Shock broke through the fear on the man’s face, his mouth a wavering hole. The gun slipped from the man’s slack fingers as the fight went out of him, a play of grief and pain etched in Mr. Fairchild’s features. “This can’t be. No, my darling girl, no—”
The air smelled like fire.
Curious and confused, Johnathan found his bravery. Just as he turned to face whatever lurked behind him, a long lupine form sailed overhead, knocking Mr. Fairchild to the ground. The beast’s ungainly jaws clamped over the man’s shoulder, its teeth ripping into soft flesh, a wound to mirror Johnathan’s.
Mr. Fairchild let out a panicked shout, feebly shoving at the beast’s head. His weapons had been discarded on a bed of blood-slicked pine needles. Johnathan half expected the man to reach for one of the guns—they were so close—but no. Instead, Mr. Fairchild cupped the beast’s face, the gesture oddly tender, until it shook him like a rat terrier.
There was a pause, a weighted moment where the beast lifted its glowing eyes.
A frisson of awareness pulsed through Johnathan when their gazes met. His brows drew together. Johnathan needed to get up. He had to stop this. He had to help the man. It didn’t matter if the bastard shot him. It was his duty to protect.
He propped himself up on his elbows. The bullet in his shoulder sank metal teeth deeper into his muscle and ate at him inside. Blood rivered down his chest, saturating his clothes.
Johnathan bit back a whimper. Black spots danced across his vision.
Mr. Fairchild groaned, hooking his fingers in the beast’s muzzle in an attempt to free himself. It obliged, unhinging its jaw. Fairchild choked and reached a shaking hand towards the beast’s head, the expression on his pain-creased face full of terrible, aching hope.
Black lips curled in a bloodied snarl before the beast snapped forward and tore out Mr. Fairchild’s throat. The man’s blood-soaked body fell into a lifeless heap, his eyes open with resignation, staring straight at Johnathan.
The beast stood a few strides away, hovering over its kill, its ears flat against its skull.
It whined at Johnathan but still didn’t attack.
Johnathan focused on the pain, using it like a lever to rise to his knees. Mr. Fairchild’s guns lay nearby, a bullet in at least one of the chambers, but the beast would never let him get that close.
A thought flashed through his mind. He ran his hands through the bracken around him, searching. It couldn’t have gone that far. Finally, his fingers closed on the cool metal length of the log hook. Doubtful that he had the strength to swing it, but it was better than nothing.
Mrs. Fairchild burst through the trees. Her pinched features drew into a mask of shock as she took in the scene.
“Nathaniel!” she shrieked. She dropped to her knees in a billow of skirts, hands reaching for her fallen husband. It seemed she cared not that a monster stood a foot away.
The beast lowered into a threatened stance and let out a low growl. Mrs. Fairchild looked up, her wide eyes locked on the beast’s bloodstained muzzle.
Johnathan raised the log hook, ignoring the burst of fiery pain from his wound. Where was that damn vampire? But then he caught the glint in Mrs. Fairchild’s eyes, the note of recognition.
“Lydia,” Mrs. Fairchild said, her words drenched in anger and sadness and a legion of other heart-rending emotions. “How could you? How could you?”
Johnathan startled when the beast cowered like a scolded child. His gaze snapped between the crouching beast and the woman.
Blazes. It couldn’t be.
“Lydia.” Mrs. Fairchild’s voice went soft with a motherly tone Johnathan had never known. She sank to all fours and crawled toward the beast. Blood seeped into the fabric of her skirts, a bright red bloom that rose from her knees. Her lost expression anchored Johnathan in place. His thoughts churned, rapid-fire, as the pieces slid together. He thought of the reports he’d read last night. Lydia Fairchild… Missing…
He would have never imagined this outcome.
He stared at the growling creature, unable to reconcile the monster with the missing girl. Mrs. Fairchild continued to inch forward. Tears streaming down her cheeks, she lifted her hands toward the misshapen creature.
It loosened a high-pitched whine, flesh rippling beneath its soot-black fur, when the beast appeared to collapse in on itself. Mrs. Fairchild gasped.
Johnathan stared in horror as the beast’s fur withered away, revealing smooth pink skin. A girl crouched on the ground, lifting her face to peer at Johnathan with feral eyes. Her human lips curled in a snarl.
Vic appeared in a rush of air, the front of his shirt soaked in blood, a fire poker in his hands. He bared his teeth at the beast-turned-girl, launching the poker like a spear.
Mrs. Fairchild screamed, but the girl vanished in a burst of smoke and ash, leaving Vic’s weapon to do no more than pierce the empty ground.
“My daughter! My little girl!” Mrs. Fairchild collapsed, weeping, beside the torn corpse of her husband.
“That was no girl.” Vic’s shoulders heaved. His gaze snapped with fury. It was the closest to unhinged Johnathan had ever seen the vampire.
“You’re late,” Johnathan wheezed. Holding his shoulder, he sank back on his heels, exhausted and lightheaded.
Mrs. Fairchild rose with a shriek, her husband’s missing gun in hand.
Capable of little more, Johnathan sighed in disgust. Of course she found one, though it could be the empty one or the primed one for all he knew. She pressed the gun to her temple.
“Stop her!” Johnathan shouted.
He needn’t have bothered. Vic was next to her in a blink. He snatched the pistol from her hand and snapped the barrel in half with a look of disdain.
Crestfallen, Mrs. Fairchild sagged like a broken doll, her eyes on her husband’s torn-out throat. Vic crouched next to her, tucking two fingers under her chin. His grip was almost gentle as he made her look at him. Awareness was a fair-weather companion to Mrs. Fairchild. Her eyes slowly focused on Vic’s face.
“I stabbed you through the heart,” she murmured.
She’d stabbed him? Why?
What the hell had gone on in that house after he left?
Johnathan blinked through the haze slowly overtaking him and looked the vampire over. Vic was a great deal paler. A bright red stain covered much of his back, where he must have lain in a pool of his own blood. There was a faint bluish tinge at the base of his fingernails. Johnathan shifted his grip on the log hook. The vampire lost an awful lot of blood, very quickly, and now they were in the forest, one man’s corpse draining crimson into the earth while another’s life leaked from his shoulder. And if that weren’t enough, Vic held a human woman at his fingertips, a woman who wanted to die.
This was not the situation Johnathan wanted to find himself in when the limits of Vic’s control came into question.
“You missed,” Vic said to Mrs. Fairchild, a strange lilt to his voice.
The woman jerked her chin, but he didn’t let go of her. “I pushed to the hilt. You should be dead.”
“Let’s agree to disagree,” said Vic amiably.
Johnathan studied him. The vampire didn’t look ready to tear into Mrs. Fairchild, though she admitted to stabbing him. Frankly, Johnathan couldn’t do much to stop Vic if he did attack the woman, and that helpless feeling gave him enough rage to shuffle closer on his knees, using the hook to drag himself forward.
Vic’s gaze shifted, a sidelong glance that gave Johnathan pause. The vampire gave a slight shake of his head, a subtle warning, before he turned back to Lydia’s mother.
“Tell me about the bargain your husband made, Mrs. Fairchild.” Vic kept a hold on her chin. A suggestive tone spiraled within his voice, betraying a hint of his age as he nudged her secrets forth. But the woman’s gaze slid away to her husband’s body, her mind too cracked even for a fiend’s compulsion. Her throat worked. She looked ready to crumble, her very foundations ruined, so overwhelmed by the situation. Vic pressed th
e pad of his thumb into her chin. “Your husband brought this on your family, on your daughter. Tell us what happened.”
“He didn’t tell me everything.” Mrs. Fairchild's voice was a hoarse whisper. Johnathan strained to hear her, listening for the waver of a lie. “He said not to worry, that we would have everything we ever dreamed of. That Lydia would be taken care of for the rest of her life.” She wobbled. Her hands curled into her bloodstained skirts. “He said a stranger told him how to strike a bargain with the spirits of the wood.”
Vic’s brow rose. “Your husband believed a stranger?”
Mrs. Fairchild grimaced. “Nathaniel was a man of faith, but he was raised on the old stories. He believed enough to try.”
“And he succeeded,” said Vic. He released his hold on Mrs. Fairchild. “Does he know what he made a bargain with?”
She shook her head. “He said it was a spirit of the wood, that if we didn’t harm the woods here, we would be fine.” She looked up at them, her expression shattered. “It was a lie.”
“Ask her if she ever saw the stranger,” Johnathan wheezed.
The vampire nodded, but whether his compulsion was still in effect or Mrs. Fairchild saw no point to withholding information in a pool of her husband’s blood, she answered without prompting.
“It was a man. Tall, older. He wore a uniform of sorts and spectacles. I remember his cross, old and wooden. Stained by… It didn’t suit him.” She shuddered. “That man was no priest.”
Johnathan frowned. Her description held a note of familiarity. He shook the thought from his mind, too absurd to entertain.
Vic stood up, his jaw set. “What happened to your daughter?”
Mrs. Fairchild swayed. “Nathaniel opened a door that must not be opened.”
There was a sing-song quality to her voice that made Johnathan’s skin prickle. Too reminiscent of the phantom Mary Elizabeth from his nightmare.
A manic smile lit Mrs. Fairchild’s face, one that made him question what sort of spell this spirit of the wood had cast upon her mind, and now that he considered it, perhaps all the minds of the citizens of Cress Haven, including his own.
“He bargained for wealth, for material possessions. Our coffers filled, and the price was our child. We paid for our greed with our future.” Her hand moved behind her. “My child is gone. My husband gone. I have nothing left.” The second pistol appeared in her hand.
Vic didn’t move to stop her this time. Johnathan tried, shoving to his feet, but his body gave out immediately. Vic caught him before he hit the ground. Blessedly, the pistol clicked over, already spent. Mrs. Fairchild, defeated, dropped the weapon and let out a thin wail of despair.
“Looks like you’ll have to live with yourself,” said Vic. His attention turned to Johnathan. “Good grief, man, did she manage to stab you, too?”
“Shot,” Johnathan said through gritted teeth. “By Mr. Fairchild.” Black spots ate at his vision. He refused to pass out, bleeding, in a vampire’s grip no less.
Vic frowned and tore away the layers of fabric over the wound. The vampire frowned. “You say he shot you?”
Johnathan managed a halfhearted sneer. “No Vic, I simply tripped and fell on the bullet.”
He swung his head to peer at the wound and paused. Mrs. Fairchild was looking at him. She held his gaze, an expression full of secrets and vicious delight. Her head dropped back as she laughed. Rising, she staggered on unsteady legs deeper into the woods, away from her now-empty house.
“You shouldn’t let her wander off,” Johnathan rasped.
“That woman wants to die, John,” said Vic. “And you require medical aid.”
Johnathan wanted to protest. He should insist Vic retrieve her. She could only wander so far before she found the death she was looking for.
Vic slid his arms under Johnathan’s larger frame and lifted him off the ground as if he were a small child rather than a six-foot man. Ridiculous as it was, the movement was too much. Johnathan’s head swam, the world around him spinning.
He was about to pass out. Again.
“I feel like some mythic hero, rescuing the fair maiden from the heart of a cursed wood,” Vic said. “Are you always so taken to keeling over?”
A sarcastic and lengthy retort balanced on Johnathan’s tongue, but staring into the beautiful face above him, he could only manage, “Blood-sucking scoundrel.”
Vic’s laugh echoed through the wood. Johnathan’s attention turned behind them. Through the trees, beyond the blood-spattered shift of Mrs. Fairchild’s skirts, Johnathan thought he saw the shape of a horned skull watching, waiting, before the blackness of unconsciousness dragged him down.
Chapter Sixteen
Dammit, he’d passed out, bleeding, in the vampire’s arms. Johnathan had been well and truly coldcocked.
He came to awareness in increments, anchored by the ache in his shoulder. There was a new dressing of clean, stiff cloth wrapped around his bare chest. The fiery pain was gone, thank goodness, but the soreness was enough to keep him floating in a half-state of waking. He tried to gauge his surroundings without opening his eyes. There was a firm mattress under him, and the mellow heat of sunshine bathed down the side of his face and neck.
“Is he still out?” a voice said.
Johnathan stilled, listening for Alyse. Was he in Vic’s house? The mattress felt different, and the homely scent of fresh linen and sage surrounded him. He was suddenly keenly aware that he’d been stripped to his drawers.
“He’ll wake up soon.” There was a strain of exhaustion in the vampire’s tone. Just how long was Johnathan out for?
“You’ve been here all night,” pleaded Alyse. “Please, let me help you.”
The vampire watched over him all night? Johnathan wasn’t sure how he felt about that. What did Alyse mean to help with?
Curiosity burned off the lingering fog clouding Johnathan’s thoughts. The previous day rushed to the fore with violent clarity. Time to open his eyes and get some answers.
“Have you spoken to your father about my offer?” Vic asked.
Johnathan kept his eyes shut tight. He heard Alyse sigh, her light footsteps treading the floor. He could almost see her shadow pacing against the back of his eyelids.
“You know what he’ll say.”
“Did you bother to ask?”
There was a weighted pause, punctuated by the strained creak of wood and the soft swish of skirts. “I can’t leave my sisters, Vic. I just can’t. They’re too young. Maddy’s not yet fifteen.” Alyse sobbed, and Johnathan’s fingers curled into a fist beneath the blanket. A woman like Alyse didn’t seem like the sort to cry for anything. “That’s too close in age to the other victims.”
“I saw that symbol Alyse, it was carved on your sill, “ said Vic quietly. Johnathan went completely still. This was not the direction he expected from their conversation.
“We share a bedroom, dolt. My father is a pastor, not some country gentleman. He certainly didn’t make any deals with strange beings in the woods,” Alyse retorted, the usual surliness reasserting itself.
“We don’t know if that’s the commonality,” Vic said. “The Fairchilds might have let it in, but who knows what rules it operates under now.”
“Mercy, it almost seems like you should take a moment to search through those carefully notated files for connections,” said Alyse, sniffling. “You know, the ones I made for you, at your house.”
“Alyse, the last victim looked just like you! It must have wanted you! It marked your house, for devil’s sake.”
That muted thud had to be Alyse stomping her foot. “A similar appearance is a coincidence, not a portent, Vic. We don’t know which one it wants. What if this creature decides it wants to take a boy? I have young brothers. I’m not leaving my siblings vulnerable to satisfy your overprotective sentiments. Make a better offer!” Her steps rapped across the floorboards, but the door shut with a soft click behind her.
Mad as she was, Alyse wouldn’t slam the door in a
sick room to make a point. Johnathan grudgingly realized he might have to reevaluate the nature of her relationship with Vic. Lord help him, but the vampire genuinely appeared to care for her.
Wood whined. The vampire sighed. “You can stop pretending. I know you’re awake.”
Johnathan flinched, cracking one eye to peer at Vic. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”
He glanced around. This had to be the Shaw household. Everything was remarkably clean, with sparse decor.
Vic snorted. “I’m sure you found a fiend being told off by a chit of a girl highly entertaining.”
Johnathan opened both eyes and stared at the vampire lounging by his bedside. Vic looked terrible. His skin was paper white and had the translucent quality of long illness, the delicate tracery of his veins visible in faint blue lines. His eyes were sunken with half-moon shadows pouched beneath them, but the most telling detail was still the fingernails. Vic now had dead man’s fingers, the nails discolored and bruised at the base of the nail.
Vic’s brows drew together at Johnathan’s apparent appraisal. “You look like hell,” said the vampire.
Johnathan’s chuckle was more of a painful cough. “Pot meet kettle.”
“Gracious, was that a joke? Don’t tell me you’re going soft on me, Prospective,” said Vic.
Johnathan winced as he sat up. The twinge in his shoulder was a dull roar, bearing much semblance to previous wounds he’d suffered. He’d been stabbed a dozen times by a surly senior Prospective who Johnathan outscored for blade accuracy. Sharp, searing cuts, but the boy never hit anything vital. Not from lack of trying; he truly couldn’t aim for shit.
During his first hunt, Johnathan had been shot by a newborn vampire who still preferred guns to teeth. That bullet took him in the thigh and broke his femur. Incredible as the pain was then, it was nothing to the pain of this wound. Akin to being pierced by a hot iron rod that continued to sear away at his flesh. The memory of that unbearable agony was fresh in his mind. As were the circumstances he lost consciousness in.
A Bargain of Blood and Gold Page 12