December Moon (The Raven Saga)

  Tabitha turned to find Lilly wrestling with Johann. Duran did nothing but avidly watch from his seat. He was smiling, he was enjoying it.

  Tabitha jumped on Johann's back and tried to get her teeth into his flesh, as Lilly swiped at his face, leaving deep gashes. But he was strong, he threw Tabitha and she hit the ground hard. December's protection spell must have been doing something for without it, she would have been seriously winded. But she was able to jump right back up and throw herself onto him.

  As the fight continued, December turned her attention to Christoff for a moment. She tried to speak to him telepathically.

  'Christoff, can you hear me?'

  The boy looked startled and he looked around, expecting to see someone else in the cave. When he saw there was nobody else, he turned to look at her.

  'Yes, it's me. I know you are not one of Duran's crones. But will you join us? Will you help us to destroy him?'

  He looked from December to Duran, who was taking no notice of him, and back again.

  He looked to the floor, as if he was unsure.

  'Please Christoff. Duran is a ruthless killer who has murdered so many innocent people. Even if he saved you once before, look at him now, he cares nothing of those who travel with him. He sits happily letting them die. He will do the same to you... unless you help us kill him.'

  Christoff looked back at her and briefly nodded, but he was afraid.

  Duran clapped his hands together and laughed as he watched Tabitha and Lilly tear Johann to pieces, bit by bit. Soon, he lay on the floor, dead, his corpse wasting away into dust.

  The two girls turned to Duran who was still laughing and clapping.

  "This is quite a show! Why, don't stop now... Christoff... go on. Continue..." he said to the young vampire.

  Christoff stepped forward towards the lions, but instead of pouncing on them, he quickly turned to face his true enemy and threw himself onto Duran.

  December gasped. She had not expected the boy to react quite that way. She knew he would be killed without protection so she began to attempt another spell just as the girls jumped into the fight.

  As she uttered the words of protection on her new young vampire friend, she felt as if someone was standing by her side.

  Startled, she turned to find no-one there. The spell would not work until she had completed it and so she returned her attention to help save Christoff.

  But again, the moment she began her magic, she felt the same thing. She had to protect Christoff though, so she ignored it and continued to cast the spell.

  As she uttered the words over and over, she watched as Duran easily threw them all off, one by one. They kept coming back for more, hoping to weaken him and eventually destroy him, but he was strong and he had barely a scratch.

  The two lions were becoming breathless from the fight and Christoff was showing signs of weakening.

  December felt totally helpless. She had to do something, but she didn't know what she could do. How could she help? What kind of spells would work on the vampire? She rushed over to the rucksack Carmelo had left with her and opened it, finding more wooden stakes.

  Pulling two out of the bag, she held her arms up high and then brought her arms down to her sides, leaving the stakes floating in front of her.

  And then she waited, waited for the perfect opportunity to send the stakes soaring through the air and into the vampire that had brutally murdered her own grandmother.

  As her magic held the sharp pieces of wood in the air, she felt that same feeling again. That someone was close. She was no longer startled.

  Then a voice spoke to her, only to her, in her head.

  It's too dangerous. You might harm the girls.

  "I can do it," she said back subconsciously.

  You must warn them. Tell them to move when the time is right.

  Nodding, December began speaking to Tabitha, Lilly and Christoff. She told them at the count of five, to jump out of Duran's way.

  When she reached the number five in her head, all three of them suddenly pulled away from Duran.

  Now!, shouted the voice in her head.

  December used all her strength to send the stakes as fast and as hard as she could through the thick stale air and into the vampire's body.

  Duran's face changed. No longer did he appear amused, but a little shocked. His body crumpled beneath him and he fell backwards to the floor.

  Lilly hovered above him for a moment before turning back into human form. She rushed over to her bag and pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. She noticed she was no longer wearing the silver chain and so she scoured the floor to find it. Spotting it squinting close to Tabitha, she picked it up. It was broken. She shoved it into her pocket.

  Tabitha took a little longer to transform, and when she did, Lilly noticed she was injured. She stumbled and fell to the floor, holding her hands to a gash in her shoulder.

  "Tabitha!" she yelled, rushing to her side with some clothes.

  Christoff and December ran over to her and gently helped Lilly to clothe her.

  "I'm okay, I'm okay," she said repeatedly, but the gash said otherwise.

  "December, can you help her... with magic?" asked Lilly.

  "Yes, I think so."

  Lilly turned to Christoff and smiled, "thank you. You helped to save us. I can't tell you how grateful I am."

  Christoff, who appeared to be a little shaken by the ordeal, turned to look down at the body which lay at a funny angle with two stakes sticking out of his chest, "Thank you. I believe that you saved me, actually," he replied as he brushed his hair out of his eyes.

  "Is he dead?" asked the boy.

  "I believe so," replied Lilly, "but to be sure, are there any more stakes?" she asked December who nodded back and pointed to the bag.

  Removing one from the rucksack, she walked slowly over to Duran's still body and crouched above him. She lifted the stake high above his head and, stopping for a second to take a breath, she began to plunge it downwards. It sliced through the air but before it entered his body, Duran lifted his arm and grabbed her arm.

  She screamed. Pulling her up, he began to laugh.

  Lilly's eyes opened wide in terror as she saw December stand up in shock, her best friend began to utter words, words she did not understand. Items all around the cave began to fly upwards and around and around, faster.

  Christoff ducked to the floor and helped Tabitha move to a corner, out of harm's way.

  The pupil's in December's huge eyes appeared even larger and blacker as the words tumbled from her lips. She lifted her hands high above her head, like a true sorceress casting a powerful spell, but Duran was so fast. Before her spell took any effect, he had ploughed into her and knocked her to the ground. All the protection spells were now broken as December lay, unconscious, on the dirt floor.

  Tabitha jumped up but cried out in pain. Christoff held her back. He knew it was hopeless now. They had lost. Duran had won.

  Tears fell from Lilly's eyes as she realised what had happened. She was to be his. She was to become a vampire, belonging to him. There was nothing more she could do.

  Her sad, vacant expression said it all.

  Turning her around to face him, Duran looked deep into her eyes.

  "All I wanted was you, Lillian. All of this bloodshed could have been prevented if you'd only given me what I wanted. And now you will be mine anyway. Mine forever."

  Gasping, Lilly asked, "how do you know my name is Lillian?"

  As he spoke, his fangs became more and more pronounced and his eyes changed deep red once again, "My good friend Vivian told me before you killed her."

  She tried to fight against him, pulling away from him. She even tried to change back into feline form but she couldn't.

  "No!" she yelled, thrashing her arms against him.

  "Why? Why me?"

  Again, he stopped and smiled, "why ever not?"

  His head tilted to one side as his fingers pushed her head aside and he leaned in t
o take a bite. The bite that would start the process of making her his.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Lilly closed her eyes, almost accepting this terrible fate. Images of her life flashed in her mind. Her missing father, her dearest grandfather Gabriel and Rose, her aunt, who was the closest person she'd ever had to a mother. Jo, Carmelo, Meredith, Wyatt, Sonya, John, Zoltan, Ursula, Ben and Oliver, the boy who had stolen her heart. Were they all dead? Images of their faces flashed over and over again. Her eyes opened and yet the flashes continued. Rose, her lost baby and lost husband Walter. Walter? Why had she thought of Walter.

  Suddenly, Lilly was pushed to the floor and Duran's body was flung far across the cave.

  Confusion filled Lilly's head as she rushed to December's side. She was alive but unconscious. Looking up, she saw Christoff carefully holding Tabitha. Both were staring at the man that stood in the cave's entrance.

  Clearly a vampire, the fair-haired man was startlingly familiar.

  Duran rose from the floor and brushed himself down.

  "You'll wish you never laid a finger on me... Walter."

  Walter? The man that stood before them was Rose's husband, the man who had disappeared from her life, along with their baby daughter, all those years before. Yet there he was, looking not a day over thirty.

  "Grandfather!" yelled Tabitha.

  It all suddenly came back to Lilly. Tabitha's grandfather and his baby daughter had been kidnapped by a witch. But he had escaped and had been turned into a vampire. It had been his only chance of surviving the extensive blood loss he had endured over a number of years.

  "Tabitha, stay where you are, I can handle this," he said as Duran threw himself towards his opponent.

  The two wrestled, slamming each other hard into the cave's walls, loosening bits of dirt and stones.

  Lilly looked up and around them and realised they were no longer safe within those walls.

  "Christoff, help me!" she yelled to her new vampire friend who ran over and picked December up.

  "Take her outside. I'll help Tabitha," she instructed as she ran over to her and helped half carry her towards the exit.

  "But, my g...grandfather. We m...must help him," Tabitha stuttered.

  Nodding, Lilly replied, "but first we need to get to safety. The cave will collapse if they keep slamming into it like that."

  Emerging from the dark depths of the mountain, Lilly noticed that the sun had set and was replaced by an enormous beautiful full moon which gave them the light they needed.

  "Wh..what's going on?" said December as Christoff gently laid her on a patch of dry leaves.

  "He wasn't dead, December. We didn't kill him," said Lilly, "Walter appeared out of nowhere and now they're fighting inside. I think the cave is about to collapse."

  "Who's Walter?" she asked, confused.

  "He's my grandfather."

  "Your grandfather is fighting Duran?! Your grandfather?"

  Lilly nodded, "he's a vampire too," she said as she wondered whether this same fate had befallen her own father.

  December shook her head and winced, "So many vampires in Canada."

  Christoff smiled and gently stroked December's head.

  "We're not all bad, though," he said and she smiled back at him with a slight blush to her cheeks.

  The continuous booming sound could be heard as the two vampires fought inside. Lilly wished she could do something but she knew it was too dangerous to enter the cave.

  But suddenly, she had an idea.

  "December, remember your dream of you in a bubble?"

  Her friend nodded.

  "And then that protection spell you did in Tofino? I was in a bubble in the water. Can you cast a bubble spell to protect from falling debris?"

  "I... I don't know, Lilly. Look, my protection spell didn't exactly work very well in there, did it? What if my magic is no good?"

  Lilly crouched down and looked at her friend with a smile, "Of course you can do it. You are the reincarnation of Millicent Roberts, remember? And she was one of the most powerful witches... well... ever!"

  December smiled as Lilly continued, "You orbed yourself from one town across an island to another, December. You saved my life by casting a bubble protection spell once before. I believe in you. I believe you can do it. Please December. Help me. Help Tabitha get her grandfather back."

  With her eyes open wide and a grin developing across her pretty face, December nodded, "I can do it," she said.

  "Okay then. I could enter the cave in a bubble and stab him with silver fixed to the end of the stake!" she said excitedly jumping up.

  "It's dangerous, I know, but it's worth the risk. Duran is never going to stop. As long as he is alive, he'll never stop killing and he'll never stop trying to get to me and everyone that I love."

  Christoff stood up, "I'll do it. I'll go in."

  Lilly smiled, "That's very kind and very brave of you, Christoff, but you can't. It needs to be one us because of the silver. If the silver touches you, you'll be hurt. December and Tabitha are already injured so that just leaves me. I want to do this."

  Lilly took another stake from the bag and wrapped the silver chain around the end, tying it in a knot to keep it firmly in place. She stood close to the cave's entrance and waited for December to finish casting her spell.

  Lilly soon began hovering an inch or so in the air, a translucent bubble surrounded her body. She pushed her fingers through it to make sure she could pass the stake through without it bursting. It worked.

  Turning, Lilly smiled first at December and then the others before turning back towards the cave. She took a small tentative step, almost swallowed by the cave, before she heard her name being called.

  "Lilly!"

  She stopped, turned and saw Oliver running as fast as he could towards her in the distance.

  She smiled sadly at him and turned back towards the cave. Oliver was alive. Now she had even more of a reason to go in and destroy the vampire that was threatening her entire existence.

  "No!" she heard him yell but she continued to move into the darkness.

  Seconds later, rocks began to fall, showering the entrance completely with large boulders and stones. It was blocked.

  Lilly followed the sounds of the continuous rumbling as the two vampires fought in the darkness.

  As if December could sense the darkness, the bubble suddenly lit up. Lilly smiled. Her magic is getting stronger, she thought before she continued to search for signs of the two enemies.

  They had managed to break through from the original cave into a series of others, small and large and with small jagged pathways scattered off in many different directions. Small rocks continued to fall from all around as she scoured for signs of the two vampires.

  Hearing the echoing sounds of voices bouncing off of the walls around her, Lilly stopped and waited for a moment as she tried to work out which direction it was coming from.

  "You're not going to get out of this alive, Walter. You should have minded your own business."

  "It is my business when you're playing with my own family, Duran."

  A loud crash ensued as the two threw themselves against one another.

  Soon, Lilly could see them both. The sudden influx of light caused them to stop momentarily and take note of who had entered.

  Duran laughed and shook his head.

  "You witches think you can kill me with magic? I think not!" he said as he rushed towards her. Walter jumped on him from behind and plunged his teeth into the other vampire.

  "You'll have to do better than that!" he yelled, pulling Walter from behind him and throwing him against the side of the cave, causing a thunderous roar.

  Walter barely flinched and was back within a second, but not before he spotted Lilly's silver embellished wooden stake.

  "I'll make you sorry for turning me into one of you, Duran."

  "Ha... you might be a vampire, Walter, but you'll never be like me."

  "I never wanted to be like y
ou. You should have left me with Vivian."

  "I saved you from Vivian."

  "You made my life even more of a living hell."

  "I should have known better than to choose you. There were others far more grateful to be changed than you, Walter. You make me sick."

  Those words turned Lilly's stomach, could he have been referring to her father?

  The smell of blood filled her nostrils as she prepared for the moment when she could impel the beast.

  But they moved as fast as light, making it almost impossible to choose the right second to act.

  She watched and listened to the sounds of the mountain slowly caving in all around her, thunderous roar after thunderous roar.

  "Now Lilly, now!" yelled Walter as he threw Duran into her path. She had a split second to do the deed and so she launched herself forward with all her might and plunged the stake deep into Duran's heart before stopping completely still and waiting to see if her plan had worked.

  But he shook his head and tutted.

  "Lilly, are you still not aware that a wooden stake will not kill me?" he asked with a smile that suddenly became twisted as he realised that it was no ordinary wooden stake.

  She had to know, she had to know about her father, before he died.

  "Did you transform my father?" she asked.

  His eyes bulged from their sockets and his veins began to throb.

  "Duran.... Olivier... did you transform my father. Jackson Tulugaq? Jackson Taylor? Did you? Is he a vampire?"

  Smiling a horrible, twisted grin, "Silver-tipped stake?" he asked and she nodded.

  "Clever... girl..." he muttered, adding, "Jackson was... Vivian's... toy... not mine," he said finally as he fell backwards to the floor.

  "I planned to...ch... change him... but he disappeared before..."

  Suddenly his face was no longer that of a handsome young man, but that of an exceedingly old one. Lilly watched as his looks quickly faded, his skin disappeared from his bones and soon all that was left of him was a pile of dust on the ground.

  Walter stumbled towards Lilly. He was hurt.

  "I don't know if the bubble will hold us both, Walter, but we must try."