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

T
here was
a circular hole in the center of the room. A woman was peering out of it, trapped behind a swirling blue substance.

I looked closer at the woman as I approached. Dark blonde hair, deep blue eyes. She wore a black dress that was torn and frayed. She appeared to be floating—beneath her was an abyss.

She stopped shouting as soon as she caught sight of us and began striking her fists against the translucent ceiling. It was bizarre—the substance was so solid that it wouldn’t budge as she struck it, yet we could still hear her voice through it.

Abby’s grip on my arm tightened as I inched closer to the hole. I bent down over it, staring at the woman.

“Boy,” the woman said, relief washing over her face. “Place your hand against this ceiling.”

I frowned at her.

“Who are you?”

She breathed out in frustration. “Please, just do as I say.”

I stood up and took a step back. How could this woman be the answer to my family’s disappearance when she appeared trapped and helpless herself? “I have no idea what you are,” I said. “Why would I help you out?”

She stared up at me, scrutinizing me closely for the first time. “Did Corrine send you?”

My heart pounded in my ears. “So it was you? You’re the one who’s been trying to communicate with her?”

“Yes,” she replied.

“Then you’re a witch?”

“I am. Who are you?”

I paused, considering whether there could be any possible downside to informing her that I was a Novak. “Benjamin Novak,” I said finally.

“Oh, good,” she said, her breathing coming quicker now. “Benjamin, I need you to help me out of here. This gate hasn’t been used for so long, it’s sealed off at the end. It’s not responding to even my magic. We need someone from outside to help. Try to push your fingers right through it. It should give way to you.” When she still saw me hesitating, she said, “We have a mother and baby to deliver back to The Shade.”

Mother and baby.
Although the words filled me with anticipation, I frowned, my eyes narrowing on her.

“Anna?” Abby gasped.

The witch nodded.

I bent down closer to the tunnel again. Anna’s name ringing in my ears, I was on the verge of cooperating with her, but I stopped with my hand two inches away from the ceiling. Everything about this situation just seemed too strange and unbelievable. “Show me Anna,” I said, glaring down at the witch. “Then we’ll talk.”

She turned her face away from me and looked back down into the dark abyss. “Someone has come!” she hollered. “Bring Anna.”

I squinted, staring down into the dark crater.

“She’s coming,” the witch said, turning back to us.

Two specks appeared in the distance, gradually becoming larger and larger until their backs hit the ceiling next to the witch and bounced off it. Clearly a male and a female. The female let out a loud groan. As she turned around, my breath hitched. It was a thin Anna, worn and tired, clutching an infant in her arms.

Without hesitating for a second longer I pressed both of my palms against the ceiling. I wasn’t expecting my hands to push through so easily. It felt like brushing through smoke, and were it not for Abby grabbing me, I would have toppled into the hole with them.

Abby leant down and took the baby from Anna’s arms while I helped pull Anna out. She gasped with relief, tears spilling down her cheeks.

“Ben, oh, Ben.” Anna gripped the back of my neck and kissed my cheek. She turned to Abby and wrapped an arm around her, kissing her forehead. Abby kept hold of the baby for now, since Anna seemed so feeble.

I turned back to the hole. The two figures who’d remained in there had now climbed out. I’d been so preoccupied with Anna, I hadn’t paid any attention to the male who’d come down with her. He was a tall, dark-haired vampire with bright green eyes. I found the expression on his face odd as he looked me over, as though he was sizing me up, or perhaps recognized me from somewhere. I was certain that I’d never seen him before.

I turned back to the witch. “Who are you people? Where have you come from? And what the hell is this?” I asked, pointing down at the hole.

The witch held up a hand and said, “Yes, there will be time for that.” She looked back down into the abyss and yelled, “The rest of you, come now!” She shot Anna, Abby and myself a look. “Uh, you three may want to stand back.”

“Huh?” We took a few steps back and were grateful to have heeded the witch’s words as vampires began shooting out of the hole and landing on the floor. We had to keep retreating until our backs were against the wall to make room for them. Soon the whole room was piled up with vampires… and then wolves. Giant wolves. I gasped and instinctively stood in front of Anna’s baby as the beasts raised themselves from the ground.

“What are these monsters?” I asked.

“Werewolves… We’ve all been trying to get out for days.”

“Anna,” I said, turning to her in shock, “how on earth did you end up with these people?”

“That’s a long story—”

She was interrupted by the witch walking over to us.

“My name is Mona, by the way,” the witch said, reaching out a hand.

I shook it. Then I stared at the green-eyed vampire who stood behind her. “And who are you?” I asked him.

Mona stepped aside as he walked in front of me. He cleared his throat, staring at me intensely. “Kiev Novalic.”

My heart skipped a beat.

Kiev Novalic?

The monster who’d kidnapped me at birth?

I stared at him, my mouth hanging open. The Kiev Novalic my mother had told me about was notorious for having red eyes. Not green.
Could there be two Kiev Novalics?

As if reading my mind, he said, “Yes, Novak. We have met before.”

My fists clenched and I took a step back, my back hitting the wall of the cave.

Anna reached for my arm and squeezed it. “It’s all right, Ben,” she said. “Kiev is… different now. I promise, you can trust him.”

I looked down at her in disbelief. My mind reeled as I looked from her to Kiev.

Trust Kiev Novalic.
It felt like she was asking me to trust the devil himself.

“We should get a move on,” Anna continued, longing in her eyes. “I need to get back to my family. Mona will transport us all there…”

“What?” I couldn’t disguise my shock.

“They need somewhere to stay, just for a few days,” Anna explained. “Just to find their feet and work out where they’ll go next. We’ve been through hell to get here and we all need rest.”

I looked at Kiev again. He was the most hated man in all of The Shade’s history. One of the first children of the Elders. Evil personified. Inviting him back in our midst seemed like insanity.

I caught hold of Anna’s arm and pulled her out of the chamber with me. Abby followed us with Anna’s son. I led them along the passageway until we were a fair distance away. I hoped that all the chattering going on in the main chamber would be enough for our conversation to not be too audible.

“How can you trust him?”

Anna looked up at me and smiled faintly. “I don’t know what happened to him during his time away from Earth. He hasn’t told me and I haven’t asked. But it doesn’t matter because something has changed in that vampire. Neither myself nor my baby would be here now if it weren’t for him and that witch.”

I still didn’t understand how she’d ended up in the realm of supernaturals with Kiev Novalic of all people, but it was clear that now wasn’t the time she was going to answer my questions.

“Ben, I-I need my family. Kyle, Ariana and Jason. I’ve been away from them for so long…” Her voice broke as she reached a hand to her face, swallowing back a sob.

“Of course,” I said, forcing myself out of my stupor. “All right. We’ll return now.”

“You can allow Kiev to return with us,” she said. “I promise, it will be fine.”

Although every fiber of my being was screaming at me to just refuse—take Anna and run, while leaving behind all these strangers—I couldn’t ignore the conviction in Anna’s eyes.

We returned to the chamber. Mona and Kiev still stood in the same spot we’d left them.

I looked at Kiev again. Just the vampire’s presence alone gave me goosebumps. Although I felt insane for doing it, I held out my hand to Mona. She shook it.

“You can return with us,” I said.

I couldn’t bring myself to shake hands with Kiev, instead I just glared at him before wrapping my arm around Anna and leaving the enclosure, Abby leading the way. I looked over my shoulder to see them all following us.

We climbed out of the tunnels and emerged on the beach. I pointed to the submarine I had moored and eyed the huge crowd of vampires and werewolves. There seemed to be at least a hundred of them in total.

“I hope they’re house-trained, Anna,” I muttered, eyeing the scraggly-looking werewolves in particular.

“They are,” she assured me. “I’ve spent days with them and none of them has tried to harm me or the baby.”

My chest still constricted, I walked over to Mona. “So my submarine isn’t nearly large enough for all of your troops. How do you plan to get there?”

“Oh,” the witch said, lifting a hand in the air. “I can handle that. Do you have any maps in your submarine?”

I nodded.

“Then mark out where The Shade is and I can vanish us all there.”

I looked at Abby nervously. She shrugged.

I ran to the submarine and fetched a map. Spreading it out on the sand, I showed Mona the location. She pored over the map for several minutes before standing up.

She turned to face the others. “You know how this goes,” she said, her voice raised. “Form a circle.”

I knew what would come next. I looked back at the submarine. “I can’t just leave that here,” I said. “Submarines are valuable and that one is in perfect working order.”

She looked back at it. “Well, I’ll vanish that too along with us. Now everyone, please form a circle.”

“Another thing,” I said, “You can’t just enter the Shade so easily, it’s protected by our witches. And—”

Mona reached out and touched my shoulder, “Don’t worry about it,” she said.

I stared at her and wondered what she meant as she walked away, hurrying everyone into forming a circle. I looked around at the new vampires and werewolves, wondering what each of their stories were, and how they came to stumble through that gate along with Kiev and Mona.

Kiev had remained silent all this time. I felt his eyes on me constantly. And despite Anna’s reassurances, it still felt wrong to allow him back on the island. I wasn’t sure that my father would ever forgive me for it.

It was too late now for second thoughts though. Mona stood in the center of all of us and a few seconds later, we were all lost in a whirl of colors.

“
Y
ou
!” I gasped, staring at Kiev.

In that moment, I even forgot the relief of seeing Ben, Anna, and her child again. The vampire consumed my mind as I stared at him. As if he was sucking the oxygen out of the air, I could barely breathe.

Even as Anna rushed forward and wrapped her arms around me, I couldn’t take my eyes off the vampire.

“I’m going to find Kyle,” Anna said and hurried off with her baby.

Ben left the crowd and walked toward me, placing a hand on my shoulder.

“Anna trusts Kiev,” he said. “I don’t know why exactly, but she says he helped her. Both Kiev and this witch, Mona, brought her back to us.”

I looked from the blonde witch to Kiev. The witch walked forward and held out her hand to me. “Corrine?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.

I nodded weakly.

“My name is Mona,” she said. “We’ve come from the supernatural realm. It’s a long story, but we happened upon Anna. Kiev… he wanted to return her. We don’t intend to stay long, but we’d like to find our feet. A few days would be appreciated.”

I was speechless.
Kiev wanting to return Anna to us?
It was as though this was a different vampire standing before me.

I also couldn’t help but smirk at their assumption that The Shade would be a good place to find their feet. “The island is expecting an attack at any moment. Even if we trusted you enough to let you stay here for a short while, I doubt finding your feet is what you’ll do. It’s dangerous here—”

“What attack?”

I heaved a sigh, clasping a palm to my forehead.
Where do I even start?
“There are two islands not far away from here. Islands that we didn’t even know existed until recently. They are populated by vampires and controlled by a witch more powerful than any I’ve ever witnessed. I believe she must be a black witch. We fear she wants to take over The Shade, take control of our supply of humans—”

Mona’s mouth fell open and she looked up at Kiev. “Do you know the name of this witch?”

“Annora.”

Mona’s eyes darkened.

“You know this witch?” I asked.

“I don’t know her personally, but I know what she is… because I am a witch of the same breed.”

I stared at her. I still barely knew anything about this witch, but right now, I didn’t need to. Through all the dark thoughts my mind had been drowning in came a bolt of hope.

Maybe not all black witches are evil.

It could have been that Kiev and this witch had some sinister ulterior motive for returning Anna to us, but I couldn’t think about that right now. They were already here on the island, after all. I just had to hope that they didn’t wish us harm. So far at least, they’d shown no signs of it.

“You were strong enough to penetrate our defenses,” I said quickly, reaching out and clutching Mona’s shoulder. “Since you’re of Annora’s kind, are you as powerful as her?”

She frowned. “Yes, I believe so.”

I gripped her tighter. “Then will you help us fight? You can stay with us on this island as long as you want if you agree to help us to secure it from that witch.”

She paused, glancing at Kiev once again. I tried to read his expression, but it was stoic as ever.

“Yes,” she said finally, turning back to me. “I believe I can help with that.”