A Shade of Novak

  When I repeated my question, he stared at me and said, “The less you know, the safer you’ll be. My priority is to get you and your brother back to your parents. I’ll tell you everything you need to know. Anything else you may ask is irrelevant and I suggest you keep it to yourself.”

  I wanted to argue back, but the seriousness in his expression chilled me more than the weather.

  Once we had crossed the beach, I looked back to get a better look at the vampires who were a part of this coven. I spotted among them some of the men I’d seen that first night I’d met Caleb at the beach party. There were perhaps fifty vampires in total—a mixture of men and women. All of them appeared to be young vampires, around the age of twenty.

  Leaving the beach, we veered left toward the foothills of the mountains. And then I saw it looming in the distance. A giant grey stone-walled castle, with half a dozen sharp black-roofed turrets, built up among some of the highest peaks. Just looking at how high up it was made my head dizzy and my knees weak.

  Caleb looked down at me.

  “It’s a long way up. I’ll have to carry you.”

  He didn’t wait for my permission. Placing one arm behind my knees and wrapping the other around my waist, he picked me up. Then he began racing up the narrow winding steps leading toward the castle. His speed left me breathless, the cruel wind whipping past my ears. I wrapped my arms around his neck and looked over his shoulder at the other vampires running behind us.

  By the time we arrived at the top, about ten minutes later, my whole body was shivering uncontrollably. Caleb looked like he’d just taken a casual stroll in the park, not sprinted up a colossal ice-covered mountain.

  He set me down on the ground once we reached the heavy oak doors leading into the castle. He pushed them both open. They swung backward, creaking.

  Cautiously, I stepped in after him. We stepped into a giant hall, lit only by burning candles in the corners of the room, their flames licking the shadowy walls. Walking across the black marble floors, we made our way toward a grand staircase.

  The place was so spooky I instinctively reached out and gripped Caleb’s hand. He didn’t look down at me, but his arm tensed. Then his hand closed ever so slightly around mine.

  We climbed up to the first level—leaving all the vampires behind us to go their separate ways—and continued up winding staircase after winding staircase until we reached what appeared to be the top of one of the turrets.

  We stopped outside a black door, engraved with some weird-looking language. Caleb let go of my hand and knocked.

  “Annora!” he called. “Open up. It’s Caleb.”

  The door swung open to reveal a tall, pale black-haired woman with cool grey eyes.

  “And what have we here?” she said, looking down at me coldly.

  Caleb gripped my arm and pulled me inside.

  The room was rectangular, with an oblong table at one end and several silk-covered chaise longues at the other. The velvet curtains had been drawn.

  “This,” Caleb began as he shut the door behind us, “is the Novak girl. Stellan kidnapped her and her brother.”

  Stellan. That must be the ginger-haired bastard’s name.

  “So what are you doing with this girl?” Annora said. “I instructed Stellan to bring both twins to his island. I never wanted them here.”

  “You what?” Caleb’s jaw dropped as he stared at the young woman.

  She smiled coldly and walked up to him, running a finger across his cheek. He flinched at her touch, but he didn’t back away.

  “Yes, Caleb. I told Stellan to kidnap them.”

  “Are you insane? Why would you do that?” Caleb fumed. “Our task is difficult enough as it is without—”

  “When you told me you’d almost taken this Novak girl that night you went to the beach, it got me thinking…” She looked down at me, wrinkling her nose. “But now’s not the time.”

  “Christ.” Caleb exhaled, lifting a hand to his forehead.

  Annora looked him over sternly. “Did you try to ambush Stellan?”

  Caleb nodded. “I didn’t think you’d give such an order.”

  She chuckled and wrapped an arm around Caleb’s waist, while the other hand lifted his chin up to face her. Again, he flinched at her advances, but didn’t step away.

  “Do you still have no faith in me, after all this time?”

  He scowled. “Whatever your plan is,” he said through gritted teeth, “keeping these twins as prisoners is going to cause more mess than it’s worth. We need to return them both immediately.”

  “No,” she said, the smile on her lips fading. “The Novak boy will remain with Stellan. And since you’ve brought the girl here, she may as well remain here under your rule. Come to think of it, it’s probably better that the two aren’t kept together.”

  Caleb’s jaw twitched. “And what am I to do with her?”

  “For now, you can treat her as a guest. Give her her own room. Of course, you’ll need to inform her of what will happen should she try to escape.”

  “Wait, no. Please.” I stepped forward and got down on my knees in front of her. “Please, let us go.”

  Caleb gripped my arm and pulled me away from her.

  “Please!” I shouted, as he dragged me out of the room. “I need to see my brother! At least bring him here, or allow me to go there!”

  Caleb slammed the door shut behind us. Once we were outside, he swore and smashed his fists against the stone wall.

  I held my breath as I stared at him, tears welling in my eyes again.

  “What’s going to happen to my brother?”

  “Never try to plead with that witch,” he said, inhaling deeply as though trying to reel in his temper. “It will only make her more bent on her course of action.”

  “She’s a witch?”

  He nodded, grimacing.

  “But you’re the ruler of this place? Just take us back home! Why do you have to listen to that bitch?”

  He caught my hand and pulled me down the stairs with him. “For your sake, I hope she didn’t hear you call her that.”

  “Answer my question,” I said, tugging on his hand as I struggled to keep up with his speed.

  He ignored me and continued to drag me down the steps.

  I stopped in my tracks, refusing to take another step. Letting go of my hand, he gripped my midriff and flung me over his shoulder.

  “Put me down!” I gasped, winded.

  When he finally put me down, we were standing outside an open door. He led me through to a bedroom. It was cold, just like the rest of the castle, although the room was comfortable—luxurious even—with its velvet curtains and thick duvets.

  The vampire turned to leave.

  “No! You can’t just walk out on me like this,” I yelled, running after him. “I need answers!”

  He slammed the door shut, and the key twisted in the lock.

  Chapter 17: Rose

  After about an hour of screaming and bashing the front door, it was clear that nobody was going to let me out. My fists raw from pounding against the rough wood, I walked back into the bedroom and drew open the balcony doors. I stepped outside onto the balcony and looked around.

  That witch never said anything about locking me in here. I’m supposed to be a guest.

  First I looked out toward the sea—it appeared to be night now, since the sun no longer glistened against the waves outside of the boundary.

  I shuddered. Below me was a steep drop of hundreds of feet, down onto jagged mountain cliffs. I was on one of the highest floors of the building. It would be suicide to escape this way. There was nothing to hold on to. Just rock.

  There were rows of balconies, both on my level and also the level above. But the balconies were too far apart for me to jump safely from one to the other.

  I left the balcony and looked around the bedroom. I headed straight for the closet and was relieved to see a warm, thick robe. I wrapped it around myself and felt a little warmer, though still
frozen to the bone.

  There didn’t appear to be central heating in this castle. Although there was an old-fashioned fireplace in the corner of my room. It was filled with dry logs and some coal. Grabbing a set of matches on the mantelpiece, I lit the fire until it was stoked enough to warm the room. I lay in bed and huddled beneath the blankets, finally feeling my body return to a healthy temperature.

  That was when the door unlatched. I rushed out of the bedroom in time to see the door slam shut and the key turn again. On the floor was a tray. There was a jug of water, an empty metal cup, and a metal bowl. I bent down closer to sniff the bowl. Oatmeal.

  Oatmeal, huh. If this is what you feed your guests, I hate to think what you feed your prisoners.

  I drank the water, but I didn’t have any appetite for food. Especially not oatmeal.

  I shuddered as I wondered if Ben was being treated any better. Somehow, under Stellan’s rule, I doubted it.

  Once I’d finished drinking the water, I curled back in bed beneath the covers and tried to fall asleep. But I couldn’t. I lay for hours, staring at the chandelier hanging from the ceiling. I couldn’t get the harrowing images of Ben being sucked back into that black submarine out my mind. I couldn’t stop thinking about how worried our parents would be once they found out we weren’t in Scotland.

  It must have been well past midnight when a thump reverberated across my ceiling. Then another thump. It sounded like it was coming from the room directly above mine. The thumps got louder and more violent until the chandelier was swinging in its place.

  What in the world?

  “Stop,” a man shouted, making my heart leap into my throat.

  Glass smashed. Then more shouts.

  I got out of bed and walked out onto the balcony, shivering as I drew the robe closer around me.

  “Don’t make me do this.”

  The voice was clearer this time. The balcony door upstairs must be open.

  Then a female, shrill and breathless: “Why do you make this so difficult?”

  More crashing and thumping on the floor.

  “Caleb!”

  Caleb?

  Wood snapped.

  “You bitch.”

  Another thud against my floor and then a groan of pain.

  “I think we’re done for this evening,” the female voice said.

  Her voice was clearer that time, as though she was standing right by the balcony. Clear enough to realize who was up there with him: the witch.

  I crouched down and listened with bated breath as footsteps disappeared. A door slammed shut in the distance. Then footsteps sounded again on the balcony above. I ducked down closer into the shadows as two hands gripped the banister above. I heard heavy breathing.

  I stayed in my spot, even though my bare feet were beginning to freeze, until he left the balcony and the doors closed behind him. I did the same with my doors and climbed back into bed.

  I tried to close my eyes and finally fall asleep now that the noises had stopped, but now I felt more awake than ever. I couldn’t get the sounds of the violence going on up there out of my head. Even though they had stopped, they continued to echo around in my mind—most of all, the way Caleb had groaned out in pain.

  What was that witch doing to him?

  Chapter 18: Rose

  I ended up climbing out of bed in the early hours of the morning and, placing my blanket and pillows near the front door, lay there. I obviously wasn’t going to get a wink of sleep that night, so I figured that I might as well wait by the door in case someone came to give me breakfast in the morning. I needed to catch whoever it was.

  I was right in my presumption. At about nine o’clock according to the old clock in my corridor, the door creaked open. I scrambled to my feet and stuck my foot in the gap, wedging it open. Gripping the door, I pried it open further.

  Standing in the doorway was Frieda, another tray of what appeared to be more gruel and a jug of water in her hands. She almost dropped the tray from the surprise of seeing me.

  I had to think fast. “Frieda,” I said, “I really can’t stand oatmeal. In fact, I’m allergic to oats. I didn’t eat the portion you gave me yesterday. Can I please have something else?”

  She stared at me, as though not sure what to make of me.

  “That’s just the standard fare we feed all humans here. Afraid we don’t have much else.”

  “Can you please take me to the kitchens? I’m sure there must be something better…”

  “Listen, I’m no cook. I’m just bringing you this up because Caleb specifically asked me to—I don’t know why he requested me.”

  “Okay, well, just tell me which direction the kitchens are in and I’ll find it myself.”

  She frowned at me. “Caleb didn’t tell me that you could be wandering about by yourself.”

  “Well, your witch said I’m a guest here. Not a prisoner.”

  When she continued to look hesitant, I said, “Look, I promise you that I’ll be back within half an hour. I’ve been locked up in this little room for ages. I need to stretch my legs.”

  “All right,” she said, sighing. “But I’ll come with you. I’m sure Caleb wouldn’t object if I accompanied you.”

  She put the tray down on the ground inside my apartment, then caught hold of my hand and led me away down the dark corridor.

  As we descended down to the lower levels of the castle, I didn’t notice many other vampires roaming about. Perhaps because it was still early. “So do you steal away humans regularly then?” I asked, trying to sound casual, but failing miserably.

  She stopped in her tracks and eyed me, as if wondering whether or not she should answer.

  “Hm,” she said. “We go once every few months. It’s getting harder and harder.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She frowned at me again.

  “Well, obviously after years of disappearances, we can only go to open areas where there aren’t CCTV cameras, or we’ll get caught on film. It will be much more difficult if our faces are publicized everywhere.”

  Years of disappearances.

  Why am I so ignorant of all this? Why didn’t our parents tell us?

  “And all those humans you catch, you just use them for blood?”

  “That’s not your business.”

  “Okay,” I said quickly. “Well, can you tell me where all of you vampires came from? Because I’ve lived in The Shade all my life and I never knew there were any other covens left.”

  “One thing you’d best learn sooner rather than later is that the less you know, the better.”

  I refrained from asking more questions as we arrived in the kitchens—a chamber underground. There were shelves filled with bottles containing a red liquid that made me shudder. There were also bottles of liquor.

  As it turned out, Frieda was right about not having much more than oatmeal. There were several sacks of oats in the corner of the room, and the only other thing I spotted was a bowl of apples and bananas. I grabbed two apples and a banana. If I had to eat oatmeal, at least these would make it a little more bearable.

  We walked back up the staircases until we arrived again outside my room. She opened the door for me to step inside. Just as she was about to close the door, I held out my hand to stop her.

  “What goes on up there at night?” I asked, pointing toward the ceiling.

  Frieda glared at me.

  “What goes on up there is between him and the witch, understood?”

  With that, she stormed off.

  Chapter 19: Rose

  She forgot to lock the door.

  I must have agitated her so much that she’d just walked off with the key still in her pocket. Dropping the fruit, I eased the door open and looked either way along the dark corridor. Seeing nobody there, I stepped out, careful to shut the door again behind me.

  Barefoot, I made my way back toward the staircase I’d just come up with with Frieda. I crouched down by the banister and looked down to see if anybody was o
n the stairs below. Satisfied that there was nobody, I began my descent to the ground floor. My breath rasping, my heart hammering against my chest, I managed to make it to the bottom floor without anybody noticing. It appeared to be empty. I ran straight to the oak doors and tried to turn the heavy metal door handle. It wouldn’t budge, no matter how much I twisted it.

  Damn it.

  Windows.

  I left the front door and moved to my right, into the first room that was open. It appeared to be some sort of dining hall, with high towering ceilings, stained-glass windows and a long oak table in the center.

  I threw myself beneath the table and crawled beneath it until I reached one of the windows. I grasped the handle and it pushed open easily. But again, I found myself staring down at a steep drop, hardly any less steep than outside my balcony. There was nothing to hold onto, no way to climb down.

  There’s no way I’ll survive that. Even if I did by some miracle survive the drop, I’d freeze in the snow before I could even reach the woods.

  The only escape seemed to be out the front door.

  I made my way to the staircase and began climbing back up. I passed a couple of male vampires on my way up, but thankfully they didn’t pay much notice to me. They must have assumed that I had permission to walk around.

  Instead of returning to my room, I climbed up one more flight of stairs until I reached Caleb’s floor. I inched toward his door and placed my ear against it. I couldn’t hear anything.

  I gripped the handle and tried to open it, but it was locked. I knocked.

  I heard a low groan and footsteps walking toward the door. The door unlatched to reveal a half-naked, bleary-eyed Caleb. His dark hair was ruffled and he wore a sheet wrapped low round his waist. My breath hitched at his bare torso.

  “You… How did you—”

  Before he could say another word, I pushed the door open wider and slipped inside.

  “If you accidentally leave that main door open,” I said, forcing my eyes up to his face, “I’ll escape and the witch will never know.”