Blood Cruel (Gods of Blood and Shadow Book 1) (17 page)

Pressed the button made the screen light up. Finding Katie’s number, he dialled.

She answered at once. “Jaden?”

“Katie, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “Loki healed me. What about you? Where are you?”

“I’m okay too. I’m in one of the old warehouses in the shipyards. Caterina put chains around my ankles so I can’t run.”

“Stay there. I’ll come after dawn to get you.”

“Bring bolt cutters,” he said. “Caterina will be waiting too. She’s feeding so she won’t need to sleep.”

Jaden didn’t see Caterina enter until she snatched the phone from his hand. She pressed the screen, putting it on speaker, and smiled at Jaden.

“Don’t worry,” Katie said. “I’ll be there to rescue you before you know it.”

“Caterina’s listening!” Jaden called.

Caterina angled the phone so he could see the mute button was active. Katie couldn’t hear his warning. He got to his feet, ready to fight Caterina for the phone, but she pushed him back easily.

“Are you there?” Katie asked. “I can’t hear you.”

After a moment, the phone went silent. Caterina snapped it in two and threw it into the corner of the room.

Chapter 27

Escape

K
atie stood in the shadow of a small shed, watching the warehouse. Nothing had moved in the ten minutes she’d been standing there. At first, she’d told herself she was just being cautious, but it was beginning to feel more cowardly than careful. The long coat she wore was warm, the floor hockey bag on her shoulder heavy.

The warehouse itself appeared abandoned. If Loki hadn’t assured her Caterina was in there, she might have passed it by. She wouldn’t have been able to find it without Rans’ help.

“Don’t be scared,” Loki said, appearing beside her.

“Don’t be scared of the blood-sucking monster in the warehouse that almost killed me?”

“The armour will work. So will your weapons. Trust them… and trust yourself.”

She sighed. She thought he’d say anything to get her to go in there and become the vampire hunter he wanted her to be. But Jaden wouldn’t get rescued without her. She dropped her bag and slipped off her long coat. The coat caught on the wooden symbols she’d glued to the snowsuit underneath. Making sure not to tear any of them free, she threw the coat aside. Then she unzipped her bag and took out her Macuahuitl and a set of bolt cutters.

Feeling like she was on the way to a convention, she walked toward the warehouse. She kept her eyes on the windows, looking for any sign of life, but no one appeared.

“Can you sense where she is?” she asked.

“It’s not as specific as that,” Loki said. “There are two vampires in there. Maybe somewhere near the top of the building?”

Katie paused at the door, putting her hand on the handle. Surprisingly, it opened. Inside, the warehouse was quiet. Other than a few pieces of abandoned equipment, she couldn’t see anything.

A door opened on her left and she jumped, holding her macuahuitl ready. An old woman poked her head out and searched the warehouse. “Is anyone there?”

Katie realised the woman was blind. “Hello. I’m Katie.”

“Hello,” the woman said. “I’m Rubi. Caterina said you’d be coming. She’s upstairs waiting for you.”

Katie looked over to the nearby stairs and swallowed hard. There was no element of surprise. Caterina was waiting for her at the top of those stairs, with her unbelievable strength and speed.

Katie walked to the stairs on shaky legs and put her foot on the first one. She glanced back and saw Rubi still standing there, smiling, oblivious to what was about to happen.

Knowing she couldn’t hesitate or her courage would leave her entirely, Katie walked up the stairs. The steps wound up, ever higher, toward a hole in the ceiling where death was waiting for her. She kept going, forcing one foot in front of the other until she was within ten steps of the top. Then she paused.

“Jaden?” she called.

“Up here.” His voice reached her from somewhere above. “Be careful, Caterina is here somewhere too.”

Katie muttered a curse to herself and walked up the final steps, emerging into the floor above. The windows appeared to have been blacked out, barely any light coming through them from the day outside. The lights were off, which she guessed was by design. Vampires didn’t need light to hunt.

She climbed up the last step and walked onto the floor proper. “Where are you?”

“Over here!” Jaden called.

She could see a vague shadow at the far end of the floor, where someone was sitting in a chair. After a glance around her, she moved for the person.

She didn’t even see Caterina until the vampire was on her. Caterina reached for Katie and then reeled away screaming when she touched a Loki symbol on Katie’s suit. Katie swiped with her macuahuitl, but the vampire was already retreating into the darkness.

She hurried to the shadowy figure before Caterina could regroup. Jaden was taped to the chair, his legs still chained. She put the bolt cutters against the chain and strained, putting all of her might into it. She needed both hands, so put the macuahuitl down and tried again. The metal still wouldn’t give.

“Untie me,” Jaden said. “I’ll do it.”

She nodded, dropping the bolt cutters and picking up her macuahuitl. She used the sharp edge of the weapon to cut through the tape holding Jaden. Once his hands were free, he grabbed the bolt cutters and put them against the chain, snapping it.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said.

She looked around the floor for any sign of Caterina, but it was too dark to see. She knew Caterina wouldn’t let them leave.

Jaden led the way back to the stairs, both of them jogging. They only had to get out into the sunshine and they’d be safe.

She didn’t see the ship’s rotor come flying out of the darkness. It caught her in the middle and sent her crashing against the wall. The rusted metal wall wasn’t meant to take punishment like that and broke outward. Katie was barely aware of falling through the air, watching the ground rushing up to meet her. She was out in the sunshine, didn’t that mean she was safe?

Everything went black. She wasn’t sure how long had passed, but the next thing she felt was pain. Someone was pulling at her, ripping at her arms. She tried to open her eyes, but they weren’t working. Neither was her hand when she tried to raise it.

Then the bright light faded. For a moment, she thought she was passing out again, but she was just in a shadow.

“Back off,” Loki said. “Let me work.”

The hands pulling at her vanished and she lay, feeling the waves of pain receding. One by one, each part of her body stopped sending its signals of distress. Tentatively, she ran her hands over herself and realised she was all right. She sat up and opened her eyes, seeing Jaden looking worried nearby. Behind him, Loki was bent over, red-faced and gasping. He vanished from view.

“You’re okay?” Jaden asked. “Loki healed you?”

She nodded. Then she saw Jaden was holding his hands carefully. “You’re hurt.”

“It’s nothing,” he said, showing her his palms with imprints of Loki symbols on them. “But I can’t take this sunshine much longer.”

She realised Jaden was turning redder by the moment. He already appeared to have a bad case of sunburn. “Put the coat on and let’s go back to my house. We need to get you inside.”

As they gathered up their things, she took a glance back at the warehouse. Through the ragged hole in the wall, Caterina was watching them from a shadow. As soon as darkness fell, Katie knew she’d come for them.

Chapter 28

Prepare

J
aden bit his lip, trying to keep from grunting with pain. The sun blistered him in seconds every time the coat slipped. It felt like a lancing beam of fire where it fell. He glanced up and saw the door ahead, Aidan holding it open for them.

Katie helped Jaden up the steps and through the door, where he could breathe a sigh of relief. That might be the last time he ever went out in the daytime. It would only get worse as the days passed.

Aidan closed the door behind them. “What were you thinking, Katie? You put me to sleep and ran off?”

“Sorry, Dad,” Katie said. “I knew you’d want to come with me and I didn’t—”

“That’s unacceptable,” Aidan said. “I won’t have you taking my free will away from me. As long as you’re living under this roof, you have to involve me in decisions like that.”

Jaden watched Aidan berate Katie, feeling his ire grow. She’d been trying her best against overwhelming odds and her father couldn’t even support her. Jaden should just grab Aidan and bite into him, drain him—

He felt his teeth grow in his mouth, sharp points biting into his lip. With one hand, he covered his mouth and turned away. He did his best to ignore the argument in front of him, turning his thoughts to baseball. After a moment, his teeth receded, returning to normal.

“Never again,” Aidan said. “Okay?”

“Sure,” Katie said. “I won’t ask Loki to put you to sleep again.”

Aidan turned to Jaden with a sigh. “And you? Don’t think I didn’t notice that just now. How long can you control yourself?”

“We have a week and a half,” Katie said.

Jaden shook his head. “That can’t be right. I already can barely go out in daylight. I have fangs. I keep thinking of eating people.”

Katie stared at him for a moment, her eyes wide. “Do you think your father could have lied about your birthday?”

He thought about that for a moment. It wouldn’t have taken much. Young children don’t keep track of the exact dates of their birthdays. His father could have fudged the date to buy himself a couple of weeks down the line.

“Maybe,” he said. “It seems to be happening too quickly if there’s a week and a half left.”

Katie turned to the air on her right and nodded. “Probably.”

“Probably what?” Jaden asked. “Who are you talking to?”

“Loki… You can’t see him?”

Jaden shook his head. Loki’s words echoed through his mind. Humans couldn’t see Loki and neither could vampires. Jaden wasn’t half-dead anymore, he was all the way dead.

“Loki said he can sense you as a vampire now,” Katie said. “He said it won’t be long. Maybe a day or two.”

Jaden’s thoughts went to his father. Would he tell Jaden the truth if he asked? “I have to ring Dad after dark.”

“Sure,” Katie said. “But in the meantime, you should put some lotion on your skin.”

Chapter 29

Outed

K
atie waited until she was alone in her room before turning to Loki again. It felt weird talking to him with Aidan and Jaden present, as if she had an imaginary friend.

“What happened back at the warehouse?” she asked. “That wasn’t just broken ribs. You brought me back from the dead.”

Loki shook his head. “Not dead. Another minute or two and you would have been too far gone to save. You were bleeding internally in a dozen places. Your spine was broken, your pelvis shattered, your arm was little more than a bag of bone fragments.”

“Lovely. So you can heal anything?”

“Anything that stays attached. If your arm goes flying across the room, it’ll be gone for good. And brain damage is tricky. I’m not sure I could manage that.”

“But I’m practically immortal, with you.”

“No,” Loki said. “I barely had enough power to keep you alive back there. You saw, I had to fade out to recover. If that happened twice in a row, I wouldn’t be able to save you.”

“At least the armour worked… for a while.”

“Yeah, but it won’t work again. Caterina already figured out she could throw things at you from a distance. Vampires are as smart as humans. The same trick won’t work twice. They’re smarter, really, since they have more experience.”

“You have even more experience than that. You should be able to think of something.”

The tap on the door was barely loud enough to register.

“Come in,” Katie said.

Jaden opened the door and looked in.

“Sit,” she said. “We’re trying to work out a plan for dealing with Caterina. There must be something we can use against her.”

“With more training, maybe,” Jaden said, pointing to the macuahuitl on her desk. “If either of us knew how to fight, we might beat her.”

“Wait,” Katie said. “Loki, can you accelerate my training?”

“I have been,” Loki said. “I’ve been increasing your stamina, helping you recover. You’ve trained longer than you might have otherwise.”

“But my brainwaves,” she said. “Can you enhance my capacity for learning?”

“What are brainwaves?” Loki asked.

“Ah,” she said, glad for a miscellaneous fact she’d gleaned from the Internet. “Beta waves help people learn. By inducing them, I should be able to learn faster.”

She got up and turned on her computer, opening a browser and finding an article about it. “See. You could change my brainwave patterns to match.”

Loki raised his eyebrow at her. “This sounds risky. You want me tinkering in the workings of your brain?”