“I don’t care about anything except getting revenge for what she did to Demitri.”
Vincent dwarfed the female vampire as he stood before her, his whole body tense. “How can you say that? He was a monster! He kidnapped a small child.”
“Demitri was my maker. He was everything to me.”
“He didn’t love you. He only cared about himself.”
She snarled at Vincent. “How could you do this, traitor? He was your maker too!”
“Demitri used my mother to get what he wanted.”
She narrowed her eyes and smirked at him, flashing her fangs. “Aw, mama’s boy…”
Serenity turned to the sixteen-year-old sorceress at her side. “Iona…?” Her eyes beseeched her. This was a pitiful situation. It would almost have been better to find Natasha strong and fighting. As it was, she’d already given up her life. What did they have left to threaten her with to make her take back what she’d done?
“You need to take back your vow, vampire,” said Iona. “Remove the demon from Sebastian or I will make sure you die here and now.”
Natasha’s milky eyes flicked over to Serenity and then back to Iona. “What can you do? You can’t hurt me.”
Iona glanced back over her shoulder toward Vincent. “I suggest you stand back.”
He didn’t need to be told twice. The vampire flicked back in a blur, moving to stand close to the entrance.
Iona held her hand out at chest level, chanting words in a low tone, her head bent. Natasha stared at the girl, her nose wrinkled in scorn.
A ball of light, like a crystal ball, burst from Iona’s palm and she held it toward Natasha. Beams of light radiated from the orb and a scream tore from the vampire’s throat. Immediately, her skin began to burn and smoke, the acrid stench of burning flesh filling the air.
The young sorceress snapped her palm shut and the ball disappeared.
Natasha gave another shriek of rage, holding her smoldering hands out in front of her. “Look what you’ve done to me, you little bitch!”
“Tell us how you called the demon into our world and I won’t burn you again.”
“Never!”
Iona huffed air through her nostrils in determination. “Very well.”
She spoke her words again and the ball of light reappeared. With a simple tilt of her hand, Iona sent the light pouring toward Natasha. The vampire held her arms crossed in front of her face as though hoping to protect herself, but small flames licked her skin and acrid smoke began to fill the room, catching in the back of Serenity’s throat.
Natasha continued to scream, the flames growing higher.
She could run. Why doesn’t she even attempt to run?
Fresh nerves wormed their way through Serenity’s stomach. Something wasn’t right here.
Iona snapped her hand back again and the light vanished.
Natasha howled in anger and pain, but both the flames and smoke dissipated and the vampire began to heal, albeit far more slowly than she normally would have.
“If she won’t help us, just kill her,” said Vincent.
Iona stepped forward, closing the gap between herself and Natasha, and then frowned. Her head tilted to one side as if listening for something.
Vincent snarled, barging forward. “What are you waiting for?”
“Wait,” said Iona, putting out an arm to stop him. “Something’s different about this place.”
“What do you mean?” Serenity took in the sight of the windowless container. It was totally devoid of any soul. Cold and sterile, with the exception of the two vampires and the sorceress in the room, nothing could be more ordinary.
“I’m not sure. I’m getting some kind of—”
“Okay, okay! No more,” Natasha interrupted, her eyes flaring yellow beneath the milky glaze on her irises. “But the only person I’ll tell is her.” She pointed at Serenity.
“Why?” demanded Serenity. “I’ll only tell the others what I know.”
“This is between you and me. No one else.”
Serenity’s eyes narrowed. “So why are you involving my family?”
“Because you stole mine from me, that’s why.”
Serenity looked to the others for confirmation about what to do, but Iona gave a shrug—she could hardly ask advice from a sixteen-year-old—and Vincent stood with his arms folded, his face stony.
The vampire was injured and looked like she was falling to pieces. Surely, she was no longer capable of doing her any harm, especially with Iona and Vincent there to protect her.
With her heart in her throat, Serenity stepped forward. “Fine. Tell me what you did, but don’t expect me not to pass on the information.”
“Do with it whatever you will.”
As she drew closer, the stench of rotting eggs grew almost overwhelming and she had to fight the urge to gag.
Only a couple of feet remained between them. Serenity could clearly make out the extent of Natasha’s wounds, the way the skin peeled back from the flesh, how raw and awful the sores appeared. She hated the idea that if they didn’t sort this thing out, Sebastian might end up the same way.
From out of nowhere, Natasha launched at Serenity. The vampire filled her vision and then collided with her, knocking her to the ground. Serenity’s back slammed against the floor. The stench overwhelmed her, a thick blanket making her gasp for fresh air. The vampire’s hand locked in her hair, yanking her head back, and the next thing Serenity knew a searing, burning pain pierced her throat.
I’ve been bitten, she thought, panic surging through her. Oh God, I’ve been bitten!
A moment later, Natasha’s weight lifted off her body, the burning pain in her throat lessening to a dull ache. Vincent’s huge form towered over her and he twisted his body like a shot-putter, flinging the other vampire against the far wall. Natasha smashed against it and slid down to a sitting position. She tilted her head back, laughing, Serenity’s blood dripping down her chin in rivulets of deep red.
“I don’t care what you do to me, Vincent. Now I know the people who killed Demitri will die, I welcome my death.”
Serenity’s attention left Natasha, snatched by the sight of Iona. The girl’s face was twisted in rage. Her white-blonde hair streamed out, as though a wind Serenity could not feel blew around her. Her ice-blue eyes appeared silver in the dim light. A ball of light enveloped her, her feet lifted two inches from the ground, her toes dipped toward the floor.
Serenity stared, her mouth hanging open, her injury momentarily forgotten.
Iona held her hand out toward Natasha. “Combustio!” she declared. “Burn!”
A beam of light poured from Iona’s fingertips and hit Natasha directly in the chest, right above her heart. The vampire had only a moment, her expression registering a strange combination of exultation and horror, when suddenly she went up in a puff off ash which fell down around them like soot from a volcano.
Iona dropped back to the floor and the light vanished.
Serenity sat up, clutching a hand to her throat. Her blood was hot and sticky beneath her fingers, and the flow didn’t seem to be slowing.
“Vincent …” she croaked.
In a smear of color, the big vampire darted to her side. He crouched beside her.
More hot blood soaked into the collar of her shirt and her vision started to blur at the edges, black dots dancing in front of her vision.
His serious grey eyes locked on hers, a frown creasing his forehead. “You know what I need to do, Serenity. So you’ll heal.”
She knew. She’d need to take his blood. Doing so made her feel as though she was betraying Sebastian, but she had no choice. If she didn’t, she would die.
“Okay.” Her voice came out weak and raspy. “Okay, do it.”
Vincent’s eyes glowed yellow in the dim light and he snarled, his fangs protruding from beneath his full upper lip. The muscles in his huge jaw knotted up, making him seem even more ferocious and big than he already was. His eyes locked on Serenity’s ble
eding throat. A spike of terror jarred through her, certain the vampire was about to launch at her and finish the job Natasha had started, but then he lowered his mouth to his own wrist and bit hard.
Serenity pushed down her revulsion at needing to drink blood. This wasn’t the time to be squeamish.
The big vampire offered his bloodied wrist to her, locking her focus with his fierce yellow eyes. “You need to be quick,” he hissed.
Not allowing herself any more time to think, her world continuing to gray at the edges, she leaned forward and placed her lips against the cool of his skin. The room spun around her and her grip on the real world loosened. She began to fall backward, about to hit the floor once again, but he caught her, his arm wrapped around her back to hold her up, the huge bulge of his bicep pressing between her shoulder blades.
As the first drops of his cool blood passed her lips, she felt herself rise back to the surface. She swallowed, the slick fluid dribbling down the inside of her throat. Regaining strength, her lips locked around the wound on Vincent’s wrist, sucking harder to draw more of the thick, rich blood into her mouth.
Her fingers gripped the bulk of his shoulders, digging into the hard knots of his muscles. God, she wished taking a vampire’s blood wasn’t so damn intimate. She didn’t want anything to change the way she felt about either Sebastian or Vincent. She drank, gulping down mouthfuls of thick, iron-tinged blood, connecting with Vincent in a way she had only ever done with Sebastian. A part of her sensed how he felt—how he focused on the thud of her heartbeat and how her pulse began to speed up the more she drank. And he centered his attention on the warmth of her lips pressed against his skin, on the soft brush of her moist tongue against the wound as it started to heal …
Serenity forced herself to pull away. But a buzz existed between them now, a strange connection she couldn’t see, like they were somehow walking in each other’s skin.
“I’m sorry …” she said, not even sure why she was apologizing.
“It’s okay, look. He took her hand and placed her own fingers upon the place where the gash in her throat had been. Though still sticky with her blood, the skin was smooth.
Still holding her, Vincent pulled her hand away and stared down at her blood-covered fingers. Without even thinking, she allowed him to lift her hand to his lips and slowly suck the blood away with his cold mouth, his gray eyes locked on hers.
Her senses came back to her. “Oh, God,” she snatched her hand away. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let you do that.”
Vincent didn’t subdue the intensity of his gaze. “What? Save your life?”
She scrabbled to her feet. “You know exactly what I mean.”
He seemed to study her for a moment, then ducked his head in a strange mock bow. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“When you two have finished,” interrupted Iona. “There is something you need to see.”
Grateful for the distraction, Serenity turned from Vincent to where Iona now crossed the pile of ash that used to be Natasha. The girl grimaced as the substance clung to her sneakers. “Damn vampires,” she muttered.
She reached the back of the unit, only a couple feet past where Natasha had been standing.
Iona reached out her hand and stroked the air with one outstretched finger. The air rippled and shimmered, like a thin film of oil on water.
Serenity blinked, wondering if what she’d seen was real and not just a trick of the light. But there wasn’t enough light to cause a trick. The place Iona touched seemed to conjure up a luminosity of its own.
“The boundaries between our world and Dominion are thin here,” the sorceress said.
The madness of what had just happened had left Serenity bewildered and this didn’t help. “What does that mean?”
“The other world that Sebastian visits—Dominion—exists around us all the time, but we can’t see the other world and they can’t see us. Yet we exist in the same time and space. In some places, the layer that hides their world from ours becomes thin, like a translucent veil. In these places, it’s sometimes possible to draw an entity between the worlds.”
“Like how Natasha brought the demon over and into Sebastian.”
“Exactly.”
“So, can we use this place to send the demon back again?”
“Yes, I’m sure we can.”
“Don’t we need Sebastian to be here?”
She shook her head. “The demon doesn’t have a physical form here, yet. This veiled place is simply a way of reconnecting the demon with its own world. If I can make that connection happen, the demon will leave Sebastian and go back.”
“How?”
“I can do a spell ordering anything not of this world to return through the veil. This is the only place my magic will be strong enough to penetrate between the two worlds.”
Serenity realized what this meant and her heart lifted. “So, you can remove the demon from Sebastian?” Saying his name caused a pang of guilt to tighten in her stomach. He’d smell Vincent on her. Would he think differently of her now, even though she’d had no choice but to take his blood?
“Natasha realized I’d sensed the veil,” said Iona. “That’s why she tried to distract us by promising to tell you the truth and then attacked you.”
“She must have known we wouldn’t let her live!”
“I think she realized there was nothing more she could do that would stop us finding the veil. But she wanted to die. Did you see the expression on her face when I destroyed her? It was triumph.”
“Why would she want to die?”
“She’d done everything she could,” said Vincent. “She knew she’d hurt you. I guess that’s all she ever wanted.”
Serenity scowled. “Great.” She couldn’t help but feel some animosity toward Vincent, her emotions a mess, sensing his presence too acutely in the room. She turned to Iona. “So what do you need to do?”
“A spell—a calling of the natural forces and an incantation.”
“And you can do this right now?”
Iona nodded.
“Do it then!” Serenity cried. “What are we waiting for?”
“It’s dangerous. If Sebastian is back in Dominion as well, he might not be able to get back.”
The implication of her words sank in and Serenity’s heart dropped like lead in her chest. “Do we have any other options?”
Iona shook her head. “I’m sorry, but no.”
She took a deep breath. “Okay, do whatever you need to do.”
Chapter Nineteen
The force of Sebastian’s nervous tension filled the trailer.
He sat at Iona’s round dining room table, his elbows pressed on the glass surface, his forehead rested on his hands.
Elizabeth had finally given in to sleep and lay curled up on the couch, her head resting in Bridget’s lap. Bridget, too, slept, her head down, her chin resting on her chest.
It was impossible for Sebastian to while away the hours so easily. He hated feeling not only weak and useless, but also like he was constantly under suspicion. Yes, he was a vampire, and perhaps should be used to not being trusted, but since meeting Serenity, he’d fallen too easily into the role of protector. He took care of his family, he wasn’t the one who threatened their safety.
He sensed the presence of Iona’s two pieces of Irish muscle standing either side of the door outside the trailer. He heard the rhythmical thump of their hearts, felt the heat their bodies radiated. Smelled their blood. He was sick of being in this situation—two humans thinking themselves better than him—watching him as though he were a piece of dirt.
Sebastian didn’t like being cooped up, but he had little choice in the matter. He needed to be here for news of what was happening in San Diego. He also needed to be here in case the damned demon decided to take over again.
He wished he could confront the thing inside him. He tried to focus internally, to get some sort of sense of the thing everyone told him appeared when he lost consciousness, but,
other than the loss of his strengths and the changes in his physical appearance, he got no impression of the threat lurking inside him.
A low moan from the couch dragged Sebastian’s thoughts from himself. Elizabeth’s head twisted one way and then the next, squirming away from her old nanny. A frown marked her small forehead and she muttered in her sleep, “No … please, no …”
Sebastian pushed back his chair and darted to crouch at her side. “Elizabeth?”
She didn’t wake. Instead, the volume of her moans increased. She thrashed from side to side, her hands bunched into fists, her whole body tensed as though in the grips of a fit. Distress pinched her small features.
Elizabeth’s movements woke Bridget. The older woman blinked and rubbed at her eyes, then looked around as though reminding herself where she was. She caught sight of Elizabeth and sat up straight. Her gaze flicked to Sebastian, concern etched across her features. “Is she okay?”
Sebastian frowned. “She’s dreaming.”
Implication weighted his words. They both knew Elizabeth’s dreams were not always just dreams.
“We should wake her,” said Bridget, leaning across to shake the little girl awake.
Sebastian’s hand shot out, halting her. “No, wait. We may interrupt her learning something important.”
Bridget stared at him in dismay. “You can’t let her suffer, Sebastian!”
He gave himself a mental shake. What the hell was he thinking?
“No, of course not.” He reached out and stroked Elizabeth’s hair from her face. Her forehead felt clammy, her dark curls clinging to her skin. She moaned again as his cool fingers touched her. “Elizabeth, honey. Time to wake up.”
“No, Daddy!” Elizabeth shrieked. “Don’t! Stop it!”
Alarm raced through him. “Elizabeth, you’re having a bad dream. You need to wake up now!”
Elizabeth’s eyes shot open and she bolted upright, panting. In a parody of Bridget only moments earlier, she looked around. Only, unlike Bridget, she didn’t seem to see the trailer or the people around her. Her eyes didn’t focus on either of their faces, instead, staring right through them as though witnessing a scene they weren’t privy to.
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