Stolen Nights

  Yes, I had made her a vampire, though I did not make her a vampire in the attic as I had originally planned. I had moved the misery downstairs. She’d hidden behind my ancient furniture. Her eyes then had been beautiful and green, desperate for salvation. The first night I had tried to kill her she outsmarted me, ran from the attic and found her family by the stables out in the back gardens.

  ‘Lenah! The knife,’ Vicken cried.

  Her father had begged. Naturally I killed him first.

  I stared at the ground. Ella had been her given name.

  I have a life to lead, she’d said, pleading with me.

  ‘Do you?’ I’d said with a merciless laugh.

  Through my reverie I heard Vicken’s voice: ‘The dagger – now! She’s healing!’

  ‘No, you pathetic child,’ I’d continued. ‘I have a life to lead and I can’t take my hibernation unless I am full. You are young and healthy.’

  I hated the sound of my vampire self.

  ‘Please . . .’ Odette’s human voice echoed in my head.

  Followed by the same dead laugh. How I had laughed and laughed as she cried for mercy and begged me to spare her life.

  ‘Lenah!’ Vicken shouted again.

  I refocused on Odette grasping for the knife protruding from her neck.

  I couldn’t move. A sickening feeling overwhelmed me. Unmistakable and undeniable.

  Odette pulled the bloody knife from her neck. She jumped up and kicked out at Vicken, who fell. In the time it took for him to get back on to his feet, she had run into the woods.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he yelled at me.

  Tracy appeared from nowhere, snatched her knife from Tony’s grave and set off towards the woods.

  ‘Hey!’ Vicken yelled after Tracy. ‘Crazy girl, get back here! Now!’

  Tracy stopped at the edge of the wood, the knife in her hand hanging by her side.

  Odette had vanished.

  Vicken walked down the long lane of gravestones and stopped by Tracy.

  He offered her his hand. She went to hand him the knife but he shook his head. She lifted her eyes to meet his and then considered his palm again. It was enough to make my heart break. She dropped the knife to the grass and wrapped fingers with his.

  CHAPTER 19

  ‘Where did you come from?’ Vicken asked Tracy. ‘I thought you ran out of the cemetery.’

  ‘I hid by the mausoleum. When I saw her run away, I don’t know, I got brave for a moment,’ Tracy replied.

  I held Tracy’s sweatshirt to my injured arm as we walked back through the campus towers and past the security guard. The sweatshirt soaked up some of the blood that had seeped through the cut on my arm, but aside from a mild throbbing, the pain wasn’t bad.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘that I didn’t . . .’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Vicken replied.

  ‘It’s not all right,’ I said. ‘I froze.’

  Tracy’s expression was pensive. ‘It took me all summer to accept Tony’s death.’

  Vicken bowed his head a bit.

  She looked at him. ‘Did you kill him because you were a vampire?’

  ‘We did many things as vampires which we would never dream of doing in human form,’ he replied gently.

  ‘She killed Kate and Claudia, didn’t she?’

  Her eyes shone in the ghostly blue of the early-evening light. I nodded.

  ‘I’ve spent all summer looking up how to kill vampires. I know why you have a sword on your wall. Why you keep herbs on your door. Lavender is supposed to protect your home. And rosemary.’ She ran a hand through her hair. ‘Rosemary is for remembrance.’ She pulled a chain out from beneath her shirt. It was a silver locket. When she opened it, there was a tiny sprig of dried rosemary.

  My breath was short. I couldn’t help staring.

  ‘Tony researched you too,’ she said. ‘It’s why you wore those sparkly ashes around your neck last year. Like the ones I saw on your balcony. Then Justin confirmed it,’ she said. ‘That you were . . .’ She paused and her eyes met mine. ‘That you were a vampire.’

  I had never believed Tracy to be that astute. It seemed I had underestimated her.

  ‘I loved Tony,’ I said. The centre of my chest ached, taking the pain away from my arm. ‘He was my best friend.’

  ‘I’m not going to say anything,’ she said. ‘About either of you. It took me all summer just to accept that the rumours could be true. And then Justin confirmed it.’ She ran her fingers through her hair again. ‘Well, he didn’t so much confirm it as I forced him to tell me.’

  ‘How?’ I asked. The prickly feeling of betrayal dissolved as she spoke.

  ‘I threatened to smash the lights of his car. When that didn’t work, I showed him all my research. Everything I’d found. I told him about the pictures. He finally told me the truth.’

  ‘You and Tony are more alike than I thought,’ I said. Her tenacity reminded me of how he too had unearthed my secret all on his own.

  ‘I want to know. Someday. Not today, but I want to know exactly what happened to Tony.’ She looked at Vicken as she said it. ‘That’s all. Can you promise me?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I promise.’

  We set off across the campus into the busy student body, all walking in twos and threes to the union or the library or their dorms.

  ‘What do we do about the Halloween dance?’ Tracy asked.

  ‘You stay out of the way, love,’ Vicken said, lighting a cigarette.

  ‘If you need me, I’ll help you,’ Tracy said, and pulled her bag tighter over her shoulder. ‘Any way I can.’

  *

  That night, I stood at my balcony door looking out at the tiles. Only when I moved did I occasionally see the flicker of my vampire remains. I reached into my pocket and felt the gift card Claudia bought me for my birthday.

  ‘So it felt like your extrasensory perception was back?’ Rhode said.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘It was very clear to me what Odette wanted. I could sense her deepest desires. I saw images from her plans for Halloween night.’

  ‘What could have caused it to come back?’ Justin asked.

  The only explanation I could fathom was that the bond created between Odette and me on that dark day a hundred years ago linked me eternally to her mind.

  ‘I was her maker,’ I whispered. ‘It’s the only explanation. I understood her motivations, as much as I didn’t want to.’

  ‘Why didn’t you kill her when you had the chance?’ Rhode asked.

  I locked my gaze with his and kept my jaw tight. My heart thudded. I hated thinking of myself in that moment, with the dagger by my side, Vicken at the ready, waiting, needing my help. I didn’t know how to answer this. I knew this woman. She had been alone and afraid and I had sucked the very life from her. I had killed her. Worse, I had created the monster she became. Her death played in my mind – the memory of how warm she’d been, how her body trembled with fear, and my joy at taking both her warmth and her life.

  I met Rhode’s eyes.

  ‘Because I already have killed her. I’m sorry, but it’s the truth, and it paralysed me.’

  Silence. Then Vicken said, ‘On that note, it’s time for dinner.’

  There was a clink from Vicken’s boots as he stood up, and the shuffle of papers being moved. I turned my back on the living room and faced the balcony again. I knew what was coming in a few days’ time and I would have only an old sword and a couple of daggers with which to take down Odette. I didn’t know if I could make myself do it.

  ‘You OK?’ Justin asked me, placing a hand on my shoulder. His voice was close to my ear.

  The door closed and I realized that Vicken and Rhode had left without saying goodbye. It meant that Justin and I were alone together for the first time since the night of my birthday.

  I leaned my back against the glass balcony door and looked at the knowledge rune on Justin’s neck. I focused on it. He had put it on backwards and it hung in rev
erse.

  I met Justin’s eyes. He kissed my forehead, and when he pulled back he smiled at me. His eyes lingered on mine. I thought of him that day, the day I turned Vicken human again with the ritual. How Justin had fallen to his knees when I walked out on to my balcony. I had been so ready to leave it all behind.

  ‘That’s the most difficult part,’ I said. ‘The ingredients and the words are important, of course, but the sacrifice, the intent, it’s always the most important part of any ritual.’

  The intent . . .

  Images from the summoning spell floated into my mind: the jump of the flames and the door glowing in the sand. Had I been channelling my intentions into the spell so that it would bring me what I desired? Were my intentions pure?

  ‘Of course,’ I said aloud. ‘Of course.’ The spell backfired because my intentions hadn’t been pure. In order for the spell to work I needed to channel my intentions in one direction only, but mine were split. I wanted protection from Odette, but really I was calling Suleen for Rhode’s benefit.

  I knew what I had to do!

  My spirits lifted considerably.

  ‘I need your help,’ I said to Justin.

  ‘OK . . .’ he said.

  The bright spark in his eyes glowed at me. It reminded me why I had slept in his tent the night of my birthday. Why I let his touch take me back to last year when I thought that being a human was going to be simple. That I could be a seventeen-year-old girl in love, with no repercussions from her past.

  But there will always be payment for your past atrocities. That’s why the intent behind all spells matters.

  ‘Lenah?’ Justin said.

  ‘I’m going to perform it again,’ I said.

  ‘What? The summoning spell?’ Justin asked.

  ‘Yes.’ The fire in my belly was back. Yes. Yes. I would call Suleen again, and this time my intentions would be pure. This time he would come!

  ‘Let’s go.’

  After grabbing Rhode’s spell book, Incantato, a jar for the water and all the ingredients I would need, I raced down the stairs of Seeker, ignoring the twinges of pain from the burn on my arm. I ran past students sitting in the hallway putting together Halloween costumes.

  ‘Wait. Hey!’ Justin called.

  ‘Keep up!’ I said, and stepped outside the dorm. I found Vicken sitting on the bench in front of Seeker, a cigarette in his hand.

  ‘Hold on,’ Vicken said, when he realized I wasn’t going to stop. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’m going to perform the summoning spell again.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ he said, following me. ‘So, you’ve officially gone mad.’

  I kept going, not caring what he thought.

  Justin joined us in the parking lot.

  ‘What’s he doing here? Where are we going?’ Justin asked.

  ‘We’re going back to Lovers Bay beach,’ I said, throwing a glance at Vicken as I unlocked the car.

  ‘You’re bloody mad, you know that? I can’t even smoke I’m so angry,’ Vicken said.

  I opened the door and tossed the bag filled with the spell ingredients and the book into the car.

  ‘Then I consider this trip a success already,’ I said.

  I was about to slide into the driver’s seat when Vicken stopped me again by grabbing my shoulder and forcing me to face him.

  ‘Lenah. You could die. You’re barely healed now.’ He glanced at my bandaged arm. ‘Didn’t we learn our lesson last time we left campus?’

  ‘If Lenah wants to do it, she’ll do it without you,’ Justin said, from the passenger side door.

  ‘Pretty boy, you’ve got no idea what you’re talking about. So get away from the car, and shut it.’

  Justin came around the side of the car so fast that I stumbled to get between them.

  ‘You could die too,’ Vicken said to Justin through clenched teeth.

  ‘I’m doing this,’ I said, my hands pressed against Vicken’s heaving chest, ‘and we agreed not to leave campus alone. I’m not alone.’ I indicated Justin.

  ‘Then I’m coming too. Three is stronger,’ Vicken sneered. He met my eyes and took a step back. ‘Triangles are symbols of infinity. It could work . . . better.’

  ‘Good,’ I said, and Justin also backed away. ‘If you promise me you won’t fight. I have to stay focused.’

  ‘I will,’ Justin replied, ‘if he promises not to get close to me. I’m not a fan of murderers.’

  I spun round, anger swirling in my chest. ‘Then you’re not a fan of me.’

  Justin’s expression was stunned. His jaw dropped. ‘I didn’t . . . I mean . . .’

  ‘Just get in the car,’ I said. ‘Both of you.’

  As I drew the outline of a door, the sand was cool on my finger. The moon hung over the horizon. This time we were doing the spell at dusk.

  ‘You’re ready? You’re sure?’ Vicken asked.

  Justin’s eyes were wide as he stared down at the door. And, strangely, he was almost smiling. When he caught my eye, he quickly dropped his expression, his mouth becoming a thin line.

  ‘Sorry, just – you know – never seen a ritual before,’ he said.

  I unscrewed the jar with the harbour water and sprinkled it over the flames.

  ‘I summon you, Suleen, to this sacred place.’ My eyes lifted to the moon still hanging low in the sky. ‘I call you here to protect us from the impending danger.’ And I meant it. I wanted to protect our souls, our lives.

  The amber came next, and when the oily resin hit the flames, the door frame, just like last time, burned a bright gold. All three of us stared at the fiery outline.

  ‘I summon you,’ I repeated. The fire crackled again, the flames lower than the last time. Good! Yes! This time it seemed it would work!

  A wind whipped through my hair and a great blast came up from the fire.

  I jumped back. I expected a ten-foot flame to jump into the sky. But no. The fire was completely out, leaving behind charred and blackened wood.

  A tiny blue ball of light sat in the centre of the wood where the flame had been. The blue orb hovered directly over the embers of the fire, glowing and expanding into a vertical oblong shape as the seconds passed.

  ‘What . . . ?’ Justin said.

  ‘Shhh . . .’ I replied.

  The blue orb grew to the size of the door I had drawn in the sand. It glowed for a few more moments and I expected Suleen, the man I had grown to love, to step through. I expected to see his white clothing and familiar turban.

  The door did not open. Like an old-fashioned film it flickered, playing a scene in a ballroom in a familiar mansion. The blue light from the orb grew brighter and larger.

  ‘Oh no,’ Vicken said.

  Heartbeat – a pulse.

  The blue orb took over almost the whole sky. So big – a portal to another world? No . . .

  A blast of blue light and then . . .

  1740, Hathersage

  Vicken, Justin and I were part of the scene before us, standing on the edge of the ballroom.

  ‘We’re in Hathersage,’ Vicken said in awe.

  ‘Shhh,’ I said, waving a hand across myself as though to wipe away his voice.

  Justin said nothing. He watched the scene play out before him, with his jaw dropping in either disbelief or fear, or both.

  Glasses filled with blood clinked together. A small orchestra of vampires played in one corner of the room. Chatter from dozens of vampires echoed throughout my banquet hall.

  ‘Lenah, what is this?’ Vicken asked. ‘I don’t recognize these people.’

  ‘This was before your time.’

  I knew what this was. This was the horrific night that secured my infamy throughout the world.

  This was the night I killed a child.

  We three mortals stood invisible to the partying vampires.

  I gasped as I caught sight of my vampire self spinning around, a goblet in hand. My gown was black and corseted. The 1740s was a colourful era but I had worn black . .
. on purpose. My silk dress was encrusted with roses of jet and black pearls.

  ‘Did you know,’ my vampire self said, ‘that Nuit Rouge is the month in which you can access black magic?’ The corset pressed into her ribs as she laughed, leaping over the body of a man in a white tunic and black breeches. A local farmer drained of all his blood. ‘Tonight is All Hallows’ Eve!’

  The vampires around her lifted their goblets in the air and drank.

  Bright torches threw the hall into an orange dreamy light.

  A vampiric Rhode appeared at the doorway of the banquet hall in his finest silk. He too wore his traditional black, his hair slicked back so his turquoise eyes glowed out from the darkness of the hallway behind him. He slid his palm over his mouth and ran across the room to the body of the child he’d buried only hours before. Now she lay in a corner of the room, where I had wanted her placed. Just for the evening.

  ‘I unburied her! With my bare hands!’ my vampire self called to him, laughing and taking a deep swig from a goblet of her blood. The dancing intensified in the middle of the room, the vampires jumping to a lively drum.

  ‘Isn’t she lovely?’ she called to Rhode, who was on his knees by the dead child. ‘She sort of looks like me, don’t you think? She could be my little sister.’

  The flowers bounced with the vibration from the dozens of feet striking the floor, up and down and up and down. Roses, lavender, daisies, orchids, all in fragrant abundance. Vampire Lenah picked up some daisies and roses and brought them to Rhode, who still remained on his knees, staring down at the child.

  My vampire self covered the child’s eyes with daisy heads. The petals reached her eyebrows.

  ‘I’m going to give her a proper burial,’ said my vampire self happily. ‘I’ve invited all our friends in Derbyshire,’ she continued, dancing a circle around Rhode, holding her gown in so she could scoot around him and the dead girl. She scattered roses and daisies over the body. ‘And this young lady! Here’s a daisy! I would give you some violets, but they all withered when my father died: they say he made a good end.’

  Rhode stood up. As I watched, I knew what was coming next.

  ‘Oh, come now, don’t you enjoy Master Shakespeare?’ asked vampire Lenah.