Blood Like Poison

by M. Leighton

  Bo shook his head. “No, but with every one that I drain, I’m one step closer to finding out. I’m pretty sure there’s one person who’s responsible, one who’s been spearheading all the activity around here.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I can see hazy images of all these vamps feeding from another vampire, a stronger one, but it’s like their memory is so saturated in pleasure and endorphins, I can’t get a clear picture or even a name of the one they’re feeding from.”

  “Why would vampires feed from each other?”

  “I think the vampire that’s turning them is feeding them some of his blood right at the beginning and establishing some kind of control over them. The thing is, it takes very powerful blood to control another vampire. Maybe even an elder’s blood. I’m not sure.”

  In my head, I went back over everything that Bo had just explained. I found that several things were bothersome.

  “So, did you ever…you know?”

  “What?” Bo’s eyes left the darkening road ahead of us to find mine.

  “Feed from another vampire?”

  “Only to kill them.”

  “They didn’t try to make you drink any blood when they turned you?”

  “They might have tried if I hadn’t gotten away when I did.”

  “What would’ve happened if they had?”

  Bo shrugged. “It’s hard to tell. I don’t know how much power, how much influence the controlling vampire actually has. I mean, for all I know, these people could’ve been sick freaks long before they turned. It does make you wonder, though.”

  I fell quiet after that, digesting all that Bo had revealed. It was so surreal, so scary this other world out there; I wasn’t at all sure I was ready to be a part of it.

  My last question to Bo, before we reached our destination, was hypothetical, or at least I hoped it was.

  “If your blood was powerful enough to give you some control over me, what would you do with it?”

  The look Bo cast me was one of mild horror. I’m sure he was thinking What a question!

  When I merely raised my eyebrows expectantly, Bo sighed deeply and fell silent to give the matter some thought.

  Finally he spoke, answering my query. “I’d try to make you forget about me.”

  I didn’t know what to expect in his answer, but that wasn’t it. “You would do that?”

  We looked at each other intently, far too long for one of us to have been driving. He seemed to have an instinct for the road, though, that allowed him to stay on the asphalt no matter in what direction his eyes were turned.

  “I’d like to think I would, but honestly, I don’t know if I’m strong enough, selfless enough. But yeah, I’d like to think I could do it.”

  Once again, a thoughtful silence descended over the interior of the car. Bo appeared to be as lost in thought as I was, so when he pulled off the road and parked along the edge of some trees, I was surprised.

  “Where are we?”

  “As far as we can go by car,” he answered, getting out to come around and let me out.

  Bo offered me his hand, but he didn’t let go of it. He shut the door behind me and tugged my hand, pulling me close to him as we set out into the forest.

  “So how far does Lucius live from here?”

  “About three miles.”

  Inwardly, I cringed. I was in good shape, but a three mile hike through the woods was not my idea of a fun night.

  As we trekked along the well-disguised path, Bo led me over fallen trees and through a shallow creek, around water holes and in and out of pine stands. It seemed we’d been walking forever when Bo stopped.

  His head whipped around and his eyes darted to and fro, trying to locate something. His expression was one of fierce alertness. The tiny hairs on my arms rose to attention.

  I whispered, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Without looking at me, Bo raised a finger to his lips. I held my tongue, swallowing my next worried question. Something about Bo’s body language had made me immediately apprehensive. It was more than his caution; it was as if an ominous warning was rolling off of him and crashing over me in cold, menacing waves.

  Though there was no denying that my senses had been more acute since drinking Bo’s blood—something I didn’t even want to think about, much less question—I still wasn’t able to discern what had him so tense, and that just made me all the more concerned.

  But then, milliseconds after I detected a pleasant brown-sugar smell on the light breeze, I heard the whoosh of an object flying through the air right before something slammed into me, sending me careening through the woods like a human projectile.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  It took me a few fuzzy seconds to realize I’d been hit by a person. It felt as if I’d been hit by a cement truck going a hundred miles an hour, or so my wavering mind believed. My consciousness faltered like a flickering light bulb and I struggled desperately to stay awake, determined to hold on to the world.

  I lay on the ground with half my face buried in a bed of dry leaves. I was trembling from head to toe, but otherwise completely immobile. I strained to focus my eyes on the figures I saw looming in the distance.

  I was facing the direction from which I’d come and I could see Bo a couple hundred feet away. He stood in a shaft of moonlight as it filtered through the trees. It dappled the ground all around him and sprinkled his rigid body with silvery spots. Even in the pale light, I could see the tension in him.

  Bo’s face was contorted in fury and his eyes were an unnatural, ghostly green that looked almost white in the low light. His lips were curled back from his teeth in a gruesome, fang-laden snarl and, even from where I was, I could see that his pale skin was cracked like an old canvas painting.

  Multiple low growls rang sinisterly through the still of the night. I couldn’t tell which noises were coming from Bo and which ones were coming from the two men that were circling him like vicious predators. Their backs were to me, so I could only see that one was taller and thicker than the other. I imagined, however, that their faces were distorted in much the same way as Bo’s. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that they were vampires, and they were on a mission—a deadly mission.

  Bo backed up a step from the two and dropped slowly into a crouch. I saw him grab something from the ground at his right hip. His fingers curled around the dark object and he stilled. He was poised to strike, battle ready.

  In a flash of movement so quick I could barely follow it, the taller vampire charged Bo, hurling himself through the air toward him. Bo straightened, catching the vampire in flight and, turning, used the vampire’s momentum to throw him to the ground.

  Bo landed on top of him and raised his arm above his head. He paused for one long heartbeat, his moonlit form like a mercury-dipped statue. I saw what he held in his hand. It was a piece of wood as thick as a baseball bat with ends just as blunt.

  My vision pulsed with every heavy throb of my heart. It stopped beating for one instant when an animal-like roar split the air. A shiver raced down my back as Bo brought his arm down in one lightning-fast motion.

  I heard the sickening crunch of bone followed by the hiss of spraying blood as a chest exploded. I couldn’t keep my eyes open, but against the backs of my eyelids, my mind painted a clear image of the scene. I could plainly envision the broad head of the makeshift stake crushing the sternum of that vampire and obliterating his heart.

  When I was finally able to open my eyes again, it was as if I’d fallen asleep and awakened hours later to a totally different scene. And Bo was not making out as well in this one. He was being held aloft by the shorter of the vampires, his feet dangling several inches off the ground. I could see the chalky fingers that were wrapped around his throat.

  In one sharp movement, Bo jabbed his fist into the other vampire’s elbow. I heard the splinter of bone as the arm buckled. The milky fingers lost their grip and Bo fell to the ground.

  The other vamp
ire backhanded Bo, a violent strike, but one that barely moved Bo’s head. Bo’s lips lifted in a scary smile before he slammed his flat palm against the vampire’s chest.

  The vampire stumbled back, but righted himself quickly and charged Bo in a tackling motion that put his shoulder right into Bo’s stomach. I heard a grunt as the vampire drove Bo back against a tree, pinning him against it with a branch-shaking thud.

  Straightening, the vampire lifted his arm and punched at Bo’s face. Bo shifted his head to one side and the fist missed his face by a scant inch. The vampire’s knuckles made contact with the tree and it crumbled under the impact, bark and shredded wood flying out in an explosion of debris.

  Bo grabbed the vampire by the shoulders, holding him still for a head butt. When their skulls collided, it sounded like a clap of thunder. The vampire growled, not even dazed, and drove his curled fingers deep into Bo’s side.

  The fight went on, first one then the other gaining the upper hand. I watched every movement with bated breath, every answering strike with a hammering heart, praying that Bo would emerge victorious.

  Slowly, as the two vampires danced violently through the woods, I felt life return to my stubborn limbs with a near-painful tingle. I willed my arms and legs to move, the need to get to Bo, to aid him somehow, an almost tangible force.

  As the battle wore on, I saw that each of the vampires was operating with fewer and fewer intact limbs. Gaping gashes and broken bones were highlighted with every movement. Though some of the wounds were already beginning to heal, I didn’t know how much more damage either of them could sustain and remain upright and battle worthy.

  Even though I was only human, I knew that my intervention—that adding my strength (however meager) to Bo’s—could mean the difference between his life and his death. That’s what drove me to my hands and knees and then, eventually, to my feet, where I leaned unsteadily against a nearby tree.

  I’d managed to stumble a few yards forward when I saw Bo, in a burst of energy, lunge forward and trip the other vampire then pin him to the ground.

  Bo swung his fists a few times at the guy, and, though I couldn’t see the man lying on the ground, I could hear the dull thwack of flesh being pummeled.

  Relief washed over me. It appeared that it would soon be over, that Bo was going to win and that he would live at least a little while longer. Unfortunately, my relief was premature.

  Something bright flashed through the woods. It was like a match head flaming to life and then being dropped immediately into a cup of water. The light was there and then it was gone.

  The streak swept Bo off the other vampire and carried him deep into the woods, far past the point where I could still see him.

  A breathless panic constricted my chest and I searched the dark forest and moonlit ground for signs of Bo. There were none.

  Far-off sounds tickled my ears and I cocked my head to the side, trying to triangulate the location of the ruckus, a ruckus that I could only assume was Bo and the phantom creature. Pinpointing their position to my left, I pushed myself away from the tree on which I’d been leaning and forced my legs to propel me over the uneven ground toward the commotion.

  It seemed I limped and exerted for miles before I could actually make out shapes among the motionless trees. And when I did, my heart stopped.

  Bo was nailed to a huge boulder, spread eagle fashion, by thick wooden stakes that were protruding from his shoulders and thighs. A shimmering apparition of a man stood over him, as if waiting for the perfect moment to deal death to Bo.

  There was blood everywhere and Bo’s head lolled lifelessly to one side. My heart stopped and I watched his chest for movement, to see if he was breathing. He was so absolutely still that my knees nearly buckled in relief when he finally rolled his head upright and spoke to the man.

  Blood spewed from his lips with every syllable.

  “This isn’t over,” he said. “If you kill me, someone else will come along, someone stronger than me, someone who can take you down. And they will. They’ll rip out your black heart out and salt the earth with your blood and then they’ll tear you apart and bury the pieces.”

  An eerie chuckle rippled through the trees like the dark echo of an empty soul. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled uncomfortably.

  “You don’t even know who you are, why you must die, and yet you would send others to fall for your cause. Are you sure it is only my heart that is black?”

  Bo jerked as if the man’s words physically pierced him, but he said nothing.

  The man continued. “If others come, they will meet the same fate as you—death. Eternal death. The death of the soul that nothing can regenerate. You will never know of the power that I wield, power that can remove your life force from your body and extinguish it from the universe. The memory of your existence will be no more. It will be as if you never were.”

  My mind reeled as I listened, my heart thudding wildly, painfully, inside my chest. Was what he threatened even possible? And if it was, what kind of entity could accomplish such a feat? There was only one thing, one manifestation of the purest evil, that came creeping to mind and it made my blood run cold.

  Bo wrestled against his restraints, but he barely managed to move at all. Judging by the cracks in the rock to which Bo was affixed, the stakes must’ve been deeply embedded, an accomplishment that must have taken incredible strength.

  “Stop your struggling. You brought this on yourself. Now it’s time to reap the whirlwind.”

  With that menacing warning, the ethereal man raised his hands, fingers splayed and curved in a claw-like manner, toward Bo. At his gesture, the trees around me began to creak as the wind whipped through the branches. It stirred the leaves on the forest floor and sent them spinning through the air. A low hum began to sound, as if the ground was coming alive beneath us. Louder and louder it got until it was a dull roar in my ears.

  Above the ambient noise, I could hear Bo panting, his breath coming in shallow bursts like he was in pain. His moan caused my guts to twist in agony. In my mind, I was scrambling to find a way to help him, to put an end to whatever atrocious things this man was planning to do to Bo.

  As if he could no longer contain it, a reluctant scream burst through Bo’s gritted teeth. The sound ripped through me like a scalpel, tearing my heart open in one quick swipe.

  With no thought as to what I was going to do, or to the consequences of my actions, I stepped forward, making my way to the man who hovered ominously over Bo.

  When I was no more than three or four feet from him, he turned toward me and I gasped—in recognition.

  I was standing face to face with Lars—only not. He looked ghostly and chilling, more frightening that anything I’d ever seen, even in the best of scary movies.

  His entire body seemed to be in constant motion, but motion that remained within the confines of his shape. It was as if he was changing, growing with every second, shifting and moving right before my eyes.

  His blondish hair was adrift about his head, wiggling in a peculiar golden halo, squirming even. And his face, it was paler than Bo’s, and beneath its surface, I could see movement there as well. It was like seeing hundreds of faces fighting for control, for dominance. It was as if his inner demons were visible to the naked eye, like they could be seen writhing and fighting for escape.

  “The beautiful Ridley. I see you’ve had the blood of your mate.”

  Confused, my eyes flickered to Bo. My bravado faltered when I saw the stunned expression he was wearing. I didn’t understand it.

  “Let him go, Lars.”