by Zara Zenia
“What is in the hearth?” I stared at her for answers.
Marina didn’t answer. She got on her knees and with a labored grunt, began shimmying a loose strip of brick until she was able to pop it out of its encasement. When she craned her neck and glanced into the little dark hole left behind, her eyes widened with euphoria.
“Jackpot.”
“What is it?” Colin took a curious step closer.
Marina plucked a little red spiral notebook out of the space where the brick was. She dusted it off with her hand and blew on it. She flipped through a few pages and looked up at us with a proud grin.
“I think we’ve found the golden ticket, after all.”
“Is that her…diary?” I asked.
“A journal of sorts, yes. That’s what it looks like.” Marina nodded.
“We should get it to Professor Chiu,” Colin said nervously. “You know. Get his input?”
“Who’s that?” I asked.
Marina took my hand, gripping the journal as if it held the key to blowing this whole thing out of the water.
“He’s the professor who saved us when we found Carlotta, I told you about him.”
“Oh, yeah, and you trust him?”
Marina nodded and smiled at me. “Yes, and he’s helping take care of Vlad and the other students who are ill.”
We cautiously stepped out the backdoor, aiming to get back to campus as quickly and quietly as we could, but before we even got halfway out of the backyard, we heard voices behind us.
“Going somewhere?” a male voice asked in a voice dripping with malice.
I spun around, along with Marina, Colin and Daniel. Standing in front of us, were a pair of Hunters. Their expressions gave way that they were out for blood, and we were their prime target.
19
Marina
I had already hidden the journal underneath my shirt, tucking it underneath the waistband of my jeans before turning around to face the wrath of the Hunters. I had to act quickly. I didn’t want the journal landing in their possession, no matter the cost.
“Nice move,” Tom whispered to me as we spun around to face the two obnoxious Hunters who always seemed to appear at the very worst time.
Dan and Benton stood in front of us with snarly leers on their faces. They had rifles pointed directly at us. Dan’s burly muscles tensed, twisting and morphing the tattoo sleeves on his arms.
“Breaking and entering, I see?” he mocked with a sneer.
“Mind your own damn business,” Daniel said, taking a brave step forward.
He gave the pair of Hunters a terrifying stare with his red eyes boring a hole right through them.
Dan and Benton erupted into thunderous laughter that echoed through the dead of night.
“Do you really expect to scare us, vampire boy?” Dan mocked. He gave his counterpart a wicked grin. His white blond hair was sticking up and skewed wildly atop his head. He had a crazed look flickering in his manic eyes.
Daniel clenched his fists and I noticed his jaw visibly tighten. His cheeks puffed out in fury.
“Why don’t you just let us be on our way,” Colin said in a vain attempt to keep the peace, although I did have to give him credit for trying. “We aren’t bothering you, there is no reason for violence.”
Dan and Benton took a menacing step forward, aiming their intimidating guns directly in our faces.
I took a deep breath. I knew this was going to be an ordeal, but I couldn’t predict how badly it was going to go until we were in the thick of it. I tried to remind myself that we had magic at our disposal, and that we would come out ahead if we concentrated and unified our efforts.
Luckily, we had Tom to help us this time. There were more of us than there were of them, so at least we had that going for us.
I held my breath and tensed every muscle in my body. It was like everything was happening in slow motion. Dan cocked his gun and fired. The shot rang out, bombing through the air.
I felt a scream bubbling to the surface, but it got lost somewhere in my throat, sticking there. Tom hurtled his body in front of me, jumping in front of the bullet, but Colin stopped it there.
He held up his hand and used a stun charm at just the right moment. The bullet flew back directly at Dan and hit him in the upper thigh. He immediately fell to the ground, collapsing on his knees with a roar of pain. The veins in his head and neck bulged in fury. His eyes were flames of rage.
“You son of a bitch!” he yelled.
In the process of falling in shock from having the bullet plunge back to him and pierce his skin, he had dropped his gun.
He reached for it with clawing hands stretching across the damp grass, but Daniel was there first, using his quick agility and vampire speed to gain an advantage over the debilitated Dan.
Daniel swiped the gun right out from under him, but Benton was there in a flash, with his own rifle pointing to the back of Daniel’s head.
“Drop the weapon or I blow your brains out,” Benton hissed.
Daniel glanced at us and did as he was told, tossing the rifle away, raising his arms over his head defensively.
For a few moments, I was frozen, but then I decided to use my luck charms to gain the upper hand again.
I concentrated on Benton’s hands that had a death grip on his gun. Little by little, his hands began to tremble, so much so, that he couldn’t keep a steady hold on the gun any longer. He dropped it, and Colin was there to yank it away before the monster could obtain it back.
I squealed with delight once I saw that my luck charm in disarming Benton had worked, but the celebration didn’t last long.
Benton had pure hatred brimming in his eyes as he let out a shout of anger and lunged directly at Colin, charging at him like a stampeding bull.
Colin, not expecting this, pointed the gun at Benton, but in the frenzy of the moment, the gun went off and hit the already wounded Dan in the head. It was as if Colin was trying to use magic to enchant the gun to protect himself from Benton, but it was Dan who suffered the consequences.
Dan’s body slammed backward and hit the ground with a thud. His cold, lifeless eyes stared blankly up at the stars. He was gone.
“I’ll kill you,” Benton hissed through clenched teeth.
Tom moved behind him. He lifted his hands and used his own magic spell to body slam Benton to the ground.
Benton clutched the sides of his head and his eyes rolled back in his head for a moment. He slithered over to Dan’s dead body and on wobbly legs, stood up and grabbed him under the arms to begin dragging him off.
He knew that he was outnumbered. He wasn’t going to try and take us all on his own. He slinked off with a limp. A few droplets of blood trickled down his temple from where his head had hit a rock on the ground.
“You won’t get away with this,” he warned in a seething tone. “My boss and I will be back to avenge Dan’s death.”
We stood there watching him walk away, panting hard and trying to restructure ourselves from the ordeal. Once we determined it was safe to retreat, we raced back to Professor Chiu as quickly as we could to hand over Dena’s journal for analysis.
Later, sitting in Professor Chiu’s office, we watched him read over and scrutinize the journal. Once he finally took a break and looked at us, he slammed the journal shut with finality.
“The bacterium used to cause the illness was enchanted.”
“I knew it,” Tom said, leaning back in his seat.
“The nature of the enchantment is described in detail in the journal, so, hopefully, we can find a way to reverse the effects on those afflicted and synthesize a cure.”
I couldn’t suppress a sigh of relief. “That is wonderful.” Poor Vlad was the focus in my mind.
“Vlad, Professor Chiu thinks he has the cure,” I said, taking his hand.
He blinked at me through his half open eyes. “I’ll try it… try anything…” he mumbled.
I squeezed his hand and looked over at the Professor. “Gi
ve it to him, Professor, if it works on him, it should work on everyone.”
“Very well, it should take about thirty minutes for it to take effect. We’ll know by then if it’s working or not.” Professor Chiu moved forward and swabbed Vlad’s arm with alcohol and then iodine before plunging the needle into his bicep. “Now we wait.”
I held Vlad’s hand the whole time we waited. Daniel was on his other side, holding his other hand. At first, Vlad’s hands were wet and clammy, but then, as time moved on, they began to dry, and when I looked down at his face, the puffiness around his eyes seemed to shrink. Then Vlad stopped sniffling, like he had a runny nose, and his breathing returned to normal.
After twenty-three minutes had passed, Vlad squeezed my hand and said, “Beautiful, have you been here the whole time?”
I let out a relieved giggle. “Well, not the whole time, we did go kick some Hunter ass and find a cure for you.”
“That’s my girl,” Vlad replied and then looked at Daniel. “Dude, thanks for watching out for me.”
“My pleasure, bro. Now we just gotta get your room repaired and you can move back in, you toasted it pretty good,” Daniel said with a chuckle.
A few minutes later, he sat up in the bed with a rosy tint back in his cheeks and a healthy gleam in his eye. “I’m starved, can I get a hamburger with everything?”
Everyone chimed with laughter.
“Well, it seems it worked,” Professor Chiu said with a smile. “I’m off to heal the rest of the patients.” He turned and left the room.
“Thank you, Professor,” I called after him.
“So, it sounds like we need to have barbeque,” Daniel said, beside himself with joy at his best friend’s recovery.
I couldn’t blame him. I was over the moon that we had the real Vlad back. His personality was glowing once again, and he was part of our lives for the long haul.
I squeezed his hand with adoration and planted a delicate kiss against his cheek. “It’s so great to have you back, baby, you had me so worried,” I whispered.
Vlad’s expression beamed with fondness. “I wouldn’t miss time with you for the world.”
“Well come on then,” Tom said. “Let’s get him out of here and fire up the grill.”
“Glad to have you back, buddy,” Colin said with a grin. “Let’s go eat.”
20
Marina
A few weeks had gone by since Vlad’s recovery, and us inadvertently finding Dena Aylesbury dead in the kitchen of her own home. Things were slowly starting to trickle back to normal, although picking up the pieces wasn’t as easy as one might have assumed.
We still had a long road ahead, and paranoia was still out in full force among not only my group of friends, but as a noticed consensus throughout the students and faculty as well.
No new cases had been confirmed since the cure had been dispersed among the sick, and little by little, the students began to come back out of the woodwork and appeared to be slowly adjusting back to their usual routines.
I felt like although tensions were still a little on the high side, I was able to somewhat breath again. Part of me rested assured that we were widening the gap between us and any further spread of the illness.
I was currently helping Vlad and Daniel at their house piecing everything back together in Vlad’s room and moving furniture back in with the joint help of Colin and Tom.
Vlad was on the mend, milking his recovery mode with me, but I didn’t mind it. I enjoyed fussing over him and coddling him a bit. He deserved it. He had been through quite a trial over the last few weeks.
He was pushing a tall dresser back into the corner of his room, tucking it neatly back into the cozy corner nook where it belonged. Daniel was helping him. Neither one of them looked like it took much effort, being that they were both incredibly strong. Still I liked seeing their muscles bulge in their shirts.
“I’m enjoying the nice view, fellas.” I chuckled as they worked. “Though maybe you should take a break, Vlad, I don’t want you having a relapse.”
Vlad wiped the sweat off his forehead and gave me a handsome grin. “I’m fine, baby. Really. I need to get back in the swing of things. I think that illness made me lose muscle tone, so I need to push myself more.”
“Not to the limit,” I countered.
He strutted proudly across the room with his broad, muscular shoulders squared. “I appreciate you worrying about me, baby.”
“What about me?” Daniel pointed to himself with a grin.
I laughed with amusement as Vlad leaned down and planted a quick peck on my lips. He was one-hundred percent out of the contaminated zone and there was no longer a risk for spread of sickness between him and anyone else.
“You can have a kiss too.” I chuckled.
Daniel eagerly jogged over to me and kissed me softly.
At that moment, Colin and Tom waltzed back into the room carrying a couple of lamps.
“You really had a lot of stuff to replace,” Tom said with a slight twinge of fatigue and annoyance laced in his voice.
“We’re almost to the finish line,” Daniel assured him. “Thanks for all of your help getting Vlad’s room back in order.” He panned the group. “Seriously, we couldn’t have done all this work without you guys.”
“Sorry that it happened in the first place.” Vlad blushed and flickered his gaze to his boots.
“Nobody’s at fault here,” I assured him in a soft whisper and stroked his back.
He plopped down on the creaky twin bed beside me and heaved a sigh.
“Thanks.” The look he gave me was still mixed with chagrin.
“Well, someone is at fault,” Tom said moving toward me and stealing a kiss.
“We still have yet to determine who that is,” I said with a regretful sigh.
“Are there any leads yet?” Tom wasn’t as much in the loop since he had only been here off and on over the last few weeks. I tried to keep him up to date, but sometimes he felt left out.
“No, just what we know from Dena’s journal.” “Her story is out all over the school,” Colin said. “I would be surprised if anyone hadn’t heard it yet.”
“It’s such a shame she was suicidal according to the entries she wrote,” I said with woe.
“Maybe it was all a front,” Daniel said. He tended to be the least trustworthy of all of us, hence the most cynical as well.
“She claimed to be manipulated by someone on the faculty,” Vlad said with a huff and a roll of his eyes.
“But who?” I asked and frowned. “It doesn’t make sense. Wouldn’t she have listed the person in her journal so that if anything happened to her, there would be a source?”
“That’s why it’s kind of too translucent to believe,” Colin said.
“The real culprit is still unknown,” Vlad said with an air of frustration.
I couldn’t blame him for wanting to expose the true perpetrator. We had all been affected by the damage done, but Vlad had been hit personally hard with the sickness and could have died if we hadn’t found the journal.
We had uncovered it just in time. The doctors caring for Vlad had told us later, and away from his presence, that he probably only had a few days left had we not been able to construct a cure from the findings.
We had made a pact to never reveal to Vlad just how close he came to an experience with death. We wanted him to be able to move on with his life without feeling like those damaging scars were following him in the process of healing.
“I wonder if she was simply delirious from her own depression that maybe she wrote those passages and hid the fact that she might have been the true villain in this case,” Tom mentioned.
He looked contemplative as he peered out the window and scoped the area. His hands were in his pockets. He looked like his usual rigid self, but he was handsome in my eyes because he cared about me above everything else in this world. Even if he didn’t show it in front of others on the surface, I knew his intentions were genuine.
<
br /> “I don’t think it was her,” Vlad said with a shake of his head. “I think that the real enemy is still out there, yet to show their face.”
I didn’t know why, but I believed him. Either way, we needed to push past this. I managed a smile. “Who’s up for some fun after we finish unpacking Daniel and Vlad?”
Everyone gave me an encouraged smile. “That sounds intriguing.”
“What did you have in mind, baby?” Tom asked.
“Maybe we could see a movie? Get off campus for a while?” I suggested.
Vlad snaked his arm around my waist. I relished in the simple fact that he was healthy enough to stand up and give me hugs.
“I couldn’t agree more.”
I felt invigorated. We needed the refreshment of a change of scenery. It would do our souls some good. For a little while, we could pretend that we didn’t have to look over our shoulders around every corner waiting for a threat to surface.
I just wanted to bask in the company of the boyfriends I loved and appreciated. Tomorrow could worry about itself. I wasn’t going to waste any more time, because after coming so close to losing Vlad, I knew how precious and valuable life really was.
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1
Gardax
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I cleared my throat, pinched the bridge of my nose, and for the third time, inhaled deeply. The many eyes of my brothers were upon me. I braced myself as I prepared to upend their lives. You could hear a pin drop into the abyss of silence swirling through the room, but the quiet would soon come to a crashing and abrupt end.
In any lifetime, there comes a point where one is called to measure up, to rise to the occasion and do what we must to become the person we were meant to be. I was about to ask that of my brothers, and more to the point, myself.