Justin broke the rotation and took a step towards me. I was close to him, closer than I needed to be to drive the sword into him. I concentrated on the place just between his arm and chest. I was going to pierce him – to disarm. Yes . . . right there, right between the arm and the chest. My right hand gripped the handle tighter.
I leaped at Justin but he was too quick and kicked me in the stomach, sending me to the ground. My sword clattered against the gymnasium floor. My stomach cramped. I clutched at it in time to see Justin preparing to thrust forward to stab me. I scrabbled over and grabbed for the sword again. At the same time, I kicked upward, knocking Justin’s dagger out of his hand. He snarled, lifted his foot and stomped down on my stomach before I could roll out of the way. My hand released the sword and the breath came out of me in a whoosh. I coughed a dry, hacking cough. My throat was already so sore.
Breathe, Lenah. But I couldn’t. My chest was tightened. I was on the floor of the gymnasium but then, her words . . . Odette’s words from weeks ago in the dressing room came to me.
I can see why he likes you. She had meant Justin! The rune around his neck swung back and forth over my eyes as he towered over me. Knowledge, Fire had said. Knowledge is the key.
I needed to understand what she meant.
I also needed the sword. I tried to breathe in again. Breathe, Lenah! I yelled inside my head.
‘Mortal,’ he grumbled, and lifted his foot again. ‘Give me the ritual!’
An enormous crash brought Justin’s and my attention back into the room. An arrow protruded from the chest of one of the vampires in Odette’s coven. He collapsed against a set of chairs and the drinks table, bringing them to floor in a heap.
Time seemed to slow even further. By the base of the bleachers, I saw Odette. Her neck craned over Tracy as she fed off her. Tracy’s eyes were closed and her mouth lay open and slack, just like I had seen with Claudia. Rhode appeared out of the chaos, kicking Odette away so the blonde beast fell back from Tracy. She grimaced, and before she could assemble herself to lunge at him, before she could reach for the knife I was sure she had, she glanced across the room at Justin. Her anger changed to wide eyes and a menacing sneer.
The pain that spread through from my spine to my arms came in small waves. Justin towered over me again, bringing my eyes back from Odette and Rhode. He brought his beautiful face closer to mine – even more beautiful now that the pores had sealed. In his right hand was my sword; he lifted his arm just high enough to point the blade at my chest. As he lifted his hand to plunge, I rolled away, raising my foot, and kicked him square in the chest with what I hoped was enough power. My foot stung from the force of the impact. Justin stumbled but I was quick, and as I jumped up I lifted my leg again, kicking him in the chest. His arms flew out as he hit the ground, dropping the sword. I snatched it up and held it pointing down at the ground, my fingers resting on its hilt.
I let the weapon hang between us. I saw myself centuries ago, snapping my fingers and commanding hundreds of vampires to murder one helpless Dutch woman. I saw myself drinking goblets filled with blood. Death parties, Nuit Rouge.
‘Do it, Lenah!’ Vicken screamed behind me as he ran out of the gym after one of the vampires who had fled the building.
A sneer crept across Justin’s mouth and he laughed. ‘I will get the ritual from you one way or another, Lenah,’ he said.
I threw the sword to the ground to confuse him and, just as I hoped, Justin’s eyes followed the slide of the sword along the ground.
There, lying against the bare skin of his chest was the rune. The knowledge rune.
Of course.
I had no idea how long that rune had been controlling him. Endowed runes, items infused with magic, could control the mind of someone weak, someone grief-stricken, someone with a broken heart.
‘Justin, your necklace!’ Odette cried, moving fast. ‘Protect the rune.’
The evil blonde vampire stood before me. Odette was using her body as a shield between Justin and me. I needed a clear shot to get the rune from his neck.
It wasn’t just bleeding Odette that would weaken her – it was taking the rune.
The rune was the connection between Odette and Justin. She might have summoned super-powerful strength through spells and incantations, but the rune was the key! How blind I had been! The knowledge rune channelled that strength, bound it to her, along with her supernatural speed. She had fuelled herself by feeding off Justin’s mind.
Intention is what matters. Intention in the soul, in the mind. Mind over matter, call it what you will. The mind is always more powerful than the body.
The symbol on the rune, the knowledge symbol, worn inverted, can be used in spells of trickery and manipulation.
Knowledge is the key. That’s what Fire had said.
An arrow flew through the air and embedded itself in Justin’s shoulder. He cried out and fell to the floor, where he thrashed, clutching at the arrow.
Odette grabbed a fistful of my shirt and tried to immobilize me by holding me close to her. She squeezed me tighter whenever I moved; I coughed, struggling to breathe. Something in my chest felt as if it would burst.
I had to get the rune. It was the only way to weaken her. She squeezed me again, sending a tightness up into my chest. Justin lay motionless for a split moment, his hand grasping the arrow. This was it, my only chance.
I stretched my body forward. Just a little further. Then my hand . . . almost there. I reached and my fingers curled around the leather strap. I jerked it from Justin’s neck. Immediately Odette released me. I stumbled away, the rune dangling between my fingers. Quickly I spun round. I had to keep my eyes on her.
‘I’ll destroy it!’ I threatened, holding the rune in the air.
Odette lifted a foot, threatened to jump but then stopped. Her eyes darted from the rune to me. A heartbeat passed between us as she seemed to consider her choices. In the time of that heartbeat, the dagger from my boot was in my grasp.
Then Odette sprang through the air at me, scratching her knifelike nails towards my face. I ducked but saw the red talons out of the corner of my eye. Now or never, Lenah. She turned to face me again. This is it. I lifted my right hand and I did what I had been trained to do by Vicken a hundred and fifty years earlier.
I stabbed my dagger into her dead vampire heart.
‘No . . .’ she yelled – but it was hollow, animallike. She fell to the ground, her weight thrown on to one hand.
She looked down at her chest as though she couldn’t believe I’d done it. That I’d outsmarted her. She crumpled in on herself down on her knees. She looked up at me, her lips parted. Her fangs descended but they were not scary now, they were sad. She looked like a shattered version of the young woman she once was.
She collapsed on to the ground, lifeless. A beautiful woman, made into a vampire and who died much too young. At the strike of dawn, she would turn to dust. And, I was quite sure, she would join the white light of the Aeris, and would eventually return to the natural course of her life.
And me, I would get my wish. At sunrise, this would all be over and we’d go back to a time before sudden unnatural death and empty sadness. I would return to the medieval world. Relief rolled over me only momentarily, because Justin reached for his neck. He shook his head as though trying to clear his sight and swayed back and forth before me. He had ripped the arrow out of his shoulder. I placed the rune on the floor and knelt before it.
Rhode joined me at my side just as the distinct sounds of sirens wailed in the distance.
‘You must break it,’ Rhode said. ‘His mind is connected to it even in her death.’
He handed me his dagger and we glanced up at Justin one more time. He continued to grab at his now bare neck. I used all the force in my arms to come down and stab that silver rune so hard that it exploded with a bang. A cloud of white smoke came from it. I looked from the rune to Justin, who now held a hand to his head. But his chest was exposed, facing right at me.
I could stab Justin through the heart and end him. End his human life, and end his vampire life. The rune lay broken on the floor.
‘Stab him, Lenah!’ Vicken called.
The sirens in the distance grew louder, closer. The gym was nearly empty and we had to go.
Justin shook his head as though to focus his eyes. In this world, his eyes would never need to focus again. He was now the undead.
Again Vicken urged me to stab Justin. But I would not. I wouldn’t stab the chest where I had once laid my head, not even if everything was going to change come morning.
Because of the Justin that day in the rain when I first got to know him. Because of the Justin in the hall of his parents’ house the night I had slept there. Because of his love for life, and how one time, not long ago, he had shown me the way to be human and I had loved him.
Justin blinked in shock at me a few times; those marble green eyes had a strange gaze. His beautiful lashes batted at me; he shook his head again, as if he couldn’t quite see straight.
Rhode stood up and together we looked at Justin, who was holding his dagger in his hand. He looked down at it as though he wasn’t quite sure what he was doing with such a thing.
‘Welcome back,’ Rhode said to Justin. The gym was empty now, except for us and Vicken, who had a line of blood running down his temple to his jaw.
‘What did you do to me?’ Justin asked.
‘I freed you from Odette’s mind control . . . through that rune,’ I explained.
‘Rune?’ Justin said.
‘This thing,’ Rhode said, and picked the pieces up. He showed it to Justin, nestling it in the palm of his hand.
‘You are a vampire, Justin,’ I said, and his eyes jumped to mine.
He reached up to his mouth and felt for the fangs, which came down on command. He pulled his hand back as his fang pierced his index finger and a tiny droplet of blood blossomed.
‘Don’t waste that,’ Rhode said. ‘You’ll need all the blood you can get, vampire.’
‘I know what I am!’ Justin yelled, and backed away from us towards the door of the gymnasium. ‘I know. You don’t need to tell me.’
A common vampire reaction. Hubris. The blatant inability to be wrong. The young vampire does not miss their humanity right away. They have a zest for knowledge. For power. Often, they are excited about their new immortality.
But, really, Justin had not known. He had not known what had happened to him. This was perhaps worse than all our stories. The rune had prevented Justin from realizing what had happened. It not only provided Odette with strength, it clouded Justin’s mind. It took him over. It made him someone else.
Justin backed out through the door of the gym. He held his shoulder where Rhode had shot the arrow. He looked to it, checking for blood, but, just as I had suspected, he healed quickly. He kept his eyes on me and then they dropped to the floor, to Odette. After seeing her crumpled body – he turned and he ran.
He would not get away. I ran too.
‘Lenah!’ Rhode called.
I followed him as fast as I could. But Justin was an athlete and was faster than me. He pressed into the crowds of people and ran on beyond. I was running too, but I got caught up in the crowd.
Lenah!
Are you OK?
From where I stood, near the great oak tree in the centre of the Wickham campus, I turned to look up at the archery field where so long ago Suleen had separated Justin from me by the water shield. Now Justin stood at the base of that hill and turned to me. Our eyes met. Early in vampire life, one can recall happiness and concern. What met my eyes was regret. But it was fleeting. He made for the woods next to the hill and was lost in darkness.
Within moments, I was enveloped by hands and concerned faces still splattered with Halloween paint. A group of people circled me and led me away.
CHAPTER 26
News of Justin spread like hundreds of feathers fluttering through the air.
What happened to him?
Did he join a gang?
Who was he with?
All kinds of questions carried over the quiet campus, massing together like a thousand whispers. How? What? Why? Who? The questions of victims. Questions that would never be answered.
Vicken, Rhode and I sat at the base of a tree, waiting for what? I wasn’t sure. Rhode reached for my hand. It surprised me for a moment; I wasn’t used to him touching me. Vicken held a bloody T-shirt to his head. We hadn’t said much.
‘It’s going to be OK,’ a firefighter said gently. ‘It’ll be all right.’ She was consoling a group of crying girls who sat huddled near Hopper Building. Other firefighters and police officers ran past us in and out of the gymnasium. They went with axes and a hose, guns and stretchers and body bags in their hands. I didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to know. The great clock on Hopper Building said it was four thirty in the morning. Only two hours left until sunrise.
I overheard a snippet of a conversation between Ms Williams and a police officer.
‘You’re sure he is in a gang?’ the officer asked, writing in a small notebook.
‘Yes. He is most definitely in a gang. A violent gang,’ Ms Williams said.
‘We’re going to need to get these kids inside. Start calling parents,’ another officer said, walking by me.
Vicken, Rhode and I met eyes and maintained our silence. A paramedic with a medical bag approached us. He bent over and squinted, examining Vicken’s head wound.
‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘That needs to be stitched up.’ He removed the T-shirt and a little line of blood ran from Vicken’s head down towards his top lip. When it curled over, for the first time in our long history he didn’t lick it away.
‘Do you mind explaining to me the shape of this head wound, sir?’ Vicken asked as he walked after the paramedic.
Rhode and I sat, backs against the tree, our daggers, bow and arrows, and sword hidden around the side of Hopper Building. I leaned my head back against the trunk and looked at Rhode. He was out of his costume now, the only remnant of it the black T-shirt. He was back in his jeans. So modern. And it hit me then . . . he too was ageing. Though I would never see it.
He squeezed my hand and it sent my heart racing. How right, I thought as the chaos ensued around us, that now, after all this, he can make my heart pump so solidly.
I had waited for it for so long.
‘What you did was very brave,’ he said. I exhaled, losing myself in the softness of his blue eyes.
‘It didn’t feel brave. It felt like . . .’ I searched for the words. ‘The end.’
‘How many were there?’ The police officer’s voice pulled my attention away. He was still interviewing Ms Williams.
‘I think four or five,’ she answered.
‘Do you think, at sunrise,’ I whispered, ‘that Justin will still be a vampire? I mean, when I go back to the fifteenth century?
‘I think Fire will keep her promise,’ Rhode replied. He lazily rolled his head to look at me. ‘He’ll be Justin, I suppose.’
‘Where do you think he went?’ I asked.
‘To find other vampires. It won’t take him very long.’ Rhode sighed, then said, ‘Perhaps your plan is in fact the best thing for everyone.’
He didn’t meet my eyes when he said this. He then broke our hands apart to reach into his pocket. He held the broken rune out to me. I did not take it. I didn’t want to play the guessing game as to when Odette got to Justin.
‘Hey . . .’ Rhode said, his eyebrows narrowing. ‘Where is your ring?’
I held my hands out before me and spread my fingers wide.
My onyx ring – it was gone.
‘It must have fallen off during the fight,’ I said in disbelief. I glanced at Hopper Building. ‘I’ll go and look for it.’ I pushed against the tree trunk to stand up.
‘Ah, let it go. It’s a cursed stone anyway. It makes people linger. Souls too. Connects people to their pasts in a world that may not want them any more.’ r />
I nodded and sat back down, knowing that somewhere on the gym floor my ring, the one that had linked me from life to life, human to vampire to human, was discarded under Halloween decorations and party punch.
Rhode offered me the broken rune again. This time I took it and let the pieces lie in the palm of my hand, cool against my skin. And it came to me then. How easily I had taken Justin’s word for it. How easily I had listened to him when he’d said that he wore the rune because he worried for me, because he wanted to understand me. Every time he got me alone, he asked about the ritual. He was so eager to come to watch me do the summoning spell. So interested in power.
‘You couldn’t have known,’ Rhode said.
‘When . . . When he and I . . .’ I stopped, choosing my words. ‘That night. Of my birthday. He told me in the gym . . . he wasn’t in his right mind.’
‘He was probably captured early. I don’t think he did any of this of his own accord.’ Rhode sighed. ‘Either way, it’s over now,’ he said quietly.
He leaned forward and tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear. Justin had done that to me, but when Rhode did it, and his fingers grazed my skin, my pulse thudded.
‘Remember the story you told? About the Anam Cara?’
Rhode nodded and lovingly held my cheek with his hand.
‘Do you think we’re like that?’ I asked. ‘Or is it only reserved for really powerful vampires like Suleen?’
‘I think Suleen would say the love between us is even stronger than the love he felt for that woman.’
He didn’t remove his hand from my face, and its warmth reminded me of all the cold moments in my life. During those long years his touch had brought comfort to me. Yes, I was human now and the touch was different; there were nerve endings and senses now involved.
But the love was the same.
‘Lenah?’ A feeble voice called me.
I twisted to see who was calling my name. Everyone was still in their costumes, their eyes lined in sparkly glitter, lips and noses painted or furry. Beyond the groups of students huddling together on their way to Quartz dorm, two paramedics carried someone on a stretcher. As the stretcher passed by, Tracy turned her head slowly to me.