45. Bella – Lucys Plan
Chapter forty-five
Bella – Lucy's Plan
Thunder rumbles in the distance. Everyone is on edge. Darius arrives at the clinic and finds me. He looks disturbed. Well, who wouldn’t?
“Darius, Lucy called. She’s coming any minute now. Says it’s important. Something about a plan,” I say nervously.
“Yes, and she’s bringing reinforcements. Charles called me.”
Inside, patients are fearful and whisper.
The bell tolled an hour earlier than usual tonight as the mayor ordered, and for the first time since arriving on Bloodhaven Cove, I hear panic in the sound.
People rushed home through the streets outside. Doors slammed. Curtains closed. Silver flashed at throats and wrists as the town seals itself shut before darkness fully falls.
Finn stands beside the nurses’ station rubbing exhausted hands over his face.
“I officially miss normal flu season.”
“I hear you hated flu season,” I murmur while checking Lena’s temperature again.
“Yes, but nobody heard forests whispering during flu season.”
Fair point.
Charlie lies near the isolation room doors watching everyone with unsettling intelligence. I smell fear, Bella.
The clinic door suddenly opens. Lucy enters carrying three bags stuffed with herbs, jars, and what appears to be an aggressively cursed branch.
And several vampires from The Cliffs follow her. Victor, Isabelle, Charles, and two more.
The room is silent. We look look at the otherworldly creatures who have never been in Hunt’s Harbor except for Charles. They look truly intimidating.
“The fog is wrong,” Lucy announces immediately as she enters.
“Good evening to you, too,” Finn mutters.
Lucy points directly at him. “You need more sleep and less caffeine, Finn.”
Charlie trots immediately toward Lucy. The chaos herb woman returns. With goods in her bag.
Lucy scratches behind his ears absently.
“Yes, things are getting worse. We’re going to try to fix it.”
Darius’s expression remains grim.
“Lucy, Hazel worsened again. She attempted to leave the clinic, following some whisper or call. Fred closed the windows with wood and Finn stopped her from leaving through the front door. We have her locked in a room now, sedated.”
Lucy nods.
“She said the forest was calling her home,” I add.
Silence falls heavily. Lucy closes her eyes briefly like that confirms something she feared.
“It’s clearly accelerating,” she murmurs.
“How are the vampires at The Cliffs holding, Mr. Hunt?” she asks.
There's a pause and then Charles answers. “Adrien attacked one of his household. Marcus is fully sedated but shouting out in paranoia. The black veins cover his body. He’s restrained with silver or would run away. Stage two maybe, or Stage three… Two more are infected, sedated and silvered. But the bad news is that two Cliff vampires are missing. Tufus and Ivan. We don’t know if they are infected or simply hiding. ”
I see Darius close his eyes for a moment. He knows something but isn’t saying so at the moment, with everyone in the room. Cold moves through me. Vampire control is failing faster than we thought.
“Upstairs, everyone. And by everyone, I mean Darius and you vampires except Victor. Time to discuss a plan. Victor, you guard the door. No one goes out or comes in.”
Lucy and Charlie follows all of us upstairs, and Lucy sets her bags heavily on the kitchen counter.
“We’re out of time.”
Something in her tone stills the room completely. Finn slowly sips the cold coffee in his hands.
“What exactly does that mean?”
Lucy begins unpacking items quickly. Black candles that burn in the rain or fog. Silver powder. Bundles of herbs tied with red thread. Chalk. Salt. Old carved stones. Some bones.
Darius watches her carefully.
“What is your plan, Lucy? Why do you need more vampires? What are we going to do to contain this?”
Lucy exhales sharply. “I have a dangerous idea.”
“Plans, schemes or ideas. Same thing on this island,” Finn mutters. “If it stops this catastrophe, we’re all in.”
Lucy continues.
“The corruption spreads because the source is awake again,” she says while arranging items across the counter. “He awakes every twenty years and has become stronger each time. The calling grows stronger every night because the creature’s influence is expanding.”
“You keep saying creature,” I say carefully. “But what exactly is it?”
There is a dark silence. Lucy and Darius exchange a look. Finn and I notice.
Lucy sighs heavily.
“My grandmother believed the original corruption began with a vampire.”
The room is shocked. Darius’s jaw tightens slightly. The vampires look at each other.
“A powerful one,” Lucy continues quietly. “One who became … altered.”
“The first Rising or Hunger, they called it,” Darius says softly. “We were never sure if it was rumor of a vampire could be true or not. Things were different then.”
Lucy nods.
“The hunger consumed him, changed him and a witch stopped him. Her magic may have altered him when she contained him. My ancestor, of course.”
“You think the thing in The Wilds used to be one of you?” I ask softly.
“No,” Darius says quietly. “Worse. We think it might be my Uncle Arthur, the old vampire who turned my brother and I, and killed the rest of my family.”
Silence crashes into the room. Finn blinks once.
“…Excuse me? Your uncle?”
I stare at Darius. The air leaves my lungs slowly.
“Drake is your brother who disappeared in The Wilds,” I whisper. “What about him?”
“He disappeared during the last Hunger. I never found him. But I think he’s still there. I think he’s the one attacking the monster, trying to stop him… Silas and Lena reported something attacking their attacker which helped them get away.”
Pieces suddenly slam together inside my head.
The attacks interrupted. The second presence. Hazel’s words: The prince still fights it.
“He’s still alive,” I whisper. “Maybe changed, but there…”
Darius says nothing. Lucy says nothing. The other vampires say nothing but look at each other. Which is answer enough. The room feels suddenly smaller. Sadness presses heavily through me before I can stop it.
Because Darius has been carrying this alone for twenty years.
Lucy pulls the rest of the contents out of her bag out with violent focus.
“I think your brother is resisting whatever the corruption became,” she says quietly. “Or is trying to. And trying in his own way to stop the monster, your uncle.”
“Can he be saved?” Darius asks quietly. “My brother?”
Silence again, then Lucy says quietly, “I don’t know.”
Honesty hurts. “But I do think we can weaken the corruption of the monster, your Uncle Arthur, long enough to sever the calling temporarily. Stop his power over these victims drawing them to him. Find a way to weaken him and take him down.”
Hope flares instantly through the room, small and fragile.
“How?” I ask.
Lucy begins arranging silver powder into a circle across the counter.
“Ritual containment.”
Finn stares blankly. “Those are words separately. What do they mean?”
“The source is strongest near the northern edge of The Wilds, near the old bell tower ruins,” Lucy continues. “If we weaken it there, the pull may lessen long enough to stabilize infected humans and vampires.”
“May?” Darius repeats carefully.
Lucy glares at him.
“You’re immortal. You live with uncertainty all the time. I don't know how the magic may have corrupted him.”
“What do you need? What’s the plan?” I ask.
Lucy’s gaze shifts toward me slowly. And suddenly I don’t like that look at all.
“You, doctor,” she says quietly but firmly.
Darius immediately says, “No!”
Lucy ignores him completely.
“The ritual requires someone the monster recognizes. Someone human. It’s been watching you. Since you arrived. And knows you’re treating its victims,” Lucy says quietly.
I look at Darius, who is angry.
Lucy continues, “The blood of the victims is on you, in you. And your dreams. The dream that links you and Darius, his own nephew. Bella, he noticed you before you arrived here. When you arrived here.”
Darius steps closer immediately.
“Absolutely not. It’s too dangerous. Let me do whatever you’re planning.”
Lucy rounds on him.
“She is human. A vampire cannot do what is necessary for this magical containment.”
Darius’s eyes darken dangerously.
“Then find another human. Or work your magic on me, so I can replace her, witch.”
Lucy doesn’t even blink.
“You want to save the island? What you often call your island,” she demands. “Then stop pretending Bella can still stand outside this. Get on board with what’s necessary!”
The silence is heavy and terrible. Because he knows she’s right.
Charlie moves slowly to my side. This feels like a terrible idea, Bella.
“It is, Charlie,” Lucy says softly. “But it may be the only one we have,” she says, then looks at me.
I step away from the growing tension of the room long enough to pull out my phone and call Mayor Calloway.
He answers immediately.
“Bella? Please tell me nobody else is missing.”
“Not yet,” I say quickly. “Listen carefully. We’re going into The Wilds tonight to try to stop the monster.”
Silence.
“Oh God.”
“I need you and Mike Lauder at the clinic now. Finn can’t handle the infected patients alone if things worsen. We have too many and if they escalate, they might be too agitated or try to escape.”
“What exactly are we preparing for?” he asks nervously.
I glance toward the fog outside.
“The possibility that everything gets worse before it gets better.”
Then his voice steadies slightly.
“We’re coming.”
“And Mayor?” I add.
“Yes?”
“Bring silver. Lots of it.”
--
Lucy points at a map she has spread out on the table. It’s the old bell tower ruins. Then she looks directly at me.
“When Arthur, the monster, enters the silver circle ward I will create, the small bells will ring as part of the spell. They will weaken him temporarily.”
“Temporarily?” Finn echoes weakly.
“Yes. Very temporarily.”
Lucy reaches into her satchel and removes an ornate silver dagger. Moonlight catches against the jewels embedded in the hilt.
It’s beautiful. Deadly. Ancient. My stomach tightens when she presses it into my hand.
“Put my liquid blend of herbs in a hypodermic needle, doctor. When he steps in the circle, stab him with the magical dagger. That will stun him, then poke him with the needle. It must enter his bloodstream directly to weaken him,” she says quietly.
“That gives us a change to kill him or make him so weak that Darius can behead him. Or contain him, which is the backup plan. I prefer Plan A.”
I stare at the blade.
“You want me to stab the vampire monster?”
“I want you to cut him,” Lucy corrects. “The silver of the dagger and my potion together, which you will inject, will weaken the corruption inside him.”
Darius steps forward immediately.
“No. This is far too dangerous. She’s never used a dagger before. How can she be that close to this monster? No!”
Lucy ignores him completely.
“The ritual I will chant binds to human intent,” she continues, her eyes never leaving mine. “A vampire cannot deliver the wound. It must be a human that he knows or is interested in.”
“Why?”
“Because vampires carry the Hunger already. Their intent for mortal blood is tangled inside it.”
I whisper. “Why me?”
Lucy’s gaze flicks briefly toward Darius. “Arthur sensed you years ago through the dreams. Thanks to Darius. Arthur is his maker and they are connected.”
My pulse jumps.
She gestures faintly between Darius and me. “But there is a difference. Arthur reaches outward with hunger and power. Darius reached outward to you through longing and love.”
Oh God.
“The island somehow connected all three of you,” Lucy says softly. “Bella, Arthur became fascinated by you, but angry that Darius found you first. And that you are attracted to Darius. Bonded to him. His.”
Something ancient and dangerous flickers across Darius’s expression at those words.
“Arthur wants to claim you now. I’m sure of it,” Lucy says.
Cold tears through me.
“Claim me?”
“He wants to turn you into something like him. So you and he can be together. He would turn you to vampire and then let the corruption flow through you, so you are like beings.”
Darius looks furious. And afraid. Mostly afraid.
“No, you cannot,” Darius says immediately to me.
The desperation and force in his voice startles even Lucy briefly. She studies him quietly.
“She must, vampire. She interests him, he wants her, so she is the only one that can draw him out,” she says softly. “That’s exactly why this will work. We need to contain this monster, stop him, take him down. We can’t do it without Bella.”
“We will not use her as bait.”
The words crack through the room low and dangerous. Lucy rounds on him instantly.
“She is not bait. She is the only one Arthur will approach willingly.”
“He approaches her and I tear him apart.”
“That’s the problem,” Lucy snaps. “You’ll attack too soon. Before I can cast a spell, before Bella can stab him and get the potion in him. Then it fails.”
Darius steps closer, eyes blackening slightly.
“This is insane.”
I grab his arm before the situation somehow escalates into vampire-witch homicide.
“Darius. Dear. Darling.”
His gaze drops to me immediately. The fear is there. Real fear mixed with love and protection on his face.
“You heard what she said,” I whisper. “I’m the only one who can do this.”
“No.”
The word comes out raw. Not angry this time but terrified and pleading. My chest aches unexpectedly. I step closer.
“I have to do this. We don’t have any other plan,” I say softly. “It’s escalating too quickly. The whole island is at risk, every human and vampire. Trust me now.”
The silence between us feels enormous. But he nods as he closes his eyes.