by SARA FREITES
Thade took Blake aside as soon as we got off the jet. “Take her to her house immediately,” Thade told him. “I don’t want her near the safehavens right now in case those two men attack again. I’ll send a few others to watch over her once I get back to the Sanctum. Take this in case I need to get a hold of you.” He handed Blake a cell phone from his jacket pocket. “My number is already programmed in. As soon as you drop her off, I need you back at the Sanctum.”
Blake gathered me in his arms. He and I took to the rooftops. As we traveled, I watched below while the city became suburbs, and eventually, we made it to my neighborhood. My house came into view just a few houses over. Blake sat down and slid us off the back of my neighbor’s roof.
It was Wednesday night. I tried to think of a reason to tell my parents why I had suddenly vanished from my room three nights before. I knew this wouldn’t be pretty, but seeing them again would be worth it. When Blake and I walked through the grass of my property line, I went into my pocket and powered my cell phone on at Blake’s request. I had seven text messages from Jericho, three from Gemma and ten voicemails. I felt sick to my stomach to know they were all sent out of worry. I couldn’t even bring myself to check them. Blake rushed me.
“What’s your number?” he asked and handed me the phone Thade gave him.
I dialed my number in. Handing it back to him, he pressed “call” and my phone began ringing.
“Save the number. Go inside and call me if you need anything,” he ordered.
I saved his number and started for my house but stopped myself, looking back to him.
“Be careful,” I warned.
He nodded while answering his ringing phone. With that, he sprang into the air onto my neighbor’s roof where I soon lost sight of him. After opening the storm door, I hesitated. The front door was ajar.
Way to go, Dad, I thought.
Some nights, he accidentally left it cracked when he came in from work. I pushed on it, and it eerily floated open, revealing the unlit living room. Wondering why everyone had gone to bed so early, I closed the door as quietly as I could. A warm residue remained in my left hand after releasing the doorknob. I tried to flip the light switch on but found that we had no power. I scoffed and flipped the switch two more times to be sure. Cursing under my breath, I wiped my wet hand against my jeans, smearing the substance. I went for my cell phone with the other hand and pressed a button on it. I aimed the phone’s backlight at my left hand, illuminating it.
I froze. The air drew from my lungs. Confused, I couldn’t take my eyes away until my mind told me what I was looking at. Before I could react, something in my peripheral caught my attention. I raised the phone’s light, revealing more dark liquid splattered all across the carpet and portions of the walls. I couldn’t register the sight of all the blood.
“Oh my God,” I breathlessly whisper.
My mind frantically swirled with questions. A rumbling noise made me hold my breath. Two figures appeared at the back of the house. I blinked several times, hoping that shadows were just playing tricks on my eyes. On reflex, I reached for my back pocket, for Jacoby’s pocketknife. My stomach rolled when I didn’t feel the sheath there. The last time I saw it, I’d taken it out to show Thade...in London. I pictured it laying on Neil’s dining room table where I’d left it. I could feel the blood draining from my face as I started backing away.
The closer the figures moved toward the moonlight pouring in from the windows, the more I realized how inhuman they looked. Their faces bulged with powdery blue skin drawn back from their mouths, and this revealed a bare-boned muzzle with two long and narrow nose holes just below their eyes. The corners of their oversized mouths rose above their cheekbones with jagged edges—their teeth surrounding the opening. This gave each their own ridged smile. Their little blue ears came to two points, one longer than the other, and peered out from behind strands of their dark hair. A single hallow marble, an eye, glowed fiercely from each face against the deepness of their slanted eye sockets. They twitched and moved abnormally, one even abruptly shaking its head side to side.
And then, I couldn’t help but wonder if Blake had set me up again.
“It’s good to see you again, mother,” one spoke up.
“Don’t call her that. She’s not quite Latresma,” the other said, staring hard after me. “Well…perhaps in a sense.”
“Who...who are you?” I asked the two men.
They looked to one another, then chortled.
“Who we are doesn’t change what we’re here for,” one murmured, and he sounded a little unhinged.
Together, they moved into the moonlight, shortening the space between us. Their distorted faces were so familiar now, human as they neared. They stopped a few feet ahead of me, and the only things seemingly abnormal about them now were their wild-colored eyes and bluish skin splotched with ink black veins. They paused there, side by side.
I recognized them—Vex with his eggshell eyes encased in a thick ring of ruby and Scythe with his own set of fiery eyes, a star-burst of yellow exploding inside of a scarlet orb. They were the men who’d attacked me in the alleyway after prom.
“It’s too easy to kill a human,” Scythe sighed to Vex as they came in closer. “We’ll have to be gentle with the reincarnation. Seems we went a little overboard here—especially at that little house down the street. Was that your grandmother’s home?” he asked me. “The one-story with the purple shutters?”
My stomach dropped. I pictured my grandmother’s house with the little rose bushes that usually grew by the porch in the summer, the jam color of the shutters, worn and cracking.
“Ah, yes,” Vex added. “Blood everywhere.”
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. A set of keys sitting on the coffee table caught my eye. I stretched for the keyring with my bloodied hand. The tips of each key protruded out between my fingers, and I closed my fist to make a weapon out of them. My phone vibrated in my other hand. Looking down, I found Blake’s name flash across its screen. The two men peered at my hand, at the phone, their eyes narrowing. Slowly, I slide my finger across the screen to accept the call. A faint voice surfaced from it. The men tilted their heads at me.
“Autumn?” Blake’s voice could barely be heard again.
Before I could put the phone to my ear, the men lunged. I screamed. My phone tumbled across the carpet when I hit the floor. My fist intertwined with the keys moved through the air between us. The keys caught skin, but their sharp edges skated across a blue arm without leaving a single mark. One of the men lifted me off the ground. I dropped the keyring. Vaguely, I remember being thrown into the nearest wall and then into the kitchen. There, one slung me against the refrigerator. Each time I was thrown, the men walked in circles around me, taunting me. They could have easily killed me, but it seemed like they were playing a game instead.
“It sucks to be human. Doesn’t it?” Scythe sneered at me as Vex took me and threw me again, this time against the gas stove.
The stove knobs jabbed into my spine. I yelped. I could hear the gas and flame faintly pop on behind me as I hit the ground. From there, the two continually tossed me around the room. I fell in and out of consciousness several times. While my time with them only lasted about two minutes, each time I regained consciousness it felt like several hours had passed. I kept wondering when they’d just kill me. There was a second or two after I’d been thrown against the back door, shattering the half-window, when I regained consciousness. There, I had enough strength to make a run for it. But now, my hands were covered in blood, and I slipped on the linoleum floor when I tried to get back up. Scythe jumped on top of the kitchen table a few feet away. He knelt on the edge, ready to pounce.
I gathered myself and bolted into the living room with hopes of jumping through the window into the front yard. But Vex was in my way. He took me by my already bloodied and bruised arm and leaned over me. I cringed as he brought his cold lips to my arm and lapped his tongue across my wrist. I watched in horr
or as he licked away the blood. The sight of his fangs caused my entire body to shutter, afraid to feel them pierce my skin. He threw me aside. I came completely off the ground and landed on the glass coffee table in front of the couch. The table caved under my weight. I fell in a heap of wood and glass. As I lay there, hardly able to control my breathing, I kept wondering how much longer it would be before I’d pass out for good. But then, I felt something vibrate under my arm. It was my phone. I took hold of it.
“You’re not going to believe this, but she tastes utterly amazing,” Vex said through a laugh. “Try her.”
“Is that so?” Scythe beamed. “Even with a hint of vampire in her? Well then, I just might. Although, it’s her soul I’d rather taste.”
I slightly sat up. My body trembled uncontrollably. I touched my head where I felt a pressure spreading. There, I found my hair matted with something thick and wet. The living room window shattered just behind me. Glass poured onto the couch and floor around me like a rain shower. I could feel someone kneeling over me, and I watched the two men back away with abruptly fading smiles. They stood with blank faces. My heart pumped in my ears, my breathing rhythmically accompanying it.
“Autumn,” Blake’s voice swept over my ears. His hand slid across my stomach to lift me.
“They killed my family,” I wept in a whisper with hardly enough air to speak.
“There you are. We’ve been waiting for you,” Vex said lowly.
“Hello there, little brother,” Scythe smirked. “It’s nice to see you again. This time, at least, we know who you are.”
“I’m not your brother,” Blake replied in a threatening tone.
“Oh. You’re right,” Vex reiterated. “Let me correct myself...half-brother. Sad enough, though, that you weren’t born a dark evnaut as we were. You may have been standing by our side instead of against us.”
“Not a chance. He hasn’t even awakened the last of his demonic abilities yet,” Scythe chuckled.
“Yes, I sense it, too,” Vex observed. He cocked his head almost animal-like. “He’s even more of a disgrace than I thought—”
“Who the hell are you?” Blake cut in.
Vex and Scythe glanced at one another, grinning in unison.
“We should’ve known Arlos would never speak of us,” Vex said.
“Heartbreaking,” Scythe chimed in, his tone obviously sarcastic.
Vex’s red and white eyes fixated on Blake. “After Arlos came to Earth, he befriended one of the leaders of the Vampire Nation, Lady, soon to be Queen, Latresma. As their friendship blossomed into something else, my brother Scythe and I were born. Thus, being born of Arlos and Rosetta, you, Soul, are our half-brother.”
“That’s a lie. Latresma never had children,” Blake protested.
“And that’s what Latresma wanted everyone to believe,” Vex laughed. “Possibly, she wrote about us in her book. I seem to remember Latresma liked to write in that little booklet of hers—what, I’ll never know for sure.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. A whiff of smoke drew my attention, but it was quickly forgotten.
“What do you want?” Blake demanded.
“We want our dagger returned to us,” Scythe answered blankly.
“You’re not the only ones who want that dagger,” Blake informed them.
“We are well aware of that. That dagger is our only way to get to the place we feel we truly belong,” Vex revealed. “Without it, we will continue to be stuck in this sad dimension, in these vile human-like bodies. After wasting our time trying to find the second dagger, we’ve recently learned we merely needed the dagger you stole from us the night we first met. The Soleil Dagger is sufficient enough, cursed with dark magic. As such, it will send our bodies through the dimensions to hell. We don’t need to open a hell-portal to get there as we once believed. We don’t need both daggers for what we want to do.”
“That’s not true,” Blake said. “That dagger alone doesn’t have the power to do that.”
“It does not matter what you believe, light evnaut,” Scythe protested. “Just give it back. It was ours.”
“I don’t have it. Even if I did, I wouldn’t give it to you,” Blake taunted them.
“Well, the vampires don’t have it. We recently searched one of their safehavens for it. So, that means you must have it. If you won’t give us what we’re asking for...well, I think it goes without saying. Humans are rather easy to kill, and a light evnaut wouldn’t take much more effort.”
“Get the hell out of here before I rip you apart,” Blake said sternly.
An orange glow from the kitchen caught my eye. A crackling sound made me want to lean in. I knew immediately it had to be the gas stove. Something must have fallen on the burner after I was thrown against it. The fire alarm sounded. Scythe grinned at Vex out of the corner of his mouth. Vex ignored his twin brother’s gesture. Scythe growled inhumanly through his fangs and stepped in toward us. Vex picked up an end table and broke a leg from it. Blake lunged at Scythe who darted closer. When the two collided, they went through the half-wall and banisters of the living room. When they broke through it, they rolled into the dining room.
Vex jumped through the air, the table leg readied in his hands. He came down on Blake and hit him across the back with it. Astounded to see it penetrate Blake’s flesh, I cried out. Blake got up and threw a kick into Vex’s chest. This sent Vex crashing through the kitchen counter. The counter crumbled and caved in around him. I cringed as I watched Blake pull the table leg from his own shoulder, his blood staining it.
This time, Scythe lunged. He wrapped his arms around Blake’s neck and rammed him into the adjacent wall. Blake tried jamming the table leg into Scythe’s head, but it was as if Scythe were wearing an invisible helmet—the table leg didn’t even break skin. Even so, Scythe recoiled and released Blake. Vex eased himself out of the rubble of the kitchen counter while laughing in his chest to himself. Blake plowed into Scythe, sending him into the dining room table. It collapsed under him.
My house fell to shambles within moments of the fight. I could see the little glow from the kitchen as it grew into an out-of-control blaze that stretched over the stove and countertops. In the corner, the flames lapped at the ceiling, scorching plaster and peeling back wallpaper. Despite the raging fire, the three evnauts kept fighting. The only bloodshed was Blake's, his wounds healing as fast as they were inflicted.
My eyes couldn’t quite keep up with Vex as he levitated off the ground. He shot forward, driving his fist into the side of Blake's head, then landed another strike to his chest. Scythe pulled himself from the debris across the way, ready to attack again. Vex seized Blake from behind and locked his arms together to hold him in place. At the same time, Scythe picked up a chair leg from the ruins around him. Holding it, he aggressively swung it like a baseball bat. I screamed as blood splashed against the wall. Blake’s head wound healed instantly. He leaned back against Vex and rammed a knee into Scythe’s chest. Scythe fell back into the china cabinet. Glass and plates fell to the floor.
The fire spread across the ceiling and into the sitting room behind them, silhouetting the evnauts, but not even this stalled the fight. My eyes started burning. The fire began crawling over the dining room ceiling and into the living room. The thick smoke cloud filling my house had me coughing uncontrollably.
Blake broke free from Vex’s hold and flipped him over his back, throwing Vex into Scythe. Blake picked up the two halves of the oak table as if they weighed nothing and hurled them at them. The table halves broke into pieces on them as they struggled to stand. The roof caved in over the dining room. The two evnaut brothers were lost in the falling rubble. The fire swiftly moved up the walls of the living room, and by then, the entire first floor became framed in fire. Blake knelt beside me and pulled me into his arms. I watched over his shoulder while the twins began climbing from the collapsed roof around them.
“Run!” I coughed while gripping Blake’s shirt.
He
bounded forward. We sailed through the shattered window he’d come from.
Chapter 18
The Spell Book
With my trembling arms wrapped tightly around Blake’s neck, I buried my face in his shoulder, afraid to look up and catch glimpses of Vex and Scythe. I could only hope the fire and partial collapse of my roof had slowed the evnauts down. I knew better than to hope it killed them.
The rain had almost stopped while we roof-bounded toward the city. Everything began sinking in as we made our way back to the Sanctum. I couldn't stop picturing the blood on the walls, couldn't stop wondering if my entire family was actually dead. These demons had taken everything from me, and still, they wanted more—more power, more control, more killing. I didn't care what it took any more, even if it did mean my humanity. I wanted Arlos, and anyone else like him, dead.
Pulled from my thoughts, I found myself crying hysterically on Blake’s shoulder. His cell phone rang. We landed hard in an alleyway behind one of the big corporate buildings. He hid us on one side of a dumpster, and when he set me on my feet, I collapsed. He moved to catch me and set me to rest against the brick alleyway wall. He held me with one hand and answered his ringing phone with the other.
“Thade? I’m with Autumn. We just had a run-in with the two men from earlier,” Blake replied, then a pause. “Yes, she’s fine, but they must have been waiting for her when I dropped her off. They’ve…taken the lives of her family. No. I couldn't sense them when I dropped her off. Evnauts are undetectable even to one another. Listen, you’re not going to believe this, but they both claim to be children of Arlos and Latresma. They’re strong, Thade…stronger than I am. Yes. They said Latresma might have written something about them in her spell book.