The Undead Heart (#1 in the Blood Thirst Series)

by Stephanie Jackson

  “Did the vampyres show up in your village?”

  “Yes, about three weeks after I became a hunter. I killed the vampyres that had caused the trouble in all those villages. Our village didn’t lose a single person,” he said proudly.

  “And your children?”

  Shane smiled. “They all lived long, happy lives. I didn’t leave the village until they had all passed away, most of them from old age.”

  “Any regrets?”

  He sighed and said sadly, “Only that I had to watch my children die. It’s not supposed to happen that way. Children are supposed to bury their parents, not the other way around.”

  She couldn’t agree more, but at least he hadn’t had to go through what Darian endured.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  She’d talked to all the vampyres and hunters, all of them except one.

  “Potter, why did you become a hunter?” she asked as they were sitting at the edge of the creek with their legs dangling over the drop.

  Potter smiled. “You’ve known me all this time and now you want to know why I became a hunter?”

  “Yes, I really want to know.”

  “Well, the village where I lived was fairly large, and we were starting to take heavy losses from vampyre attacks. I never lost anyone personally, but I understood that the vampyers had to be stopped. A group of men, me included, had already started to hunt the vampyres that were attacking our village. We did the best that we could, but the odds were against us. We knew what we had to do, but our human bodies weren’t up to the task.

  “No matter how hard we tried, we just couldn’t stop them. Every few days, someone else would be lost. I watched a vampyre pick a man up and crush him like he was nothing. To the vampyres, we were nothing. How could we fight against a creature like that? We were fighting a battle that we couldn’t possibly win. Then one day a familiar showed up in our village.

  “He told us that his master had an offer for us. Once we became hunters, we would have the ability to not only sense and track vampyres but also the ability to defeat them. I’ve told you the story of our creator before, but you wanted to know why I became a hunter. I would have to say that I chose to become a hunter to save humanity from the monsters, to keep humans at the top of the food chain,” Potter explained. “Plus, I loved to fight.”

  With tears in her eyes, she said, “I love you, Potter.”

  “I know you do. I love you, too. Stop worrying about me. I’m not going to die. I’m the best, remember?”

  “Second best. I seem to remember you getting your ass whipped by Richard.”

  He laughed. “Fine, second best then, but I’m still good enough to get through this. Hell, I’m looking forward to it. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten to kill a vampyre. Now I’m going to get to kill a whole shitload of them.”

  She was glad he could laugh about it. Her nerves, however, were stretched to their limit. They had one day left before Elderson’s clan was supposed to descend on them, and no one but her seemed to be concerned about it.

  “Do you know what I’d really like to do right now?”

  “What would that be?” he asked.

  “I’d like to get, tore up from the floor up, drunk.”

  “You can’t.”

  “I know. I’ve never even been drunk,” she admitted. “I don’t even drink.”

  It was true. She’d had a total of two beers in her entire life, and she hadn’t finished either one of them.

  “No. I mean you literally can’t. You could drink a barrel of whiskey, and you’d never get drunk. You could do all the drugs you could get your hands on, and you would never get high. It’s a hunter thing, and it sucks. Most of us are Irish for Christ’s sake. If we’d known beforehand that we couldn’t get drunk anymore, half of us wouldn’t be here today,” he laughed.

  “You can’t get drunk at all?”

  He shook his head in mock sadness. “Not even a little buzz.”

  “Wow! That does suck. I guess it doesn’t matter for me, though. Since I was never a drinker, I won’t miss it.”

  “How did you manage to be twenty-six years old and never have been drunk?” he asked dumbfounded.

  “That would be Bev’s fault. She snuck out of the house when she was seventeen and went to a party with her boyfriend. She came home so drunk that she couldn’t find her keys to get back in the house. I woke up to her knocking on my bedroom window, which doesn’t sound so bad, except that my bedroom was on the second floor. Her drunk ass had climbed up our tree, and was trying to balance herself on the end of a limb.”

  “So, Bev fell out of a tree and that made you never want to drink?”

  “No. She didn’t fall out of the tree. I got her through the window before that happened, thank God.”

  “Then what was the problem?”

  “Well, I got her in the house, undressed her, and put her in bed with me. That was my mistake. I was fourteen years old and didn’t know what happened to a drunk person when they close their eyes. She said something about the room spinning, and then she threw up on my head. I had to wash my hair three times to get the smell of whiskey and bile out of it. After that, the smell of booze always made me gag.”

  He smiled. “So you spent your whole life sober? That’s so sad.”

  “You know, there are worse things than being sober, like a pack of pissed off vampyres coming after your family.”

  “You need to stop worrying about it.”

  She frowned. “How am I supposed to not worry about it?”

  “Because, you can’t change it. Whatever is gonna happen is gonna happen. You sitting around pulling your hair out about it isn’t going to change a goddamned thing, Beck.”

  “That’s comforting.”

  “Look, all I’m saying is that you can’t fight scared. We’re in a fight or flight situation. We’ve decided to fight, so you’ve just gotta let that flight shit go. And you have to let it go right now, because they’re coming,” he said, and jumped to his feet.

  ***

  She felt the vibration in her head a moment later, and knew Potter meant that Elderson’s clan was coming right now. They were a day early! She jumped up when she heard the sound of the hunters running down the path towards them. They jumped over the creek, sailing ten feet over her head before they hit the ground running.

  “Let’s go, Beck.”

  Potter was halfway down the path before he looked back at her.

  “Beck?” he asked in confused voice.

  She knew he wanted to know why she was still standing there. She didn’t know. She knew she needed to go to her family, but she couldn’t make her legs move.

  “Beck?” he asked again, running back to her.

  It was all crashing down on her now. Some, maybe all, of the people she loved were about to die. They were going to die, and it was her fault. She’d had the opportunity to let Potter kill Elderson the night of Mary Ann Nichols murder, and she hadn’t taken it because she’d been so sure of her own plan to kill Elderson in 1888. She could’ve stopped this then, and she hadn’t done it. And why?

  So she wouldn’t change history? It had been a stupid decision, and Elderson was here with an army because of it. She was in this state of mind when Potter reached out and slapped her. She was instantly angry, and without thinking, stepped into him and landed an uppercut to his chin. She felt his jaw break under her fist. He jumped away from her and pushed his jaw back into place.

  “Right! Just like that, only do it to them! Now, LET’S GO!!” he said, and took off down the path again.

  She had no problem following him this time.

  “You hit me!” she yelled when she caught up to him.

  “I’ve seen it on T.V. before. If a person is in shock, a good slap to the face can snap them out of it. I must’ve missed the part where the person you slapped springs forward and breaks your jaw, though,” he laughed as they burst into the backyard.

  “You hit me first.”

  He smiled at
her when they jumped over the house and landed in the front yard. “Stop being such a baby.”

  All the hunters and vampyres were waiting there. “What are you two fighting about now?”Richard asked, wrapping his arm around her shoulders.

  Potter gave her a pleading look, but she ignored it.

  “Potter hit me.”

  Potter’s freshly healed jaw dropped in shock when Richard turned to look at him.

  “I had a really good reason,” he explained pointlessly.

  “I don’t care,” Richard said. “You know I’m going to beat the shit out of you when this is over, right?”

  “Yeah, I figured as much,” he said, and then glared at Beck. “Tattletale.”

  “I know,” she replied, sticking her tongue out at him. Beck could feel Elderson’s clan getting closer. “How long do we have?”

  “About three minutes,” Richard said.

  “Where’s Bev?”

  “In the basement,” Leso answered. “I told her to stay there until one of us comes to get her.”

  She thought it was cute that Leso really believed Bev was going to stay put. She had no doubt that Bev would slip out of the house when the fighting started. She’d like Bev to stay where she was safe, but wasn’t naïve enough to think that it was actually going to happen. Bev would fight. This was her family, too.

  Beck looked up at Richard. “What’s the plan?”

  They’d known that Elderson’s clan would be coming, but hadn’t really discussed what they were going to do when they got here.

  “Kill them. The plan has always been to kill them.”

  “I like it,” Beck said. “It’s a good plan.”

  “Hunters!” Potter yelled. “Take your places!”

  She watched as all the hunters disappeared into the woods.

  “What about them?” she asked, pointing at Christov and Séamus.

  “Elderson already knows about them,” Potter said. “He saw them through his familiar, so he’ll be expecting to see them.”

  “What about the vampyres he doesn’t know about yet?” she asked. “Shouldn’t we spread out?”

  “Elderson’s clan is traveling in a group right now. If we break apart, they will, too,” he explained. “I want all of the fighting to happen right here, where we’re in control. I don’t want to give them any reason to separate.”

  She could feel that Potter was in full battle mode now. She could also feel how excited he was about it. There was not a trace of fear in him. She wished she could say the same for herself, but she was scared shitless. She wasn’t afraid for herself, but for everyone else. She looked around the yard and saw everyone saying, possibly, their last goodbyes, and it broke her heart.

  Richard said, “They’re almost here.”

  She could feel the vibration in her head getting stronger. “I love you,” she told Richard when Potter turned to hug Jenny.

  “I love you too, Little One. Don’t worry. Everything is going to be fine.”

  “No. It’s not, and you know it.”

  He pulled her closer to him and kissed her.

  “You could go in the house and wait with Bev,” he whispered in her ear.

  “You could sprout wings and fly around the yard, but that ain’t gonna happen, either.”

  “I didn’t think so. It’s too late now anyway. They’re here,” he said, and turned, putting her slightly behind him.

  ***

  Her fear and anger snapped into focus when she saw Elderson and his minions walking down her driveway just as bold as brass. There were only a handful of female vampyres in his clan. That made sense to her. To Elderson, women were nothing more than victims, something to be played with, and disposed of when he was done.

  She would bet money that the few women that were in his clan were mates to some of the males. Elderson would never give that kind of power to a woman. She could feel strong anticipation coming from the trees. Potter wasn’t the only hunter excited about the impending battle. Elderson’s clan came to a stop ten yards in front of them.

  “So, it’s true,” Elderson said to Richard. “You are no longer a vampyre.”

  “No. I’m not,” Richard said coldly.

  “How did you do this?” Elderson demanded.

  Richard glared at him. “Why the hell would I tell you that?”

  She watched from behind Richard as he and Elderson stared at one another. She could feel the rage bubbling under the surface of Richard’s skin.

  Elderson shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. Just hand over your little time traveling female and no one else needs to die here today.”

  She’d had enough. “Why don’t you kiss my little time traveling ass?”

  “Your female needs to be taught some respect, Richard,” Elderson growled.

  “She has plenty of respect,” Richard said. “Just not for you.”

  “Do you even know why we’re here today, little girl?” Elderson said condescendingly.

  “Oh, I know exactly why we’re here. We’re here because Richard is a decent man, and your brother was a troll who liked to hurt little girls in alleyways, just like you like to mutilate women on the street. What did your parents do to the two of you to turn you into such monsters?”

  Elderson roared, “Don’t you ever talk about my brother!”

  “Don’t raise your voice to Beck,” Leso hissed.

  She hadn’t heard a vampyre hiss in quite some time, and it caught her by surprise. She spun her head around to look at Leso.

  Elderson took her surprise as fear. “What’s wrong, Pumpkin? Afraid of your own people? Did you just realize that the ‘monsters’ aren’t only standing in front of you?”

  “She has no need to fear us,” Leso replied.

  Elderson ignored Leso and turned his attention back to Richard.

  “This is your last chance. Hand over the human, and I give you my word that we’ll leave your clan in peace. Your female’s life for the life of my brother. Is that not a fair trade?”

  “No, it’s not,” Richard growled.

  Potter smiled at Elderson. “We don’t have any humans to hand over to you anyway.”

  “Do not play with me, hunter! Give her to me!” Elderson demanded.

  Potter smiled again, taunting Elderson. “No.”

  She could feel that Potter was enjoying himself. This was like foreplay to him.

  “Come to me,” Elderson commanded, catching her gaze.

  Beck looked at Richard. “Is he trying to mesmerize me?”

  He nodded. “Yes, he is.”

  “That doesn’t work with me, but I’ll tell you what. If you want me so badly, then come get me,” she challenged.

  Elderson didn’t move.

  “No? How about if I meet you halfway?” she said, walking out into the empty space between the two clans.

  Elderson turned to the vampyre to his left. “Bring her to me.”

  “What’s wrong? You can’t come get me yourself? I am just a frail human after all, right?” She could tell that the vampyre he’d given the order to was thinking the same thing.

  Elderson pushed the vampyre towards away from him. “Get her!”

  The vampyre stepped away from his clan, and toward her.

  “Why are you taking orders from this lunatic?”she asked the approaching vampyre.

  “He is my master. He gave me new life.”

  “He may have given you new life, but he brought you here to die. You’re nothing to him.”

  “Do you really believe that your clan has a chance of killing me?” the vampyre asked her incredulously.

  She shook her head. “No, they’re going to kill everyone else. I’m going to kill you.”

  “You are a human. You are of no danger to me.”

  “That’s the kind of thinking that got you killed today.”

  He reached for her. “I’m not dead, bitch.”

  She grabbed his wrist, jerked him toward her, and drove her knee into his thigh, breaking his femur. She ja
bbed her elbow into his back, dropping him face first onto the ground. From there it was easy to reach down and tear his head off.

  She tossed his head at the of Elderson’s clan. “You are now.”

  “What is this trick?!” Elderson bellowed.

  Richard smirked, “Things aren’t as they seem, are they Royal?”

  “What is she?” one of Elderson’s clan asked. “She is not a vampyre.”

  “Nor is she a hunter,” Elderson said. “She has a scent, and she is female.”

  “Well, I guess you’re left with a magical fucking mystery,” Harley laughed.

  She did a quick head count of the vampyres across from them. There was forty-five. Elderson had brought them all.

  Elderson ordered, “Kill everyone except Richard and his woman!”

  The hunters descended before Elderson’s clan could do more that twitch. They exploded from the woods, and launched themselves from the treetops. It was like watching acrobats at a circus, only instead of landing in a net, the hunters landed, battle ready, on the ground, and surrounded Elderson’s stunned clan

  “It’s a trap!” one of the female vampyres screamed. The fear coming from Elderson’s clan was almost tangible.

  “We didn’t invite you here, so how could it be a trap?” Potter asked.

  “You have been hunting us for over a hundred years. We knew this day would come eventually,” Richard said. “Did you really think we would be unprepared?”

  Elderson ignored Richard and turned his attention to the hunters instead. “You cannot protect them! You are supposed to kill vampyres!”

  “Oh, believe me, we intend to,” Damon smiled.

  Elderson looked desperately at his clan. “We still outnumber them.”

  “But master, they are hunters!” one of the male vampyres cried.

  Bruce smiled. “I don’t think your clan likes their odds anymore.”

  “Attack!” Elderson roared.

  Another member of his Elderson’s clan pulled what Beck assumed to be his mate closer to his side. “Wait! We don’t have to do this. We can give you Royal and be on our way.”