by Tessa Dawn
Something monumental had changed.
And the darkness threatened them all.
Napolean staggered back like a man being mowed down by a machine gun. His eyes grew so wide that the whites showed all around the edges. He gurgled and spit. His hands reached up to his throat, and he tried to claw the thing out, tearing at his own flesh in the process.
Brooke started to cry. She didn’t know what to do. “Napolean,” she whispered helplessly. “Napolean…”
His head fell forward against his chest, and he sank to his knees in front of her, silent and unmoving in the grass. Two or three more spasms rocked him, and then his face went slack…like he was dead.
Brooke swallowed the scream welling up in her throat, but her fear became a living, breathing entity.
“Napolean?” she whispered again, taking a tentative step forward.
His head snapped up in a serpentine movement, and a languorous smile curved the corners of his lips. He inhaled like a newborn infant drawing its first breath, full-throated and greedy, as if he couldn’t get enough.
He stretched out his hand, and his eyes met hers.
Only they weren’t Napolean’s eyes.
They were two obsidian vortexes of pure, unadulterated evil.
“Come to me, draga mea.” His voice was somehow different—thick, deep, and sultry as always—but so tinged with darkness that it assaulted her ears and prickled her spine as the tone rolled over her skin in crushing waves of…cruelty.
Brooke swallowed hard and took a step back.
He laughed then. Loud and wicked. And then he stood.
Brooke’s feet were frozen to the ground. “Napolean, please…” She held up her hand to keep him at bay.
“Oh,” he drawled, “make no mistake; I intend to please you…often.” He licked his full lips, tasting the darkness that saturated them like black goo. “But first, I must make you as I am: Vampyr.” The last word rolled off his tongue in a thick Romanian brogue, and it instantly conjured images of dark, musty castles and counts named Dracula.
Brooke shook her head and scanned the ground, searching for a weapon—a stone, a stick…anything. She couldn’t possibly outrun him.
Before she could register his movement, he rose and stood in front of her, his arms reaching down to grasp her waist in a harsh, painful grip. When he opened his mouth and bent his head, with an obvious intention to kiss her, she could see the two yellow eyes of the worm staring out at her from inside Napolean’s throat, and that high-pitched voice was laughing…
Mocking her.
The next voice she heard was not Napolean’s but her stepfather’s: “Shall I give you the kiss of human death?”
Brooke screamed until her throat felt raw as long, terrifying incisors shot from Napolean’s mouth—the worm’s mouth—and he struck her before she could break free and run.
Pain brought her back to attention.
It ripped the scream from her throat. Demanded her full awareness. Required her total concentration…if she hoped to survive. Like a woman caught in the throes of labor, she tried to focus—breathe—steady herself against what was coming in an effort to endure it.
There was an indescribable stinging sensation in her neck, and it felt like the venom of a thousand poisonous scorpions…a life-sized injection of a substance that was never meant to enter the human body. Despite her effort, she collapsed against him as the fluid began to flow into her veins, coursing in harsh, unrelenting waves of agony. She struck at him again and again—but to no avail. He tightened his hold around her waist, clamped her arms beneath his in an intractable grip, and moaned.
And just like that, her mind snapped.
Splintered into a thousand pieces.
Each one venturing outward in a different direction in a desperate attempt to do what her body could not…to flee the clutches of a possessed vampire.
seventeen
Nachari Silivasi turned the vintage Calypso Coral 1970 Mustang off the main drag onto a back road and headed toward home. He glanced at Braden sitting in the passenger’s seat next to him and relaxed his tired muscles. They had returned Katie to her parents, and everything had gone as planned: Old memories had been erased, new ones supplanted, and all was right with the world again—at least until Braden found another mess to get into. He smiled at his young protégé as the boy bopped along to a rap song on the radio. Rhythm wasn’t Braden’s strong suit, but Nachari wasn’t about to point that out.
“So I have your word then?” Nachari asked.
Braden looked at him through the corner of his eyes, his head bobbing up and down and side to side to the music—well, somewhere in the vicinity of the music—and smiled. “About what?”
“No more trying out dangerous, unused powers without consulting a Master first?”
Braden rolled his eyes, and surprisingly, the eye-roll actually coincided with the beat of the song. “Yeah…yeah…I already told you.”
Nachari laughed. “Good. Then how about a movie tonight?”
Braden’s face lit up. “You mean in an actual theatre?”
“Sure,” Nachari answered. “Anything you want to see?”
“Oh yeah!” Braden exclaimed. “There’s this crazy, siiiiick movie about these Roman gladiators who—”
His words cut off abruptly and Nachari smiled, pleased that the boy had, for once, tempered his own effusive language. Nachari had cautioned Braden repeatedly to go light on the urban accent. A little slang was par for the course with a human teenager, but Braden rarely did anything in moderation: When he really got going, he sounded like a cross between Snoop Dog and Poindexter from Felix the Cat. Identity crisis 101.
“Go on,” Nachari urged. “What movie would you like to see?”
Braden coughed and anchored his right hand against the dashboard, bracing himself against a sudden onset of spasms.
Nachari slowed the Mustang and turned to look at him. “Are you okay?” This didn’t appear to be part of the dance, although Nachari had seen stranger things from the kid before.
Braden’s left hand went to his throat, and his cough grew more insistent, rapidly developing into an uncontrollable hack.
Nachari pulled to the side of the road.
“Braden?” He searched the kid’s face with growing alarm. Braden’s skin was clammy, his eyelids were heavy, and a soft sheen of sweat had formed on his brow. Nachari closed his eyes and tuned in with his ears, relying on his hyper-acute hearing to assess the boy’s condition: His airway was still open. His heartbeat remained steady. But something was rapidly making him ill. “What’s happening, buddy?” he asked, placing a gentle hand on the kid’s shoulder. “Talk to me.”
Panting in distress, Braden doubled over in his seat. “Going to be sick,” he mumbled. His right hand left the dash, and he pressed it to his stomach to quell the nausea. He bent over and moaned. “I mean it, Nachari. I think I’m gonna puke in your car.”
With the supernatural speed of his kind, Nachari flew out of the Mustang, whizzed around to the other side, and yanked open the passenger door. “Have you been eating human food again?” he asked.
Braden shook his head. “No,” he croaked. “I mean, yeah…sometimes…candy bars…but they don’t bother me that much. It feels like—” His words cut off abruptly again as he shot forward in the seat, twisted to lean out of the car, and spewed a huge stream of vomit onto the ground, barely missing Nachari’s boots.
It was just the beginning.
Wave after wave hit the boy with such violent intensity that his body shook with every surge, and the refuse began to spill out tinged with blood.
“Oh shit,” Nachari muttered, instinctively holding Braden’s hair back from his face. “What the hell?”
Vampires did not get the stomach flu.
They did not get sick—period.
Braden’s body began to convulse, and his vomiting became a series of coarse gags. He fell even further forward, toppled out of the car onto the unpaved road, and began t
o writhe around in the dirt, screaming in pain between convulsions.
Nachari fell to his knees beside him and ran both hands through his hair in helpless frustration. Kagen! he called out telepathically to his older brother, the Master Healer, praying he would know what to do.
What’s going on, Nachari? Kagen’s reply was instant.
It’s Braden. Something’s really wrong with him.
Braden’s affliction reached a fevered pitch.
Blood continued to seep out the corners of his mouth, and—as if it were even possible—his body convulsed more brutally. It appeared as if the kid was going to expel his organs through his mouth, and Nachari wished like hell he could trade places with him. The boy had suffered too much pain already in his short life.
Focus, Nachari. Kagen said in a steady voice. Can you send me a visual image?
Nachari forced himself to relax and open his mind. He took a moving picture of what he was seeing and hearing—not unlike a video camera recording the scene—and sent the full sensory stream to Kagen in a memory-transfer.
Kagen let out a short string of Romanian curses before quickly regaining his composure. I’m not familiar with the scenery, Nachari, he explained. Where are you?
Nachari glanced around. Two or so miles east of Tall Pines—where the Snake Creek River forks just outside the county line… We turned off on River-Rock Road.
Just like that, Kagen Silivasi shimmered into view next to his brother. He held his medical bag in his left hand, and his mouth was set in a severe frown, indicating that he meant business. He knelt beside Braden and quickly took his pulse, assessing all other vital signs in an instant with his heightened senses. “What brought this on?” he asked, incredulous.
Braden jerked away. “Help!” His lungs strained with the effort to speak.
“I’m here,” Kagen assured him. “We’re going to help you, but you have to tell me what’s going on, son. Where does it—”
“Napolean!” Braden’s words were forced. And panicked.
Nachari’s eyes met Kagen’s, and a twinge of dread passed between them. Nachari couldn’t help but remember the odd energy that had…disturbed…their Sovereign during the meeting at the Hall of Justice. Unsure of what they were dealing with, he decided to bring Nathaniel and Marquis in on it.
He called out to both of them telepathically, careful to keep his voice at least moderately calm.
What is it? Marquis responded immediately.
I’m here, Nathaniel answered.
Something has happened to Braden, Nachari explained. Kagen is already here, but I need you both to join us.
Both warriors arrived in less than one minute, shimmering into view with stark looks of concern on their faces.
“What is it?” Nathaniel asked, immediately scanning his surroundings to check for danger.
Marquis strode directly to Nachari, already tense with anger, but before he could speak, he caught a glimpse of Braden and blanched. “What the hell happened?”
Nathaniel leapt the distance between them. “How serious is it?”
Sighing, Nachari brought them both up to speed: “We really don’t know. We were just driving—talking about going to see a movie—when Braden got sick in the car. I pulled over to help him, and he started throwing up. Kagen came immediately, but we haven’t figured anything out yet. And the only thing Braden has been able to tell us is that it might have something to do with Napolean.”
“Napolean?” Marquis grumbled, confused.
Nathaniel turned to Kagen. “How does this possibly relate to our king, brother?”
“I don’t know,” Kagen answered, studying Braden intently. He felt the boy’s brow for fever and then lightly pressed on his stomach, carefully feeling each internal organ for anomalies. He frowned. “I have to tell you, I don’t think this is physical in nature.”
“What do you mean?” Marquis asked. “The child is writhing around on the ground in a pile of his own vomit. It doesn’t get much more physical than that.”
Leave it to Marquis to provide a blunt, no-nonsense summary, Nachari thought.
“Is he going to be okay?” Nathaniel asked.
Kagen shrugged, and his dark brown eyes clouded with concern. “I don’t know.” He turned to Marquis. “And yes, warrior, the symptoms are physical, but the origin…I can’t find it.”
There was a moment of concerned silence before Nathaniel spoke up. “Nachari, you have mentioned Braden’s emerging psychic gifts more than once recently. Could his…special abilities play a role in what’s happening to him now? We all know that he divined the spell Salvatore used against Marquis and Ciopori with unusual insight.”
A chilling, barely audible growl vibrated in the air—it was best not to remind Marquis of Salvatore’s treachery. If the Ancient Master Warrior had his way, the sons of Jadon would stage a full-blown war against the entire house of Jaegar, lay waste to their underground colony at midday, and let the chips fall where they may—even if it left a dozen widows in the house of Jadon.
“Yes,” Nachari replied, ignoring Marquis’s reaction. “Anything is possible.” A thought entered his mind. “In fact, just earlier today, something significant may have happened—”
“What?” Kagen asked, his fingers skimming lightly over Braden’s psychic meridians, feeling for…gods knew what.
Nachari watched with fascination. “Earlier today, I needed to enter his mind because he had created quite a mess with this girl named Katie…” Nachari waved his hand in dismissal: The background information was irrelevant, and there wasn’t time to waste. “Anyhow, I used formal decorum to request permission, and Braden fell right into it—like an ancient—word for word, gesture for gesture. It was uncanny.”
A heightened silence fell among the brothers.
“But more than that,” Nachari continued, “there was a surge of energy that moved through the room—through Braden. It’s hard to explain, but more or less, a gateway opened, a bridge between Braden and the collective house of Jadon…our genetic memories…our living history. Our celestial…origins.”
“What the hell are you saying, Nachari?” Marquis barked with growing impatience. “Quit talking like a wizard and get to the point!”
Nachari sighed. He was trying. Harder than they knew.
Trying to make sense of what was happening to the innocent kid in front of him.
Trying to come up with anything that might stop Braden’s suffering.
After all, he had been the one charged with seeing to the boy’s welfare, and if the origin of Braden’s illness was not physical, then understanding any possible psychic connection was vitally important—it might just hold the key to Braden’s recovery. And Napolean’s well-being.
He tried again: “The point is, Braden became more than just psychic today; he became a portal—a link to the entire house of Jadon on a spiritual level.” He shook his head in exasperation, sharing Marquis’s frustration. “The only other male I’ve ever seen who was that…connected to all of us…is Napolean.”
Nathaniel whistled low beneath his breath. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No,” Nachari replied. “I’m not.”
“So then, you’re saying he can read our minds and hear our thoughts without even trying? Shit like that?” Marquis asked.
“No,” Nachari insisted, “not like that. I don’t think even Napolean does that. It’s more of a…knowing. Braden can pick up on the energy of a thing, its essence. He can feel what’s happening to others, our common history and events, and he somehow channels information through those impulses.” He sighed with frustration. “It’s still too new…I honestly don’t really understand it myself yet.”
Nathaniel cleared his throat. “Very well. For the sake of argument, let’s assume that his body is somehow experiencing these…impulses: No one in the house of Jadon is susceptible to physical illness, so it still makes no sense.”
Marquis grunted, and then he squatted next to Kagen. “Braden,” he said,
his voice thick with authority, “I need you to pay attention, son. We need you to tell us what is happening.”
Braden opened his mouth to speak, but before he could utter a word, he began to hack uncontrollably, writhing in horrible pain.
Nachari grimaced. “Can’t you do something for him, Kagen?”
Kagen shook his head, and his dark brows furrowed with dismay. “I can’t block his pain, brother. It’s like it’s locked up somewhere in a vault.” He rubbed a soothing hand over Braden’s forehead. “It’s okay, Braden. Go easy…take your time.”
Braden tried to nod. He focused hard on his next word. “Marquis?”
“I’m here, Braden.” Marquis leaned closer. “I’m listening. We all are.”
Braden pressed both hands to his roiling stomach and concentrated. He struggled onto his hands and knees and rocked back and forth in a heart-wrenching attempt to stop the vomiting. “My sickness,” he bit out, “this…it isn’t…mine.” The spasms took him over with renewed force.
Slowly rubbing his back in soothing circles, Kagen coaxed, “Just breathe, son.”
Braden slowly inhaled.
“That’s it. Now let it back out…gently.”
Braden gradually released the breath.
“Good,” Kagen encouraged. “Can you try to talk again?”
Braden wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and sluggishly nodded his head. When, at last, he began to speak, there was a growing desperation in his voice, and it wasn’t from the pain. “It isn’t…me,” he stuttered. “Not in my body. It’s Napolean!” He moaned from the nausea and spat some lingering bitterness on the ground. “The cabins … by the stables … go … to … Napolean!”
Marquis’s voice was as lethal as it was calm. “What is happening to Napolean, Braden?”
“Does it have something to do with his destiny,” Nathaniel asked.
“Possession.” Braden groaned the word aloud.
“Possession?” Kagen repeated.
Nachari could have heard a pin drop, and then Marquis exploded—
“From what? By whom!”
All at once, Braden fell to his back and cried out as his ribs began to snap one by one, the narrow bones bulging grotesquely through his skin.