Chapter 101

Kadeem

Kadeem shot his eyes down at Rayburn. "Well, this explains a lot.”

The vampire’s eyes shone with a particular kind of malice, reminding Kadeem of a vitriolic talking-head on cable news. She was blond with a sassy 90s bob and he hated her in an instant.

He quickly widened his stance in preparation for a fight. In warning, he let out a low, rumbling growl from deep within his chest.

"No need for all that werewolf posturing, is there," she asked, daring to take a step forward, just before making an even ballsier move - reaching out to touch his bloody torso with her wintry, dead finger.

Kadeem reacted instantly and aggressively, snapping his hand around hers like a vice. His eyes flashed with anger and he said simply: "You get one chance- leave now or die."

He released her finger and she pulled it to her lips, licking the blood from it with a satisfied grin.

"I could smell this for miles," she said, inhaling deeply, as though savoring his taste, the way one might relish a perfectly grilled steak.

The vampire cast a venomous glance at her son. “You certainly have let yourself go, Jack dear,” she sneered.

Rayburn winced at her words and Kadeem felt a protective urge rising up despite himself.

“Fuck off, you bitch,” he snarled in Rayburn’s defense.

She laughed in response and flicked eyes back down at Rayburn. "Finally made a friend?"

Even Kadeem blanched at her cruelty, a surprising feeling of guilt twisting inside of him.

Rayburn mustered a surprising reserve of strength and pulled himself to his feet. He yanked off his cross necklace and held it in front of him as if it were a shield. His left shoulder was slanted in an odd pose, but then Kadeem spotted the rune branded into his skin.

"Stay back," he barked, with an intensity that belied the tremble in his voice. “By the power of Fehu, I command you to leave at once!”

She applauded him, her lips twitching in a merriment. She glanced over at the children. “Wasn’t that good, kids?”

Kadeem blinked. This was his Druidic conjuror?

He checked for Ardal, lying still in the grass. As his eyes scanned her frame, they fixed on a raised mark on her hand. It matched Rayburn’s.

He didn’t have time to get angry or process it at all - his heart skipping a beat when he saw her take a feeble breath and linger, far too long, between inhale and exhale.

Adrenaline raced through his veins. He and her children needed time to say goodbye - and this walking corpse wasn’t going to stop them.

He pulled the stake from his pocket and turned to Rayburn. “Gonna have to dust your mom. I hope you don’t mind.”

He launched himself forward, hand on the stake. She let out a fanged hiss and struck Kadeem with a blow that would have taken a Mack truck under. He flew into the base of a tree, sending a pile of needles and two brittle branches to the ground, while the kids gasped. As he reeled, Rayburn made a futile attempt to fight her, but she swatted him like a bug before seizing him up by his bloodied undershirt.

“I’m here to save you,” she said. “This won’t hurt - much.”

In a flash of fangs, she was gulping him down. Rayburn convulsed in agony, his eyes wide with a paralyzed fear. All the remaining color in him drained and his mouth gaped in a soundless scream.

She let him drop to the ground, and he looked as dead as doornail. She wiped her crimson lips, bit into her own wrist, then pushed it up to Rayburn’s mouth, letting the blood pour into it. All while the mark on his shoulder blazed like fire.

Kadeem fought to get up. His legs splayed out from under him uselessly, with pain in his back that radiated like lighting into his feet.

Silas let out a cry. He was bent over Ardal, panic etched over his small face. “Mom’s not breathing.”

Though the landscape was the same, the chaotic, faceless, menace of the universe suddenly shone through, like a mask lifted.

Kadeem tumbled into darkness, all sense of reason left behind as he looked out from the deep well of the nightmarish abyss, searching desperately for a way out.

“Save her,” he croaked, fear clawing at his throat as he looked pleadingly at the vampire.

The creature made a sour face. “She smells bitter.”

He grit his teeth and beads of sweat formed on his forehead as he tried, but failed to stand. “That’s the silver, killing her.”

He couldn’t utter it in past tense - couldn’t say, “killed.”

The vampire stood, bored, like an apathetic god. “What’s in it for me?”

Kadeem could feel the panic roaring inside him, time ticking away.

“My pack will give you and your children safe refuge in Red Moon.”

“Hmmm,” she said, pondering. She locked eyes with him. “To live and eat freely?”

It was a deal with the devil, herself - the moral cost untold, but inevitably high.

He didn’t hesitate and a smile twisted on her lips.

“Yes, yes,” he begged. “Hurry.”

In an instant, she swept the children away like a stormy wave, all apart from Lottie who remained clinging to Ardal’s lifeless body.

With pain shuddering through every inch of him, Kadeem crawled over and pried Lottie off. The vampire had pulled Ardal into her arms and was sucking the silver-laced blood from her veins with a brutal force that shook her limp frame like a rag doll.

It was too much for Erbao who screamed and hurled himself, fists swinging, at the vampire. Kadeem groaned with pain and he snatched him up, keeping him fastened against his chest.

The vampire loosened her jaws off of Ardal’s neck, re-tore open the gash at her wrist, and let the blood seep into Ardal’s mouth.

Kadeem’s stomach churned with nausea from the growing feelings of guilt and regret. His fingers twitched for the stake to put an end to the sickening sight.

Because it wasn’t a rebirth he was witnessing - it was a violent assault on an unconsenting body and soul - an attack on her personhood - and his heart sank when he realized he would not only lose Ardal, he would face a monster in the shape of her.

And yet… the mark on her hand was glowing with the same fire as the one on Rayburn’s shoulder.

Well beneath any fraying lines of sanity left, he clung to a deep, stirring hope that this ghoulish Hail Mary could somehow be her saving grace.

They watched in stunned silence while the vampire continued feeding Ardal until red blood flowed from her mouth and spilled down her chin, making Ezra let out a sickened cry. Kadeem grabbed his hand and squeezed it tight.

Something else was happening in the moonlight. Rayburn’s body was beginning to seize.

The vampire stood and wiped her mouth with a polite grace, as though they were dukes and duchesses at a tea party. Then she calmly lifted the spasming man off the ground.

“Till we meet again, in Red Moon,” she said softly, quickly disappearing through the web of pine trees.

“Wait,” Kadeem screamed after her. “What happens next?“

But she was gone.