by Colleen Tews
Scooting into a more comfortable position the automatic trunk open button stared me in the face. I remembered my last conversation with Albert.
He said he had put more weapons in the trunk. But I had already put the greatest weapon in there days ago. I might not be able to wield power over the shadows but I would obtain, if only for a short while, the power of a Master vampire.
I pressed the button and leapt out of the car. My legs sagged under the weight. Braced against the car I staggered to the open trunk. There it was, the white cooler that contained the solution to all my problems, Lucian’s blood.
I opened the cooler and pulled out a cold Mason jar full of semi-coagulated blood. I rattled it. The red slushy-like substance inside sloshed around and broke down into smaller bits. Using the lighter, still stuffed in my bra, I warmed it up a little. I didn’t need it at the church, but it sure as hell came in handy.
I went back to the front seat and flicked the small flame. Then circled the jar, starting far away, so as to not to crack the glass, and worked my way closer. Cold blood wouldn’t hurt me, but it tasted horrible and took longer to work its way through my system.
After a few minutes of cooking the blood I climbed back out of the car. A large flash of light and big boom from a shotgun snagged my attention back to the windows. Blood-curdling screams echoed. It sounded like Sasha.
I twisted off the brass colored metal lid. I tossed it aside. With the jar raised to my lips I hesitated.
I was willing to bind myself to Lucian forever. I loved him. No matter what the future brought that wouldn’t change. Drinking the blood guaranteed that both the men I loved lived to see another night. Then why did I hesitate?
I turned away from the battle. The epiphany struck. I pounded the doorframe. I closed my eyes. A tear trickled out anyway. “Sorry Raphe.” I chugged back the lukewarm blood slushy.
Each swallow got a little easier to suck down. My strength returned. The long pieces of shrapnel tumbled down my back. The bullets dislodged from my side. The lacerations on my chest faded like a bad dream. One last swallow rested at the lip of the jar. As it touched my lips a hand grabbed my coat’s back collar. An unknown assailant dragged me backwards. The jar slipped from my hands and crashed to the cement. The last swig of blood slipped into the pocket at the base of my throat.
The world got colder. The warehouse vanished. I was in complete darkness. I kicked against the person responsible for taking me away from Lucian and Raphe in their time of need.
“Veronica! Veronica. Relax it’s me.” Lucian let me go.
My brain had a hard time processing what I saw as I turned around. Was I dreaming? Lucian was dressed in a black turtleneck and black slacks. He held a small lantern in his hand. The glow emanating from the lantern was unlike anything I had ever seen. It had an unearthly pale blue light. There was no conductor in the lantern, no flame, no light bulb, only the glow. It didn’t occur to me to figure out what created it. I was just astonished to see Lucian smiling and safe.
“Lucian, holy shit!” I wrapped my arms around his neck. The feel of him in my arms chased away any doubt. My legs dangled as he held me. “I thought you were in the fight. I came to help.”
He cupped the back of my head. “I assumed as much. I’ve been fighting other battles since I left the Caravelli’s compound, otherwise I would have been here sooner.”
“Sasha betrayed you.”
“I know. I’ve known for awhile.”
This was huge news that did not make a lick of sense. I smacked his shoulder. He caught the hint and put me back down on the ground. I assumed it was ground. I saw nothing but it felt solid enough. “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have, I don’t know, done something before the shit hit the fan.”
“But you did.” He rubbed his arm. “In fact, you did better than I hoped.”
“Excuse me.” I crossed my arms.
A corner of his mouth turned up. “I told you to help them, to make them believe you were there for them. You managed to do that and save me simultaneously.”
“When I got Capron to talk?”
“You led them straight to Sasha without even knowing it.”
“I beat myself up for what I did to her and for believing I was betraying you.” I did not know if I was going to cry or punch him again. Probably both.
“I’m sorry. When Sasha called the night we were at the Student Center she bragged about what she had done. Not simply Cleveland but reporting me to my higher-ups and how she got my blood to them. I did not know how long we had. All I knew was that time was short and we were being watched. I decided to make the most of what was left.”
“What did you do wrong?” The urges to whack him or cry dissipated. Instead I took his hand.
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we both made it out this alive and that we are safe.
I loosened my grip. “Are you giving up?”
“No, I’m not giving up. Simply biding my time.”
I slid my hands up his arms. “Where are we anyway?”
He opened his arms wide. “We are in Origin, it is a place between worlds. Supposedly this is where we all began. We’re safe. I spent a lot of time here when I was younger.”
“How long are we going to stay?” Even as I asked shivers coursed down my spine as if something ran over my grave. I rubbed my arms. In the back of my mind I heard that wicked laugh from my nightmare.
“Does it matter as long as we are together?” He smiled down at me. There was a seductive glimmer in his eyes.
“No.” I licked my lips. Then, on tiptoes, I stretched my neck so my mouth met his in blissful ecstasy. The pale blue glow faded into the black.
I was finally at peace with myself. Vampire or not didn’t matter. I was safe. I was a whole person again. Above all that I was in love. Three years ago I thought Thais took my life, but it took twenty-one years to finally feel alive.
EPILOGUE
Raphe circled the last remaining member of Lucian’s vast army. An army that forged its way across the heart of the American Midwest only to fall in Kent, Ohio of all places.
“You’ll regret this.” Sasha said as he had forced her to sit on her knees. Her six bloody arm stumps bounced. Her face was coated in soot and blood, as was her blue shirt and miniskirt. Her pigtails were a disheveled tangled mess.
Grump folded his arms across his chest. “The only regret I have is not killing you sooner. Thankfully, I will not have to live with it any further.” He gave Raphe the signal with a cock of his head. “Raphe,”
He stepped around Sasha with a machete. Raphe got a firm grip of her hair and extended her neck back. Then readied to take this pretty little vampire’s head.
Sasha rolled her eyes back to look at her killer. “So you’re Raphe. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“I bet you have.”
“Of course, it isn’t from where you would expect. They were such wonderful stories.” She gave him an evil grin at the slight hint of confusion that passed across his face. “May I make a final request?”
Raphe recovered his resolve. He yanked back on Sasha’s head. “You can. Doesn’t mean we’ll honor it.”
With her neck strained just before the point of snapping she smiled a huge toothy grin. “Can you tell Veronica I said I congratulate her on how well she can pick ‘em.” She burst into hysterical laughter.
He thought she had gone mad. He forgot about the machete as his anger grew. The hate he felt towards anyone associated with Lucian washed away any rational thought. To hear this indignant bitch so much as speak of Veronica sent that fiery rage to a climax. He snapped her neck. Then he proceeded to rip her head off. Raphe tossed her head into the high beams of the warehouse.
Appalled, Meisha said, “Damn Raphe.”
“Shut up.” He stormed out of the warehouse unable to believe what he’d done. Sure he had killed before, but this level of emotion was new to him. Mix that loathing with the confusion of her comment about Veronica and he didn’
t know which way was up.
Outside the cold helped to clear some of the fog in his head. She wanted to get one last dig in. A quick death guaranteed she wasn’t interrogated. Veronica broke Capron perhaps she could have done the same with her. His rash decision squashed any chance they might have had in uncovering the answer to the question that plagued him. He punched the wall.
Raphe leaned against the brick wall of the warehouse. He tried to clear his mind. His brain became as blank as the black void between stars. His train of thought spaced out until he saw a shiny, black sports car. He pushed off the wall.
Along the way he saw a shriveled headless body. When he got closer he recognized the biker’s leather. His head lay slack-jawed a couple feet away. “Shit Brutus.”
He looked back the car. “Veronica.”
He ran to it. The driver side door was open. He stepped around it and examined the interior. The sound of broken glass crunched under the weight of his boot. He bent down. There was broken glass shattered across the pavement. A lid lay off to the side. A familiar smell accompanied the fragmented shards. The broken bottle was used to carry blood.
Raphe stepped over the glass and climbed into the vehicle. Her car reeked of the magnificent scent. Dried blood damaged the smooth black leather. The blood outside the car smelled different than the blood inside. She must have bled from a severe injury.
Continuing his search he found Brutus’ katana unsheathed in the backseat. Then he rested his forehead against the headrest, eyes closed.
Veronica came to the warehouse after she promised she would wait for him at her house. Brutus came with her. Why else would his sword be in the car? The real question was where was she now?
Raphe stepped out of the car as Meisha and Grump exited the warehouse. Grump reached him first. “Raphe, you okay?”
“Give me a minute.” He noticed the dents in the frame and panel. “Veronica’s missing.” He pointed at the corpse. “Brutus is dead. I think Lucian may have kidnapped her and killed him.” He relaxed every muscle in his body as he prepared himself to search the air for her scent. It was a scent that was far more pleasurable to him than blood.
“Missing?” Meisha tapped the hood. “How can you be sure?”
Raphe’s concentration staggered because of her questions but he deciphered that her trail ended here. It tracked out to the street but that could have been because she came from that direction. This was the last place she stood. “Her blood is all over the car and Brutus’ sword is in the backseat.”
“Give her a call.” Grump stopped Meisha from tapping.
He dialed her number into his cell phone. A ringing chimed under the car. He got on his knees and retrieved her phone. “Believe me now.”
Meisha folded her arms across her chest. “So what now? You going to run to her place to find what you can to track down Lucian.”
“What are you implying?”
“Nothing.” She held up her hands. “It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together. Sasha mentioned her personally, like she knew Veronica. We knew Lucian was after her, for whatever reason. Maybe he took her because she’s the one who got Capron to talk. Maybe there is a clue there.”
“It isn’t because of Capron. There’s something special about her.”
Grump stepped beside him. “I’m sure there is. You and I can go to her house. Meisha, you and the rest of the Vivek House try to get something out of this mess here. Scry, work the voodoo that you do so well. Then we can meet back up at my place.”
“I’m on it.” She ran off.
Raphe and Grump got into Grump’s metallic blue Explorer. He drove Raphe to Veronica’s house. “It’ll be okay. We will find her.”
Raphe stared out the window the whole way over. He envisioned Veronica beautiful and terrified. He didn’t dare imagine what that psychopath was doing to her. She was a fighter. She had power, but was it enough?
He smirked as he remembered the first time he saw her. She seduced that idiotic frat boy, made him soak his pants with cum. Brilliant. But it was the look of sadness he saw when she left the room that made him fall head over heels for her. Everything else was icing on the cake. He broke his promise before he ever made it.
Grump pulled into the driveway. Raphe stepped out before it stopped. He shoved open the front doors. “Veronica!”
Veronica’s ghoul rushed around the corner of the kitchen into the dinning room in a rather brisk walk. “Master Raphe I presume, I’m sorry but my Mistress is not home. She hasn’t been here since she left with the other Maartens for the meeting.”
“You’re positive.” Raphe grabbed the middle-aged ghoul by the front of his suit coat. “Because if you are lying to me so help me I will kill you.”
“I have no reason to lie about my Mistress, sir.”
Grump entered the house. “Get a hold of yourself.”
Raphe blinked not sure of what he was doing. “Has anyone else been here?”
“No one.”
He released the ghoul. “I’m going to check around upstairs. You wanna take the basement?”
“I’m sorry, but those areas are prohibited without express permission from my Mistress.” The ghoul tried to intervene. He walked in front of the two vampires with his arms spread wide.
“With all due respect to your Mistress, I am the Primus of this region and if I want to take a look at a member of my courts sanctuary then I shall. Now show me to the basement door.” Grump waved him aside.
He bowed his head and lowered his arms. The two vampires headed to their separate directions.
Raphe ran to the last bedroom on the second floor. He knew it was her bedroom. He threw clothes out of the closet into the middle of the room. Inside the closet were a couple semi-automatic handguns, nothing too major. Then he tore off the sheets of her bed. He clenched and sniffed the linings. They smelled like his beloved and her ghoul, not surprising. He slumped on the edge of the bed. “Talk to me, beautiful. What am I missing?”
With a cold distant thought Raphe turned on the bedside lamp. Then opened the nightstand’s drawer. Inside it was a diary with the name ‘Angela Vista’ engraved in gold calligraphy. His shoulders tensed as he removed the diary and discovered the truth behind the woman he loved. The last entry read:
Dearest Raphe,
As this will most likely be the last time I will get a chance to tell you this, one would think I could babble through it. Unfortunately, I’m lost for words. Please know that I never wanted to hurt you. Cliché, I know, but true. This started in chaos and will probably end the same way. I spied for Lucian to set things right. I’ve since learned there is no way to do that. I suppose that’s the point of life, and in cases like ours where it is eternal so are the pains and the wrongs. The silver lining has been my time with you. Your love gave me hope. That’s something I hadn’t known in a long time. Thank you.
Love,
Veronica
Shadow Faith series: Birth of a Vixen
Copyright: Colleen Tews
Published: 8th December, 2014
The right of Colleen Tews to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.
Cover art: Copyright: Jose AS Reyes
Rights obtained for image and model’s likeness through shuttershock.com
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