Blood Rite Saga, Season One Box Set

by Dylan Keefer

  “What do you mean?” Mei asked.

  “C’mon,” Gregory snorted. “Do you really think that it would be announced to the vampire world that a half-blood bastard girl was running around, and the King had bedded a human? It would have divided the Dominion and made us look weak. No. Only a few privileged were allowed to know. Obviously, myself, since my brother helped him. And the King’s family.”

  This wasn’t fully registering for her. Was Gregory telling her that no one in the Dominion knew she existed? She pointed outside.

  “You have a hundred vampires out there.”

  “They obey orders,” Gregory said. “They don’t ask questions. If they’re told to kill, they kill. That’s end of story. They don’t care who you are.”

  “And why are you telling me this?” She crossed her arms. “You’re going to kill me. Why let me know this now?”

  “Because I’m not going to kill you. Not yet,” Gregory said. “See I need to know exactly what is inside of you.” He pointed to her chest. “I saw you that day in the field. You are not just a half-breed. You’re a hybrid. You’ve got power. And I want it.”

  Mei sneered. “But your orders were to kill me. Wouldn’t you be punished for disobeying orders?”

  “I said I wouldn’t kill you yet,” Gregory nodded. “I’m also waiting for your friends to arrive to try to save you. I want you to see them die.”

  “She’s a Summoner,” Mei said. “You won’t win.”

  “She’s still mortal. She can still die.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Father Moore’s car sat idle as the three surveyed the mass of vampires outside of the house.

  “I don’t see Mei,” Clayton said. “Either she’s hiding somewhere, or she’s—dead.”

  “If Mei is who you say that she is?” Father Moore said. “Her death is not the one you should be worried about. Madi, the three of us need to defeat a hundred vampires?”

  “I don’t have a plan for that, Father. I’m a witch, but I still bleed, and my bones break.” Madi closed her eyes. She wondered if her mother was okay, and Lucas and Laura. She was even worried about Lucas; which was serious. They couldn’t just wait. She looked at the two men. “Sometimes, you gotta go without a plan. Just stay alive.”

  With that, she opened the door and stepped outside. Father Moore and Clayton were right behind her. The Fallen started to sniff around in the area. They smelled new blood. Her blood. It was enough to make them sick with nausea. Madi wasn’t going to waste time. One of the vampires saw her and started to run towards her.

  ”Aistiraha!” She yelled at the vampire, and his body seemed to snap mid-run as he crumpled to the ground. The other vampires saw what was going on and turned to see Madi walking towards them, and they attacked.

  Mei heard commotion outside of the house, and she hoped that it wasn’t her friends. She looked at Gregory. “I’m not giving you anything.”

  She ran towards the door, but before she could, Mei was grabbed by her hair and yanked backwards down the hall. She stood up and glared at Gregory.

  “Be a good little girl and stay put.” Mei ran at him again with fangs out. Gregory was quick. Very quick. He threw her into a wall and followed up with several punches and hooks that put her down again. “Tell me about your power. Is it that necklace?”

  “No!” Mei said. She lunged at Gregory; ducking his fist and tackling him in the process. The walls shook as they wrestled against them. Gregory laughing every time that he put her down. Mei knew that unless something kicked in, she was going to suffer quite a bit.

  “Need some blood?” Gregory took her head and slammed it into Lucas’ bloody body. She could taste the blood. It was good. She wanted to keep drinking, but—not like this. Mei pushed him off her.

  The door flew open suddenly, and there appeared a red-head with blood covering her body. Gregory coughed as he smelled the terrible, poisoning stench.

  “Let her go!”

  Gregory made a throwing motion and Mei saw two metal objects aimed at Madi. She couldn’t tell what they were until they stuck in Madi. One blade hit her right above the knee, and the second one jammed itself just under her collar bone.

  “No!” Mei screamed as her friend fell to her knees. Gregory rushed to grab the fallen witch by her hair, careful not to touch her blood. He yanked a cord off a nearby lamp and wrapped it around the girl’s throat. Before he could use it to snap her neck, Mei tackled him. She grabbed the lamp in the process and smashed it on his head. Quickly, she grabbed Madi and took her into one of the bed rooms.

  Madi groaned as she pulled the blades out of her flesh and tossed them to the side. Mei felt nauseous from the smell of her blood.

  “Madi, you’re hurt.”

  “I can heal, but it’s going to take a bit. You’re going to have to fight him, Mei.”

  Mei shook her head. “I don’t know what I did back then. And he’s stronger than I am.” Madi sat on the floor with her back against the bed. She leaned her head back and sighed.

  “Mei, I’ll make it easy on you. I’ll kill her softly.”

  “Go to hell,” Madi yelled. She looked at Mei. “You need to drink my blood?”

  “What! I can’t. I’ll die.”

  “You won’t,” Madi said. “Trust me. Please.” Mei looked at Madi. She felt sick just being near the blood. Her whole body felt like it was cramping up.

  Gregory kicked the door open. Madi held out her hand. “Fan!” Gregory couldn’t move. The strain in his face was evident as he pushed forward. Madi grunted. “I can’t hold him long, Mei. You need to trust me on the blood. I love you, and I wouldn’t hurt you.”

  Mei knelt beside her friend. Gregory started to move a little. Mei cold feel herself wanting to throw up and pass out. “I don’t think I can keep it down even if it doesn’t kill me.”

  “Do it, Mei!” Madi yelled. Mei closed her eyes and thrust her fangs into Madi’s neck. The witch’s back arched, but she kept the spell going. Gregory continued to move forward inch by inch. Mei drank. It burned her throat, and she felt like her insides were on fire. Every bit of her felt like this was the vilest thing that she had ever taste, and yet, she wasn’t dying. Mei stopped drinking. Something felt familiar. That fire burning in her made her tremble. She felt hot and cold, weak and strong.

  Madi’s hand fell, and she passed out. Gregory surged forward. “Fan!” Mei yelled and put her hand up. Gregory came to a halt again. His eyes widened as Mei held a wavering hand up. She was still on her knees by Madi. Her forehead was sweating. Her throat still burned. Everything ached, but she felt some power building up in her.

  “What is this!” Gregory growled. His eyes grew wide as Mei turned to him. She slowly stood up and straightened her body with an audible crack.

  “You wanted to know about my power.” Mei took a step forward. “Well, here it is.”

  “You touched her blood—the blood of a Summoner! You should be dead.”

  “I’m not like you remember,” Mei said. “I’m not like the Dominion. I’m a half-breed bastard. Isn’t that what you said?”

  Gregory growled. He body strained against the spell Mei had cast, but this time he couldn’t budge. Mei took her hands which were covered in Madi’s blood. “I’m gonna make this easy for you.”

  “Serge is alive!” Mei stopped. Her hands were merely seconds away from contacting his face. His eyes fixed on hers as if waiting for her to touch him.

  “You’re lying,” Mei said. Gregory laughed.

  “Am I? Why would I lie about my brother being alive? He’s my brother.” Gregory smiled. “I know how to find him.”

  “Mei?” Madi’s voice interrupted her. Mei turned to see Madi struggling to stand. “What are you doing? Kill him!”

  “Kill me, and I promise you’ll never find him,” Gregory said.

  “He won’t help you,” Madi said. “He’s trying to kill you!”

  “You tried to kill him yourself,” Mei said to Gregory.

  “The King and Queen ru
ling now have a son. You kill them, and he takes over. You aren’t going to be able to walk in there and do anything. If anyone will be believed, it will be Sergius.”

  “I don’t want to take it over,” Mei said. “I want to stop them from trying play God.”

  “You can’t. You won’t. Not unless you assume the throne, and you don’t have what it takes,” Gregory said. “You think you have power? This is bigger than you can imagine.”

  “Kill him!” Madi yelled.

  “And you would help me find Serge?”

  “Yes,” Gregory said. “because he is the only true family you have left. Don’t you want to…”

  A bloody hand reached around Mei and reached for Gregory's neck. Mei released her hold on him and grabbed Madi's hand before the witch could touch him. In that instant, Gregory vanished out of the room.

  “No!” Madi yelled. Mei turned and tried to chase after him, but the front door was open, and he was gone.

  “Why did you do that?” Madi cried limping out of the room.

  “What if he was telling the truth?” Mei questioned. “What is Serge is still alive?”

  “The serpent told Eve some truth, too,” Madi countered with a slight growl. Mei stood for a moment trying to process this new information and what it could mean. Serge? Alive?

  Madi felt weak. She had left Clayton and Father Moore outside with the Fallen. She didn’t know much about the Guardians, but she did know they could fight, and as a full Guardian, Father Moore had some special skills that she had never seen. They were handling the situation, and she had needed to get to Mei.

  Now, as she stood outside, she saw the street was empty. It was silent.

  “Where is Clayton?” Mei asked as she stepped beside Madi. Madi shook her head.

  “I don’t know.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “You’re injured.”

  Clayton lay against the same tree that Father Moore did. Both of them were out of breath, beaten, and bruised. Madi had run into the house, and they hadn’t seen her since. Of course, they had been preoccupied. Both of them had stood in front of the porch with their backs to the house, and angry vampires just waiting to rip them apart.

  “Just how are we supposed to fight a horde of these things,” Clayton had asked. Father Moore looked at him.

  “You really haven’t gone full guardian, have you? I forgot what that was like.”

  “I know how to fight, and I can defend myself against one, but,” he looked out across the yard, “all of them?”

  Father Moore nodded. “You will have to coax it out of you. You have power.” Clayton watched as the priest clenched his fists and closed his eyes. A shockwave of power seemed to resonate from him. Clayton wasn’t the only one who felt it. A chorus of growls came from the horde. Father Moore opened his eyes. They were completely white. He was no longer the priest.

  As if both sides were alerted to begin, Father Moore charge the vampires, and they him. Clayton pulled out a couple of wooden knives and crouched down in attack mode as a few vampires attacked him. He wasn’t sure what Father Moore wanted him to tap into or how, and he didn’t have time to think about it. He threw the first dagger into the chest of one of them and slashed at the throat of another. Clayton felt hands grab him and throw him to the ground. His head hit the ground so hard that he thought he heard an audible crack. A white light flashed in front of him. His mind immediately went blank until he saw images flash through his head—images of Mei. She was standing in front of him. Her fangs were out.

  “Mei, what are you doing here?” The other vampires were behind her. All of them were starting to surround him. Mei didn’t answer. She looked at him with a bloodthirsty glare. Clayton backed up a step as she moved forward. “Mei, snap out of it? We need to defeat these things. We figured out how to help you. Where’s Madi?”

  Mei’s hand came from around her back. Clayton’s heart dropped as she held up the severed head of the witch by the hair. Mei opened her hand and let the head drop to the ground and roll towards him. Clayton shook his head. This couldn’t be real.

  Mei lunged at Clayton, and he caught her hands as they went for his neck. His muscles trembled as he held her there. Her teeth snatched at him, and suddenly, an anger built up in him. She was evil. No matter how much he loved her, she was nothing but evil. There was a darkness inside of her, and he couldn’t wish it away. The anger grew and suddenly, he could feel his strength growing. He began to push her back. Everything inside of him wanted to rip her head off her body and rid the world of this evil. She had to die.

  Clayton’s hand reached for Mei’s head and snapped her neck. With that snap, the other vampires descended. It felt like their bodies were coming at him in slower motion. He grabbed his wooden daggers and stabbed chests one by one with a growing anger and hate. Each kill seemed to fuel him more as he felt evil dissipating.

  “Clayton!” Clayton felt himself being pulled out of his anger. He blinked several times. Father Moore was down on a knee in front of him. He was bleeding from his side. “We need to get to some cover.

  Clayton surveyed the yard. There were a lot of dead vampires. A few of them retreated in the distance. He looked at the house and then at Father Moore.

  “Did I really?”

  “No! Help me up!” Clayton helped the priest to his feet, and the two of them ran behind the house to a wooded area nearby.

  “What happened to me?” Clayton looked at his hands. They were trembling.

  “You tapped into your vampire hunter powers. Your powers are fueled by pure anger at evil in any form, but particularly by your evil love,” Father Moore said. “You saw her, didn’t you? You saw yourself killing her?”

  Clayton nodded. “I couldn’t stop. I had to kill her. It was like, if I didn’t, I would die.”

  “And you very well, might.” Father Moore groaned. “You’re going to have to kill her. Every hunter has a choice, and it is either, life as a hunter or death.”

  “That’s not a fair choice though. What about redemption?”

  “Evil is evil. Evil cannot be redeemed,” the priest said. “People can, but she isn’t a person, Clayton. She looks like one and lives like one, but she isn’t.”

  “Evil can be—be good though.”

  “Listen to yourself,” Father Moore sighed. “Clayton, I’m not telling you that you shouldn’t choose her. I’m just saying that if you do, you will die. This is Eve in the garden with the apple all over again.”

  Clayton leaned his head against the tree. They could still hear vampires in the distance. They hadn’t killed them all. Clayton wasn’t sure that he wanted to go after them with all that he knew about being a hunter. If this was a choice that he had to make, he didn’t want to defeat evil. He didn’t want to hate evil. If Mei was evil than he wanted to choose her. But in choosing her, he would choose death.

  “I don’t want to say goodbye to her,” Clayton said. Father Moore looked over at him.

  “You are sure about this? There is no turning back once you have turned from the path of a hunter. You may not die tonight, but death with come for you.”

  Clayton used his hands to push against the tree and help himself up. “I guess that death and I will have that conversation when the time comes.” He looked at the wound on the older man. “What can I do for you?”

  “Nothing. Your friends will find me. I’m sure that the witch will be able to do something.” Father Moore smiled. “I can’t say that I agree with your decision, but I do hope that God goes with you. Somehow, I believe that your story isn’t going to end anytime soon.”

  Clayton stepped away from the tree. He nodded to the priest and turned to jog vigilantly out of the wood.

  Mei, I’m sorry, he thought. Maybe one day you can forgive me and understand why I’m leaving.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Madi stepped out of the back seat of the Uber car with Mei sliding over and climbing out the same way. The rain was cold. At least, it wasn’t pouring like it had been ea
rlier. Washington D.C. left very little to be desired. While the history and politics surrounding them was interesting, Mei wasn’t in the mood to be bothered by it. She was here for one reason, and one reason only.

  “I’m not sure I can do this?” She whispered causing Madi to stop walking. Madi turned around and grabbed Mei’s hand.

  “What do you mean? What’s wrong?”

  “What’s wrong? A lot.” Mei couldn’t begin to wrap her mind around the craziness in her life. Finding Father Moore alone had immediately triggered something inside of her. Clayton wasn’t there. Worse than being dead, he had chosen to leave her rather than let her help him come up with a solution.

  “There was no other choice,” Father Moore said. “I know this.”

  She couldn’t believe that, but either way, he had left her. While Father Moore wanted to help, he knew he couldn’t. Deep inside, Mei was still an evil that needed to be destroyed eventually.

  So, it was just her and Madi, who swore that she was in this till the end. And that meant finding the one person who could help them in all of this.

  Mei ran her fingers over her necklace, and then abruptly unclasped the chain and shoved it into her jeans pocket.

  “I want to see him first,” she said. “I want to see who he is before he knows it’s me.”

  “He’ll know it’s you, Mei. You look the same,” Madi said. Mei nodded.

  “But you could change what he sees temporarily, right?”

  Madi sighed. She looked around and ran her fingers through her hair. “You have ten minutes,” she conceded. People were walking by the front of the bar, but not paying attention to the two women standing in the drizzling rain. Madi wrapped Mei up in a hug and closed her eyes. Mei heard her whisper, “visus circumventionem erroris.” Mei, then felt her lips on the vampire’s cheek before the embrace was broken.

  Mei walked into the bar and immediately was smacked in the face with the smell of cheap cigars and greasy food. Two men and a woman played pool off the side. Almost every table or booth was full. Two drunk girls sang into a microphone on stage and were cringeworthy at best.