I Am Forever (What Kills Me) Read online

  “And you’re using this life to hurt those you care about,” I said. “How do you know this isn’t a trap? What are they going to do to us when we arrive? Do you even know? Do you care?”

  She grew somber at my accusations. She didn’t know what was to become of us. She met Lucas’s eyes in the rearview mirror. At least she did care about him. But maybe not enough.

  “I’m doing the right thing,” she said.

  San turned back to look at her. “You keep telling yourself that.”

  “I’ve seen what the rebels have done,” I said. “They torture and kill innocent vampires.”

  “A few need to suffer so that the masses can be freed,” she replied. “The Monarchy tortures and kills its own ‘children’ every day.”

  “You don’t have to do this, Samira,” I said. “You’re good. You’re not the villain here.”

  She cocked her head and gave me the most curious look. “Silly girl. Don’t you realize? You, Axelia, are the villain in this story. You have all the power and you’re using it wrong.”

  I can’t win. I was the bad guy before I was named the Divine. Now Uther says I’m the savior, yet Samira says I’m still the bad guy.

  “I’m just trying to protect everyone,” I said.

  “You’re protecting the wrong vampires. You will see. I swear it.”

  Samira turned away from me, rested her head against the pane, and blew a puff of air against the glass. Her breath added no fog. She was as cold as ice.

  When we arrived at a nondescript, low-rise brown brick building on the edge of the city, Samira told us to drive down an unlit ramp and into an underground parking garage.

  She wouldn’t make eye contact with any of us, which worried me. Within twenty minutes she had gone from hostile to distant.

  As we crossed the garage, I grabbed her sleeve. “If this is a trap, you’re going to be sorry.”

  “I’m already sorry,” she replied, ripping her arm from me.

  She pulled open an orange door to reveal a bank of elevators. She glanced at a camera hanging from the ceiling and pushed the “up” button.

  We stepped inside an elevator. My reflection in the mirrored walls startled me. The dirt and blood had dried all over me to create a stony crust. Only my eyes glowed like lit embers against my dusty charcoal skin. I looked neither human nor vampire.

  The elevator chugged upward. I remembered that Samira had climbed only one flight of stairs. “Why are we going so high?” I said. “My family is on a lower level.”

  Samira’s mouth opened, confused. San reached for his sword as we jerked to a halt. A cheerful ding preceded the opening of the doors, and Samira walked out. We followed her, both San and Lucas unsheathing their weapons.

  It was a lobby. The most unremarkable, empty space with shiny white floors, an unoccupied wooden security desk, and glass cubicles in the corners.

  I smelled him before I saw him. That musk, rich like spice and liqueur. He stepped out from behind a column and smiled. He had small teeth, like a rat.

  “It’s Izo,” I said.

  “It’s the Divine,” he said at the same instant.

  There was maybe twenty-five feet between us. I could close that gap in seconds.

  “Don't take another step, ” he said.

  “Where’s my family? ”

  “Move and you’ll never see them alive again.”

  He reached into the breast of his pocket and took out a smartphone. He tossed it to Samira, who stood at equal distance between us. She showed me the screen; I saw a moving, pixelated image of my family, their heads shrouded, their hands bound at their backs. A vampire stood behind them, his hands awkwardly at his sides as if he was about to draw his guns in a Western shoot-out.

  “Darren, can you hear me?” Izo said.

  “Yes, Izo,” a voice on the phone said.

  “If the Divine doesn’t give us what we want, you are to get rid of the humans.”

  “No!” I cried. Samira glanced at her mate.

  “We’ll call you back,” Izo said. He put his hand out and Samira lobbed the phone back. It landed in his palm with a smack and he slipped it inside his jacket.

  “What do you want?” I said. “I’ll give you whatever you want, just let them go.”

  “Ahh,” Izo sighed as if he’d just quenched his thirst with a drink. “These are such exciting times. Such exciting times. You know, Axelia, if I may call you that, the rebellion was quite pleased to hear of your arrival. It gave the Monarchy quite the shake-up.”

  He pumped his bushy eyebrows at Samira. “Wasn’t that fun to watch? What glorious chaos. I haven’t seen the Monarchy in such a state for centuries. It took them a while to find their footing again. Oh, but when they did, they came after us with such predictable verve. In the name of the Divine. But you know all that.”

  “Punish me, Izo. My family has nothing to do with this.”

  He smiled. “I was in Paris this summer. I was standing on a rooftop, watching the boats come and go along the Seine, and felt a hot pain in my hand.”

  He showed me his palm. “A wound appeared. Imagine that. A spontaneous laceration. A miracle. We cannot punish the Divine, it seems, without punishing ourselves.” He wiggled his finger. “Ah-ah-ah, I told you not to move,’” he said, meandering a few steps away. “The Divine cannot be harmed. But, hurting your family hurts you without hurting me. This is my only option. So to answer your request, I am punishing you, actually.”

  Heat seared my skin. I felt like I was on fire. Could I reach him and find out where my family was just before I tore his head from his body? What if I didn’t recognize the location? Could I risk it?

  “She already said that she’d do whatever you wanted, Izo,” Lucas said.

  “I’ll tell the Monarchy to leave you alone,” I said.

  “I appreciate that. But you have no power to control that.”

  “Then what do you want?” I asked.

  “Doctor?” Izo said.

  A squat figure in a heavy black sweater descended the stairs. I recognized his wiry hair and his oblong head. He smelled of chemicals and lemons. It was Dr. Vosper.

  I had not seen him since I’d first arrived at the palace. He stood trembling behind Izo, hugging a wooden case, and I immediately knew what they wanted.

  “You want my blood.”

  “The Divine is astute,” Izo said.

  “How much of it?”

  “Enough,” he said with a wink. “Now, listen carefully, Axelia. The doctor is going to approach you. You’re not to move. He’s going to hand you a needle. You’re going to insert it into your arm, and the doctor will withdraw your blood. He’s then going to remove the needle and leave the room. If you so much as blink, your family will suffer the consequences. Do you understand?”

  “Izo—” Lucas began, and San’s heels squeaked against the shiny floors.

  “You don’t speak, Swordsmith,” Izo barked. “Axelia, you’d better call off your dogs.”

  What the heck do they want my blood for? All this trouble, the attack on the palace, the kidnapping of my family, for my blood. It can’t be something good.

  “Your beautiful sister, I believe, is familiar with needles,” Izo said. “Surely the Divine can handle one as bravely as her sister does.”

  His reminder of Tiffany’s vulnerability panicked me. In that moment, it didn’t matter what they were going to do with my blood. I was ready to let them bleed me dry if it meant my family could be saved.

  “I will only do this if I have your word that you will release my family,” I said.

  “You have my word.”

  “Then just get it over with.”

  The doctor wanted my blood from day one. He was working with the rebels all along.

  The doctor hesitated and then threw himself forward, his shoulders hunched and his head down, as if he was running into a storm. He avoided my gaze, set the case down, and clicked it open to reveal what looked like thick, clear tubes and a needle. The needl
e was thicker and shorter than the previous one he had broken against my arm months ago, with a beveled edge like uncooked penne; it was attached to what appeared to be half a syringe, missing its plunger.

  “Please take the hypodermic needle for the venipuncture,” he mumbled, holding the needle with a gloved hand.

  When I took it from him, he shrank from me as if expecting me to stab him with it. Oh, I want to. Believe me.

  “Turn your hand up. Please make a fist,” Dr. Vosper said. “Now, do you see the vein on the inside of your elbow?”

  A bluish knot formed under the soft skin.

  “Insert the needle there,” he said.

  I positioned the needle in my hand so that the end protruded from the bottom of my fist and placed the point to my flesh.

  Here it goes.

  Tensing my entire body, I stuck the needle into my arm.

  Beneath the skin there was unexpected resistance. With a grunt I punched through, and the pain shocked me.

  I yelped and everyone in the room flinched. Pearls of blood appeared on the inside of everyone’s arms. Izo smiled his rodent grin.

  As the sting receded, I saw that the doctor had a tube with a green plastic cap at the ready. The tube was long, like a vase. He attached it to my needle and as soon as it clicked in place, blood spurted into the tube. I watched it coat the sides. It was the most brilliant red.

  Somewhere in the palace, the Empress was probably clutching her arm in fury.

  “What are you going to use my blood for?” I asked Izo.

  What could they do with it? They wouldn’t drink it. Vampires didn’t drink vampire blood.

  The doctor removed the full tube and replaced it with an empty one.

  “We’re going to paint the town red, aren’t we?” he said to Samira. She frowned.

  “What the hell does that mean?” Lucas said.

  Izo ignored him. “How are we doing, Doctor?”

  The doctor made a sound like a grunting pig as he started to fill a third tube.

  “I’m giving you what you want,” I said. “Call your friend and tell him to release my family.”

  Izo dropped his chin. “In due time.”

  A white haze settled around the edges of my eyes.

  “Zee? Are you all right?” Lucas asked.

  “I’m fine,” I lied. I closed my eyes because the room shifted. The doctor popped a fourth tube on.

  “My lady,” San said.

  “Zee,” Lucas said, “pull the needle out. It’s too much blood.”

  “We need that last vial,” Izo said.

  Lucas’s face was hard. “No, Zee, they don’t.”

  The sound of footsteps from unseen corridors forced my eyes to flutter open. The doctor turned the tube to swish the blood around.

  My knees became unhinged and I started to fall. The doctor grabbed the tube and yanked it out of the needle. Lucas yelled my name. I hit the floor, and the needle, still stuck in my arm, bounced on the tiles. Lucas slid to his knees beside me.

  “Zee!” he shouted, hauling me into his lap. My body was sapped of strength.

  “I’m fine,” I mumbled.

  Lucas leaned over, pulled the needle out, and pointed the tip of his sword under the doctor’s chin. “Don’t move!”

  San was running for Samira. He sailed across the room, his sword raised. Samira waited for him, her wire taut in her hands. As he thrust his sword at her head, she ducked and wrapped her wire around the blade. She then spun behind him, dragging his sword back toward him.

  I gasped as San’s blade lodged in the base of his neck.

  “No!” I screamed.

  Samira reached around San and grabbed the sword’s handle. She tugged her wire and he cried out.

  She’s going to kill him. “Stop!” I yelled.

  “Let the doctor go,” Izo said. “Let the doctor go and we will release your compatriot.”

  Samira turned to us, using San as a shield. Lucas lowered his weapon, and the doctor put the last tube in his case before scrambling to his feet.

  Suddenly several doors burst open. A stream of rebels came into the room with their wretched sparking sticks. The doctor ran into the crowd and out a door.

  Lucas lifted me to my feet.

  “The Divine is weak,” Izo told his reinforcements. “Take her.”

  “You said you’d let my family go!” I shouted.

  Izo shrugged. “I lied.”

  “Izo?” Samira said. San thrust his elbow into her gut and twisted out of her grip.

  “I still need you—and your family,” Izo said.

  NO.

  Screaming, I pushed myself from Lucas and rushed the staircase. The rebels lunged at me as Izo leaped up the stairs. I smacked an electrified baton away and drove the heel of my hand against a rebel’s chest, cracking all of his ribs. The effort was exhausting and I stumbled into the next rebel. But I managed to stomp on her foot and push her down, breaking her ankle.

  I stepped over the shrieking vampire and jumped onto the first landing of the staircase. I looked over my shoulder. Lucas was fighting the horde and San was grappling with Samira.

  “Go!” Lucas hollered.

  Willing the dizziness away, I ran up the stairs and yanked open a door. Izo skidded around a corner at the end of a long corridor. I sprinted after him. He ran through an office, turning desks over behind him. I hurdled over them, shielding myself from the flurry of papers in my face.

  As I slid over the surface of a desk, kicking over a computer monitor, I snatched a glass paperweight and hurled it at Izo. It struck him in the head. He tripped and crashed through a glass divider. Rolling to his feet, he grabbed a floor lamp and swung it at me. The heavy base caught me on the side of the head and I went flying into a wall.

  My elbow punctured the wall and a cloudy fuzz blinded me for a few seconds.

  I shook my head to clear my vision—just in time to raise my hand and block another strike. The force sent me stumbling against a wall of cabinets, and Izo turned to run. I pushed off and chased him toward a balcony overlooking another open area. Using the lamp to pole vault, he flew over the balcony.

  No you don’t.

  I launched myself from the balcony with all my might and collided with him in the air. As we fell I grabbed his collar and got on top of him. Together we smashed into the floor, tiles shattering beneath us from our force. I drove my knee into his stomach. He buckled under me, his eyes popping, his mouth spurting blood in my face.

  Where is my family?!

  I put my hand against his throat and squeezed. Through his eyes I saw him walk from the parking garage up a flight of stairs and down a corridor. He walked to the end of a hall and opened the second-last door on the left. The door swung inward to reveal a large, muscled vampire. When he stepped aside, I saw my family. Thank God.

  I was about to let go of Izo when his lips moved.

  “You’re a fool,” he whispered, his teeth filmed with blood.

  “What?”

  He smiled. A red bubble formed over his mouth and popped.

  What are you talking about?

  Then I heard a voice. So silken and powerful. In Izo’s memory the Empress appeared on a video screen. There was a delay, and her pixelated image appeared frozen for a second. Her hair was slicked back and she was wearing a metal collar shaped like an Elizabethan ruff. It looked like a circular spaceship on her shoulders.

  “These are the Monarchy’s terms,” she said. “We will not entertain any further negotiations.”

  Izo spoke, his voice choppy, serrated: “All of our brothers and sisters must be freed. All of them. Or nothing.”

  The Empress didn’t react. “The Divine’s family resides in Winnipeg. We will send you their coordinates and their photographs,” she said.

  Every hair on my body stood on end, every pore opened up, every nerve fired.

  “Kill them,” she said. “Kill them and we will release the prisoners.”

  “Oh my God,” I whispered. “The
Empress. The Empress gave you my family.”

  My eyes welled with blood. My body shook so much that I rattled Izo’s head against the floor.

  He coughed up a gob of blood. I felt the nudge of his ribs as they reformed beneath me. “You knew?” he rasped.

  “When did she ask you to do this?” My tears streamed down my cheeks.

  “A few days ago.”

  “In exchange for prisoners?”

  “For the prisoners and for other reasons.”

  “She told you to kill them. Why did you keep my family alive?”

  “We needed to persuade you to give us what we wanted.”

  “Did the Empress know this?”

  “No.”

  “You attacked the palace to kidnap me so you could get my blood.”

  “Look how clever you are. And you found your way to us.”

  “Why would the Empress ask you to kill my family?”

  “Why? Are you so stupid, Axelia, that you don’t see? Because the Monarchy is evil. Because the Empress wanted to give you another reason to align yourself with them against us. Because she wanted to cut your ties to the human world. She knew about your little arrangement with the maid and the transporter.”

  She knew about Brogan and Cormac all along?

  “Because she’s a monster,” Izo continued. “So many reasons why—take your pick.”

  “And you just followed her orders, knowing all of this.”

  “The rebellion has its own orders. Our plan is bigger than the Monarchy, bigger than the Divine. In the end, you and I are nothing. Your family is nothing. The rebellion is everything and all that matters.”

  “What are you going to do with my blood?”

  He grinned. “You will see.”

  Yes, I will. I jammed my hand against his windpipe again and closed my eyes to welcome his secrets. The stink of decaying flesh made me gag. I wanted to spit, to get the flavor out of the back of my throat. I heard a hiss. A growl like a revving motorcycle. Then I saw glowing red orbs. Eyes.