Graveyards, Visions, and Other Things That Byte (Dowser 8.5) Read online

  In the vision, the vampire glanced over her shoulder and smiled. Coy, playful … and fully in command of herself. Me. Myself.

  Alive. And in London, at best guess.

  So I was going to survive. The vision wasn’t delivered with a timeline, of course, so I could still lapse into a coma first. But … I wasn’t going to die. Or I wasn’t meant to die. Not yet anyway.

  My sight cleared, and the long, dark hallway came back into focus. Beau had already turned toward the stairs with Rochelle protectively bundled in his arms. Thankfully, being touched by the vision had somehow given me a reprieve from wanting to stalk after the pair and tear out their throats. Which would have been an act of idiocy, really. A complete waste of powerful blood.

  I was going to make it through. Alive. In some fashion, at least. If I believed that the future couldn’t be altered.

  I stepped around and over the elf, standing in the doorway to the map room. The intricate web of vines, barbed wire, and symbols, all drawn in still-drying black paint, now connected all four walls to the simple circle in the dead center of the room.

  Scarlett, still barefoot in her simple black sheath, sat cross-legged in the middle of the circle. She opened her eyes, pinning me with the electric-blue magic blazing from them. Magic I shouldn’t have been able to see so clearly. And it was joined by a power rising from the floor that I really shouldn’t have been able to feel so intensely.

  I squared my shoulders. “Where am I to stand?”

  “In each of the corners.”

  That was the nice way of saying I needed to bleed the elf four times. “I assume I should avoid stepping on the design?”

  Scarlett smiled, her expression serene — but with an edge that had been growing sharper since Pearl had fallen. “You assume correctly.”

  I cleared my throat. “Is there a … knife I’m supposed to use? Blood sacrifices usually call for such things, don’t they?”

  “You are the blade today.”

  I nodded, stepping back to the elf and bending down to lift him across my shoulders before I could run away screaming like a coward.

  I was a goddamn vampire. In the most literal sense of that phrase, if some of the lore was to be believed.

  The elf was heavy, but I had yet to find something I couldn’t actually lift at least a couple of inches. Kett frowned at such banal tests of power, so I had to conduct my feats of strength on the sly. And since the executioner rarely left me alone, I actually had very little idea of what I was capable of doing.

  But I could help the witches try to save Vancouver from the elves. Someone had to do the dirty deeds. And today, that person was me. Me and Scarlett. And if a witch who was best known for her charm and charisma could step up, then so could I.

  I moved into the room, carefully picking my way over to the easternmost corner — at least as best as I could judge direction by the feel of the rising sun beyond the concrete and earth that surrounded us. A triangle of vines on the floor there left just enough space for me to set the elf on his knees and hold his back against my hips and torso. I could feel blood pumping through his throat underneath my fingers. The wound I’d opened with my teeth in the alley had completely healed.

  “Jasmine …” Scarlett whispered.

  I looked up from contemplating the creature — the sentient being — I was about to murder in cold blood.

  Scarlett smiled, but she was crying. Tears slowly slipped down her alabaster cheeks.

  “For my master,” I said. “For Kandy, and Warner, and … Jade. To protect everyone that the elves are planning on murdering.”

  “Yes.”

  I gouged the elf’s throat open with my sharp fingernails, just enough that thick white blood spurted, then sprayed across the entire corner of the room. The wound in his neck closed almost immediately.

  The magical design painted in black across the carpet seemed to writhe. Then somehow, it absorbed the elf’s blood before it could solidify. The vines and barbed wire between me and the edge of Scarlett’s circle glowed the white of the oracle’s magic, then faded.

  “Again,” Scarlet murmured.

  I picked up the elf, moving clockwise. As if I were still a witch, and not a vampire executioner.

  I ripped open the elf’s throat again. The runes and symbols lapped the blood up once more. But this time, the white glow didn’t entirely fade.

  I moved on to the third corner, repeating the process. And as I did, I began to feel the elf dying.

  Three-quarters of the room was glowing. I stumbled as I crossed to the fourth and final corner, briefly worrying that I’d taken a wrong step and possibly contaminated the intricate spell. But either the paint was dry, or it wasn’t thirsty for my magic.

  I bled the elf dry in the fourth corner. I slit his throat with my sharp fingernails over and over, until the wound on his neck no longer closed. I felt him die. Then, utterly exhausted, I sat with him draped across my lap, watching as he began to decompose, crumbling into a fine powder from the inside out.

  I wept.

  Possibly for my mortal soul.

  Glowing so brightly white that I had to squint to see past it, the potent, well-fed magic etched across the baseboards and the carpet shifted and stirred. It began to slither and slide, snaking backward from each corner and feeding into the simple circle in which Scarlett stood.

  Somehow, every speck of paint, every bit of the design Rochelle had worked across the floor, went with the magic as it moved. And in the end, the only thing in the room other than the map on the walls, me, and the elf decomposing in my lap was a witch in a circle of pure white energy.

  “Go now, Jasmine,” Scarlett said, her voice heavy with magic. “Leave the elf’s body. It will continue to feed the spell. But … I need you to step out of the room.”

  I tried to obey her, shifting the elf off my legs. But I wasn’t able to stand. So I crawled. Moving toward the door so, so slowly. I wasn’t certain I was going to get out of the room before whatever Scarlett was doing, whatever power was building, consumed me as well.

  Two sets of firm hands grabbed my shoulders and arms, dragging me through the doorway and into the hall. I managed to get to my feet even as intense magic erupted behind me, slamming the door shut and throwing me to the hall floor.

  I rolled over. Beau stood over me, his eyes glowing green.

  “Thank you …” I tried to kneel.

  Then I saw the black hole standing beside Beau. The deep hole of oblivion that had come for my immortal soul.

  Teresa Garrick.

  The necromancer had returned.

  I screamed. God help me, I screamed. I couldn’t be owned. I couldn’t be controlled by anyone else. Not ever again.

  “Enough, vampire,” Teresa snapped. But more peeved than angry.

  “Please … please …” I wept, desperately trying to crawl down the hall toward the stairs. “Please. I’d rather be dead.”

  “Amusing.” Teresa’s sneering laugh crawled up my spine. “Since you already are.”

  She reached for me.

  I blacked out.

  I hadn’t really slept since I’d first woken as a vampire. I had felt the tug of the sunrise from time to time, and often curled up in the luxurious linens Kett favored — even though he never used the bed. I dozed after feeding. But I never slept.

  So when I woke this time, supine on a bed with my hands carefully folded across my rib cage, I thought I was … before. Before my remaking. As the white-painted, coffered ceiling came into focus, I found myself thinking that maybe I was Jasmine Fairchild again. Tech witch. Sister to Declan, cousin to Wisteria. Maybe … maybe I was Betty-Lou, and we three lived together, protected from the world, from our family, behind a white picket fence we’d built together. Betty-Lou. Betty-Sue. Bubba.

  Then the hunger hit.

  It ripped through my body. It flung me off the bed. Without thinking — because there was no place in me for thought anymore — I tracked and found more bags of blood in the bathroom.
Three in the sink, floating in warm water. Three on the counter. I snatched up a warmed bag, water dripping from it, tearing through the plastic, lapping up the blood so quickly that I didn’t spill a drop.

  I drained that first bag. Then the second and third.

  It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t ever going to be enough.

  I consumed the fourth bag, feeling it was cold but not caring.

  Then the fifth.

  I tried to slow down. I was behaving like a … like a blood-starved vampire. A wounded, blood-starved vampire.

  The sixth bag was gone, and there were no more … I worked back through the IV bags, looking for lingering drops and attempting to squeeze them out.

  The plastic disintegrated in my shaking hands.

  It wasn’t going to be enough.

  I could hear heartbeats … including two that were only steps away.

  Magical blood was thrumming through their veins.

  Human blood wasn’t ever going to fill this gaping hole in my core. But magical blood … strong, potent powerful blood. If I could take down the necromancer, I knew instinctively that her blood would sustain me for months … a year, perhaps.

  And if I drained her … would I gain an immunity to her magic?

  I was at the door before I’d even decided to move. I was ready to break the lock, but realized that it wasn’t actually engaged.

  I laughed at their carelessness.

  The sound of that laughter in my own ears was … creepy. Evil. Dark and soulless.

  I didn’t care.

  Slowly, I turned the door’s handle.

  I would stalk them through the house. I would drain every last drop of them. I would eat the flesh of their hearts.

  Then magic slammed against me. Necromancy.

  Pain reverberated through my limbs. I stumbled, falling back to the thickly carpeted floor.

  They had warded the door against me.

  I wouldn’t be murdering anyone else this day.

  Thank God.

  Oh, thank God.

  I crawled away, putting the bed between me and the door, with the wall at my back. Light edged the curtains of the window above me. It was full day. I must have been out for hours.

  I tucked my knees into my chest, closing my eyes and trying to feel for Kett. Trying to reach out to my master through our shared blood, our shared magic.

  But I couldn’t feel him at all.

  I could still hear the heartbeats of everyone in the house. I didn’t allow myself to count. Didn’t allow myself to guess which heart belonged to which Adept.

  I recalled the vision Rochelle had shared with me. I pictured myself, whole and happy, standing in the streets of London. I tried to remember every detail, to fall into the moment captured by the oracle’s magic. The cobblestones had been damp, though it didn’t appear to have been raining. They were a muddled shade of brown and red. I was standing by a deli of some sort. I could see rounds of gouda and a block of white cheddar in the window display.

  God, I missed cheese. And bread. And food in general.

  The endlessly beating hearts occupying the house broke through my resolve. The hunger spiked again. I tamped it down, curling into a fetal position on the floor.

  If I just stayed still enough, it would pass. Eventually, I would fall into an undead state. But even if I did, I knew I would wake again. For London. The oracle had shown me that much.

  That was assuming the future was set in stone, though.

  Which I didn’t actually believe.

  I had foiled death, after all. And with a necromancer in the house, it was much easier to believe that without Kett to hold me in the world, the reaper would have her way.

  Magic rippled through the bedroom, flitting across my eyelids. The door opened and someone stepped in.

  Someone without a heartbeat.

  He paused, closing the door behind him and engaging the lock.

  Dear God … they had sent someone to put me out of my misery.

  Unfortunately for him, I wasn’t ready to give up.

  My eyes felt dry and sticky, but I forced them open, gathering my numb limbs underneath me. I crouched, keeping as low behind the bed as I could. My hands were splayed on the thick carpet, ready to spring up and over. Ready to fight whoever was standing silently just inside the door.

  My fingers were shockingly thin. Almost skeletal. Clumps of my hair littered the floor around me. I was falling apart.

  “Jasmine?”

  It took me a moment to register his voice. I glanced toward the curtained window, noting that it was dark outside. Even more hours had passed.

  Which made sense. Because Benjamin Garrick couldn’t bear the sun.

  They had sent a vampire to deal with another vampire. A wounded, decaying vampire. Unfortunately, while Benjamin might technically have been older than me in his new incarnation, he was nowhere near as strong.

  Except I wasn’t feeling particularly strong …

  “I’m stepping around the bed.”

  “No!” The word erupted from my throat, feeling like it had to shred my vocal cords in order to pass. The fear that had gotten me partially onto my feet drained away. I slumped backward, resting against the wall, half crouched.

  “I brought blood,” Benjamin said, unzipping something.

  “It’s not enough,” I whispered. “It’s not … potent enough.”

  He stepped farther into the room, just close enough to see me over the green-tufted silk duvet that topped the bed. He stilled, flicking his dark-brown eyes over me in concern. Then he attempted to school the shock out of his expression.

  He took another step, resting his satchel on the bed. Then he pulled an IV bag filled with blood out of it. “This is mine, actually.”

  I laughed harshly. “Taunting me isn’t a great idea, Benjamin.”

  “I’m making you an offer.”

  “What’s that? Your blood?”

  “Yes.”

  Dread shocked me to silence. Then the hunger rose up again … like a predator living within me … and it … looked at Benjamin. I squeezed my eyes shut. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  Benjamin punctured the bag of blood. The scent hit me, and a low, rolling growl leaked out between my clenched teeth. Then he started drinking.

  I lunged.

  One moment, I was trying to control myself. The next, I was inches away from Benjamin, fangs bared.

  He didn’t flinch. He did, however, blink. Then he took another sip of the blood. He was drinking it through a stainless steel straw.

  I clenched my fingers into fists, hearing the bones crunch as I forced them to move. But I couldn’t step back. I could keep myself suspended there, in check, but I couldn’t step away.

  Benjamin drained the IV bag. I watched him pull the liquid into his mouth and down his throat. The veins in his neck plumped.

  “They sent you in here,” I murmured, finally gaining control of my voice. “Like a sacrificial cow.”

  Benjamin laughed quietly. “Bull. Like a sacrificial bull.”

  He turned to the bed, carefully rolling up the spent IV bag, tucking it away, and pulling out another full of blood.

  “I’m not drinking from you,” I said, already knowing that I was lying. Knowing that if I didn’t get him out of the room somehow, I would drain him dry. And unlike me, Benjamin would die. His own master had died in remaking him. The blood that animated him wasn’t strong enough to feed me and sustain him at the same time.

  The dark-haired vampire didn’t reply. He stuck his straw into the fresh bag of blood, then turned back to me, slowly drinking from it.

  I was standing way too close, but he didn’t step back. His movements were slow but steady. I didn’t scare him. Knowing Benjamin’s history, I would have imagined that little did. Except Kett, the executioner.

  But then, Kett scared me too.

  “How many bags of blood did you bring?”

  “Ten in the bag. One and a half gone now.”

  “I dra
nk four before … and then … six more … and I’m … not …”

  “I drank three before I came in,” Benjamin said, ignoring my inability to express myself. “I drink about three a day, usually. I tried to drink less, because three seemed like too much. But Kett wants me to drink as much as I want.”

  “I’m not going to drink from you, Ben,” I whispered. Then I licked my lips.

  His gaze dropped to my mouth. Just for a blink, then he was looking into my eyes again.

  A completely different kind of desire fluttered through my belly.

  Oh God, no.

  I hadn’t felt any sensation even remotely sexual since my reawakening. At first, all my thought had been consumed by drinking Kett’s blood and figuring out how much of me had survived the transition. Then I’d been focused on figuring out how to function, how to craft a new life for myself. But many vampires — if not most — equated the drinking of blood with sex.

  Kett certainly did. And he hadn’t drunk my blood since before he’d made me his child. That was a line he wasn’t interested in crossing, no matter what he might have said to Wisteria when he’d promised to remake her. After I became a vampire, I hadn’t had any desire to cross the line between feeding and sex either.

  Until now. With Benjamin Garrick.

  “Jasmine?” The dark-haired vampire touched my cheek, ghosting his fingers across my skin. I could sense how withered I felt beneath his fingertips. “The witches need you. And the oracle.”

  “So they sent you.”

  “You’re stronger than me. You can walk in the day. The warriors have fallen. Except you.”

  “I can’t … I can’t drink from you Benjamin … it’s wrong … morally.”

  “Morally? Because … of you and Kett?”

  “No. No. We’re not … we’re not together like that.”

  “But he feeds you, yes? Feeds from you?”

  “Yes. And no. I don’t think he needs to drink very often. But he doesn’t drink from me.”