Consumed: The Vampire Awakenings, Book 8

by Davies, Brenda K.

  “Be safe,” she whispered before leaning forward to kiss Mike.

  “If anything happens, fire the gun and I’ll come back,” he said.

  “I will, and I’ll shoot to kill,” she promised.

  He kissed her and pulled away before he changed his mind about leaving. He nodded to Doug and slipped into the woods. Gliding from tree to tree, he stayed out of sight until he neared the mansion. Once closer, he stopped and bent to scoop up handfuls of dirt. He rubbed the soil over his face and into his hair to help him blend in with the woods before continuing.

  When patches of the gray, brick building started appearing through the trees, he settled into a spot where he could see the side and part of the front of the mansion. Dropping, he wiggled forward on his belly before settling in behind a rotting log. Most of his body remained hidden behind the log, but he poked his head around the edge of it to study the mansion.

  A vampire’s vision was better than an eagle’s, but heavy drapes covered the windows, and if someone looked out, he doubted they’d search the ground for any enemies. He should be well-hidden here.

  In the distance, to his right, sporadic gunshots continued from the barn, but Mollie’s gun remained silent behind him. He tried not to think of her with Doug, but the scent of her lingered on his skin and in his blood. The constant pull to return to her almost launched him to his feet and back through the woods, but through sheer will, he remained behind the log.

  Then the sun touched the horizon and streaks of pink and yellow illuminated the sky. A flash of movement drew his eyes to one of the drapes as it swayed back and forth. No one pulled it back to peer out, but someone walked close enough that their passing moved it. It was the first sign of life in this place.

  Mike tensed when the sun dipped lower, but nothing else moved until dusk descended and the first star twinkled to life in the sky. The creak of the front door broke into the start of the cricket’s song, and even the insects went quiet when Savages poured out the door. Nearly two dozen of the creatures spilled down the stairs and spread out in different directions as they loped across the lawn toward the woods. The inhuman howls and grunts of excitement they emitted chilled his skin.

  There was no denying these things were on the hunt.

  Most of them ran in the direction of the barn, but some split off and rushed toward the sides. Mike held his breath as two of them raced toward him. One plunged into the woods a couple of hundred feet to his left while the other entered on his right, only seventy feet away.

  Mollie! Mike glanced at where the other one had disappeared, but it was too far away to be much of a threat to Mollie and Doug. The one closest to him wasn’t though. Rolling away from the log, he slipped into the woods after his enemy.

  When the Savage veered to the right, heading away from Mollie and Doug, Mike decided not to pursue it. He’d spent too much time away from her already, and he couldn’t risk something going wrong.

  * * *

  “Do we just go in there?” Mollie whispered. Through the trees, she stared at the back door of the mansion, one she assumed led into a kitchen or perhaps the servant’s quarters judging by the size of this place.

  “I think that’s our only option,” Doug murmured.

  Mollie fiddled with the edges of her sleeves as she gazed at the door. She wished she could see through walls, so she could learn if Aida was in there. But unless she miraculously became Superman between this second and the next, her wishing would get her nowhere.

  “I’ll approach the door,” Doug said. “I’m healed now.”

  “I don’t think that’s the best way of going about it,” Mike said. “I watched this place for a while, and no one looked out the windows. Granted, it was daytime, but we’ve been standing here for a good ten minutes, and we still haven’t seen anyone. The Savages think they’re safe in this place. So safe, I bet they didn’t leave anyone behind to guard it, and I don’t see any cameras monitoring the outside.”

  “What do you suggest we do?” Doug inquired.

  “Walk right on up there,” Mike replied.

  Mollie gulped.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Mike slipped from the trees with Mollie close on his heels and Doug following as they approached the mansion. He couldn’t watch all the windows on the back side of the house, but his eyes scanned them for movement; he saw none.

  He didn’t sense anyone nearby in the woods before leaving them, but he remained alert for the slightest shift in smell or the smallest step that would alert him to the approach of an enemy. The constriction in his chest didn’t ease when they made it to the back steps.

  He had no idea what they might find inside, and he was leading Mollie straight into it. For years, he’d waited for her to enter his life, and he could lose her before he ever experienced life with her.

  Easy, he cautioned when his hands flexed, and he had to fight the impulse to sink his fangs into her, change her, and screw the consequences.

  But those consequences were far too significant for him to ignore; without enough blood to get her through the transition, she would become something caught between a human and a vampire and have to be destroyed. He would not allow that to happen, and he would not be the one who caused it.

  Mollie held her breath when Mike’s dirt-streaked hand gripped the knob. There was no way the door would be unlocked. Maybe the Savages didn’t have the best security around this place, because what was the point if you lived on an island full of vamps? But they would lock their doors, right? But then what would be the point of that?

  She got her answer when the knob turned beneath his hand, and he held the door as it swung inward. Mollie couldn’t hear anything over the blood rushing through her ears as she gazed into the kitchen. It couldn’t really be this easy; it just couldn’t.

  The skin on her neck crawled, and she glanced behind her toward the woods line, but she saw nothing there. Doug was also watching the trees and could see far more than she did, but if he wasn’t raising the alarm, then they had to be alone, for now.

  When Mike stepped away from her, Mollie snatched his hand before he made it more than two steps inside. Something was wrong here; it had to be. They were walking into a trap or the dragon’s lair or something awful. And Aida might be dead center in the middle of it.

  Mike’s eyebrows drew together while he gazed questioningly at her. His hand turned over to grip hers, and he squeezed it. The look of panic didn’t lessen from her face, and her grip didn’t ease on him. She feared for him, he realized, both pleased and saddened by it. It was good to know she cared for him too, but he hated that she was constantly in fear.

  Then Mollie threw back her shoulders and gave him a decisive nod. She may be afraid, but she would not back down from this. Wrapping his other hand around the back of her head, Mike pulled her close and kissed her before releasing her.

  Mollie let go of Mike’s hand as she followed him into a kitchen that would have made Martha Stewart jealous. A single recessed light over the double, stainless steel sink illuminated the room. The kitchen was a little too much for a houseful of vampires, especially when she recalled the meals tossed into their cages. Those meals consisted of little more than bread and water with some sandwich meat tossed in. None of it warranted a kitchen this size or with this much modern equipment.

  “Why do they have this?” she whispered.

  “Many vampires like to have the best, even if it’s unnecessary,” Mike said.

  Apparently, Mollie thought as he led her around the island with two stoves and a basin sink set into the black marble counter. The copper pots hanging from a rack over the island were polished to a shine. She doubted any of it was ever used, but she didn’t see a speck of dust anywhere.

  Mike led the way out of the kitchen and into a dark hallway that seemed to stretch on endlessly in both directions. On either end of the hall, light shone from under closed doors, but he didn’t sense anyone else nearby. His gaze traveled to the ceiling as he strained to hear
anything above, but the house didn’t even creak.

  Turning to the right, he led Mollie down the hall until they encountered a spacious living room on their left. The arched beams of the vaulted ceiling reminded him of the skeleton of a boat as the mahogany wood stretched all the way across the room.

  A multi-hued, stained-glass lamp situated next to a tan, overstuffed armchair was turned on in the corner. Its muted glow cast shards of color and shadows across the thick, black drapes drawn over the window beside it. Three more, eight-foot-tall and four-foot-wide, arched windows spanned the front of the house. If the curtains were thrown open, sunlight would illuminate this room for hours every day, but Mike doubted the room ever saw the light of day.

  The rest of the room contained furniture matching the armchair, three glass coffee tables, and a white throw rug in the middle of the dark, hardwood floor. Mike glanced at the floor-to-ceiling, gray stone fireplace before turning away from the room and continuing down the hall. Mollie stayed close on his heels, and Doug followed her.

  Stopping outside the next closed door, he pressed his ear against it to listen but heard nothing within. Cautiously, he turned the knob and swung the door open to reveal a game room with a chessboard on a tree trunk table, a pool table, and three card tables.

  He closed the door and moved on. The next three doors opened to reveal luxurious bedrooms with king-sized beds and bathrooms that looked like mini-spas with their hot tubs and steam showers. One of the rooms had a tray within and on it sat a crystal decanter of blood. The next two doors along the hall concealed a bathroom and linen closet.

  At the end of the hall, Mike paused outside the final room, the one with light filtering around the edges of the door and spilling onto the hardwood floors from the crack underneath. He heard nothing moving inside and no voices, but he scented smoke and liquor as well as something more pungent.

  Unease churned in his gut as the caustic aroma caused a memory to niggle at the back of his mind, but he couldn’t bring it forth. Something was off about this room. Glancing back at Mollie, he discovered she’d removed the rifle from her back and held it before her. The look on her face was one of steely determination as she eyed the door.

  Mike looked to Doug who had his attention focused on the hall to make sure no one tried to sneak up behind them. Turning away, Mike rested his hand on the knob. He had no choice but to see what the room held; they couldn’t leave here without exploring as much of the place as possible.

  When the door opened enough to reveal the room, he tried to jerk it closed again, but Mollie’s gasp told him she’d already seen the horror within.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Mollie hadn’t known what to make of the mansion while they wandered through it; everything seemed so normal for a vampire residence, and much of it was beautiful. Though she didn’t know what normal was for a mansion, or a vampire residence, as she’d never been in either before.

  But now she knew normal and beautiful was only a cover for the atrocities the residents of this place committed.

  She thrust her hand out when Mike started to close the door. The rest of this place had given them no answers so far, and as much as she yearned to shut the door and try to forget what she’d seen in the hideous room, it might be their only chance to figure out what was going on here. Plus, she only caught a glimpse of what lay beyond, but there would be no forgetting what she’d seen.

  When Mollie held her hand out to stop him, Mike hesitated before pushing the door open again to reveal a room the size of a small house. He met Doug’s eyes over her head, and when he saw the questioning look in his friend’s gaze, Mike realized Doug hadn’t seen what lay beyond. Taking a deep breath, Mike stepped into the room, and Mollie and Doug followed.

  Doug inhaled sharply and froze in the doorway before continuing into the room with the wooden step of a marionette. Mike edged around Mollie and Doug to grab the door. He searched the hallway for anyone hiding in the shadows, before quietly closing the door.

  Mollie tried to absorb everything she saw as she ambled around the room; her eyes took it all in, but her brain screamed denials at the gruesome scene. However, she couldn’t hide behind those denials and forced herself to examine the heads mounted on the back wall.

  The top three feet of the red wall remained open, but the bottom ten feet were crammed so full that there was only a sliver of space between each of the heads. The eyes of the dead, which looked far too real but had to be glass, followed her every step.

  The faces were all forever pulled into different, frozen expressions. Some had their mouths shaped into O’s, as if they were screaming in terror; others had their lips pulled back to reveal glistening fangs, while some revealed no fangs. Some of them had their lips sewn together and their eyes downcast as if they were cringing from something.

  The worst were the ones grinning as broadly as the Joker would after he killed Batman. Their broad smiles were completely out of place with the fact their heads had been severed from their bodies, stuffed with something, and nailed to a wall.

  “Are they all vampires?” she whispered to Mike when he came to stand beside her.

  “No, but most of them are.”

  Goose bumps broke out on her arms as her thoughts turned to Aida. Was she being prepared to become one of these things? No, Mollie would never allow that to happen. Even if Aida were dead, Mollie would make sure she didn’t end up here.

  Then her frazzled brain took in the gold plaques mounted beneath each of the heads. The newest plaque was dated 2017, and as she started to follow them back, she noted each was from a different year. Kneeling, she discovered the first one in the bottom right corner. Beneath the grimacing man with shaggy brown hair and faded brown eyes was the year 1945.

  “There are seventy-two heads here. One for every year since 1945.” Mollie gazed at the twisted collection again as realization settled over her. “I’d bet that’s also the year the family in the lighthouse died. Their heads might not be here, but those people were some of the first victims of these sick bastards. These Savages wanted this island, and they took it from that family and whoever else might have lived here at the time,” she said as she recalled the burnt-out farmhouse behind the barn.

  “I think you’re right,” Mike said.

  “And there are two trophies for every year over here,” Doug said.

  Mollie turned to find him standing in front of a glass trophy case on the other side of the room. The trophy case was so massive it took up the entire wall, but not even half of the easily fifty-foot-long display was full of trophies.

  There’s room for plenty more. With care, Mollie made her way around the half a dozen, mahogany tables situated in the middle of the room. The room was so big that the four-foot-long and three-foot-wide tables placed against each other didn’t take up an eighth of the space.

  She tried not to look at the contents of the jars on the tables, but her gaze kept returning to the floating hands and feet. Writing etched the front of the jars, but she didn’t get close enough to read what it said.

  Seeing the jars, Mike recalled what the familiar, yet evasive odor was: formaldehyde. He hadn’t smelled it since his ninth-grade biology class when he and Liam partnered up to dissect a frog. They’d poked at the splayed-out frog and made jokes about it until Mike finally picked up a scalpel and started cutting.

  Jack and Doug were also in the class and partnered together. Doug had gotten an A for his work while Jack failed when he decided to remove the frog from its board and dance around the room with it. The boys all laughed; most of the girls giggled and screamed while they hid from Waltzing Walter, as Jack named the frog.

  Their teacher had looked like he was about to have a stroke when he stalked toward Jack, snatched the frog away, and escorted Jack out of the class to the principal’s office. When they were out of the room, Doug shrugged, picked the frog up from where the teacher slammed it onto a lab table, pinned it back down, and started dissecting it. He’d ignored everyone
else who’d forgotten their frogs in favor of gossiping about the fate Jack would meet, which was a two-day suspension, or a vacation, as Jack declared.

  Mike had forgotten about that incident until now; he’d also forgotten Jack was voted their class clown throughout all of high school. At one time, Jack had been far less serious about life. When Beth turned him into a vampire, she’d done more than change Jack from mortal to immortal; she’d also sucked away much of his carefree demeanor. Now, Jack was probably the most serious and the grumpiest of his friends.

  Grumpy or not, Mike missed him. He wished he knew where Jack was, but at least his head wasn’t on the wall, yet. Mike didn’t know why those unlucky bastards had been chosen to be mounted like animals, but he would do everything he could to make sure none of them met the same fate.

  Stopping next to Doug, Mollie examined the trophies in the case. The glow of the recessed bulbs in the case illuminated the polished collection within. Those bulbs were the only source of light in the room, and she suspected they were never turned off.

  Mike stood close by her side, but she didn’t look at him as she studied the foot-high trophies displayed behind the glass. The base of the first trophy was white marble; rising from it was a piece of gold, six-inches high and at least three inches thick. A silver man, with one fist raised in the air and his other hand at his side, stood on top of the gold. From its lowered hand, a silver head dangled by its hair. The inscription etched onto the plaque on the marble read:

  Final Kill.

  Alicio Petit.

  2017.

  Mollie frowned as she reread the words, but she had no idea what they meant. She turned her attention to the trophy beside it. This trophy was much the same, except the base was red marble and the silver figure on top was a woman. She had one hand raised and three heads dangling from her lowered hand. The plaque read: