Chapter Seventeen
I WAS CORNERED BY A rather obnoxious man who seemed to want to monopolize my attentions, when something across the room caught my eye. I don’t know what it was, exactly, that drew my attention to the couple—they seemed normal enough, and certainly no one else noticed anything amiss. All I know is that I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the young man and woman. My ass-hat companion was chattering on about something or another, so enraptured with himself that he didn’t notice my inattention.
The young lady was extremely lovely and dressed in the height of fashion with thick, raven-black hair styled beautifully on top of her head. The gentleman was leaning in a bit too close to be proper, speaking softly in her ear. I was just about to dismiss the scene when I caught a glimpse of the young woman’s eyes… ringed in red. I barely contained my gasp. I watched her give her gentleman friend a sultry look and then glide slowly out of the room. The man looked around quickly, gulped down the contents of his wineglass, and a few seconds later, followed the female vampire.
Holy crap! I wasn’t supposed to be hunting vampires; I was supposed to be making a splash in society. What was I supposed to do, though? Just ignore what was happening and… what? Hope someone else would intervene? It wasn’t likely that any other lady in the room had a dagger strapped to her thigh or a sgian-dubh hidden under her silk skirts. Besides, I wasn’t the type to leave things up to fate. It’s a cruel bitch, and I wasn’t waiting around for her to deal me any cards.
Making an excuse to my self-absorbed admirer, I made my way across the ballroom to find the female vampire. I walked quietly down a dimly lit hallway, trying to breathe deeply, center myself, and regulate my pulse. Reaching down, I pulled the dirk from my boot, hoping I wouldn’t have to use it and yet feeling a thrill go through me at the thought of wielding it. The dirk felt right in my hand, and I once again marveled at the connectedness I felt with it.
I dropped my hand to my side, hoping that if I came upon a stray partygoer, my skirts would hide it. Pausing outside several doors, I tried to see if I could sense anything from within—I didn’t want to give away the element of surprise. I walked a bit quicker then, hoping I wouldn’t be too late to stop the vampire’s midnight snack. A shuffling sound a few feet away and around a bend in the hallway grabbed my attention. I held my breath and tightened my grip on my dirk as I rounded the corner. My heart nearly leapt out of my chest in anticipation. A door leading outside stood slightly ajar. Swallowing my fear before it could choke me, I made my feet move forward so I could gently push the door open.
The full moon shone down on a scene straight out of someone’s nightmares, maybe even my own. Like a cruel lover, the vampire had the man in a sadistic embrace, holding him tightly against the house’s brick wall, her fangs dug into his neck. The blood pouring out of his wound contrasted starkly with the bright white of his shirt. The vampire made guttural sounds of pleasure deep in her throat as she took his blood and his life. The animalistic sounds snapped me out of my shock, and I cried out in fury as I lunged for her.
Lesson number one: A vampire in the middle of dinner probably won’t appreciate being interrupted.
My anguished cry gave me away as I lunged and thrust my dirk toward her chest. My heart nearly stopped when I was swatted away like nothing more than a pesky fly. I scrambled off the ground, only to be backhanded back down again. I shook off the feeling of déjà vu and tried to tap into my newly acquired inner power; surely, all those combat classes hadn’t been for nothing.
I sure as hell wasn’t going down without a fight, and if I could, I’d make the parasitic bloodsucker pay for what she’d done. I felt a calm settle over me more intensely than I’d ever felt before as I slowly adjusted my grip on the sgian-dubh. My whole body felt alive as an intense vibration hummed through my veins. I wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth and called on my powers just enough to be standing directly in front of the vampire before she could blink.
The look on her face was priceless—her pupils completely dilated, and the red ring around her irises almost swallowed the color of her eyes whole.
Taking advantage of her bewilderment, I head-butted her directly on the bridge of her nose and felt a glow of satisfaction when I heard a crunching sound. By the look on the vampire’s face and the blood pouring from her nose, I gathered she wasn’t in her happy place. She kicked me in the stomach with such force it was nothing short of a miracle that I still had my spine intact as I went flying across the lawn.
“Who are you?” the vampire demanded. “What are you?” she amended in a hiss, her eyes narrowed dangerously at me as I slowly got to my feet and plastered a sneer on my face.
“Wouldn’t you like to know, leech,” I spat.
With the promise of murder in her eyes, the vampire bared her fangs and lunged just as I warped forward with my dirk ready. I hurtled to the right at the last possible nanosecond and put all my forward momentum, strength, and warper energy into a single swing of my dirk. I landed a few feet away and swung around just in time to see the vampire’s head land at her feet. The vampire’s body fell next to her severed head almost as an afterthought. I stood there in stunned silence, surveying the gruesome scene before me as if I were an outside spectator.
With my ears feeling like they had been stuffed with cotton and my breathing escaping in rugged gasps, I staggered over to the body of the male victim and dropped to my knees next to him, checking for a pulse on the unravaged side of his neck. He was dead. I had been too late.
I don’t know how long I knelt there; it could have been minutes or hours. Who’s to say? A sound close by had me on my feet and in a defense stance quicker than any normal human should have been able to move.
“Sage? Dear God, are you hurt?”
Some sane part of my brain registered the voice as someone I knew, so I lowered my dirk a fraction and focused on the person standing a few feet away from me. Elaine stood there, one hand on her chest, the other raised slightly, palm out, as if to appease a wild beast.
I looked around myself at the carnage down in the dirt and the blood splatters on my arms and dress. My hair had come undone and hung around my shoulders and in my face. I must have looked like an insane-asylum escapee. My body felt all wrong, so I sat back down on the ground next to the man I hadn’t saved just as a single tear tracked down my cheek. Somewhere close by, I heard Elaine saying something, but I had no idea what it was. I couldn’t bring myself to really care.
I swept my eyes over the back garden, feeling as though someone were watching me, but the only thing I could hear was my own raspy breathing. Aldwin and Travis then burst through the back door. Travis stopped just outside the door and surveyed the scene grimly as Aldwin walked over to me and held out a hand. I looked up into his understanding eyes and grasped his hand, allowing him to pull me off the ground and into his embrace. The daze I had found myself in melted away, and all the sounds around me came rushing back as if someone had flipped a switch and unmuted the world.
Aldwin threw a black-velvet, hooded cape over me, tied it under my chin, and grasped one of my arms to lead me across the lawn, avoiding the decapitated body of the vampire. Unfortunately, he couldn’t shield me from remembering those now-sightless, red-rimmed eyes. After exchanging a few quiet words with the others, he quickly led me along the back of Mrs. Sebast’s home. The carriage was waiting on the side of the house with Zachary in the driver’s seat. Aldwin nearly lifted me into the carriage, and before the night’s events could sink in, we were entering the townhouse through the back door.
Not an hour later, I fell into bed, exhausted in both body and mind.
Aldwin had stood outside my bedroom silently as I’d allowed Marie to help me wash off and change into clean clothing before bed. I’d known that all I had to do was say the word and he would have held me and let me cry my eyes out on his shoulder. I’d almost gone to him, but I could barely stand myself at that moment. Truthfully, I hadn’t wanted to be held, hadn’t deserved to be
comforted, and had wanted to be alone. Eventually, I’d come out of my washroom clean and dressed for bed after I’d dismissed Marie for the night. I couldn’t bring myself to meet Aldwin’s worried gaze, and when he’d started to speak to me, I cut him off with a quick slash of my hand.
I lay numbly in my bed, wide awake most of the night. I don’t know if my lack of tears was because I was still in shock or because I had become heartless, but I would have given anything to cry. Instead, I just felt hollow.