Cursed Relic

by Shawn Knightley

  I rolled my eyes and did something I never would have had the guts to do only a matter of years ago. I turned my back on him and headed out the door without another word. No appreciation, no formal goodbye, or even bowing my head. Orders may have been orders but I have been through enough for one day and just wanted to be away from him. And the constant reminder of my current state of being.

  “Georgeanna,” he said my name as I reached for the door to leave. “Are you certain you’re capable of doing this?”

  “If you think I’m not capable then why are you trusting me with such a task?”

  “Because you rarely fail.”

  “And I won’t start now. Even if Tobias has regained the trust of his coven, he put his faith in the wrong people.”

  With that, I opened the door and walked up the staircase. The bookcase moved as I walked down the torch-lit hallway and out of the manor.

  Liza was waiting outside by the gardens where the servants were picking a few fresh vegetables for the Matthew’s meals. I had the good fortune of forgetting she was even there until I saw her jump at the sight of me opening the door.

  She scowled the second she saw me.

  ‘I’m not exactly pleased to see you either.’

  “I know you’re not knowledgeable enough to know a lot about the way witchling law works,” I said to her. “But I’ve seen Edmund kill people for far less of an offense than the ones you’ve committed. If you overstep those boundaries again, I won’t hesitate to tell him.”

  She shot me a sarcastic grin without so much as a word.

  “Where were you nesting?” I asked her.

  “What?”

  “I need to know so I can get us there undetected.”

  “Just because I have to do what you say doesn’t mean we’re bunkmates.”

  “Actually, that’s exactly what it means. I can’t go home thanks to you.”

  “Thanks to me?”

  “Yes. That stunt you pulled along with Victor and the others received national attention. My apartment is probably swarming with federal agents and we need to place to rest so I can think. Among other things.”

  “What other things,” she said, finally moving away from the outside wall and begrudgingly taking a step closer to me. “Let me guess,” she said with a smirk on her face. Her bright red lipstick had cracked. Her blonde curls were nothing more than frizzy waves. I thought she might actually want to shower and make herself presentable again. But this little piece of sass was more interested in challenging me. I could sense her attitude radiating from her skin.

  “You really don’t get how this works, do you?” I said, removing the sword from my leather belt and letting the vixra magic inside me pierce through my skin. The blade came barreling out and I let the tip point directly at her throat, watching with glee as tiny red sparks lit up the very tip of the blade.

  Her first instinct was to back up into the wall and cower. Then she stared directly at the sword’s edge then back at me.

  “I’ll do as you say,” she told me with a smile that made me shift uncomfortably.

  ‘What is it with vampires and being able to look menacing without even really trying?’

  “I’ll take you to where I nest,” she muttered.

  I let the blade fall back to my side and backed up away from her.

  “Good. Form a mental image in your mind of what it looks like and I’ll open up a vixra tunnel.”

  She didn’t argue. Nor did she even ask what a vixra tunnel was. She had already been pulled through the one Edmund created but that didn’t necessarily mean she knew what was happening. Unless Victor had told her. Was she one of Tobias’s warriors? Did she know more than she was letting on?

  ‘I have to behave as though she does. Who knows what Tobias or Victor might have revealed to her. Or how old she truly is. She might know a lot more than I think.’

  I walked twenty or so feet away from the Matthew’s manor to a small opening and reached into the air, cutting it open with my finger as though I could slice through it with a knife. I reached for Liza’s hand. Not because I wanted to. But because she would probably fall or get lost in the tunnel without my guidance. Her skin was like ice. Not nearly as cold as Tobias’s touch. And yet, still enough to send a chill through my arms.

  I took a deep breath and stepped into the vixra tunnel, walking with caution as I made my way through it to the other side. I gracefully stepped out as Liza tumbled down and smacked against the dirt. She rolled into a nearby tree with a grunt and a groan.

  We were deep inside a forest back in the Rocky Mountains. Night had fallen over the treetops and the remaining birds nearby flew off the second they heard Liza rolling about until a tree stopped her.

  I took in my surroundings. There wasn’t anyone nearby. Only a building in the distance with white walls and a corner that looked as if it had exploded. There were lights on inside and part of it had been closed off with yellow tape.

  It may have been dark and I may have been a little out of it at the time but I knew exactly where I was.

  I closed my eyes.

  ‘Kitty? Kitty, I need you to find me. I think I’m in way over my head.’

  Liza brought me back to Gandira Corp. The lab that held both me and her captive for three days was only a matter of feet away. She led me straight into a trap.

  ‘Damn the vixra. Why do they keep making me work alongside traitors?’

  10

  Liza barely made it up to her hands and knees before I walked up to her and kicked her right in the gut. I could feel the vixra blood thriving inside my veins, pulsing through me with each beat of my heart and making me want to take that dirty little vampire by the neck and strangle her before the magical cord enslaving her got the chance.

  She crash landed into another tree. The tree trunk shook with the force of her body slamming into it. She reared up as though she was a horse and stood in a ready stance with her sharp fangs flaring out, shining in the pale moonlight through the sliver of tree branches above us.

  “I told you to take me where you nest and you bring me back to the enemy?” I hollered at her.

  I took the sword in my hands, activated it with the vixra magic in my blood, and swung it in her direction. Edmund could punish me later. I was ready to take this girl’s head right off of her shoulders.

  She turned around and moved faster than my eyes could see, slipping through the trees and running for the building with the side ripped to shreds. She stopped just before entering it and gave me a taunting glare. As if to say, enter if you dare.

  She was teasing me. Not a good idea. I was already on edge. And clearly, she had no clue what vixra blood could do inside a kruxa with a grudge and a reason to use as much magic as possible.

  I ran toward the broken pieces of the building and carefully stepped into what was once the lab where Dr. Foster stuck a needle inside me and drained my magic. There wasn’t really all that much left of it. One of the ceiling lights was flickering on the ground with wires dangling from the corner of the ceiling. Along with a few of his instruments.

  But the door wasn’t locked as it was before. It wasn’t even there. I stepped inside and listened closely for the sound that vampires make. The course sound of their victim’s blood running through their veins. There was no way of knowing how often our captors in the facility fed her. Was I on her meal list?

  I didn’t have to look far. She was only a few feet away from me.

  “You think you know what’s going on here?” she said, peering down at me from the broken pieces of the roofing. She was hanging off the side in such an unnatural way. Vampires did that sometimes, giving away hints that they’re not human. Or even mortal.

  “I know that you already disobeyed an order I gave you.”

  I pointed my palm right at her, letting the bright red light of vixra magic rip through my hand. She leaped into the air so fast that all I managed to do was blow away what little roofing remained of the small white room.

&nb
sp; “You don’t think Tobias knew where you were all along?” she asked, hanging with one arm from a nearby tree. Her eyes looked downright predatory. “It doesn’t bother you that he didn’t come looking for you? That he didn’t hunt with you? That he didn’t seem to care at all?”

  “How can I care about someone who doesn’t try to help me?” I shouted at her, not caring if there were still people inside the lab who might see.

  I shot more vixra magic in the sky and she struck the tree with her legs, lunging out of it before my magic could hit her only to reappear right behind me. I swung the sword directly at her and she dodged it. But not with ease. I narrowly missed her. I thrust it again only to miss by inches.

  She swept under my feet and tripped me. I went flying onto my back only to hear a familiar cawing sound soaring high above me. Kitty found me. Which meant that the building wasn’t terribly far away from where ever she had been hiding. Did she know where I was when I was in captivity? Was she waiting here for me? For some sort of sign. Or was the facility somewhere deep in the Rocky Mountains?

  Liza’s fangs were primed and ready to tear into my throat. She managed to get them half an inch deep before I forced my palm into her chest and shoved her away. I could feel the blood dripping down my neck as I hurried back up to my feet.

  “You knew,” I said to her even though I couldn’t see where she ran. I reached into my belt and pulled out the gun with the magic-laced bullets, ready to fire the second I saw her and cart her ass back to Edmund for him to deal with. “You knew Tobias was working with Victor all along.”

  I could hear her laughing. An eerie laugh that unsettled me and yet only made the anger inside my chest burn hotter.

  “Tobias was following Victor’s orders. As was I.” She reappeared behind me once more but too far for me to swing the sword with any hope of removing her head. But I had the gun. I pulled it up only to draw too slow. She snatched the gun out of my hand and grabbed me by the throat, digging her nails into the two holes she made in my neck only to see that they already healed.

  She held me in a headlock with the gun pointed just under my chin. She was strong. Much stronger than me. But she didn’t have vixra magic inside her. I let it burst from my entire body, creating energy that shocked me as much as it did her.

  She went flying through several trees before crashing to the ground. I knew I had stunned her. Maybe even hurt her. She stood up in the distance and I heard the awful snap of bone on bone as she popped her knee back into place then hobbled over to me.

  The floodlights came up and shined right over where I was standing. There were still people inside. People I knew would love nothing more than to capture us once more.

  “Victor knows about Gandira. As does Tobias,” she said to me, daring to walk right into the lights alongside me where she would be seen. “I was ordered to allow myself to be captured and to make sure you came with me. Victor knew where ever you were, he would be able to find you. Gandira has been kidnapping vampires for weeks to run experiments on us. They’re trying to find out our strengths. Our weaknesses. Anything they can. They even managed to catch a few that Tobias wanted back. Vampires he’s trained for over a century.”

  I shook my head, feigning disbelief.

  ‘Unfortunately for you, Edmund already got me up to speed on that part.’

  “Which part? The part where you were the bait?” a familiar voice said to me, stepping out into the bright light. His heavy steps broke through the thick grass and twigs on the forest’s floor. “You always were. And where ever you go I will be able to find you. Which made you the perfect tracer once you were captured to find out where Gandira was operating.” Victor stepped out from the darkness of the white building. He was a floor above the room I was locked in. But the wall was completely destroyed. He jumped down from the second floor to the dirt below.

  I held the sword in my hands, ready to take a swing at him if he got any closer. He stopped just far enough to where I couldn’t touch him.

  “Only I wasn’t expecting the vixra to pluck you out of there first,” he beamed. “I had a feeling you were something of an important asset to them. I was right. But that’s changed, hasn’t it?”

  Liza appeared next to him within a second and handed over my gun. Victor examined it in his pale hand before aiming it directly at my head.

  At first, I wasn’t sure which part to focus on. The fact that Victor could paralyze me instantly should he fire a round right into me or the vampires starting to appear from inside the building with blood staining their chins and shirts from a fresh feed of human blood.

  “He released them, nanna,” Kitty cawed above me. Hearing her voice in my mind nearly startled me. “He released all of them. Open a vixra tunnel. You have to get out of here.”

  ‘It’s not like I can answer you right now, Kitty.’

  “You’re glowing!” she shouted down at me.

  One look at my hands holding the blade and I could see red light piercing through my skin. When I glanced back up at Victor his eyes were entranced. It danced from my body and weaved around me. I could feel its power surging unlike anything else I’ve ever experienced. It was empowering the sword. And me. The vibration pulsated down my spine and begged for me to let it out. I took the sword and swung it at Victor, hoping my aim would be true and I’d take off his head. The few vampires standing behind him lunged in my direction but the red light of vixra magic running straight through me threw them off as if I had an electrical field surrounding me with a layer of protection.

  Victor dodged the blade. And even so, the red light coming out of the sword lurched toward him, extending my reach without even having to try. He barely missed the edge as I flew through the air and landed on the other side of him. When he looked back up at me, there was worry in his eyes.

  ‘Good. You should be worried. You caused all this to happen.’

  “What a good little slave you are,” he said. But not with his lips. His words penetrated my mind and stayed there, echoing as if we were standing in a large room where his words would bounce from wall to wall.

  I could feel the connection he created between us. He didn’t need to take over my visions anymore for me to hear him. I could reach directly back to him without saying a word.

  “As if you’re any different. You would do anything Tobias tells you to do,” I said to him in my thoughts. I knew he could hear me as I whipped the blade around and got ready to lunge for him again. The magic coming out of the tip was like a lasso, flying through the air to stab at anyone I aimed for. No wonder vixra found it helpful in hunting down vampires.

  The vampires from behind tried to stop me once more but the vixra magic glowing from my body pushed them aside again. They went flying into the nearby trees, breaking several of them in half along the way until they crashed back into the earth. I was completely protected.

  “That’s different,” he said. “I turned Tobias into a vampire. I made him what he is. And he became greater than anything I could have ever imagined. You, however,” he said as he ducked away from the blade and just barely missed the magic surging from the tip. “You are willing to die for those who despise you. You serve those who would have otherwise killed you if slavery hadn’t been a better alternative.”

  “The vixra see my worth. They wouldn’t have sent me to kill you if I wasn’t worthy of such a task.”

  “You’re clearly not. Because they sent you here to die.”

  I smirked at him. I wasn’t as fast as a vampire but with vixra blood inside me like this, I knew I could beat him. I had to. There was no other option.

  “Or is there another option?” he asked me, hearing the thoughts running through my head as I drove the blade at him again. He jumped up into a tree and knelt on one of the sturdy branches with one hand on the trunk, leaning down in an unnatural way that no human could ever do without falling.

  ‘You beast.’

  “You want to know. Don’t try telling me you don’t,” he hollered down at m
e. This time he spoke actual words so every single one of the nearby vampires could hear.

  I was surrounded. But with the vixra magic, they knew better than to touch me. It swirled around me with even more vigor, warning them to stay away. And as each second passed with Victor staring down at me a headache started to thunder inside my skull.

  “Get out of my head,” I screamed at him.

  “That’s not me, little kruxa,” he taunted me. “That’s the vixra giving you a death sentence.”

  I dropped the sword. The pain inside my head was getting stronger. It came on so suddenly that I wasn’t at all prepared. And not being prepared meant that the vampires around me might get the upper hand.

  My knees collided with the ground. I reached for the blade and held the handle tight in my hands, trying my best to thwart the pain thumping in my skull.

  ‘What in the world? What’s happening?’

  Victor jumped down from the branch and took slow methodical steps toward me. I reached for my head with both hands and dropped the sword as the pain started to creep throughout my whole body.

  “You’re dying,” he said calmly. “You just don’t know it yet.”

  I rolled over onto my back and saw the brightness of the stars through the few overcast clouds above us. They were too bright. Everything was too bright. I shut my eyes and groaned from the pain, resisting the urge to scream.

  “Did you ever wonder why vixra magic is green and yet the magic the vixra gave you to fight a short while ago was red? No, I guess you didn’t.”

  Liza was close by, smiling. I could sense her elation at watching me writhe around in pain.

  Something heavy slammed into my side. Victor kicked me right into a tree. I hit it hard, cracking at least a few ribs and preventing me from being able to breathe. Which did nothing to help the agony in my head.

  ‘Why am I not healing?’

  “When the vixra are about to die, their magic turns bright red,” he explained. “It’s a calling from the other side that their time in this realm is nearly done. And their elders are bringing them back home in the afterlife.”