“Lucretia.” I do my best to break her iron-like hold. “It’s me, Sasha.”
She doesn’t let go, just sucks at the wound on my neck.
I go for my gun, but she slaps it out of my hand, launching it across the room.
“Snap out of it,” I hiss, kicking at my newly animated friend. “You don’t want to eat me.”
“Let her go,” Kevin says from somewhere. “Or I will shoot.”
“You will not shoot anyone,” says a familiar hypnotic voice.
“I will not shoot anyone,” Kevin repeats, sounding glamoured.
“Throw that gun away,” the voice says.
Kevin tosses his gun in the same direction where mine disappeared.
“Lucretia, dear, let Sasha go this instant.” The voice is dripping with honey-laced malice, and despite my shock and panic, I realize who this is.
Lucretia releases my shoulders, and I struggle to my feet.
“Where is Ariel?” I demand as I turn around to verify my suspicion, my hand unwillingly nursing the bite on my neck.
Yep.
The pretty face of the newcomer belongs to Gaius—the bane of Ariel’s existence.
“Where is she?” I repeat, stepping toward him.
“I heard you the first time.” Gaius’s eyes go from mirror-like to normal.
Kevin stands rod-still.
Lucretia rises on her elbow and looks around the room, her eyes wilder than drunk college coeds on spring break. Focusing on me, she takes in the wound on my neck and pales—a difficult feat since un-death has already made her paler than her usual bleached china-doll complexion.
Speaking of un-death, she still has no aura—yet Gaius and other vampires do.
Maybe it needs to be reapplied?
I push the mystery away as she says to me, “I can feel how scared you are. I’m so sorry.”
“You’re still an empath after turning?” I blurt out, then realize there are any number of better questions I should ask, the majority of them a variation on what I already asked Gaius.
“Indeed,” Gaius says with an almost fatherly pride. “She’s going to be invaluable to me.” He looks at my neck and adds, “You’re both lucky I came when I did—the newly turned have trouble controlling themselves.”
“I wouldn’t have hurt Sasha,” Lucretia says, sitting up.
“False,” Gaius says teasingly. “You could’ve easily killed her—which neither Nero nor the Council would’ve appreciated. Such things often happen to newbies.”
“No way,” Lucretia says, but scoots away from me—as though she needs the distance to stave off the temptation.
“You must feed,” Gaius tells her, nodding toward Kevin—who, due to glamour, shows no reaction to this horrific suggestion.
“Wait a minute.” I take another step forward.
“Can’t I just get a bag of blood?” Lucretia leaps into a standing position with the effortlessness of an Olympic athlete. “Drinking from a human is—”
“My apologies for the misunderstanding,” Gaius says, the honey evaporating from his voice to leave behind pure malice. “As your sire, I command you to drink from that human.”
Lucretia looks like he just rammed a truck into her brain. With a zombie-like determination, she comes toward Kevin.
“Hold on.” I step in front of her. “Don’t do this.”
“That’s right,” Gaius croons, ignoring me. “You will find it harder and harder to fight me with every command I give.”
Lucretia shoves me aside with Ariel-like strength, and as I catch myself on the couch, a realization hits me.
Of course. Lucretia is now Gaius’s virtual slave—and will be for a whole decade.
“Gaius, please.” I rush forward as Lucretia bites Kevin.
“Would you rather it be you?” Gaius steps into my path, his large body forming an impenetrable barrier.
Behind him, Lucretia is feeding. Her throat moves reluctantly at first, but after she takes a few gulps, she starts sucking more and more enthusiastically.
“Lucretia!” I shout, futilely trying to go around Gaius. “Kevin isn’t a Happy Meal. You’re going to kill him.”
With great reluctance, Lucretia pulls herself away from Kevin’s neck.
The driver looks pale but otherwise normal—assuming you ignore the emptiness in his glamour-affected eyes.
“I didn’t say you could stop,” Gaius says to Lucretia over his shoulder. “Drink from him, and stop only if I say stop.”
Though it’s clear Lucretia tries to fight the command, she obeys quicker this time.
Once she resumes drinking, she does it faster and faster, like she’s getting thirstier with every gulp.
Kevin’s paleness begins to match that of the two vampires in the room—which can’t be a good sign.
“Stop this!” I punch Gaius in the jaw, then shove at him, but he just lifts a perfect eyebrow.
“Is violence really the answer?”
If I could, I’d rip Gaius’s throat out right now. As is, I have to use misdirection.
Feinting to the right, I pretend to go around him, then suddenly leap to the left.
He chuckles behind me, clearly amused as I grab Lucretia and do my best to pry her head away from Kevin’s neck.
I might as well try to break a cement block in half.
Kevin’s body slumps in her arms.
“No.” I tug harder. “Lucretia, stop it!”
Odd slurping noises escape from her mouth as she keeps on sucking like a gluttonous leech.
“There’s no more blood remaining in that body.” Gaius walks up to the bloody rapier on the floor, picks it up, and examines it appreciatively. “Let’s go.”
Lucretia lets Kevin collapse on the floor and sprints after Gaius—who’s left the room so fast he must’ve used vampire powers.
I dash across the room and get my gun, then run out into the hallway, unsure if I’m going to shoot them both or only Gaius.
The hallway is already empty.
Maybe it’s for the best. I don’t have enough energy to chase them.
Closing the front door, I circle back to Kevin.
Dropping to my knees next to his unmoving body, I check the vitals.
Nothing.
He’s dead.
Just like Rose.
I want to shout obscenities, but the scream is stuck in my throat.
It was my fault. Again.
A second person died today because of me.
There will be two funerals.
The pressure behind my eyes now feels like boiling acid.
Facing away from the corpse, I cup my eyes with my palms.
Dead.
Did he have a family? Children?
Did some poor woman become a widow tonight?
The remnants of adrenaline that I was running on evaporate, leaving me utterly drained.
Rose and Kevin.
Ariel missing.
Lucretia as a vampire bound to Gaius.
It’s hard to breathe, impossible to think.
There’s just that awful burning pressure and crushing emptiness.
I don’t know how long I stay there, kneeling next to Kevin’s body, before I hear faint footsteps outside the door.
I find it difficult to care.
The door hinges squeak.
I should stand up or at least ask who it is, but my legs and lips refuse to move.
And then it’s too late anyway.
The new arrival rushes toward me too fast for my eyes to follow.