Twice Bitten

by Diana Greenbird

  ‘You already have a Christmas tree,’ I pointed out. ‘Several.’

  Blaise gave Emerson a pointed look. It was one I took to mean: your girlfriend is a serious killjoy. Despite saying she wasn’t interested in my love life, she’d asked me questions repeatedly that hinted at mine and Emerson’s dating status. We probably didn’t help matters by passing most of the boredom making out when we weren’t reading or playing games.

  ‘That’s beside the point,’ Blaise said. ‘And I don’t have a real tree.’

  I crossed my arms. Emerson had already shrugged on a jacket. He’d swapped out his normal cap for a knitted hat as he hadn’t been able to bring his usual attire over with us. I hated to say that he still looked attractive, so instead I told him he looked adorable. He ignored me and threw my coat at me.

  ‘I don’t see how shopping is keeping a low profile.’

  ‘I thought you exaggerated her hatred for shopping,’ Charlotte said from the living room. She was dressed to go out, too. Traitor.

  ‘I don’t hate shopping. When it’s needed,’ I added.

  ‘It’s not like you have a choice, Liv,’ Blaise smirked at me. ‘Where I go, you go. Or didn’t Emerson tell you?’

  ‘What?’

  Emerson held my gloves in his hand. I still hadn’t put on the coat he’d thrown at me.

  ‘Blaise can only obscure our location within a mile’s radius of herself.’

  ‘And the Christmas tree farm is three miles out,’ Blaise sing-songed.

  ‘You’re kidding me,’ I said, my voice deadpan.

  ‘Nope. Put your hat and gloves on, kiddo. It’s a cold one.’

  I didn’t think that England had Christmas tree farms, and I was right on one account. Rather than having a place that they chopped the trees down from, they simply had stalls with trees already wrapped from crates that had been imported.

  The place Blaise ended up taking us to was a small Christmas market. Several stalls lined the compact mud, selling personalised baubles, reindeer made from the trunks and sticks from the trees, chocolates and fudges, and a hot drinks cart. The Christmas trees took up the majority of the market, with pallets of them lined up against a backdrop of frosty fields. Two crates had already been cracked open. Their price ranged from twenty for the tiny trees, to fifty for the big six-foot ones.

  ‘Have fun,’ Blaise winked, cackling as she left us to meet her boyfriend at the hot drinks stall.

  ‘If she wasn’t literally saving our lives, I would kill that girl.’

  Charlotte huffed beside me. I took it as a mild agreement even if she’d happily left the house, unlike me who had only done so under protest.

  ‘You two need to relax. Tis the season!’ Emerson exclaimed, catching the attention of a few of the children who were tugging on the sleeves of their parents, trying to get to the place where fake-Santa was doing a photo-op for £5.

  ‘Has he always been this chipper about Christmas?’ I asked Charlotte.

  ‘No. That’s a new thing,’ Charlotte said, then, without saying goodbye, she wandered off in the opposite direction to Blaise.

  ‘It’s the first Christmas I can enjoy since I was turned,’ Emerson explained. ‘We used to go really big on the Winter Solstice in my family. My sisters loved decorating the Yule alter. Dottie was shite at making evergreen wreaths, but she was really passionate about it, you know?’

  As we walked around the market, Emerson told me stories he could remember about his family. The people he told me about might have existed a hundred years ago, but with the way he spoke about them, I wouldn’t have been surprised to meet them in the modern world. Time was the only difference between us. We were all still human (metaphorically speaking).

  He held my hand as we looked at the stalls. For Emerson, we had picked up where we left off before I’d run away to the prison: we were simply being. No labels, just living us in the moment. Knowing that I loved him, I encouraged far more moments than I ever would have done back State side. The only strange thing about it was having other people around us, witnessing it. In the cottage, every little thing between us seemed natural because of how private it was. But I supposed even if we were surrounded by people, we were still alone in a way; we were all strangers to them. They had no idea he was a vampire and I was a spelled immune human. We were just any young couple enjoying the season.

  ‘Which one do you like?’ Emerson asked me. We had wandered over to the bauble stall.

  I pondered the selection. I’d never been into Christmas. Perhaps when I was a kid I’d enjoyed it – I knew I always got excited about visiting grandma in Washington. But after my parents died, only a few days after Christmas, the anniversary of their deaths soured the happy holiday for me.

  Also, not to be that bitter person or anything, but all the adverts about Christmas focused in on the happy family and spending time with your extended relatives. It was hard to really get into that when you were in foster care. Some parents really tried to make the homes nice, even splurged on a present for some of us, but that was rarely the case in my experience. I knew it’d gotten the shitty end of the stick when it came to the foster experience – that came hand in hand with Death – but I could hardly see how any foster kid would enjoy the holidays.

  ‘That one,’ I said, pointing at a simple design of a person’s initials surrounded by a mistletoe wreath.

  ‘You know, people once believed that if a couple exchanged a kiss under mistletoe it was interpreted as a promise to marry and a prediction of happiness and long life.’

  ‘Mistletoe is parasitic,’ I said.

  ‘Of course you know that.’

  ‘What?’ I asked. Emerson shook his head at me. ‘Sorry. Did you ever kiss a girl under some mistletoe as a witch?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Emerson said. ‘But I only got one of those promises.’

  ‘Marriage would have probably been shit back in your time, anyway,’ I said, trying to lighten the mood. ‘You totally dodged a bullet. You would have been bored out of your mind with one of those perfect housewives.’

  Emerson laughed at me. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘No doubt. I mean, you’ve told me time and again how much you like me and I’m the furthest away from the model wife as you can get. And Charlotte isn’t exactly a poster girl, either.’

  ‘Besides her looks,’ Emerson pointed out. ‘And her temperament when she isn’t dissociating.’

  ‘Bla, bla, bla,’ I said. ‘Okay, so Charlotte’s the perfect wife material.’ I’d seen it, too, in my visions of their past. ‘I was trying to lighten the mood, prick.’

  ‘Sorry to make you jealous, love,’ Emerson smiled. ‘Kiss and make up?’

  ‘No chance. You didn’t even offer to buy me the bauble I liked. Your game is shit, Emerson.’

  I was about to walk away when Emerson pulled me in close and placed the exact bauble I’d been admiring in my hand. Instead of someone’s initials, the words in the middle were First Christmas. I assumed it was probably intended for a baby, but to us it meant both the first Christmas we had spent together, and the first since Emerson had turned that was his.

  ‘When did you…?’

  ‘Lamia discount,’ Emerson mock whispered. ‘You don’t need to pay if you can’t be seen.’

  ‘And here I thought I was the thief out of the two of us.’

  ‘You’re the shite thief out of the two of us,’ Emerson corrected me. ‘I’ve never been caught.’

  I gave him the kiss he wanted since he wasn’t wrong. With the cold air nipping my cheeks, my arms wrapped around his neck, and his hands on my waist as we kissed, it felt like we were a normal teenage couple. I could almost give into the fantasy of it all – that was, until Charlotte interrupted us.

  ‘They did it!’ Charlotte shouted. ‘They caught John.’

  ‘What?’ Emerson pulled away from me abruptly.

  ‘The Order called. They caught John. He went after Gi.’ Charlotte’s words came out rushed, excitement dripping from every snappy
sentence. I blinked trying to process what she was saying.

  John, as in the vampire? The male Mors Exercitus vampire who had tried to kill me twice in the past few months?

  Emerson didn’t need any time. He already understood exactly what Charlotte was saying.

  ‘Is Gi-?’ he asked, pain flitting over his expression. His hand clutched mine, hard.

  ‘Gi’s fine.’ Emerson let out a sigh. The pressure of his hand around mine lessened. ‘Grayson was with her. John was tasked with getting rid of the traitor lamia whilst Eliza went after Liv.’

  When we’d run, I hadn’t thought much about leaving Grayson behind – that the Mors would come after him. I certainly hadn’t ever expected them to see Gi as someone who deserved their swift punishment. But she was a witch, and she had befriended me. In their mind, yes, I could see how that would make her a traitor. Even if she wasn’t aware of who she was until a couple of weeks ago.

  ‘They’ve got him in custody?’ Emerson asked.

  ‘Better,’ a malicious grin spread across Charlotte’s face. It was bone chilling. ‘They had to kill him. Grayson was fighting for his life. Gi tried to use her charisma on John to stop him, but it didn’t work. It was just luck that there were other Order members close by to back Grayson up.’

  My mind was wheeling. This was too much information just out of nowhere. We were in a Christmas tree farm. I had been kissing Emerson. And now, John – was dead? Gi and Grayson had been up against him? And the monster lost?

  ‘Grayson, how’s he?’ Emerson asked.

  ‘Injured. He’s recovering. But wasn’t able to call us to tell us himself. I’m guessing it was… bad.’

  Charlotte continued to explain her call, but I couldn’t pay attention. I was trying to sort through my hazy mind. I knew it was adrenaline and panic all rolled to one. I couldn’t quite get to the relief Emerson and Charlotte were experiencing. It didn’t seem real. It couldn’t be over just like that. We’d barely been gone from our lives.

  My phone was buzzing incessantly in my pocket. It gave me something to do other than stare and wonder wtf. I pulled out my phone.

  ‘Liv?’ Emerson asked me, noticing that I was distracted and wasn’t at all paying attention to the news Charlotte was sharing.

  ‘Ali,’ I said, holding up my phone. ‘I guess she’s texting to say the same thing,’ I said.

  I unlocked my phone. Ali was texting me about the capture of one of the Mors Exercitus, but it was much more than that.

  Ali: Not just Gi. Immune to ALL. Shark bait.

  Ali couldn’t simply put what she meant into a text. She never left digital trails, even though I knew she had the ability to wipe my phone of its memory – there were still the traces it would leave from the servers and satellites it had to travel from to get to my phone. But I knew, simply from the fact that she was texting me at all, that I had been right not to think it could all be over that easily.

  The most straightforward part of her text was the first two sentences. The Mors weren’t just immune to Gi’s charisma, they were immune to all magic.

  Snippets from my dreams returned to me, tiny details I’d overlooked or forgotten to write down in my journal. The Mors Exercitus taking the oath. Witches consecrating a potion the twenty vampires drank from. Liberavit a Magia. Free from magic’s kiss, forever. Just like those they hunted couldn’t be touched by magic, the few witches who had remained during the plague had made it so that the Mors Exercitus would be immune to all magic; insurance for if a hunter was to use a witch to hide their identity through threats and bribery.

  The second part “shark bait” was difficult. It could have meant anything. But she would have sent it as a separate text if it didn’t relate to magic not working on the Mors…

  Shit.

  If magic didn’t work on the vampires who were hunting us, then Blaise’s protection wouldn’t mean a thing. We were protected by magic alone. The Order knew this – either the entire time, or just now that they’d found Gi couldn’t influence John. Charlotte wouldn’t be elated right now if the Order member who’d called her had told her. And Grayson wasn’t able to warn us about anything since he was out of action from facing John. By refusing to tell us… we were the bloody bait in the water. The sacrificial chum that would bring the last Mors Exercitus assassin to us, so they could capture and kill her like they had done with John. Anger seethed over my panic.

  I’d only just wrapped my head around her code when another text popped up.

  Ali: 404

  404 to most people meant a page wasn’t found online. To Ali it was code that you needed to disappear. Somehow, Eliza had found a way to track me.

  If Ali had wanted me to share this information, she would have called. It was quicker, and it meant that she wouldn’t have to risk the possibility that I might not understand her code. But she had text so Charlotte and Emerson couldn’t overhear our conversation. That meant I could save them. Ali knew my complex about Death following me. She knew I couldn’t stand the thought of people suffering because of me.

  If Ali text 404, it meant Eliza was only after me. I was the prize. Emerson and Charlotte were loose ends, afterthoughts. If I ran, I would be able to give Ali more time to inform Grayson of the Order’s plan and get the other Sons into proper protective custody.

  I felt like crying. I’d barely had time to accept that for once in my life, I had someone I didn’t mean Death to, and now I was going to have to run away because if I stayed that’s exactly what I would mean.

  Emerson smiled, a genuine grin that went right to his eyes. ‘They actually did it. I can’t believe it. More than four hundred years and they took him down… You know what this means?’

  ‘We might actually be free of them,’ Charlotte said, wistfully.

  ‘Guess all that CCTV and modern tech really does help out, eh?’ I said, keeping my voice light-hearted. ‘I’ll be sure to let Ali know she’s on the winning side.’

  Me: K. Protect the Sons.

  Ali: Goodluck.

  ‘Are you alright?’ Emerson asked, his focus leaving Charlotte and studying me.

  I laughed, putting up my walls. I had never been gladder that Emerson never had his witch power than I was then. ‘Yeah. I actually need to pee, though. Too much apple cider.’

  It was proof that Emerson was so out of it from the news Charlotte had just given us that he didn’t realise we hadn’t even gotten to the drinks cart yet.

  ‘Oh, right. Urgh, I think there’s some Porta Pottis by the car park. The opposite side to where we’re parked.’ Emerson motioned to walk with me.

  ‘Remember what we said about bathroom time?’ I reminded him.

  Emerson looked up to the sky, shaking his head. ‘Everyone pisses, Liv. It’s not a big deal.’

  ‘Not everyone pisses,’ I said crossing my arms. Like the time I’d argued with him through my panic attack at Gi’s house, it was easy to feign my usual irritable charm. ‘And not everyone has to know their guy is listening in to them piss in minute detail.’

  ‘Your guy?’

  I hoped that he thought my heart was thudding because I’d slipped and said something that might constitute as a label and not because this was me saying goodbye.

  I kissed him, placing the bauble in his hands. ‘Look after that for me.’

  ‘Text me when you’re done, and I’ll find you.’

  I nodded, refusing to have my last words to him be a lie.

  I had promised Emerson that I would never leave him suspended in panic over me again – and I intended to keep my promise. Especially since it was likely I would never return to help him move on.

  23

  Blaise hadn’t put up much of a fuss when I’d asked her for the keys to her car. She was occupied with Joel, hadn’t caught up with Charlotte to find out about the Mors update, and knew the distain of having to use a portable toilet unlike the Sons.

  I’d told her I wanted to take the car to the café that was five minutes down the road and use their t
oilet. Since it was still in the obscura radar, she agreed.

  I’d wished I had a moment of vampiric speed to rush out of there, but I had to rely on my regular old human legs to help me get away without being caught. It was just lucky that the portable toilets were in the same direction of the car.

  I clutched the steering wheel tight as I drove, more to stop my hands from shaking than anything else. Driving on the other side of the road was a distraction, but not enough to keep my mind off what I knew I was doing – and how I knew it was going to end.

  Elation, I thought, and relief. That will be Emerson’s re-set point now. Not pain of losing his whole coven and being forced into an existence he never chose. He will always be able to go back to that moment and be happy. Share that final kiss. The hope of a future where everything turns out right. Everything else he will dissociate from. When he finds out I lied to him. When he’s told I’m-

  Like déjà vu, someone stepped out onto the road as I was mid-thought. And once again, I swerved. This time, with the car around me, it took the brunt of the damage rather than my own body.

  With the narrow lanes, all there was for me to crash into was the hedge that divided the road to the field beyond. Blaise’s ancient Land Rover crashed over the verge and into the barren field beyond. The tires buckled and I slammed into the wheel, the airbag deploying. My preternatural speed snapped in place and I tore myself from the seat before it broke my nose.

  I swore, stumbling on the ridged mud made from tractor tires and harvesters.

  ‘Olivia.’

  My name on the tongue of the Mors Exercitus assassin wasn’t surprising. Like the spell that had been drawing me towards Emerson my whole life, Eliza standing in front of me was inevitable. I had been waiting for her to take my life since I was five years old.

  If it had been her, rather than Emerson, who had been the first vampire I had met since the night of my parents’ murder, perhaps in that moment I would have been scared. But I’d lived a life longer than I had ever dreamed. And Emerson had showed me that my fear was much more terrifying than anything reality could bring me.