Black Blood - 10. Chapter 10

10

That night Skylar’s sleep was troubled by nightmares filled with people getting killed by vampires while she was comfortable in her bed. She woke up with a start, springing to a sitting position, sucking in a breath. Her cell was rattling on the night table; she had just gotten a text. She checked. Unknown number. ‘It’s Micah, I’m using Jackie’s cell. I got away and I’m fine. I’ll come over later.'

A wave of relief washed over her and she felt immediately better. The nightmares were forgotten. But then she remembered Josh was a vampire. The image of Charisma winking at her before leaving tickled at her mind, and it stayed there no matter how hard she tried to push it away.

But she hadn’t turned Micah. She had been bluffing about that. Maybe Skylar was selfish, but to her that was the most important thing right now. She got up with renewed energy and determination. She was alone in the apartment, and it was kind of refreshing. Josh – well, Josh was gone. Mike and Florence, unnervingly inseparable like they were two halves of one whole, had slept over at their friend’s party. She knew because they had been drunk texting her for the heck of it around 3 a.m. They were charming like that.

Mayrin was gone. Angry with Skylar, she had decided to go home to Zarien and then come back with reinforcements. Skylar didn’t know if she had gone somewhere discreet to open up a portal or if she had used the same as before – after all, she had said that those lasted around a year. Mayrin hadn’t told her the location, probably fearing that Skylar would be tempted to use it to escape this mess of a world.

It ended up being a productive day for Skylar. She returned her parents’ phone call. Basically they were doing very well, especially Gavin of course. It was a progressive rehabilitation, but he was able to walk around an hour a day already. They asked if she was reading his latest novel. She felt guilty but told the truth; she’d been unexpectedly busy but she’d start reading as soon as possible. Finally her mother asked if she was still wearing her charmed necklace. This time Skylar lied. It was on her desk, had been there for a little while. She just didn’t want her mother to be worried because she was getting some weird vibes indicating that Skylar was in danger. What good would that do, anyway? It wasn’t like her mother could help her. She could probably predict the vampires’ futures. But that was a little pointless if Skylar just killed them right after. There wasn’t much of a fortune to tell.

She attended photography class, flirting more than usual with Emily at the end. She was single now, and she certainly wasn’t going back to dating guys after Blake – not for a while anyway. Emily was great, as always, with her easy smile, tingling brown eyes, magenta hair, tie and fedora. She gave her some life advice. She said that to decide whether something was worth doing, she should ask herself if she would like to have a picture of that ‘something’ happening for memories. If not, then it wasn’t worth it. Skylar wondered if Emily had used this as a thesis for a philosophy assignment in the past.

But she needed to stop attending only photography. She had other classes too. So she went to those, learning some more about art and visual media. She used her drawing class as an excuse to sketch some more swords, for her summoning magic. The teacher asked what the hell she was doing, since the assignment was to draw fruits.

“Ever played fruit ninja?” asked Skylar. “You need a sword to slice the fruits.”

He seemed confused.

Micah came over after school to get his phone back. He told her everything that had happened, and she did the same. It was too bad Mayrin wasn’t here, or she could have healed him. Thankfully, a classmate had taken pity on him and had driven him to the hospital so he could get proper medical treatment and a cast for his arm. Really now, Skylar could understand Micah really liked and trusted Viko – for some incomprehensible reason – but that didn’t make him any more of a doctor.

Then Micah told her he was going home because he missed his cats. Also he needed to talk to his parents. She asked where Viko was staying.

“Oh he’s probably gonna crash at Jackie’s for a little while. He gave her drugs as rent. Don’t ask.”

She didn’t.

Mayrin had said to wait for her return before doing anything rash. But Skylar was sick and tired of Mayrin always ordering her around. So she left her apartment in the evening, as was becoming a habit now. She wore her black and pink sneakers and black skinny jeans, but with a white shirt this time, as if to make a statement that she was pure and good, as opposed to vampires who were monstrous and evil. It should be that simple.

She brought her iPod this time because she would be walking alone. Hands in her pockets, chin raised because she wasn’t afraid of anything – she liked to tell herself that – she listened to motivational rock music like Bon Jovi’s You give love a bad name and It’s my life.

Walking at a fast pace, it wasn’t too long before she reached Fifth Avenue. Micah had told him where Blake and Charisma lived. She didn’t mind walking to get there. It helped clear her mind. She wasn’t too sure what the plan was exactly though.

For now she just hung around the fancy condo building. If she tried to get inside security wouldn’t let her. She wondered how Blake and Charisma had done it. She supposed invincible, immortal people could pretty much do anything. Skylar looked up at the sky. It was getting darker. Also it was clouding up. She really hoped it wouldn’t rain. She always wore white on the wrong days.

Vampires would come out eventually if she waited, wouldn’t they? Then she just had to improvise, depending on who it was.

It turned out Josh walked out of the building. He looked all professional now, in his nice black slacks and dark red button down shirt; Charisma must have really bought him new clothes. Those couldn’t be borrowed; Blake’s tailored suits would be too tight for Josh’s over developed muscles, and she doubted Viko even had such clothes in his wardrobe.

She followed him, shoving her iPod and ear buds in her pocket. Josh seemed nervous as he crossed the street and entered Central Park, his hands a bit shaky at his sides. Skylar walked from a reasonable distance, just so he wouldn’t notice her. The trees were in all varieties of green, their leaves rustled by the wind, giving off a nice fresh smell. There was a tinge of red and yellow here and there on the leaves. Josh marched up the East Drive, sometimes staring keenly at pedestrians and cyclists as he passed them. Skylar kept on following him stealthily from afar, but she was ready to intervene if he decided to suddenly attack someone.

Josh kept walking nervously until he spotted some people he seemed to recognize, sitting on park benches lining the road. Josh leaped over a stripe of paved stone on the ground and then he faced them. Skylar approached slowly, her eyes squinted. But she didn’t know any of them. Apparently, neither did Josh. They seemed to be introducing one another, and shaking hands.

They were all vampires, Skylar knew this much. There were five of them, six with Josh. She could feel the dangerous, savage aura shrouding each of them. It upset her that her roommate and friend was the same as them now, but there was nothing she could do about it.

Getting up, they started walking up the road together. Skylar couldn’t hear their conversations, but some of them were laughing. Josh was joining in like he had been their friends forever. Perhaps they were bonding over recently becoming creatures that killed humans for blood. Eventually they branched off onto a green path, walking among the elms, maples and oaks. They seemed to know where they were headed.

They continued until they arrived to a more isolated area, where a group of three girls and two boys sat in the center of a grassy patch, drinking some beers and eating some snacks. They greeted the vampires like they were all good friends. The introductions were made for Josh, and they all sat together. Skylar hid in the trees, staying back for now. She was close enough to use her perception magic, at least a little. She confirmed that these young people didn’t know they were dealing with vampires right now. They had no idea.

The vampires even had some beers. But they said no to the snacks. Skylar was ready to bet that their snacks would be those young humans. She couldn’t attack in prevention though; she’d just look like a crazy person. She debated summoning the sword she had been drawing earlier today, but then thought better of it. After some training maybe, and learning how to actually use a sword, then she could summon it.

She had been waiting for five minutes when the vampires suddenly acted, all at once. There were five humans for six vampires, so one person was lucky enough to have two vampires on them. As she stepped closer, stomping the grass with her sneakers, Skylar got the feeling that these vampires actually intended to turn these people, so to create even more of their kind. Charisma’s orders, she presumed. Mayrin had been right to go get reinforcements; if vampires were doing this all over town, then it would soon be unstoppable.

The wind got stronger. Skylar intended to disorient them first because burning five of them at once without touching Josh or the humans with her flames would demand too much control, control she wasn’t sure she had. So she let her magic fill her, and she felt it to the tips of her toes and fingers, the warm, tingly sensation. She closed her eyes as the wind intensified more and more. Wind was the easiest. She just needed to feel it all around her, and to let the magic inside her become one with it.

Beer cans and bags of crackers and marshmallows started flying over their heads, knocking trees. A girl lost her sandals. Some of them screamed, panicked. The sky got darker suddenly, and the clouds seemed to gather above them in the sky. Skylar smirked as she opened her eyes, satisfied with her work. The vampires, confused, were freeing their victims as they glanced up and around, wondering what was going on.

She couldn’t wait to tell Micah about this particular power. She could already hear his voice in her head. ‘Sweet, you’re just like Storm in X-Men!’

Time for fire. She had gone to the convenience store earlier to get a new lighter – white this one, to carry on with the pure and good theme. The humans had long fled, terrified. While the five vampires burned, twisting and thrashing in the now ruined grass, Josh rose and stared at Skylar from a distance, blood trickling down his chin. Using her powers, Skylar intensified the heat and the flames became bluish. She was sparing Josh, but the others were soon no more than ashes sifting in the wind, which was back to normal.

Tiny and scarce drops of water started falling.

She felt a little tired, but she was still able to run after Josh when he took off sprinting.

“Hey, wait!” she shouted. “I don’t want to hurt you! If I wanted to I would’ve done it already, you moron!” Mere seconds and the distance between them was already impressive.

He stopped, hand scratching his windblown short brown hair. If he had run just a little longer he would have been out of earshot. Skylar caught up and leaned against a maple tree, catching her breath. She should really run more often, like all those joggers. She always found them really brave.

“I guess you have a point,” said Josh.

She was surprised by how normal his voice sounded, like he was still her roommate. That was why she couldn’t kill him. It would be way too hard. Absently, Skylar wondered if those five teens would go to the cops to tell their story. She wondered if the news would spread the information that there were vampires in town.

But right now she needed to focus on Josh.

Stepping closer carefully, like she was taming a wild animal, she asked, “Where’s Charisma?”

“She went out for a drink with one of her friends. Samantha. She calls her Sammy though. Charisma says she’s kind of like her fashion advisor, and—”

Skylar cut him off. “Whatever. Where’s Blake?”

“Don’t know.”

“Xievon and Jacy?”

“Don’t know.”

Skylar put her hands at her hips, sighing. Some curly strands had come out of her ponytail, and they danced in the wind. She felt a drop of rain on her eye and blinked it off.

“You don’t seem too disappointed that your new friends are now a pile of ashes.”

Josh stepped away as she got closer, keeping several feet of distance between them. His eyebrows drew together.

“They weren’t my friends. I just wanted in on the fun. But… was that you? That was scary. What are you, some kind of crazy, hardcore, powerful superwoman, or something?”

“I’m a witch.”

“Huh.” He nodded thoughtfully.

“And really Josh, you wanted in on the fun? You think it’s fun killing people now? I thought maybe I could blame it on the fact that you’re a different person now, but you aren’t.”

“I’m the same as before.” He tried a smile, but his fangs hadn’t completely gone back to normal, and there was still blood on his lower lip and chin, so it wasn’t convincing. “Except I’m really thirsty for human blood, I can’t go out in the sun,” he lifted his fingers one by one as he spoke, “I’m really fast, really strong, and I’m hard to kill, oh and I can transform others too. That’s what we were gonna do, you know? We weren’t gonna kill them, just make them better.”

“They’ll have to feed on other people’s blood to survive, Josh! How is that better?”

He shrugged helplessly. Apparently he had no answer.

“How did you even find these vampires?”

“You mean the ones you killed?” He pointed vaguely toward the grassy patch behind Skylar. “I felt their presence from Charisma’s place. It’s so beautiful Skylar! The view, oh my god, the view. You have to come over some time.”

“You can feel their presence from a distance?” Skylar stepped closer, her heart beating slightly faster. This was her chance.

“Apparently.” He shrugged again.

“Josh you’re going to help me, all right? Redeem yourself for what you almost did to that poor girl back there. She looked like she couldn’t be over sixteen, and you were biting her neck and drinking her blood. Do you realize that?”

The cool indifference was replaced by a shadow crossing his eyes. It was like he had put up an invisible barrier of carelessness around himself and Skylar was piercing through it.

“I don’t really know what’s happening to me, Skylar.” He was stepping closer to her now, on wobbly legs. “I mean, when I came home last night, there was this beautiful girl waiting for me on the porch. She said she was your and Mayrin’s friend. Said you guys were setting us up. And I don’t know, we were making out, and then, and then…” He frowned.

Skylar closed the rest of the distance between them.

“Help me, Josh, okay? Help me find vampires that are hurting innocent people. I know Charisma wants the race to spread, but think. If everyone either becomes a vampire or gets killed by one, what will become of the world? Are you understanding me? You can help me,” she insisted.

He blinked, stared at her for a while, reminding her of a computer loading data, and finally he nodded.

“Okay, I’ll do it.”