by Karen Lynch
“Not now, Max,” Judith said in a voice that brooked no argument. “Give the girl a few minutes.” She took my arm and led me to the stairs, calling over her shoulder, “Roland, go put the kettle on.”
I wasn’t used to having someone coddle and fuss over me, but it felt kind of nice to let Judith take charge. She bustled me up the stairs to the bathroom and told me to shower while she went to get me some fresh clothes.
After Judith closed the door behind her, I looked at myself in the mirror and gasped at the disheveled girl staring back with tangled hair, tearstained cheeks, and a dirty ripped shirt that was spotted with dried blood. It was like looking at a stranger.
I tilted my head to the side to see the four small claw marks on the left side of my throat. My fingers went to touch the marks, and a shudder passed through me as I remembered Eli’s hands on me. My stomach turned over suddenly, and I retched violently in the toilet as hot tears streamed down my face.
I would have curled up in a ball right there on the floor if Judith hadn’t knocked softly on the door and roused me. “Are you alright, sweetheart?”
“Yes,” I called weakly. I flushed the toilet and grabbed some tissue to blow my nose. “I’m just getting in the shower.” I tore off my dirty clothes and left them in a pile on the floor, then slipped under a blissfully hot stream of water. I stood there for a good five minutes letting the water cascade over me, soothing my aches and pains. It did little for the hurt inside me, but that would need some time. The water washed away a few more tears before I finally turned it off and stepped out.
A clean pair of jeans and a soft red sweater had been left on the vanity along with a steaming cup of tea that smelled like chamomile and peppermint. I sipped the tea gratefully while I dried myself and got dressed. Brendan’s daughter Lydia was away at college, and I knew these must be some of her things because I had to roll up the legs and sleeves.
I towel dried my hair and combed out the tangles before I headed downstairs with the empty cup in my hand. At the bottom of the stairs, I heard Maxwell’s raised voice coming from the kitchen. “… can’t believe you took her to a club in Portland with everything going on,” he said harshly. “And how could you be so careless? Where was your training?”
“But you said yourself this week that they had moved on,” Roland protested.
“And we’ve been to the Attic loads of times. No one’s ever messed with us,” Peter chimed in. “We figured – ”
“Of course no one messed with you!” Maxwell sounded even angrier if that was possible. “So you two idiots not only endangered Sara, you exposed us to a human.”
“But Dad she – ”
“I won’t tell anyone about you.”
All conversation stopped when I walked into the kitchen. Judith sat at the table with Maxwell and Brendan, and Roland leaned against the refrigerator. Peter stood by the back door looking liked he wanted a quick escape from his father’s wrath. I walked over to the sink, rinsed out the cup, and laid it in the dish rack. Then I steeled myself and turned to face the room, aware that every pair of eyes was watching me.
Judith pushed out the chair next to her. “Sara, why don’t you sit and we’ll talk. You must be pretty confused right now.”
“I’d rather stand if that’s okay.” I was amazed at how steady my voice sounded.
Maxwell cleared his throat, but Judith laid a hand on his arm. She nodded at me and gave me an understanding smile. “We know you’ve been through a lot tonight, so take all the time you need.”
I didn’t need time. I needed answers. Surprisingly, the first question on my lips was not the one I’d intended to ask. “Why did you let us become friends? Weren’t you afraid that I’d find out what you were, spending so much time here?”
It was Maxwell who answered. “There were some in the pack who thought it a bad idea, but if we are to live among humans, we can’t shut ourselves off from people. And we have ways of concealing what we are.”
Apparently. Until tonight, I hadn’t the slightest clue that my friends were anything but human. I wondered about the people who’d been against my friendship with Roland and Peter, and I could name at least one of them. Francis had never hidden his dislike for me. Now I knew why.
“I know you guys go hunting once a month, but Roland and Peter have only been doing that for a few years. Why didn’t they go when they were younger?”
Maxwell’s eyebrows shot up, and he sent a scorching look at Roland and Peter. Peter raised his hands in defense. “We didn’t tell her anything, I swear.”
“It wasn’t them. I know werewolves have to hunt or… bad things can happen.” I glanced around at the faces showing various degrees of surprise.
“See, I told you. She knows things,” Peter piped in.
“How do you know this?” Maxwell asked.
“I – ” How much could I tell them without giving away secrets I was not ready to share? I thought about what I was going to say before I continued. “I’ve seen things, and I talk to people online.” At Maxwell’s look of disapproval, I said, “It’s mostly message boards, but I do chat with some people. I’ve been doing it for a long time. I’m not sure if you guys know this, but there are a lot of people – humans – who know about the real world. We just don’t go around telling everyone about it. Who would believe us, right?”
Maxwell’s scowl softened. “You said you’ve seen things. What kind of things?”
Oh, you know, vampires, trolls, elementals. “Um… imps.”
“Imps?” Judith repeated.
Her startled expression was so funny that I almost laughed for the first time since the attack. “Our building is infested with them.”
Roland wrinkled his nose. “Ugh! You know there’s a remedy for that. Pete and me can take care of them for you.”
I shook my head. “I know they’re a bit of a nuisance and no one likes them, but they’re not so bad once you get used to them. They love blueberry muffins, so I leave them a few treats every now and then and they leave my stuff alone. They’re great at catching rats, too.”
Brendan coughed into his hand.
Peter’s brows drew together. “I’ve never heard of imps infesting a human home. Is that normal, Uncle Brendan?”
Brendan shook his head. “No, but then how many human homes have you checked for imps? Guess it had to happen eventually with towns and cities growing and all.”
Maxwell looked pensive. “You say you’ve known about our world for a long time. How long, exactly?”
My fingers gripped the edge of the counter behind my back. The only person I’d ever told this to was Remy, but there was something about my fierce friend that made it easy to tell him my troubles. Telling people who were like family to me was a different matter.
“I’ve known ever since my dad was killed and I saw… what they did to him.” I swallowed hard. “No human could have done that, no matter what the police said. It took me a few years to figure it out.”
“Vampire,” Peter said, and the word hung in the air between us.
Roland straightened. “Jesus, Sara. I had no idea.”
“No one did.” I toyed with the hem of my borrowed sweater. “It’s not like I could tell Nate or the police. Who would believe it?”
Maxwell rubbed his fingers through his beard. “We suspected. We have friends on the Portland PD, so we knew there were several suspicious deaths around that time. You were so young. I had no idea you saw it or that you knew the truth.”
A chair scraped the floor, and I found myself in Judith’s warm embrace. “You brave girl. I can’t believe you had to deal with this alone all these years.”
I hadn’t been hugged so much since before my father died. I wanted to pull away, but that seemed rude somehow so I let her hold me.
She stepped back and cleared her throat. “I think I need some tea. Anyone else?”
I moved aside so she could fill the kettle. “Is it true that werewolves hunt vampires?” I asked Maxwell, who nodded.<
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“I can’t believe I never caught on to what you are.” All the days I’d spent out here, all the sleepovers with Peter and Roland and dinners with the family, and I had never seen a single clue that they were different in any way. I certainly never would have pegged them as vampire hunters.
Maxwell smiled for the first time. “We’re very good at keeping our secrets. I’d be very put out if we couldn’t hide them from one little girl.”
Roland snorted, and his uncle shot him a dark look. “You won’t find it as funny when you’re running drills for the next month.”
Roland’s face fell, and I almost laughed at his pitiful expression. To save him from Maxwell’s glare, I said, “So, is that how you know that guy, Nikolas? What’s his story anyway?”
“The Mohiri are a warrior race of vampire hunters who have been around probably as long as there have been vampires. They are very secretive, and they hardly ever communicate with other hunters, though our people cross paths with them sometimes. We don’t care for them and they don’t like us, but we’re on the same side so they leave us alone.”
“Why don’t you like each other?”
Brendan had been quiet since I came downstairs, but he spoke up now. “The Mohiri don’t only hunt vampires. They hunt anything that is a threat to humans. A long time ago, our kind was not as… civilized as we are now, so they were hunted, too. We changed over time, but every now and then there is an incident. The Mohiri don’t trust us, and there are still some hard feelings among werewolves for them.”
The kettle began to whistle, and Judith lifted it from the burner and poured hot water over teabags in two mugs. The scent of jasmine wafted toward me as she slid one of the mugs across the counter to me then carried her own cup to the table. I let mine steep for a minute before taking a sip. I loved Judith’s teas; she grew and dried the plants herself and stuffed the dried leaves in little mesh bags she bought at an Asian market in Portland. She always seemed to know the best tea for a situation.
“You didn’t answer my question about why Roland and Peter didn’t start hunting until a few years ago,” I reminded Maxwell.
“We don’t get the urge to hunt until sometime after puberty starts,” he explained. “It’s different for everyone.”
“Yeah, and we also have to train… a lot,” Peter added.
I looked at my friends, still finding it hard to believe they could become the terrifying creatures I saw tonight. “Have you ever hunted vampires?”
Roland shook his head. “Not until we’re eighteen.” A satisfied gleam entered his eyes. “Not many of us get to tangle with one before our first vampire hunt.”
Maxwell shot him a withering look. “It’s nothing for you to crow over. If that Mohiri hadn’t been there, we might be having a different conversation right now.”
The kitchen grew quiet as the weight of Maxwell’s words hit us. If Nikolas had not shown up when he did, Eli would have taken me away before Roland and Peter knew I was in any danger. No one would ever have known what had happened to me, just like those other missing girls. And Eli had left no doubt about the horrors he planned for me in the last hours of my life.
Pain and guilt crossed my friends’ faces. I couldn’t tell them the things Eli had promised to do to me or how close I had come to never seeing them again. They already blamed themselves; I would not add to it. And if there was one thing I was good at, it was keeping secrets.
“Sara, you seem to be handling this well, all things considered,” Judith observed.
I blew on my tea. “You didn’t see me two hours ago.”
Maxwell turned to Brendan. “We’ll have to call a meeting in the morning. It looks like we’re not done in Portland after all.”
Brendan nodded grimly. “Wish we knew what’s keeping the suckers there. They’re brazen bastards to go after a girl with two pack members and a couple of hunters nearby.”
I thought about Eli’s determination to have me. Could he really have become obsessed just because I rejected his advances and I could not be compelled? That raised another question – why couldn’t he compel me? Did it have something to do with my power? Maybe there wasn’t enough room in my head for the vampire with the beast already lurking there.
“Whatever their reason, I won’t tolerate them in my territory any longer. We’ll add more patrols here around town and send a team to go over every inch of the city. They’ll leave or die.” Maxwell’s voice rumbled with authority unlike anything I’d ever heard from him, and I shivered in spite of the cup of hot tea in my hands. I stole a glance at him, expecting to see glowing amber eyes, but his face was unchanged.
“I think this discussion can wait until tomorrow,” Judith said firmly, obviously not in the least intimidated by her alpha brother. “Sara, why don’t you stay at our place tonight? You still look too shaken up to face Nate.”
I almost said no to her offer because all I wanted was my own room and my own bed. But she was right about me not being ready to see Nate. One look at him and I’d probably dissolve in tears, and there would be no hiding it from him then.
I looked over at Roland, who nodded, his eyes hopeful. I could tell he was afraid tonight had changed how I felt about them and I wanted to reassure him that nothing would ever come between us.
“I’d like that, thanks,” I told Judith. Roland smiled.
Judith stood and went to rinse her cup. She took mine and washed it, too. “Alright, I think it’s time we head home and let you get some sleep. You must be exhausted.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep tonight.” I knew that as soon as I closed my eyes I’d see Eli’s face.
“Then we’ll keep each other company,” Roland said, following us.
Peter caught up to us. “Me, too.”
Judith turned around to confront them. “This is not a slumber party. Sara’s been through a lot, and she doesn’t need you two keeping her up all night, no matter what she says.”
“You boys can stay here tonight if you want,” Brendan offered, and Roland’s smile faltered. It wasn’t hard to read his emotions because I was sure the three of us felt the same thing. After going through such an ordeal together, none of us wanted to be separated from each other right now.
“I’d feel better if they came with us,” I said, unable to keep the slight quiver out of my voice. Judith gave me a concerned look, and I hoped she wasn’t going to hug me again because I was afraid I might get weepy this time. I’d cried enough tonight.
Judith smiled in understanding, and I thought for the thousandth time how lucky Roland was to have her for a mom. “Okay. Roland, you can drive.”
Roland reached out and squeezed my hand as we headed for the door. “Later,” he mouthed to me, tilting his head toward his mother. I gave him a small nod back. When we used to have sleepovers, he’d wait until his mother went to bed then come get me. All we did was hang out in his room and watch movies or talk until one of us started to fall asleep, but it was always the best part of my stay.
I suddenly longed for those days when the monsters were still faceless things I’d only heard about. Thanks to Eli, I’d probably never feel safe again, and I fervently hoped that Nikolas and his friend had tracked the vampire down and sent him straight to hell where he belonged.
Chapter 6
“Remy, please stop glaring at me like that. You’re scarier than the vampires when you make that face.”
“This not funny,” he scolded, pacing the mouth of the small cave we had claimed as ours years ago. His tone was angry, but I could see the worry in his eyes. “You almost die. Why you not tell me you going to city?”
I turned away from him to stare at the waves crashing against the rocks below. We both knew why I hadn’t told him. He would have fussed and made me promise not to go, and it’s hard to say no to a troll when he sets his mind to something.
Trolls don’t fear vampires or much else for that matter, but Remy worried about me a lot. I had some amazing supe friends and the powe
r to heal things, but I was still just a human. I had never felt more mortal than when I thought I was going to die in that alley.
I’d been tempted to not tell Remy what happened because I knew exactly how he would react. I forgot that my troll friend had the nose of a bloodhound. He’d smelled the vampire on me as soon as he got within a few feet of me. The knowledge that after three days, I still carried any scent of that monster made me want to jump into the ocean and scrub it away.
But the ocean couldn’t clean the images from my mind or the memory of those cold claws pressed against my throat. I saw them whenever I closed my eyes, and at least once a night I woke in a cold sweat, still seeing Eli’s snarling face and hearing his parting words, I will have you!
Other times I dreamed of falling, only to be caught by a dark-haired man with granite eyes. He never smiled and his eyes were cold, but I felt safe in his arms. I woke from those dreams feeling oddly bereft, but they were infinitely better than the nightmares.
The hardest part was hiding everything from Nate. I stayed upstairs most of the weekend, coming down to eat and do my usual housework chores. I felt Nate’s questioning stares when we ate together, but thankfully he didn’t bring it up. Roland texted me a few times to see if I wanted to do something, but I just wanted to hide in my room and lick my wounds. The animals seemed to sense my distress and made it their mission to keep me company. The cat, who I’d named Oscar, took every opportunity to snuggle up next to me, purring like a little motor boat. Daisy left Nate alone and spent the weekend sleeping at the foot of my bed. Even the imps were oddly subdued. Usually I could hear them shuffling behind the walls, but for the last two days they had been quiet except for an occasional chirrup.