Cold Blooded

What walls? I didn’t hesitate. Her arms were each wrapped separately. I tore the cloth completely away. One of her arms was hooked to what looked to be a tiny silver funnel. Where it touched her skin, a patch had burned away completely. It was oozing thick red blood. Anger bubbled up inside me so fiercely it took all I had not to bellow my rage and alert everyone within a twenty-mile radius. I reached over her body and tore the funnel from her arm. It burned my fingers, but it didn’t register. As I did, a plastic tube I hadn’t noticed flew with it, breaking from wherever it had been secured, spraying blood all over the room.

“What the hell was that?” I yelled, jumping out of the way, wiping blood off my face with my forearm. “Why was she hooked to a tube?” I leaned over and picked up some of the discarded fabric and blotted the blood off Naomi’s pale skin, hovering over her hoping she’d wake.

“You must feed her quickly.”

“She yearns for blood.”

“The walls are almost full.”

“What walls are you talking about?” I shouted in frustration. “Can someone please tell me what’s happening in more than three or four words?”

“You must look below.” Something shoved me from the back, prodding me around the side.

I complied and walked around the thick marble structure that held Naomi’s unconscious body.

“She feeds it too quickly.”

“She is not like other vamps.”

“She is strong.” The whispers came quickly, jumbled together like they were all talking at the same time.

For some reason the ghosts seemed suddenly nervous.

I spotted a circular hole near the bottom where the tube must have been hooked. My stomach lurched. Naomi’s blood had been draining into this thing, filling it up. I inhaled, moving closer to the small opening. There was so much blood. As fast as she could regenerate, it was being siphoned away.

That’s how they kept vamps incapacitated. They knocked them out and drained their lifeblood, making them too weak to fight or even wake up.

But what her captors didn’t realize was she didn’t have ordinary blood running through her veins.

She had mine.

It made her stronger, so she would survive. She had to survive. “Who did this to her?” I demanded. I addressed the ghosts, because there was no one else around to question. My wolf snarled and snapped her muzzle, urging me to free her. We just need to feed her and give her more blood. Then she’ll be as good as new. We have to believe that.

I maneuvered myself next to her, leaning over her stark face, whipping my wrist up to her mouth, ready to tear my skin with my teeth.

“No!”

“You must wait.”

“Have to stop it first.”

The voices rushed up against my ears urgently and hands jostled me in place, forcing me to drop my wrist.

“Stop what?” I yelled. “You said two minutes ago I had to feed her. She clearly needs my blood or she’s not going to wake up.” I glanced down at her arm where the silver had been secured. It wasn’t healing. “What do I need to do? Stop giving me one word answers and tell me.”

“Must release the blood.”

“What do you mean release the blood? You’re not talking about the blood in the bottom of this altar, right? Please tell me you’re not talking about the blood that has been draining from her all this time and is now sloshing around in this giant marble bathtub.”

“If the blood is not freed, she cannot heal.”

“It keeps her here.”

“The blood binds her to it.”

They were definitely talking about something I didn’t understand.

My arms prickled. Shivering, I stepped back and searched the room again, but I didn’t feel any spells. I glanced down at Naomi. The only it they could be talking about had to be inside the stone altar. Tentatively, like reaching out to pet a rabid animal, I placed both my palms on top of the white and gray veined marble platform.

Something pulsed beneath them.

Did you feel that? I asked my wolf as I slid my hands to another location trying to sense what was happening. Her blood is feeding something. Another small vibration flittered under my palms, like a heartbeat. Holy shit. Whatever they hooked her up to just got a payday with my blood.

“What’s in there? What’s feeding off her?” I called. The marble jumped under my hands again, this time much stronger. It knew I was here and it was angry. But it wasn’t formed enough to break free, and I just stopped its food supply. It had been so close. Too close.

“The Strigoi stir.”

“The soul wakes.”

“It is always hungry.”

Oh, dear gods. A Strigoi was the spirit of a dead vampire. In the lore we called them Screamers—vamps whose physical bodies died a true death, but their spirits hung around to wreak havoc on the living. Just like the ones floating around me now, except myth stated that Screamers could still feed on blood. “Can a Screamer really become corporeal if it drinks enough blood?” I urged. I knew only a few stories, but they were legendary. Hideous bloodsuckers with incredible strength that couldn’t be killed. “You have to tell me. How dangerous are they?” I gave an inward shudder. When the ghosts didn’t answer, I yelled, “Tell me! ”

At my raised voice, the marble top bounced, jutting to the side. The platform wasn’t attached to the bottom of the altar.

No more time.

We have to drain her blood out of this thing, I told my wolf. I don’t think it’s full, but I’m not taking any chances. No more blood, no more Screamer. I crouched down and peered inside the hole, keeping a good distance away. The blood was moving and sloshing around in earnest now. We have to smash it with something near the bottom so it drains quickly. I hoped it would be enough.

It had to be enough.

I jumped up and scanned the room. My fist might get through the thick marble in my Lycan form, but now wouldn’t be the time to break my hand to pieces. Once the deed was done, I had to get Naomi out as soon as possible. I didn’t have time to regenerate. “Is there something to smash the marble with in here?” I asked the ghosts. No one answered. For the first time I noticed everything had gone completely quiet.

One lone whisper came flitting into my ear. “They have gone. We fear the Strigoi. They hurt us.”

I made my way around the mausoleum, my hands brushing against the smooth walls searching for something strong enough to bash in the marble. “You stayed. So help me,” I told the ghost. The entire room was roughly thirty by thirty. “We have to find something that will withstand me smashing it into the altar. Is there anything hooked to the walls?”

“Look up,” the voice whispered.

18

I angled my head toward the ceiling. Right at the very top, secured from the midpoint of the roof, was a marble gargoyle head. “It’s not alive, is it?”