by S. M. McCoy
Pulling away, he floated down the tree with me in his arms. I felt the cold air sting my eyes as I ached thinking about a life bound to someone who only knew my surface.
“Be prepared to run. We aren’t far into the forest, a mile away from town. He’s here.” Damien was in his own world, and I was just a prize he was protecting, the thing that would save his life. Was that also mutually exclusive? Would bonding with him save my life and his, but sentence us both to a lifelong bond together with a stranger?
Always running…but what he didn’t know was that I wasn’t running away. I was running toward something: Maryland. This had nothing to do with him, this was a path I had to take to find my mother. I had to find out what they did to her.
I wasn’t some bounty hunter like my mom to balance the world’s evils like Aislin wanted me to be. I wasn’t some savior that would let a desperate man live a longer life by bonding in arranged energy ceremonies. And I definitely wasn’t running away from the supernatural world because it was trying to rip me a new one. I was more than any of that.
I refused to be protected anymore, I wanted to defend myself. My mother would be able to give me the truth of how to do that, even though she failed to protect herself. My father said her sacrifice was to save me. What if her sacrifice could save us both? I was in control of my destiny, and my heart was telling me that saving my mom would save a lot more people than a few Abernithy women. But even if only a few of us made it out of this, that was a win in my book.
“Crystal!” Victor ran into the small forest clearing. “Get away from her!”
“Lathar, enough mind games!” Damien lunged toward Victor, and I wondered why he called him Lathar.
“No!” I screamed, feeling my heart drop at the thought of Victor being hurt. Victor, tell me you’re my Victor. Tell me you’re the same person you would sneak me into the coffee shop after hours and serve us your dad’s homemade gelato. Tell me you’re the person that walked with me in the park talking about how neither of us met any aliens, but maybe they were out there. Or did you lie to me then, have you actually met aliens, but couldn’t tell me? I would believe you, I would believe anything you told me right now, but please tell me it’s the truth. Tell me you’re my…
Both clashed together and like magnets they repelled away from each other. Victor, like lightening, climbed from branch to branch up a tree to follow Damien as he ran up the opposite tree. Pushing off from the tree, Damien soared through the air, fists ready.
Last second, Victor pushed off the tree as Damien’s fist shattered the wood. Pieces of wood splintered like bullets toward Victor, escaping, the chunks punctured into the ground. It was then that I finally realized…Victor was more than just the boy next door.
“Come, we have to escape.” Victor reached out for me with deliberately slow movements so that I could follow them. They were both so fast that my eyes could hardly catch up. Instinctually I reached back out to him, he was my best friend. I pressed my lips together, wanting both to hit him for lying to me and to hug him for still being alive—but was he? He didn’t feel any different that he did before. And like I said, I could never leave him unless he let me go.
He had to let me go.
Damien leaped from the tree at Victor, his nails dug into his arms.
Victor growled, making me flinch. This side of him both scared me and filled me with a sense of relief that he would be okay. He was hurt, but I saw a strength there that I always mistook for distance. That was the look he’d given me every time I pulled away, shoving my hands in my pockets after our fingers lingered too long.
He wasn’t pulling away from me—he was protecting me from himself. Protecting me from what I didn’t want to happen…yet.
I repeated that word in my mind: YET! Please, he couldn’t die on me now.
“Run! Get away! I’ll come for you later,” Victor called out to me. I knew it was him, vampire or not, he was the same. He was mine.
“You know where to go.” Damien’s soothing voice calmed me in the midst of the chaos. It wasn’t the same as Victor, but that pull within me was unmistakable and confused my feelings for Victor.
The whole thing confused me. Victor was trying to save me. Damien was trying to save me. They were apparently both trying to save me, but Victor was the Shifter. But Damien was trying to draw me into a life I never thought I wanted. Which one was the greater monster?
I tried to remember the Dragon’s exact words: “When the full moon is high, a monster you will become. Do not run at first; let it come.”
I was to become a monster.
I was frozen there, unable to move. I didn’t know whether I was supposed to run yet. The Dragon said I wasn’t supposed to run…at first. When was I supposed to run, how was I supposed to know?
Victor yanked the fingers from his arms; blood seeped from his wounds as he grabbed Damien’s hand and tossed him into the shattered tree.
“We need to leave.” He touched my face and I cringed away as I was pressed against a tree. I was close enough for blood to have splattered on my arm from his, and my panic was finally rushing up to meet the present.
Picking me up, I didn’t have much choice—it all happened so fast. Victor sped through the forest. The branches and mulch blurred as the wind slapped my body into his. It was a whole lot less graceful and so much more swift than I remembered with Damien. I didn’t mind though, just to know he was safe. I could feel the liquid of Victor’s blood cool in the wind where he held me. He was still bleeding.
I smiled into his shoulder and held on to him as best I could.
The forest soon turned to pavement and the darkness of the night was brightened only by the reflection of the moon. As we approached the city, the street lights glowed and whizzed by like artificial stars.
“You’re a vampire?”
“I didn’t want to alarm you. I didn’t know whether you would believe me. I tried…”
“You tried to tell me…lots of times…” I felt my face flush remembering how he told me he would run away with me. He was always there for me, even before all of the crazy.
“I should have…much sooner.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck. “I still have your jacket.”
Victor laughed softly. “Is that why it’s so cold out here?”
“No, I think it’s because you’re losing blood.” I watched the droplets wick away from his arm in the wind from where Damien’s fingers dug in. “Do you think if I talk to him we can stop running?” I only said it because I hoped it would, but I knew better.
“He wouldn’t understand.”
“He said you were trying to kill me. You would…”
He looked hurt that I even brought it up. “No,” he interrupted before I could even finish saying he would never hurt me.
“I had to make sure. You bit me.”
“I did,” Victor confessed, sending my thoughts in a swirl.
“Why?” I choked out.
Everything was meshing together in a heap of information overload.
Damien… Victor… Lathar…
Magic.
But a Shifter could be anybody…
Anyone…even Victor. I felt he was the same, but I had to ask.
“Are you really Victor, or are you Lathar, the Shifter?” I knew he was.
“I’m not the Victor whose face you see.” His body seemed to stiffen more, if that were even possible for such a body that felt like stone already. “But I am the Victor you’ve known.”
“Who are you?”
“Victor was sick for a long time…he wanted to live a longer life. I gave that to him, at the cost of his old life. And then I met you.” He held me closer to him. “I was once called Lathar, a very long time ago, in the age of the Blood Queen.”
“You were at the ballroom.” I knew it was true, and my heart ached thinking a friend would even think to harm me, or anyone else for that matter.
“Yes, I know what Miguel tried to do to you last year. I wouldn�
��t let him be the one to dance with you again. I didn’t know he was partnering with you until then; I followed you to New York. And I didn’t trust the invitation to begin with—Council members were all over that event, and then Damien… Vampires can influence your memories, take them away, distort them, steal them, and powerful enough can create them.”
“How do I know you’re not the one manipulating my memories?”
“The more vivid the memory, the truer it is. Sift through the things that blur. That’s how you’ll know. But I shouldn’t have to tell you, Sweets, that we’ve been together for a year, and the serpent’s kiss was the only supernatural thing I’ve ever done to you to save your life, and protect you from him. Damn…” He looked behind us.
“You’ll have to decide that for yourself. He’s gaining on us with me carrying you, my speed is… Remember, I’d run away with you anywhere you wanted. We could escape, we could charge head on to even the Council and find your mom, whatever you want. Say the word and I’d go.”
I smiled at the fine boy looking for the broken girl to take him on an adventure of her choosing. He would give up anything for me, and I squeezed him tight. I didn’t want to send him on a death race.
“Damien…”
“He’s faster than I expected. We’re close to your home, just run. Don’t look back. Grab Aislin and go to the mansion Damien mentioned, if it means finding your mom. I’ll meet you there. We can do this together.”
He placed me on the ground and held me against his firm torso. Releasing me, I felt dizzy. From the situation or the unnatural momentum of being carried everywhere at high speed, I wasn’t sure. I walked backward. Still looking at Victor but escaping at the same time.
“Go, now!”
Damien appeared out of nowhere and Victor cut his face with a swift claw of sharp nails. Blood dripped down his face and his fangs extended. I turned and ran home as fast as I could. The sounds of growls and thuds behind me faded the farther I went. The farther I got, the weaker I felt.
One heavy step in front of the other. Each foot like lead dragging across the pavement.
I knew Damien wouldn’t listen to me about Victor; he had his orders to eliminate the anomalies. Nothing I could say would stop him: He sided with the Council before others, and himself before even the Council. He was a guardian, and part of the same organization that took my mother. How could I trust him to do anything other than what he was trained to do?
I felt the pull of the bond to him even still, it pulsed in me and I wrinkled my nose at it. It was fake, and raw, but I had no idea how to stop the need building up in me to have him near me. It twisted my guts and battled against the equally strong friendship I had with Victor.
The light of the street faded into the darkness of the night.
Needed to keep moving.
I heard a scream as I clutched my head in pain.
Keep moving.
I had to keep moving, but I couldn’t because they both called out to me. I felt my energy burst from my lungs. My eyes closed, seeing the blast of light cascade from my throat and like a firework fizzled into the air. I gave them everything that I was. Choking, I clawed the asphalt. Like I was eating the gravel I laid on, my insides were raw and broken.
Keep moving.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Capturing Memories
“Aislin…” We parked beside a huge mansion and I rolled down my window to take in the scene. We were about to crash a wedding.
“We made it.” Aislin undid her seat belt and sat and stared with me.
“Maryland.” I shook my head in disbelief. This was by far the most adventurous I’d been since moving away from Seattle. At least adventurous by proxy, since Aislin was really the free spirit that made the leap. She gave me her own energy to save me from myself, after I blasted everything I had in front of our house. It wasn’t a pretty picture, I didn’t relish the tiny rocks scraping across my face or embedded in my palms.
“These supernatural friends of yours have got us into a lot of trouble.” I couldn’t help but laugh at Aislin’s comment of friends. The term was debatable. I had trouble even trusting Victor, and I trusted him more than I trusted Aislin with all my secrets. Aislin glared at me to impose how serious the situation was.
“Better trouble with you than trouble with the supernatural,” I joked.
“You owe me big. If it was you on your own, you’d be passed out in the parking lot.” Actually, how was I supposed to know whether even Aislin was my friend due to my unnatural supernatural seduction? Wasn’t she also a part of that world?
And I kept having Damien’s words repeat in my mind alongside the Dragon’s. “The only way your kind has ever existed was as a pet, a warrior for the Council, or dead… Do not be too trusting of any that follow you in turn, for each has their reasons, both honorable and seeded in betrayal.”
“Mostly passed out in the car on the way… We’re here.” I sighed in relief, knowing I didn’t give her much direction, excep Maryland, open tours in mansions, and secret underground vampire lair.
The surrounding grass was abnormally green. Neither brown spots nor any protruding weeds dulling the smooth flowing green across the ground. Like a calm pond without the disturbance of fish or pebbles, the grass was of equal length, strands standing at attention to bask in the perusing eyes of its guests that would most certainly see them upon their arrival.
A beat-up Mazda held together with duct tape tends to stand out in a fancy place like this.
The paved driveway circled up to the Victorian mansion alongside the perfectly cropped grass. It was like a fairytale where everything was a little too perfect and everything fell into place a little too well.
The perfection of the grass though quite noticeable didn’t compare to the white formation of cylinders, wood, and glass that created the masterpiece that appeared as my gaze floated from the grass to the excellently preserved house before me.
Though that shouldn’t take away from the accompaniment of the grass, the hedge work, the baby blue sky, the garden off to its side, and the view of the water behind its nine-thousand square feet of living space.
History oozed from its very existence. Over a century of memories were contained within its walls and upon this land. And underneath its foundation there hopefully exists the key to finding my own memories.
Crystal…
I could hear his voice calling to me. This had to be the place. He’s here.
Walking up the curved driveway, I could smell the scent of cinnamon as cars were passing through one by one, dropping off savvy dressed men in penguin suits and elegantly dressed women in various shades of lilac. Beyond the double doors I could hear the low tones of a cello and the striking chords of violins playing a beautiful melody. As I looked down at my own attire I was well aware my garments were less than satisfactory for the occasion. Pinstripes and a button-up top wouldn’t even pass for the men’s attire let alone a lady.
This was the place. This was where I needed to be. But I had to get inside and it wasn’t going to happen looking like this. Godsmack band T-shirt and jeans from the night before.
The night before…I thought about Victor and Damien fighting over what each of them thought was protecting me.
I knew that somehow I had given them my energy of my own free will. I didn’t know how I did it, didn’t know how it happened, it just did. Everything that was me flew from my body, and I knew that it reached them in time to stop the fight. They were both safe. I shook my head free of the thought, I didn’t have time to worry about them when I was following my own monsters. My mom was like me and she was trapped. I would find her and she could teach me how to control the energy bursting inside of me, before I decided to make fireworks for the last time.
“We’re a bit like sore thumbs in a sea of manicured fingers…” Aislin frowned.
“How did you find this place?” I stayed leaning against the car looking out over the manicured lawn.
“I used a spell,�
� she said sheepishly.
“What kind?”
“There was a powerful battle nearby that left a lot of residual energy and those markers led here. It’s faint, but the only place in Maryland like it. Normally serpents keep their energy locked up tight, so the battle must have weakened them both.” I looked into the car to see her gripping the steering wheel, white-knuckled and tense.
“So, they’re both here then?”
Her head slumped before she responded. “Chrys, don’t make me say it.”
I waited in silence for as long as I could hold it all in before responding. “You know why I’m here…”
“Yes…jumping into the fire. I took you here didn’t I,” she looked away out the other window before continuing, “It’s what you wanted, isn’t it? To find a way of completing your transition, instead of embracing your Diviner side.” Aislin quickly looked back at me, her eyes full of a wide hope. “We can find another way. We don’t have to go in there. We have a destiny to fight against them…not with them.”
“What might have been our destiny a few months ago is gone. I’m living off of other people’s energy at this point,” I gasped, realizing something from my own words before continuing, “Aislin… I’m already one of them,” I whispered, not wanting the words to be true. I couldn’t feed like a serpent yet, but essentially, I was one already being given energy from Aislin to survive multiple times.
“No, I have a gut feeling that there is another way. If we had the Blood Moon Ring I could regain my memories, and I’d know how to save you.” She huffed out a breath and her shoulders slumped against the seat.
“What does that mean?” Was she missing memories like me?
“The Blood Moon Ring is passed down along your family line and it does much more than allow a person to corporealize from astral space. It’s also what transitions me from guarding one destined Diviner to the next. With each transition my memories of the last generation are absorbed into the ring.”