Waltzing Matilda (Emma Frost Book 11)

by Willow Rose

  "Oh, dear Lord. I mean, I’ve heard about the dark green blood, but never actually tasted it. I thought it was nothing but an old tale. A myth. But it really exists, doesn’t it?"

  He caressed Victor's cheek. "You really exist. Just one bag of this blood could keep me alive for a century. It's that powerful."

  Samuel grinned, then grabbed Victor by the neck and pressed down, hard. I screamed, so did Victor, but soon the boy fell to his knees, lifeless.

  "VICTOR!"

  I rushed toward him, but Samuel lifted his hand and, with the force of his hands, threw me back against the wall. It knocked out all the air from my lungs and I slid, paralyzed, to the floor. I could only watch as Samuel grabbed my lifeless boy onto his shoulders and, grinning, ran out of the room.

  Chapter 65

  When I finally managed to get back on my feet and actually stand up, Victor and Samuel were long gone. I called Victor's name and ran around the house. I ran into each and every room and called for him, but there was no sign of him anywhere. I even ran outside to the car, but Maya and Susan hadn't seen them, they said. I told them to stay in the car since we didn't know if he would come back and it would be very dangerous for them in there if he did, and to keep calling Morten.

  I rushed back inside to Skye and took off her straps, then held her in my arms. She already seemed so weak. I looked at her pretty face and moved the hair that had fallen onto it.

  "If you in any way can help me, Skye," I said, "then, please, help me find Victor."

  Skye looked into my eyes. I could tell she understood what I was saying, but as she opened her mouth to speak, nothing left her lips. I wondered for a second if she was simply not capable of speaking. But then I saw something else that made me completely forget all that. Something quite exceptional.

  Inside her very green eyes, I spotted images. It was like a little movie running on repeat. It was showing the same images over and over again. It showed Victor. Victor and Samuel. They were in a dark place, a tunnel of some sort, where there was no light, and Samuel lit their way with his glowing eyes. There was water on the floor. Lots of water.

  "The sewer," I said. "He took him into the sewers."

  Skye blinked her eyes. A set of stairs was revealed inside her green irises. I had seen those stairs when searching for Victor. I remembered them. They were by the huge kitchen.

  "I know where they are," I said, and Skye nodded, then her eyes rolled back in her head and she fell backward onto the bed. She seemed to be sleeping, so I left her there to go and get my son.

  I rushed through the kitchen and found the door leading to the stairwell. I had been down there when looking for Victor, but it was so dark down there, I had to give up. Now, I grabbed a flashlight from the kitchen and a knife, then ran down the stony stairway. I ended up in a large room with nothing but an old wooden coffin in the middle of it.

  "So, this is where you sleep, huh?" I asked, my voice bouncing off the stone walls. "Kind of cliché, don't ya' think?"

  I found another stairwell leading down. I took it and ended up in a room that had a dirt floor. Someone had dug a hole in the middle. I approached the hole through the wet dirt and shone my flashlight into it. I saw water and I saw rats in there. But I also heard something, the sound of something bigger moving down there, feet splashing in the water. And then there was the whistling.

  Even though I was still bleeding from my last encounter with the rats, I lowered myself into it, flashlight and knife in my hand, and as my feet landed in the murky water, I set off into the tunnel, following the sound of Waltzing Matilda.

  Chapter 66

  I was walking in knee-high water and it smelled terrifying. Rats were running above my head on the sides of the walls and I shivered when thinking of their attack earlier. How on earth Samuel managed to make them do what they did was beyond me, but then again, there was a lot lately that was beyond my comprehension.

  I didn't have time to focus on that now. All I had on my mind was Victor and getting him back alive, with all his precious blood still inside of him.

  I could hear them not too far in front of me and hurried to try and catch up to them, my hand holding the knife in front of me, trembling.

  I walked further, then reached a crossroad. I listened to Samuel's whistling, and decided it was coming from the road to the right and followed it, but soon I started to doubt my decision since it sounded like the whistling was getting further and further away. I turned around to walk back when suddenly the whistling stopped. I gasped and stood still for a few seconds, then decided to go back to where I had last heard it. As I turned around, Samuel was right in front of me, his glowing eyes lighting up the darkness.

  "Well, hello there."

  I screamed. The sound bounced off the walls in the tunnel.

  "Where is my son?" I asked, holding out the knife in front of me, trying to seem threatening.

  "I don’t think he even is your son," Samuel said.

  He had some of the dark green blood still on his lips and it angered me so much to think about him drinking my son's blood.

  "Of course, he is my son. I gave birth to him, now where is he, you freak of nature? If you hurt him, I will kill you."

  I heard a sound that made me turn around. "Is there anyone else down here?" I said.

  Samuel laughed. "You still don't understand anything, do you? You silly people."

  I turned back and looked at him, pointing the knife at his face, letting it get really close.

  "Give. Me. My. Son."

  Samuel looked at the knife, then back at me. I pressed it against his throat. "Ha."

  He laughed again.

  "What's so funny?"

  "I don't have time for this," he said, then he blew on me and I flew backward, landing in the water. "You are no match for me."

  Samuel walked closer to me, grabbed me by the hair, and lifted me up like I was some doll. He looked down at me, then flipped me through the air, still while holding my hair, till I slammed my back into the wall. I screamed in pain, but he just slammed me against the other wall, then the first one again, back and forth, till I couldn't scream anymore.

  I saw the wall approach again, then closed my eyes as I hit it again and again, and when I opened them again, I saw Victor. He was standing behind Samuel. He held out his hands to the sides and lit them on fire, then blasted a ball of fire through the tunnel. After that, there was nothing but a loud whistling sound and darkness. So much darkness.

  Chapter 67

  He had blown a hole in the sewer. His fire had hit Samuel and burned him. He was lying on his back in the water next to me as I woke up. Victor was standing above me, staring down at me, his hands still a little on fire.

  I smiled. "I didn't know you could do that," I said.

  He reached down and put out the fire in the water. The explosion had blown a huge hole in the ceiling and soil, and there was air coming in from above us.

  Once I got to my feet, we crawled up into the hole. Victor lifted Samuel up through it. Once up on the ground, I realized we had to be on the plantation somewhere. It was dark, but my flashlight still worked. Victor and I carried Samuel back through the plantation, dragging him through the wet snow and back to his house, where Maya and Susan were waiting by the front door.

  "Mo-o-o-o-m!"

  Maya ran to me, crying. She hugged Victor too, not caring that he didn't like it. She looked down at Samuel, then shed another tear. "I can't believe it. I simply can't."

  Finding a key to the crates hanging on the wall, we let out some poor kid he had kept in there for bloodsucking, and put Samuel in one of his own crates and locked it. Then we let the three other kids out, found an almost lifeless boy named Tim, whom Maya knew from school, and freed him, then carried him outside before I called Morten again.

  This time he picked up.

  "I just got your message," he said. "I’m on my way. What happened? Are you all right? All of you?"

  "I'm okay. We all are, I think, more or les
s shaken, but it’s over now. We have more kids drained of blood," I said. "They need help. Could you get ahold of Dr. Williamsen? They need to be taken to the hospital."

  "I'll take care of it. And you're sure you're okay?"

  I stared at the unconscious Samuel on the floor of the crate. He was still breathing. We had tied him up with the leather straps he had used for his victims, then chained him down with a chain we had found in the basement.

  "I will be," I said. "Soon."

  "Emma, don't do anything stu…"

  I hung up.

  My kids came up to me. Skye was with them, already looking better. "What are we going to do about him?" Maya said, looking at her former flame. He was beginning to wither, his skin already peeling off. I guess he never got to drink any of Skye's blood other than the few drops from the cut. Same for Victor's.

  "Maybe we should just leave him there," I said with a grin. "Let nature take its course."

  Our eyes met. Maya smiled. Victor didn't say anything. He didn't have to. We walked outside and closed the door to the room, then went out to greet Dr. Williamsen and Morten as they arrived and helped them get the poor kids into the ambulance and taken to the ferry that would transport them to the mainland.

  Once they left, Morten hugged and kissed me, then asked.

  "And Samuel? What happened to him?"

  I shrugged, then exchanged a glance with Maya. "He's gone."

  "What do you mean, gone?"

  "He disappeared," I said.

  "Okay. I'll put out a search for him. I’m having this house sealed off until the forensics department can come and take care of it. It might take a few days since there was a big shooting north of Copenhagen today. Something gang-related, but they said they were kind of backlogged when I spoke to them on my way here."

  I grabbed him by the shoulder. "There’s no rush. And you don't have to put out a search. Samuel won't be coming back."

  We walked to my car, Maya’s hand in mine. Victor and Skye were already inside it.

  "How do you know?" Morten asked, approaching his police car.

  "I just do."

  "Emma? What aren't you telling me?"

  I chuckled.

  "Where do you want me to begin?"

  Part VI

  Two months later

  Chapter 68

  Some later said they could hear screams coming from the mansion in the nights after we left, screams of the vampire as he suffered a slow death, not being able to get any blood.

  In the police report, I read that once the forensic department finally arrived four days later, they found an empty crate inside one of the rooms with a big pile of dust in the bottom of it. When they opened the door, the dust flew out and was scattered in the air. Rumors later said that it sounded like it was whistling Waltzing Matilda as it flew away, but those were just rumors and old tales.

  Meanwhile, I returned to my writing and soon a book sprang from it. The Dragstedts had been cleared, but their secret was revealed, and they had since kept very low key. Susan got better and went to live with an uncle in the mainland. The kids were back in school, while Skye hung out at my house, Morten still desperately looking for anyone related to her. I kept telling him he wouldn't find anyone, but he insisted it was the right thing to do. I let him, as long as he promised he wouldn't take her away from me unless he found her real home.

  Sophia came over on the day I finished the book and had a cup of coffee as usual. She knew the entire story and I had asked her to read along. She was reading the last few pages while nodding and slurping her coffee.

  Then she looked up. "It's good. Creepy as hell, but it's really good."

  "You think people are going to like a story about a whistling vampire from another world?"

  She shrugged. "Sure."

  I sighed and grabbed one of the cookies that Sophia had brought. "I’m just nervous that they'll think I’m crazy for writing this. I can hardly tell them it is a true story. No one will believe it."

  "Who cares? It's a great story."

  I nodded and chewed. Sophia was right. This was my story and it didn't really matter if people liked it or not. I just knew I had to get it out. I had to write it down.

  "So, what are you going to call it?"

  "I was thinking about Gone, Vampire, Gone."

  "Cool. Or—uh—what about The Girl Who Fell in Love with a Vampire?" Sophia said.

  I nodded, mostly to be polite. "Good too, but a little long. Besides, I’m not sure Maya would ever forgive me if I called it that."

  Sophia sniffled. “True. How's she doing by the way?"

  "She's okay. Mostly focusing on her graduation. Trying to forget, I think. She doesn’t really like to talk about it, so I, of course, I talk about it constantly."

  "And Victor?"

  "He's back at Fishy Pines where he gets private lessons from HP. I think he's doing pretty well. At least that's what they tell me. He doesn’t tell me anything. He only speaks to Skye when he comes home. He only has eyes for her."

  Sophia nodded.

  "And the blood part? Are you getting over that?"

  “I don't know if I can get over it," I said. "I can't stop thinking about it. Why does he have that blood? What does it mean?"

  I stared pensively at Sophia, thinking about what Samuel had said in the sewers.

  I don't think he is your son.

  What the heck was that supposed to mean?

  Sophia shrugged. "Guess that's yet another mystery for you to solve, huh? Maybe even another book to write. You could call it The Mystery of the Green Blood."

  I laughed and finished my cookie.

  "Or maybe you could call it something else," she added.

  I nodded with a smile.

  "Maybe."

  * * *

  THE END

  Afterword

  Dear Reader,

  * * *

  Thank you for purchasing Waltzing Matilda (Emma Frost#11). This is the beginning of a new season for Emma and her family. This book is just the beginning of the story. There is so much we still need to know, and I know I left you with many unanswered questions. Like who experimented on them and changed their blood? What happened to John Andersen, the plumber? How and why did Skye and Samuel end up here in our world? Are there more like them? Those and many more questions will be answered later in this series, as we will also learn more about Victor. I’m very excited to continue this story and hope you'll keep reading.

  * * *

  Take care,

  * * *

  Willow

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