Ageless (20 page)

Rose looked uncertain. Then she
reached out and touched a symbol on Violet’s collarbone. The touch
chilled Violet to her core. “
This symbol.
As you conjure in your mind what you want to do, focus your energy
on this symbol and push it toward Jeremiah. It’s a symbol of
protection
.”

Violet was relieved. This visit
wasn’t going to be a total waste of time. “Thank you,” she
said.

Rose nodded. “
You don’t really need help. If you are the one, you will know
what to do when the time comes
.”

“What does that mean?” Violet
asked.

Rose only shook her head and then
she brought her hands up. “
Goodbye,
Violet. May you find your way. Tell them both that I miss
them
.” Then she said a few words under her
breath and Violet felt herself rammed back out through the bubble
between realities and into her body.

She gasped and felt Jonah and Margo
each holding an arm which was spread out wide at her side. Jonah’s
eyes were tight. The screams were coming almost continually now,
and they ripped at her.

“Let’s go,” she said.

It was like the house appeared out of a dream as it
rose before her. She felt like she had been there before. She had
the feeling that she was coming home. At the end of the tunnel, she
found herself on the far side of a circular drive that had a small
fountain in the middle. She noticed that no water flowed from
it.

The house itself was a rose-colored
plantation home. Magnolia trees framed it on all sides, and it was
an idyllic picture in the middle of the isolated landscape.
Although still exceeding lovely, the house had a look of neglect
that pained her. Four identical columns rose from the long porch
that ran the entire length of the front of the house. Tall windows
were on both sides of a large red door. Above the door, Violet
could see a large transom window that perfectly framed a large
chandelier that she could see inside the foyer.

When Jeremiah’s screams suddenly
stopped, Violet felt a sense of urgency pull it out of her
admiration for the house. “Where are they?” she asked Jonah, who
had stepped to her side.

Jonah cocked his ear and raised his
nose in the air. “I smell blood; a lot of it. But I don’t think
it’s coming from the house.” He swung his head side to side,
sniffing, and Violet tried to not to notice how creepy the gesture
was. Slowly his head turned to his left. “There used to be an old
barn on the back side of the house about fifty feet away. If I had
to guess, I think they’re there.”

Violet gulped. “Okay, so here’s the
plan. You guys deal with any vampires that Elysa brought along to
stop us. I’ll try to unravel any magic that she left behind and
then we’ll all go after Elysa.”

“You sure you can do this, Vi?”
Margo asked.

Violet hated to hear the doubt in
Margo’s voice, but she didn’t blame her friend. She wasn’t sure
herself how she was going to do what she just said she was going to
do either, but she had to believe what both Rose and Jeremiah told
her. If she was the one, her instinct would tell her what to do.
She just had to keep herself open.

“I have to,” she said simply. No
matter what she thought about the entire situation, she knew one
thing for certain. She was unwilling to let any harm come to
Jeremiah. She would do whatever was necessary to save him, just
like he had promised to do for her.

Violet closed her eyes and let her
mind reach out. She slowly lifted her hands in front of her,
feeling a bit silly, but said “
Traps
” in her mind. She wasn’t sure
what would happen, but it was like an X-ray lit up. She could see
the outlines of the house and fountain in front of her. She turned
her face toward the left, down the path that Jonah said would lead
them to the barn. Here she saw patches of red energy lighting up
the darkness at intervals along the way.

“There are more traps on the path,”
she said out loud. She focused on the idea of removing them. She
felt warm and her skin tingled as she imagined unraveling the
threads that held the traps in place. It was easier than she
expected. She let out a small cry of delight as she watched the
first one vanish. Then she felt the unexpected rush of energy back
in to her body. Her eyes fluttered open and she could feel that her
ability had somehow increased.

“
I can do this,” she breathed.
“Just let me go first, and watch my back.”

Closing her eyes once again, Violet
took tentative steps toward the path, letting the image in her mind
guide her. She saw the next trap and started to unravel it. It took
only a minute, and then she was onto the next one. With each one,
she felt the same small rush of energy as she absorbed the magic
that was holding the trap in place, and with each one she felt
herself growing stronger. Moments later, she could see the barn
outlined completely in red. She put up her hands up to stop Jonah
and Margo and opened her eyes. The barn rose before them. It
appeared so dilapidated that it looked like it could fall over at
any moment. She didn’t need magical abilities to feel the evil that
permeated the air from inside it.

“Jonah,” she whispered. “The whole
thing is booby-trapped with magic. I don’t see a way
in.”

Jonah swore under his breath.

“How could she have done that?”
Margo asked. “Elysa doesn’t have any magical abilities.”

Violet’s brow creased as she
thought about Margo’s words. “She had help. If this is truly a
mystical place then it’s possible.”

Margo gasped. Jonah looked
mortified. “We lived here for a hundred years. Yes, we always
sensed that other place, but we never experienced anything like
that,” he said.

“Jeremiah said the fabric between
the worlds is thin here. Maybe you and Jeremiah weren’t what it was
interested in.” Violet remembered the dark voice that had tried to
get her to open up to it. There was something here that Jeremiah
had missed. “Jeremiah was so focused on Elysa that he missed
looking for anyone else who would have had an agenda against him.
If Elysa had a partner, someone who could harness magic, then it
makes perfect sense that we got blindsided.”

For the first time since setting
foot on the Montrose property, Violet felt afraid. Then an angry
shriek filled the air and two hulking forms materialized out of
thin air from either side of the barn, barreling straight at them.
Violet only saw monstrous faces with gleaming fangs in the
moonlight. Violet watched in awe as Jonah and Margo sprang into
action.

Margo leapt straight up in the air
and landed a solid kick against the one on her side, sending the
man flying backward. Jonah jumped right up into the other vampire’s
face and landed a punch that sent the man’s jaw spinning almost
completely around. Violet was preparing to pull some of her energy
to help when she saw the barn door in front of her slide open.
Elysa stepped into view.

Violet was unprepared for seeing
the deterioration of Elysa’s face. It was like the woman had aged
the full hundred years that she had been undead. The only reason
that Violet still recognized her was the outfit and the glaring
blue eyes. At that moment, Violet was certain that Elysa had made a
deal with the devil, and paying her end of the bargain had cost her
the one thing that she had been so desperate to
preserve.

Elysa cocked her head toward the inside of the barn
and then stepped back inside out of view. The intent of the gesture
was evident. She was inviting Violet in. As the fighting continued
on either side of her, Violet felt herself moving forward. Even
though she knew it was a trap, she had no choice.

She saw more shadows race from the
edges of the barn back behind her, and she hoped that Jonah and
Margo could handle themselves. It seemed that Elysa had stacked the
fight in her favor, which wasn’t unexpected. The grunts and thuds
she heard behind her said the fight raged on. She wished them luck.
But she was focused on just one thing: finding Jeremiah.

As she edged closer to the barn,
she was overwhelmed by a strong coppery smell that she knew all too
well after her experience in Mike’s house, which seemed like years
ago, even though it had just been a few days: blood, lots of it.
She hoped she wasn’t too late.

She found herself standing just
outside the barn door. Her senses tingled, flagging warnings that
she knew she was going to ignore. She could feel the powerful spell
that encompassed the massive structure. She didn’t know how she
knew but she did; it was old and powerful magic. She felt wholly
unprepared for what she was about to face, but there was no one
else to do it but her. So Violet stepped inside. Instantly she felt
a different energy than her own close the opening behind her. Even
though the door was open, she knew that she would not be able to
escape. Not unless the spell was broken.

She heard her name called from
somewhere outside. Jonah had taken notice of her absence and was
looking for her. But she couldn’t worry about him. She saw only the
scene in front of her, and she wondered at that moment if this day
was going to mark her birthday and her death.

The barn was entombed in darkness
except for a large circle of candles in the middle of the room. The
ground was drenched with red liquid and she could see that it was
dripping into the circle in almost continuous streams from above.
As her eyes followed those streams back up to their source, she
gasped. Jeremiah hung upside down, being held in place by thick
black metal chains. His whole body appeared to be a mass of red.
She couldn’t see an inch of his skin that hadn’t been flayed open.
His eyes were closed. She had no idea if he still
conscious.

“The cool thing is, vampires heal
rather quickly, so as long as I give him a little bit of time, I’ll
be able to start my fun all over again.” Elysa’s voice seemed to be
everywhere at once and Violet covered her ears with her hands. “But
now I have a new toy to play with. Welcome, Violet.”

“Show yourself,” Violet said,
trying to locate the source of Elysa’s voice. Laughter was the only
response. She was afraid to close her eyes to use her magic X-ray
vision, but Elysa was leaving her with little choice. “So you got
dumped. So what? Don’t you think taking things to this extreme is a
bit pathetic?”

The laughter stopped. “What do you
know about love? You’re an infant. Surely you don’t think that
you’d be able to keep the attention of a man who has lived for
centuries, do you?” the voice mocked. “And if you think that you
can possibly control that little bit of power that you’ve managed
to wield, you are going to have a rude awakening.”

Elysa’s words stung. It was like
the vampire knew that the easiest way to dig at her would be to
poke at Violet’s self-esteem.

“I may only be eighteen years old,
but I know more about life than you ever could,” Violet retorted.
“I don’t wallow in the past and try to change things that can’t be
changed. You tricked Jonah into turning you into a vampire just so
you could go after Jeremiah. It’s girls like you that have always
given women a bad name.”

Elysa appeared in front of her and
swiped at Violet’s face. Even though Violet’s body had been coiled
like a spring ready for an attack, she still wasn’t ready. She felt
Elysa’s nails dig into the soft, meaty part of her cheek. Violet
cried out and brought her arm up just barely in time to deflect the
follow-up blow. The impact though on her forearm caused her to
wince and stumble backwards. Elysa advanced on her, murder in her
eyes.

“No smart words now, eh?” Elysa
said.

“How did you cast the spells?”
Violet asked. She had to find out the source of Elysa’s newfound
skills. “There’s no chance you did this by yourself.”

“Easier than you think when you
have the right friends,” Elysa said with a shrug.

“Are your friends here with you
now?” Violet asked, dreading the answer.

“You’ll find out soon enough. But
Jeremiah? He will never leave me again.” Elysa shot a glare up at
Jeremiah. “Not over my dead body.”

Violet put her hand over the symbol by her
collarbone, the one that Rose had pointed out to her, and she sent
all the energy she could into pushing it to Jeremiah. It felt like
a slight ripping sensation as it fell away from her, and she
stumbled backwards before she could catch herself. Then she whipped
her head up and focused on unraveling the chains that held him
suspended in the air.

She heard the chains clatter and
give way and then a crash. She knew that even though she had
managed to protect him from any further harm at Elysa’s hands, she
wasn’t able to save him from the fall when she released the chains.
She couldn’t slam a protection spell into place around herself
before she felt tendrils of energy wrap themselves around her and
yank her onto her tiptoes.

“My friend is very interested in
the energy that you are able to wrangle up, sweetie,” Elysa said
with a small amount of respect in her eyes. “Ya know, I thought I
was the vampire in the relationship, but I think she’s going to
suck you dry.”

Violet’s eyes widened. When she had
absorbed the energy from the traps outside, she never considered
the possibility that someone else would be able to do the same to
her. She tried to struggle against the magical bonds holding her,
but they were so tight that she could feel them starting to cut off
the circulation in her arms and legs.