CHAPTER4
The vampire letsout a primal screech and reaches with its claws. I dodge from the monster’s grasp. Its movements seem to be slower and more telegraphed than they previously appeared. Though it’s still fluid and silent, it seems to move only on instinct. It’s nothing like my brother and the disciplined steps of someone trained in combat. I see every strike before it comes.
The vampire tips forward when I’m not where it expected me to be and I sidestep around while it’s off-balance. In one motion, and with a firm grip, I hook my sickle between its ribs and pull, unbuttoning its chest with sickening plops of black and grayish innards. The vampire lets out a cry and writhes as the silver purifies its mottled blood. Life leaves its body. The sensation is more than it going limp over my blade. It is a distinct awareness of existence suddenly vanishing—a void where there was once something.
I free the sickle with a jerk, unable to bear its weight, panting softly. I did it. I actually did it. My hands tremble. A few steps and it was over. I moved just as Drew told me. He’ll be so proud. If he believes me. I’ll have to tell him first thing when—
A scream reverberates through the air from far, far away.
The sound is different from all the others I’ve heard, all the others I shouldn’t be able to hear. The sounds of battle, near and far, reverberate in my ears. There are distant shouts and cries, orders given from one desperate hunter to another. It is as though, with the elixir flowing through me, the whole world has opened up to my senses to an almost unbearable degree. Hunter’s Hamlet is a din of noise, hammering heartbeats and frantic commands. I can smell the blood spilled on distant battlefields. Every sensation is lit up on my senses, fear and panic of all humanity thrumming against mine on this forsaken night of sinister, red moonlight.
I try and shut it all out until the scream cuts above it all again with its low resonance. I’ve never heard it before. And I hoped I never would.
It’s Drew.
I know so in my very soul. My brother is in danger. I glance back toward the stairs.
“Forgive me,” I whisper to Mother, even though she can’t hear. I don’t know if she would tell me to stay or go. But this is my brother and I’m not going to let him die alone in the Fade Marshes. Not when I have all this unbridled power.
I dash into the night.
An invisible tether yanks on my navel, as though I am being pulled toward something—someone—in the distance. It guides me down the main road and out of town. Hunters and monstrous vampires fight in the field. The night is stained crimson with moonlight and blood. I keep running.
I’m faster than any man or monster. None pay me any mind. Or, if they do, they’re gone in a blur.
The sensation of damp earth under my feet mingles with the crispness of the night air in my lungs. I feel like I’ve made this run before, even though I know I never have. As the forge maiden, I am hardly permitted on the edge of town. Entering the Fade Marshes is strictly forbidden.
The farmers’ fields stop abruptly at another wall. This is the true end of Hunter’s Hamlet, and the beginning of the war front. The road continues, cutting through barren earth—the land has been burned and salted over the years to ward against the vampire.
Little good it’s done.
The ground around the road becomes sodden. Skeletal trees reach up through wetlands, hazy silhouettes in the fading light. The mists curl across the water, wisps released from the barrier of fog that extends to the hunter’s wall in either direction behind an ancient stone archway.
At the top of the arch is the symbol of a diamond with a V shape arcing underneath it, two crescent moons reflected on either side. Drew has drawn me this shape before and called it the mark of the vampire—a warning built by our forefathers at the edges of their land. The Fade Marshes embrace me with their misty arms as I pass beneath the archway.
I am in their land now and the only thing offering me calm is the elixir racing through my veins.
A long, winding, stone road snakes through rotted trees and dark waters. I am a streak through the fog. I run faster than I thought possible, moving on the undercurrents of wind.
I quickly discover that the fog plays tricks on the eyes. More than once, my gaze is pulled in a direction as I think I see movement. But when I examine closely, there is nothing there. I blink several times, willing my sight to sharpen. I will not allow myself to be distracted by a trick of the light.
There’s another grunt. A wheeze. My ears are trained on the strained sounds of my brother. Hang in there, I beg with every panting breath. I can feel the vampire all around me—around him—disrupting the balance of our world.
The fog suddenly parts and I emerge onto a large, circular platform. It looks like the remnants of some great tower. Crumbling walls prevent the marshes from overflowing and claiming the worn stones. Whatever urge pulled me through the night snaps the moment my eyes land on the carnage.
Davos, master hunter…is dead.
His body is mutilated. A deep gash has nearly cut straight through his neck. His eyes are wide and soulless. Blood pools around him, meaning the vampire did not drain him. As if his death was for sport.
My nostrils flare at the scent of blood. Overwhelming, almost to the point of unbearable. More images of golden eyes and mottled flesh assault me. I shake my head, trying to banish them, to focus on the here and now. I will not allow the hunter’s madness to claim me.
A trail of red splatter leads me to two others.
Drew has been beaten badly. He hangs limply, supported by the steel claws that are gouged through his shoulder, pinning him to the wall of the ruins. His black hair, the same as mine, as Mother’s, has fallen around his face in wet clumps as his chin hangs toward his chest.
The vampire that has him pinned is like nothing I have ever heard of or seen before, not even in my darkest nightmares.
Unlike the other monsters, who roam in tattered clothing, he dons plate of polished iron. Every intricate fold has been hammered with more care than the tailoring of the finest Yule ball dress.
