“I’m just thinking,” I said, looking down at my hands in my lap. The Tampa lights were in the distance, the city once again on the horizon, suburban neighborhoods rolling past as we motored along. “I don’t know what to do. Or think. I’m so afraid of all of this. Of getting back there and finding Mill dead already. I can't imagine how I would feel if I wasn’t there when—”
“It’s okay, Cassie,” Lockwood said. I was surprised to hear him use my nickname. “We are here for you and will help you get through this.”
I smiled at him, even though it was forced. “Thanks, Lockwood.”
“Oh, crap.” It was Iona who spoke, and the way she said made my heart skip a beat.
“What? What’s the matter?” I asked.
She'd pulled into the driveway behind Xandra’s dad’s car. Laura’s car was there, too. But she was pointing up at the front door to the house, which was slightly ajar. No one was out on the front porch, and all of the lights were on still.
“Someone probably just forgot to close it,” I said. But my throat was tight, my heart beating in my eardrums. “Maybe they just wanted some fresh air.”
Neither Iona nor Lockwood said anything as we got out of the car and made our way toward the house. I controlled my pace only with great difficulty, keeping to a walk. Funny how something as pedestrian as accidentally leaving the front door open could trigger what felt like heart palpitations in me. Haha.
Please, let it have been someone leaving the front door open. Not...something else.
As I walked up the path, Byron telling me about the night he was turned into a vampire stirred to mind. He talked about walking up to his house just like this...and finding a nightmare scene when he went inside. Blood painting the walls, dripping from the stairs, pooling on the floor.
There was a ringing in my ears, and the edges of my vision started to go black. My tongue tasted metallic, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
One foot up the step. A second.
Iona and Lockwood were already inside. And they didn't call back to me to say anything.
I hesitated before crossing the threshold.
What was I going to find here? Was this image going to be burned into my brain for the rest of my life? Was I about to see something so horrific that I would never be able to sleep again without having nightmares of it?
“Cassie?” Iona finally spoke. It was steady. Cold. Inhuman. “They’re gone. All of them.”
Gone?
I stepped inside, and the silence pressed in around me. No sizzling sounds of cooking from the kitchen. No chattering from the television. No hair dryer going in the bathroom down the hall, four women sharing one mirror and producing the predictable results thereof.
Things were overturned, broken. Bookshelves were knocked over. The television had a wooden stake driven through it, cable news still playing around it. Plates and mugs, all broken, were scattered across the kitchen floor.
Iona and Lockwood stood among the mess, looking at each other for cues, then to me, though subtly at first. There was an unearthly quiet as we went room to room and found...
Nothing.
Because all of them, every last one of them...
Was gone.
Chapter 33
“What the hell…?” I asked, blood pounding in my ears. “It looks like a tornado went through here.”
Xandra’s dad’s favorite couch had a large gash through it, exposing the yellow stuffing, and the floor was littered with books. Broken pieces of Xandra’s mug collection were all over the place, the dust from them covering the grey carpet in a fine, white powder.
“Looks like they did not go gently into that good night,” Iona said, walking to the kitchen table, avoiding spilled contents of the silverware drawer. “Good for them,” she added in a whisper.
My heart lightened. “Maybe they ran away?”
“I…don’t think so,” Lockwood said. “The amount of things broken says otherwise, unfortunately. And before we left, I prevailed on Xandra to text me any updates.”
As quickly as my hopes had risen, they sank again. “Well…at least they aren’t dead,” I said.
“As far as you know,” Iona said, stepping over a side table that was on its side. Ironic. The lamp that sat on it lay in shattered ruins on the floor, the light bulb still burning brightly from the wreckage.
I unplugged it for good measure. No need to start a fire here, too.
“Perhaps we can find some clue as to what’s happened,” Lockwood said, starting to pick up some of the books and the curtains that lay on the couch where Mill had been. I watched, hoping perhaps Mill would magically appear from the thin space between cloth and leather when Lockwood picked up the curtains, but no such luck.
“It’s obvious what happened,” Iona said. “Draven figured out where we were and sent vamps here.”
“But how did they find us?” I asked. “Without the witches—”
“It was only a matter of time before they tracked us down here, wasn’t it?” Iona said. “Xandra is your friend, after all, and you don't have many. It couldn’t have been that hard to figure out where you'd go.”
“I did set up wards here, though,” Lockwood said. “It appears they didn’t conceal the home enough.”
“How could they have broken through your magic?” I asked.
“I was somewhat limited in my options,” Lockwood said. “I am sorry, Cassandra. My magic works differently here than it does in Faerie. There is only so much I can do. If I had used a different sort of barrier, or maybe a—”
“Zip it,” Iona whispered, making a motion with her hand like a sock puppet snapping its mouth shut.
Lockwood did, and we all listened intently. There was a whimper from somewhere down the hall.
My eyes widened. Could it be Xandra? Or Laura?
Iona held a finger up to her lips, and then she was gone, disappearing in a blur of vampire speed. Lockwood followed, and I trailed behind, as quickly as my human legs would allow.
The sound came from Xandra's room, and I hurried down the long hallway. Lockwood entered just ahead of me, and I found Iona standing in front of the closet when I came in. She was peering at the closet, an angry look on her face, and threw the doors open.
There was a shriek, and inside the closet a boy ducked and covered his head. He wasn't very tall and was trembling from the top of his head all the way to his feet.
“Who are you?” I asked.
The boy turned to look at me, arms still draped over the back of his head. “You—you—” he said.
Iona yanked him out of the closet. “Come here, you.”
“No! No, please!” he said, still covering his head.
He was wearing a black leather jacket, jeans, and a Twenty-One Pilots T-shirt. He had dark hair that was buzzed close to his scalp and his green eyes were wide with terror. The weirdest thing about him, though, was the dark veins that raked up his face, his forehead, and his neck. They were prominent on the back of his hands too. It looked like someone had drawn all over him with a really fine pencil.
Iona threw him on the ground, and he cried out as he struck the carpet. Then he curled up into a ball.
“He’s a fledgling,” Iona said.
“A what?” I asked as the boy whimpered on the ground at our feet. The word sounded familiar.
“A baby vampire,” she said. “How old are you, kid?” She gave him a swift kick in the leg with her boot.
He cried out in terror. “Seven—seventeen,” he said.
“Not that age,” Iona said. “How long since you were turned?”
“Six weeks,” he said at last.
“Goodness.” Lockwood frowned.
“What are you doing here?” Iona asked. He just cowered from her, shaking.
“What happened to my family and friends?” I asked. “Where did they go? Are they still alive?”
He shook his head over and over.
“Answer her,” Iona said, lifting a fist over his head.
/>
“Taken,” the boy said. “Back to Draven.”
My stomach squirmed painfully. Draven. He wasn’t messing around anymore.
“Were they hurt?” Iona asked.
“N- no,” the boy said. “Tied up and hauled out. They left me—me here.”
“And what about the vampire?” I asked. “The sick one.”
“Not moving,” the boy said. “They dragged him out by his feet.”
A fresh hatred for Draven started to bubble up in me. But at least everyone was all right.
For now.
He squeaked, and I saw one large, round green eye look up at me.
“I have—I have a message. From L- Lord Draven. For the great and mighty slayer of vampires.”
I blinked. “Um. Who's that?”
“Seriously?” Iona rolled her eyes and bumped me in the arm with her elbow. “He’s talking about you.”
“Okay, but why is he cowering on the floor?” I asked. “And why is he making fun of me, calling me great and mighty?”
“I don't think he’s making fun of you,” Lockwood said. “Ask him what he wants.”
I stared down at the kid. Not even a kid. He was the same age as me. And he was terrified. Of me. “Um, okay. What does Draven want to say to me?” I asked.
The boy didn’t answer.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said after a few seconds of silence.
That made him quiver even more. What had he been through that traumatized him so much? The veins might have suggested an answer.
“Remember that Draven only just found out that you aren’t a vampire,” Iona said. “The game changed when they found out that you’re a human killing vampires. And not just one. Lots of them. That makes you kind of scary.”
The boy hesitantly lifted his head. “You—you really don’t know?” His voice fell, hushed. “Vampires in Lord Draven’s territory are afraid to even speak your name.”
“Oh, please,” I said. “This is like some cheesy horror movie—”
“Well, that and since Draven hates you, he probably doesn’t even want to hear the sound of your name. Probably makes him a little crabby,” Iona said. She moved to kick the boy again, but he scurried backwards until his back collided with the wall.
He stared desperately up at me. “I’m supposed to give you a message—” he said again, breathing heavily. A human reaction to fear. He didn’t even need to breathe. I guess he hadn’t forgotten yet.
“All right, let’s hear it,” I said.
He swallowed, licked his dry lips, and said, “'You will come to me. You will come to me immediately. You will surrender to me'.”
My blood went cold. I looked at Iona and Lockwood. Like a blow to the side of the head with a bat, I realized that was it.
That was my greatest fear. Surrendering to Draven. Actually having to face him. I'd run for so long...
And the Oracle had totally been right. This was the only way to save Mill, and my parents, and Xandra, Laura, Xandra’s parents…
This was the only way.
I looked down at the kid and knelt before him.
It wasn’t his fault that he was put up to this. Who knows what they had done to force him to stay here? Or what he had experienced when he was turned? He could have been any kid at my high school. I wondered where his parents were. If they even knew that anything had happened to him yet. It made me think of Jacquelyn, and everything she had gone through.
“I’m sorry this happened to you,” I told him as gently as I could.
He was staring at me with wide, unblinking eyes, his mouth slightly agape. He was kind of cute, too. I probably would have had a crush on him if he had gone to my school. All of the girls in my grade would have.
“All of this,” I said, “I’m truly sorry.” I swallowed past the lump in my throat, but I realized that all of the fear had gone.
I had been so afraid of finding out what my greatest fear was. I had been afraid of this moment where Draven gave me an all or nothing, because I had known from the beginning, from the first time I crossed him, that it would come to this.
Everything was leading to this moment.
And now that it was here, an eerie sense of calm had taken hold of me. My hands were steady, my breathing even.
That old song was right: the waiting really was always the hardest part.
“Tell Draven I'll be there soon.”
“Tell him—” the boy said. “Tell him how?”
“By going to him, obviously,” I said.
“But…” He gave me a wary look. “Aren’t you going to…”
“To what?” I asked.
“Kill me?” His face twisted, as though he were holding off tears.
I stood up and dusted off my jeans. “No. I’m not going to kill you. I have no reason at all to kill you.”
The boy seemed stunned. He sat there against the wall for a few seconds, staring up at me, dumbfounded.
I gestured to the door. “Seriously. I'm not going to hurt you. But my advice to you is that as soon as you tell Draven, get out of there. Run from him, and never look back.”
The kid hesitated for only a second more before he was off at full vamp speed, sending my hair swirling in the wind he left behind.
“I survived!” I heard him shout into the night as he burst out the front door which clapped against the frame behind him.
Iona clicked her tongue in annoyance. “You know, I feel like I should take him out just out of general principle.”
“Let him go,” I said. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”
Lockwood sighed heavily, shaking his head. “That poor lad…having his life ripped away when he was so young.”
I scowled. “This can’t keep happening. Too many people are dying because of me.” I looked at them both. “This is it,” I said, and realized it sounded a lot more dramatic than I had intended it to. “One way or another, this ends tonight.”
Chapter 34
“Nothing is ending,” Iona said into the quiet of Xandra's room, motes of dust wafting through the air as we stood, the three of us, in the stark light of her single bulb. “We are not going anywhere near that penthouse, those vampires, or that crazy sociopath, Draven. End of discussion.”
“Yes, we are,” I said, turning to make my way out of the room. “Or at least I am.”
“Cassandra, I understand that you are quite upset,” Lockwood said, hurrying to keep up with me as I walked to the kitchen, “but you must see reason. To go to Draven would be to throw your life away.”
I wondered if I would be able to compile a good supply of chopsticks. Maybe duct taping them together would make for a sturdy enough stake to use in a pinch. I ignored him as I started combing through a pile of laundry that had been scattered across the hall. Xandra had more than enough black. I should be able to find something a little more apropos to wear for a fight.
“You've gone insane,” Iona said, laughing hollowly. “You’ve been so afraid of Draven all this time, have run from him constantly. Now some kid calls you a mighty vampire slayer and you suddenly change your tune?”
I didn’t say anything. Didn’t even look at her. I didn’t care what she said now. It wouldn’t change my mind.
“I do worry that the stress has gotten to you,” Lockwood said as I pulled Xandra’s backpack off the hook near the door, which was still open, and started tossing every chopstick I could find into it. Knives would be useless. Maybe she still had some of those bottles of holy water I had given her when I got back from New York…
Iona grabbed my shoulders and shook me until I looked at her.
“You listen to us,” she said, her brow an angry line. “Lockwood and I are agreeing for the first time in recorded history. Draven is going to make you suffer. A lot. He is going to play with you and it is going to be fun—for him. Do you understand that? And it isn’t going to be quick, or merciful, because those are words he does not have in his vocabulary.” She frowned. “I mean, he probably knows them,
on a literal level, but he eschews them in his non-life. Torture and misery are more his wheelhouse, and he's very good at them.”
“Wasn’t it always going to come down to this?” I asked as she dropped her hands from my shoulders. “No matter what I did, it was always going to this moment…wasn’t it?”
Iona and Lockwood exchanged uneasy glances.
I shook my head. “I know. I've always known, deep down. All of this was going to come to a head, and I was going to have to face him eventually.” I didn’t have to say what that meant. “Consequences. For all my lies.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, just as quietly.
“What happens when they drain you dry?” I asked. “Does it hurt? Do you become a vampire?”
Her eyes widened, like she couldn’t believe that I had just asked her that.
It wasn’t like I was eager to hear the answer. These were things I laid awake thinking about since meeting Mill and Iona. What had it been like when they became vampires? Would it ever happen to me?
Would any answer she gave be able to prepare me for what was coming?
“No. If they drain you, then you’re dead,” Iona said. “Same as if someone stabbed you thirty times. Your heart stops, then your brain, and then all your organs. And you die.”
“What happens when a vampire turns a human?” I asked, voicing the next question I always wondered. “Is it like falling asleep? How do they do it?”
Iona looked over her shoulder at Lockwood for support, but he only shrugged, the look on his face suggesting he had no words.
“Cassie—” Iona said.
“I get that you probably don’t want to talk about it, but I want to know in case…” Yeah, I really didn’t want to finish that sentence.
It looked like Iona was really fighting with herself. “No, you have to drink the vampire’s blood after they bite you. And the process isn’t quick. Or painless. It takes time. And then…”
The idea was repulsive. I'd had my hand in enough of that hot, black, tarry blood to know that I wanted it nowhere near my mouth. But if Draven forced me…
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