A Shade of Vampire 31: A Twist of Fates (15 page)

As if this discovery wasn’t odd enough, I realized they had wings protruding from the backs of their shoulders.

My jaw dropped.

Who are these men?

“
W
ho are you
?” I whispered.

They frowned at me. “Who are you?” the nearest boy asked, his dark brows low over his aquamarine eyes.

I supposed that I could trust them with my identity. I doubted they were involved with the IBSI. “My name’s Lawrence. Lawrence Conway. I’m, uh, kind of human.”

“I’m Field,” the boy said. “And this is Fly, Sky, Rock and Blue.” He gestured to the boys behind him, from right to left. All of them were around the same height—all of them had long hair, too. Blue, I noted, was the only boy with blue eyes.

What strange names
. “You are… what are you?”

Field gestured to his wings. Black, feathery wings.

“Part Hawk, part vampire,” he replied. “Or so we’ve been told.”

“Are you brothers?”

He shrugged again. “You could say that.”

A weird response. “Where were you born?”

“In those brown buildings nearby. We never met our parents. Two harpy sisters were the closest we ever had to them. They named and raised us. Then we roamed all over the supernatural dimension trying to find out who we were, and look for our real parents…”

The penny dropped. They were products of the IBSI’s hybrid experimentation. They must have been born at least partly with the help of a half-blood… though they were able to grow up. Half-bloods didn’t age. I supposed that was either the Hawk genes’ influence, or maybe some more human genes were thrown in the mix. Who knew how the IBSI did these things.

“And you’ve lived here for how long?” I asked.

“We don’t know exactly,” Field replied. “Years. We returned here since… well, it’s the closest we have to home.”

Years…
I glanced around their chamber again. It was hard to believe that they had lived for years like this, in hardly better conditions than animals.

“What are you here for anyway?” Rock asked, cocking his head to one side. Rock was a blond boy with a splash of freckles across his nose.

“I had a run-in with the IBSI,” I said. “I needed shelter. I found your tunnel.”

“We try to stay away from them too,” Blue said knowingly.

“So what’s your plan?” Sky, a brown-haired boy, asked.

I glanced down at the phone in my hands. I should try to call Ben again. But otherwise… “I’m not sure… Do you mind if I take a seat?”

“Go ahead,” Field said. All five of them sat down on their sleeping bags, crossing their legs.

I examined my feet, still freezing cold. At least they would dry in here.

I tried dialing my phone number. Still nobody picked up, but it didn’t go through to voicemail this time, which gave me a glimmer of hope. Perhaps the environment of the phone had changed. Or it had been set to a different mode. That would mean that Ben—or someone in The Shade—likely still had it. I had to keep trying every half hour to get through. I checked the battery indicator and gulped. It was hovering rather low. I switched it off to save the power for when I really needed it.

So what do I do in the meantime?
I had the IBSI hunting for me outside. My father would put every effort into tracking me down. The only place I would be safe would be back in The Shade. That was the only place that was untouchable by the IBSI…

I found myself eyeing the wings of the bird boys curiously.

“Have you ever heard of The Shade?” I asked them.

They shook their heads.

“It’s a haven for supernaturals. An island protected by witches. Many, many different types of creatures live there together. Safe and well cared for.” I paused, weighing my next words. “I’m pretty sure that you would be welcome there too.”
Especially if you could get me back there. “
You can fly, can’t you?”

From the spark in their eyes, their interest had been piqued, but they looked doubtful.

Field demonstrated his flight for me. He spread his wings and flew, rising up toward the high ceiling of the cave. “Yes,” he said, landing.

“Where is the island exactly?” Sky asked.

“Well, that’s kind of the problem. I don’t have access to that information right now.” I tightened my grip around the phone in my hand nervously. “But I have a way of contacting them. The first step would be to get as far away from here as possible. I can’t promise you that we would reach The Shade but, unless you would be content living in this cave for the rest of your lives, I don’t think you’ve exactly got much to lose… No offense.”

Field turned to the others. “What do you guys think?”

As they huddled round to talk, I moved to the other end of the room, not wanting to invade their space. They had no reason to trust me. I was just some random guy who showed up in their cave. But, as I had pointed out, they could hardly be much worse off. They had wings and I did not. I wasn’t exactly a danger to them.

Apparently coming to such conclusions themselves, their conversation was fairly short.

“Lawrence,” Field spoke up. “We’ll try it.”

“But what’s the plan
exactly
?” Sky asked.

“As I said, we need to get away from here. We should head to the nearest town or city—a good distance away from the IBSI’s base. Along the way I’ll keep trying to reach my contact in The Shade… If I can get through, then it should be very easy for us to travel the rest of the journey. One of the witches could come to collect us.”

“Okay…” Field said slowly.

“Then let’s go?” Rock said.

“Let’s go,” I replied firmly, even as my jaw tensed.

I hoped that these Hawks could fly fast. We also had to move extremely cautiously, fly low to the ground if necessary. We couldn’t afford to get spotted by the mutants who would be roaming this area in droves by now.

My father was probably expecting to find me within the next few hours.

He hadn’t been counting on me finding wings of my own…

U
pon my return
to The Tavern, and none of us having any clear direction of where to head next, we decided to return to Earth. Not to The Shade, yet, but to the small island that held the portal we most frequented—Rose and Caleb’s island.

We zoomed out of the old well and landed in the jungle undergrowth before forming a circle where we sat in silence and thought.
Where do we possibly go from here?
I had the experience of coming across seemingly impossible luck in the supernatural dimension before, but this mission had been so far-fetched that we really couldn’t have expected anything to come from it. And in truth, we hadn’t. It had been desperation leading us forward—where else could we have gone but the supernatural realm when searching for those Hawk kids?

“Well, we can’t just give up,” Lucas muttered, rubbing his forehead grumpily.

No. We cannot give up. But until we get some idea of…

Everyone started as a shrill ringing sounded. It took me a second to realize that it was coming from my back pocket. Lawrence’s phone. A light, sleek, top-of-the-range smartphone. I had forgotten that I still carried it with me.

Fumbling to draw it out of my pocket, I checked the screen. The number was unrecognized.

I accepted the call and pressed it to my ear. “Hello?”

“Ben?” a British voice hollered down the line. In the background was what sounded like some kind of busy highway. Vehicles zooming past.

“Lawrence?” I gasped, leaping to my feet.

“Oh, thank God,” the voice replied. “I’ve been trying to get through to you for hours!”

“Y-You are Lawrence? H-How? You’re supposed to be dead!”

“I’m not dead,” he roared back. “I can explain it to you, but not now. I’m running out of credit. And money isn’t exactly something that we’re loaded with right now. I need you to come and get me, take me back to The Shade. As fast as you can.”

“Okay!” I stammered, even as I wondered what he meant by “we”—or perhaps I had just misheard with the noisy background. “Where are you?”

He rattled off an address… a Canadian address. I punched it into the smartphone.

“You got that right?” he asked.

I repeated it to him, and he confirmed that I had recorded it correctly.

“Okay,” he said, sighing heavily in relief before repeating, “Please, come as soon as you can.”

“We will,” I promised him. “We will.”

As I hung up the phone, I was still feeling stunned. I gazed around at the other gaping faces. But there was no time to answer the questions now.

“Ibrahim,” I said. “You need to take all of us back to The Shade, and then you need to go and fetch Lawrence. He is alive! I have the address of the bridge he’ll be waiting under.”

And so it was done. Everybody leapt to their feet and huddled around Ibrahim, and the next thing we knew, we were back at The Shade’s Port. I handed Ibrahim the address along with the phone. In case Lawrence tried to make contact again, it was best that Ibrahim kept it with him.

Then Ibrahim vanished in a flash.

One would have thought that by now, after all the events that had gone on in my life, I would have become somewhat immune to surprises. People coming back from the dead, and such.

But life still always found a way of surprising me, even in the darkest of times. Life always found a way…

As the majority of our group made our way to the hospital, we had all decided to wait there until Lawrence arrived. Maybe he would bring some good news for us. Some long-awaited good news.

Arriving at the hospital entrance and hurrying up to Grace’s room, I hesitated by the door for a moment—steeling myself, as had become a habit—before pushing it open and allowing everyone inside.

The room was, in fact, much the same as when I had left it. Except that it was emptier. Orlando and River were the only visitors in here. Orlando had been sitting in a chair, staring blankly at the opposite wall, while River had been sitting in a similar kind of daze, close to Grace’s cage but not close enough for our daughter to swipe at her.
And our daughter.
My eyes moved to her trapped within her prison. She seemed to have quieted a bit—perhaps her voice had gotten sore from all the screeching she had been doing. But as our group entered, we brought about another whole wave of complaints from her. It must’ve been all the fresh and interesting blood coming into the room.

I moved to River. Slipping my arms around her waist, I hugged her before kissing her lips. She didn’t even ask whether we’d been successful or not. She could read me like a book. She had already sensed that we hadn’t been. I did have at least some good news to share with her… and with Orlando, who seemed to be particularly concerned about my daughter’s plight. Good of him, considering he and Grace were still very new acquaintances.

“Lawrence made contact,” I announced. “Ibrahim has gone to fetch him. He’ll be arriving anytime soon.”

River’s face fell in shock.

“B-But Lawrence is dead! We saw his corpse on the television!”

My expression darkened. “Whatever was shown on the television was a hoax. I have no idea what Atticus was hoping to gain by playing such a game, but he is alive. Trust me, he is alive.”

He must’ve escaped somehow from his father. How he’d managed that was certainly a story that I was looking forward to hearing.

“I wonder if he has discovered something,” Vivienne suggested.

“Let’s hope you wonder right,” my father muttered.

I hardly took my eyes off the clock as the time passed. I watched five minutes slip away, then ten minutes, and then… then I heard voices outside the door. Rushing to it, I ripped it open and literally yelled at the sight waiting for me outside.

Ibrahim stood alongside five long-haired young men—all of them tall and sturdy looking. Wings hung from the backs of their shoulder blades, their faces pale like half-bloods.

Ibrahim’s face was flushed with relief. “Meet our new residents of The Shade.”

Life always finds a way, indeed.

A
fter finally getting
through to Ben, I wiped the sweat from my brow and returned to my companions, crouching down beneath the bridge. They looked up at me expectantly as I approached. I nodded.

“Finally reached him,” I murmured.

Then all we could do was wait. It had been a long ride from the mountains, and as soon as we’d reached a town and felt we were a safe enough distance away to stop, we had to figure out how to get some money because the hunter’s phone battery had died by then. I’d ended up pretending to be a beggar. Borrowing one of the bird boys’ scruffy caps, I put it on me and slumped down on the floor outside a twenty-four-hour store. A couple dropped me a few dollars within ten minutes. We were in business.

We’d located a pay phone on a bridge-cum-highway. I had told Benjamin to look for us beneath the bridge because standing on a busy road was asking for trouble. The amount of time I had already been forced to spend up there when using the pay phone had been risky enough.

Ibrahim arrived swiftly, thank heavens. The bird boys eyed him curiously as Ibrahim landed. But far less curiously than Ibrahim eyed them. I frowned at Ibrahim, bewildered, as his jaw hit the floor.

“Oh, my God!” he cried, blinking as though he could hardly believe his eyes. “Y-You you found them! You found them!”

“Sorry?”
I found whom exactly?

Ibrahim still looked so shocked, he could hardly string a sentence together.

Clutching my shoulder, he said, “Let’s just get you all back to The Shade!”

* * *

I
brahim magicked
to us straight to Meadow Hospital. We arrived in a vaguely familiar hallway. I was sure I had once wheeled down this hallway with Grace chasing after me, worrying that I would strain myself.

Grace.

“How is Grace?” I began to ask, but Ibrahim shook his head.

“You’ll see. Follow me.”

He stopped outside a door and knocked. It was Benjamin who opened it. He displayed exactly the same shock as Ibrahim, though a bit more audibly. His eyes transfixed on the bird boys.

“How? What?” he stammered before beckoning us all inside, even as he continued to stare at the boys.

Gasps swept around the room as we emerged, everybody shooting to their feet. I gazed around at the semi-familiar faces. I was unable to see the bed with everyone standing.

Everybody was so focused on the bird boys that they barely even noticed me back from the dead. Which suited me. I was dying to see Grace. But as I moved toward the bed, it was empty… and then, as the crowd shifted toward the entrance of the room to gather around the boys, my eyes fell on a sight that cut me to the core.

Grace thrashed against some kind of magic semi-transparent bars.

I stared at the creature in horror, for who else could this be but Grace?

She had transformed completely. She had become practically androgynous. Just like the other Bloodless. Her hair and nails were gone. Her beautiful turquoise eyes had turned a gleaming black. I had come too late.

I had failed her.

Even now, I still had not discovered the cure.

Maybe it was just my imagination, but she seemed to grow somewhat excited. She started thrashing harder. But that was probably just because of my blood, drawing so close to her.

I felt torn apart.

“Grace,” I breathed, having no idea if she could understand me in the slightest. “I am so sorry. I am so, so sorry.”

I knelt on the floor near her, unable to concentrate on the conversation going on behind me. I sat there gazing at her for several minutes before Benjamin called me over.

“Hey, Lawrence. Come here.”

Tearing my eyes away from Grace, I crossed the room to her father.

I didn’t understand why his expression was so light when his daughter was writhing around as a monster in a cage.

“Do you have any idea who these young gentlemen are?” he said, positively beaming. “Who you have just brought to us?”

I glanced over the boys and shrugged. “Only what they’ve told me—which I suspect they’ve also just told you. Right? Specimens, bred in a lab.”
Like, I suspect, many other creatures were by the IBSI.

Ben smiled.

“I think you’ve just saved my daughter.”