Jerusa piled her clothes outside the bathroom door and was relieved to find Kat was not on the other side eavesdropping. That’s not to say her vampiric ears didn’t pick up every syllable Jerusa had uttered to her invisible friends. Jerusa slipped into the bath and groaned as the hot water embraced her. Though her skin and hair no longer required cleansing, she still spent the better part of an hour indulging in the various scented soaps and shampoos Kat had set out for her. Finally, she laid her head back on the soft water pillow and dozed until the water became too cool to be comfortable anymore.
She climbed out of the tub, wrapped her hair in a towel and slipped into the softest robe she had ever felt. She walked toward the door, but stopped when she passed by the mirror. She leaned in for a closer look of her reflection. Her lips were a deep shade of ruby, and a thick blood ring surrounded her emerald irises. Dark blue veins, visible beneath her pale skin, splintered along her jawline, up into her cheeks.
Jerusa put her thumb into her mouth and bit down hard. The pain was immense. Far worse than it had ever been. Her flesh split, but no blood spilled forth. She squeezed her thumb as hard as she could, but she couldn’t manage even a drop. Slowly, the wound healed shut. She moved on to her other thumb with the same result. Frantically, she moved from finger to finger, hand to hand, tearing the skin away with her sharp fangs, but there seemed to be no more blood to give. She pulled her wrist to her mouth and bit down hard. Her razor-like bicuspids cut right down to the bone, and she cried out in pain.
She held her wounded wrist close to her face, willing the blood to spurt forth. Her whole arm pulsed in rhythm with her heart. “Please,” she whispered over and over. She felt suddenly cold. Colder than she had in that underground labyrinth the Stewards had tested her in. A searing pain pierced her at the end of her humerus and filled her forearm with fire. A stream of blood—far too small for the cut on her wrist—broke forth. She tilted her head back, the towel falling to the floor and spilling her hair, pulled her wrist up over her face and let the blood rain down into her eyes and drip across her face. The blood burned her eyes, as it always did, and she clenched them shut. She scrubbed the blood into her face, pressing it hard into her lips. The wound in her wrist zippered shut, and she found herself leaning against the counter, breathless and weak.
Jerusa opened her eyes slowly, too afraid to look directly at her reflection. What she found in the mirror was an improvement, but not what she had been hoping to see. The veins that had spread across her cheeks like blue lightning were gone, but her lips were still a few shades too crimson, and a thin ring of blood still remain around each iris.
She turned to Alicia. “What are we going to do now? Shufah warned me this would happen. My own blood isn’t enough anymore.” She waved her hand in front of her face. “How am I supposed to hide this from Ming and Ralgar? If they find out I haven’t been feeding, I’m dead.” The ghost regarded her with a grim frown. “Do you want me to die? Is that why you won’t let me feed? Because, if that’s it, I can go sit in the sun and make it quick. No reason to draw it out like this.”
Alicia’s brows knitted together. Her lips quivered as she shook her head side to side. She tapped her chest, then pointed to Jerusa’s scar. She held up her hand with her index finger, pinky, and thumb extended.
“Yeah, I love you, too,” Jerusa said, unable to wash the frustration from her voice. “If I just knew why I had to do this, then maybe I could bear the pain.” Alicia brushed the hair from Jerusa’s face.
Jerusa turned back to the mirror. Her robe, once angelic white, now looked like it could be evidence in a murder trial. Most of her blood was on the sleeve where she had cut her wrist, but a heavy spattering of red drops covered the front.
She crept to the door and opened it just a crack. Kat was not there spying on her, but her clothes were sitting on the floor, folded in a neat pile. Jerusa snatched them inside and shut the door. She dressed fast, taking little time to relish the sensation of clean clothes against her skin. She wadded the bloody robe into a ball, wondering just what she should do with it. She checked the cabinets, but none were sufficient for hiding the robe. She went to the window, opened it, and tossed the robe outside.
Alicia pointed to a drawer in the cabinet. Jerusa opened it and found a whole arsenal of women’s makeup. It wasn’t uncommon for vampires, male and female, to apply a little bit of cosmetics from time to time to tone down their preternatural beauty, especially if they were going out amongst humans. Hunters didn’t mingle with humans, so this might pique more suspicions than it hampered.
Jerusa picked out a pretty shade of candy-apple red lipstick. It felt strange on her lips, yet putting it on made her feel somewhat human again. It covered the crimson shade of her lips perfectly, and clashed with her auburn hair in a punk-rock sort of way.
“What am I going to do about my eyes?”
Alicia mimicked putting on glasses. Jerusa did keep a pair of sunglasses in a pocket of her leather duster, just in case she had to wade into a crowd of humans. The vampire spirit had turned her green eyes into brilliant, almost luminescent emeralds. If her predatory nature didn’t alarm the mortals, her eyes always did.
“That might work for a little while, but Ming and Ralgar are going to figure it out, sooner or later.”
Alicia just shrugged.
Jerusa went back to her room where her leather duster was still folded over the plush armchair. She slipped it on, making sure that her skewer was in its sheath in the back. She slipped the sunglasses from her pocket and put them on. They were transparent enough to not arouse suspicion for wearing them at night, yet opaque enough to mask the blood in her eyes. Before leaving the room, she retrieved her ring with the ruby encrusted Hunters’ emblem from the nightstand. She didn’t want to wear it. She didn’t consider herself a Hunter, but the last time Ming caught her without it, she used her telekinesis to crush Jerusa’s hand.
She stepped outside and the warm, dry air of New Mexico felt good on her face. The stars above shone brightly, but far to the southeast, lightning bolts chased each other through black, bloated clouds. She could detect the slightest echo of thunder, but it was too subtle for human ears to hear.
Jerusa moved around the perimeter of the house, staying as near to the wall as possible. Cameras were visible every ten feet, and she was sure there were many more, along with motion and heat sensors, hidden about the property. With most of the coven out prowling, and a team of Hunters in residence, she hoped the security system was on passive mode until closer to dawn. Still, though, when she came to the place where the bloody robe lay wadded up on the ground, she ran for it, utilizing all of her vampiric speed. She snatched up the garment, rounded the western edge of the house and headed to the northern part of the property, where Taos would be, practicing his pyro-kinesis.
The terrain was rocky, with rolling hills. Copses of trees were scattered all about. Now that she was away from the house, she moved more slowly. Alicia and Foster appeared on either side of her, and she knew the mob of spirits were lingering somewhere close by, unseen.
“Can you lead me to Taos?” Alicia nodded and pointed northwest. “Then why is it you won’t take me to Shufah or Silvanus?” Neither ghost answered. Silence played in their favor. “Tell me this. Is it can’t or is it won’t?”
Foster pointed to where Taos supposedly was, then he held his index finger and thumb no more than an inch apart. He made the sign for “beautiful”, one of the few words of sign language he would use, and what he had taken to indicate Shufah. He then spread his arms far apart. Jerusa knew what he was trying to convey. Taos was close and they could sense his presence. Shufah and Silvanus were out of their range of sight now. Foster had gone to Silvanus for a brief time, but he could no longer find him.
“Is everything all right?”
Jerusa jumped with a start, but breathed a sigh of relief when she saw who stepped from the midst of a nearby copse of trees.
“I’m sorry,” Celeste said. “I didn’t
mean to frighten you.”
“Frighten me? I could have skewered you.”
“I knew you wouldn’t.”
“How do you know that?”
The cute little vampire with the pixie haircut flashed a crooked smile—not something she was prone to do. “I’m an augur. I could foresee it.”
“Is that a joke?”
Celeste giggled. Again, an oddity for her. “An attempt at one.”
Jerusa shook her head. “You need to work on your act. What are you doing out here?”
Celeste looked at her surroundings as if seeing them for the first time. “I’m waiting for Taos. He’s playing with fire again. I asked if I could come, but he said he wanted to be alone.”
“What is your deal?”
Celeste tilted her head in puzzlement. “What do you mean?”
“You. You’re all smiles and giggles, hanging around out here for Taos like some starry-eyed cheerleader.”
Celeste’s smile faltered. “I’m sorry. I just like it here. It’s so peaceful. I feel as though I could forget all the terrible things I’ve done and start fresh as a whole new person. Does that sound strange?”
A knot of guilt rose in Jerusa’s throat. “No, not strange at all. Look, I’m sorry about the cheerleader comment. It’s just…”
“Your thirst is growing worse,” Celeste finished for her, “and your blood no longer covers the signs of your fasting.”
“It’s that obvious?”
Celeste shrugged. “The sunglasses and lipstick kind of give it away. That, and I am an augur. Sensing things is sort of my shtick.”
“Is that another joke? Never mind, I don’t want to know.” She pulled off the sunglasses. “What am I going to do? When Ming and Ralgar find out, they are going to burn me alive.”
“Don’t worry, they’ll feed on you first. You’ll barely feel the fire.” Jerusa’s mouth dropped open and Celeste bit her bottom lip. “Sorry. I wasn’t making a joke. I was trying to be helpful.”
“I think you should stick to visions and premonitions, or whatever it is you augurs do.”
“Don’t worry about the other vampires,” Celeste said. “I’ll convince them the sunglasses and makeup are just you longing for your lost mortality. It happens quite often with fledglings.”
“You think they’ll really believe that?”
“I’ll make them believe it.”
“And just how will you do that?” It was comical to hear Celeste, who was the meekest vampire Jerusa had ever met, make such a bold comment. Yet, something in her eyes said she wasn’t lying.
“Let’s just say augurs have been known, from time to time, to impress certain thoughts or ideas into the minds without those minds knowing it. How do you think I’ve survived so long with the Crimson Storm?” She held her finger to her lips. “Shhh, that’s our little secret, though.”
“If you can do that, why not impress Ming and Ralgar to let you, me and Taos escape?”
“Their minds aren’t that weak, and I’m not that powerful of an augur. Sorry.”
“Well, I appreciate anything you can do.”
“I’ll keep them off your back for a while. But eventually, you won’t be able to hide it anymore, no matter what I do.”
A hulking form topped the nearest hill, its head hung low, staggering from side to side. A strange scent, like burnt meat, wafted to them on the gentle breeze. The large creature stood for a moment, panting like a dog, then slowly lifted his head, regarding them with ice-blue eyes. The creature’s face was black and there wasn’t a shred of hair on his head.
Jerusa unsheathed her skewer, but Celeste stayed her hand before she could release the twin blades. “Jerusa,” she said in a half gasp, half scream. “That’s Taos.”
Taos dropped to his knees, then toppled over to his side. They ran to him, Celeste sliding on her knees, stopping at his side. Jerusa took his hands in hers, realizing, too late, that his fingers had been burned near to the bone.
“Who did this to you?” she shouted. In a flash, the night brightened as hundreds of vampire ghosts suddenly appeared. Since she was touching Taos’s hands, and Celeste was cradling his head, this spectacle, which normally only she could see, was made visible to them as well. Taos stared up at Alicia and Foster, but Celeste kept her eyes on him. He blinked and the movement of his facial muscles caused his blackened skin to crumble like burnt paper.
“Who did this to you?” she repeated. “Was it Ralgar? I’m going to cut out his heart and stake his hide out in the sun!”
Jerusa jumped to her feet with the full intention of hunting down Ralgar and inflicting as much pain as possible before Ming could stop her, but Taos reached out and caught her by the ankle. His hand crackled like dry wood in a fire, and he groaned with the pain of the movement. He shook his head side to side, while muttering the words, “Not Ralgar.”
“Then who?”
He pulled his hand away and pointed at his own chest. “Me.”
Jerusa’s mind reeled. Taos’s long blond hair was gone. His lips were almost burned away. He looked like a strange cross between a savage and the umbilicus when Ralgar had tried to burn them to death. He was an inexperienced pyro-kinetic, that was true, but how had he burned himself so badly?
Jerusa must’ve been wearing her question on her face, because Taos said, “Trying…something…new. Backfired.” A terrible noise started in his chest, like gravel in a cement mixer, and forced its way out of his mouth. She wasn’t sure if it was a cough or a laugh.
“He needs blood,” Celeste said in a sharp tone Jerusa had never heard before. It was a voice that demanded all conversation stop and action be taken.
Jerusa nodded, too dumbfounded to speak. She pulled her wrist to her mouth, but Celeste stopped her.
“No. You’re too weak right now. I’ll do it. But you need to leave.”
“What?” A slap in the face would have hurt less. “Why should I go? He’s my friend. I want to help.”
Celeste’s face softened, but impatience stirred behind her eyes. “I know you do. But do you really want to be around when I open my wrist? You’ll go into a frenzy and Alicia will have to detain you. None of us want that to happen. I’ll take care of him. I promise, but you need to go. Now.”
Jerusa nodded, though it was painful to do so. She turned before the urge to argue overwhelmed her, and darted off into the night. But not too far. She hit another copse of trees a thousand yards away and climbed to the highest bough where she could keep an eye on the situation.
Celeste bit open her wrist and let a thick stream of blood fall onto Taos’s head. He caught some blood in his mouth, shivering with exhilaration. He reached up with his incinerated hands and spread the blood around his face and head. Quickly, his pale and perfect skin returned. His withered hands regained their former glory. Even a five o’clock shadow of hair returned to his scalp.
Taos lay for a moment, staring up at the stars. Slowly, he sat up. “Thank you.”
Celeste rubbed his cheek. “Anytime. Now, are you going to tell me what you were up to?”
Jerusa felt a little guilty listening in, but then again, what was the point of having such powerful hearing if you didn’t use it?
“It was nothing,” Taos said. “I was just trying something new with my fire. It worked at first, but I wasn’t strong enough to hold it.”
“Why risk it? You’ve become quite a fire caster. You’re just as good at killing savages as Ralgar is.”
A broad smile spanned Taos’s face. “Thanks, but it’s not the savages I’m worried about. When we find Shufah, those other things will be there, too. Normal fire barely hurt them. I wanted to find something a little more destructive.”
“I think I might be able to help you with that.”
Taos leaned forward. “Really? How?”
“Feed from me.”
Taos shook his head. “No. I don’t think that’s a good idea. I might hurt you.”
“Taos, you and Jerusa haven’t experienced
this yet, and what I’m about to tell you is both secret and, to me, embarrassing.” Celeste took a deep breath. “As a Hunter we don’t always dispatch savages.”
“I know that. Hunters are called upon to kill infected mortals and other vampires not found worthy.” He shrugged. “I don’t like it, but that is the law of the Stewards.”
“You don’t understand,” she said, a slight quiver to her voice. “Many times, before we…dispatch those whom we’ve hunted,” she paused for a moment as if unsure if she should proceed, “we feed on them.”
“It’s against the law to feed on another vampire. Unless a mortal is being born of the blood, or a vampire is gravely injured and in need of quick healing.”
“True, but Hunters, and especially the Stewards, are above the law. I’ve fed on just as many vampires as I have humans. The Stewards allow it because it makes us stronger, enhances our gifts. That’s what I want to give to you.”
“But what if I take too much? What if I drain you and stop your heart?” Jerusa had never heard such fear in Taos’s voice. “You’d become a savage and I… I couldn’t bear that.”
“We could feed from each other.” Celeste moved in close to Taos, her lips brushing across his. She moved down his powerful jawline, nuzzling in his neck. He winced when she bit down, but his eyes closed in rapture. He leaned his head into her, biting down on her shoulder.
Jerusa clenched her teeth and turned away. She could watch no more. That’s when she saw them. The three vampire women that had been following her. They stood as far away from Jerusa as she was from Taos and Celeste. The one on the left was a tall, athletic black woman with very short hair. The one on the right was a voluptuous redhead with ivory skin. Both stood with their eyes closed. Only the vampire in the middle—the one with olive skin and white hair—watched her with wide, piercing eyes.
Perpetual Creatures, Volumes 1-3: A Vampire and Ghost Thriller Series Page 68