Obsessed (Book #12 in the Vampire Journals) (5 page)

Just then, she
felt something vibrating in her pocket. Surely it couldn’t be her cell phone.
But when Caitlin reached inside her pocket she discovered that her cell phone
had, indeed, survived the ocean plunge. She hadn’t had reception before but now
suddenly it had sprung to life, flashing up to her that she had a voicemail.

Caitlin dialed
her voicemail and listened to Aidan’s hurried voice on the other end.

“Caitlin,” he
said. “Where are you? You need to call me back now.”

The message
ended. That was it. She went to hit redial—but lost service.

“Damn!” she
cried.

“What is it?”
Caleb called over his shoulder.

“We need to pull
over,” Caitlin replied, realizing as she glanced down at her handset that the
battery was on one percent.

“I can’t pull
over,” Caleb replied. “The police are on our tail. We have to get far away from
this place first.”

Just then,
Caitlin noticed a cave cut into the cliff side.

“In there!” she
cried.

Caleb sprung to
attention, twisting the bike’s handlebars with expert precision so that it
swerved and skidded into the cave, kicking up dirt before drawing to a halt.

As soon as
they’d stopped, Caleb turned to face his wife. “Can you can sense Scarlet?”

“No,” Caitlin
replied. “My phone came back. I need to call Aidan.”

Just then, the
police cars that had been on their tail went screaming past the small cave
where Caitlin and Caleb were hidden.

Caitlin grabbed
her cell phone and punched in Aidan’s number, praying that the battery would
hold out. He answered on the third ring.

“You took your
time,” he said.

“I’ve been a bit
busy,” Caitlin replied, thinking of the plane ride and ocean plunge. “So what
was it you needed to tell me?”

Caitlin listened
to the sound of Aidan’s voice on the other end of the phone as he shuffled
around and rifled through books and papers. She felt her frustration grow.

“Can you please
hurry up?” Caitlin barked. “I don’t have much battery.”

“Ah, yes,” he
said at last.

“What?” Caitlin
demanded. “Tell me!”

“Tell me the chant
again. Tell me the chant that is the cure.”

Caitlin fumbled
in her pocket and pulled out the notes she’d made when studying the book. But
they were soggy and the ink had run. She closed her eyes and tried to visualize
the page as she had read it. The words began to appear in her mind.

“I am the sea,
the sky and sand,

I am the pollen
on the wind.

I am the
horizon, the heath, the heather on the hill.

I am ice,

I am nothing,

I am extinct.”

____Caitlin
opened her eyes and the words disappeared from her mind. There was a long
moment where Aidan was silent.

Caitlin wanted
to scream at him to hurry up.

“Caitlin!” he
said at last. “I’ve got it. I’ve got it!”

“Tell me,”
Caitlin replied hurriedly, feeling her heart race.

“We’ve been such
fools! It’s not a chant at all.”

Caitlin frowned.

“What do you
mean? How can it not be a chant? I don’t understand.”

“I mean that the
chant isn’t the cure,” Aidan replied, fumbling over his words in his
excitement. “The chant is
a clue
to the cure!”

Caitlin could
feel her heart thumping with anticipation.

“So what’s the
clue then?” she asked.

“Caitlin! Think
about it. It’s a riddle. Directions. It’s telling you to go somewhere.”

Caitlin felt the
blood drain from her face as she ran through the words in her mind.

“I am the sea,
the sky and sand,” she repeated under her breath. Then, suddenly, it came to
her. “No. You don’t mean—”

“Yes,” Aidan
replied. “S. P. H. I. N. X.”___

“The vampire
city,” Caitlin whispered under her breath.

Of course.
Before Scarlet had disappeared into harm’s way, Caitlin had been trying to find
the cure, to find a way to turn her daughter back from a vampire into a human.
She thought the words on the page needed to be read to Scarlet to cure her,
that what she had found was the cure. But no. What she had found were
instructions that would lead her to the cure. Caitlin had let her innate
anguish as a mother override the sensible, logical scholar she needed to be
right now, the one who would work out that the riddle was not a cure—but a map.

“Thank you,
Aidan,” she said hurriedly.

Her phone went
dead.

Caitlin looked
up at Caleb’s expectant face.

“Well?” he said.

“I know where
we’re going,” Caitlin replied, feeling a twinge of hope for the first time in a
long time.

Caleb raised an
eyebrow and looked over at his wife.

“Where?” he
said.

Caitlin smiled.

“We’re going to
Egypt.”

Lore stood on a
mound of rubble amongst the ruins of Boldt Castle. The blades from the lowering
helicopter made wind whip his torn clothes and ruffle his hair. He glanced around,
surveying the damage the plane had caused. Hatred filled him to the brim.

He cried,
shaking his fist at the gaping hole in the side of the ancient castle. Then he
took a deep breath. There was no time to waste. His people would be dead,
eradicated, by the end of the night. Their only hope was to find the girl who
had stolen his cousin’s heart. And that meant killing anyone who stood in their
way.

But the
Immortalists were panicking, startled by the presence of the helicopter. They
began zooming around the great hall, some streaming out of the castle
altogether, running off to their inevitable deaths.

“What are you
thinking, son?” a voice beside Lore said, breaking him from his reverie.

He looked down
to see his mother gazing up at him. Though Immortalists experienced
parent-child relationships differently from humans, Lore still respected the
woman who had fed him, clothed him, and seen him safely through infancy. The
thought of her death at the end of the night made his heart clench even more
than the thought of his own.

“I’m thinking of
Sage,” Lore replied. “We used him as bait before and the girl came.”

His mother
frowned.

“You think
there’s still hope?” she asked, quietly.

Lore could see
that weariness had crept into her eyes. She was ready to die. Or at least,
ready to stop fighting.

But Lore wasn’t.
And neither were hundreds of the Immortalists still clinging to life in Boldt Castle.

“I’m not going
to give up,” Lore told her fiercely. “We cannot let our people die just because
my cousin has fallen in love with a vampire. He’s going to die anyway. What’s
the point?”

Lore’s mother
shook her head. “You don’t understand love.”

“No,” Lore
replied. “But perhaps if I lived two thousand years more I would.”

His mother
smiled and squeezed his arm.

“I want that for
you, son,” she said kindly, “But I can’t help but feel that fate is against
us.” She tipped her head up to the sky and the bright full moon shining in
through the collapsed ceiling. “The stars are aligned. The wheels of fate are
in motion.” She looked back at him. “Tonight is the night the Immortalists
die.”

Lore balled his
hands into fists.

“No it’s not,”
he said through his teeth. “I will lead an army if I have to. I will bring
chaos to the earth. I will destroy the whole human race before I let my people
die.”

As he spoke, the
Immortalists around him began to look over, roused by his speech and passion.
He turned his back on his mother and directed his words to them.

“Who will stand
with me?” Lore cried, shaking his fists. “Who will fight for their right to
live?”

The small crowd
began to mumble their agreement, and the noise attracted still more toward
Lore. They streamed past the smoldering airplane fuselage to get a better look.
Soon, Lore’s words were met not with mumbled assent but with cheering and
clapping.

“Who amongst you
has heard enough of fate and prophecies and stars?” he said. “I am not prepared
to let our proud people die today!”

The crowds
roared their agreement.

Lore noticed
that Octal had joined the crowd and was standing at the edges. Lore beckoned to
his leader, to the man he respected above all others. But Octal shook his head,
as if communicating silently that Lore should be the one to lead the
Immortalists.

Lore couldn’t
help but frown. Could he really lead an army?

But he didn’t
have time to ponder it, because the helicopter was touching down.

“Kill them!”
Lore screamed. “Kill the humans!”

The Immortalist
crowd followed his command immediately. They rushed at the helicopter. Lore
heard the sound of desperate shouting as the police began drawing their
weapons. But it was futile. There was no way the police could stand up to the
Immortalists.

As they fought,
Lore noticed several police officers were escaping from the castle.

“Block the
exit!” Lore ordered his troops.

With the exits
blocked, the remaining police had no other option but to take to the skies
again in their helicopter.

But that wasn’t
enough for Lore. He did not just want them driven away, he wanted them dead. As
the helicopter began to rise, Lore’s murderous intent grew only stronger.

“Don’t let them
get away!” he commanded his followers.

He watched as a
group of Immortalists sprung into the air. The police on board the rising
helicopter looked on in disbelief as the hovering Immortalists began swarming
the helicopter, dragging it down. It begun to stutter under their weight and
started to fall. The police inside began to scream. As the helicopter plummeted
to the ground, the Immortalists leaped out of harm’s way.

A fireball
plumed into the air as the helicopter hit the ground and exploded.

The crowds
cheered, exhilarated by the death and destruction their actions had caused.
They zigzagged through the air before finally landing and calming down. It was
then that Lore realized they were all looking to him again, awaiting his
instructions.

“What now?” one
of them cried.

“How do we save
our people?” another added.

They had been
bolstered by the victory against the helicopter and the humans. Lore had awoken
a desire to fight and live in them all. The crowd erupted into a rabble of
worried exclamations.

This time Octal
moved through them toward Lore. He was ready to command his people once again.

“The girl is in
the caves,” he said, his voice booming out through the destroyed great hall.
“She has Sage. They are together.”

Lore nodded and
squeezed his hands into fists.

“To the cave!”
he cried.

Together, the
band of Immortalists followed Octal and Lore in the direction of the caves.

Vivian felt the
air rush past her as she flew over the small town, her heart beating fiercely
in her chest. She didn’t know exactly where she was going; she just had a
compulsion to fly, to let the shackles of her old life melt away. She felt
exhilarated, and the world felt suddenly so full of possibilities she could
hardly contain her excitement.

But the longer
she flew, the more a new sensation began to swell within her. It was a sort of
gnawing emptiness. The human part of her had died and had been replaced by this
awesome, powerful new creature. The death of her mother—at her own hands, no
less—was not the source of it. The feeling was more primal.

Vivian swooped
past a flock of birds. As she flew, she tried to decipher the new feelings
within her. Hunger was of course the most prominent. Anger came a close second.
Then she realized with startling clarity that the other feeling overwhelming
her was the need for a mate.

And that meant
Blake.

At once, Vivian
changed her course, heading the in direction of the high school. She licked her
tongue across her sharp incisors. This time, there was no getting away. Blake
would be hers forever. Once she turned him, they would be intrinsically linked,
bound forever, in the same way she could feel the disgusting man who sired her
pumping through her bloodstream. And knowing that she could have Blake forever
made Vivian’s desire for him grow even stronger.

She laughed maniacally,
her body practically pulsing with electricity. To think that stupid girl
Scarlet had been so close to stealing Blake away from her once upon a time.
Well, not anymore. Blake would be Vivian’s. She would win.

The high school
appeared in her sight line. So, too, did the flashing police lights, and she
wondered what was happening.

The closer she
got, the clearer her view became. The school looked like it had been at the center
of a shootout. There were damaged police cars and bits of straggly tape
fluttering in the wind. Bits of paper from dropped notebooks were whipped up by
the wind and deposited in the branches of the trees that lined the sidewalk.

Yet despite the
disarray, Vivian would see that the floodlights were on for the football team
to practice by. There appeared to be people on the field.

Vivian felt
confused as she swooped down to land around the back of the science labs. She
went up to the window and pressed her face to the glass. Inside, the classroom
was deserted. The door was open and Vivian would just see through into the
corridor. There was a large smear of blood across the tiles.

Vivian drew
back, confused. Then suddenly a thud startled her and she looked up to see a
face in the window. It was one of those goth girls she avoided like the plague.
The girl grinned, her porcelain fingertips pressed against the glass on either
side of her head. Vivian frowned as the girl’s smile widened to reveal her
lengthened incisors.

“No!” Vivian
screamed.

She was irate. It
wasn’t just her? She wasn’t the only one with this incredible power? Rage
filled her to the brim.

She raced around
the side of the building, her body moving faster than it ever had when she was
a human. She got to the gym and slammed open the double doors so hard they flew
off their hinges.

The scene that
greeted her was one of utter chaos. There were her friends, dressed in their
blood-stained cheerleader outfits, fangs on display. Some were zipping round
the room, flying in and out of the rafters. Others were chanting, surrounding a
scared-looking group of kids.

Vivian felt her
blood boiling with anger. All of her friends were vampires? That meant she
wasn’t special at all.

Finally, her
friend Jojo noticed her. She was midway through feasting on a nerdy sophomore
boy.

“Vivian!” Jojo
cried. “Hungry?”

She shoved the
kid at Vivian. She caught him. He was trembling. She let him go.

“Hey!” Jojo
cried. “That was my dessert.”

Then she
hop-skipped over to Vivian and grabbed her hands.

“Isn’t this,
like, totally awesome?”

Her eyes were
big and filled with awe.

Vivian narrowed
her own in response.

“Who turned
you?” she demanded.

Jojo shrugged.
“Just some bum. He got, like, everyone. It was totally terrifying at first, but
then I woke up with these kick-ass moves. Want to see?”

Vivian shook her
head.

Jojo continued.
“We’re, like, totally going to be his army or something. It’s going to be
awesome.”

Vivian kept her
gaze narrowed.

“Where’s Blake?”
she asked, coolly.

The primal part
of her that was compelled to find a mate began to ache at the possibility of
him having been turned already, and by someone else. If Blake had already been
made into a vampire then there would be no intrinsic link between the two of
them. He would have made that bond with someone else.

Vivian squeezed
her hands into fists at the thought. If it had happened, she would kill whoever
had sired him. She had to have Blake. He had to be hers.

Jojo gave Vivian
a look.

“You look, like,
totally tense. What’s the matter with you?”

Vivian felt her
fists squeeze tighter.

“Where’s Blake?”
she repeated.

Jojo looked
affronted. “Jeez, Vivian, you’re being a total downer. What’s with this whole
serious thing you’re pulling? The most awesome thing ever has happened and
you’re just going on and on about Blake?”

Vivian reached
forward and grabbed Jojo around the throat.

“I’m not going
to ask again. Where is Blake?”

Jojo was strong
enough to shove Vivian off. But Vivian was still queen bee, even amongst a group
of vampires, and Jojo obeyed.

“He wasn’t at
school today,” Jojo said, rubbing her neck and looking angry. “It was his mom’s
birthday or, I don’t know, she died or something. I can’t remember, but he was
out of town.”

“Is that it?”
Vivian said. “That’s all you know?”

By now, the
other cheerleader girls had noticed Vivian and the altercation with Jojo. Girls
who had been in her gang for years began to crowd forward to see what was going
on. Each of them was different, each having been transformed into a vampire. As
a gang of humans they had been vicious, spoiled, and mean; as a group of
vampires they were even more deadly.

“What’s your
problem, Vivian?” one of the girls said, flashing her narrowed eyes at her.

It was Jojo who
spoke. “She’s being a total bitch. It’s, like, not my fault if I don’t know
where Blake is.”

The girl rolled
her eyes.

“You’re still
going on about Blake? God, Vivian, you’re even more boring as a vampire than
you were as a human.”

Vivian felt her
anger swell. But she couldn’t fight the girls. They were as strong as her, and
she was outnumbered.

“You know,” Jojo
said, folding her arms and cocking her head to the side, “I don’t think you’re
the leader anymore, Vivian. I think we can get along just fine without you.”

Vivian stomped
forward, her hands balled into fists as though ready to strike.

“Good,” she
spat, viciously. “I never liked you anyway.”

She turned her
eyes up to the rest of the girls watching on.

“That goes for
all of you!” she screamed. 

The cheerleaders
scoffed and, shaking their heads in disgust, turned away from the former queen
bee.

“You are totally
not being part of the vampire army,” Jojo said over her shoulder as she
followed the other girls sauntering out of the gym.

Vivian was left
standing there fuming, watching the retreating backs of the girls she’d thought
had been her friends. Just before Jojo disappeared out the door, Vivian’s rage
bubbled over. She flew forward and wrenched a piece of wood off the beam then
raced toward Jojo.

She grabbed her
hair and stabbed her through the back, right into the heart.

“The thing about
being the leader is,” Vivian said in Jojo’s ear, “there’s always going to be
someone trying to stab you in the back.”

Vivian wrenched
the shard of wood out of Jojo and the girl crumbled to dust.

The other girls
stared back, shocked.

Vivian smiled.
There would be time to put them all in line. But for now, she had other
business to tend to.

She stepped over
the girl’s remains, smashed the door, and stepped out into the open, lifting up
into the air and determined, at any cost, to complete her search for Blake.