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

A
s I followed
River riding atop Jeriad, away from the Black Heights and out of the boundary, I had a bad feeling about River accompanying the dragons. I wished that she could have stayed behind and let the dragons go by themselves. Then, when Amaya caught Jeriad’s eyes with a curse, my fears came to fruition. Through the chaos and commotion, nobody noticed River slip from the dragon’s back and crash into the waves.

I was afraid that she’d fallen too close to the jagged rocks, that she might have been injured by the force of her fall—half-bloods weren’t as sturdy as vampires. I didn’t know exactly how much they could endure. But then she emerged beneath a sky of fire.

“River!” I yelled.

Bolting through the smoke, flames, and even a couple of hunters as they aimed their bullets at the dragons, I leapt off the rocks. I glided over the surface of the ocean and reached River. As the waves rolled over her, she opened her mouth to shout, but the thick cloud of smoke stifled her. Disorientated, she was carried backward by the tide, which, to my horror, started swelling closer and closer to the hunters’ speedboat.

She was strong. I didn’t understand why she didn’t kick her legs furiously and distance herself from it, but then I realized that she couldn’t see the speedboat. I could see in this smog, but the dragons’ offense was blinding her, and by the time she realized where she was headed, it was too late. She brushed up against the side of the speedboat and one of the men noticed her. His arms shot down and grabbed her by the shoulders. Before she could even react, he’d yanked her up over the edge of the boat.

“No!” I roared, my voice sounding on par with the dragons’ bellows as it echoed in my head.

I leapt onto the boat after her. Six hunters were now bent over her, grabbing her limbs as she kicked and thrashed. Then one pulled out a gun and jammed it against her temple, forcing her into submission. I feared that they were going to treat her the same as my parents—that the hunter was seconds away from pulling the trigger—but instead, they fastened metal restraints around her wrists and arms. Then they dragged her through an open hatch. I sped through to find that it led down to a small, lower deck.

She struggled against her restraints, but they must have been strong. For all her supernatural strength, she couldn’t break through them.

As they carried her to a wide bench in one corner, a man yelled from above deck, “Let’s go! Let’s go!” The engine roared, and the speedboat lurched.

The men backed away from River, though four remained watching her, guns still ready in their hands. A pain lanced my chest as River begged, “Please, let me go.” She was soaked to the bone, and it killed me to see how much she was shivering.

I glared around at the hunters, trying to see if I could recognize any of them. Most had removed their shades, but I couldn’t. None of these men bore burns, so I guessed that they had remained on the boat. Despite just witnessing an attack of gigantic, fire-breathing dragons, all looked quite calm, as though they saw this kind of thing every day.

What do they want with River?

Back near The Oasis, after we had first escaped and ventured out into the desert—a desert that was closely guarded by hunters—I remembered how she had almost died from one of the bullets. They’d chosen to attack without even hearing her out, so I expected them to behave in the same way here. Plunge a bullet into her chest or skull. But they didn’t.

The speed the boat was traveling at unnerved me. When it began to slow, I left River temporarily to poke my head out through the hatch. We had arrived near the huge naval ships. I expected us to head right for one of them, where they’d likely carry River aboard, but instead they stopped two dozen feet away from it.

“Doug, are you ready with the sub?” A man near the bow—the same tall, wiry man who’d addressed my parents on the rocks—spoke into an earpiece.

A few moments later, a submarine surfaced in front of us. It poked out from beneath the waves and a hatch lifted open.

The tall man nodded to another hunter, who descended to the lower deck and instructed the men watching over River to carry her up. They grabbed her and hoisted her over their heads as they transferred her from the speedboat to the submarine. Even bound and with all four men, each of them about twice her size, manhandling her, she still managed to make it difficult for them. But not difficult enough. She was shoved down through the submarine’s hatch, and as I followed, four more men were waiting for her. They picked her up and carried her along a narrow corridor.

“Let me go! Please!” River’s voice cut me again.

It’s my fault she’s here.

They ignored her completely. They reached the end of the corridor and stopped outside a cabin. One of the men reached for a chain of keys from his back pocket and opened the door, one-handed. They moved her into the room—a small, bare room whose walls were made of some kind of grey metal, with a bed, a trashcan, and a tiny bathroom. They planted her down on the bed and then exited.

The submarine shuddered and jolted downward. We were submerging. Away from the naval ships. Away from The Shade.

Where are they taking her?

I gazed down at River. They hadn’t even bothered to untie her. She just lay there uncomfortably on the mattress. “Let me go!” she yelled, her voice hoarse and cracked. “Please!”

I knelt on the floor so that my face was level with hers as she squirmed on the bed. I reached out and traced her face with my hand, wishing more than I ever had before that she could feel my touch. That I could offer her even the slightest reassurance.

If I’d still been a vampire, I would have flung her over my shoulder, torn down the door and ripped through as many hunters’ throats as I needed to get River out of here—or died trying.

But here I knelt, unable to even reach out and touch my girl, let alone fight for her.

I stared down at my pale, translucent hands.

That vial of potion may have given me life… But what kind of life is this?

I
was still stuck
in the box.

I didn’t know how much time had passed since Ben had gotten pulled out, but I had long passed the brink of desperation. I was too exhausted to shed more tears. After the vampire left, I’d spent every moment crushed with the worry of what had happened to him and what was happening to my family back in The Oasis.

To make matters worse, the ship had been motionless for what felt like days. I could only assume that Julie and her crew had abandoned it, left it drifting somewhere in the ocean. I’d begun to believe that I would never get out. I just sat curled up in a corner, trying to numb my mind. It was the least painful state of existence that I could find for myself.

Then one day—or perhaps it was during the night; I had no way of knowing—the ship jolted to a start. I scrambled upright, my eyes wide, ears perked. The vessel hadn’t been abandoned after all and the thought brought me a sliver of hope in the gloom.

Minutes passed, and the ship only seemed to be gaining speed.

I was jerked against the side of the box by something heavy crashing against it. My head banged painfully against the wall. It sounded like a weight had fallen upon the lid of the box. I stared upward at the inside of the lid, my eyes wide with anticipation, barely daring to breathe. Then I heard a sound that made my heart skip a beat.

The clinking of a key. The scraping of metal against a lock. A click.

I must have been dreaming. Even as the lid began to lift open, my brain still hadn’t accepted that this was actually happening. The box was opening.
Oh, gods of all things good.

I gathered myself together, preparing to spring out when a heavy, damp, furry body was flung inside the box and crashed on top of me. I hadn’t yet transformed myself into my subtle state, and the weight toppled me and crushed me beneath it. I quickly dissolved my body, allowing me to slide out from underneath it with ease.

Rising up, I found myself staring down at a dead werewolf. It had been gouged in the throat. The fur around its neck was drenched in blood, and there were deep wounds in the flesh around its throat. My eyes darted upward, toward the opening of the box, and I zoomed out…

I’m free. I’m free!

The euphoria surging through my spirit temporarily drove any wondering from my mind about who had opened the box and dropped that corpse inside.

I had emerged in a small room, some kind of storage room. Clearly at the base of the ship. My eyes lowered to the floor. Drops of blood trailed from the box to the door. It must’ve been caused by dragging that werewolf in here…
Who was that?

I glanced at a set of keys lying on the floor, unceremoniously discarded as soon as the box was opened and the wolf dumped inside.

I moved to the exit and floated out into a dim corridor. I was surprised by the state of the place. Julie’s ship looked an absolute wreck. More bloodstains coated the dusty floors, there were shreds of what looked like old curtains and carpets scattered about and the walls looked like they’d been clawed by wild animals. It was like a ghoul had been let loose to rip through the ship.

Noises came from the deck above. I left the deserted corridor and moved up the stairs. Pushing open the trap door and emerging out in the open—into a dark, cloudy night—I almost swallowed my tongue.

Surrounding me was a scene of utter horror. Piled on the long deck were row upon row of… vampires? They all lay on their backs, tossing and turning and writhing in agony. Each had puncture marks in their necks, their heads resting in pools of their own blood.

Floorboards creaked behind me. I whirled around to find myself face to face with… I didn’t even know what they were. They looked like creatures who belonged in a nightmare. They stood, rawboned and naked, with stark-white papery skin and bald skulls. Their faces were gaunt, with slightly receded noses and small black dots for eyes. There must have been at least sixty of them.

I was still on Julie’s ship, wasn’t I?

What the hell happened here?

My heart pounded as one of them jolted toward me, its reedy arms outstretched. Long black claws extended from its fingers and it bared fangs… fangs that reminded me of a vampire’s, except longer, sharper, more protruding. I shot upward to dodge the creature’s advance and hovered near the sails as I gazed down at the horrific scene.

I glanced out toward the ocean to spot in the distance an island. It looked like The Tavern. The vessel was speeding away—The Tavern must have been where the ship had stopped— and following us were three other ships. A loud explosion blasted from one of them, and a giant canon ball hurtled toward the bow of Julie’s ship. It narrowly missed, but was soon followed by half a dozen more explosions. Heavy metal ball after ball came thundering toward the ship— most grazing it, while a couple even penetrated the vessel’s body.

But what are these creatures who have overtaken Julie’s ship? And what’s happening to those vampires writhing on the ground?
It looked like they were… turning. But they were already vampires. Weren’t they?

Whatever these creatures were, it appeared that they’d done something to anger the people of the Tavern. Julie’s sharks however, seemed to be far stronger and faster than any of the ships chasing after us. The ship endured another shower of cannon balls, but then the sharks managed to create more distance between us and the attackers and they could no longer reach us. Then it seemed that the aggressors slowed and gave up altogether.

As my eyes drifted over the rows of squirming vampires, my blood ran cold. One of them appeared to be thrashing about in particular pain. He looked different than the others, too—his skin much whiter and his body emaciated. He reached a hand up into his mop of thick brown hair and, closing his fist around it, began to tug violently. A clump pulled away in his hand. He dropped it to the floor and then slid both hands against his skull to draw out two more clumps. By the fifth pull, the hair seemed to be coming out much more easily—he barely even needed to tug. Just running his fingers against his scalp seemed to cause masses to shed… until he had not even a single strand left.

Rolling over on his stomach, he gathered himself together and stood up shakily to his full height. His gaunt face contorted, he teetered on his feet and began tearing the clothes from his body as though they were on fire. Then his eyes set forward and fixed on the frightful creatures standing in a pack on the other side of the deck.

The one who’d motioned to attack me loped forward and grabbed the hand of the sickly vampire, pulling him over to join the rest of its wraithlike comrades. It was as the vampire stood next to the creature, and I gazed at their faces side by side—growing more eerily alike by the moment—that the chilling realization crashed down upon me like a bucket of ice shards.

I couldn’t believe the sight, and yet I knew that I was not hallucinating.

Taking place before my very eyes was a phenomenon that I was certain had never occurred before in all of supernatural history.

God forbid… Could this really be happening?

D
earest Shaddict
,

Here are two exciting new releases for you to mark in your calendar!

Get your next dose of Nell and Theon in
A Shade of Dragon 2
… releasing
January 6th 2016
.

The penultimate book in the trilogy!

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Here’s a preview of the awesome cover (you may need to turn to the next page for it to be visible): 

Ben and River's story continues in
A Shade of Vampire 22: A Fork of Paths
!

A Fork of Paths
releases
January 22nd 2016
.

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And here’s a preview of the lovely cover (again, you may need to turn to the next page for it to be visible):

Thank you for reading and I’ll meet you again soon, back in The Shade…

Love,

Bella xxx

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