Obsessed

“We’ve been such fools! It’s not a chant at all.”

Caitlin frowned.

“What do you mean? How can it not be a chant? I don’t understand.”

“I mean that the chant isn’t the cure,” Aidan replied, fumbling over his words in his excitement. “The chant is a clue to the cure!”

Caitlin could feel her heart thumping with anticipation.

“So what’s the clue then?” she asked.

“Caitlin! Think about it. It’s a riddle. Directions. It’s telling you to go somewhere.”

Caitlin felt the blood drain from her face as she ran through the words in her mind.

“I am the sea, the sky and sand,” she repeated under her breath. Then, suddenly, it came to her. “No. You don’t mean – ”

“Yes,” Aidan replied. “S. P. H. I. N. X.”___

“The vampire city,” Caitlin whispered under her breath.

Of course. Before Scarlet had disappeared into harm’s way, Caitlin had been trying to find the cure, to find a way to turn her daughter back from a vampire into a human. She thought the words on the page needed to be read to Scarlet to cure her, that what she had found was the cure. But no. What she had found were instructions that would lead her to the cure. Caitlin had let her innate anguish as a mother override the sensible, logical scholar she needed to be right now, the one who would work out that the riddle was not a cure – but a map.

“Thank you, Aidan,” she said hurriedly.

Her phone went dead.

Caitlin looked up at Caleb’s expectant face.

“Well?” he said.

“I know where we’re going,” Caitlin replied, feeling a twinge of hope for the first time in a long time.

Caleb raised an eyebrow and looked over at his wife.

“Where?” he said.

Caitlin smiled.

“We’re going to Egypt.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Lore stood on a mound of rubble amongst the ruins of Boldt Castle. The blades from the lowering helicopter made wind whip his torn clothes and ruffle his hair. He glanced around, surveying the damage the plane had caused. Hatred filled him to the brim.

He cried, shaking his fist at the gaping hole in the side of the ancient castle. Then he took a deep breath. There was no time to waste. His people would be dead, eradicated, by the end of the night. Their only hope was to find the girl who had stolen his cousin’s heart. And that meant killing anyone who stood in their way.

But the Immortalists were panicking, startled by the presence of the helicopter. They began zooming around the great hall, some streaming out of the castle altogether, running off to their inevitable deaths.

“What are you thinking, son?” a voice beside Lore said, breaking him from his reverie.

He looked down to see his mother gazing up at him. Though Immortalists experienced parent-child relationships differently from humans, Lore still respected the woman who had fed him, clothed him, and seen him safely through infancy. The thought of her death at the end of the night made his heart clench even more than the thought of his own.

“I’m thinking of Sage,” Lore replied. “We used him as bait before and the girl came.”

His mother frowned.

“You think there’s still hope?” she asked, quietly.

Lore could see that weariness had crept into her eyes. She was ready to die. Or at least, ready to stop fighting.

But Lore wasn’t. And neither were hundreds of the Immortalists still clinging to life in Boldt Castle.

“I’m not going to give up,” Lore told her fiercely. “We cannot let our people die just because my cousin has fallen in love with a vampire. He’s going to die anyway. What’s the point?”

Lore’s mother shook her head. “You don’t understand love.”

“No,” Lore replied. “But perhaps if I lived two thousand years more I would.”

His mother smiled and squeezed his arm.

“I want that for you, son,” she said kindly, “But I can’t help but feel that fate is against us.” She tipped her head up to the sky and the bright full moon shining in through the collapsed ceiling. “The stars are aligned. The wheels of fate are in motion.” She looked back at him. “Tonight is the night the Immortalists die.”

Lore balled his hands into fists.

“No it’s not,” he said through his teeth. “I will lead an army if I have to. I will bring chaos to the earth. I will destroy the whole human race before I let my people die.”

As he spoke, the Immortalists around him began to look over, roused by his speech and passion. He turned his back on his mother and directed his words to them.

“Who will stand with me?” Lore cried, shaking his fists. “Who will fight for their right to live?”

The small crowd began to mumble their agreement, and the noise attracted still more toward Lore. They streamed past the smoldering airplane fuselage to get a better look. Soon, Lore’s words were met not with mumbled assent but with cheering and clapping.

“Who amongst you has heard enough of fate and prophecies and stars?” he said. “I am not prepared to let our proud people die today!”

The crowds roared their agreement.

Lore noticed that Octal had joined the crowd and was standing at the edges. Lore beckoned to his leader, to the man he respected above all others. But Octal shook his head, as if communicating silently that Lore should be the one to lead the Immortalists.

Lore couldn’t help but frown. Could he really lead an army?

But he didn’t have time to ponder it, because the helicopter was touching down.

“Kill them!” Lore screamed. “Kill the humans!”

The Immortalist crowd followed his command immediately. They rushed at the helicopter. Lore heard the sound of desperate shouting as the police began drawing their weapons. But it was futile. There was no way the police could stand up to the Immortalists.

As they fought, Lore noticed several police officers were escaping from the castle.

“Block the exit!” Lore ordered his troops.

With the exits blocked, the remaining police had no other option but to take to the skies again in their helicopter.

But that wasn’t enough for Lore. He did not just want them driven away, he wanted them dead. As the helicopter began to rise, Lore’s murderous intent grew only stronger.

“Don’t let them get away!” he commanded his followers.

He watched as a group of Immortalists sprung into the air. The police on board the rising helicopter looked on in disbelief as the hovering Immortalists began swarming the helicopter, dragging it down. It begun to stutter under their weight and started to fall. The police inside began to scream. As the helicopter plummeted to the ground, the Immortalists leaped out of harm’s way.

A fireball plumed into the air as the helicopter hit the ground and exploded.

The crowds cheered, exhilarated by the death and destruction their actions had caused. They zigzagged through the air before finally landing and calming down. It was then that Lore realized they were all looking to him again, awaiting his instructions.

“What now?” one of them cried.

“How do we save our people?” another added.

They had been bolstered by the victory against the helicopter and the humans. Lore had awoken a desire to fight and live in them all. The crowd erupted into a rabble of worried exclamations.

This time Octal moved through them toward Lore. He was ready to command his people once again.

“The girl is in the caves,” he said, his voice booming out through the destroyed great hall. “She has Sage. They are together.”

Lore nodded and squeezed his hands into fists.

“To the cave!” he cried.

Together, the band of Immortalists followed Octal and Lore in the direction of the caves.

CHAPTER NINE

Vivian felt the air rush past her as she flew over the small town, her heart beating fiercely in her chest. She didn’t know exactly where she was going; she just had a compulsion to fly, to let the shackles of her old life melt away. She felt exhilarated, and the world felt suddenly so full of possibilities she could hardly contain her excitement.

But the longer she flew, the more a new sensation began to swell within her. It was a sort of gnawing emptiness. The human part of her had died and had been replaced by this awesome, powerful new creature. The death of her mother – at her own hands, no less – was not the source of it. The feeling was more primal.

Vivian swooped past a flock of birds. As she flew, she tried to decipher the new feelings within her. Hunger was of course the most prominent. Anger came a close second. Then she realized with startling clarity that the other feeling overwhelming her was the need for a mate.

And that meant Blake.

At once, Vivian changed her course, heading the in direction of the high school. She licked her tongue across her sharp incisors. This time, there was no getting away. Blake would be hers forever. Once she turned him, they would be intrinsically linked, bound forever, in the same way she could feel the disgusting man who sired her pumping through her bloodstream. And knowing that she could have Blake forever made Vivian’s desire for him grow even stronger.

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