Stakes and Stones

by Bilinda Sheehan

He turned his attention to me. “Ms. Faith, you brought the two men in.” His tone was a lot more brusque when he addressed me, his words a statement rather than a question. I dug my fingernails into the palm of my hand, the voice in the back of my mind suspiciously silent for once.

  “My name is Dr. Daniels, I’ve been working with the team here to address the injuries of your associates.”

  “How are they, Doctor?” Sofia interjected.

  He sighed. “That’s why I’m here. I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.” His gaze was trained maddeningly on a point just above my head and I wanted to scream at him to meet my eyes. If he was bringing me bad news, then the least I deserved was a little eye contact. “Everything we’ve tried with your associate, every attempt to bring him out of his coma, has failed.”

  “Then there’s something you’ve missed,” I said flatly.

  “There really isn’t,” he said. “We’ve had the best working on this but…” He trailed off and splayed his hands out helplessly in front of him. “The samples we’ve taken make no sense. They match nothing we have on file and, well, whatever this poison is, it’s causing his organs to shut down.”

  I shook my head. “That’s just not possible.”

  “Jenna, preternaturals die all the time,” Sofia said gently.

  “Not Alex.” My mind conjured the image of him lying in the cave, the rats feasting on his flesh.

  Sofia gave me a sharp and apprising look. “What makes you say that?”

  I couldn’t tell her. Alex had confided in me and no matter how big of a pain in my ass he could be, I wasn’t going to betray him like that, either.

  “Only an immortal can kill an immortal.” Emily’s words came back to me, sticking in the back of my throat as my heart skipped.

  “Is it possible the poison comes from an Elder God?” My voice was hoarse with fear. “An immortal.”

  “It’s highly unlikely,” Dr. Daniels said and my shoulders dropped. “There hasn’t been one of them on this plain for quite a time.”

  “But not impossible,” Sofia said, cutting across the doctor’s explanation. “Especially if that’s what Carmine is trying to summon, but what would it matter if it was the poison of an immortal or not?” Her attention zeroed in on me and I knew on some level she’d already figured out what I was hinting around at.

  “Nothing,” I said, “it’s just Alex is tough, it couldn’t just be anything run-of-the-mill to take him down like this.”

  Dr. Daniels nodded thoughtfully, seemingly oblivious to the unspoken conversation currently taking place between Sofia and me.

  “I can certainly try and cross check it with the files,” he said. “It won’t do much good, though.”

  “Then what would?” I couldn’t stop the question from popping out of my mouth.

  He shrugged. “Perhaps if we had a sample we could create an antidote but…” He smiled sadly at me. “I don’t think we’d have enough time even if we had access to it right now.”

  It wasn’t much but it was something to go on, and right now, I’d been kicked so many times, I was willing to take any kind of hope, no matter how small it might seem.

  “I can get you what you need.”

  Dr. Daniels exchanged a look with Sofia.

  “I don’t think you’re hearing me,” he said, “even if we had it now…” He pursed his lips. “He’s failing fast, Ms. Faith. We don’t expect him to last the night.”

  His words were like a punch to my gut and I took a physical step back, my knees bumping the edge of the plastic chair.

  “You’re wrong, he’s strong…”

  “I’m not arguing with you there,” he said, continuing with his soft spoken tone. “There are many who wouldn’t have survived as long as he has.”

  “I need to see him,” I said suddenly, my body gripped by a sudden urgency that I couldn’t quite wrap my head around.

  “Of course.” Dr. Daniels’ lack of arguing with me only served to drive home his point about Alex’s failing health, but I knew I couldn’t take that on now. I needed to focus only on the small flicker of hope he’d left me with. If I could get Alex an antidote, he would survive. Immortal poison or not… He would live, I would see to it.

  The room was sterile and glaringly white. He lay on the bed in the centre of the space, white sheet tucked up high beneath his armpits, sitting like a solid band across his chest. An irrational thought popped into my brain. Perhaps it was the sheet keeping him down, keeping him pinned in place like a macabre butterfly.

  Stop grasping at straws, Jenna. The voice in my head spoke up, breaking its silence for the first time since I’d heard about Alex’s condition.

  Gone was the natural golden glow he seemed to have all year round no matter the weather, replaced instead with a sickly grey colour that emphasised the dark veins tracing back and forth across his face. His lips were a dark purple, like two straight slashes that sat across his face. His hair was smoothed back from his face and even that appeared darker than usual. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead, giving him a somewhat waxy complexion.

  In the back of his hand there was a thick needle, the line connected to it was hooked up to an I.V with a bag hanging above the bed filled with what looked like milk to my untrained eye.

  His chest barely stirred. For all intents and purposes, Alex appeared dead, or at least as close to it as any living creature could be.

  Dr. Daniels wasn’t wrong, he was deteriorating. Even I, without any medical background or knowledge, could see that. Yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was all just some sort of misunderstanding. He’d survived the Pied Piper, survived being chewed on by giant rats, I’d watched them with my own eyes devour his flesh.

  But this was different. I could feel it in the pit of my stomach as I dropped into the chair next to him.

  Reaching out, I clasped his hand in mine. His skin felt like paper, the bones beneath sliding back and forth as though they were connected to nothing at all in there.

  “You’re going to sit up any minute and tell them this was a huge mistake,” I said, my voice cracking over the words.

  He didn’t move, and yet I continued to stare at him, willing him to move, to respond, something. He was a pain in the ass but in a weird way he’d grown on me. I’d never known what it was like to have family but with Alex, I could almost imagine what it might feel like to have a younger brother.

  “Alex, come on, wake up…”

  His eyelids flickered and my heart leaped in my chest. Without thinking, I reached up to him and brushed my fingers over his forehead, pushing his lacklustre hair back from his face. A chunk of it came away in my fingers and I jerked my hand back.

  “He’s fading fast,” Dr. Daniels said from behind me. “Best we can tell, the poison is destroying him on a cellular level.”

  I stared down at the tuft of hair now sitting on the white pillow case, unable to form words.

  “I am sorry.” His hand came down on my shoulder and I shied away from him.

  “Alex is strong,” I said, noting the resigned sigh of frustration that came from behind me, “he’ll hold on until I get the antidote to this.”

  “I’ll leave you two alone,” Dr. Daniels said, his voice tight.

  He wanted me to accept what was happening but I couldn’t.

  I wouldn’t.

  Alex needed me to believe in him and I could give him that. I hadn’t stopped Emily from poisoning him. I hadn’t stopped Grey from being taken. I hadn’t prevented Jack from burning.

  I’d been too slow and far too reckless and now they were paying the price for my mistakes.

  I’d allowed Carmine to get away.

  This was my fault.

  “I’m going to fix it.”

  Pushing up from the chair, I released my grip on Alex’s hand and let it flop lifelessly back down onto the covers. The tattoo between my shoulder blades flexed, the scales sliding beneath my skin, almost as though it could sense that it would soon have another so
ul to feast on the same way it had done with the wight. One way or another, Carmine would die tonight, but before she did, she would save Alex.

  No matter the cost, I would make sure of it.

  Chapter 36

  Exhaustion made my limbs tremble and the muscles in my calves cramp as I climbed the stairs in the B&B up to my bedroom. There were still a few hours until nightfall and I knew looking for the vampires before then would be fruitless. Like cockroaches, they went to ground and nothing short of a nuclear holocaust would draw them out before dark.

  Pushing open the bedroom door, I stared at the boarded up window. Sofia had insisted the owners board up the windows to keep us safe as we prepared for the night ahead. Judging by the thick wooden slats that blocked the french doors, the building had become a veritable fortress.

  And yet…

  I stared at the black box on the bed all tied up with a white satin bow. My heart stuttered in my chest and I gripped the doorframe so hard the wood groaned under the pressure.

  The house was silent apart from the ticking of the large clock that sat in the hallway. Crossing the floor toward the bed, blood rushed in my ears blocking out even that sound.

  The satin bow unravelled with a whisper and I pulled the lid free, staring down into the contents. A black card sat on top, the gold writing scrawled across the front was unmistakably Carmine’s.

  I cannot wait to see you again, Jenna. There’s so much we have to catch up on.

  Grey sends his love.

  Beneath the card sat a small pile of polaroid pictures and it took my brain a few seconds to piece the images together.

  Grey’s nude body was strapped to a St. Andrew’s Cross, back facing the camera, head tipped back so that he was hanging, his full weight in the thick leather cuffs pinning his wrists to the wooden arms. His back was criss crossed with strange lines that were so dark as to appear almost black.

  The one who’d take the picture hadn’t managed to capture his expression because of the way he was hung, but from the limp way he sat in his bonds, I guessed he’d passed out. Or at least that was what I hoped, but I couldn’t be sure. Staring down at the picture, rage clawed its way into my chest.

  The grey stone blocks behind him were flecked in black, or at least that was what my brain first thought.

  I studied the pictures harder and the rage in my chest bloomed as I realised the black was blood spattered across the walls, the strange lines on his back were wounds inflicted upon his body.

  The image was too grainy to make out the nature of his injuries but I knew Carmine had always enjoyed more perverse delights. Her need for pain sometimes even surpassing Kypherous’ desire to inflict it or bear witness to it.

  Absently, I ran my finger across one of my scars. It trailed from my collar bone and veered beneath the shirt I wore, terminating in the crook of my arm. One of Carmine’s experiments, a botched attempt to see how well I could heal a wound cauterised by fire. Even now, I could remember the glee on her face as she’d poured the kerosene into the wound and lit the match, the sheen of madness in her gaze as she’d watched me thrash and buck on the bed.

  It was after that Kypherous had tired of her games and I’d listened from inside my cage to what I’d thought had been him murdering her. Shuddering and trembling with the fever that had raged within, I’d lain on the floor of the cage I’d called home. My body’s attempts to heal the wounds and the tattoo she’d inflicted upon me driving me to the brink of madness.

  I let the photographs drop from my fingers and they scattered across the floor. My knees buckled and I slid down the side of the bed, the box crashing onto the carpet with a dull thud that barely registered in my pain-numbed brain.

  If I could cry it might alleviate some of the guilt and the pain I felt over it all but I couldn’t even do that. No matter how hard I squeezed my eyes shut, they remained dry, the tears refusing to come.

  My gaze found the box once more and I noted the green glittering fabric that had slithered free and now lay in a shining pool next to the end of the bed. Crawling toward it, I lifted it up and into the light. There was a small tag hanging inside it, the note once more written in Carmine’s distinctive scrawl.

  Before you think I chose this, I didn’t. Grey has quite the eye for fashion and he wants to see you in this at least once before he dies.

  The dress was exquisite. What I’d thought had been sequins was actually tiny glittering scales, the head of each one dotted with a ruby lending a weight to the gown that I hadn’t expected. It moved and shifted in my hands with the kind of fluidity that I’d thought could only be found in nature.

  Reading Carmine’s note over again, I shook my head. It was a lie, it had to be a lie. She was the one with the desire for the theatrics, not Grey.

  I started to replace the dress in the box when I spotted the harness inside the bodice of the dress, the leather it was created from so soft I’d almost missed it. My breath caught in the back of my throat as I studied it. Dropping the dress on the bed, I left the room, heading straight for Grey’s.

  Sofia stood in the hall outside his room and I pushed past her, ignoring her protest as I scooped up Grey’s sword from the bed.

  The dark metal was covered in intricate patterns, the kind I’d often seen winding their way up over Grey’s arms and disappearing beneath his shirt sleeves. The sword had been made especially for him. He’d never told me by who or just what the patterns meant, but I knew they were powerful.

  Carrying the sword reverently back to my room, I carefully slid it into the leather sheath that ran the length of the back of the dress. Stepping away from the bed, I stared at the sword sitting snugly within the harness. A perfect fit. It was then the tears came, hot and aching as they trailed fire down my cheeks.

  Despite the pictures, despite the pain Carmine had obviously inflicted upon him, he hadn’t given up. I started to laugh, the sound edging a little too close to hysteria but I didn’t try to stop it. I was exhausted but at the same time I was exhilarated, adrenaline coursing through my veins gave me a strength I’d thought had been sapped out of me.

  “What’s so funny?” Sofia asked from the doorway, her eyes flickering past me to the dress and sword on the bed.

  “We’re going to win,” I said.

  “And that’s funny how?”

  “Because Carmine thinks she has us backed into a corner but she’s wrong,” I said. “She always did underestimate those she thought beneath her, and tonight she’ll answer for it with her life.”

  Chapter 37

  I stood in front of the long fogged mirror in the bedroom, staring at my reflection. The dress clung to my body much like a second skin, the scales shimmering beneath the artificial light from overhead.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Sofia asked from the doorway.

  I turned to face her and noted the all black leather she herself wore. The only skin visible was that of her face, everything else lay beneath a layer of protection. Considering we were going into a den of vampires who used their teeth and claws as weapons it was a smart idea.

  I on the other hand felt overly exposed. The dress dipped down between my breasts, the silver clasps that held it together across my chest were cool against my skin. The sword lay down my back a reinforcement for my spine, forcing me to stand straight, the harness that kept it in place snug around my shoulders.

  “No,” I said honestly, “I’d feel so much more comfortable in my own clothes. I’m really not a dress person.”

  “Can you even fight in that?”

  I moved fluidly across the floor, stretching my muscles as I practiced some of my Karate Kata, moving from that into the Aikido jo Katas I favoured. The slits up either side of the dress gave me all the range of motion I needed and the bodice of the dress was so perfectly moulded to my form that there was no extra fabric to get tangled in.

  “Easily,” I said, catching my breath as I came to a halt in front of her.

  Her hand whipped out lightning fa
st, the flash of the blade in her grip the only indicator that she was about to strike. I blocked her initial attack and from the corner of my eye I caught sight of her free hand snaking beneath my defence. The tips of her fingers became wickedly sharp talons capable of rending flesh from bone if given the chance. I moved but I was too slow and her talons tore across the front of the dress and down my abdomen.

  I waited for the sting of her razor sharp claws as they bit into my skin but there was nothing.

  “Interesting,” she said, glancing down at the place where she’d scored me.

  I followed her gaze and noted with some satisfaction that my skin and the dress was still intact. As though to reassure myself that I wasn’t actually imagining it, I ran the palm of my hand over the scales once more, searching for any sign of damage but there was none. It was as though she’d never struck me at all.

  “It behaves like armour,” I said almost absently.

  “Well, you need something. As it is, you’ve got too many vulnerable points. In that dress you look more like vampire bait than an officer for the Division.”

  “From what you’ve told me about the Division, that doesn’t sound like much of a comparison,” I said wryly, arching an eyebrow in her direction.

  She ignored me and her expression remained as implacable as ever.

  Reaching up, I pulled the hood of the dress up. It had seemed like a strange addition, but now that I knew how the scales behaved, I understood it a little better. At least with the hood drawn, my neck and shoulders were somewhat protected. And, well, if a vampire was close enough to me to get inside the hood, I really was screwed.

  Grabbing the whip from the bed, I wrapped it around my arm, the familiar weight of it against my skin a comfort. Sofia handed me a bundle of metal stakes but I shook my head.

  “Don’t need them,” I said, pulling the side of the dress aside to reveal the metal stakes I slid down inside my boots. It made them a little heavier but not enough to throw off my ability to land a kick.