Chapter 2

 

I pulled out my phone and texted Mercy: “We got him. Had to stake him. Sorry :(”

“Dammit,” Mercy replied.

“And he bit someone…”

“Take care of it.”

“I did.”

Mercy sent back a thumbs-up emoji. Though, by taking care of it, I was reasonably sure she meant that I should have staked his victim, too. There were simply too many new vampires on the run, and Mercy couldn’t keep up with them all. Everyone who’d died in Vilokan who had the aspect of Baron Samedi, in fact, had been recently turned—partially Mercy’s fault for raising their corpses as a zombie army to utilize against Kalfu, and partly mine for attempting to release all the souls that Kalfu had hoped to infuse into his Bokors, leaving those who had Samedi’s aspect free to naturally reinhabit their bodies. Thus, the zombies became more than corpses, they became vampires. It wasn’t the usual process that left someone in a condition of vampirism—but it had done the trick, no less.

Mercy sent a second text. “Meet me at CDD.”

CDD—had to be short for Casa do Diabo. Though, in truth, it had never occurred to me to abbreviate it before. I couldn’t go into the house. The place was warded against anyone who had Ogoun’s aspect. That excluded Mikah, too. Still, there was a fairly nice garden there—albeit one that doubled as the burial site for a few “staked” vampires—that provided a fairly convenient place to meet. Besides, since my family home had burned down and Vilokan was still uninhabitable, the only building I owned was the old slave quarters on my family’s property. Since Isabelle had actually lived there briefly during her human life, no small part of me recoiled at the idea of sleeping there.

So, for the last week or so I’d been sleeping at the nastiest hotel I could find. Since I was Kalfu’s number one target, I didn’t want to risk any innocent lives being caught up in whatever he might have planned next. I picked the lowest-rated, single-star hotel listed on Google. Not even the dude from Hotel Impossible could fix this one. The first three sets of sheets they gave me had strange stains on them. The standard stuff: blood, semen, probably some poop. I gave up and bought a set of my own—but then I forgot to hang the “do not disturb” sign on the door when I left in the morning. I was reasonably sure that my sheets would be gone when I got back. Thankfully, I’d bought two sets and stashed the second one in my Camaro for good measure.

Pauli teleported himself back to Casa do Diabo directly—the last thing I wanted to do was freak Hailey out further. She’d just been attacked by a vampire, and though she probably didn’t realize it, she was in the process of becoming one. I couldn’t imagine—a girl with her whole life ahead of her. She couldn’t go back home. It wouldn’t be safe. I put my arm around her.

“Where are your parents, honey?” I asked.

Hailey shrugged. “They don’t know I’m here. Snuck out.”

I tried to suppress my grin—this girl more than looked like me. I’d been known to sneak out from time to time when I was her age. My parents, still home at the time, were nonetheless not really there, and Ashley was the one who was left to scold me. “There are bad people out there,” she’d tell me. “People who could hurt you.” But when I was a teenager, particularly one just beginning to learn what I could do with Isabelle’s power inside of me, I felt like I was invincible. I thought the world was mine to conquer.

“Who’d you sneak out to go meet?” I asked.

“A boy.”

“Is he around?” I asked.

Hailey shook her head. “He took off when the guy attacked me. Just ran. I thought he was going for help, but…”

“He was probably scared, too,” I said. “The thing that attacked you…”

“Just some crazy person,” Hailey said.

“He was a vampire,” I said.

Hailey snorted. “Not in the mood for jokes.”

“I’m not joking.”

Hailey rolled her eyes. “All right. I think I’m going to go home, now. Thanks for… whatever.”

“Hailey, you can’t.”

Hailey extended her middle finger as she walked away. I sighed. I didn’t want to do this, but I had no choice. “Isabelle, don’t heal me. Not right way.”

I bit my hand—hard. I drew a little blood.

Immediately Hailey turned around. “What is that…”

I held up my hand as a drop of blood dripped down my wrist. “You feel the hunger, don’t you?”

“I… Oh my God… so weird!”

I nodded. “Okay, Isabelle.”

“Who is…”

My eyes began to glow green as Isabelle released some magica into my wound.

“What the fuck are you?”

“I’m a person. It’s the truth. But I have a connection to another spirit, one who allows me to heal.”

Hailey was biting her lip. “The craving, the hunger I felt, it went away.”

I nodded. In truth, I didn’t know a ton about vampires. No one really did…except vampires. But I needed to give Hailey confidence. I needed her to come with me. If not, she probably wouldn’t survive more than a few nights. “You’re turning. Soon, your teeth will begin to change. The cravings will become irresistible. You won’t just crave blood when someone is actively bleeding in front of you. You’ll start to see everyone, even the people you love, as prey. You need to let me help you.”

“What can you do for me?” Hailey asked. “Assuming what you say is true, why would you help me?”

“I can handle myself,” I said. “But I know someone else who can help you control it. And I don’t want to scare you further, but there’s something else out there. Something hunting vampires. It craves vampire blood. And if he gets to you, there’s very little I can do. Please, come with me.”

Hailey took a deep breath. Tears welled up in her eyes. “Fuck! I just wanted to get out of the house!”

I nodded, stepped a little closer, and put my hand on the girl’s shoulder. “If you come with me, I promise, I’ll do what I can to help you through this transition. If you can control it, you might be able to have something that resembles a normal life someday. But you need to let me help you.”