by Rye Brewer
Something about his story had helped me make up my mind. I didn’t want to straddle the fence any longer, not sure if I was a vampire or a witch. It was time to make a decision. “I want to know everything there is for me to know. I want you to teach me spells, help me develop my abilities. I want to know all the skills I have access to.”
“Really.”
“Really,” I repeated, willing him to believe me. “If I’m going to be a witch, I might as well be the best witch I can be.”
One corner of his mouth quirked up in what looked like a reluctant smile—even so, he held up a finger. “I will. So long as you feel the same, once you know everything there is to know.”
22
Gage
I had to find Cari. Nothing mattered more than finding her before anything terrible happened.
Too much time had already passed. Most of the day. It was night again, and I was on my way to the apartment where Jonah had found us. It was as good a place to start as any. Besides, immersing myself in the scent of the blood she’d had all over her clothes would be a good tool in tracking her. As a human, I could’ve tracked her natural essence. The scent which had first drawn me to her. I still remembered it, the way she’d called to me, the way I hadn’t been able to leave her alone that first night.
That night had changed everything.
And it was my fault for not being smarter.
She had no scent now, as a vampire. I could only hope that I could track her from the blood on her clothing.
The apartment was dark, empty, though I guess I had expected it to be. Nothing about the situation we were in had been easy, so why would it be easy to find her?
I cursed myself as I crouched by the sofa, breathing deep. She had lain there while the sickness passed through her. I filled my nostrils with the scent of blood and vomit—not very pleasant—until I was sure there was enough for me to track her by.
I only hoped I wasn’t too late to prevent the inevitable.
I tracked the scent to the stairs. She had taken them all the way down to the ground, and the scent still carried through all the way to the alley behind the high rise. It was dirty back there, full of weeds and broken glass. How could something that looked so beautiful and luxurious to passerby be so dangerous and unsightly on the other side?
The scent was strong out here. I smelled blood, plenty of it, even more clearly than I had in the stairwell—even more than in the apartment. I hoped the reason why wasn’t too terrible, as sick certainty flooded my body.
It wasn’t one of her victims, as I’d feared, but it was just as bad. She’d discarded the clothes she was wearing in the apartment after, I assumed, stealing some from one of the stores in the building’s lobby. I recognized the tags lying on the ground, where she’d left them. Like a clue for me. A harbinger of bad news. The new clothing meant I had no way to track her now.
“Damn it!” I snarled, curling one of my hands into a fist and punching the wall in frustration. I wouldn’t be able to track her anymore.
What was I supposed to do? The city was too large, too full of people—her potential victims. It would be like finding a needle in a haystack. I didn’t know where to start. My breath came in hard, quick gasps. I would hyperventilate before I’d find a way to stop Cari from wreaking havoc. Havoc I had caused.
Her apartment. Of course. She needed somewhere to go, somewhere she could feel safe again. She’d go home. I took off at a run, not caring anymore if I attracted attention, pushing my way through crowds of people enjoying a night out on the town. They had no idea what went on under their very noses. None of them ever did.
I knew the way by heart, even though I hadn’t been there in weeks. The night I’d waited outside like a stalker, watching to see which window she appeared in. She was at the top, in the front apartment. I could still imagine her there, talking on the phone, framed by flowered curtains and plants which hung from the ceiling, lined the windowsill. She had looked happy. Alive. Human.
I was such a fool for dragging her into my world. I should’ve known it would end like this. What happened to me didn’t matter—I didn’t care if the League wanted me dead for what I’d done. My life meant nothing compared to hers. But what had I done by turning her before she died? I’d sentenced her to living hell. She would never be able to rest, since they would never stop hunting her. They’d never allow her to live.
The brownstone was as dark as the apartment had been, but I went up nonetheless. If she was hiding, she might not have bothered to turn on the lights. The door was locked, not that it mattered. I hardly thought she would raise a fuss over my breaking the lock.
The apartment was empty, and looked untouched. The only presence was that of a cat who hissed and fled when I flung the door open. I remembered the cat sitting in the window, too. It probably missed her. I would, if I were in its shoes.
“Here, kitty,” I muttered, pouring food into its bowl and refilling its water. It was the least I could do. I had taken its ‘mother’ away.
The apartment was sweet. Charming. Exactly the sort of place I would’ve imagined her living in. Full of books and photos, plants and flowers. Knickknacks, mementos. The scent of vanilla hung in the air, and I realized it was from a series of candles along the mantle. She enjoyed coziness.
She had enjoyed it. I had to stop thinking about her in present tense.
I knew as well as anyone what it was like to make the change, how there was a distinct ‘Before’ and ‘After’ to life.
A new vampire retained some of what had made them who they were, but other things had to change. It was natural. She might not have the same tastes anymore. She might not enjoy reading. She might become the sort of vampire who cared for nothing but the hunt, at the sacrifice of everything else that used to make her the girl I’d fallen in love with.
“Cari, Cari,” I whispered, leaning against the front door as I took one more look around. I couldn’t afford to waste time here, no matter how much I wished to cling to what was left of the beautiful girl who once lived here. She would still live here, might be asleep in the bed with its patchwork quilt, if it weren’t for me.
No. That wasn’t quite true. A bright, hot flame of rage flamed up in my head and quickly consumed my thoughts. It wasn’t entirely my fault Cari was a vampire.
It was their fault, too. The Europeans. The shifters. They’d done it to her. I hadn’t forced them to torture her and brutalize her fragile, beautiful body. That was all their evil doing.
I couldn’t let them get away with it. No matter what, someone would pay this night.
23
Gage
It took less than no time to get to the warehouse—I’d given up on the whole running thing and gone straight to coursing when it became clear there wasn’t a moment to lose. Going in alone might be foolish, but it would hardly be the first foolish decision I’d made in the last two days.
Besides, this time I wasn’t going in to save anybody. They wouldn’t trap me the way they had before. Nothing could match me when my fury was heightened. I had to make them pay, and pay dearly.
They would know how she’d suffered before I was through with them.
I slipped into the building through the same door I’d used before, fangs at the ready. The lights were on, blazing bright, just as they had been. What sick, disgusting experiments were they conducting this time? Whose life were they destroying for the sake of their sick pleasure?
The silence nearly deafened me. There wasn’t so much as the sound of breathing when I held my breath. Were they waiting for me? No, they couldn’t be. Even I knew how insane it was for me to be there, to return to the scene of where I’d escaped with Carissa. They wouldn’t expect me to go within five miles of the place.
So, where were they?
I found out soon enough.
The door to the room Cari had been held in, and almost died in, was open—no, not open. Broken. It hung from one of its hinges.
A feeling of dread filled me,
but my feet wouldn’t stop moving. They carried me down the hall, step by step. The thick, coppery smell of blood was overwhelming. In any other circumstance, it would’ve piqued my appetite. But I knew whose blood I was smelling, and there was no chance of my feeding from them.
Besides, it was too late for anything like that.
“For the love of—” I whispered when I stepped into what I could only think of as the torture room. I hadn’t called upon the name of God since I was human, back when I believed in such a presence.
I shook my head in disbelief as I took in the scene.
Bodies. Everywhere. Draped over the table, over the cage which still sat beneath the skylight. Stacked inside the cage. Sprawled out grotesquely, their eyes wide and unseeing. Gaping wounds in their heads, their throats, the blood having spattered every surface imaginable before puddling on the floor.
I recognized the leader, who had the position of honor on the table. He was on his back, mouth open in a silent scream of unspeakable horror. I couldn’t have explained if I tried just how I knew that she saved him for last. It may have been the care she’d taken with him. The way she hadn’t torn out his throat carelessly, viciously, the way she’d done with the others. No, she’d sucked him dry. Two holes punctured his throat.
She must have torn off his genitals before she bled him. I turned away from the sight. No wonder he looked so horrified. My stomach turned at that thought and the thought she fed off him.
It was no less than they deserved, even though the thought of feeding off monsters like them repulsed me. But it was better than feeding on animals—or, even worse, innocent people.
I couldn’t leave the place as it was. There was too much evidence of her having been there—bloody fingerprints littered the room. A plan formed in my frantic mind and I hurried, running from room to room, turning on all the oxygen lines.
They had certainly set the place up with every conceivable necessity, though I couldn’t imagine why they’d needed to give their subjects oxygen. I didn’t have it in me to wonder.
I waited until I was outside before I dropped the lit book of matches in the weeds beside the warehouse, and when the explosion tore through the night, I was already miles away, coursing again.
It was more important than ever that I find her.
I just had no idea where to go.
24
Gage
There was only one place that made any sense.
Looking for her was a waste of energy. There were endless possibilities, weren’t there? Parks, clubs, alley after alley. It made my head spin.
I went back to her apartment, then, in the hopes that she’d come back.
What if she did? I asked myself this question as I climbed the stairs, suddenly exhausted. Exhaustion wasn’t something that often overcame a vampire, unless they hadn’t fed in too long. That wasn’t my problem. My problem was the heaviness of my guilt.
There was an animal out there that looked suspiciously like Carissa, and it was an animal of my making. And it might as well have been rabid for all the sense it would be exhibiting around that time.
Even if she survived the first brutal, insane days, what then? She would have no one to show her the ropes, to explain the best way to live if she intended to stay alive.
I shuddered to think of her out there, on her own. Terrified. Unable to contain the bloodlust. Not knowing when, or even if, it would ever settle and allow her to think clearly again. My poor, sweet Cari. I had brought her nothing but pain.
My dark thoughts disappeared the moment I stepped over the threshold into the little walkup, as someone—or something—took me by the throat and slammed me into the wall hard enough to knock the air from my lungs.
I struggled to pry the supernaturally strong fingers from just below my jaw and knew all too well who was strangling me.
“Cari!” I my arms. She could kill me, easily, and there would be nothing I could do to stop her. She was ten times stronger than me, maybe more. Her newly-turned strength hadn’t faced yet.
And she probably hated me.
When she realized it was me she was strangling, her fingers loosened enough for me to draw breath.
I took advantage of the opportunity to pry her loose, then wrapped my arms around her and pinned hers to her sides.
“Relax, relax. I’m not the enemy here. I only want to help you, Cari. Please. Relax, so we can talk. I would never hurt you.”
What a lie. A filthy, stinking lie. I had already done far more damage than anyone should ever get away with. I almost wished she would kill me for a brief, bitter moment. The only thing forcing me to preserve myself was the thought of her being alone in the world.
She stopped fighting but still breathed in big, gasping sobs which soon turned into actual sobs. Tears poured down her face, and her body shook with the force of the agony she suffered.
I turned her to me, wrapped my arms around her in a hug this time.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” It was all I could whisper, again and again, rocking her back and forth as we slid to the floor. Her tears soaked through my shirt and kept flowing until she went nearly limp. And still, I whispered.
“I don’t know what to do,” she gasped.
“I know. I don’t, either. But we can try.”
“I—I can’t control it.”
“I know. I know. That’s why I wanted to find you.” I stroked her hair, smoothing it back from her forehead before taking her face in my hands and tilting it upward so I could see her.
She looked distraught, to say the least. And hungry. I could see it in her eyes, and I understood it. Nothing would satisfy her hunger in this stage. Not even all the blood she’d feasted on back at the warehouse.
“I went there, to the warehouse,” I murmured.
Pain touched her eyes.
“You don’t have to explain,” I continued, shaking my head. “I went there to do the same thing you did.”
“I couldn’t help it.”
“I know. I wouldn’t have been able to, either. And don’t worry—I destroyed the place for you. There’s no trace of you now.”
She closed her eyes, almost wincing. “I didn’t think about that. Thank you.”
“That’s why you need me. And why I don’t want to let you go. You’re not thinking clearly right now, don’t you see? You’ll get yourself in trouble.” I couldn’t say killed, but we both knew that was what I meant.
“I have to show you something.” She crawled across the floor and opened a door which sat beside the fireplace. A body tumbled out.
“Damn.”
She sat with her back to the wall, her head in her hands. “I couldn’t help it. I was hungry again. I couldn’t think of anything but blood.”
I tried to keep from looking at the young man who, until less than an hour, had been alive and probably on his way to or from a night on the town. He was dressed well, was a decent-looking kid. Except for the jagged tear in his throat, of course. He stared at me with his dead eyes, blaming me for his demise. Just one more death for me to carry on my conscience.
“I did this to you,” I whispered, my eyes going from his face to hers. She was as deeply tortured as anyone I’d ever seen, torn between her baser instincts and the little bit of humanity left in her. “This is all my fault.”
“You didn’t do anything but try to save me,” she whispered pitifully.
“If I had stayed away from you in the first place, though. If I hadn’t let him see us together. He wouldn’t have thought you were… mine.”
“But you didn’t know,” she replied, finally looking at me again as she rested her head against the wall. “You couldn’t have known.”
She glanced across the room, and I followed her gaze until I noted the tip of a tail swishing back and forth beneath the sofa. “Even the cat hates me now. Doesn’t know who I am. Used to jump on me the second I came through the door and wouldn’t leave me alone.”
“Because you’re not quite who you us
ed to be. I’m sorry for that, too. All of it, Cari. I’ll never stop being sorry.”
I went to her then, helped her to her feet.
She still shook like a leaf, but she was much calmer than she’d been when I first got there. I took her face in my hands and forced myself to look into her confused eyes. “No matter what happens in all of this, I need you to know something. It’ll sound trite, hollow, especially in the face of everything that happened as a result.”
“What is it?”
“I did what I did because I love you. I’ve loved you since that first night. I couldn’t bear the thought of you dying in that damned warehouse. I didn’t want to live in a world without you. Probably the most selfish thing I could’ve done, and I know it now, but at the time…”
She touched my lips with the tips of her fingers. “You know why this isn’t entirely your fault? And not because of what those bastards did to me, either.”
“What are you talking about?”
She took a deep breath, and some of the confusion drained from her eyes. She looked more like herself than she had since I turned her. “I went to the club to look for you. I wanted to see you again. I had no idea how we’d run into each other after that first night—I was so angry with myself for not getting your number. I thought you might go back there.”
“I did—to look for you, in case you did. I was watching.”
“Oh, Gage.” Tears filled her eyes again. “I would’ve done anything to be with you again. My feelings for you were that deep.”
Past tense. Were. “And now?” I asked, knowing it wasn’t strictly important but unable to hold back.
“Now…” She looked away. “Now, I don’t know anything. Nothing’s clear anymore. All I can think about is blood. It’s like that single thought is drowning out everything else in my head.”
“I understand. The lust is still strong, because you’re still so new. But it won’t always be like this. I promise.”