Turned by Blood

by Holly Hook

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  THANK YOU!

  To see what happened to Alyssa and Xavier before...

  Turned By Blood

  Abnormals Underground Book 6

  By

  Holly Hook

  Copyright 2018

  Chapter One

  Being dead just might suck.

  Well, sort of, because I wasn't dead dead. Maybe I wasn't even sort-of-dead, or even in some gray zone between life and death, because society hadn't yet figured out where to put vampires on the spectrum. Scientists didn't get much chance to study the condition, because vampires got arrested and shipped away to "treatment centers" before they could spread their infection, even if they never meant to hurt a fly.

  But the fact that 1.) I couldn't feel my heart rate anymore and 2.) my mom would make me dead if she found out about this was hitting me like a freight train. Just a few nights ago, when I finished turning, the shock hadn't come through, even though it had tried when I first suspected that an accidental bite from my best friend might be causing a rare transformation.

  Now the reality was hitting, my stomach was rumbling with hunger, and my throat felt so dry I wanted to scream. And my best friend, Alyssa was holding open the freezer that contained the sight that made it all real: enough blood bags to keep an army alive in World War Two.

  I wanted to look away and leave the walk-in fridge and the hospital basement behind, but I couldn't.

  This was my first time trying out this new diet. My body wanted the contents of those bags. My stomach roared.

  But I didn't.

  "Can't we go to the mall first?" I asked. "These highlights need to get re-done." I grabbed onto my curly hair to make my point. "The purple is fading. Can't you see that? And I'd like to go before the next demon tries taking over the world."

  Alyssa held me in her gaze. She had put in brown contacts to hide the red of her eyes. I still had sunglasses to hide mine. I'd only been this way for a few days, since the night the former mayor tried to merge Earth with the Infernal Dimension.

  "It's best if you get this done before we do anything else, so you're not dwelling on it all night," she said, keeping her voice low in case any hospital employees wandered down. "You're weak, Janine. You're shaking." She cast her gaze to the floor. "If you don't do this now, your hunger will get worse later."

  I knew what she was thinking about. When Alyssa and her boyfriend, Xavier, were kicking demon butt and running from the police a few nights ago, Alyssa never got the chance to, um, feed. The result was her sinking her teeth into my shoulder in a craze. Biting her boyfriend at the time would have helped the demon mayor's plan (long story.) Sure, I got in the way to stop her from doing that, so it was my fault, but I could tell that she still felt like crap about it.

  "I don't know if I can." I prayed that Xavier was still standing guard outside the walk-in fridge. If the elevator dinged, he was to knock on the door for us to get out. No such luck.

  "It's been almost three days. You need to," Alyssa said. Her lip twitched like she wanted to apologize. "It'll be tasteless. The donated stuff always is, but it'll stop you from hurting anyone."

  I cast my gaze to the fridge and its contents again.

  My stomach roared and threatened to eat its way out of my body. "I've never done this before." Here I was, at least five times stronger than I had been before and capable of smashing every soccer record on the planet, and I sounded like a chipmunk. "You've been doing this since you were two. It's worse for me." Alyssa had taken her fateful bite as a toddler. I couldn't imagine.

  "Close your eyes. It won't be so bad if you do that," she said. "You won't catch any diseases."

  I eyed the blood bags again. I wanted them, and I hated it. "Can we do this tomorrow?"

  "You might not last until tomorrow," Alyssa said. "Remember what I did?" She grimaced as she spoke.

  She was right. I listened for Xavier again, but he made no motion. "Alyssa, I had like a one in five hundred chance of turning." It was why the world wasn't full of vampires. People got bitten, but most recovered.

  Only those whose ancestors had received blood from the first vampire could turn when bitten.

  I hadn't thought I was one of them. Ta-da.

  I'd always thought Abnormals were cool and all, and used to dream about having their powers, even though Mom always warned me against them. Until now, I wanted this: the not having to sleep over one hour per day, the awesome strength, the amazing senses, even though I knew it wouldn't be all unicorns farting rainbows.

  "Close your eyes," Alyssa repeated.

  My phone buzzed, and I was glad for the distraction. I pulled it out and eyed it.

  Mom.

  Janine, be careful out there.

  I texted her back. I will, Mom.

  Enjoy the mall. Keep an eye on Alyssa and that magic boyfriend of hers.

  I will. I cringed as I typed the text. Mom hated my friendship with Alyssa after she found out the truth about her, and tried to break it up, but thanks to Alyssa's attitude, we got to stay friends. That Alyssa had once helped rescue my mother from another vampire had helped.

  Are you grabbing dinner? I haven't seen you eating lately.

  I tilted the phone so Alyssa could see. She snorted.

  Yes. Right now, I typed. My gaze went back to the open refrigeration unit. My stomach growled. "She'll make me very dead when she finds out."

  "Which is why we need to hurry," Alyssa said. "The contact store closes at nine with the rest of the mall."

  She was right. I closed my eyes. I couldn't do this, but I had to learn. I'd take Alyssa's word that this would help.

  "Look," she said. "Do it fast and don't think about it. I've never gotten used to it, either. It's best if you tear one of the corners, so it doesn't go all over the place."

  That made me feel better. I reached into the fridge and felt one bag, which reminded me of my mother's old waterbed, except cold. I turned my thoughts to that instead, lifting the bag and keeping my eyes squeezed shut. Just water. That was all this was. I'd tear a small hole and drink the contents and then feel better as we went to the mall.

  Xavier banged on the door and burst into the room. His scent filled the space as I dropped the bag back into the unit. I turned away, opening my eyes.

  "Someone's coming, right?" Alyssa asked. "ATC?"

  ATC stood for Abnormal Treatment Centers, rumored to help supernatural beings become Normal. It was a front for the former demon mayor and owner of the ATC, Thoreau, to gather his army. Now he was dead (at last!) but the ATC still existed. Some hospital owner had just bought them.

  People were now saying—hoping—the ATC would now treat Abnormals for real.

  Xavier adjusted his leather coat and looked at each of us. He carried a strong wood smoke scent that Normals couldn't pick up. His violet irises shrunk in the dim light. "I don't know," he said. "They're coming through the underground passage, not the elevator."

  I had been so busy trying to turn my thoughts away from what I had been about to do to listen. The walk-in fridge didn't allow much sound in, but even with the door now shut behind Xavier, I could hear the footsteps approaching. I wasn't used to my elevated hearing yet, but I guessed that four or five pe
ople were coming.

  And, I'd heard enough footsteps in the past few days to know what Normal people sounded like. They were sloppy. Heavy. These footsteps were graceful and coordinated. They sounded like Alyssa's.

  "Hide," she said, tugging on my arm.

  The only option was the walk-in freezer, the next door inside this place. If the people coming down the passage were vampires, they might only want an easy meal. I closed the unit and followed her into the walk-in freezer and thanked the stars that the door was thick enough to mask any sounds we'd make. Alyssa and I gave off no scent, at least according to my werewolf cousin, George. That helped, but Xavier smelled like a New Age shop.

  He followed us into the freezer. The cold air wrapped around me, and I could feel it, but it didn't grow painful as it had before. I knew it was possible we didn't have to hide, that these people only wanted the blood bags, but I also knew not all Abnormals liked to work together. Some had worked with the demon mayor and wouldn't like us for ruining his plan to merge the worlds. We had taken a slice of power from them.

  There was one vampire in particular I did not want to see again, and she had gained fame by bathing in the blood of young girls a few hundred centuries ago.

  I pressed my ear up to the door, and Alyssa reached for the sword she hadn't worn on our trip, as we meant to go to the mall. She swore and held Xavier's hand. The two of them could fight if they had to since they shared Xavier's War Magic, but I had nothing. I searched the freezer for any weapon, but nothing but boxes that smelled of gross hospital food surrounded me. There were also coolers that might hold internal organs ready for transplant, but I didn't want to think about that, either. Maybe the people coming were Dark Mages who wanted organs for magical rites or demons who also might be interested. Gross.

  Ironic. I wasn't much better now.

  The footsteps got louder until they sounded like they were outside the walk-in fridge, and then the door opened.

  "Hurry," a sweet female voice ordered. "Feed and grab our equipment."

  I held back a curse.

  It was Bathory.

  Her, and perhaps four others.

  She stood just outside the freezer, and Alyssa had seen her in action before. Even with her varied Abnormal heritage, Alyssa had never won against the first vampire.

  And she acted loyal to Thoreau before he died. In fact, he had helped create her thousands of years ago. I didn't want to know how.

  The blood bag unit banged open, making the wall tremble. The sounds of tearing and sucking followed. Her friends were doing what I had almost done.

  "There are plenty of blood bags above us," a man said. "Warm, living ones, too." He carried a strange accent. I imagined that he had already lived hundreds or thousands of years.

  "I know that there are," Bathory said. I imagined her in that black veil and her dainty features. "We do not want to get caught, lest the new ATC finds us. They are no longer on our side."

  "But can they stop us?" This man was talking about attacking people in hospital beds.

  I wasn't like that, and neither was Alyssa.

  The thought turned my stomach. Bathory would do it—and she would kill. Even though feeding on a human wasn't supposed to be fatal, she enjoyed looking at blood. Alyssa had told me the story in graphic detail.

  "Perhaps, before we obtain the battery," Bathory said. "After that, we will not need to fear them."

  "A hospital is like a candy store," the man said. Another tearing sound followed.

  "The equipment," Bathory said. "You've had enough. We'll have our own candy store soon enough."

  "I can't hear," Xavier whispered.

  Alyssa shushed him. I heard her grip tighten on his arm with a very faint squishing sound. I couldn't believe how many things had sounds now.

  "Hurry," Bathory said. "They won't like us taking the equipment."

  "Yes, my Mother."

  The four of them shuffled out of the room, letting the fridge door close behind them with a soft thump. I peeled my ear from the door as silence fell.

  "They're stealing equipment," I whispered.

  "Who is?" Xavier asked.

  I had to remember that compared to Alyssa and I, he was almost deaf. Mages were human after all.

  "Our favorite veiled lady," I said. "Should we attack them?" I asked. Alyssa had told me enough to make me hate Bathory for life. Anyone allied with her wouldn't be much better if any.

  And she was the reason this had happened to Alyssa and I both. Once upon a time, she had given our ancestors her blood to try to make more vampires. It didn't work—at first. Only when people passed her blood down to their descendants, did it plant the seeds. Affected people who got bitten turned as if the bites activated the dormant blood. And during that same once upon a time, she had given her blood to one of my dad's ancestors. Mom had gotten bitten by a vampire before, and she hadn't turned, so it wasn't her. The trouble was, I couldn't ask my dad about it. He left me and my mother when I was five.

  "I don't think so," Alyssa said. "You haven't seen her in action, Janine. She almost ripped Xavier's arm off once."

  I wanted to say something about how Xavier might be immortal now, with godlike powers, but Alyssa hadn't told him that yet. He believed he was just a super powerful War Mage since Thoreau had forced him to take the War God's place for his evil rite. He could destroy Bathory and her henchmen but Alyssa made me swear not to tell Xavier that, for a bunch of reasons.

  "Maybe we can take them," I said. "We're not weaklings."

  "But they outnumber us, and one of them is very powerful," Alyssa hissed. "Let's save our strength for soccer. Besides, you've never taken martial arts."

  Soccer sounded underpowered. I was stronger, I could hear things a mile away, and I moved with grace. Alyssa and I could be real friends, and they didn't have an excuse to leave me out anymore. I had spent the last several weeks being the girl who looked up maps and directions for my friends.

  I should be able to help now.

  Alyssa and Xavier needed all the help they could get. Bad things still took place in Cumberland.

  "I mean it," Alyssa whispered. "We don't want to mess with those guys. Bathory will want to kill us."

  Now I sounded like a whiny kid asking why she couldn't go with the older kids. But Alyssa and Xavier were making no motion to go out there and stop her, either. We were in this together.

  Outside, equipment clanged and rattled. The basement was full of spare beds, cleaning supplies, syringes, and everything else that belonged in hospitals. I shuddered when I thought of what Bathory and the crew were taking. It would have to do with blood.

  The shuffling noises continued, and at last, they stopped as footsteps left the basement and headed back into the passageways. I breathed a sigh of relief.

  "Are they gone?" Xavier asked.

  "I think so," I said. "They must not have needed any gross hospital food." The fact might have just saved our lives. Well, me and Alyssa's. We still weren't sure what Xavier had become during that horrible night.

  "Nobody needs gross hospital food," Alyssa said.

  "Hey. At least none of us will ever be a patient in one," I said.

  Alyssa waved me away from the door. "I envy your ability to be positive," she said. "But I see your point." her gaze flicked over to Xavier and she shot me a warning look. I was getting too close to revealing the truth.

  Xavier poked her and grinned. "You need to be more positive."

  "Shut up," she said. "I'm working on it. You haven't been though what I've been through."

  "Say it," Xavier ordered.

  "I'm good. I'm not a monster," Alyssa recited. "Happy?"

  "I will be, as soon as we're sure those goons have left. We should wait a few more minutes to be sure." Xavier waved his hands in the cold air. "It's not too bad in here. Before, I would have shivered to death. I was never one to tolerate cold well."

  Alyssa and I dared to exchange another glance.

  Gods couldn't get cold, right? A
fire god migth have trouble, but not a new War God. I hated keeping this from Xavier. He had become my friend.

  We waited a few more minutes before Alyssa opened the freezer door and peered into the walk-in fridge. "Why didn't I bring my sword?" she asked.

  “Because we're to be having fun tonight,” I said.

  “Note to self,” Alyssa said. “Never leave home without my sword again.”

  “I can always glamour it again,” Xavier said. “I should have enough magic now to do something better than that Hello Kitty cane. Whatever the mayor did was like giving me magic steroids."

  “I like my Hello Kitty cane,” Alyssa said. "Janine, do you hear them anymore?"

  Silence fell, and I listened again. Silence out in the basement. The television that the maintenance worker had on the news during my last visit here wasn't even on. No janitors had been on break when Bathory broke in, or we would see a body or two on the way out.

  I shuddered, thinking of how the news had showed my burned apartment building before. Thoreau had done that, too. I had been bait for Alyssa and Xavier.

  I'd played a lot of roles against my will.

  Alyssa exited the freezer, and I saw the mess on the floor. Several of the blood bags sat there, torn and drained. Others remained in the unit. My stomach rumbled again, and I remembered what I still had to do before leaving. I wanted to get it over with. I didn't want to spend one more minute in this basement, especially if those guys could come back.

  “Janine,” Alyssa said. “Do it while Xavier and I check out the basement and see what's gone missing. The Underground will want to hear the news."

  The two of them crept out into the basement, leaving me with the mess. I stood among the ripped blood bags and watched a small stain dry on the floor. If someone else walked in like a hospital employee, I'd take the blame for this.

  I had to do this fast.

  I closed my eyes and lifted a still-full bag out of the unit.

  Chapter Two

  It wasn't that bad.

  It felt like drinking thick water as it was tasteless when it came from a bag as Alyssa had promised. I turned my thoughts to what we'd do at the mall afterwards—if we would even go to the mall. Strength flowed back into my limbs and the awful hunger vanished. Once finished a few minutes later, I dropped the bag on the floor with the others. Then I thought better of myself, picked up the bag, and tossed it in the garbage can outside the walk-in door. I wouldn't be inconsiderate like Bathory's people.