by S. J. West
I look just beyond them to find the woman again, but she’s gone. It’s like she disappeared into thin air.
“Whatever you do, don’t let them touch you,” Gage warns me as he watches the progress of the dark figures.
“Why? What are they?”
“We call them shades,” he replies ominously. “They’re malicious spirits that roam the earth. Most of the time they’re harmless and stay hidden in the shadows. These are looking for vengeance for a wrong that was done to them while they were alive. I’m not sure how that woman was able to call them to her. I’ve never seen anyone do that before.”
“Can you fight them with your magic?” I ask, noticing that the shades are slowly tightening their circle around us as they float closer.
“I can try to scatter them, but that will only buy us a little bit of time. I don’t see a way out of this, Sarah. I’m sorry.”
I look over at Julian and silently tell him I’m sorry, too. Maybe I should have waited for the alfar to come to our aid, because it looks like my stubbornness has led us all to our deaths.
As the shades approach, Gage uses his magic to push them away, but that only seems to double their efforts to reach us. I look around for a weapon, subconsciously knowing it’s a futile act but needing to do something without feeling so helpless. I grab a nearby stainless steel folding chair and hold it out in front of me like a shield.
As one of the shades reaches out to grab me, I swipe at it with the chair to no avail. The shade grabs me by the arm, causing me to cry out in pain as I feel its touch scorch my skin. I smell the stench of burning flesh, but that’s not all I smell. The air around me suddenly becomes charged with the scent of ozone. The shade holding my arm suddenly starts to take on a human form, but maintains its transparency. All I can do is assume it’s the form this spirit inhabited during life.
As the shade begins to look more human, I hear myself take a deep breath in surprise as the world I thought I knew gets turned upside down.
“Mom?” I ask as I stare at the shade, the restless spirit of my own mother.
She stares at me for a moment as if trying to figure out who I am. Her eyes grow wide with confusion and fright as she seems to realize who I am. It’s almost as if she’s seeing me for the very first time, and fully understands what it is she’s doing. The ghost of my mother releases her hold on my arm and quickly backs away.
“No!” I scream. “Mom, wait!”
The further back she goes the darker her shape turns, until she’s a shade once more. Her spirit melts into the floor, completely disappearing from my sight.
The other shades begin to back away and follow my mother’s lead as they fade from my view.
“That was your mother?” Gage asks in awe, looking down at my arm where she touched me. “How did you make her transform like that? I’ve never seen a shade take on its human form before.”
I look down at my arm and see the glowing handprint where my mother grabbed me. Slowly, it begins to fade and my skin returns to normal.
“I’m not sure,” I say, confused by what just happened and finding it hard to take a steady breath. “I don’t think I did anything special, but why would my mother be a shade and why would she be here of all places?”
“Shades can haunt specific areas or…” Gage pauses like he’s concerned how I will take what he says next, “people.”
“So, my mother is haunting me?” I ask in bewilderment. “But why? Why would she do that?”
“I heard that your parents died in a house fire,” Gage says. “Are you sure it was an accidental one?”
“Of course it was an accident,” I say, but even as I say the words I begin to doubt what I have believed for the past thirteen years. “Are you telling me that it wasn’t?”
“Spirits only become shades when they believe their deaths were caused maliciously. Your mother must believe, or she knows, that it wasn’t an accident.”
“But why is she haunting me?”
“She might be trying to protect you or tell you something,” Gage suggests. “Those are the only reasons I can think of anyway.”
Without warning one of the panels of glass behind us shatters inward, effectively ending my conversation with Gage. I let out a small yelp in surprise as shards of glass spray all over us. In quick succession, four people dressed in black battle gear leap out of the open side of a helicopter and duck and roll into the room. They spring to their feet and quickly pull out pistols from the holsters at their hips. The first one of them who jumped through the window does a quick scan of the area before settling her eyes on me.
She’s tall, with long dark brown hair and a beautiful but stern face.
“Where did the shades go?” she demands to know.
“They left,” I tell her, trying my best to push the image of my mother to the back of my mind. I have people in the here and now who need my help.
“What do you mean they left?” she says, sounding confused by my answer. “Why would they leave?”
“I don’t know and I really don’t care,” I say, walking over to Julian. I have a feeling I know who these intruders are. “Are you the alfar Shael sent to help me?”
“Yes,” the woman replies, holstering her weapon and telling the other three with her to stand guard. “She assigned us to be your personal detail.”
“Then you have to do what I say, right?”
“Only if you’re being reasonable when it comes to your safety,” she informs me. “Otherwise, you’re supposed to listen to my advice on what’s best for you.”
“Then take my friend Gage downstairs so he can bring back that vampire’s companion,” I say, nodding at Petru.
I see the woman snap her fingers at one of her people and point to Gage.
“And someone needs to go down and take care of Viktor,” I say, holding back my tears over his loss. Mourning his death won’t do me or anyone else any good right now.
“The cat?” the woman questions, making my request sound odd. “Why? He’s sitting right over there.”
I follow her gaze and see Viktor sitting by the top of the stairs, looking at me as he curls his tail around his body.
“Viktor?” I say uncertainly. Was I really looking at my friend or was he just an illusion? When he stands and walks over to me, I bend down on one knee and pick him up in my arms. “How are you still alive?” I ask. “Do you have nine lives or something?”
Viktor meows as if to confirm what I’ve said, and then proceeds to lick me underneath my chin.
I suddenly realize I don’t care why he’s alive. I have my friend back and that’s all that matters. I kiss Viktor on top of his head before setting him back on the floor.
I then return my attention to Julian. Without wasting any more time, I grab hold of the tubes in his chest with one hand and yank them out as quickly as I can. The gaping hole left behind doesn’t close, and I know he’s lost too much blood for his natural regeneration to kick in. When I look at his face, I see that he’s still unconscious. If he’s not at least partially awake, he can’t feed. How am I going to get my blood into his system?
“Do you have a knife?” I quickly ask my new bodyguard.
“Yes,” she says warily, reaching around to the small of her back. I hear the metallic scrape of the knife as she pulls it out of its sheath. She walks over and hands it to me. I reach out to take it from her, but she pulls it back just before I can.
“What do you intend to do with it?” she asks.
“Cut one of my wrists,” I tell her impatiently.
She lifts a questioning eyebrow at me. “As the head of your security detail, I must inform you that your plan doesn’t sound very wise.”
“It’s the only way to get my blood into him,” I tell her, quickly losing my patience. “Now give me the knife before he dies! I can assure you that will kill me a lot faster than a cut on the wrist will.”
Reluctantly, probably because she knows I’m speaking the truth, my new guardian hands me her k
nife.
Before I can chicken out, I make a quick slit across my left wrist and hold it over Julian’s mouth. I lean down until my lips are touching his ear and whisper for him to, “Drink.”
He doesn’t move. He doesn’t do anything to reassure me that he heard my words.
“Julian,” I whisper again, knowing that I have to do anything I can to wake him up, “if you can hear me, I need for you to drink. If you die, I die, and I don’t want to die today. I have too much to live for. I have a niece on the way, and a sister who needs me. I have Viktor to look after now, and Helen would never forgive me if she lost both of us on the same day. Most of all, I have you. I know you think you can’t give me the life I deserve, but you’re the only one who can. We might not have the idyllic life that Kaylee and Ben or Susan and Pete Hughes have, but we can make a new kind of life with each other. Being together is what matters most. We can make our own rules when it comes to building a family we can be proud of. I love you, and even though you haven’t said it in so many words I know you love me, too. We can be the authors of our own fate. Don’t leave me now when everything I’ve ever wanted is right at my fingertips. Live for us. Fight for us. Drink.”
Finally, I feel Julian’s lips move against my wrist. Slowly he regains enough strength to start sucking with more force, but I know he isn’t getting my blood fast enough because the hole in his chest isn’t closing.
“Oh, my God,” I hear Nathaniel say. I look over and see him standing at the top of the stairs, in total shock as he takes in the scene. When he looks at Petru, I can see his eyes well with tears.
“Snap out of it, Nathaniel,” I say harshly to bring him back to reality. I quickly tell him what he needs to do to help Petru before I lower my neck to Julian’s mouth. I position my throat until his teeth are in the sweet spot that he most prefers when he drinks from me.
“Bite down, Julian,” I order tersely.
He does as I ask, but his bite isn’t as fast as it normally is. Instead of making a clean, almost painless puncture wound, I feel his teeth drag through my skin and muscles, causing me more discomfort than usual. I whimper slightly.
“Sting a little?” the alfar woman asks.
All I can do is nod and keep my head down so she doesn’t see my tears of pain. I have a feeling showing weakness in front of her wouldn’t earn me any brownie points, only derision.
“If it’s any consolation, I think it’s working,” I hear her say to me. “His wound is starting to heal.”
Just as I become light-headed from the loss of blood, Julian lets go of me. I don’t stand up straight right away. I give myself a few seconds to recover first, so Julian doesn’t see me grimace in pain. When I am able to stand and look at him again, I involuntarily cringe anyway at the sight he makes. The lower half of his face is covered in my blood like a grotesque beard.
“Here,” the alfar guard says, handing me a handkerchief she pulls out from her vest.
“Thank you,” I say. As I take it from her, I ask, “What’s your name?”
“Nadia, Your Highness,” she answers, bowing her head to me slightly.
“Just call me Sarah,” I tell her, even though it ends up sounding more like an order than a suggestion. “And don’t bow to me. I’m not as special as you think.”
“You are undeniably as special as I think,” she argues. “You’re the next heir in line to inherit the throne of House Moonshade. I understand that you weren’t raised to know or even respect your place among us, but you are to be our next queen. Generations of my family have died to defend your house’s bloodline, so I would appreciate it if you kept your contempt about your station to yourself.”
“I didn’t mean any disrespect,” I’m quick to tell her, seeing that I’ve struck a rather sensitive nerve. “But, as you said, I wasn’t raised in the alfar way. You’re going to have to cut me some slack when it comes to having people bow and call me ‘Your Highness’. I’m not used to it. I’m not sure I’ll ever become used it.”
“Sarah…” Julian whispers weakly, effectively ending any attention I was paying to Nadia.
I look down at him again, and this time I see that his eyes are open and completely focused on me. I begin to use the handkerchief Nadia gave me to wipe my blood off his face.
“Are you feeling better?” I ask, chancing a glance at his chest and seeing that the last layer of his skin is slowly regenerating.
“Looking at you makes me feel better,” he replies with a weak smile.
I shake my head at him in exasperation and continue to wipe my blood off his face. “Only you would flirt at a time like this.”
“How is Petru?” he asks, turning his head to look over at his best friend.
Nathaniel is still letting Petru feed from his neck, and Gage is watching over the proceedings to make sure he doesn’t inadvertently take too much in his thirst.
“I think he’ll be fine,” I say, turning my attention back to Julian. “What happened? How did that woman get the upper hand on the two of you?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Julian tells me. “The last thing I remember is standing on her doorstep. Everything between then and now is like missing time. I don’t know what she did or why she did it.”
I want to talk to Julian about what the woman said, and about seeing the ghost of my mother. How could he be possessed by the spirit of one of Bathory’s victims all these years and not know it? Why is the spirit of my mother a shade and following me around?
But I don’t dare bring it up in front of the four alfar in the room. I have no idea what their reactions would be to such concepts. If I’m being honest with myself, I’m not even sure I can properly wrap my mind around everything that happened. The implications are far-reaching, and I don’t fully understand what it all means yet.
“We should get out of here as soon as you and Petru feel up to it,” I suggest, removing my hand from his face and tossing the bloody handkerchief into a small trashcan by the table.
“Our blood,” Julian says hoarsely. “We can’t leave it here. It needs to be destroyed, Sarah.”
“All right,” I tell him, knowing that if Julian or Petru’s blood makes it into the wrong hands that more humans could be granted an unnaturally long life like Helen. I don’t completely understand all that goes into making someone like her, but I do know we don’t need thousands of people being given the ability to live that long. New ideas come from each generation, and the Earth as it is today doesn’t have the resources to support a legion of near-immortals. It would lead the world down a path of catastrophe and chaos.
“My people can handle that for you,” Nadia tells me.
I look at Julian. “Can we trust the alfar to know what to do with your blood?”
“What?” Nadia snaps, like I’ve said the most ridiculous thing she’s ever heard in her life. “Why are you asking a vampire if you can trust your own people?”
I look her straight in the eyes and say, “I don’t know you, and I don’t trust you yet. Julian I trust with my life, so back off, Nadia.” I look back down at Julian and await his answer.
“Yes,” he tells me, looking amused at my handling of my temperamental alfar protector. “You can trust them.”
I look back at Nadia. “Then I charge you with the duty of disposing of the blood properly.”
Nadia’s eyes narrow just a hair as she looks at me. It doesn’t take a genius to know that she and I will be butting heads quite often. At least until we’re finally able to come to an understanding with one another about her place in my life.
I ask the alfar to search the home from top to bottom for anything the woman who caused this mess might have left behind. It quickly becomes apparent that she didn’t live in the house. After a few phone calls, Gage is able to find out from some of his realtor friends that the property is a rental. He does discover what name the woman used to rent the mansion, but it’s of no use. Princess Buttercup is obviously an alias to hide her true identity.
After b
oth Julian and Petru are fully healed, we leave the alfar to clean up. Nadia attempts to follow Julian and me out to his car, but I stop her at the door to the mansion.
“We’re going back to Julian’s home in Pecan Acres,” I tell her. “I’ll be perfectly safe on the way there.”
“That may be the case,” she says, crossing her arms in front of her and spreading her legs to make a defensive stance, “or it may not. I’ve been assigned as your protector and that’s precisely what I intend to do: protect you at any cost.”
“For how long?” I ask, finding the notion ridiculous.
“Uh, until either you’re dead or I am,” she states, as if the answer should have been an obvious one.
Viktor leaps at me, expecting me to catch him. I do but just barely.
He begins to lick my face and meows as if trying to tell me to accept Nadia’s protection, at least for now.
“Well, you’ll need to find your own way to Pecan Acres,” I inform her. “Julian’s car only has room for two people.”
“That’s fine,” she replies, not viewing this as a deterrent. “I’ll be in the helicopter that brought us here. I can watch over your progress home from the air.”
I sigh in resignation. The first chance I get I plan to call Queen Shael and ask her to bring Nadia and her team home. All I need is a bodyguard hanging around me all the time.
We arrange for Gage, Petru, and Nathaniel to come to Julian’s house the next day. There is a lot that we all need to discuss, but right now isn’t the time.
Julian tries to get into the driver’s seat of his car, but when I hold out my hand to take the keys from him he doesn’t put up much of a fight. Vampire or not, he just went through a traumatic experience. Add in the fact that he’s apparently possessed by a vengeful ghost and you have an accident just waiting to happen, literally.
Julian remains quiet on the drive back home. He seems to be ruminating about his experience, trying to decipher what it all means. I can only imagine what’s going through his mind. He lost time out of his life that he had no control over. Just the notion of it scares me. I can’t imagine having it happen.