A Shade of Vampire 22: A Fork of Paths (2 page)

I
ran
across the mountain plateau as a wave of fire surged behind me. I’d been running for too long. My legs felt weak. The edge of a cliff came into view. A rickety old rope bridge linked this mountain peak and the next, about half a mile away. I stepped onto the first creaking slat.

The fire was still chasing me. Its heat licked my ankles, sending me hurrying forward. I dared not look down at the terrifying drop. God knew how many thousands of feet were beneath me. I just had to keep forging ahead, and—

One of the slats gave way. I lurched downward in a free fall, stalling myself at the last moment by grabbing hold of one of the ropes that formed the base of the bridge. But my palms were sweaty. I was rapidly losing my grip.

No!

My right hand slipped off, and just as my left began to slide, an arm shot down from nowhere and a hand latched onto my forearm. Then a second hand came down. Strong arms hauled me upward, through the gap and back onto the bridge. Trembling with shock, I found myself standing face to face with… Ben. His green eyes glistened in the glow of the fire, and his skin appeared paler than I’d ever seen it… almost translucent. His hands slid down my arms and he held my hands.

Then he turned around and, keeping me close behind him, began leading me along the bridge, away from the fire and toward the other side. As we reached the lush, grassy plateau, the bridge collapsed behind us and tumbled into the gorge below.

I gazed at Ben in wonderment.

“How did you get here?” I asked breathlessly.

He reached a hand beneath my chin and tilted my head up. His lips brushed against mine in a slow, tender kiss.

“What matters is that I’m here,” he replied, his voice deep.

I didn’t understand where he’d come from, but I didn’t need to. His touch was the only thing I needed, his presence what my soul ached for.

“Will you stay with me now?” I asked.

A flicker of pain crossed his face, and as he looked down at me, there was a sadness in his gaze. A sadness I didn’t understand. A sadness that disturbed me. He dipped down and kissed my cheek before saying:

“I’ll stay with you… for as long as you need me.”

I
woke
up in a cold sweat, gasping for breath. My eyes shot open, reality returning to me.

I was still in the hunters’ submarine. Still bound by my wrists and ankles. Still trapped.

I wasn’t sure how I’d even managed to fall asleep in the first place. There must’ve been something in the tranquilizer they’d shot me with. And how long had I been sleeping? There were no clocks in this room.
How far away am I now from The Shade?
The thought sent shivers down my spine. It felt like the submarine was still moving.

Now what?

Gathering my bound ankles and wrists together, I inched closer to the wall until my back was against it. I stared around the bare room. Fluorescent light strips glowed above me. Everything around me appeared to be made of steel—the door, the walls, the bed frame—giving the cabin a pristine feel. As depressing as it looked, I couldn’t fault the hunters for their hygiene. The room almost felt like… an operating room.

What did these hunters want with me? I didn’t understand it. When one of them had spotted me in the waves and pulled me aboard his boat, I’d expected him to try to kill me, same as had happened during my last encounter with the hunters. I had been hit by one of their bullets. I likely would’ve died if not for Ben saving me. But now they wanted to keep me alive.
What for?

As the cobwebs of sleep lifted from me, I realized what had brought me to consciousness. I needed to pee.
Great.
I scanned the room. Aside from the main door, there was another narrow one that led to a cramped bathroom. Using the toilet with my hands and feet bound like this would be no easy feat. I rolled off the bed, hitting the floor with a grimace. At least I’d managed to land on my side and avoided banging my head too badly. Stretching out my legs and arms, I crawled to the bathroom and awkwardly went about my business.

As I was drying my hands, a key clicked in the front door. Dropping the towel, I froze. The door swung open. In stepped a tall, wiry man clad in black pants and a long black polo shirt. His short-cropped, coal-black hair accentuated his pale complexion, and his face was just as narrow and angular as the rest of his body. With a shadow of stubble around his jawline, he appeared to be quite young—I would have guessed in his early thirties. I recognized this man. I’d caught sight of him on the speedboat as the other hunters had carried me as a prisoner to the lower deck.

Clutched in one of his hands was a small, silver gun, and in the other was a syringe. He eyed me before gesturing toward the bed. “Take a seat, please,” he said.

I remained glued to my spot. “Why did you take me?” I asked, my throat feeling drier than the Sahara desert.

“Take a seat,” he repeated calmly.

He didn’t have the build of a soldier or a fighter—he had more the build of a scientist—but despite the slightness of his physique, there was something imposing about his demeanor. I didn’t want to test his willingness to use his gun.

In my move to obey, I forgot that my feet were tied. I tripped and fell, my elbows grazing the metal floor. He tucked the syringe into his pocket, though he kept hold of the gun as he moved to my side. His free hand grabbed my shoulder and he tugged me upward. As he helped me toward the bed, his grip was surprisingly strong.

Once I was seated on the thin mattress, he stepped away and retrieved the syringe from his pocket.

“Are you going to kill me?” I blurted, wincing internally at how stupid and desperate the question was.

He shook his head, even as he reached out and pressed the end of the gun against my neck.

“Not if you cooperate,” he said. “You’re too interesting a specimen to kill.”

He positioned the needle against my right wrist. I flinched at the sharp prick. I expected him to inject me with some other kind of tranquilizer, but this time, he didn’t seem to be injecting anything into me at all. Rather, he was withdrawing blood. Once the syringe was filled, he pulled it from my flesh. Reaching into his pocket, he removed a piece of crisp white tissue which he rolled around the needle. Then he backed away, his gun still aimed at me.

“Then why did you try to kill me before?” I persisted.

He raised a brow. “Before?”

“In Egypt, in the Sahara desert,” I said. “You had men stationed there, and the moment they realized I wasn’t human, they attacked me.”

“Ah, Egypt,” he said, nodding his head. “That would explain it. The training of our troops there isn’t yet complete, and they’re not proficient in distinguishing the varying… degrees of vampirism.”

He reached the door and twisted the handle.

“Wait!” I called. “Before you leave, at least tell me what you want with me.”

The corners of his mouth twitched upward in a quick, artificial smile. “You’ll find out soon.”

I
was
on edge every moment that hunter remained in the room with River. As he raised his gun to her before taking a sample of her blood, I was terrified that he was going to kill her. I still couldn’t be certain the man was telling the truth about not wishing to kill her, but the hunters’ actions so far indicated it to be true. Back in Egypt, after we had first escaped from The Oasis, the hunters’ tracking device had picked up on River. They had opened fire because they had just assumed that she was a vampire and hadn’t even given her a chance to explain herself. I wondered if this was the first time that this group of hunters had come across a half-blood. From the intense look of interest in this hunter’s eyes as he looked at River, I guessed that it was.

But whatever they claimed to want to do, or not do, to River, I couldn’t bring myself to believe that their intentions in capturing her were anything but sinister.

After he left the room, River became less tense. She leaned back against the wall again. He still had not unbound her, and it pained me to see how uncomfortable she was beginning to get, being so restricted in her movement. I moved to the wall opposite her and sank down to the floor, my knees bent. I stared at her, recalling her last dream that I’d managed to enter. She must’ve been wondering where all these random dreams involving me were coming from.

As I’d kissed her in her last dream, I’d been tempted to tell her the truth about what I was, what I had become. She might not even believe it if I told her that I was a ghost—she might discount it as just a stupid dream. But after she’d already witnessed the validity of the previous dream she’d had involving me, I doubted she would dismiss it quite so easily, no matter how hard my words were to accept.

I would sit her down in a future dream and start from the beginning. Tell her everything that had happened to me since I sent her away with Corrine… But now wasn’t the time. I couldn’t drop that kind of bombshell on her when she was still a captive of these hunters, with no idea what their true intentions were for her. Right now, the only thing I had to set my mind on was figuring out how to help her escape.

If I was to have any chance of saving her, I had to discover where they were taking her. At the moment, the only plan I had was to find out their destination, then return to The Shade and try to get through to someone via a dream. A witch would need to come to save River—it would be too dangerous a task for anyone else… except perhaps for the dragons, but they were too large and cumbersome for this kind of task. I wanted someone who could appear and swipe River discreetly, without causing a huge commotion and turning the mission into a fiery massacre.

I had already briefly explored the submarine, but I hadn’t been able to figure out from any of the hunters’ conversations exactly where we were headed. So right now, there was nothing I could do but sit and wait with River until we arrived at the hunters’ destination.

River let out a deep sigh and leaned her head back against the wall. She stared up at the ceiling, her throat stretched and exposed. I moved toward her and, hovering my hands over the mattress on either side of her, I leaned down and kissed her open neck. At least, I tried to kiss it.

I moved away from her and returned to my previous spot on the floor. I watched River for the next several hours like she was a movie. I took in every expression that crossed her face, her movements as she tossed and turned on the bed in an attempt to find a comfortable position. Eventually, she curled up beneath the blanket and closed her eyes. Taking her cue, I closed my own and I prepared myself to walk into another one of her dreams. It took a few hours, but eventually one came along…

The sounds of chattering and clinking cutlery filled my ears. A joyful scene unfolded before me—a cozy dining room, filled with people sitting around a long table. River—wearing a pretty blue dress, her long hair flowing down her back and shoulders—was sitting surrounded by her immediate family—Nadia, Lalia, Dafne, Jamil… and a man I was certain was her father. I could see similarities in his features to River’s, and Jamil wasn’t far from a spitting image of him. Her father’s face looked worse for wear—I didn’t know his exact age, but I was certain that he looked older than he was—while the rest of his appearance was smart and crisp. He wore a formal suit and his gray-speckled hair was neatly swept back.

Further up the table were humans I’d never met or seen before. Perhaps they were friends or more relatives. As I moved toward the table, River spotted me, her eyes growing wide with surprise. She smiled and leapt up from her chair. Grabbing my hand, she requested Lalia and everyone else to move up a seat to make room for me next to her.

Her face was radiant as I stood with her. She leaned closer to me and, reaching a hand to my face, pressed her lips against my cheek. I didn’t even have time to respond before she cleared her throat and looked around the table. Her right hand slipped into mine and squeezed it tight.

“This is Ben,” she announced. Her gaze fell on the tall wiry man sitting next to Jamil—her father. Remo was his name, if I remembered correctly.

River was breathless with excitement, her eyes sparkling as she looked from her family and friends to me.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I said, my voice slightly hoarse as I eyed the strangers.

River’s father stood up and reached his hand across the table for me to shake. I gripped it. He flashed me a smile, nodding approvingly. Nadia looked fondly at me, and all the others greeted me with similar warmth.

Then River raised her left hand—which till now had been hidden, tucked in the folds of her dress. Gasps swept around the room. She was wearing a delicate silver ring, encrusted with an emerald-green gem.

“You got engaged?” Lalia blurted through a mouthful of pie, gazing in awe at River’s ring.

River beamed and nodded, her turquoise eyes meeting mine. My voice caught in my throat.

“When are you getting married?” Dafne asked from across the table.

River faltered. She ran a tongue over her lower lip and glanced at me tentatively. “We… We’re not sure yet.” Everyone’s gaze turned on me, as though they were expecting me to answer the question.

I was lost for words. An ache filled my chest and suddenly, I couldn’t even bear to look River in the eye.

I
opened my eyes
. The harsh lights of the cabin returned. I glanced at River. She was still asleep on the mattress, continuing her dream without me. Though a slight frown now marred her face.

I didn’t know why I felt so shaken by the dream, but I hadn’t been able to stand remaining in it a moment longer. I stood up and began pacing the room, my mind agitated, an ache still in my chest. What had disturbed me about it so much? River had been holding my hand. I had felt her lips against my cheek. I’d been touching her. I should’ve wanted to stay in that dream for as long as it lasted, and yet I hadn’t been able to leave soon enough.

After several minutes of prowling, my emotions began to unravel.

Since becoming a ghost, I had barely thought beyond a few days into my future. I’d just been trying to take things one step at a time. Leave Cruor, find a way back into the human realm, find The Shade… And then when I’d arrived on the island, my mind had been immediately consumed by the chaos that was going on—Jeramiah’s plan to finish off my parents and grandfather. Then River had been taken by the hunters. I’d followed her and until now, the time I’d spent on this submarine had been filled with nothing but anxiety over her predicament—a predicament that I was ultimately responsible for.

The scene that I had just witnessed in River’s dream… It should’ve been one of the most ecstatic moments of my life. But it had been nothing but torture. Like someone twisting a screwdriver through my heart.

And it came like a splash of ice-cold water. Experiencing that scene so vividly, as if it had actually been happening, had sent my mind and emotions into a tailspin.

Meeting River’s friends and relatives. The ring. Being engaged to River. It was everything that would never happen. A moment that River and I would never share.

A glimpse of a life that we would never lead.

For Christ’s sake, I’m a ghost. A damned-to-hell ghost.

I could never be with River. I
would
never be with River. Dreams like that were nothing but a torment for the both of us. When I’d first walked into the dream, the scene had appeared to be a regular family reunion, and if River had not spotted me, I doubted that it would’ve taken the turn that it had. I guessed that her fantasy would have revolved more around having her father present—presumably out of jail—and all of her family sitting together around one table. It was only my deciding to intercept her dream that caused it to morph into something torturous.

I gazed at River’s face, which now bore a clear expression of disappointment. Disappointment that I’d abandoned her, no doubt. Maybe she even took my leaving as a rejection.

I found myself drifting out of her cabin and into the empty corridor. Sitting on the floor, I stared unfocused at the opposite wall.

I didn’t know what would ultimately become of me—I didn’t possess the emotional fortitude to think of it right now—but there was one thing I knew for certain: I had to stop haunting River’s dreams. It was utterly selfish. I had to limit myself to only entering her dreams if there was something that I urgently needed to communicate to her. And even then, I couldn’t give in to the urge to turn it into a love scene by kissing or embracing her. In fact, I ought to refrain even from touching her.

In the meantime, I would keep my promise.

I would stay with River for as long as she needed me. And, with all that I had, I would fight to bring her back to safety.