Alistair
Awakening, Alistair shifted on the bed, cracked open his eyes, and remembered he hadn’t made his way back to his chamber the previous night. Leslie cuddled up to his side, with her hair covered in a brown hair bonnet, her mouth slightly open, and unladylike snores escaping her beautiful mouth. He tried not to laugh at that sight.
Although he would have enjoyed staring at her all morning, easing into the day with whatever this could become, duty called. He eased up from the bed and out of the room and was greeted by Gullinbursti in the hallway. “What is it?” he asked, giving the golden bristled boar a nice pat on his side.
“There you are,” Rose called out. “We were concerned about you, as you weren’t in your usual hidey holes. As you know, you need to get on board with our plan and show everyone a united force, especially since more details of the murder have been recovered.”
“You’re telling me this instead of taking me to the scene—again?”
“We couldn’t find you, but I did bring you pictures. Hell, Alistair, even my wards only last so long. I still had to release the scene over to the police.”
“Another murder? What do you know about this one?” He held her smartphone and flipped through the images. It could have been the same scene if it hadn’t been a different body—a sigil, a drained and naked female with Leslie’s book. “Was she a reader?”
“Yes, but this crime had a stronger message.”
“Show me.”
Rose flipped a couple more images and handed him back the phone. “This wineglass.”
“So, the killer had wine?”
“No, the glass was filled with the victim’s blood and enjoyed afterward. Fingerprints were left behind, and we’ve run them through the database. They came back as Leslie Cutlass’s.”
Alistair shook his head. “That’s impossible. She was with me all night.”
“You sleep like the dead. She could have snuck out, then returned, and you would never have known.”
“No, I know she didn’t do it.”
“You’re going to have to face the honest truth. Your mewler is indeed killing people, and I’m going to have to take her with me.”
“No!” He stepped in front of Rose, blocking her way.
“You are interfering with official business. I can only do my job and help you if you allow me to.”
“She can’t even transform. She doesn’t know how.”
“So, since there is only one way out of that room, and if she can’t sneak out like a bat, she should still be there?”
“Of course.”
Rose pushed past him and opened up the door to Leslie’s room, finding it empty. “So, where is your sweet vampire now?”
Chapter Thirty-One
Leslie
“You should be very happy that I got you out of there when I did,” Gran said as she led me down a secret passageway that meandered through the compound. We walked through the dark and cramped hallways.
Gran passed me my sword. She seemed to find things that belonged to me in this huge place. Just as I’d remembered, it was heavy as heck. I hoped I wouldn’t need it, or accidentally impale myself with the sharp blade.
I could hear the raised voices on the other side of the walls. Whatever had happened was serious, and it seemed to be the consensus that I was the one responsible for it.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked.
“To see what is going on. They are saying that you’re the one behind these murders, but I know the truth. Come. We have to hurry if we are going to save the next girl.”
“The next girl?”
“Yes, she’s being held at one of the guest cottages on the edge of the property.”
“Why not get help?”
“They aren’t going to listen to me or you, as they’re convinced you’re behind it all. No, we have to save her before she dies.”
The secret passageway led out into the garden, and under the cover of night, I followed Gran’s shimmer. We stuck to the trees and shadows so as to not attract any attention. Armed guards kept calling out my name as though I was some kind of lost puppy. I could even feel Alistair mentally reaching out. How was it possible that he could think that of me, too?
I pushed through the disappointment and hurt and glanced around. While still only in my socks, I raced in the direction Gran sent me to find the house all lit up.
“Hurry, she’s dying!” Gran waved me forward and then stopped. “But I can’t go in. Should I? That sigil will also pull me under and through to the other side.” After a short pause, she added, “I have no intention of leaving. But whatever you do, you mustn’t drink from her. Such would be your death sentence, and there is no way of coming back from that.”
Gran's voice was rarely stern, but this time, it was filled with righteousness, determination, and a sense of warning. Like the voice a mother used before she placed her child on punishment. The full-bodied tone of warning that only moms around the world could share that overcame every culture and tongue. Her words were spoken in the language of “Mom.” I understood it.
“I’ll take care of her, Gran,” I said, and burst through the cottage door to the most horrific scene ever. The young woman lay sprawled out, fully nude, and gurgling sounds came from the back of her throat as she tried to breathe, mixed with her panic and terror. Her eggplant-colored hair was soaked in blood.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said, and felt my canine teeth descend.
Blood. All of this fresh blood was going to waste. The intoxicating smell lured me ever closer until I stepped into the pooling crimson.
I’d never wished for the power to heal as I did then. “Gran, go get help.”
“But if I leave you, you’ll take a sip. All they need to see is if you're taking one sip and then, poof, you’re gone.”
“You have to trust me to be stronger than that. I’m still in here—the same, determined Leslie.”
Gran paused only for a second before she flashed away. “At least someone is getting a hold on their new situation.”
I took the dying woman’s hands, and the scene unfolded before me:
While sitting on her couch, she casually watched the latest episode on the BBC. The loud television muffled the sound of the slight knock at her door until it changed into a loud bang.
She jumped, knocking over her glass of wine and popcorn. “Just great. I’m coming, but I don’t see why anyone needs to stop by at this time of night.”
She padded to the front and opened the door.
Instead of a face, I only saw a blur. The magical face swam before me, leaving only a void.
“Good evening, may I help you?”
He didn’t speak, but I saw in his leather-covered hands that he was indeed prepared.
“It is with great joy that I bring you your salvation, a sacrifice to the ultimate of gods,” he said, and began to squeeze her neck.
That voice sounded familiar.
The woman struck back, attempting to fight him off.
I looked away. I didn’t want to see any more.
She urged me to look further.
Once he had her under control, where she’d stopped fighting, he tossed a coin onto the floor, creating the purple sigil.
“Death of dawn, lightness of day, accept this offering, I pray,” he said, and pushed her down to the hardwood planks.
“Sorry for the mess,” he said lastly and began his procedure, only to hear the floorboard creak. The woman turned, and there stood Gran at the door in her corporeal body, before she flickered away.
That was how Gran knew. She’d been exploring and stumbled on this.
And that also meant that he was still in the house waiting to finish it all up. I pressed down on the wound, applying as much pressure as I could, and with all the energy I had, I reached out, hoping the link I had with Alistair was indeed two-way.
I felt her last gasp and saw from the corner of my eye as the man dashed out of the door toward the woods.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Leslie
Through the woods, over the hills, I followed the figure until I stared out into the expanse of large trees, babbling creeks, and talkative wildlife. Magic hung in the air like freshly sifted flour.
With the compound in the distance, away from the winding roads, my hand clenched my sword’s grip, and I tried to breathe. Even under cover of night, with only a sliver of the moon casting its light, I could make out forms in the inky shadows, but this was different. More than one pair of eyes was staring back at me: one friendly, and one quite maleficent.
A wolf’s howl reached my ears, and I saw him come bounding my way. His snarl was loud and threatening.
I backed up.
Magic sifted through the cool air, falling onto my skin.
Just as the wolf was about to reach me, I struggled to hold my weapon, and it leaped over me to fall on that which I’d not seen approaching.
The faint smell of blood, combined with a very human scream, caused my hackles to rise. I licked my lips as a thirst beckoned me.
That aroma reminded me of what freshly baked bread used to mean to me. I breathed through my mouth, cutting off the appeal of that scent—the tanginess that was surely a trap.
With my sword raised, I inched toward the darkness, watching for the slightest movement.
My heart reacted to the tension, pulled tighter than a guitar string ready to be plucked.
I turned left first, then right.
“You really shouldn’t go running off on your own,” Killian said, back in his human form. He still had blood smeared across his mouth.
“Step back. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Hurt me?” He frowned. “And why would you do that?”
I glanced behind me to see if anything was there. “You’re the one killing these women and draining them dry.”
“I assure you that I like my women very much alive. Well, mostly alive. There is no fun in a cold body, and it’s a waste of life for such beauty to be erased.” He took a step closer.
“Why are you out here then?”
“Why are you out here?” he countered. “I am out for my nightly walk and happened to stumble upon you, a mewler with a sword drawn. Are we looking for things that go bump in the night?”
Just then, a twig snapped, but it was too late. I watched a metal blade slide from Killian’s back through his stomach. He howled in pain.
I dropped the sword and stumbled backward as Elm approached. No longer wearing his full livery, his usual cap was missing, allowing his chestnut hair to blow away from his face to reveal an orange glowing glyph.
“It is so good to see you again, Ms. Leslie,” he said like always. He cocked his head to the side as if listening to something. His blade was now replaced with a double-barreled shotgun pointed directly at me.
“Why are you doing this?” I would have liked to have said that I saw the crazy, but not if an injury with a shotgun at close range could still exterminate a vampire like me.
“The Order seeks to decimate us, all those who will not take a knee to them. We’ve been following your movements, knowing where you are.”
“Keeping tabs on me?” It all made sense. That was how they’d known when I was at Sunflower’s apartment, on the subway, and even at the compound—the network of golems. “And those women? What have they done to you?”
He ignored me. “Let’s get going. I have a lot that I need to do with you, and daylight will be here soon enough.” He turned me around and pressed the muzzle of the gun into my back. “Don’t try any funny moves, either. You might be fast, but I’m sure these silver bullets are faster.”
We walked and walked until I became disoriented, and then followed a narrow path to the mouth of a cave that overlooked the nearby Hudson River. Once inside, he removed his flashlight and forced me deeper into the cave’s confines. Finally, after a bit, it opened into a makeshift lab.
Looking around, it would have appeared just like any other fisherman’s retreat—well, if you took away the group of unconscious women Elm had caged up, suspended in the air with tubes leading from their bodies into various tanks. The clear tubing was stained red.
I finally understood it. This must have been where he drained them before returning them to the scene of the crime.
He pushed me toward a waiting gurney and tied me down.
Man, I wished I’d spent more time practicing with Alistair, but how was I to know that a lunatic would attack me during the middle of the night?
The sound of stainless-steel cuffs snapping down around my wrists and ankles signaled the beginning of the end. Whatever he had planned, I was a part of that plot.
“What do you intend to do to me?”
“Making you into what you should be. Vampires were not created to be pescatarians. You are supposed to be a force to be reckoned with, not this little weak thing. No, what you need is what I can provide you with, and you will bless me with something in return.”
He placed a gas mask over his face and then began to burn an herb I was familiar with: Henbane. The smoke wafted, and my consciousness drifted.
Alistair
“You are the most obnoxious man. I’m telling you that something bad has happened, and you refuse to act!” Gran screamed at Alistair, breaking her usual genteel and calm demeanor.
“I do not need to listen to anything you say, as you and Leslie have constantly disobeyed the rules of this compound. Instead of following them, now you wish to lie and tell me of a human woman being killed on the property, which Leslie just happened to stumble upon.”
Gran swirled around him, winding like a tornado. “No, she was in her room, and I went to get help. I thought Leslie was the only one who’d be willing to do so, and I was correct. Instead of assisting this poor woman, you’ve done the most cowardly of things—nothing. Anyone can do nothing. That does not make you an adequate ruler. That makes you one filled with privilege. Nothing you have done since we’ve been here has been for anyone other than yourself. You, sir, are a bastard and a selfish one at that.”
“Alistair.” Killian limped into the library.
“Killian, what has happened?”
“Leslie’s been taken,” he painfully whispered.
“I’ve been trying to tell him about the girl down on the property, the one bleeding out with Leslie,” Gran said.
“No, it’s gotten worse. She must have given chase. While I was out for my nightly snack, she was overpowered. I tried to help her as much as I could.”
“Head over to see Sethos and have him treat your wounds. You’ll recover. I will go—alone—in search of Leslie. They can’t be far, and I will attend to this matter without help.”
“You foolish, foolish man,” Gran grumbled. “You might make everyone else bow to your idiocy, but nothing will stop me from searching under every rock, in every cave, and behind every tree to find her. If you are not man enough to be her hero, then you are not worthy of her. Now, get out of my way. My granddaughter needs me.”
Gran disappeared, and Killian stood there, holding his side.
“She’s right, you know. You’ve been filled with this illogical pride and prejudice in regard to who you believe Leslie is supposed to be, so much you are now unwilling to act. That woman has done nothing but try to assist you in retaining your leadership position, but you’ve fought her at every turn. You’ve demeaned her, and not treated her justly. Dear uncle, if this was a romance novel, I dare say, you’d not be the hero after all.”
Killian limped away, and yet, Alistair remained seated. He closed his eyes and reached out with his mind, searching for her. A clouded image took shape, and the shadows revealed her location.
What good was a connection if he couldn’t find her without even moving?
He scanned the area, reaching for her essence.
With her destination in mind, he raced down to the depths of the compound, tossed off his clothes, and dove into the riv
er’s water. Cold waves washed over him, and the deeper he dove, the more his body stretched, twisted, and turned.
Hold on, love. I’m coming!
Leslie
When I awoke, I felt a tube in my mouth, force-feeding me what tasted like bliss: human blood. It ran across my tongue and warmed me from within—power mixed with zeal and a thirst for more. I continued to drink until I was sure I’d had my fill.
“That should be enough.” He then inserted an IV into my arm, attempting to draw blood from me.
Barely a drop came out.
“You know, you taught me this ritual in your book. When I learned you were the target, I knew this would be something to make you happy. You could walk in your gods-given destiny, and they will be your servants. I only need your blood to mingle with theirs to produce the synthetic vampire-turning venom.” He tilted his head to the side, and for once, I saw the lack of humanity behind his robotic smile. “The bounty on your head, and your demise by the Order will serve as a beacon to the uprising. You will be a just martyr to this cause for freedom for all.”
I drifted in and out of consciousness, and it seemed that I was almost floating.
Alistair, I called.
Elm removed the feeding tube. “Just imagine what the world will be like once the Order is gone. All of the supernatural bounty free to explore and exist. And your death by the Order will be the first shot in a long war.”
After mixing my blood with some he’d collected from the women, I watched him insert a needle into his arm.
“Now, you need only to say those words. I can drink the blood, and it will be all good and done. I can then become a real man, too.”
I rocked my head back and forth. “That’s only fiction. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just a romance writer.” Glancing around the room, I tried to scrutinize the space to find something I could use as a weapon. This golem was like none from mythology, as if he’d collected data from interactions to create a personality.
Once Bitten: A Vampire Urban Fantasy Mystery (Order of the Dragon: Wolf's Den) Page 16