by J. L. Myers
Ty held his hand out for me to take. “Exactly what you’re supposed to be,” he said, now smiling.
I went to lace my fingers through his, feeling Kendrick’s jealousy rise. But the moment our skin touched a spark shot from my palm into his hand.
“Ouch.” Ty slapped his hand against his thigh. “That seriously hurt.”
I saw the ghost of a smile on Kendrick’s face and sensed his hope. Now a new obstacle stood between Ty and me ever getting too close. And I had brought this on myself.
“Fan-freaking-tastic.”
~
We returned home late in the afternoon, the sun wilting behind snow-ladened clouds. The paved driveway and front steps were wet from rain, and slippery as hell. I minded my step and stared down. My Vans reminded me of the pair I’d ditched before escaping the Armaya. Clogged with mud and drenched from melted snow. But at this point shoes were the least of my worries. Because after my reckless actions I was electric. Literally. A spark-conducting vampire with no control. Just what I needed.
Kendrick opened the front door, waiting for me to pass. “Amelia, you coming in?”
Hearing him through Red’s song Fight Inside, I removed my earbuds. The sparks had died down since leaving Mt Major, enough that I wasn’t worried about frying my iPod. So long as no one tried to touch me at the same time. During our journey home, I’d already gone through the whole album once. Thankfully Kendrick knew I was past the point of talking.
I peered up from my Vans to see him watching me. The pity on his face made me want to scream. Instead, I pulled my iPhone from my soggy jeans. “I’m gonna call Marcus again.”
Since my vision of the mass slaughter, I’d called so many times. So far there hadn’t been a single pick-up. Not knowing was torture, and I’d tried not to dwell on the subject. Which was useless. Was Marcus even alive? Was his family? My worry and need to know trumped any new personal issues. It also made me feel like shit. How could I be so caught up in my own problems when other lives were at stake?
As the phone reached Marcus’s voicemail, I hung up with a sound of frustration. “He’s dead. Isn’t he?”
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Kendrick said, going to embrace me. He stopped as sparks lit up my exposed arms like a glass plasma ball, the currents attracted to his nearing touch. He sighed. “Don’t take this on. It’s not your fault. You warned him. That’s all you could do.”
“Was it?”
As I edged away, Mom came out of her study into the foyer. Her phone slid back into her pants suit. “Oh good, you’re home. I mean, no. Not good…” Her complexion was sheet paper white, her eyes glassy and bloodshot. She took small breaths, clearly holding back tears. “Where’s Dorian?”
The sight of her sent morbid terror clawing at my throat. “Out at Vanessa’s. Why?” I gulped. “Mom, what’s wrong?”
She sat down on the padded bench beside the foyer table. Her back was posture-perfect straight, but her long fingers twined together, tight like a rope. “The Vladimirs…they’re all dead.”
The memory of spine-chilling screams rang through my ears. The innocent girl, Marcus’s cousin, choked to death at the top of the stairs, her vertebrae crushed like shells underfoot. His father’s jugular ripped out, his lifeless body dropped like yesterday’s trash. My legs gave out and my butt hit the marble. “Every one of them?”
“It was in Russia.” She shook her head. “They were all there for a family reunion.”
Kendrick sat beside her and unlocked her hands. He glanced at me, frowning as my entire body began shaking. “Ms. Lamont, was Marcus…was he…?”
“Marcus?” Her hand went to her heart, seeing the all over body quake and tears streaming down my face. “Oh, Amelia, your tutor. I’m sorry, no. I didn’t mean to make you think…”
I stumbled forward, falling to my knees in front of her, careful not to touch. “Tell me. Please. Is he dead?”
“He arrived too late.” Tenderness stole the despair from her face and she pushed my hair behind my ear. “He found them all…dead. He’s the only Vladimir now in existence.”
I fell back, cold marble coating my back while I just breathed. The whole Vladimir line had been exterminated, but Marcus was still alive. The relief at his survival over all the others, so many others, stung my heart with guilt.
I was so overwhelmed that I almost missed Mom saying, “The bodies are being flown to the Armaya for a royal funeral. Our flight leaves tonight.”
~
When the coast was clear, meaning Mom had left to source suitable attire for the royal funeral, I stalked toward the backyard seeing red. I was beyond pissed. As usual my stupid visions had failed. Showed me a future I couldn’t change at the stake of others’ lives. A whole line of royals extinguished, bar one sole survivor.
And now I had a new power. The ability to electrocute anyone and everyone. Yet another uncontrollable ‘gift’ that made me anything but normal. I was cursed.
My palms hit the terrace doors and static jolted them open like a bomb exploding. I screamed in frustration, the setting sun stinging my eyes. Snow no longer fell but it coated everything. Beautiful, pure…and natural. Everything I would never be.
I kicked at it with my Vans, the rubber buffering the built up current streaming to my toes. Crying out at the lack of release, I fell to my knees before the stone bench. Blue lightning danced along my arms, collecting at my clenched hands. The rest of my body tingled too, including my face and neck. A live wire, Kendrick had said. How true that was.
I was a freaking freak. A vampire with a power none had ever had before.
I screamed again and brought my fists down. As they met the stone the force cracked straight through, the voltage liquefying the snow coating.
“Amelia, stop.”
With my vision blurred by tears, I shot up. Rage seared through my veins, lighting my skin on fire. “Leave. Me. Alone.”
Kendrick came forward. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Like a match setting off a firework, my hand shot up. My voice splintered with ice. “I said, leave me the hell alone!”
A blue streak shot from both my hands as I shoved Kendrick’s shoulder. He spun, face-planting in the snow.
I rushed over, horrified at what I’d done, eyes glued to his convulsing body. As I went to reach out, my hands snapped back. Constant static ran down my arms like waves, ready to let loose again. “Shit, Kendrick. Talk to me. Are you okay?”
“J-just. Ah, shit that hurts.” With the tremors fleeing his body he rolled and used his hands to sit up. “You’re a weapon.”
I sunk to my heels, imagining this happening anytime Ty and I tried to touch. “I’m a freaking live grenade with the pin out.”
When Kendrick said nothing, I looked up. The prick was smiling. Freaking smiling. It was the same smile he’d had when I shocked Ty. Static surging, my hand rose in threat. “You better wipe that look off you face before I slap it off.”
Kendrick’s smile didn’t falter. “Is that the way you talk to the friend who’s going to help you control your new-found power?”
His words had my hand dropping to melt a hole in the snow. Teaching me to control the ability to electrocute people would remove the new obstacle standing between Ty and me getting closer. “Why would you do that?”
“I may not like Ty, but I still want what’s best for you.” He went to take my hand then thought better of it. “Besides, I want you to be safe. Learning to control this power, wherever it came from, will make you stronger.”
“But—”
“You’re not cursed,” Kendrick cut in. “You’ve only looked at this gift from one angle. Only considered the relationship you have with Ty. Not the benefit of controlling your new power. Amelia, you could be a weapon.”
I felt the truth of Kendrick’s words in his unwavering stare. Even though he hated helping me remove what could potentially keep Ty and me physically apart, he truly wanted to help. “Okay, so what do we do?”
Kendrick
walked over to the terrace, sheltered by a thatched roof twined with white-dusted vines. He pointed to a candle on the glass and wrought iron table. “Hold your hand out, palm facing down. But don’t touch the candle. Concentrate on the energy and force it’s power to your fingertips.”
I followed his direction, my hand reaching for the object without touching it. As my fingers neared, a blue streak crawled across my skin, over my hand, and down my middle finger. While still attached it shot at the candle. It flashed again and again, trying to touch what was just out of its grasp. “Now what?”
“Touch it.”
My fingers edged closer and closer, the blue electricity still reaching, wave after wave. I could sense the multitude of energy within my fingertips growing with every second. It was intense and powerful, unlike anything I had ever experienced before. The split second I touched the surface the built up power split from my hand. It plunged into the cylinder and shattered with an explosion of wax.
The thought of having almost done that to Kendrick had my heart racing. “I don’t like this, Kendrick. It’s too dangerous.”
Kendrick crossed the stone pavers and disappeared through the terrace doors to the kitchen. A clink and clatter later he emerged with a stack of plates and glasses. “Not if you can learn to control it.”
I reined in my growing despair. If I ever wanted to have any resemblance of a normal life, I needed to do this. No one else could. No one even knew why I’d been gifted this power, or where it had come from. Know-it-all Vanessa didn’t even have an answer. I was one of a kind, a total freak of existence. Well, except for the guy in my vision who’d also been zapped. But who knew who or what that guy was, or if he was even alive. Or what his life had been like after the lightning strike.
On Kendrick’s continued direction, I refocused the power to my fingertips and attempted to pull back the force as I connected with plate after plate. Each and every time the buildup was volatile, searing from my hand to obliterate its target. The terrace now resembled a bombsite. Porcelain, ceramic, and glass dotted the pavers and glass table, and fluff from exploded seat cushions swirled in the gentle twilight breeze.
Fed up and unable to hold back how pissed I’d grown, I stalked away. My inability to control this new shitty power ate away at me from the inside. Kendrick was in my head, trying to talk me down. But I didn’t want to hear it. Instead I kept on marching, skin tingling all over until I reached the biggest cherry tree in the backyard. In spring the tree was beautiful, decorated with pink blossoms and glossy cherries. Now it was a draping skeleton, its branches weighed down by snow.
Right now I hated the tree. Its natural beauty. Its predictability. Its strength. Standing ten feet back I concentrated all the pain, regret, despair, and anger down my arms and into my fingertips. So much built up that both my hands glowed blue.
With a scream and an instinctual whisper, I threw them forward. The blue propelled from my hands in streams, striking like lasers in the air until they connected with the solid trunk. A crack rang out, the tree splitting down the middle with a black scorch.
“Geez,” Kendrick breathed, stumbling to a stop behind me. “Now that’s a weapon.”
Stunned, I fell back into the snow as my iPhone buzzed. I pulled it from my jeans and couldn’t stop the tears that fell.
‘We’ll get through this. Just like everything else. U R my world. 4EVA Ty.’
~
Apprehension tightened my chest, making it difficult to breathe. Squeezed into a long, black slip of a dress and high-heeled shoes, we’d just been ushered through the Armaya’s thick, iron-braced doors and into its Gothic foyer. It was 9PM and the long drapes were tied back to reveal pitch-black night beyond the soaring arched windows. Hundreds of candles decorated the space from sconces, their flames reflecting on the glass. Inside milled with royals, men dressed in sharp suits and women in decadent gowns and elaborate jewelry. The Armaya’s local, less-prestigious residents crowded behind the pews. The atmosphere was more party-like than funeral. Except for the double row of shiny black coffins up front.
Mom caught sight of Caius standing before the dais, and glided his way in her flowing black number. Dorian, all suited up, followed to keep an eye on her. As I tried to catch my breath, I scanned the crowd. Marcus had survived. Hadn’t gotten there in time. I had to see him. Not that I knew how to apologize for my vision coming too late.
A smooth hand curved around my elbow. “It wasn’t your fault,” Kendrick whispered. “You can’t control what you see and when you see things.”
At his squeezing touch, I went to pull away. The static was already rising, and my emotions weren’t helping. But separation wasn’t necessary. Compliments of Vanessa and at Dorian’s request, I wore a pair of satin gloves that stretched almost all the way up my arms. That was the reason Dorian hadn’t come home with us. The insides were rubber lined, which with my below average body temperature weren’t too uncomfortable. And a black shawl hid the rest of my exposed shoulders and neck.
I sighed, letting him lead me through the gatherers to our seats. Mom and Dorian were now positioned up front. Up on the dais before them, Caius was perched on his throne. He watched me like a snake preying on a mouse. I shivered. I hated being so close to him, but he wouldn’t chance pulling a stunt here. Too many spectators.
We took our seats as the others rushed to theirs. Silence fell over the hall and the last royals took their places on their thrones. The one with Vladimir carved into the wood was glaringly vacant.
Caius rose, regal and strong, smoothing his suit before taking control of the gold-plated podium. “Today heralds a great loss to our race. The loss of our oldest crowned royal and all but one of his line…”
The speech went on, the words honest and heartfelt. Women sniffled, using black handkerchiefs to dot their eyes and save their makeup. The men offered consolation. If only they knew the truth. That Caius was somehow involved in this extermination. That he had damned vampires at his command.
I clutched my hands together as a ball of energy battered around beneath my ribs. I so wanted to do to Caius what I’d done to that tree.
Breathe. Rein it back. Kendrick’s words flowed like a glacial gust over my burning insides.
Still that red returned to my sight, that fury that had to be unleashed. My clutched hands separated and I began to peel down my right glove.
A sudden shift in the air, like the quiet devastation after the wake of tsunami, stopped me. My neck craned to see the open twenty-foot doors behind the pews. Organ music filled the air as Marcus stepped inside. He wore an all-white suit and his hands were above his head carrying…a solid gold casket. His teal-flecked gaze met mine, pain resonating from them before he resumed his blank forward stare.
Only living family members can carry in the coffin, Kendrick spoke somberly through the bond.
With every labored step forward my heart broke for him. His expression was flat, unreadable, a strong facade masking any and all emotion. Tears pooled and I let them fall, not bothering to wipe them away.
Once Marcus had secured the coffin on a stand on the dais, he relieved Caius of the podium. His pale hands clutched the gold podium, fingers curled tight. “I stand before you all as the last living Vladimir. The only blood left to assume my father’s throne. Lord Vladimir was a great ruler. And I will make him proud in death by filling his shoes and exceeding all expectations. Lord Vladimir lived a long and purposeful life.” Marcus’s hand swept across the rows of black coffins. “This is proven by the number of seeds his blood brought forth. Though they all now lay still alongside. However tragic, this will not be the end of his line. Nor will it be the end of his blood.” His voice rose, becoming stronger and surging with determination. “Mine, now the last seed, will spread. It will create not dozens, but hundreds. The name Vladimir will never become one of those lost from the original twelve. On my father’s death, I vow it!”
The crowd rose, clapping and cheering while I stared dumbfounded. This was my fir
st ever vampire funeral, but it seemed so cold. So political.
My body started to tingle again, emotion at Marcus’s strong words firing up the sparks. “Is that what—”
Words drowned in my throat, something else replacing it. Hunger and anticipation. Reality warped, strobing like a camera flash going off over and over. In the flashes I saw a stately house. A manor. My heart’s beat was level and controlled. Just like my movements as I climbed the front steps. In the next flash my hand came out. No. Not mine. A man’s. Young, unwrinkled flesh with a scar across the wrist. Then the wooden door swung open. Lord Vladimir stood on the other side, smiling. Welcoming me.
Another flash.
Now I had the old vampire pinned to the wall. The voice from my mouth was velvet and sinister. A promise that wouldn’t back down. “End of your shelf life, old man.” My mouth opened, fangs lengthened. Then it was all over.
I gasped as the Gothic hall slammed back into sharp focus. So much noise. So many people. Kendrick was holding me up, sitting back on the pew. Mom and Dorian were crowded around us. So was Caius.
“Amelia, sweetheart. Are you okay?”
Biting my lip, I kept my eyes down. Tasting my own blood helped a little, but it wasn’t enough.
“She’s low on blood,” Kendrick said. “After the news, I don’t think you drank any before we left.”
“No,” I croaked. I blinked away the red haze, knowing I needed to get out of here before I went primal. “I didn’t.”
Caius pushed past my mom, and in spite of Kendrick’s glare, helped me up. With how badly I needed blood, I couldn’t resist or ever remember how much I loathed him. “Take her to the kitchen. There’s plenty there.”
The genuine care in his voice surprised me. His stare wasn’t quite hard, but it wasn’t easy, either. It was somehow contemplative…maybe even regretful.
Holding me up by supporting a gloved arm, Kendrick led me away. Once out of the hall and down a dimly lit corridor he spoke. “Someone else led the attack on the Vladimirs.”
My stomach felt like it was crammed with live bugs, crawling over each other without any space between. I remembered the murderer’s steady beating heart. If only I’d seen his face. “Young. Male. A living vampire.”