by L. J. Smith
Damon let out another moan and lay on the ground. The lion began to stalk over to claim his kill.
The crowd went wild, friends hitting one another in the arm and clawing at the air as though they themselves were in the fight.
One of the handlers positioned along the sidelines poked at Damon, clearly to get him moving. Damon swung without looking, knocking the man into the stands. As the handler struggled to get up, two nearby customers kicked him in the gut and then dropped him over the back railing to the dirt below, out of sight.
Damon paid no heed to the scuffle and moved deeper into the ring, letting the lion slowly circle him.
After a long silence, Damon let out a feral growl and ran toward the lion. The lion roared in response and charged, but this time Damon stepped aside, and when the lion missed him, Damon hooked an arm up under the lion’s neck. With strength no one seemed to expect, Damon threw the lion onto its back. He was about to dive on top and go in for the kill when the lion kicked up and drove a claw right through Damon’s arm.
The lion swatted its paw around, swinging Damon through the air like a fly on a fishing line. At last, the flesh gave way and Damon, with a red arc of blood trailing behind him, shot up through the air, then landed with a thud even I couldn’t hear over the hellish roar of the celebrating crowd.
Damon struggled to his feet, holding the wounded arm in place with the other. He wasn’t healing as quickly as vampires usually do—I wondered if the vervain had dampened that Power.
He needed blood, that much was clear. His survival instincts and the attendant adrenalin were waning. I was about to rush forward into the ring, with the stout man in front of me as an offering to my brother, when a warm hand fell on my arm.
Callie.
“It’s horrible,” she said. Her knuckles had gone white around clumps of her dress. Her lips hung loose and trembled. “I can’t watch this barbarism much longer.”
“Then tell your father to stop it,” I hissed.
The stomping on the wooden stands was picking up in speed and along with the racing heartbeats of the people. The splotches of blood in the sawdust weren’t enough to satisfy them—they needed to see a death.
Now Damon was padding around the mountain lion, as the animal hunched, coiled, in the center of the ring, moving as little as possible while following Damon with its reflective eyes. Suddenly, Damon took off, moving at a blurred speed around the lion so that the animal had to rapidly turn and turn, as though chasing its own tail.
A quiet came over the crowd, and only the heavy panting of Damon and the mountain lion echoed under the canvas of the tent. Damon circled his prey, moving faster than the lion could comprehend.
The crowd gasped as Damon slanted toward the mountain lion, and before the beast could tell which direction he was coming from, Damon dove on the muscle behind the lion’s head. He bit in and held on, letting the lion kick and flip wildly.
Callie clutched my arm. My eyes were riveted on the scene, and my body was primed to run to the cage should I need to intervene.
The mountain lion was slowing. Each time it bucked, more blood appeared in the sawdust in little red rivers. Its left hind leg was looking weak now; wobbling, it started to flop toward the ground. Damon unlatched his fangs and reared back, ready to go for the vein in the cat’s neck.
Just then, the cat flailed its hindquarters and threw Damon free. As Damon tried to recover his feet, the mountain lion moved in and wrapped its jaws around his side.
The crowd gasped again, then began to boo.
Fight, I urged with every fiber of my being, clenching my fists at my sides.
Damon had gone limp and was being flung around like an old slipper in a dog’s mouth. The lion tossed Damon to the ground, then pulled its head back and opened wide. But just as the animal dove forward, Damon rolled away. He drove his shoulder into the confused beast’s side, bowling it over and exposing the short white hairs on its throat.
Damon tore into the vein with his fangs. The mountain lion twitched its way to stillness as a puddle of blood became bigger and bigger until it was a great lake of blood within the fighting ring. At its center was my brother, kneeling over a dead mountain lion.
He stood and stumbled backward a step. He looked up into the crowd with a wide smile on his face, his fangs out and his whole face and front dripping with blood. The crowd cheered and booed in equal measure, and Damon just turned in a small circle, occasionally licking his lips.
Gallagher clapped his fat hands together. The ones who’d made money jumped and hugged one another. The ones who’d lost threw hats to the ground or stared blankly ahead.
I leaped forward, trying to push my way to my brother, but the handlers had already moved in, stakes and vervain-laced nets in hand. Damon was clearly drunk on such a massive feed after not eating for so long and didn’t seem to notice them. Before I could even shout a warning, the men wrapped him in nets and began dragging him out of the arena.
Even at my fastest, I couldn’t get past the crowd that had filled in behind them and now blocked the entire way. All of the revelers, hooting and slobbering, stood between me and the exit, and by the time I pushed and shoved my way out, the wagon was careening out of the fairgrounds.
A whip cracked. Hooves beat the ground. And just like that, Damon was gone.
Chapter 19
I ran past the shanties set up around the circus through the deep woods, following the tracks of the wagon until I lost the vehicle’s scent completely at the outskirts of the city proper. A drunk was leaning against a brick building, whistling tunelessly.
In a blind rage, I roughly fell to my knees and grabbed him, biting into his neck and sucking his blood before he even had time to gasp. It tasted bitter, but I kept drinking, gulping it in until I could stand no more.
Sitting back on my heels, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, and looked around. Confusion and hatred coursed through my veins. Why couldn’t I save Damon? Why had I just watched as Gallagher goaded the audience into placing even more bets, as the mountain lion pounced onto my brother? And why had Damon allowed himself to be captured and put me in this impossible position?
I wished I’d never insisted on turning him into a vampire in the first place. If he weren’t here and I were alone in the city, everything would be so much easier. Now I was trying to be a good brother, and a good vampire, and yet was failing at everything.
I walked home, clomping up the steps to the house. I slammed the door, causing the hinges to rattle and one of the paintings in the parlor to fall on the floor with a clatter.
Instantly, I saw Buxton glaring at me from the opposite side of the room, his eyes glittering in the darkness. “Is there some sort of problem you’re having with the door?” he asked through clenched teeth.
I tried to brush past him, but he blocked my path.
“Excuse me,” I muttered, pushing him.
“Excuse you,” Buxton said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Coming in as if you own the place. Stinking like humans. While I’m not one to question Miss Lexi, I do think it’s time you show a little respect for her home, brother.”
The word brother awakened something within me. “Watch what you say,” I hissed, baring my teeth.
But Buxton just chuckled. “I’ll watch what I say when you watch how you act.”
“Boys?” Lexi called from upstairs, her lilting voice a contrast to the tense scene. She glided down the stairs, her eyes softening with concern when they rested on me. “Is Damon . . . ?”
“He’s alive,” I muttered. “But I couldn’t get to him.”
Lexi perched on the edge of a rickety rocking chair, her eyes large and sympathetic. “Buxton, can you please get us some goat’s blood?”
Buxton’s eyes narrowed, but he shuffled out of the parlor and into the kitchen. In the living room, I could hear Hugo playing a lively French march on the piano.
“Thanks,” I said, sinking into an overstuffed love seat. I didn’t want goat�
��s blood. I wanted to gorge myself on gallons and gallons of human blood, drinking until I got sick and passed out in total oblivion.
“Remember, he’s strong,” Lexi said.
“I’m not worried about Buxton,” I said.
“I meant your brother. If he’s anything like you, he’s strong.”
I looked up at her. She came over and took my chin in her hand.
“That’s what you have to believe. It’s what I believe. The trouble with you is that you want everything done right away. You’re impatient.”
I sighed. The last thing I needed was another lecture about how I had no sense of the way the real vampire world worked.
Besides, I wasn’t impatient. I was desperate.
“You just need to think of another plan. One we can help with.” Lexi glanced over as Buxton entered, carrying a silver tray laden with two mugs.
Buxton paused midstep. “Faut-il l’aider?” he asked in French.
“Nous l’aiderons,” Lexi replied.
Neither Lexi nor Buxton knew that I’d learned French at my mother’s knee; it was odd to listen to them speakabout whether to help me free Damon. I stared at my hands, which were still covered with crusted blood from my hunt earlier in the evening.
Buxton banged the tray against the polished cherrywood table. “You will not put us in danger,” he growled, his fangs inches away from my neck. He shoved me with all his might against the wall, and the back of my head cracked against the fireplace’s marble mantle.
My Power took over, and I pushed his shoulders hard. But Buxton was older and stronger than I was, and he kept me pinned to the wall, his hands firmly against my chest. I could feel blood beginning to seep from my skull, where I’d hit my head.
“You selfish, ungrateful monster,” Buxton whispered, hatred dripping from his voice. “I’ve seen vampires like you before. You think the world is yours for the taking. You don’t care about others. You don’t care who you kill. You give us a bad name.”
I twisted and writhed, trying to escape his grip, when suddenly I felt the pressure release from my chest, followed by an enormous crash as Buxton fell to the floor.
“Buxton,” Lexi lectured, staring at the prone body lying at her feet. “How many more centuries will it be before you learn how to treat a guest? And, Stefan, won’t you agree with me that human blood simply doesn’t agree with you? That behavior wasn’t necessary.” Lexi shook her head like an annoyed schoolmarm. “Now, I’ll drink my blood in peace. Be nice, boys,” she said as she glided out of the room, the mug of blood in her hands.
How could she walk away so casually, knowing that my brother was out there imprisoned and tortured? I had come to depend on Lexi for many things, and support in finding and saving Damon was my only priority now.
As if reading my mind, she paused at the archway to her quarters, glancing from one of us to the other. “If and when I say we help Damon, we will. Is that clear to both of you?”
“Yes, Miss Lexi,” Buxton murmured as he slowly eased onto his knees then stood up.
I nodded, barely containing my scowl. If?
Buxton limped out of the room, but not before he threw one last glare in my direction.
Suddenly the house felt too small, as though the walls, floors, and ceilings were pressing in at me from all sides. Letting out one last growl, I flew through the parlor, out the door, and back down to Lake Road.
Chapter 20
The next morning, I woke as someone shook my shoulder.
“Go away,” I murmured. But the shaking was insistent.
My eyes snapped open, and I realized I was lying curled up next to one of the tents at Gallagher’s freak show.
“Did you sleep here?” Callie asked, crossing her arms over her chest. I sat up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, thinking about the previous evening. I’d returned to the circus grounds, unsure of where else to go and had fallen asleep there.
“Good morning, Miss Callie,” I said, ignoring her question. I stood up and brushed dirt off the back of my pants. “How can I help you?”
She shrugged. She was clad in a pink cotton dress that showed her tiny waist and freckled arms. The color stood in contrast to her flowing red hair, and she reminded me of a wild rose. “We’re going to take a few days off from the show. Father made so much money, he wants the next event to be even bigger.” Callie smiled. “The first rule of show business: Keep ’em wanting more.”
“How’s Da—the vampire?” I asked, shielding my eyes from the sun. While my ring protected me from the agony of the rays, the sun made me feel exposed and clumsy. The dark cloaked more than my fangs, and in the light of day, I constantly had to check to make sure I wasn’t moving at lightning speed, responding to questions I shouldn’t be able to hear, or following my urge to feed.
Callie tucked a loose strand of rust-colored hair behind her ear. “The vampire is okay, I suppose. Father has its handlers tending to it around the clock. They don’t want it to die. Not yet, anyway.”
Not yet was a small comfort, but it was something. It meant I still had time.
She frowned slightly. “Of course, I hardly think they should let it die at all. What we’re doing to it, and to the animals it fights, is totally barbaric,” she said softly, almost speaking to herself.
I looked up swiftly at the words. Was she more sympathetic to Damon’s plight than I’d imagined? “Can I see him?” I asked, surprised at my boldness.
Callie swatted my arm. “No! Not unless you pay up, like everyone else. Besides, he’s not here.”
“Oh.”
“Oh,” she said, mocking me. Then her eyes softened. “I still can’t believe you slept here. Don’t you have a home?”
I met her gaze straight on. “I had . . . a disagreement with my family.” It wasn’t exactly a lie.
The freak show was starting to wake up. The strong man walked, bleary-eyed, out of a tent. Abruptly, he dropped down to the ground and began doing push-ups. The fortune-teller headed to the secluded part of the lake, towel in hand, no doubt for a bath. And two of the ever-present burly security men were watching Callie and me curiously.
Callie clearly noticed as well. “Would you like to go for a walk?” she asked, leading the way down a dirt-packed road to the edge of the lake, out of sight of the show. She picked up a stone and threw it into the water, where it landed with a thunk.
“I never could skip stones,” she said, in such a sad voice that I couldn’t help but burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, hitting my arm again. The swat was playful, but the bracelets she wore were twisted through with vervain, and the contact sent a wave of pain up my arm. She put her hand on my shoulder, concern creasing her forehead. “Are you okay?”
I winced. “Yes,” I lied.
“Okay . . .” she said, throwing me a skeptical look. She leaned down to pick up another stone and raised her light brown eyebrow at me before she threw it in the water. It fell with a harmless plop.
“Tragic!” I picked up my own stone and aimed it across the water. It skipped five times before falling below the surface.
Callie laughed and clapped her hands. “You must teach me!”
“You have to flick your wrist. And pick a flat stone.” I spotted a smooth brown rock with a white band ringing the top. “Here.” I put the rock in her hands. “Now, flick,” I said, gingerly touching her skin, making sure my fingers didn’t brush against the vervain.
She closed her eyes and tossed the stone, which skipped once, before falling into the water. She threw her arms up in delight. “Thank you, Stefan,” she said, her eyes twinkling.
“No more ‘stranger’?” I teased.
“You’ve taught me something. That means we’re friends.”
“Does it, now?” I said, taking another stone and tossing it in the water. Damon and I had skipped stones in the pond near our home in Mystic Falls. We’d make wishes and pretend that they would come true if we could guess the number of skips a stone wou
ld make.
I closed my eyes briefly. If it skips five times, I’ll have a chance to free Damon, I thought. But this stone was heavier and sank after two skips. I shook my head, annoyed at myself for indulging in such a childish game.
“So was that your biggest concern in the world? That you couldn’t skip stones?” I teased, trying to reclaim the light tone of our outing.
She smiled, but her eyes looked sad. “No. But don’t you think pretend problems are much more manageable than real ones?”
“Yes, I do,” I said quietly.
The sun was steadily rising, lending the lake an orange glow. Several small skiffs were already on the water, casting their nets, and the wind whipped around our ears, a reminder that even though the sun felt warm, winter was well on its way.
“I’ve never talked to anyone about this. That’s rule number two of the Gallagher family business—don’t trust anyone,” she said.
“Your father seems tough,” I ventured, sensing her frustration. “Perhaps too tough?”
“My father is fine,” Callie snapped. She scowled at me, hands on her hips.
“I’m sorry,” I said, raising my hands in surrender. I realized I’d pushed too far too quickly. “That was out of line.”
Callie let her hands fall to her sides. “No, I’m sorry. I’m just protective of him. He’s all I have.”
“Where is your mother?” I asked.
“Died when I was six,” Callie said simply.
“I understand,” I said, thinking of my own mother. “It’s hard, isn’t it?”
Callie plucked a blade of grass from the ground and shredded it between her fingernails. “I try to be strong. But after Mother died, Father threw himself into work.”
“It seems that you do that as well.”
“Now that Father’s got the vampire act worked out, I feel like things will change for the better. He has a short fuse that gets shorter the less money he has.”
At the mention of the vampire act, I kicked the stones around the edge of the shore. A flurry of pebbles flew through the air and landed several meters into the lake with a violent splashing sound.