Page 31 of How to Stake a Vampire (Diary of a Reluctant Werewolf #2)

CONSECRATED GROUND

“I can’t see anything!” Didi’s hands moved frantically over bare stone as she and Gavin examined the cavern wall.

Bo whined with frustration and sniffed jerkily along the base of the wall. “There’s definitely something here.” He clawed at a thin crack.

Mindy dove headfirst into the wall.

Barney, Samuel, Gregory, and Finnic moved behind Ludvik and grabbed his arms, trapping him in place.

Ludvik’s expression turned ugly. “You have no idea what you’re doing!”

Mindy reappeared. “Found it!” She turned to Gavin, excitement lighting up her face. “Can you break the wall right here?!”

Gavin’s tail popped out. The dragon newt twisted and smashed the wall with it. Stone crumbled. Something small and dark became visible in the candlelight.

Bo squeezed his muzzle into the gap and snatched it up in his jaws.

It was a doll. An old-fashioned one with a porcelain face, a faded dress, and a missing arm. The kind of toy that would have been precious to a little girl centuries ago.

My blood chilled as I recalled the strange message we’d found scrawled in the hidden room in the Chamber of Commerce subbasement. My head snapped to the wraith.

Tears streamed down the vampire child’s face.

She had been trying to tell us how to free her all along.

Ludvik’s composed mask finally cracked. “ No! ”

He broke free of Ellie and the others’ holds, desperation giving his already inhuman speed a new edge.

My heart lurched. I leapt to stop him.

Bo!

The Husky flinched and looked at me, like he’d heard my wolf’s shout. My fangs sank into Ludvik’s shoulder with a vicious sound.

He shrugged himself free with a power that made my jaws ache.

Then the vampire was on Bo.

The Husky tried to dodge as Didi fired off magic and Gavin let loose a stream of fire to stop Ludvik.

The vampire evaded their attack.

His claws caught Bo across the side. The Husky yelped and went flying into the wall under the force of the strike, the doll still in his jaws.

There was a sharp crack. Bo dropped limply to the ground.

My pulse stuttered.

Mindy, Didi, and Gavin rushed to my dog’s side. Bo stayed still for a moment before slowly struggling to his feet. A whine left him as he favored his left side. He was hurt but alive.

That small mercy was the only thing that kept me from losing myself completely to the rage engulfing me.

I shifted back to human form and let the fury guide me, just like the time at the hospital.

Heat unlike anything I’d ever felt before flooded my veins.

My flesh shifted. I felt my face change and my hair lengthen.

When the transformation finished, I stood in my humanized wolf form—taller than my normal height, white hair cascading down my back, and the power flowing through every muscle so fierce my bones fairly vibrated with it.

The cavern, once so big, now felt small, like a space I could easily conquer in a few strides.

“What the—?!” Finnic mumbled. His axe struck the floor with a dull thud as his arm went limp at his side.

Gregory and Barney stared at me, wariness and shock warring in their crimson gazes. I felt Samuel’s wonderment and admiration as he watched me where he still stood in his wolf form, his feelings sparking across the mate bond.

Something else sparked across my consciousness, startling me.

I looked at Ellie.

I could sense her power too, somehow. It was different from Samuel’s werewolf energy. Colder, sharper, but just as fierce. And for reasons I couldn’t explain, her abilities appeared similar to mine.

“Is that you?” Ellie breathed, meeting my gaze.

I swallowed and nodded.

Determination tightened my best friend’s face. “Let’s finish this. Together.”

We moved as one.

Ludvik snarled, his pupils flaring crimson.

I came at him from his left while Ellie struck from his right, our attacks perfectly synchronized, as if we’d fought together for years instead of minutes.

Ludvik tried to escape using his enhanced speed.

We were everywhere he wanted to be, boxing him in with movements that flowed like a deadly dance.

“Finnic!” Didi shouted. “Your axe!”

Finnic lobbed his weapon across the cavern.

Didi jumped and snatched it handle-first in midair.

Ludvik cursed and tried to bolt.

My claws raked his back while Ellie’s fangs found his shoulder.

“Make sure you burn the doll!” I shouted at Didi. “It’s the only way to fully break the hold he has on the wraith!”

Ludvik thrashed between me and Ellie, incoherent sounds of rage leaving him.

“Right, then.” Didi narrowed her eyes and raised the axe. “One possessed toy, coming right up.” She brought the weapon down on the doll.

The porcelain face shattered with a sound like breaking glass, the pieces scattering across the cavern floor.

“Gavin!” the witch barked.

“On it!” Gavin inhaled and blew out a jet of white-hot flames that incinerated every last fragment of the cursed toy.

The effect was immediate and dramatic.

The crimson chain connecting Ludvik to the wraith child snapped like a severed rope.

The music stopped.

The little ghost girl blinked where she’d curled up on herself next to the altar, her eyes clearing of the pain and rage that had clouded them.

For a moment, she looked almost peaceful.

She slowly straightened and turned toward Ludvik, her expression shifting to something far more terrifying than mindless fury.

“You,” she hissed in a voice like winter wind. “You hurt me. You made me hurt others!”

“No,” Ludvik mumbled, his face went white.

I blinked as I felt the vampire’s strength leaving him.

“I gave you power,” Ludvik blubbered. “I gave you purpose?—”

The wraith narrowed crimson eyes. “You gave me pain.”

She moved faster than even Ludvik could, her ghostly form passing through Ellie and me to reach him. We gasped at the icy feeling.

The wraith’s touch drained Ludvik of color. His eyes rolled back in his head and he screamed. Ellie and I let go as he dropped to the ground and curled up on himself, his scream fading to incoherent blubbering.

The wraith studied him dispassionately for a long moment before looking around at all of us.

“Thank you.” Her grateful gaze lingered on Mindy. “I can rest now.”

My throat tightened as she faded away like morning mist.

The power that had kept me in my humanized wolf state retreated along with my rage. I shrank back down to my regular human form and slowly flexed my hand. Getting used to this new ability was not going to be easy.

A low groan distracted me.

Finnic had come over and kicked Ludvik.

Ellie and I stared.

The dwarf chieftain shrugged. “Just in case.”

The other dwarves took this as a sign and came over to kick the vampire with undisguised enthusiasm.

“Should we stop them?” Ellie asked warily.

Her rage had started to subside and along with it her strange power.

She looked like my best friend again, albeit with fangs and red eyes.

I grimaced. “We might suffer collateral damage if we interfere.”

Gregory and Barney headed to the altar to free Virgil. Ellie joined them while I went over to Bo.

Samuel shifted back to his human form and tagged along with me.

“How is he?” I asked Hilda anxiously.

“He’s got a cracked rib,” the dwarf announced where she was tending to the Husky. “He’ll be fine with some rest.”

Bo wagged his tail weakly. “I did good, right?”

Samuel smiled. “You did amazing, mutt.”

I squatted and kissed my dog’s head, my hands trembling with relief. “Next time, you’re staying home.”

“What and let you guys have all the fun?” Bo protested. He winced. “Ow.”

A heavy scraping noise drew everyone’s gaze.

Melvina appeared from the shadows beyond the altar. She was dragging something behind her.

“I found the coffin,” the dwarf announced cheerfully. “It was in a chamber back there.”

We all stared at the ornate coffin she was hauling.

Ludvik flinched where he was hugging the ground. He looked up jerkily.

“No,” he wailed, his wild-eyed gaze locked on the wooden box. “Not the coffin!”

Barney’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “Here will do, Melvina.” He indicated the ground next to the altar.

Melvina beamed. “Right you are, Master.”

“Please, Uncle Barnabas!” Ludvik pleaded, his voice quaking with terror. “I promise I’ll disappear. You’ll never see me again, I swear it!”

Barney watched his great-nephew coldly as he crossed the cavern. “That’s what you told the vampire courts in Europe several hundred years ago. And yet, here we are.”

Ludvik blubbered as Barney grabbed him by the collar and dragged him to the altar.

Melvina began removing stakes from her chain mail.

“Er, Barney,” I said hesitantly. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Yeah,” Didi muttered. “We ain’t got no virgin blood.”

Barney frowned. “What do you mean? We’ve got plenty.” He indicated the blood stains next to the altar. “I could tell by the smell when he gave his blood to Ellie.”

We stared. Our gazes rose as one to Virgil.

The vampire froze where he was sitting on the edge of the altar and rubbing the chain marks on his wrists.

“What?” he asked suspiciously.

“No way,” Samuel muttered.

“You wouldn’t think so, looking at that face, huh?” Finnic grunted.

“Seems you really can’t judge a book by its cover,” Didi said pensively.

Gavin’s nostrils smoked. “He was a shy boy even at school.”

Gregory patted his son’s back, his expression a mix of parental love and manly sympathy. “My sweet child.”

Ellie’s eyes gleamed with an unhealthy light. “Boy, is he in for a wild ride,” she said under her breath.

I grimaced at the thought of Virgil’s cherry being popped by my best friend, AKA the new horny super-vampire in town. On the list of problems to have, it seemed pretty minor compared to the fate he’d almost suffered.

It took a moment for Barney to explain to Virgil how one truly staked a vampire. Virgil flushed and covered his face in his hands.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” he mumbled.

Gregory hesitated. “Should we have that birds and bees conversation we never had when we get back home?”

“Father!” Virgil snapped.

“So all we need is a prayer, right?” I asked Barney while Finnic’s warriors tied Ludvik up, gagged him, and dumped him inside his coffin.

“I may have muttered something along those lines when I thought we were all going to die earlier,” Didi admitted.

We traded glances while Melvina administered a surreptitious kick to Ludvik.

“That works,” Barney said with a shrug. “Who wants to do the honor?”

Ellie and I raised our hands.

Barney handed us some stakes while Leoric and Wildred manifested a pair of hammers from somewhere on their person.

Ludvik’s eyes bulged with genuine fear as we grabbed the coffin lid and prepared to lower it.

“Wait,” I said.

Ellie paused.

I put a hand out to Melvina. “I’d like a pair, please.”

Melvina blinked. Her face brightened. She handed me a pair of googly eyes.

I stuck them to the inside of the lid, right where Ludvik would be staring for the rest of eternity.

Gregory sucked air between his teeth. “Oh, that’s vicious.”

“I like it,” Finnic said smugly.

Samuel grinned. “Babe.”

Bo sat down and wagged his tail. “Wait till I tell Fur Ball about this!”

“Any last words?” I asked Ludvik pleasantly as we prepared to close the coffin.

An inarticulate gurgle left Ludvik.

I raised an eyebrow. “Is that so? Well, Happy Eternity, asshole.”

Ellie and I dropped the lid on Ludvik’s choked scream and staked the coffin down.