A Mark Unwilling

by Candace Wondrak

  Suddenly he’s on top of me, and we’re falling to the concrete. My back takes the brunt, and I put a hand around his neck. This reminds me far too much of the insane group of cultists Deb came from.

  My hand on his throat merely inconveniences him, and despite my attempt at burning him like I had the man trying to rape me, Cloud only smiles. “You run hotter than the average Human,” he says, “perhaps because of that Mark.” Steam comes from his neck, and he laughs. “I like it rough,” he murmurs, abruptly turning my head aside. “I hope you do, too.” His face nears my neck, and I take my hand off his chest, pressing it hard against his cheek.

  The Mark’s power does something helpful. The heat gets to a temperature so hot, it burns Cloud’s skin off, turning his right cheek into a charred, blackened, ashy chunk of flesh. The only reason it doesn’t burn him entirely, I think, is the sheer amount of blood coating him. The side of his mouth melts together, and he snarls, a roar rumbling from his chest.

  A scream comes from one of the vans, and I blink. Cloud is off me, and I scramble to my feet, turning to the vehicles, about to shout for them to just leave me, when I see Cloud tear the side door off the van as if were attached by tape and not metal bolts. He jostles through the group, flinging every aside, swatting another weak fireball from David, all to get to his goal.

  Josefina.

  Cloud pulls her out, and the little girl drops her Barbies on the stone floor, screaming and kicking as he holds her much like a child-sized doll. He flashes far from the group so they cannot interfere with what’s about to happen.

  He’s ten feet from me—close enough to taunt me, but far enough that by the time I’d reach him, he could already have his fangs buried deep within Josie’s neck. His red eyes rise to me, a smirk crawling on the half of his uninjured mouth. He’d need fresh blood to heal—and he plans on getting it from Josefina.

  My stomach falls seeing her struggle in his iron grip. I should have listened to David. I should have gotten us out of there as soon as possible. I never should have let it get to this point.

  I watch him open his mouth, fangs glimmering with evil intent, and I scream, “No! You stupid Vamp!” He pauses, waiting for me to continue shouting pointless words at him. I try to think of something to say, but no ideas magically come. “You want me, not her.” I slowly shrug off my leather jacket, figuring more skin would better entice him to me.

  One strong hand rests on her stomach, holding Josie’s body to him; the other holds her wild hair, pulling her head at an unnatural angle. Josefina whimpers, crying silent tears as she wordlessly pleads with me. By the van, Mike swears about being out of ammo. My mom just cries. Darren and Nat look paler than usual. Did they know their leader was capable of this?

  “Let her go,” I whisper, moving my dirty, wavy hair to one shoulder. I’m not a blood-sucker, so I have no clue whether or not I look like a yummy snack, but I hope I’m enticing enough that he’ll let Josie go. I draw a finger down my jugular, adding, “I bet I taste a heck of a lot better.”

  The world seems to stop when Cloud says, “What I’ll do to you is not appropriate for the eyes of a child.” And then he opens his mouth, lowering his fangs to Josie’s neck. Her struggling is pointless, and the scream that comes from me is one of pure frustration and hopelessness.

  Chapter Ten

  Before the tips of Cloud’s teeth can sink into her tender flesh, a dark angel of fire appears, jumping out of a fiery portal and landing in the ten-foot space between us. Wings of smoke and brimstone sear the floor and ceiling, leaving an outline of black ash. He stands at eight feet tall, his skin black, horns on his head, claws and talons on his feet and hands. An otherworldly voice booms from his thick chest, “Release the girl.”

  Cloud, whether out of fear or compulsion, slowly lets Josefina go. The girl runs past Devil Jr. to me, hugging me, crying. I fall to the floor, holding her close, doing my best not to cry, but tears start to form anyway. I’ve lost so much—I don’t think I could go on after losing Josie.

  A sickening sound of parting skin and bone slices the air as Devil Jr. shoves his clawed fist into Cloud’s chest, gripping his heart. A tear slides down my cheek, and a part of me wishes I could rewind time to before the blood moon. I liked Cloud. He was an all right dude, even if he was undead. His nest seemed all right, too. They didn’t deserve to lose their sanity from the blood moon. None of them deserved to die like this.

  Devil Jr. hesitates, and I’m too busy rocking back and forth with Josie to notice it. I don’t see how he glances back toward us, to me, and then back to Cloud. Cloud glares at him with glowing eyes, their redness full of hatred. “Kill me,” he whispers. Devil Jr. must constrict his grip on Cloud’s heart, for he sputters coagulated blood and grimaces.

  With a harsh jerk, Devil Jr. yanks out his hand, and Cloud collapses. I hide Josie’s face in the crook of my neck when he turns to me, and for a split moment, I see that his eyes now glow red with the blood moon’s power. But he blinks, and suddenly, it’s gone. His wings disappear in a puff of smoke, and soon he returns to his Human form. He still wears the same outfit as Mike. Now isn’t the time for fashion.

  “Run to my mom, Josie,” I whisper to the girl, and she nods. I let her out of my arms, making sure she makes it safely to the group near the van. The group is in the process of piling into the van whose side wasn’t torn off in a display of insanity and bloodthirst. My legs ache, my back hurts. I feel the overwhelming need to sleep for days. I lift a hand towards the owner of my soul in hopes that he will pull me to my feet, not really thinking that he’d do it.

  His warm hand grips mine, and as he pulls me up, I wipe the tears on my face away.

  “That could’ve been avoided if you’d waited for me,” he says.

  I open my mouth to say something mean and/or sarcastic, but when I meet his gaze, I realize that he’s serious. His campfire smell enters my nose, and I grasp the fact that his hand still holds mine.

  David is beside us, tentatively asking me, “Are you coming?” He throws a quick look to Devil Jr., not wanting to anger the guy.

  When I see my friend’s presence, I slowly take my hand away from Devil Jr., swallowing. I want to go with them, but after everything I’d somehow finagled from him, I figure I’d be pushing my luck. I’m quiet for a little while, trying to come up with a nice way of saying that I can’t.

  “Give us a moment,” Devil Jr. answers for me. “There is an issue we must discuss.”

  David doesn’t know how to reply, so he doesn’t; he simply heads back to the van, tells the group something. All pairs of eyes turn to us.

  “I’ll go with you, but I—” I stop, not liking the intensity of his stare.

  “That is not the issue,” he cuts in, stepping aside, allowing me to view Cloud’s crumpled body. The old Vampire groans softly, his body moving slightly.

  “You didn’t kill him?”

  The alarm and surprise in my voice is evident, causing Devil Jr. to say, “No. I took out the blood moon’s hold over him. He will be as he was before, if not regretful for his deeds.” His blue eyes study me, waiting to see some type of reaction from me. Does he want me to be happy? Sad? Worried? “It is up to you what we do with him. We could leave him with his slaughtered nest, or…”

  “Take him with us?” I finish, totally baffled. “Does that mean we’re going with them?” Is this opposite day? Did I step into another dimension when I wasn’t looking? After everything—our fighting, my begging—he’d let us stay with them? When the only thing he does is shrug, I question, “Why?”

  He frowns. “You are unhappy with the decision?”

  “No—it’s just…you own me. Not the other way around. It’s not symbiotic—” I use his own words against him. “—so I don’t know why you’d want to go along with what I want to do. You don’t care.”

  “True words. I care for little, though. There are events which I need to be present for—and you will be at my side—but until then…” There’s a pause as he gla
nces to the van. The group recoils, as if his stare would turn them to stone. “…I don’t see why we cannot continue with your friends.”

  My gaze falls to my feet, which seem oddly small across from his.

  “They will die. They will betray you. They will leave you,” he tells me, never sounding more serious.

  “One down,” I whisper. Technically two down, but I figure my dad’s death doesn’t count. He’s saying those who are left will die. It almost happened, a minute ago, thanks to Cloud. I peer around Devil Jr., watching as Cloud stirs. The burn on his face looks like it hurts. I return my stare to him as I ask, “What do you think?”

  He blinks, momentarily stunned that I asked him his opinion, as if no one ever cared enough to ask before. That, or he’s used to being in power, so he’s accustomed to his opinion being the only one mattering. “I did not save him for myself. It does not matter to me what we do with him. He is little more than a fly to me. Humans enjoy their pets, though.”

  “If we keep him,” I stress the word, “he’s not my pet.”

  “Define him how you like.”

  I study him. Is this why he saved Cloud? Because he thinks I want him as a pet? I don’t know if I should be flattered or insulted. Both, probably. “Is that how you see me? Is that what I am to you? A pet?”

  “No.” The first word eases my discomfort, but the rest of his explanation makes me want to punch him. “You are more akin to property—a slave.”

  “Giving your slave a pet, how nice of you,” I speak through my teeth, moving around him to Cloud. I bend down, moving one of the Vamp’s arms around me. “Hear that, Cloud? You’re now the Vampire pet of a Human slave who belongs to the Devil’s son.”

  Cloud’s eyebrows come together, and he whispers, “What?” As he speaks, he grimaces in pain.

  I help him over to the van, without an ounce of help from Devil Jr., and as I head to the side door, there are various outcries. “What?” David says, shaking his head. “No. No, you are not bringing him! He killed his nest, almost drank from you, and Josie—”

  “I’m still here,” Mike reminds him, “and I tried to kill her. And unlike everything else that’s attacked her, I could’ve done it, too.”

  “Not something to brag about while sitting next to my mom,” I tell him as both Nat and Darren turn around from the front, both saying, what? Mike helps me load Cloud into the van. Eve, Josie, David, Deb and Mike are crowded in the back before we add Cloud’s mostly limp body, not to mention Devil Jr. and me.

  “I’m going to watch that son of a bitch like a hawk,” David mutters as I sit cross-legged beside him.

  Devil Jr. steps in, moving to sit on my other side. As the group scoots away from us, he asks, “Can you change your form into a hawk?”

  David shoots him a glare, coupled with disdain. “No.”

  “Then how could you watch him as a hawk would?” He looks to me for answers, acting mightily innocent and clueless, considering his parentage.

  As David groans and swears in another language, I pat Devil Jr.’s leg. “You and I are going to work on expressions of speech, because right now, they just fly right over that anime head of yours.”

  He leans closer to me. “Nothing flies over my head without my knowledge.”

  “Right. Wrong thing to say. I see it now.” I give his knee a squeeze before letting it go, and I see him jerk away from me as I do it.

  “What a peculiar sensation,” he whispers, mostly to himself.

  Deb smiles from the back of the van. “He’s ticklish.” What she and I think is hilarious, my mom doesn’t. She keeps Josie in her lap, staring out of the black-tinted window, watching as the parking garage becomes a thing of distant memory.

  Just to be sure, I poke him a few times in the side, laughing as he squirms away from me.

  “Stop,” he says, catching his breath.

  “Is that a command, Master?” I whisper mischievously.

  “Yes,” he answers, but there’s no force behind it, and I don’t feel the invisible hand controlling me. I’m about to tickle him more when Nat shouts to stop, and Darren slams on the van’s breaks.

  Everyone in the back falls on top of each other. Very uncomfortable.

  As I crawl over him to get to the front seat, I hear Devil Jr. mutter, “I’m beginning to regret this decision.”

  I pause while on top of him. “Too late for that, buddy.” I might accidentally knee him in the neck as I poke my head between Darren and Nat. “What’s going on?”

  “Sun,” Nat whispers, her worried eyes flicking to me.

  I didn’t even realize it. Stupid me.

  “Maybe we could climb in the back, and one of you non-allergic people can take the wheel,” Darren offers. He stopped the car directly in the last line of shade before the above-ground world. The parking garage’s doors are already closed behind us.

  “Move,” I state, crawling to the side door and hopping out. I step forward, out into the sunlight, and gaze up at the sky.

  The normally yellow sun is black. A different type of light coats the ground—like a sepia filter on a camera. Everything looks off. It takes my eyes a few moments to get used to it. Deb and David are beside me.

  “What happened to you watching Cloud like a hawk?” I say. I’m…oddly confident in Devil Jr.’s fix for Cloud. I shouldn’t be, but I am. I’m not worried about Josie or my mom.

  “He passed out again,” Deb’s the one to reply, her small arms crossed.

  “That’s what happens when you have an arm inside you,” I mutter, staring up at the sun. “Do you think the Vamps could take this sunlight?”

  “One way to find out,” David says, returning to the van. He comes back with Cloud’s unconscious form, dropping him on the street, in the strange sunlight. Cloud’s skin doesn’t bake or burst into flames. “Damn. Looks like they can.”

  “David!” I call his name.

  “What?” My friend lifts his shoulders, feigning cluelessness.

  “You can’t just drop an unconscious Vamp in the sun,” I say, hearing the grumbling of the two other Vampires as they jump out of the van and hesitantly step over the sunny threshold. “Put him back in the van.”

  David waits a moment before saying, “Nah.” He returns to the van, leaving Cloud in a heap of limbs on the concrete.

  “Don’t mind him,” Deb tells me. “His past with Vampires is…” Her light voice trails off. “I’m sorry. It’s not for me to say.”

  “Did he tell you?” I ask as Darren hoists Cloud’s motionless body over his shoulder and carries him to the van.

  She shakes her head.

  “Did you draw it?”

  Deb looks away, ashamed.

  “It’s okay, Deb. You have no control over what you draw,” I say, patting her back. As I watch Nat revel at her pale flesh in the sunlight, I feel a warm, tingly feeling on my arms. My bare arms. “Darn it,” I say the word like a curse. “I forgot my jacket.”

  Deb giggles.

  Nat moves to us, her brown hair swaying in the wind. She’s a tall, lanky Vamp, similar to Cloud. Her nose is small, her eyes a light amber. I never paid much attention to her, until today. Her thin body wears a red tank with tan cargo pants. Not exactly the picture of style. “Sunlight feel…weird.” She lifts her arms. “It not how I remember.”

  Deb walks to the van, passing Darren as he comes back to Nat and I, Cloud-less. He hooks his hands in his belt loops. “We need a plan. Where are we going?”

  “Where can we?” Nat motions around us. “Humans hide. I done hiding.”

  “Me too,” Darren agrees. His gaze turns to me. “Thoughts?”

  I try to think of some places where humanity would make its last stand. “D.C. seems like the clichéd but obvious choice,” I finally say. “But that’s pretty far.”

  Darren nods. “It’s as good a plan as any.” Looping his fingers through his belt loop under his protruding belly, his expression darkens. “I don’t know much about Marks or Demons, but I’m glad yo
u’re still with us. Your friends are a crazy bunch when you aren’t around.”

  That makes me smile.

  “We do need to talk about Cloud, before we go,” Darren adds.

  “What about him?” I try my best not to think of how vicious he was, how he killed nearly his whole nest. Who knows how many of the Sapes died at his hands. Josefina nearly died. For that reason alone, I don’t want to think about his actions more than I have to. The blood moon took him over, like Hades forced Mike to try to kill me.

  It is harder to rationalize it, though, because of Josie.

  “If he doesn’t get blood, he won’t make it another day,” Darren speaks bluntly. “That wound in his chest, it’s a wonder he regained consciousness at all. If we want him to survive, we have to get him blood, and I don’t think anyone’s going to volunteer.”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  “There’s a hospital thirty minutes away. It’s where Cloud got a lot of the bagged blood for the nest.” I see a shadow of doubt pass over Darren’s eyes.

  “But?”

  “The head of the hospital was Cloud’s in. She was Marked, like you.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem,” I say, raring to go. It’s always good to have a goal. Healthy. A lot healthier than the apocalypse.

  After I say it, though, I start to rethink it. There are always problems, especially when things seem easy and straightforward.

  As we agree on the plan, we shuffle back in the van. Darren drives us to the right area, in the residential district. We find a boarded-up house, completely unremarkable in every way. Darren wants to kick down the front door, but I manage to find a key in a conspicuous-looking rock. Darren and Nat are the first in the house, waiting to hear anything.

  “It’s empty,” Darren states, and he goes to the van to carry Cloud in. He lays the unconscious Vampire on the green couch. The hole in his chest looks horrid; it’s a good thing he doesn’t breathe, because I think Devil Jr. broke some ribs going in, puncturing lungs. His charred face doesn’t look much better.