H.T. Night's 8-Book Vampire Box Set (14 page)

“Why? You going to claim I’m a werewolf and
kill me, too?”

Atticai’s dark eyes, reflecting the
firelight, focused on mine. “Josiah, you will turn around and
leave.”

“Are you seriously trying mind-control on
me? You’re not a Jedi knight and I’m certainly not a Storm
Trooper.”

I continued forward. Atticai, amazingly,
seemed a little confused. Did he honestly think he could
mind-control me? The depths of his delusion were unfathomable. I
cracked my neck by turning it until sounds like popcorn kernels
exploded. Atticai was going to get the beating of his life. I said,
“Did you kill Tommy, Atticai?”

He didn’t answer me.

I kept moving, stalking through the low
grass of the clearing. “Did you kill my best fucking friend, you
worthless piece of shit?”

Atticai snapped his fingers. Suddenly, those
people who were scattered throughout the Flatlands turned silently
and left, getting into their various vehicles and leaving. I
stopped in my tracks and watched them leave, one after another. All
because Atticai snapped his fingers. Seriously, what the hell? Only
Wyatt and about five others were left. The five guys walked over to
the bonfire, which now separated Atticai and myself

“Only Mani are left?” Atticai asked Wyatt.
Wyatt nodded. Atticai seemed pleased. “Josiah, what exactly are you
intending to do here all by yourself?”

I got into a fighter’s position. That should
have been answer enough for them.

“You seriously think you’re going to be able
to fight all of us? We all saw what one Carni could do to you. I’d
say you don’t have much of a chance.”

“I don’t want to fight everyone, Atticai.
Just you, you disillusioned vampire fuck.”

“A disillusioned vampire fuck is it?” Attic
repeated, laughing. “Wow, I have been called a lot of strange
things over the last three hundred years, but that is one of the
most amusing.”

“Three hundred years, my ass.”

“I’m glad you’re not a believer, Josiah,
because that just might be what saves your life.”

“Because the supposed Triat will spare
me?”

“Ah. So you know about the Triat. Your
furry-face friend, Tommy, either let you in on his secret, or
you’ve been talking to someone else. And since Yari knows better
than to do that, well, that means you must have had been talking to
Lena. Alone, no doubt.”

Atticai ran at me in a millisecond. He
open-hand punched me with more force than I had ever felt in life.
I flew backwards about ten feet.

“Did you put your grimy Tandra hands on
her?” Atticai yelled at me as I rolled on the sharp rocks. Man,
that was painful.

I got to my feet. “I haven’t touched Lena.”
Atticai stared at me like a crazed animal. I didn’t know what to
do. Atticai was the strongest human being I had ever felt strike
me. I stared at his position. I needed for him to run at me again.
If he did, I could drop my body to the left and use his momentum
against him. It was a classic move, one that would allow me to get
a good choke hold in.

Atticai came at me again. Fast—hell, perhaps
even faster than last time. But I was ready for him this time. Or,
at least, as ready as I could be. He was reckless, cocky,
confident, and I used that against him.

As he raised his fist, no doubt to deliver a
hell of a killer blow, I dropped, caught his arm and flipped him.
In a practiced motion, I rolled with him, getting my other arm
around his neck, in a perfect choke hold.

Fuck this piece of shit.

I locked in tight and hard. He kicked,
struggling, fighting, gasping. I felt something warm spill over my
forearm. Blood. Good. I squeezed even harder.

“Transition!” Wyatt yelled frantically.

Atticai was weakening. Did vampires need
air? I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. Atticai should have been out
by now. Hell, he should have been dead by now, but he was still
fighting me, still struggling.

And that’s when something mind boggling
happened.

Suddenly, I was holding nothing. Suddenly,
where Atticai had just been struggling for air, a battered bird
flew away. It was a black raven.

I didn’t have time to react. Everything was
happening so fast. Dreams happen fast, too, or slow.

Before I could fully comprehend that Atticai
seemed to have turned into a giant raven, Wyatt slammed into me
hard from the side, tackling me to the ground. The impact rocked
me, rattling my brain and teeth. It was all I could do to focus my
eyes before Wyatt unleashed a ferocious pummeling, his fists moving
faster than I could react. I must have taken ten or fifteen full
shots to the face before he finally let up. I’ve been hit before,
and I’ve been hit hard. No way was this fucker going to take me
down. The moment he let up, I bucked hard. He lost his balance and
now I was scrambling to my feet.

The world spun. Blood gushed from multiple
cuts around my eyes and forehead. I needed just a moment to get my
bearings, to clear my head, and then that fucker Wyatt was
next.

He continued backing off. Good, I caught my
breath. My eyes and head cleared slowly. Wyatt was strong as hell,
too, and his punches had done some damage. And that’s when the
battered raven flew back, alighting on the ground next to
Wyatt.

A moment later, the raven began to spread
out, to elongate. I was sure my head was still spinning. Perhaps my
eyes hadn’t fully adjusted. I watched as each wing and spindly leg
continued to stretch and reform and fill out. Perhaps ten seconds
later, the wounded raven was Atticai.

My mouth dropped open. Blood spilled from my
mouth, and there was an excellent opportunity. Wyatt had knocked
loose a tooth. Still, none of that concerned me. All that concerned
me was that I was convinced I was losing my mind.

Atticai straightened out his neck and spit
out some blood of his own. “You can close your mouth, Josiah. It’s
all true. Everything you might have heard. And you nearly killed
me, too, which was an unfortunate move for you, bro. Too bad, too…I
liked you. ”

Now I was certain I was dreaming. I mean,
c’mon. Yes, that made a lot of sense. Perfect sense. It made the
only sense. I was dreaming, and Tommy was still alive, and Atticai
most certainly didn’t just turn into a raven—and then back
again.

I stood before the four of them, too stunned
to speak, waiting to wake up, willing myself to wake up. So far, my
tortured brain felt it necessary to continue this bizarre
dream.

Atticai and his four friends circled me.
Dream or not, for the first time in my life, I felt fear. I powered
through it.

“Face me one at a time, you vampire fucks.
Or not, I don’t give a shit. Just do something. You’re certainly
not getting any prettier.”

Famous last words. All five ran at me.
Worse, all five turned into fucking black birds at the same time.
One minute they were on their feet running, and the next they were
black missiles were hurling at me. Missiles with claws and beaks
and little beady eyes.

Okay, Josiah, you can wake up now!

No such luck. The first bird dive-bombed at
my face. I threw myself to the ground, ducking. Now they were all
on me, squawking and clawing and pecking. At first I thought they
were trying to eat me alive. They weren’t. They were gripping me,
hooking their talons into anything they could grab: my jeans, my
shirt, my flesh. Amazingly, I found myself lifting up off the
ground.

Oh, sweet Jesus.

I looked down, and I was flying. Cold wind
rushed over me, whipping my hair crazily. They flew me higher and
higher. I assumed they were just going to drop me, and that this
was it for me. I said some prayers and just waited.

But they didn’t drop me, and as best as I
could tell—since it’s hard to get your bearings when you’re flying
over treetops at night—we seemed to fly in a massive circle. The
Flatlands appeared below, a massive clearing in the high forest.
The ravens somehow worked as one, and soon we were dropping
together. Moments later, I felt the ground beneath me, and I had
never felt so relieved in all my life. The massive ravens released
their hold on me, and I tentatively found my feet. My knees
shook.

I wasn’t out of the woods yet, no pun
intended. The ravens weren’t normal sized. These suckers were big,
and now I knew why. Want to know surreal? How about being stared at
by five enormous, shiny black ravens?

Suddenly, Atticai and the others
transitioned back into their human selves. Or vampire selves. Or
whatever the hell they were. One moment, the five ravens somberly
regarded me, and the next, the five men stood ten feet away,
stretching their arms.

Atticai said, “You a believer now,
Josiah?”

I was pretty shaken up. “I believe in
something.” Actually, I believed in two things above all else:
either I had gone insane with grief over losing my friend, or I was
still dreaming.

“Now that you’re a believer, Josiah, we’re
left with only a couple of choices. You see, you now know way too
much. You’re a risk to all of us. We would normally just kill you
at this point.”

He said this matter-of-factly, as if he had
done this very thing before, perhaps dozens of times before. “Then
why don’t you?” I said.

“Because even though you tried to kill me, I
like you. I see your potential. You’re the toughest Tandra I’ve
ever seen, and that’s saying something. Imagine if you became a
Mani. Imagine how powerful you’d be as a vampire.”

I wanted to laugh this off, but it was hard
to laugh off five dudes who could turn into ravens and take you on
a nighttime flight high above the treetops.

“A vampire? And what kind of life would I
have?”

Atticai grinned. “A longer one than what
you’ll have now. I’m giving you an offer of a lifetime. A chance to
live forever.”

I hadn’t realized he was giving me an offer.
I knew what I wanted, and what I didn’t want, was to be one of
them. “Atticai, I don’t want to be a Mani. Or a vampire. Or a damn
bird. I just want to be a regular person. You must remember what
that was like...being a regular person?”

I wasn’t sure what I was doing, but I think
I was trying to buy some time. If by some chance that this shit was
real, there was a very real chance that I might not make it out of
this clearing alive tonight. And I sure as hell didn’t want to go
around sucking people’s blood for the rest of my unnatural
life.

Listen to you. This is nuts.

Nuts or not, I had five guys surrounding me,
five guys who had just taken me on a flight from hell.

Atticai was smiling again. For someone who
had nearly been choked out of existence by me, the tall fucker was
sure pleased with himself. “A regular person? Hell, that was back
in the 1700s. Life was a little more boring back then, Josiah. We
didn’t have the internet or Xbox or Starbucks. The whole vampire
gig was a pretty decent deal.”

Wyatt grinned. So did some of the others.
Somewhere in the near distance, I could hear a strange rattling
noise. I didn’t think it was my own teeth, or my knocking knees. I
felt fear, but I wasn’t afraid of Atticai, or anyone. I just didn’t
want to die. Not out here. And not by them.

I said, “So, if I say no, you guys just kill
me right here and now?”

“No, we won’t. The rattlesnakes will. You do
hear them, don’t you? Coming for you? I’ve summoned them. It’s a
trick of mine. It’s one of the bag of tricks I have in my arsenal,
to summon the things that slither over this earth. Some of us can
just do it better than others.”

I could hear a rattling. I could hear lots
of rattling. Hundreds of rattling sounds rising in crescendo all
around me, like maracas in the hands of possessed folk musicians.
Okay, now my knees were knocking. Snakes? Hundreds of them?

Oh, sweet, sweet Jesus.

“I just want you to know one thing, Josiah.
I did not kill Tommy. His disgusting Carni brothers did.”

“And why would they do that?”

“How would I know, Josiah? Maybe they
mistook him for Kibble N’ Bits or puppy chow. They’re filthy
animals; that’s all I know.”

The rattling seemed to grow louder. Were
there seriously rattlesnakes coming for me now? I looked around,
scanning the darkness around me. I couldn’t see anything, but I
seemed to hear a whispering, the sound a slithering body makes
moving over the earth. Hundreds of slithering bodies. And then I
smelled them, the snakes. Snakes have a very distinctive smell when
they are threatened, something I learned in high school biology. I
smelled the slight skunkiness in the air—snake musk.

“Last chance, Josiah. Join me.” Atticai
reached out his hand to me. “Join me and live.”

I looked at his proffered hand. The rattling
was indeed getting closer. Good God, this wasn’t happening. Atticai
might have liked me, but I hated him. He could say what he wanted,
but he was responsible, one way or another, for Tommy’s death.

I shook my head. “I’d rather die out
here.”

“So be it.”

Suddenly the five vampires transitioned into
ravens. They circled me in what could have been a ceremonial
farewell, and then flew off into the night.

Chapter Twenty-one

So, there I was, completely left alone to
die. Not to just die, but die a horrific death at the fate of
hundreds of approaching snakes. I spotted a long branch on the
ground nearby and grabbed it. I looked up at the sky and looked for
the North Star. I knew the way down was to go south. So, I needed
to go opposite of the star. I tucked my pant legs into my Doc
Martin shoes. I was still wearing my leather jacket, which gave me
some comfort. Could snakes bite through jeans?

Next, I said a prayer and took off running
south. There was some moonlight, and I was able to use it to find a
game trail. I followed it and kept running, praying like hell that
I didn’t break an ankle.