“Mother,” she said, cutting her off before she fell into full-on rant mode. The volume of her voice shook the door in its frame and rattled the light bulbs in the ceiling. Debra Phoenix went silent, stupefied by shock and took a frightened step backward. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. Look, I know you’re worried, but as you can see, I’m just fine. But it’s been a long night and I’m very tired. Why don’t you go on home and I’ll come by later this evening and we can talk this over?”
Her mother’s face hardened like that of a spoiled and petulant child’s. “No,” she spat and rushed forward. “You’re coming home and you’re coming home right now.” She reached out and latched her clawed hand upon Jerusa’s wrist.
The tiny bones in her mother’s hand raised beneath her thin, almost gossamer skin, her knuckles turned white and she gave a great, hard yank, but she might as well have been grappling with a statue.
A sudden rush of emotion filled Jerusa. It wasn’t hate, nor was it anger, but the emotion coursing through her — or perhaps instinct was a better word — was self-preservation.
Jerusa had no idea of the limits of her new body, but she could sense a vast, brutal strength charging in her muscles like a ball of pent-up electricity looking for a means of escape. Her mother posed no threat to her. She could easily crush her skull or snap her spine or even reach into her chest and turn her heart into mush. But more than anything, Jerusa wanted to plunge her fangs into her mother’s neck and pull the blood from her until no more could be pumped forth.
A hand waved before Jerusa’s face, fast as a crack of lightning, the fingers working in several silent snaps. Alicia was there, standing in the gap between Jerusa and her mother, her mouth fixed in a stern line, her eyes hard orbs of glass. The ghost shook her head slowly, never breaking eye contact. The dark and overwhelming instinct washed from Jerusa, leaving a horrid well of guilt within her soul.
Debra snatched her hand back with a gasp. The fear and shock in her eyes were more than Jerusa could take. She had the look of a woman that had just witnessed an illusionist’s trick, and though she knew it to be an impossibility, she could find no evidence to discount that she had witnessed actual magic.
Jerusa’s eyes misted over and she turned her back in shame. A tear rolled down her cheek and dripped onto the floor. Jerusa was mortified when she saw that the tear was red.
“What’s happened to you?” her mother asked. “Let me help you.”
Jerusa placed her foot over the blood-tear. “I told you. I’m fine. Please, just go home. I’ll come see you tonight. We’ll work this out then.” She wiped at her eyes. Her fingers came away red, but the blood quickly reabsorbed into her skin.
The sound of her mother’s racing heart and ragged breathing was maddening. She clenched her eyes shut, willing the sounds into silence.
After a moment, her mother turned and walked toward the stairs. A sudden fear filled Jerusa that Taos would leap out from under the blackout cloth, snatch her mother, and feed upon her, but he did not. Perhaps Shufah held him at bay.
Jerusa’s mother made it safely to the first floor. She turned and gazed down into the basement, a starry-eyed sadness twisting her features. She hovered in the doorway, reluctant to move. She looked too much like the lingering dead, clinging to an unredeemable past, unable to pass to the next stage of life, enveloped in a cocoon of sadness. Oh, her mother had much in common with the dead.
Jerusa turned her back once more on the woman who had first given life to her. She knew her mother would take this as an insult and that it would sting her terribly, but the truth was that the blood-tears were flowing again and she couldn’t allow her mother to see her this way.
Debra Phoenix turned without another word, shut the door to the basement, sealing off the bright sunlight above, and left the house.
Jerusa sat on the floor and wiped at the blood-tears dribbling from her eyes. Just as before, the blood absorbed into her skin, vanishing without a trace. She listened as her mother’s car sped down the gravel driveway, the tires squealing in protest as they met the asphalt of the main road.
The blackout cloth peeled away like the thick husk of a leathery egg and the four hidden vampires emerged from under the stairs. Suhail ran to the top riser, locked the oak door, and dropped the steel door into place. Foster and Shufah came to Jerusa’s side, kneeling down to her while Taos paced like an angry lion.
“Are you all right?” Foster asked.
Jerusa looked up at him. He was truly beautiful with his fiery eyes and alabaster skin. She had thought him a bit of a megalomaniac when she had first discovered his quest for perfection. Only the most vain and shallow of people would openly embark on such a journey. But now, seeing how the vampire spirit had worked in him a change that neither exercise nor doctors could hope to achieve, she appreciated, all the more, the sacrifices he had endured.
“I’m fine,” she said. “I guess. It was really hard to see her. To lie to her.” Jerusa looked down at the floor. “I almost attacked her. I wanted to … to bite her.”
“I thought you were going to,” Foster said.
“It is in our nature,” Shufah said, her voice a soothing melody. “This you must accept and never take for granted. I must say, I am impressed by your restraint. Most fledglings would have pounced without hesitation when provoked like that.” Her bronze eyes lingered on Jerusa’s face as though she were some piece of obscure poetry waiting to be interpreted.
“Had it not been for — ” Jerusa was going to say Alicia, but stopped herself. She wasn’t sure why. Foster knew about her ghost partner, had always accepted the issue as fact, but what would Shufah think of Alicia?
Shufah looked as though she wanted to question Jerusa further, but thankfully, Taos’s pacing distracted her. “Will you relax?” It was more of an order than a question.
Taos turned a hateful scowl on Shufah. “Not until I lift that wretched deserter’s head from his shoulders and set fire to his bones.”
“Leave Thad alone,” Jerusa said. “He’s done nothing wrong.”
Taos spun around to face her, his long blond hair falling about his shoulders, his icy blue eyes wide with malice. “The human was told to stay, but he disobeyed. When darkness falls, I will hunt him down and finish what I started.”
“Why?” Jerusa asked. “What harm can he do? Even if he tells people about us, who’s going to believe him? Can’t you just leave him alone?”
“And forfeit my own life?” Taos asked. “You’re a fool if you believe that.”
Jerusa looked to Foster and Shufah for understanding. The looks on the pair’s faces was less than encouraging. “What?”
Foster sighed. “Did you see Thad’s neck before he escaped?”
Jerusa shook her head. She had been too groggy to notice much of anything.
“The bite mark,” Foster continued. “It was healed over. Thad’s been infected.”
“So? Why does that matter?”
“It was my bite that infected him,” Taos said. “It is against the law to allow your prey to live. If I do not quickly correct my mistake, then the Stewards will send the Hunters, and not just for me. Either way, the human will die.”
Jerusa reached out and took Shufah’s hands. Her dark skin was hot to the touch, not cold as the myths would have one believe, and as firm as stone. “It was my fault. Please, can’t you help him? Don’t let Thad die because of me.”
“Perhaps,” Shufah whispered.
Taos stepped forward. “You know the law. Just because the Stewards suffered you once, doesn’t mean they will again.”
Shufah ignored Taos. She reached out and stroked Jerusa’s cheek. “Perhaps,” she repeated.
They all agreed that if Thad was going to stir up trouble and bring the authorities to the house then there wasn’t much they could do about it while the sun was up. Shufah convinced them all to return to rest and at nightfall, they would decide what to do. Suhail seemed reluctant to leave the steel door, but after some coax
ing from his sister, he turned off the lights and joined the rest of the group. Taos took up the spot farthest away from Jerusa, and for that, she was thankful. In a matter of moments, it seemed, the pressure of the sun forced her back into the void of sleep. This time, she didn’t dream.
Jerusa didn’t awake until the sun was well below the horizon. Her eyes snapped open, her senses immediately tuned to her surroundings. The others were awake, stirring about like a nest of angry hornets, albeit silent ones. Her hearing focused and she caught the sound of glass crunching beneath feet on the floor above. Then came a hard knock on the basement door.
“It’s me, Thad.”
Jerusa sprang to her feet, but it was too late. Taos charged up the stairs with immense speed, thrust the steel door upward, wrenched open the oak door, and snatched Thad by the throat before he even had a chance to turn.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“No,” Jerusa screamed, her voice exploding outward in a sonic boom that rattled the windows in the kitchen above. She rushed up the stairs, her preternatural body reaching unimaginable speed. The world around her dissolved into smears of color and light. Foster moved to halt her, but she smashed through him as though he were a child, sending him spinning across the basement floor.
Despite the speed of her body, Jerusa had perfect clarity and control. The lights in the kitchen ceiling were bright, but not blinding. Thad’s frightened gasp echoed like thunder, but behind it, she caught the song of crickets sounding slowly in the night, one note at a time. Taos’s fingers, curved like ivory talons, flexed inward to crush Thad’s trachea while drawing him ever closer to his deadly fangs.
Jerusa caught the hand Taos clutched Thad with by the wrist while gripping his throat in her other hand. The force of impact sent Taos hurtling backward into the wall, splitting the sheetrock and raining a cloud of powdery dust overtop of them. Taos thrashed like a snared shark, but Jerusa pressed into him with all her strength. She squeezed his wrist until the thick bones snapped like dry wood and he released his grip on Thad.
Taos lashed out with his free hand, smashing his fist into her temple. Red and white starbursts fired behind her clenched eyes, her knees weakened, but she did not fall. A frightful roar filled the night and Jerusa was shocked to find it was coming from her own mouth. She clenched Taos’s throat, choking off the stream of curses flowing from his mouth, and hoisted him off of the ground — though due to her short stature she only managed to lift him an inch or two.
Taos kicked Jerusa in the stomach, knocking her feet out from under her, and then hammered his fist into the back of her head. The world slipped into a purple vortex of pain so intense that, for a moment, Jerusa feared she would forever be trapped in its hellish, twisting gravity.
Through the blinding pain, she felt her hands fall upon Taos’s foot. She knew his next blow would be coming, was in fact on its way. Jerusa clutched his ankle in both of her hands, jumped to her feet, pushing on legs that felt full of angry electric eels. She wrenched backward, pulling Taos off of his remaining foot, and spinning with her remaining strength, whipped him up into the ceiling.
Then came the terrible sound of wood splintering, of debris clattering to the hardwood floor, and the crashing thud of Taos following the course of gravity.
Taos roared in maddening fury. Jerusa tried to stay standing, but the world spun about her, blinking in and out of existence. She pitched forward, her legs wilting beneath her. Powerful arms constricted around her, pinning her arms at her sides.
Jerusa fought with the remains of her waning strength, but couldn’t break free. Her vision was improving fast, but continued to be blurry. She expected any moment for Taos to crush her chest or to tear out her throat with his fangs. The arms pulled tight, but never inflicted any pain. A voice soft and deep spoke into her ear.
“Calm, young one,” Shufah whispered. “Shhh, easy now.” She repeated this over and over, and each time, the soothing ointment of her voice seeped deeper into Jerusa until she lay back against Shufah’s chest, panting and on the verge of sobbing.
Jerusa had never experienced such power and fierce, blinding anger. It was both intoxicating and terrifying. Her body trembled as the remains of the supercharged adrenaline flushed from her system. Shufah loosened her grip and brought one hand up to brush the hair from Jerusa’s face.
Her vision returned and she looked around in awe at the devastation she and Taos had brought to the kitchen. The wall at the top of the stairs was buckled, the wooden studs exposed like the ribs of a massive rotten carcass. A large dragging wound ripped through the wood-paneled ceiling from the kitchen to the living room.
Taos stood at the end of the path of destruction, a pile of shattered ceiling boards at his feet, his shirt ripped to tatters, exposing his well-muscled abs. His eyes burned with blue hatred and he looked to be ready for round two, and may have attempted if Suhail had not been holding him back.
A burning tingle overtook Jerusa’s body as her injuries rapidly healed. Shufah seemed to sense when Jerusa’s legs were strong enough to support her and released her without a word.
Shufah moved in front of Jerusa, pressing her back as if she feared Jerusa might initiate another attack on Taos. She placed a gentle hand upon Jerusa’s shoulder, unintentionally pulling the collar of her shirt down as she pushed her away. Her gaze lingered for a moment on Jerusa’s scar. Jerusa backed up a step and crossed her arms over his chest. Shufah snapped her eyes upward and flashed a tiny smile that Jerusa didn’t quite believe.
“No more of this,” Shufah announced. “No more fighting. There are greater issues to consider than our petty hatred for one another. Is that understood?” She nodded to Jerusa and Jerusa nodded back. She looked to Taos, who, after a moment, relinquished his scowl and bowed in mock obedience. “Good. Foster, please check on Thad.”
Thad lay on his side near the top of the basement stairs where Jerusa and Taos had first collided. Jerusa knew that he was still alive, she could hear his rushing heart and heavy breathing. Never had she heard a more beautiful sound. Foster helped Thad into a sitting position. His eyes were glassy, but he recovered from his shock with impressive speed. Before long, he stood leaning against the countertop, shifting his uncertain and fearful gaze between each of the vampires.
“You came back,” Jerusa said. She tried to move closer to Thad, but Shufah halted her. “What’s wrong?” she asked Shufah.
“Go easy, young one,” she replied, her voice thoughtful and wise. “You don’t understand the limits of your strength, which I must say is quite impressive for a fledgling. But more importantly, you don’t grasp the voracity of the blood-thirst. Remember your mother.”
Jerusa didn’t feel any thirst for blood or any other kind of hunger to speak of, but the memory of the instant and overpowering aggression that had overtaken her earlier in the basement with her mother resided fresh in her mind. She didn’t believe herself capable of harming Thad or craving his blood like the ravening undead infesting today’s books and movies. Nevertheless, she kept her distance.
“Why did you come back?” Jerusa asked.
Thad reached up and touched his neck. “The bite is gone. I guess I’m part of this whether I want to be or not. Besides, I figured there’s nowhere I could go where he wouldn’t find me.” He looked toward Taos, but quickly glanced to Shufah.
Shufah considered this. “True. He would have hunted you to the ends of the Earth. But I don’t think you have to worry about that now. Right, Taos?” His face was drawn tight, and he answered with a scowl. “Where did you go?” she asked Thad.
“I needed to go home and see my parents. If they hadn’t heard from me, eventually they would have come looking. I didn’t want anyone else disturbing you during the day.”
“Very noble,” Taos said, almost growling. “But I’d say you were afraid I’d feed on your family after I had finished with you.”
“That crossed my mind, too,” Thad said, keeping his eyes on anything but Taos. “But there is something
else you should know about. Someone was attacked late last night or early this morning.”
“Who?” Jerusa asked. “Where?”
Thad shook his head. “The body was found over by Superior Limestone Mill, but no one knows who it is yet. The news is reporting that a man was mauled by something, possibly a pack of feral dogs, and that the body is beyond recognition.” Thad swallowed hard. “But there is a rumor going around that the police can’t identify him because his head was peeled open and his brain was removed. Some people are saying the man looks like something chewed through his chest to get to his heart.”
Taos cursed and kicked at the debris around his feet.
Suhail began to pace in a tight circle. “We should leave right now, Shufah.”
“What’s wrong?” Jerusa asked, but no one answered her.
Shufah drew closer to her brother. “And where shall we go?”
“I don’t know,” he said, running his fingers though his thick black hair. “Maybe we can go to the Stewards. Plead our case. If we turn over the fledgling and the mortal — ” He stopped as if suddenly aware that Jerusa and Thad were still in the room.
“Give their lives in exchange for our own?” she asked with a hint of reproach.
“What choice do we have? By now, the Watchtower will know. And if they know, the Stewards know. The Hunters could arrive tomorrow night, the night after that at the latest. And you know, as well as I, what measure of mercy the Hunters will show us.”
“Watchtower? What is that?” Again no one answered Jerusa.
“I say we kill them now,” Taos said.
Foster stepped forward. “No. It’s foolishness to think the Stewards will grant you leniency just because you lay Jerusa and Thad at their feet.”
“Perhaps if we add you to the offering,” Taos fired back.
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