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Authors: Eva Pohler

Tags: #Teen & Young Adult, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Fantasy, #Myths & Legends, #Greek & Roman, #Paranormal & Urban

Vampire Affliction (6 page)

BOOK: Vampire Affliction
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Chapter Eight: Warnings and Betrayal

 

Gertie tried to sleep most of the next day curled in a corner of the cave in Jeno’s arms, but strange dreams kept waking her. She dreamt she was in a dark forest and her parents, along with Jeno’s mother and father and the college student who had died, were ripping her limbs from her body and laughing at her. Dionysus stood as a golden ram looking down at them and was laughing the loudest.

Over and over, the same dream haunted her, until at last the setting changed from forest to sea.

Then Hector appeared before her and everyone else fell away. Her limbs were intact and she was treading water in the sea beneath a full moon. Hector took her in his arms and kissed her, like that night she had thought she’d been hallucinating. Her hands ran over his muscular body and tugged at his wet hair. She wrapped her legs around his waist. His lips moved to her throat. Tears of joy streamed down her cheeks as she whispered his name.

She awoke with Hector’s name on her lips. Had she said it out loud? She immediately shielded her mind to protect Jeno’s feelings, but he was awake and smiling at her like someone who has found peace with bad news.

“Are you okay, koureetsi mou?”

She nodded and rubbed her eyes. “You?”

“Last night was a big night for you. First learning about your father, and then being singled out by Dionysus in front of everyone.” He stroked her hair. “Are you sure you’re okay? What are you guarding from me?”

“I think I know who my father is,” she blurted out, in an effort to distract him from the truth.

“Oh?”

“But I’m not ready to tell anyone, in case I’m wrong. Can you understand that?”

“Of course.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Take your time. We have all the time in the world.”

Sometime later, Vladimir came and sat with them. He told Jeno what he remembered of Calandra, when they were children, before the Maenads. He also shared what he had been able to sense about their lives from his tomb.

“I could sometimes hear her singing,” Vladimir said. “I had to concentrate very hard, but when she was in the caves beneath the acropolis, I could sometimes hear her.”

“She had a beautiful voice,” Jeno said.

Gertie remained quiet and wished she could disappear to give the men their privacy.

“I’m thankful you have joined us,” Vladimir said to Gertie, shocking her. “I’ve lost a beloved daughter, but it comforts me to know I have gained another one in you.”

“Thank you,” she said, trying very hard to block her mind, which had wandered off to Babá and the Angelis family.

 

That night, after feeding in Athens, she and Jeno returned to the beach of Alexander just as the other vampires were gathering for another meeting. Although the golden ram and his entourage of Maenads and satyrs were not present, Vladimir was addressing the crowd—which had grown in number to at least three hundred.

Jeno and Gertie picked their way through the crowd toward the center of the ring where Vladimir stood, with Homer and Euripides on either side of him, insisting that their lord, Dionysus, had appeared to him in a dream.

“I do not want to be overheard,” Vladimir said. “So I invite each and every one of you into my mind.”

Gertie focused in on Vladimir’s thoughts. After navigating through some strange images of Dionysus in human form and half naked, she found the vein of Vladimir’s thought pattern: To gain leverage against the gods of Mount Olympus, the vampires must go after their warriors on earth.

“Their warriors on earth?” she whispered to Jeno, but before he replied, she’d figured it out on her own: the demigods.

Hector.

Gertie gasped. Was this
her
doing? She was the one who had told Dionysus they needed to gain leverage, but she was thinking about Zeus’s lightning bolt or Hades’s helm of invisibility, like in
Percy Jackson
; or Poseidon’s trident, like in
The Gatekeeper’s Saga.
She hadn’t meant
people
! Oh, why couldn’t she have just kept her mouth shut? She had to warn Hector. But if she took off now across the night sky, the others would notice.

She closed her eyes and prayed to the god she believed was her father.
Please don’t do this. I am your daughter, I think, and I beg of you to gain your leverage in some other way. Let me steal the helm from Hades or the trident from Poseidon.

If Dionysus heard her, he gave no sign.

Vladimir telepathically shared with them his plan for locating the demigods. The vampires would have to cull them out by destroying human life, out in the open. Then, when the demigods responded to the blatant breach of law, they would be ambushed.

Gertie was horrified. They weren’t just going to
capture
people; they were going to
kill
people, too.

She tried once more to pray to Dionysus, but, once again, she had no sense of her words being heard.

“We can’t let them do this,” she whispered to Jeno.

“Keep your thoughts to yourself, and keep your mind heavily guarded,” he warned, as he tenderly kissed the top of her head.

“Promise me you’ll help me steer everyone clear of the Angelis family,” she whispered.

“I promise,” Jeno replied.

Over the next few hours, Vladimir divided the army into squadrons based on their existing clans and assigned them the major cities of Greece. With roughly thirty members to a clan, they formed eleven squadrons and were assigned cities as north as Thessaloniki, as east as Rhodes, as south as Heraklion, and as west as Corfu. Vladimir encouraged everyone to familiarize themselves with their territory tonight and be prepared to strike tomorrow night. The demigods were to be taken—alive—to the Minotaur’s labyrinth, where Dionysus would be waiting.

“I wonder why Dionysus wouldn’t first have us recruit more vampires,” Gertie whispered. “Most of us are from Athens. There are bound to be others.”

“Less than a hundred of us are from Athens.”

“Even so.”

“Maybe he wants to protect the element of surprise by attacking quickly.”

“Hmm.” That didn’t help her, though. The longer she could put off the attack, the more time she’d have to warn Hector.

Gertie and Jeno belonged to Vladimir’s squadron, and to Gertie’s profound relief, their assigned city was Athens. Maybe she could protect her family after all. Because it was their hometown, Vladimir did not take his squadron into the city to scout that night. Instead, they remained on the beach to pray and to further strategize.

Carefully guarding her mind, Gertie told Jeno she needed to feed again. It wasn’t unusual for her to make a second trip back to Athens before dawn for more blood, but she couldn’t avoid raising his suspicions.

“I’ll go with you, koureetsi mou,” he offered.

“That’s okay. You stay and help your father. I won’t be gone long.”

He wrapped his arms around her waist and gazed deeply into her eyes. “I know you are conflicted. I don’t blame you.”

Her heart raced in her chest. She couldn’t
fool
Jeno. Why was she trying? “I want to protect my family.”


We
are your family now, no? You are a vampire, and unless you’re willing to kill my father, you will remain a vampire. The sooner you accept this fact, the better for all of us.”

“You promised you would help me protect them.”

“I will, when the time comes. But there’s no need to warn them.”

She closed her eyes, keeping her mind blocked. His was blocked as well.

“Sometimes it takes painful sacrifices to create change,” he said. “I don’t like the idea of killing humans any more than you do. We can minimize the death toll if we all work together. It will all be over soon.”

“And what if it isn’t?”

Jeno pointed a finger at her. “I know my father. He doesn’t kill with pleasure.”

“We need to stand up to him and to Dionysus. We need to tell him this is wrong.”

“Is it wrong?”

“Killing people for any reason is wrong.”

“History disagrees with you.”

“I need to feed.” She pulled away from him and turned toward the sea.

“I know why you want to go to Athens.”

The little bit of blood pumping through her veins rushed to her cheeks as she turned to him and said, “He’s my friend.”

“And my enemy.” His face also turned red. “Not by
my
choice.
He
is the one who threatened my family. I did nothing but protect his.”

“Until you changed me.”

He blanched. “That was an accident.”

“But you weren’t thinking of me.” Tears welled in her eyes.

“Must I always think of you?”

She spoke through gritted teeth. “You put me in harm’s way without hesitation.”

“You wouldn’t have been in harm’s way had you not begged me to drink from you so often, had you not lusted for my power.” He struggled to maintain his composure. “I lost track of how much of your blood I’d consumed. I never wanted it.”

“Yes you did.”

“You are as much to blame as I.”

She wanted to scream. “I didn’t know I would be used to awaken your father, to instigate all of this…”

“Watch what you say out loud.”

“Please don’t follow me.” She lifted off the ground.

He snapped his hand around her wrist. “Gertie, wait. Please. I love you.”

“I love you, too.” She jerked her hand free and took off across the sea, streaming tears.

 

When she reached Hector’s house, she was surprised to find his upstairs window open, even though it was winter. Across the room beyond his bed, Hector sat at his desk with a charcoal pencil. His thoughts revealed that he was drawing her again. She cringed when she saw the image through his eyes. He had portrayed her as a vampire with sharp fangs dripping with blood. Her arms were raised in a threatening gesture.

So that was what she was to him now: a monster.

As tears fell down her cheeks, he sensed her and met her eyes with shock.

“Gertie?” He jumped from his chair and was at the window in less than a second. “I’m so glad to see you. Come in.”

“I can’t stay. I’ve come to warn you.”

“Come in, please.”

She flew inside and looked up at him, resisting the urge to wrap her arms around his neck. He was shirtless, in nothing but a pair of blue pajama pants. He looked beautiful and had the sweetest smile on his face. Unable to resist reading his thoughts, she learned how badly he wished to kiss her.

“Hector, I…”

He took her in his arms and held her close, his cheek pressed against the top of her head. “I’ve been worried sick about you.”

She inhaled his scent and sighed. How she wished she could stay there, enfolded in his arms, her face nestled against his chest. She glanced at the window, on the lookout for Jeno and the others. They could be coming at any moment.

Hector cupped her face and pressed his lips to her cheek, and she felt like melting candle wax.

Oh my gods,
his mind said to hers, echoing her sentiments exactly.

“I’m so sorry, Hector. I never meant for this to happen. I was trying to help.”

“I know. Tell me how you’ve been. Are you doing okay? I’ve been mad with worry.”

“I’ve been okay. I miss everyone.” She hadn’t meant to cry again, but the tears came uncontrollably. “I miss Mamá and Babá and Nikita and everyone.”

Have you missed me?

“Of course, I’ve missed you, too.”

He kissed her other cheek, and she thought she would melt away. Being in his arms made her feel dizzy with pleasure and made her want to forget about everything else.

But she couldn’t allow herself to forget. Lives were at stake. “Hector, I…”

Hector closed the window. “It’s friggin’ cold out there tonight.”

She read his mind again and learned he had only kept the window open with the hope of her return. Now that she was here, he could close it.

But she knew closing it would not protect them from the vampires if Jeno had decided to follow, either alone or with others from their squadron.

“Listen to me, Hector,” she said, trying to focus on her reason for coming. “The vampires are planning to capture demigods from all the major cities of Greece tomorrow night.”

“What?”

“Their plan is to kill innocent people out in the open to cull the demigods out. Then the vampires will ambush the demigods and take them to the Minotaur’s labyrinth.”

“But why?”

“To use you as leverage. They want the gods’ cooperation.” Her stomach felt sick at the thought that she was responsible for planting the idea of leverage in Dionysus’s mind. Her stomach also hurt because she was hungry. She needed blood.

“For what? What do they hope to gain from all this?”

BOOK: Vampire Affliction
9.73Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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