Graced

by Sophia Sharp

  “They’re the same bloody thing!”

  “Then I don’t know what happened. It just didn’t work against her.”

  “What the hell do you mean it didn’t work on her?” If Laura had thought one could roar while whispering, this was it. “She’s a bloody vampire for Christ’s sake, and the device works against all of them. All of them!”

  “You don’t need to remind me,” the second voice answered sourly. “We’ll find her. It’s not like she could have gone far, not with the little surprise we put up.”

  “Right.” Laura heard a chuckle from the owner of the first voice. “She’s in here somewhere. Probably cowering in fear after seeing what happened to her friends. Hah! Just wait until she figures out what will happen to her…”

  Laura stopped listening, and let the voices drown out. She was cowering in fear, was she? She would show them the truth of that. But first, she had to figure out what these… pendants… were, that the two men mentioned. And what they could do to vampires.

  She waited as the sound of movement shifted away from her. Whatever the pendants did, they did not seem to give her attackers a greater ability to track her. Which was good. It meant, if she was careful, she could still take them by surprise.

  Slowly, she moved away from her spot by the tree. She crouched low, careful to let the top of the shrubs and bushes hide her. The two men were still walking together – two Vassiz, if she didn’t know any better – and they were still going in the wrong direction. She could tell so by the sound of their movement. She needed to get closer, to take a look at them. But what had they done to Logan, and the others? If she could find them before, maybe she could avoid a conflict with the two Vassiz. Had they been the ones responsible for the black cloud, or was that someone else? What else could be hunting her in this domed trap? No matter what, Laura knew she had to be extremely cautious.

  At the same time, Laura knew that chances were there’d be no escape from the inside of the barrier without confronting her attackers. But if she could just find Logan and Alexander and Madison, see that they were still alive…

  No. Laura shook her head. They had to be still alive. For one, she knew the elders preferred to take her and Logan living. And two, Logan had told her that killing another Vassiz was a deep violation of the creed set out by the elders. No matter what they ordered, she doubted they would have Madison and Alexander killed simply because they were traveling with her and Logan. And third, she admitted, the thought of having failed them so badly as to let them be taken was just too much right now.

  Carefully, Laura picked her way through the trees, towards her pursuers. And slowly, little by little, she began to get closer to them. Every now and then, she picked up on bits of conversation:

  …

  “Maybe she’d gotten away?”

  “Impossible. She was right there when we set the barrier.”

  …

  “Well, where can she be then?”

  “Just keep looking. Keep your eyes peeled for any movement.”

  …

  And so on and so forth. Her attackers were so completely preoccupied with looking for her, it hadn’t occurred to either that she might be looking for them. Or trailing right behind them.

  Suddenly she heard them stop. She dropped to the ground silently, praying she hadn’t been seen.

  “Did you hear that?” one of them asked.

  “Hear what?”

  “I thought there was something…behind us.”

  Laura’s heart jumped to her throat. Had they heard her? She couldn’t remember making any discernable noise, but she had let her mind wander for that brief moment…

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. But I was sure I heard something there.”

  “Well, let’s take a look.”

  Laura’s pulse started to race. She heard the two men turn around and move towards her. She didn’t think they’d seen her just yet, but if they came closer, she had nowhere to hide. With a renewed sense of purpose, she started to crawl on all fours to an area where the forest thickened. But she could hear the two men coming. If she could get to the denser area in time, she might escape notice… but if the other Vassiz moved quickly, she wouldn’t have enough time to get away. And then all plans of avoiding a confrontation until she’d figured out what happened to Logan and the others would be nullified.

  They were walking back, and moving faster than before. Laura crawled along the ground, scampering to get away. It was difficult: her clothes caught on the twigs and sticks that littered the forest floor, and she knew that she couldn’t avoid leaving a track. If the two men were focused, there would be no way they could miss her.

  Suddenly, less than a dozen feet away from her, Laura heard something small scamper through the bush. It was some sort of animal, and had jolted away at a dead run.

  Her pursuers heard it too.

  “A damn squirrel?” one of them growled. “You turned us around for a squirrel?”

  “I told you I head something,” the other countered. “How would I know it’d be a rodent?”

  “Next time,” the other one continued in a heated tone, “you need to be sure you’re not wasting our time chasing squirrels!” Laura heard him turn away noisily and start back into the forest further away. The other one followed.

  After a few seconds, Laura breathed a deep sigh of relief. Saved from discovery by a squirrel. Who would have thought it? But now was no time to be thanking her luck, no matter how fortuitous it might have been.

  Looking up to make sure the men were gone, she continued after them. If she could just size them up before she had to fight…

  A black gale engulfed her from the side, and she lost consciousness.

  ***

  Chapter Seventeen

  ~Capture~

  Laura opened her eyes slowly. Her head… hurt. Everything else… hurt. She groaned, not remembering where she was or how she got there. Even the sound that came from her throat increased the pain in her head. She tried to bring a hand to her temples – but realized with a start that her limb wouldn’t move.

  What the…? She could feel her hand, somewhere by her side, but it just wouldn’t respond. She looked down – and her eyes widened with shock.

  She was completely bound. A rope the thickness of her wrist had been tightly secured around her entire body. Her arms were completely locked to her sides. But that was not even the worst part.

  She was hanging. Upside down. She looked to her feet, and saw that there, an end of rope had been tied around a thick wooden stick, leaving her dangling in the air. But she could feel her hair graze the ground. At least she wasn’t suspended high in the air.

  In fact, glancing up – or rather, down – at the ground positioned in an unfamiliar place by her head, she saw that she was only a few inches away from it. But that didn’t make the sensation any better. She imagined this was what it must feel like to be trapped in a spider web.

  She tried to move, to struggle out of her shackles, but it was no use. The rope that had her bound might as well have been a straightjacket. A surge of fear rose up within her. She was completely helpless, completely bound, and hanging upside down.

  Panic threatened to overcome her. She could see no way out of where she found herself, and she could already imagine what her captors were planning to do with her. She wanted to scream. She realized something was pressing up against her tongue , keeping her mouth jarred slightly open. She tested it, and realized she had been gagged with some sort of rag.

  She tried to think. There had to be something she could do to get out of here. Again, she tried to wiggle out of the rope. But it was no use. No matter how hard she squirmed, there was no effect. But she knew that with her strength, she should be able to break out of the binds easily. What was going on?

  She looked around her. And saw that she was in the same forest as before. Following the path of the stick holding her up, she saw that it connected to two stakes that were stuck into the groun
d. They crossed in a triangular formation, much like a tent, and the wooden rod she hung from rested on top. The other end, she saw after twisting her head to the side, was exactly the same.

  Then she looked past her immediate surroundings. It was difficult, trying to get a sense of her coordinates when her entire world was flipped over. Even blinking a few times to try to get used to it didn’t help. But she did her best, trying to understand where she was and how she got here.

  She was in… a clearing. It was the same forest as before, yes, and there were trees off to the sides, but directly in front of her was a flat, open area. It looked like it had been trampled on. There was nothing else that way except the edge of the trees.

  She looked to the side, past the stakes that held her up, and saw that things were much the same there. And on the other side, as well. But what about behind her…?

  She tried to crane her neck to look back over her shoulder, but everything was too stiff to allow her such flexibility. So, doing the only thing left to do, she started to swing. At first, it made everything worse. That dizzying sensation deepened as even more blood rushed to her head, and her brain felt like it would explode. But then, little by little, she started to turn her body back, as the thick rope gave a little leeway.

  That was when she saw the others. They were all bound, much like her, and all hanging upside down. Her eyes darted to Logan first. He was there, but his eyes were closed. Laura saw with relief that his chest still moved with breath. Although… was that a bruise on his face?

  She squinted her eyes, trying to get a better view. And then surprised herself when she couldn’t. And again surprised herself when she realized she had been squinting. Ever since the transformation, and especially since the feeding, her eyesight had been perfect. More than perfect. She had been able to see every grain of every blade of grass, see the thin veins running across the leaves of trees hundreds of feet away. But now, she realized that she couldn’t even make out the detail on Logan’s face. And he was suspended less than twenty feet away. Panic returned. First it had been finding her strength gone, and now her eyes were worse – what was happening?

  She started breathing heavily. Her nostrils flared as they fought to supply her lungs with enough air. She bit on the gag in her mouth, and the taste of it caused her to cough. But she couldn’t cough, not with it in her mouth, and so more pain shot through her head as the pressure on her ears increased. Her eyes started to water, and her throat now stung. Her heart was racing in her chest, fast enough she thought it’d burst right out. Her breaths quickened as she tried to supply her body with enough oxygen, but it was too late. She felt the dizziness return, and passed out again.

  ***

  Laura opened her eyes groggily. It took a second for her to remember where she was, and when she did, her eyes went straight to her feet. She was still tied up, still suspended from that wooden pole. At least this time, she was more ready to come face to face with reality.

  It had gotten darker since last time. The sun was still out, providing those last golden-hued moments at the end of the day, but it wouldn’t last for much longer. She guessed she had been out for an hour, maybe a bit less, this second time.

  That fear she felt from before started to creep in again. Laura did her best to ignore it. At least there wouldn’t be any shock over realizing her situation this time. Without thinking, she started to swing again, in order to turn backwards, when she realized that she was already facing Logan and the others.

  Still, she couldn’t make out his face as clearly as she should be able to. But at least he was alive. As were Madison and Alexander, suspended from the makeshift structures behind him. His eyes were still closed, though. Laura looked to Madison. Her eyes were closed, too. And then to Alexander. His eyes were… open.

  Laura tried to yell out, to say something, to get his attention, but he was staring off into the distance. And he was gagged, just as her. He looked completely dejected, absolutely desolate and demoralized. His eyes were open, yes, but the way he stared blankly out towards the forest made him look worse than hopeless.

  Not knowing what else to do, Laura started to struggle against the rope again. She knew that she should be able to break out of it easily, but for whatever reason, no matter how much strength she applied, nothing happened.

  Something hit her from behind. It wasn’t hard, but it was enough to send her twirling on the spot. The landscape all blurred together, becoming one incoherent mess, and she shut her eyes tightly to avoid the feeling of vertigo. It was no use – it still came. She felt like she would throw up. She spun and spun, round and round without ever seeming to slow down.

  Then she felt herself strike something else, and stop.

  She opened her eyes slowly. It was the worst sensation, being so completely dizzy while hanging upside down, feeling like your head would explode as all the blood from your body rushed to it, exacerbated by being completely helpless to it all.

  It took her a number of seconds just to get her breaths going again, and then even longer to get her eyes to focus.

  And when they did, she wished she kept them closed.

  Standing in front of her, peering right at her, were two of the most grotesque and disgusting creatures she could ever imagine. They looked like they had been men, once, but nearly all hint of that had disappeared. Unevenly-sized eyes bulged out of incongruent heads, and specks of hair grew from tufts that seemed haphazardly placed on top of their heads. Their skin was splotchy and yellowing, like the corners of an old newspaper left too long in the sun. Their noses were the noses of beasts, one curving sharply like a fleshy beak and the other smashed inwards like a pig’s. A few long, thick whiskers sprouted out from just above their upper lips, which – for both of them – was curled upwards in a crude semblance of a smile.

  And they stank like hell.

  Laura did not know what frightened her more – those eyes crawling up and down her body, or the knowledge that she was completely helpless to whatever these creatures wanted to do.

  “Is this the one?” one of them asked. If Laura were free, she would have gaped. The voice that came out of its mouth – the voice of the creature standing right in front of her – was not at all what she expected. She didn’t even know if she expected either of these things to be able to speak, but they definitely did. Her thoughts grew frantic. She knew this voice. She had heard it before. In fact, she had, not very long ago, tracked after this voice.

  The other sneered. “Yes,” it answered. And the last question in Laura’s mind was eliminated. The second creature’s voice… it was the voice of the man she heard before. The other one. Both voices belonged to the men she heard speaking about finding her, before she had been captured and bound. But… she had been sure that her attackers had been Vassiz. The two in front of her, however, could not have been any further from the elegant form of vampires than she imagined.

  Laura wanted to scream, to yell for help, to do anything but hang there completely helpless against them. Their eyes struck fear into the very pit of her soul, and it was an unnatural, discomforting fear. She wanted to run.

  But all she could do was hang there and await her fate.

  “What do you say we ungag her, hmm, Serkhol?” the first one said to his partner.

  A smile deeper than before appeared on Serkhol’s lips. “All the better to hear her scream.”

  The first one reached down towards her, and Laura tried desperately to squirm away. She didn’t want that mangy skin touching her, didn’t want to even think about the feel of his hands on her. He chuckled as he gripped her easily with one hand, and used the other to pull the gag out of her mouth and snap it onto the bridge of her nose. An unexpectedly strong pain radiated from there immediately. Laura thought the impact may have broken her nose.

  “Who are you?” she demanded as soon as she could speak. “And what did you do to my friends? What do you want with us?”

  “Ooooh,” Serkhol crooned, looking up to his friend, “I can
tell, we’re going to have a little bit of fun with this one.”

  “Answer me!” Laura demanded. She was amazed that her voice did not quiver more. “What are you going to do with all of us?”

  “Do with… all of you?” Serkhol said, emphasizing the last word strangely. “Why, we’re not going to do anything with all of you.” He stood, and motioned to the others hanging behind Laura. “Why, we’re not even going to pay the others much mind. All we want, my dear, is you.”

  That feeling of fear returned, and it pulsed inside Laura’s stomach. She couldn’t push it away. She couldn’t do anything about it. But it was more than fear, and she knew it. It was fear, mixed with dread, tinged with immense apprehension, and tainted with the taste of failure. She had allowed herself to get caught, after she was the only one left who could have saved Alexander and Madison and Logan…

  The feeling in her stomach grew stronger, until she could feel herself shaking uncontrollably. Something was definitely wrong. She felt like she would vomit, and her stomach heaved. Even though she knew she did not have anything in there – she hadn’t eaten as a vampire for weeks – it felt like she did. She gagged on the air she was breathing, and felt something burning come down the back of her throat. A coughing fit overtook her, and she coughed and coughed, trying desperately to gulp down enough air to stop it. Finally, it came to an end… but that was when she started to taste blood on her tongue. Her blood.

  While all that happened, Laura realized, Serkhol and his friend were laughing. They were laughing at her, at her futility, at her failure, at everything. And Laura was completely helpless to stop them.

  “Cut her loose,” Serkhol’s friend commanded suddenly. And before Laura knew it, a knife appeared in Serkhol’s hand, and he was working on the rope at her feet. He cut through it with a few slices, and Laura fell with a grunt onto the hard earth. She managed to duck her head out of the way just in time to avoid hitting it on a sharp rock that she noticed right below her at the last second.