The Evanescence Chronicles: Volume I Page 5

  “Mercedes?”

  I turned around. Catherine was there, looking very nervous but also excited.

  “Hey!” I carefully deposited the baby I was holding into the arms of her mother before running up to meet Catherine. “How are you?”

  “I…” she swallowed, looking as if she couldn’t believe what she was about to say. “I made the cheerleading squad.”

  “That’s wonderful!” I exclaimed and pulled her into a tight hug. “I’m so happy for you!”

  “Well, I may not be able to shout yet, but Lindsey says I could just keep the crowd entertained with my flips while the rest of them cheer.” The blood drained from her face. “Oh, my God, I’m going to be performing gymnastics in front of a crowd!”

  “And you’ll knock them dead,” I said firmly. “You chose to join the cheerleading squad, Catherine. No one made you do that.”

  “I would never have gotten the courage to join if you hadn’t encouraged me.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I was just a catalyst. You never would have joined if you didn’t have the courage already. We both know that.”

  She blushed, but didn’t disagree. I put my hand on her arm. “Are you still having nightmares?”

  She nodded, not meeting my eyes. “My brother called last week and told me that Uncle Daryl’s cancer is getting worse. The doctors say he has only a few months left to live.”

  I was ambivalent to that news. Catherine had been subjected to molestations by her uncle ever since she was three years old. Cancer was something I wouldn’t wish on anyone, but I was a firm believer in karma.

  “My brother says my uncle wants to see me.”

  Catherine’s voice was so soft, I wouldn’t have heard it if I hadn’t leaned in closer. My eyes went wide with incredulity and anger, but my voice was neutral when I next spoke.

  “What will you do?”

  She shrugged, looking very torn. “I don’t know. I mean…I know he did love me, and he never really hurt me…”

  “You’re excusing him?”

  She sniffled, shaking her head. Tears began to pour rapidly down her cheeks. “No, I…I don’t want…”

  I pulled her close to me. She clung to me desperately until her sobs died down.

  “I don’t think I could stand to see him.” Her voice was muffled against my shoulder, but I heard her well enough.

  “Then don’t,” I said. “He doesn’t deserve your love, and he’s caused you enough pain already. This is your life, Catherine. You don’t have to be a slave to your past.”

  “I know.”

  I was never one to lose track of time except during my visits to Women’s Aid. Fortunately, I left only twenty minutes too late this time. Natalie wouldn’t be angry at me. She only got angry if I was more than an hour late for dinner. My main concern was Lulu. I hoped against hope that she would cut me some slack.

  I embarked on the monorail that would take me home and leaned back in my seat. It was beyond tempting to just sleep. I hadn’t realized how exhausted I really was until now.

  “Are you all right?”

  I looked up. A man was standing beside me. He was dressed in casual if dark clothes, and there was a look of genuine concern on his handsome if very pale face.

  “I’m fine,” I said, stifling a yawn. I would not embarrass myself. “Just fine.”

  “You should sleep.”

  His voice was low and compelling. He sat down beside me and I blinked at how liquid his movements were. He put his face close to mine.

  “You want to sleep.”

  That was a nice thought. I was tired, so very, very tired. I just wanted to sleep…wanted…to…no…

  “No,” I said. I tried to look away, but couldn’t. “No, I don’t want…”

  “You do.” His voice sharpened, and even in my exhaustion, I could detect a growing frustration in his tone. “You want to sleep. You want to sleep now.”

  “No.”

  “Sleep. Now.”

  ***

  Servant of Xavier

  I was absolutely incredulous. I, a vampire of four-hundred years was having difficulty compelling a puny mortal girl. It was a good thing no youngster was with me, else I would have had to kill him or her to ensure no one would ever know my private humiliation.

  “Sleep.” I pitched my voice lower, adding more power. Vampires did not have the ability to control the minds of humans per se, but with age and training, we could have great influence on their conscious and subconscious.

  “I…no…” she muttered, but her eyelids were fluttering.

  I resisted the urge to bare my fangs. This child, this fleshbag did not have a will greater than my own.

  “Sleep,” I hissed. “Now.”

  She slumped in my arms. Triumph surged through me, but also rage. I had to resist the urge to tear her apart for her audacity.

  I waited until the monorail came to a halt at the proper location before standing up and lifting her in my arms.

  “Sir?”

  The driver was giving me a very strange look. I smiled at him.

  “My daughter is very tired,” I said, pitching my voice low once again. “I need to take her home to rest.”

  The suspicion in the driver’s eyes died. He nodded at me and I disembarked. I carried the fleshbag to the area Lord Xavier ordered me to. It was a filthy, poverty-stricken street that most mortal authorities chose to ignore. The Harijan was around here somewhere, mortally wounded, barely clinging to life.

  The fleshbag stirred in my arms. I looked down at her. She was quite lovely, I would admit, and her blood smelled delicious. Had my orders not been clear to cause no harm at all, I would have tasted her before leaving. Instead, I dumped her in an alley, injected her with a potion that would awaken her in the next several hours, sent an electronic pulse over her to disrupt the signal of any communication devices for a while, and went over to where the Harijan lay. He wouldn’t call for help even in his most desperate hour. I had to fix that, and then I would leave.

  ***

  Mercedes

  I awoke to hazy vision and the feeling of a cold wet floor against my body. I sat bolt upright with a gasp.

  “Where…? What…?”

  It became apparent very quickly that I was not on the monorail. I was in a dark alley filled with mildew and dirt. The smell was horrible. I quickly got to my feet, and brushed my hands on my clothes in disgust. But my disgust quickly turned to terror. I ran out of the alley and looked wildly around. I didn’t recognize where I was. More importantly, I didn’t know how to get out.

  Fear and confusion battled in my mind. How in the hell did I get here? The last thing I remembered was sitting on the monorail, battling against exhaustion. Then a man…I could vividly remember his face…he told me to go to sleep, but I hadn’t wanted to. Had he drugged me? It would certainly explain my foggy mind. Had he also…?

  I looked desperately at my clothes and breathed a sigh of relief. They were dirty, but intact. More importantly, I wasn’t hurt and felt not a sliver of pain in areas where I would feel pain if he had…

  Okay. I had to analyze the situation. That man hadn’t raped me. That was good. But he had dumped me in an area that was completely alien to me. And I had no idea how to get home. I reached into my backpack for my comm and breathed an enormous sigh of relief when I saw it had not been stolen. My relief, however, was incredibly short lived. The comm wasn’t working. Neither were any of the other communication devices on my person. I groaned. The only option I had now was to pick one street and hope it would lead me to familiar terrain. I groaned again when I saw the time. Five in the morning. Lulu was never going let me live it down.

  I started walking. At the same time, I looked around and committed everything I saw to memory so I would know if I were going around in circles. In reality, I would prefer to never commit a place like this to memory. It was nothing short of a slum; dark, depressing, and dirty. The few light posts that weren’t broken emitted an ominous glow tha
t made me shiver. I wrapped my arms around my body in an attempt to keep the cold night air at bay.

  I came to a halt when I reached the end of the street. There were two forked paths. Which one would lead me home?

  “Help me.”

  My muscles froze.

  “Help me.”

  It was a very faint whisper, but the weakness and desperation in it was unmistakable.

  “Please. Help me.”

  Slowly, I turned to the right. It was coming in that direction.

  “Help me.”

  I bit my lip. It could be a trick. Someone could be trying to lure me into another alley to kill, rob, or rape me. Even so, it wasn’t in my nature to resist a call for help. I walked down the street with trepidation.

  “Help me.”

  It was a male voice. Adult, too. And something about it sounded incredibly strange and incredibly compelling at the same time.

  “Hello?” I called.

  There was no reply, but I knew where the voice was coming from. I rounded around the corner, intent on finding the location of the person calling to me.

  The smell assaulted me so hard and so fast that I gasped before covering my nose with my hand. It smelled like something burning. Like…burning flesh…

  “Oh, my God.”

  Horrified beyond comprehension, I followed both the voice and the smell. They led me to probably the darkest alley I had ever seen in my life. Fumbling inside my jacket while still covering my nose, I activated one of the lights in my comm. At least those were still working.

  What I saw made me scream.

  It was a man. Actually, I would be lying if I said I was certain it was a man. He was so butchered and burnt he could have been an alien from another planet as far as I was concerned. I dropped my comm without realizing it and ran forward. My knees hit the ground beside the tortured victim.

  “Oh, my God,” I whispered, nearing hysterics. “Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God…”

  His face was a red and black mask of cracked, burned flesh. The light of my discarded comm reflected off a silvery substance that had been poured over his eyes. His hair was charred, so it was impossible to tell what color it really was. His clothes were all but gone, thanks to the fire that had all but consumed this poor soul. My shaking hands hovered over his form, but I didn’t dare touch him. He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t even breathing. By all appearances, he was dead.

  So how could he have called for help?

  Struggling to control my panic, I tried to think rationally. Maybe he wasn’t dead, but he would be dead if I didn’t do something. I stumbled away to retrieve my comm, praying I could get it to work, but then a steel clamp enclosed around my arm. I screamed as I was pulled toward the victim.

  He was sitting up. And his eyes were opened. Not just his eyes, but his mouth.

  I caught a glimpse of blazing, pale blue orbs and two glistening fangs before I felt an awful pain on my neck. Animalistic growls and snarls battered my eardrums as I was quickly drained of my life.

  Then I knew no more.

  ***

  Shadow

  Blood. So rich and sweet. More. Give me more.

  I fed until the raging tempest of agony and hatred was satiated. Then I stood up and roared to the heavens above. Xavier had not won. I had not died the dishonorable death he had tried to subject me to. Victory was mine. Mine.

  My roar echoed off the walls. But when the echoes faded, a small moan made me look down.

  It was a human woman. And what remained of her life’s blood was gushing onto the streets from a very distinctive wound on her throat.

  Swearing, I dropped to my knees and lifted her in my arms. I swore even louder when I saw her face. This was a very young woman. Not a child, but still barely out of girlhood.

  I clamped my fingers over the wound on her neck and kept them there as I bit the inside of my wrist and put it to her mouth.

  “Drink,” I commanded hoarsely. “Drink, damn you!”

  Fortunately for her, she obeyed right away. I kept her wound closed as she drank my blood at an excruciatingly slow pace. But it didn’t take long for my blood to do its work. Her injuries were healed in moments. Her eyelids fluttered and she looked at me full in the face.

  “What…?”

  “Sleep,” I said. “Sleep, now.”

  I was stunned when she did not immediately slump. She was barely conscious and she was still fighting my compulsion. I put my lips close to her ear and whispered the command again. My incredulity increased when she still did not obey. It took four more tries before she fell asleep. Slowly, I got to my feet with her in my arms. My eyes scanned her face. She was quite beautiful, I would admit, but there was nothing distinctive about her that gave any indication that she should have a natural resistance to a vampire’s voice. Nothing at all.

  So, why was it so difficult to look away from her?

  I snarled and jumped to the top of the building above, running and leaping as fast as I could with my burden in tow. The wind whipped at my nearly naked body. I went through every swearword imaginable when I realized the sun would rise in less than an hour, and I had no idea where a mortal hospital was.

  I came to a halt when I was a considerable distance away from the area I had been assaulted in. I glanced at the lightening sky and then at the unconscious human in my arms. Those miserable cowards had not taken my Chaos wand. I could easily find a wall and go home. But that meant abandoning the girl to die. My blood healed her wound, but it wouldn’t replace what I had taken from her right away. She would live if I gave her another dose within the hour.

  My fangs dug into my gums. The smartest thing to do would be to snap her neck and then let Blackhole wipe her corpse from existence. If I treated her, she would know what I was. And I could not make her forget.

  My hand hovered over her throat. One quick twist. That was all it would take. She was just a human. A weak, pathetic fleshbag…

  That just saved your life.

  And not just my life. She had saved me from a dishonorable death.

  I glanced at the sky again. It was getting lighter every second. My skin was starting to feel very warm. Before I could stop myself, I looked down at the face of the dying human girl.

  Growling, I withdrew the Chaos wand from what remained of my burnt, tattered clothing. Once the portal was created, I leaped through it. I chose an area where I hoped against hope no vampires would be around. I sighed deeply in relief when I saw fate was on my side for once, even though it took every ounce of stealth skill I possessed to make it to my apartment without being seen. Blackhole greeted me when I stepped through the front door, and his growl grew delighted when he saw the human in my arms.

  “This is not a meal for you,” I said shortly.

  He growled and whined, running around my heels.

  “No!” I snapped, using my most intimidating voice.

  It had the proper effect. Whimpering resentfully, but obediently, Blackhole skulked away.

  When I placed the girl on my bed, I felt an overwhelming urge to call Blackhole back. That is, after I snapped her neck. My hand hovered over her throat again. She had saved my life, yes, but by returning the favor, both of our lives were over. I could not make her forget, and once she started babbling to her fellow mortals, other vampires would find her, and they would make her suffer beyond her wildest imagination before they killed her. So I should kill her. I would be doing her a favor. The circumstances were beyond my control. I could not save her. There was no other way.

  My finger touched her throat, and a hand gripped my heart. My honor would not be merciful to me. No matter. I had to do it.

  She’s just a human. And she will die with honor. Her sacrifice will not be in vain.

  I wrapped my hand around her neck. I was just about to squeeze when her eyes snapped open. A loud gasp wrenched from her throat. I withdrew my hand in shock. How could she regain consciousness so quickly?

  For a few moments, she just laid there, breat
hing heavily. I watched her chest rise and fall as she struggled to gather her strength. She moaned and made to sit up, but she was far too weak. Then her head turned to the left to face me. Her eyes went wide.

  I braced myself for a scream, or a barrage of hysterical questions. I braced myself for tears and terror. But her face revealed no fear. She continued to stare at me, and I was stunned and disgusted beyond belief when I realized that a part of me was unnerved by that stare.

  “Are you all right?”

  Her voice was thin, brittle, barely above a whisper. But the concern in it could not have been more evident. She tried to get up again, but to no avail. Her eyes still remained locked on mine.

  “Are you all right?” she repeated.

  I was incredulous. This girl had nearly been drained to death by a vampire, was now in possession of that very same vampire, had no hope of standing on her own two feet let alone fighting for her life, and her only concern was for my safety!?

  Suspicion began to gnaw at me. Did she know about vampires? There were plenty of humans who did, and they were all sworn to secrecy. Was she one of them? She must be. How else could her behavior be explained?

  I approached her threateningly. Thankfully, she at least had the good sense to look unnerved.

  ***

  Mercedes

  When I awoke for the second time, it only took a moment to decide I had never felt so weak in my entire life. I could barely lift my head. My vision was blurry. It took a few minutes for it to fully clear, but I could still barely move. I just laid there, gasping until I regained some control.

  Then I turned my head to the left.

  I suddenly knew I wasn’t in the alley anymore. I was on an alien bed in and alien room. And when I saw him lurking in the darkness, I knew who he was. A vision of a burned, demonic face flashed in my mind with glowing ice-blue eyes and two long, glistening fangs. Before I could stop myself, I asked him if he was all right. After seeing him so mutilated and tortured, I could ask nothing else. He didn’t answer, and I asked again. God, I felt so weak. But I had to know.

  Then he stepped out of the darkness. If it weren’t for my fatigue, I probably would have been blushing crimson right now. He was still covered in the vital areas, but everything else was fully exposed. What little light there was shone off his pale skin, and though several parts of him were still bathed in shadows, his sculpted chest, ripped abdomen, and powerful arms could not have been more prominent. His leg muscles flexed with impossible fluidity as he moved closer. When he stopped beside the bed, my eyes lingered up to his face. The physical beauty of it was as harsh and unforgiving as his expression. His eyes were obsidian black, glittering like volcanic glass. His hair was also black, but the faint light threw scarlet highlights in it. As he looked at me, his flawless, well-cut lips grimaced ever so slightly, as if he were struggling not to reveal any emotion.