Page 37

F or the first time since this nightmare began, I wanted to break and cry – to be so close to escaping and discovered in our attempt; it was too much. The door swung open outwards, heavy in the wind. I squinted, shading my eyes with my free hand – it wasn’t émilie standing there, but her more attractive counterpart. I’d never thought I’d be so pleased to see Izzie Misery.

“Isabel!” My voice cracked on her name as my vision adjusted to the dim light, tension draining from my shoulders at the sight of her. Water dripped steadily from the heavy cloak she wore, forming a dark puddle at her feet. The fabric clung to her frame as she moved, her face a stark white oval beneath the hood’s shadow, dark sunglasses hiding her eyes. “It’s daylight—?”

“I am acutely aware of that, Erin.” Her tone was clipped, as she came into the shade of the shelter, pulling the door closed behind her.

“What a pleasant rescue party you make,” Adam snipped.

“We don’t have time for this.” Despite myself, my voice was strained even to my own ears. I didn’t want to show weakness in front of Isabel, but she was the one doing the rescuing here. “Where’s Nicholas?”

“Blessedly unconscious in the vehicle, I should think. We need to move fast – for the time being, the storm is heavy enough that there is suitable cloud cover, but I can’t rely on it lasting if I want to move freely, and I will admit I am less than happy about it.” Isabel rushed her words, and in the dim light, I could see her assessing first me and then the room. “The tang of blood is strong in here, Erin. How badly are you hurt?”

“What do you mean, unconscious?” I asked, worried. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her, but…

“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” She pulled off her gloves, and Adam stood, moving aside so Isabel could kneel by me, his white blonde head bowed down under the low ceiling.

“Is he alright?” I pushed. I had to know.

“He is fine. Old as he may be, he’s not as adept at sunwalking as I, that’s all. He doesn’t know I am here. Which is partly why we need to make haste – he would be displeased if he found out I had gone behind his back.” She levelled her gaze at me over the lenses of her glasses. “Let me see your stomach, Erin.”

My muscles tensed involuntarily as her cold fingers brushed my skin. I kept my eyes fixed on the ceiling, counting the metal ridges while she peeled back what remained of my blood-stiffened vest.

Isabel made an uncharacteristically vulgar sound of distaste in the back of her throat. “One would only make incisions such as these to inflict pain.” Her icy fingers probed around the hot, inflamed flesh, soothing it somewhat. “Did she drink from you?”

I was still thinking of Nicholas, and had trouble bringing my mind back to the topic at hand.

“No, she just let me bleed. She wasn’t interested,” I paused, my eyelids heavy. “Can you do anything about it? If we could bind it up or something, it might be easier to move.”

Her fingers hesitated, and she shared a look with Adam.

“Isabel…” Adam said warningly.

“It would always be Erin’s choice.”

“Nick would be furious.”

“Nick is not here.”

“What?” I asked, looking between them.

“My blood might heal you a little, enough to get you moving on your own more easily. But I’m sure you remember the potential risks of having it in your system. Can you recall what we talked about before?” Her voice was gentle.

“It might work like a virus,” I nodded, touching the faint puncture marks at my throat that had already faded to almost nothing. After my last night with Nicholas, Isabel’s blood wasn’t likely to be the problem. And we still had to get out of here.

“Do it.”

It wasn’t like watching vampires on the television, watching Isabel. Without hesitation, she put her thumb to her sharp canine and bit down, a large bead of blood welling up from the tiny cut she made. She didn’t ask further permission before she smeared it across my mouth, and without thinking I licked the sparse, metallic liquid from my lips. No more than that.

“Will it be enough?” Adam asked .

“It will have to be,” Isabel responded, pulling her hood more tightly around her head. “We must go now, before the clouds part.”

There was a coolness in my throat where I’d swallowed her blood, and I could almost visualise the flesh knitting together across my stomach. The sensation rippled through me like ice melting into fire, fading quickly but leaving my skin itchy and hot. The worst of the pain subsided to a dull throb in seconds, enough that I could move without screaming. At first, with Adam supporting me, but after a few steps, I stumbled alone – though he kept his arm outstretched in case I fell. I had to admit, a drop from Isabel was a hell of a lot more effective than Tom’s butterfly stitches and a couple of aspirin.

Isabel remained in the shelter until we had climbed the few steps to ground level. The farmhouse was a hundred metres or so away, the two barns behind it nearer still. I recognised where we were as soon as we were in the daylight, but it was an impossible distance to get to the road beyond at the speed I was going. Thunder rumbled, loud and ominous overhead.

“Where’s Tom?” I asked, glancing back at Isabel.

She frowned but shook her head under her hood. “With Nick.” Her tone brooked no further questions.

Slowly, we made our way across the yard and to the largest of the barns. Isabel flitted ahead to the cover of the huge wooden doorframe. The wind and rain still hammered down, but I couldn’t bring myself to be annoyed by it – it was refreshing after being confined for so long.

The clouds broke for a moment as I reached Isabel, pausing to catch my breath. She backed deeper into the shade of the barn to avoid the sunlight that broke through and momentarily brightened the hills of the Peaks, disappearing into the shadows.

The sun was lower in the sky than I’d expected – it must have been the middle of the afternoon at least, which didn’t seem right at all. Adam squinted into the gloom where Isabel hid, his hand shading his eyes.

“Perhaps it would be faster for you to carry her to the car?” he asked, stepping into the protection of the doorway and shaking out his wet hair. The sun went in as quickly as it had appeared, followed immediately by a flash of lightning that lit up the interior of the barn, thunder rolling seconds later.

Isabel didn’t reply, and I glanced at Adam before taking a tentative step into the shadows. The building, long disused, still smelled of mouldering hay and rotting wood. Light filtered through gaps in the roof above, creating pools of gold across the dirt floor. The cavernous space stretched up two stories, ancient hay lofts and rotting beams crisscrossing the shadowy upper level. In the far corner, a small table with trays of withered violets sat beneath dark grow lights – their purple blooms frost-edged and half-dead.

Adam threw out an arm to stop me from going any further, seeing something I hadn’t. Too late, my mouth filled with the taste of copper.

A blurred shape swung down from above, missing me, but hitting Adam squarely in the hip and sending him flying backwards into the rain. I called out, ready to go after him, but had to duck and dodge the returning swing. It was an enormous beam of splintered wood, a fraying rope supporting it precariously from the upper storey. Searing pain coursed through my middle as I fell back and scrambled out of the way, though the skin didn’t break, thanks to Isabel’s blood.

Curled on the ground as the beam continued to swing with abandon, my eyes adjusted enough to spot my vampire ally at the back of the barn. She appeared to be resisting the urge to struggle under émilie, who had her mutilated arm wrapped tightly about her. Both of Isabel’s arms were pinned to her sides, her movement restricted by the cloak that had been intended to protect her. I froze as my gaze fell upon a familiar flannel shirt a few feet away.

Tom lay face down in the hay, dust settled undisturbed on his shoulders. His right arm was twisted beneath him at an angle that made me blanch. I waited for the rise and fall of his breathing, for any sign of life, but his chest was still.

No no no no no!

Panic and adrenaline exploded through me all at once, burning through my veins as I dragged myself upright, never taking my eyes from émilie. My friend, my one remaining lifeline to normalcy… I couldn’t think about it. Not now.

I still held the scalpel from her toolbox in my right hand, its weight a promise – but her silence was worrying. Despite the initial flood of copper in my mouth, I could barely sense émilie or Alistair – if he was even nearby. Glancing back, Adam lay motionless in the long grass. I was on my own.

“Alistair?” I called out, trying to steady my voice. “Why don’t you come out here and show yourself? ”

“Erin—” Isabel warned.

Before I could blink, something was thrown from the upper storey of the barn. Alistair landed, catlike, beside the crumpled form, hauling Nicholas up by the throat and onto his knees.

My heart stopped. Blood matted his dark waves from a deep gash at his hairline, splattered across his beautiful features. But his eyes – those gold-flecked emerald eyes I loved – found mine with fierce intensity. For a split second, I saw him again as he’d been in the lodge, that first night – his gentle touch and crooked half-smile.

“Erin…” he managed through gritted teeth. “Run.”

My face slackened at the sight of him. Alistair sneered, pulling Nicholas up by the collar of his shirt, so that he knelt awkwardly beside him, his hands bound with rope.

“I don’t think she will, Nick.” He waited. “Like I once did, I think she will stay with you. Won’t you, ma petite chasseuse ?”

“Get away from him.” My voice was emotionless as I tried to stay on my feet. I refused to let the bastard see how weak I was. He couldn’t know the true extent of the damage émilie had caused.

“Do not worry, Erin. His death is for you, not I. Tu ne te rappelles pas de notre petite conversation ?” He smiled cruelly. “Perhaps you might learn that loyalty to this particular vampire will bring you nothing but pain. Trust me, I would know.”

I stepped forward and winced, stopping short. “How many times do I have to say it? I won’t hurt him for you. I’m a hunter , not a murderer. ”

More laughter came from under the rafters and I watched, unable to move as Isabel struggled to break free. At first, I couldn’t understand why she didn’t just overpower the younger vamp, but as émilie sank her teeth into Isabel’s throat, I remembered again why they were so strong.

Isabel fell limp as émilie drank, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Loosening her hold enough to drag a long thin blade jaggedly across my friend’s throat, she tossed her aside into the sunlit patch in the centre of the barn.

I bounded across the short distance, heedless of my injuries, to drag her out of the light. A slippery trail marked the ground as what was left of her blood poured forth from her throat, marking a clear line in the dirt between us.

Her skin was hot under my hands, which couldn’t be good. Resting her as gently as I could manage against the wall of the barn, I turned back to Alistair but was stopped before I could speak. Something sharp poked into the small of my back – émilie’s knife.

“Would it be murder to kill a vampire, Erin? Please enlighten me. How is he any less selfish and manipulative than before you knew the truth?” Her voice was a loud whisper in my ear, as she pulled my hair away almost delicately with the half-healed stump of her arm.

I flinched away, but she forced me forward, pressing a small golden dagger into my hand as she did so. My fingers curled around it instinctively, but there was no way I could use it against her – and she knew it – not with her knife still sharp in my spine .

“Look at him, the sole survivor of your rescue team – that is, assuming Wyatt cops it,” she giggled. “Do you think this man – who you claim to love – do you think he tried to save Tommy when I took him? Or do you think he tried to save himself, as he always does?”

I pulled away from her physically and mentally, her breath cold at my throat. Nicholas wouldn’t have let Tom get hurt. He knew how much he meant to me.

“You know what he did, Erin. You see what he is when you look at me, I know you do. You understand.” An undercurrent of anger ran beneath Alistair’s words. He jerked Nicholas’s head back, exposing his throat. “End him now, by your own hand, or watch as I make him suffer every torment he left me to endure.

“He deserves to die for what he has done, and for the countless others he has destroyed or abandoned. How many of his kind have you killed? I see no reason ce monstre should be an exception.”

I said nothing as émilie’s knife broke the skin on my back, urging me forward. I could feel Nicholas watching me. He would let me do it, I realised. If I chose to kill him, he wouldn’t fight back. The tension around his eyes softened infinitesimally – a subtle surrender that said he understood, whatever happened next.

Alistair kicked Nicholas to my feet, by the edge of the circle of light. I fell to my knees before him, the knife still in one hand, the scalpel hidden in the other. No longer noticing the other pains in my body, I could only find concern for the man before me – because a man was what he was. Not just a vampire .

“No.” The word came out stronger than I felt.

“Then you condemn him to far worse,” Alistair spat, splashing Nicholas with clear liquid from a small bottle in his hand that made him flinch and roar. The air filled with the sharp, acrid smell of chlorine, and the sizzle of burning flesh. “His pain will be legendary, ma petite chasseuse . And you shall watch every moment, knowing you could have granted him a merciful death.”

“This thing, ce monstre – he left me to die , Erin. Did he tell you how we went to fight together, or did he tell you the truth – that I did not want to go? Ma mère , she was ill. He knew that when he insisted I accompany him. It was not my war. I did not care for the freedom of the humans.”

Alistair paced, walking the perimeter around them as he spoke, punctuating each word with precise dashes of acid so that Nicholas growled and jerked away.

My hand trembled on the blade. I could end his suffering now. But as I met Nicholas’s eyes again, I saw past his agony to the fierceness that had drawn me to him. The man who’d searched centuries for me. Who’d fought his way back from darkness and looked at me now with love, even as he burned. He would die for me, here and now, if I asked it.

I let émilie’s blade clatter to the ground. “I won’t do it.”

Triumph flashed in Nicholas’s eyes even as Alistair’s face tightened with controlled fury. He sank to a crouch beside Nicholas, forcing the knife I’d dropped to his throat, his movements stiff and obviously painful.

“Then you do not understand the lies he has told.” A single drop of blood fell from the knife as he wrenched Nicholas’s head back further.

“He knew I was too young, you know. That I would not survive if they took us. There would be no way to feed and no way out, and so he made me a promise. We would leave together or die together. That was the deal, and I would see ma mère again. But he abandoned me.”

He paused, his scarred face contorting with the memory. “He fled while he still could, thinking me dead. But I would not die, you see? No matter what they did to me.” His voice dropped, venomous. “That is how they learned what I was. The torture that would kill a man… I lived through it all. And then – mon Dieu – then they truly began their work.”

Nicholas strained against his bonds as Alistair’s words poured forth like poison. “They took my blood, making more of us. More subjects for their experiments.” He emptied a fine trail of liquid down Nicholas’s chest, watching it eat through his shirt with detached interest as Nicholas twitched and snarled. My heart ached to see it –the proud warrior destroyed by his greatest shame.

“Can you imagine what it is like to drown in acid, Erin? To choke on your own lungs until you beg to die?” He turned the bottle in his hand, examining it. “When we were liberated… the hunger was…” He shook his head, disgust clear. “The only ones left breathing were those they had made from my blood. I did not think about what I did until after. Only that I must survive.”

“And see what surviving has made me, n’est-ce pas ?” He gestured at his ravaged form. “This ruined body functions only on vampire blood. Your precious Nicholas thought me dead and ran, though he could have killed them all. And ma mère… ” His scarred fingers curled into fists, knuckles white against his ravaged skin. “After all she did for him… she died alone. I did not make it back to see her before she left this world.” His scarred face broke with fresh pain. “He left me to become something even our kind considers monstrueux .” He stood stiffly and pointed at Nicholas as he poured more of the liquid onto his chest. Nicholas gritted his teeth against it. A muscle jumped in his jaw.

I heard his words. I heard the list of crimes. But all I could do was focus on the face before me.

Nicholas’s nostrils flared each time the liquid touched him, but he had stopped resisting, his back straight as he stared at the ground and took his punishment. There was no fight in him now – only acceptance, each burn penance for his sins. I reached out to touch him, drawing his eyes to mine. I tried to tell him I’d never hurt him, that I loved him, though I couldn’t speak.

émilie had retreated when I’d fallen to my knees, but her blade returned now, digging a little further into my back. Her hand and arm were exposed to the sun without apparent consequence, her skin merely pinker than usual. The sharp pierce of pain as her knife sunk into my flesh made me yelp, drawing Nicholas’s gaze back to me.

I flicked my eyes in the direction of the ropes binding Nicholas as he winced away from another splash of acid, grasping at his hands with my own and hoping he understood. Taking care to hide it from émilie’s view, I handed over the scalpel I still held. His pupils flared and he shook his head, the movement almost imperceptible. Alistair was still talking at us. I nodded, ignoring Nicholas’s alarm.

“… have been searching for you ever since, you see. There would be no satisfaction to my revenge if I were to take from him only his pitiful attempt at réparation . I knew I must wait; must rip away that which he loved.” I almost heard him smirk. “I could make this torment last for days, or you could accept the truth – that it must be you that takes his life. The ultimate betrayal, as he betrayed me.”

Alistair’s words filtered into my head, but I struggled to understand the meaning, concentrating instead on Nicholas, whose fingers curled around the scalpel, keeping it hidden between his palms as he worked at the ropes. I waited for some small lifting of the pressure from émilie’s knife at my back, ready to move.

Without warning, Nicholas sprang upward into a predator’s stance, his wrists and ankles unbound. The surprise move caused émilie to pull away, and forgetting my pain, I spun to face her, my fist winding her in the stomach as the blow hit home. She flew back, sprawled on the dusty ground, a snarl ripping through her chest as she let go of the blade and jumped up, already running at me.

I grabbed the blade she’d dropped, but not fast enough. With her remaining hand, she caught me by the throat and lifted me from my feet. I dangled several inches in the air, trying to ignore my desperate need for oxygen and focus my attention – both of my hands were free, and she had no real way to restrain me .

My fingers knotted in her dark hair, yanking her head sideways to expose her throat. My blade cut deep – through skin, through sinew, through muscle. Blood gushed as I twisted the knife, hoping to drain the stolen strength from her veins. Her grip on my throat spasmed and released.

She staggered back, clawing at the wound with her remaining hand, dark blood seeping between her fingers. I didn’t wait for her to recover. My fist connected with her face, the crunch of her cheekbone beneath my knuckles sending a wave of satisfaction and fire through me as she reeled backwards.

Across the barn, Nicholas had rushed Alistair and was pinning him by the throat to the doorframe. The rain pouring in from outside was soaking them both, washing away some of the grime on Alistair’s face so the full extent of the damage to his skin was visible for the first time. Straining to lift his arm high enough, he emptied the remaining contents of the bottle he still held over Nicholas’s head, who pulled away with a howl as his skin bubbled and his hair smoked.

The resemblance between them was jarring as he fell back. Unwilling to let him get away, Nicholas’s face was stiff with fury as he dived back at him. His knuckles whitened as his long fingers encircled Alistair’s throat, and with no effort at all, he lifted the other vampire into the air, shaking him brutally. His neck whipped back and forth, his arms useless and slack at his sides. All at once, he fell limp. Nicholas released his grip, catching him by the upper arms and smashing him into the wall of the barn. I looked away, desperate to finish this before the taboo vampire regained his strength .

Turning my back on émilie – who was still trying to staunch the blood from her wound on the floor – I sprinted the length of the barn, pausing under the rafters. I fumbled in the shadows for the beam that had hit Adam, which hung, now stationary, from its unravelling rope. Adjusting my plan as I went, the beam’s enormous weight was almost more than I could move. I had to work fast, while Alistair and émilie were still distracted.

My hands trembled as I gripped the splintered wood, my muscles screaming in protest. The weight of the beam was almost unbearable, but no other genius plan sprang to mind. Bracing my feet against the churned earth, I threw my shoulder into it, letting its immense weight swing it back toward the entrance.

I held my breath, calculating trajectory and force and praying my aim was true even as my body threatened to give out. The rafters groaned ominously overhead, the old rope fibres stretching and snapping one by one.

The momentum caught, transforming the unwieldy length of wood into a deadly pendulum. As it swung forward, the world narrowed to the arc of its path – to Alistair’s scarred face as understanding dawned too late.

“Nicholas!” I shouted hoarsely at him, and he leapt out of the way in time for the cracked wood to smash into Alistair.

The force of the blow hit with the sound of splintering wood meeting bone. His ribcage caved inward with a crunch that seemed to echo in my head. Blood sprayed in an arc as bones splintered, spattering the walls and floor of the barn with dark crimson. His body convulsed, shards of the beam pinning him like an insect to the barn wall, each desperate gasp forcing fresh waves of red to bubble from his lips.

My heart was in my throat as his eyes found me. For a moment, all I could see was Nicholas in his face – such similar features corrupted in agony. But where Nicholas’s eyes held warmth and life, Alistair’s were flat and black, his humanity long since burned away. His jaw worked silently, forming words that would never come, cold eyes locked on mine as the life behind them dimmed and he fell still.

émilie’s scream started low in her throat, building to a sound that was half-sob, half-howl. She rocked forward on her knees, her remaining hand clawing at the dirt, her face distorted into something barely human. One moment she was crumpled on the ground, the next she was airborne – a blur of motion too fast to track. Nicholas lunged for her, but even his preternatural speed wasn’t enough.

Time stretched as her remaining hand shot toward my chest. I saw everything with crystalline clarity: the savage triumph in her eyes, Nicholas’s face contorting in horror, the precise moment her palm connected with my sternum. The crack of breaking ribs reverberated through the barn like gunshots.

The impact launched me backwards, my body arcing through space as the world spun lazily around me. For one surreal moment the rafters above filled my vision, beautiful as sunlight streamed through the hole in the roof. Each of my heartbeats pulsed loudly in my ears before a snap shook through my bones, my spine forced to bend beyond its limits.

I landed, broken in the dirt, the lower half of my body already losing sensation. Numbly, I touched the sticky pool of Isabel’s blood beneath me, but was unable to summon any concern. Blessed inky blackness overtook me as time sped back up, and the barn seemed to darken. The last sound that reached me was Nicholas’s anguished cry.