24. Scotty
Scotty
CONVALESCE
Jules has lost a lot of blood. Fortunately, for our kind, it doesn’t matter. Not really. We can be bled dry and not die, although it’s an uncomfortable situation to be in. We’re sluggish and need to get plenty of rest in order to recover, but it’s never lethal.
I hold Juliette against my chest as she quietly dozes. Occasionally, she shifts and murmurs something under her breath, and I answer her with another kiss to her forehead.
“I love you,” I whisper, not even sure she can hear me right now. “And I hope you know now what it’s supposed to feel like.”
Juliette shifts against me, then tilts her face up toward mine. “I love you, too,” she says, so quietly I almost don’t catch it. “Sorry for making you bite me. I’m probably going to be a bit … lazy for a while.”
I hug her tighter. “Don’t apologize. I enjoyed it, too. But in that case, would you like to hear the rest of my story?”
Juliette nods. “Yes.”
“Good. Because I was going to tell it, anyway,” I say.
She lets out a soft snort. “Yes, I figured as much. Then why even ask?”
I chuckle and press my lips to her head again. “Good question. Anyway, back to New Year’s Eve…”
Eli and I head upstairs to the VIP lounge area of the club, where a vampire bouncer greets us and takes us past the velvet rope.
I’ve never been a VIP anywhere, and to be honest, the set up is kind of underwhelming.
A few leather booths filled with other vamps smoking cigarettes and doing shots under a red light.
“There,” Eli says, taking me by the elbow. “I see Marcus and Ava in the booth back there.”
Ava spots us immediately and waves her arms over her head like we’re in a crowded music festival. When we approach the booth, Marcus looks up and grins. He’s got his arm draped over a woman I don’t recognize. She’s dressed in a rhinestone bikini and nothing else. Sapphire, probably.
“Yo, you made it!” Marcus yells over the music. “Have a seat, you two! Meet Sapphire.”
Sapphire smiles politely and holds out her hand to shake mine. We exchange quick pleasantries, but then Eli cuts straight to the chase.
“Why are we here?” he asks.
Ava throws back a shot of vodka and laughs. “Always business with Elias, even on a holiday.”
“You’re here to hang out and relax,” Marcus says. Sapphire smiles and nods along.
“Just have fun,” Ava says, and pushes a couple of vodka shots toward me and Eli. I want one, yeah, but I don’t like drinking in strange places. Eli shakes his head, pushing them back to Ava. Predictably, she frowns, then pulls one of her notorious pouts on our dear leader.
“No, thank you,” Eli says.
“Aw, c’mon. It’s New Year’s Eve and it’s the end of the world!” Ava whines. I’ve never wanted to smack her so much.
Sapphire winks at Eli and says, “Yeah. Live a little. It’s just one night. You can go back to being your handsome, polished self tomorrow, I’m sure.”
Compliments might work on her usual clientele, but Eli is impervious to them.
“I’m afraid that if we have nothing important to discuss, then I must take my leave.
I need to get back to the office,” he says, then slides out of the booth.
Marcus jumps to his feet to chase after him, leaving me with Sapphire and Ava.
Well, Sapphire, mostly. Ava is too incoherent to be considered anywhere at all right now.
“So, your sister is Harriett, right?” Sapphire asks as she scoots closer to me.
I nod. “Yeah. She’s downstairs.”
“I saw,” she says, then takes one of the vodka shots and tosses it back. She wipes her mouth clean and winces. “I keep telling the bartender we need better shit. This stuff’s like drinking bleach.”
“Drink a lot of bleach, then, do you?” I ask. Half of my body is out of the booth, ready to make my great escape and find Eli.
Sapphire either doesn’t notice the jab or chooses to ignore it. “She’s cute. Your sister, I mean. And I had no idea your boss was such a hottie.”
I roll my eyes. “He’s not available, so don’t get too attached.” Unless she just wants his wallet. In either case, she’s going to be disappointed. To my knowledge, Eli has never paid for female company, and I doubt that’s going to start in 2000.
I don’t wait for Sapphire to answer before stepping out of the booth.
Ava slumps over the table in a drunken stupor.
That’s been her usual game lately—get so wasted she can’t move or feel feelings, then nurse her hangover with a fresh kill the next evening.
This shite’s getting old, though, and all I want to do is go back home to the nest and sleep.
Sapphire grabs my wrist, and I spin around to bare my fangs at her. But to my surprise, she doesn’t flinch or even so much as react. She just … stares at me.
“Stay,” she says. “I know what you are. I know what you all are.”
Dammit, Marcus. The fuck did you do now?
I let out a groan and retract my fangs. “What the fuck,” I breathe.
“Relax. Stay a while. Party,” she says, and pulls on my arm so hard I fall back into the booth beside her. When I look back over at Ava, I notice she’s drooling on the table. What a mess.
“Hey, Ava,” I say, and reach over with my free hand to shake her. “Wake up.”
“She’s not waking up for a while,” Sapphire says in a sing-songy voice that sends a chill down my spine.
I turn to push Sapphire away, to go find Eli and Marcus. Her grip on my wrist is strong, but I’m stronger, and I shove her against the wall. “Knock it off. Leave me alone.”
I slide out of the booth and go to grab Ava to take her back to the nest, but all the lights in the club suddenly go out, plunging the room into darkness. The crowd downstairs screams as the doors slam shut. I hiss and whirl around—
Only to find Sapphire at my back, with a crossbow aimed directly for my heart.
“Don’t move,” she says. Her lips curl into a sadistic grin. I look over at Ava still knocked out in the booth. “Just stay right there, you bloodsucking son of a bitch.”
I put my hands up as the panic rises within me. Harriett. I have to find my sister. I have to find Eli, too, before it’s too late.
Without warning, Sapphire spins around and aims right for Ava’s unconscious body. A roar crawls up my throat, and I rush forward to knock Sapphire over. But it’s too late. The bolt enters Ava’s rib cage and—and—
I watch as my coven sister turns to gray ash right before my very eyes. My centuries-old friend. Bested by some vodka and a stripper with a crossbow.
The rage becomes all-consuming, and I round on Sapphire to knock her to the ground. Her crossbow falls out of her hands, and she lets out a scream. Good. She should be afraid. Because what I’m about to do to her now? It’s not going to be a quick death like she just gave Ava.
But as I’m about to pounce on Sapphire, another crossbow bolt whizzes past my face, just missing me.
“What the fuck—” I start, and turn to find several Helsings in uniform standing there, their crossbows trained on me. Shit. This is not good. The screaming downstairs becomes overwhelming; my head throbs in agony. I make a run for the stairs, leaving Ava’s ashes behind.
Several more crossbow bolts zip past my ears.
How I manage to evade them all, I’ll never know, but I make it down the stairs to find heaps of ashes everywhere, along with several human corpses.
Their blood stains the concrete floor, and the vamps who remain are sent into a bloodlust. They lunge for the Helsings only to catch bolts in their chests and burst into ash. I cough on the dust of my fallen kin.
Harriett. I need to find my sister.
“Freckles!” I scream as I race through the club, pushing aside the surviving humans who are now in panic mode and stampeding.
This is bad. A Helsing jumps on top of the bar and yells something incoherent into the crowd, then fires another crossbow bolt, killing a vampire instantly.
More dust explodes in the air until it looks like someone went nuts with the fog machine.
And then I spot her. Harriett huddles in the booth where I left her, the frat boys she was with bleeding out on the ground a few feet away.
I race for Harriett only to get knocked over by a human bouncer.
It feels like I just got hit by a linebacker.
The ground rises to meet me. My vision goes blurry, and for a few seconds, I’m afraid I’ll black out.
But then Harriett’s screams pull me back to the present, and I jump to my feet.
I rush to the booth and grab her by the arm, pulling her into my chest. “I’ve got you,” I pant. “I’ve got you. Come on.”
“Where’s Marcus? And Ava?” she yells over the screams. “Where’s Eli?!”
I swallow down the lump in my throat and shake my head. “I don’t know,” I say, and pull her toward the backdoor leading to the kitchen. “We can find them later. We need to get out of here first.”
The kitchens are filled with more dead humans, and their blood coats the tiles, making it almost impossible to get through the room without slipping. Realizing the danger, I scoop Harriett into my arms and carry her to the back door, then bash against it with my side until it opens.
Once we’re in the back alleyway, I set her down in front of me and look her over. I run my hands across her head, searching for any signs of injury. “Are you hurt?”
Harriett shakes her head. “N-No, but … I’m so sorry, Scotty.”
Blood trickles down her cheeks in thick rivulets. I grab her by the shoulders and squeeze. “Hey. Hey, why are you sorry? What are you sorry for?” I ask.
Her body trembles. Gods, she’s so small.
Just a teenager. There’s no reason she should have been here, tonight.
This is all my fault. I should have grabbed her and taken her home when I had a chance.
Now everything is all fucked up. Ava is dead, and who knows where Marcus even is?
I know Eli is fine. No one can kill him.
Hariett sobs quietly, and I crush her against my chest in an embrace. “You have nothing to be sorry for,” I murmur. “Nothing, you hear me?”
“It’s my fault, I should have listened to you,” she sobs against my chest. “I should have stayed home and watched the ball drop with you, like we always do … this was such a stupid idea.”
I kiss the top of my sister’s head. “No, Freckles. No … none of this is your fault. You couldn’t have known.”
Harriett lifts her face, opens her mouth to speak—and then the sound of a bolt slices through the air. I try to jerk us aside, but it’s too late. My sister’s eyes widen as the bolt hits its mark.
Her chest. The wooden bolt sticks halfway out of her back like a stake.
No. No, this can’t be happening. This isn’t happening. We’re back home in my apartment, watching Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Years Eve. We’re laughing and cuddling and draining blood bags and playing Scrabble to pass the time. This alleyway? It doesn’t exist. This timeline? Doesn’t exist.
“Scotty—” she rasps … just before exploding into a heap of ash.
My entire world falls apart.
I don’t even remember anything after Harriett’s death.
The Helsing who shot her lasted all of five seconds before their neck was snapped, of course.
And then I woke up the next evening with stomach cramps.
I spent all of New Year’s Day vomiting blood.
Blood from the Helsings I tore apart and drank.
I’d never over-indulged before, and I learned the hard way what happens when a vampire drinks too much blood. It comes back out, one way or another.
The news called it the New Year’s Eve Vampire Massacre.
A targeted raid on vampires, thanks to the Helsings who were sent there by the mayor. Their main target? Elias.
He was captured and killed, along with Marcus.
My brother. My father figure. My entire family gone thanks to a new initiative from the mayor.
The goal? To eradicate all vampire kind.
Thanks to internet message boards and the dark web, it was shockingly easy for the Helsings to share information with one another.
Sapphire, who was an undercover Helsing all along, exploited Marcus and Ava’s carelessness and managed to learn everything they needed about Elias and his synthetic blood.
Instead of being supportive of the idea, the mayor ordered our executions.
“We will not tolerate the non-human threat on our city,” he said on national television. They even cancelled the Rose Bowl Parade for his little speech. “All non-human intelligence will be considered monsters. Anathema.”
The flashing of camera lights went off all around the podium as he spoke into the microphone. And then he did the most deplorable thing I’d ever seen. He slammed a jar of ashes down on the podium. The reporters and journalists in the audience gasped.
“They are monsters, and will be treated as such.” He gestured to the jar.
“This one was attempting to create fake blood so that they could live among us. My message to these vermin is clear. We will not tolerate your kind, period. You can create synthetic blood. You can even remove your fangs, if you’d like.
It does not change reality. You are monsters, and we will take back our streets! ”
The applause was deafening. I left the nest that very same night and hopped on a train for Scotland, leaving behind a shattered heart and broken unlife.