From the Shadows (A Shadow Chronicles Novel)

by Moore, Christina

  “Good riddance. If only we could do the same to these three, and whoever else they’re bringing in as backup,” Caroline seethed, rubbing her wrists as I had mine when I finally pulled the cord away, tossing it to the floor.

  “They’ll get what’s coming to them,” I told her, standing and helping her to her feet.

  “That’s another thing I’m afraid of. That Race is going to get himself hurt trying to rescue us.”

  I looked at her. “He’s not going to just try, Caroline—he will. But in the meantime, we’ve got to do our part and try to get out of this on our own.”

  She took another deep breath and nodded. After a brief touch of my hand on her arm, I moved past her to the nightstand on the right side of the bed, opening the single drawer to look for something I could use as a weapon. There was nothing in it. Caroline watched me as I rounded the bed and looked in the other nightstand, where I did my best not to slam it shut upon finding it also empty.

  “What are you looking for?” she asked.

  “Something—anything—that can be used as a weapon,” I replied, heading for the dresser.

  “This may seem a bit presumptuous, but what about breaking the legs off the vanity chair?” she said, pointing to the dressing table to my right, where there was a chair pushed under it. “Can’t vampires die from being staked?”

  “Only temporarily, unless their heart is somehow destroyed in the process,” I replied, though finding the dresser also empty had me contemplating the chair as well.

  Caroline frowned. “What do you mean temporarily?”

  I paused and looked at her. “I’m afraid that the only way to kill a vampire for good is to cut off the head or destroy the heart, as they can’t live without either. Staking a vampire will certainly cease his or her bodily functions, but if the stake is pulled out, they’ll reanimate in three days.”

  “But… You said you burned those others. If they were already dead, why did you burn them?”

  “It ensures they stay dead. A vampire’s severed body part—even the head—can be reattached and the body reanimated if they’re not burned,” I explained as I went to the single window. I knew that the likelihood of escaping that way was zero, but… it couldn’t hurt to have a look. Of course I was right—not a chance. Not even a window-washer’s cart.

  “Oh good heavens,” Caroline muttered, moving to sit on the end of the bed. “I suppose they don’t burn in the sun, either?”

  I’d moved to the closet by then and found only empty hangers inside, growling as I was forced to accept that unless I did as Caroline suggested and break the legs off the single chair in the room, there was nothing I could use against Merrick and his thugs. Running a hand through my hair in frustration, I moved to that chair and dropped into it.

  “No, vampires don’t burn in the sun. But sunlight weakens them. Becoming a vampire reverses the body’s natural melatonin production cycle—melatonin being the hormone that makes us tired—and they produce more of it in the light than they do in the dark, whereas normal humans and my own kind produce more in darkness. It’s why we’re biologically inclined to be up during the day and to sleep at night.

  “But vampires… Not only is the cycle reversed, they produce so much during daylight hours that they can fall into a deep sleep that’s very much like a coma. When they’re that deep asleep, it’s almost impossible to wake them. Back during the Dark Ages, that’s how a lot of them were killed—people just waited until they were asleep to stake them and set them on fire,” I explained.

  “If that’s true, then why are these ones awake?” Caroline asked. “Shouldn’t they still be in their coffins or something?”

  I tried not to laugh at her suggestion that vampires slept in coffins, something she’d obviously culled from her knowledge of popular vampire lore. Besides, I had no doubt some of them did.

  “My guess is that Merrick planned this well in advance, which means that he and the other two have fed recently,” I replied.

  “You… you mean they’ve been drinking blood?”

  I nodded. “And a lot of it. I’m afraid it’s quite possible that they’ve each killed at least one person, maybe two. Drinking a large quantity of blood and/or drinking it at regular intervals allows them to stay awake during daytime hours.”

  Caroline made the sign of the cross. “Oh, those poor people,” she said softly.

  We’d been talking softly for a while—that and my futile search for a weapon had distracted me from the passage of time. Glancing at the window, though I could not see the sun itself, I could tell from the fading light that it would be down within minutes. Caroline and I looked at one another, each of us wondering the same thing: Where was Race?

  It was then that a commotion sounded from out in the living room. I jumped up and ran to the door, putting my ear to it and hearing what sounded like Al’s voice saying, “Boss! They’re in the building!”

  Twenty

  “Race!” Caroline shouted, flying off the bed to join me at the door.

  “Quiet!” I told her. “They’re in the building, not on this floor yet.” Moving away from the door, I went over to the chair at the vanity. Picking it up, I turned it and easily snapped off a leg, put that on the table, then snapped off another. After tossing the chair aside, I grabbed the first leg and walked back to the door, holding a leg in each hand like a club.

  “Caroline, get behind me,” I said firmly. “From what Al just said, Race is here and he’s not alone. Once they get to this level things will go to hell in a hand basket in a flash; Merrick or one of his cronies might come for us, and I want to be able to take them out fast.”

  She nodded and ran back to the bed. Thankful she didn’t utter a word of protest, I stood just a foot or so outside the door’s opening arc, holding the chair legs ready to swing or stab. I felt adrenaline pumping furiously through my veins, once again awakening my canine heart. The animal inside wanted to be free, wanted to rend and tear vampire flesh, and given the opportunity I would let her do so with abandon. But right now I had to ensure Caroline’s safety.

  “Get back there and stand by that door,” I heard Merrick say. “I don’t want that fucking freak anywhere near them bitches of his until I’ve got him on his knees.”

  “Got it, Boss,” said a voice I didn’t recognize; backup must have arrived while I’d been educating Caroline about vampires.

  Just minutes after Al’s shout, I heard a loud noise, what honestly sounded like a body being thrown into a wall. Having heard the sound before, I had a good basis on which to judge, and so I tightened my grip on the chair legs as well as the thin leash of control I had on my Sibe. There was a reason beyond their looks that Siberian Huskies were often confused with wolves: the domestic ones were, in truth, very closely related to wolves genetically. So were Alaskan Malamutes. It was because of this relation between our “one-natured cousins” that some of the older members of my mother’s pack liked to say we might look like dogs, but we had the spirit of the wolf inside of us. That thought made me suddenly realize that it truly was the hand of Destiny that had led me to Race, and to Race becoming the leader of a wolf pack.

  For a reason or reasons I might never understand, becoming the Alpha Female of the Dayton wolves was where I was always meant to be.

  There were more sounds of fighting coming back to us—crashing furniture, the breaking of glass. Hisses and snarls told me that Race had indeed brought some of his wolves with him, and I was thankful. That he hadn’t come alone meant that at least some of the wolves had accepted him as their leader and were willing to join him in his efforts to rescue his mother and me from captivity. Then again, I knew how much werewolves loathed vampires; the enmity was based mostly on centuries of simple racial hatred, and they might have come on principle alone just for the chance of killing a few of them.

  It sounded like one hell of a brawl was going on, and my Sibe was practically screaming at me to join in the fun. I’d always enjoyed a good sparring match, and the cha
nce to exact some revenge by tearing off a few vampire heads was something I really didn’t want to miss out on.

  “I can’t stand this!” Caroline said then, her nervousness palpable in the way her hand clasped at my arm. “Where is Race? Is he okay?”

  I searched for Race through our bond, and sensed that he was in quite the tussle with one of Merrick’s goons in the foyer. His sole focus was getting through all the vampires to find Merrick, so that he could tear him apart personally.

  I threw a grin over my shoulder at Caroline. “He’s mopping the floor with them,” I told her.

  “How do you know?” she countered.

  My eyes back on the door, I said, “Remember what I told you about imprinting? A bonded pair is linked telepathically. I can feel him, he’s right outside the apartment in the foyer.”

  I turned then, and gave her condition serious consideration. “To be honest with you, I’m getting sick of waiting to be rescued. My animal side is itching to join in, and I don’t know how long I’ll be able to control myself if it takes much more time for Race to get back here.”

  She stared back at me for a heartbeat—maybe two—before saying, “Do what you have to, Juliette. Help my son get us out of here.”

  I nodded and handed her the chair legs. Next I removed my shoes, jacket, shirt and jeans, handing them over as well. “Get in the closet and stay there until Race or I come for you. Bar it from the inside with one of those chair legs if you can—you should be relatively safe there while the fight is going on, but if someone other than Race or I tries to open the door, you scream as loud as you can.”

  “Believe me, I will,” she said, and then hurried to carry out my instructions.

  I turned back to the door and gave my Sibe her freedom, changing into my battle form and, after crying out a menacingly loud snarl, I charged toward it.

  The vampire on the other side was surprised enough by this unexpected development to not be quick enough to move out of the way, and I pinned him underneath the mostly intact wooden door as my weight tore it out of its frame. The owner of the shaved head I’d glimpsed recovered quickly, throwing the door aside with me on top. I rolled with it, coming up on all fours and snarling at him again, leaping as he ran at me. My forepaws caught him right where I’d wanted, and I pinned him by his shoulders to the floor as I clamped my jaws around his head and tore it off.

  Spitting out the repulsive mouthful, I ran for the living room, where by this time the fight had apparently moved. Every vampire in the room was engaged in a fight with a wolf. I looked for Merrick, and spotted him with his arms around a dark gray wolf that was howling in pain. I ran for them as Merrick managed to get an arm around the wolf’s neck, stumbling in my stride as he snapped the vertebrae with a loud crack.

  I lifted my head and howled, but I didn’t get to spend more than a second mourning the loss of the wolf whose body was slowly morphing back into human form. I couldn’t even stop to see if I knew who it was, as Merrick had spotted me and was coming toward me with a sickening smile on his face.

  “I told you what would happen, bitch, if you changed form,” he taunted me. “Mommy Dearest belongs to Silas now. And you, bitch, are mine.”

  I raised my hackles and growled at him, snapping my jaws as we started circling each other. If I were in human form I’d have told him to go fuck himself.

  “Oh, I’m gonna have so much fun with you, mutt. I’m gonna break both your arms and both your legs so you can’t fight back, and then I’m gonna fuck you so long and so hard, and then I’m gonna drain that sweet little ass of yours as dry as the Sahara. And I’m gonna make that freak-ass boyfriend of yours watch every agonizing minute of it.”

  Anger surged through me and I charged forward. No way in hell was I going to let this twisted bloodsucker get the chance to act out his perverted fantasy. No way was I going to let any man force himself on me again, to torment and torture me, not while I was still breathing.

  Merrick laughed as I leapt into the air, batting me aside as though I were a fly. I landed with a crash, rolling over the body of the werewolf he’d killed. I glimpsed briefly at the man’s face and saw that it was Marcus Drewby. I wanted to mourn for him—I’d met this man, spoken to him—but I couldn’t do it right now. Pushing to my feet I ran at Merrick again, aiming low with the intent of taking a leg off. Though I did manage to lock my teeth around his calf, breaking the skin and getting the gag-inducing taste of vampire blood in my mouth, I wasn’t able to break it off. Merrick twisted as I tried to snap the leg off and used his free leg to kick me viciously in the ear. The pain reverberated around my skull and I reflexively opened my mouth, allowing him to scramble to his feet.

  The vampire took a moment to examine his leg. His designer blue jeans had been shredded from the knee down and hung in tatters. Blood ran in rivulets down his leg, although the wounds themselves were already starting to close.

  “You fucking bitch!” he screamed at me.

  I was shaking my head again as though I could cast off the pain when he ran at me and kicked me again. I yelped as the pain crashed through my skull once more, causing my legs to weaken and give out from under me. Merrick grabbed a fistful of my fur and started punching me in the ribs. Blow after blow landed and I cried out vocally with a howl, as well as telepathically, when one of my ribs cracked.

  Race, help me!

  A loud, almost deafening snarl resounded from the foyer, and a moment later a huge white wolf came bursting through the double doors, bowling over wolves and vampires alike as it headed toward us. Merrick’s head snapped up and he released a snarl of his own. Grabbing me by the head, he wrapped his arms around my neck, spittle flying from his mouth as he hollered, “Back off, freak, or she dies!”

  The white wolf reverted to human form and a Race red-faced with rage stood before us, breathing heavily. “Let her go, bloodsucker!”

  Merrick laughed while squeezing my neck tighter. I could no longer breathe, and kicked reflexively with my back legs, trying to get purchase to wrest myself free of his grasp. “Oh, why should I do that, hmm? I’m thinking watching this piece of puppy pussy die right before your very eyes will just break that little freaky heart of yours. What do you say—will widdle Race’s widdle freaky heart be broken?”

  He jiggled my head as he asked, his question rhetorical as he knew I was presently incapable of answering.

  Race…can’t…can’t breathe… I pleaded desperately as blackness clawed the edges of my vision. Soon the lack of oxygen would force my body to revert back to human form, and I’d be helpless against the vampire imprisoning me.

  “Let her go, Merrick,” Race said again. “This is between you and me—and Vienna, that fucking bitch, once I’m done with you.”

  For a moment it seemed as silent as the grave, despite the fighting still going on between Race’s wolves and Merrick’s vampires, and then Merrick laughed uproariously. “You really are one stupid freak,” he said. “I mean, come the fuck on—haven’t you figured it out yet? Or are you really so fucking blind that you can’t see the fucking city for the skyscrapers?”

  If I didn’t hate Merrick with such a passion, I’d have thought his rephrasing of the old “forest for the trees” analogy rather clever. But as he’d taunted Race he’d shifted his position, the arms clamped around my neck loosening enough to allow me to draw air, which I sucked greedily through my nose.

  “Ask yourself this question, dumbass: When was the last time you—or anyone else, for that matter—got a look at that self-absorbed, conniving little whore? Hmm? About six months ago, wouldn’t you say? Yeah, right about the time you started getting your marching orders directly from me. Why do you think that is, dipshit?”

  Race stared for a moment, and then he burst out laughing. Outraged, Merrick threw me to the floor and stood, stalking toward Race as I scrambled out of the way as fast as I could.

  “You have the nerve to fucking laugh at me, freak?!” Merrick yelled. “Vienna’s little empire has been my empire fo
r months and nobody—not even your pansy-assed new boss Mackenna—has noticed that I’m the one calling all the shots.”

  “Oh, I get it now, bloodsucker,” Race replied, still chuckling, his eyes on the vampire in front of him while his thoughts turned to me.

  Baby, we got here as fast as we could. How bad are you hurt? Where’s my mother?

  Though I was breathing freely now it was still difficult, as Merrick had definitely broken a rib and my advanced healing was causing it to repair itself at a bad—meaning incredibly painful—angle. Your mom’s hiding in a closet in one of the bedrooms. I’m a bit bruised up and I have a broken rib that isn’t healing right and hurts like hell. Other than that, I’m just glad to see you.

  Race flicked his eyes in my direction for but a moment, but I knew in that split second he was visually assessing my condition for himself, though it would be difficult to see that I was hurting in my animal form (which I was maintaining through sheer force of will at this point). We’ll get you fixed up soon, Jules, I promise you.

  Only a few seconds, the space of perhaps three heartbeats, had passed while we caught each other up on the last few hours—the benefit of being a bonded pair was the ability to communicate much in a very short amount of time. During those few moments the combatants around us had either achieved victory or separated, suspending their fights in order to watch their commanders confront each other.

  “You did…whatever the fuck you did to Vienna, I don’t give a shit…so you could give the orders and hog all the cash,” Race continued, giving no indication that he and I had been able to communicate. “I get that—money is power these days. But I’m laughing because you’ve been letting everyone believe she’s still around. You let them believe that because it’s her name that they know. It’s her name that they respect. It’s her name that they fear.”

  He laughed again. “You’re letting them believe that she’s still around because nobody knows you, Merrick. Nobody respects you like they do her. Nobody fears you like they do Vienna Silk. You’re fuckin’ pathetic, man. Nothing but a two-bit, cockmunching poser hiding behind your mommy’s skirts because you know damn well ain’t a person alive or undead that gives a flying fuck who you are.”