Torment (Soul Savers Book 6) (29 page)

“You idiots!”
Charlotte snapped as she and Owen picked up Terrence. “You have
no idea what you’ve done.”

“Sure we do,”
said the girl. “You’ll convert us, and we’ll be
able to fight for you, just like we said we would. And now we can’t
be killed.”

“
You’re
not immortal,” I growled as I leaned down to pick up the
unconscious girl. Tristan beat me to her and scooped her up into his
arms. “Vampires aren’t even immortal.”

“But we’re
practically impossible to kill now.”

“Not until you go
through your first transformation,” Sheree snarled, following
us down the hall. I’d never heard her so mad at a patient.

“Good on us
tonight’s a full moon then, isn’t it?” the guy
said.

Charlotte dropped
Terrence’s feet, leaving Owen to hold him at the shoulders, and
spun on the guy. “Which means
you
can’t be here!
You won’t be able to control yourself with the smell of human
flesh tempting your taste buds and your beastly needs.”

“But you’ll
convert us,” the girl said, not sounding quite as sure of
herself anymore. “Right?”

Charlotte strode up to
her and glared down at the shorter girl. “You don’t know
what you’ve done. By choosing this, you may not be able to
convert! And certainly not between now and nightfall.”

“But … but
we still have our souls. We still have hope. You said as long as we
have hope, even just a little ….”

“It means we
can’t kill you. Not on purpose. It does
not
mean we’ll
succeed in converting you before you die.” Charlotte spun on
her heel and stalked back to Owen and Terrence, muttering, “Idiots.”

“I don’t
understand,” the girl whined, and it almost sounded like a
puppy’s whimper.

“The conversion
process has been known to kill in some cases,” Sheree said.
“And if it doesn’t kill you, your first transformation
might. Or, at least, you’ll wish it did.”

We took them into what
had apparently been a packing and shipping room before. Three long
rows of tables stretched across the center of the large room and
shelves of boxes lined the sides. Owen and Charlotte magically bound
the five of them to the tables.

“I sure hope this
holds, because they’ll be a mess tonight,” Charlotte
muttered.

The magic binds held,
although it seemed questionable at times. The conversions were
grueling, taking every bit of Amadis power we managed to build. We
took turns, forced to pause for breaks over the next several days,
until the full moon phase passed completely. On the last night, we
thought we might have succeeded in easing them through their first
monthly cycle when the guy’s human body exploded into were-goo
and a large, red wolf appeared in his place. We’d been through
many transformations over the past few nights, so this one’s
appearance wasn’t our dilemma. The fact that evil and hatred
still radiated from the wolf was the problem.

He stood on the metal
table, still bound to it, and his black nose sniffed the air. The
huge head swung toward me, and the lips curled upwards, baring his
fangs. A growl rumbled up his throat, and he lunged forward, snapping
his powerful jaw at me. Although I knew he couldn’t reach me, I
jumped back instinctively. Hunger—a primal need for living
flesh—shone in his black eyes.

“Calm down,”
I ordered, but he only continued to growl.

Sheree strode our way,
and as soon as he caught her scent, he spun on her, snarling and
snapping more intensely than ever.

“Yeah, I smell
like your enemy,” she said, “but I’m not. I’m
here to help, remember?”

He barked and bit in
her direction, either not understanding her or not caring. I silently
moved up behind him, close enough to push Amadis power into him, and
I turned it on full blast. The canine body reared back as he let out
several yelps, twisting and turning like a mean bull with a rider on
its back. His fangs nearly latched onto my hand several times,
grazing my knuckles more than once, until finally his moves came
slower, with less power.

The wolf collapsed. I
lightened up the intensity but continued pushing Amadis power into
him, even as he morphed into a naked man lying on the table.

“I … I
lied,” he panted, curling into a fetal position on his side as
though he suffered tremendous pain. “I didn’t do this …
to help. I just wanted … to be powerful. I don’t want …
to be weak … like you.”

His throat rumbled
again, and his teeth elongated. Claws grew from his nail beds and fur
popped through his skin in patches, but then the transformation
stopped, leaving him halfway between human and beast. He whimpered
and whined, then yelped and shouted as the sounds of bones breaking
crackled throughout his body. His limbs and shoulders changed shape
several times, back and forth between man and wolf. I pulled back the
strength of my power even more until it dwindled into a light
trickle. But his body continued twitching and cracking. He cried out
in agony. I released the power completely and held my hands in the
air.

Charlotte rushed over.
“No, he needs more not less!”

“I don’t
think he can handle it,” I said.

“We have to try,”
Sheree said, and she clasped strong hands onto his neck and hip,
holding him still as she pushed positive power into him.

Char placed her hands
on the wolf-man, too, and I joined them. But it was all Sheree and I
could do to keep him from breaking free from our grips. Different
parts of his body waved through the various stages of transfiguration
at irregular rates, all of it speeding up until he became a blur
underneath our hands.

“We’re
losing him,” Char said through clenched teeth.

I couldn’t
possibly push any more goodness into him. My own energy depleted
rapidly, and if I wasn’t careful, I’d take on the dark
magic that created monsters such as this. I opened my mind to call
Tristan over to power me up with his love when the man fell
completely still.

“Oh no!”
Sheree gasped, jumping back.

I lifted my hands,
pulled back, and then froze like him. Watched his face dissolve from
utter agony to as slack as a sleeping baby, saw his eyes dim until
only emptiness remained, and studied his chest as it fell one last
time. His final breath whispered between his lips.

“No.” I
lunged for him again.

We tried CPR, we pushed
more loving power into him, we did everything we could, but he only
lay there. Still. Dead.

With my eyes burning as
angry tears threatened to fall, I finally shuffled backward, a
mixture of anger and grief bubbling in my chest as I glared at his
body. When my back hit a shelving unit, I took my first breath in
minutes, and my head snapped up. A whole crowd of people stood in the
doorway and beyond, heads bobbing above other ones as those in the
back tried to catch a glimpse inside the room.

“Anyone else want
to be turned?” I seethed at them. “Or are we clear that
this is a fucking bad idea?”

Their eyes and faces
turned away from me. The crowd quickly dissipated, any conversation
made in hushed tones. A few people came in, picked up the naked body,
and carried him away.

“The corpse needs
to be burned,” Charlotte said as they passed through the door.

Those were the last
words spoken in the room for another two days as the newborn vampires
and the other wolves finished the conversion. They awoke with the
excitement of success, but that instantly disappeared when Sheree
told them what happened. But nobody could do anything about it now.
He was dead. They were turned. But they were converted. We had four
more Amadis, but I wasn’t exactly thrilled with this
development. I prayed no other Normans with good intentions decided
to do the same thing. Maybe it was better for them, after all, to be
against us rather than for us.

“Yesterday they
moved two of those metal boxes where they’re keeping people,”
Ammi reported the day after we declared all four of them as safe.
She, Kristen, and a few others had been watching the Norman farm in
case anything changed, and now they briefed us in the dining room.
“Put them on lorries and took them away.”

“Were there
people in them?” Tristan asked.

“I don’t
know, but we can’t wait any longer. What if they’re
taking them to gas chambers or something?”

“They’re
not,” Vanessa said as she perched on a table, her leg swinging
back and forth. “They’re doing exactly as we
thought—farming them. Taking them where they won’t be
killed while the humans bomb the hell out of each other. They’re
safeguarding their food supply just like any army would.”

“We still need to
do something soon,” Kristen said. “Before it’s too
late to save those people.”

We couldn’t argue
with that, so we spent the rest of the afternoon watching the camp
ourselves to see what might have changed over the past few days and
the evening ironing out our plans. Right after we broke for the
night, Tristan and I searched for Dorian to spend some time with him
since we hadn’t been able to during the conversions. We found
him in his usual place—sprawled out face down on a cot in the
private room Ammi and Kristen had insisted on giving to us. Actually
a janitor’s closet, the space barely fit a double-size mattress
and a cot among the brooms, mops, and shelves of cleaning supplies.

“Why are you in
here by yourself?” I asked as I sat on the floor next to the
cot. Sasha, in her toy-dog size, jumped from her sleeping spot next
to Dorian and bounced over to me, wagging her tail. I scratched her
behind her ears.

“You haven’t
made any friends?” Tristan asked, sitting on our double
mattress next to me.

“No.” At
least that was what the sound Dorian made sounded like. He didn’t
bother sitting up or moving at all to talk to us.

“Have you even
tried?” I asked.

“I did, and
nobody wants me around,” he muttered into his backpack that
currently served as his pillow.

“Not what I
heard,” Tristan said. “I know there’s only a few
kids your age here, but they all want to know more about you. I hear
them talking.”

“I hear them,
too,” Dorian said. “All of them. And they’re just
nosy. What kids are my age anyway, Dad? I don’t even know what
age I’m supposed to be.”

Tristan and I exchanged
a look. I leaned my head on his shoulder while reaching out for
Dorian’s leg. As soon as I touched it, though, he jerked away.

“I want to be
left alone.” He flipped his head over to stare at the wall.

“
We
want
to be around you, Dorian,” I said. “We haven’t
really seen you in days.”

“Not my fault,”
he snipped.

“It’s not
ours, either,” Tristan said. “It’s nobody’s
fault. But we all have time right now.”

He didn’t say
anything.

“Have you been
practicing your powers?” I asked, thinking that would get him
talking. I knew full well that he had been, and I couldn’t
blame him or stop him any longer. I’d be curious, too, if I
were him, and we’d reached the point that maybe if he learned
how to master and use his abilities, he could fight the Daemoni
instead of joining them.

The left side of his
whole body moved in what appeared to be a shrug, if a prone body
could shrug. “A little.”

“So what can you
do?” I asked, forcing a little extra excitement in my voice.
“That whole freezing thing is pretty cool. Haha! See what I did
there?”

He turned over and gave
me a look. “You’re a dork, Mom.”

“Got you to turn
over and talk to us,” I said. “So what else?”

He held out his hand
and a small flame appeared in his palm. “Just like Dad.”

The beam I knew would
come began to grow across his face. He was proud of that one.

“And this.”
He sat up, held his hand in front of him, closed it into a fist, and
then unfolded his fingers. He kept his palm cupped, holding a pool of
water. He blew lightly across the surface of it, and a cool breeze
lifted my hair. Then the water solidified, becoming a chunk of ice.
He squeezed his hand together once more, and the ice turned to snow,
falling into his lap. I scooped up the small pile to examine it, then
stared at my son with wonder.

“Looks like you
can manipulate all four elements,” Tristan said.

“I can create
them out of nothing,” Dorian corrected.

“Wow.” I
had no other words.

“That means you
have a lot of power, son,” Tristan continued. “With power
comes responsibility.”

Not wanting Dorian to
feel like he was being lectured, which would cause him to clam up
again, I was glad Blossom interrupted at that moment when she tapped
on the metal frame of the door. My relief immediately floundered,
though, when I caught a whiff of the steam rising from the mug in her
hand.

“Are you kidding
me?” I asked, my throat already closing up. “They’re
calling this the apocalypse, and you’re bringing me that nasty
tea?”

“If this is the
apocalypse, then we need hope more than ever,” she said, a
little too cheerfully.

I rolled my eyes as I
reluctantly took the mug she held out to me.

“That smells
gross, Mom.” Dorian wrinkled his nose. “Why would you
drink it?”

I swallowed down a gulp
and mirrored his disgusted look. “Blossom seems to think it’s
good for me.” I glanced up at her, trying to give her the evil
eye. “I can’t believe you even have all the ingredients
still.”

“I had
everything, but the pigeon’s feet. Owen got those for me
today.”

Tea sprayed everywhere
out of my mouth. Blossom burst into giggles, and Dorian joined her. I
glared at them both. Tristan’s body shook next to mine.

He touched his finger
to the corner of his lip. “You have a little something there.”

Dorian and Blossom
laughed even harder. I narrowed my eyes at Tristan, and he reached
his finger out and swiped it across my bottom lip.