The Vampires of Soldiers Cove: Progeny

by Jessica MacIntyre

  “Alex,” I yelled. “Did he say anything to you?”

  Alexander violently shook his head back and forth. In that moment I made a snap decision that changed my life forever. Leiv was the only person who knew what had happened. He was our only clue to finding Jade and also the love of Alexander’s life. For those two reasons I made the decision I did. I released my fangs and prepared to drink. I had to ingest some of his blood for this to work, hopefully what little he had left would be enough.

  “Go be with Gavin,” I said. “Look for Jade. Don’t stop looking.”

  Alexander hesitated. My eyes darkened in anger at the refusal to hear what I was saying. “Go!” I screamed.

  Snapping into action Alexander jumped up and left the room. I lowered my head to Leiv’s neck and pressed my mouth to the strip across his jugular that was continuing to gush. His faint heartbeat stopped all too soon and I pierced my wrist hoping it would work. “Please, Please, Please,” I whispered as I held the wound to his mouth. “For god sake take it. Please!”

  There was a slight quiver from his lips and then a groan. He turned his head away at first as if repulsed by the blood, but I bit down again and forced my wrist to his mouth. Once the blood hit his tongue that was it. The taste excited him, and he drank heavily, a slave to it now, as we all were, and as he would be for the rest of his days.

  Leiv’s body shook violently upon taking the last swallow and his head fell down onto the floor splashing in the blood as it did so. The room spun, the red splatters against the white wall started to blend together as my vision blurred. A deep and desperate cold feeling settled into my body as I felt myself go limp. I collapsed on the floor next to Leiv as the ceiling seemed to close in around me, the spilled blood seeping wet and sticky into my clothes and staining my skin.

  “My god, Rachel,” I heard Gavin’s voice say from somewhere off in the distance. “What have you done?”

  Chapter seventeen

  I woke up in my own bed, wearing a clean nightgown after having been washed clean of the blood I’d fallen in. Upon waking my head swam with confusion as to why everyone was looking at me. Gavin, Holly, Alex and his parents were staring down at me with concern. Angus was there too but his face was a twisted mix of distress and frustration.

  “Jade?” I said, sitting up.

  Gavin said nothing. In fact, nobody said anything. “Gavin, where is Jade?”

  “We don’t know,” he said finally. “We’ve been looking but there’s no sign of her.”

  “How can that be?”

  “Kenzie is gone too,” I heard a familiar voice say from across the room. I hadn’t realized Duncan was there as well until he’d spoken up.

  “He took her didn’t he?”

  “Aye,” Duncan said, softly. “It looks that way.”

  “Why? What for? I don’t understand.” I looked at Holly who was staring out the window, absently rubbing her pregnant belly. I wanted to feel for her but right now my only concern was getting my daughter back. “Holly, you have to know something.” I sat up, pulling myself over to her where she sat on the edge of the bed. “Please, for god sake, you have to know something. We need her back. We have to get her back.” I was hysterical.

  “Everyone is out looking,” Gavin said.

  “How long have I been out?”

  Gavin pulled me over to him and away from Holly. “It’s only been a day. You have to feed now. We have blood for you.”

  “I don’t want any blood,” I screamed. “I want my daughter!”

  “Easy there girl,” Angus said. “We’ll find her. For now there’s the matter of your feeding and the matter of your new progeny. I know it’s the last thing you want to talk about but I’m afraid I must insist.”

  In my panic over Jade I had completely forgotten about Leiv. “Oh my god. He made it? Is he awake?”

  “He seems fine. He has another two days to go in his transformation sleep, but he’s resting well. Rachel, I’m afraid you’ve committed a very serious offense.”

  Gavin bolted from the bed, springing on Angus and pinning him in the corner. “You bastard,” he said. “You’re a pathetic excuse for a leader, do you know that? You were willing to see me staked for crimes you knew I didn’t commit and now you’re going to punish Rachel for doing the only thing she could. What was she supposed to do? Let him die? Leiv might be able to tell us something. Anything is better than nothing at this point.”

  John got between the two and separated them. “Gavin, back down. Don’t go saying things you might regret later.”

  Gavin’s voice grew into an irate snarl. “Trust me, that’s the least of the things I’d like to say to him.”

  Wobbling slightly I stood, going to where the men were standing and said, “Look, Angus, do what you have to do with me, but for now I just want to find my daughter. You can put me in the ground if you want but don’t take it out on Leiv. Where is he?”

  “At the sanctuary,” Angus said.

  I was overcome with an instinctive need to see and be near him. “Take me,” I said.

  ***

  I took a seat on the chair next to the small bed where Leiv lay sleeping peacefully. “Do you think it will be a normal transformation?” I asked Holly. “He lost a lot of blood before he took mine.”

  “All signs point to yes. The most important thing is that he took yours once his was all gone. He should be fine.”

  “Good.” I reached down stroking his soft black hair feeling the connection we now shared. It was similar to what I felt for my children, and yet different. I was Gavin’s progeny and the connection was strong, but with Leiv I had that connection plus a fierce desire to protect him. I instinctually wanted to be with him, to watch over him. To me, the large grown man lying in sleep looked as fragile as a newborn kitten. I saw him as helpless. I understood then the full extent of what Gavin felt for me and the way he treated me sometimes made absolute sense.

  Alex sat on the foot of the bed looking at Leiv, almost willing him to be ok. “Alex, I’m sorry,” I said. “I know you wanted this bond for yourself.”

  I did. But you saved his life. He’s alive and that’s all that matters. That and finding Jade.

  Forcing myself to stand and leave the room I took Gavin into the hallway alone. “Aries was right,” I said.

  He lowered his head, scowling with a sullen nod. “What do we do now?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. But I have a feeling the answer has something to do with this.” I pulled out the pendant Zale had given me. “Aries told me to keep it on all during Jade’s first year and I have. He told me I’d know what to do with it if the time came, but honestly, I have no clue.”

  “Maybe we should pay him a visit.”

  “I think I should go alone.”

  “Oh no. He has that hold over you, remember? You’re not pregnant and perfectly fertile. That’s not a risk I’m willing to take.”

  He was right. “Ok,” I said, “but let me do the talking. He’s afraid of you.”

  Gavin nodded. “With good reason.”

  I was hit with a wave of blood hunger just then and fell forward, Gavin catching me in his arms. “First things first,” he said. “We have to get you fed.”

  “No, just give me some of yours. We can’t waste time. We need to go to Aries.”

  Begrudgingly Gavin rolled up the long sleeve of his shirt and offered me his wrist. “As soon as we’re done with him, you feed. There’s a human waiting for you here.”

  “Later,” I promised. “Right now every second counts.”

  Chapter eighteen

  After a brief search we were once again face to face with Aries. He stood with his men, hands on the hilts of their swords as always, keeping their eyes firmly on Gavin. “For someone you profess to hate so much, bloodsucker, you sure come to me for help a lot.” Goading a vampire is never smart, even if you are surrounded by bodyguards. For now there was nothing Gavin could do. We needed his help, but Aries needed to learn to watch his mouth arou
nd Gavin because I could see by the look in his eyes that it would not take much for him to pounce.

  “Aries, don’t. I just need to know one thing, that’s it,” I said.

  “I’ll help you out any way I can, little one.”

  “No strings this time Aries. Jade is Ryan’s sister and if anything happens to her it will hurt him as much as us. I know you wouldn’t want him to experience that pain.”

  “Jade? Is that your girl child?”

  “Yes,” I said, “she’s missing.”

  Aries immediately dropped his smug demeanor, adopting one of concern. “Then it’s time to use the pendant.”

  “You told me last time I saw you that I should keep this on.” I pulled the pendant out. “That if anything happened to her I could use this to help in some way and that I’d know what to do. I need to help her but I don’t know what to do with it. Aries, you have to tell me. We have to find her and take her home… please.”

  “Come and sit down,” he said, motioning to a large boulder. I sat and he joined me. He raised his arm to slide it around my shoulders but Gavin caught it, stopping him. “Relax, Gavin. I’m simply trying to help. Do you want me to show her how to use this or not?”

  Gavin threw his arms in the air. “Fine. But I’m right here and one false move…”

  “I get it,” he said. Then, he turned, giving me his full attention. “Now, don’t be frightened little one. We’ll find your baby. This pendant is very powerful, and very rare. Vagitanus is the god of the newly born, and this pendant grants the child whose mother wears it at the time of birth special protection. Vagitanus watches over the child and he will show us where she is, all we have to do is ask.”

  “I don’t know how to ask. He’s your god not mine.”

  “When you became the mother to a satyr child, he became your god too. You may not live among us but you are no less than we are. You are part of us and we are part of you. Our gods know this and will know each of your children in turn. All of the ones that come from your body are linked to us and to him. Do you understand?”

  I nodded. “How can he help us?”

  “Like I said. Just ask and her location will be revealed to us. Take the pendant in your hand and think about your child. Think about the immense love that only exists between a mother and her young. It’s like nothing you’ve ever known is it?”

  “No. It’s not, it’s different.”

  “It’s the purest love to exist. Think about your child, Rachel. Focus on her face. See her as clearly as you can.”

  I did as he said. I focused on her big blue eyes. The thought of never seeing them again filled me with unbearable pain. Suddenly the pendant began to grow warm in my hand. The more clearly I saw her, the hotter it became until it was like holding a red hot coal. I felt the pendant burning my skin, searing itself into me, the heat clawing at my flesh.

  “Now,” he said. “Say, ‘show me’.”

  I took a slow deep breath and said the words out loud. “Show me.”

  Slowly something started to form in front of us. Some type of cloud, white and lit from within, swirled in a circular motion and then sat very still. “Say it again,” he urged.

  “Show me.” Soon an image began to form. Hazy and imprecise at first, but quickly turning bright and sharp from one moment to the next. All at once we were looking at the face of our little girl. She was crying. Screaming as if she was being hurt. I began to panic.

  Aries tightened his grip on me and strengthened his voice. “Don’t lose focus,” he said. “Your emotions are raw but you have to hold them back. We are simply observing this. It’s an image of things to come, not of things that are happening now.”

  The image kept playing and the shriek of Jade’s cry filled my ears. Gritting my teeth I pushed my emotions down with everything I had in me, trying to ignore my protective instinct.

  “Open it up,” he said. “Concentrate on making the image wider. Make it larger, make it fill this entire space in front of us until it blocks out everything else.”

  My hands were shaking. A pain so sharp and fierce ran through my body that it felt like the pierce of a sword. The sting of something similar to cold steel plowed through my center causing me to double over. Aries held me up by my shoulders, forcing my eyes back to the image. It was working. The white edges began to grow and soon the picture of Jade was sharp and large. She was in what looked like an old abandoned house, but as yet I couldn’t tell where. A moment later the image became so large that all of us were standing in it, as if we were there.

  “Look around,” Aries said. “Turn and look with your eyes as if to really see. Take stock of everything.”

  I stood, walking into the interior of the house. Jade was laying on the floor screaming. Kicking her legs and trying to roll over as if she was afraid of something and trying to get away. It was all I could do to resist the urge to go to her and scoop her up. She wasn’t real, but how I wished she was. Seeing her that way and not being able to snap her up made me feel helpless.

  Turning away I went toward the window. We were standing in what was clearly a rundown old house that looked like it hadn’t been lived in for a few years at least, and probably not well cared for during many years before that. The sink was rotting right out of the counter as it had been sitting underneath a window that was broken. Now the interior was exposed to the elements.

  The window itself looked out onto the front yard and from this vantage point I could tell we were still in Soldiers Cove. The house overlooked the pond and I could see it plainly. The remnants of what had been a large woodpile were a few feet from that. A tarp lay on the ground where once the wood had been covered and a few stray logs were scattered over the snow covered ground.

  I knew this place, but couldn’t recall it. My mind was clicking furiously trying to bring the memory back to the surface. It was something, not exactly in the recent past, but not too distant either. A smell, one of blood and lust, was in the air here. The smell of death and alcohol was strong too. For a moment I thought all of those things had to do with Jade, and then I realized that this memory was of a time before her. Before Ryan, too

  Then, like a freight train, the realization came roaring back, springing to life and flooding my senses. The death, blood, alcohol, lust. All of this from the night Gavin and I had given ourselves to each other for the first time after my turning. I had murdered someone in cold blood here to stop him from doing the same to his wife, who had left Soldiers Cove shortly after his disappearance.

  “It’s the old McLeod house,” I yelled. The image dropped away so fast it left me dizzy and I began to fall. Gavin flew to my side, catching me in his arms. I felt my stomach wrench up as I got my feet under me once again. “Let’s go,” I said.

  Before I had a chance to run I was being picked up. Gavin had me in his arms and he was running full out, the wind rushing by in a deafening roar as he sped through the woods and in the direction of the old place.

  When we were standing at the old front door he put me down. I stood but wobbled a bit before taking a step. “Maybe you should stay out here,” he said. “I’ll go see if she’s inside.”

  “No way. My baby is in there and I’m going to get her.”

  Knowing there was no way to talk me out of it he nodded and pushed the old broken door open, entering first, his arms enclosing me from behind in a protective stance. We were standing in the kitchen, in the very spot I’d just seen, but the only sound was that of silence. The timeworn floorboards creaked beneath us, making it clear that too much weight was not something they could handle. One false move may send us, and a good chunk of the floor itself, crashing down to the basement.

  I opened my distance hearing and listened. The familiar beat of Jade’s tiny little heart filled my ears. She was here, she was alive, and I almost had her. I tugged Gavin’s arm, motioning for him to follow me in silence as I went toward the sound. Her heart was steady and strong and it seemed, at least for the moment, that no harm had come to
her.

  The sound was coming from inside a kitchen cupboard and I quickly opened it up. Lying on her stomach in a nest of blankets was our baby girl, sound asleep. Gavin let out a sigh and looked at the ceiling in a gesture of what I assumed was a thanks to god, or whatever had led us here to her.

  Then, slowly and carefully he reached inside the dilapidated old cupboard to pick her up. His hands were almost on her when suddenly he was flying through the air having been thrown clear across the room. I turned my head to see him crash land into the sink, taking the entire counter down with him. Before I realized what was happening I felt someone strike me as well, sending my head to the side at a sharp angle before hurling me across the room myself, landing against the door, pieces of frame crumbling down around me as I lay on my back, stunned.

  “She’s mine,” I heard an angry voice say as a lone dark figure stalked toward me. I attempted to get up and defend myself but before I could do that, the figure was on me, his hands around my neck for a mere moment before throwing me down on the floor again, causing it to crack under the weight of my fall. A chunk of the floor broke away and I moved just in time to avoid falling with it, straight down into the darkness below.

  Gavin came up behind the man, arms extended in an effort to grab him, but at the last moment he turned and picked him up, the same way he had done to me, and threw him like he was a ragdoll sending him soaring, landing on the floor next to me.

  We lay there together, looking up now at Kenzie who was eyeing us with disgust and anger. Just then Jade began to cry. He scoped her up, her head flopping around, her tiny arms outstretched to me for a moment before he disappeared up the old staircase with her.

  Gavin and I immediately gave pursuit and zipped up the stairs, looking around. We found Kenzie sitting on the bed in the master bedroom holding Jade, a sharp knife to her throat and a bucket underneath her, his fangs extended, eyes darkened.