Blood Hunter (The Grandor Descendant Series) (51 page)

“You’re his father?” she said, looking at the wraith with a mixture of confusion, hatred and surprise.

He nodded and leant down on one knee, placing two long pale fingers against Chris’s neck.

“He’s… dead?” he said, and every line on his face seemed to magnify. “But we can bring him back!”

“What you did to Cambridge was cruel,” Sandra said, from where she still sat across the room.

“Larissa had been dead for a long time. The spirit leaches away; in the newly dead they can arise as if nothing happened… but in her case, she was only a shadow, no more,” the wraith replied.

Suddenly Ari was hopeful.

“Help him,” she said, looking up with a feverish desperation.

“I cannot,” he said sadly.

“But you just said… and you’re… you’re his father,” Ari screamed back, as a new wave of tears escaped her.

“To bring back someone from the dead is a great gift and one that the universe only grants once. I have the power to grant others the gift but I have already used my blood to save his mother during child birth. I cannot offer it up for another, though I would if I could,” he said.

“Use me then,” said Ari, and when Ragon looked down at her, his eyes were dark and mistrusting. “Use my blood.”

“No, use me,” said Ragon, rolling up his sleeve, a determined look on his face. “Ari, you have already lost so much blood.”

“It will not work with you,” said the wraith, staring at Ragon curiously.

The wraith was deep in concentration; he had begun pulling strange vials from his cloak, which hung in mid-air as if transparent strings kept them afloat. The contents of the many vials began to mix and Ari stared at the spectacle, still too shocked at the night’s events to make comment on the magic she was witnessing.

“Why?” Ragon asked. “Ari has already lost too much… surely someone else-”

“-it’s not just blood that is required to bring back the dead,” the wraith replied, finally allowing the contents to fall into a vial he was holding. “The magic requires one essential ingredient, one which you do not possess.”

“What?” Ragon roared.

“Love,” the wraith replied simply, handing the small glass container to Ari.

Quickly Ari took it; she had already seen Cambridge bring back Larissa, and so she knew exactly what to do. Before Ragon could stop her, she swallowed the contents. The instance the liquid touched her lips, it felt as if her whole body was floating, disjointed from itself, so that it almost felt as if she were floating in the ocean, drifting out to sea. Quickly the euphoria changed and it felt as if the liquid had formed a thick ball in her throat, threatening to constrict her breathing as it expanded inside her oesophagus. Then her eyes bulged, but just when she thought she would choke, the inability to breathe past. She watched as the wraith handed her a knife, but before she could grasp it, Ragon had taken it.

“Please,” Ari begged, fighting against the haste with which the liquid was already beginning to leave her system. “Chris died trying to save us… trying to save me.”

Ragon looked down at Ari then lent down, resting his knees on the ground so that he was crouching next to her. He was scanning the two puncture marks that Patrick had left already on her wrist. Ari didn’t beg anymore but held her left arm out for him. Still Ragon did not move.  

“You think of blood as being this wonderful thing. I don’t know why? It’s just blood,” said Ari. “Maybe it’s because you are a vampire; maybe because you see it as stealing. But it’s not stealing when the person offers it willingly.” 

“Blood isn’t never-ending Ari,” Ragon whispered. “You’re studying vet; you know what happens if you lose too much.” 

“Ragon, there is a chance that I could die. There was a chance that I could have died saving Ryder or you, but I didn’t. And Chris will die if I don’t help him. What I said to you in Latvia, I meant it. You do the things you have to for the people you love.”

The silence that followed felt endless, but finally Ragon took her hand in his and expertly bit into her arm. Ari screamed out in pain, but not before she placed her bleeding hand over Chris, letting her blood cover his body.

She didn’t dare look up at Ragon, too afraid of what she might find. She knew what it would have cost him to let her be part of the wraith’s spell. He had been unwilling to take her blood to save himself when they had been in Latvia; the fact that she was giving it up for Chris and he was helping her, must have been heartbreaking. She just hoped he understood the difference between loving someone, and being in love with someone. She loved Chris, the same way she love Clyde and the rest of the coven, but she was in love with Ragon, that sort of love she felt only for him.

Like a sponge, Chris’s body had begun to absorb her blood, just as Ari felt a familiar faintness wash over her. Beneath her Chris stirred, and she stared down at him hopefully as she watched his lips twitch, while his eyes struggled to open. She had done it; she had saved him.

“Shadows,” Chris croaked, “have to control the shadows.”

“That’s enough,” said Ragon, and Ari heard him speak as if it were an echo in her mind.

At first Chris’s ramblings had worried Ari. Was Chris going to be like Larissa, only a shadow of his former self? This thought had barely resonated with her when she felt everything begin to fade. She was no longer looking at Chris but had slumped into Ragon’s arms. The moment Ragon felt her dead weight, he had clutched desperately at her wrist, hurrying to stop the bleeding. He tried to lift her into his arms so as to pull her away from Chris, but the wraith’s hand rested on his shoulders, pressing hard so as to keep him in place.

“It’s not finished yet,” said the wraith, but Ragon glared back at him, throwing the offending hand away and pulling Ari with him.

“If she loses any more blood she will die,” hissed Ragon.

Ragon carried Ari over to where Sandra and the others sat, just as Lea stood also, pushing her hand against the wraith’s chest as he made to follow.

“I think you should leave now,” she said, her mouth firm as she forced each word out.

The wraith did not respond but looked down at Chris. In the background a loud sob escaped from Sandra and the wraith spun around to face her. She was bent down near Cambridge, her small hands tracing his face, forcing his eyes to close. Slowly the wraith nodded and then moved over to Cambridge.

“Don’t you touch him,” Sandra cried, seeing the wraiths shadow cover Cambridge’s body. “You have already done enough.”

For a moment the light blue eyes of the wraith hardened, but then he knelt down and whispered something that sounded light and musical under his breath. Reaching out he touched a long thin finger to Cambridge’s forehead.

All eyes were staring down at him afraid, until Thomas said in a loud voice, “What are you doing?”

Still the wraith did not reply but continued to whisper. From where Lea was sitting next to Chris she looked up. Her eyes narrowed in disbelief when she saw the blue dusty fingerprints that had been left behind on Cambridge’s forehead. The wraith had just pressed his hand to Cambridge’s sternum, when Thomas made to reach down for him, a menacing looking on his face.

“Wait,” Lea called out, and Thomas unclenched his fist, stopping to stare at Lea. “He’s performing the last rights on Cambridge.”

Seeing the calmed look on Thomas’s face, the wraith reached back down for Cambridge and finally touched either side of his shoulder. As soon as the last blue print had been left, all four began to glow and as their brightness intensified, a radiating light connected each blue dot, so that a cross formed over Cambridge’s corpse. There was a light brush of wind across Cambridge’s face, causing his hair to blow mindlessly and then without warning, his body turned to ash, joining Larissa’s on the floor of the library.

“Goodbye Cambridge,” said Sandra, letting out a small shudder as Cambridge’s hand turned to dust in hers.

Chapter 29- Time Heals Some Wounds

One by one, everyone left the library. They had entered it in order to save Sandra and keep Thomas from falling victim to the blood hunter; they had left victorious but not without greats costs. Larissa and Cambridge were gone, this time to a place where no one could bring them back- the Wraith had seen to that by burning their bodies and performing the last rights. Thomas and Ragon had taken Jack’s body and buried him deep in the Three Prong Trek, while the rest of the coven went to feed. Ari, Chris and Lea had all retuned to Omega halls, and after a fairly intense healing spell performed by Lea, Ari was starting to feel better.

The three of them sat in Ari’s room, looking out the window or else catching each other’s eye and sharing awkward glances or smiles. It was difficult to know what to say after sharing such a life altering moment together. True, the adrenaline from earlier had long since worn off, but there was still the lingering feeling that they had all very nearly met death today and in Chris’s case, he had. Finally the silence in the room was ended by a vibrating noise. All three looked at their phones; Ari had hoped that it might be Ragon messaging her, telling her that he and the rest of the coven were ok, but she was disappointed when Lea suddenly jumped to her feet.

“I have to go,” she said, racing for the door.

“How can you possibly move that fast after everything that has happened today?” asked Chris, his eyes watering just from watching her.

“That was my circle,” she said. “They want to meet with me.”

Without any further explanation, Lea swept from Ari’s room.

Ari watched Lea leave with a mixture of confusion and suspicion. She knew that Lea’s circle had shunned her so why were they so desperate to speak with her now? Perhaps they knew something about the incident with the blood hunter? Ari was just about to mention this when Chris spoke.

“So, how you feeling?”

“How am I feeling?” she said, snorting without meaning to. “Chris you were brought back from the dead today.”

Lea’s healing spell, which had worked so well on Ari, was utterly useless on Chris. Lea had tried valiantly to perform the same magic that should make him feel better, but it had not taken. Lea, who had not seemed surprised by this, said that Chris wasn’t hurt; his spirit had been leeched and it would just take time for him to feel right again.

“Yea,” said Chris, “thanks to you.”

“And your dad.”

“Father of the year,” Chris muttered under his breath.

“He did save you.”

“Yea,” said Chris, “using your blood. Stingy bastard couldn’t even spare of drop for his own son.”

Ari frowned; she was thinking about what Chris’s father had said when he had told her that he could bring Chris back to life. He had said that he couldn’t use his own blood; that the gift of using your blood to resurrect someone could only be given once. Did that mean that Chris didn’t know that his father had saved his mother?

“Chris,” Ari said slowly, “um… your father would have used his own blood to bring you back but-”

“-yea, yea, I know. But he is too much of a miserable coward to waste any of his precious wraith blood on a half cast.”

“No,” said Ari, and Chris looked at her in confusion. “I mean… your dad said that a person could only share their blood once, in order to bring someone back they love.”

Ari had not meant for it to come out like that. The instant that she had said the word
love
, Chris’s eyes shot up at her, making her feel extremely uncomfortable.

“That’s true,” said Chris. “You can only do it once, but with the help of a wraith, every person is capable of bringing back a loved one from the grave. It’s one of the reasons why wraiths are so powerful. There isn’t anything that someone wouldn’t do in order to bring back lost love. But wraiths don’t care what they bring back; often the soul is too far leached by death that they are not even a shadow of their former self. That’s why… that’s why Larissa was like the way she was. But what has that got to do with my dad?”

“Your dad told me he had already used his blood to save your mother.”

“What?” Chris said, standing up as he glared at Ari in total disbelief.

“He said he had used it to save her during child birth.”

Chris looked shocked. His eyes were bulged and he stared at Ari unblinking, as if waiting for her to say ‘April fools.’

“I never knew that,” he finally said.

For a while the pair sat in silence. Ari wasn’t sure how much time had passed and she was starting to worry about Lea and the rest of the coven. Before she could voice any of this however, Chris spoke, driving all previous thoughts from her mind.  

“Ari,” he said, “when I was… dead, something strange happened.”

Ari blinked in confusion, too afraid to say what she thought. A dread had crept up on her; was Chris going to turn out like Larissa?  But his father had said the time leeched away the sprit, and Chris had only been dead for a few minutes.

“I heard a voice; it was a woman’s and… and she was warning me,” Chris said flatly.

“Warning you about what?”

“I don’t know exactly; I can’t really remember. But she said that the shadows were coming,” said Chris.

“When you came back, I mean when your dad brought you back… you said something about having to control the shadows. I thought that you might have been dead for too long and-”

“-and you thought that I would be like Larissa?” he supplied quickly.

Sheepishly Ari nodded, but then quickly added, “But you’re not.”

“I know, but, I can’t stop thinking about it. It was as if someone was trying to warn me, or teach me something. Ever since then, I have this feeling that something bad is coming. I know it sounds stupid… but it’s like the voice was trying to tell me that I could do something to stop… whatever it is.”

“Chris,” Ari said, trying her best to sound confident. “You just died and came back to life. I don’t know what’s on the other side, or if there even is one, but I’m sure that everything you are feeling is because of what you have just been through. You need to rest.”

Again there was a vibrating noise and Ari glanced down at her phone; there was a message from Ragon:

‘Can you meet me and the rest of the coven in the Three Prong Trek? Make sure you bring Lea and Chris. I love you’

“Scratch that,” said Ari, forwarding the message Ragon had sent her to Lea. “We can rest later. We need to meet Ragon in the Three Prong Trek.

“Oh goodie,” said Chris, smiling sarcastically as he followed Ari out of her room.

Ari and Chris had run into Lea on their way past Delta halls. She was looking tired; her eyes were heavy and there were frown lines near the corner of her mouth. When the three finally reached the entrance of the Three Prong Trek, it started raining. They hurried into the forest, whose thick canopy acted as a perfect umbrella.

Ari was pleased to see that Ragon and the rest of the coven were looking revitalized; the wounds from their battle with the blood hunter had healed and they were looking as gorgeous and immortal as always. Ari knew this amplified healing had occurred because they had fed, and tried had not to think about the humans the coven had attacked in order to rejuvenate. It seemed Lea had noticed this too; she was staring at the vampires, her eyes darting from their faces and back down to the ground, as if wrestling with her thoughts.

“You look recharged,” said Ari, her eyes tracing Ragon’s pale flesh, where a few pink scars were already beginning to heal and turn into a pale white. 

Before Ragon could respond, Lea stepped forwards. She was looking uncomfortable, staring at all the vampires as her eyes traced the meshwork of healing tissue, relic of their fight with the blood hunter.

“When vampires hunt here,” said Lea, choosing her words carefully, “do you… I mean do they kill their prey?”

Every one of the vampires stopped to stare at her. Even Ari was looking at her with her mouth open.  

“That seems a strange question,” Ragon said finally. “And it’s a strange time to ask it.”

“Yea,” said Ari, “Ragon and the coven just helped us defeat that monster. They almost died doing it; it’s not like they want to have to drink blood. It’s the only way they can survive. Does this have something to do with your circle… why they called you earlier to meet with them?”

Lea didn’t respond at first. She was watching Riley, who had moved to stand defensively in front of Clyde, her eyes narrowed. Riley was nodding vigorously at Ari, clearly in agreement of Ari’s defence of the vampires.  

“Yes,” said Lea, turning to face Ari. “My circle wanted to meet because another human has gone missing. Up until recently, like the past few months, there haven’t really been any disappearances or deaths at the Pasteur Institute. We were under the impression that the vampires here weren’t allowed to kill sources; we thought that the Vice Chancellor stopped anything like that happening. And,” she went on, taking a meaningful look at Sandra, “there has been a lot of blood candy floating around. It seems as if there isn’t anyone policing it. I assumed that the blood hunter might have had something to do with the disappearances, but he’s dead and this latest human went missing only a few hours ago. ”  

“So what?” asked Ryder, advancing on Lea. “You think we are going around and killing humans? You think we just slaughtered a heap of them after the blood hunter drained us of all out strength?”

“Well,” said Lea, colouring up, “it’s not like it is a huge stretch of the imagination. You are vampires; it is what you do.”

“And I suppose no witch has ever done anything evil before?” said Ryder, “You know… like handing Ari over to the Ancients or-”

“-that’s enough,” said Sandra, when Lea had sworn under breath. “We can’t start fighting between ourselves. There are going to be a lot of enquires about what has happened to the last two Vice Chancellors; we need to stick together. And the witches are obviously uneasy, that means that they will be on the guard too. I don’t know anything about these missing humans but Lea has a point; there is a lot of blood candy around and there isn’t anyone really doing anything about it. I should know; I kept thinking that someone would find out I was using and punish me, but no one seemed to care. Not Bridget or Gwen and they were one under the Vice Chancellor. And then there are the waeres. Riley’s pack may have left but if any vampire or wraith finds out that they aren’t extinct…” Sandra’s voice trailed off as she stared at every face in the clearing. “The point is, we need to be united if we want to get through all of this. No more snide remarks… we have to trust each other.”

Lea took a step back from Ryder and nodded. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean that… well, what I meant is-”

“-its fine,” said Ryder, “I know what you meant.”

“In answer to your question,” said Ragon, moving towards Lea, “it’s forbidden to kill sources here; it’s not punishable by the Final Death Laws but it’s not allowed. There are too many vampires and the Ancients want us to remain in the shadows. If there were disappearances it would draw attention to us. The Pasteur Institution was not created to provide a substitute lunch room. If there are humans going missing and it is vampires behind it, then they would have a lot of explaining to do, not just to the witches but also to the Elders.”

“But,” Ari added, noticing the hole in Ragon’s argument, “there isn’t an Elder here anymore. Victoria is dead and now Jack is too.”

At the mention of Victoria, Thomas’s eyes grew watery and Sandra squeezed his hand for support.

“But we’re the only ones who know there isn’t an Elder here right now,” said Clyde.

“And the wraith,” added Ragon, chancing a glance at Chris.

“You think he has already told the Ancients?” asked Thomas.

“But he’s Chris’s father,” interrupted Riley.

“Oh, don’t let that fool you,” said Chris. “We may be related but he is no dad.”

“But,” said Lea, “if it were just as simple as vampires wanting more blood, or perhaps a fledgling that had lost control, then why would the humans be disappearing? Wouldn’t it make more sense for there to be a heap of bodies?”