by J. N. Colon
She nodded, her dark waves sliding against her pretty face. She tucked the strands behind her ear, the half-moon scar visible on the back of her hand. She was also wearing the navy knee length pleated skirt with the white collared shirt. She stood, silently walking to the back wall. She motioned with her hands for me to come closer.
My eyes took in the small closet and realized this was the same one from my dream where she and the boy were kissing before they found a secret door. I walked over and put my hands on the wall and pushed until a tiny click resonated trailed by a whoosh. The door opened with a creak.
Sara motioned for me to follow her down the stone steps. I glanced back as I did, expecting to see a hunter poised to attack.
Nope. All was clear—for now anyways.
As we descended the stairs, the smell of stale air and soot clogged my nose. I sneezed a couple times, causing a grin to form on Sara’s face. If she could talk I had a feeling she’d say ‘that was cute’. I rolled my eyes at her.
Why couldn’t Madison be a mute ghost instead of Sara?
Once we reached the bottom a metal door stood in the way with a pad lock barring its entry. I touched the rickety old thing. “I guess you don’t have the key.”
Sara shot me an incredulous expression and pantomimed kicking the door with her leg.
“Oh right. I am a vampire,” I mumbled. Sometimes I forgot I was nearly ten times stronger than a normal human my size. I picked up my leg and gave the door several good kicks until it slammed open, dust and soot spraying me.
Coughing wracked my body as my lungs tried to force the particles out. Once I was finally able to breathe I walked into the room and felt instantly cold inside. It was a lab—or at least it had been before it was burned.
A layer of soot and dust covered everything, from the floors, to the walls, to the metal tables. On those tables were thick chains that I bet under all that crap were pure silver. With horror I realized I’ve seen this very lab before it was burned. I dreamed of it. This is the lab the shifter was killed in.
A gasp escaped my mouth, echoing in the hollow room. I glanced at Sara and she nodded as if she read my mind.
With sad eyes she pointed to something in the corner. I walked through the sooty, decaying rubble and over turned the chair Sara was pointing to. A strip of paper was stuck to the bottom. I pried it off and the only words visible froze my blood.
Eradicate… shifters.
The room suddenly disappeared around me and I saw Sara outside on the campus grounds alive. She gripped a tree as a vision swam behind her eyes, the same vision leaking through mine.
A group of shifters lay on the ground, convulsing in pain, dying. Their bodies were racked with spasms as agonizing screams and animal roars clawed out their mouths.
The shared vision left me, but I saw Sara again in the lab only it was pristine. She tossed a burning bottle onto a stack of papers, the smell of gasoline heavy in the air. She looked back at me while fire blazed behind her, the flames glinting on a ring threaded through a silver chain around her neck. Ornate designs were carved into the thick band with a crown on each side as if holding up the glistening oval ruby stone.
“History will repeat.” Her words echoed ominously around me.
I gasped awake to someone violently shaking me, snapping my head around. Mac was looking down at me with a terrified expression.
“Rubi, shit!” He crushed me against his chest, his heart pounding violently under my cheek.
He must be really tired of shaking me awake from crazy psychic dreams.
“Baby, what the fuck happened?” His voice cracked with emotion and body trembled against mine. “I followed your scent and found you on the ground unconscious. You wouldn’t wake up!”
“I’m sorry,” I breathed, trying to clear the fog from my head. I passed out in a closet…?
Memories of Sara and her vision slammed into me like a lead weight. I coughed, recalling the soot and dust in my lungs. I glanced down and saw my feet were covered in it as were my hands. Something was clutched between my fingers. I opened them to reveal a tiny piece of paper with those horrible, fated words from my dream scrolled across.
My heart pounded and head spun as realization swept over me.
“What is that?” Mac asked, his eyes surveying me. “How did you get so dirty?”
I motioned toward the wall with the hidden door. “I-It’s a lab…from a long time ago.” I still wasn’t sure when. I handed him the slip of paper, his eyes widening as he read it. “I think the hunters used it. The vampires aren’t the only ones they’ve experimented on to find a way to kill easier.” Bile rose in my throat at the thought of what they did to them, to us.
“How do you know all this? How did you find this place?”
“Sara led me.”
His brows knit having never heard the name before.
“She’s the girl I was dreaming of... and also the white ghost as it turns out.” Why hadn’t she allowed me to see who she was until now? Why come to me as the white ghost?
Mac brushed my unruly hair away from my face. “How did you find out her name?”
I swallowed back the lump of sadness when I recalled first hearing her name. “She was like me, not fully a vampire and yet not human anymore.” I explained what happened in that heart wrenching dream, even the part about her giving up her baby, all the while choking on my words. Mac held me and stroked my back, trying to wash away the agony that wasn’t even mine.
“Shush,” he whispered, his warm breath blowing against my tear stained cheeks. “It’s okay baby. It wasn’t you.”
I nodded against him and sniffled. “I know. It just hurts.” I took several deep, shaking breaths before continuing to the dream I had a moment ago that led me to the note about the shifters. “Mac, I saw what the hunters almost did to them when Sara was here. She showed me.” I sat up straight and wiped my eyes, remembering that’s not all I saw in the dream/vision. I gripped his hand tighter with excitement. “Mac, she was wearing a necklace with a ring on it!” I twisted his silver and ruby ring around. “One like this! Like a royal vampire one.”
“Did it belong to the vampire who gave her blood?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember seeing it on him.” I scratched my head, my gaze pensive. “I can’t even remember his face…” I suddenly trailed off as a memory began to work its way through my mind—one that had nothing to do with Sara or her descendent.
Demy. I was so thirsty. He smelled so good. My senses were dulled by intense bloodlust almost like I was drunk. I was on the ground with him, feeling ways I shouldn’t with him. I had wanted to bite him and touch him… and oh god Mac found us.
I nearly cheated on him with Demy!
An agonized cry slipped out my mouth and I scrambled back, hitting the wall. “I’m so sorry Mac.” His image was blurry through my watering eyes. “I can’t believe…” I shook my head, ashamed all over again. I was in the closet to hide from him.
All the self-loathing and pain of earlier returned tenfold locked in this tiny room with Mac, the person I hurt.
I held my arms against my chest, my nails digging into my flesh so hard they punctured skin.
Mac sucked his teeth and leaned toward me. “Stop that Rubi.” He gripped my hands in his massive ones. “Don’t hurt yourself baby,” he said gently.
“How could you even touch me after what I almost did?” My bottom lip quivered.
“It wasn’t your fault. I know you weren’t thinking straight.” When I tried to hide my face he gripped my chin and forced me to meet his jade eyes. “Rubi, even though you seem like a born vampire this is all new to you. You don’t know how to recognize the signs of bloodlust creeping in. I should have made sure you had enough blood today, every day. It’s my fault.”
“It wasn’t just blood my body wanted,” I admitted in a barely audible voice laden with humiliation.
His laugh was humorless. “I know baby. Sometimes blood and lust gets mixed up. Think abo
ut us.”
“But it was Demy,” I argued. “He’s your best friend, not only mine.” I would hate for Mac to be mad at him because of me.
He rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. “Demy actually handled it better than I expected.”
My brows knit. “You expected this to happen?” His silence was enough—and the guilty flush to his cheeks. “Oh Mac!” I jabbed him in the shoulder, barely moving him. “You could have warned me! And how did you know?”
“You guys are close… and I’ve noticed you smelling him. A lot.”
Embarrassment flooded my cheeks, but before I could look away he caught my lips with his in a warm kiss. “How long were you watching before I saw you?”
Guilty again. Damn him—not really.
He shrugged. “I wanted to see if I could really trust Demy with you. I had to know if he cared enough to do what’s best for you.”
“And?”
“I trust him a hundred percent.”
My brow arched.
He rubbed his chin in thought. “Well, maybe ninety eight percent. His hands were on your thighs a lot higher than I would ever like them to be,” he growled.
With a sigh of relief I leaned my head against his chest, allowing his arms to encircle me. “I’m sorry Mac. From now on I’ll make sure I have plenty of blood. I don’t want to attack anyone again.”
“Except me,” he chuckled. “You can attack me any time you want.”
As if on cue my throat burned with thirst and jaw ached. “How ‘bout now?” I asked in a breathy whisper.
He chuckled again. “I think the point of an attack love is you don’t ask permission.”
“Oh.” With lightning reflexes I pinned Mac to the ground seconds before my fangs sank into his neck.
Chapter 24
I told Whitmore and Dimitri about my newest dreams of Sara and that she was the white ghost. I explained we had been the same before I was fully turned—more than human, but less than a vampire. Unfortunately I didn’t get the vampire’s name she was feeding from and I couldn’t remember his features. Even if the ring wasn’t his, he could still hold the answers we need.
Dimitri couldn’t hide his shock when I described the secret lab. Whitmore, Mac, Demy, and Dimitri searched the burnt remains, but found no more clues about the hunters’ plan for the shifters.
Our next move—mine anyways—was to locate Sara’s daughter or it could even be her child that’s supposed to stop the hunters. Hell, maybe even a great-grandchild. I had no idea what era she even lived in.
I knocked on Celestia’s door, my hopes high.
“Come in Rubi.”
My face scrunched up. How the hell did she know it was me?
Oh yeah. Psychic. Duh.
I walked in and closed the door behind me, leaning against it and fiddling with my royal ring nervously.
She flashed me that Disney character smile, complete with large shining green eyes, and patted the bed. “I won’t bite.” She winked.
I rolled my eyes and walked forward, plopping on her bed. “So, I guess you know why I’m here.”
Her brow lifted. “I’m not God Rubi. I don’t know everything.”
“Oh.” I bit my bottom lip nervously. How do you tell someone you think they’re the one person who’s destined to thwart a band of hunters from completing their nefarious plans for the shifters?
Celestia tilted her head, throwing her curtain of dark locks across half her face. “Well… spit it out already. Don’t leave me on pins and needles.”
“You heard about this ghost I was dreaming about… and how she had the gift and her child or maybe her child is supposed to stop the hunters…?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Vera told me.”
“Well…” I averted my gaze and ran finger across her stripped coverlet. “I think it might be you.”
Her laughter sounded like bells. “Oh.” She clamped her hand over her mouth when she noticed my offended expression. “I’m sorry. While I would love to be your psychic hero I’m not. Both my parents are from Italy and they were the first of their family to move to America. I’ve never had any relatives attend Mossgrove Academy. I’m certain.”
I slumped, my glimmer of hope smashed like brittle glass. “Damn. I was so sure it was you. You’re the only other psychic here besides me.”
Her mouth twisted in a knowing smile as humor glinted in her dark eyes. “Um, Rubi, I’m going to go ahead and state the obvious.” She pointed at me. “What if it’s you?”
I waved a dismissive hand in the air. “Already thought about that. It’s not.” I leaned back and rested my elbow on her bed to hold my head up. “I’m the only psychic in my family remember. I didn’t descend from anyone. The vampire blood probably brought it out.”
Celestia taped her chin in thought. “Well if it’s not you and it’s not me, then who is it?”
I sighed. “I don’t know. Someone that’s not here.” Which makes it like finding a needle in a haystack at this point.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, my grandmother’s picture flashing on the screen as I slid it out. “Hey Lolly. What’s up?”
“Hey there angel face. I was just checking to see how my birthday gifts were working out for you. Do you have that hunk of teenage meat slack-jawed and drooling yet?”
My cheeks burned red with embarrassment, especially since Celestia could hear every word.
“What did your grandmother get you for your birthday?” she asked with a smirk.
“LINGERIE!” she yelled over the phone apparently overhearing Celestia as well.
Mortification morphed my face and Celestia fell back, cracking up with laughter.
I groaned. “I am so out of here.”
***
I closed another dusty yearbook, my skin itching from it. I’m a vampire now. Shouldn’t I be immune to things like dust?
Another tiny sneeze escaped and I crinkled my nose. Ugh!
I was in the back stacks of the library where old issues of the school paper, journals, and yearbooks were kept. Also a place where no one comes including a cleaning crew.
Another sneeze.
I sat at a rickety square table with one of those dim green lamps, my chair creaking with every muscle I moved. Shelves towered over me, leaning in and making me feel claustrophobic. Like most old libraries, the air was thick and musty, but it was exceptionally potent here. I could probably blame that on my new vamp senses though.
A giant piece of dust the size of a dime floated down on the yearbook I was leafing through, searching for my mysterious Sara. I brushed it aside and of course it fell on my black tank top. A sigh flitted out my mouth. I was pretty much covered in the crap already. I’ve been here all Saturday with no luck. Sara was as mysterious to me as she was when I didn’t even know her name.
It was clear the hunters had a very secret presence at the school whenever she attended. Not only did they murder her under the shifter cabin, but they had a freaking lab beneath the school. Mossgrove Academy was a lot like Highland with a multitude of hidden passages and rooms, but there isn’t a book detailing them.
Dimitri is convinced the campus is safe from hunters now, what with tons of security and the majority of faculty aware of the supernatural ties the school has.
Yeah, just ask Whitmore about Highland. Hunters apparently have a way of flying under the radar, worming their way into supernatural zones.
They might change their minds if I mentioned the cryptic message from Declan at my coronation. Fortunately for me I’m not telling them. Ever. I didn’t need fifty million guards around me, watching my every move because one clearly insane hunter claimed I was in danger. Like I told him, I’m always in danger. I had no clue what the random numbers he gave me meant, but I memorized them on the off chance they were important.
A myriad of whispers suddenly lit my ears and I groaned, rubbing my temples to no avail. On the bright side at least I knew I was hearing ghosts and not going nuts. On the not so bright side—I was h
earing ghosts.
Ugh.
Speaking of… two ethereal female figures drifted by without glancing my way. My brow arched in curiosity. These were the first besides Sara I saw in some eerie, otherworldly form. I don’t know what was worse, knowing I was looking at a ghost or accidently thinking they were a real live person.
The whispers slowly dissipated, leaving behind a lingering buzz in my ears. I shook my head and sighed before starting on the stack of ancient yearbooks from the fifties.
Low and behold after another hour and a half I found her! Sara Oliver, class of 1954.
I bit my lip contemplating. “I didn’t think you went back that far,” I whispered. “That means her daughter was old enough to be my grandmother. She could even be dead already. It has to be another offspring.”
“Are you talking to yourself or is there a Casper around?” Demy appeared, startling me as he slipped into the seat next to me. His lips twitched and eyes sparked with amusement. “I’m not sitting on it am I? That might get weird.”
I shook my head, quickly averting my gaze. This was the first time I’ve seen him since I attacked him. My cheeks heated and I clamped my jaw tight to keep from saying something stupid.
And the worst part was his scent still made my mouth water.
“You find your mystery girl yet?”
I nodded and pointed to her picture. “Sara Oliver.”
He leaned closer, his amber scent clouding my nose. “She’s pretty.”
“Uh huh,” I said shifting away, afraid I’d start drooling even though I’d had my fill of blood today.
“Rubi,” he tsked and clutched my arm, pulling me closer. “You won’t even look at me.” The hurt in his voice forced my eyes to his.
“I’m sorry Demy.” I bit my lip again and absentmindedly played with the panther ring on my finger. “I just… I’m so embarrassed about what I did. You must think I’m a big tease or something.”
He sucked his teeth again, pulling my bottom lip from my own teeth with his thumb. “That’s ridiculous Rubi. You’re my best friend and I’ll never think something like that of you. I know you.” He lightly touched my chest. “You weren’t thinking clear or drinking enough blood. Did you have some today?”