The Way of Escape (2 page)

“Don’t be frightened,” he said in a tone that would have sounded reassuring if not for his newly terrifying appearance. “If I truly wanted to hurt you, you would not be standing here with your pretty neck untouched and your blood still in your veins.”

I turned around with my back pressed to the wall, determined to keep as much space as possible between the vampire and me.

“Then what
do
you want?”

“Like I said, I am giving you a choice. As a dhampir, I can’t simply wipe your memory and send you back to the outside world, so your only options are freedom with the vampires and servitude with the humans.”

“And by servitude you mean slavery,” I corrected.

Emmanuel shrugged and took a step backward.

“More or less,” he replied. “So what is your decision, Clara?”

Despite the fact that I would have gleefully slept with pigs and eaten their leftover slop over becoming a vampire who oppressed innocent men and women, I had the nagging feeling that I shouldn’t be so quick to reject his offer.

“I need to pray about this.”

“Pray,” he chuckled. “I haven’t heard that word in quite a while.”

“Give her some time,” Augustus suggested as he joined us by the door. “Let her have a taste of our world before she accepts or rejects it.”

“Alright,” Emmanuel agreed. “You have three days to make your decision. Until then, you can stay in one of the guest rooms.”

“If Clara stays in the room attached to mine, I can keep an eye on her and make sure no one in the coven sees a mortal walking around and thinks she’s fair game.”

“Augustus, you are a guest in my home. You shouldn’t have to babysit an indecisive dhampir on your trip.”

“I don’t mind. This is my first time encountering a dhampir, so I’m actually looking forward to spending some time with her.”

Hopefully not
too
much time,
I thought as I fought to hold my tongue.

“Alright, but please remember to keep your hands and your fangs to yourself, old friend. I’d hate for her to be traumatized into making a bad decision.”

“You have nothing to worry about. Living in the real world has done wonders for my self-control,” Augustus said. “Since I’m surrounded and outnumbered by humans who would chase me with stakes, guns, and whatever else they could dream up if they knew that I was a vampire, I have to keep my appetites in check.”

“Then maybe you should make this more than a visit,” Emmanuel suggested. “Our appetites were given to us for a reason, and there are no guns and stakes here to hinder your indulgence.”

“When indulgence becomes a lifestyle, it will eventually lose its appeal and ability to satisfy us,” he disputed, “but we can debate that later. I can feel the sun on the horizon, so we should all retire to our rooms.”

“Yes, we should,” my host said, briefly looking me over. “I suppose you’re already dressed for bed, but there should be something clean for you to sleep in somewhere in your room.”

“I’ll help her find it,” Augustus offered, unlocking and opening the door.

“I don’t need help looking through a dresser,” I snapped. “I can find my own pajamas.”

“But you do need help finding your room,” he pointed out.

The redhead offered his arm with a surprisingly friendly smile. When I maintained my distance and put my hands in the pockets of my pajama bottoms instead of accepting his gesture, he lowered his arm and continued speaking.

“Very well then. Follow me.”

I trailed behind the slightly less terrifying vampire and into the hallway. Upon seeing Augustus, Lisette bowed low and he responded with a slight nod. Between that submissive gesture and the effortlessly confident air surrounding the Italian vampire, I had a feeling that he held a position of power or had somehow earned the coven’s respect.

Despite Augustus’ little speech about indulgence and the importance of self-control, I found myself doubting that his temperance came from true morality. Whatever he had done to gain Lisette’s and Emmanuel’s respect probably wasn’t good. After all, why would an oppressive monster bow down to anything but a more frightening fiend?

“Here we are,” he announced as we reached the end of the hallway. “For your safety, your door will remain locked and you will only be able to come and go by my side.”

“What about going to the bathroom?”

“Our bedrooms share a Jack and Jill bathroom, and don’t worry about the water here. It’s perfectly safe to consume.”

I nodded in understanding and reached for the doorknob, but Augustus stepped in front of me and blocked my path.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Clara. You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

“You drink blood from humans and your friend here enslaves them,” I pointed out. “I think our definitions of hurting people may be a
little
different.”

“I won’t hurt you according to
anyone’s
definition,” he clarified, finally unlocking and opening the door.

Augustus gestured for me to enter and I reluctantly walked into the bedroom with him on my heels. My gaze immediately fell upon the open door to my left that led to our shared bathroom and then my bedroom. Before I could flee to my room, he closed the door behind us and spoke again.

“As for the enslavement of humans, I’m just as disgusted by it as you are. It’s a barbaric, antiquated practice that puts our kind in danger of exposure.”

“If you’re so against enslaving humans, then why are you friends with someone who does?”

“Emmanuel isn’t my friend. I’m here on business.”

“What kind of business?”

“I’m visiting on behalf of The Vampire League. As the lord over this area, it’s my responsibility to assess every coven in my constituency and make sure they’re following the laws set forth by the league,” he explained. “Every coven leader seeks to impress me and bribe his or her way into my good graces, but very few of them are truly my friends.”

Augustus turned his back to me as he removed his suit jacket and hung it on a wooden hanger in his closet.

“Is Emmanuel on your good side?”

“No. Aside from my own personal reservations about human slavery, the league has recently outlawed the practice. Even though the league sent a decree to every coven ordering them to stop harvesting humans and to release or kill their current slaves, there have been numerous reports of native Haitians and foreigners going missing,” he said. “Emmanuel is blatantly disobeying an edict from the league, and he thinks he can buy my silence with money, blood, and sex.”

My stomach turned at the sound of Emmanuel’s idea of bribery.

“Since he can’t buy your silence, why are you still here? Shouldn’t you be telling your superiors that he’s breaking their rules?”

“If I tell the league about his insubordination and seek its help to rectify this situation, they will kill everyone on this island — vampire and human alike. However, I have stumbled upon a way to end Emmanuel’s defiance and preserve the lives of his humans.”

“Why do you care about saving the humans?”

“Because I used to be one. I may drink their blood and enjoy playing with their minds from time to time, but I’ve never forgotten that I was once as weak and ignorant as they are.”

“How touching,” I retorted.

Even though Augustus smiled at my unchecked sarcasm, I instantly kicked myself for it. In the years before I became a Christian, sarcasm had been like a second language for me. I might not have physically harmed people like he and Emmanuel had, but I was no stranger to cutting people with my wit if they got on my bad side. My sharp tongue had hurt many friends and family members over the years. Thankfully, I’d been able to break that habit and more or less get it under control since my unexpected conversion.

As much as I disliked Augustus and Emmanuel, I didn’t want to backtrack and revert to my old habits in the face of tribulation. With that in mind, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to center myself before continuing the conversation.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For invalidating whatever compassion you have for humans. It was rude and uncalled for. Will you forgive me?”

Augustus shrugged.

“Yes, but there’s nothing to forgive. I probably wouldn’t believe it either if our roles were reversed.”

Augustus clearly didn’t see anything wrong with my sarcastic slip of the tongue, but we had more important topics to discuss.

“What’s your plan and why are you being this loose-lipped about it with me? I’m a stranger, and I might decide to become a vampire and sell you out to Emmanuel so I can get on his good side depending on how the next three days go.”

“I’m sharing my opinion with you because I know that you won’t choose to align yourself with Emmanuel. You’re also an integral part of my plan for freeing the slaves,” Augustus revealed. “Do you believe in prophecies?”

“I believe in
some
prophecies.”

“Well, The Vampire League has a record of prophecies spoken by witches, vampires, and humans alike. I believe that one of them is about you.”

“What does it say?”

“The child of light and dark has been anointed to bring good news to the poor in spirit and to proclaim liberty to the captive children of the light by drinking of the dark by the light of the blackened sun,” he recited. “There was more to the prophecy explaining the events that would follow the drink in question, but I believe that the portion I just recited is about you.”

“Your prophecy sounds like a paranormal rip off of Isaiah 61.”

“Yes, but what are the odds that a dhampir who realizes that parallel would end up on an island full of humans who are being held captive by vampires?”

“I don’t know. Where did your prophecy come from?”

“There used to be a cult of vampires called Sanguinarians who clung to a version of their old Christian religion,” he began.

“How so?”

“They refused to drink blood except for when they held communion. On that day, they would eat the symbolic wafers, but they would drink a single chosen vampire’s blood instead of wine during the service. The Sanguinarians would drain the vampire and kill him in the process. Since they practiced nonviolence and lived in seclusion, they saw the voluntary sacrifice as the only way to leave this world and cross over to heaven aside from fatal persecution. Since The Vampire League believed that surviving on the blood of vampires was an abomination, they outlawed their way of life and many abandoned the sect. Eventually, there came a day when only two remained: Jean and Giuseppe. Jean drank from Giuseppe and took his life, but he had no one to do him the same courtesy as the final member of the sect. Jean supposedly lived in solitude, denying himself sustenance aside from his monthly communion wafer. As the tale goes, it was in this isolation that a vision came to him. He shared his prophecy with the European arm of The Vampire League, and they imprisoned him for his Sanguinarian practices before executing him during their solar eclipse festivities.”

While the Sanguinarians had taken the concept of Holy Communion and their Christian beliefs to an astonishingly creepy, cultish level, I felt sorry for them. They had endured persecution just like the members of the early Christian church and the believers who currently risked their lives by sharing the gospel overseas.

Pity aside, part of me actually envied Jean’s boldness. He had been so unafraid of death and sure of his vision that he sought out people who meant him harm. I’d never faced that kind of danger before, but I didn’t know if I’d have the guts to do what he did. Heck … Sometimes I was so nervous about creating an awkward situation that I clammed up and didn’t talk about my faith around my non-Christian friends.

I am
incredibly
lame.

“Why did they record Jean’s prophecy if they disagreed with his lifestyle enough to kill him,” I asked, shaking the self-deprecating thought from my head.

“Because the league acknowledges that there are forces at work in this world that we don’t necessarily understand. While many vampires think Jean’s ramblings were madness, the league didn’t want to risk tossing it aside if it wasn’t.”

“Did you believe the prophecy when you heard it?”

“Of course not. People whisper about it now and then, but everyone in the league thinks that Jean was a depraved madman.”

“What changed your mind?”

“Meeting a woman who could actually fulfill it.”

“Well, as interesting as that story was, I have a hard time trusting a so-called prophecy from a sect of vampires who practiced some perverted offshoot of Christianity.”

“What would make you believe it?”

“I don’t know. It took me twenty-six years to believe in God. It will take more than a single conversation to convince me to go along with this.”

“Wouldn’t you like to free the humans?”

“Of course, but I’d also have to believe that you’re being genuine about helping and not just pulling my leg for some twisted reason.”

“Then I suppose I’ll have to earn your trust in the next three days,” he said. “Now, the sun is rising and I need to retire for the day. We can discuss this further tomorrow.”