Staked!

by Candace Wondrak

  It was the moment I stepped foot on the second flight of stairs when I spun around to find Crixis inches away. “Why are you following me?” The feeling of his green eyes traveling downward made me shudder.

  He grinned, sending more tingles down my spine. “Does it bother you?”

  “Yes.” I stamped up the stairs. When I landed on the mid-flight part of the stairs, his rough hands grabbed my wrist. In a flash, Crixis pinned me on the wall, keeping me in check by using his hands and knees to restrain my attempts to free myself. “Let me go,” I whispered to his face, glaring at him all the while.

  “Make me,” he whispered in my ear.

  A flash liberated me from my Crixis prison, and I had Raphael to thank for my freedom.

  Holding the murderous Daywalker in the air, he threw Crixis back and growled, “Do not touch her. Ever.”

  I blinked as I watched the ex-priest’s face. Raphael was pissed. In Gabriel’s terms, that meant kick-a-puppy-dog pissed.

  Crixis wiped off his sleeve, as if he was getting the dirt off his shoulder. “We were just having an amiable talk.” What a lie. What an out-and-out, utter, blatant, downright lie. You don’t have an amiable talk with someone by holding them against the wall.

  Knowing I couldn’t deal with this now, I said “Thank you, Raphael,” and ran up the remainder of the stairs to my room.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine – Crixis

  “My friend,” I laughed, “you shouldn’t interfere where you don’t belong.” He was fuming with rage. For being the original Purifier, Raphael certainly did have uncontrolled anger. Then again, perhaps that was on account of him being made Vampire all those years ago.

  Vampirism did wonders with controlling your emotions. That, or intensifying them. It seemed that for Raphael, it was the second one.

  His shoulders rose and fell with heavy, albeit phony, breaths. “Do not try to turn this around on me, Crixis,” Raphael growled out my name. Truth be told, he was the only one who could articulate my name with such animosity.

  “I’m simply stating the facts.” Digging my hands in my pockets, I shrugged. “Tell me, Raphael, when do you plan on telling her?”

  “Telling her what?” Squinting his eyes, he clenched his shaking fists.

  Hoping to enrich his wrath, I chuckled. The result was as I expected it to be. “That you plan on leaving.” The look in his astonished face told me all I needed to know. “Don’t bother denying it.”

  “I am,” Raphael was measured in saying, “no longer welcomed here—”

  “That is not the whole truth, though, is it? I know why you’re leaving. An asinine reason, really.” I could hardly believe him. I had him by the neck, metaphorically speaking of course, and he knew it, yet he still felt obliged to shun the truth.

  For the past few days I’d kept this house under constant surveillance, meaning that, with Vexillion’s consummate hearing, I heard every conversation in it as well. The simple truth was that Raphael was near leaving permanently.

  “You do not get to criticize me.” Raphael stepped closer and lifted a finger. “You have no clue how difficult it is for me, being here. Do not pretend to empathize with me, because you don’t know what this feels like.”

  His outburst did not catch me off guard, because I knew Raphael too well. “Perhaps, but I can only assume those feelings were universal among both those Vampires that were here. You are not the first to be entrapped by her—” By whatever it was that made her smell like candy, that made me feel things I hadn’t felt in centuries.

  Regret, namely.

  The fury waned into mild distress. “And I, undoubtedly, won’t be the last.” He delivered a sneer before flashing away, trying to make a point.

  Raphael knew his feelings for her were wrong, and that she already had her perfect match. That awareness was driving him to abscond sooner than he wanted. It didn’t matter if the boy told her his feelings or not. Come rain or shine, he was going to depart.

  And when he left, I’d be here to take his place.

  Chapter Thirty – Michael

  The familiar click in the knob came quicker than I anticipated. I was better at picking locks than I remembered. Until now, I figured it was all water under the bridge.

  My gloved hand slowly and quietly turned the handle and pushed it open. Cleo’s apartment was easy to find and break into, which was definitely not what I was expecting. I had some serious suspicions. If she was the Witch who was attempting to revive Sephira, why wouldn’t she have more security?

  Luckily, I was free to search her entire apartment while she was working with Elizabeth at the high school.

  My gut told me I’d leave empty handed.

  After firmly closing the door and bolting it, I stood to make sure there was no movement in the apartment. There was not a single noise, so I began my room to room search in the small living room space.

  Nothing but old mail and TV guides.

  I moved into her kitchen. Searching every drawer and cupboard, I found nothing but pans and silverware. The only thing out of the ordinary was the detail she had more knives than the normal person had in their kitchen.

  I wiped my forehead. There was not a thing that seemed out of place.

  There was only one more room to check. Her bedroom. If Cleo was hiding the body of Sephira, would she hide it in her room?

  What sane person would want something like that in their bedroom? Using the same logic, one could ask the question: what sane person would want to reawaken an Original? Even the most immoral, wicked and sinful people on this earth would not dare to bring back an Original Vampire.

  Not thinking twice, I tried to open the door. However, the knob wouldn’t twist.

  Interesting, I thought as I dug my lock picking kit from my pocket, very interesting.

  Who would lock their bedroom door when they weren’t home?

  Only a person who had something very horrific to hide.

  Chapter Thirty-One – Liz

  I, for one, liked to have my tea sitting down, not on the go. Tea on the go was one of the most awful things invented. In reality, it was the same thing, but there was something about the cardboard cup that I didn’t like.

  That’s precisely why I refused to bring tea from home in a canister and walk to the teacher’s lounge to make myself a some every morning. Actually, the lounge was my first stop, because all I brought with me from home was my purse, so there was no point in stopping in my office to drop it.

  The mug was warmed from the tea inside it, and I was thoroughly enjoying the tingling sensation. Sodding awful, though, that I wasn’t going to enjoy the tea itself half as much.

  “Good morning,” I greeted all the students I passed while walking back to the offices. Most were pleasant enough to utter a good morning back. Others avoided me like the plague. That came in tow with being the principal of a high school.

  A woman, who was certainly not Cleo, glanced up from the desktop computer. Tugging on her flowery collar, she said, “Ms. Abby, the superintendent, Mr. Roth, would like for you to call him. He has something he wants to talk to you about right away.” With a chubby smile, she looked back to the computer’s screen.

  Realizing she was not Cleo made me choke on my freshly taken sip of tea. “Who,” I began, once I recovered from the startling temperature of the tea on my tongue, “are you?”

  “Oh, my mistake.” Her wrinkled eyes returned to me. “I’m the substitute secretary, Mrs. Geneaux.”

  “And where’s Cleo?” My free hand was already in the process of digging through my oversized purse.

  Her plump shoulders shrugged under her floral dress. “If you mean the secretary, I couldn’t tell you. I only know that she didn’t show up for work yesterday, so they called me to fill in until things were sorted out. If I had to guess—” Mrs. Geneaux gently touched a small frame that housed a picture of Cleo and a feline. “—someone young and pretty like her decided she was better than this. Me, though, I love kids. I’d be happy working a job
like this for the rest of my life—”

  “Thanks,” I interrupted, as I dug my cell out of my purse. “I have a call to make.” Running to my office, I shut the door and pulled the blinds. Within seconds I had Michael’s number dialed and waited anxiously for him to answer.

  Chapter Thirty-Two – Cleo

  I found it quite ridiculous that I had to drive to the post office to pick up the final package. Leave it to those idiot Egyptians to screw up the mailing process. Lugging the package, though, was completely and decidedly worse than having to drive.

  Honestly, I had no idea how a chest and her head could weigh this much.

  Laboring to fit my key into the lock while balancing the huge box was a struggle, but I managed to do with a smile on my face. Why? Because I knew that tonight was the night; the night that the lioness makes her grand return to wreak havoc on all those who would stand against her, and against the man who betrayed her in the first place.

  I set the box on the couch and gently closed the door while looking through my mail. The mail that was actually delivered to my apartment. Imagine that.

  After locking the door, I spun around and forced a thumb into the envelope’s top. I was just seconds away from yanking the paper out and reading it when I noticed my bedroom door was open.

  I knew I closed that door when I left.

  Dropping the envelope, I inched to the door. My face twisted in irritation when I saw the man cloaked in black staring at the collection of body parts. He must have been too busy staring at her unfinished beauty to hear me enter the apartment.

  What a fool.

  The vibration of his cell echoed through the small room. He hurried to pick it up, but the instant his hand pulled out the metal phone from his pocket, I whispered, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  The man turned in horror to face me. Michael. His finger lingered over the green button as he said not a word to explain himself.

  I held my open hand in the air and swatted it aside. Michael’s phone flew out of his hand and hit the wall, shattering into pieces. “I call upon the ancient sorcery; to protect her majesty, let him experience a drowning tragedy.” Rhyming spells wasn’t the easiest thing, but I managed.

  A single bead of water rolled from his nose.

  Stepping closer to the man, I smiled. “I thought I was doing a great job hiding this from the Council.” Michael coughed up a lungful of water and fell to his knees. “So imagine my surprise when I come home with the last piece of the mistress to find you trespassing in my home.”

  The veins in his eyes reddened and his skin became bluer.

  With a laugh, I left the room to retrieve a box cutter and the package that contained her precious head. I set the box beside the large puddle that seeped from the barely there Michael. Cutting the cardboard down like an expert, I opened the chest to glimpse at her exquisiteness.

  “Don’t worry, Michael,” I assured him as his eyes rolled back into his skull, “I’ll make sure your sacrifice won’t go to waste. Tonight, during the full moon, when I attach her head, I will pour my life energy into her…” I slowly tilted my head and glared down at the man. “…and once she awakens, she will need to feed.”

  I reached under my bed to retrieve a black bag. “And you, Michael—” Unzipping the bag, I lifted out an empty blood bag that was connected to a syringe with a thin line of tubing. “—are going to be the food.” The next thing out of the bag was the glass bottle of Vexillion blood.

  After all, Sephira would need the blood to sense and locate the cub that crossed her.

  Crixis.

  Chapter Thirty-Three – Kass

  “Kass!” The thunderous yell of Gabriel echoed down the stairs, accompanied with loud steps. There was urgency in his voice. Urgency or anger. Until I saw his face, I wouldn’t be sure which one it was.

  The furious pants coming from Gabriel’s mouth caused me to stare squarely at him and say, “What’s your problem?” The discordant ringing of the house phone cut him off, making me smile unintentionally. I went to answer it.

  The voice on the other end belonged to Liz. And she sounded frantic. “Is Michael there? Please tell me he is.” She gave me the impression that something bad was happening. Oh, how I wished that wasn’t normal for us.

  Gabriel shot me a what’s-going-on look, but I just looked at him while replying, “He left a little bit ago to go to Cleo’s.”

  “He brought backup, didn’t he?”

  It was a few seconds before I said, “No. He refused to have anyone go with him.”

  “No,” she whispered, “that can’t be true—but it is…I know it is. Michael’s always been the one to have brilliant ideas and do stupid things. Oh, dear.” Liz spoke not another word, leaving me to imagine the rest.

  And I didn’t like what I imagined. Not at all.

  “Cleo’s not there, at the school, is she?” As I verbalized the question, I saw Gabriel’s face change from fury to concern.

  “No, she isn’t. If I would have known.” Liz started to blame herself. “If I would have been here yesterday, I would have known that she didn’t show up for work. I should have made sure she was here before I let Michael go.” Her accent trembled, and she sounded as if she was on the verge of tears.

  “It’s all right,” I tried to assure her, though I knew it was pointless. “Michael can handle himself. He’s the reason Gabriel’s so good at fighting.”

  Upon hearing that, Gabriel grunted and said, “Right.”

  “He’s not answering his phone,” Liz added, “and now when I call, it goes straight to voicemail—”

  “Give me her address. We’ll go and—”

  Liz quickly silenced me. “No sodding way am I going to give you her address. If Michael ran into trouble, I don’t want any of you children jumping into the same boat.”

  Hoping I came up with the perfect retort, I said, “Raphael and Taiton will come too.”

  Liz kept talking, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say she ignored my comment completely. “I have a meeting with the superintendent in an hour. After that, I will come and pick Taiton and Raphael up. We will be the ones to go to Cleo’s, not you. I want you, Gabriel, and Max to stay put. Don’t leave the house, no matter what the reason.”

  I was stunned into absolute silence when she proceeded to hang up the phone.

  “What’s the deal?” Gabriel asked through a mouthful of an apple.

  Doing a quick double-take at the apple in his hand, I wondered, when he had time to get an apple. “First of all,” I said, “don’t try to make that your new catch phrase, because it doesn’t make sense.”

  Gabriel bit into the granny smith apple and muttered, “It makes plenty of sense.”

  Blinking, I stared at him with my mouth hanging open a bit. “Do you want to know what’s going on, or not?”

  “Let me guess.” Pulling out a chair, he spun it around and sat on it backwards. It was because he was freakishly tall, so his legs were abnormally long. Someone like me, with short legs, would never be able to sit like that in our kitchen chairs. “Cleo’s not at work today, she hasn’t showed up practically all week, and we’re just now finding that out.”

  He switched his apple-holding hand and wiped the previous one on his knee, continuing, “Liz is blaming herself because she has the hots for the guy, and she’s going to come home after she finishes up there. She’s going to leave us here, to fend for ourselves, like everyone always does when the crap hits the fan, and take Raphael and Taiton to make sure Cleo didn’t off him with her magic and, if necessary, stop the resurrection of Sephira.”

  He said Sephira in quotations…I wasn’t sure why exactly he did that, and I was too wowed by his perfect guess to even bring it up aloud.

  “Ten out of ten?” He smirked, knowing he had nailed it spot on.

  Shaking my head, I placed the phone in its home and said, “How did you—”

  “Either I’m an incredibly amazing guesser, or my hearing is getting better.�
� From his sitting position, he basketball tossed the core into the trash can, making the shot like he was a pro. “By the way, I’m postponing the reason I stormed down here. We’ll pick it up later, when our Guardian is safe.”

  Those next few hours were excruciatingly tough to endure. All I could think about was Michael, and how we were wasting too much precious time. When Liz arrived, things just got worse. How did they get worse, you ask? They didn’t, but my awareness grew and that, in itself, made things feel worse.

  Liz’s light brown eyes were critical. “You three better not move a muscle. Whatever you do, don’t leave this house. Do you understand?” She threw her grave expression to each of us, starting with the leftmost kid on the couch, Max.

  Next it was my turn to receive the life-threatening glare.

  Then it was on Gabriel.

  “Yes” we muttered unanimously.

  “Good.” She tightened her jacket, and I immediately wondered why she felt the need to have a jacket, since we were in North Carolina and it was at least eighty degrees outside. “Make sure it stays that way. We’ll call if we run into trouble, or if…” Shaking her head, she walked to the front door and said, “We’ll call.”

  The moment she bent down to pick up a silver sword was the moment Gabriel stood and yelled, “Hey! What are you doing with that?”

  Liz spun the dragon sword in the air, replying, “I don’t know what we’ll encounter.”

  “I know, but why don’t you take Kass’s sword instead? Why do you have to take mine?”

  Sighing, she opened the door, replied “It’s a little too rosy for me,” and left. Raphael and Taiton were on her heel, sending a hasty glimpse at us before heading out and closing the door. And leaving us all alone.

  “So who’s up for a Lost marathon?” Looking around, Gabriel broke the strange silence and raised his hand in the air. Max and I just stared. “How about a Romero zombie movie marathon?” We continued to stare. “Okay, what about a Disney movie to lighten the mood?”