CHAPTER 5
Ashe walked around the entire house trying all of the light switches though she knew they wouldn’t work. Peter’s house was drafty and old, but she needed to stay here in case he came back. She thought about waiting out the storm at her own house, but it was too far to go on foot in such weather. Her coat and scarf still hadn’t dried out from the afternoon and she didn’t want to catch pneumonia or lose her toes to frostbite. She contented herself with roaming the halls of the quiet house, peering into half-empty moving boxes and tracing her name in the dust on the banister.
When that lost its charm, Ashe dozed for a while in a leather armchair in the living room. She was exhausted from running and trekking through the snow. Her fragmented dreams brought back visions of Professor Sharp in his office, staring at her with gleaming eyes that told Ashe of a broken, desperate man who do anything to get his wife back. He lunged at her and Ashe jerked awake.
It was hard to tell through the storm where the sun had gone, but Ashe’s phone told her it was nearing six. It also told her its battery was about to run out. She hadn’t meant to sleep nearly so long. As she slipped the phone back into her pocket, she noticed the bundle of herbs Professor Wheatley had given her. She brought it to her nose and could still smell, though faint, a mix of flowers and the piney scent of juniper. She smiled to herself, remembering the professor’s words of encouragement about her work in his class. She stretched her legs and got out of her chair. She walked over to the coat rack by the front door and carefully placed the bundle of herbs inside her coat pocket.
Though the house was still and blizzard had quieted back down into gentle snowfall, Ashe felt the urgency of her need to find Peter. Professor Sharp was still out there somewhere, and even if he couldn’t get to her in all this snow, he would be waiting for her. As Ashe was contemplating whether or not to brave the cold and head back to her home, she heard a door creak open somewhere inside the house. She stopped and turned slowly.
“Hello?” she called out quietly. There was no response. An image of Professor Sharp popped into her mind’s eye and she had to remind herself that the house wasn’t actually empty. Peter’s family were all sleeping downstairs. It must have been one of them.
She turned back around and took her coat from the rack. The wool was still slightly damp on the outside, but the inside was thankfully dry. She decided she would leave a note for Peter, telling him that she was back at her house, in case he came here looking for her.
As she scrawled her note, Ashe noticed the soft padding of footsteps behind her, but thought the sound was a figment of her frightened imagination. She only turned to look when she could no longer deny the feeling that there was someone in the room with her. Her pencil clattered to the floor.
“Penelope,” she said with a tone of surprise. Peter’s eldest sister was standing just inside the room, her dark hair pinned up in its usual manner, though looking messy from her recent slumber. “I’m sorry if I woke you.”
Ashe started backing up towards the door, her hand feeling for the doorknob.
“You’re looking for him, aren’t you? He’s not here,” Penelope said, taking a step closer. Ashe’s hand closed around the doorknob.
“I was just leaving,” Ashe replied, trying not to sound nearly as scared as she was.
“No, you’re not,” Penelope replied.
Ashe tried turning the doorknob, but found it was stuck. It was like a sickening instance of déjà vu from Professor Sharp’s office, only this time the lock wasn’t the problem. The door was simply stuck.
Penelope took another quiet step closer, gracefully, as if she were gliding across the hardwood floor.
Ashe rattled the doorknob violently but it was like the door had been glued in place. Ashe realized with horror that Penelope must have telekinetic powers to some degree, similar to how Landon could see future events. Maybe even Peter had psychic powers of his own; Ashe had never thought to ask him. Ashe gave up her struggle and let go of the doorknob.
“Still wearing the treasures that don’t belong to you, I see,” Penelope said in her icy voice.
“If you want them so much, you can have them,” Ashe spat. She was sick of being a pawn, the weak human that vampires thought they could bully and use for their own purposes. She pulled the earrings from her ears and thrust them out to Penelope. “Here.”
Penelope smiled, but did not accept the earrings. “How cute; but they are not yours to give. I only take souvenirs from those I kill.”
Peter had to be somewhere close, Ashe thought. He would be here soon and he would protect her. Besides, the rest of the family was sleeping downstairs. Penelope couldn’t do anything to harm her.
Ashe opened her mouth to yell, but no sound came out; it felt as though her throat had closed. She choked and struggled for breath until tears streamed down her face. Finally, Penelope released whatever hold she had on Ashe and Ashe fell to the floor, gulping down huge breaths of air.
“You try that again and I won’t be so kind,” Penelope warned Ashe, who was having trouble finding the will to stand. “My family won’t wake for another several hours. The only reason I’m up is because of your blood. It roused me from my dreams like the lure of a siren drawing in a passing ship. Landon did more than hurt you when he offered me your blood. He knows what I am and he marked you as mine.”
Penelope grabbed Ashe by the hair, forcing her to stand. Ashe bit her lip to keep from crying out in pain as Penelope twisted a fistful of hair.
“But before I drain you, I need just one thing. Do you know what that is?”
Ashe waited for the answer but it didn’t come. “What is it?” she whimpered as Penelope pulled her hair harder.
“I need you to call my brother and tell him you don’t love him.”
“Why?” Ashe asked through tears.
Penelope scoffed, “Why? Does it matter? I want you to break his heart so that he will never be able to love a human woman again. Your kind and ours aren’t meant to fall in love. All you bring is trouble; you are all pigs. You exist to be eaten by us and nothing more.”
“The power’s out,” Ashe muttered, trying to ignore the words cutting through her like a knife.
Penelope released Ashe’s hair. A puzzled look crossed her face and Ashe wondered if her knowledge of technology was as behind as her sense of fashion.
“No power means no cell reception. The towers can’t send the signal.”
Penelope crossed her arms in front of her chest, looking like she was suspicious of Ashe, but too unsure about the subject to contradict her. Ashe felt a little of her fear go away. Maybe she could use Penelope’s ignorance to her advantage.
“No problem. There are plenty of things we can do in the meantime. It’s amazing how much blood a human can lose before they lose consciousness.” Penelope said, a fresh smile forming across her thin pale lips.
There were four of them, one for every victim they hoped to find still alive in the basement. Mark handed out stakes with a leather-clad hand. There were studs of pure silver on each of his knuckles.
“Now be careful with these,” he was saying to the group. “Don’t do something stupid like stick yourself with the pointy end. Also, you need to make them count. You’ve only got two each.”
The men nodded. Peter palmed the round end of the stake, feeling its weight in his hand. He hated killing his own kind. It made him feel like a traitor, even when the vampires he was after would have done the same to him in a heartbeat. He focused instead on Ashe, on her beautiful light eyes and the way her dimples showed with every smile. He thought about the feeling of her in his arms, soft and warm and full of the energy of life. He always felt more human when he was around her and he needed to remember his humanity if he was to get through the night.
Mark continued instructing the men: “You need to make sure your kills are silent. There are six in Landon’s group, more if he’s turned some of the humans. We have to get as many as we can while they’re sleeping. A well-placed stake will silence them before they can fully wake. But you all know that already.” He chuckled grimly.
“I’d prefer to use bullets,” one of the men replied. He had a neatly trimmed beard and piercing blue eyes. “I can shoot them faster than they can wake up from the sound.” He pulled aside his coat to reveal a holster at his hip. The pistol grip looked like something out of an old Western.
“No sound,” Mark grunted. “Silent as the graves we’re sending them to. We can’t afford any mistakes.”
Peter looked at men around him. They were vampires who had made a living from doing away with the members of their kind that posed problems for the greater community. At best they were crusaders working to protect humanity from the monsters lying in the shadows, but at their worst they were hired killers, skilled at exterminating their own kind. Though now Peter was working side-by-side with these men, there was a time not all that long ago when they would have been after Peter, just as they now hunted Landon’s clan. Peter’s past wasn’t free from sin; he was no stranger to the dark lust for blood and the desperate measures a vampire could take to get it. He only hoped that what he had done since then—getting his family onto donor blood and making sure they didn’t take any new victims—was enough to make up for his past transgressions.
“When we go down into the basement, don’t get distracted by the victims,” Mark was saying. “If they start to make a commotion, Bill, you know what to do.” The third vampire, a small man with sunken eyes, nodded in understanding at Mark. Bill had the same powers as Peter’s sister Penelope; he could manipulate the matter around him with his willpower alone. Of course there were limits to any vampire’s power and Peter hoped Bill was strong enough to silence a room full of desperate, suffering people. The success of the job may depend on it.
Landon’s house was a distant dark spot on the horizon, the details of its shape obscured by the falling snow. It didn’t look especially sinister from where Peter stood, but he knew that inside there would be horrors most people couldn’t imagine. He was glad Ashe wasn’t there, though he still worried whether she had gotten home okay in the snow. As Mark gave out more last-minute instructions, Peter pulled out his phone, as he had been doing periodically since leaving campus, to check if power had been restored to the signal towers. To his relief, there were two weak bars of reception, giving him the first hope he had felt in some time.
“I need to make a call,” he said, stepping away from the group. He had heard most of what Mark was saying already on the drive over. Besides, he didn’t need any reminders of what had to be done. Landon was a threat to his and Ashe’s happiness, and as long as Landon existed, he and Ashe could never truly be together.
Peter couldn’t wait to hear Ashe’s voice. He paced anxiously by the hood of Mark’s car, waiting for her to pick up. Her phone rang six, seven, eight times. Mark was motioning him to rejoin the group. Peter let the phone ring longer, but Ashe still didn’t answer.
“Peter, we have to go.” Mark pointed towards the house where a small figure was just barely visible walking away from the house. The person appeared to be heading for a small copse of trees to the right of the property. “Someone’s on the move. That means one less of them to worry about. Now is our chance.”
Peter cursed under his breath as he hung up the phone. He promised himself he would call Ashe as soon as he was done with Landon.
The four men set off across the white expanse of fields between the road and the house in the distance. As they got closer to the house, Peter thought he recognized the figure disappearing into the trees. It was hard to mistake him even through the snow. His long, striding steps and the dark coat he always wore with the collar turned up were sure signs it was Landon.
“Where are you going?” Mark asked, as he noticed Peter heading off in the direction that Landon had gone.
“I’m going to do what I came here for,” Peter called back. The wind had picked up again and Peter had to raise his voice to be heard over it.
Peter thought that Mark was going to try and stop him, but Mark only nodded at him gravely. He must have understood Peter’s need to go after Landon on his own. Peter turned to go towards the dark figure.
“Wait.” It was the blue-eyed vampire; he was holding out his gun. “I can’t use it anyway. The blizzard might hide the sound out there in the woods, but then again it might not. Only fire if it’s your last option. You can give it back when you’ve done what you need to.”
Peter ran back to take it. “Thanks,” he said, tucking the weapon into the back of his belt.
“Good luck,” the man called out as Peter disappeared through the veil of falling snow.
Peter couldn’t see anything beyond the trees ahead of him, but as soon as he stepped under the cover of their branches, the snow suddenly stopped and he found himself in a world cut off from the foul weather outside. Here and there a stray snowflake fell down through the thick tangle of tree branches above Peter’s head, but the wood was eerily silent all around him, as if even the wind was afraid to go where Peter had to. The ground was covered in a thick layer of fallen brown leaves that had been stopped in their decay by the freezing temperatures. Peter felt as if all time had stopped in these woods and they were just as they had been for centuries. He couldn’t see Landon anywhere around him, but knew the man had to be somewhere nearby. Peter set off to look for him.
As Peter walked through the wood, he started noticing what looked like small piles of rocks littering the mulch-covered ground. After a while he realized the piles were actually made by crumbling tombstones that had been broken to pieces by age. As he walked farther, the tombstones became more whole, until he could start to make out the inscriptions through the lichen growing on their faces. He stooped down to read one. “Mariana Alilovic,” it read, though the dates were unreadable.
Peter was confused. Could Landon have human relatives buried out here? That was highly unlikely. Peter bent down and put his hand on the ground in front of the tombstone. Though he had no particular skill for it, Peter felt he could sense something deep in the dirt, biding its time until it was time to wake. With a shiver Peter stood back up. The pieces were starting to fit together. Peter jogged ahead to look at a few more gravestones. “Eloise Alilovic, Joanna Alilovic,” Peter muttered to himself. Each grave gave Peter that same eerie feeling that it was occupied. Mark had said there had been no sign of Landon’s female relatives. Peter knew that vampires were sometimes forced into a state of hibernation when they did not receive enough blood for a long period of time. Aside from their brief use of David’s stolen blood, Landon’s clan had largely been relying on hunting to survive. Could the women of Landon’s family be buried in this wood, waiting until they could be resurrected with a fresh supply of blood?
There was movement to Peter’s left and he stood up quickly, his fist closed around the handle of one of the wooden stakes Mark had given him. He didn’t want to reveal the gun before he needed to. Landon came out from the trees, looking smug as always. He slicked back his hair and gave Peter a smile.
“I missed you.”
Peter felt bile rising in his throat. This was the man who had threatened Ashe and tempted Peter’s own sisters into betraying their promise to him not to harm a living human. “Wish I could say the same,” he replied.
Landon tapped the side of his head. “My visions told me you were coming, but I wasn’t sure when you’d arrive. It seems you’ve caught me a bit off-guard.”
“I thought you’d have cleared the country by now, especially knowing what I was coming to do to you.”
“We couldn’t leave without the whole family,” Landon replied, sweeping his arms out and looking around. Peter wondered just how many family members had been buried here and how many more of them waited in Europe. But it was too late for Peter to turn back now. He had already committed himself to this fight and would do whatever it took to keep Ashe safe. He gripped the stake tighter in his hand.
“It was only going to be a few more days,” Landon said. “We’ve finally got enough blood stored up to bring the family back together, thanks to those warm bodies we’ve got chained up in the basement. Not including the sick one, mind you. The chemicals in her blood could burn a hole in your stomach. Believe me, I tried.”
Peter frowned as he failed to make sense of Landon’s words.
Landon chuckled. “Oh right, you probably haven’t heard. We ran into your favorite professor and his wife a while back. We still have the woman but we let the husband go after some... improvements.”
“You turned Professor Sharp?” Peter asked with a twinge of anxiety. All semester Ashe had been taking his classes, sitting only feet away from a vampire under Landon’s control. She had even gone to his class right before the blizzard had hit! What if Professor Sharp had done something to her then?
“Yes, and he should be on his way with my prize as we speak. My father said it’s about time I found a mate of my own. Ashe will be much happier as one of us, don’t you think?”
Ashe was in danger. Peter could hear her calling for him, her voice an almost palpable noise in his head. It was much stronger than anything he had imagined before. He couldn’t stand the thought of Landon turning Ashe into a vampire against her will, or doing other things too horrible to even think of. The voice in his head was calling his name and begging him to save her, begging for the pain to stop.
Without thinking, he lunged for Landon.
Landon dodged out of the way with a humored look on his face. “You’re going to stick me with that splinter?”
Peter lunged again. Landon blocked Peter’s blow with his forearm and punched him in the stomach, but Peter was too full of rage to even notice. He retaliated, sending Landon crashing backwards against a gravestone whose grave had been partially cleared out. Landon landed with a thud in the shallow hole and struggled to gain his footing in the soft dirt. His sick smile had left his face, replaced by a look of increasing panic as Peter approached.
There was nowhere for Landon to run as Peter crashed his fist into his nose. Peter could feel the bones cracking under his knuckles, but it didn’t matter. There was only one way to stop a vampire. Peter raised his stake.
“Wait!” Landon shouted; spit flying from his quivering lips. He had lost his entire swagger and was now just a sniveling bug about to be crushed out of existence by Peter’s boot. Peter was done waiting.
All of a sudden Ashe’s cry for help came back, clear as a bell. Peter, please come home. She’s hurting me. I can’t stand it much longer; you have to save me.
This time there was no mistaking that the voice was real. The raw fear in it shook Peter to his bones. Maybe her voice in his head had been real all along. He should never have left her at the college.
There’s not much time.
Ashe’s voice cut off and Peter was sucked back into reality. His head reeled as if he were drunk. He plunged the stake straight into Landon’s heart, feeling nothing as the vampire screeched and writhed. Peter let go of the stake and backed away as Landon clawed at the weapon lodged in his chest, his movements weakening with every passing second.
Peter had finished what he needed to do. He felt no remorse for killing one of his own kind, or for leaving the others to clean up the rest of Landon’s clan without him. Mark and his men were professionals; they would be fine. Peter’s only thoughts were for Ashe.
The way back out of the wood was a blur. Peter’s mind was focused on trying to reach out to Ashe so he could hear her voice again. He didn’t like the way her voice had cut out so suddenly, as if something had happened to silence it. Though he had never heard anyone’s thoughts before, he didn’t think the lack of signal was a problem with his newfound telepathic ability. The reason he couldn’t hear Ashe was because she was no longer crying out to him.
As he sprinted across the field to Mark’s car, Peter could see through the still-falling snow, one of the vampire hunters. He was followed by a limping trail of Landon’s victims coming out of the house. Another hunter brought up the rear of the group. Peter counted five people total, not nearly as many as he had hoped. He wondered if there were more still inside.
He reached the road and got into Mark’s car, taking the spare key from above the sun visor where it was hidden. The tires squealed against the icy road as he pulled a sharp U-turn towards the town. With one hand held tight on the steering wheel, he dialed Ashe’s phone with the other. He hadn’t heard her voice since leaving the woods and he was starting to wonder if it had been a hallucination brought on by what Landon had said and Peter’s own desperate need to keep Ashe safe.
This time she answered.
“Peter.” Her weak voice quavered with tears. Just hearing it made Peter’s heart ache for her.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his mind battling visions of Professor Sharp holding her hostage as he drove the car down the snow-covered highway as fast as he could go.
“You shouldn’t have called,” Ashe replied.
Ashe’s odd reply made Peter uneasy. “I was worried about you,” he said. “Did you get home okay? Are you safe?”
There was a long pause, then finally, “I—I can’t do this anymore.”
“Can’t do what?”
“I can’t keep being afraid of you.” Ashe was crying.
Peter felt as if he had been slapped in the face. “What do you mean?” he said. She wasn’t leaving him, was she? No, she couldn’t. Not now, not after everything he’d done to keep her safe.
“I pretended for so long because I thought you’d hurt me. Everything I said to you was a lie. I can’t be with you. I don’t—”
Ashe burst into sobs as Peter swallowed back the bitterness rising within him. Why was she telling him this now? It wasn’t him she should have been afraid of. It was the others—Landon, Professor Sharp, even Penelope, though Peter still hated to acknowledge what his sister had done while starving for blood. Peter wasn’t like the others. He would have died for Ashe in a second; he would have done anything for her.
Then, out of the murky depths of his thoughts came a whisper. Peter strained to listen, blocking out the painful sound of Ashe’s crying from the phone pressed to his ear. The whisper was frustratingly far away, like a dog whistle just above the range of human hearing. He could feel its vibrations, but could not hear what it was saying.
“I don’t love you,” Ashe sobbed into the phone.
Peter only half-registered it, his mind still hung up on the phantom signals. “Wait,” he said. “Don’t say anything.”
“But it’s true,” Ashe sobbed harder. “You have to believe me. Please.”
The voice in Peter’s head was getting clearer, fighting its way through the conflicting noise. Peter gunned the car engine faster, only paying the minimum attention to the scenery whipping by as he fought his breaking heart with every word Ashe said.
“Please, Peter. You have to believe me. I said I don’t love you. I never loved you.” Ashe’s voice was desperate as she shouted for him to reply, but the signal in Peter’s brain started to overpower her spoken words.
I love you Peter. I always loved you.
Peter nearly dropped his phone. The words sounded the same as they had in the wood. He tried to send a message back.
I know, he thought back.
Ashe’s crying on the phone abruptly stopped.
“Are you there?” Peter asked out loud.
“I—I—”
Someone’s there with you, aren’t they? Peter thought. They’re making you say these things to me.
Peter? Is it really you?
Yes, and I’m on my way. Where are you?
You can read minds?
No, I don’t know. This is the first time. But I heard you calling for me. I knew you were in danger. Just tell me where you are.
I’m at your house.
Who’s with you?
Penelope.
Hearing that name was like a stake through his heart. Peter couldn’t even keep Ashe safe from his own family. He couldn’t believe his own sister would do something like this to the woman he loved.
Peter realized that the phone had been silent for far too long. If Penelope was there listening, she would start to grow suspicious. He forced himself to speak aloud.
“It’s okay, I get it. I never should have thought we could be together. I was stupid.”
He heard Ashe’s voice in his mind. I’m so sorry for what I said, but I had to.
I know. It’s okay, he replied. I love you.
“I guess this is goodbye, then,” Peter said into the phone.
I love you too, Ashe replied.
The steady drip of blood into the jar was the only sound in the house. It punctuated the seconds, reminding Ashe just how precious her time really was. She was lying on the sofa with one pale arm hanging off the edge, her fingers barely grazing the floor. From the inside of her elbow, a thin tube trailed across the floor like a snake until it met up with a large glass jar sitting on the coffee table. Her whole body ached as though she had just run a marathon; she was having trouble drawing even breaths. Her vision swam as she glanced down at the glass jar on the low table beside her. It was nearly half full. At least the pain had gone away, the cuts inflicted on her by Penelope’s razor a fuzzy memory in Ashe’s mind.
The only thing that allowed Ashe to keep her tenuous grasp on consciousness was the echo of Peter’s words in her mind. He was coming to get her and she had to stay strong for him. She couldn’t give up hope.
“I learned this technique from a friend,” Penelope said, checking that the stopper on the jar, through which the tube fed, was secured tightly. “This kind of bloodletting can be used intermittently for weeks if the victim is strong and given time to rest in between. Fortunately for you I don’t have that luxury this time around. I have to get rid of you by the time the others wake.”
Ashe felt like her ears had been stuffed with cotton and Penelope’s words sounded muffled.
Hurry Peter.
Ashe tried to project her message as she had earlier, but her mind was too weak from the blood loss to fix on any one thought for too long. She didn’t know if Peter’s telepathy could reach her mind without any effort on her part, but she hadn’t heard anything from him since their phone call. Her hope that he would get there in time was draining with every drop of blood that filled the jar.
“The way you broke Peter’s heart was just delightful, by the way,” Penelope crooned. She licked her red-tinged lips. “And the note you leave when you run away from home will be just as good. No one will ever suspect that you’re actually buried somewhere outside of town in an unmarked grave.”
She pinched the thin rubber tube leading from the inside of Ashe’s elbow to the jar, which now was half-filled with blood, and removed the stopper from the jar. Ashe felt momentary relief as the flow of blood from her body stopped. She wondered if Penelope was done with her for now. With the snow, it was impossible to tell how late in the evening it was, but it couldn’t be long before the rest of Peter’s family woke. Even if Penelope was letting her rest now, her time would be up soon enough if Peter didn’t get here.
“Does that feel better?” Penelope smiled her razor smile.
Ashe muttered weakly and closed her eyes. She needed a few moments to rest, that was all, but she wouldn’t let herself fall asleep. Somehow she knew that if she fell asleep now, there would be no waking up again.
“You might think I’m evil for what I’m doing to you, but I’m not. What I’m doing to you is only in my nature. But of course you already understand this to some degree.”
Ashe felt a tugging on the needle in her arm then a strong feeling of vertigo.
“You allowed your father to continue his important work for our family. You even tried to forgive me for my sin of biting you. But what you fail to comprehend is that our hunger is not meant to be controlled or managed like some chronic disease that eats away at an otherwise healthy body.”
Ashe’s ears thudded then rang in a single eerie pitch. She opened her eyes to see what Penelope was doing to her, but black spots obscured her vision. They spread over Ashe’s vision like mold, making her sick to her stomach.
“Our vampirism is what gives us our power. It’s our deepest essence. You accepted us despite what we are, not because of it. You may think in your stupid little head that you love my brother but what you feel is not true love. You can never love him completely because deep down you’re revolted by the fact that he lives of the blood of human beings.”
Intense pain shot down Ashe’s arm and her skin began to tingle with the loss of feeling. With shock she realized what Penelope was doing. She was drinking directly from Ashe’s artery.
Ashe willed herself to move but her body refused to respond. She managed to lift her head a few inches off the sofa cushion, but consciousness threatened to escape her for good this time. She let her head fall back down with a thud. Her eyes were useless in her head as the darkness consumed her.
She was dying and Peter wasn’t there to save her.