Two vampires sauntered past as I headed down an aisle, and the blonde-haired female inhaled as if she was breathing in lunch and she was starving. My pulse quickened, but I stared her in the eyes—in her darkening eyes. The white-haired vampire with her hooked her by the elbow as he ran his eyes over me with uncontained disgust.
I wandered the rows of books. There were so many I didn’t know where to start and I only had a few hours before anyone noticed me missing.
I could ask Karson about vampires, but I didn’t want to ask him about witches. No, it was best to remind him as little as possible about what lay in his bed.
My fingers trailed over the hard cases. Most were in remarkably good condition. I took one out—Vampires and Blood Thirst—and opened it carefully, just in case the book tookrevenge if you weren’t gentle. It was probably the reason they were in such great condition.
The first line started withThe thirst for human blood for a vampire is insatiable. Being surrounded by vampires right now was probably not the best time to read this. I placed it back on the shelf, pulling out a few more, not finding anything that drew me in. As my fingers trailed along the books’ edges, they began to tingle on one. I skittered back and paused. It was a thick brown book.The Origins of the Vampire.The tingle was warm, pleasant, like touching breeze-ruffled feathers.
I pulled it out and opened it. The first chapter heading read:Church Heights.I settled myself at a table in a dimly lit corner and began to read.
I already knew most of it. A boy discovered the waters with healing properties, and when he went back to the village to tell everyone, his father whipped him for lying. A powerful warlock believed him though, and years later when the boy was older, the warlock convinced him to reveal where the waters were.
My heart constricted at the next line. The warlock performed a dark magic spell to make those who drank the waters not only heal faster, but immortal. He did it using a human sacrifice, a young maiden witch—not just any witch, he sacrificed his own sixteen-year-old daughter. They shackled her, slit her wrists, and while her blood spilled into the water, he along with six other powerful witches chanted the spell. The spell was completed when he murdered her—slitting her throat and pushing her body into the deep, dark depths of the waters.
Prickles climbed over my arms. The terror and betrayal the poor girl must have felt at the hands of her own father …
I swallowed and my mouth tasted of ash.
Did that mean if the grimoire fell into the wrong hands another human sacrifice would have to be made to make the waters work again? Or was one sacrifice enough?
The more I read, the more I discovered, the worse it got. Horror stories were scrawled on the pages, of whole villages being slaughtered. When I turned the page, there was a hand-drawn image so detailed, it looked like a photograph. Fathers, mothers, children, and babies, their bodies dripping with blood, their limbs floppy, lifeless eyes staring at nothing, stacked on top of each other like bonfire kindling.
I flicked over a page and what I saw?—
What I saw was devastating. I closed my eyes, sucking in thin strips of oxygen, sick to my stomach.
A vibration struck me like a blast of arctic air and whipped my head up.
“You’ve got a hell of a nerve,” the white-haired vampire sneered.
I snapped the book closed and set it down, resting my elbows on the table and steepling my hands in front of my chest, ready to throw him, if I could get my palms out in time.
Two young female witches a few tables over looked at us nervously.
I kept my voice steady, leaned back in my chair, and tried to look bored. “I have no idea what you mean.”
“Wearing a vampire’s cloak is a disgrace when your kind have slaughtered us for centuries. Where did you get it?” His top lip curled up, revealing a sharp white fang; he was trying to scare me. “Will I find slain vampires down an alley somewhere?”
Did he think witches slaughtered the five that Karson killed, or have more vampires been slain?
“Thank you for complimenting my skills, but if you find dead vampires, I can guarantee you I’m not the cause.”
His nostrils flared as he sniffed me. “Then explain why I can smell vampire blood all over you?”
Blood.Monique must have been wearing the cloak when she—who knew with Monique. “I don’t have to explain anything to you.”
“Listen, you little bitch.” His knuckles whitened as he clenched a chair and leaned closer. “I know what you look like. If I find out you had anything to do with one of our kind being hurt, I will hunt you down and make you wish you had never been born.”
“Original,” I drawled.
“You think you’re?—”
“You seem to forget.” I looked up to see one of the young witches had moved and was standing at my shoulder. Around my age, she was tall with straight brown hair and bangs that hung at the top of her brows. Her gaze swung around the room pointedly. “Firstly, you should really consider very carefully if you want to argue in here, and secondly, your kind slayed our kind for centuries, and maybe you were one of those vampires responsible for the murders, butwecertainly weren’t responsible for killing any vampires, not in the past or now.”
“But that could easily be rectified.”
I spun my head back at the sound of her voice. Dahlia stood behind me, dressed head to toe in black, her black hair pulled into a tight ponytail. She glared at the vampire with a fierceness that unnerved even me.
