Page 28 of Cursed Lifeline (Eternal Love)

Twenty Seven

Alfred

song: crazy train | joseph william morgan

Cursing, screaming, and hostile bickering ring down the hallway as I swiftly show Felix and Esme to the caboose. Since the crew of this train is run by the coven, it was the safest place to hide.

“I swear on my eternal life, if you don’t find a cure, I’ll hunt you down and drain your life in my next without a second thought and…”

“Caelum!” I shout, making Evangeline jump as we enter the room.

A bottle of garlic antidote in one of her hands, rag in the other, the bottle spills on the bite mark at his neck. The sound of sizzling flesh fills the room and my stomach turns. Caelum screams out in pain as Evangeline holds the rag against his throat. Behind me, Felix quickly shrugs out of his evening coat, stalks across the room, and holds Caelum still.

“How did this happen?” he hisses.

I glance over my shoulder at Esme’s horror-filled expression, and I swear on all things holy, if she faints, I am turning right back around, contacting the council, and telling them she’s not ready. We’re not ready, not if the actions that brought us here tonight are any indication of the way our future will go.

To my surprise and delight, she shoves the fear down quickly and rushes to Caelum’s side. Felix watches her with a keen, jealous eye as she takes Caelum’s hand and offers him a few words of whispered encouragement.

Well, that went over better than I thought. Now, if I can only get the building nausea in my gut to subside, we’d be headed in the right direction.

In Esme’s past life, we never advanced to the point of hunting. I never encountered blood, death, or the likes of which lie in front of me now. When she was murdered, she was laid to rest before I ever got a chance to witness her in her gruesome state. Not that I don’t count that a blessing. But all of this, every gory detail flooding my senses right now, is new to me. In fact, my senses are heightened due to the fact that since Esme’s first life, I’ve been turned fae.

I can’t take it. The blood, the gore, the building tension and fear as Caelum screams out in horror and his life borders on fae and vampire.

“Not quite sure,” I clear my throat and focus on anything else but the bite mark on Caelum’s neck. Rounding the table he’s laid out on, I stand by Evangeline’s side to offer her any assistance she might need. “One second, he was laughing with me at the bar; the next, he was gone. I didn’t think much about it until I heard the screaming.”

“Screaming?” Esme looks up, startled, as Evangeline adds more antidote to the rag, and Caelum howls out in pain.

“Yeah, just like that,” I swallow down the bile that rises in my throat. Glancing up at the door, hopeful no one hears him, I use the time my gaze is fixated elsewhere to clear my head.

God, it’s hot in here.

The air isn’t moving. It’s stifling. And the smell of blood is… God, it’s fucking awful.

“It’s not working.” Evangeline sighs, discouraged, drawing my attention back to the red plasma covering the front of her lovely evening gown.

“It would work if we could immobilize the bite and keep it lower than his heart,” Felix growls.

“How do you keep your neck below your heart?” Evangeline asks sarcastically.

Caelum curses, his eyes roll back in his head. He seems to lose consciousness for a moment before he wails, “God, if a vampire doesn’t know what to do for a bite from one of his kind, then I’m really fucking screwed.”

Esme hushes him like a mother to her child, and Felix growls in annoyance. Evangeline bites her lip, worry etches its panicked path across her stunning features. Placing a comforting hand on the small of her back, I force myself to focus on helping her. Maybe it will take away the woozy feeling growing, and spreading across my skin like the flu. Speechless, she looks up at me as I step closer.

“There must be something,” I start to say, “Anything you can think of that’ll...”

“What if you suck out the venom?” she blurts out, swinging Felix’s way.

“I don’t trust myself to stop,” he grits through clenched teeth. Esme looks up at him, alarmed. But Felix’s eyes stay trained on the bite at Caelum’s neck. “It’s been too long since I’ve fed on human flesh.” He swallows harshly; temptation floods his eyes. “I, uh...”

One glance at Esme though, and he snaps out of it. She looks at him with disappointment, and he shrinks back, reprimanded for his intrusive thoughts. A tense moment later, our friend screams out in pain again and starts to writhe on the table between us.

“Oh, Caelum,” Esme cries. “How did this happen?”

“ When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul lends the tongues vows ,” Felix growls, hinting that in times of passion, souls make promises that are not sincere or lasting, ultimately leading to the situation Caelum has found himself in.

“I read that in a book once,” Esme says in awe, glancing up at Felix.

“She was so beautiful,” he smiles through his pain like a love-sick fool. “Perfect. Carved from a dream. Made just for me.”

‘We’re all made like that you idiot,” Felix seethes. Esme flashes him an angered look.

“She asked me to come back to her room. I’ve never been with a vam... a vamp,” Caelum trails off. Embarrassment colors his cheeks.

“Let me guess,” Felix growls, “You were stupid enough to think you’d live to tell the tale?”

Esme swallows hard. Felix shakes his head. I remove my hand, which was tenderly pressed at the small of Evangeline’s back, and start to speak, but the queasy feeling takes hold again, and I choke back more vomit.

“After tonight,” Caelum cries, “I won’t let myself be tempted ever again by a...”

Suddenly, the train comes to an abrupt stop. Screeching wheels on iron catapult us all forward. I grab hold of Evangeline as she tumbles into my arms. Reaching out quickly, I steady us against a nearby table. Felix cocoons Esme just the same as Caelum barely escapes tumbling off the table. Arms spread wide, knuckles white as they grip the wood, his quick reflexes keep him anchored to the surface he’s lying on.

Brow furrowed, head cocked to the side, I glance at Felix, who only shrugs and says, “Picking up a last-minute passenger. Slipped my mind to tell you earlier.”

“Is it another breathtaking siren that’ll somehow manage to take this god-forsaken pain away,” Caelum howls. “I’d sell my soul if it meant…”

Releasing my hold on Evangeline, I take a heated step forward having had enough of Caelum’s rambling. Enough, that is, to clear the hurling feeling in my gut. For now, at least.

“Temptation is their number one trick,” I growl. Catching Felix’s sharp glare, I ask, “Or haven’t you learned anything in your pitiful immortal life?”

“Immortal?” Esme breathes out aghast as Felix reluctantly lets her slip from his embrace. “You failed to mention that little tidbit earlier.”

“Wait a minute,” Felix exclaims, turning towards the fae responsible for Caelum and my immortality. “Evangeline, the WhisperWind Covenant is famous for its healers, right?”

The woman in question takes a step back from Caelum, who’s still twitching, squirming, and close to twisting off the table. Annoyed, Felix reaches out and his firm grip deathly anchors him in place. Caelum cries out in pain.

Evangeline panics. “That doesn’t mean I…”

Taking her hands in mine, I turn her to look at me. All thoughts of the carnage to my right aside, I place my finger under her chin and raise her troubled stare to my pleading eyes, “We can’t let him die.”

“He won’t die, he’ll just...”

“Become one of them,” Caelum shouts angrily, nodding in Felix’s direction. “I may thirst for beautiful women, but I take it back. I’d rather die before I ever...”

“Watch it,” Felix warns.

“Please,” I beg. “I need him. We need him. If we are ever going to figure a way out of this now that Esme is alive and find a way to break the curse...”

“Curse?” Esme asks, alarmed. “Do you all make a habit of not telling the whole story? Or am I just the lucky one that gets to not fall privy to important information?”

Felix makes a colorful remark, and I glance his way in time to see him roll his eyes. “I hadn’t exactly told her about that yet,” he sighs angrily.

“It would be nice if someone would fill me in,” Esme grunts, “seeing as you’ve all been waiting for me to make my return for some time now.”

She spins around to me.

“Immortal?” she shouts.

Facing Felix, she yells, “Curse?”

“Be patient,” Felix says calmly, holding down Caelum, who seems to be writhing harder than before. “In time...”

“Screw your time, Felix,” she argues. “From the sounds of it, you’ve all had plenty. I haven’t. Regardless, I don’t need more time. I need answers.”

“And you’ll get them,” he grits out, holding her fiery stare with heated rage. “After you sit down and shut....”

“In and of itself, normally a vampire bite is not fatal,” Evangeline insists, cutting off the building fight in front of us.

Esme eyes Felix viciously, to which he growls a warning, and she slowly lowers herself back in her seat next to Caelum. Evangeline hurries away to a nearby table full of potions, tools, and tricks of the fae. She picks up a vial, raises it in the dim light of a nearby sconce, and measures out a small portion. Hurrying back to my side, she takes the rag at Caelum’s throat, soaks it with half the mixture and a little more of the garlic tonic, and reapplies pressure to the bite. Caelum hisses out in agony.

“A single bite has the ability to heal in a day or two, if it’s not infected with venom. Some vampires get off on that kind of blood play,” Esme eyes Felix angrily, to which he rolls his eyes and continues to hold Caelum’s twisting form firmly in place.

“Sanguination,” Evangeline says, quickly taking my hand, holding it against the wound, and grabbing a clean rag. My eyes widen. She soaks the new cloth with some more of the mixture she’s made and says, “A vampire can feed off of one host for years until the person eventually dies of blood loss.”

“How do we know if there is any venom in the bite,” I ask. My hand shakes as Caelum’s blood soaks the rag and quickly coats my fingers. I start to feel lightheaded but try to shake it off as best I can.

“It’s hard to tell,” Felix grits out. “But I’ve been told by some who have gone through the change that if the vampire infected its victim, the bite would elicit a slow and painful burning sensation as it mixes with the blood. Almost as if they feel like they’re being burned alive.”

“Oh, it burns,” Caelum hisses, as his eyes roll back in his skull and his skin flushes. “Question is, how do I fucking stop it?”

Evangeline shakes her head as she removes my hand from the wound and replaces the dirty rag with a clean one. Stunned, I look down at the bloody cloth in my shaky palm and the room lightly begins to spin.

“There is a rumor,” she cautiously says.

Caelum grips Esme’s hand harshly. My cousin’s eyes fill with panic as she leans into his side and whispers he’ll be ok, evoking another growl from Felix. Usually I’d pay more attention to them. But my head… it feels so groggy. Woozy. Rocking back on my heels, my knees buckle, but I catch myself on a nearby chair before I go down. Luckily, no one notices.

Discarding the soiled rag on the table, Evangeline continues, “There was a fae of the WhisperWind Covenant long before my time that was infected with venom. In her rage, before the change could take place, she killed her assailant. The venom never took. When the vampire who inflicted the bite took his last breath, the venom evaporated from her system. The bite miraculously healed. It was as if she was never bitten at all.”

“How long does the change normally take,” Esme asks.

“Two, maybe three days,” Evangeline looks up at Felix, who nods his head in agreement. “It depends on how long the venom takes to saturate all the cells in its new host.”

“Then I need to kill her...” Caelum shouts, beginning to rise from his position on the table before Felix firmly pushes him back down.

“You have never been trained to kill,” he angrily hisses. “We have no clue who this vampire is. Or why they’d attempt an act like this on my train when I cherry-picked the crew myself. They know the history and what’s at stake. It doesn’t make sense.”

“True, he doesn’t know how to kill,” Evangeline says as my body sways. I pinch the bridge of my nose, and stars flood my vision. The smell of the tonic, her potions, and Caelum’s blood on my hands makes bile violently rise in my throat. “But she does.”

I drop my hand and open my eyes to see Evangeline nod toward Esme.

“Absolutely not!” Felix shouts.

“Why not?” Esme argues, bouncing quickly to her feet.

“Because you haven’t been trained yet,” Felix seethes, rounding the table and taking her by the shoulders. She throws them back confidently, bravely, as my stomach churns. “I won’t lose you, not when I just got you back after...”

“I won’t let that happen,” she smiles softly, placing her hand on his chest. My vision goes black; I swear I’ve passed out, until surprisingly, I come to when I hear my cousin say, “I know I have a lot to learn, and my memory is only slowly returning, but I can help him.”

Felix glances at Caelum spread out, near death, on the table. Then, he hesitantly looks at Evangeline who gives him an encouraging nod. Finally, his eyes fall on me.

“What do you say?” he asks.

I open my mouth to respond but close it immediately, gagging on the rising sickness inside. I blink rapidly as the room sways before me. The four people in front of me blur. I haven’t had a drink since the night Felix found me at the Moulin Rouge, but right now, if I didn’t know any better, I’d swear I was three bottles deep and well into a fourth.

“I think...” I manage to slur before the room takes one giant whirl; my mind goes blank, my vision turns black, and my legs give out underneath me.

The last thing I hear is Felix’s condescending voice cursing over me as he says, “A watcher who’s easily sickened by the sight of blood. We’re more doomed than I fucking thought.”