“As soon as you leave the car I’ll begin to activate the spell,” Faye says, as she hands me a necklace with a clear crystal on the end of it. I slip it over my head. It feels warm even through my sweater. The spell will make me invisible. It will allow me to get in, do what needs to be done and get back out. Supposedly.
“Should we wait for Tristian?” I ask.
But I don’t really have time to hear Faye’s reply before my resolve is made. I can hear it, the screaming of a male voice. It cuts through the night like a warm knife through butter. I begin to open the door, my knife in hand, Damon’s stake and a knife strapped to my side. The screaming is louder outside, and faintly I can hear female giggling. I don’t know how I can hear them, maybe it is some of the vampire blood in me, or maybe it is just a side effect of Awakening. The crystal on my chest begins to flare to life, and I leave Faye chanting. She's coming out of the car as well and stands beside it. I don’t say goodbye to her, I just run towards the screaming. I run towards the giggling. I run towards what could possibly be my death.
Chapter 16
The house is on flat land with no steps leading up to the door. It looks like it may have had a porch at one point, but now it is decidedly run down. I can see electricity trying to work inside and hear an old heater running, but mostly all I can concentrate on is the screaming. I have twenty minutes before they will be able to see me, but Faye has warned me that the moment I kill one of them or do anything other than observe, I will be caught. The invisibility spell doesn’t make me truly invisible, it just makes me more unnoticeable. Even my scent will be hidden.
The front door isn’t locked so I nudge it open and step inside. The board's creak under my feet and the screaming is louder and more desperate. I move slowly through the house towards into a large room that looks set up to be a banquet hall. In the center is a long table like I saw when I met Olivia, but the scene is entirely different. The tablecloth is colored red from blood, and there is a man tied to it. There are chunks of his flesh missing from where it looks like a wild animal has ripped into him. I look at the three women floating around the table and see who the crazed animals are.
The Sisters are gorgeous, like the legend their names are taken from. They each wear flowing dresses that dance around their curvy figures. They could have been triplets and might be; the only distinguishing feature between them is the colors of their hair. One’s is faint, almost white blonde, one’s a darker blonde, one’s a light brunette. Each of their hair is long, with a natural curl to it that bounces with each graceful move they make. They are holding hands and dancing around the table, looking down at the man laid out there.
“Maybe we should bite his penis off,” the one with the lightest blonde hair suggests.
“Oh Charlotte, that will just make him pass out; we don’t want him to pass out yet,” says the darker blonde.
“Maybe we should just make the blood flow more there,” says the brunette as she reaches out to stroke the man’s penis. He throws his head back and looks like he wants to scream and moan at the same time. As she does that I see an invisible string that goes from her mind to his. I feel her getting inside his head, but I quickly pull back, so she doesn’t feel me.
“Claudine, what a delightful idea,” says the darker blonde.
“Do you want to be the one to bite it off, Caroline?” Claudine asks.
“Maybe I’ll just nibble off his balls,” Caroline says as she moves closer. I shake my head and move away, I don’t want to watch this. I need to find Damon.
I move through the house and feel the floors creek under my feet. I feel the energy of living life forms in another room. I hear a scream behind me and wonder if I should have just stopped and killed one of them before I continued on. I don’t think that man is going to survive. I also don’t think I will survive if I reveal myself right then.
I walk into a room that turns out to be a kitchen and find Damon sitting at a table with four other men. Each of them has bite marks on their necks. They’re naked from the waist up, staring off into space. I close my eyes and try to fall into their minds like I did with Vincent. I don’t know how I’m able to do it. It’s like flexing a muscle I was not aware that I had. I see what appear to be little cobwebs of energy around their minds, as if they just need a good sweeping, so I imagine having a broom and brushing the energy away. While I do it, I try to put my own shield around the thoughts, so the Sisters’ spider cannot spin their web back around them. I feel each man wake up, shake the dust off, and look around.
“Amy,” Damon says. He’s on his feet running to me, sweeping me off my feet and spinning me around. A rush of emotions hit me as he presses his lips to mine, caught up in the moment, not realizing the danger. I’m completely aware of the danger, though. If Damon can see me, so can the Sisters. I feel their faint confusion, then their anger. They know I’m here. They just don’t know fully what I’ve done.
“You can kiss me more if we make it out of this,” I say to Damon, quickly handing him his blade and stake.
“You don’t know what they’ve done,” he begins.
“Later,” I tell him, turning to the door as the Sisters float inside. All the other men are waking up as well and getting to their feet. I wonder where Tristian is. I wonder why I didn’t come better armed to give weapons to all those they’d held captive.
“My, my, what do we have here?” come the whispering words of Charlotte, as she seems to float into the room.
“A little witch in our nest,” says Claudine, following her in.
“Seems to be the love of the hunter,” echoes Caroline. The three vampires block the door from escape, not that I figured we would be able to just run out of the nest. That would be nice, but I came in here to get bloody. Just preferably their blood over my own.
“There’s another one not far,” Charlotte says, as she seems to sniff the air.
“This one appears to have done some damage,” Caroline says. I feel her trying to get into my mind, but I find myself getting into hers instead. She wants to use Faye and me. Even though her preference is for males, a witch would be useful.
“Oh, but you won’t be helpful,” Caroline says. “Oh no, you need to die. You’re not supposed to be able to do that.”
Damon has moved me behind him. The bite marks on his neck are fresh. I wonder how much blood they have taken and if he can even be of any use to me, but he stands tall. I feel the blade in my hand and concentrate on it being an extension of myself. I can’t track Caroline’s movement, but I feel her slam into me and instantly slice my knife upwards. I feel the blade slice into her and hear her scream. Warm blood spills over the front of me and when I open my eyes I realize I’ve taken her arm off.
“You bitch,” one of the others says as she comes flying at me, but Damon jumps in front of me. He manages to get the stake inside of her and I see Charlotte’s shocked expression for a brief moment before she turns to dust.
Claudine and Caroline let out inhuman screams that nearly burst my eardrums. Even one-armed Caroline is a force to be reckoned with, and I watch her take up Damon by the neck and throw him hard against the wall. Claudine has me by the neck before I can blink, and she begins to choke the air out of me.
“I’m going to snap you in half,” she says, holding me close to her so I can see the rage in her eyes. She squeezes tighter, and I can see little specks that shouldn’t be there in my vision. I can’t move my arm to slice at her, she’s holding me far enough away. I try to struggle, but she just squeezes tighter.
Then a hand rips through her chest and sprays my face with blood. I close my eyes so none of it sprays into them and fall to the floor, gasping for breath. When I can look up, I see Vincent there with a grim look on his face and his hand through Claudine’s chest, holding her not beating heart.
“You’re a fool,” he says to me, dropping the heart and ripping his hand back out of her. Caroline lets out a scream and begins to turn on him. He moves out of the way of her hand that s
eems to have turned into claws. I run without thinking towards her – I can’t so much see her body as feel her undead energy. That magical substance that keeps the corpse animated. I make a stab with my knife in the area the power shines the brightest, and when it hits the energy explodes.
I pull my hand back and watch Caroline begin to fade away. My legs feel weak and I start to fall towards the floor, but Vincent catches me. I look to find Damon, he is by the cabinets with blood trailing from his head, unconscious.
“There will be severe repercussions for this,” Vincent says, as he looks down at me. At that moment Tristian decides to come inside. I see him raise his axe towards Vincent.
“Don’t!” I scream out. Vincent moves in a blur. He places me down on the floor. I feel his lips brush mine before he melts into the night. I hear him whisper into my head, I will miss you.
Tristian looks around for Vincent, but when he sees the vampire is gone, he moves to help me off the floor, still scowling at me. I’m soaked in blood but thankful that none of it is my own. He begins to address the other men in the room, none of whom fought at all. In fact, some of them are screaming at the death of the Sisters. I remember what Vincent told me, that the ones the Sisters let go often go mad. I have no mind to pay attention to any of it. I just crawl over to Damon, who is slowly waking on the floor.
“They made me forget you,” he says.
“They did it to protect you,” I say, as I brush away some of his hair from his face. “Come on, Faye is waiting by my car. It’s time to go home.”
Tristian seems to have his hands full with the men, but since he tried to kill Vincent I feel no desire to help him. Instead, I help Damon off the floor, he puts an arm around my shoulder, and we walk together out of the house. I glance at the area where the screaming man was before and see his bloody corpse on the table. That will defiantly be haunting my dreams for a while. But not everyone can be saved.
Faye is waiting for us by the car, looking anxious. When she sees us, she moves to give Damon a hug. He lets go of me to wrap both of his arms around her. I’ve never seen Faye show much physical affection, but I’m beginning to see just how much Damon means to her. I’m not sure if I should be jealous or not. Hell, I don't know where Damon and I stand relationship-wise. Something tugs at the edge of my brain; Vincent’s words felt so final. Am I really not going to be able to see him again?
“Don’t ever make me forget again,” I hear Damon tell Faye. His hand moves to take mine and bring it to his lips to kiss. My heart does a little flutter.
“It’s okay; it will all worked out,” I murmur. “Let’s get home.”
I get into the driver's seat, and Damon sits beside me, Faye in the back. I start driving back to the city. Damon takes my hand and holds tightly to it like he never wants to let me go. I feel somehow that he might have to someday. I look at Faye in the review mirror, but she’s staring outside – looking at everything but us. With my newfound power, I can tell that Damon really believes our relationship can work; a witch and a hunter, we are perfect together.
I squeeze his hand and try to believe what his heart says.
The Vampire’s Curse
(Book 3 of the Fatal Allure Series)
Martha Woods
© 2016 Martha Woods
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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For permissions contact: [email protected]
Chapter 1
It is hard to argue with Damon when we are both standing naked in his bedroom. When we first got together we made the agreement that whenever we were going to fight, all the clothes came off. I am regretting it now because I wanted to stay angry with him but there he is, in all his well-packaged glory, standing with his hands clenched at his side.
* * *
Damon is what I like to call naturally handsome. He has messy brown hair and bright green eyes with brown flecks in them. No matter what he does, it always looks like he needs a shave, though I know he shaves every evening before going out to his job – his unusual job of being a vampire hunter. I’m still not sure of the pay rate for that, but it is enough to get him the apartment across from mine, which he has moved into. He left his place on the fourth floor for another that opens up across the hall from mine on the eighth. It’s also enough to get food on the table and pay for expensive hunting equipment. Interestingly this job is also not a federally funded program or something. As far as I know, the government is as ignorant of vampires’ existence as most of the general population – as ignorant as I was half a year ago.
* * *
All that changed when I ran into a vampire named Vincent while I was investigating a gruesome murder scene.
Vincent is actually the reason for this argument, and for all the arguments that Damon and I seem to be having lately. Ever since I brought him back into my life, helped save him from three nasty vampire sisters known as the Sisters, things just couldn’t go back to the way they were before. Damon came out damaged, and I came out unsure if I really did love him or not.
“Amy, we don’t go hunting for vampires to save them,” Damon says.
“He saved my life, he saved your life. Now he’s in danger and you won’t let me do anything about it,” I snap back, averting my eyes from his chest. I’ve got my arms defensively crossed across mine.
“How am I supposed to even start? How do you even know he is in danger?” Damon asks. It’s the same questions.
“I can just feel it, and the dreams don’t stop,” I say.
“Then have Faye make you the sleep elixir,” Damon counters.
“No. That’s like cutting off a part of who I am now,” I say, taking a seat on the bed and putting my back to Damon.
It has been a month since Vincent disappeared from my life. One of the Sisters was surely going to kill me, and he was there to rip her heart out: like he was also there to save me from being raped and another time still, from a deranged serial killer werewolf.
Damon knows all this, but he won’t budge in his decision to keep me locked up in his apartment, only letting me leave during the daylight or to go to crime scenes. And I just know I am being watched at work – hunters are sneaky that way – but I work for the LAPD. I know a thing or two about being sneaky as well.
Damon touches my shoulders, giving them a squeeze, lightly massaging the tension that just continues to build. When he touches me, I can forget to be frustrated with him, angry with him. My mind can drift back to the way things were before the Sisters – how his arms made me feel safe and secure in ways I never felt before. I have no doubt in my mind that Damon loves me. He’s the type of guy who tells me daily and shows it in little ways like fixing me dinner, running a hot bath for me, and occasionally letting me win when we spar.
* * *
But dating Damon is no easy task for me anymore. Not only do I now worry he will die each night he goes out, I also fear he will find Vincent and kill him. As much as Damon would deny it, he is jealous and insecure about Vincent and he has every right to be. During our brief break up, when Faye made him forget me in order to save my life, I ended up with Vincent. It isn’t something I am ashamed of; Damon and I weren’t together, I was told to forget him, but since he knows I was with another man, he becomes extra touchy whenever the subject comes up.
“You can still be a witch without the dreams,” Damon says, nuzzling his cheek next to mine. I jerk my head away from his.
“That’s what marked me as a witch. And what happens if the dreams start telling me someth
ing you want to know?” I ask.
That’s another thing that happened a month ago, Faye Awakened me. I am now a full-blown witch, though untrained. I spend my Wednesday nights with Faye going over old spell books, learning about different crystals, and testing out my powers as much as I can. Every witch has their own individual strengths. Faye can see the past, present, and future almost all at the same time. I can apparently get into the minds of vampires and cut the lines of energy they use to control humans. I can also see things, experience vampires’ memories along with them, or at least I could with Vincent. Since there are not any vampires coming out of the woodwork volunteering for me to mess with their heads, that particular strength is still untested.
I have the ability to see some of the dead: ghosts killed by supernatural beings. And then there are the dreams. The nightmares of things that I am pretty sure are really happening. With Vincent, it is him somewhere dark, chained to a wall, blood streaming down his body. Someone would poke him with a different object of torture, and he would scream. There is the thirst, the thirst for blood, the knowledge that blood is not being replenished and he is wasting away. Vampires can starve like humans; it just takes them a much longer time to waste away into nothingness.
Sometimes I feel like Vincent knows I am there, but he’s never asked me to come to save him. The last time he was in town, he gave me some of his blood to heal wounds I received when I was attacked by a man named James Roberts, my current haunt, who tried to rape me in an alleyway. At the time, I was trying to prove James was responsible for a shocking murder. Vincent saved me and disposed of Mr. Roberts, but now his spirit comes to me asking for me to avenge his death. Faye and I are currently working on a spell that will make him disappear. There is no way in hell I am going to help that murderous asshole get any kind of revenge.
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