Stakes and Stones

by Bilinda Sheehan

  Alex’s eyes widened incredulously but he didn’t interrupt me.

  “They hold a ball— invite only, and the locals aren’t invited…” I paused, waiting for my words to sink in.

  “What, and he just volunteered all this information to you when?”

  “He didn’t have a choice. Apparently I look like one of the festival goers, at least the waitress who served us thought so and happened to mention the ball. After that, Jack didn’t have a lot of options left but to tell me.”

  Alex scrubbed his hand across his face and when he looked back up at me, his expression was haggard. I’d never seen him look so defeated before, he was the one who’d told me he didn’t care about the victims, just the thrill of the chase to stop himself from turning into a monster like the ones we hunted. So to see the expression in his eyes now took me by surprise.

  “They’re feeding the tourists to the vampires.” He spoke quietly, as though afraid to speak the truth aloud, as if the air itself had ears to carry his words straight to Carmine.

  My eyes swept the room once more as Alex digested the information I’d given him. From the corner of my vision I spotted something cream tucked up near Grey’s pillows so that only a corner was visible. Crossing the room, I flipped the cushions out of the way and stared down at the cream envelope on the bed.

  I could have handled a nest of vipers better than the small, unassuming envelope with its blood-red seal that sat in the centre of it. The crest in the seal was nothing I recognised. Reaching down to pick it up, I hesitated, the faint metallic scent I’d picked up when I’d first burst into the room was stronger here.

  Horror spread its tendrils of fear through my core, climbing up into my chest to wrap its thorny shoots around my heart.

  “Jenna, what is it?” I heard Alex ask the question but it seemed to come from a distance. Blood rushed through my veins, the sound painfully loud as I gripped the edge of the bedsheets. That movement alone was enough to disturb whatever lay beneath, and the scent of old pennies drifted up to waft beneath my nose.

  Flipping back the crisp bedlinen, I stared down at the darkening stain that sat against the stark contrast of the white sheet.

  Blood…

  Too much for anyone to have survived. Nausea raced up the back of my throat and I squeezed my eyes shut against the sight in front of me but that only made it worse. Now, instead of the still sticky bloodstain on the sheets, I could see Grey, imprinted on the inside of my eyelids. His face pale, a bloody gaping wound in the centre of his chest…

  “Jenna,” Alex said, grabbing my arm as he swung me around to face him, “what the hell is wrong?”

  “He’s dead,” I said, jerking my chin in the direction of the bed and bloodied sheets. “There’s too much blood, Alex, Grey is already dead and we didn’t even know it!” There was an edge to my voice that almost sounded as though it bordered on hysteria.

  He couldn’t be dead… It wasn’t possible.

  I closed my eyes once more and again I was assaulted with the image of his corpse.

  “What are you talking about?” As though to emphasise his words, Alex shook me and my teeth chattered in my head.

  “The blood, Alex, Grey’s blood on the goddamned bed.” The words came out in a hiss.

  I kept my head turned away, unable to look back. It seemed so stupid. I was no stranger to violence, and I’d seen more than my fair share of blood in my life, but this was different.

  Grey was different and he wasn’t supposed to be dead.

  “There’s nothing there,” Alex said, his voice flat, almost emotionless.

  I snapped my head around and stared down at the bed where he was pointing. The smooth white sheet was only slightly rumpled from where I’d flipped the covers back, but other than my shadow that darkened the bedsheet, there was nothing else there.

  “It was there,” I said, “the bed was covered in Grey’s blood…” My words sounded feeble even to my own ears.

  Alex stared at me, his eyes searching mine. “Is it possible that Carmine is messing with your head?”

  “It’s not poss—” I cut off, remembering how I’d wrongly mistaken the vampire in my bedroom for Grey. It had been his voice, that I was certain of, I’d have known Grey anywhere and in the darkness of the room, I’d been so certain it was him standing against the wall.

  “How could she?” I asked instead, apprehension clawing at my insides. If Carmine could so easily get inside my head to mess with me, then how the hell was I supposed to trust any of my instincts? How could I fight something that could so easily manipulate me?

  “I don’t know but she’s got her hooks in you good,” he said. There was a hint of admiration in his voice that turned my stomach.

  “You’re impressed by her.” It was less of a question and more an accusation. Alex shrugged and turned his attention back to the bed.

  “I know how it feels to crawl inside someone’s head and dredge up their worst fears.” He sounded vaguely reminiscent and I took a small step back. Alex had been inside my head before and what he’d managed to dredge up still had the power to bring me out in a cold sweat.

  “It’s the kind of power that gets a hold on you.”

  “So what, you understand her now?” I couldn’t keep the edge from my voice.

  He grinned at me and gave a small shrug of his shoulders as he moved from the side of the bed. “I’m saying I understand the power,” he said, “that’s all.”

  “Where are you going?” The question had him pause in the bedroom doorway.

  “I’m going to get a shower.” He gestured to the white t-shirt and grey sweatpants he wore that were now splattered in blood and other bits I didn’t want to think about. I’d never seen him out of his suit and to see him wearing something so casual felt wrong somehow. “I’m still wearing some of our guest.”

  Decapitating someone, even if that someone was a vampire, was not the way they portrayed it in the movies. It was messy and I’d lost more clothes to blood splatter than I cared to think about.

  “And what are we going to do about Grey?” I was pleasantly surprised to find my voice somewhat steady.

  “Wait until Carmine sends us a message,” he said.

  “So sit here and wait…”

  The cordless phone on the nightstand next to Grey’s bed chose that moment to interrupt the burgeoning silence with its shrill ringing.

  “See, there you go.” Alex waved his hand in the direction of the phone, and despite his flippant remark, I couldn’t help but notice the tightening around his eyes and the sudden tension in his shoulders. The fact that he was only pretending to be unfazed by the situation made me feel a little better.

  Scooping up the receiver, I pressed it to my ear with some trepidation. What would I do if it really was Carmine at the other end of the line? What if it was Grey and he was hurt? The questions swirled in my head faster and faster, making me feel dizzy.

  “You’re not answering your cell phone,” Adrian’s voice sent fear spiking through my bloodstream like an unpleasant aftershock from a drug.

  “Is it Merry?”

  “No, Jenzie, Merry and Carolyn are fine,” he said gently. “Far as I know, they’re home in bed asleep.”

  The breath I’d been holding onto from the moment I heard his voice slid out of me in a whoosh and I dropped back against the wall next to the bed.

  “I don’t suppose I need to fill you in on who has Grey?”

  “You know you can’t go after him, right?” Adrian’s question caught me off guard and for a moment I was sure I’d misheard him.

  “What?”

  Alex stood frozen in the doorway of the bedroom and I knew he could hear everything Adrian was saying on the other end of the line, the benefit of having preternatural hearing.

  “Sorry, Adrian, I think the line must have broken up there, I didn’t quite catch what you said.”

  “You heard me just fine, Jenzie,” he said, sounding suddenly strained. “You cannot go after
Grey.”

  “The hell I can’t,” I said. “I can’t let that crazy bitch have him.” My voice went hoarse with fear. Panic was beginning to knot around my insides.

  “She wants you,” Adrian spoke slowly as though I was a particularly young child that needed things to be broken down into digestible pieces. “If you go after him, she will have you, Jenna, and that’s a risk you can’t take.”

  “So I just let her have him? Leave him to his fate the way—” I broke off, unable to speak the words aloud so they swirled in my head instead. The way he left me.

  Adrian sighed on the other end of the line. “Can I speak to Alex,” he said finally.

  “Anything you’ve got to say, you can say it to me.” There was a bitter quality to my voice that hadn’t been there before. But I was tired of everyone around me underestimating me. They thought I was too emotional, too caught up in the case, in the victims to do my job. Grey had thought the same thing and now Adrian, it felt like a betrayal.

  “I don’t know how to make you understand just what you’re risking here,” he said.

  “It’s my life to risk,” I said quietly.

  “And what about Merry and Carolyn,” he fired back at me and I fell silent. I didn’t have a good answer for him. What was I supposed to say? I didn’t want to let anyone down and yet, as I sat on the side of Grey’s unused bed in his empty room, I felt as though I had already failed. I’d already let them all down.

  I held the phone out to Alex and he took it, his expression grave as he listened to whatever Adrian had to say on the other end of the line.

  The seconds ticked by but for me it felt longer. I knotted my fingers around the edge of the sheet, twisting the fabric until it was creased. There was a part of me that wanted to listen in to what they were saying, but Alex had walked off down the hall when I gave him the phone and all I could hear from his end was the odd ‘yeah’ and ‘sure.’ Whatever they were discussing, Adrian didn’t want me to hear it.

  By the time Alex hung up and appeared back in the doorway, my feelings of discomfort were rapidly turning to anger.

  “What did he have to say to you?”

  “Probably about the same he said to you,” Alex said, refusing to meet my gaze. “If you go after Grey, Carmine will get everything she wants.”

  “Why is everyone so convinced that I’m just going to hand myself over to her? I survived her once before…” The words caught in the back of my throat as I remembered her laughter as she’d tattooed the viper onto my back. I pushed the memory aside. “She didn’t break me then, why would she break me now?”

  “He’s just worried about you, Jenna.… We all are.”

  “And Grey, do we just leave him there to rot?”

  “Nobody is saying to do that, we just need a plan is all.” Alex let go a frustrated sigh and pressed his forehead into the doorframe. “A Hail Mary, so to speak,” he said more to himself than to me. Straightening up, he shrugged, sharing a small smile with me. “You know, the usual.”

  He was obviously trying to lighten the mood but his words fell short. I bit down on my tongue, I wasn’t sure what I should say. It seemed every time I opened my mouth I said the wrong thing anyway so perhaps silence was the best way forward. The phrase, the least said soonest mended, existed for a reason after all.

  The silence stretched between us like taffy until finally Alex broke it. “I’m going to grab that shower now,” he said, heading out into the hall and back in the direction of his own room.

  I let him go without another word.

  Arguing wasn’t going to get me anywhere, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to bring Grey back. But Alex was right about one thing, we needed a plan and we needed one fast. Grey’s life depended upon it, I’d never been more certain of anything else in my life.

  Chapter 32

  Jack had already arrived by the time Alex was out of the shower and dressed.

  I’d called him from Grey’s bedroom as soon as Alex had left, the sound of his sleep clogged voice had at least made me feel a little more in control. I needed action. Sitting around waiting for Carmine to deliver Grey’s head to me in a box just wasn’t my idea of fun.

  And now that I was standing in the hall across from Jack, the beginnings of a plan had started to take shape in my head. But if I was going to get anything done, I needed Jack’s help, and considering what I had planned, I knew he wouldn’t give it willingly.

  “Ye really must have pissed the vamps off to make them come after ye like this,” Jack said. He scrubbed the knuckles of his left hand into his eye as though that alone could chase the exhaustion that clung to him like an unwelcome perfume away. When he met my gaze once more, he was still bleary eyed and the dark circles I’d noticed earlier were even more pronounced than usual.

  He looked about as good as I felt, the only thing keeping me on my feet was the adrenaline that continued to course in my veins. Of course, when that faded, I knew I’d be in trouble. So long as it waited until I had Carmine’s head and heart in a bag, everything would be fine.

  “What can I say? I tend to make an impression.” My voice was flat to my overly sensitive ears. I’d crushed all of my emotions deep down inside where they couldn’t interfere with what I needed to do.

  The corners of Jack’s mouth tilted up slightly, the beginnings of a smile lurking behind his eyes.

  “Aye,” he said, “that you do.”

  There was a hint of something I couldn’t quite put my finger on in his voice as he spoke but I pushed it aside and chose to focus on what needed to happen next.

  “I need an invite to that ball,” I said, the tone of my voice brooking no argument from him.

  Jack’s expression shifted and he took a step away from me as though I’d reached out and shoved him. He bumped the wall but ignored it, keeping his eyes riveted on mine.

  “And what gives you the impression I can just magic you up an invite out of thin air?” His stare turned icy, his mouth a moue of disappointment. Not that it swayed me, I didn’t have time to play games with him, not now with Grey’s life hanging in the balance.

  “You said it yourself, you’re the peacekeeper after all.” I paused but Jack remained unmoved. “Look, I came to you first as a courtesy, but if you can’t get an invite, then I’m going to crash their little party.”

  I let my words settle between us for a moment, my meaning sinking in before I spoke again. “I don’t think you need me to tell you what kind of damage that could do to the tenuous relationship you seem to have built with the vampires.”

  “I thought you understood,” he said managing to sound both incredulous and betrayed at the same time. “I thought if anyone could understand, it was you. But you’re just like all the others, aren’t you? In the end all you care about is getting what you want, consequences be damned.”

  I knew what he was driving at. If I crashed the vampire ball, innocents would die. I tried to shrug it off but his words still stung. Whether I liked it or not, innocents were going to die anyway. I didn’t want their deaths on my conscience, but if I didn’t stop Carmine, more would die and Grey would be one of them. I’d never been more certain of anything in my life.

  “Do you know what you’re asking me to do?” A note of pleading had crept into Jack’s voice and I could see it, the plea that flooded his eyes, begging me to take it back, to reconsider what I was asking of him.

  There was a part of me that could understand what he was trying to do here. Hell, if you really broken it all down, we were both just trying to protect the people we cared about whilst keeping as many safe as possible. But sometimes hard choices had to be made.

  The vampires were ruthless creatures and there would come a day when they turned their attention to the people of Whitby. Being allowed to take from the tourists that came to the town for the festival wouldn’t be enough forever. Carmine had always had grand aspirations and left unchecked she would wreak havoc upon the picturesque town and its unsuspecting population. She couldn’
t be allowed to continue.

  And as I stared into Jack’s face, I knew he understood but he was too afraid to do anything different. Too afraid that he would fail just as the others before him had.

  “What’s going on here?” Alex said, his question breaking through the tension between us.

  “Jack here is going to get us an invite to the vampire ball, aren’t you?”

  He clenched his jaw and I could see the muscles tightening in his face and neck. For a moment I thought he was going to turn me down but it passed quickly and whatever bitterness and resentment he felt towards me disappeared, swallowed up by the easy-going façade he seemed to hide behind.

  “‘Course I am,” he said from between clenched teeth, “anything to help the investigation. We’ll need to have that little chat with the representative for the vampires sooner than they’d like.”

  If Alex noticed Jack’s sudden shift, he didn’t say anything.

  “What ball is this?” he asked instead, and I realised I hadn’t told him what I knew about the town and its habit of sacrificing the tourists to satisfy the vampires.

  “Long story,” I said, “I’ll explain on the way.”

  He didn’t argue with me for once and for that I was grateful. I didn’t need any more obstacles, I had a feeling the conversation I was going to have with the vampire’s rep would contain all the obstacles I could ever wish for.

  Jack parked the car in front a small redbrick house. The road sloped away behind us, leading back in towards the centre of the town, but out here on the fringes we were surrounded by green fields that in the light from the moon overhead glistened with the remnants of frost.

  “So wait, you’re telling me that this is where the vampire’s representative lives?” I asked, staring at the squat redbrick house. Vampires weren’t exactly known for their restraint. It seemed the longer they lived, the more they craved opulence and riches. It wasn’t something I’d spent much time pondering, but staring at the almost box-like house in front of us, I couldn’t help but think that something wasn’t making sense.