A Shade of Vampire 9: A Bond of Blood (7 page)

D
erek
and I came to in another dungeon.

I looked around in horror to see three of our companions in the cell opposite us—Ibrahim, Aiden and Zinnia.

“What happened?” I gasped, crawling to the bars and gripping them.

“Annora’s influence returned before the three of us could escape,” Ibrahim muttered, rubbing his temples. “But the others made it out in time.”

I stared at them more closely. Their clothes looked more tattered than before, fresh bloodstains soaking them.

At least Rose got away.

My relief didn’t last long as the memory of our failed attempt to retrieve Anna came flooding back.

“Annora brought us down here?” Derek asked.

Ibrahim nodded, and the three of them looked at us worriedly.

“What happened to you?” Aiden asked.

“We found the gate,” Derek said. “But we failed to find Anna.”

“What was on the other side?” Zinnia asked.

“Another castle,” I replied. “Similar to this, except it was on a much smaller island, without this frozen weather. There was a dungeon with humans… much like this dungeon. But Anna wasn’t there.”

They all fell silent.

“What do you think disrupted Annora’s power over this place?” Derek asked.

They looked as clueless as I felt.

I recalled Annora’s last words and shivers ran through me.

“Unless you’d like a more painful punishment than you’re already in for.”

I looked up at Derek and muttered, “What do you think the witch meant by punishment?”

“No idea,” he said, clenching his jaw.

As it turned out, we didn’t need to wait long to find out. Barely ten minutes passed since we had come to when Annora strolled into the dungeon. She stopped outside our cell and glared at the two of us.

The door to our cell clicked and swung open.

“I suggest you don’t try anything,” she said. “Just follow me.”

We followed her out of the dungeon. I considered making a run for it as we emerged from the staircase, but Derek gripped my waist and held me in place.

He was right. We’d get nowhere with this witch. Attempting escape would only make matters worse. Annora reached out and touched our arms. We vanished from the spot and reappeared in a corridor, outside a door. When I glanced out of a window, it appeared we were on one of the highest floors of the castle.

She pushed the door open and we entered a comfortably furnished apartment. She led us along the hallway and through a number of rooms. We stopped once we reached a study.

Derek and I stood by the entrance, watching as she made her way to a table in a corner. She drew up a chair and sat down.

“What do you want with us?” I asked, fighting to steady my breathing.

“I want,” she said, her voice dangerously low, “to teach you a lesson for wandering around without my authority.”

Derek and I barely had time to realize what hit us. An excruciating pain exploded in the base of my spine and spread throughout my nervous system. I collapsed, and Derek landed next to me a moment later. The agony blinded me. I couldn’t even find the strength to open my eyes. My limbs shook, teeth chattering. My brain felt like it was on fire, as though it might explode against my skull.

Each second that the agony lasted, I prayed that Anna’s fate hadn’t been as painful.

R
ose’s disappearance
sent tremors through the island. When she didn’t return that night and still hadn’t returned by the morning, I’d suspected that I might find her in the lighthouse again. But she wasn’t there.

Griffin had no idea where she was. He’d claimed that she hadn’t visited him that night. Nobody had seen her—it turned out that I’d been the last one to lay eyes on her.

I could only assume that she had sneaked onto the submarine without Eli or Adelle knowing. The timing of her sudden departure, the way she’d lied to me about going to see Gavin, everything pointed to this.

Of course, Corrine was hysterical. I cursed my sister beneath my breath for leaving the island without me. If things had been uncomfortable before, they were now ten times worse.

It felt like being stuck in a pot of simmering water, slowly boiling alive from worry. Sleepless night turned into day, hours passing in a blur. I was unable to concentrate on anything. I ended up pacing up and down along the shores of the island, looking out to sea as if I would see the shadow of their submarines beneath the water. But I never did.

I returned to Corrine’s chambers in the Sanctuary. She was sitting at the table with her head in her hands, poring over a large black book. She looked up as I entered and slammed the book shut.

“What are you doing?” I asked, eyeing her trembling hands. Ignoring my question, she stood up and shoved the book into her bookcase. “What’s that?”

Her bottom lip quivered as she looked at me. I thought she was about to answer my question, but then she shook her head. I walked over to her and clutched her shoulders. She brushed me away. “I need some rest, Ben. Leave me alone.”

Reluctantly, I cast one last glare at her before acquiescing.

Without bothering to ask permission, I shut myself in the spare bedroom next to Corrine’s. I too hadn’t slept for two straight nights, but I didn’t want to return to the penthouse that evening. I wanted to keep an eye on the witch. Something was up with her, and if there was even the slightest chance that whatever she was hiding from me had something to do with the disappearances, I was going to get to the bottom of it.

S
oon after midnight
, I sat up in bed. I left the room and crept along the corridor, stopping outside Corrine’s door. I placed my ear against it. She was talking. Her voice was low, monotonous.

Through the thick wood it was hard to make out her words. It wasn’t clear whether she was talking to herself, perhaps in her sleep, or to someone else possibly in the room with her.

I pushed the door open. I winced as it creaked, expecting Corrine to come to the door. But when she continued to talk, I slipped into the room. My eyes fell on the bed.

She lay beneath the covers, her eyes shut. She continued to mutter to herself. Her face was contorted in pain and her head rolled from side to side. I crept closer, straining my ears, but I couldn’t make sense of her words.

I stood at the foot of her bed and stared down at her. “Corrine?” I whispered.

She continued muttering for several minutes.
Maybe she’s just having a nightmare.

I was about to turn and leave when her eyes shot wide open. She began lifting her head off the pillow and throwing it back. Slowly at first and then more violently. Her breathing grew heavier and she began chanting a single word over and over. At first it was indistinct, like the rest of her mutterings, but the syllables became distinct.

“Mikau,” she said, her brows furrowed. “Mikau.”

“What?”

“No!” she shrieked.

My jaw dropped as she began to levitate above the bed. Her body lay flat as she lifted off the mattress, the covers sliding off her. She floated in the air toward me. I ducked as she passed over me. Once she was about a foot away from the table, she fell to the floor.

Even after her fall, she didn’t seem to wake up. She scrambled to her feet and ran to her book case. She threw open the glass doors so forcefully one of them shattered, and her hands fell upon the black book I’d seen her reading earlier. She staggered back over to the table and slammed it down. She drew up a chair and picked up a pen. I hurried over and looked over her shoulder.

Her fingers flipped through the pages so fast, their contents were a blur. She stopped finally about a quarter of the way through the book. That was when I realized what it was.
An atlas.

Her finger began tracing a map. I leant down closer as her pen hovered over a black circle that was obviously hand-drawn. It was so thick, she must have traced over it with ink at least a dozen times.

“What is this place?” I breathed, gripping the back of her chair.

She scraped her chair back just as I was trying to read the small text, and I was forced to step away. She climbed back into bed and pulled the covers over her. She closed her eyes and began snoring.

I stared back down at the atlas, finally able to get close enough to read the writing. This whole page was a map of Waianae, Hawaii. The black circle surrounded a tiny dot along a beach. I squinted to read the minuscule writing next to it.

“
Mikau Cave.”

I was still mystified by what had just happened. But it was clear that something—or someone—had just possessed Corrine. And whatever it was, I was damn sure it had something to do with the vampires and witches’ disappearances.

I reached for the atlas, tore out the page that contained Corrine’s mark, and tucked it into my jeans pocket.

I replaced the book in the bookcase. Walking over to Corrine, I touched her forehead. She was burning up. I shook her shoulders until her eyelids flickered open. And when they did, it was clear that Corrine was back. Her face was lined with fear, panic in her eyes. She gasped, clutching her throat.

“What just happened?” I asked, gripping her shoulders.

Wiping sweat from her brow with the back of her sleeve, she swallowed hard. “I’ve felt it only recently,” she said. “There’s something… something out there.”

“What?” I urged.

“A power unlike any I’ve experienced before. Trying to communicate with me. I’ve been trying to figure out what it could be. But I’m still uncertain.”

“Corrine, whatever this is, it’s responsible for stealing them, right?”

She looked at me, her lips quivering. She nodded slowly. “I believe so, Ben. Whatever it is, it’s certainly powerful enough to have overcome all those witches and vampires…” Her voice trailed off and she clasped a hand over her forehead.

That was all I needed.

It seemed that she hadn’t remembered marking the atlas and leaving it on the table. At least not yet. And by the time she did remember, I would already be gone.

I left Corrine’s bedroom and returned to my own. Sitting down on my bed, I reached into my pocket and unfolded the map.

I smiled bitterly as I recalled the words Rose had spoken not long ago.

“Hawaii, here we come.”

I
returned
to my bedroom in the Residences and packed up whatever few personal belongings I could think of in my hurry to leave. I ran to my father’s library and, pulling open one of the cabinets in the corner of the room, withdrew a couple of stakes and two UV ray guns, along with a supply of bullets.

I had to be fast, because I had to be gone before Corrine woke up and tried to stop me.

I didn’t know what I was thinking going alone. I had no plan. I was walking into this blind, with just the conviction that the little circle on the map was where my family were being held.

I knew that I couldn’t start recruiting others to come with me. Corrine wouldn’t allow anyone else off the island, least of all myself, after we’d already lost three batches of recruits.

But even if it meant being caught along with them, I refused to stay on this island a moment longer now that I had a clue as to their location.

After I’d bundled the few items into a backpack, I grabbed my cloak and ran out of the penthouse. I descended in the elevator and rushed through the forest as fast as my legs could carry me. I paused now and then, convinced that someone was following me in the shadows, but they didn’t show themselves, so I assumed it was just my imagination.

Half an hour later, I had reached the port. I looked at the last submarine we had floating in the water. Climbing onto its side, I opened up the hatch and lowered myself inside.

Two arms shot out as I was seconds from pulling the hatch shut. My heart sank as Abby’s face appeared outside the hole above. I expected that she’d try to stop me from going and tell Corrine.

But instead, looking down at me seriously, she said, “Wherever you’re going, Ben, I don’t think you should go alone.”

I gazed at her, taken aback.

She was right of course. I shouldn’t be going alone. The chances of me surviving were much less than if someone came with me. But I hadn’t seen any alternative. There was nobody on this island whom I trusted enough to not turn me into Corrine and report me for trying to leave.

“And you’re volunteering?” I asked, frowning at her.

She dangled her legs through the hatch and slid down the ladder.

“You don’t even know where I’m going,” I said.

“I know you’re going to try to find your family,” she replied, closing the hatch above her.

I stared into her light blue eyes.

“Well,” I said, after a pause, “if you want to take this risk, I won’t turn down your help.”

T
hanks to my uncle
, Xavier, I knew almost all there was to know about operating a submarine. As a boy I’d been fascinated to learn how they worked. By the age of eleven, I was piloting one by myself. Although I hadn’t had much practice, I had all the technical knowledge to be able to travel long distances.

Abby still didn’t question me about our destination even as we both took seats next to each other in the control room.

Once we’d started moving, I reached into my pocket and showed her the map.

She spread the paper out in her lap, tracing a finger over Corrine’s mark.

“Waianae,” she murmured. “And what do you expect to find here?”

It was only once I had explained my theory out loud to her that I became fully aware of what a hair-brained idea this really was. It could all turn out to be a wild goose chase. But this map was the only thing I had to cling to.

“You know that this might just be the last straw for Corrine,” Abby said. “The two of us disappearing. The fourth lot of people she’s lost.”

I drew in a breath thinking about it. Corrine was at the end of her tether already. I wasn’t sure that there was much more of her to break.

“So,” Abby continued, still staring at the old map, “according to you, they’ll be somewhere in this cave.”

“Mikau Cave,” I said.

“And what makes you think we’ll get out alive?”

“Nothing makes me think that. And I suggest you return now if you’re not comfortable with it.”

She paused. “No, I’m with you, Ben,” she said softly.

I cast another glance at her, frowning. I wasn’t sure what had made her place so much confidence in me. I supposed that, like me, she too was desperate. She also felt the loss of my family.

“What—or who—do you think is behind this?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Absolutely no idea. But whatever it was, Corrine looked petrified by it.”

“Why would whatever this force is even want Corrine to go there? Why would it reveal its location?”

“It’s likely a trap,” I said grimly, my eyes fixed on the dark waters ahead. “But it’s not like we have much choice. We’ve got to find out what’s behind this.”

Abby unfastened her belt and stood up. She walked over to my backpack and began rummaging inside it. She pulled out the weapons I had packed and placed them on a small table in the corner of the room. Then she left the cabin and returned several minutes later with a much larger bag made of thick black fabric. She emptied its contents onto the table—an assortment of guns and a handful more stakes. She breathed out, staring at what we had there.

She returned to her seat and looked straight ahead out of the screen, a determined look on her face. “There are also some tins of human food down there,” she said.

Food was the last thing on my mind right now, but she was right in thinking about that. We had no idea how long we’d end up at sea. And whatever was up ahead, I needed all the strength I could muster.

I glanced at Abby again. It was a strange feeling to have grown up around someone, yet feel like you’d never really gotten to know them.

My mother had told me enough about the Hudsons for me to know what a tragic childhood Abby had been dealt. But other than Abby being the girl who lost her family, the girl to be pitied, I didn’t know much about Abigail Hudson.

This trip would be the longest time I’d spent with her alone over all my seventeen years combined.

But she’d always struck me as the shy type. Dedicated to her work at the school, she mostly kept to herself. Which was why her behavior in coming with me was so surprising. Here she was, volunteering to embark with me on this crazy mission. I could be leading us both to our deaths for all either of us knew.

Perhaps my mother and sister wouldn’t have been so shocked because they knew her better, but to me she was a familiar stranger.

I cleared my throat. We still had a long journey ahead of us. Now was as good a time as any to start changing that. To my surprise, she was the one to break the ice.

“I don’t find it strange that you’re named after my dead brother, by the way.” She gave me a small smile. “Just thought I’d let you know. I get asked that a lot by the girls on the island. Ben’s a common name in any case.”

“Uh, good,” I said, giving her a sideways glance.

An awkward silence followed—mainly on my part. Abby had spoken matter-of-factly, without emotion.

I had wondered for a long time whether she’d ever held resentment toward my mother and father. After all, if it weren’t for them, their family wouldn’t have gotten implicated in the crazy world of the vampires and hunters, and her parents and brother would likely not be dead. My mother hadn’t given me details of how Abby’s parents had died, but I knew that it was in some horrific way due to the very fact that my mother hadn’t wanted to describe it. I also knew that Abby’s brother had been in love with my mother… and had she not chosen my father, there was always the possibility that Benjamin Hudson would have married her.

I decided to see how far she was willing to go to satisfy my curiosity. “I’m sorry for… everything that happened,” I said.

She nodded, her eyes now fixed ahead on the dark ocean.

“And I, uh, hope this topic doesn’t make you feel uncomfortable.”

She shook her head and gave me a smile. “It’s all right.”

“I’ve always wondered whether a part of you feels resentful of me, of my father… considering the love your brother had for my mother…”

“Seriously? Do others think that too? Does your mom think that?”

“I can’t speak for others,” I said quickly. “But I guess it’s just something I’ve always wondered.”

“No, of course not,” she said, almost breathless with exasperation. “I couldn’t hold a grudge like that against Sofia, or any of you. I couldn’t live all these years with that weighing my heart down. And in any case, it’s not like you can choose who you fall in love with. These things just happen.”

She appeared agitated and stood up. She abruptly left the room, closing the door behind her.

Again, I found her behavior strange. My assumption had always been that Abby was a calm, cool person. Not the type to storm out of rooms in the middle of a conversation.

Once I felt confident enough to put the vessel on autopilot for a few minutes, I left the control room in search of her. I found Abby in the passenger chamber next door. She leaned against the wall and stared blankly at the opposite wall. She didn’t look up as I entered the room.

I sat down on the bench next to her. “You all right?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she muttered, blowing out. “I guess I’m just sick of people pitying me. I’ve moved on from my past. I’ve found a new life. And each time someone thinks my past might affect how I relate to others, or how others should treat me, it feels like I’m being pulled back to the place I’ve fought for so long to climb out of.”

A silence fell between us again.

“Well,” I said, “I had no idea, so thanks for telling me. It sure makes me feel a lot less awkward around you. I won’t mention anything about your past again. I’ll treat you the way I would any other girl on the island.”

She looked up at me and smiled, her blue eyes sparkling. “I’d like that,” she said, sitting up straighter on the bench.

“So, on another subject… what are you going to eat while we’re on this sub?” I asked.

“Oh, I won’t be hungry for a while,” she replied. “And if worst comes to worst, we can stop and I’ll try to catch myself some fish. Their blood is revolting, but beggars can’t be choosers.”

“All right,” I said, and walked back toward the control room. Abby followed me there. We both resumed our seats next to each other. Once I’d made sure we were still on course and traveling as fast as we could, I asked, “Did you find it as painful turning into a vampire as everyone else seems to?”

She smirked. “Oh, yes,” she replied. “There really is no way to not experience that pain. You and Rose, you’re still thinking to turn at eighteen?”

“If we survive until then,” I said grimly.

“I turned again at eighteen,” she said. “I think it’s a good age. You’re old enough to be an adult, young enough to still be excused for having fun.” She grinned.

I couldn’t think of a single occasion when I’d witnessed Abby acting her age. She always seemed so serious. More confirmation that I ought to get to know her better.

It was something I was now looking forward to doing once we were out of this dark tunnel… if we ever got out of it.