Vampires of Maze (Part Three) (Beautiful Immortals Series Two Book 3)

by Tim O'Rourke

  “Let’s move on then,” Trent said.

  Next to the pub was an alleyway and Trent stepped into it. Single file, we followed him into the alleyway, which was narrow and made me feel somewhat claustrophobic. There was little light coming from either end and I brushed the sides of the wall with my fingertips so as to guide myself. At the opposite end of the alleyway, we stepped out onto a street that was lined on both sides with shops. Each of these was closed up. Some had boards across the windows and closed signs hanging at the doors. Apart from the odd rustle of litter being swept along the snow-laden gutter, the town of Shade was eerily quiet. Undeterred, Trent moved on, glancing from left to right, gun in fist. As we walked in silence along the street, I noticed that there was a butcher’s, a hardware store, a grocer’s, and every other type of shop one might find in any small town. I couldn’t help but feel a sense of sadness hanging over Shade. It seemed so sad to think that this place would’ve once been bustling with the human townsfolk who once lived here. The streets would’ve been busy with shoppers going about their business and their daily lives. But they had all gone now, and with my skin turning cold, I suspected that the humans who once lived in Shade had been rounded up and killed – or worse, taken to be bred at the human farm.

  Reaching the end of the street, Trent stopped again. We were standing on the outskirts of a small park. At its centre was a child’s swing. It swung slowly backwards and forwards in the wind and I couldn’t help but wonder if in fact it wasn’t the wind stirring it at all, but it was being ridden by the ghost of one of the children who had once played on it. Together we set out across the park and toward a small building on the opposite side of it. The roof of this building was pointed and looked very much like a small chapel. There was a small bell tower. The door to this building swung open and closed in the wind and we made our way toward it. And just like Calix had searched the pub, he pulled open the door and stepped inside.

  “It looks like this place was used as some kind of school,” Calix said, from inside the building.

  Brushing between Rush and Morten, I stepped up to the door and peered inside. There was a small lobby with a set of hooks fixed to the wall. There was a double set of doors with glass panels in them. Through these, I could see two rows of children’s school desks. Behind each desk there was a small chair where I guessed the children of Shade had once sat and carried out their schoolwork. Once again, I couldn’t help but feel unnerved knowing that this town – the school – had been a place where humans had once lived their lives. But to be in such a place brought back a rush of memories of my days spent teaching in the world I had come from. To be reminded of those children made my eyes fill with tears as I remembered their young and expectant faces – lives stretching out before them… but there would be no life… not for them. Blinking the tears that threatened away, I forced those memories back into the box where I had kept them hidden deep inside of me.

  “Well, there doesn’t seem to be much to see here,” Rea said from the doorway. She turned and headed back out into the cold where she was joined by Trent.

  I left the small school building with Calix at my heels. Once we were together again, Trent said, “The town seems deserted enough so perhaps we should stay a while, get our bearings, and figure out what to do next.”

  “It looks like just the place we could bring the rest of our kind to,” Rush said. “We could go back for the others and set up home here.”

  “You don’t really think the wooden wall surrounding this place is going to keep the vampires out, do you?” Calix asked.

  “Your friend is right,” Morten said, looking at the others. “The wall didn’t stop the vampires from taking the humans from Shade.”

  “Then why bring us here, old man?” Rea shot him.

  Desperate not to let another quarrel erupt amongst us all, I said, just above a whisper, “I can protect us. I can protect Shade from the vampires.”

  Rea rolled her eyes and lit another cigar. “How did I know she was gonna say that?”

  Ignoring her, I looked at Trent, and said, “I can keep this place safe. For how long, I do not know, but it will draw on all of my strength and magic to do it.”

  With a look of concern on his face, Trent said, “Is it safe? What I mean is, will you be safe? Is it dangerous?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said with a brief shake of my head. “But it’s got to be worth a try, hasn’t it?”

  “Not if it’s going to kill you,” Rush said, taking a step closer to me.

  “Let her try,” Rea said before taking a long, deep draw on the cigar that dangled from the corner of her lips.

  Trent glared at her, then looked back at me. “Will casting this spell kill you?”

  I met his stare and said, “I don’t know, but Calix is right. The walls constructed around this town won’t keep the vampires out, and you know as well as I do they will be looking for us.”

  “I say no, it’s too risky,” Trent said. “There’s got to be another way.”

  “There is no other way,” I whispered to myself more than them.

  Turning my back on those I’d travelled this far with, I closed my eyes and looked deep inside myself. I searched for those wispy tendrils of magic that sprouted like vines from my inner core and coiled themselves up through my veins, piercing my heart and reaching down to my fingertips. With eyes closed, I tilted my head back and pointed my face up toward the cold and early morning sky. The wind buffeted my face and my hair began to billow out from off my shoulders. But it wasn’t any kind of breeze that did this. Raising my arms, palms facing upwards, I pulled in the light that was now shining from the pale winter sun. The sunlight grew brighter and more dazzling in my mind’s eye. I reached for it with my fingers, drawing it down like a protective shield over the town of Shade. But to do such a thing, to control the light and bend it to my will, called upon all of my strength and determination. It made me feel lightheaded and faint. It stretched the tendrils of magic within me to a breaking point. I could feel them tearing inside of me – almost seeming to come apart as if tearing me in two. My cheeks suddenly felt warm as if the sky was raining down burning hot raindrops on them. They splashed my face, upper lip, and chin. With eyes still closed, head thrown back, and arms outstretched, I ran the tip of my tongue over my lips. And those raindrops tasted salty, like tears.

  I heard Calix speak. He sounded scared and confused. “What the fuck is happening?”

  His voice sounded like it was coming from behind the light I could feel blazing all around me. It sounded stretched and out of shape, like the tendrils of magic that twisted and turned inside of me.

  “It looks like the sky is caving in,” Morten said, sounding as disturbed as Calix had.

  “It looks like it’s falling on us!” Rea shouted.

  I wanted to open my eyes to see what had caused my friends so much alarm. But I couldn’t open them just yet. To do so would break the spell and the magic. However much it weakened me, it was not yet cast.

  “It’s not the sky that bothers me,” I heard Trent say, his voice sounding like it was coming from miles away. “Look at Julia. Can’t you see the blood running from her eyes, nose, and mouth? It looks like she’s bleeding to death. It looks like she’s dying.”

  The last of Trent’s words seemed to fade away on the breeze just as my legs buckled at the knees and I collapsed lifelessly into the snow.

  Chapter Five

  Without having to look at the clock on the wall, I knew that he would be waiting outside in the shadows. He came at the same time every night. It was our secret. Wearing just a bathrobe, I turned off the light and made my way to the bedroom window. And there he was, just like I knew he would be, sheltering in the shade cast by the tree that stood in my front garden. With a smile playing over my lips, I swung the window open. The warm evening breeze ruffled my hair, which rested about my shoulders. I peered down into the dark as he stepped from the shadows. He looked back just once to make sure he wasn’t being
watched, then turned to look back up at me in the window. And just like every other night he had come to me, the wolf man’s eyes shone brightly.

  Taking a step back from the window, I watched him cross the front lawn then bound up into the night. Using his long muscular claws, the wolf man climbed the front of my home and sprang into the open window. He sat on the window ledge as the clouds parted overhead, revealing a full moon and its brilliant blue and white light. The coarse hair that covered much of his head and face almost seemed to bristle in the light that streamed over his shoulders, giving the appearance of a halo that shimmered all about him.

  Without saying a word, the wolf man sprang from the open window and into my room. With one quick swipe of his claws, he had removed my dressing gown, leaving me standing naked before him. The urge to cover myself with my hands and arms had long since gone. I no longer felt shy or embarrassed standing before him. We had shared so much. We had become so much. We were lovers. And as he took me into his arms and carried me across the room to the bed, I knew what we were doing was so wrong, yet knowing this only seemed to make it all the more right. Our love was forbidden, but that only seemed to make it flourish and grow even more. I’d felt such feelings before and however hard I tried to run from them, they were like a drug I couldn’t live without. For it was those feelings of deep desire and passion that made me feel whole and complete. I’d often asked myself if there was something wrong with me. None of the other Wicce were attracted to the Beautiful Immortals like me. Sometimes, I wondered whether I’d been cursed – suffered from some kind of affliction. But could such feelings truly be a curse? Could feelings of such utter joy and pleasure really be such a bad thing? Just because others said such things were bad, did it really make them so? But there was a darker side to that sense of utter joy and happiness I felt when being loved by a Beautiful Immortal. These were feelings I could not discuss or share with any of my friends or family. To be unable to tell the people closest to me of how happy I felt, only made me feel gagged and restricted in some way. And just like I’d felt once before, there was a part of me that had grown to resent my closest friends and family. I resented the fact that I could not be open about the love I shared with this wolf man. A part of me had grown to despise the other Wicce because I was unable to tell them how happy he made me feel and how, in some strange way to be with him made me feel complete. It was frustrating to stand alone at family gatherings and watch others like me enjoy the company of those they loved and had chosen to share their lives with. I had grown weary of my parents’ questions asking why I had not met and fallen in love with a Wicce. I had grown even more disenchanted and unhappy every time my mother took me by the hand, led me to one side, and asked how long it would be before I provided her with a grandchild. But I knew there would never be any grandchild. I had no intention of ever falling in love with a Wicce. Although there were many handsome and charming warlocks free for me to choose from, they failed to excite me. They didn’t stir the fiery and passionate feelings deep inside of me in the same way that a Beautiful Immortal did. If I searched deep inside my soul, I knew it was the savagery and brutality of the Beautiful Immortals that captivated my heart so much. To be loved by one of them, to be made love to by one of them was too intense to put into words. For they were not gentle lovers. The Beautiful Immortals made love with a passion so great and frenzied that it unleashed feelings deep inside of me that were all-consuming and raw. And although I was a Wicce – and I loved my kind very much – rightly or wrongly, I saw the warlocks as insipid and often weak. These were traits that I’d been raised to respect and admire. The Wicce were a peaceful and loving race. But I wanted love that was deep and passionate. A love that got beneath my skin, crawled up inside me, and set my heart and soul aflame. I wanted to be truly loved, adored, eaten up, consumed, and left in no doubt by my lover that his love for me was as obsessive and compulsive as my own. There was no doubt a warlock would love me, respect me, be gentle and kind, and answer to my every whim, but I didn’t want a man who was passive or would cower before me. I wanted to be loved by a man who was my match, had a mind of his own, and the temperament and a desire that I would struggle to tame. I wanted my lover to be a challenge – someone I had to fight for. I wanted passion in my life. And I knew that only a Beautiful Immortal could love me how I wanted and needed to be loved.

  The wolf man pushed me down onto the bed. I felt his rough side whiskers bristle against my face as he kissed me. His kisses were hungry as his lips and tongue covered my neck, breasts, shoulders, arms, hands, fingers, stomach, thighs, knees, feet, and toes. It was like he was ravenous and wanted to eat me. But my hunger matched his as it always did and I pulled him down onto me.

  “I love you, Pariac,” I whispered in his ear.

  “I love you more, Julia,” he whispered back, voice deep and guttural.

  And then as we became one, I cried out. Not because of the explosion of pleasure I felt as Pariac pushed himself deep inside of me, but because of the other I could see watching us from the shadows in the corner of my bedroom. How had he gotten into my room? How had he come back? I had believed him to be dead.

  I sat up with a start…

  …“Julia, it’s okay. It’s just a nightmare,” I heard someone say.

  I opened my eyes but I felt dazed and weak. I tried to peer through my eyelashes but the world on the other side of them swung back and forth in a bright haze. I lifted one arm and covered my eyes.

  The voice I had heard just moments before spoke again. “I’ll shut the curtains if the light is too much for you.”

  Within seconds the bright light began to fade and I lowered my arm from over my eyes. My eyelids fluttered open and peered about the room I now found myself in. I was lying on a bed and covered by a sheet. The mattress was soft and spongy, as was the pillow that my head rested on. I was in a bedroom that was unfamiliar to me. It was small and poky, yet cosy all at the same time. There was a dressing table with mirror and a set of drawers. On the opposite side of the room there was a wardrobe and next to this there was a window. Daylight seeped around the edges of the dark curtains that had now been closed over them. It was then I saw the figure standing at the window. My heart jolted in my chest as remnants of the nightmare I’d just woken from still lingered at the corners of my mind. For just one brief moment, I thought I was back in my bedroom and it was Pariac I could see standing at the window. But Pariac never came to my room during the day, he always came under the cover of darkness.

  There was a scratching sound followed by a burst of light. And in the glow of the match that had been lit, I could see that it was Trent who was standing in the unfamiliar room I’d woken to find myself in. He lit a candle and blew out the match. Slowly, he came toward the bed and sat down on the edge of it next to me.

  “I’m so glad to see you’ve finally woken,” Trent said, reaching out with his free hand and gently brushing a lock of hair from my brow. His touch was cold and I realised that my skin was hot with fever. As I turned my head to look at Trent, I felt a pain and stiffness in the right side of my neck. Gently, I placed my hand to the painful spot only to discover that it had been covered with a bandage.

  I swallowed, and my throat felt dry and sore. “What happened to me?”

  “You collapsed,” Trent said.

  I winced at the pain in my neck and said, “I know that. What I mean is, what happened to my neck?”

  Holding my stare, Trent said, “You were bitten.”

  “Bitten?”

  Trent looked a little sheepish “It was the only way to save you.”

  I pulled myself up against the pillows, and as I did, the sheet fell partially away, revealing much of my hip and thigh along my right side. I couldn’t help but notice how Trent eyed the flesh that I now had on show. I quickly covered myself with the sheet and Trent looked away.

  “So you bit me?” I gasped, not really able to comprehend the consequences of such a thing. My mind still felt sluggish from the deep sle
ep I had just woken from.

  Trent shook his head. “No, it wasn’t me who bit you.”

  “Who then?”

  “It was Calix,” Trent said.

  Chapter Six

  “Calix bit me!” I cried before swallowing hard once more, my throat feeling as if I’d been gargling on broken glass.

  Still holding the candle, Trent picked up a glass of water from the bedside table and handed it to me. “Here, have a few sips of this.”

  The water was cold in my mouth and in the back of my throat. It went some way to easing the pain there. “I can’t believe Calix bit me. None of us have any idea what a werewolf bite could do to me… how it could change me…”

  “Calix didn’t have a choice; none of us did,” Trent said. “Calix only did what he thought was best for you.”

  “Best for me?” I croaked before taking another sip of the water. “You could have…”

  Trent spoke over me. “You could’ve died, Julia. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. None of us have. Blood was gushing from your eyes, from your nose, from your mouth, from your ears. You were bleeding to death… you were dying. Calix just acted on instinct, the instinct to save you. If he hadn’t bitten you, Julia, you’d be dead now.”

  I scowled at him, still not happy in the knowledge that I’d been bitten not only by a werewolf, but by Calix, too. “You can’t be sure I would’ve died.”

  “I can’t be sure of anything anymore, Julia,” Trent said, standing at the foot of the bed. “I’ve seen stuff that has made me change what I think about everything. What you did was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It was quite incredible and terrifying, too.”

  I set down the glass of water on the bedside cabinet. Tenderly prodding the covered bite mark, I said, “What did you see?”

  “What did I see?” Trent gasped. “It looked like the sky was falling apart. It was like it was going to rain down on us in thick chunks. It was like the whole goddamn world was breaking apart.”