“No! No! What are you doing?!” I screamed.
The Master crouched over me, one leg on each side of my body, while the girls had my wrists pinned to the floor. He pressed his long thumbnail into the skin of my forearm and then dragged it downward, tearing me open. The pain was so intense and so stinging I involuntarily thrashed around on the floor like I was possessed. “No!” I yelled. My blood rushed across the surface of my skin and dripped onto the chapel floor. The wet, cold sensation of his tongue drug along my open wound as he moaned with delight. He slurped and swallowed and purred, all while Molly and Veronica cackled. This was funny to them. This was a childish game to them.
I screamed, perhaps louder than I had ever screamed before. It exhausted me, and right before I passed out, the last thing I could remember seeing was a display of candles brightly burning next to the statue of an angel weeping.
Chapter Thirty-Three
DAGGETT
Max was out of the room for fifteen minutes. After we found the body and realized Cora had been taken, he grabbed his cell phone and charged out of there like a man possessed. I thought he took off to clear his head or break something, but instead, he returned with his cell in his hand and a pillowcase full of items. He unrolled the material onto the living room coffee table and breathlessly said, “We can use these to kill them.”
Heh, so he rushed right past panic mode and into fight mode. What an alpha.
I walked closer to the coffee table and took a peek at what he presented. It looked like he dug through the kitchen drawers and grabbed as many knives or pointy objects that he could find. It was a bit sad to look at, if I was being real.
“You want me to have a knife fight with a vampire?” Priscilla asked.
“You rather go in without a knife?” Max countered.
“They’re fast. I’d never even hit one.”
“They would have to stop moving to kill you.” Max picked up a butcher knife and set the handle in the palm of Priscilla’s hand. “That’s when you go for the kill.”
“So, I wait for them to attack me and hope I don’t miss their heart. What could possibly go wrong?”
“Believe me, it’s gonna hurt like a son of a bitch. I was able to get a signal and call Brinly, and she let me in on all of the old myths about vampires that Aga told her. I wanted to know what their weaknesses were and got the typical holy water, crosses, garlic, you name it. Then it dawned on me—silver.”
“That hurts us,” Dana said.
“Because silver is considered a lunar metal.”
It suddenly registered for me. “And the vampires came from us,” I said, finishing his sentence.
Max casually pointed at me and said, “Exactly.”
“Please explain better. I’m confused,” Melanie commented.
“Silver is connected to the moon and the moon rules over us in every possible way. Since you, Veronica, and Molly became vampires from a werewolf bite, it’s only logical that the moon would have some bit of influence over you as well. Our strengths might be different, but our weaknesses are probably fairly similar. This Master guy, however, we don’t know his origin or what he’s capable of.”
Max folded his arms and added, “So the silver may not work on the big dog of the group, but it could definitely take down the other two.”
“Do we know this for sure, though?” Melanie asked.
“Only one way to find out.”
I knew exactly what that meant, and as Melanie’s eyes grew in size, I realized she figured it out as well. Quietly, she asked, “Do I have to get stabbed?”
“No,” Max replied. “Holding it in your hand should tell us enough.”
Before Melanie knelt to pick up one of the knives, Priscilla asked, “Are we sure this is even real silver? This hotel isn’t exactly The Plaza.”
Max groaned. “It’s silver.”
“You’re giving me a look like it’s a stupid question.”
Melanie retrieved the butcher knife from Priscilla, first taking it by the handle and then cautiously looking over the shiny blade. With her other hand, she very carefully pinched the blade between her index finger and thumb. At first, there was no significant reaction on her part, but the longer she held it in her grasp, the more contorted her face grew. Suddenly, Melanie took a sharp breath inward through her teeth and dropped the knife to the floor.
“So?” I asked.
“It felt like putting my hand on a burner,” she replied.
“Then it’s true. We found a weakness.”
“I don’t get it,” she began with a furrowed brow. “I thought silver hurt you when you’re a werewolf. So why does it hurt me when I’m like this?”
With a shrug, Max said, “Maybe because you’re in your supernatural form at all times, and we can turn ours on and off.”
“Figures,” she said, disappointed. I guess us going in and out of our forms had some perks. Finally.
“Why haven’t we been experimenting on her this entire time?” Priscilla asked.
Melanie looked at her and scoffed. “I’m not a test tube, okay?”
“You know what I mean. You and Wilson Phillips there are almost identical, and if we know what sets you off, then we know what sets them off.”
Priscilla was correct, but at the end of the day, Melanie was a person and we couldn’t treat her like anything but that. Especially since she was caged up and tested on for God only knows how long. Us poking and prodding at her would probably stir up unnecessary trauma.
Surprisingly, Melanie changed her tune. “You know what…you’re
