Hi!
Since I won't be able to post this weekend, I decided I had to post earlier. I pulled something coming close to an all-nighter and edited the next one for you. I LOVED writing this one! Let me know what you think, and, sorry for the cliffhangers.... Thank you so so much for following this series!
Lara
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Chapter 34
I got up and started pacing up and down my cell. It had to be nightfall. I had practically felt the first stirrings of the undead in the otherwise silent building. Silence. Restlessness. Boredom. All packed together in a confined room that stank of mold, dirt and awful things I didn’t even have names for. The need for action, for something else in this wasteland of isolation, had me in its grip and it wouldn’t let go.
The room they had locked me up in was small enough to feel claustrophobia scratching on my already shaken mind. The stone walls smelled of dried blood, the bed of other, less pleasant things. Yeah, there was no mistaking it. I knew what this room was: a prison. Hadn’t it been for the smell, something in the shocking practicality of the layout, the apparently sound-proof door, and the fact that the room had an inbuilt toilet, would have long made me believe that I was not the first magical creature – or human being – that had been kept prisoner here.
Sanity was hard to hold on to. I dragged my wobbly feet over the stone floor, trying to readjust my thoughts. Whatever Gina did to me, there was this certainty that she came close, very close, to breaking my mind. Had she done anymore, I would have been a case for the nuthouse.
Even at this point in time it seemed hard to think. Getting my head around all that had happened more than twelve hours ago? Still busy with that one. Searching for promising escape ploys? Forget it.
Still, there had to be a way to-
A sudden sharp pang in my head brought me down to my knees, gasping. A train of thoughts and images, wild and iridescent, tore into my mind like claws. Past mixed with present and imagination, things I had seen on TV and things I had seen in long, restless nightmares.
“No,” I moaned. “Please, not again.”
I looked up, blinking. There were shadows and things with me in the room that by rights shouldn’t even have existed. Hooded, hunched figures, moving in eerie ways – parting shadows with the grace of predators. Blood and… I gripped my head and closed my eyes. My pulse was erratic and too fast. I felt the dampness of cold sweat on the back of my neck. I gulped in air as if it was the only thing that could keep me alive. It took me minutes to calm down enough for the visions to stop. I crawled back to my bed. I had to be careful, or else my mind would break.
Minutes passed. More stillness. Boredom settled instants before a dark feeling of disorientation set in. It came before the one I hated the most. Fear. Succeeding cycles of one and the same thing. And the only questions that mattered: Would they ever end? And if they did, what would come after?
* * *
The sound was high, an unpleasant clinking that tore me out of the numbed state I was in. The door to my cell was pushed open, forcing out a creaking sound of the metal frame.
Alaric’s face was hovering above mine when I opened my eyes, my reaction too slow to do anything. Since my walls of air, and my mind-shielding were non-existent at this point in time, his vampiric power was beating against my skin without a single filter. He jerked me onto my feet and steered me out of the cell wordlessly. My feet kept refusing to work properly, limbs and muscles like stumps of pricking rubber.
My eyes had trouble accommodating to the blinding light of the upper stores. He was taking me out of the cell, and that could only mean one thing: He was bringing me to Gina. The thought was a like a slap. I remembered what she did to me. I remembered the look in her eyes, the cold-heartedness they all shared. There were things I was willing to go through, and then there were others I didn’t even dare think about. I was at the mercy of a powerful vampire once. Back then I was only a child, and I almost died that night. I wasn’t doing it again. I fisted my hand. I was weak and I was all alone. Gina might have taken something from me when she rummaged through my mind, but I still had one thing, and I’d hold on to it until the end: my will to survive.
I needed whatever strength and willpower I had left. What was more, I needed a working mind.
Remembering the maze of corridors we had come from, less where we were going after what Gina did to me, however, was out of the question. All I knew was that the high ceilinged room I had faced her in the night before appeared before us too soon.
I spotted Gina the instant we entered, a black shadow in the yellow glow of candles and artificial light. The female master vampire was clad in black from head to toe. She was wearing a long, expensive looking frock coat that was not sufficient to hide her female silhouette. The vampire turned to face me seconds after we entered.
“You have just arrived in time, Anna,” Gina said. “I will not be called a bad host. That is why I sent my second in command to fetch you. I offer you a front row seat to this night’s entertainment. Besides, I hear that a change of scenery works wonders on the fatigued mind. Maybe it will help jog your memory. I presumed it was in your and my interest.” A cold, dark smile deadened into stillness on her face. Then she cocked her head, the motion like a trigger slamming back and into place. “Don’t you think?”
“I think you presume a great deal,” I muttered, before making the mistake of letting my eyes sweep the whole room.
What was sitting in the middle of the room was a monumental mahogany dinner table, candles and roses strategically arranged in a perfected demonstration of decorative skills. I had no problem with Gina bringing out her silverware for me, not at all. The thing that disturbed me was the cowering young male right behind the head of the table. He was dressed in nothing but jeans. The instant I saw him I knew his purpose and label. Food.
“Come and sit. What are you waiting for, my dear?” Gina said nonchalantly.
I scowled at her.
Again that smile that reeked of destruction and deadness. “I see. You are still bound,” she said. “Alaric, see to that.”
Instantly I felt her second in command behind my back. The vampire loosened the ropes faster than you could say Houdini and maneuvered me to the table wordlessly. Rubbing my wrists, I sat down tentatively. I tried to avoid staring at the human, but my eyes were involuntarily drawn to him, again and again. A victim. Another one. No matter how long I looked, there was one, disturbing thought I couldn’t seem to get rid of.
There are TWO victims in this room.
Gina sat down right opposite of me, pouring herself a glass of red wine.
I was too lost in my incoherent and confused thoughts – the aftereffects of Gina’s ‘interrogation’ technique were still there – to notice who exactly placed two glasses right before me. One glass held water, while the other one was filled with red wine. The female head vampire laced her hands together, leaning her head on them to watch me with her deep brown eyes.
“Now, Anna, don’t be shy. Why don’t we drink to Alexander’s demise?”
She snaked her white fingers around the wine glass and raised it. Under normal circumstances I would have flung my glass straight into her face, but the last remains of my dignity and a sense of self-preservation limited my options somewhat. I grabbed the thing and clinked glasses with her, trying to ignore her mischievous, chilling laughter, before I took a small sip of red wine. The liquid revived my distorted system with trickling heat. It tasted good, but I needed water more. I craved it like a drug addict riding out his worst spell of withdrawal. I was almost dying of thirst.
I greedily emptied the glass of water at once. So much to the last remains of my dignity.
Dinner was served a few moments later and consisted of a somewhat bloody steak and vegetables. To me it didn’t make any sense. Why would she be feeding me if she was set on killing me anyway? Maybe it was only for show. Maybe she thought that the ante-mortem feeding would make my blood taste better. Or, maybe, she wanted to try another one of her mind-search-sessions before finishing me off – all in the hopes of retrieving more information. I was betting on the latter.
“Eat, my dear,” Gina said.
Something in the tone of her voice raised the hair of my back. I thought I knew what to make of its quality. Bloodlust. I was starving, ready to eat anything, but I couldn’t help it. I looked up from my plate and found what I’d feared I would find. Gina had grabbed the human, who had somehow moved closer to her without my noticing it, by the throat and started licking his neck.
There was a bag full of visions, memories of my past, that arose mercilessly and mixed with newer ones. The memory of Gina messing with my mind added a new thrill to my personal nightmare. Instinctively I reached for the knife that had been laid down so carefully beside my plate.
Too late I remembered that it wasn’t made of silver. Yeah, stabbing a head vamp with a golden knife was going to do it. I laid it on the table with disgust, feeling my fingers curl and clench into fists. That was when the vampire opened her mouth, too much white where the extracted fangs were, and finally bit her willing victim. There wasn’t an ounce of fighting spirit in the human. Just obedient acquiescence.
The sucking sounds made my stomach lurch. Seconds ticked by and still I watched.
I had to stop her. There was only one kind of distraction for both me and her that I could think of.
“What will you do now? Will you change your strategy? You seem confident of success,” I said.
Reluctantly the vampire raised her head from the victim’s throat and turned to me, the brown color of her eyes holding an auburn shimmer. She was more vampire than ever, and her sight chilled me to the bone. She let go of the human, who sagged on the floor limply. Her voice was thick, but could not distract me enough to not notice the smear of blood around her lips.
“I was forced into action, it is true, but do not make the mistake of believing I did not have a contingency plan, a plan B, in case my initial ploy would fail.” Gina paused for a moment, her unmoving posture giving the illusion that she was a statue. “Since your memories hinted at Alexander converting the new cooperation among the races to his own use, I had to find something that even his allies could not neglect, or oversee. The new situation called for immediate action. We cannot let them know that you have gone missing before that happens now, can we? It had to be something that was drastic and severe enough to draw the Vampire League’s attention. Something that would force them to act immediately.”
I stared at her blankly. My mind was already reeling with possible worst case scenarios, when she started to speak again, her hand playing with the male human’s hair absently.
“If one of the other races’ TF3 leaders was found dead with clear evidence of Alexander’s complicity, he would forfeit the right to bear the title head vampire. That is why the mayor of New York will have to die.”
My eyes widened, the full implications of what she said hitting me head-on. “You want to kill Frank Currol? Are you nuts? You can’t!”
“Oh, be assured of it, I can. All I had to do was hire one of the best undead bounty hunters the states have to offer. It was so easy. I did not even have to do it myself. He just needed the particulars and the right payment. I used compulsion upon a New Yorker citizen that happens to have connections to Alexander. In fact this citizen hired and paid the first half of the appointed sum to the bounty hunter, who in turn will assassinate the mayor.”
Her laughter was low and silent, scraping against more than the hearing organ. She took another sip of the wine, before her eyes fastened on to me again.
“The money is coming from the human himself, leaving a very obtrusive, large sum missing from his bank accounts. As soon as the human has done his deed and fulfilled his duty, he will forget that I ever compelled him. All that will remain will be a black hole in his memory. By tomorrow the mayor will be dead. Once the CF and police forces investigate, the pieces will be put together accordingly and everything will unfold.” She stared at the glass of wine and the moving liquid, twirling the stem in her fingertips. “Maybe I will have to help them along by giving them an anonymous tip. The murder, however, will be traced back to our common friend Alexander.”
“That’s insane! It will trigger off a nation-wide war,” I exclaimed.
Gina laughed darkly. “The Vampire League has found ways to suppress the other races more times in history than you can imagine. They will certainly find a way to make the public believe that it was any other kind of assassination but one involving the undead. And even if they don’t, as soon as I come into power in New York, there will be changes, changes that will have great repercussions for the other races anyway. I can handle a few rebellious humans. You will see, my dear Anna, I-”
The motion was sudden, too-fast-to-see. Her head jerked to the side. Gina seemed to be scanning the outside and yet, as I discovered upon closer inspection, at some point in time she must have closed her eyes. What the hell was going on?
Fleshly shutters snapped open. Movement. Within the blink of an eye she was in a standing position, the chair clattering to the floor seconds later in delayed reaction.
“He is here.”
My heartbeat accelerated. “Who?”
A fleeting sense of movement, a whiff of something. Alaric was standing beside Gina in-between two eye blinks of mine, seemingly materializing out of thin air.
“My mistress, we have a situation. Somebody has entered check point one without authorization and is apparently heading towards the mansion. Whoever it is might already be approaching the premises.”
The female vampire surprised me by letting out a silent, bitter laughter. For reasons that were beyond me, I hadn’t believed her capable of producing that kind of sound.
“Alexander. That rascal. As it is, it will be plan C after all,” she muttered. “Alaric, alert everybody and fortify the building. Try to detain him, keep him from entering as long as you can.”
As fast as he appeared Alaric vanished, the manifestation of flesh morphing into thin air. His vampiric speed tricked my eyes and tired mind. I blinked, trying to make sense of the glut of information that had been coming my way.
I felt her cold hand on my arm first. She came out of nowhere. Gina yanked me to her, holding me in a bruising grip.
“You, my dear, will stay with me, though. I need as much power as possible when facing Alexander.”
Without her elaborating further, I knew the horrible intention behind her remark. She was after my blood. I had a hunch it wasn’t going to feel the way it had with Alexander. If Gina bit me, it was going to be violent.
“No!” I screamed.
I wasn’t going through that again. Ever. I conjured up a sphere of contained air pressure, and shoved it into her. She was sent backwards a few feet, her eyes wide with disbelief, while something in my head started pounding painfully.
“How dare you!” She screeched, bracing herself.
My magic came too slow. My reflexes were the ones of a human and would never be a match to the speed of a vampire. The walls of hair crumbled before the air particles had interlaced properly. Before I knew it, her fangs had already pierced my skin, her hands gripping my head so hard that I feared that she did so with the intention of breaking my neck straight afterwards. She would kill me without blinking.
My accelerated heartbeat rose up, the familiar drum-like sound of the beating sneaking into my mind, while terror reared its ugly head inside of me. With each pull, I felt how my life force was sucked out of me. I tried to fight it, thrashing in her relentless grip. The memories of my parents’ death unfolded, tearing me down into a familiar darkness.
When she finally released me, I collapsed to the floor, my ragged breathing the only sound aside from the slowly fading drumming in my ears. She wiped her mouth, staring at me in unveiled wonder.
“Now I do understand why he made you his human servant. Your blood, it is… delicious.” She licked her lips. “So powerful. If you survive, I will make you my own. As it is-”
Gina never finished her sentence. Instead she whirled around, her eyes focused on something I could not see.
The windows exploded, sending a thousand splinters of glass through the room. I barely held up my hands and arms in time to shield myself, still fighting with the blood-loss-related faintness and nausea. Shell-shocked, I lowered my trembling hands, not believing what vision had unfolded in front of my eyes. He was here.