Stolen Nights

  ‘We need Suleen,’ I said again. ‘Or we could call the Aeris. They’re more powerful than any vampire.’

  ‘We can’t call on them,’ Rhode growled. ‘You just failed to summon Suleen. Now you wish to call entities even more powerful?’

  ‘Why not? We have time. Nuit Rouge begins in just a few weeks. The barrier between our world and the supernatural world is weakening already.’

  ‘Lenah, you barely got out of that art tower alive,’ Rhode replied.

  ‘So, what, then?’ I said. ‘Stay locked in our rooms for the rest of eternity?’

  ‘We need to prepare ourselves,’ Rhode replied. ‘We know Odette’s weakened when she bleeds. We have to find the right moment to attack in the only way we have left.’

  The only way. Of course . . .

  There was a pause, and then I said what I knew was on Vicken and Rhode’s minds. ‘Weapons.’ I met Justin’s eyes.

  Rhode nodded once.

  There it was – our last and only hope. For our human bodies were no match for Odette and her unnatural powers.

  ‘This is how it should go,’ Rhode offered. ‘We’re never alone.’ He looked at me. ‘We’re never unarmed. It’s very simple. We remain at the ready at all times. Carry a dagger everywhere, stay in full public view.’ His eyes scanned the room, finally resting on Justin. ‘This is what it’s like to be the hunted.’

  Claudia Hawthorne’s funeral was held on the night of the harvest moon, the start of the month of Nuit Rouge, 1 October. The tide was higher than ever in recorded history, with waves over twelve-feet high crashing on to Lovers Bay shore. It was a short service, one where I kept my eyes to the cemetery ground. When the students boarded the buses back to campus, Rhode left a jasmine flower on Claudia’s coffin. If only they knew why. If only they realized why we felt so responsible.

  When we returned to school, Tracy walked quickly away. She darted, with quick steps, her heels clicking on the pavement as she crossed the quad towards her dorm.

  I watched her go. With Claudia’s and Kate’s deaths, all that remained of the Three Piece was Tracy Sutton. I expected her to leave this cursed place, to run home to the comfort of her parents. About a dozen members of the sophomore and junior classes had now left the school permanently.

  As the days went on, some students continued to wear black, but slowly colour came back into the mix, as well as enthusiasm for the upcoming Halloween dance. It seemed to be the only thing we had to look forward to on campus. In between discussions of the various carnival booths and the costumes people were wearing for the dance, the school announced that a pine tree would be planted near Hopper in Claudia’s memory. Didn’t these mortals know pines planted unnaturally would bring sadness to whoever sat beneath? Didn’t they know that oaks are the trees to bring peace? Yet they wanted to plant a pine, and I couldn’t exactly make my objections openly.

  I wondered if Claudia had already joined the white light of the Aeris. The thought of her there dead because of me, victim of a vampire made by me, killed because she was close to me, made me drop my dagger into my boot every morning after brushing my teeth. Any time I thought to leave it at home, I remembered Claudia’s fine blonde hair fluttering around her lifeless body.

  A few days after Claudia’s funeral, Vicken and I made our way to the union to have breakfast. We watched members of the senior class bring streamers and cardboard skeletons to decorate the gymnasium where we were to have our Halloween dance at the end of the month, 31 October, the last and most powerful night of Nuit Rouge.

  Across the green, behind Quartz, Tracy emerged from the small dorm for senior girls. I had to look twice to make sure it was actually her. She had dyed her hair a dark brown, and her cheekbones were so pronounced she didn’t look like the same person. She was gaunt and sallow, so unlike the vibrant glowing girl from the year before. The girl who matched her outfits and paraded around the campus. The girl who wore make-up even to exercise, and had matched her pyjamas with those of her friends. Friends who were now both gone. A strength emanated from her now, the steely hardness of someone who has held the hand of death. I would not have wished that for her so soon in life. She had a backpack over one shoulder and was dressed as she had been for weeks, in all black. She was heading towards the section of the woods that remained unguarded.

  ‘Where do you think she’s going?’ Vicken asked.

  Tracy glanced back on to the campus to see if anyone was behind her and tugged the backpack more tightly to her shoulder.

  ‘I’m following her,’ I said.

  ‘No, Lenah.’ Vicken tried to hold me back by my arm. I wrenched it out of his grasp.

  ‘You know what will happen the moment she’s alone,’ I said.

  Vicken considered my words, then said, ‘Well, you’re not going by yourself.’

  ‘Let me get a head start,’ I said, and jogged across the grass towards Tracy, who was just passing behind the library.

  ‘Tracy,’ I called, catching up with her. ‘Hey! Wait up.’

  She turned, and I was expecting her to smile at me, but instead she pushed me away roughly.

  ‘No, Lenah. Stay away from me.’

  I found myself blinking stupidly. The blue of her eyes really popped next to the contrast of her darkened hair.

  ‘Me?’ I asked. ‘You want me to stay away from you?’

  Tracy adjusted her backpack and something in there jangled. A clinking metal sound. ‘Where are you going, Tracy?’ I asked.

  ‘Nowhere.’ She scowled and crossed her arms over her chest. Another clunk.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ I replied. Behind Tracy, down the side of the library, Vicken inched towards us. He lit a cigarette and pretended, with a leg resting against the wall, that he had simply popped out for a smoke.

  ‘I have to go now,’ Tracy said. She turned and took two steps away from me.

  ‘No, Tracy. It’s not safe,’ I said, and almost as it came out of my mouth I knew I had said too much.

  But she didn’t listen to me. She ran.

  After a few moments, Vicken joined me at my side.

  ‘She’s carrying weapons,’ I said.

  ‘What kind?’ he asked, and we started to jog along behind Tracy. She was already on Main Street.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Did she say where she was going?’ Vicken asked.

  ‘No, but I have a good idea.’

  Vicken and I made sure, as always, to keep to the shadows. The late-afternoon sun shone through the bare branches, and my black boots crunched over the jewelled coloured leaves that carpeted the ground.

  ‘I only have one dagger,’ I whispered as we turned into the cemetery.

  ‘I have two,’ Vicken replied.

  ‘How long until Odette arrives, do you think?’ I asked.

  ‘Minutes,’ he said gravely.

  I kept having to remind myself it was Tracy as we followed behind. Her hair now fell in long waves of chocolate brown. She grasped the straps of her bag and turned, as I expected, down the row containing Tony’s gravestone.

  ‘What the hell is she doing?’ Vicken asked.

  ‘Come on,’ I whispered, and we inched our way up the path to join her. I stopped, gasping a bit when we reached Tony’s row. Tracy had dropped her backpack and was kneeling on the grass. She ran her fingers over the strange circle of turned earth Rhode’s sword had made around the grave.

  I wrapped a hand around Vicken’s arm. We stepped back into the shadows of a nearby oak and I did what I had been trained to do for hundreds of years. I watched. She knelt down, lowered to her hip and leaned on one hand with her other arm outstretched in front of her on the grave. She leaned her weight on that one arm and peered down at the even soil.

  Tracy’s hand gripped the dirt tight, her head fell limp and she broke into cries. Her supporting arm gave way and she fell on to the grave, hiding her face in the crook of her arm. I watched her back heave. Her sobs were uneven, the kind of crying a person does when she thinks she is
alone.

  Daylight clung to the sky but this was Nuit Rouge, so the light provided no protection. The attack could happen at any moment. I bent forward, eyes scouring the woods beyond the cemetery. The birds chirped as they settled down for the evening. The wind was light, bringing with it the musky smell of soil. As a former hunter, I paused and took the time to listen. A hunter listens for unnatural movement. Even air moves. It can leave an echo. For now, it seemed we were alone.

  I walked down the row from the cemetery path, Vicken behind me. Tracy snapped her head up, her eyes streaked with tears. She reached into her backpack and pulled out a crucifix.

  ‘Stay away from me!’ she screamed.

  Vicken jumped back and pulled out a dagger. His arm dropped when he realized she wasn’t holding something dangerous.

  ‘You’re kidding me, right?’ Vicken asked. ‘First of all, those don’t work and, second, we’re not vampires.’

  ‘You know who did this!’ Tracy shrieked at me.

  ‘Who?’ Vicken asked. ‘Did what?’

  ‘Who killed Claudia!’ she yelled, but looked at me. ‘Justin told me you were in there with her. In the art tower.’

  ‘I didn’t touch Claudia,’ I said.

  ‘Or is it you?’ she spat, now looking at Vicken. ‘We all know what you’re capable of. The art tower is your favourite place.’

  Tracy stood atop Tony’s rounded grave. All I could see carved into the granite headstone was the word Artist. Her body blocked the rest of the epitaph.

  ‘Tracy, calm down. It wasn’t us,’ I said.

  ‘I was the one who went into your room with Tony last year. I saw the picture of you and Rhode on your bureau from, like, a hundred years ago. You come to this school, and guess who dies? Tony. Then both my best friends, Kate and Claudia. Am I next, Lenah? Am I?’ She finally broke down, her face collapsing, and she sobbed, dropping the crucifix on to the grass.

  Vicken and I shared a look. I went over to Tracy and wrapped my arms around her. She wept into my shoulder.

  There was a clapping sound.

  Someone was clapping.

  Someone was clapping?

  ‘So, the mortal knows you’re ex-vampires?’ Odette said, appearing through the trees on the edge of the cemetery. ‘If only she knew how you used to murder children for pleasure.’

  This time I was ready.

  ‘Get behind me, Tracy,’ I ordered, and a memory of the art tower flashed through my mind.

  I reached down into my boot and whipped out the dagger. I held it outstretched in front of me.

  The heart. The heart. Aim for the heart.

  Odette sneered, fangs bared. Tracy’s fingers gripped my shoulders. Odette came towards us and Vicken, my wonderful Vicken, ran at her, a dagger raised in the air. Odette got to him first. She wrapped her fingers around his wrist and tossed him aside, as though he weighed nothing. Vicken’s body flew ten feet high through the air and crumpled at the base of a tree.

  He lay unmoving. My gut clenched but I had to stay focused. I had to do this.

  I would not fail Tracy as I had failed Claudia. Not this time.

  I stood my ground and extended my dagger in front of me.

  ‘Have you learned nothing? Why would you leave campus without your precious Rhode?’ Odette said, and clawed through the air at me. Tracy and I jumped back; Odette only just missed my chest.

  ‘Tracy, run,’ I commanded.

  Odette moved so quickly she was a blur of honey and black. But I knew that was what she would do. I grabbed Tracy by her shoulders and threw her to the ground. Odette clawed at my chest – her nails ripped through my shirt and scraped my skin. I screamed out, pain searing my chest.

  Odette laughed and then threw a malevolent glance down at Tracy. I knew what I must do to protect her; I went for it. While she laughed at my pain, I stabbed Odette in the forearm. The blade plunged into the hardened vampire skin. No measly craft knife this time. This knife stopped her. Odette stared at the wound as though she couldn’t believe I had done it.

  ‘That’s a perfectly good fisherman oozing out of my arm,’ she spat.

  Down at her feet, Tracy pulled a long silver blade from her bag. It flickered in the rays of the setting sun, but Odette didn’t seem to notice. She sneered and took a step towards me, intending to retaliate. I raised my dagger, poised to plunge again.

  Odette hadn’t considered the human at her feet. Why would she? Hope slid through me as Tracy stabbed Odette hard right through the leather of her shoe. Odette screamed and fell back on to the grass.

  ‘Go!’ I yelled, meeting Tracy’s watery blue eyes.

  This time, she followed orders.

  She fled through the maze of tombstones and trees. Suddenly I was flying through the air. Odette had swept her good foot under me, making me fall to the ground.

  I landed with a thud, hitting the ground with my back, sending more pain through the cuts on my chest. Winded, I tried to draw in air but I couldn’t. Breathe, Lenah. A kick slammed on to the right side of me. Another kick on the left. Odette’s dandelion-coloured curls dangled before me. Her devilish smile faded as tears flooded my eyes and washed out my sight.

  ‘Did your little friend think stabbing my foot was going to stop me? Haven’t you seen how powerful I am?’ I struggled for breath. ‘I am only to get more powerful as the days go on. Oh, darling, are you having trouble breathing?’

  She squatted above me and lifted an index finger, showing me her knife-like nails again. Slowly I was able to draw a shallow breath, my frozen lungs finally thawing. She pointed to my bandaged arm.

  No . . . don’t stab me.

  ‘Of course I’m going to stab you,’ she said, reading my emotional plea with her ESP. ‘I thought I’d warned you, but I guess you don’t listen. Being a queen and all, you think you still call the shots. But not any more.’ Her long red fingernails hovered over the gauze of my burnt forearm. ‘Give. Me. The. Ritual.’

  ‘Never,’ I said, gulping in air.

  She sneered and then stabbed my injured forearm. Her fingernails sliced through the gauze to my still raw skin. A ripping sound, then hot pain seared my burnt flesh. I screamed so loudly that it scratched my throat. The pain was so intense that acrid bile made its way to my mouth. Where was Vicken?

  ‘Why, queen of all vampires? Why do you insist on making this so difficult for yourself?’

  Queen of all vampires.

  As she looked down at me, with her porcelain skin and bloody mouth, time seemed to slow. Our eyes connected. Mine blue – hers green. Together. Yes. Within her eyes I could see myself as a vampire, throwing my head back, mouth agape, laughing into the night.

  How familiar was the overwhelming desire to feel once again. All we wanted to do was feel. So numb. No feeling in my fingers or hands. Release the pain. Need the blood running down my throat and the power to surge through my body. I could sense the duality within myself.

  I was the vampire queen again.

  Catch them by surprise. A public spectacle. On Halloween.

  These were Odette’s thoughts. I knew her plan because in that moment, as her unnatural jade eyes bored into mine, I could see her plan. It was just as I would have formulated it.

  She was going to try to kill me at the Halloween dance, when I would be too busy trying to protect the humans around me. I could see the decorations, and Vicken’s and Rhode’s bodies, bloody and dead on the gymnasium floor.

  And with this remembrance of my vampire evil came some of the memories I had forgotten in my human state.

  Odette’s murder, when she was made a vampire.

  ‘I remember the day you changed,’ I whispered shakily. ‘It was only hours before my hibernation. I told Vicken to make you a vampire. But he did not. And I desired the rush, the high of bringing another night wanderer into the world.’

  She pulled back and I saw her fingers curl over for the barest of seconds. My arm throbbed again, sending tears of pain to my eyes. It was easier to say this when I couldn
’t see her clearly.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry for what I did.’

  She gripped her hands over my shoulders. She lifted me just slightly and then with a push threw me back to the ground.

  ‘Don’t distract me!’ she yelled. Pain pulsated at the front of my head.

  ‘I attacked Rhode in Hathersage in order to get the ritual, but all he could do was set the bloody place on fire. You’re both cowards. I am going to take you with me tonight. I’m going to take you with me and then –’ she grimaced – ‘when Rhode comes for you, and you are dead, drained, chained to the wall, he’ll tell me all about this ritual.’

  ‘It will be useless to you,’ I spat. ‘You’re not powerful enough to bring forth the darkness you seek.’ I tried to stare into her eyes again, to call back our connection, but it didn’t work.

  ‘You don’t know anything about my power,’ Odette said, raising her hands, ready to strike again.

  I flinched in anticipation.

  Suddenly she hunched over. There was an awful thud and the sound of ripping flesh. Vicken’s dagger was pinned through her neck. She fell forward, grasping at her neck, and rolled on to her side, grabbing for the hilt of the dagger.

  Vicken appeared next to me with his wild hair and a bloody scrape on his cheek. He lifted his boot and stepped lightly on her stomach. She bared her fangs and hissed.

  ‘Now, now, play nice,’ he said.

  ‘She’s very strong,’ I warned.

  ‘That’s why I stabbed her, love,’ Vicken said out of one corner of his mouth. ‘Now, tell us, where did you get your super-strength?’ he asked, his boot still on her stomach.

  ‘I’ve performed spells you’ve never dreamed of,’ she sneered. ‘Each time I grow faster, stronger, more cunning.’

  But now I could see fear in her eyes. Blood from her neck trickled over her shoulder and on to the dirt. She tried to push herself up but collapsed with a thud back on to the ground, still under Vicken’s boot.

  ‘Lenah, I need another dagger,’ Vicken said, gesturing at Tracy’s knife, which lay near Tony’s grave.

  Odette struggled against his boot, baring her fangs like an animal.