Retribution of Soul: Book 3 of the In-Between

by Senese, Rebecca M.

  She growled.

  He shook his head. No, this couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t be real. Wasn’t his life enough of a nightmare?

  No, please, not her.

  Her eyes narrowed at him. Her hand gripped the edge of the slab as she swung her legs over the side. She dropped to the floor, wrapping the sheet around herself like a toga.

  “Sebastian,” she said. Her voice hissed out of her as if she wasn’t used to talking with larger teeth in her mouth.

  His back hit the wall. His bruised palms pressed against it, helped him scrabble up to his feet. He leaned against the wall, uncertain if his shaking legs would hold him.

  “Mom,” he said.

  She turned her head to survey the room. Her blinks were slow.

  “Your father? Where’s David?”

  Tear blurred Sebastian’s vision. He blinked them away. Dammit, he couldn’t cry now. Not with a vampire in front of him. She was a vampire. He had to remember that.

  Not think about who she was.

  “He’s dead,” he said. “Like you’re supposed to be.”

  Her face turned back to him. “I’m not dead.”

  “You’re undead,” he said. “You’re a vampire. You know that, don’t you?”

  Her mouth tried to smile but it came out a grimace. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not dead.” She spread her arms toward him.

  Her grimace widened. The sickly sour smell thickened.

  Oh god.

  She darted forward, faster than he could have thought. He dodged, but her hand caught his arm, hand tightening in a lethal grip. She wrenched him back. His head hit the wall. Then her other hand came up, grabbing his head, turning it to the side.

  Exposing his neck.

  “No! Mom, no!”

  Her dark hair moved like a curtain. Her sourness enveloped him as she stepped closer. He felt her moist, fetid breath on his skin. He struggled but her grip was tight and he was pinned to the wall.

  Pain lanced through his neck.

  He screamed.

  She gagged and pushed away. Her body spiraled across the room until she grabbed hold of the slab.

  Sebastian fell to his knees, holding his neck, feeling the blood pulse through his fingers and run down his t-shirt.

  His blood smeared the bottom of her chin. She swiped at it with the back of her hand and spit.

  “Poison. You’re poison.”

  “I’m In-Between,” he said.

  She snarled. She started to back away toward the door.

  “There’s more of us out there,” he said. “You aren’t going anywhere.”

  He could feel the blood at his neck thickening, the trickle slowing. He pushed himself back up to his feet.

  “I’m sorry, Mom. I couldn’t stop this from happening to you but you aren’t leaving this room as a vampire.”

  Her hands tightened into fists.

  “You can’t stop me,” she said.

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I can.”

  She spun away, heading for the door.

  No, he couldn’t let her leave, couldn’t let her out into the world like this. Not like this.

  He pushed.

  She stopped a foot from the door. Her body shuddered, rippling, trying to reach. He could feel her leaning toward the door, focusing on escape. No, come back. Step back.

  Her foot moved. Slid. Backward.

  One step. Then another.

  Stay in the room, lie down on the slab.

  He focused, hard, drawing her back. He felt her fight him all the way, with every sliding step. Once, she almost broke free, managed to reach her hand out to the door knob before he pulled her back.

  Pain laced up his head and down his neck. The iron stench of blood filled his nose and he knew his nose was bleeding again. All he had to do was relax but he couldn’t, couldn’t let her go.

  Stay, mother.

  At the word, her face turned toward him. Her hair shifted on her forehead, revealing her eyes.

  Her eyes.

  She was still in there! He could feel the spark of her deep inside, buried under the oozing weight of darkness, shriveling against the horror of being a vampire. Inside, a part of her that was still her, still Sarah Lockhart, existed inside.

  And he could almost touch it.

  “Mom?”

  Was that his voice? He sounded like a little kid again. Her lips twisted. Her eyes crinkled at the corners the way they always did when she smiled.

  And he felt that spark of her even stronger. Calling out to him.

  Begging him.

  Free me!

  And beneath that, another message calling out to him, piercing his soul.

  Save Callum!

  The emotional longing buffeted him. He staggered back, bumping against the wall. His head throbbed, pain arcing down his shoulders. The vampire in front of him hissed, tried to take another step toward the door.

  But it was a vampire. Not his mother. It just wore her face.

  And the small part of her left inside wanted to be free.

  His vision blurred as tears formed and ran down his cheeks.

  I’ll free you, Mom. I’ll free you and save Callum. I promise.

  There was only one way to do it.

  He PUSHED.

  The vampire shrieked as his thought lashed out at her. Searing pain roared through him, drowning out the spark of his mother. He cried out, grasping for her, but the wave was too strong, too powerful. She disappeared beneath it. It crashed through the vampire and rebounded on him.

  Falling. The room spun. Tile, walls, shining steel, whirled in front of his face. Shrieking filled his ears. Pain screamed in the nerve endings up and down his body. He felt his limbs jerk on the floor. Iron smell filled his nostrils. Red cloaked his vision. Red, all red.

  All blood.

  Until, finally, darkness.

  CHAPTER 13

  Coldness on his cheek. Wetness on his lips. Fuzzy light with shifting shadows that slowly solidified into faces peering down at him. The stipple ceiling tiles glinted above them, making him wince.

  “Sebastian, can you hear me?” Jessica said. Her pony tail flopped over her shoulder, the edges of it hung only a few inches from his cheek. If he lifted his head, he would feel the softness against his skin.

  He didn’t know if he would be able to move his head ever again.

  “Can you sit up, mate?” Gareth appeared on his left. He felt hands grab his shoulders and start to lift him.

  Pain erupted in his forehead and poured down his neck. He hissed at the suddenness of it. His whole body seemed to vibrate with it. He clenched his teeth, trying to breathe through it. Just breathe.

  After a moment, it subsided to a searing pain that pierced his temples and spread across his shoulders. Funny how something he would have considered agony before was now mild.

  Hands steadied him. He was standing now. He winced at the gleaming steel around him. Still in the autopsy room then. As he blinked his vision cleared. Gareth stood on his left with Jessica on his right. He couldn’t see Brian and didn’t want to turn his head to try.

  “What happened?” Jessica said. “That woman. Is she…?”

  Her voice trailed off. She turned her head to the right, moving back a few inches so he could see.

  His mother’s body lay on the floor, her legs tangled in the sheet, arms outstretched. Her mouth gaped open. Her eyes stared sightless up at the ceiling.

  Dead.

  “She was a vampire,” he said.

  “Vampire,” Gareth said. He frowned. “But she’s dead.”

  Shoes hissed against the tiles and Brian crossed out from behind them. He approached the body slowly, holding a wooden stake at the ready. He crouched beside her and searched for a pulse. Finally he pressed his head to her chest. After a moment, he looked back them and shook his head.

  “Nothing. She’s dead.”

  “She couldn’t be a vampire,” Gareth said. “I know you’ve been under a lot of stress, Sebastian…�
�

  “Was she?” Jessica said. “Was she really?”

  Sebastian nodded, then winced as the pain sharpened. “Yes, she was.”

  He had to stop doing that.

  Jessica’s lips thinned. “Did you… did you do this?”

  His head wanted to nod again but he stopped it. He could feel Brian staring at him, brows drawn down in disbelief. Behind Jessica, Gareth frowned.

  So should he deny it? Push her away for good? Would she even believe him?

  He had to take the chance.

  He had to try to ask for help.

  “I did it,” he said. “I don’t know how. But sometimes I just seem to be able to push them.”

  Gareth shook his head. Brian gave a disbelieving grunt as he stood up.

  Jessica nodded. The lines in her face deepened as she frowned.

  “I believe him.”

  “Are you kidding?” Brian said. “You can’t kill a vampire with your mind.”

  “You can’t,” she said. “I’ve seen him do things and he had that book. Grellock’s book. It affected him. We don’t know what that would do to any of us but it affected him. Sebastian’s always been farther along than us. Who knows what that means?”

  Uncertainty crossed Brian’s face. He opened his mouth to respond but the click of the door behind them interrupted him.

  “Time to go.” Joan’s voice called.

  He couldn’t walk very well so Gareth supported him down the hall and the door. As the door swung open, Sebastian noticed the darkness of twilight’s end.

  That was why the vampire could wake up.

  Night.

  Alexa would be waking.

  With Callum.

  Where are you?

  He had to find them. He’d promised her.

  How the hell was he going to do that?

  As they hurried across the parking lot to the black van, every step on the asphalt caused shooting pain that reverberated to the top of his head. Gareth still had a steadying hand on his arm. How was Sebastian supposed to find his brother when he could barely walk?

  He remembered Charlie’s frown and crossed arms as he admonished Sebastian for not asking for help.

  Before it was just him, and his stupidity only affected himself, but now he had to think about Callum. He couldn’t be stupid now.

  Jessica stood in front of him, her hand wrapped around the handle of the van’s back door. He heard the click as she unlocked it and tugged the door open. The overhead light winked on, yellowish light illuminating the back. Grey industrial carpeting on the floor. Benches along either side. Weapons racks lined the sides, filled with guns, knives, swords, and polished, wooden stakes.

  Everything the well equipped vampire hunter needed.

  Except for one thing.

  “I have to find Callum,” he said. “Will you help me, Jessica? Please?”

  She turned to stare at him. Her eyes widened. She blinked. He thought he saw tears in her eyes.

  “Of course I’ll help you, Sebastian.”

  She held out her hand to him.

  He reached out to take it.

  They huddled in the back of the van. With the door closed, Sebastian saw the crosses carved into the doors and along the sides of the van. He threw a questioning look to Jessica. He thought crosses didn’t work. She shrugged.

  Any little bit, he guessed.

  Gareth spread out a paper map across his knees. He sat across from Jessica, with Brian on his right. Sebastian sat across from Brian. Joan huddled beside Jessica, her knees pressed together as the skirt rode halfway up her thigh. She looked like she should be attending some boardroom meeting somewhere, not huddling in the back of the van with the rest of them. She glanced up at Sebastian and winked at him, as if she knew what he was thinking.

  She probably did.

  “Your father’s car is missing,” Gareth said. “We have to assume Alexa took it. From what we can gather from the police reports, the attack happened close to midnight. Looks like she spent some time there so assume she had four to five hours lead time to get away. If it was just her she’d be long gone but she had your brother with her. Controlling a human always takes more time and energy for a vampire. Slows them down considerably. That gives us a better chance of finding them.”

  He nodded to Brian. Brian lifted his hand, tracing a thick index finger in a rough circle in the map.

  “We figure this is the perimeter of our search. Obviously we don’t have to worry about the river itself but I think the area along the river might be a good place to start. Especially the industrial area.”

  Gareth nodded. “I agree. She needs a place to stay for the day, some place she won’t be disturbed. Industrial locations, warehouses are standard choices for vampires.”

  “If she burrowed in deep enough, no one would find her,” Jessica said.

  “We can’t ignore other possibilities,” Joan said. “She probably knows we’ll be looking for her or at least that Sebastian will be. She could have found some other place to hide. We need to split up to cover more ground.”

  Gareth’s lips thinned. Even Brian didn’t look happy with the suggestion.

  Beside Sebastian, Jessica sighed. “She’s right. We’ll cover more ground in two groups.”

  “Brian and I will hit the industrial district, moving in a sweep this way,” Joan said. Her hand passed over the map. “You three look here.” She traced a semi circle over the lines of streets. “Sebastian, you know your brother. You should be able to pick up his scent. The rest of us can scent for vampire. It’s not the best way to search but it is the fastest. We check in on the hour every hour with progress reports. I’ve got my mobile and Gareth has his.”

  He nodded. His hand dug into his pants and he fished out his keys. He passed them to Joan.

  “Take my car. We’ll take the van.”

  “Let’s get started,” Joan said.

  Gareth folded the map as Joan opened the door. Cool night air drifted in, carrying the smell of cut grass and moist humid air. Sebastian felt instantly homesick. He knew all the smells of this city, the tang of the river, the muskiness of the trees, the sharp stench of the cars. It all brought up so many memories but he didn’t have time for them.

  This city wasn’t home any more for him, it was just another place infested with vampires. Another place he had to hunt them.

  Stop thinking of it as home. It would make it easier.

  He climbed out of the back. The overhead lamps in the parking lot cast yellowish light across the lot, giving everyone an odd tinge to their skin. Funny, the only one it wouldn’t affect would be Charlie.

  Wait a minute, where was Charlie?

  Sebastian looked around. The ghost wasn’t anywhere. Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t seen Charlie for a while, not since he’d gone into the morgue. Was he gone? Had he done what he had to do?

  But what was that?

  It couldn’t have been talking to Stan, Charlie had still hung around after that.

  But he’d been disappearing, Sebastian realized. This wasn’t the first time. The other times were only for a moment, maybe a few minutes.

  This was the first time it had been this long.

  Why did it bother him? Would he rather be haunted?

  When he turned back, he noticed Joan watching him.

  “Is something wrong?” she said.

  He hesitated. All of them turned to look at him. He could feel the weight of their gazes. Jessica cocked her head. Her hair shifted on her shoulder.

  He’d asked for help. Was he going to back away from that?

  “Charlie’s not here,” he said.

  “Your ghost friend?” Gareth said.

  Jessica stiffened. Her lips thinned as she pressed them together. Even under the yellowish tinge of light, Sebastian could see the color drain from her cheeks.

  “Where did he go?” Joan said.

  “I don’t know,” Sebastian said. “He was at the house and the gas station but he wasn’t at the morg
ue.” He nodded to Joan. “Can you sense him?”

  She closed her eyes. He could almost feel her questing. He felt something like a tickle in his mind then it moved on. A frown grew on her face. She opened her eyes.

  “I don’t feel him. Nothing at all.”

  “Isn’t that a good thing?” Jessica said. “I’m not sure how fond I am of having a ghost around.”

  “But there’s a reason he’s here,” Joan said. “And that reason has to be fulfilled. Ghosts don’t just come to hang around. There’s always a purpose to their visit. Did Charlie tell you why he was here?”

  Sebastian shook his head. “He didn’t know.”

  “Maybe he was lying,” Jessica said.

  Joan’s mouth twisted. “Doubtful. If he was lying he would be acting much more maliciously. He hasn’t been, has he?”

  “No,” Sebastian said. “Well, he wasn’t pleased with Stan. And he didn’t like Nigel too much.”

  “Any other hint as to what he was doing here?” Joan said.

  “He was just… Charlie. Like he was before.” Sebastian shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t like it,” Joan said. “A ghost vanishing for no discernable reason is a bad omen. It goes along with…” She stopped. A muscle along her jaw jumped.

  “We should head out. Brian, let’s go.” She turned away, clutching the keys to Gareth’s car in her hand. “I have to remember to drive on the right hand side.”

  “Wait a minute.” Sebastian hurried forward and grabbed her arm. “What does that go along with?”

  Joan shook her head and pulled her arm out of his grasp. “Never mind.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Well, maybe if you hadn’t just taken off, you might know what’s going on.”

  “Joan!” Jessica’s voice lashed out from behind him.

  “I’m sorry, Jessica, I can’t coddle him anymore. I know how you feel about him but he needs to know.” Joan turned back to him. Her shoulders tensed. “I’ve always liked you, Sebastian, but you’re too impulsive, without any thought for the group. Rome was a debacle. We could have used your expertise to help us but you ran away. Nigel and the others went in anyway and were routed.”