I stumble to my feet, and only now am I noticing that I’m not in a room, but a small atrium wh
ich leads to a narrow set of stairs. The stairs go up to what looks like the attic. There’s a dark wooden door at the top of them that’s firmly shut.
I look back at the vampire. He’s not dead, but unconscious. However it doesn’t look like he’s going to be waking up any time soon. I need to find Pamphrock now, but then I realise that I left the dowsing rod out in the hallway. I’d dropped it to the floor when the vampire guard had crept up on me out of nowhere. I have to go back for it.
Just as I’m about to head back out, a powerful pull seizes my entire body. Propelling me up the narrow stairs. The pull tells me that something familiar awaits me at the top of them, I just don’t know what it is. I want to go get the branch but I can’t help myself, the pull is too much to take. I need to go with it, wherever it wants to take me. I put one foot onto the first step and it makes a small creaking sound. Then I hurry up, desperate to discover what is on the other side of that door.
Chapter Seventeen
A Real Hero
I place my palm on the door handle and turn, expecting it to be locked. But it isn’t, the handle turns easily and I open the door into a large attic room that has some light streaming from a small lamp shade. There are stacks of old boxes in one corner and in the other is a narrow single bed with pale sheets.
On the bed lays a little body, curled in on itself sleeping. The body belongs to a young girl with bright blond hair that obscures her face. Rebecca. Once I spot her I fall to my knees, my body hums in recognition. My blood sings in my veins. This girl is like me. She is my kindred. She has die Äußerste Macht blood. Oh my goodness.
This is why Pamphrock had thought I’d reminded him of Rebecca. We have the same blood curse. Does her father know about this? Do the vampires? Hell, I don’t even understand how I know it, but I can feel it with every fibre of my being. A sudden burst of joy hits me, because I’m no longer the only one of my kind. The magic inside of me had been urging me to find her all along, that’s why I’d felt a pull to go up those stairs and find whatever lay beyond them.
Rebecca’s mother must have been a human with the same blood as mine, the same blood that my mother was killed for. I had just assumed she was a dhamphir like Pamphrock, but she can’t have been. Only humans carry the Ultimate Power gene, at least as far as I know. Although if my mother truly was the daughter of Filipp Petrovsky as Noreen would have me believe, then perhaps witches can be born with it also. I glance behind me, suddenly remembering the unconscious vampire I’ve left downstairs. We need to get out of here before he wakes up.
I rush over to the bed and place my hand on Rebecca’s shoulder, giving it a slight shake to wake her up. Her eyes blink a few times and then they open fully.
She gazes at me for a moment, then asks, “Are you the angel?”
“What angel?” I reply in confusion.
“I dreamt that an angel would come and save me from the monsters. She looked just like you.”
I’ve never considered myself to look particularly angelic, but I suppose in the cream lacy dress I might just about pass for one.
“I’m not an angel, but I am here to save you,” I tell her. “Come on, we need to go.” I urge her up from her sleeping position. She’s wearing yellow pyjamas. She gets up and slides her feet into a pair of slippers. I take her hand and we make our way over to the door. I glance down at Rebecca, making sure she’s okay, but when I lift my eyes back to the door there’s a figure standing there. Eliza. I let out an involuntary gasp and step backward instinctively.
Eliza has her arms crossed over her silky purple chest, a grin on her face like the cat that got the cream. “I fucking knew it,” she declares, beaming from ear to ear. “I knew there was something off about you. You’ve been working for Pamphrock haven’t you? We thought he had something up his sleeve since things had been so quiet this last week or two, but nobody guessed that Ethan would fall for a honey trap.”
I wince, because although I’d like to argue that I do have real feelings for Ethan, I have still deceived him. I try to ignore the pain in my heart that this knowledge instils in me.
“You stole a little girl,” my voice is jittery, and my eyes are watering because now that Eliza knows what I’ve been up to she’ll be only too happy to tell Ethan all about it. “I don’t need to justify my means for helping return her to her father.”
Eliza gives me a dirty look. “Her father has dedicated his life to the killing of my species, I have no sympathy for that man.”
“Your father intends to do the exact same thing to the dhamphirs and the magic users, that was quite obviously the message of the little speech he gave downstairs.” Saying this, it suddenly occurs to me that both sides of the city are more alike than they think. They both aim for the extinction of the other.
Eliza ignores what I’ve said and instead pulls a phone out of her pocket. She dials a number and talks into it rapidly. “Ethan, there’s been an infiltration, yes, I need you to come to the attic, and bring my father with you. Now.” She hangs up, and looks back at me.
I feel Rebecca tugging on my arm, so I glance down at her. “Don’t fight with that lady,” she whispers, “she’s a bad person.”
“I know that, honey,” I reply, stroking her hair away from her face, hoping it will soothe her fear, even though I’m only just holding it together myself.
Eliza snorts over by the doorway. “You’re going to regret the day you ever stepped foot back in Crimson,” she says, her voice dripping with malice. “I’m really going to relish your torture, and your death. Father might even allow me to kill you myself. My face will be the last you ever see.”
I roll my eyes and make a fake retching noise. “Please, don’t make it worse, having to look at you at all makes my skin crawl Eliza.”
“And that’s what will make it even more wonderful when I drain the life from your body. I’ll force you to look at me while I do it.”
She’s trying to break me down, but I’m determined not to let her. “Sounds kinky, are you sure you haven’t got some secret Sapphic tendencies?”
“You can try to insult me all you want, you will be dead before the night is out.” Eliza answers, but she does sound slightly irritated and I feel a sense of triumph at this. So what can I say, I plough on.
“Yeah well, saying you want me to look into your eyes while you sink your fangs into me, sounds kind of gay if you ask me,” I make a nonchalant shrug to really rile her up. I might as well get a few last shots in, I’m as good as dead now anyway.