Chapter Thirty-Nine: The First Vampire

Evan

“Helaine . . . ” I could hardly hear my own voice in this moment, like my head was in a fish bowl, and my mouth had gone impossibly dry. I pawed weakly at Helaine, trying to pull her toward the door. “We need to leave. Now.”

My whole body felt like there was ice in my veins when I saw her—Valek, the Mistress of Blood, with her cold, black eyes fixed squarely on the woman I loved.

“Helaine,” I urged.

She yanked her arm out of my grip, looking back at me with desperate eyes, still clouded with inky black tears as she protested, “I can’t let her kill my dad!”

“He tried to kill you!” I pleaded, reaching for her again, but it was useless.

Evan after all he’d put her through, Helaine still saw the man as her father. She was like a scared little girl right now, and I couldn’t blame her.

She wasn’t the only one who felt small—helpless.

It was impossible not to feel that way when an ancient horror beyond mortal comprehension made herself known.

Frank Fairgrieve made a pathetic effort to peal his broken body off of the dirty old carpet, his nails ripping through the yellowed wallpaper as he made a desperate attempt to pull himself up off of the ground, only to fall face first with a grunt of pain.

Helaine’s chest heaved as though she was gagging, wet black streaks pouring down her pale face and staining her shirt below. 

My instinct was to hold her, to shield her from this, but the second I touched her her entire body began trembling as though she was having a seizure, her teeth chattering violently.

“You should listen to your champion, Hell Daughter,” Valek purred, her words dripping over her teeth like oil as she stalked toward Frank. “He should be punished for what he’s done to you.”

Valek’s words seemed to pierce through whatever panicked trance had overtaken Helaine, and her whole body tensed at once as her head snapped up toward Valek.

She barely looked like herself in this moment, barely even looked human. Her irises took on a silver light that shone through the blackness of her tears with a perversion of angelic radiance.

“Don’t you touch him!” Helaine let out an inhuman shriek that made even me clasp my hands over my ears and grit my teeth in defense—never mind what it was doing to Frank’s mortal human ears.

A shockwave of pure, impenetrable darkness exploded from Helaine’s being, and Valek was squarely in the line of fire.

Helaine collapsed to her knees and I could hear the sound of flesh popping and breaking as she curled into the fetal position, screaming in utter agony as the back of her shirt began to soak through with blood.

I dropped to my knees beside her, desperate to save her, but helpless to understand exactly what was happening. My head snapped up to the sound of Valek’s laughter.

For all that Helaine’s attack apparently cost her, Valek had only been knocked backward, her hair mussed, and the leather she was wrapped in slightly worse for wear.

“Good, Hell Daughter.” Her face split into a dangerous grin as she prowled toward us, running her tongue along her lips. “You do have raw power, you just need to train it.”

She reached her blackened claws down to grab at Helaine, but I grabbed her arm, more terrified than I’d been in decades, but desperate to protect the woman I loved.

Valek’s eyes shifted toward me and an icy chill came over my whole body. I may as well have been a child under her gaze, for all that I had affected her.

I couldn’t understand the words Valek spoke—some ancient, guttural language that I couldn’t even be sure was from this Earth—and my whole body went numb.

“Stand down, Champion,” she spat, regarding me as little more than a worm half squished beneath her boot on a rainy evening. “The Hell Daughter will return to you once she masters her power. You will not interfere.”

I couldn’t protest, couldn’t answer at all even if I’d wanted to.

Helaine cried out unintelligibly as her back bulged, stretching the fabric of her clothing. I’d never seen anything like it. Whatever was happening to her, her body had been pushed beyond its limits.

But if Valek intended to train her, I could at least be assured that Helaine would survive this transformation.

It was cold comfort as Valek shoved me to the floor, still frozen in the same position I’d been in, as if I was a statue.

Frank had barely managed to pull himself up to his knees before Valek—Helaine in tow—burst through the ceiling. 

Splinters of wood and shingles clattered to the ground as she disappeared into the night, taking Helaine God only knew where.

With Valek gone, my body went limp, no longer under the influence of the terrible power she’d held over me.

“You!” Frank snarled as he tried to stand only to collapse to the ground. He crawled over top of me, grabbing the collar of my vest and yanking me up toward him. Spit flew in my face as he hissed, “What kind of monster are you to have ties with a creature like Valek?”

My lips twisted into a snarl of my own and I shoved him off of me as easily as Valek had me, leveling him with a grim gaze. “She sired me, when I sold my soul.”

Frank’s dead eyes lingered on me for a moment. His mouth opened like he wanted to say something, but instead of words he coughed violently, spitting up a bit of blood before his heaving devolved into a sick laugh that seemed to scrape against his throat.

Finally pushing himself to his feet, he walked over to where Helaine had tossed away his liquor, picking up the bottle and swirling what hadn’t spilled out onto the floor before he lumbered into the kitchen.

“Well, thank God for this, at least.” The bottle clacked against the table as he looked for an unbroken shot-glass, smiling with bloody teeth when he found one. “Care for a shot?”

My lips parted in confusion as I shook my head, staring at him from where I sat on the floor as though he’d lost his mind. “You want to share a drink? Now?”

Frank only shrugged, tossing the shot glass over his shoulder and bringing the bottle to his lips. “Might as well greet armageddon with something to numb the pain.”

“The world isn’t ending,” I grunted, pushing off the ground to stand on my own two feet. Whatever Valek had done to me, my whole body was practically screaming at me as though I was completely exhausted. Maybe I was. “Not unless Helaine wants it to.”

“She’s the anti-christ, kid,” he scoffed, wiping his bloody mouth with the back of his hand. “You should know better than anyone what it feels like to have an irresistible urge.”

Stalking toward him, I wanted nothing more than to deck him square in the jaw, but he was just an old, broken man. He wouldn’t survive a haymaker from me, and I knew full well that Helaine didn’t want him dead, even if he didn’t have the decency to feel the same about her.

Instead, I stabbed a finger in his direction, my lips curled into a vicious sneer. “You’re wrong about her,” I spat, my eyes burning into his. “I’m going to save Helaine, we’re going to stop the apocalypse, and then you’ll finally understand what a good person she turned out to be in spite of having a horrible father like you.”

He stared at me a moment, his lips twitching as he grimaced until finally he rose the bottle to his lips. In a burst of petty rage, I snatched it out of his hands, whipping it against the wall where it shattered, staining the wallpaper with the amber liquid.

“That’s a nasty habit.” I stalked toward the front door, and it creaked in protest when I yanked it open. “You should quit.”