Damon’s idea that she had to turn into a vampire was quickly becoming appealing. It was a chance to go her own way without someone doing everything for her and defending her.
She would be strong and fast. Why stay a mortal human? Her family was dead and gone and she had no friends to speak of, therefore no reason to stay human.
Tears filled her eyes at the futility of her situation, both actually. The boiling hot pain in her shoulder was starting to worry her, felt like acid. Human bites were not like this. Men did not reach out and bite you leaving you feeling like a human fire volcano.
Shade was still two rungs away when she heard another crash below that had the walls reverberating with the severity of it. She nearly fell again because her arm was now growing weak. The muscle cramped up and she was completely out of breath.
Another blow or two like the last would more than likely cause the door to break, at least crack which would weaken the door severely. She had only a moment or two before she was found.
Nearly hysterical now she used both feet to push her way to the last rung above her. Tears of pain and futility were now freely flowing and blurring her vision. She wiped at them angrily with her shoulder.
Feeling blindly above her she found the free edge of the trap door and pushed it open. She was careful not to let it fall and announce to the trespasser that she was not in the room but above him somewhere in the house.
She used her good leg to push with everything she had and used her arms to pull her up and onto her stomach so she could roll into the room. By this point her right arm was nearly useless and she had lost a lot of blood. So much so she was worried how much longer she had. No human bites would cause someone to lose this much blood. Her wound was not clotting and attempting to scab. He may have nicked her jugular. If that was the case she would be dead long before the man below found her. He would have hunted her for nothing.
Her ribs were aching from the kick and she was worried they were broken.
Her breathing was labored from her exertion climbing. When she breathed in she felt a sharp pain and that made her think she had fractured something.
The pain was making her struggle and flail helplessly. Which caused her to nearly fall but at the last moment she was able to roll into the attic.
Below she heard another louder crash and with horror realized he had broken through the door and was now searching for her.
She closed the trap door as silently as she could. It was nearly too heavy but she managed despite her arm was almost completely numb now and fiery hot like she had stuck it in a bonfire.
There were three sliding locks in which she now put into place.
Shade noticed the bulky object to her left. It was heavy and she realized it was to block the door in which she had just come through.
She pushed with her good shoulder and managed to get it over the right side of the door before collapsing beside it.
It never occurred to her to question why a vampire would need an escape route and go to all the trouble to barricade the trap doors.
Down below she heard cussing. He was really upset that she had gotten away.
All she could think of at that moment was why her? Like losing her parents and brother was not enough. Like being inferior to all adults and some kids, like being abused by one person after another until she was nothing more than a limp meat bag incapable of fighting back. How much would she have to give up? Would she have to sacrifice her whole life and mortality as well? If she even lived through this she would still die and be reborn as some bloodthirsty creature of the night. How much was too much?
She could not see very well up here but she was beginning to feel as if she was definitely in an attic with a low sloping ceiling and no windows. Which meant possibly another escape route somewhere in the house. The floor was hard solid wood and not the usual cheap mess where you had to step on two by fours so you didn’t fall through the fluffy stuff.
She inched painfully and slowly across the room looking for a way out. Her arm was almost dead to her now. She knew she had only moments before her body gave out on her.
Minutes passed with silence below. She was sure he was looking for her and any second now he would find the trap door. There was no way she could have just disappeared into nothingness. He would not give up.
Something scratched her bare shin, right above where her ankle was sprained. She suddenly realized she had slept in one of her oversized T-shirts. All the chaos had caused her to forget her near nakedness.
Blood trickled down her leg soaking her sock. She must have put her shin onto a loose nail and when she pushed off her leg scraped along the nail. Now she would get tetanus… That was IF she could somehow survive the maniac below her that is.
She felt an indention under her hands so she followed the crease until she found a latch. Undoing that she lifted the door up with one arm and looked down into another small crawl space that lead even further down then the one she had climbed up in.
This one had to be the escape hatch that led outside of the house.
Shade carefully maneuvered herself into the hole and put her weight on her good leg. She scooted down until she could close the door which caused her ribs to ache leaving her gasping for air. Under the fake floor she found more latches.
If her psycho downstairs found the door he would have to turn back around and go back to the room and out that way to find her. It was ingenious and made her also more than a little suspicious of Damon. She had a few questions to ask him if she was still breathing by the time he got his slow butt home.
She could tell after forty five seconds or so that just waiting would be impossible.
Shade was barely able to cling onto the rails while using her good arm to lock the trap door above her. Her dead arm was wrapped through the rail and squeezed between her body and the railing so it wouldn’t slip out. Once again gravity sucked, going down would be faster but also with only one arm it was more dangerous.
Shade made an entire floor before she heard something banging on walls, or rather someone. She was assuming he was looking for a trap door from Damon’s room, or however she had escaped.
She tried going two steps at a time but she was short enough that it was not possible without taking the chance of falling.
She still had another floor to go from what little she could see.
Shade risked speeding up a little more and was about three feet from the bottom when she lost her footing and fell the rest of the distance. She fell on her sprained ankle and immediately crumpled as the bone crunched making a loud echo within the small space. Her thin brittle bones were so infuriatingly inconvenient.
“Damn!” An automatic curse flew through her lips before the pain offered her a welcoming blanket of darkness. Vertigo and nausea beat at her for a moment before she forced it back. Using her good arm she sat up and looked around, four normal interior walls and a small crawlspace with nowhere to go but up.
Shade was going to die in a crawlspace all alone and no one would ever find her. Tears had been falling since the first moment she had been attacked but now they were soaking her shirt along with the blood.
She tried shifting her position but realized instantly that wasn’t possible. Her ankle may now be broken and she could not feel her right arm at all except for the burning pain. She was sweating and shivering at the same time and feeling horribly weak. The three feet she fell was more than half her height.
When she had finally shifted to a more comfortable spot her shirt had ridden up her hip and was now snagged on something in a corner behind her.
She reached down irritably and tugged at it. It refused to give until she pulled down and untangled it.
She felt around and to her delight she found another latch. Without thinking she released it and the bottom of the crawl space emptied her out into what could only be the basement. Luckily it deposited her onto a table rather than a floor so she fell on her bottom from only a few feet causing pain to shoot up her b
ack.
Again she found herself gasping for oxygen as her head smacked into the wood immediately after her bottom which had cushioned her fall and reduced the damage to her skull. Her vision swam angrily before her. She rolled to her left side and fell onto her face and knees to the floor below fighting the queasy feeling in her tummy.
Silence through the house had her worried that her landing had been compromised. She used the table to pull herself up. Grunting she got her good leg under her.
She managed to shift herself onto the table so she could look around. It was pitch black but she could make out darker shadows which meant there must be tall furniture around her.
She slid down and hobbled towards the nearest tall object. Before quite reaching it though she tripped over something immediately in front of her, and wished for the millionth time Damon was there.
She moved much more carefully towards the darker shadows in front of her.
As Shade’s eyes adjusted she realized it was lighter to her left. She made it that way in hopes of a way out. Several minutes later she found herself against a wardrobe with little knobs.
If nothing else she could hide her thin frame inside it until Damon hopefully came to save her. She opened it and saw it was not a storage bureau like it looked from the outside. It was another secret tunnel. The inside was complete steel, only the outside was wood. She crawled awkwardly inside and slammed down the metal security latch that barred it shut. A motion detecting light was installed into the roof of the walkway. It switched on dimly and provided her a view of two more locks. It would be impossible to find the bureau much less get inside.
Shade had only been asleep for about two hours so she was not surprised to find herself slipping to the floor and laying prone on her left side. She refused to believe she was dying.
As the cold seeped into her and left her breathless she had no choice. She could feel her heart making random slow beats. Each beat grew farther apart.
She clenched her eyes closed to block out the blood dripping to the floor of the tunnel. It was not more than an inch from her eye.
Shade’s shivering body quaked atop of the brutally cold steel floor. Her fragile human self could not handle the different obstacles that had been thrown at her in the last seventy two hours or less.
The supernova temperature of her neck was more than she could possibly bear. She was fairly safe here and Damon would eventually find her and release her. That or she would die alone in his home instead of by more torture from the maniac stalking her.
Her eyelids fluttered as she groaned one last time, thoughts on how she would more than likely never wake again. Never see Damon or become a damned bloodthirsty vampire. Shock beat at her she succumbed to the impending darkness until she was slipping away, unconscious.
CHAPTER SIX
Damon’s car careened madly into the driveway and up to his house. The front door was closed and he did not sense Gideon’s mate nearby. Either Leila was dead, dying, or had left poor Shade alone and returned home.
Damon wrenched the car door open and stiffened at the bright sunshine. He ignored the lightly burning feeling and made his way hastily into his house. The door was unlocked but closed.
He sniffed the air and immediately recognized the scent left behind by the demon that he’d passed by not even an hour ago on the deer trail. He followed it up the stairs and towards his bedroom door, which was hanging perilously by one hinge. It was shattered and missing solid chunks of wood.
His heart skipped a beat before resuming a maddening dance.
Damon dashed madly into his bedroom and came face to face with the demon as it was exiting his closet unaware of him only a few feet away. The smell of Shade’s blood hit his nose enraging him, which did not bode well for the demonic intruder in front of him.
Damon did not hesitate but slammed his fist straight into the eye of the eighth plane demon of destruction, the Vanth. They were summoned here for one thing and they never failed. They were assassins of the most deadly kind, and not in an honorable vengeance sort of way.
The demon reacted as Damon had expected him to. He lashed out with his split lizards tongue and tasted the air identifying Damon.
This one was after him but had only found the mortal female instead. It was ordered to kill anything and anyone associated with Damon so there would be no witnesses. Upon fifty years of enslavement the humanoid demons would be released on another realm full of lower demons to gorge on to their hearts content.
Damon loathed the creatures. They looked as human as any but were fatally dangerous to mortals who crossed their paths.
This fate would have been Shade’s as well had she not found the escape hatch in the attic.
Upon realizing the vampire he was sent to destroy was in front of him the demons eyes began burning red. Horns rose an inch or so from right between its temple and ears, and a tail unrolled itself and flicked back and forth. Humanoid or not they still were demons and had the appearance of such when they chose.
A hiss escaped the acidic mouth as the creatures leg reared up and out to kick Damon through a wall, hoping to stun the vampire.
Damon was prepared for the techniques of the demon and as always was ready when it lashed out. He grabbed the leg and swung around twice before slamming it into the boarded window which cracked and splintered.
Damon reaffirmed his hold before the demon could gather its wits, swung it around and again slammed it into the window. The demon was nearly through the window now and trying to crawl out.
Damon pulled and wrenched the demon free and again swung it around before launching it through the window. He followed it out and all the way down ignoring the sun that was steadily draining him, knowing it would not take more than a moment or two to finish it off. Besides he had the ancient’s blood coursing through him, empowering and fulfilling.
He grabbed the floundering demon by the hair of the head and threw him into the closest tree. He slammed his fist repeatedly into the creature’s face breaking its nose and loosening several teeth, mutilating it beyond recognition. Damon was careful to avoid the saliva knowing if it mingled with his blood he would be sick for days. Vampires were nearly unstoppable but this particular demons saliva would put him down. It would be extremely fatal to humans sometimes even shape shifters.
If Shade was infected then he would have to change her immediately and hope she made it through the conversion. There was a small chance depending on how fast his blood worked on hers. If they were indeed soul mates she had a fighting chance.
The demon began to articulate sounds indicating its need to speak. Damon started to ignore it and slam the creature face first into the tree. Curiosity changed his mind at the last second.
“Speak you useless excuse for a demon.”
“Not want die… Jasar need freedom. Jasar do this job then go home,” its voice gravelly and deep, a sniveling putrid sound.
“So you kill my kind instead? Saving your life is acceptable after you have slaughtered humans?”
“Mortals no kill, only demon like you and Jasar. No kill the mortal of this plane…”
The demon sounded confused.
“The girl in the house, I smell her on you!”
“Not human Jasar no kill human… girl be, Jasar not know word. Not mortal only girl more magic kind.”
Shade was a dark elf? They were not only extinct but thought to possibly be myth. The dark elves had left the human world to another realm and never looked back. Apparently one had mated with a human either prior to or afterwards. The dark elves had special abilities like telepathy, empathy, or psychic.
His job was to eradicate useless and pathetic scumbags like this one that preyed on his realm. Damon would not be doing his job if he left the demon before him alive.
So he snapped the neck, cut the heart out, and called the cleaners.
Then he flew back inside and hunted Shade down by scent. Something told him she was a survivor. He would start in the basement if he did n
ot smell her there he would work his way up.
Damon followed her trail to the basement. He wouldn’t lose her after just finding her. He would not be alone forever, and she did not deserve to die. She had been through so much that after losing everyone she knew and dying on top of it was tragic.
She was in the bureau, he realized. Damon jumped over a table and landed immediately in front of the door.
It was locked from the inside. He would have to disengage each of the locks to open it.
First he had to call Gideon, his mate could be dead and he was more than likely going to turn Shade today, within moments. He also needed someone to deal with the cleaners should they become curious.