The Zoey Chronicles: The Complete Collection (Vol. 1-4)

by Gray, Sophia

  His face looked better without a beard. His jaw was square and strong, and his skin was light brown, which contrasted beautifully with his blonde hair. As the sun shone, so did his luminous green eyes.

  He’d also told me about the effects of the sun on vampires; it didn’t affect us along as we didn’t go into what we called a ‘blood frenzy’. The moment we went into one of those, like I did, it started to burn our skin. I hadn’t realised, but I’d burnt my skin pretty bad when I’d gone to my school in search of blood. Galahad had had to rub lotion on the worst of the burns, which were on my neck and arms. His hands were firm as they massaged my skin, and the feeling sent surges of pleasure all over my body. I’d craned my neck as he did it, savouring his touch, and was sad when he’d finished.

  I walked across the grass and knelt down next to him. He pointed at the deer. He wanted me to kill it, to feed from it. There was a part of me that was disgusted by such a thing, the part that had imagined the deer’s life a few moments ago. But there was another part, a new, frightening part, that didn’t care. That part could smell the blood coursing through the deer’s veins, could see its meaty legs shifting ever so slightly as it ate, and could hear the pump, pump, pump of its heart.

  I stood up. My legs and arms felt strong, stronger than they’d ever felt before, and my senses were on overdrive. I could see details from trees miles away and discern the tiniest noise amidst a storm. My taste buds were much more receptive, too. Vampires still had to eat normal food to survive, so when Galahad had given me a chocolate bar that he had left over from his time in the town, I almost fainted with pleasure. The taste was like nothing I had ever tasted, except Jessica’s blood. It seemed to massage my whole body and envelope me in a blanket, and when I finished the sensation lingered for almost an hour.

  I examined the deer, deciding which part of the body to go for. I could tear out its neck, which would see it bleed out in a matter of minutes, or I could go straight for its heart. In the end I didn’t have to make the decision, because Galahad leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Neck.” His breath was hot on my ear, and that too sent surges of pleasure all over my body. I didn’t know if it was my newfound vampire receptiveness, or just Galahad himself, but what I did know is that when he pulled away from me I wished he hadn’t.

  I bent my legs and leaned forward, ready to spring across to the deer. There was about five yards between us, which for a vampire was nothing more than a hop. I’d killed a few animals over the past few days with Galahad, but this would be the first one I’d killed alone.

  Beads of sweat trickled down my neck, making my shirt stick to my back. My palms were sweaty too, and my heartbeat quickened. I’d asked Galahad about that as well, why my heartbeat had stayed so steady when I’d beat up those boys, killed Jessica, and tried to kill my best friend. He’d told me that it was the blood frenzy. When a vampire is in a blood frenzy nothing can make them lose their cool. Now, as my heartbeat thumped in my chest, I wished that I could retain that coolness.

  “Do it,” Galahad said.

  “Okay,” I said, and leaped forward.

  Time seemed to slow down in the air, and I could see the deer’s scared expression as he turned his head at me. Not quick enough, I thought, as my nails connected with his neck and gouged out a large chunk of his flesh.

  The animal went berserk, squealing and coming up on its hind legs. I tried to finish it, but even with my vampire speed and strength I couldn’t get close to it as it kicked wildly. Its moans of agony were hard to hear, but harder still was the sight and smell of its blood. My body started to shake. I brought my hand, which was covered in blood, to my mouth and sucked.

  Immediately my body tingled. I lay back, no longer caring about the deer or the hunt, and enjoyed the feeling of the blood. I stared up at the clouds, and in my blood-induced state, they seemed to shift and shimmer, and dance across the pale blue sky. The bright blue sky reminded me of Ben’s bright blue eyes, and then the sensation of pure pleasure was replaced with a mixture of pleasure and regret. What was I doing, lying in the grass enjoying myself when Ben was alone? What right did I have?

  I was so out of it that I didn’t hear or see Galahad spring from where he’d been crouching and take down the animal. He did it with the ease of someone who has done the same thing over and over again until it has become second nature. He jumped across to it, almost lazily, and casually swiped at its neck. The animal suddenly fell and stopped moaning, Galahad turned to me with concern on his face.

  “You need to do better than that,” he said.

  I stood up and wiped my mouth, embarrassed by how I’d let the blood affect me.

  “Sorry,” I said, staring at the ground, unwilling to meet his eye.

  I heard, not saw him walked over to me, and then he reached up and held my chin. Once again I was surprised at how his touch could be so soft yet so firm. He tilted my head up and for one beautiful moment we stared into each others eyes. His eyes seemed to look into my soul, and a shudder went down my back. A wild thought entered my head. What if he kisses me? My body tensed in anticipation at the idea. I wanted it, I realised then. I wanted it badly. But then he smiled and dropped his hand. “Just try harder next time, Zoey,” he said.

  He turned and walked back to the deer, and knelt down and started to harvest it. The blood was nearly impossible to resist, but I didn’t want to embarrass myself again by giving in to my urges. A long silence hung in the air, broken only by the tweeting of a bird or a gust of wind in the trees. “You can all me Zoey,” I said, just to break the silence.

  “No, it’s okay,” he said, tearing the deer apart with deadly efficiency. Once again I marvelled at his muscles, shifting powerfully with each deft movement. “Zoey is the name my master, your father gave you, and so that’s what I’ll call you. Plus, it is a lovely name.”

  “You were close with my father?”

  For a second his body froze and he stopped dismembering the deer, and then he resumed. “Yes,” he said after several seconds, his voice distant. “He was a great man, one of the most honourable vampires I’ve ever met and will ever meet. He fought for what was right and he did everything in his power to make sure that the Council of the Undead ruled well. Even when Mordrain started to gain support and it looked like he was going to take over, your father never gave in.”

  A question came to me, one I’d asked my mother countless times. She’d never given me an answer, but maybe Galahad would, I thought. “What was his name?”

  “He had two names,” Galahad said. “His human name and his vampire name. Some vampires keep their human name, like me, but your father changed his. His human name was Varo.”

  “Varo,” I said, almost tasting it. It was amazing to learn it after so long. Varo. It sounded strong and just, I thought. “What was his vampire name?”

  “Benjamin.”

  I almost collapsed as he said it. Ben. My father’s name was Ben. It was a complete coincidence, I knew. Benjamin was a very common name, but the mention of it flooded my head with thoughts.

  I remembered Ben’s face when he’d tried to kiss me, how sad he’d looked when I’d rejected him. I remembered how pitifully happy he’d been when he’d given me the chocolate bar, and his eagerness to carry my bag. I remembered how brave he’d been, standing up to Jessica’s friends for me. Not for the first time in the past few weeks, I felt a stab of guilt in my chest.

  Galahad must’ve notice my silence. He turned around and looked at me. “What’s wrong?” he said.

  “It’s just . . .” What was it? I was a killer. I’d abandoned my only friend. I’d never known my father. My mother hated me. It was hard to get all of that into one sentence, so I just stayed quiet.

  He stood up and walked over. “Zoey, what is it?”

  I realised how self-pitying I’d sound if I suddenly blurted out all my problems, so I just said the first thing that came into my head. “It’s just I’m really happy that you were the vampire who my father trusted to guar
d me. You’re doing a really good job.”

  He smiled then, and I realised that it was the first time I’d ever seen him properly smile. I’d seen him smile before, but that had been a controlled curling of the lip. This looked like an involuntary grin. His whole face lit up. “Thank you,” he said, moving closer to me. “That is a wonderful thing to say.”

  His body was pressed against mine now. Sweat trickled between my breasts and down my back, and my heart was beating faster that it ever had before. Suddenly all thoughts of my mother, my father, Ben and my own imperfections disappeared from my mind. It was just me and Galahad.

  I could feel his chest rise and fall against mine, his breath on my forehead. He placed his arms on my shoulders, and a warm chill went down my spine. I found myself shuddering, and I knew that it was with anticipation and pleasure. It was like how I’d felt before tasting the deer’s blood, but I wanted this much, much more.

  He leaned in and I turned my head up. My heart was hammering in my ears now. What if I do it wrong? I thought. I’d never kissed anyone before. What if I mess it up? I brought my hands up and wrapped them around him. His body was hard under my touch, his muscles tense.

  I could feel his breath on my lips now. I could almost taste them. I urged him to hurry up. I dug my fingernails into his back. I wanted him. That’s all I could think. I wanted him. I wanted him. I wanted him. I opened my mouth to him, and he brushed his lips against mine. Electric pleasure ran through my body. Every pore tingled. Every nerve pulsed in ecstasy. But then he pulled away.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

  I still had my hands on his back. He looked away from me as he pried them free and walked back to the deer. He knelt down and continued his work, not saying a word. I stood there, dumbfounded.

  A tear slid down my face.

  Ben

  Who the hell does that freak think he is! I thought, over and over again as I walked home. I was still pretty shaken up, and I felt like I could break down and cry at any moment. Zoey had just left me, and for what? For who? For a freak who spoke like he was from the Middle Ages.

  I had just been to the police station. I thought about lying to them at first, but what would be the point? The school had cameras everywhere so they’d seen what had happened. It still seemed impossible to me. Zoey had killed Jessica. No matter how many times the thought entered my head, I still found it difficult to believe. Zoey killed Jessica. Zoey killed Jessica. Zoey killed Jessica.

  I knew that I should probably feel bad, a girl had died, but I couldn’t care less. The fat pig had deserved it. She was a bitch, and I thought that Zoey let her off easy by giving her a quick death. If it had been me, I would have tortured her first, get her back for all the times she’d done the same to me.

  My heart ached when I thought of Zoey. I loved her. I loved her more than I loved anything else in the entire world. I had nothing in my life, just like her, and because of that I’d always assumed that one day we’d be together. What a stupid child, I thought to myself as I neared my house. What a naïve, stupid child I’d been.

  My body still ached all over from the beating Jessica had given me. The police had asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital, but I’d said that there was no point. When they’d asked me what I’d meant, I had to stop myself from saying “Because my father beats me senseless at every opportunity, so I’m used to it.” I’d just smiled and said that it wasn’t as bad as it looked, which was awful, I now realised as I stared at myself in the mirror.

  My face was a mess of blood, and purple welts covered my neck. My t-shirt was specked with blood and dirt, and I couldn’t see my ribs, but they felt like they were bruised or cracked.

  Vampire, I thought. That was what Zoey was now. The thought seemed odd to me, but for some reason not as terrifying as it should have been. I didn’t care what she was, I realised. I’d love her no matter what. I’d seen her drink blood and she’d moved with superhuman speed, so she must be a vampire; there was no other alternative to my mind.

  I crossed the room to my laptop and booted it up, and felt a pang of despair as my eye caught a book. The Knight and the Maiden, it was called, and it was one of Zoey’s favourites. I found it to be a bit soppy and clichéd myself, and the only reason I’d bought it was because I had known that Zoey wanted to read it.

  When my laptop had booted up I opened a search engine and started to browse the results for vampire. Predictably, hundreds of films and books filled the first few dozen pages of results. I kept at it, slogging through them one by one, not really sure what I wanted to find.

  What did I want to find? I supposed that I wanted anything that would explain what the hell was going on. Why had Zoey suddenly turned into a vampire? Who was that man she had gone off with? It took me a long time, but I found an obscure little website called John’s Guide to Vampire Hunting. I browsed the website for ages before finding the contact details. It was a terribly made website, and I had to manually search various different things before I found what I was looking for.

  I scribbled the address down on a scrap of paper, grabbed my coat, and left the house. I found it strange that someone would put their address on a website, but then I thought that anyone who has a website called John’s Guide to Vampire Hunting had to be pretty bloody strange.

  I made good time. What I arrived at wasn’t so much a house or even a block of flats whereas an industrial unit. It was a small warehouse with all the windows boarded up. At first I thought it was abandoned but then I saw a dim light coming from what looked like an entrance.

  A dull yellow light shone out into the night from behind a glass door. The entire area smelt of petrol and fire, and the glass was cold against my knuckle when I knocked on it. I waited for a long time for somebody to come, and I was about to give up when the door finally creaked open.

  The man who stood before me was old. He looked to be sixty at least, but despite his age he still looked strong. Ex-military, I thought, and immediately knew that I was right. It was obvious. The way he stood, straight-backed, the way he gazed down at me, impatient, and the medal that hung from a chain on his neck all indicated it. “What?” he said. His voice was raspy. It sounded like he had a dry throat, or that he was a smoker.

  “Are you John?” I said.

  He nodded. “Yeah, and who’s asking?”

  “My name’s Ben. I need to know about vampires.”

  At that his face completely changed. His angry stare turned into a smile in the fraction of a second. “Well, come on in then!” he said.

  I was startled by the change in him, but also happy; perhaps he really did know something. I followed him into the warehouse and looked around. He paced off towards the other end, to what looked like a small office, but I couldn’t follow him. The warehouse was too impressive.

  It was amazing.

  Weapons were strewn all over the place. Guns, knives, bows, crossbows, swords, grenades, and many other types of weapons were scattered all over the floor. Gym equipment lined one wall, weightlifting machines, free-weights, punch-bags, and running and biking machines. On the opposite wall were targets. Most had holes in them from previous use, and some were so worn that they were nothing more than tattered bits of paper.

  He turned. When he saw me staring he smiled. “Come on in lad,” he said, waving me over to his office.

  I ran after him. The room was stuffy and full of cigarette smoke. He coughed and lit a cigarette, puffing into the already-smoky room. “So, what do you want to know?”

  “Well,” I said. Where do I begin? I thought. Do I tell him about my love for Zoey, or do I just tell him the bare facts. I decided to go with the second option, and blurted out the most important piece of information. “My best friend turned into a vampire.”

  He lurched forward and stubbed out his cigarette. “Tell me everything,” he said, and I did.

  When I’d finished he rubbed his chin. “They are going to the Council, I’d wager.”

&nb
sp; “The Council?”

  He waved a hand. “It’s where new vampires are taken, I think. It’s meant to be a secret location, but I had a vampire girlfriend a while back. A feisty thing she was! Always wanted to bite me! She told me where it was one day when we were . . .” He coughed and looked away. “. . . together.”

  “Do you know where it is?” I said eagerly. If he knew where it was then I could follow Zoey, I thought. I didn’t know what the hell I’d do when I got there, but I could figure that out later. Right now all I needed to focus on was finding her. I could worry about the rest once I’d done that.

  He nodded. “I do, but it’s a long and hard trip, and no offence lad but you don’t look up to it.”