Witchcraft (#2 Witchblood Series) (23 page)

‘
Brittany, what have you done? I
don’t feed from humans… I haven’t yet anyway. I mean I was going to
start but then….’ I trailed off, not knowing what to say or do. A
part of me deep inside was exceptionally worried about the scene
before me, but the vampire struggling to survive was snarling and
snapping, waiting to get out.

‘
Jess, I’m sorry. I looked
everywhere I could think of without getting caught, but I couldn’t
find any blood packs anywhere. I overheard one of Cole’s men saying
Cole is on his way back. He has talked his way out of whatever the
Council were asking him about and he’s coming to deal with you. We
don’t have much time, so that’s when I thought of Amir. He’s a
feeder Jess, he knows what he’s doing, he’ll help you… and he knows
how to stop you if, well you know if you have trouble stopping,’
she said, her eyes worried.

‘
No, I can’t risk it. I’m too
hungry,’ I said, ignoring the snapping vampire and desperately
trying to hold onto the tendril of sanity I had left.

‘
You can, remember I’m here. I can
stop you if I need to. I could throw you off him maybe,’ she said
with a grin.

‘
It’s fine. Jess, is that your
name?’ Amir said as he stepped closer to the cell. Amir was a mixed
race, London boy with flawless olive skin and huge brown eyes. His
hair was styled fashionably and he wore the all black ‘uniform’ of
the goth code. ‘I’d like to help, really I would.’

I couldn’t control myself any longer,
the pain in my stomach was incessant, my skin felt ancient and
crumbly. If I didn’t feed, I was going to die, eventually from
hunger but more likely within half an hour when Cole reappeared to
clear up his mess. I nodded at Brittany and she focused on the cell
padlock for a minute before it clicked and fell to the floor. I
kicked myself that I hadn’t thought of that when I first arrived
and frowned.

‘
Don’t kick yourself Jess, if you
had tried to open the lock to get to Alex, she wouldn’t have
escaped. Your entire cell, including the padlock was charmed. The
alarm would have triggered, and Alex would probably be dead,’ she
said.

As Amir walked softly towards me, I
could feel the animal inside me waiting to spring, and if I had
been left with any energy left inside me, he wouldn’t have made it
more than a step into my cell. I felt an incredible urge to leap
out of my bed and across the cell. My ears hummed with a crashing
noise in my ears, I felt my nostrils flare as his scent became too
strong for me to control my actions. I attempted to launch myself
out of the bed, but I was far too weak and fell to my knees on the
floor, my eyes flashing as my prey paused mid-step.

‘
Jess, shhhh! It’s all right.
It’ll be alright,’ he said. I’m embarrassed to say, I
snarled.

He slowly walked up to me and with every
ounce of humanity left inside me I willed myself not to fall upon
his leg as he came close. I held on.

‘
Here, come to me. I need you
too,’ he said, as he sat on my bed and held his arms out to
me.

‘
I can’t,’ I stammered, truly
scared of what I was going to do, but losing the fragile hold I had
on myself.

‘
Here,’ he said, as he reached
under my skinny, shrunken arms and hauled me back onto the bed,
where he laid down and pulled me down next to him.

His scent assaulted me, my senses blazed
and my instincts took over. I needed no further invitation, I could
only hope that between them both they’d be able to stop me, before
I did what Sebastian did to Alba.

Blood was life, and as his blood
nourished me I finally understood what Sebastian, Daniel and Eva
had been trying to tell me. We were vampires, we needed blood to
survive and as his blood renewed my strength, I realised how weak I
had made myself by refusing to drink the real thing. It was
amazing, fiery, like dark hot chocolate with a hint of chilli. Its
dark spicy taste was like nothing I’d tasted before, surpassing
Daniel’s blood by a mile. With each drop I could feel my skin
softening, my cheeks filling out, my muscles hardening and my heart
pulsing, growing stronger.

Amir too was enjoying the experience, he
moaned underneath me, his eyes slightly glazed and half closed in
ecstasy as he ran his hands up and down my side. I could feel him,
hard, aroused, pushing against my hip, but he didn’t try anything
and I kept on drinking.

‘
Jess, Jess, I think it’s time.’ I
heard Brittany’s voice faraway but something didn’t connect. It
didn’t matter. All that mattered to me now, was this amazing
experience. This life force being given to me willingly, making me
strong. It was instantly addictive. I needed more and more of it,
to fill out every last vein in my body. All I could think about was
his sweet taste in my mouth, his tantalising aroma filling my
nostrils and driving me on.

‘
Jess, come on…JESS!’ Her words
irritated me, distracted me, nudging something deep inside. There
was something I was supposed to remember, but I couldn’t think
what. As her words faded out I felt him struggle a little by my
side, shift and push gently against me. His voice was quiet,
crooning.

‘
Jess, jess, it’s time to stop.
You’ve had enough, come on now… Jess!’ His voice rose as he pushed
harder against my immobile body.

‘
Jess, I really don’t want to have
to do this, but you’ll hurt him if you take anymore. JESS! Come…’
And then all hell broke loose.

Her words were cut off mid-stream and
ended in a yelp of surprise. Noticing the abrupt end to the words
buzzing round my head, I moved my position slightly to the side and
keeping my teeth still in my meal I glanced up, my vampire vision
renewed. Men were pouring into the room, every one of them
vampires. Brittany had been grabbed from behind and flung outside
the cell. She was now being dragged by her hair towards the stone
steps by another smaller vampire I couldn’t make out, her feet
struggling to gain purchase on the flooring. I knew I should be
concerned, but all I could think about was protecting my meal, like
a lioness protecting her kill. I snarled and wrapped my arm around
Amir’s body, holding him tighter, crushing his struggling and
flailing limbs.

‘
What have we here, boys? It seems
our little vampire isn’t as innocent as everyone thinks. Such a
shame we haven’t got more time to play…’ Cole’s voice was low,
menacing. I should have let go of Amir and flung a spell at him,
but my head was fixed upon my first real meal. I glared at Cole and
snarled some more, incapable of letting go.

Not that it made the slightest bit of
difference to Cole and his five colleagues. I was outnumbered. With
rough hands grasping my ankles and an arm round my throat, I was
pulled back as Amir was dragged out from underneath me, kicking and
shouting.

‘
Hey thanks guys. Things got a bit
scary there. Give me a night to recharge and I’ll be back up at the
club,’ Amir said, looking at Cole.

‘
He knows too much, dispose of
him,’ Cole said, looking with contempt at the young boy in front of
him. Cole then looked across at my frozen face and smiled. With
Amir out of my grasp, my belly full and my body restored, sanity
finally began to descend upon me and the full meaning of his words
fell like icy hailstones, chilling me as I watched helplessly.
Within seconds, as I struggled between the three vampires pinning
me down, Amir was murdered, his neck broken, his eyes glazed with
instant death as they let him fall to the floor.

‘
Now where’s that traitor witch
gone, Mary?’ Cole said, as a female vampire stalked back into the
cell.

‘
She escaped. By the time I’d
dragged her to the steps, she had control of her power and muttered
some sort of spell. She disappeared,’ Mary said with a
shrug.

‘
Which is why I ordered you to
kill first, play later,’ Cole said, shaking his head. ‘So now there
is just you,’ he continued, looking back at me.

The fourth vampire who had discarded
Amir’s body on the floor had now joined the other three who were
struggling to hold me. With four pinning me down I needed a new
plan. I needed magic, and where the hell was Daniel? I decided
magic was more urgent than trying to reach Daniel telepathically,
based on the psychotic pleasure Cole seemed to take in killing
people.

I stopped struggling and closed my eyes,
trying to shut out the situation and concentrate. I grounded,
instantly. I felt the immediate rush of energy fill my veins,
giving an additional power rush to the fresh blood, still humming
round my system. I needed a spell to knock out the six vampires…but
what? I was stumped; I just didn’t have enough experience. If I
slammed one into a wall the other three would break my neck. I
doubted I could lift all four together…maybe I could electrify
myself and zap the across the cell… Nah, too movie-like. I
supressed a smile, I needed to know how Susannah had made a vortex,
or how Brittany had disappeared.

‘
Guys, she’s grounding. Unless you
want to be turned into frogs I suggest you knock her out… at least
until I find a way of restraining her,’ Cole said, watching me and
taking a quick step back towards the cell door, along with the
female vampire, Mary.

As he spoke I looked at the vampire dude
on my left. He was older than Cole, but that wasn’t difficult
seeing as Cole barely looked about eighteen. He was stocky, with a
square jawbone jutting out and pink fleshy lips, which curled back
over his sharp fangs. To my right was the vampire who had murdered
Amir. He was a middle aged vampire, and would have looked more at
home in an Armani suit and a law office. Only his eyes gave away
his true nature. Holding my ankles were another two young vampires,
who looked like twins, their blonde hair long and tied back in
ponytails. I decided they were my least problem, as the other two
were next to my head and neck, which posed more threat.

I quickly turned to the murderer on my
right, shot my power at him and as his eyes opened in shock, he
lifted off the floor and flew across the cell, before slamming into
the bars. Seconds later, just as a fist slammed into my cheekbone,
I imagined the cell bars the vampire had landed upon widen, just
enough to fit his head through. In the seconds before I blacked
out, I watched as the surprised vampire slipped down his head
falling just where I wanted before I used my magic to pull the bars
back together. He was trapped.

Thanks to my vampire metabolism, I was
only out for a couple of seconds at most, but three seconds was all
a gloved Cole needed, to pounce with vampire speed, binding my
wrists and ankles together with some silver chains, that would
slowly drain my power. When I came to, the first thing I felt was
the silver metal sizzling against my skin. Silver and vampires
never mixes well, and I remembered Eva telling me, when I had
wanted to buy a silver necklace we had seen in a shop. She told me
how the properties in the pure metal would burn our skin. I had
since found out that in addition to this, silver would drain my
magic, and could be used effectively to restrain a witch, damn!

I struggled against the burning bonds,
knowing I didn’t have much time before my magic was lowered to an
unusable level. Currently I was still strong, so I quickly sought
out the vampire who remained by my head, the one I presumed
responsible for my throbbing cheekbone. I stared at him and hate
coursed through my system. Cole may be the ringleader, Cole might
be to blame for all of this, but I knew from the way they were
carrying out his orders without question, that they must be of his
blood. He must have turned them, and therefore it stood to reason
that it would hurt him, if I took them out first.

The silver chains were doing something
to my magic, I could feel it. Control over my magic was fast
disappearing, but in its place was something darker, something
primitive. The same instinctive magic that had been released in
anger, the afternoon I broke Daniel’s hand. I looked at the vampire
and knew how to eliminate him, and knew Cole would feel every
second of it.

Fire! I imagined flames slowly licking
at the vampire’s feet, climbing up his body, consuming him and
destroying him. I glanced down and felt my anger build, forcing all
the emotional pain and feeling of my friends deserting me, leaving
me here, to fight on my own, into my magic. I summoned the dark
witch inside me and cast my spell. With a howl of pure terror the
vampire by my side jumped back, stomping his feet on the ground,
trying to put out the flames that licked around his ankles.

‘
Help me, Cole, help me,’ the
vampire screamed, as he propelled himself backwards away from my
bed.

‘
Get out, get upstairs and start
emptying the club,’ Cole ordered the remaining three
vampires.

‘
Get me out of here,’ the vampire
struggling to escape from my prison of bars shouted at the
retreating vamps, his eyes fearful as he watched the flaming
vampire stumble closer to him.

Cole stood, taking in the scene around
him, barely glancing at the imprisoned vampire, who struggled to
pull his head out from between the bars, pulling with all his
remaining strength to widen them. But he tried in vain, as the iron
bars had been made purposefully to be vampire-proof.

As the now flaming vampire had stumbled
to the far side of the cell, away from me, Cole stepped forward,
his face the calm mask of a psychotic killer.

‘
I think Miss Jessica, you may
have solved my problem for me, for what can be better than fire and
silver to eradicate all evidence of a nuisance witch? Even if the
Council think I had something to do with this unfortunate episode,
after this fire consumes everything in this room, there will be no
proof left to back up their suspicions. What a shame.’