Chasing Shadows (A Shadow Chronicles Novel)

by Christina Moore

  I nodded. “When Juliette is well, we’ll have to have you over for dinner. The circumstances then will be much more ideal.”

  Monica nodded, then leaned forward to kiss my cheek as well. “Take care of my children for me,” she said softly. Next she moved over to her husband and took his hand. When she started for the back door, he went automatically.

  “He’s gonna be alright?” Mark asked when they had gone outside and she had shut the door behind them.

  I nodded. “He’ll be fine. He might recall that she had a hard time reaching Juliette, but he won’t remember going out to look for her. I’m sure she’ll think up a plausible explanation for everything.”

  He scoffed. “She’s sure had a hell of a lot of practice lying to him. What’s one more?”

  “Mark, you saw your father,” I pointed out. “He was not handling the truth well at all. Beguiling him was for his own good. Best that he not remember that Juliette nearly died tonight.”

  “Which of us will do it?” Lochlan asked.

  I turned and walked over to the couch, kneeling beside him. “Well, the natural choice, I guess, is me, since I don’t produce draculin at all.”

  “But will you be able to control yourself enough not to kill her?” Loch returned. “Mark’s the first non-animal you’ve tasted in many years, and we’ve already surmised that your control with him may be related to your bond.”

  “Are you saying you think Jules will taste like an animal, and that because of that Saphrona won’t be able to stop?” Mark asked, coming to stand at my side.

  I glanced up at him, then back at my brother. “I have no idea what she will taste like, but I am fairly certain that my doing this is less risky than Lochlan doing it.”

  Loch studied my expression for a moment and then nodded. He reached under the blanket and gently pulled Juliette’s arm out, passing it over to me. I held her wrist before my mouth in much the same way I did when I drank from Mark.

  “Forgive me, sister,” I whispered, then bit down.

  *****

  When Lochlan smelled that Juliette’s blood was clean, he reached over and grasped her arm tightly enough to cut off the blood flow. When it registered that I was no longer drawing blood through the bite I stopped drinking, and became gradually aware of my surroundings. And when I realized that it was Juliette that I had been feeding from, I all but threw her arm away from me, backing away from the couch on all fours.

  “What have I done?” I breathed fearfully.

  Mark knelt next to me. “It’s okay, Saphrona. You didn’t lose control of yourself—you were only drinking to get rid of the drugs in her system. Remember?”

  I nodded. “Sorry. Sometimes it takes a minute.”

  He frowned. “You’ve never reacted this way with me,” he said curiously.

  “Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but you mean more to me than she does,” I replied. “Lochlan, is she okay?”

  My brother nodded. “Aye, she is well. And I believe that her body is already healing faster than it was a few minutes ago. You’ve done well, Saphrona.”

  He turned to look at me then. “At risk of sounding crude, what did she taste like?”

  I frowned. “Are you serious?”

  “Come on, dear sister. You cannot blame me for being curious, as you denied me the privilege of aiding her recovery,” Lochlan returned.

  “Loch, you’ve also aided in her recovery,” I said scooting forward again. “I’m sure you’re been very diligent in treating her wounds.”

  Lochlan looked down at Juliette’s face, which, although still pale, was already getting some of its color back. “Aye, and I won’t lie and say it was not without difficulty to see all that blood and not take a taste of it. But I did not wish to disrespect her that way. She’d already been violated enough.”

  I nodded. “Her blood was strong—animalistic. Not as domestic, for lack of a better word, as a cow or a pig, yet not as predatory as a wolf or a bear. And even though I was caught up in the feeding frenzy, I didn’t enjoy feeding on her. The drugs made her blood very bitter.”

  “A shame,” Lochlan muttered, then he stood. “Come, sister. Let us get her cleaned up, dressed, and in a bed.”

  I stood with him. “I’ll take it from here, Lochlan. You’ve already seen enough of her nudity. Imagine how horrified she’ll be when she finds that out.”

  Though he seemed reluctant to acquiesce, Lochlan nodded, and then grinned. “And I simply cannot wait to tease her about it mercilessly,” he said lightly.

  “Great,” Mark groaned as I reached underneath his sister’s knees and shoulders and effortlessly lifted her into my arms. He tugged on the blanket to try and cover as much of her as he could. “We’ll never hear the end of this.”

  Although I grinned as well, when I looked down I noticed there was blood on the couch. Noting my gaze, Lochlan promised me he would clean it like new. I nodded, and then turned to carry Juliette up the stairs and into the bathroom.

  After setting her gently in the tub, I took the blanket off, removed the few bandages Lochlan had put on, and turned on the water, bringing it to just above room temperature. I then took a washcloth out of the linen closet and came back with it, kneeling beside the tub to get it wet and soapy so that I could clean the blood from her face and body. Juliette stirred as I wiped away the blood but did not wake. I noted that her wounds were already healing, the bruises and cuts fading gradually.

  When she was clean, I lifted her from the tub and carried her to the spare bedroom, where I was met by Mark. He pulled the blanket down so that I could lay her on the bed, and then turned his gaze away as I reached to pull it back up to her chin.

  “Lochlan said he gave her a shot of morphine when he first brought her into the house, because she had some broken bones he had to reset,” Mark said quietly.

  “Which means she’s probably in pain right now because I drank it out of her with the other drugs,” I observed.

  “He left to go get some more morphine and an I.V. kit. He said she would need it for the next twenty-four hours at least.”

  I nodded and then went to retrieve the single chair that was in the room so Mark could sit by the bed with his sister. When I gestured for him to sit he shook his head, telling me to sit down. Then he left the room, returning shortly with the chair that had been in our bedroom. He placed it next to the other one, so we sat down together to keep vigil over Juliette until Lochlan’s return.

  Back to Top

  Seventeen

  We sat in silence for some time, our hands twined together on Mark’s leg, as we waited. Every so often Juliette would moan softly, and Mark’s face contorted sorrowfully.

  “I wish there was something I could do for her,” he said softly.

  I gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “Mark, you are doing something for her, right now,” I told him. “You’re here, supporting her with your love.”

  “But what if it’s not enough? What if she dies?”

  Shaking my head, I glanced over at Juliette’s still form, her pretty face marred by a slight frown even though she still slept. “She’s not going to die. Her blood is free of the drugs and her heartbeat is strong. I am sure that Juliette will be fine.”

  He looked at me. “Then why hasn’t she woken up?” he countered.

  I smiled lightly. “I’m fairly certain it’s because her body needs time to heal, and all of us heal better when we’re asleep.”

  Mark thought about that for a moment and then nodded. “I feel so helpless, just sitting here,” he said after a time. “I want to go out looking for the son of a bitch who did this to her, but I can’t because I haven’t the faintest clue where to begin.”

  I sympathized with his desire for vengeance—I felt the same way. I was angry because Juliette had been hurt, and I was angry that she had been used to get to me.

  “Do you remember earlier when we talked about how this was an indirect attack against me?” I asked, and Mark nodded. “Well, I was just thi
nking that as pretentious as it sounds, it must be true. I mean, whoever did this dumped her in my driveway. How would they have even known to bring her here unless this is about me?”

  Then suddenly another idea hit me, and I looked at Mark with alarm. “What if it’s about you?” I breathed.

  “What do you mean?” he said with a frown.

  I squeezed his hand again. “Mark, think about it. Juliette was driving your truck. The person that did this might have been following it thinking it was you behind the wheel.”

  He nodded. “Okay, maybe at first, but anyone with half a brain would have realized fairly quickly that it wasn’t me—Juliette’s almost a foot shorter than me,” he said. “And besides, it’s like you just said: they knew to bring her here. So either they were waiting out on the street for the truck, or they ambushed her somewhere else, and they either tortured the address out of her or they already knew where you lived.”

  I sighed and nodded as I looked again upon Juliette’s sleeping form. “It scares me that the person or people behind this know where I live. It scares me that they were willing to burn down the barn and kill all the animals, that they were willing to kidnap and brutalize your sister, all just to mess with my head. If someone is mad at me, why not just come at me directly?”

  “Probably like you said, to mess with your mind. And they know you’re a lot harder to kill than a helpless farm animal, or even a shapeshifter.”

  “I’m easier to kill than you think, Mark.”

  I felt his eyes on me, and so I turned to face him. His expression was slightly alarmed, and I could see in his eyes that he was both concerned and curious about what I had said. I realized then that with everything I had explained to him about vampires and hybrids, I’d never really talked to him about how we could be killed.

  “How can you be killed?” he asked slowly.

  I took a breath and glanced down at our joined hands. “Vampires and their hybrid offspring are similar in that things like bullets and stakes and stabbings won’t kill us—at least not permanently,” I began. “If the wound is a mortal one, we do die, but over a period of three days our bodies will regenerate, and then we wake again. Best not to have a human or an animal nearby unless you want them to die, as a vampire waking from regeneration is ravenously thirsty, and generally royally ticked off. Having a few pints of blood waiting and within reach is a pretty good idea because it will help slake the thirst and calm the vampire down.

  “If anyone wants to kill us permanently, the easiest method would be to chop our heads off. Since no one can get away with carrying a sword under their coat, a bullet to the brain or a stake to the heart will immobilize a vampire long enough for beheading, or being set on fire. Now, if the vampire is not somehow immobilized, he or she can put out the flames, so if you want them dead, just setting a vamp on fire won’t do. Shoot or stake him somehow, then throw a lighter or a lit match, or if you want to be creative, take the body to a crematorium and put it in the incinerator.”

  Mark shook his head. “Good grief,” he murmured.

  “Oh, there’s more. You can always lure the vampire out during the day to make him or her fall asleep, which can also immobilize, or you can shoot the vamp up with dead blood or some other poison if you want to make him suffer a while before you kill him.”

  I paused for a moment to collect my thoughts, then after taking another breath, I plowed forward. “Most injuries a vampire suffers heal almost instantly. Same is true for my kind and yours, as you well know. However, depending on the severity of the injury, we can scar. You know this, too, because that wound to your neck is proof. With vampires and hybrids, being shot only leaves a scar if the wound is devastating. A stake will scar, fire scars and so can burns, and silver will scar a full vampire.”

  Mark’s eyebrows rose. “Silver? Why silver?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Some of the more religious-minded vampires think it’s because Judas Iscariot accepted thirty pieces of silver to betray Christ to the Romans. They think he was the First. But then that doesn’t jive with the theory some others have that Cain was the first vampire,” I said.

  My bondmate shook his head. “Okay, Judas I get—they even used that theory in a movie ‘bout ten years ago. But Cain? As in the one who killed Abel?” I nodded. “Why him? What do they base that theory on?”

  “Cain was a vain man who killed his own brother in a fit of jealous rage. The theory is that the punishment he received from God for the heinousness of that act was to forever walk the Earth thirsting for that which he had spilled.”

  “Which would mean that all vampires would be his descendants, right?”

  I nodded again. “The ones who follow that belief also think Judas was a vampire, just not the First. He was descended, so they say, from one of Cain’s children.”

  “What about dhunphyr—my kind? Do you think what you wrote about them in your books holds true now that we know I really am immortal? I mean, all that stuff about regenerating when we die?”

  I looked over. “I don’t see why not. I wrote that character and his history based on what I had been told about dhunphyr when I was growing up, and if the part about them being immortal is true maybe the rest of it is, too. Like you said, the stories had to come from somewhere, so I can only assume that at some point in the past, a vampire met and got to know an immortal human or two and passed on what he learned.”

  At that moment I sensed a supernatural presence approaching, and I tensed. When one of the doors opened downstairs Mark and I both rose, but were soon set at ease when we heard Lochlan’s voice calling out to us. Seconds later he had raced up the stairs and joined us in Juliette’s room, where he gestured us out of the way and moved to Juliette’s side. He set his medical bag down on one of the chairs and opened it, pulling out two bags of fluid, one fuller than the other.

  “Mark, be so kind as to fetch me two nails, please,” Lochlan asked as he next pulled tubing out of the bag, as well as some needles. Mark nodded and walked out of the room as Lochlan pulled back the blanket.

  He turned to me. “You didn’t dress her?” he observed.

  “I thought it best to move her as little as possible,” I replied. “I didn’t want to exacerbate her injuries.”

  Loch nodded slowly. “A wise precaution, all things considered. The blanket is thick enough to keep her warm, not to mention her species’ own proclivity to high body temperature.”

  He then turned back to Juliette and looked down at her, currently naked from the waist up. “’Tis a shame that someone damaged such exquisite beauty,” he said softly, taking hold of her left arm and lifting it gently, pulling the blanket back into place with his free hand. Loch then moved to the end of the bed and pulled the blanket back from that end.

  “What are you doing?” I asked as he reached into his bag yet again for what looked very much like a puppy training pad.

  “Let us not make her suffer from the indignity of wetting the bed,” he told me, then directed me to help by gently lifting her hips so he could place the pad underneath her. I then set her down carefully and fixed the blanket as he went back to work with his medical equipment.

  He was inserting the I.V. needle into a vein in the back of her hand when Mark returned. After taping the tube into place, he took the nails from his outstretched hand, eyed a spot on the wall, and then pushed them into it with his thumbs. He hung the two bags on the nails and connected them to the tubing that led into Juliette’s hand, then adjusted the flow of the medication from the bags. Once he was sure that the medication was moving through the tube and through the I.V., he turned to us. “There now. That should settle her quite nicely for several hours.”

  “What’s in those bags?” Mark asked.

  “One is morphine, like I said I would bring. The other is a simple saline solution to prevent dehydration.”

  Mark nodded. “Do you think she’ll regain consciousness soon?” he asked.

  Lochlan glanced back down at Juliette. “I cannot
say for certain, as she is the first of her kind I have treated in many years. But let us hope that she does, that we may learn something about what happened to her.”

  “And then we can go after the son of a bitch,” Mark said.

  My brother looked back at him. “Aye. That we will do.”

  *****

  After the three of us had relocated to the kitchen and had settled at the table with drinks, Lochlan looked at me and said, “Think, Saph, think really hard: do you know anyone who would have cause to do you harm?”

  So he recognized that the situation had something to do with me, I mused. Well of course he did—Loch was no idiot. He hadn’t survived for the last three hundred years on his good looks alone.

  I glanced at Mark for a brief moment. “We were just talking about that before you came back. I swear to you Lochlan, I honestly don’t know. I mean, for goodness’ sake, I gave up about ninety percent of our world when I left my Coming of Age! I set up this farm more than a hundred and sixty years ago so I could avoid having to use humans for blood, and I have done my damnedest to keep my head down and my nose clean so that the Ancients wouldn’t have any reason to be concerned with me.”

  My brother contemplated my words with his hands clasped together against his chin. “Then it has to do with Vivian Drake,” he said at last. “Someone connected with her doesn’t want you to find out who she is. Hell, for all we know, she’s the one behind this.”

  I wanted to burst into fits of hysterical laughter, I really did, because he was so damn far from the mark with that one. Like I would really set my barn on fire and kill all but five of my animals. Like I would really have my bondmate’s little sister kidnapped, beaten and tortured.

  Something in my expression must have given away the tenor of my thoughts, because Loch narrowed his eyes at me. “What is it?” he asked. “You know something, don’t you?”