A Wind of Change

  Jeramiah didn’t know who I was. He thought that he would be strong enough to control me. Although he was a Novak himself, I doubted that there was anyone who could restrain me when I was in the midst of a blood frenzy. Even my father had trouble controlling me back in The Shade.

  There was something very wrong with me, and until I found out what it was, I couldn’t risk killing again.

  My mouth watered as I recalled that human girl huddled in the corner of the sauna. When Jeramiah had closed the door, I had been so sure that I would launch at her and rip her throat out. If I had not shoved him aside, I would’ve drained every last drop from her.

  My breathing was heavy as I recalled the scent of her blood and I felt a burning hunger in my stomach. Before Jeramiah had knocked on my door, I had been satisfied. Now, I was craving blood again.

  I headed straight for the kitchen and opened the fridge door. I pulled out every single jug of blood that was stored there except for one. I drank it all, and as I finished the last gulp, even that didn’t satisfy me. Having a human so close to me had reignited the darkness that lingered beneath the surface.

  I gripped the table hard.

  This was the most human blood I’d consumed since I had last murdered, before arriving in The Oasis. I had been so careful to consume only as much as my body absolutely needed. Now it seemed that I needed so much more just to keep my craving in check. Just looking at that human had set me back so far.

  If this was how I still acted around humans, what was I going to do once I managed to escape this place? I knew that I had to escape, but I still didn’t know how I would cope without murdering every human who had the misfortune of crossing paths with me.

  Dammit. Why can’t I just drink animal blood like the rest of my family?

  As I stood in the kitchen, it occurred to me that it had actually been some time now since I had last tried to drink animal blood. Perhaps something in my body had settled down by now and I could handle it. I found it hard to believe, but there was only one way to know for sure.

  Walking to my bedroom, I pulled on a shirt. Then I left my apartment and descended to the bottom level of the atrium. I walked through the gardens, scanning the rooms that surrounded it. I looked for the one where I had seen the vampire retreat with the snake that had recently escaped. I was not sure if there were other animals in The Oasis, but snake blood should be good enough to test my theory.

  Once I thought that I had spotted the right room, I left the gardens and approached it. I gripped the handle of the door and was pleased to see that it was open. I found myself stepping into a large room filled with cages of writhing snakes of all shapes and sizes.

  Why do they keep all of these snakes?

  I had gotten the impression that the vampires here only drank human blood. Why would they drink anything else when they had so much of it, and of such quality?

  Whatever reason they had for keeping them, it suited me right now. I approached the cage nearest to me and scanned the snakes inside it, wondering which to pull out. Then I noticed the huge black snake that had tried to attack me out in the gardens in the next cage and decided he—or she—would be a worthy target.

  When I opened the cage, the black snake darted towards me, its fangs bared. I caught it by its neck and squeezed hard before it could bite me, then jerked it upward, pulling the rest of its tail out of the cage. I closed the cage again before any other snakes could attempt an escape.

  The black snake’s tail thrashed about as it continued trying to attack me. I didn’t prolong its death. Drawing out my claws, I sliced off its head in one swift motion. As blood began to spill from its body, even just the smell of it made my stomach lurch. It was hard to describe the smell. It was just foul. Something I would never want to put in my mouth.

  Still, I forced myself to dig my fangs into its flesh and draw a long deep gulp.

  I held my nose as I swallowed, then waited.

  After twenty seconds, nothing had happened, so I took another deep gulp. And then another. That was about all I could handle of the vile substance in one go, so I set the body down on the ground and sat down on a bench in one corner of the room. I still held my nose even now, afraid that if I stopped, I would upchuck everything.

  After two minutes, a wave of relief washed over me. Animal blood still tastes disgusting, but perhaps I can stomach it now. Maybe I really have changed. Maybe all I needed was some time to settle into this new body.

  I was starting to feel so confident that I got up for another gulp of snake blood, but as I motioned to pick up the body, my stomach growled and before I knew it, I was staring at a pool of red vomit on the floor.

  I kept vomiting until it felt like if I vomited anymore, I would start throwing up my insides.

  Great.

  Nothing has changed.

  Something is very, very wrong with me.

  I looked around the room and spotted some cleaning equipment. Filling up a bucket, I grabbed a mop and cleaned up my mess. Then I picked up the corpse of the snake and left the room. I wasn’t sure whether somebody would be irritated with me that I had just killed one of their snakes, or whether they wouldn’t mind. They seemed to have so many, after all.

  Still, I wanted to avoid trouble, so I made my way to one of the orchards that was overgrown with shrubbery. I dropped the body of the snake beneath bushes and covered it with soil. It would decompose soon enough.

  Then I walked past the lily ponds and rinsed my mouth and hands in the clear water. When I stood up, my gaze landed on the memorial stone of Lucas Novak. It seemed to have been attended to since I had last laid eyes on it. It was cleaner, and I could make out the inscription better. Feeling unsettled, reminded of the urgency of escaping this place, I headed straight back to my apartment.

  I could still taste snake blood on my tongue. I walked back into the kitchen intending to finish off the last jug of blood to get rid of the taste, but when I opened the fridge, the shelves were filled with jug upon jug of delicious human blood.

  Strange.

  I wondered who had done it. I had only been gone a few minutes. It was almost like there was some slave living with me, watching my every move.

  Although I was immensely grateful to not have to worry about finding my own blood, I couldn’t help but feel that with each gulp of this exquisite blood, I was becoming more and more indebted to this strange place known as The Oasis.

  Chapter 10: River

  I woke up to a burning sensation in my right upper arm. The pain was blinding. I gripped my shoulder to soothe it, but it only intensified the pain.

  I sat up slowly, wincing as I opened my eyes. To my horror, I found myself in Michael’s large circular bed. My heart hammered as I scanned the room, but I found some relief in the fact that he wasn’t here with me. I was also still wearing my own clothes, which gave me some comfort.

  I moved my ripped shirt and looked down at my shoulder. The skin surrounding my right bicep was red and swollen, and etched into it was a black cross.

  I almost yelled.

  What the hell is this?

  It was hurting so much, it felt like someone was still inking my skin. What is the meaning of this cross? Why would they brand me with it?

  Although overwhelmed with doubts and questions, I didn’t spend any more time staring at my arm. I was alone. Michael was nowhere in sight, nor was any other vampire. I climbed as quietly as I could out of bed.

  I have to find my sister and Hassan. And we have to escape this nightmare.

  The door was ajar. I was about to push it open wider and slip out when something caught my eye on the dressing table a few feet away from me. Leaving the door reluctantly, I approached it.

  As I stared down at two objects wrapped in brown paper and covered with a piece of parchment, my mouth fell open and my stomach somersaulted.

  A note was written in jerky black handwriting on the parchment:

  “For your mother and brother.”

  I snatched up the no
te and stared at it, my hands shaking. I read the words over and over again, just in case my eyes deceived me. Then I dropped it and picked up the first object wrapped in brown paper. I tore off the paper to reveal a black silk pouch. I loosened the opening, and found myself staring down at a pile of gold coins. My heart beat faster as I reached for the second object. It was much smaller than the first, and cylindrical. I tore through the brown paper and found myself holding a thin glass vial filled with a transparent amber liquid.

  What is this?

  I looked around the room, breathing heavily, then back down at the objects.

  How do they know about my mother and brother? What are these things for?

  I jumped as a deep male voice spoke from the door.

  “How are you feeling, River?” Michael asked as he stepped into the room. His blond hair looked wet, like he’d just taken a shower.

  I felt all the blood drain from my face. “How do you know my name?”

  Michael’s smile broadened. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a crumpled-up tag and placed it in my palm. I recognized it instantly as the airport label that had been on my backpack. It contained my full name… and my home address.

  They know where I live.

  “What are these?” I gasped, stumbling back away from him and ripping up the tag.

  He eyed the gold coins and the vial. “Gifts from The Oasis.”

  “My mother and brother aren’t here. Why would you give them these gifts?” I breathed, fearing that they were going to kidnap them too. Or had already.

  Michael shook his head. “You need not worry about your family in New York. We don’t go that far for humans… at least, not usually. We have plenty of healthy humans to choose from in our proximity. As to how they will receive their gifts, we will send one of our witches to deliver them. Would you like that?”

  “No!” I grabbed the coins and the vial from the table and held them behind my back. “Please! Don’t go near them. I’m begging you. My brother is sick—”

  Michael held up a hand. “Very well. You might as well keep the gifts then. Not that they will be of much use to you around here…” He walked over to the table and opened one of the large drawers. He pulled out my backpack from it and handed it to me. I grabbed it from him and stuffed the gifts inside, then shoved the bag into one corner of the room.

  “Where is my sister?” I repeated for what felt like the hundredth time.

  “Your sister is fine.”

  “Take me to her!” I shouted.

  Irritation sparked in his eyes, but I didn’t hear his response as the front door to his apartment clicked open. Footsteps shuffled down the corridor, and then the bedroom door pushed wide open. Standing before me was Jeramiah, accompanied by a short woman just as deathly pale, and bound in chains. Blood was smeared around her mouth and her eyes looked unfocused as they fell on me.

  I backed up against the wall, wishing there was a window in this damned place that I could leap out of. But there were no windows anywhere here. We were underground, in the middle of a desert.

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” Jeramiah said, looking at Michael. “Position her.”

  Before I could even attempt to get away, Michael grabbed me and wrestled me back onto the bed. He pinned me down with his knees and hands, spreading out my body so tight I couldn’t even budge an inch.

  The woman began to growl frighteningly, a guttural sound that came from deep within her throat. She clanked her chains and Jeramiah restrained her as they both approached the bed.

  “River,” Jeramiah said. It disturbed me to no end that now even he was addressing me by my name. “I would advise you not to struggle. Faye is a newly turned vampire. That means she is particularly… unpredictable. She’s not as strong as me, so I can control her, but only if you cooperate. If you don’t, you might find yourself bled dry. Understood?”

  My eyes widened in terror as he loosened the woman’s chains and she leapt on top of me. Baring her fangs, she dug them right into my neck, in a different spot where Michael had drunk from me before.

  I groaned, my body stiffening as I seized up in pain.

  I’d experienced needles and injections before, but these vampire teeth felt so thick compared to them, and they dug so deep into my flesh, I worried that they were going to hit bone.

  I wanted to scream out, but I remembered Jeramiah’s words and so I bit my lip.

  “Don’t suck!” Jeramiah said.

  He must’ve done something to hurt the female vampire, because she moaned and stopped sucking so hard.

  “Release now.” Jeramiah spoke again.

  A freezing cold substance shot into my neck. Pain lit up every nerve in my body, and all my limbs began to shake.

  What is happening to me?

  “Enough,” Jeramiah ordered, clanking the chains, and Faye pulled away from me.

  I found myself staring up at Jeramiah and Michael, who were looking down at me, but soon their faces were a blur. Everything was a blur. I could barely even form a coherent thought. All that I was aware of was the pain now coursing through my veins and the coldness, the biting coldness that seeped right through to the very marrow of my bones.

  My mouth felt dry and my heart began beating so fast I thought that it would give up. It felt like my windpipe was closing and I could barely breathe.

  Something touched my face—an ice-cold hand. Michael’s perhaps. “You’re going to be just fine, River,” he said.

  Cold tears streamed from my eyes as pain washed over me in waves.

  I’m going to die.

  I’m going to die.

  And yet hours passed and I didn’t. I still hung on in that strange place between consciousness and darkness.

  There was no way I could have guessed how much time passed. It could have been hours or it could have been days. Moments merged into each other, passing in one long stream of pain and torment.

  It was only once the trembling started to subside that I found pieces of myself again. I found it easier to think, easier to be aware of what was going on around me, and once my vision had returned, my breathing became more even.

  But the coldness, the bitter coldness… it never left me. It seemed to have settled permanently in my bones. Into my very being.

  I didn’t understand what had just happened to me, but as strength flooded back to my limbs and I was able to sit up, one thing I knew for certain:

  I was no longer the River I’d known.

  Chapter 11: River

  Aside from the aching cold, my senses were surrounded by a myriad of stimuli. I could hear noises in other rooms around the atrium that I hadn’t heard before, pick up on a variety of scents I hadn’t detected before, and my eyesight felt ten times sharper.

  I stood up from the bed and stared at myself in the mirror. My tan skin looked dull and pale. Too pale. My turquoise eyes had an odd vibrancy that hadn’t been there before. I bared my teeth, fearing that I was about to see fangs… but they looked normal.

  Michael got up from a chair in a shadowy corner of the room. He approached and I caught sight of him in the mirror as he placed his hands on either side of my waist.

  “What am I?” I whispered, moving away from him.

  “You are a half-blood… my half-blood.”

  “What is a half-blood?”

  “Come with me,” he said, ignoring my question. “You need to warm up. Since you’re not fully a vampire, your body needs some heat or it can become very uncomfortable. You feel the cold, unlike us.”

  I was still in a daze. I couldn’t even find it in myself to object as he took my hand and led me out of the bedroom, down the corridor toward the room he had kept me in before. The sauna. He stepped inside with me, fiddled with a panel of dials and buttons, then closed the door. The room began to heat up quickly. I stopped shivering so much, and the deep ache in my bones subsided a little.

  I had so many thoughts fighting to burst out at once, I didn’t know which to ask first.

/>   “Why did you do this to me?”

  “I understand that it’s a shock now,” he said. “But you will come to thank me for choosing you as my half-blood.” He leaned in and brushed the back of his hand against my cheek. “I promise.”

  “Your half-blood?” I breathed.

  “My half-blood.”

  I stood up and moved away from him. “What is this tattoo you placed on my arm?”

  “We all have them.” He rolled up his sleeve and showed me an identical brand on his right upper arm.

  “Did you etch this into me?”

  “That’s not important. What is important is that you listen carefully to what I’m about to say. If you want to survive in this new body of yours, you’ll need to learn to depend on me. I can show you how to live without pain, and how to enjoy your life.”

  I backed away as far as I could from him in the wooden room.

  “There are certain rules,” he continued, “that you are designed to abide by. My rules. If you disobey me, very bad things can end up happening to you… and your sister.”

  I choked up. “You have given me no proof that she’s even still alive.”

  “I’m telling you that she is still alive. And she will remain alive and well, provided you do as I say.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  He paused as he eyed me over. “First, I want to show you that you will enjoy having me as your master. I will be good to you and you will enjoy submitting to me.”

  This man is crazy.

  “Come here,” he said.

  I didn’t budge.

  His eyes darkened. “Come here, River.” His voice was dangerously low. “I won’t ask you again.”

  I remained rooted to my spot.

  I wasn’t going to submit to this monster.

  When I still didn’t respond, he leapt up, grabbed my arm, and pulled me out of the sauna. He began striding down the corridor, dragging me along behind him. To my shock, I found that I could keep up without difficulty. Before, even his walking had been so fast, I could barely keep up.