Page 160 of Dark Souls

“What the fuck? I saw the way Luka snapped his neck like a twig. There is no way!” Lorcan shouted, standing up from the bed.

My heart started thundering against my ribs.

“I don’t fucking know how, but we were about to take his body to the morgue and the man opened his freaking eyes, jumped off the table and threw himself out the window, stark naked. We can’t find him.”

The gasps and exclamations around the room erupted and I raced to the phone, taking it from Grandpapi’s hands.

“Raiden! What colour were Ronnie’s eyes? When he opened them, what colour were his eyes?”

“Uh, I didn’t see.”

“Red,” Sienna’s wobbly voice interrupted from the background. “They were red.”

“Oh my god.” I slammed one hand against my forehead. “He turned him. Luka turned him into a vampire. He didn’t kill him.”

“Well, technically he still did…” Leif muttered. My grandma flicked his ear.

“Ronnie is a vampire now? Fucking hell, his dream came true,” Raiden said.

“We need to find him. Immediately,” Grandpapi announced. “A newly turned vampire is extremely dangerous. And one from Luka’s bloodline. We need to find him before he massacres the whole of Oregon.”

“Raiden, Sienna, grab a belonging of Ronnie’s and transport yourselves here. I’ll do a locator spell to find him. Christ, this is exciting,” Leif said, rubbing his hands together. “Now I’m glad Neve banished me from Heroux. I forgot how much drama this family accumulates.”

“We’ll be there in five.” Raiden hung up.

My pacing started again.I knew it.Luka had planned the whole thing. Okay, so turning Ronnie into a vampire still wasn’t the most moral act, but it was better than having actually killed him.

“Why would he turn Ronnie? It is so bizarre,” my mum asked.

“Because…” I chewed at my lip, trying to work backwards to unpick Luka’s motives. “He was a human and Luka knew me and Ronnie had a past. It was the perfect setup. He’d make The Devil believe I’d want nothing to do with Luka because he’d kill someone I cared about. Someone this family cared about. The Devil would be none the wiser that Luka actually turned Ronnie, who could come and tell me what was really happening later.”

“What kind of past?” my dad growled and I rolled my eyes. No way in hell was I getting into that.

“That is actually quite genius. Completely disturbed but genius,” Grandpapi said, shaking his head with disbelief.

“But no one can know. None of this information can leave this room. We have no idea who The Devil is and how far his reach is. He has to believe Ronnie is dead, and we are all grieving. No one outside this immediate family can know the truth. Not even Archer. I mean it. We can’t risk it,” I said sternly, pointing my finger around the room.

“I agree. This stays between all of us. Not a word to another soul.” My mum nodded. “As far as the rest of the world is concerned, we treat this like we would any murder case. A vampire, unknown to us, murdered a human unjustly and is on the run. We will pretend to be handing the investigation over to the SIA to deal with.”

Raiden and Sienna appeared holding Ronnie’s clothes. Sienna passed them to Leif, who got to work immediately on a locator spell and then turned to face me. Our bloodshot eyes locked, and her lips trembled as she fought back tears.

“I’m so sorry, Sienna,” I whispered, and she choked on a half sob, half laugh.

“Honestly, Ron always wanted to be supernatural. I wouldn’t be surprised if he agreed to this insanity.” She sighed, shook her arms out and physically pulled herself together. “I’m just happy he’s still alive. I just want to find him.”

I nodded and glanced over at Leif.

“Found him!” he shouted, causing all of us to step forward as he waved his hand in the air and a see-through map of Oregon appeared in front of us all. A small red dot showed on the map and Leif pinched his fingers, zooming right into the desolate land between the mountains that the moving dot was on. It was hard not to be impressed by the level of talent my brother possessed, even with a simple locator spell. Even though other members of my family who inherited magic could do this, none could do it with quite as much sophistication and flair. “Who’s going then? It’s probably easier for me to create a portal to the exact location, as none of you will have been there before to transport.”

“I’m going,” Sienna demanded, and we all nodded. We had no idea what state Ronnie would be in and Sienna would hopefully be a comforting face he’d respond well to.

“Then obviously I am too,” Raiden threw his arm around her, and she leaned her head on his shoulder.

“I think Leif and Arius would be a good idea,” Grandpops Logan said, nodding towards them. “Leif for the portals and Arius has the most experience with newly turned vamps.”

“Okay. Let’s go,” I said, pulling my boots on. From the apprehensive looks on their faces, clearly, they thought I’d be staying behind.

“Ilaria. You should stay here. You need to be seen as grieving and heartbroken, remember?” Dad argued.