Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 89023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
They look like thrones.
I glance over my shoulder, looking at the table. Then back at the chairs.
Even if I couldn’t smell them, I would know that Paul and Josep sat here while something happened on that dining table.
Then it hits me.
They fed.
The scions fed while Paul and Josep watched.
And now it all makes sense.
Because I know, with one hundred percent certainty, that they fed on me.
No, not me.
Us.
Paul fed Syrsee and me to his scions.
Why?
But as soon as I ask myself this question, the answer is on my lips. “To turn them.”
Turn them into what, though?
Not into vampires. If Paul could turn a horde of scions into vampires simply by feeding them my blood, then why wouldn’t he be able to turn them by feeding them his blood?
No. That’s not what happened here.
And now all those jars and vials in the cabin root cellar make sense. He did something to us. Something that would… what? What would it do to the scions who drank us off this table?
I don’t know. But I suddenly remember that Jeff said he and the rest of them who saw me in the pool didn’t get to feed.
So Paul didn’t do it to all of them. Just some.
Why?
There’s only one way to get that question answered. Find Paul.
I walk back down the length of the dining table and turn right, heading for the back of the house where the pool is. Paul is here on the property. Even if I didn’t have his scent in the air, I would know this. The lodge is the final scene of whatever act of theater Paul is producing.
I step outside, the air chilly even though it’s spring, and stop in front of the pool as a wave of scents hit me.
I lose Paul’s for a moment because there are so many.
I’m not good at this scent tracking stuff, but this new ability is good enough for me to come to a conclusion.
There were three groups of people: The scions in the dining room who drank. The scions out here, who didn’t. And…
I look around. Like take a good look around. Because this place has never been empty.
And… the halfbreeds.
That’s the bloody mess on the floor of the lobby. Something happened there. Something that doesn’t have anything to do with me.
I’m still trying to put all these pieces together when I sense a weird vibrational change.
I slowly turn my head to the left where the woods are and immediately feel adrift. Like the floor has fallen away beneath my feet. It takes me a moment to realize I have risen up in the air. My wings aren’t even spread out, I just… rose up.
It’s an instinct, I realize. A response to a threat. Because coming out of the woods are… they are… I don’t have a word ready for what they are.
Because they are not scions.
They are not vampires, either.
They are… dead.
Every zombie movie I’ve ever seen flashes though my mind. And this is the same moment when they see me, because their arms reach out for me, and they begin to run as a horde.
My eyebrows go up, that’s how confused I am.
What the hell do they think they’re doing? Are they going to attack me?
I actually laugh.
But then Josep appears between the trees and some of the puzzle pieces start slipping into place.
Paul’s little vials and puddings.
Splitting his scions in half.
Sending Syrsee and me to live in a dreamwalk while some of the scions drank us and some of them didn’t.
This isn’t the birth of the American Vampire, this is a war.
Josep versus Paul.
The Darkness versus… well, that’s where my understanding ends and I don’t have any more time to think about it because Josep is here. He is tall, and muscular, and beautiful. His skin is blue-black and as he exits the trees his wings stretch out and rise up so far on either side of his body, they block out the sun. And as this shadow falls over me, three things happen at the same time:
One, he smiles and his eyes light up with blood lust.
Two, my wings rise up as I bare my fangs and growl.
And three, the horde is here. Right below me. Reaching up with half-decomposed hands, trying to pull me out of the air. They look like they’ve been buried in the ground for decades, clothing tattered and dirty, faces contorted into expressions I don’t even have words to describe—but the most noticeable thing is their scent.
That’s not earth. It’s not dirt or death, either.
It’s blood lust.
I’ve never attached a smell to this longing to feed, but this is what it smells like.
And in their eyes is a singular look. A focus so intense, there’s no way to miss it.
They are hungry for me.
20 - Paul
And now I have to choose
“What was that?”