Love & War Book 1 in the Arcadia Falls Chronicles

by Jennifer Malone Wright

  I spotted Oscar sitting on the icy-cold pavement in an alley with the woman pulled tightly up against him. He gently rocked her back and forth, in a comforting motion. Alice and Christina stood beside him, waiting for us.

  “What happened to the vampire?” Drew asked when we approached. He still carried his gun in his hand, probably refusing to holster it until he knew Zander was safe.

  Christina eyed Zander cautiously before she responded. She twirled her gigantic knife like it was a baton. “No worries. He's gone.”

  Oscar propped the woman up against the wall. “We have to call an ambulance. She is losing too much blood.”

  I knelt down and looked into the young woman’s eyes, which were still wide with fear. She appeared to be conscious but unspeaking. A sharp pang of guilt hit me in the gut. It was our fault she was suffering. If we had only gotten to him sooner, she would be fine. “Oscar, can you help her? Is that possible?

  He nodded. “Yes. I can make her think something else happened to her. Then she won’t remember anything, but I have to wait until just before we leave her so that she has absolutely no memory of us after I speak to her.”

  Zander approached the woman with every single one of our skeptical eyes on him. “We should use her phone.” He dug through her jacket pockets until he found a phone in one of the inside pockets. “That way our phones can’t be tracked.”

  We all knew he was right, so we let him call 911 and explain about a woman with some kind of bite. He gave the address of where we were, clicked off the phone and replaced it in her jacket.

  Christina gave her knife one last twirl then sheathed it. “It’s time to go.”

  Oscar turned and knelt before the woman.

  “Look at me,” he demanded softly and lifted her chin.

  I could see her trying hard to focus on him.

  I had asked about his ability before, and he had explained that it wasn’t about making eye contact, like compulsion; it was about the actual sound of his voice, but making eye contact helped a person listen better.

  “You will remember nothing of anyone you have seen tonight. A large animal attacked you as you walked back home from studying late at school. You fought it and then it ran away.”

  She blinked her eyes as her only response.

  “You aren’t afraid any more. Help is coming. Do you understand?” he asked.

  She nodded and managed to whisper, “Yes, I understand.”

  Oscar stood. “All right, it’s done. Let’s get out of here.”

  Zander looked to Drew. “Get in my truck. I’ll take you guys to your car.”

  Drew nodded. We all piled into the bed of his truck, except for Drew, who sat in the passenger seat so he could watch and show him where the car was, I assumed.

  At the car, Drew stayed in the truck and told us to meet them at café on Pine Street. As soon as we had unloaded out of the back of the truck, they sped off into the night. Moving as fast as we could, we hurried into the car and took off after them.

  “Go as quick as you can, Christina. I don’t want Drew alone with him any longer than he has to be.”

  I could see her roll her eyes even from my position in the backseat.

  Alice sat in the back with me.

  “Are you okay?” I asked her.

  She sighed and leaned back against the seat of the car. “It’s so strange. All that time I’ve spent around vampires, and this was probably the most intense thing to ever happen to me, aside from what happened with you at Trevor’s,” she added.

  I lay back on the seat, too. I was just glad that the hardest part of the night was over.

  We pulled into the lot of the café and parked beside Zander’s truck.

  “I am so hungry!” I stretched after slipping out of the car and then slammed the door shut. “Let’s get some food!”

  We found Drew and Zander looking at menus in a huge booth way in the back of the café. There weren’t many people taking up space, because it was so late after dinnertime. I scooted into the booth next to Drew while Zander got up and let Alice, Oscar and Christina into the booth.

  “Hey,” Christina said, and smiled at him when he sat next to her.

  Oh, my god! The girl couldn’t stop flirting if her life depended on it.

  We all ordered coffee except for Christina and Drew who preferred to have juice. I proceeded to order a rare burger with everything, fries, and a chocolate shake. After everyone had ordered, it was time to get down to business.

  “So,” Christina sipped her juice and smiled sweetly, “just who are you, exactly?”

  Zander shrugged off his leather jacket and set it aside. “I am here, in this town, because I’m searching for my father. I’ve been killing vampires and saving people since I was about fifteen.”

  “How old are you now?” Christina swirled her straw.

  “Twenty-two.”

  “Hmmm.”

  I shook my head, trying to ignore Christina. “Why are you looking for your father?”

  “Oh, no.” He wagged his finger a bit. “It’s question for question, and that makes it my turn to ask you. Who are you guys?” He turned to look Christina in the eye. “He already told me you are vampire hunters, so tell me about your group.”

  For a moment, there was an awkward silence while we deliberated what exactly we should tell him. He already knew we killed vampires, but it was a whole other story to put the community at risk. Drew seemed to be the senior hunter at the table, so we pretty much left it to him to explain.

  “There are more of us, a lot more. The vampire hunter is a race of beings. We are human, yet born from the blood of angels and demigods. Killing vampires is in our blood, not something we have chosen to do.”

  Zander, despite all his bad-boy cool mannerisms, appeared shocked. “Angels and demigods?”

  We all nodded. I looked to Alice and shook my head gently. He knew about us, but there was no reason he needed to know anything about her or Oscar. Drew pointed at him. “Now you. Why are you searching for your father?”

  He shrugged. “It’s a long story. Basically, I have never known him. My mother never wanted to talk about him, because he ditched us before I was born.”

  Alice’s eyes misted a little bit. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. She was always the motherly one. “Maybe, we could help you find him. Do you know his name?”

  Zander removed a note from his pocket.

  “My mother passed away last year. She left this in a journal that she kept.” He unfolded the aged paper. “It is a letter to me, describing my father and where she had last seen him. His name is Trevor Krasimir.”

  I felt a wave of nausea wash over me, and my vision clouded with dizziness. I heard the collective gasps at the table. Zander examined our reactions. “Do you know him?”

  I forced the sick feeling and the dizzy spell away and slammed my fist on the table.

  “Is this some kind of sick joke?” I demanded in a low whisper, feeling Drew’s hand on my thigh.

  For the first time since we’d met Zander, the bad-boy hardness erased from his expression, and he appeared genuinely confused.

  “What?” He examined each of our faces. “What is it? I wouldn’t joke about something like this?” He waved the letter.

  Even Christina looked disgusted at the inappropriate mention of Trevor’s name.

  Drew leaned over the table and whispered to Zander. “If you are one of Trevor’s minions he left behind, and they sent you here to mess with us, I will hurt you. Do you understand that?”

  Zander held up his hands in surrender. “Look, man, I just came here looking for him. I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I can tell that you know who he is. So now you can start talking. I need to know.”

  Drew glanced at me to see if I wanted to tell him. I nodded. If he was truly Trevor’s son, that meant I had some kind of weird-ass long-lost brother. God, did he even know Trevor was a vampire? I cleared my throat and took a sip of my coffee to clear the way for the w
ords. “Trevor is dead.”

  Zander had not expected to hear that. His expectant eyes lowered with dismay at the news.

  “I’m sorry, Zander, but he has been gone for several months.” I did not know how to appropriately tell him the next part, so I just blurted it out. “He was my father, too.”

  Once again, his eyes changed. Only this time from dismay back to excited. “Your father, as well?”

  We stared at each other, examining everything. His hair was dark, like mine. His eyes were dark, like mine. We did look alike, that was for sure, and I got my dark features from both sides of my heritage.

  “You’re my sister?” he questioned, still unable to take his eyes off of me. I nodded gently, still not really believing it myself. This could be some wonky plan that Dahlia set up, or Vanessa.

  “That’s so crazy.” He looked like he maybe wanted to reach out and touch me.

  “Um…” I coughed again. It felt like I had something in my throat. “You… you do know that Trevor was a vampire, right?”

  He nodded. “Yes, yes, I never knew though until I found this letter.” He tapped it with his index finger. “She told me everything in here. Thank god, I knew about vampires already or it would have been even harder to digest. Finding out that I am half vampire actually made my life make more sense than it ever had.”

  Wow, lucky for him. It basically made my life a living hell when I found out.

  Christina had been listening intently. “Why? Why did it make more sense than before and how did you know even know about vampires?”

  He leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table and lacing his fingers together.“When I was fourteen, my friends and I snuck out into the city for no reason at all except to wander around and try to be what we thought at the time was cool. I had told my mother I was staying at one of the guys and they told their parent’s the same thing. We rode the bus in and walked up and down the streets smoking cigarettes and messing around.

  As we passed one of the alleys, I felt this incredibly strong urge to turn into the darkness and see what was down there. I slowed, peering into the alley to see what would make me want to go in there so badly. I saw nothing, but just as I was turning away I heard a whimper. My friends had already gone ahead of me so I figured I’d just go in and take a quick look.

  That was probably the worst decision I’ve ever made. The whimper had come from a woman who was being held up against the stone wall of a building by a man. Even though I was only fourteen, I knew I could not walk away from what was happening. I shouted ‘Hey!’ to let this guy know that someone was watching him. He turned his head my way and his red, glowing eyes bore into me. He lifted his lips to show his fangs and sort of…I don’t know, hissed at me.”

  Zander unfolded his hands and leaned back against the booth again. “That was the first time I’d ever seen a vampire. I didn’t know or believe in stuff like witches or vampires but, that day I left the woman to the vampire and ran out of the alley. My friends had all realized I was gone and turned around to come back and look for me. They were nearby when I came barreling out of the alley freaking out and yelling gibberish about demons.

  After that day, I took to the books. I read everything I could about demons, vampires, witches…anything I could find. When I was almost sixteen and began realizing I had a few special abilities…I decided for that one woman that I left to die, that I needed to kill as many of the vampires as I could.”

  Christina tilted her head to the side. “And this helped you when you found out that Trevor was your father, how?”

  “Because I was basically some kind of freak. I was stronger than all the other kids in school. This might sound like a good thing, but it was not when you don’t want a damn thing to do with high school football. I like to eat meat that is almost raw. People see this and practically run.”

  I found myself nodding in agreement over the part about the raw meat. The bloodier the better, I always said.

  “I heal fast. I see at night just as well as I do in the day light. I can run—”

  “And jump faster and higher than most humans,” I finished for him.

  He sighed loudly, as if glad someone understood. “Yes, exactly.”

  The awkward silence engulfed us once again. I glanced at Alice and saw she was staring at Zander with a renewed interest, like she was looking for traces of Trevor in him. I pointed to Alice.

  “If you want to know more about him, Alice can probably tell you more than any of us. I only knew him for about a year. Alice lived with him for a long time.”

  Alice appeared shocked I would out her like that. We didn’t talk about Trevor any more. All of us were trying to put him behind us. But Zander met her eyes and muttered a thank you to her.

  Oscar, who had been pretty quiet most of the conversation, finally spoke up. “Would you mind if we read your letter?”

  To Zander’s credit, he didn’t look surprised or reluctant. “Sure.” He held out the folded piece of paper. Hesitantly, I took it from him and began unfolding it carefully so it wouldn’t tear. This was something sentimental that he got from his mom. I knew how that felt.

  “My Dearest Zander,

  If you are reading this, then the unthinkable finally happened to me and you have found my journals. I am so very sorry I cannot be here for you as you read this, but I could never bring myself to explain them to your face.

  Over the last few years I have noticed your interested in the supernatural has become more of an obsession. Yes, you have tried to hide this from me, but you are not the only one with secrets, my son.

  Before you were born, when I was a young girl, something horrible happened to me. I was attacked by several men… yes, just regular guys. I had to close up the café that night, so it was after midnight. I worked nights because my college classes took up most of my day and I had to pay the bills somehow. These three men, they attacked me, took my purse from me, beat me with their fists, and tried to do more… I can’t bring myself to describe that to you, but you understand what I am telling you, I hope.”

  My voice cracked as I read the last part. We worry so much about the evil of the supernatural, that we forget the sins of man.

  “Go on.” Zander, examined his fingernails, unable to look any of us in the eye.

  “These men, they were not allowed to continue their attempts. I was saved.

  I lay there, on the cold cement of the sidewalk with my eyes closed, expecting the worst to happen and hoping that it would be over soon. The moment never came. I heard sudden screaming and struggling. Taking a chance, I opened my eyes and saw this other man, all in black and extremely pale skin. He snapped one attackers neck with one twist of his hands, then turned and slammed the other into the sidewalk where he either died or lay passed out until we left. He snatched up the last attacker and held him to his chest like they were embracing. The attacker begged for release and the dark man told him ‘You will have your release; I am releasing you from this world. But the hell you will find after this shall be far worse than the life you have endured and the crimes that you commit.’ Then his yanked him by the hair, tilting his head to the side so far I was sure it would snap and then he bared his fangs and sank them into the attacker’s neck.

  I remember screaming and crawling backwards in effort to get away from this monster…this, vampire. When the vampire had finished with the attacker he threw him aside and came to me. I begged him not to hurt me, that I would do anything.

  ‘I am not going to hurt you’ he told me softly ‘Tell me where your home is.’ He lifted me gently off the sidewalk retrieving my purse from the ground with a simple swoop of one hand and carried me home.

  That was my first encounter with a vampire.

  He took me back to my small apartment, placed me on my couch and covered me with a blanket. Then moved into the kitchen where he came back with a steaming mug of tea, which he offered me.

  Most of this took place in silence, for I did not know what to say. He was this
monster, yet he had saved me from those horrible men.”

  I stopped reading for a moment to take a sip from the water glass on the table. Trevor, I was beginning to see, had a soft spot for women, which made it hard to see his evil side sometimes.

  I read on. “He asked me my name and he told me his. I could see him examining my meager living arrangements with a critical eye and chose to ignore it. I owed him my life and he had the right to be critical if he wanted to be. Then, he told me he had to leave.

  I found myself not wanting him to go, I felt protected and safe with him near me. I chose not to voice this, but nodded and whispered a pathetic thank you that could never come close to how much I actually appreciated what he did.

  Long story short, he came back. Every time I left work to walk home, he was there. I never saw him, but I knew he was out there. One day, I stopped on the empty street and called out. ‘Trevor, I know you are out there. You don’t have to hide from me.’ And then he emerged from the darkness, showing himself to me.

  I asked him why he hid from me and he responded with a simple answer. ‘Because I am dangerous for you.’ I shook my head and told him he was the best thing to ever happen to me, that he need not hide any longer.

  After that, we were together, and you were created from that union. Trevor never knew about you because once I found out I was pregnant I knew that life with a vampire father would not be the best for my child. I told Trevor I was leaving town, and that as much as I wanted to be with him, I could not. He seemed to understand, and nodded his approval. Somehow, I wanted him to fight harder for me, even though it would have made leaving harder. Emotionally, I wanted him to fight for me to stay.

  So I moved, with you inside me I moved all the way across the country and found a big city to call home. The bigger, the better, the easier to be hidden.

  You, my son, are half vampire. They call this breed a dhampir. If you haven’t discovered it already, it is why you have the ‘special’ abilities that have caused you trouble in life.

  I am so sorry, but at the same time I am not sorry because you are my perfect son, my perfect boy, and Trevor gave you to me. For that, I am not sorry one bit.