Secrets Of Sanctuary Hospital Nightmare Of The Dark Shadows (11 page)

Running through the trees, I hear Emma
yelling to Reginald.

“Yes, I still feel his essence; we can follow
him this way. Let’s go!”

Knowing that Reginald is tracing Damian, I
focus on he and Emma. The continuous channeling has made me slower
so I concentrate on their voices hoping they will continue yelling,
instead of calling for them to wait, they need to reach the
children as quickly as possible.

Lucas runs across me. Grabbing my hand, I
shake it off. “No, you need to go and get Andrew, Nicholas and
Kayla have been bitten by the werewolf and Jacob and Nicole are
trying to cure them, but they can all be lost if they do something
wrong! You need to find Andrew and get him to them, please. I’m
fine.”

“Mia, it’s dangerous for you to be out here
alone, we don’t know if they have stopped hunting and there is more
than one wolf.”

“Please, I’m fine, you need to get Andrew,
everyone else is going towards the kids, but he needs to be with
them now.” I grab Lucas’ arms. “If they don’t do this right, I
could lose them all, go!”

Giving me one last look, he pulls out his
telephone and speeds off. Forging through the underbrush, I pray
the others have reached the children and that Lucas leads Andrew to
them quickly.

I hear familiar voices ahead. Quickening my
pace, I am stopped dead in my tracks as two blood, thirty vampires
emerge from the nearby trees.

Backing up, I struggle to gather the energy
around me to repel them. Flicking my hands forward, I’m shocked
that in my weakened state, they are thrust back. Knowing that each
time I flick my wrists, I feel weaker, I focus on sending them back
as far as I can as Reginald’s voice cuts through the trees. Taking
a step forward, I am about to yell out to him but something grabs
me from behind, dragging me backwards quickly. It covers my mouth
so I cannot scream. Struggling to get my hands free in hopes of
repelling the two vampires running toward me, their eyes turn
fiercer and I know I’m in trouble. In another moment, I’ll be too
far away for anyone to hear me. Thrusting my head into my capture,
it stumbles and I scream for help, unsure whether anyone hears me.
As we fall toward the ground, I cast the repellant spell hoping for
time to get my shield around me.

This time, only one of the vampires, the
woman is repelled. Continuing forward, the man flicks his hand and
I’m careening across the grass, my body slamming into a tree is the
only thing that stops me. Pain radiates from my head throughout my
entire being as the world becomes a long blackening tunnel.

As darkness surrounds me like rolling fog
surrounding the shore, the male’s voice pierces my waning
consciousness. “She is covered in his stench. This must be his
wife. You have lost the children, do you think that you can do
something right with her or must I do everything myself?”

The woman’s urethral voice drifts through the
mist clouding my every thought. “I can do this, walk me through it
and I guarantee you that I will fool them all, get to the children
we lost here, and whatever ones he has at home, I will get to his
family and then ensure as he lay dying that he knows it is our
family that brought about the demise of his for the plague that he
unleashed upon us. I will not fail you.”

“You had better not. If you do, I will kill
you myself and I promise you it will be slow and special.” The
menace in his voice makes it perfectly clear that he is not only
the leader, but the fiercest and most dangerous of the group. I
smell the pool of my blood forming from the gash in my head and
feel the sticky substance dripping down my ear and cheek. Someone
grabs me by the shoulders, lifting them off the ground. Suddenly,
sharp teeth pierce my clavicle, pushing me through the fog and I
scream.

The man’s voice bellows to the woman. “Bite
her now, she is a delectable untouched morsel and you will have her
scent and then I can transform you to look like her. Do not fail me
Marlena.”

“You know I have never failed you.”

Excruciating pain rips through me as her
teeth sink deep into my neck. I can feel my life force draining
with each passing moment that her lips are upon me. Despite the
immortality spell, Andrew’s warning so many years ago rings in my
ears warning me that if my head and heart are injured beyond
repair, my physical body will fail and I know that this, along with
my head injury could forever stop my heart, releasing my essence
into the atmosphere. As the darkening tunnel enshrouds me once
more, at least its walls are filled with the wondrous images of my
children, Andrew and all the special moments that we were blessed
to share. As I drift, I feel the love that Andrew’s light and
gentle touch brought to my existence cocoon me. I only hope that he
is in time to ensure that the best part of me, our children, goes
on. As my heart beats slow and my conscious takes it final dip
before descending into the darkened abyss, I send out one fleeting
hope that he and the children will always feel my life force
surrounding them, then my world becomes silent and black.

Unsure of how long I have floated in my
darkened abyss excruciating pain awakens me and I slowly become
aware that it is not death holding me and moving me forward. I can
feel my eyes fluttering, but I cannot see past the blackness which
veils my vision. I am aware of the cool, damp atmosphere
surrounding me. The pain in my head has not ceased, but my thoughts
become clearer as I realize the impact with the tree blinded me. I
can’t help but wonder if this will be permanent. As my thoughts
return to my surroundings, I become aware of heat emanating from
something furry wrapped around my arms and grasping my legs. My
heart races as I realize I am in the arms of the werewolf!
Struggling to fall free of its grasp, the pain in my head explodes,
my heart races and my neck begins throbbing. I can feel my hot,
sticky blood oozing from the gash in my head and from the bite on
my neck.

“Please stop struggling, you’ve lost too much
blood already and will only make it that much harder for us to help
you.” A calm, quiet, male voice whispers close to my ear, his tone
lacks the menace and ferocity of my previous captures.

Fighting to speak, my voice is barely a
whisper. “Who are you?”

“Please don’t speak until we can take care of
the bite, you will use up too much energy and you need as much as
you can gather to try and heal. My name is Grant.”

I struggle again. “Why are you...”

“Please stop struggling and talking, from the
look of the puddle that surrounded you and the bites on your neck,
you have already lost too much blood and we have a long way to
travel. I mean you no harm and we meant your children no harm. It
was a terrible situation. Tyler and Cary thought they were with the
others trying to hurt me.”

“How ...”

“Please just think your questions and I will
be happy to answer them, but please, every time you speak, the
muscles in your neck contract and you spurt out more blood. Please
stop or we won’t be able to save you.”

Concentrating on slowing down my heart rate,
I feel the escaping blood from my neck and head slow to a trickle
and begin to think my questions. “Please tell me, do you know if my
children made it, did their father find them?”

“I was with you children when the others
found them. I believe someone brought your husband to them moments
later, but your son, Jacob, had already done a fine job in curing
Nicholas and dispelling the wolf venom from himself. Your daughter,
however, she saved Kayla, but your husband had to work on her, she
was not able to dispel the venom fast enough and some of it touched
her system.”

Panic rips through me as I consider that
Nicole may be dying. Before I even form the question, Grant is at
my ear. “Please relax, your husband was working on her and I could
hear him tell the others that she was going to be fine, she only
needed to relax and so do you. The more anxious you get, the more
your heart pumps and more blood escapes.”

“Are you sure he said she would be fine?
Please I need to know the truth.”

“I have no reason to lie to you. I know what
I heard him say, he even told one of the witches that their spell
was unnecessary and that he was confident that she was healing.
Before I left, they were moving her and the other children to the
cars so that they could find you.”

“Why did you take me then? Why didn’t you
just take me to my family or let them know where I was?”

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t do that, Marlena had
already become you and was moving toward your family with the
others. I heard them giving the coordinates to the rest of their
family and knew that they were closing in on them. I couldn’t risk
taking you to them. Your children were recovering, you are hurt,
some of your party was hurt and in my condition, I would have lost
the rest of my pack and my family. David and his family are too
plentiful and strong. I’m sure that in the confusion and
hesitation, your family would have been severely impaired as well.
I only hope that they stuck to the plan of letting Marlena join
them to learn if you had other children. They wanted to ensure they
took all of you out. Otherwise, I hope your family was fast enough
to avoid the entourage that was heading their way.”

As fear grips my heart, I concentrate on
shutting down my emotions. I don’t want to bleed to death before I
can reach them or channel again and know that they are alright.

Without realizing, I become conscious of his
fur again and an unbidden question comes to mind. “Are you the wolf
that I heard with the children?”

“Yes, I’m the one the others were trying to
capture using your children as bate, but I was never going to
attack them. I could tell that they were the ones being held in the
dungeon. I got a glimpse of them when I was outside the window and
caught their scent. I was going after the ones who were with them,
but then the situation got out of my control, I was shot and my
pack saw that I was going to be attacked again and they began
attacking everyone that was close to me in the confusion. I am very
sorry that your children got hurt.”

“How did you know that they were my
children?”

“At first, all I could tell was that they
were related to you because of the similar scent that I got around
you and them, but then when I lifted you, I could hear you fleeting
thoughts about how much you loved them and hoped they would be safe
in with their father. Only a mother would think of her children
that way as she thought she was dying.”

I remember what I had heard him say outside
of the dungeon window. “I’m sorry about your family, did any of
them survive?”

His voice turns extremely sad and quiet.
“Yes, my eldest son and two daughters survived, but my other four
children and my wife perished. We should have never gotten
ourselves caught like that, our job was to monitor, observe and
calculate the best way to attack this family. It is all my fault, I
should have never put them in such a position. They thought they
could control their transformation and they were doing very well, I
should have seen that they were not yet ready and that extreme
emotions and fear would impair their ability. If only...” His voice
breaks as sobs rip from his chest.

“I am so sorry that you lost your family.
Maybe you should put me down if you need to search for your other
children to make sure that they escaped.”

“They are traveling with us.”

Concentrating on the sounds around me, I can
barely hear his footsteps.

My concentration is interrupted by Grant’s
soft voice. “You must be a very powerful witch to repel David. No
one has ever been able to make him budge and I have never seen
witches who could change into animals before, yet I saw your son go
from a mouse to human. I was shocked when this little mouse next to
me all of a sudden transformed into a young man trying to goad me
to go after him. His transformation caught us all off guard and
made my pack nervous and reckless. You have to understand, we just
lost some of our family, I was shot and only I knew that your
children were being held and were not a part of David’s group.”

“I just hope that they got out of here. Thank
you for staying and letting me know that their father reached them,
but I have to ask, why did you stay, if it was dangerous?”

“I couldn’t just leave them there. We had
already lost too many young ones because of this family. I could
hear your friends moving through the trees and something inside of
me, probably the father in me, needed to know that someone had
reached them, that we had not caused their death.”

“Thank you.”

“How badly are you hurt? Put me down, I can
walk.”

“You can’t walk, trust me, you would not have
enough energy after losing that much blood and I am already
healed.”

I could feel his hot breath upon my ear now.
“I have to stop talking now. I can hear them.”

From his anxious whisper, I know he is not
talking about hearing my family, he hears them. “Maybe you should
just leave me, I know that I’m slowing you down and they are
probably trailing you because they smell my blood.”

Without another word, he grasps me tighter to
his chest as he picks up our pace. Several angry snarls are now
surrounding us as quickening, heavy footsteps approach us from
behind. One of the wolves howls in pain. The others growl fiercely.
A thud and the quick crunching of bones makes me jump as Grant
picks up the pace. Unable to see, I can’t even help by throwing a
repellant spell because all I would probably accomplish is hitting
one of the wolves. Trying to force myself to shut down in hopes of
slowing the escaping blood, I also try to use the healing spell. I
can’t help but wonder if they will still be able to trace even the
slightest trickle, considering how old and powerful they must
be.