Something Witchy (Mystics & Mayhem) (10 page)

Abducted by the Undead

“Oh, my.  I don’t think he should have told her that.”  

I came back to the land of the living—a phrase that had taken on a
whole
new meaning to me—to the sound of a soft, maternal-sounding voice I recognized as one of my ghosts.  Her name was Mary Kathleen, and she had died some time during the twenties.  Every time she appeared, she was in a short, fringed flapper dress with a headband complete with feather.  Oh, and I can’t forget the pearls.  There was always that long strand of pearls she had a bad habit of twirling when she was nervous.  Which was a lot.

When she was in a good mood, she told me the greatest stories about the Roaring Twenties.  When she was moping over some old boyfriend and the child she had lost, though, she was a right little nightmare.  My only hope was that she was having a good day.  I really wasn’t up to dealing with her drama right then.

I knew by the chill on my arms that she wasn’t alone.  I could always tell, somehow.  It was the different energies, the way they were unique to a particular ghost.  Ever notice how you feel different around different people?  Well, it’s kind of like that…only way more intense.

“’Bout time somebody did,” another voice answered, sounding almost gleeful.  “I can’t wait for her to wake up!  We’re about to see some fireworks, boys and girls!”

I recognized that ghost too, and had to bite back a groan.  Of all the friends Mary Kathleen could have brought along for company, she had to bring Snake, the punk rocker that never was.  He definitely wasn’t one of my favorites.  I had ignored him for a good six months before he finally took to singing the most God-awful rock songs in history to me—all night, every night, for two solid weeks.

 I finally gave in and acknowledged him just to get some sleep.  I had been regretting it ever since. He took being a smartass to a level that even
I
had been unable to achieve.  It was more than an attitude with him; it was an art form. 

“Oh, she is going to be so
pissed
when she realizes he kidnapped her,” Snake said cheerfully, causing my heart to stutter to a complete stop for about ten seconds before it started up again and began to flutter at the speed of light.

Kidnapped
me?  I had been kidnapped by a
vampire
?

Oh.
Hell
. No.  Uh-uh.  No freaking way.

I thought about opening my eyes, but then decided I really didn’t want to.  If I opened them and found I wasn’t at home, I was going to fashion a stake out of all my silver jewelry and start stabbing Nathan in random places just to torture him before I put him out of his misery. 

I took a deep breath and inhaled a lungful of the scent of leather and Nathan.  I wasn’t exactly sitting up, but I wasn’t laying down, either.  No, I was more…reclined.  And whatever I was sitting on was
moving
.

“You might as well open those gorgeous blue eyes,” Nathan said from way
too close to me.  Like, the distance he would be if we were, say, in a
car. 
When I still didn’t open my eyes, he actually had the nerve to chuckle.  “I know you’re conscious, Ember.  Why don’t we go ahead and get the hysterics over and done with?  What do you say?”

“Tell me you didn’t kidnap me, and I’ll be happy to open my eyes,” I said shakily in response to his almost teasing tone.

“Okay.  I didn’t kidnap you.”  I swear I could almost hear the smile in that delicious voice. 

“You
do
know the definition of kidnapping, right?” I asked, not believing a word of that crap.  “Are we in a car?”

“Yes,” he said, laughing again.

“My car?”

“No,” he admitted, still sounding way too amused for me.

“Did I walk to said car and get in willingly?”

I continued my interrogation with my eyes still closed, refusing to give in to the hysteria that was slowly wrapping bony fingers of cold dread around my intestines.  I tried to take a deep breath again, but found myself hyperventilating instead.

“No, not exactly,” he conceded, not sounding the least bit concerned that he was admitting to a felony.  “You were still unconscious, so I carried you to the car.”

To kidnap:  A verb meaning to seize and take away (as a person) by force.

I was
so
buying this jerk a dictionary.

And then, the reality of my situation really hit me.  I had been kidnapped by a damned
vampire
.  I was going to end up the human equivalent of a Slushie, and they were going to find my bloodless corpse in a ditch somewhere.  But I had bad news for
him
.  When the light came for me to take me on over to the other side, I wasn’t going. I was going to stay and spend the rest of my afterlife haunting his hot little bloodsucking ass.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Nathan muttered, apparently finding it perfectly acceptable to play Peeping Tom into my private mental meltdown.  “Ember, open your eyes and look at me.”

I clamped my lips together and shook my head frantically back and forth.  I wasn’t going to open my eyes so he could mesmerize me into being a nice, easy little snack.  If he was going to drink me or whatever vampires do, he was going to have to work for it.  I sure wasn’t going to help him out.

“Ember, open your eyes.” 

My eyes immediately struggled to open, and I realized he had done something to his voice.  Oh that was
wonderful.
  He didn’t have to mesmerize me into being an easy meal with his eyes; he was perfectly capable of doing it with his
voice.
   

Just to prove I wasn’t going to be the easy catch he wanted, I scrunched my eyes closed tighter and stuck my fingers in my ears to muffle the sound of his voice.  I swear I heard him laugh again before I felt the car start to slow down and the shifting of gears. 

I thought about diving for the door, but I had a feeling I wouldn’t even get close to the handle.  So I sat there like an idiot, fingers still in my ears and eyes closed tight, even when I felt the car come to a complete stop and the engine die.  When Nathan reached over and gently wrapped his hands around my wrists, my eyes flew open without any help from me—or him, either, for that matter—and I had to bite back a shriek that would have had enough volume to shatter glass.

“Are you ready to listen to me now?” Nathan asked, smiling tenderly at me when he decided I wasn’t going to start screaming hysterically.

“Yeah, because you’re really giving me a choice,” I muttered, tugging at the grip he had on my wrists for emphasis. 

“I promise to let go if you promise you won’t start acting like a child again,” he said, sounding amused again.

“And I promise not to kill you with the first silver object I see if you turn around and take me home right now,” I countered, at least trying to sound like I wasn’t scared out of my mind.  “What do you say?  Do we have a deal?”

“Ember, I didn’t kidnap you,” he said again, letting go of my wrists.  “I’m just taking you somewhere safe.”

“I was safe at home,” I told him, hating the pleading note that had slipped into my voice.  “Please, take me back.”

“I can’t,” he said softly, taking a deep breath. 

“They’re going to come looking for me, you know,” I said, trying a different tactic.  Crazy me, I thought maybe he would listen to reason since pleading hadn’t done any good.  “I’ve missed maybe five days of school in twelve years, Nathan.  When I don’t show up tomorrow, Kim’s going to notice, and she’ll call in everybody from the Sheriff to the National Guard to look for me.  Do you really need that kind of drama in your life?”

“You don’t understand,” he said, raking a hand through his hair in an agitated kind of way.  “Jack’s seriously bad news, Ember.  He’s going to get tired of you telling him no, and when that happens he
will
kill you.”

“Jack?”  I scoffed, rolling my eyes.  He had kidnapped me because of
Jack
?  Oh, brother.  He really didn’t know me at all.  I wasn’t scared of Jack... Okay, well maybe I was, but that still wasn’t a valid reason to kidnap me.  “Look, I know he looks kind of borderline abusive—and he’s annoying as hell—but I can handle Jack.  Now, just turn around and…”

“No.”  His voice was quiet, sympathetic even, but there was a ring of finality to it that I heard loud and clear.  “I’m sorry, Ember, but I won’t take you back.”

Lucky me.  I had been kidnapped by the most stubborn—and maybe the dumbest—vampire in history.  He didn’t care that my picture would be on the front page of every newspaper from here to Timbuktu come morning if Kim had her way.   He really wasn’t going to take me back.  He was going to do exactly what he wanted, my wishes be damned.

But, I wasn’t going without a fight.

Without thinking about it first so he wouldn’t know what I was doing, I brought my elbow up and slammed it into his nose.  While he was cussing like a sailor, I threw the door open, jumped out, and took off like a shot.

 I finally let out that terrified shriek I had been holding in when he suddenly appeared before me just as I cleared the back of the car, and I took another swing at him on instinct.  He caught my wrist in midair in a grip like iron, and my legs started to tremble with fear. 

I had just sucker-punched a
vampire
.  What the hell had I been
thinking
?

My eyes darted around looking for some way to escape, but Nathan had picked the perfect place to stop.  There was nothing around us but trees and fields.  That meant traffic was minimal, at best—which meant there would be nobody around to see it when he ripped my head off.

Rather than pull me close and tear out my throat with his teeth, though, he gave me a pointed look before releasing my hand and taking a step back.  I was tempted to give it another shot, maybe aim a strategic kick at the family jewels, but I managed to restrain myself.  I swear, it took everything I had not to do it, though.  Instead, I tried to dart around him.  He simply got in my way.  I tried to fake him out and go the other way, but he was a step ahead of me.

Stupid mind reader.

Finally, breathing hard from a mixture of terror and exertion, I stood my ground and crossed my arms over my chest.  If he was going to kill me, he was going to have to do it right there, where any lucky people passing by could enjoy the show.  I gave him my most impressive glare, but he just arched an eyebrow in response and matched my pose like the muscle-bound meathead he was. 

I had a sudden fantasy of pushing him out in front of a semi and seeing how well he fared.   

“What are you doing, Ember?” he asked, sounding real close to exasperated.  “Damn it, woman!  I’m
trying
to save your life.”

“I’ll save myself, thanks,” I growled, trying to fry him with my eyes alone.  “Now, if you’ll move out of my way…”

“Get back in the car, Ember,” he growled right back.  “Now.”

“Thanks, but no thanks.  I think I’ll walk. 
That
way.”  When I jerked my head back the direction we had come, his eyes narrowed practically to slits.  Smiling, I started to back away again.  “Enjoy your trip, Dracula.  Be sure
not
to keep in touch.”

“Get back in the car,” he said again.  The anger I could hear starting to simmer beneath the calm was enough to make my heart skip a beat or two.  But did knowing I was pissing off the bloodsucking undead stop me?  Oh,
no
!  Not
me
!

I laughed—an insane sound if I’d ever heard one—and slammed my hand into his chest as he took another step toward me.  “
You
get back in the car. 
I’d
rather hitchhike than get back in that car with you.”

“
Get
in the
car
, Ember,” he growled again, like he was going to have more luck the third time than he’d had with his previous attempts.  Yeah, right.  Guess I’m not the only one who’s delusional.

 “I don’t think so, dead boy.  Get.”  I rammed my finger into his chest with each syllable, “Out.  Of.  My.  Way.”  When he didn’t, I laughed again and turned toward the road next to us, intending to wave down the first car that came our way.  “Think there’s a hero out there willing to rescue a damsel in distress?” I asked him over my shoulder. 

Before I even had a chance to raise my arm, he pinned me to the car door, flattening my spine to the frame as he snarled into my face, “Get.  Back.  In.  The.  Car.”

His hypnotic hazel eyes had turned a milky white with only the pupil showing any color—and they were glowing.  And when I say glowing, I mean
glowing.
  It was, without a doubt, the scariest, weirdest, most awesome thing I had ever seen.

Staring into those eyes, I realized I was completely and totally insane. 
Oh, good job, dumbass!
I thought, trying to beat back the terror that was threatening to make me pee myself. 
Way to go, Ember!  Why don’t you just open a vein yourself and say “Come and get it”? 

Looked at that way, I decided I could probably sacrifice my pride to keep my jugular—at least for the moment.

“Fine, whatever,” I growled.  Shoving him away from me, I snatched the door open at the same time.  I was mad, not stupid.  When he remained where he was, watching me, I turned and snapped, “What?  Are you taking me to Castle Dracula or not?”

With a low growl that sounded like an expletive even
I
wouldn’t dare to use, he returned to the car.  He moved at a more normal pace, I guess to get himself under control, and I was already back in my seat and staring out the window again when he slid back behind the wheel.

For several long, tense minutes, we just sat there.  The time ticked by slowly, and I got edgier and edgier with each passing second.  Leave it to me to get myself into a situation like this.  He was probably sitting there wondering how I would taste—and I hoped I gave him food poisoning—and where he was going to hide the body when he was done with me.

 One bloody murder scene after another played out in my mind and I became more and more terrified with each one.  I was shaking hard enough that I was surprised I wasn’t rocking the entire car.  Therefore, when Nathan reached over and touched my cheek, I nearly jumped out of my skin.