Stolen Nights

  ‘I understand, but I need to do it now,’ I said as students continued to file past us out of the door. He took a few steps on to the quad but didn’t remove his eyes from mine.

  ‘Come to my room after,’ he said. As he walked away, he slung his schoolbag over his shoulder.

  ‘OK,’ I said with a small smile. ‘I will.’

  I glanced around the campus again, surveying the students out enjoying the beautiful day. But I wanted to be in the art tower, even if people were in there working. They didn’t have to know what I was doing. There was a quiet thud from the glass door as it closed behind me. Step by step, as I climbed the circling stairs, I breathed deeply, relieved. I actually felt better instead of worse. This was what I needed.

  As I climbed, I passed a few students coming down the stairs towards the ground floor. They had to turn to the side to avoid hitting me with their portfolios. I climbed higher and higher and stopped at the window I had looked through when I first came to Wickham. My fingers grazed over the familiar stones and I hesitated when I caught sight of Justin walking into Quartz.

  I reached the last step and I walked through the doorway – and there it was. There I was. Tony had wanted to paint that portrait the whole time I had known him. It was based on a photograph he had taken of me during a snorkelling trip. I looked at myself in paint: a back view from my waist up, my head turned to the side, in profile. My hair was pulled to the side to reveal the tattoo on the back of my shoulder – the motto of my coven: Evil Be He Who Thinketh Evil.

  I didn’t notice her at first, but standing below the painting was Claudia. She was leaning down to zip up a portfolio, and when she stood up she glanced at the portrait and then at me.

  ‘No one’s been able to take it down. We just keep putting up our paintings around it.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were an artist,’ I said.

  She pulled her blonde hair back into a ponytail. ‘Oh, I’m not,’ she said. ‘Drawing’s my elective.’

  Together, she and I looked at my portrait for a moment, at my profile and the curve of my smile.

  ‘I feel like I’m looking at myself in a different time. A different life.’

  ‘Lenah, you’re seventeen. You don’t have to be so dramatic,’ she said.

  ‘You’re right,’ I said, just as there was the thud of a heavy door slamming.

  ‘Did the . . . ?’ Claudia started to ask but there was no need. I knew immediately.

  The door to the art tower was ancient and wooden. It was always open. Now someone had closed it. Claudia and I turned to look.

  Odette.

  A flood of horror flashed through me, but then it was immediately replaced by something else. My cheeks burned. Anger exploded within my stomach, along with the familiar determination I had once felt as a vampire queen.

  Odette’s perfectly coifed hair fell in delicate ringlets. Her dark green eyes locked on me as a wide smile stretched across her face. How dare she stand before me? Here. I could almost feel the vampire queen within me baring her fangs.

  ‘Claudia, get behind me,’ I commanded, and Claudia hid behind my back. I could feel small breaths on my neck.

  ‘You see, I do not fear humans any more,’ Odette said. ‘I could outrun any of them now.’

  ‘You should fear me,’ I replied.

  Her eyes floated up to my portrait. ‘It’s lovely, isn’t it?’ she smiled. ‘Such a shame about the boy.’

  Claudia let out a tiny cry.

  ‘Did you think I wouldn’t know?’ Odette said. Her tone was clipped. She meant the ritual.

  ‘Actually, yes,’ I said. ‘I don’t think you’re very smart.’

  Odette looked like a statue. She stood with her legs slightly apart. She was stunning in her jeans and red top.

  ‘Lenah . . .’ Claudia whispered. ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Shhh,’ I said, not removing my eyes from Odette’s.

  ‘You don’t think I actually tried that ridiculous fake spell, do you?’ Odette asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘I think you did try it. I think you believed me to be so stupid as to give you the real one.’

  Stay strong, Lenah.

  Odette walked around the circumference of the room and stopped directly below my portrait. I grasped Claudia’s wrist, keeping her behind me as I turned to watch Odette. Her thin fingers pressed against mine.

  If I could made Odette bleed, we would have time to try to pull the door open. I just had to weaken her and stall for time.

  Keep talking.

  ‘You tried that spell days after you received it, didn’t you?’ I smirked. ‘You sent your men on errands to find the ridiculously rare items I placed on that list. Black crystal from the African coast!’

  Odette stepped on to a small stool near the wall. She raised one hand and made a claw. She rose on her tiptoes so her hand now hovered in front of my image.

  There was a horrible ripping sound as Odette scratched her talons down the centre of my portrait. It felt as though she was ripping me in half as I watched shreds of Tony’s painting fall like feathers to the floor.

  ‘What’s happening?’ shrieked Claudia.

  I clenched my teeth.

  Odette climbed down and started to walk again. I kept hold of Claudia’s wrist and moved us away from her. We circled each other for a few moments.

  We had no choice but to keep our distance. My fingertips grazed the wood of the door as we passed by. Claudia was trembling and her body vibrated against mine every time she shuddered. There, beneath the painting, were cubbies and I could see a box of craft knives. Perfect! Stabbing her in the heart with so small a blade probably wouldn’t kill her but maybe it would buy me some time. And if we could get the door open we could get out of the art tower.

  ‘Claudia,’ I hissed, ‘try to open the door.’

  Odette stopped her slow pursuit and instead marched directly across the room. In a blink, she had wrapped her fingers around my neck and lifted me. The back of my head hit the wall of wooden cubbies. Odette’s nails dug into my throat and a hot pain erupted where she had pierced the skin.

  My hands clawed behind me for the cubbies, raking through the air for one of the knives I could see. I couldn’t grab one. I wanted to open my mouth, croak to Claudia to hand them to me, but Claudia had backed away to the door, her mouth hanging open. Odette held me up by my throat even tighter than she had in the dressing room. I raised my knees towards my chest and kicked my feet out, directly into Odette’s stomach. She stumbled backwards and threw her arms out. She quickly regained her balance but the look of surprise on her face was a small victory.

  My knees hit the ground as I fell forward. I was no fool – I had learned self-defence; I had had my coven member Song teach me defence tactics. Odette would retaliate, and fast. When I tried to lean my body weight on my arm to get up, I collapsed from the pain of the burn.

  ‘Do you know what will happen when I have that ritual? I’ll have the most powerful coven in the world,’ Odette said, and walked slowly across the room. She was not coming towards me.

  Oh no . . .

  Claudia was pulling at the door handle and screeching as she heaved and yanked. Her blonde ponytail waved in the air as she tugged on the door, but it was fruitless.

  ‘I wanted to get you without Vicken or Rhode. And I have, but I can’t kill you! Doesn’t irony enrage you?’ Odette shrieked, and slapped her hands against her sides. ‘Rhode is never alone without a weapon. Stupid mortal. Always travelling with other people or talking to teachers. But you – arrogant Lenah. Choosing to be alone with a human girl.’

  Odette grabbed Claudia by yanking on her ponytail, just as she had done to Kate. She then positioned herself so her right arm was clutching Claudia’s neck. It reminded me of what she had attempted to do to Vicken at the herb shop. She couldn’t kidnap Claudia in the light of day, but she could kill her.

  ‘Lenah . . .’ Claudia’s chin trembled. Her tear-stained face and confused eyes would haunt me forever.
Odette pulled back on Claudia’s ponytail, exposing her neck. ‘Please, don’t,’ Claudia’s voice warbled.

  Please don’t. I have a family. I love my life. I don’t want to die. I could say those phrases in dozens of languages. They had been said to me so many times.

  As Odette bit into Claudia’s neck my mouth salivated and a wave of nausea swept over me. Somewhere deep within me, I desired that metallic taste of blood.

  Claudia’s knees buckled.

  I grabbed on to the shelves on the wall and at last curled my fingers around a bunch of craft knives. I threw myself towards Odette and plunged the blades into her thigh.

  There was a sucking sound. Odette lifted her head. Claudia, barely conscious, hung limply in Odette’s arms. Odette laughed manically as a trickle of blood dripped from Claudia’s neck on to her blouse.

  ‘You think those tiny knives would hurt me?’

  Odette moved her hands over Claudia’s ears, met my eyes with a smirk and snapped Claudia’s neck, sending her to the floor. Her body crumpled instantly. Her limbs hit the floor with a horrible crack.

  She lay motionless. Dead.

  The knives in my other hand dropped to the floor. My stomach plummeted.

  No. She wasn’t dead. I wouldn’t let it happen. I crawled to Claudia and took her small hand into mine. It lay limp and unmoving, still warm. Her hair fanned out on the floor, feather-like and soft.

  ‘Get up,’ Odette said, pulling me by my hair, yanking at my scalp. The knives remained in her leg. I stood up, Claudia’s fingers falling away from mine. Odette held on to a fistful of my hair and snarled in my ear, ‘Every day that passes, I’ll get stronger and stronger.’ She brought her face to mine and I could smell rotting blood. ‘I can’t wait for Nuit Rouge.’ She let go of my head, releasing the tension in my scalp, and walked to a bookcase across from Claudia. ‘And because I can’t have you if I’m in jail . . .’ With a horrific sneer she used both hands to rip the bookcase from the wall and send it crashing to the floor, crushing Claudia’s lifeless body.

  I shot up, jumping across the room, away from Claudia’s body and into the opposite wall.

  ‘You better run,’ she said.

  With a knowing smile, she pulled the door open as though it weighed no more than a leaf. She cackled at me, drew out the knives from her leg and threw them to the floor.

  ‘Vampire queen,’ she scoffed, and descended.

  The sand of the Wickham beach made my knees cold. With a shudder, I released my fingers, and the clean knives clinked as they fell in a tiny pile on to the sand. I had to bring them with me. With Claudia dead, I couldn’t leave any evidence behind. I stared at the tiny ridges of sand, knowing that once, not that long ago, I could see their infinitesimal specifics. But I didn’t focus, not really. My back shuddered as I drew in breaths. I expected to cry; that would have been a normal human reaction. But there, as I sat on that beach, I could not find the capacity. I just stared at the sand, my whole body shaking.

  There was a jingle of keys behind me, then a shuffling of sand as someone walked towards me.

  Let it be Odette.

  Let her take me away. Let us be done with it.

  Out of the corner of my right eye I saw a pair of black combat boots stop next to me. On my left another set of boots, worn down, the front lip of the toe separated from the leather. I looked up at Rhode.

  These boots were another small clue that he had lived the year before. That he had been mortal and walked through the world. He fell to his knees but did not touch me.

  ‘Claudia Hawthorne is dead,’ Rhode said.

  ‘I ran down the stairs just minutes . . . No.’ I said breathlessly. I couldn’t stop the air from coming in and out so quickly. I looked at the waves rolling ahead of me. ‘. . . I ran away mere seconds before security ran upstairs.’

  ‘You’re better off,’ Vicken said. ‘It would have been an ugly mess of questioning and the human legal system.’ He knelt down on the other side of me. ‘The police are already deeming it an accident.’

  I shook my head, disbelief rolling over me. It trickled over my shoulders, down my back, all the way to my feet. Vicken held the knives in his hand and inspected them.

  ‘She has unbelievable strength. I don’t know how. Not like us,’ I said, looking into Rhode’s eyes. His eyebrows furrowed, his eyes jumped back and forth between the gauze on my arm and the sand. ‘Our strength was never heightened because we were vampires. And she can be out in the light of day with droves of people. She doesn’t fear crowds.’

  ‘Come on,’ Vicken said, pulling me up by my elbow. ‘We should talk about this. But not here, not outside in the open.’

  ‘I agree,’ Rhode said, and glanced behind him at the stretch of trees that lined the beach. Anyone could have been hiding in the shadows.

  CHAPTER 18

  That night the whole school was abuzz with the news of Claudia’s death. I was not sure which rumour was more ridiculous: she was killed by a gang that came in to steal tech equipment; the art tower was haunted and a poltergeist killed Claudia; or someone had purposely unbolted the bookcase from its metal fixings so it would fall on her. None of it made sense, though I suppose to a normal human it wouldn’t. Extra maintenance had been called in and classes were cancelled for the next two days.

  After yet another emergency school meeting, Rhode, Vicken, Justin and I stood in my apartment. Rhode and Vicken stood by the balcony door, arms folded across their chests. Justin sat near me on the couch.

  ‘So someone’s gonna tell me what really happened, right?’ Justin said, and looked to me for an answer. He rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, folding his hands. ‘Because I saw Lenah right before Claudia . . .’ He dropped his head for a second. ‘Right before I heard.’

  ‘One by one. That’s how it’s going to go. The moment our guard is down,’ I said, looking at Rhode and Vicken with guilt running over me. ‘I can’t figure out where she’s getting this power. Without bleeding her, we have no defence. Especially if she can suck blood so quickly. How can she suck blood so quickly?’

  My skin was too tight. I wanted to spit. It had been so selfish of me to go to the art tower. No, selfish and stupid. She far outpowered me even when I was at the pinnacle of my strength as a vampire. She came to the mall, yes, but she could have snuck inside through a basement, or stayed undercover in a car. There were ways to avoid direct sunlight, but she didn’t need to. And she had purposefully sought me out alone. This time she had walked on to a crowded campus. With hundreds of people. She was powerful and becoming more so.

  ‘We need a strategy,’ Vicken said.

  ‘We have each other,’ I replied.

  ‘We’ve got shite,’ Vicken said flatly. ‘Tell him what we did, Lenah.’

  ‘Thank you, Vicken,’ I said, hoping he’d caught the sarcasm in my tone.

  ‘Tell me what?’ Rhode asked.

  I stood up from the couch and crossed my arms over my chest.

  ‘I tried to call Suleen. For help. But it was unsuccessful,’ I admitted.

  ‘What do you mean, you tried to call Suleen?’ Rhode asked quietly, leaning forward.

  Vicken cleared his throat. ‘See, we did this summoning spell.’

  ‘You what?’ Rhode said, pushing off the wall and throwing his hands into the air. ‘Vicken – you didn’t think it necessary to tell me this?’

  ‘What, he’s your spy?’ I asked.

  ‘It seemed like it might be useful!’ Vicken replied, but he was talking to Rhode.

  ‘Have you no sense at all? It’s as if you two were never immortal. I’m surprised she didn’t find you while you were performing the bloody spell and stab you both through the heart.’

  ‘Some things are worth trying,’ I replied. I kept my arms crossed but leaned against the closed door to my bedroom.

  ‘Like hurting your arm? That’s when it happened, isn’t it?’ Rhode asked. I didn’t reply. ‘You let her do this?’ Rhode said, turning to Vicken.


  ‘Like I could stop her, mate.’

  ‘Suleen can offer us protection,’ I explained.

  ‘Don’t discuss these things in front of him!’ Rhode said, motioning to Justin. ‘He doesn’t understand.’

  Justin sneered. ‘I understand fine.’

  Rhode ignored Justin and continued, ‘Don’t you think I tried myself? I called Suleen after you told me you saw Odette at the herb shop. He did not respond. You made that choice on the archery . . .’ He stopped himself and considered what he would say next. He drew a shallow breath. ‘No one is coming to help us.’

  I had always believed that, out of any of us, Rhode would be able to reach Suleen. After the memories I’d seen, I’d been sure he would come.

  ‘What does Odette want?’ Justin asked.

  ‘To be Lenah,’ Vicken replied.

  ‘The ritual,’ Rhode said to Justin.

  ‘Can’t we just give it to her?’ Justin asked. ‘To avoid any more deaths?’

  Vicken laughed cruelly, the sound cutting the air.

  ‘What’s the big deal?’ Justin asked, looking back and forth from Vicken to me.

  ‘What’s the big deal?’ Vicken mocked.

  Rhode sighed. ‘If supernatural creatures pour their intentions into a spell that powerful, it will backfire. The ritual could anoint Odette with unimaginable powers. Could release real evil and draw entities to Lovers Bay that don’t drink blood – but drink souls,’ he explained.

  My dream from earlier that month of an abandoned Wickham and a ruined Lovers Bay resurfaced in my mind.

  There was a palpable silence, then Vicken said, ‘It’s not like we can barrier spell the entire campus.’

  Rhode sighed. ‘What shall we do?’ he asked, but it was rhetorical. ‘Wear garlic in our hair? Crosses around our necks?’