A Vampire's Thirst_Ivan

by Marissa Farrar

  From her bag, Amber took out several short, stubby white candles, a tall black candle, a clay bowl, and a small plastic bag which contained leaves of some kind. She set the shorter candles out in a circle and then placed the tall black one, together with the clay bowl, in the middle. She removed the leaves, which Charlie recognised as being bay, and placed them in the clay bowl.

  Amber sat back on her haunches and closed her eyes. She lifted her hand and held it above the circle of candles. “Lux a flamma,” she said beneath her breath. The candles sparked to life with a whumph sound.

  Then she picked up the black candle in the centre and used it to set fire to the bay leaves in the clay bowl. Smoke rose from the leaves, and Amber circled her hand within the tendrils as she chanted.

  “No more befouled, again unbound, again unbidden,” the witch chanted. “No more befouled, again unbound, again unbidden.”

  The air in front of them shimmered, like heat rising from the ground on a hot summer’s day.

  “Something’s happening,” Charlie gasped.

  Jana shot her a glare. “Shh. Let her concentrate.”

  Amber repeated the chant, her eyes closed, her hands held in the smoke created by the burning bay leaves. “No more befouled, again unbound, again unbidden.”

  The air shimmered again, and like a mirage appearing in a desert, something began to take shape. The shape filled in, and in a matter of seconds, a cottage appeared in front of them.

  Charlie staggered back, her eyes wide. “It’s the cottage from the old myth. The one travellers spot from a distance but can never find.”

  “Is Ivan inside?” Magno asked her.

  Her sense for her Bloodmate grew stronger, and she nodded. “Yes, but he’s not alone.”

  Chapter 18

  Ivan sensed Charlie was somewhere close, and the knowledge sent mixed emotions through him. He didn’t want her getting involved in something that might get her hurt but he also knew she was a police officer and he shouldn’t underestimate her. Plus, chances were she would have thought to bring The Directive with her.

  He focussed his attention on Michaela still standing in front of him. If he could distract her, she and the other two might not be aware they had company.

  “So where is this creature now?” he asked. “When do I get to meet it?”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “Oh, very soon. But I wouldn’t be too eager to make its acquaintance. It’s likely to be the last thing you ever do.”

  “What makes you think it’s not just going to turn on you?”

  “Because it can sense that we’re the same deep down, that we come from the same roots.”

  “Yeah, stinky animals that like to roll in the dirt.”

  Anger flared in her eyes, causing the irises to burn yellow. She took the couple of steps needed to bring herself close to him again then grabbed the chain around his throat and yanked it tight.

  “Ah, fuck!” he snarled.

  Pain seared around his neck, like nothing he’d ever experienced before. He wanted to stamp his feet to find an outlet for the agony, but his toes didn’t even scrape the floor. Instead, he resorted to clenching his fists and banging the back of his head against the wall behind him. Tears of blood filled his eyes, clouding his vision, and he furiously blinked them away, not wanting to be even more disabled than he already was. The chains around his ankles and wrists continued to burn him as well. Though he was still healing, it was much slower now, and he knew if he managed to get out of this, he’d be scarred for weeks or even months to come.

  Michaela pointed at him. “Let that be a taste of what I’ve got in store for you.”

  “What are you planning on doing?” he managed to grate out despite his pain. “Are you going to take me out on the moorlands and leave me there for the beast like some kind of medieval sacrifice?”

  She gave a cool smile. “You’ll find out soon enough. It’s almost time.”

  A noise came from above them, and each person in the room looked up towards the sound.

  “What was that?” she snapped to the two men behind her.

  “No idea,” the red-haired wolf said.

  “Go and find out.”

  He turned to head back up the wooden staircase, but the door blew open, slamming into the wall behind.

  Ivan’s heart lifted. He didn’t need to see her to know she was there. The scent of her—dark chocolate and red wine and orange blossom—floated to his olfactory senses, easing his pain instantly. But with it came fear. If she was here, she might get hurt, and that would be worse than a whole eternity of being chained to a wall.

  But to his relief, it wasn’t Charlie who stepped through the door, but Magno Zara. The short Italian vampire held a form of ID in one hand, and he flashed it at everyone in the cellar.

  “I command you to stop what you’re doing immediately. This is acting against all of our laws, and I order you to let Ivan Sokolov go. Failing to do so will result in your death.”

  Behind him, in stepped Jana Noskova and Clarence Collins. Close behind them came Charlie, and with her was a woman Ivan had never seen before.

  Michaela’s two men stepped back, but Michaela held her ground. “It’s too late to stop it now,” she said. “Everything is already in progress.”

  “What’s in progress?” Magno demanded.

  But she didn’t answer. Her burning, yellow gaze darted between them all. “Clarence Collins and Jana Noskova, too. I’m glad you’re here. You all played a part in my father’s death. You all helped to decide his fate.” Her gaze fixed on Jana. “You should be ashamed of yourself. You betrayed your kind. What I’m doing here is lifting us above these bloodsuckers, not working alongside them.”

  “She’s letting the Beast of Dartmoor go!” Ivan yelled. “That’s who’s been killing those people.”

  Jana frowned. “Letting it go? Letting it go, how?”

  A smug smile slipped across her face. “You’ll see.”

  Magno stepped forward. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  Ivan locked eyes with Charlie. He saw the pain she was experiencing at seeing him in such a way. Naked and hung like a piece of meat. His skin was burned and scarred, and the stink of his smoking flesh filled the air in the confined space.

  “Please, do something to help him,” Charlie begged The Directive.

  Not showing a moment of fear, Magno started down the stairs towards Ivan.

  “Stop, or I’ll kill him!” Michaela screeched.

  Magno didn’t hesitate. He used his speed—which, for an ancient vampire was incredible—and darted forward. There was a clinking of chains as he undid them, moving too fast for the eye to see. The chains clattered to the ground, and Ivan dropped with them, landing on his hands and knees. He was weak from the number of burns he’d sustained but he was free.

  Beneath his palms, the dirt floor began to shift, and he snatched his hand away. “What the hell?”

  The movement was small at first, as though large worms were directly under him, churning the earth. But then a larger bump created something like a molehill, and Ivan reared away. “What is that?”

  Charlie looked between them all in frightened confusion. “What’s happening?”

  A smile broke out across Michaela’s face. “It’s too late. You’re all too late.”

  The ground moved again, lifting in a massive lurch, as though they were in the middle of an earthquake. The two men with Michaela exchanged a glance of fear then raced towards the stairs. Charlie, upon seeing Ivan collapsed on the ground, was hurrying in the other direction—towards the moving earth instead of away. Ivan opened his mouth to tell her to get away, but the floor shifted again, this time high enough to tip him to one side, so he rolled. The burns around his wrists and ankles rubbed against the dirt, and he cried out in agony, but he was more worried about Charlie getting to close to whatever this was than his own pain.

  Even the members of The Directive didn’t appear to know what was happening. Ma
gno was still near where Ivan had been strung up, while Jana and Clarence were on the other side of the cellar, ready to take Michaela into custody. They all wore matching expressions of confusion. Ivan didn’t like to think it, but he figured this was something none of them had come across before.

  “It’s here!” Michaela cooed in glee, patting her hands together. “Now you’re all going to see what I’ve been working on.”

  She’s mad, Ivan thought.

  The ground shifted again, and he struggled to get to his hands and knees, never mind his feet. He couldn’t find his balance, like he was riding a wave without a surfboard. “Get out of here, Charlie!” he yelled. “Just leave!”

  He caught her eye above another swell of dirt, her gaze wild, frightened, but determined as well. “No, I’m not leaving you again.”

  He looked around for Magno. “Please,” he called to the ancient vampire. “Get her to safety.”

  But they were all too late.

  Wiry, black fur pushed up through the floor, dirt trickling off its back. Ears folded up off its head, and a thick, bushy black tail unfurled from its spine. It was like the earth itself was giving birth to the beast. Long legs and a muscular body were revealed. The beast blinked open blood-red eyes and curled its upper lip in a snarl to reveal a row of razor-sharp teeth.

  “Be careful!” Ivan shouted. “Its bite is poisonous to vampires!”

  The two men who’d been with Michaela took one look at the beast and ran for the doorway. The woman with the long red hair who’d arrived with Charlie also saw the thing then turned and fled. Ivan didn’t blame any of them in the slightest. If he hadn’t been pinned on the other side of the cellar by the body of the beast, he might have done exactly the same thing.

  “There he is,” Michaela crooned, as though she was speaking to a baby. “There’s my boy, all ready to face the world for good this time.”

  The thing curled a lip, saliva dripping from its jaws, and it snarled.

  “Get away from it, Michaela,” Ivan called to her. “I don’t think it’s planning on being your friend.”

  She glared at him. “That’s what you think.”

  Ivan thought that if she’d been a full werewolf, she’d have shifted by now, but she wasn’t. Was that where some of this anger had come from? Was that why she’d wanted to free this creature? Had her father’s death removed her final connection to the werewolf community, and she’d thought that by freeing the beast, she’d have done something to win her way back in again?

  The creature was eyeing up the inhabitants of the cellar as though it was trying to decide who to have first for dinner. Charlie was pressed against the wall farthest away, while Jana and Clarence were closest to the door. Michaela was over on that side with them, and Magno and Ivan were near the wall where Ivan had been chained up.

  The beast was massive, bigger than a horse, and was taking up most of the space. It turned its head and focussed on Charlie.

  “No!” Ivan yelled. “Hey, over here! Get me!”

  The beast lunged for Charlie, and she let out a scream.

  Though Ivan was injured, and his vampire abilities had been weakened by the prolonged exposure to the silver, he darted forward using what speed he could muster. He landed on the creature’s back and wrapped his arms around its neck. The movement worked to redirect its attention from Charlie, but now Ivan had made it mad. The beast let out a growl that echoed around the confines of the cellar, and wriggled and bucked its body, trying to shake Ivan off.

  Ivan clung on as tight as he could, but he could feel himself slipping. Already, he was sliding around the side of the beast’s neck, putting him in range of its snarling jaws.

  The creature’s teeth locked around Ivan’s shoulder, and it lifted him, shaking him as though he were a small rodent rather than a three-hundred-year-old vampire. Ivan could hear Charlie’s screams, but there was nothing he could do to reassure her. In a couple of places, the beast’s teeth had pierced his skin, and he remembered what Michaela had said about the bite being poisonous to vampires.

  Ivan’s head whipped side to side as it snapped him back and forth, but Ivan wasn’t even thinking about that. A burning hot agony, even worse than the silver, pierced his shoulder where the beast’s teeth were penetrating his flesh, and from that spot he felt himself weaken. It was like the feeling of a dead arm after you’d been lying on it for too long, but the feeling was spreading, down his shoulder, and then arm, and in the other direction as well, across his chest. Was the poison spreading?

  The beast finally released him, throwing him against the wall hard enough to leave a dent in the brickwork. Ivan both heard and felt bones breaking as he struck the wall, his ribs crunching upon the force of the impact.

  He slid to the ground, a broken and beaten vampire. The poison in his system continued to spread, and his body was unable to repair his broken ribs or the burns he’d suffered. He was weakening by the second and he knew there was no way back from this.

  His final hope was that Charlie, his love, his Bloodmate, would make it out alive.

  Chapter 19

  Charlie watched in horror as the beast threw Ivan across the small space, and she heard the crunch of bones breaking as he hit the wall. Why wasn’t he getting up? He was a vampire. Shouldn’t he be healing?

  But then she remembered what he’d shouted to the others about the beast’s bite being poisonous to vampires. Oh God. Was that why he wasn’t able to get up? Not only had he been hurt by Michaela, but now he’d been poisoned by the creature.

  The members of The Directive were dealing with the beast. As two of them were also vampires and may suffer the same fate as Ivan if they weren’t careful, they stepped slowly around it, circling the creature rather than jumping straight into the fray.

  “Get away from him,” Michaela screamed. “He needs to be free now.”

  Charlie wasn’t quite sure how the other woman figured the creature would even get out of the doorway, but there must be a way, as it had obviously escaped on the previous nights when those men had been killed. She assumed magic would be at play.

  “The chains!” Jana shouted to Magno. “Get the chains.”

  Moving at a vampire’s speed, Magno snatched them up. He threw one end over the top of the creature’s back, and Jana snatched up the other end. He grabbed the second set of chains that had been around Ivan’s ankles and threw the other end of that to Clarence.

  “Be careful of its jaws,” he told the others.

  “Leave him alone!” Michaela yelled as they yanked the chains around the beast’s legs.

  They used their speed to dart around the beast, pulling the chains tighter around its body. The creature snarled and snapped, swiping out with its claws, trying to get hold of one of the blurs moving around it, but they were too fast.

  Charlie didn’t care about the creature, only that they had restrained it enough to allow her to reach Ivan. He was battered and broken, his beautiful body a mess of scars. His eyes were shut, and as she reached him and dropped to her knees beside him, she heard him groan.

  “Oh God. Ivan!”

  She fixed her gaze on the bite wound at his shoulder. Her mind ran through all the things she knew of poisonous bite wounds. She needed to get the poison out, and there was only one way she knew how.

  Leaning over his naked shoulder, she placed her mouth to the first incision. She sucked, tasting his blood flow over her tongue, together with something else, something bitter. Stopping for a moment, she leaned to one side and spat, and then moved back in and repeated the process at the next incision. She didn’t know if it would do any good, but she had to try something.

  Behind her, she heard the scuffles of the members of The Directive as they continued to fight the creature. Though they were two ancient vampires and a powerful werewolf, they might also react badly to a bite from the beast. They’d managed to get the chains around its body and legs, but what they were going to do with it from there, Charlie had no idea.

  S
omeone appeared at the top of the stairs, snatching Charlie’s attention for a moment. It was Amber, the witch. She held something in her hands—some kind of dirt—and, while speaking in Latin, she threw the dirt at the creature. It scattered across the beast, which let out a snarl in response, and then the ground beneath its feet moved again.

  “No!” Michaela screamed.

  The ground opened up and began to swallow the beast, drawing it back into its dark womb. The chains were still around its limbs and body, and though it struggled, it wasn’t able to get free. It snapped at those around it, trying to get in a final bite before the ground swallowed it again, but everyone stayed well back.

  Its legs vanished, quickly followed by its body, and finally its head as it was hidden back under the ground where it belonged.

  The ground closed over, so there was nothing but dirt once more.

  The Directive turned their attention to Michaela.

  “Michaela Thorn,” Magno said, “you’re being arrested for crimes against both the human and paranormal population.” He looked to Clarence and Jana. “Get the other two as well.”

  They nodded and took off after the two male wolves who had fled.

  Magno caught hold of Michaela’s wrists and pulled them behind her back. The woman stood no chance of fighting off an ancient vampire, and she didn’t even try.

  “Ivan needs help!” Charlie cried. “I tried to suck out the poison but I don’t know if it’s done any good. He’s not healing.”

  The ancient vampire looked at her with deep sorrow in his dark eyes. “I’m sorry, Charlie, but there isn’t anything more we can do for him. Even my ancient blood won’t help him heal against the poisoning.”

  “Please, you have to try.”

  Magno hesitated for a moment and then dragged Michaela over with him to where Ivan was unconscious and propped up against the wall. The ancient vampire lifted the hand not holding Michaela to his mouth, and he bit down on his wrist. He crouched beside Ivan and pressed the wound to Ivan’s lips.

  “Come on, Ivan,” Charlie willed him, her heart feeling as though it was shattering into a million pieces. “Drink. Just drink.”