by Lucy Lyons
She pushed the thought back into her head as she rolled over and got to her hands and knees, scraping her skin on the hard concrete.
“Look at that, Mel,” Darcy said in her high, sweet voice. “She’s a fighter, isn’t she?”
Shit. I forgot about them. However, she was committed now and just kept moving.
Mel sounded like the third speaker. Viktoria could practically hear him nodding as he spoke. “She certainly seems to be. Perhaps you are wrong and she is a Willow after all.”
She ignored them as best as she could, although her thoughts whirled around her and worsened her dizziness. Why weren’t they attacking her? Why were they just standing back and chattering like a bunch of old women?
Grimly, she dragged herself over to the inner edge of the wall and looked all the way down.
The suburb where the Willow clan lived was burning, jets of scarlet flame rippling from one house to another. Smoke continued to pour from the blackening buildings, stinging her eyes. Even as she watched, several trees began to burn and the flames from those were already leaping over to the next house in line.
Dad, she thought wretchedly, staring at her home. That was where the worst of the fire was, to the point where she couldn’t even see the house at all.
Stumbling backwards away from the ledge, she realized the gunshots had stopped. Alone and lonely, sirens wailed through the air. Viktoria’s heart wailed as well, and she bit her lip so hard that she tasted blood. Every part of her hurt now, but the pain came from inside.
Footsteps approached her from behind, making her realize that the talking had died down. She turned and looked up right into the eyes of a massive vampire. His skin glowed in the moonlight, more pale in shade than paper.
“Hello,” he said, politely.
This one was Mel? She had been imagining some scrawny nerdy guy, not a giant! His eyes pierced through the night, slashing at her thoughts, and she saw how deep in color they were. The deeper the shade of yellow, the more ancient and powerful the vampire. At least, that was what her father said.
Mel continued to stare at her, gaze wide and open. She opened her mouth to snap at him but it suddenly occurred to her what he was doing. She could have slapped herself for being so stupid.
Part of what makes vampires so hard to fight against is their eyes. The color is hypnotizing, charming victims into agreeing with anything even if it’s their own death. Willingly accepting slavery or inviting the vampire to drink their blood are two more tricks in the book, although there were an endless number of things a person could be convinced to do when charmed. No one could resist it.
No one but the Willow clan, that was.
Many of the other hunters claimed that their ability to resist a vampire’s charms was simply genetic and that it was something only the Willows were capable of, but Viktoria knew that wasn’t true. After all, she was not a Willow by birth. It just took concentration and willpower.
If she didn’t give some sign that she was being charmed, these three would know she was a hunter.
She shoved away all of her grief and fear, pushing it to the back of her mind, and plastered a wide grin on her lips. It felt like a grimace, but it was the best she could do. “Hi,” she said, trying to sound as convincing as possible. “Are you Mel?”
He backed away a little, satisfied with his charms but somehow still looking skeptical. It was hard to tell in the darkness but she thought his eyebrow might be raised. “A fighter and observant, are you? You will make someone quite the prize.”
“I hope it’s you!” she said, sickeningly-sweet. She batted her eyes at him, covering up the tears of pure frustration as she blinked them back.
Mel laughed and then backed away from her again. “No, not for me. I fed recently. Very recently.”
One of the others strode forward now. She was small and a third of the big vampire’s height, with a round face and a childish body. Darcy, transformed into a monster before she hit double-digits, from the look of it.
Horrific, Viktoria thought bitterly. Poor thing would be better off dead.
Darcy’s eyes were also very deep in coloration. A cursory glance at the other vampire who was still out of sight revealed that he also had the same dark-gold orbs shining out from his moon of a face. If these three were anything to go by, the vampires had brought out their strongest forces this time. But why? She hadn’t heard anything about skirmishes or anything lately.
“What were you doing with the Willows?” the little girl vampire demanded. Her sweet little voice was warped with harshness, her bloodied fangs flashing.
Viktoria shuddered, and rubbed her arms to disguise her real feelings with a shiver. “The who?”
“The people whose house we dragged you out of! Idiot. You don’t even know who you were staying with?”
Viktoria shook her head, still rubbing her arms. “That nice man in there found me and he said I could stay with him.” That’s not a lie.
“What nice man?”
She tilted her head. “His name was Matthew. Or Martin? Something like that.”
“Maximus? Maximus Willow?” Mel prompted, and she nodded rapidly in response. “See, Darcy? She has no idea.”
“Or else she’s very good at playing stupid.” The little girl leaned in close. Viktoria stared at her blankly, smiling vacantly. “Where did he find you?”
Viktoria put one finger to her lips and tapped it, trying hard to think of something that would sound acceptably air-headed. She never lied so much before in her life and had no idea how good she was doing. For all she knew, these vampires had her figured out but were going to let her screw herself over. “I ran away from Detroit. It was so boring there. I hate walls. But I got into trouble while I was traveling, and that Maximus guy saved me. I don’t know what he was doing outside his walls when he lives inside the city but I just said okay and here I am!”
Her heart pounded as she waited for judgment to be passed, but all the vampire did was growl.
Looking past Darcy, she realized she couldn’t see the third vampire. “Where did your friend go?”
“Away,” Darcy said impatiently. She folded her arms now and frowned, scowling hard. “I guess this one is useless after all. Damn. But I’m not hungry.”
“Neither am I,” Mel agreed. “Just ate. I guess we should take her back to the colony.”
“Where is that?” Viktoria asked. Her heart pounded.
They’re going to kill me.
No answer came. Instead, the child vampire picked up a length of rope from the ground to bind Viktoria’s hands and legs so she couldn’t walk. Viktoria tightened up every muscle in her whole body, knowing that would give her some slack in the rope when she relaxed again, but when it was done and she tested the bonds, it hadn’t really worked at all.
“Sleep well,” someone said, but the voice was warped and blurred as something crashed down against the back of her head for the second time that night.
Chapter 3
The journey was a blur in more ways than one. Every time her captors noticed that she was awake again, they knocked her right back into unconsciousness. Dots constantly speckled her vision, restricting what she could see even further. There were enough vampires walking around in the open to make up a small village. And this was only going to be a fraction of a single colony! Though she knew the numbers already, seeing it for herself was staggering and extremely upsetting.
They seemed to be heading west, towards the mountains peaks scraping against the sky in the distance. The creatures walked endlessly, night and day, talking or singing amongst themselves. They had no need for rest, although twice she was able to watch one drag a dead animal into the middle of the crowd; blood-starved vampires fell upon the prey with lustful hunger, left behind to catch up when they were sated again.
As for herself, she had no idea where exactly she was. In some sort of cart, like a horse-drawn carriage she had seen in history textbooks, but she couldn’t
hear a horse. The interior was dark, with only thin fragments of light seeping in through several small windows and cracks. It wasn’t weather-proof, and it wasn’t soundproof. All she saw were vampires, and often all she heard was rapid footsteps as the creatures kept moving.
I’m going to be dead eventually, Viktoria thought one wakeful moment. She wasn’t being fed or watered. They hadn’t untied her hands or feet since she was bound, meaning that she had long since lost the feeling in most of her body. Only her mind stayed active, endlessly churning.
The only relief was that as long as they didn’t look at her, she didn’t have to pretend like they were gods, or models, or whatever she was supposed to act like they were.
Maybe she should just give up and shout out the truth, and let them rip her to pieces? But she had been silent and complacent so long she knew they might not even believe her. Stranger things had happened under the influence of the vampires’ charms, so a girl pretending to be a vampire hunter to make her new captors happy was not out of the question.
That would be a disgrace to her father, anyway. That was all that kept her from doing it; so that if she ever saw him again she wanted to be able to tell him how she persevered.
I wonder if they’re okay. Were any of them captured like me?
She missed entire gaps of the journey due to a combination of sleep and being forced to sleep, so it was no surprise to her when she woke up one time to find that the journey had come to an end. The air seeping in through the cracks of the carriage was frigid, raising instant goosebumps. Everywhere she looked, she saw pine trees and snow, and the scent of the world had changed from musty, forgotten plains to the clean aroma of fresh earth.
It would have been a soothing image stolen straight from one of her fantasies if not for the fact that a second after she pressed her face to one of the windows, a vampire’s face appeared mere inches from hers.
Yelping, she tried to hold one hand over her heart but they were still tied together so all she did was hit herself in the chest. She hadn’t seen this particular vampire before and he was frowning, suspicion dark on his pale face.
I’m charmed. Charmed, remember? I have to be charmed.
“You scared me!” she said, and forced a tiny giggle. “That wasn’t very nice. Are we here?”
“Yes, fresh blood,” the monster said haughtily. “We’re here. We’re going to let you out. If you run…” His voice trailed off in an unspoken threat, and she imagined him ripping her in half with those long fingers and sharp nails.
“Why would I run?” she asked.
He disappeared from her sight and a moment later she heard metal scraping against wood. With a prolonged groan, the wooden door in the back of the carriage opened and the same vampire as before stared in at her. “Get out,” he growled.
Obediently, she slithered her lower half across the wood and set her feet on solid ground for the first time in what felt like an eternity. Then she fell over on her face because she couldn’t feel her own body.
Quickly, before anyone could do anything, she looked around.
They stood at the top of a low rise in the mountain, the peak towering high above and the base a sheer cliff’s drop away. The view stole her breath, an expanse of hills and valleys formed by the play of sunlight and shadow. Abandoned streets wove through the heart of it all, long-abandoned and rusted vehicle husks littering the cracked grey surface. Above her, the sky was clear and pale, visible only in broken swathes through a tall forest canopy.
“Wow,” she breathed, and she didn’t have to fake her admiration. It was a beautiful place.
“If you think that’s good, you should try turning around.”
The vampire knelt at her feet as he spoke, clipping the rope away from her legs with a quick swipe of his pointed nails. The rush of circulation returning to her feet almost made her cry out, as tingles swelled and stabbed her skin from the inside.
“My feet hurt and I can’t stand,” she complained.
Her captor sighed and grabbed her arm, hauling her to her feet. Pins and needles started climbing their way up the rest of her leg, sharp and angry and almost enough to distract her from the feel of his cold, dead flesh on hers. Biting her lip to keep from complaining again, she looked around as he turned her.
A few vampires milled around the forest, stalking like wolves, but most of them had already disappeared inside the fortress that she had caught sight of. Carved directly out of the mountainside, it looked as though Mother Nature had gone through a Gothic phase and then dumped her creation out here in the middle of nowhere so it couldn’t embarrass her. Castle-esque and towering, thin bridges of crumbling stone connected jutting cliffs. Arched entryways seemed to hover out over empty expanses of scree with no way she could see of getting to them.
“Wow,” she said again, and pointed with her bound hands. “How do we get in there?”
“We climb,” he said shortly, dragging her towards the colossal sanctuary. Every bump was aggravating but she kept her whines to a minimum, staring around her. If this beauty was going to be one of the last things she ever saw, she wouldn’t die completely unsatisfied.
A small crushed path led through the trees, paved by hundreds of feet passing the same way. By the time they reached the end of it, she could walk well enough on her own feet that the vampire seemed slightly less pissed off at her. Through the jagged pine branches, she glimpsed the opening of a tunnel mouth studded with stalactites.
The fact that the entrance to the vampire fortress looked like a fanged maw didn’t escape her, and she shuddered. Another fact occurred to her at this inopportune moment: no attempt was being made to cover her eyes.
They don’t intend for me to ever leave here. Why would they?
All she could hope for was a swift death, instead of being treated like a cow. Constantly fattened up, always dreading the moment when her captors would come for her blood next. It was a horrific fate and one she prayed she could avoid.
Guided on by the vampire’s hand in the darkness, the moment Viktoria stepped into the tunnel she knew escape would be impossible. Vampires had incredibly powerful senses, which meant they didn't need light to navigate these endless twists and turns that climbed steadily higher through the interior of the mountain. A human did.
How long they climbed and how much ground they covered were lost on her. Occasionally, she heard voices but it always seemed like they were headed away. Only the smell of the vampire and her own footsteps kept her company.
Then, suddenly, the vampire steered her around a corner and there was light. Not much, but enough for her to see that quite a lot of people were standing in the middle of a cavernous room.
Her guide pushed her inside, and Viktoria felt a chill pass through her whole body as she looked around. The room was like an auditorium the size of several football fields. One area of the floor was raised in a sort of stage, which was occupied by an impossibly tall and stately couple. They held hands and were dressed in the finest of fabrics, but without any jewelry at all save for two ugly rings made from the bones of their first victims hundreds of years ago. Most vampire kept such a trinket, and exchanged them with their beloved on the day when they pledged their immortal souls to each other.
Remembering her role in all of this, Viktoria waved at them. The male smiled, while the female just scowled, but she didn’t look away from them because that would mean looking out at all the others.
“And who might this be?” the male vampire asked, bowing his head slightly to Viktoria.
Her guide answered for her. “She was found when we attacked the hunter den.”
“The Willow den?” the woman said. Her frown grew as sharp as her fangs. “She doesn’t resemble them.”
A vampire spoke from the crowd, and Viktoria picked him out. It was Mel. “Your Majesty, she claims she ran away from her home and was found outside walled territory by the eldest Willow. She knows nothing.”
“I see.” The
vampire queen sighed. “Then, she has no information for us. Are we certain the hunters’ den was wiped out entirely?”
“They will not even be able to find bones by the time that fire burns itself out.”
So, that was it, then. Her father was gone. Her family was gone. She wanted to fall to the ground and scream out her pain but all she could do was smile blankly. That was easier than facing all her pain, though.
“Then, she is available.” That was the male vampire, who she now assumed was a king. “Whose turn is it?”
“Mine,” a menacing voice snarled from somewhere nearby. A vampire stepped forward. He looked exactly like the sort who would kill all of his victims no matter what. Viktoria was at once grateful and terrified, especially because he fit the image she held in her mind of a “monster.” All of these other vampires had been almost too normal, too cordial, but this brute approaching her was a hulking death machine. He knew it, too. Fingerbones dangled from a necklace, rattling against his chest.
His smell was curdled with that of death, and she dug her tingling feet into the floor of the cave to keep from backing away as he reached out and snatched at her wrist. His fingers curled roughly around her arm, grinding the bones of her wrist together. She bit her tongue to hold back whimpers of pain, but she saw that he knew he was hurting her and he liked it.
Maybe I won’t die as quickly as I wanted to, she thought with dread.
The vampire queen cleared her throat. “Well, then, Marcus, you have a choice to make. Will she become your pet or will she be spared that fate? Bring her up here and share your decision.”
Marcus grinned and dragged Viktoria forward, moving so fast she had no chance of keeping up. Tripping and stumbling, he hoisted her up on the stage and then grabbed both arms around her. One hand slapped around her waist, while the other shoved her head back to expose her neck.
Never before in her life had she been so aware of her own pulse. Her breath trembled in her throat, and a cool waft of dead air hit her skin. Oily hair brushed down her neck, and lips like stone settled on her.