by Wendi Wilson
I stalled, doing what I knew how to do best—talk shit.
“Warren, did you really think I’d just give myself over to you? You aren’t half the man Levi is. Not even a quarter. You think those Society ladies would still have sex with you if you didn’t sneeze money? I bet I know what you’re packing down there.” I spread my thumb and forefinger an inch and frowned.
The vamps around him chuckled, then shut up quickly as he shot them a look.
“Don’t flatter yourself, ma belle. I don’t want to have sex with you. Boring virgin sex is for sad saps like your boyfriend. No, I didn’t ask you here to beg for your hand. I asked you here to make you pay for what you’ve done.”
At this, more figures came into the clearing. The vampires came in pairs, some struggling as they dragged another along with them. At first, I thought they were fighting amongst themselves. They came closer, and I finally understood what was happening.
The Society vamps had captured our family and friends. Each new vamp dragged one of ours in. Some were bound, some seemed beaten, and others walked numbly as if being led to the slaughter.
I stared in horror as a savage vamp dragged Mom in by her hair. Behind them, two more struggled to subdue my father as he thrashed and snarled. While I watched, they threw him to the ground and began savagely kicking him. Their steel-toed boots made awful crunching sounds as they slammed into his ribs over and over.
No. No, no, no! This could not be happening.
“Warren, no,” I said, taking a step forward, but Levi held my hand, keeping me back. My heart was in my throat as I begged. “Don’t do this,” I said, searching his eyes for mercy.
“But, ma belle, I told you exactly what was going to happen. It’s almost as if you didn’t believe me. But you should believe me, Piper. None of you are going to make it out of here alive.” Warren’s lips curled up in a nasty smile. He gave a nod to his men.
As my dad tried to push up, the vampires began attacking him again. Brutal kicks that would have destroyed a human on contact. So harsh that even my strong, vampire father ceased fighting. Still, they kicked him. Each blow pounded a stake into my heart. Boom, boom, boom.
I had to do something. They were going to kill him.
“Stop!” I screamed.
My voice echoed through the clearing, shaking the trees and skittering the leaves. The vampires, who just moments before had been kicking the shit out of my father, froze mid-swing, their legs in the air like someone had hit pause on a TV show.
They were frozen, and I was the one who’d done it.
Warren’s head whipped from his men to me. “What did you do?”
My eyes locked on him. “You’ll find out.”
I planted my feet, closed my eyes, and instantly tracked his aura. It was a swamp green, swirling around him like fire. I didn’t stop to look at it or consider how I could spot him so clearly. Instead, I thought Stop! as hard as I could.
When my eyes popped open, I spotted Warren in mid stride, frozen in place. His eyes were wide, frightened even, but his body was immobile.
Ho-ly shit. I’d done it.
The Society vampires who weren’t frozen soon realized what was happening. A few turned to flee. A few started towards me. Levi hedged forward to fight them off, but I gripped his hand, closed my eyes and thought Stop! in their direction.
Opening my eyes, I found the vamps frozen on the path ahead of us, suspended like large vampire mannequins.
It was working. It was all working.
The sounds of fighting drew my attention. Our friends, sensing their advantage, had started a fight with the Society vamps who had attacked them—the only vampires yet to be compelled. Soon, there was an all-out brawl. They punched and kicked at lightning speed, blurring past as they attacked each other savagely. I spotted the dean and Amelia tag-teaming one vamp, her holding him and the dean punching. He was angrier than I’d ever thought possible. A few seconds later, Coco was running circles around a Society vamp, confusing him before Desmond jumped out from behind a tree and took him down.
The tide was turning. But I still needed to help.
My eyes scanned the blurs of fighting vamps until I found a stationary Society vamp who seemed to be looking around for an enemy to tackle. Quickly, I closed my eyes and used my compulsion powers to freeze him in place. It was amazing how well it worked. I’d had so much difficulty before, but, seeing those men nearly kick my father to death had unlocked the inner banshee in me.
When I opened my eyes, I smiled at the frozen vampire as if to say I’ve got you, shithead. You’re mine.
That’s when someone grabbed me from behind.
The movement was shocking and the speed extraordinary. One minute I was smiling smugly at my victim, the next, I was pinned and flying away from Levi and the others. My arms were trapped against a chest, held tight by someone so much stronger than I was, but my legs were free. Kicking and twisting, I struggled against my attacker.
“Let me go,” I grunted. Then I realized, I had a better way to handle it.
I closed my eyes and thought, Let me go!
But when I opened my eyes, nothing had changed, I was still trapped and being dragged away from the fight.
What the hell?
“Your powers don’t work on me, darlin’,” a familiar voice said.
Jackson Carter. Shit. And somehow he was immune to my compulsion powers. How?
Maybe I hadn’t tried hard enough. I thought the words at him hard enough to rupture a blood vessel, but my body kept jostling up and down as he spirited me away.
“Nice try,” he said, dodging around a tree. “That’s quite some power. I can feel it pulling at me, but I’m strong enough to resist. Warren will be plenty excited to use that against your own people. I’m sure I’ll be rewarded handsomely.”
“Warren’s trapped, asshole!”
“Not anymore.”
My body dropped, and suddenly I was on my feet, whirling around. Arms tightened on my chest and stomach, anchoring me to his body with my back against his front. “Watch, sugar. You’ll find this interestin’.”
Jackson had positioned us on a ledge about thirty feet up from the valley below. From here, we could see everything clearly—the groups fighting down below, the frozen vampires, a few bodies on the grass, not moving. My heart seized, but I was able to spot Levi, Coco, True, Mom, and Dad still in the battle. It seemed it was the Society vamps who’d been subdued. I watched, trying to track down all my friends when a searing green light blinded me.
Squinting against the glare, I stared at the source. A figure held something aloft. On it, a giant green orb was glowing. Then, a female voice boomed through the valley.
“Trezește-te, surgit, svegliati!”
The green light shot out like a sonic wave, a chilly wind rushing with it. It buffeted me, even making Jackson take a step back before he secured his hold on me, but I was frantically watching what was happening below.
The frozen vampires were moving. Whatever had just happened had freed them from my compulsion. What the hell?
“We heard what you were up to. Your side ain’t the only one with a witch,” he whispered in my ear. His voice was smug, and it made me want to claw out his eyes.
“You can’t win,” I said. “Half your vamps are in a heap on the ground. Even with the ones I froze unstuck, you can’t beat us now.”
It was half bravado, half-truth. Sure, the frozen vamps were unstuck, but they were sluggish, as if my magic still lingered. Warren had already high-tailed it, and some of his crew were taking off, too. Some remained to fight, but my words rang true. They couldn’t win. Not today.
But I was still in the enemy’s clutches. As I started making a plan to go for the knife I’d forgotten in all the chaos, Jackson did two things nearly at once: his grip on me released, and he pushed me away.
I stumbled and fell on my hands and knees. The shock of my cast and broken wrist hitting the ground kept me down for a second, but I pushed the pain
away and hopped to my feet, then whirled around as quickly as I could. My hand drew the vampire blade, but Jackson was already too far to reach.
He smiled at me and tipped his cowboy hat. Who wore a goddamn cowboy hat in the mountains?!
“Why?” was all I could manage as I held the blade in my fist. “Why release me?”
“Catch and release, darlin’. I like the chase. See you next time.”
Then, he whirled and disappeared.
Chapter Fifteen
What in the hell just happened?
The thought played over and over in my head as I picked my way down the hill toward the others. Before I’d left the ledge, I’d watched as what remained of Warren’s vamps scattered. The strange witch had vanished in a wisp of black smoke, and there’d still been no sign of Warren. What a coward.
A yelp of fright burst from my lungs as several beings blurred up the path toward me. I stumbled back a few steps, gripping my vampire blade tighter in my fist. If The Society vampires thought they were going to take me now, they had another thing coming. I wasn’t going anywhere without a fight. I’d been manhandled enough already.
The blurry forms skidded to a stop in front of me, and my body drooped with relief. It was my family—Mom and Dad, Coco, Desmond—with True clinging to his back like a spider monkey—and Levi. He rushed forward, running his hands over my shoulders and down my arms as his eyes traced the line of my neck before taking in the rest of me.
Meeting my eyes, he asked, “Are you okay? Did he bite you?”
“I’m fine,” I assured him, then looked over at the others. “I’m fine. He let me go.”
“Who let you go?” Mom asked. “What happened?”
“It was… Jackson,” I stuttered, my eyes darting between Mom and Coco. “He carried me up the mountain so we could watch that witch come in destroy our plan and everything I’d done to set it into motion. Then, he said something about liking the chase and disappeared.”
Matching growls echoed from Levi and my dad, while Mom and Coco wore identical horrified expressions. I knew they’d blame themselves for letting Jackson Carter get so close to them, and in effect, to me, but it wasn’t their fault. They needed to know that.
“He’s working for Warren,” I said, looking from Mom to Coco and back again. “None of this is your fault. He tricked you, using that suave cowboy demeanor and his vampire powers. You didn’t stand a chance against him before—but you do now.”
I put some extra emphasis on those last words and was pleased to see some of the fire return to their eyes. I didn’t know why Jackson decided to let me go, but I did know it was a big mistake. We were on to him and his tricks now, and Mom and Coco had a major ax to grind.
I wouldn’t want to be him when they got their hands on him. That was for sure.
I nodded my head toward the valley. “Let’s go find Zelda. We need to find out what she knows about this witch Warren has working for him.” And how he even knew he needed one.
I hadn’t mentioned what Jackson said about The Society knowing what we were up to. I knew what it meant. It meant they were somehow spying on us from the outside, or they had someone on the inside. That thought was almost too painful to contemplate.
I trusted everyone surrounding me… except maybe Desmond. But Dad trusted him, so I decided to keep my fears to myself until I had more information.
What if Desmond had been playing Dad all along? What if he’d worked his way up the ranks to become Dad’s second-in-command just so he could spy and help Warren Thornberry keep tabs on the mountain vampires? It would break Dad’s heart. He’d break Desmond’s face first and ask questions later, so I needed to be sure.
Also, I wasn’t sure True could take another heartbreak. She was well on her way to love, or at least strong lust, with this guy, and I couldn’t go accusing him of being a traitor before I had solid proof. I’d learned my lesson with that whole Xander Banks shit show.
As the others nodded and turned to run back down the hill, Levi tugged on my hand and said something about “giving me a ride” loud enough for the others to hear. As soon as they were out of range, he turned me to face him and curled his fingers around my shoulders.
“What is it you aren’t saying?” he asked, his greenish-gray eyes locked on mine.
I looked past him to make sure the path was still clear, then met his eyes again. “Jackson said they knew the plan, Levi. Warren found himself a witch to counteract my compulsion. He already knew I had that power before ordering me to come to him. That was why they were so unconcerned. How did he know?”
I watched his pupils shrink and dilate as he worked it out in his mind. Then a muscle in his jaw ticked as if he were grinding his teeth together.
“Someone had to have told him,” he gritted out. “We have a traitor in our midst. Again.”
Again.
It seemed like no matter what we did, how hard we tried, Warren was always one step ahead of us. And if this was our best plan, and it failed so miserably, how were we ever going to win? Would this be our lives, forever? This constant back and forth without end?
No. I shrugged off the defeat weighing down my shoulders. This was what Warren wanted. He allowed us to think we had the upper hand so we’d be shocked and overwhelmed with negativity when he pulled off his big surprises—Xander, Coco, Jackson, and now, this mysterious witch.
Without another word, Levi squatted down in front of me so I could climb onto his back. Once I was secure, he rushed down the hill to the clearing, where our forces were gathering as they recuperated. As soon as I climbed from Levi’s back, Mom and Dad converged on me—though Dad moved a little slower thanks to his healing ribs.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Mom asked, her hands fluttering over me like hummingbird wings. She examined my cast, turning it over in her hands.
“I promise, I’m fine.” I said, giving her a tight hug before turning to embrace Dad. “I’m just really disappointed this didn’t work.”
“It was like Warren could hear every word we said,” True said, moving forward for a hug of her own before turning to face the dean. “Have we checked the camp for listening devices or cameras?”
“I had the counselors run a sweep, but honestly, someone would have heard the inner workings of any strange devices in our midst. Electrical hums, gears turning, lenses focusing—none of that would have gone unnoticed by all the vampires in residence at the camp.”
As he spoke, his choice of words struck a chord with me. He’d said strange devices. The vampires hadn’t found anything that wasn’t supposed to be there. But what about devices that were supposed to be there? The sound system for morning announcements, the old computer in the dean’s office, his hardwired telephone—
“Oh, shit!” I yelled, and everyone’s eyes landed on me. “Oh, my God.”
I shifted my weight from foot to foot as I pulled my phone from my back pocket and inspected it. It looked like a normal phone with normal features, but I’d forgotten one very important fact about the device. I pressed my thumb against the power button, waiting for it to completely shut down before I looked back up at everyone.
They were all staring at me like I had two heads, or something.
“It’s probably my fault,” I said with a self-deprecating laugh.
“What are you talking about, Piper?” Dad asked.
I jiggled the phone in my hand. “I totally forgot. I’m so stupid.”
“You are not stupid,” Dr. Whitley said as she walked up. I’d seen her helping injured vampires when Levi and I had arrived.
“Don’t psychoanalyze me right now, Dr. Whitley,” I shot back.
I knew I was being awful and unreasonable, but my emotions were all over the place. People I loved could have died here today, and it would’ve been all my fault. Tears stung my eyes, and I let them fall.
“Piper,” Levi said, taking the phone from my hand. “What did you mean, it’s your fault?”
“Sarah… that night in the cabin…
with Mom,” I stuttered out between angry sobs. “She b-b-broke my phone.”
Levi’s eyes widened with understanding before dropping to gaze at the phone in his hand. Everyone else still looked confused, their mouths opening and closing like they were torn between demanding a straight answer and letting me get it all out on my own.
“Warren gave me that,” I said harshly, jabbing a finger toward the device in Levi’s hand, “as a replacement. Because he felt bad that one of his appointed camp counselors had tried to kill me.”
“Oh, my God,” Coco said, breaking the silence that had fallen. “You think he’s been using it to listen to us plan everything?”
“Let me have it,” Desmond said, moving forward with an outstretched hand. “In my former life, I was an IT guy. If it’s bugged, I’ll find it.”
Levi handed it over with a concerned look at me, but I just shrugged. I was certain there was no spy in our midst—other than me. Damn it.
I scrubbed my hands across my face to clear the tears. If I was right, and my phone was the reason Warren always remained one step ahead of us, there was nothing I could do about it now. The past was the past. At least we had knowledge of Warren’s ace in the hole now.
Thank you, Jackson Carter. I shivered just thinking of him. He could’ve easily killed me.
And why hadn’t he?
I shook off the thoughts. I could explore his possible reasoning later. Right now, we needed to regroup, get our people back to the camp, and lick our wounds.
Dad had the same idea, because he started calling out instructions to his people. I spotted Sasha and Nurse Barbara, an injured vampire limping between them. Analise, Rose, Amelia, and Ian stood in a small circle, talking amongst themselves.
Zelda was standing on the perimeter, facing the woods with her eyes closed and her hands knotted into fists at her sides. Her whole body trembled, with energy or sadness, I wasn’t sure which. But something about her posture tugged me toward her. Everything else faded away, as, suddenly, black spots formed in my periphery, growing and growing until they blocked out the light completely.