A Vampire’s Vow

by Kayleigh Sky

  He let his breath out and kept going.

  A light appeared. Not sunlight. Not light really. Gold.

  He quickened his pace. A crack in the tunnel wall appeared, the gold beyond glowing like a vein in the black rock. He’d crawled over the lake. Over Celestine. He had to be over the Thusia cave where he’d seen the new tunnel with Zev. The gold drew him, but the crack was too small to push through. He hurried on until a deeper darkness took shape in front of him. A cave-in.

  Fuck!

  He panted and clawed at the blockage with his bare hands. Dust mixed with his sweat, and he choked on the thin air.

  Sobbing for breath, hands burning, he leaned forward and let his head fall on the grimy wall. When his heart slowed, and he looked up, his gaze fell on his bracelet, and hope surged through his veins.

  His raw hands screamed at him, but he yanked his bracelet off and dug its edge in the dirt like a hoe.

  A few minutes later, he’d buried his knees in soil, and cool, dank air wafted through. After taking a few deep breaths, he crammed himself into the open space and stretched his lamp out. It illuminated a cavern above him and a—

  Pit.

  The cold air was rising out of a hole in the tunnel floor.

  He swung the light to the side, and a ledge appeared. It was several feet wide and circled the pit to the other side.

  Relieved, he set the lamp down on the ledge and took his bracelet from his other hand. But his fingers, scraped raw from the rocks and stiff from clutching the lamp, froze in a half curl, and a horrified, “Nooo!” burst out of his mouth as the bracelet slipped free of his grip, tumbled down the pile of rocks, and dropped into the pit.

  Never take it off…

  It’s a spell-catcher.

  “Abadi!”

  The echo bounced off the walls and hit him like blows. He bowed his head to the dirt, clenching against the pain in his chest where she had always had a place. Where there was only darkness and silence now.

  She’s dead.

  No.

  “Abadi,” he whispered.

  As a witch, wouldn’t she have the power to let him know she was still with him? But she didn’t. And it could only be because she was gone. And her bracelet was gone too. Never take it off. He fought his tears, but they spilled out anyway.

  After a few minutes, he wiped his eyes, slid over the dirt mound, and dropped to the ledge.

  An hour later he emerged by the castle. In the lake, a massive boulder stuck up like a lone island. More of the castle had crumbled, but a third still stood. His stripped room still stared forlornly from the ruins of his home.

  He turned his face to the lake and swam out to the boat that had floated away, crawled in, and steered it to Celestine. His heart rejoiced at the sight of the library, enormous and solid under the broken ceiling. A dazed-looking woman passed by, and he stopped her.

  “Where are you going?”

  She pointed at a blood-red flag drooping on an iron pole across the plaza. He released her and hurried over. Xana, one of Qudim’s enforcers, was guiding people onto a train.

  “It goes through?” he asked.

  “Yes, Prince. Almost to Majallena. The King is here, though, helping people through the Grania Portal.”

  Rune nodded. “I’m going to keep looking for survivors.”

  He turned back into the city. Most everyone was gone, but some people still wandered, shell-shocked, for the flag. Some carried the injured. Rune scoured the shops, ducking into Protis’s last.

  “Protis!”

  Broken glass covered the floor. There was nobody here, but he found two jugs of water.

  A shelf above a table hung by its hinge, but the one above it was still attached to the wall, a few bottles still standing. Rune blinked at the strangeness of it. He took down one of the bottles. It had a fern painted on it, and an acrid aroma seeped from its sealed top. Grimacing, he set it back. Bottles of paint had broken on the stone floor.

  After drinking some of the water, he took the jugs to Xana.

  On his way back into the city, he found an old vampire clinging stubbornly to a column that was all that still stood of his home. Seeing an enforcer nearby, Rune called to him, and together they peeled the old man’s arms away from the column.

  “I’ll take him,” the enforcer said.

  Rune nodded and leaned back against the cold curve of stone. Zev… Zev…

  Strangely, he imagined a voice whispering back. Safe.

  Where are you?

  But nobody answered this time.

  He rubbed his face and pushed off from the column. Inside the maze of boulders, he found a little girl and lifted her, but she was limp in his arms. An awful cry broke from him. He fell on his ass on the broken street and closed his eyes, rocking her. Silence fell, except for the faint dripping of water. No footsteps passed by, no cries rose in the dark. After a while, he set the girl back on the ground. Would they return for the bodies?

  He groaned as he got to his feet.

  Only three people and Xana remained at the flag now. When the train returned, he got on it with them. Had it only been two days since his return?

  Abadi!

  Nothing. All he sensed was darkness. A chill entered his chest and spread throughout his body. He gripped the edges of his seat and centered himself on the sharp pain breaking across his fingers.

  When the train rolled to a stop, Qudim rushed down the steps to the portal and crushed Rune to his chest for a moment.

  “My family?”

  “Safe. I left them above.”

  Qudim nodded. “I’ve sent enforcers through the tunnels to the other cities, but I don’t know how many will make it through. It’ll be easier to travel on the surface, and we’ll take stock of our situation as we hear from the families. Hopefully, the Perilyth and Ambryth Portals are still open too. I’ll take one of my enforcers and try to reach Kolnadia.”

  “She’s gone.”

  Qudim stared into his eyes, a frown forming on his face. “How do you know?”

  “I just do.”

  The touch of Qudim’s forehead to his surprised him. “I am sorry, my son.”

  “Everything is gone,” Rune whispered.

  “We are not.” Qudim squeezed his shoulders and pointed him toward the steps. “Go on now. I’ll follow.”

  Inside the Grania Portal, the cart tracks bent akimbo, and water dripped from the walls. They trudged up the flight of steps that followed the tracks. Occasional alcoves appeared with maintenance equipment inside.

  Near the surface, the tunnel dropped into a small pool that stretched to a cave on the other side of the rock wall. One by one they swam through. The cave was blackened from the fires that had been built inside, and empty bottles littered the floor.

  Outside, rain fell in a soft drizzle and birds sang in the trees.

  “I need to feed,” somebody said.

  “It will be night soon,” said Qudim. “Where are the others?” he asked.

  Rune pointed up the mountain. “At the top.”

  “Stay here until nightfall. I’ll lead the others out. We will wait up there until we hear from the other cities.”

  “And then.”

  Qudim turned a dark gaze on him. “We will make ourselves known.”

  6

  His Vow

  The sound of the voice was like a note from a bi’lilo, a vibration painful in its beauty.

  Rune’s body curled in sleep as though hugging a lover to him, comforted by its beating heart, but when he woke, nothing was there. Nothing had been there. He lay on a cold floor in the stone building on top of a mountain.

  The voice had been a ghost in a dream that faded with every second he was awake, though his heart cried, It was him! Him!

  Who?

  His fated?

  A human?

  The voice had been small, a whisper.

  Imaginary.

  Now wasn’t the time to believe in such things anyway. Qudim was gone, back in Celestine and the
cities around it, searching for survivors.

  He got up and went outside where Uriah already stood on the parking lot, gazing down on the city below. The smoke from the fires the humans had put out was gone, though the strange clouds still hung in the sky. He turned as Rune approached. “We need supplies,” he said.

  Uriah nodded. “I’ll go down.”

  “Not just you,” Rune said. “We’ll go in a group. Do you know how to drive?”

  “I learned. We’ll see how the roads are.”

  Nobody bothered them. Most the stores had already been looted, but Uriah found them a pickup. Some buildings stood unscathed and others had crumbled into piles of rubble. Here, the voice found him too, a chime, a bell fading under the other noises. Strange streets lured him. He pointed them out to Uriah, who turned down them without speaking.

  Occasional gunshots rang out, and the city emptied at night. Humans in uniforms drove by during the day.

  One morning, Rune awoke on the cold floor and lay still, straining for a sound. A voice. But silence surrounded him.

  Was he gone?

  Beloved.

  Where are you?

  Every night the voice had come to him. Now there was only silence, and a cold that froze him to the core. Outside, clouds swept across the sun, and the light flashed in incandescent explosions.

  He covered his eyes.

  That night he went out alone on foot. A few residences in the foothills still stood, some monstrous, decorated with ornate stonework and trellises. But the empty ones made homes for the vampires. Now only the Seneras and Uriah lived in the stone house.

  On his way through a long, narrow valley, Rune found a castle-like mansion still inhabited by a human family. They had a generator and light shone out a window on the bottom floor. For several nights, he sat in the shelter of the trees and gazed at the light in the window. Who were they, the people who lived there?

  The voice in his dream didn’t belong to anybody in the house. It didn’t come back to him either, and his sleep was fitful with longing. One night the light in the castle was gone.

  He continued down the mountainside, snapping his human-made flashlight on and off.

  On the edge of town, the silhouette of buildings took shape against his eyes, and he strode into a parking lot. Cars sat abandoned, the walls of random stores tossed in chunks across the pavement.

  Blood thirst sapped him, burned like sulfur in his veins. A sweet tang woke his nerves and tickled its way down his spine.

  He froze, senses probing the area around him.

  A sound reached him, a muffled sob and a hiss of breath. Not a voice, and not his fated. It was human though and wrapped around him in a strange way, mixing with the sweet tang on the air. His heart pounded, the scent of blood reaching into his chest like a hook and yanking him to the broken maw of a store window. He stepped over a ledge, glass crunching underfoot.

  Silence met him now, not even a breath. The creature knew he was here.

  “Hello!” he called out. Still nothing. “Do you need help?”

  A sob again. A breath that hitched.

  “Please… I’m stuck.”

  A male voice. Young, it sounded, coming from the back of the store.

  Rune switched his flashlight on again. In front of him, empty shelving units leaned against each other, boxes and plastic packages piled underneath. He squeezed by, found a door in the back wall, and pushed it open.

  “Are you here?” he whispered.

  “Y-yes. Under… the roof.”

  Rune played the flashlight across piles of debris. The starlit sky appeared above him.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “I don’t… don’t think so. I’m thirsty. I can’t move this.”

  But the blood scent wafted on the soft breeze and flooded Rune’s body with a dizzy hunger. He swayed and dropped to his knees. Now the beam of the light flashed on a face. The thing trapping him was a metal beam.

  “You’re sure you’re not hurt?”

  “Something’s… holding it off me, but it’s pushing. I can’t get out.”

  “You’re… blood,” Rune rasped.

  “Cuts from the glass.”

  Gritting his teeth, Rune glanced around and found a cabinet beside him. He set his flashlight on it, pointing it at the pile of wreckage in front of him.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Owen.”

  Rune tossed some of the lighter pieces of lumber across the room. “I’m Rune.”

  “Like the symbols?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  “You too. How old are you?”

  “Thirteen.”

  “Out alone?”

  “I don’t know where my parents are. They didn’t… didn’t come home. I was trying to find food, but all that’s left are pots and pans and paint and stuff. I ran in here during the last aftershock. Everything was falling. I thought I was safer here.” He laughed. “I’m really thirsty.”

  “I saw a church a couple days ago about a mile down the street. They have people there. I’ll go with you.”

  “O-okay.”

  He yanked more of the debris off Owen, the backs of his fingers sliding over Owen’s arm and coming away sticky with blood. His stomach lurched, the scent overpowering now. The room swam, and he dug his nails into his palm before reaching for the metal beam.

  “How old are you?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “Where’s your family?”

  “Gone too.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  Rune breathed in. “I’m going to get you out now, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  The beam was heavy, and he scrunched his eyes shut, ignoring the bitten-down squeal that squeezed out between Owen’s teeth. He dropped the beam with a clunk off to the side and slid an arm under Owen’s shoulders. The kid kicked, and Rune dragged him up and sat him on the cabinet. His flashlight rolled off, and he picked it up.

  “Okay?”

  “I think so.”

  A quick sweep of the light on Owen’s body showed blood but not a lot of it. Rune eased the kid onto his feet and put an arm around him. “I don’t think there’s any water around here. Can you walk?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll go with you to the church. You’ll be okay there.”

  “Thank you,” Owen whispered.

  “You’re welcome.”

  The urge to drain the kid dry chewed at him, and his fangs pressed against his lower lip. An eerie quiet surrounded them, but a light glowed in the dark, maybe a generator at the church.

  “Hungry too?”

  Owen shivered. “Yeah.”

  How sweet was his blood? How tender his skin?

  Rune leaned nearer, and Owen glanced up and blinked at him. “You’re really nice.”

  “We have to stick together,” Rune said.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  The glow brightened into rectangles of yellow. Rune’s body was strung as tight as a wire, his gums aching, his throat parched. Owen leaned against him, his shirt damp with spots of sticky blood.

  As Rune steered them onto the driveway, a shape burst out of the shadows. Others wavered at the edge of the dark, weapons pointed in their direction.

  The first shape solidified into a human male, hefty in a bulky jacket and jeans, rifle pointed at the pavement near Rune’s feet.

  “Who are you?”

  “I have a hurt hu… kid.”

  A light flashed in their faces. The man tilted his head to the side, still keeping them in view, and shouted, “Clara!”

  A handful of others came out a pair of double doors. Rune let them lead Owen away. Owen glanced over his shoulder. “Aren’t you coming with me?”

  “You’re welcome to stay,” said the human.

  Rune backed away. “My friends are waiting.”

  Jessa. Mal. Dawn and Qudim.

  A dizzy confusion warred with his thirst now. What was he doing here? He ran back
to the shopping center and past it into the hills again. The scent of another human led him to a house and a sleeping woman. He fed on her and closed his heart to the silence.

  The romance of fated love was a fantasy. Childish. He had his family. His duty.

  The next day, Josia, one of Qudim’s enforcers brought news.

  “The Grania Portal is close to collapse,” she said, “but we’ve sent thousands through the Ambryth tunnel.”

  “Where are they?”

  “The Mojave Desert.”

  “What do the Ellowyn already living here say?”

  “That the damage is massive. Everywhere. Entire cities on the coasts have disappeared. Others have burned to ashes. There’s no power and almost no communication. The humans have no time to worry about us.”

  Rune nodded. “We await Qudim’s orders.”

  A day later another earthquake struck and tore a deep crack through the mountainside. Rain fell after, sooty with ash.

  Rune took Uriah aside and said, “I’m going back.”

  Uriah growled. “It’s too dangerous. Let Qudim take care of himself.”

  Rune hissed, fangs erupting, and Uriah blanched. Rage washed through Rune’s body. He spun away and ran his hands through his hair. When he turned back, Uriah stood with his arms open, waiting for the plunge of a sword Rune didn’t have.

  “You think I would kill you,” Rune whispered.

  “I offended you,” said Uriah.

  “Why are you not loyal?”

  “I am.” Uriah lifted his head. “To you.”

  “You must be loyal to Qudim first.”

  “If you wish it.”

  “I wish it,” Rune spat.

  “Let me come with you.”

  Rune narrowed his eyes. “Better for only one of us to die.”

  “Better for neither of us to die.”

  Rune laughed. “True.”

  In the end, he agreed to Uriah’s company, though Jessa wailed, chasing after him with one of his wildflowers. Rune snatched the little vamp up and blew raspberries into his neck until he giggled. “Now shush,” he said.

  The giggles died. “I don’t want you to goooo!”

  “You have to be a big boy and stay with your mommy.”

  “You won’t come back.”