by HK Savage
The two of them stayed to the woods, following the rocky opening in the trees. Cover was essential for them to maintain the element of surprise as best they could. The clouds had opened, large fluffy flakes falling slowly at first, then much heavier as they ran. Soon it was a near whiteout where the rocks impeded tree growth, only slightly better in the leaf barren woods. And so it was purely sense of smell that led them to where their quarry had come to a stop.
Chapter 17
The smell of decay hit him full in the nose and Michael skidded to a halt, putting a hand out unnecessarily to signal Ryan to do the same. He’d caught the same scent. Both fell into a crouch and Michael squinted into the white mess, scanning for signs of movement.
“Holy fuck,” Ryan breathed from beside him. “Found it.”
Michael followed the track of his unit member’s gaze to behold the skeleton hovering on the rock, a living creature straight out of a nightmare. The wind had picked up with the storm and whipped the dark tattered clothing about the bony gray creature’s filthy head. He registered that the lump in front of it was alive and not a part of the rock. She was curled into a ball and a howling sob rolled out just as the creature lowered itself to touch her.
Ryan’s snarl cut through the wind and the creature’s face came up. It was cut short as he beheld the thing exactly as horrible as Michael had described it. The gray flesh hung loosely over hollow cheeks and empty black eyes. Sagging lips did nothing to hide the fangs that were as long as a man’s ring finger and nearly reached the bottom of its chin.
Seeing the stronger being that was Gabrielle incapacitated had Michael in a frenzy. Casting his eyes wildly about, he searched the area for Becca. There was no sign on the rocks or in the woods. And to further inflame his frustration, the wind gusted again, filling his nose with aged death and taking with it any chance of finding Becca that way. A second growl erupted from his shoulder mate and Michael quit any semblance of secrecy.
“Becca!” he yelled.
No answer.
Narrowing his eyes, he rose and rushed forward. There was no making this thing speak; it was unable due to the level of physical deterioration. Death was its only future. Michael and Ryan matched strides to be the deliverers of its sentence.
Two legs turned to four as Ryan changed on the fly, clothing bursting into pieces to litter the forest floor. Together they broke from the trees and hopped from rock to rock, splitting to flank the thing. Michael sunk lower, gathering himself to leap, knowing Ryan would be doing the same.
The vampire snarled as he took the head and the wolf’s teeth snapped on bone where he clamped onto the femur. The thing’s body went down, legless and headless but not destroyed. Michael had educated Ryan on the destruction of this specific creature during their pursuit. The body was torn limb from limb into tiny pieces without a word being spoken between them. No blood in the body, it was set into a dry pile of crumbling bones that Michael easily set ablaze using its clothing as tinder, burning the parts so that no amount of magic could ever reassemble it.
That done the men split, their goals no longer common. Ryan’s soft reassurances echoed in his ears as Michael began circling the perimeter, scanning the fresh white blanket covering the ground and blinding shower of large wet flakes obscuring even his vision.
“Becca,” he called again, stopping to listen for a response possibly too weak to hear over the sound of his boots crunching in the snow. He was circling back around the rock, peering into the woods when the wind dropped for a few seconds and he caught a whiff of blood. Fresh blood. Head shooting up, eyes searching, he caught one more sniff before the wind picked up again. It was enough. It was Becca’s blood and it called to him.
Long strides carried him to where she lay on the other side of a cluster of trees and heavy brush that blocked her from him until he was almost on top of her. The blood had stopped, but he saw with a stomach dropping realization that it had come from her head. She’d hit it on the rock sticking out of the ground not a foot away. White flakes were working to cover the dark stain his eyes didn’t need to tell him was there. His nose gave him all of the information he needed. She was hurt, thankfully not severely though the temperatures were not doing her any favors. Her skin was turning blue from cold, not blood loss. She hadn’t lost enough to cause her a shortage and her heart was strong. Racing in fact. On his knees next to her small, prone body, Michael smelled fear. And gently, he wiped away the snow that covered her face to reveal her features frozen in a mask of abject terror that sent a stabbing pain through him.
“Becca, honey, I’m here. Becca wake up, it’s all right.” He comforted her as he picked her up and cradled her close. “Ryan,” he called over his shoulder and turned to see that he had Gabrielle up and on her feet. She was shaking her head and wiping at her face but seemed okay, if a little bloody. “I’ll meet you at the truck.” Without waiting for an answer, he took off.
It was a much faster return than the hike out due to the simple fact that nothing held him back and he had motive for getting her into a warm truck ASAP. Back at the truck, he held her one-handed while he fished the keys from his pocket.
“Hold on Becca, just give me a minute and I’ll get you warm.”
She made a little sound and Michael checked his grip, loosening his arms immediately. He looked down to see her eyes still terrified and struggled to keep hold of her, fighting back his nature demanding he go back and reassemble the ashes so he could tear the creature apart again. He reminded himself not to lose control or squeeze her too tight again.
He found the keys and got her inside the back to lay her down, letting her go long enough to start the truck, put the heat up to full blast, and get in back with her. Resting her head on his lap was the only way for both of them to fit. Stroking her hair, he lifted it to see that the cut was minor and the bump had been kept down by the cold. She’d have a nasty bruise though it would disappear relatively quickly.
The damage wasn’t severe enough to have caused the mental paralysis she was suffering. As far as he knew, a windigo wasn’t one to possess or manipulate one’s mind. That begged the question: what was working with the windigo? It had to be powerful to take down Gabs and Becca. Impatient for her to wake up, he rubbed her shoulder vigorously.
“Becca, come on. Wake up, honey.” He watched her face. Color was slowly bleeding back into her lips and cheeks, her eyes relaxed finally and drifted closed. “You’re almost there, honey.” Michael smiled to himself. If someone had told him twenty years ago that he would be in love with a human, that she would love him back, he would have killed the person for being a dumbass. A cruel dumbass.
She sighed and her lids fluttered open. The big hazel eyes that stared up at him were quiet. Becca was in there again. He felt his lips pull back into a smile. Blinking, she twisted her lips in return. “Hey.”
“Hey. How are you feeling?”
Touching her head, she tried to sit up and fell back. “I’ve got a hell of a headache. Why?” Her hand found the bump and she grinned, “Oh.”
“Do you remember what happened?” Michael touched the side of her face, noting the exhaustion lining her features and frowning at the way her eye twitched when he asked. “I’m sorry, we need to know.”
She shook her head. “Not really, just bits and pieces.” Offering an unconvincing closed mouth smile, she tried to sit up again. “Could you?”
“Sure,” he helped her up. “Okay?” His eyes searched her for signs of fainting or illness. God he was a fool for her. If something happened to her he would go back to the husk he’d been, doing whatever Black wanted without a conscience. Without a soul.
“Thanks.” She smiled shyly, embarrassed to be reliant. “Um, out there, I was following Gabrielle. She was after this thing. It was glowing, only I didn’t see what it was.” A wrinkle formed between her brows. “I never saw it.” She rolled her head lazily from side to side, too tired to give it more. “It managed to stay away from both of us.”
Unce
rtain and unable to meet her gaze, he glanced past her out the window to see if the others were coming. Nothing. “Did you get any sort of feeling from it? A vibe or anything?”
Tipping her head, she eyed him curiously. “What do you mean ‘vibe’?”
His tone changed, he looked away again. “You’ve been getting stronger. Uh, I thought you might have picked up on something since you’re…” He stopped, hoping she would understand without him having to say the word again.
Realization dawned and Becca’s expression darkened. “Since I’m a witch?”
He regarded her grimly. Personal feelings aside, he had to think of their mission. And if she had a set of barely tapped abilities that could help them, then it was his duty to push her to use them.
“Why did you call me that?” Becca didn’t rant or scream. She was pragmatic about the whole thing. “Does my sight make me a witch?”
“It’s an old term. We don’t really have one for your type now.” It was hard to keep his hands to himself. He wanted so badly to stroke her face, to bring her comfort and not make her feel like he was using her to forward Black’s agenda.
She managed a weak smirk. “My type. It’s okay.” She held up a hand when he started to object. “I’m not offended.” She frowned in thought, “I’m just, I don’t know. Witch is so not how I thought of myself.” Then, running a hand along the side of her head, she winced and probed more tenderly. “I’m getting stronger?” She gave him a look, her disbelief obvious. “You think so?”
Michael glossed over the physical weakness Becca was suffering. “I don’t know if it’s how much you’ve been working with it or the blood, but you’ve been powerful with your abilities.” He watched her face fall at his mention of her blood ingestion. “I didn’t mean to bring that up. I know you don’t like to think about drinking blood.”
They’d avoided speaking about the whole thing in much detail. She took on a decidedly green hue whenever they got too far down the line. Truth be told, he’d used her aversion to keep her from asking too much. Michael didn’t want her to know. He didn’t want her to know how close her blood consumption had brought her to being like him; how close he’d come once to doing the unthinkable. All it would have taken was a bite from him.
He’d refrained from turning her into a vampire, even when it would have made her healing faster and less uncertain. God knew there had been moments during those three days when they’d been shut in his room together with only Ryan allowed near the door with blood deliveries. There had been moments when he thought he would lose her, when he thought he had. The temptation to turn her had been unbearable. The only thing that prevented him from being selfish, from turning her even if it meant she would hate him forever but he would know she still lived, was the fact that she didn’t want it. How could he say that he loved her if he ignored that? How could he turn her into a thing he hated. Doomed her to serving the admiral for an eternity?
And so, he had pumped himself and her full of enough blood to fill two live humans. That amount was beyond what any other had taken in without being bitten and turned. Mixed with her not quite human nature and they had virgin territory.
Her heart was picking up again. “Michael,” she put a hand on his where it lay in his lap, “it’s time you told me what happened.” Her pulse slowed, her reaching for him was subconscious. His vampire gloated.
His eyes searched hers. He kept his features decidedly even. A half a century of wearing a mask served him well. “They had given up on you in the hospital; there wasn’t anything they could do for you.” A picture of her burned body superimposed itself over the one in front of him. “I took you out of there and brought you back to the estate. I knew how to heal you, and I did.”
“I knew all that.” She squeezed his fingers, encouraging. “What I want to know is how much?” Her throat worked convulsively. “How much blood did I drink?” Touching him was the only thing keeping her from panicking, he could sense that she was on the edge.
“A lot,” he told her flatly. “Why does it matter?”
“Because I want to know. If I’m stuck like this, if it never wears off, how close am I to being like you? To being a vampire?” She touched her temple and flinched.
Michael worried she had a concussion and turned to the side, hiding the flare of his nostrils as he sniffed again to rule out internal bleeding.
On cue, the door opened and Ryan threw himself in behind the wheel with an angry grunt. Gabrielle was slower, yet equally furious as she climbed into the passenger seat and crossed her arms. The brief illumination of the dome light before the door closed showed eyes red from crying and a face covered in red, bloody streaks.
The four rode back to the motel in silence, all lost in their own thoughts. None of them noticed the figure that stepped out from the trees into the clearing as they pulled away.
The man-shaped being stood still and unseen, his form all but hidden by the long, dark coat he wore. Thin lips pulled back, a full set of pointed teeth shone in the faint dirty orange glow radiating from his flesh. Grinning wickedly, he roughed his black leather-clad palms together. These four were strong, their emotions raw. They were perfect. The blonde one had already given him enough to secure his place on this plane, he no longer needed the windigo to lure them to him. Having tasted two of them, he could find them again.
Chapter 18
Gabrielle wanted to stay under the hot water forever. She sat down, hugging her knees to her chest and let the water run over her shoulders while she stared at the gray water-stained ring halfway up the edge of the tub. If it were any other day she would have refused to even touch the dirty tub. This wasn’t any other day.
Since that first night in the woods, when she’d cut across the trail, nothing had been right. The rotting smell had been vampire all right. Different than Michael and Admiral Black but definitely vampire, there had been enough of them over the years of all different varieties for her to recognize it. She was becoming a connoisseur. Soon she’d be able to pick the region where they originated by the particular smell of dirt and minerals permeating their bodies. A sommelier of the undead, was that a thing?
No, this one’s smell was different, earthy and powerful. There was no smell of decay like that thing she saw in the woods that night; no rot, only earth and energy. Then there was the fact that it controlled her, took her over. It drew her for hours through woods, mud and over rocks, leading her on some chase she could never remember when she woke in a different part of town, filthy and exhausted. Always with a sense of loss and grief strong enough to send her running back to the motel, to check on Ryan, fearing the worst. Fearing she’d lost another one. And now she was seeing things. Well, not things. Him. She was seeing glimpses of a ghost from her past. Out of the corner of her eye, on the edge of a crowd, turning a corner on the street, he was there for only a second. But when she followed, he was gone. She hadn’t gone out since that first morning, avoiding the inescapable sighting. Avoiding facing the guilt head on. She knew she deserved it, except she wasn’t strong enough to face his ghost and hear him condemn her. And she couldn’t handle Ryan hearing it. Loyalty was everything to him. What would he think of her leaving her unit alone and vulnerable? Of letting them die while she lived?
Ryan. He meant more to her than she thought, more than she was intending when she’d started things with him. Waking with that sense of loss brought to mind the heartrending pain she’d felt when she lost the last man she allowed herself to love. Never again, she had vowed that day in Northern Africa after she buried her entire unit with her own hands. And now, despite her efforts to avoid it, it had happened. The fear of his loss had her pulling away as fast as she could. She couldn’t survive pain like that again.
Knuckles on the white pre-fab door had her on her feet at once. “Gabs?”
Swallowing first, she breathed once, then twice. He already thought she was losing it. So did she. Better to be thought a cold bitch than seen as weak. She had to do this. It was the onl
y way for her. “Yes.” It was a challenge, not a question.
“Uh, Michael called. He wanted us to meet for dinner. To talk about today.”
The hesitation in his voice, his inability to hide his hurt was hard to ignore. Calling forth the last she’d seen of her lost love, the mound of sand she’d shoveled atop the shallow graves she’d dug with her own hands in the Algerian desert helped her to find strength where she thought she had none. “Fine. Give me a few minutes.”
Long pause. He was deciding whether or not to say something. Probably wanting to talk about the state she’d been in when she passed out on that rock and he found her. Nerves jolted her stomach and she doubted she would eat this night. Footsteps moved away on the thin carpet over concrete and she felt her shoulders fall.