Halfway Bitten (23 page)

Gran looked at me with eyes brimmed full of tears, and opened her mouth to protest, but the ringmaster had seen enough of our plotting. “Moving, to be sure, but I’ve things to do elsewhere. You know, savages to cull, and lands to be purged.” His smile was pure malevolence as he raised a glowing finger to me. I was left with the decision of offense or defense. I had one spell, and Gran stood next to me, her shoulders slumped in pain.

Defense, then. That’s all I cared about right then.

A breeze ruffled my hair to the right as a black streak went past me into the night. I looked around wildly, only to notice a circle of lights approaching us from the darkness. They grew larger in the seconds it took me to peer closely at their dancing varicolored shapes. Before I could ask Gran what was happening, one of the male lieutenants was lifted in the air, screaming. His body suddenly doubled with a savage thud as his skull rang against a stone in the ground.

Poised above him, Wulfric smiled at me in the night. “I thought we might need help from the Everafter. So I brought them, love.”

Maggie the ghost materialized, along with half the dead population of Halfway. Next to her stood Rene’ Meunier. Every spirit held hands, walking inexorably toward our fight with the vampires. “They can’t break the ring, honey. Contact with this much of the Everafter will pull them through to our side. The bloodsuckers don’t want that at all,” Maggie cackled, her bawdy laugh buoying my heart like a rising tide. I’d never been so happy to see a dead person in my life. In that instant, Wulfric snapped the second lieutenant and moved on before the vampire’s body hit the ground. His speed was inhuman; his focus, lethal. I loved him even more for honoring our needs.

“Why is Rene’ here, Mags? Didn’t you have enough help in the town cemetery?” Gran teased.

Maggie’s ghost blushed, a feat that I hadn’t thought possible. Her glance at Rene’ explained everything, and I felt my own cheeks color at the possibility of ghost booty happening in my hometown. Maggie saw my reaction and said, “Just because I’m dead, doesn’t mean I stopped being a woman.” Her wink glittered in the night as I snickered at her unquenchable vigor. Rene’ took the high road, despite being French. He merely tipped his fur cap in our direction, deeming any commentary beneath a gentleman, be he living or dead.

“Alex, Anna,” Gran said, her voice flatly decisive. “Take Collette.” In a snarling blaze, the panthers accelerated away from me to strike Collette, who had dropped into a stance of defensive fear. She shouldn’t have bothered, because the panthers were grabbing at empty air. Wulfric arrived first, his arms striking Collette in the base of the neck like an avenging sword. Her body flamed into ash as he slowed to a stop, favoring me with a brilliant smile. My heart leapt again, knowing that Gran would be safe. Our land, and our town, safe.

Wulfric flashed into motion again, and this time there was no doubt as to his target. But the ringmaster was no ordinary vampire, and he met Wulfric’s attack with a savage blow of his own. The impact was colossal, causing each man to stagger away from the other like a drunken sailor. The fight was relatively even, given the ringmaster’s age and Wulfric’s hybrid blood, and the next few seconds descended into a whirlwind of blows that were too fast for the human eye to follow. The fire from raging caravans still illuminated the area all around us, making the low fog into a sheet of dim purplish light that hid the combatant’s legs.

No one moved, save them, and in bits and glimpses I could see ragged flesh healing, even as the two vampires wounded and re-wounded each other in a swirling array of attacks.

“We’re going to win,” I told Gran, raising one hand to unleash my final spell as soon as the ringmaster was held immobile for a second. That was all I would need. I felt it.

And then Wulfric bellowed in pain as the ringmaster drove his fingers deep into my lover’s side. I screamed in terror as Wulfric’s back arched with raw agony, and the ringmaster broke out in sniggering laughter. My skin prickled at the noise and I wanted more than anything to cross the gulf of space between us and fight his enemy myself, but I couldn’t get there in time, because Wulfric’s free hand did.

He drove one massive fist into the sneering face of the ringmaster, then began a superhuman spin of such speed and grace that his shape blurred before our eyes. The ringmaster’s coat flew awry as his legs flailed outward in spastic kicks that said, more than anything, he was being pushed into the Everafter by the sheer will of Wulfric’s power and skill. A vampire can kill one of his own kind, as can a hybrid. But to do so with physical strength only means overcoming a healing ability that draws on the darkest parts of magic. Wulfric did so, and when he slammed the ringmaster into the ground with a final howl of rage, the ancient vampire’s body disintegrated in a storm of light and sparks.

“Stars above, he did it.” Gran’s voice was awed.

Maggie, Rene’, and the ghosts stood mute, and the panthers dipped both muzzles in appreciation of a fellow hunter. Wulfric picked up a gleaming gold button that had broken free from the ringmaster’s gaudy vest, and casually flipped to me as a token of our victory.

“I wonder . . . who was he?” I asked, turning to the remaining vampires, who looked at the glowering ghosts with increasing nervousness. Their position had just gotten considerably iffier.

“Captain John Smith,” said a voice from above. She descended toward us on a column of magical resistance, neatly avoiding the inconvenient ring of spirits who stood guard around our group. It was the dead girl pulled from the lake, but she certainly didn’t look dead now. If anything, she was terrifying. Her strawberry blonde hair moved about in a fitful halo as she waved one negligent hand to end the spell of levitation. She began to fall like a dandelion seed, slow and graceful.

“The explorer?” I asked, dumbstruck. John Smith had been friends with Pocahontas. Five centuries ago. Oh, and he was dead, and not a vampire, or so I’d learned in history class.

She smiled at me like a parent might regard a struggling child. “Conqueror, more likely. We’ve controlled vast lands since I brought him into the fold, you might say. Turning him was the finest act of my five hundred years—not counting what I’m about to do now. You’ve interrupted my purge, Carlie, and I can’t allow the”—she searched for a word, her eyes going bright at finding it—“purification of such great lands to remain unfinished. The French are marginally acceptable, as are the Canadians. But so much of the seaboard lands were held by natives, who had received the gift well before it was forced upon me as a child. You understand, of course. So
many
creatures of lower blood. They simply cannot be allowed to hold power, let alone remain unpunished for what they did to
me
.”

“What kind of—wait, just who the hell are you, lady?” I asked. I smelled a bigoted tyrant inside that pretty little exterior she wore, and I liked her less by the second.

Gran made a noise of disapproval as the ghosts flickered in anger. Whoever she was, no one was going to invite her to Thanksgiving dinner. That much was certain.

“My manners. Pardon me.” The vampiress gave a mocking bow and flicked a bolt of shadowfire at Maggie, who vanished before the spell could hit home. She winked back into existence and shouted an apology as the ring of ghosts began to move back—whatever had been thrown at them, the ghosts couldn’t stand. I waved her off. There was no need for them to be sent into a state of energy on our behalf; they’d done their duty admirably.

“Alex, can you and Anna fall back and pick the vamps off in the dark?” I asked.

The answering growl faded into the night as both panthers melted into shadows, leaving Gran, me, and Wulfric to face the woman who had come back from the dead.

“A wise decision,” cooed the dead girl.

I really needed a name. It seemed silly to keep calling her
Dead Girl,
when she was clearly neither.

“I can smell half of the blood in his veins, but that’s enough to pass judgment upon. As for you witches, I shall have to think. I ordinarily avoid killing those who are worthy of serving my purposes.” She made a show of thinking, then smiled. Her fangs were small and bright, her eyes wholly black, and her skin a luminous white under the tattered remains of a primitive robe. It looked like something a child might wear to bed in the year 1600. If anyone needed a fashion update, it was her and the goobers she had working for the circus.

As if reading my thoughts, she said, “My name is Virginia Dare. I am the first settler child born on this land, and I was stolen away in the night by beasts, to be used as a glorified feedbag. But their lust was my bounty.” She laughed, and began to walk toward us, with slow and delicate steps like a fine horse in a ring. “John understood my special needs, so I saved him from the noose and began a private crusade to rid this continent of savages. I’d reached an impasse until John suggested the circus.” Her sigh was genuinely bitter. “I shall miss him.”

She unleashed a spell that slammed into Gran and me with the force of a hurricane. We toppled backward into the dew-slicked earth, rolling to a groaning stop, and right then I decided I’d had just about enough of this demonic little ginger who hated Indians and ruined clowns for the few people who didn’t already hate them. Who was she to trespass on our land? I checked Gran and jumped to my feet, feeling the reserves of magic simmering at the ready. I had one massive spell left for certain, and I meant to put it square in the black heart of Virginia Dare.

I didn’t wait. She was vampire, I was witch, and the beam of sunlight snapped forth from my hand to strike her directly in the stomach without any deviation at all. The radiance struck her shift, setting it ablaze in magical fire that flared outward like a turtle shell.

“Stars above, that’s new,” I shouted. She was shielded in some ancient arcana I’d never seen, and though injured, she was quite capable of fighting back. That left me with exactly zero mojo, no hope of finding any, and an injured Gran on the ground next to me. I didn’t even have a stick to throw at her.
Naked again, Carlie
, I mused. That was twice in one night, and it wasn’t even in Wulfric’s arms.

Virginia fixated on Gran, and I saw that she was going to take the weakest target first. Her lips began moving in a sing-song spell of old magic, formed long before my family had begun to reach into the bonds of the Everafter. I braced myself in front of Gran, mind screaming in frustration, and raised my hands like a boxer. I may as well go down swinging.

She didn’t complete her casting. Wulfric rushed her to deliver a savage blow, just as he had moments earlier, but the result was frighteningly different. His hand slowed to pass through the shield, tapping Virginia in the chest with the force of a child’s slap. Her laughter pealed out as claws of ragged lengths shot forth from her hands to rake at Wulfric’s sides. She curled around him in a sinuous embrace and began methodically tearing him apart before my eyes.

I screamed, but there were no words. An orgy of magical light began to flood my senses as the ghosts started killing the remaining vampires. Maggie knew the score—if they were left alive, no one would be safe. The caravans raged into purple pyres as Wulfric caught my eye, smiled, and did the only thing that could be done to save us all.

There are many ways a vampire can kill another of their kind. They can use brute force, or fire, or holy magic, but there is another way, and it’s almost always fatal.

Unless you’re a hybrid.

Wulfric sank his fangs into Virginia’s porcelain neck and began draining her with a ferocity that made the air around us stink of rage. She howled and bucked, but his enormous muscles held her tighter than a lover. She shrank visibly, her legs and arms gyrating in wild spasms as she let out a long, piteous cry of defeat and anger. When her skin began to shoot through with red lines, I knew it was over, but Wulfric’s mouth was fastened on her as he drew greedy draughts of black blood that turned him from the love of my life into a monster.

He dropped her body as it began to sizzle into ashes. His body was shaking with the ecstasy of transition.

All grew quiet. I made to approach him, but he looked away, his noble profile lit in the dying embers of the remaining caravans. His braid was loose, and I reached out to pat the blonde hair back in place as I’d done only hours before.

“Wulfric?” I put the weight of my life in that question.

I lifted his chin, sticky with blood. He was shaking. I was scared. My love hung in the balance, and then he opened his eyes.

They were fully black and lit from within by the hunger. “I cannot.” And with my tears hanging between us, he fled into the night, taking the monster inside him away.

Gran broke a bone in her wrist, which made me take a long look at exactly what kind of granddaughter I’d become, but she healed, and the town forgot that there was ever a circus once the last of the magical marks faded from their hands. Alex and Anna were wounded, but whole. They live in town now that I can’t find any legitimate reason to hate her, and she’s given up on the idea of Wulfric ever being a part of her or Emilia’s lives. It’s sad, but he is undead. There is little, if anything, left of the man that she seduced, and I like to think what little good of Wulfric is left resides in the tiny soul of his daughter.

The heart of winter is here. I cook, and come home. I cry a lot. Brendan keeps me company, and Alex stops by to lend a quiet presence. Gus is never far from me, even going so far as to sleep with a paw on my cheek like a benediction.

I’m thankful for all of them, but I miss Wulfric. I worry about him out there, alone, hungry. Conflicted.

He’s the love of my life, and the one thing that could take him after a thousand years has come between us like . . . like a saw-toothed mountain range made of fear and despair. Even with his dead heart, there is a flicker within him that I pray can be reached. How, I don’t know—but I’m going to try. I know he’s still in there, somewhere, because he glides through the night to put things in my mail. Last week, it was a slice of raw honeycomb wrapped in linen. I saw him at the edge of my property that night, wraithlike and ravaged with his secret war of desires.

The snow is falling harder now, and there will be no moon. That means no requests for spells, and no one asking of me that which I cannot give. I walk down the creaking stairs of my cellar and stand before the long bench laden with the signs of my magic. Aromas of herbs and mystery hang in the frigid air as I open my grimoire to a blank page. Like the unseen magic that will go there, I know the answer for Wulfric’s pain lies somewhere in my reach. I crush iron and gall, and add the ashes from the body of Virginia Dare.

Pen poised above the creamy page, I consider my next movement. The answer is here. Or it will be.

With a bold loop, I begin.