Obsessed (Book #12 in the Vampire Journals) (6 page)

As Kyle paced up
the steps of the church, he sensed this was it. He’d been to several churches
in the area, but something told him this would be the right one. The windows were
all boarded up with plywood, and he could sense that evil had visited this
place. He could almost smell the girl in the air.

He found the
door of the church open and scoffed to himself. Warmth and light spilled out of
the crack, sliding down the steps like honey. The beauty of it was lost on
Kyle. The tranquility of church was just something else for him to destroy.
He’d left his teenage vampire army behind to continue the rampage he had
started, and would return for them just as soon as he found out where Scarlet
Paine was.

Kyle barged his
way through the doors, making them screech.

The place was
candlelit. Light danced off the ceiling from the little flames being stirred by
the breeze. The church was mainly empty, but a handful of people were dotted around
in the pews, praying or thumbing through the dog-eared Bibles. They glanced up
at Kyle as he thundered past, bolting down the aisle. Some stood, sensing the
danger like a sixth sense, and made their way out of the church.

Kyle stormed the
stage and stood at the altar, glaring down at the few people left in the pews.

“Where is she?
Where is Scarlet Paine?” he bellowed.

The people who
just moments earlier were basking in the calmness of the church’s atmosphere
were suddenly thrust abruptly back to reality. Kyle reveled in their frightened
gazes.

Some nearer the
doors began running down the aisle and back out into the cool evening, making
the candles quivers as they passed. Those at the front seemed too scared to
move.

Kyle leaned down
and leered in the face of an older gentleman, whose crinkled eyes creased with
terror.

“Where’s Scarlet
Paine?” Kyle demanded.

“I don’t know
who that is,” the old man replied in a cracked, aged voice.

“Who is the
priest here?” Kyle asked.

“Father
McMullen.”

Just then, Kyle
heard a shuffling noise from his right. He looked right and saw the confession
booth. The curtains were drawn.

Leaving the old
man trembling in his seat, Kyle thundered over and ripped the curtain clean off
its rail, the heavy fabric tearing from the force. A little old lady was
sitting in the booth, looking like the last person in the world who had any
sins to confess.

“Don’t hurt me,”
she cried, holding her withered hands up for protection.

Kyle snarled and
ripped the curtain from the other booth. And there sat the priest.

“Father
McMullen,” Kyle stated.

He leaned into
the booth and grabbed the man by his robes. In one fluid movement, he hauled
him out the booth and set him on his feet in front of him. The old woman
scampered away, joining the old man whom Kyle had terrorized moments before.
The two shuffled along the aisle as fast as their old legs could carry them,
crying out in watery voices that they would be calling the police. Kyle
smirked, thinking how little help they would be.

Before him,
Father McMullen trembled. His robe was all bunched up around his ears in Kyle’s
fists.

“Brother,” he
said, “I can help you. Whatever evil lurks within you, you can find redemption
here. God will forgive you.”

Kyle gritted his
teeth.

“It’s not God I
want,” he spat. “It’s the girl. Scarlet Paine.”

A flicker of
recognition passed through Father McMullen’s eyes.

“You know her,”
Kyle stated, catching on immediately.

“I…” the priest
stuttered. “I… do. The girl is troubled. What do you want with her?”

Kyle scoffed.
“Troubled? You can say that again. The girl is monster. A demon. One of Satan’s
angels sent straight to the Earth from Hell.”

Father McMullen
nodded. “I know. She has been to this place.” He gestured to the boarded up
windows. “She was the one who destroyed the windows.” He turned his anguished
gaze back to Kyle. “The same darkness that lurks in her lurks within you too.
But you want to destroy. Why? What do you want with her?”

His eyes were as
round as full moons. Kyle took great delight in the fear he read in them.

He let go of the
priest and smoothed down the front of his robes. Father McMullen stood there
looking dumbfounded, as though torn between whether to speak or run or just
break down and give himself up to the evil that seemed to land on his doorstep.

Kyle smiled and
showed off his incisors.

“Don’t make me
ask again,” he said.

The priest
crossed himself.

“Forgive me,
Holy Father,” he whispered, his fingers skimming across the rosary beads around
his neck. “Forgive me for the sin I am about to commit but you have given me no
signs.”

Tears glittered
in his eyes. Kyle folded his arms impatiently.

Father
McMullen’s face had turned completely white, blanched of all color. He kept
muttering under his breath, begging God to forgive him, to guide him, to not test
his faith in this manner. Finally, he spoke, his words coming out in staccato
sobs.

“The girl’s
mother is looking for her. She will lead you to her.”

The moment the
words left his lips, Father McMullen broke down. He sank to his knees and tears
shuddered through him, making his shoulders shake. Kyle narrowed his eyes,
disgusted in the outpouring.

“Who is the
girl’s mother?” he demanded.

“Her name is
Caitlin Paine,” Father McMullen said, shaking his head, let his tears fall
freely. “She’s a scholar. The last I heard she was going to see a professor
friend in New York City. Aidan. A professor at…Columbia.”

Kyle felt
triumphant. At last, some useful information. A name and a location. A direct
link to Scarlet Paine. Find the mother, find the daughter.

He looked down
at the weeping heap of Father McMullen.

“Well, Father,
you’ve been most helpful,” he said.

He lowered
himself into a crouch and held his hand out to shake Father McMullen’s. The
priest looked up through his tear-stained eyes, his cheeks red and blotchy. His
big, wide eyes bulged out of his bone-white face.

“Come on now,”
Kyle said. “Shake on it, won’t you? You’ve done me a huge favor. I’m sure He up
there is very pleased with your Christian behavior.”

The priest
seemed paralyzed by fear. Finally, he reached out a shaking hand and slipped
the clammy flesh into Kyle’s open palm.

At once, Kyle
tightened his hand around the priest’s, so hard and fast that every bone in the
man’s hand was crushed instantly.
Crack crack crack.
He screamed out in
pain and peered up at Kyle.

“I gave you what
you wanted!” he cried. “Why are you hurting me?”

Kyle looked down
and licked his teeth. With a shrug he said, “Just for fun.”

As he sank his
fangs into Father McMullen’s neck, the church echoed and echoed with his
screams.

Deep
underground, Lore, Octal, and the Immortalists trudged through the debris of
the destroyed castle, heading in the direction of the caves. The smell of
airplane fuel and smoke wafted behind them, a pungent reminder of the ordeal
they had endured.

They reached the
jagged mouth of the dank caves. The silence from within them was thick, almost
tangible. The only sound was the steady trickle of water coming from far away.

A sensation
inside Lore told him that Scarlet and Sage were not to be found. He pushed it
away and gestured for the Immortalists to enter the cave.

“Search
everywhere,” he said, feeling a wave of desperation inside his gullet. “Do not
stop until you find the girl and my cousin.”

The small army
began filing in, weaving past the stalactites that hung from the ceilings. The
rock face was damp and slippery underfoot.

Lore shivered as
he watched them go. It was cold in the caves and there was an eerie vibe, like
the very stone held secrets. Lore started when Octal came up beside him. The
burn on his face looked angry, the skin beneath puckered. The sight of it
turned Lore’s stomach.

“You lead them
well,” Octal said, his transparent eyes locked on Lore’s.

Lore turned his
face away and trained his gaze ahead, squinting through the gloom at the
milling figures.

“I lead them
because someone must,” Lore replied, his comment slightly barbed.

“You’re
disappointed in my leadership?” Octal asked.

Finally, Lore
willed himself to look at him.

“You let them
get away,” he said, his voice cold and curt. “Sage and Scarlet. We had them in
our midst. We had them right where we needed them. And you let them get away.”

Octal loomed
down over Lore, his presence imposing.

“What is meant
to be will be, Lore,” he said, calmly. “It is written in the stars.”

Lore said
nothing. He turned his gaze away again and peered back out at the returning
Immortalists.

“There’s nobody
here,” one of the men said, drawing up in front of Octal and Lore.

Lore had known
it the second he’d stepped foot in the cave. It had been too silent, as silent
as death.

In that moment,
Lore’s frustration reached boiling point. He pummeled his fist against the rock
face. In his anger he was ready to turn on his leader and blame him publicly
for letting Sage slip away. But then another voice broke out, stopping him in
his tracks.

“Wait!” the
voice cried.

Lore looked
behind him, sucking the blood from his bruised fist, and saw a raven-haired
woman with glittering blue eyes. She was beautiful, with the palest skin Lore
had ever seen.

“Look here,” she
said, pointing to the floor.

She was
addressing her words directly to him, not to Octal, and so Lore obeyed. He
frowned and walked over to the woman. He looked at what she was indicating to
him. It was a patch of wet rock and some droplets of blood.

“What is that?”
he muttered beneath his breath.

Lore crouched
down and craned his head to examine the strange image from a different angle.
All at once, the sight of an arrow of blood piercing a heart of tears
materialized before his eyes.

He darted up to
his feet.

“They
were
here,”
he said, addressing the crowd behind him.

The raven-haired
girl looked up at him from her crouched position.

“They must have
escaped,” she said, touching her fingers lightly to the blood splatters. “But
only just. The blood is still warm.”

She held her
hand up to Lore, as though inviting him to feel for himself. He gazed at her
white skin and the crimson red staining her finger tips. He felt a strange
desire to reach out and caress her hand with his. But he fought the feeling
away and, instead of touching the blood, he grasped her hand in his and hauled
her to her feet beside him.

The woman looked
a little flushed, almost as though embarrassed by the way she had invited him
to touch her. Lore didn’t look at her as he spoke.

“Sage is still
alive,” he said.

Octal paced over
and placed a hand firmly on Lore’s shoulder.

“He’s your
cousin,” he said. “You will be able to sense him.”

“Not across the
water,” Lore replied quickly.

The water acted
as a barrier, blocking one being from sensing another. It was why they built
this place on an island in the first place.

But no sooner
had the words left Lore’s lips than another thought struck him.

“Of course!” he
cried, as all the pieces began to fit into place in his mind. “Scarlet took
Sage across the water because that is the only way to stop me from tracking
them.”

The crowds began
to murmur, excited by what the news could mean. That perhaps, at the end of
this fateful night, the girl would be found and sacrificed so that the
Immortalist race could live another day.

A man with bushy
sideburns and thick, dark eyebrows spoke up.

“But that
doesn’t exactly narrow it down, does it?” he said. “We’re surrounded by water
in three directions. There’s no way we’d be able to search the entire ocean for
them.”

Lore nodded and
paced back and forth, wracking his brains. Where would that stupid little
vampire girl take Sage?

He shook his
head, disgusted once again by her human emotions. Love seemed like such an
unpleasant thing to Lore. It certainly had made his cousin stupid.

“Wait,” he said,
finally catching onto something, something that his mother had said. Something
about love. Love and family. “I don’t need to track Sage. I need to track the
girl’s parents. They were trying to get to her too, weren’t they?”

The black-haired
woman narrowed her eyes and tipped her head to the air. “I can smell a human
from a mile away.” She snarled as she spat out the word.

A sinister smile
spread across Lore’s lips.

“Then come with
me,” he said. “Lead us to the parents. And they, in turn, will lead us straight
to their precious daughter.”

The woman
grinned and leaped into the air, darting out of the cave on the current of the
wind. The others followed behind.

Lore followed
them to the mouth of the cave, but stopped on the precipice. He looked down at
the swirling waves, then up to the stream of Immortalists illuminated by the
moonlight. It was a beautiful sight. He smiled to himself, realizing that the
human weakness for love and emotion was to be their downfall. The Immortalists
would live forever. They would reign over the Earth. 

“Didn’t I tell
you?” Octal’s voice came from beside him. “Our destiny is written in the stars.
What is meant to be will be.”

Lore looked left
at the great leader, standing so tall and noble. Despite the scars running down
his face, he still had poise and dignity. He was everything Lore wanted to be one
day.

“You were
right,” Lore said. “And I was foolish to question you.”

Octal nodded,
satisfied, and began to pace away.

“Wait,” Lore
said, feeling panic bloom in his chest. “Aren’t you going to fly with us
tonight?”

Octal turned
back and looked Lore up and down.

“I believe this
is your battle to lead, Lore,” he said. “I know you won’t let me down.”

Lore swallowed
and watched as his leader disappeared into the shadows. He looked back up at
the black sky, and the shapes of the Immortalists gliding through it. Power
surged through him as he accepted that they were now his army to lead. Tonight,
he would lead them into battle. Tonight, they would be victorious.