promise you, it wasn’t my House. There is some kind of…
hidden, secret war going on. Someone has been building, well, the best I can describe it as is an army.
Jasmine’s House has been attacked several times. And…”
I falter, not wanting to cause him more pain by confessing the truth.
“Please,” he says, his eyes begging me. “I need to know.”
I swallow hard, turning my eyes to the innocent people around us. “One of my members confirmed your wife was among those who attacked Jasmine’s House. She can’t help it. I think you know that, but…”
I look back at Mayor Jackson. His eyes have grown distant.
He nods his head and squeezes them shut for a moment.
“Things have gotten out of control, ever since you arrived in this town, Alivia.” When he opens his eyes, they are cold and hard.
They penetrate me to my core. “New attacks. Ian Ward no longer keeping the streets clear. And now, nature turning against our town. Your father should have died a long time ago and then Silent Bend and my wife would have been safe.”
He spits his last few words out, and then just turns and walks away.
I stand there, stunned.
Numb.