RYKER

 

“Tell me everywhere you’ve seen your mother. We need to find her.” Ryker clutched the steering wheel. He didn’t know where he was driving to but needed to keep moving.

Aliza’s words were almost silent. “We don’t need to find her. She finds me. Once a day since my birthday.”

“And tonight? She hasn’t come yet?”

Aliza shook her head, biting her bottom lip. Under the moonlight, Ryker thought she was stunning, even covered in blood. How could he have pushed her away without knowing what terror was going through her head?

Ryker pulled into the bowling alley parking lot and drove around back, out of view. “We need to prepare.” He slipped out of the driver’s seat, opening the back of the SUV to his duffle bag of tools. He pulled the knife from the sheath at his waist and laid it in the back of the SUV, then began to pull items from the bag.  Beside the knife, he laid a few wooden stakes he had made, a longer knife, almost resembling a sword, and a spray bottle of holy water.

It wasn’t until he had everything lined up that he turned to Aliza. Her face was pale, and she clutched her hands in front of her stomach. “You’ll tell me everything someday, won’t you?” she asked.

Someday?

When this was all over, he was leaving, and he wasn’t coming back. Once Aliza’s mother was gone, he’d disappear. Fade into the sunset and return to his life.

But what about her?

Aliza reached out and picked up the long knife with both hands, one on the handle and one on the blade. “Ouch!” She dropped it onto the gravel.

“Careful, don’t cut yourself,” Ryker warned.

“I didn’t,” Aliza said, fanning her hand. “It’s hot. Too hot.”

Ryker picked up the knife and touched the iron blade. Nothing. He tilted his head, trying to put the pieces together…

The coin in his pocket had been warm to her a few days ago.

Iron.

He pulled the little medallion out and held it in his palm. “Pick this up.”

When Aliza’s fingers touched the surface, she snapped her hand back. “That’s hot, too. Like it’s on fire.”

Ryker shook his head. “No, it’s not. It’s just hot to you.” He pulled his hair back and tied it into a ponytail with a strip of fabric. “I’ve been wrong this whole time. That Scottish legend. That guy at the bar had been right.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re not after a vampire. It’s a baobhan sidhe. A type of fairy that drinks blood.”

 “Vampire? Fairies?” Aliza stepped away. “I knew you were different… I don’t believe it, but…”

Ryker didn’t have time for all of this, but she needed to know everything. He let the vampire loose, fully coming to the surface. His fangs elongated. His eyes glowed red enough for him to see his nose illuminated. “Hear me out. We don’t have time, so I’m just going to blurt it out. I’m a vampire, Aliza. I’m over three hundred years old and survive purely on a diet of human blood.”

She shook her head, taking another step.

“Haven’t you ever noticed I haven’t eaten anything?” He pulled the vampire back. “How could I have cut your lip when we kissed?”

Her hands shook. “And is that what I’m becoming?”

“No. I believe you, and your mother, are sidhes. I never believed in fairies, but this world is full of interesting creatures. These baobhan sidhes drink blood like I do.” Ryker slipped his knife back into its sheath. “Per legend, a fairy’s weakness is not holy water, garlic, or wooden stakes. It’s iron they can’t tolerate. They lose their powers when they are near it, and it burns them.”

Aliza looked at the long knife laying in the back of the SUV.

“It’s just a legend, but perhaps it isn’t.” Ryker allowed his amusement to come out in a small laugh. “Oh, do I have a lot to learn.” He closed the back of the SUV, then turned around. “Let’s find your mother. You do understand what I’ll do when I find her, right? She killed eleven men in this town before I got here. Who knows what the count’s at now. She needs to be stopped.”

Aliza sucked her bottom lip in and sighed. She looked to the ground and nearly whispered, “And so do I. I killed a man, too.”

Ryker nodded. “I know. I found the body by the coffee shop. It’s something new vampires do. Hopefully, sidhes learn to control their urges a little faster than a new vampire.”

Aliza arched an eyebrow. “A man by the coffee shop?”

“Brutus, or whatever his name is.”

“Brutus?”

“The man from your apartment a few nights back.”

“Brad?” Aliza shook her head frantically as emotions from disbelief to pain to anger flashed across her face. “I had survived her… I hoped…assumed he did, too. She killed him? I had hoped it was a dream.” She began to hyperventilate.

Ryker tossed the blade onto the grass and pulled Aliza to his chest. He stroked his hand down her long, black hair. “I’m sorry. I thought it was you. You have a metallic scent, and I smelled it on his body. You said you had gotten a latte, but now I realize that if your mother’s a fairy, you two may smell alike.” Ryker thought back to the news article he had read earlier. “That police chief... Is that who you think you killed?”

She nodded.

“He’s at the hospital. In stable condition, I understand.”

“He’s…alive?” The lines of her forehead and around her eyes softened. Her lips relaxed into almost a smile. “I didn’t kill him?”

Ryker held her tighter, trying to come up with the right thing to say. He wanted to promise she wouldn’t kill anyone, ever, but on her own, that may not be possible. He wanted to promise to be there for her, but that wasn’t possible, either. Instead, he leaned his cheek on the top of her head, and simply enjoyed having her in his arms for the moment.

A musical voice, beautiful like Aliza’s yet deeper, cooed from behind the cornstalks. “How sweet. You brought her right to me.”

Ryker growled and pushed Aliza behind him, crouching down to the blade at his feet. He summoned all parts of his vampire. Red, glowing eyes, fangs, and his heightened strength and senses. Again, he unleashed his predator. Only this time, he was fed.

“Oh, how sweet my daughter’s vampire friend thinks he’ll protect her. How interesting. That’ll make this all the more fun.”

Another deep growl bubbled from deep inside him.

“Oh, you want me, don’t you?” The woman stepped out of the cornfield, dark hair tangled over her face, snow on her dark green dress. “Come get me.” And she turned and disappeared back into the corn.

“Stay here,” Ryker growled as he took off, trying to keep his eyes on the flowing green dress.

From behind him, he swore he heard Aliza whisper, “I don’t want to be alone.”

He raced through the field, knocking over stalks and sprinting down the rows after a blur of a woman. Fast like him and just as agile.

It wasn’t until he was nearly across the field that he realized he had disappointed Aliza. She didn’t want to be alone, and he had left her.

Everyone had left her.

Like everyone had left him.

He stopped, letting Aliza’s mother slip away, further into the corn. This wasn’t his battle, it was Aliza’s, but he’d be happy to stand by her side while she fought it. It was a way for her to say goodbye.

Behind him, the woman’s beautiful voice turned ugly. “Aren’t you coming?”

Ryker tightened his grip on the blade. “I won’t leave her like you did.”

“Do you know how another sidhe is made?” she called after him.

Ryker stopped and spun around. “You’ve already made her into one of you. Blood exchange like a vampire.”

The woman laughed. “Not quite. That’s step one. Her changes are only temporary. She needs to die, truly die, at my hand, then she finally becomes one of my kind. Otherwise, she’s stuck in a limbo. A walking zombie, overpowered by her emotions and never content.”

The woman shimmered, then disappeared into nothingness, leaving only Ryker and the corn.

He had been led away. A traveler, led away from the village.

Aliza.

His legs burned as he raced back across the cornfield, knocking over row after row of stalks. He had to get to Aliza. She needed him.

And he had left her.

Left her vulnerable, and he’d never forgive himself.

 

ALIZA

 

He’ll be back. Please come back.

Aliza leaned against Ryker’s silver SUV, scanning the cornfield for movement, but that had disappeared several minutes ago. She waited, rubbing the goosebumps from her arms.

“Are you tired of being alone?”

It was her mother’s voice. A voice that haunted her from her childhood.

“Do you miss your family? Andrew was a nice man. He always took care of me. It’s too bad he had to die.” Her mother appeared in front of her, golden corn tassels appearing to glow in her hair.

Aliza worked her way around Ryker’s SUV, preparing to dash away. “He was sick. What do you know about him? You haven’t been around.”

“I know more than you do. I know the doctors say he died of a weak heart, but they couldn’t quite figure out what was wrong, could they?”

Aliza shook her head slowly.

“I know that his blood tasted sweet, like yours. He was my first. It was payback for kicking me out. For keeping you from me.”

“Your first?”

“My first since my powers grew. See, my dear, we are born sidhes. It isn’t until we are older that our bodies can handle the change. Your grandmother finally found me and finished my conversion. Now, I’ll do the same for you. Andrew always covered up my faults, but he was right. My mind wasn’t clear back then. Now, I see things perfectly. It’s time for our family to be together again. Mother and daughter.”

The woman disappeared, then reappeared beside Aliza, wrapping her deceptively strong arms around Aliza’s shoulders and pinning her arms to her sides.

Aliza swung her legs, trying to kick herself free, but her mother was stronger, able to twist her down to the gravel. She couldn’t breathe, despite her struggling. A large, black claw on her mother’s fingertip lifted as she squeezed the air from Aliza’s lungs.

As her world went black, Aliza saw her knight in shining armor running out of the cornfield.

He came back.