The two men each grabbed one of my arms and half-dragged, half-carried me around to the front of the rundown motel, to where their boss was waiting. As soon as we rounded the corner, I saw that Sam was now being held by a few of Donovan’s henchmen. He looked like they might have beat him to find out where I had gone, but I breathed a sigh of relief. He was alive. I took it as an excellent sign that he was standing on his own, even if they had him restrained.
It wasn’t until we were about twenty feet away from Sam and Donovan that I had my suspicions about Gabriel and Embry confirmed. To make sure I had no doubts about it, Embry was in a pool of blood. I would have told myself it was someone else’s, but I could see that it was coming from the large gash on the side of his head. Gabriel, my last defense before the woman managed to come after me, was lying in the doorway of our motel room. There was an axe on the ground next to his chest, which was covered in red. I had to turn away so I could catch my breath.
“Miss Owens, I am so glad that you finally decided to join us.” Donovan came over as his minions let go of me. They stayed on either side, and more of them were all around us, so I knew I had no chance of escaping, even if I had known how to hotwire a car.
“That is the last thing I would ever want to do.” I made sure I was standing straight, looking right into the dark holes he used as eyes while I said it. I was doing my best to appear confident, and in control, even though it couldn’t be farther from the truth.
“Lost your nerve?” Donovan asked with a smile. “No longer rushing to save poor Sam now that you don’t have your lap dogs to keep you safe?”
“I stayed, didn’t I?” I pointed out through gritted teeth. His relishing of Embry and Gabriel’s deaths upset me more than the way he mocked me.
“That, you did. I am still trying to decide if that was out of bravery or stupidity.” He looked me up and down, sizing me up in a way that made my skin crawl. Unlike prom night with Danny Kinks, Donovan didn’t have any desire in his eyes.
“You had my people,” I explained. As soon as I saw Sam through the window, there was no way I was leaving.
“Stupidity then.” My answer bored him. He was talking slow and walking around as if he had all of the time in the world. True, it did look like he had won and no longer had anything to worry about, but I still had a dagger strapped to my ankle, and my guys were going to wake up eventually.
“Or decency,” I said it under my breath, but with conviction. He heard, but instead of being offended, he looked back at me with the tiniest of smiles.
“But I digress; I have not called you here to taunt or insult you, my dear. I apologize if I have made you uncomfortable or scared. You’ll find I can be a very accommodating host.” He was still gauging my personality, figuring out which buttons to press to get what he wanted. Was I hot-tempered? Would threatening me work? Or was his original assumption right, that the easiest way to get me to do what he wanted was to threaten to hurt my family? I had made the answer clear, but he wasn’t accepting it.
“Why? Are you planning on entertaining my heartless body after you bleed it dry?” I knew he needed my heart, and chanced a guess at the rest. I got the feeling that my death wouldn’t interfere with his plans, but Cassie had thrown herself off a cliff so he wouldn’t have access to her dead body. That the guys then burnt. Blood seemed like an ominous equivalent to my ‘essence’ for an occult ritual.
“Your friends should have told you that vampires don’t exist,” he smiled at me.
“Then what is it you want to do with me?” I asked. “What do I have to do for you to let Sam go? To leave him and his family alone?” I chanced a glance in Sam’s direction. He looked disappointed that I had come back rather than running off to ensure my own safety.
“That’s quite simple Lucy; all you have to do is join us.”
“Join you?” I knew this was a trap, but him killing me would probably be better than what would happen if I joined him.
“I want you to decide, of your own free will, that you wish to be a part of our organization.” He raised his arms and looked around at his followers, who all stood at the ready. I wondered how many of them were here of their own free will.
“I have a lot of trouble believing that all you want is for me to be one of your minions,” I argued.
“You would not be a minion. You would have an honored spot at the side of the king,” he said as if this were a seductive idea I should be tempted by.
“I would rather die,” I said with a courage I was only pretending to feel.
“Of course. Your death would be the first step, but eventually, it would be an incredible reward.”
“I would be dead,” I reminded him. I had seen horror films with necromancy, and it churned my stomach.
“You are so blinded by your ideals of good and evil that you’re not even considering the whole picture,” he sighed.
“Then enlighten me. Tell me exactly what I would be getting myself into, so I can make an informed decision as to whether or not I want to willingly join you,” I said, partially because I did want to know what he planned to do with me, but also because the more time he spent talking, the closer we got to Embry and Gabriel waking up, and the longer Sam stayed alive. I wasn’t naïve enough to think we could talk for the eight hours Gabriel and Embry would need, and I knew help wasn’t coming, but I needed to keep him talking long enough to come up with a plan.
“For centuries we have been collecting a variety of items for a ritual. There have been many attempts since the beginning of time, but few of us are still searching. Most of them gave up when they kept trying and failing.” He had a gleam in his dark eyes when he mentioned the ritual, and pride when he spoke of the others who gave up while he forged on.
“What makes you think yours will work?” I stalled him.
“We have yet to attempt the ritual, because we are missing a pivotal ingredient.” The way he looked at me made me feel extremely uneasy. “You see, over a few centuries, you can collect most of the essential ingredients. Splinters from the cross Jesus of Nazareth was nailed to, soul of a virgin…a lot of religious or supernatural paraphernalia I won’t bore you with. The issue comes with the heart of the Bearer of the Crescent Moon,” he gave weight to each word, waiting for me to understand his implications.
“You want my heart,” I stated. It was the one thing I knew for sure from Beth’s memory. He waited, possibly for a reaction, but I didn’t know what he wanted me to say. At this point it wasn’t my life I was going to plead for. If I died, Donovan’s quest ended, and everyone else would be okay. I didn’t have a daughter to worry about like Cassandra had.
“Precisely. For centuries, men like us have been branding their slaves, their wives and their children with crescent moons. Some believed it had to be the virgin, some thought an innocent child. Hundreds tried, but none ever succeeded. It was not up to us to brand someone with the Crescent Moon, we had to find the women who already had it.”
“Annabelle had it, so you’ve been tracking her descendants, waiting to get your hands on another one who has her birthmark,” I concluded.
“We have everything else,” he agreed. It bothered me how he spoke of himself as a collective.
“Then why am I still standing? Shouldn’t you be slicing into me and letting Sam go?” I asked. It was cruel to torture me if he was ultimately going to rip my heart out.
“You need to give it willingly,” he reminded me.
“Did the virgin willingly give you her soul?” I shot at him. I normally only talked back to Embry and Sam, sometimes Gabriel, because they felt more like friends or older siblings than parents or elders. With Donovan, I figured he was going to kill me anyway, although I didn’t like how much he was enjoying it.
“She did, believe it or not. Magic, whether dark or light, has precise nuances. One virgin’s soul over another’s can make a world of difference in a spell. Combining powerful elements such as those required for this ritual…it takes more than finesse, it can go terribly wrong. A heart given willingly will always be more powerful, and easier to control than one taken by force.” His eyes lit up as he spoke, which was extremely hard for them to do. This was his life’s work. I was the final element to his masterpiece.
I was going to tell him he could have my heart if he let everyone else go, but I was still hoping we could hold out until Embry and Gabriel came back to life. Then we could defeat the monster and all live to see another day.
“You want me to rule, metaphorically, because my heart will be…what? Your source of power? What does the spell do?” I pressed to keep him talking.
“Everything.” The holes he had as eyes grew wide with excitement. “The one who succeeds in completing the ritual will be powerful above all others. You have seen how easily we control those who are like us, those who do not die until their business is done. Once the ritual is completed, we will be able to control the entire planet in that way. Kings, presidents, armies…no one would be immune to obeying our commands. Our power would be unimaginable. We would rule the world.”
“And everybody wants to rule the world.” I rolled my eyes at how cliché it was. I knew the song and could hypothetically see the attraction, but I would wish for a million other things before ruling the world ever crossed my mind.
“You don’t agree?”
“Do you realize how crazy it is that you basically can’t die, and instead of taking advantage of the past…I don’t know how many hundreds of years, you have been tracking down a line of women and trying to kill them? You could have travelled the world for pleasure, gone to every church and museum in Europe, learnt every language, painted, written novels, read every book ever published…you could have accomplished so much.”
“I stay alive so the ritual can be completed. If all I wanted was to write a few poems, I would have died.”
“It’s not just culture. You could have found someone to love and be happy with, raise a family, instead of becoming this monster hell-bent on killing my family. Isn’t it lonely knowing you’re killing the only person who isn’t under your control?” I knew it was pointless, but if he did have a heart somewhere deep down, it couldn’t hurt to try and reach it.
“You’re not controlled, but you aren’t a willing participant either. That’s why I want you to see that we are not entirely evil. When we take over the world, we will have order, and go back to a simpler, less forgiving way of life. Society has become much too tolerant of late. And best of all, we can bring you back, Lucy. True, we need your heart in order to complete the ritual, and you will die. But once it is done and we have all the power, we will be able to bring you back to life. You will be able to rule at our side, a coveted position,” he offered as if he were doing me a favor.
Something in the dark way he smiled had me worried. “What exactly is your plan for the rest of the population, once you can control everyone?”
“Those who are useful can join our society and contribute. The weak and the poor, who exist solely as leeches or parasites will be eliminated, as was suggested millenniums ago. We haven’t worked out all the details yet, but the gist of it is…anything we want.”
I knew better than to expect his new world would be a utopia, even a dysfunctional one. Judging by how he treated me, Sam, and even his minions, I got the impression that not many people would survive his reign, especially not caring, selfless people like Deanna and Sam, or sweet little girls like Clara. I looked to Sam, who was still standing about ten feet from me, with tape on his mouth and his hands tied behind his back. It was determination and irrepressible sadness that he found in my eyes once we made contact. I saw the same emotions in his as he nodded. He knew what I had to do. Even if I willingly gave up my heart, he would still meet the same fate.
“I would be glad to enlighten you further on the ride, but we must get going. We have a long drive ahead of us.” Donovan extended his hand, still expecting me to follow and willingly let him murder me to protect the ones I loved. I would have, if there was even a possibility it would work, and they would get to live happily ever after. But we all knew they wouldn’t.
I looked back to Sam and mouthed “I love you,” which got a tiny nod, before I used my fingers to count down.
Three...
Two…
One.