“I have an idea: why don’t we all cut our hair short and dye them a different color?” Piper proposes. “That would make us look different enough.”
“What? Are you insane? Nobody’s touching my hair!” Alesha says, cradling her ebony locks.
Piper rolls her eyes.
“It’s a good idea,” Shane says.
“Are you kidding?” Alesha stares at him like he just said punching babies was a good idea. “Piper, you have the most beautiful natural platinum blonde hair, and you want to cut it off and dye it?”
“I think you’d look good as a blonde,” I say to Alesha, and she scoffs at me and shakes her head.
“You’re a boy, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She’s right, I don’t. “Anything to make you cooperate.”
“We’re doing it.” Shane says, decided. “Thanks for the input, Piper. By the way, I think you’d make a fine redhead.”
“No,” I say, louder than I intended. Anything but red hair. They look at me curiously.
“Er… how about black, or brown?” I say, and Piper shrugs.
“Black will do,” she says.
“Yeah, you’d look nasty as a redhead.” Alesha smirks. Piper glares at her.
We reach a 7/11, and I get out of the car and buy bottles of black and brown dye, and a pair of scissors. Then we reach a motel, and Shane orders us to enter and check into different motel rooms two at a time instead of in a group, to avoid being conspicuous.
He and I go first. Ten mintues later, Piper and Brandon walk in. Five minutes later, Kyle and Alesha pay for their room. We meet by the stairs on the third floor, tell each other our room numbers, and scatter.
Shane and I enter our room, and I drop the backpack on the floor and lie on top of one of the beds. My head is throbbing, the pressure threatening to transform into a nasty headache. It is then that I realize that I have no idea how to find my exgirlfriend. Virginia didn’t give me much information.
How can I stop my mind from racing and still it enough so I can fucking think straight?
“All right, let’s rest up for tonight,” Shane says, taking off his shoes and lying down on the other bed. “We should divide into groups, one to search for the pregnant Sun-Child, and the other to search for the fire eaters.”
“How are we going to find them?” I ask him, pinching my nose to let some of the tension in my head out. I don’t ask him what his plans are for the pregnant Sun-Child, and I think he’s relieved that I don’t. Doesn’t matter anyway, I will protect Kismet from everything and everyone, even if it costs me my life.
I feel hot all of a sudden, almost feverish.
“The fire eaters are social beings,” he says. “They travel in packs. We find one, we find them all.” Shane continues talking, more to himself than anyone else.
“I guarantee you I can find both the fire eaters and the Sun-Child before tomorrow night ends,” he says, “And anything else hiding in the shadows as well.” A burning rage flares up inside me. You will find nothing.
I have to leave them tonight.
Shane stands up from his bed and closes the curtains, and then throws himself on it again with a giant groan. My body aches, and I’m tired. So, so tired. Before I know it, my eyes are closing of their own accord, and I’m drifting off to sleep.
Kismet, I’m coming. Be strong for a little while more.
And then everything goes dark.
The Hunt
I wake up to a dark room. The rays from the setting sun filter through the crack between the curtains. I sit up, my head spinning, my body completely drenched in sweat. I touch my forehead. It’s boiling hot, and I feel like I’m suffocating.
“Open the curtains,” I tell Shane, throwing a pillow at him with the little strength I have. It’s evening. We’ve slept through the entire day.
Something is seriously wrong with me, but I don’t know what. I’m getting more alarmed by the second.
Shane grunts, rubs his face, and sits up.
“Dude, you look like shit,” he says. “Are you sick or something?”
“I don’t know,” I say, standing up from the bed. The only thing I know is that I need some sunlight, and I need it bad. The room spins, and I fall on my knees. Cold sweat runs down my forehead, and I cough into my hand. I look down at it and see red liquid scurrying down my palm. Shane leaps from his bed and kneels beside me.
“Daniel, you’re bleeding from your nose and mouth—”
“Open the curtains!” I yell, pushing him away from me. If I don’t soak up those last remaining rays of sunshine, something terrible will happen to me, I just know it.
Shane jumps up and runs toward the curtains, opening them violently to reveal the large, orange sun setting on the horizon. The red and yellow sunrays touch my skin, and I feel a coolness spreading through my body, quenching my fever. I breathe in deeply, staring directly at the large orb of light, at the burning globe of nourishment. But I’m still hungry…deeply hungry.
I look at Shane, and his expression confirms what I guessed.
“Your eyes are glowing.” He just stands there, and I continue to kneel on the floor.
“I feel so… famished,” I say, a sudden desperation creeping up on me. I feel the immediate urge to take life. But it’s so very different this time than when Shane forced me to take the killer’s life. That was a monumental passion that had risen from within me in a matter of seconds. This is a slow, burning, consuming urge that fills me entirely, leaving no place to breathe, no place to speak, no place to think.
I shout in exasperation, trying, unsuccessfully, to control the rising hunger.
“Relax, Daniel,” Shane says, his features and voice becoming unnaturally calm. He holds out his hand to help me get up. “We’ll find a way to fix this. We have to find some scumbag to satisfy you—”
“No! I can’t kill!” I yell, and I swat his hand away. I’m not dizzy anymore, only unbearably hungry. I stand up to face him. “You forced me to once; don’t make me do it again!” I start to perspire more heavily and grow weaker with every passing moment.
“Do you think I want you to kill?” Shane asks, in the same calm voice as before. “I hate it, and you know it. But look at yourself in the mirror, Daniel.” I look, and I almost don’t recognize myself. My eyes are glowing stronger than they ever have, and I’m as pale as a ghost.
“You look like you’re dying.”
Waves of hunger crash over me, and I double over in pain. Shane grabs me by the shoulders to stop me from falling over.
“Close the curtains…” I say in barely a whisper. “The sun hurts me. I can’t look at it anymore.” Shane sits me on the bed and walks over to the window, starting to close the curtains. He stops halfway and looks down at the street.
“We have to go,” he says suddenly, closing the curtains entirely and shielding me from the burning sun. But I don’t feel better. The darkness just makes everything worse.
“There are police cars everywhere. Someone must’ve spotted us.” I barely understand what he’s talking about. I only care about the hunger I feel.
“We have to call the kids’ rooms and get out of here before those fat bastards grab a hold of us.” Shane grabs me by my arm and pulls me up from the bed. But I can’t leave. I want to take lives… and I want it now.
I pull away from his grip and saunter over to the window, kicking a chair aside with a strength I didn’t know I had. I open the curtains, the curtain rod breaking free from the ceiling and crashing to the floor.
“What the—?” I hear Shane say from behind me.
But it doesn’t matter.
Nothing matters except that I kill.
I look down on the group of policemen. There are five or six of them, at most. As naturally as ever, as if it doesn’t cost me a thing, I magnetically pull the gazes of three or four of them toward mine, taking their life and energy the moment our eyes meet. The other policemen take out their guns in desperation, without knowing where to point them a
t.
A scorching, red-hot surge of adrenaline courses through my veins, a fiery golden light blinds me, and my skin bristles with what feels like the pin-prick of thousands of tiny little heroin-covered needles in a strange mixture of pain and pleasure that overcomes me entirely, as if my body were way too sensitive to touch, to air, to the very crudeness of matter itself.
I’m outside myself. I’m lost, eternal, free. I’m nobody and everybody at the same time. There is no past, no future, no wrong and no right.
This time, I don’t crash.
This time, I’m in paradise.
I command the attention of the remaining officers. They look up at me in unison, and I take them as well. A second later, I’m filled with so much pleasure I didn’t even know was possible.
One policeman, stronger than the others, fires a shot at me a second before I kill him. The window breaks with the impact, but the bullet doesn’t touch me. How could it? I am indestructible, as untouchable as the sun.
Someone grabs me from behind and spins me around. It’s Shane, but his face is blurry, and we don’t make eye contact. He punches me in the face, hard. I hit the floor hard, and blood gushes out of my nose.
“You miserable little shit!” he seethes. “What the hell are you doing?” He pulls me up by the collar of my T-shirt and punches me again. “Now you listen to me—” he snarls. I hear someone scream from the street. “Run for the outskirts of town, toward the west. I’ll gather the others, and we’ll meet you there.” He punches me yet again.
“Stop!” I yell, my voice coming out in gurgles. I cough up blood.
“Shit…” Shane mumbles anxiously. He gets some tissues from the bathroom and wipes my face.
“I’m sorry.” He pulls me up and carries me out the door, setting me down on the floor of the hallway and closing the door behind him.
“Can you walk?” he says, and I nod, still not looking at him. “Then go!” He runs and knocks on the doors of the other rooms, where the rest of the tribe members are. But I’m not done. I still yearn and burn and ache for life. I want more. I walk to the elevator and press down on the button. I can’t control any of my movements. It’s like I’m seeing myself from above and can’t, or won’t, interfere.
Scared humans with half-packed bags run down the hallways in their pajamas, heading toward the stairs. I turn toward them sharply, and they stop dead in their tracks. I can practically smell their fear. I am a predator, smiling as I take down my prey. Their mouths open in silent screams, their eyes filled with horror, and I take their lives, too. They drop to the floor, and with each life I take, I feel more and more indestructible.
Shane yells something at me that I don’t understand from the end of the hallway, and I run down the stairs before he can catch up. Chaos surrounds me when I reach the lobby. Crew, staff members, and managers alike are all are running around like the sick, little antelope runs from the lion. But nobody can run from me. I am the Sun-Child.
I am omnipotent.
Bodies hit the floor in quiet meaninglessness. People scream. Each life taken is like a new, fresh wave of something wonderful transporting me to a higher state of bliss, of ecstasy. It’s a drug, it’s more than a drug, it’s more than life itself. I don’t even need eye contact anymore, my sheer will is enough to take their lives, and they are mine in an instant. There is death, consummation, eternal satisfaction.
I take the last life left in the room, a middle-aged woman with a small dog on a leash beside her. She looks at me, face blank, completely petrified with terror. I take her, and she clutches her chest before dropping to the floor, dead. Her dog growls at me and bares his teeth, loyal to the end, but I don’t pay him any attention.
And then… there are none.
Nothing remains but the sweet silence of dusk. My scar burns like it’s on fire, and the hairs on the back of my neck prick up, but I’m not hungry anymore. It’s over. I turn around slowly and see Piper, Shane and the others behind.
“Let’s go,” Shane says, his face ashen. “You look fine now.” He walks past me, bumping my shoulder. Brandon, Kyle, and Alesha follow him closely, averting their eyes.
Then…I come back to myself. Finally, I crash.
I look around me, confused. “What is this?” I look down at my hands, and they are bloody. Dead bodies surround me everywhere. “What is this?” I yell after Shane and the others, but they don’t look back. They walk to the parking lot of the hotel and get in the car.
This was me.
It couldn’t have been me. It wasn’t me.
But it was.
The world becomes a swirling mass of images and voices I don’t recognize, and I can’t do anything but stand and look around at it all. Someone tugs at my shirt, and then I feel fingers closing around my hand. Someone pulls me away from the scene, and I follow its lead. I vaguely remember entering a truck and a very pale girl with gray eyes and black hair looking down at me before forgetting myself and the world around me entirely.
Transmuted
“He’s in shock,” I hear a voice echo through the darkness until it finally reaches my ears.
“You don’t say?” another voice, female this time.
“Daniel, come on, man, snap out of it.” I look up and see a face that I slowly recognize. It’s Shane, an Immortal and a friend, and I am Daniel, a mass murderer. I am numb in mind and body, but slowly, inch by inch, guilt and suffering and unquenchable remorse begin to pour through me.
“Where are we?” I ask Shane softly, looking around in befuddlement. We are in a small, dirty living room with boarded-up windows. It is empty except for some old chairs in the corner. I am sitting on the floor with my back to the wall while the others stand around me in a circle, looking down at me.
“We’re in an abandoned house we found on the outskirts of town,” Piper says, voice soft.
“An abandoned house?”
“Yes,” Shane says. He looks tired and worried.
“What happened?” I ask, my voice coming out in a hush.
“You went bat-shit crazy,” Alesha says.
“Why?” I ask, looking up at Shane, feeling tears welling up in my eyes.
“We don’t know, Daniel,” Piper says. She puts a hand on my shoulders. I bury my face in my knees, letting the tears that are now running freely spill onto my pants.
“We’ll hide in here until the night,” Shane says, making an effort to sound like a leader, to sound calm and collected, to be a rock to everyone else. “This is a considerable, but we can get through it. Daniel, you can stay here if you want.”
I don’t answer him. I don’t have it in myself to speak. Shane lets me be for a moment until I regain my strength. “I don’t know what happened in the hotel,” I say, looking up at them. “Something came over me suddenly, something I couldn’t fight.”
“Do you think it can happen again anytime soon?” Brandon asks me. He looks at me like I’m a dirty old rag.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I’m terrified, Shane.”
Shane sighs and closes his eyes. “This is just like what happened in Seattle, but worse,” he says under his breath. “Do you think you could control your power if you tried hard enough?”
My power has somehow changed me from the inside out, rearranging every part of my being and transforming it into something else entirely, something stronger, more dangerous… Something I don’t know.
“Maybe,” I say hesitantly. “I don’t know.”
Nobody says anything, but Piper leans her head on my shoulder. Alesha and Brandon look away, disgust written plainly in their features. Kyle puts his hands on his head, looking like he can’t make up his mind about something, and walks to the other side of the room, sitting down on the floor by himself.
I deserve their hatred. I deserve all the hate in the world.
There are police sirens in the distance. Or maybe they are ambulances. It doesn’t really matter. Both of them are wasting their time. There’s no one to capture and nothing to save.
/>
“This will make headlines for weeks.” Shane shakes his head and sits down next to Piper. “I wonder what humans will make of it… mysterious deaths at the Hamptom Inn, Mortal Virus spreading quickly through city…”
“It’s not funny,” I say, “Not this time.”
Humans may never know the truth, but I will carry it with me forever.
I stare off into space, not knowing what else there is to say. After a while, Shane’s cellphone rings. He darts up from the floor, takes it out of his pocket, and answers it.
“Hello?” he says, and then pauses to listen. After a moment, his eyes darken.
“Yes, I believe I do have something to tell you, and I’m afraid you’re not going to like it.” He pushes the speaker button on his phone.
“There’s a possibility that a group of Sun-Children are responsible for what happened at the Hamptom Inn in Billings. We’ve got ourselves another case like Seattle,” a female voice says from across the line.
“Did the witches see this happening?”
“Of course they did, Shane,” the woman snaps. “We ordered the witches to specifically look out for mass murders to avoid a repeat. They just…miscalculated the time this would happen. Very odd, I can assure you.” She sounds irritated, strained even.
“I didn’t call you to chat,” she continues. “I have some important information for you.”
“Go on.” Shane says.
“Shane, there is a Sun-Child in Billings who has transmuted.”
“What?” Shane stands up in an instant and starts pacing from one end of the house to the other. “What are you talking about?” His voice mimicks surprise, but his expression doesn’t register any kind of emotion.
Transmutation? Is that what this… this thing that happened to me is called?
The Immortal on the phone sighs. “Rafael, has evolved. We can confirm that he’s the one responsible for the incident in Seattle.”
My stomach drops.
“How do you know this? Did you catch Rafael?” Shane says, his voice hard. I feel elated at this prospect, but not for long.
The Sun Child (The Sun Child Saga Book 1) Page 22