Chapter Five: The Vampire's Covenant—another intriguing instalment of this free vampire book.
With Haborim lurking, Evie's thirst for blood is the least of her worries.
If you think previous chapters of this free vampire book have been leading to something, you’d be right. Tragedy takes hold, especially for Evie. As much as I’d like to think I control what I write, it’s not true. I can’t control it at all. A writer instinctively wants to protect their characters, but in the end, they can’t.
Go back and read Chapter Four.
Day 3
“I thought I was a freak when it came to food.”
She’d put Dover out into the exercise pen with a bucket of feed. The bay gelding had his head in the bucket, munching on the food as he pushed the pail around, the bottom scraping in the dirt and catching on the tufts of grass. But it was time he came back to the stables. Besides, it was a chilly morning, and the wooden stables would be warmer. Dover was a wimp too, mostly because he was ruled by his stomach.
Evie could watch him pushing the bucket around all day—she really could. Sometimes, she wished she could spend more time at the stables, just looking after her horses. But her mind wandered—to Haborim. Whatever that figure was, he knew about her mom, and her dad, and Boston. But she knew nothing about this mysterious being. She shuddered. There was obviously history between Haborim, Boston, and her dad.
“Dover!” Evie called.
The horse ignored her. Of course.
“Dover!” She picked up a nose bag of feed and shook it. “Aren’t you cold?”
The horse looked around. The feed in the bucket must have been nearly gone. “C’mon, Dover, don’t you want more oats?”
He looked suspiciously at the bag, deciding whether there were actually more oats in it. Eventually, he crumbled and started toward Evie.
She held the bag out for him a little more. “See, have I steered you wrong yet?” She stepped backward, before the horse dug his head into the bag and happily found his reward. “Tastes good, doesn’t it? Oh, there’s a good boy. Good boy, Dover.” Evie stepped backward again, and Dover followed as she led him into the stables.
Before long, they were in his stall, Dover munching on his feed, while Evie inserted the needle for his blood donation. This was the bit she hated; it was necessary. That’s what she told herself every time she did it. It was necessary.
This was the reason that the horses had such comfortable lodgings, regular vet checkups, and someone to spoil them. The blood donations kept the coven supplied with blood. It had never been Evie’s idea—though she drank the blood every day. It had been her father’s idea. It had occurred to him when she had begged him to go back to Maryvale for her horse.
They’d buried her mom close to the house, near the bed of pansies she’d planted a couple of months before. Boston and her father had dug the grave, while Evie stood over them, strangely unable to feel anything but an unquenchable desire to find someone or something that had blood running through its veins.
Evie had even thought about her horse. But how could she?
The numbness over her mom’s death and the thirst for blood had been overwhelming. A yard behind where Evie stood, Elijah had sat on the ground, holding their mother’s battered and bloodied head in his lap. He was sobbing openly. Evie couldn’t look at Elijah and especially not at her mom. The look of horror in her mom’s eyes had been too much. Evie just couldn’t take it in.
After they’d buried her mom’s body, her father collected Evie and Elijah, taking each under an arm, cuddling them. He had been trying to reassure them in the face of an uncertain future. He had whispered to them, “Kaden thinks it will be too difficult for us to stay in Maryvale now. The change will make us do things we wouldn’t be able to live with.”
Maryvale was only thirty minutes’ drive from Warwick, which for a vampire, was reachable within minutes now that they had all been turned.
Had Haborim known her father and Boston when her mom had died?
Haborim’s voice spoke inside her head, interrupting the memory. Yes, Evie. I knew your father then. Ask him. Go on, ask him.
She shook herself. His psychic presence felt like a ghastly leathery touch. Get out of my head. Fucking now.
Haborim laughed, but the amusement was short-lived. The laughing stopped, and Haborim left only silence in his laughter’s wake.
She pushed Haborim’s presence away. What did he know? Could it be possible that he really could help the coven? Would he do what he’d promised?
Everyone in Warwick had known her family. That was why they’d moved to the Glen Rock State Forest, about two hours away. Less if they crossed the mountains.
The forest had become their sanctuary. The stable was half full at the moment; her father was about to add another horse for Konner, but he wanted to see how Konner settled first—so did she.
She adjusted the flow of the blood into the clear plastic bag that hung on the stainless-steel stand near the wall. “Oh, you’re being so good, Dover. I know. It’ll be over soon.” Evie picked up the horse brush and began to groom him. Luckily, she’d spread some hay on the floor of his stall beforehand, so when Dover finished his oats, she’d take the nose bag off and he’d graze on the hay for the rest of the day.
“What a good boy,” she said in a low tone. “Wish vampires were like horses. But I guess they’re kind of the same—will do anything for food.” Evie laughed to herself. “Only, a different kind of food.” She looked around the stables. “Isn’t that right, Dover?”
The horse stopped when he heard his name, but then went back to eating.
It felt better to talk, even if only the horse was listening. She talked to the horses often. At least, it felt better to talk to something that really existed, rather than an apparition promising to reunite her with her mom. “Do you think I should be checking in more frequently with Konner, Dover? The kid is too quiet. Too reserved. Something is the matter with him. He’s gotta have emotional shit going on in his head. I know what that’s like. But this kid watched two vampires burn, right in front of him. How could that not affect you? I don’t believe, for a second, he did that out of malice. He just needs a whole lot of love, and maybe a welcome party—” Dover nodded his head. “Yeah, a welcome party!”
Evie moved to Dover’s left flank, brushing in downward motions. “I’ll get Kaitlynn in on it. She’s always up for a good time, and—”
“Evie!”
She shuddered, thinking it was Haborim again. Oh goddess! But then after the initial shock of hearing her name, she realized it wasn’t him. She was getting paranoid.
The interruption had rankled. She clenched her jaw. Someone outside. What was it now? “I’ll be back in a minute,” she told the horse.
She closed the stall door behind her and left the stable.
“Evie!”
She emerged into the exercise yard.
“Evie. Oh,” Dravin yelled, even though they were standing face to face now. “You better come. Elijah—he’s …”
“He’s what? What’s the matter?”
“Elijah has …” Dravin choked on his words, trying to get the sentence out. He couldn’t have been out of breath.
What could Elijah have done? Usually he slept until midday.
Dravin’s shoulders slumped. “There’s no other way to say this.”
“Say what?” Evie said, getting annoyed.
“Elijah’s no longer with us.”
“What do you mean? Where is he?” She wished Dravin would stop with the games.
“He’s gone. He’s … Evie, don’t look at me like that. You better get down to his room—see for yourself. He’s dead.”
Dravin didn’t look like he was joking around. Evie dropped the grooming brush, her hands shaking at her sides, dizziness washing over her. “What happened?”
“Just—you better see for yourself. They’re calling for you anyway—as the chief of security.”
***
Fear spurring her forward, Evie ran with the wind whipping at her long waves of jet-black hair. She barely registered her feet hitting the ground. She jumped the stone wall into the compound. That too was a blur as she sped to the south apartments. To Elijah’s room.
Dravin’s words kept echoing inside her head.
… he’s dead.
The hallway was blocked with the students standing around. As she fought her way through, she could see everyone crowded inside Elijah’s room. “Excuse me. Move please. Get the fuck out of my way.”
When Evie finally stood in the middle of Elijah’s apartment, she wished she hadn’t come. Dravin hadn’t been lying.
A wooden stake with a sharpened point impaled Elijah. It passed through his chest and protruded from his upper back. Strange silver markings emanated from the point at which the stake emerged from his body. The silver looked like stretch marks. She stared—had the wood been filled with silver? Being impaled would not normally kill a vampire, unless they had lost a lot of blood. And Elijah had lost blood. A lot of it.
The stake, perhaps half an inch in diameter, had been clamped to his desk. Elijah’s books were still open, lying around the point at which the wood rose up and impaled him. Elijah had fallen on it.
Evie tried to focus her eyes, unable to look away.
She wavered on the spot.
Speechless.
And she fell to her knees, ready to vomit.
“We found him like this,” someone said.
Evie couldn’t identify the voice. It was one of the female vampires.
She sobbed behind Evie. Who was it?
Without the energy to turn, Evie tried to think who it was. From the floor, all Evie could see when she looked up was Elijah’s bulging eyes as he stared at the brown carpet of his room.
The girl sobbed louder.
Too many students stood inside Elijah’s room, gawking at what had happened. She needed to get them out.
Find Konner.
Had she been wrong about that kid? Had she left the students vulnerable to a sadistic monster?
Had Elijah paid the price for their—her incompetence? She’d been the one to convince her father to take Konner in. She’d felt sorry for him. What had she done?
“Everyone, get out,” Evie mumbled. She climbed to her feet and tried to collect herself.
Louder, she said, trying to muster authority, “Return to your individual rooms. Stay there until I have spoken with you. Go now.”
Her strained tone indicated she meant business. The students were used to seeing her laughing with Kaitlynn in the hallways, but not today. That wouldn’t be happening for a long time, perhaps not ever again.
The room emptied of aghast onlookers. The sobbing girl left too. Her blubbering sounds moved down the hallway.
An irresistible need to curl up on the floor next to Elijah swelled. But what would everyone think? She was supposed to be the chief of security, and she couldn’t be seen to be losing it. Evie pushed the compulsion down. She needed to find out what had happened. It looked as though Elijah had committed suicide. That was what it looked like. Did her dad know?
Oh, goddess. She knew she shouldn’t swear.
The Storm Goddess Sinour hated blasphemy, and so did Evie, but now, Evie wondered whether Sinour really existed. If the Goddess did exist, why had she let this happen to Elijah?
Go back and read Chapter Four.