Page 1

1

Sylvia

V ampire blood and stale popcorn smelled just as bad mixed together as I had imagined.

According to Jon and Cliff, Blockbusters like this were the epicenter of human weekends several decades ago. Thanks to the miracle of streaming services, they were now obsolete. This particular Arkansas location had shut its doors nine years prior, but like many places sheltered outside the public eye, it hadn’t stayed empty.

Beyond rows of shelves coated in layers of grime and neglect, the musty air was charged with a vampire presence— only one left , I thought with tentative relief.

Five had been nesting in the abandoned store when I’d flown in behind Cliff and Jon thirty minutes prior. A small coven, but that didn’t mean much when even one vampire could outrun a speeding car and rip a human apart like wet paper.

Unfortunately, I could attest to this personally after only two months of traveling with a pair of hunters.

I struggled to tear my eyes off the headless body Cliff was knelt over. The half-lit glow of the flickering fluorescent lights cast his familiar face into shadow, making him look like he’d emerged from a cautionary fireside tale about hunters. Unnatural, syrupy blood stained the machete gripped in his right hand and smeared across his hands and jeans like molasses. The decapitated head of his kill stared up at me from the faded blue carpet .

“Hey!” Cliff snapped his fingers twice to get my attention. “Don’t puke.”

“Any other sage advice?” But my attempt at nonchalance couldn’t hide that my dinner churned in my stomach.

Three other bodies were strewn across the floor like demented breadcrumbs leading deeper into the store. Each corpse had a gaping blackened hole where its heart used to be, courtesy of an oak stake. An earth fairy would have certainly worked wonders in a vampire hunt, but I made do with ice.

The final vampire’s aura made my senses pulse erratically. He was on the move, perhaps harboring more self-preservation than the coven mates who’d been staked and decapitated before his eyes. Rather than make a stand and lash out at the hunters in a vengeful rage, he ducked behind the Animation shelves and made a break for the back hallway.

Jon bolted after him from across the store, his stake dripping with dark blood. The weapon was one good strike away from splintering for good. Jon was fast, brimming with adrenaline, but no human was a match for a vampire’s speed. I chewed my lip anxiously, once again thinking how this hunt would have been more straightforward if they’d had silver bullets; the hunters’ seemingly endless supply had finally been depleted—the last two rounds embedded in the back of the now-headless vampire lying facedown on the carpet. Silver wasn’t enough to kill a vampire, but it certainly slowed them down.

I zipped away from Cliff to catch up, pressing my palms together as I whispered a spell. Throwing my hands out, I conjured a shimmering orb that tore across the room. As it made contact with the vampire’s back, the light exploded into a burst of crystalline spikes. Many shattered against the unnaturally tough skin, but enough broke through to make him stagger .

Howling, the vampire caught himself against a nearby wall and reached back to wrest the icicles buried in his flesh. Though his back was painted in blood, the wounds were swiftly regenerating.

My attack slowed our target long enough for Jon to close the distance. Without an ounce of hesitation, Jon seized him by the back of the neck and turned him round so they were eye to eye, pinning him against the wall. The stake was a breath above the vampire’s chest, ready to plunge.

“Pathetic,” the vampire gritted through sharpened teeth. He kicked Jon’s six-three frame back like he weighed nothing. He slammed into the adjacent wall, knocking a few faded letters from the New Releases sign, along with a shower of old DVD cases.

“Jon!” I half-expected a blaze of pain to shoot through my body to match Jon’s, though our Ancient bond had been severed for months. I lunged to assist him, inadvertently putting myself within the vampire’s reach.

The monster seized me from the air with his stars-forsaken speed. His blindingly tight grip didn’t allow me to draw enough air to scream. If he’d held me any longer, my bones would have caved, but he was still in a frenzy to escape. The world spun as he pitched me away from him, perhaps hoping to break my neck on the central counter.

My wings cramped and my vision was spotty, unable to distinguish up from down. I tried to orient my flight, but I couldn’t slow myself—

A shadow engulfed me, and my descent stopped short as I found myself safely in Cliff’s hands. He staggered to his feet, breathing heavily.

“Are you okay?” he demanded.

I coughed, blinking away my double vision. “Can I puke now?”

“Not on me , that’s for damn sure. ”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Jon scrambling to his feet and kicking aside cases. The vampire vanished into a back room and slammed the door so hard that I thought the building would collapse. That was nothing compared to the Earth-shaking impact of Jon throwing his weight against the door. Amazingly, it didn’t budge.

“ Cono ,” he growled, pacing in front of the lock.

With a grunt, I pushed myself up and ignored my aching muscles. At least my wings were in working order.

“Maybe we should go around the back,” I said, approaching Jon with cautious flight. “He could be running for an exit.”

“No time.”

Jon instructed me to move back, and when he squared himself in front of the door, I hurriedly gave him space. He delivered a powerful kick near the door handle. The metal squealed in protest. Charging forward, he dealt another blow that might have leveled a tree. The door swung inward with a deafening splinter of wood.

I put a hand over my mouth, eyes wide. Stars help me, destructiveness shouldn’t be this much of a turn-on. As the dust settled, I shook my head and filed the image away for later. Focus .

Jon charged inside—and faltered. I pulled to a sharp hover beside him and drank in the depraved sight before us. What once might’ve been a break room had been transformed into a human farm. Outdated furnishings had been pushed off to one side, apart from a waist-high shelf that boasted a bulbous TV, the sole source of light. I briefly considered the image on-screen: a movie set in what appeared to be a high school, with young humans chatting in a parking lot.

A line of shackles were crudely hammered into the back wall of the dingy room—six sets. Only one was still occupied.

“One more move and I’ll snap her neck,” the vampire said between heavy breaths .

He had the one remaining woman clutched to him like a shield, a vice-like grip around her throat. Beneath her ratty tee and jeans, her body was covered in angry, welting bite marks.

“End of the line,” Jon said, his voice steadying through shallow breaths. “I’ll make it painless for you. Much kinder than the monster who turned you in the first place and ruined your life.”

“ Ruined ? Giovanni gave me everything I wanted! Family, power, immortality. I was nothing before I met him. A fucking loser selling printers at Office Depot. But he saw through all of that. He wanted me. He chose me!”

Despite his modest appearance—sandy hair, average features, and nondescript clothing—subtle, almost imperceptible nuances in his gaze and posture confirmed the sinister aura radiating off him in waves. He looked entirely human, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

The woman whimpered as the vampire’s grip tightened on her throat. Her chained hands scrabbled at his fingers as she gasped for air. She may as well have been clawing at stone.

“Let her go,” Jon bit out, all traces of reasoning hardening into resolve.

“I’ll raise you one,” the vampire said. “Kick the stake over and fuck off. Your little pet and your boyfriend out there, too.”

As the movie played on behind me, vivid hues danced across the woman’s anguished expression. The lighthearted dialogue and music knotted my stomach.

“Some asshole paid me to take out this really great girl.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah, but I screwed up. I, um, I fell for her.”

Jon remained rooted, his face etched with steely determination, strategy whirring into place behind his eyes. This wasn’t the face of the man I’d spent hours intertwined within the spectral plane. This was the face of a killer.

The vampire gave a soft, throaty laugh. “You think you’re strong. Hunters always do. I’ve seen a few of you, waltzing around like you’re God’s gift to the world. But humanity is such a fragile concept.”

His unassuming features split into a smile that verged on crazed—and I watched in horrified disgust as it morphed into something nightmarish. In near silence, rows of needle-like teeth pushed through his gums, locking into place with a soft, grotesque click . My skin screamed for me to run, to fight . My body was coiled for action, but I looked urgently to Jon for my cue.

“Do whatever he says,” the woman rasped. “Please—go! Get out, he’ll kill you all. Please !”

I swallowed hard. She wasn’t begging for her life—she was trying to save Jon. A stranger. I might have surged forward to save her myself if Jon and Cliff hadn’t coached better self-control.

“Always a sweetheart, our Veronica,” the vampire sneered. Never taking his eyes off of Jon, he intimately brushed his cheek against Veronica’s. His teeth grazed his bottom lip like he wanted to add another bite to her collection. “Her blood’s on your hands if you don’t get the fuck out. I’ll take good care of her. Cross my heart.”

Jon didn’t flinch. “No. You’re handing her over.”

“I’m not sure you understand how hostage situations work.”

To my shock, Jon lowered the stake. “I understand better than you think. How about a trade?” He gestured to me and raised his eyebrows at the vampire.

“Yeah, right,” the vampire scoffed, but there was a hint of intrigue in his eyes at the unexpected offer. “She seems pretty loyal.”

“You ever seen one? She’s like a golden retriever. She’ll be loyal to anyone who treats her right. And trains her.” Jon raised his free arm toward me, exposing three deep gouges near his wrist. His eyes flickered to me, empty of their usual light. “Heal it. Now. ”

Either he was creating this ruse on the spot, or he had kept the idea tucked away for an emergency. Whatever the case, my mouth fell open.

Still, I wasn’t about to blow it by not playing my part.

Lowering my gaze, I chanted the healing spell and closed the angry red lines on Jon’s forearm. The process took only a moment, but judging by how quiet the vampire became, he was truly pausing to consider my usefulness. A healer wouldn’t do him or his kind much good, but Cliff’s journal said that vampires needed to be careful how much they drained from long-term victims. I could increase the longevity of their blood sources. Less missing people meant less hunters breathing down their necks.

“Good girl,” Jon said in a low voice that caressed my very soul and made my face flush. It was a wonder I didn’t melt. “Now show us how entertaining you can be with your frost. Do the one I like.”

Putting on a doe-eyed smile like I wanted nothing more than to please him, I summoned ice between my palms, directing it upward. Mist spread near the ceiling and glittered like diamonds, reflecting the light of the television. Delicate flakes fluttered down, unassuming and beautiful.

Even Veronica, in her delirium, looked enchanted by the impossibility before her eyes. Her slack-jawed expression became taut with a horrified scream when I cultivated the mist and snow into a single stab of ice through the vampire’s neck—a precise shot inches from Veronica’s face.

The vampire gagged, lurching back and releasing her.

Jon lunged across the room, jammed his oak stake through the monster’s heart, and twisted. A strangled, animalistic moan escaped those fanged lips—then, silence. As the vampire’s eyes went vacant, the aura of the coven depleted entirely, and I could breathe easier. Jon grit his teeth, shoving the vampire’s limp body into the corner, where limbs settled at unnatural angles .

A confusing beat of pride rushed through me as I considered our handiwork—twin spikes of oak and ice protruding from our kill.

As Jon hurriedly picked Veronica’s wrist cuffs, he squinted over his shoulder at me. “Your face is red. Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine.” Now wasn’t the appropriate time to share how uniquely flustering this encounter in the break room had been.

Veronica stared at me, rubbing her freed wrists. “I’ve gone crazy,” she whispered. Her gaze trailed to the vampire’s body, then to Jon, eyes brimming with tears. “I’ve gone crazy, right?”

Jon set a hand on her shoulder to steady her on her feet, gentle near the bite marks as he steadied her. “Not even close. You're almost out of this. You're going to be okay, I promise.”

Eyes welling with desperate tears, Veronica leaned hard against him for support and shuddered. Murmuring that she would be home soon, Jon led her to the door, and I followed, leaving behind the corpse and the drone of the television.

The instant we passed the threshold, it occurred to me that we hadn’t heard even a word from Cliff. Stopping short beside Jon, I realized why .

Back in the main room, Cliff was pinned by his throat against the wall, unable to make a sound.