A Vial of Life (A Shade of Vampire #21) (13 page)

Oh, God. Where are my parents?

“Stay close to the floor,” Caleb said. His grip around the back of my neck tightened and he pushed me closer against the floorboards. He crawled toward the bed and snatched up our nightclothes from the mattress. He draped my nightgown around me, slipping my arms through the sleeves, while he put on his own robe and fastened the pull string tightly around his waist.

“Try to breathe into the hem of your gown,” he said. “Or better still, try not to breathe at all.”

As a vampire, I could hold my breath for a long time. I couldn’t have been more grateful for this ability as Caleb pushed open my bedroom door and we crawled out into the corridor. The smoke was so thick that it stung my eyes and made them water.

To our right, at the far end of the hallway, was a tall window, its Venetian blinds drawn. Caleb nodded in its direction, and we scrambled toward it. He made me stay on the floor while he reached up to pull open the blinds. But then he stalled. I gazed up to see what the matter was, and, to my horror, found myself staring through the glass at a wall of flames. The apartment was being consumed by fire from within and without.

Caleb grabbed my arm and pulled me back into my bedroom. We moved to the window in here. When we drew aside the heavy curtains, this window too was being licked by flames.

“What happened?” I breathed.

I didn’t have the first clue as to what could have caused the fire. Fires were a very rare occurrence in The Shade. Even though we lived in trees, the witches had designed the penthouses to be fire-safe. I couldn’t even remember the last fire that we’d had—other than when the dragons had stormed the island, though that hardly counted.

Fire inside the apartment, I could more easily wrap my head around. Perhaps there had been a gas explosion or something. But coming from the outside as well? What on earth had caused this inferno?

A coat of sweat broke out on my cold skin, and Caleb’s forehead shimmered too.

“What do we do?” I gasped. “We’re trapped.”

If we took a left down the corridor and headed toward the exit of the apartment, we would meet with the fire within the penthouse, yet it seemed that we couldn’t escape through the windows either without meeting with the blaze. We moved from room to room until we’d checked every single one on our side of the apartment, still untouched by fire, though becoming more and more choked with smoke each moment that passed. Each of the windows in these rooms looked out at the same flames.

I had been holding my breath as much as I could, but the fright and panic made it hard to regulate my breathing.

“We’re going to have to brave the flames,” Caleb said, his jaw set in a grimace.

The fire was encroaching both inside and outside the building, and we had to be quick. We checked the windows that we had access to once again, trying to find the window with the least amount of fire outside, but all looked just as deadly as the other. If we delayed any longer, we’d only make things worse for ourselves.

“Tie up your hair tightly,” Caleb ordered as he tore the blanket from my bed. I didn’t have a hair tie, but my hair was long and I managed to wrap it up in a tight bun. Spreading out the blanket, he began wrapping it around me, cocooning me in it. He grabbed three scarves from one of my open clothes bags and wrapped them around my legs and upper chest, securing the blanket against me, so securely that I was practically suffocating. He left enough of the blanket for me to pull over my head.

I gazed at him in alarm. All he wore was his thin robe. “What about you?”

Ignoring my question, he scooped me up and flung me over his shoulder. I felt useless, unable to move because of how tightly he was holding me. I couldn’t see where he was going either with a blanket flapping in front of my face. But I sensed him hurry out of the room and back into the corridor. He moved along until he reached the window. The smoke had become so thick, I could barely see a foot in front of me.

Glass shattered, and then came a sharp spike in temperature. I held my breath and shut my eyes tight.

“Cover your head!” Caleb hissed.

“Wait,” I gasped. “What about you—”

It was too late. I only just managed to pull up the excess cover over my face and head before he leapt onto the window ledge and then took a dive off the building.

A wave of heat permeated my skin even through the thick blanket. I was terrified to think of the damage Caleb had just endured, and my chest ached for him as he let out a groan. We lurched into a freefall, Caleb’s hold tightening around me, so tight that it felt like my ribcage would snap. My gut turned in somersaults until Caleb’s feet hit solid ground with another painful jolt to my stomach.

He immediately lowered me to the ground and gripped my sides, freeing me from the flaming blanket. I staggered to my feet, away from the blanket, and gazed at Caleb in horror. Every part of his skin that was visible was raw and blistered, and his robe was flaming. I lunged for him and ripped away the burning robe, even as I tried to be careful not to touch his skin and cause him any more pain.

He now stood badly burned and completely naked in the woods. I was still in a state of shock, part of me unsure if I was just trapped in some kind of vivid nightmare. Caleb winced as he looked over the burns marring his skin.

My eyes lifted back up toward the treetops, toward my parents’ penthouse—but I couldn’t even make out the building. The blaze surrounding it was too thick. Chunks of burning debris showered down from the treetops to the forest ground.

“Where are my parents?” I asked, my voice rising to a hysterical pitch. “What if they’re still up there?”

“We need a witch.” Caleb picked up his singed night robe and rolled it on the ground, putting out the last of the fire. He pulled it back on before reaching for my shaking hand. “To the Sanctuary.” He hurtled toward the woods, dragging me along behind him. My knees were weak and shaking, but with adrenaline urging me forward, I ran like I’d never run before.

As we whipped through the trees, I began to yell for help. I hoped that a witch would hear us before we got to Corrine’s home.

I practically cried with relief when the familiar silhouettes of my father and mother came into view along the forest path. My grandfather was walking alongside them. They must have stayed out late due to the meeting and hadn’t yet returned to the apartment.
Thank God.

Their faces lit up with alarm as Caleb and I reached them. They gaped at our disheveled, burnt appearance.

“Fire!” I panted. “There’s a giant fire eating up your apartment!”

Caleb’s hold on my hand loosened. “You stay and explain,” he said as he began sprinting away. “I need to get a witch.”

I looked desperately from my mother to my father. “I’ve no idea what happened, but Caleb and I decided to spend the night in my old room and when we woke up, the place was burning. We need to hurry before it spreads to the other trees!”

My father’s face drained of all color as my mother’s breath hitched. My grandfather grabbed my hand. “We should start evacuating the surrounding treehouses,” he said.

As the four of us raced back toward the Residences, I ground my teeth the whole way, praying that Caleb would be swift. Thankfully, he was. By the time we arrived at the Residences he was already there with Corrine. He’d reached the Sanctuary and then traveled back here by magic in the time it took us to arrive.

Water shot from the witch’s palms in torrents as she hovered in the air, aiming at the blaze. Although her efforts extinguished some of the fire, it was so monstrous, even her water wasn’t enough.

She looked down at us on the ground. “I need to get help,” she bellowed.

With that, she vanished, leaving us staring up at the wreck that had been my parents’ beautiful penthouse.

Corrine seemed to have tamed the blaze enough for it to not be an immediate danger to nearby trees, but Aiden hurried toward the neighboring treehouses to evacuate them all the same.

As I gazed up at the crumbling apartment, my eyes—still stinging—glazed over. I was sure that there wouldn’t be a single thing salvageable from this wreckage. Everything my parents owned, all the furniture, all our books, all the important papers in my father’s study, would be gone. Thankfully, Eli always kept backups of the most important papers relating to running the island in a safe in his own treehouse.

Corrine returned with Ibrahim, Shayla, and four other witches. Together, they doused the fire with torrents of water. By the time the flames were finally extinguished, it felt like an age had passed. A lone tear rolled down my cheek as I gazed up at what was left of the penthouse—of my childhood home. Practically nothing had survived. It had disintegrated into ashes, and even the tree trunk beneath the building had been scorched to a crisp.

My gaze traveled to my mother, who was looking too shaken for words. My father’s face was stoic as he stepped forward, staring up at the wreckage.

“First the stolen chairs,” he murmured, his voice low and somber. He cast his eyes toward my mother. “And now… this?”

My mother bit down hard on her lower lip. My father’s expression turned from contemplation to anger.

Now that the fire was extinguished, I was desperate for one of the witches to treat Caleb. His natural healing capabilities had faded his burns somewhat, but he was still nowhere near healed. But before I could beckon one of them to come down from the tree tops to help him, an anguished howl pierced the night.

We all froze, eyes wide, and turned toward the source of the noise. It sounded like it was coming from the other side of the woods, from the direction of the mountains.

I’d never seen my grandfather look more terrified than in that moment. I wasn’t yet able to recognize werewolves on the basis of their howls, but it seemed that my grandfather had developed the ability. His eyes bulged and he gasped, “Kailyn!”

W
e jolted toward the howls
, which seemed to only be growing louder and more desperate. Aiden took the lead—he didn’t even wait for one of the witches to quicken our travel. We all followed him, except for my father, who stayed behind to beckon the witches down from the ruined penthouse, where they had been ensuring that not a single burning ember remained.

My father and the witches caught up with us. My mother grabbed hold of Aiden and slowed him down so that the witches could transport us to the mountains using their magic. We vanished and arrived a moment later in the clearing on the other side of the woods, at the foot of the Black Heights.

“Oh, my God,” I gasped. My eyes traveled up the mountainside and fell on another blaze. A fire had completely enveloped a mountain cabin. Aiden and Kailyn’s.

“No,” Aiden breathed. He bolted forward up the mountain while we hurried after him. When we arrived outside the cabin, the intensity of the fire scorched my skin once again. I caught Caleb’s hand and pulled him farther back. His skin had suffered enough already.

The blood-curdling howls of Kailyn became strangled, and then halted.

“Kailyn!” Aiden yelled. He would’ve dove straight into the inferno before the witches had managed to extinguish it were it not for my parents holding him back.

The witches hurriedly emitted more water from their palms and poured it over the cabin.

Please let her be okay. Please let her be okay,
I prayed in my mind. My grandfather couldn’t take another heartbreak.

I glared at the fire, even as its heat dried out my eyeballs. I hadn’t been able to observe the witches closely when they had put out the previous fire, because low-hanging branches had obscured many of the details of the scene. But here, out in the open, I was stunned by just how stubborn these flames were. Even as the witches flooded the cabin with torrents of water, more fire sprang up in its place. It wasn’t like I had much, or even any, experience in putting out fires—although before turning into a vampire, I’d sure had the ability to start them—but these flames just didn’t seem normal. They had wrecked my parents’ penthouse so thoroughly, and they fought so steadfastly, even against the witches’ magic.

And how did they even spark up in the first place?

I didn’t understand what my father was talking about when he mentioned that his and my mother’s chairs were missing, and I hadn’t had time to ask, but I didn’t need to be a genius to conclude that someone on this island was behind this. And as Corrine called to Ibrahim over the blaze, “There’s magic behind these fires,” my suspicions were confirmed.

Finally, they put out the fire enough for Aiden to race up the patio steps and kick open the door. We followed him in, gazing around at the devastation. Everything was scorched coal-black, and I could hardly spot a single recognizable piece of furniture. I couldn’t imagine how anyone could survive this—vampire, werewolf, or heck, even a dragon shifter in his humanoid form.

“Kailyn!” Aiden boomed as he ripped through the cabin, barging through doors and turning over crumbling furniture.

The cabin was small and, with all of us inside, it took us less than a minute to search it in its entirety. I found Kailyn first. I spotted her beneath the bed in the second bedroom. In her wolf form, she was curled up in a ball. Her beautiful glossy, honey-brown fur had turned as black as the rest of this place. And she was still. Too still.

I tried to find my voice to call out to the others, but it caught in my throat. I stood up and grabbed hold of my mother, who stood nearest to me, by the arm. I pulled her down to the floor and pointed under the bed. She cursed beneath her breath—one of the rare times I’d ever heard my mother curse—and yelled for the witches.

Everyone flooded into the room, Aiden at the lead. He lurched toward the bed and attempted to duck down and look beneath it, but I threw myself against his chest and forced him backward. I couldn’t bear for him to see Kailyn like that. I didn’t know what it would do to him.

He gripped my shoulders and tried to push me away, but I held on tight, and my mother soon hurried over to assist me in restraining him. With the witches gathering around the bed, even as they hauled the wolf out from beneath it, Aiden’s view was blocked.

“Let go of me!” he growled.

“We’re taking her to the Sanctuary,” Corrine said, even as her voice cracked.

“I need to see her!” Aiden demanded.

Corrine turned on him with anguished eyes. She swallowed hard. “Please, Aiden. Just give us some time to treat her. I promise you can see her after that.”

A
fter the witches
vanished with Kailyn, my mother and I let go of Aiden. He bolted immediately for the exit and ran out of the cabin. Of course, he would head for the Sanctuary.

Tears blurred my vision as the rest of us hurried after him. I wasn’t sure what the witches were planning to attempt, but I couldn’t imagine how they’d be able to resuscitate her.

We whipped through the woods and arrived in the courtyard outside the Sanctuary. Aiden was already at the door, banging his fists against it.

“Open up!” he demanded in a shaking voice.

My mother and I tried to offer comfort, but he shook us aside. He just stood there, yelling for the witches and glaring at the locked door.

Corrine opened the door after five minutes, by which time Aiden was on the verge of breaking the door down. He barged past her and sprinted along the corridor. We followed him. My breathing was restricted, my palms sweaty as we neared Corrine’s treatment room. Ibrahim stood outside the closed door, one hand on the handle. His face was ashen. As his eyes traveled slowly from Aiden to us, I already sensed that all hope was lost.

Swallowing hard, Ibrahim opened the door, allowing Aiden to burst inside. My grandfather froze at the foot of the treatment bed. As the rest of us piled in after him, we laid eyes on the large form of Kailyn, covered with a white sheet. Aiden staggered to the side of the bed. His hands shook as he reached for the corner of the sheet. He lifted it up slowly, and as he laid eyes on the werewolf, he stopped breathing. His body became rigid, as if a witch had just cast a spell of paralysis over him, and a deathly silence filled the room. It took some time for his shock to turn into grief, but when it did, he staggered backward, his legs hitting the edge of a chair, which he slumped down into.

I hurried over to him as he buried his head in his hands, his chest and back heaving with silent sobs. I couldn’t hold back my own tears anymore. I draped my arms around his neck and kissed his cheek, holding him tight, while my mother did the same.

“I’m so sorry, Aiden,” Corrine croaked. “I’d hoped there was a chance that we could resuscitate her, but… we were just too late.”