Dark of Night

by Emily Goodwin

  Suddenly, she advances, running at me so fast she appears like a blur. Before I know what’s happening, she knocks me over. The chair hits the ground hard, and my head hits even harder, smacking the same spot that was hit before. My ears ring and my vision fades. Nausea twists in my stomach, but then that pain takes second to another as she sinks her fangs into my neck.

  I cry out, trying to jerk away. I’m tied to the chair and can’t go anywhere. My powers are useless with the warding. There’s nothing I can do to fight her. I feel my flesh pulling and tearing apart. When Lucas bites me, he carefully pushes his fangs through my skin, taking only what he needs. He’s as gentle as one can be while puncturing two holes in my neck, and there’s almost always something erotic about it.

  There’s nothing pleasurable about this. The vampire is biting me to cause pain. To drain me of my blood. To kill me.

  “Suzanna!” The Russian vampire yells. “We’re under strict orders not to bite her!”

  The two male vampires rush forward and try to pull her off. Suzanna takes her mouth off me and sits up. My blood drips down her face, and I can feel the warm liquid pouring out of my body at a scary fast rate. Lucas knows where to bite me that won’t cause me to bleed out, and I know without a doubt this bitch didn’t take any care.

  She pushes one of the male vampires away, obviously the older of the three, and goes back to bite me again. I squeeze my eyes closed, feeling my heart race.

  “No!” I shout, and a ball of white light erupts from my fingertips. My wrists are tied to the arms of this wooden chair, but I flick my wrist and hit Suzanna with the magic.

  “What the hell?” one of the guys shouts.

  Suzanna jerks back and turns to the other female vampire. “Dina!” she roars. “You said you blocked her powers!”

  “I did.”

  I turn my head, stars still dotting my vision, and see Dina looking down at us.

  “Both the circle and the hagstone blocks a witch’s powers. Trust me,” she says. “I remember the spells exactly from when I was a witch.”

  Oh shit. Some vampires think if they turn a witch, they’ll be born again undead and with magical powers. But our powers die with us, and for some reason, that pisses the vampires off even more.

  Blood is still oozing down my neck, soaking my hair and my shoulder. I need to stop the bleeding before I lose too much blood and am too weak to fight them off.

  “Then how the hell did she do that?”

  I close my eyes again and try to conjure an energy ball. I must have broken through the warding somehow. I can do it again.

  But I can’t.

  No magic sizzles at my fingers.

  “Sit her up,” Dina orders. “And stay the fuck away, Suzanna. The cost of that bite is coming out of your share.”

  Suzanna speeds over to Dina, and they start yelling at each other. The short and stocky vampire comes over and picks up the chair, sitting it back on four legs. He leans in, fangs popping down from the scent of fresh blood.

  “You smell so fucking good.” He licks his lips and inches in, putting one leg between my thigh. “It would be a shame to let this blood go to waste.”

  “Don’t you dare touch me.” I try to shove my leg up, hitting him in the balls, but my ankle is tied too tight. The ropes dig into my skin, tearing off the first layer.

  “I’ll be gentle, sweetheart.” He swipes a finger over my neck and puts it in his mouth. His whole body shudders, and he groans, bringing his other hand to his crouch and rubbing himself. “It’s like I’m tasting sunshine. I need more.” He lowers himself onto me and brings his face in, open-mouthed.

  And then light sizzles at my fingers again, though something is different. Usually when I conjure energy, I’m pulling it in from around me. This time, the energy is coming from inside me, growing stronger with each beat of my heart.

  “I said get the fuck away!” The bright blue energy ball explodes, burning through the ropes on my right hand. It sends the vampire flying back, and he whacks his head against the tiled side of the pool. His skull cracks, and he slides down, leaving a trail of blood.

  The three other vampires freeze, looking from the stocky vamp to me and back again.

  “I thought you said she was a witch,” the other male vampire snarls. He flashes his fangs at me, body twitching as he tries to resist lunging forward and attacking me. Maybe Dina is his maker, and he’s obeying her order? I don’t know. And I don’t care.

  Because I need to get out of here now. I’m feeling weak from blood loss, and my head is pounding.

  “I thought she was.” Dina’s eyes flash.

  “The bounty is for a witch,” he presses. “If she’s not a fucking witch, what the hell is she?”

  Dina shakes her eyes. “I…I don’t know.”

  “She’s worthless then,” Suzanna sneers. “Only good for one thing.” She opens her mouth, fangs bared, and rushes at me. Even if I had time to practice using my own aura or energy or whatever to conjure a string of magic, I don’t think I could. My eyelids are heavy, I feel like I’m going to throw up, and I can feel my pulse slowing.

  Suzanna takes a running leap off the side of the pool. I close my eyes, bracing for the pain of her attack, but it never comes. Instead, a strangled sound comes from her lips, and I blink my eyes open to see Lucas standing in front of me, holding Suzanna by the throat.

  He’s growling, fangs drawn and looking absolutely menacing.

  “Holy fuck,” the male vampire who’s not passed out at the bottom of the empty pool whimpers. He tries to take off, but Lucas throws Suzanna at him. She knocks into him, and they both go crashing down.

  My eyes start to flutter shut again, and between blinking them open and closed, I see Lucas twist Suzanna’s neck around. Her body goes limp and he tosses her aside. My head droops forward, and my vision fades.

  The distinct sound of bones breaking echoes through the pool, and the male vampire screams and cries in pain. I try to lift my head up again, forcing my eyes open. Lucas is covered in blood—not his own, of course—and a pile of ashy goo surrounds his feet. Suzanna’s hands are on her head, trying to spin her neck back into place so it can heal.

  The last thing I see before passing out is Lucas ripping Dina’s teeth out one by one. And then I lose consciousness again.

  Chapter 21

  “Callie,” Lucas whispers, cradling me against his chest. “Can you hear me?”

  I want to open my eyes and tell him yes, but I can’t. I’m too weak right now, and if I open my eyes, I’m pretty sure I’m going to puke.

  Suddenly, I’m in the forest again, and he’s not really with me. My head lolls to the side and the dream takes over, pulling me back to the ring of hellfire. The same thing plays out just like before. I watch myself, tied to the large tree, coughing from smoke, ready to give up because I don’t know how else it will end. The demon raises its arms, and the flames grow higher and higher, so hot the heat feels like it’s going to melt the skin right off my face.

  The blue-eyed man is there, but this time he’s not looking at me. He’s staring at the tree. I step through the flames and feel the same overwhelming sense of familiarity washing over me.

  “Who are you?” I whisper, not expecting him to so much as look at me.

  But he does.

  His eyes meet mine, and he reaches out, hand going to my neck. Pain radiates through me, waking me and reminding me that I’m back in Lucas’s arms. The blue-eyed man isn’t touching my neck, but I am.

  “I can hear you,” I tell Lucas, forcing my eyes open.

  “Good,” he says, and holds me tighter against himself. We’re outside, and he’s moving at vampire speed toward his car.

  “I’m taking you to the hospital.” Holding me with one arm, he opens the passenger door and sets me down on the seat.

  “No,” I protest. “I don’t want to go.”

  “You lost a lot of blood.” He zooms around and gets in, brows furrowed. “Your neck and your head are blee
ding.”

  The car lurches forward, and I feel sick again. I let my eyes fall shut and reach up to my neck with a shaky hand. I should apply pressure to the wound.

  “Lucas,” I gasp. “Look.”

  He takes his eyes off the road. “You’re healed. How did you…?”

  “The blue-eyed man.” I squeeze my eyes shut and think about him, trying to mentally call out. I had a vision or something of him touching my neck, and now I’m healed. “He put his hand on my neck and healed me.”

  “You touched your own neck,” Lucas tells me. “Yellow magic glowed around your fingers.”

  “I don’t know how to make yellow magic. It’s usually blue or white. Red if I’m angry. Pink is pretty, but I have to think about that one.”

  His eyes are still on me as he lets off the gas. “Your head is still bleeding. Head injuries can be serious.”

  “I think I’m okay.”

  “That’s not good enough for me.”

  “Please don’t take me to the hospital.” The gravity of everything is crashing down on me. There’s a bounty on my head, and vampires know Lucas is dating a witch. This is bad. Really bad. “I’m scared of hospitals,” I confess. “Ever since I was sold to one…”

  “I will not leave your side.” Lucas grips my hand. “You need to get checked out, Callie.”

  “My sister,” I start. “Let me call my sister. She’s an ER doctor. Dammit. My purse and my car are at some random gas station.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” he assures me. “Do you know your sister’s number?”

  “Yeah. She might be working tonight, though.”

  “What hospital?”

  “Rush. See if she’s there?” I ask as I run my fingers over my neck again. I didn’t imagine being bitten, did I? Maybe the blood on my neck and shoulders dripped down from the cut on the back of my head. No…there’s no way. I remember being bitten. Having my flesh torn. Feeling the blood rush out of my body.

  Lucas calls the hospital and asks to have my sister paged. We’re only on hold for a few minutes before she answers.

  “Hey, Abby,” I say.

  “Callie?” Abby’s voice comes through the Bluetooth in the car. “Are you okay?”

  “She’s not,” Lucas answers. “I’m bringing her to the hospital.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing major,” I start but Lucas interrupts me.

  “She has a head injury and lost a lot of blood.”

  “Come straight to the ER. I’ll have an attendant waiting to bring you back.”

  “You don’t need to give me special treatment,” I try to joke. “What’s a trip to the ER without waiting at least an hour?”

  “You’re my sister,” she says quietly. “How far away are you?”

  I look at Lucas because I’m not sure where we are at all. “Twenty minutes,” he says.

  “Is she going to be all right? Would it be better to pull over and call an ambulance?”

  “I don’t feel that bad,” I try to assure both my sister and Lucas. “My neck isn’t bleeding anymore.”

  “Your neck? Anymore? What the hell? Never mind. What’s your blood type, Callie? You might need a transfusion if you lost a lot.”

  “I don’t know.” I look at Lucas again, not sure if he’s able to tell by the taste. He shakes his head. He doesn’t know either. “I’m fine, really. Well, maybe not fine. I have a headache, but I’ll live.”

  “You need to be examined to make sure you don’t have a concussion.”

  “I agree with your sister,” Lucas says and ends the call. He takes my hand in his, rubbing circles in my palm. “I’d rather play it safe right now. You’re head’s already a little messed up.” He turns again, giving me a small smile.

  “Thanks,” I say dryly but feel the knot in my chest loosen just a bit. “And thank you saving me back there. I thought I had it handled, but the warding…” I trail off. “I shouldn’t have been able to use magic.”

  “You’re stronger than the warding.”

  “I’d like to think so, but no. The hagstone.” I pull my hand out of his, realizing I’m still wearing it. I yank it off and stare at the stone. It’s a gray stone, smooth and polished, with a hole in the middle. The same symbols that were drawn in the circle are etched into the stone.

  “The hagstone alone is enough to slow me down. Add in the symbols in the circle and etched into this…Dina said she used to be a witch.”

  “Dina?”

  “The one with the brown hair.”

  “Ah, that one.”

  “You pulled her fangs out.”

  “Amongst other things. Eliza took her back to the bar. She’s in a cell in the basement. You can torture her later if you want.”

  “Uh, thanks?” I wrinkle my nose. “I do need to question her.”

  “That’s why I didn’t tear everything off.”

  I shake my head and look at the hagstone. “I shouldn’t have been able to do magic, Lucas, and I shouldn’t have been healed.”

  “I’m not going to question it.” His hand lands on my thigh. “I came close to losing you again, and this time I blame myself. I never should have left you.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “I sensed you.”

  “And how did you do that?”

  He slowly shakes his head. “I don’t know. Maybe because you’re a witch, and we’ve had each other’s blood. I had this feeling.” He takes his hand off my thigh and touches his chest. “It was like a stake to the heart, but worse because I knew something was wrong. I knew you were in trouble. Then I felt a pull. I followed it, and it led me to you.”

  I let out a shaky breath and close my eyes. “Other vampires know about us. You could be in trouble with the VC.”

  “Fuck the VC. You’re all that matters to me, Callie.” He takes my hand again, and the emotion hits me.

  “I was really scared they would go after you.”

  “I hope they do. If anyone even thinks about hurting you, I will kill them all.”

  “I’m fine, really.” I sit on the hospital bed just to appease Lucas and my sister. I kept my eyes closed the whole drive over, and the little bit of a reprieve did me some good.

  “You do not look fine,” Abby says. “You are covered in blood.”

  “That’s a regular thing for me,” I tell her. “Usually it’s not my blood, though. I’m a little tired, but I feel much better.” Lucas, keeping his word, stays by my side. “He has even more blood on him.”

  “None of it’s mine,” Lucas says factually.

  “Look, the less I know the better. I have to report this stuff, okay?” Abby says.

  “Then I will tell you it was dog that bit me. Not a werewolf, just a regular dog,” I try.

  Abby, who’s opening a sterile wound-cleaning kit, almost drops the supplies. “Werewolves are real?”

  “They are, but they don’t want people to know about them, so best keep that secret to yourself.”

  She blinks a few times before shaking herself. “Is that why people are crazy during the full moon?” She comes over to the little bed. “Off the record, I need to know what happened, so I know how to take care of you, okay? I’ll figure out what to write up later.”

  I nod. “I was sprayed in the face with pepper spray and then hit over the head. I woke up tied to a chair, someone bit me, and then I hit my head again.”

  Abby’s eyes flick to Lucas and then back to me. “Where were you bitten?”

  “Here.” I point to my neck. “But the wounds healed.”

  “Is that a witch thing?”

  I shake my head. “No.”

  Abby holds out her hands, keeping her gloves clean and has me lean forward so she can look at the cut on the back of my head.

  “Good news is you don’t need stitches. Bad news is this isn’t swelling out, which makes me want to run a few tests to be sure it’s not swelling on the inside. All this blood on your clothes is yours?”

  “I think so.”


  “It is,” Lucas informs us. Right. He can smell the difference.

  “Who bit you?” Abby asks slowly, body tensing.

  “It wasn’t Lucas,” I snap and then feel bad. “It was another vampire.”

  “Do you want to put a name on the report so you can press charges?”

  “There’s no need,” Lucas says. “I killed her.”

  Abby’s face tenses. She’s seen it all working in the ER, but this is pushing it for her. “Well, that’s, uh, good? Or bad? Since she’s a fellow vamp—”

  Someone knocks on the ER door and waits a beat before entering. It’s the phlebotomist, and she stops short, looking at Lucas who’s covered in blood. Abby is trying to keep this under wraps, and the less people that get involved, the better. I’m not sure what kind of reporting this girl has to do at the end of her shift, but leaving inconsistencies can result in Abby getting in trouble, and I don’t want to risk her job.

  “Hi,” the phlebotomist says with a fake smile. “I need to get some blood.”

  I flick my eyes to my sister. “Is this necessary? I really feel fine.”

  “I want a blood count,” Abby says. “Just to be sure.”

  My heart skips a beat and when I blink, I see myself being forced down onto a hard foam bed, held down by Doctor Howard while someone takes my blood to try and isolate my powers.

  “No.” The lights flicker above us.

  “Cal, it’s just a blood test.” Abby takes her gloves off and tosses them in the trash.

  “She’s scared of needles,” Lucas tells her.

  “After everything, you’re scared of—” Abby cuts off and turns to the phlebotomist. “Give us a minute, please.” The young woman nods and leaves the little ER room. Abby’s back to being tense, and she leans against the counter around the small sink. “He knows?”

  “Yes. I’ve told him everything.”

  Her head moves side to side. “I didn’t know you were still scared of needles.”

  “It’s not really needles, I guess.” I fidget my hands in my lap. “It’s more like the memory it brings up.”