Chasing Shadows (A Shadow Chronicles Novel)

by Christina Moore

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you Mark?” she said as she turned to face him again. “You want to get hard, I know you do. You want to see how jealous Saphrona gets watching another woman make you come, don’t you?”

  Mark lowered his head toward hers, and I saw from her profile that Evangeline was smiling, thinking she’d won a victory over him. Over me.

  “The next time I get hard—the next time I come—it will be while I’m making love to your sister,” he said when his lips were but an inch above hers.

  Angered, Evangeline squeezed his private parts. Mark’s jaw clenched, but he made no noise of protest. When she took notice that she still wasn’t getting what she wanted out of him, she screamed and began slapping him.

  Mark still didn’t make one sound.

  Evangeline growled and reached down to pull from her boot a knife that I hadn’t even noticed was sheathed there.

  “Evangeline, no!” I said. “Don’t do it. Don’t hurt him.”

  She turned to me. “Or what?” she said with a sneer. “What are you going to do if I hurt him?”

  She emphasized her words by jabbing the end of the knife into his leg. Blood welled and ran down it in a bright crimson line, and all three vampires—myself included—who were conscious inhaled deeply at the scent of his blood.

  “Are you going to curse?” She jabbed the other leg. “Scream at me?” She jabbed his stomach. “Swear vengeance? Tell me I’ll never get away with it?”

  With each sentence she jabbed the knife into him at a different place, deep enough that blood began to fall but not deep enough to do real harm. Mark now had five tiny fountains of blood pouring down his skin. Evangeline stuck out her tongue and wiped first one side, then the other, of the blade of her knife on it, then curled her tongue inside to swallow the blood. She shivered as if she’d just gotten a narcotic hit (not an erroneous analogy, given what dhunphyr blood did to a vampire), then she leaned into Mark and licked up the trail that led to just over his right nipple.

  “He tastes so good,” she purred, then licked up the other four trails as the wounds closed.

  I hissed loudly, once again straining against my bonds, desperate to be free of them.

  As she stood from cleaning his legs she rubbed his crotch again. “Of course, those wounds are already healed, and now there is no more unless I cut you again,” she said. Then she looked over at me. “Do you think the stories are true, Saphrona? The ones that say dhunphyr are like vampires in that they can regenerate from mortal wounds?”

  A knot of dread formed in my stomach.

  “Vangie, don’t,” I pleaded. “Don’t do what you’re thinking of doing…please.”

  “Please?” she said with a harsh laugh. “Now you ask a favor of me? Well, I’m so very sorry to disappoint you, Saphrona, but I don’t do favors for traitorous bitches like you.”

  Vangie looked at Lochlan. “What about you, dear brother? You’ve been rather quiet these last few minutes. Are you also going to ask a favor of me? Are you also going to beg for his life and the life of our sister? Because certainly even you know that if I kill one of them, the other is going to die as well. Or are the stories true? Will he reanimate in three days like Father will?”

  Lochlan looked sideways at me for a moment before answering. “I don’t know if he will,” he said slowly. “There is still so much we don’t know about immortal humans. But no, I would rather not find out at the expense of his life or Saphrona’s. Please don’t do it, Evangeline.”

  “How very…diplomatically spoken,” she said after a moment. “But not good enough.”

  I watched with horror as she raised the knife and plunged it into Mark’s heart.

  *****

  A scream the likes of which I had never heard before erupted from me as the knife pierced his skin. Mark’s breath caught in his throat, and I watched helplessly as the light of life faded from his eyes. His head fell forward and his whole body sagged as he hung in the chains limply.

  “You’re dead!” I screamed hoarsely. “I swear by all that is holy, I am going to kill you!”

  Evangeline laughed. “I seriously doubt that, sister. Have a nice life—what’s left of it.”

  Leaving the knife lodged in Mark’s ribcage, she began to sashay her way across the room. As she reached for the knob on the door Martin had passed through not half an hour before, I was finally able to pop my thumbs out of place, and I jerked my hands free of the chains that had trapped them. Ignoring the pain or the fact that my thumbs were all but useless being out of joint, I launched myself across the five or so feet that separated me from my sister.

  Evangeline was startled, but only for a moment. As I slammed into her and we fell to the floor, she locked her hands around my throat and squeezed.

  “I don’t know how you got free from those silver chains, but it won’t do you any good!” she hissed, rolling us so that she sat astride me.

  As I was gasping for air, I took the opportunity to slam my hands into the concrete floor, painfully forcing my thumbs back into joint. I then reached up and tried to force her hands apart.

  “I’ve had his blood more recently than you have, Saphrona,” Evangeline hissed in my face. “I’m stronger than you are now.”

  “Maybe…you have,” I gasped, “but not nearly…as much as me!”

  I lifted my leg and kneed her as hard as I could in the back. She ignored me and held on, but after I repeated the move several more times, she growled fiercely. Removing one of her hands from my throat she began punching me in the face, but it was enough to relieve some of the pressure on my windpipe and I sucked in a lungful of air. I kept up with the knee kicks to her back and kept one hand clamped on the wrist of the hand that still held my throat, while I jammed the heel of my other into her elbow with all the force I could muster.

  Evangeline screamed as her elbow shattered. She held the injured arm close and lifted the other to punch me again, but because she was no longer holding my upper half down I was able to throw her off of me. I rolled away from her, rubbing my sore throat for just a moment as I breathed more freely, then I launched myself at her again. Vangie evaded my advance, swinging her good arm at my back as I breezed by. The blow caught me off guard and I went sprawling.

  She used the seconds it took me to get up to straighten her broken arm, but she did not have time to see if she could use it, as I was rushing at her again. She gave her mad laugh then, which irritated the hell out of me, and even though she slipped away from my arms, she did not escape the kick I threw out as I spun back to face her. My foot caught her in the side right above her kidney and she howled in pain, her knees beginning to buckle. I clapped my hands together and brought them down on her back, the blow pushing her flat to the floor.

  “Get her, Saph!” Lochlan crowed, cheering me on. “Show the bitch who’s a better vampire!”

  Evangeline rolled over and kicked up with her right leg. The blow glanced my hip but wasn’t hard enough to knock me off balance; I lifted my foot and stomped on her stomach. My opponent grunted, expelling her breath in a whoosh; as I brought my foot down a second time she grabbed it and yanked hard, and I fell again. I tried pulling my foot away, but even one-handed her grip was strong. I knew she was trying to break my ankle as I had her still-useless elbow, but I wasn’t going to let that happen. I rolled onto my left side since that was the foot she held, and I brought my right foot down on her forearm again and again until she let me go, rolling away from her to get back on my feet again.

  Vangie had rolled back to her feet as well; she bent over into a crouch and ran at me, aiming for my midsection. Sidestepping to avoid being head-butted in the stomach, I seized her by the neck as she started past me, pulling her up straighter and swinging myself around so that her head was hanging backward over my shoulder.

  “No, sister! Don’t!” she gasped.

  “You showed no mercy, so you shall receive none,” I replied coldly. “From this day forward, I have no sister.”

  With those harsh words
spoken, I jerked down with both hands, snapping Evangeline’s neck in two. Her body went limp immediately and I threw it on the floor like so much garbage. I stared down at her, my heart frozen, my chest heaving, and then as the rage returned to me I kicked her forcefully. Then I kicked her again, and again, and again, kicking until I was spent.

  Tears spilled from my eyes freely as I turned and looked over at Mark’s still form. I walked over to him, feeling numb, and lifted his head so that I could see his face. His eyes had fallen closed and his lips were already turning pale as the blood drained away from his head. I leaned forward and softly pressed my lips to his, squeezing my eyes shut as I pulled the knife free. I choked on a sob as I turned away from him again and walked back over to where Evangeline lay. I knelt down, thrusting the knife into her throat and feeling no remorse whatsoever as I proceeded with the bloody task of cutting her head off. I certainly had the strength to remove it with my bare hands, but I thought using her own knife, the knife she had killed my love with, a bit of poetic justice.

  “Saphrona,” Lochlan said when my task was done, “come let me free. We have to help Juliette.”

  After I had kicked Evangeline’s head across the room, I walked over on auto pilot and helped Lochlan free himself from his chains. When that was done, I turned and started back over to Mark, but he took my arm to stop me. “Saph, you can’t help him now,” he said quietly. “But Juliette may still be alive, and she needs us. We’ll make quicker work of those bastards if you go with me, you know that.”

  He was right—Peter and Martin still needed to be dealt with, if Juliette were to be saved. I nodded stiffly and followed him out of the room.

  *****

  When we had exited the basement, Lochlan and I immediately heard the sound of Juliette screaming from somewhere above us—the second floor, I thought. Part of me was glad that she hadn’t given up, that she was still fighting.

  My brother and I raced toward the source of the screams, flying up the stairs almost as if they didn’t exist. We found the two men and Juliette in the third room on the right-hand side. Juliette was tied to the bed and Martin was atop her, while Peter stood next to them watching and laughing.

  His laughter, of course, abruptly ceased when Lochlan and I burst into the room. My brother launched himself at the vampire who was currently forcing himself on Juliette, rolling him off the bed with his arms locked around his ribs. I took the other one. Peter wasn’t much of an opponent. I exchanged a few blows with him but he was no match for me, not in the state of mind I was in. I had his arms torn off in seconds, followed in short succession by his neck being broken.

  I turned at a loud noise. Lochlan had done me one better—he had actually ripped Martin’s head off, and he roared in triumph as he threw it across the room. Seeing Peter’s head was still attached, he moved over to him and gave him the same treatment.

  I moved to the bed to free Juliette from her bonds. I looked her over quickly as I pulled the blanket up and wrapped her in it; thankfully, they had not re-broken her arm or broken anything else. She was, however, bruised up and in pain, and I knew that the psychological ramifications of what had been done to her were scars that would take much longer to heal.

  She trembled as I pulled the blanket together over her naked form, sobbing as I placed an arm around her shoulders and drew her to me. Lochlan wisely stayed across the room, but he watched us, a look of pain on his face.

  Juliette quieted after a moment, and looking up at me she said, “Where’s my brother?”

  A sob caught in my throat and tears welled in my eyes as I recalled that gut-wrenching moment when Evangeline had thrust that knife into Mark’s heart.

  “Saphrona, where is he?” she asked again. “Where’s Mark?”

  “He…” I closed my eyes, but that didn’t work. I just saw that horrific moment again. “He’s… he’s d—”

  I dropped my face into my hands, sobbing. I couldn’t say it—couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that the most amazing thing in the world that had happened to me had been taken away in a split second.

  “Mark is dead,” Lochlan said quietly. “Evangeline stabbed him in the heart.”

  Juliette shook her head. “No. No, he can’t be! He’s—he’s an immortal human! The dragon lady said so! He’s supposed to be immortal!”

  I sniffled loudly, wiping at my eyes roughly as I said, “He may still be. There’s a chance he’ll come back like the stories say.”

  She looked at me. “Then there’s a chance! If the part about dhunphyr living forever was true, surely that must be true, too, right?”

  “Unfortunately we can’t be sure of that,” Lochlan said. “But I promise you we will do everything we can for him—because by God, I don’t want to be having to attend two funerals, let alone one.”

  *****

  Lochlan and I carried the bodies of Diarmid and Mark up from the basement and laid each one in a large, comfortable bed, our father in his own room and Mark down the hall. Juliette placed a call to her mother and asked her to come over to help tend Mark, and Lochlan told us he would go to the blood bank. He planned to get enough blood for both men, because Mark would possibly need the transfusion if he did indeed wake up. Loch also said that having human blood ready for when Diarmid woke would be better than having a ravenous vampire on the loose. The bodyguard Lochlan had staked with a pen had also been moved to a room to recover, and of course some of the blood would be for him, too.

  As for the bodies of the four dead vampires, we took them out to the large fire pit that had been built in a corner of the back yard, piled them all up, and allowed Juliette to throw the match. The fire they made blazed tall and bright, and no doubt Diarmid’s neighbors would have questions about what we were burning back there.

  After Lochlan had left to go to the blood bank, Juliette and I were alone in my father’s house. Because she still needed something to wear, I took her up to Evangeline’s room, and told her to take whatever she wanted. About the only good thing to come out of that horrible morning so far was the discovery that she and Evangeline were exactly the same size—so at least she didn’t have to spend the day wandering around wrapped in a blanket.

  I left Juliette to her fishing from Evangeline’s closet and went down into the room where Mark had been placed. He was clean of the blood that had been spilled and his dignity had been restored by having his clothes put back in place (except for his shirt, which we never did locate). I lifted the edge of the blanket I had covered him with and crawled in beside him, laying my head on his shoulder and my arm across his cooling chest.

  “Don’t leave me,” I whispered as I began to cry again. “You probably can’t hear me from wherever you are, but I’m talking to you anyway, and I’m begging you—don’t leave me, Mark. I love you and I need you. If you’re gone for good then you’ve taken a huge part of me with you, and I may as well die too, like the stories say. I can’t live in this world without you.

  “Come back to me. Please come back to me.”

  *****

  For three days I laid by his side, day and night. I neither slept nor ate, no matter how many times Lochlan, Juliette, or Monica encouraged me to do so. I only took one transfusion of blood through an I.V., because I’d been shot, and I never got up except to use the bathroom. Then I was right back in the bed beside Mark.

  At some point on the second day, Lochlan or Juliette had gone to my house and retrieved Moe and Cissy. I thought it was part of their attempts to lure me out of the bed, but it didn’t work. In fact, the Chihuahuas were content to lay in the bed beside me or down by my feet, wishing only to be near me. I found only small comfort in their presence, but I was still glad to have them close by.

  I couldn’t bring myself to do anything other than lay there beside Mark’s still form, holding him and talking to him like I was trying to urge him out of a coma. I was grieving and desperate, and I didn’t want to let him go. His love had been a beacon in the night for me, and had shined all too briefly
. He had not even been a part of my life for a week and already I had lost him. It wasn’t fair.

  What had I done to deserve this? I wondered. Was it really so wrong of me to have wanted as normal a life as possible? Was it wrong for me to turn my back on my father for abandoning my mother when she had needed him the most? Could I have been more welcoming and caring toward Evangeline—had I done so, would she then have become so full of hate that she had concocted a plan meant to ruin me? What could I have said or done differently to prevent all of this? Could I have prevented any of it, or had it always been meant to happen this way?

  Well, if it had, then it sucked, royally. Again I thought of the unfairness of it all, wondered at the injustice of introducing such love and happiness into my life, giving me a future with someone, something I could look forward to, only to rip it violently away just days later, right when I had begun to grow accustomed to his presence. I saw then how even the most devout person could question their faith in a God that would allow such devastation to occur. I did not want that, did not want what was left of my soul to be tarnished by anger.

  But then what was the point? Why did it matter if I was angry? Perhaps God had rejected me because I was part vampire—maybe we were soulless beasts after all. Maybe my torment was my Hell, and I was damned to live this way for the rest of my life. It would be so much easier if I could just get it over with, if I could just die, right here next to the man I had loved with every fiber of my being in only a few short days. If I was dead, then I wouldn’t wonder, I wouldn’t be angry, I wouldn’t be afraid, I wouldn’t be in this horrible, body-numbing pain, with only my grief and six pounds of canine to comfort me.

  If I died, I knew my animals would be taken care of. I wasn’t worried about them at all. I could only think of how much pain I was in without Mark, and how much worse it would be if regeneration proved to be one of the stories that weren’t true. My grief was eating me up inside, and however much I wanted it to end, it seemed that I would not get my wish…that it would just go on and on, forever.