Blood Gifts (8 page)

"Well, I guess it's working," she said to
herself. She reached out to gently touch his face, trying not to
wake him. He mumbled a little bit but didn't wake. She smiled.

Chapter 18

"Right in the heart," Luke said as he threw a
wooden stake at a mattress propped up against the wall. He'd drawn
a heart on the mattress with some ketchup. The stake hit the center
of it. He walked over and pulled the stake out of the mattress and
handed it to her.

She took it and aimed it and threw. It hit
the general vicinity, but sideways.

"You'll get used to it," he said. "The weight
of it, how it moves through the air." He picked it up off the floor
and handed it to her again.

"How about I just use my psychic power to
throw stakes?" she asked.

"That's good too," he said. "You should
probably practice both."

She opened her hand with the stake lying in
it. She used her mind to levitate it and toss it at the mattress.
It slammed into the center of the heart the right way and stuck.
She smirked and looked up at Luke. He looked impressed.

"Nice," he said. "I guess you should practice
the hand throwing then."

She gasped and playfully socked him in the
arm.

He laughed. "I’m going to go make more of
these. We should probably always have some nearby."

"Okay," she said as he walked out of the
room. She went to pull the stake out of the mattress, then backed
up again. She pulled her arm back, trying to get a feel for the
stake in her hand, and threw it as hard as she could at the
mattress. Just then he stuck his head in the door near where the
stake hit, far from the ketchup heart. Her eyes grew wide. "I
could've hit you!" she yelled.

"Well, not on purpose," he said, pointing at
the stake.

She laughed a little bit. "Seriously, shout
or knock before you enter this room."

"Alright, alright," he said, chuckling. "I
just wanted to know if you wanted lunch. I can bring some up. I
promise I'll knock." He smiled.

"Pfft," she said. "Fine. Yes, thank you." She
went and picked the stake up and backed up to try it again. "Now
shoo," she said, moving him away.

He laughed and went back downstairs.

***

She was walking through a meadow in a flowing
white dress. The sun was bright. Everything was hazy as if in a
dream.

"It took forever to find you," she heard
Geric say behind her.

She spun around to see him all dressed in
black, smirking at her.

"What? That's impossible," she said.

"No, actually, it's not," he said, walking
towards her. "We realized digging up your worst memories makes you
tense, makes you close yourself off. So we created a pleasant
arena," he motioned to the surrounding meadow, "for us to meet
in."

She stared at the beautiful meadow in
horror.

"But how?" she asked. "We have a protective
circle of salt to keep you out."

"Do you?" he asked, and then laughed. "I
guess that doesn't work." He started to walk away from her. "I'll
be seeing you soon," he said. He turned to ask, "Abandoned
farmhouse just outside of Hillton, right?"

She didn't answer and he didn't actually need
her to. He just laughed and turned around and kept walking.

She woke with a start. It was nighttime. She
glanced over and saw her arm had broken the salt circle. She must
have been moving around in her sleep.

"Luke, Luke!" she said, shaking him. He woke
quickly and looked around the room for intruders.

"What is it?" he asked, looking at her.

She pointed to the broken salt line. "I must
have done it in my sleep. Geric met me in a dream and told me our
location. He's on his way. We have to run!"

They stood up and put their shoes on quickly.
They always slept in their clothes just in case of… this.

He grabbed the duffel bag full of their
handmade stakes and she looked around, not even knowing what else
to grab. Were they running or were they fighting? Either way they
had to leave immediately. She took his hand and left everything
else there. They ran down the stairs and out the back door, toward
the barn. His car was parked behind it.

Chapter 19

Luke held her hand and pulled her after him.
He kicked the barn door open and pulled her in front of himself. He
meant to keep running, but she turned and put her hand on his
chest.

"Wait," she said, looking determined, though
her hand shook a little. "I'm tired of running. There's nowhere
left to hide." She handed him the bag of wooden stakes.

At that moment, Geric and his thugs burst
into the barn. Geric seemed surprised to see them standing
still.

"Like rats in a maze, you don't know where to
run," he said. He nodded to his minions and they all charged toward
Karina. She used her mind to throw them all back.

Luke took a stake quickly from the bag and
threw it at one of the thugs as he scrambled to his feet. It hit
him square in the chest and he disintegrated.

Karina grabbed a stake and threw it. It
missed the vamp. She picked it back up with her mind and plunged it
into the vamp's chest, killing him.

A black-haired vampire got to his feet then.
Luke threw a stake at him hard. The vamp waved his hand and the
stake burst into flames. It fell to the dirt floor when the
black-haired vamp jumped out of the way.

"Excellent, August," Geric said with a smug
smile.

Karina used her mind to throw them all back
again, against the walls of the barn. There were four vampires
left.

She turned to Luke quickly. "Drink," she
said, exposing her neck to him. "We need to both have my
powers."

The three thugs had gotten to their feet
again and charged at her. Luke threw another stake and August
burned it with fire.

Karina concentrated and held them in place
where they were.

"Quickly," she said to Luke. "Drink me."

He glanced at the frozen vamps and leaned
down to her neck quickly and sank his teeth into her.

She struggled to concentrate on holding the
vamps in place as blood drained out of her. She lost her hold and
one of them pulled Luke off her.

Luke used the psychic power to push him back.
August threw a fireball at Luke. Karina slowly sank to the ground
as she forced the fireball to change course. It hit a wall.

Geric was beginning to look concerned. Like
he might lose this battle. Or like he might have to get his hands
dirty and join it.

Luke attempted to throw more stakes, but the
fire starter was faster. Any attempts so far to take him out had
failed.

Luke continued to battle the vamps while
Karina tried to be sneaky. She was so weak she was leaning on her
elbow to keep herself propped off the ground. She carefully peeled
a piece of the wooden wall off behind the fire starter. She tried
to do it slowly so he wouldn't hear. Once it was free she tried to
slam it into his back at heart level. But he saw her staring in his
direction and turned to see what she'd done. He started the piece
of wood on fire, but not soon enough. She stabbed him in the heart
with it and he disintegrated.

Geric looked sharply at August turning to
dust. He looked very alarmed now. The stake that had killed August
was still on fire and caught that wall of the barn on fire. The
wall behind Karina and Luke had been slowly engulfed in flames from
August's fireballs. The room was smoky, making it hard to breathe
or see. One of Geric's thugs was throwing some of the stakes back
at Luke.

One of them aimed a stake at Karina and hit
her with it in the lower abdomen. She was shocked. The pain was so
terrible, she could think of nothing else. It went in deep. It was
painful to breathe, to move, to cry.

"Don't hit the girl!" Geric yelled angrily at
the vampire. Luke took the last stake from the bag and threw it at
the vamp. It plunged into his heart and killed him instantly.

"Oh, My God, Karina," Luke said, kneeling
next to her.

She coughed from the smoke and then winced
because that caused her pain from the stake wound.

"Two more," she said. The last thug and Geric
were rushing forward to try to wrestle Luke away from her. The thug
had a stake in his hand.

Luke angrily waved his hand and sent the vamp
with the stake sailing into a burning wall. He held him there with
his mind until he burned up.

Geric glared at both of them as he quickly
turned and ran out of the barn, back toward the farmhouse. This was
not a battle he could win. Though, Karina wasn't sure she could
either.

Luke scooped her up in his arms and shielded
her as he burst through the burning wall at the back of the
barn.

She could breathe again, outside in the fresh
air. If only it didn't hurt so much. Luke laid her down in the
green grass of the field. The sun was just coming up.

She could barely breathe from the pain of her
injury and too much smoke inhalation. Her wound was bleeding, and
she'd already lost blood from when Luke had drunk from her. Using
her powers had drained her energy too. She didn't know anything
about modern medicine, but if she had to guess she'd say she was
dying.

"He won't stop coming," Luke said. He kneeled
on the ground and pulled her into his arms.

"I understand why you don't want to be a
vampire," he said. His voice was uneven, emotional. "I can feel
your heart slowing, Karina," he sounded desperate.

She could barely focus. She could tell she
was slipping away. Soon she wouldn't be conscious to make the
choice she knew he wanted her to make.

She looked up at him, she could barely see
him anymore. And she barely felt pain anymore. She knew that wasn't
good.

"I know if you make me a vampire, I'll be
good like you," she said. She felt tears leaking out of her eyes.
The sunrise formed a halo around his head. "I don't want to die,"
she said. "Please… make me like you."

She could see the tears in his eyes as he
lifted his wrist to his teeth and bit himself. He lowered his wrist
to her mouth.

"Drink, Karina, drink," he said. She sucked
on his wrist, feeling his warm blood flow into her mouth, tasting
its bitter metallic taste. She felt her body rejecting it, she felt
revulsion. But it was a lifesaving elixir to her and she forced
herself to keep drinking.

After a minute, Luke gently pulled his wrist
away from her.

"How do you feel?" he asked. "Is it
working?"

She wanted to answer, but she felt pain all
over suddenly. She started to convulse in his arms and she heard a
scream escape her lips involuntarily. She arched her back as her
muscles tightened up. She felt her entire body shudder and then
relax. She was half conscious, but she felt the pain in her abdomen
lessen dramatically until there was no pain at all. She felt energy
tingle all through her body, healing her, making her stronger. She
gasped clean air into her lungs, air she would never need again,
but it felt so good as it rushed through her lungs.

Her eyes had been closed, but now they popped
open. She stared in wonder at Luke above her. He looked worried. He
looked beautiful, more than before. The colors were deeper than
before, everywhere she looked. Everything was sharper. She almost
thought she was seeing colors she'd never seen before. And
auras.

She braced herself against Luke as she
quickly stood. He stood too and she stumbled like a newborn colt.
She had no idea how to work these new muscles. Everything was
foreign to her now.

"Are you…" he said, looking amazed.

"Yes," she said. She reached down to touch
her healed injury. "You did it. You saved me." She stumbled forward
awkwardly and wrapped her stronger arms around him, holding him
tight. He held her just as tightly.

Chapter 20

Karina woke with frost on her skin. That
couldn't be right. The sounds of a forest were loud and close. She
opened her eyes and colors swirled before her, not staying within
the lines of the objects they came from. Things were brighter and
louder than she ever remembered things being. She remembered what
had happened, and as soon as she realized she was a vampire she was
on her feet. The motion was so fast it was almost
instantaneous.

"We'll have to work on that," Luke said from
behind her. She turned to see him leaning up against a tree with
his arms crossed. She thought he was smiling at her. "That didn't
look entirely human," he said.

"Okay," she said, distracted by the colors
that wouldn't stay inside their shapes. Trees, grass, a stream
nearby. Clouds and blue sky in the distance. Early morning light.
She never knew the forest had so many sounds, or maybe they were
just magnified now. The gurgling stream, rustling of tree branches,
animals in the distance. She turned her head quickly at the sound
of hooves on packed earth.

Luke stepped away from his tree and held out
his hand to her, but she bolted. She ran and the blur of a deer ran
in front of her, but she was faster. She felt like she was leaping
effortlessly through the woods. She grasped the deer around the
neck as she tackled it to the ground. It must've been a doe. No
antlers. She felt her vampire teeth descend and she bit deeply into
the neck of the deer. The doe tried to kick her, but she ignored
it. The deer's blood tasted like ambrosia to Karina. She used to
think Luke's blood drinking was so disgusting, but now it seemed
wonderful. A thirst and a hunger quenched at once. She felt the
deer give up, but at the same time Luke pried her off the deer, her
teeth dripping with blood.

Karina struggled against him, but he was
stronger than her. "Don't take it all," he said. "Shh," he said as
she tried to pry his arms off of her. "Never take it all. It's good
to practice that."