Vampire Heart

by Rhys Lawless

  For starters, neither Easton nor Caleb were answering their phones. And then there was that pull I always felt towards Caleb since we became one. That pull was unstoppable. Immovable. It was for life. Yet all I was feeling right now was a tightness in my chest as if he’d been yanked away from my soul and he was holding on for dear life.

  “What did Caleb ever see in you?” Troy glared at me before trying his mobile one more time.

  “Beats me,” I told him and looked at Winston. “Are you having any luck?”

  Winston opened his eyes and looked up to the sky.

  “He’s close,” he said.

  I followed his gaze. The sky was cloudy as it had been this whole winter. Not that we could ever expect any better in the city. I noticed some patches of stars breaking through, and I focused my eyes on them. I guess going outside of London, even if only by a few miles, made for a much better view.

  A big, black shadow trailed across the clouds. The raven dove right down seemingly aiming straight for Winston.

  Just when its beak should have collided with my brother’s chest, the bird erupted in smoke and lightning, and when it cleared, Hew was curled up in Winston’s arms.

  “I’m here. I’m here now, babe,” Winston whispered in his ear, and after a few moments of soft caresses and reassuring words, Hew opened his eyes and put his feet to the ground. “Tell us what happened?”

  Hew looked from Winston to me and then to Troy, his face sunken and his eyes red.

  “I wanted to help. Let me say that from the get-go. But he didn’t let me,” he said.

  “Who?” Troy asked.

  “Caleb,” Hew answered and then went on to tell us what happened after they left my apartment.

  When he finished, I was livid. Not with what had happened, but with Caleb’s hot-headedness. His willingness to jump into danger without a plan or backup would get him killed one of these days. And what would I do without him? What would Nora do without him? What would the world do without Caleb in it?

  The tightness in my chest finally made sense. Whoever this Darius guy was, he’d taken Caleb prisoner and had done something to him to stop me from finding him.

  But I wasn’t one to give up easily. If he thought I’d give up and give in, he was a fool. Maybe I couldn’t find him by magic, but there were other, more bloody means to locate my soulmate.

  “We’ll find him. We’ll find them both. I promise you that,” Winston said to both Troy and me, but I wasn’t listening anymore. I was picturing all the ways I would butcher whichever asshole got between me and my mate.

  “Okay. What are we waiting for? Let’s go,” Troy said.

  Winston placed his hand on his chest to stop him from walking away.

  “Hold on one second, Jean Claude Van Damme. They’re both prisoners because they didn’t think this shit through, didn’t plan anything. Let’s be smarter so we can get out of there alive and get them both out the same way,” he said.

  “No,” Troy said and stared at me. “Easton didn’t jump into anything. He was just collateral. That’s what happens with anyone who gets involved with your lot, isn’t it?”

  Winston raised an eyebrow.

  “And what would that mean exactly?”

  Hew raised his hands and tried to step in the middle.

  “Guys! Please! Put your dicks away and let’s pick our brains instead,” he said. “This macho bullshit only works in straight films, and this is the gayest circle ever, so cut it off.”

  Troy was the first to put his hands down, his shoulders sagging, and he took a step back. Winston stared him down for a few moments before he obeyed his soulmate.

  “That’s better. Hey, maybe I should be a ringmaster in a gay club or something,” Hew joked.

  “Not a fucking chance,” Winston growled at him, and Hew pecked him on the lips.

  “Right,” he said when both feet were planted firmly on the ground again. “How do we get the boys back?”

  “We call backup,” I said. And at least this time I knew the high council would be happy to help, unlike last time we needed them and they turned their backs on us. Oh, how the times had changed. “Ash will know where to start.”

  “Okay then. Let’s go,” Troy said and started to walk away.

  We started to follow him and look for the nearest main street so we could grab a cab—I should really invest in a car one of these days because these cab rides were starting to add up—when everything around me blurred.

  The streets became darker, and the quiet more ominous. It didn’t take long to find out why.

  A horde of vampires appeared out of thin air, surrounding us. I counted about fifteen before I gave up and Winston bumped into me with his back.

  “I got twelve,” he said.

  I gave him my count.

  Shit!

  We were fucked. Four against at least twenty-five vampires. Yeah, sure. That would work out in our favor.

  “What do you want?” I asked looking for the leader. Every group had its assigned leader even if they were the same rank as the rest.

  “We’ve got a message for you,” said a guy with long, blonde hair and non-existent lips.

  “Must be quite the message if it needs five hundred of you to pass it,” I said.

  Without any time to react, three of the vampires were at Troy’s, Hew’s, and Winston’s heels and holding them by the hair, their teeth only inches from their necks.

  “Is this part of the message, or are you doing it for dramatic effect?” I asked the blond guy.

  Yes, I was stalling. What else could I possibly do with a defensive power and no ability to cast spells whatsoever?

  “Do shut up. You’re quite dull as it is,” the blond vampire said.

  “Just give me your message and go,” I said but bit my tongue straight away.

  What if the message wasn’t verbal at all? What if the message was killing everyone around me? Fuck! What was I going to do?

  The blond guy smirked.

  “You asked for it, big guy,” he said. “Christian says if you want to get him back... go find him,” he said and gave me the exact same address as Dion had a few minutes ago.

  Well, at least we knew she’d been honest.

  “Great. Thanks. Give him my regards. Tell him I miss his voice,” I said, the coolness spreading inside me, chilling my very bones.

  “That’s not all,” the guy said.

  “Okay, okay. You can send him my love too. I was hoping to give it to him in person, but if you—” I said but was cut short.

  “Witches,” he replied shaking his head. “Well, whatever bullshit you want to tell him, you can tell him yourself. If you can get through us.”

  And with that, all three vampires bit into my friend’s necks, and even though no one had bit me yet, I felt their pain, the inability to do anything. The grief of losing everything and everyone I loved.

  What had I ever done to deserve this? What had they? Christian had always had control over me, never the other way around. I had done nothing, literally nothing, to oppose him. I couldn’t even if I’d wanted to.

  Except...

  Except for falling for Caleb. Was that why he was attacking me now? Did he want revenge for taking Caleb from him? As if I’d had a choice. As if Caleb was ever in love with him.

  As if he hadn’t erased everything and toyed with my entire existence for revenge.

  What more did he want from me? What else could I give him before he was satisfied?

  The heat spread from my heart to the rest of my body, my magic pouring out of me like an open tap, a river that flowed into the ocean.

  My shield went up, but it wasn’t protecting me from an attack. I didn’t know why it had gone up in the first place.

  What use was a fucking shield when you couldn’t protect your friends?

  I turned around to see if there was a vampire behind me, trying to grab me.

  That’s why.

  A woman—she looked to be in her thirties with a pu
rple afro and a yellowish shade of brown skin—was gnawing her teeth in my direction.

  I closed my eyes and braced myself for impact.

  But it didn’t come.

  Hesitantly, I opened one eye and watched her, almost frozen in the same stance. I blinked and inspected her closer.

  Her movements were slow, painstakingly slow, and her growl was like the scratching of a vinyl that had run through its course.

  I looked around me. At Winston, Troy, and Hew who were trying to ward off the vampires attacking them. They also seemed frozen in place. As if someone had pressed pause on the world and everything had gone slow motion for them.

  Wait, what?

  How was this possible? Was someone controlling time itself? Who? I’d never met a witch with that amount of power. Had they come to save us?

  Or was this what they meant when they said everything slows down just before you die?

  I lifted my hand—which seemed to move at normal speed as opposed to the rest of the world—to touch the female vampire trying to attack me and her eyes twitched, following my hand movement.

  Was I...was I controlling this? How? My power was to protect myself from magical attacks. It wasn’t stopping time itself.

  There was time to worry about and practice this developed power further later on when Caleb was back safely in my arms. I had to take advantage of whatever this was to get us out of this pickle.

  I reached for the hilt in my belt and pulled the blade out. The silver metal made the air around it vibrate, its sound whizzing in my ears as I took a step back and charged at the vampire trying to attack me.

  My sword went through her body like a toothpick through an olive and when I pulled it out of her, she turned into ashes in front of my very eyes.

  Next, I ran to Winston and cut through the air at the vampire’s neck. His head separated from his body and both parts exploded into particles of dust.

  Hew’s attacker was my next victim who got cremated as soon as my weapon cut through him.

  Last, but not least, I saved Troy.

  And then the world turned back to normal and a look around me told me the blond vampire leader was as shocked as Winston and the rest of my friends.

  “What the hell just happened?” Hew asked.

  The blond guy opened his mouth, but I raised my hand.

  “Are you sure you want to do this? Is your loyalty to Christian so great that you’re willing to sacrifice your friends’ lives and your own to deliver a message?” I shouted at him.

  The guy didn’t respond to me. Instead, he turned to his circle and addressed them.

  “What the fuck are you waiting for. Attack,” he said.

  Once again, my body surged with magic and time slowed down.

  This time, they had all come for us at once. Everyone except for the leader. He didn’t freeze. Instead, he looked around him with a scowl on his face.

  “What the fuck?” he shouted.

  I glared at him.

  “This doesn’t have to be a bloodbath,” I said.

  “Yes. Yes, it does,” he said, and his chest inflated as he took a stance to ran toward me.

  Before he could, time paused around him too.

  This time, I counted all the vampires. There were twenty-one. Twenty-one souls I’d have to go through to save my friends and myself from certain doom.

  I didn’t want to kill them. It felt wrong. It felt like...like a sin. They were fighting someone else’s war, yet they were willing to sacrifice their lives for a personal vendetta. Or whatever Christian had against me.

  “You’re being stupid,” I shouted to all of them. But mainly to the blond guy. “You don’t have to die for him. He doesn’t care about you. I won’t kill you if you stop this nonsense now, but I will to protect my friends.”

  God, I hoped they could hear me and understand what I was saying while time was slow like this.

  I didn’t know how to stop them otherwise.

  I caught a vampire move out of the corner of my eye, and when I looked directly at her, she was now moving normally.

  “Whoa!” She said, looking at every single body frozen in time. “How are you doing this?” she asked.

  “I...I don’t know,” I admitted. “Why are you not frozen?”

  She shrugged.

  “I heard what you said. And I decided I’ve still got thousands of years to live if I play my cards right. Why should I die now?” she said. “And then...this happened,” she pointed at everything. “It’s like I jumped from one world to another. This shit is trippy.”

  This night was getting stranger and stranger.

  “I think...I think because you decided not to attack me, my power let you go,” I said.

  She looked at my friends. “Then why are they frozen?”

  I grimaced. “You think I know? It’s my boyfriend that usually has the answers.”

  “So, if they all change their mind, they won’t die?” she asked.

  “I mean it. I’m done with fighting other people’s wars and taking lives. But I will if I have to.”

  She nodded, blurred out, and appeared next to another vampire and whispered something in their ear. Then she repeated the same thing with everyone.

  One by one, they were all able to move. And once she changed the last vampire’s mind, Winston and the rest also unfroze. Then she stood next to me. Her dreadlocks were all shades of purple and blue, and her eyes were a vibrant brown like there was a flame burning inside them.

  “What the hell did you tell them all to convince them?” I asked.

  She chuckled. “I’ve promised them this ass,” she said and slapped her own butt.

  “You and I could get along, you know,” I laughed.

  “We could, and we will,” she said. “I’m Alyssa.”

  I shook her hand and gave her my name, then looked at everyone around me.

  “You can go,” I said and some nodded and blurred out and away from us.

  Soon the only vampires left were Alyssa and the blond guy.

  He looked defeated.

  “I have to try and kill you. If I don’t, he will kill me,” he said.

  “So basically, either way, you die tonight?” I asked. “Who the fuck said those were your only options?”

  “He’s strong. He’s powerful. I can’t stop him,” he said.

  “Don’t worry, mate. I’ll take care of him before he can take care of you. If you’re this scared of him, hide.”

  He looked at Alyssa and then behind him, at the general direction the vampires had blurred out to.

  “You can go. I’m going with them,” Alyssa said.

  “Alyssa, this is not your war,” the guy said.

  “I know. But if something’s going to change in this fucked up world, if we want to be treated as more than some evil, second-class citizens, something’s got to give, Ron. If we want to be taken seriously, maybe we should stop acting like the monsters they think we are and become like the vampires we can be,” she said.

  “You—you’ve got more balls than I do,” Ron answered her.

  “Well, I guess what God spared on you, She gave to me,” she said.

  “If he finds out, he will kill you,” he insisted.

  “I’d rather die on the right side of history then,” she said.

  Ron bit his lip and disappeared.

  I turned to look at our new ally, and I couldn’t help but admire everything about her. Not only had she stood up to her apparent leader, but she had also decided we were worth siding with.

  “So, I guess you’re coming with us?” I said.

  “I guess I am,” she replied.

  “Does that mean having garlic dinner is out of the question?” I asked her.

  “If you want to kiss your boyfriend with garlic breath, be my guest,” Alyssa replied and went to introduce herself to the others.

  It felt good having someone else on our side. Now we needed the high council so we could get Caleb and Easton back.

  And my d
ad. If he was still alive.

  Sixteen

  Caleb

  I didn’t realize when it happened. One moment I was in the darkness along with Easton, Selim, and the nameless dude, and the next I woke up on the floor with light flooding my vision.

  The fluorescent blue felt like acid after spending so long in the void. My hand flew up to my face to protect my eyes without even thinking about it. The rest of my body groaned with the action as if I’d been tied up for days and I’d suddenly been free.

  How many hours had passed? Was it even hours, or had we been missing for days? As much as we tried to figure it out, time still eluded us in the void.

  Crap! The void!

  I squinted and glanced around me, but all I found was a corporate meeting room. A white chair sat right next to me, and there was a grey rectangular desk on the other side. The floor was tiled with what appeared to be black slates that made my whole body battle against its coolness.

  Where were the others? Were they still okay? Had something happened to me? Where on earth was I?

  I pushed my upper body off the floor and sat up. On my left was a big white wall with a double door in the middle and two bonsai trees on either side. The rest of the space was floor-to-ceiling glass panels looking out into the sky.

  When I tried to get up with the help of the white chair, the weight of my body pulled me down, and the chair whirled around itself when I lost my grip on it.

  “Ah,” someone said, and I looked around to locate the source.

  Shoes tapped on the bare floor, and the sound ricocheted off the walls.

  His head appeared from behind the desk, his skin more pink than I’d ever seen before.

  “Good. You’re finally awake,” Christian said and walked around the only obstacle between us.

  He was wearing a suit that was so fit, it looked glued to his body. His hair, the dirty blond he loved to wear slicked back, now had no product in it, instead letting his curls loose around his face. He was different, but by Goddess, I couldn’t pin down why. Other than the re-styling, which made him look less menacing—and I didn’t know if it was intentional—I wasn’t sure what had changed.

  “What have you done to my friends?” I shouted.