Obsessed (Book #12 in the Vampire Journals) (15 page)

He took his
time, lining up the bodies of his limp friends so that they would be
comfortable when they woke up turned. If they were anything like him, they
would immediately recognize the powerful feelings rushing through their veins
and realize that something amazing had happened to them, rather than freak out.

To the backdrop
of noise and shouting, Kyle prowled from one cell to the next, turning men
who’d been loyal to him inside prison, and letting others escape through the
busted open doors. Letting loose a vampire army was one thing—but randomly
allowing some of the country’s most dangerous men to prowl the streets again
added a whole new level of excitement.

Finally, the
racket in the prison summoned the guards. They came out from their room, batons
at the ready, expecting to follow a protocol on getting the loudest trouble
makers to calm down. Usually that involved transporting them to a solitary room
and leaving them there. But this time, the guards entered the main recreational
room and halted, surveying the neat row of limp bodies lying on the ground, the
open cell doors, and the smears of blood.

Kyle looked up
from the man he’d been feasting on and wiped the blood from his lips. He
dropped the body to the floor.

“I wondered how
long it would take you guys to react,” he said.

He recognized
that amongst the guards were some of his absolute least favorites, the ones who
had made his life in here hell, the sadistic ones who revelled in the small
slither of power their jobs gave them. They were bullies and Kyle wasn’t going
to let a single one of them live to see tomorrow.

One of the
guards approached, slowly.

“Kyle,” he said.
“You shouldn’t have come back here. You’re a wanted man.”

Kyle shook his
head.

“That’s where
you’re wrong. I’m not a man anymore. I’m a vampire.”

The guards
exchanged glances, clearly thinking he’d lost his mind.

Kyle noticed one
of the guards at the back was trying to peel off from the group unnoticed,
undoubtedly to raise the alarm while the rest of them tried to subdue the
situation.

“You think
backup is going to help?” Kyle scoffed. “I’ve already turned 10 men. Once they
wake we’ll outnumber you. That’s not to mention how many of these men I can let
loose just like this.”

To iterate his
point, Kyle grabbed the door handle of one of the cells and heaved it. The door
came off its hinges and Kyle held it above his head like a trophy. The man
who’d been inside the cell stood there, unable to comprehend what he was
seeing.

The guards
looked terrified.

“I bet there’s
quite a few men in here who have a bone to pick with you,” Kyle added.

Then he threw
the heavy steel door through the air at the guards. They just managed to duck
out of the way in time, before the door hit the ground with a clang.

“What do you
want from us?” one of the guards cried.

Kyle shrugged.

“Nothing in
particular,” he said. “I just want to make you suffer. I want payback for all
the pain you put me through while I was in here. And so do they.”

Kyle pointed to
the row of bodies. Shady was starting to wake. He groaned and touched the
puncture wounds in his neck, wincing. Then his senses seemed to come back to
him and he sat up in a rush, looking about him dazed.

“Kyle man,” he
said. “What’s going on?”

Kyle beckoned
for Shady to stand.

“You’ve been
reborn, my friend,” he said. “You’re probably hungry.” He gestured to the group
of trembling guards. “Want a snack?”

Shady’s eyes
widened. He leapt to his feet and pounced across the room, grabbing the first
guard he could get his hands on and sinking his fangs into them. The rest of
the guards scattered, searching for somewhere to hide.

Shady fed
greedily. When he was done, he dropped the guard’s body to the ground.

Kyle snapped a
chair leg from the table and chucked it to Shady.

“When he turns,
kill him,” Kyle said. “I don’t want guards in my army. They don’t deserve it.”

Shady nodded.

“I want to see
the sky, Kyle,” he said. “I want to remember what freedom feels like.”

Kyle led Shady
to the open door. Several convicts had already escaped this way and the wire
fences ahead had been shredded. Vehicles had been destroyed, turned upside down
and smashed.

Kyle and Shady
walked out into the courtyard. The younger man seemed in awe, as enthralled by
the sight of chaos as Kyle himself was.

“You have powers
now,” Kyle said. “Strength. Agility. You can fly. You can kill.”

Shady was taking
the whole thing in his stride. He went over to a police car, one that had just
been transporting a recently arrested man to the overnight cells when it had
been surrounded by escaped convicts. Shady elbowed them out of the way and
grabbed the car. He held it high above his head, spinning it round and round in
circles. Then he threw it the length of the courtyard. It hit the ground nose
on, crumbling.

Shady turned to
Kyle, his eyes wild with a desire for destruction.

“Thank you,” he
said, his voice filled with emotion.

Kyle slung his
arm around his old friend.

“What do you say
we go paint the town red?” he said. “Red with blood.”

Shady nodded,
and the two men waltzed away, leaving the prison in utter chaos. What they
didn’t notice as they went, was the man in the back of the police car that
Shady had thrown. It was Sam.

He survived the
impact and crawled out of the crumpled wreckage, slipped through the gap in the
wire, and out into the night.

Scarlet ran down
the stairs of the tower as fast as her legs would carry her. She held the
precious vial of immortal blood tightly in her fist, and prayed that when she
found Sage he would still be alive.

Her mind was
swirling from her encounter with the three sisters. The experience was like
nothing she’d ever had before and it left her reeling, feeling disconcerted and
confused. Part of her felt like she couldn’t trust the women but the other part
of her felt she had no other option. If she didn’t get Sage to the vampire city
then he would die anyway, so she may as well cling onto the last sliver of hope
the women had given her.

When Scarlet
burst out of the tower door, she found that the forest was in complete
disarray. The storm had torn up leaves and branches, strewing them haphazardly
around. It was almost impossible to find a path through the dense foliage, and
Scarlet was frequently blocked by a fallen tree. The stream she’d leapt over on
the way here had burst its banks to become a swollen pool of dirty water and she
used her vampire strength to leap over it. She landed in the mud on the other
side.

As Scarlet raced
through the thick foliage, her clothes were torn on the branches and her
sneakers grew soggy, drenched with mud. Hair struck to her face.

Finally, she
made her way into the clearing where she’d left Sage. Everything was exactly as
she had left it. All but for one crucial thing.

Sage was
missing.

Scarlet felt a
scream of despair rip from her chest but she was so distraught she hardly even
heard it. She raced forward and dropped to her knees, touching the empty space
where Sage had been lying, running her fingertips across the muddy ground as
though searching for clues. There were no footprints to be seen, which told
Scarlet that Sage hadn’t wandered away to die.

As she stood,
she noticed that the ground had been disturbed. She spotted a drawing in the
mud.

She stepped back
to survey the image more clearly. Her heart fell as she recognized a drawing of
Sage’s estate on the Hudson river. The picture was so intricately drawn it
couldn’t have been made by Sage—he was close to death when Scarlet had left him.
There was no way he could have had the strength to draw this picture.

Scarlet realized
that someone else had been on the island. Someone else had drawn this picture,
someone who knew what the estate looked like in finite detail. There was only
one person who fit that description.

Lore.

Scarlet felt
waves of desperation crash over her. If Lore had taken Sage back to New York
then surely all hope was lost. Sage would never survive the journey. Even if he
did, the Immortalists would torture him to death for his deception.

She looked down
at the vial of immortality in her hand and growled with frustration. She’d come
so close to saving him, and now all hope was lost.

Scarlet
collapsed to her knees and wept. It was all over. Sage was gone, undoubtedly
dead. Unless…

She sat up and
wiped her tears away. Why would Lore take Sage back to the estate and leave a
clue for her? She, Scarlet, was the one Lore wanted. Not Sage. Sage couldn’t
save the Immortalist race—but Scarlet could. It was her that they needed. Lore
had taken Sage to lure her there. Even Lore was smart enough to know she would
never come if she thought Sage was dead. If anything, they would go out of
their way to keep him alive, knowing full well that as soon as he was dead
they’d have no power over Scarlet, no way to make her give up her life in order
to save his. Sage was a bartering tool, a hostage, and his well-being was now
in their strategic interest.

Scarlet slipped
the tincture in her back pocket. Her feet were soaked to the bone, her clothes
ripped, her hair caked in mud. Tears stains had made clean lines down her dirty
face. But no matter how destroyed she felt, she knew she couldn’t give up. Sage
needed her, and she was going to save him no matter what.

She took to the
sky. She would save him—or die trying.

*

Lore paced back
and forth, his heels clicking on the marble floor, feeling anxious. Lyra sat on
one of the plush velvet sofas, tending to Sage.

“He’ll be
alright,” she said. “Once Octal arrives he will heal him.”

But Lore
couldn’t settle down. Everything felt too close for comfort. He’d called for
Octal as soon as he and Lyra had reached the estate, but time felt like it was
dragging on and on. Each second felt like it was bringing them closer to death,
to extinction, and Lore couldn’t bear it.

Just then, Lore
heard the doors to the manor slam open. He raced into the hallway and saw Octal
standing there, staff in hand. Beside him stood Lore’s mother.

“You came,” Lore
cried, relieved to be reunited with his leader.

He looked his
mother up and down, then raced forward and embraced her. She stroked his hair,
making Lore feel like a child rather than the two thousand year old Immortalist
he was.

Octal spoke, his
deep voice booming through the mansion.

“You’ve done
well,” he said to Lore. “I knew I was right to entrust you with this mission.”

Lore felt
humbled. He nodded his thanks to his leader.

“Sage is through
here,” he said, leading his mother and Octal through the corridors and into the
sitting room.

Lyra looked up,
poised with a flannel above Sage’s forehead. Sage looked close to death, as though
he were barely hanging on by a thread. His skin was pale but glistening with
sweat. His breath was shallow.

Octal got to
work straight away.

“Move aside,” he
said to Lyra.

She immediately
obeyed. Octal sat his huge frame on the sofa beside Sage. He raised his staff
and pressed the wooden cross on the tip gently to Sage’s heart. In a matter of
minutes Sage’s skin began to heal itself, the wounds that Octal had initially
inflicted on him beginning to knit themselves closed. The red, gaping wounds
turned into thin, silvery scars. Though Sage remained unconscious, his
breathing became more steady.

Octal looked up
at the three faces staring at him.

“That will give
him enough energy to survive until the girl gets here,” he said. Then he stood.
“Now tell me what preparations you’ve put in place for her arrival.”

Lore hadn’t even
thought about what would happen when Scarlet got here. His whole focus had been
on saving Sage’s life long enough to lure her here, and making sure Octal
arrived to take over his leadership role.

“I have no plans
yet,” Lore confessed.

Octal did not
seem impressed.

“Where are the
others?” he asked.

When he’d last
seen Lore, the boy had been leading an army of Immortalists into the night. Now
only he and the girl remained.

“I sent them off
to follow the Scarlet’s parents,” Lore said. “We knew they were trying to find
their daughter and hoped they would lead us straight to her.”

Octal frowned.

“What about you
two?” he said. “Why didn’t you follow her parents?”

Lyra spoke up.

“We followed a
different lead, my Lord,” she said, evasively.

Octal could tell
something had happened that the two younger Immortalists weren’t telling him.
He looked from one to the other, sternly.

Lore’s mother
placed a hand lightly on her son’s arm.

“Tell Octal what
you have done,” she said, sensing too that Lore was concealing something. “He
is your leader. He needs to know.”

Lore nodded.

“A number of
Immortalists lost their lives in pursuit of the parents,” he began. “I sent the
remaining army away to continue the chase.” He paused and breathed deeply,
trying to calm the emotions that were surfacing. “Lyra stayed with me.”

Octal and Lore’s
mother turned their gazes to the Immortalist girl with the striking features
and dark black hair.

“We saw the sign
of the trinity,” she said, taking up the story. “A column of light breaking
through the clouds. We thought that they must be helping Scarlet and so we
followed.”

“That’s how we
found Sage,” Lore concluded. “Scarlet was in council with the trinity and Sage
was just lying there.”

Octal’s
expression was unreadable. But when he spoke, there was no doubt that the
revelation was about the last thing he’d wanted to here.

“The Trinity are
involved?” he said. “This changes everything. They’ve deemed the vampire girl
worthy of their help. They know that we need her to save our race. They had
determined that the Immortalists will fail.”

The news hit
Lore like a punch in the stomach, winding him. He looked at Lyra desperately.
Her expression matched his own.

“But they exist
to help all non-human species,” she insisted. “I’ve read it in the ancient
texts. Why would they protect the vampire race if it meant the Immortalist race
would become extinct?”

Her voice grew
desperate.

“The sisters
have seen everything,” Octal replied gravely. “They don’t show themselves for
nothing. Whatever future they are hoping to prevent, it involves helping the
girl. And that means destroying us.”

Lore felt his
heartbeat increase with anguish. After everything he had been through, could it
really end this way? Because the trinity, or mothers, or sisters, or whatever
the ancient texts called them, had decided that it must be that way?

“Then you are
just giving up?” he said, his passion bursting from his chest. “Because three
powerful witches say that one vampire is more important than the whole great
race of Immortalists?”

“Lore,” his
mother warned him, but Octal held up a hand to stop her.

The boy’s words
had clearly humbled him. His unflagging determination in the face of certain
defeat was admirable.

“Good people
have lost their lives for our cause,” Lore continued. “I will not let their
deaths be for nothing. I will not let people I love die!”

As he said the
words, his gaze flicked to Lyra. Octal and his mother noticed and both
understood what that meant. Lore was in love, and a man in love would never
give up.

Finally, Octal
nodded.

“Let us prepare
for the vampire’s arrival.” He surveyed the faces of each of them, and added:
“This isn’t over until it’s over.”

*

Sage felt
nothing but pain. Pain in his body, his head, his soul. The absence of Scarlet
was like a knife slicing into his heart.

Though he was
too weak to open his eyes, he could just about make out his surroundings. He
was lying on something soft, not a forest floor anymore, but velvet. There were
voices echoing all around him, voices he recognized as Lore and his aunt’s.
Then he heard Octal speaking and recognized the man’s booming voice with a
shiver. He was back in the hands of the Immortalists. Surely, they were going
to finish what they started. They were going to torture him until he gave up
Scarlet. He prayed that Scarlet was strong enough to stay away, that she would
let him die, let them all die, for her own good.

There were only
a few hours left of pain to endure, then it would be over. Once the sun rose,
the Immortalists would cease to be and his love, Scarlet, would be able to live
out the rest of her life in peace.

The sunrise
could not come fast enough.