Obsessed (Book #12 in the Vampire Journals) (9 page)

Scarlet didn’t
know how long she’d been ascending the stone staircase. Shadows ebbed and
swelled around her as she took one careful step after the other, her hand
running along the rough stone wall to help keep her balance. After having
followed the tendril of light inside the tower, she’d found herself in an
empty, chamber-like room, with nothing but a zig-zagging staircase before her.
With no other options, she’d begun to climb.

As she went, it
occurred to her that the tower shape and strange, winding staircase design made
it impossible for her to fly. She wondered whether it had been designed that
way specifically; a vampire-proof structure, built to ensure that whatever—or
whomever—was residing at the top would have plenty of time to prepare for the
approaching intruder.

The further up
Scarlet went, the darker her surroundings became, until it was so black she couldn’t
even see her hand in front of her face. The only sounds she could hear were the
soles of her sneakers scuffing against the stone steps, the squeaky noise
mingling with her ragged, anxious breath. She had no idea what would be
awaiting her at the top of the staircase, though every instinct inside of her
told her that the uncertainty and fear would be worth it in the end.

Suddenly,
without warning, there was no extra step to take. Scarlet’s foot plunged to the
leveled ground, filling her with a horrible falling sensation. Though she
couldn’t see a thing, she knew that she had finally reached the top of the
tower.

She took another
step forward and stretched her hands into the dark, empty expanse before her.
All at once, she heard the sound of a roaring wind striking up outside of the
tower. It sounded like a fierce storm had sprung from nowhere, though Scarlet
had seen no indication on the journey here that one was brewing. Scarlet
couldn’t help thinking that something mystical was afoot.

The wind continued
to howl. Then, suddenly, the tower lurched and began to sway. Scarlet’s stomach
flipped as she felt the floor move beneath her. The walls groaned. Scarlet
stumbled and tried to steady herself on the walls but lost her footing and
crashed to her knees.

Even in her
terror, Scarlet could think only of Sage, and of the way she had left him out
there alone. What if he wasn’t strong enough to survive the battering of a
storm? What if he died out there alone? She would never forgive herself.

Just then, a
loud crack of thunder sliced through the air. It was so loud that Scarlet
covered her ears. Then a mere second later came the flash flash flash of
lightning, bright enough to burst through the cracks in the stone brickwork.
For a moment, the whole room was illuminated.

It was then that
Scarlet realized she was not alone.

Though the room
had been alight for no more than a second, she had gotten a good look at them.
Three old women, each with a long white shawl hanging over her shoulder. Their
eyes were glazed over with age, clouded by cataracts. Scarlet wasn’t sure if
they could even see her at all. They were standing side by side serenely,
smiles on their wrinkled faces as though oblivious to the storm and the shaking
tower. They looked like they could be a thousand years old.

Scarlet was on
her knees, looking up at the blank space where she’d seen the women.

“Who are you?”
she cried, her voice rising a notch to compete with the screaming wind outside.

The tower shook
as another rumble of thunder sounded out. Scarlet pressed her hands to the
ground, trying to find something solid and unmovable, and failing. The ground
shook like the aftershock of an earthquake and Scarlet felt her stomach roiling.

“Please!” she
shouted. “I’ve been led to this place! I think you can help me!”

The women didn’t
say a word. Scarlet began to worry that she had made them up entirely.

She dragged
herself to her feet, battling against the swaying ground, and began to stumble
toward the place the women had been, hands outstretched. She’d gotten no more
than two paces when lightning struck again. The women were no longer there.

Scarlet was
plunged back into darkness. She span round, groping, trying to get hold of
something, anything.

“She seeks
answers, dear sisters,” came a wizened voice from behind Scarlet.

There was
something about the voice that made Scarlet feel uneasy. It was beyond old,
beyond ancient. It was a voice from the beginning of time.

She swirled on
the spot but couldn’t see a thing. She couldn’t even make out their silhouettes.

Another
explosion of light burst through the cracks in the walls, revealing the three
women now surrounding her. She screamed, startled by their sudden reappearance,
by their closeness. She felt fingers slide into her hair and shuddered. Her
skin crawled.

When lightning
illuminated the room again, Scarlet caught another glimpse of the three
strange, white-haired women. She realized that they were pacing in a circular
motion around her. She reached out and tried to grasp one of the women’s arms,
but they moved too quickly for even super vampire speed.

“She is in
love,” another voice said, distinct from the first but equally as disconcerting.

“It is an
obsession,” the third voice contested. Her voice was the most terrifying of
them all. It was raspy, painful just to listen to, like acid burning flesh.

Scarlet’s throat
constricted.

“It’s not an
obsession,” she stammered. “Sage and I are in love.”

The women
ignored Scarlet, speaking not to her but instead to one another over her head,
as though she weren’t even in the room.

“A vampire in
love with an Immortalist!” the horrifying third woman was saying, her cackling,
rasping laughter making Scarlet shudder.

Scarlet squeezed
her hands into fists and swallowed the bile in her throat. The third woman
enraged her. How dare she make such snap judgments about her and Sage?

Just then the
ground shook violently, flinging Scarlet to the floor. Her palms slammed into
the cold stones, making pain race up her forearms.

Now the voices
of the women floated above her. Their ancient, rasping words seemed magnified,
as though each syllable filled the entire room, until Scarlet felt like she was
filled with the very sound of them.

The first woman
was using a sing-songy voice. “A vampire in love with an Immortalist, dear
sisters. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

“And when their
races bring our world to the brink of war!” added the second.

From her
position on the floor, Scarlet shook her head in confusion.

“What are you
talking about?” she pleaded. “I don’t understand! What war?”

From all around
her came the sound of the women laughing, echoing off every wall, swirling down
through the entire tower and back up again, multiplying fifty times over. Their
laughter grew louder and louder until Scarlet’s head pounded from the noise. Their
cackles merged with the roaring wind, with the rocking building.

Scarlet could
take no more. She slammed her fists into the ground. She felt the stone crack
beneath them.

“Why did you
bring me here?” she screamed.

All at once,
everything went silent. The women stopped howling with laughter. The wind
stopped roaring. The floor no longer shook.

Scarlet breathed
hard and deeply, trying to calm her frayed nerves.

“You brought me
here,” she added, “because you can help Sage. I know you can. I just want a cure.”

There was a long
moment of silence. Then, from the center of the room, a small yellow light
began to glow.

Scarlet swept
the hair from her eyes and peered up. The light radiated warmth, and for the
first time since she’d entered the tower, she got a real sense of her
surroundings. The Mayan-style stones exposed on the inside were a warm beige
color. There were no windows. The roof pointed up, culminating in a huge peak.
Dust covered cobwebs criss-crossed across the length of the ceiling, thick and
ancient.

And, more
importantly, Scarlet got her first proper look at the three strange women. In
the yellow light they appeared much younger. Their white shawls looked golden,
and the mistiness had disappeared from their eyes, revealing that each had a
different colored iris.

“Who are you?”
Scarlet said.

“We are the
beginning,” the first woman said. Her voice no longer cracked but was as smooth
as honey. Her eyes sparkled azure.

“We are the
end,” the second sister said, her emerald eyes glinting.

“We are all time
and no time,” added the third. She had deep black eyes like pools of oil.

“I don’t
understand,” Scarlet said.

The blue-eyed
sister ran a hand down her silky gold shawl and paced across the floor, her
steps as light as snow.

“We have been
here since the first spark of life,” she said. “And we have seen the end of
time. We exist always and forever, and always have, and always will, for ever
more. We have seen the birth of the Earth and its death. We have seen it a
thousand times over, backwards, forwards, and all at once. We know everything.”

“We are
knowledge,” the second sister added. “All understanding. We can stand on atoms.
We hold planets in the palms of our hands. We are the wind and the water, the
fire and the earth. We are everything that has ever been or ever will.”

“We are sorrow”
added the third sister. “We are joy. We have felt every tear that has been
shed. We have breathed every breath. We are pain and forgiveness, anger and
sin. We are intangible and everything that can be felt at once.”

Scarlet shook
her head and tried to calm her rapidly beating heart.

“And you can
help me?” she stammered.

The blue eyed
sister turned to the other two.

“Dear sisters,”
she said. “She cares deeply for the dying Immortalist.”

“It is a
powerful love, indeed,” the second sister said. “But what of her mother and
father? They chase her across the Earth.”

Scarlet finally
managed to collect herself and stood.

“What about my
parents?” she asked.

The third woman,
the one who had reviled Scarlet so much, turned her dark black eyes on her.

“They risk their
lives chasing after you,” she scoffed. “Searching for a cure to save you.
Putting themselves in mortal peril.”

Though her voice
no longer turned Scarlet’s stomach, her attitude still enraged her.

“Please, I just
need to save Sage. Then I can help my parents, or find a cure, or stop a war,
or whatever it is you think I should be doing instead of saving the man I
love.”

The third woman
was about to issue a rebuke when her emerald-eyed sister laid a hand on her
arm.

“It is not her
fault that she cares only for the dying boy,” she said. “She will do anything
for him. We ought to help.”

“I care about my
family, too!” Scarlet protested. “And my friends! I just...” her voice quieted.
“I can’t live without Sage. And that’s the truth.”

The black-eyed
sister flashed a fierce expression at Scarlet.

“Care about your
family and friends?” she hissed. “Is that why you leave your best friend to
languish in a mental institute?”

Scarlet
staggered back, the woman’s words hitting her like a fist. Had something
happened to Becca, Jasmine, or Maria? She couldn’t bear to think about it. The
thought of her friends in danger hurt her to the core.

“Please, just
help me save Sage,” she begged. “You brought me here for a reason, didn’t you?
Or was it just to torture me?”

She could feel
the tears creeping up and hated herself for them, hated her weakness. But
everything was overwhelming her. These women had told her that her parents were
in peril, that a war was coming, that one of her friends was in a mental
institute. The only thought that gave her any comfort was that this was some
kind of test.

The blue-eyed
sister’s gaze softened.

“She will do
anything for him, dear sisters,” she said. “Just look at her.”

“I will,”
Scarlet said, gasping through her emotion. “Anything.”

She pulled her
hands into prayer position.

“She does not
care about the great suffering that is to come,” the black-eyed sister sneered.
“She sees only what is before her. She thinks only of the boy.”

Scarlet’s tears
turned to anger. She swirled to face the black-eyed woman and gritted her
teeth.

“So what?” she
challenged. “So what if all I want is Sage! So what if I’d happily die to let
him live!”

The black-eyed
sister paused. A smile turned up the corners of her lips.

“You would die?”
she said, arching an eyebrow.

Scarlet clenched
her fists.

“I will.”

The black-eyed
woman spun round to face her sisters, moving so effortlessly it was as if she
were made of air. The other two women looked at her with mournful expressions
on their faces.