L.E. Bridgstock
SCARLETT
Nick was staring at me, his mouth hanging wide open. “A witch?”
“Yes,” I said. “Ever met one?”
“Only read about them,” he said. “What tricks can you do?”
“What do you want me to do? Pull a rabbit out of a hat? I’m not a magician, Nick,” I said with a slight nervous chuckle.
“That is not how this works, ” I said.
“Then how exactly does it work?” he said.
“When the time comes,” I said, “you will see.”
I could tell by his expression that he was having trouble believing me. And I did not blame him. I had never been a good liar.
But if he knew what I really was, he would have been trying to put a stake in me. I needed to end this “date.”
Fast.
“Listen,” I said sternly. “Do you want my help finding Darren or not?”
He said nothing, but his expression softened.
Finally, after a moment, he nodded.
“Good,” I said. “I’m going to go home and think of a plan.”
“So I’m just supposed to follow your lead now?”
“I know Rowland and his crew,” I said. “I understand what we’re up against.”
I grabbed for his phone.
“Hey!” he said defensively. “What are you doing?”
“Calm down,” I said. “I am just giving you my number. I will text you tomorrow.”
Once I finished typing it in, I got up from the table.
“I am going to take a cab home,” I said. “Thank you for dinner.”
And then, before he could ask any more questions, I vanished from the pub.
***
The next day, I was woken up too early. Again.
What does a vampire have to do to get a full day of sleep around here?
This time it was Lillian, leaning over me, screaming into my ear.
“Scarlett! Wake up!”
I groaned and rolled away from her. “What time is it?”
“Three-thirty in the afternoon,” she told me.
I groaned again. “Go away, Lil.”
“But your mobile telephone will not stop making noises,” she said. “I thought it must be important. It usually doesn’t ring that much.”
“Fine,” I sighed, rolling towards the bedside table. “You are forgiven.”
When I picked up the phone, I had a missed call and three text messages from Nick.
I squinted to read it, my eyes watering from the bright light of the screen.
What a sodding idiot.
I had already been in a bad mood. This made it worse.
I had warned him to lie low until I reached out to him.
Who knows what kind of trouble he was about to get us both into.
“You’re not going to go, are you Scarlett?” Lillian asked me, reading my texts over my shoulder.
To put it lightly, she disapproved of me helping, talking to, or in any way acknowledging a vampire hunter.
“I can take care of myself, Lillian,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “I’ve never been taken down by a vampire hunter before. This will be no exception.”
After I parked my car, I sniffed around until I spotted Nick, standing in the shadows in a narrow alleyway next to a giant, concrete building.
“Hey,” I whispered, and he jumped at the sound of my voice.
He turned to face me.
His eyes looked red and sunken, like he hadn’t slept at all the night before.
“Why did it take you so long to answer my texts?” he asked, eyeing me suspiciously.
“I did not see my phone. Besides,” I added, “you were supposed to be waiting for my call.”
“I can’t just sit around sucking my thumb all day while my brother is missing,” he said.
“And I think there is a nest of vampires in here. Darren was spotted around this building just over a week ago.”
“And what exactly do you plan on doing to these vampires when we get inside?”
“Whatever I need to do to get answers,” he said. “How are your climbing skills?”
I followed his gaze up to an open window on the second floor.
“Think you can make it?” he asked me.
I decided to show instead of tell.
Using a nearby crate to get a leg up, I climbed onto a dumpster.
From there, I pulled myself up to a narrow ledge and then onto a drainpipe until I could take a firm seat on the open window frame.
I looked down at him with a smug smile.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said as he followed my path up.
NICK
I followed her lead up to the open window.
She’s obviously a highly skilled climber.
A good person to work with…but a dangerous person to work against.
I need to stay alert in case she turns on me.
We climbed through the window and onto a landing that overlooked a giant abandoned warehouse.
At first, I thought the place was empty, but then I saw them.
Down below us, there were two vampires, a male and a female, huddled under a stained blanket, fast asleep.
It looked like neither of them had seen a shower in weeks. Maybe months.
I caught Scarlett’s eye, and she motioned towards the staircase.
She wanted me to lead the way.
Why?
So she can attack me from behind?
I didn’t want to act suspicious, but I kept my ears pricked up as I started down the steps, wary of anything she might try.
As my foot hit the bottom step, a crack filled the air.
It sounded like a gunshot.
I crashed onto the floor, my head banging on the concrete.
Pain seared through my skull.
But I couldn’t stay vulnerable.
I jumped up and got my bearings. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see Scarlett standing behind me, pointing a gun in my direction.
Instead, I just saw her face, filled with concern, as she bounded over the final step.
Looking down, I saw that the stair was cracked. That’s what had caused the noise. And my fall.
It also alerted the two vampires to our presence.
They woke with a start and immediately scrambled to their feet in alarm, assuming a fighting stance when they saw us.
I held my hands above my head to placate them.
“Don’t move,” I said, “we just want some information.”
Both pairs of furious, glowing, silver eyes turned to me as the male hissed, baring his fangs.
“I’m looking for my brother,” I said, my voice strained. “His name is Darren Dahlman.”
“We don’t know nothing,” the female growled. “We’ve been here for days, waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
Her only answer was a sneer.
I looked around the room with new eyes as an idea occurred to me.
“Or who? It’s a person? Who are you waiting for?” I asked.
“Are you waiting for Oscar?” I guessed.
The female’s eyes widened in confirmation. “Did he send you to us?”
“Hardly,” Nick said. “Oscar is dead, just like you will be if you can’t tell us anything useful.”
“Oscar!”
The female wailed. The male roared in fury.
“You shouldn’t have said that,” Scarlett muttered to me.
SCARLETT
I didn’t recognise these vampires, but I could immediately tell that they belonged to my kind.
And I understood, based on their reaction to Nick’s words, that Oscar must have been the vampire to turn them.
That meant that they were attached to him.
That meant that they would seek revenge.
Beside herself, the female lunged at Nick; the male followed suit, fangs bared and eyes blazing.
“Oh, hell,” I sighed.
I hadn’t wanted it to come to this, but I knew I could take them both down easily.
Nick was already trading blows with the male as he tried to fend off his teeth.
The two of them were locked in a deadly dance that I knew could end at any time.
It was clear that Nick was the far more skilled fighter.
He dodged each attack seamlessly as if he could read the vampire’s mind.
Focusing my attention on the woman in front of me, I felt my eyes begin to glow red behind my glasses. Her eyes widened in alarm at the sight of me.
“What are you?” she hissed, thankfully too quiet for Nick to hear.
“My name is Scarlett,” I said.
My name produced the first flicker of fear I had seen in her.
“You might have heard of me,” I added, right before I punched her in the face.
She bounced back quickly and tried to go for my throat—a thoughtless, instinctual move. She must have been a young vampire, maybe a hundred years old.
I snapped her head back with a kick and slashed at her with my knife as I turned.
The knife caught her arm, sending a splatter of blood across the floor.
She howled in pain and tried to grab for me, but I caught her wrist and twisted, sending her crashing to the floor.
In the second that she was exposed, I plunged my knife into her chest, twisting it and yanking it downwards.
I looked up to see that Nick had taken care of the male with a stake.
He stared at me, eyes wide in shock.
But suddenly his expression changed; he shouted a warning to me, but it was too late.
I felt a cold arm wrap around my neck from behind. Something sharp pressed into my back.
NICK
“Don’t move,” the man behind Scarlett growled.
The guy was taller than me by about a foot. And he towered over Scarlett.
This is bad.
I got us into this situation.
And now she’s not going to make it out alive.
“What do you want?” I called from across the room, brandishing my wooden stake.
“Do you work for Rowland?” he asked me.
“I don’t work for vampires,” I said. “I kill them.”
“Surrender to me, or the girl dies,” the man said.
His grip tightened around Scarlett’s neck.
She placed both her hands on his arm and tried to yank it away.
Choking for air, she said, “He barely knows me, he isn’t going to surrender for my life.”
Is that true?
Could I really just let her die?
No.
I dropped my stake and put my hands up.
“Scarlett—” I started, my mind spinning to think of a way to save her. “It’s going to be OK—”
“Scarlett?” The man hissed at the name in alarm.
Does he know her?
In a flash, I watched as she sent a kick to his shin, spun around, and grabbed his face between her hands.
Oh my God! Her hands!
I could have sworn they were shrouded in a red glow.
I had never seen anything like it before.
The man she was holding let out a strangled yell.
It looked like his life force was draining out of his body.
And then, suddenly, his eyes went blank and he fell to the ground.
“Is he—is he dead?” I stammered.
“Dead, indeed.”
I inched over to Scarlett.
“What…in the hell—how did you do that?”
SCARLETT
I turned away from the corpse on the floor to face Nick.
“I told you,” I said, “when the time came you would see my powers. Well…I can give and take energy. Life energy. Just by touching someone.”
“How?”
The truth?
“I have no idea.”
I hesitated, unsure of how much to say. I did not want to reveal too much in case he tried to use the information against me.
“That’s…” He seemed to be lost for words.
“Different?” I said, trying to lighten the mood a little. “Look, we should take care of this and get out of here. We can talk about this later.”
“Let’s burn the bodies.”
“No,” I interjected. “You are working with me, so we are going to give them a proper burial.”
I continued, “You wait here. I am going to pull my car into the alley so we can take them with us.”
“How do I know that you’re going to come back and not just leave me here with three dead bodies?”
“I guess you will just have to trust me, won’t you?”