by Lelana Croft
It took a moment to regain my composure and bring myself back up to my feet. I took out the gag and then began to unbuckle the straps that'd held Patty down.
“What on earth was that?!” she yelled.
“I’ll explain later. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I think so,” she said.
“Okay, good. Right now, I need you to focus and go down the hall and see if you can get those girls out of that cage. Then go all the way to the end of the hall. There is a small doorway that leads to a room with an exterior door. You can all get out that way. Just try not to look at the dead body.”
“Dead body?” she asked, her expression telling me she just didn’t want to deal with that.
“Go! You don’t have much time. The makers have been notified and I’m sure they’ll be coming here soon. I need to find something, I'll catch up later.”
I made my way out of the room and shook off what I’d just had to do. I hated killing, but it’d been either me and Patty, or him. I'd chosen him.
I knew now that I’d found the crux of the operation. Sebastian was carrying on his father’s legacy of the wine that was made from virgin and vampire blood. When I got to the end of the hallway, I found what looked to be another door to the cellar, but it was in fact, a room filled with scrolls. I noticed that at the end of the scrolls was the same shape of the medallion that I’d seen before, only now it was in full color.
The medallions were webbed in the middle around a large smooth blue stone that was in the center. The webbing looked almost like bone marrow covered in gold. It was mesmerizingly beautiful and there was one on the end of each scroll.
I took one of the scrolls out and unrolled it, but it was written in a language I’d never seen before. It had to be here. This was everything I needed. I just needed to decipher it and I'd know all about the wine, the powers they had, how they were able to block Miles; everything. The magnitude of what I’d discovered was just beginning to set in. These were the scrolls of The Aegis Council.
There were so many scrolls that I’d never be able to carry them all. But one stood out above all the others. A glass case with a jade stand held what looked to be a scroll that was encased in some kind of gold cover. That was the one I needed to take. If it was under glass, then it certainly had to be the one that would have all the information I needed, assuming I could figure out the language.
I reached over to lift the glass off of the scroll when the door flew open behind me. I turned around and was face-to-face with the one person I hadn't wanted to see tonight.
Sebastian.
Chapter 30
“Well, now. I’ve never had someone so lovely as you come after me before. This is a first!” he taunted with a greedy smile. I pulled out my daggers and readied myself for the fight.
“You’d do good just to leave me be, Sebastian. I don’t want to kill you, but I will if I have to.”
“Hahaha! That’s precious. You? Kill me? How do you think you’ll get away with that? You’re in my domain here. I have all the power here, not you.”
Unfortunately, I’d just used most of my power in the silent kill. He didn’t know it, but my powers were almost tapped. The only thing I had going for me was if he tried to bite me. I knew it would kill him, but then who knows how many Originals would show up. Having an infestation of them would not be a good thing, no matter what.
I had to keep him talking. He seemed to like bragging about himself, so I needed to keep him going until I could get him to the far side of the desk and me over to the doorway.
“You killed Marilyn Hastings, didn’t you?” I asked.
He huffed and rolled his eyes.
“Her time was overdue. My father kept her around as a token, but I grew weary of her demands. So many demands that it just became boring. And even though on the outside she looked young, she was an old, crabby ass woman.”
“I heard she did a lot for people. She did a lot for this town.”
“Oh, Scarlett…” He said my name with the flair of a southern gentleman. “She only did what she needed to do to keep up appearances. If she kept giving money to town, she knew they'd turn a blind eye to the fact that she’d never aged, but didn’t have any friends. Even that boring husband she pretended to marry couldn’t stand her after a year.”
“What about Canon? Didn’t he love her?”
Sebastian moved around the desk towards me as I moved to the other side, still holding my daggers firmly in my hands. I inched closer to the door, but I also knew he had the speed that I didn't.
“He did at one time. But she never really loved him. It broke his heart and he tossed her in the trash like an old tissue.”
That was confusing to me.
“Then why did he keep letting her live, if he hated her?”
“Because he’d made a promise and when we Roches make promises, we keep them. It’s an unfortunate side effect of being so powerful. We actually do have some rules we live by, but they are there to serve us.”
He let out an evil laugh as he circled the table once again. This time, getting too close for comfort.
“After a while, we vampires all grow weary of humans. That’s why you’ve probably noticed a lot lately that have been turning into mummies? Hmmm?”
His sarcasm was almost as bad as his smell.
“We just give them a fresh bottle of our ‘new’ wine. One drink and it erases all the years of the real youth wine. They take their nightly drink and within twenty-four hours, their bodies begin to reverse to what they would be if they'd never been kept alive to begin with. Brilliant, isn’t it?”
He loved bragging on himself. I guess he figured I wouldn’t be alive to share his story, but he had another thing coming.
“You see, my father made the promise to Marilyn. I didn’t. So, when he left her here to be handled by me, he gave me the right to choose what to do with her. I used her for what I wanted and then, after hearing the bitching for a few decades, I decided it was time for her to go. Her whining became too much to bear. So, I gave her the new wine and she went to sleep for the last time. No harm, no foul.”
My tension and frustration grew as I contemplated my situation. I didn’t want to kill him, but I wanted to stop him from doing this to anyone else. I also wanted to stop the production of the wine and the only way to do that would be to take over the compound. I wouldn't be able to do that by myself.
Right now, I just had to get out of here and come back with help later. I leapt up and over the desk, landing behind Sebastian in the doorway. As I ran down the hall, he sped past me and I ran into him before I was able to stop my momentum.
He grabbed me and his fangs popped out, but I was able to use my knife to stab him in the side. When he reached down to cover his wound, his fingernails scratched my arm, making it bleed.
The scent of my blood sent Sebastian into a rage as he began yelling and increasing in size. I’d never seen that before. It was like someone had rubbed a magic lamp and a giant genie had been released.
His voice boomed above me. “How dare you come into my home and make demands!”
He reached out to grab me and I raised my arm to stop him. When his hand touched the blood seeping out of my arm, he screeched like a banshee and pulled his hand away. It seemed to steam from my blood burning his vampire flesh.
“What are you?!” he yelled as he held his hand, trying to stop the pain.
“I’m the one you don’t want to mess with. It’s time to stop this madness, Sebastian. Killing innocent girls for their blood isn't right. It’s wrong and I intend to stop you!” I yelled as I backed down the hallway, looking for a means of escape while contemplating my next move.
I flipped my knife over and got ready to throw it at him. If I missed, I’d be down a dagger and that wouldn't be desirable, but if I hit him where I wanted, I’d wound him enough to make a clean getaway. The other option was to let him bite me and be done with it. But I think Miles might’ve actually had a problem with that. He’
d lost all the rest of his family to Canon. He didn't really want to lose his only brother, regardless of how bad he was. Miles probably figured he might be able to save him one day.
Sebastian rushed me and pushed me hard against the wall, knocking the breath out of me. He swooped up behind me and wrapped his strong arms around me, pulling me into him like a python squeezing his prey.
“I’ll crush you to death then. If I can’t drain you of that precious nectar that is your blood, I'll crush you like a bug!”
I had used so much of my power from the silent kill that I had very little left to escape his grip. He had my wrist held down that had the dagger in it as I tried to get free.
The room began to spin as I tried to force myself to stay conscious. I wouldn’t go down like this. Not like this.
I lifted my leg and stomped on his foot, releasing the spikes that had been embedded in them.
He released his grip and let out a howl as I flipped around and stabbed him again in the chest, but missing his heart.
Damn it!
I reared back to stab him again, but he reached up and grabbed my hand.
Just as he was about to punch me, a flash of light appeared behind him, blinding me.
I felt his grip release me and heard the sound of something thud on the floor.
I looked up to see Katie and Patty standing there, Katie’s hand still smoking from the shot she’d given to Sebastian.
“I don’t know how long that’ll last. It was a spell I looked up after Sebastian sent his goons to burn down my place. It's only a knock-out spell, so we need to get outta here,” Katie said as she and Patty rushed over to see if I was okay.
“You should just put a stake through his heart and be done with this!” Patty exclaimed. I knew she was serious, but I didn't want another death on my head tonight. I knew there’d be another time I’d have to deal with Sebastian.
“Probably so, but not tonight. Before we leave, I need to get something.”
I stood up and hobbled a bit down the hallway to where the scrolls were. I lifted the glass and removed the scroll that had been under it and tucked it under my arm. I'm sure I’d eventually want to read the rest of them, but this was the one I figured had the secrets that I needed to know to take down this empire of vampires.
The sun was coming up as we made our way out of the house and into the garden. Looking back at it, I could see the grandeur of it all and wondered why anyone would build a castle out here in the middle of nowhere.
Of course, it wasn’t the middle of nowhere back when it’d been built. It’d been in the newest settlement west of the Mississippi. And I was in the middle of history.
Miles was pacing frantically back and forth at the edge of the compound, waiting for us to return. I was so exhausted that I fell into his arms as he helped me to his car, the orange demon already in the trunk.
My father and Tony had used angel powers to get here as soon as they could. They landed softly as my father asked if I was okay.
We all went back to the cabin where I explained everything that I’d learned since I’d gotten here. I knew that Sebastian would be a problem in the days ahead and that we'd need to figure out how to deal with him and the rest of the vampires, as well as The Aegis Council.
I watched as Tony removed the anklet and rubbed where it had burned my skin, applying some of his healing power to it. My father had spoken to The High Council and had convinced them that it wasn't necessary any longer, and that what I’d found was something much larger than originally thought.
The senator I’d killed to get here had been part of a much larger network of trafficking young girls to different places across the country to be used for their blood, to keep the elite and super rich alive forever.
After he explained what I’d uncovered, they agreed to suspend my sentence and allow me the freedom to come back to the city if I wanted.
“You didn’t tell me you were under house arrest,” Katie said.
“I didn’t tell anyone. I wasn’t planning on staying here really. I figured I’d find some way to get out of this little town and get back to the city where I belong.”
“So, you’re leaving us? You’re gonna go back to the city?” Patty said with a certain sadness.
I looked around the room. Miles was sitting on the recliner, pulling his bottom lip and Adonis was on the arm, giving me his best kitty head turn. Katie and Patty were sitting on the bar stools.
In a few short weeks, I’d made more friends here than I’d had in a lifetime of living in the city. Now that I wasn't forced to stay here, I could go to the city any time I wanted.
I looked at my father and Tony.
“If it’s all right with you, I’d like to stay here. I think I might actually like the small-town life for a while. We've got a bit of work to do still. We figured out how Marilyn died and why. Plus, there's this to deal with,” I said as I handed him the scroll. “I need to figure out how to read it, then maybe we can figure out how to stop this madness. With the help of my friends here, I think we might be able to do it.”
My father smiled and looked around at the bunch of half-breeds that sat before him.
“As you wish.”
About the Author
Lelana Croft is an emerging author of urbanl fantasy. This is Lelana’s first book.
Wanna stay in touch?
www.lelanacroft.com
[email protected]