CHAPTER THREE - FUEL FOR THE FIRE

The speaker was a woman who looked to be in her mid-forties. She had silver eyes in a fox-like face with a pointed chin and blunt-cut black hair longer in the front than in the back. She wore a stylish black leather coat, belted around a small waist, black skinny jeans and high-heeled ankle boots. She looked like any number of fashionable, wealthy women that he would have seen walking on the Magnificent Mile with luxe brand bags casually draped over their arms. 

But the look in her eyes made it clear to Grayson that she wasn’t one of them at all. He’d met plenty of predators on the streets. He knew one when he saw one. No matter how pretty and petite they pretended to be.

“Who are you?” Grayson hissed, even as he kept the door and the metal pieces floating in the air. 

It was too late now to try and hide what he could do.  His unconscious mind had reacted, saving him, Charlie and Gregory from severe injuries. The metal and glass door had been hurled towards them. The glass would have sliced skin. The metal would have broken bones.  Besides, he had a feeling that she, like the predators he’d met on the streets, would need to be dealt with and his powers were the only real way to stop people like her.

“How are you able to use telekinesis?” she asked. Her voice was cultured. There was a faint accent to her English, but he couldn’t place it. Maybe Spanish or she could be from somewhere in Mexico or South America. “You are not of the Ashyr Bloodline. In fact, you are not a Vampire at all.”

“V-Vampire?” Charlie stammered and there was a scraping sound as he scuttled a little away from Grayson.  

Grayson felt that terrible empty pit open in his stomach when people retreated from him. That Charlie would have been afraid of him, someone he had known for years, had helped and who had helped him, versus this woman dug into Grayson’s greatest fears about himself. 

But Charlie saw what he could do.

Humans couldn’t do that, right? That’s what the news said. That’s what the scientists claimed. That’s what the Vampires led on anyways.

And there were rumors that Vampires killed homeless people, those who wouldn’t be noticed. They might drink daintily from willing folks, but with the homeless they could simply let go of all restraint and drain them dry. Charlie clearly believed him to be one of those.  But he wasn’t a Vampire unless there was such a thing as a Vampire that was mortal, could go out under the sun and didn’t drink blood. He was something else, he supposed. Something singular.  But his cheeks flared with hot color and the shame of what he could do--of not being normal, of being actually dangerous--flooded him like it had so often. 

“He’s not and that’s what is so odd,” she answered. “Not a Vampire, but with the powers of one.  I wonder…”

The woman stepped into the shop. She kicked away a stray piece of glass that had splintered out of the door that Grayson still held in place with more and more difficulty. It made a tinkling sound as it slid away and disappeared beneath one of the metal shelves. 

“Don’t,” Grayson told her, his voice low and steady. “Don’t come closer.”

She froze. One foot in and one foot out of the store. Her silver eyes--like liquid mercury--flashed at him. “Or what?”

“Or you’ll find out that as easily as you blew this door in here that I can wrap it around you like a scarf,” he told her. 

He hadn’t used his powers in some time though. Not since he’d gotten this steady job and a place to live that wasn’t in an abandoned building. Having roommates with fellow homeless, many of whom were slaves to drugs or crippled by untreated mental illness, had kept Grayson on his toes. Not to mention those who were simply interested in hurting others weaker than them that roamed the streets. He’d used his powers to protect himself from all of them. No one would believe what many saw as the refuse of humanity said. So his secret had been kept safe. 

But it had been several years since he’d done anything large like this. That he’d wake from those strange nightmares and everything in his apartment would be floating, including him and the bed, didn’t count, because he wasn’t consciously in control of it. But at least the door and pieces of metal were steady and so was he.  For now.

“I see.” She tilted her head to the side.

“Is she one of them, Gregory?” Grayson asked the wounded man without looking at him.  He was surprised that Gregory hadn’t reacted to her entrance. “Did she hurt you?”

Gregory had told him that the Sect of Dawn was responsible for his injuries. But this woman had blown the door in. Humans couldn’t do that except… well, he did things like that. But he had this feeling that she wasn’t like him.  Maybe she wasn’t even human. 

He was not able to get his answer though. Because his only response to Grayson’s questions were wheezes and then the wounded man fell from the stool and collapsed onto the ground. Grayson dared to look away from the woman for a moment. Gregory’s eyes were shut. His mouth was open as he struggled to breathe. His skin was gray like parchment. 

“Charlie, get him on his back!  Put pressure on the wound!” Grayson ordered.

Even though Grayson’s hands were “free” and he could have done it himself he likely would have lost control of the door. He needed all of his attention to keep it up.  Charlie though did not move. 

The homeless man was sitting on the ground with his knees up to his chest. His rheumy eyes were huge. He was highlighted by one of the fluorescent lights and the veins in his face stood out. His cheeks were ruddy, not with health, but because his skin was chapped. His lips were dry and cracked. He looked older than Grayson had ever seen him and scared. So scared.

“Charlie, please, it’s me,” Grayson said and he hoped he didn’t sound as pleading to Charlie and the woman as he did to himself.

Charlie let out a groan and reached for the discarded shirt. He rolled Gregory over. There was a small gush of air that exited Gregory’s mouth. There was blood at the corner of his lips. Charlie again applied pressure to the wound. Would it be enough? Maybe if the ambulance arrived in the next few moments. But there was still no sound of sirens. The night was abnormally quiet.

The terrible, dark irony that Gregory had been going to a school where he could have been made immortal was not lost on Grayson in that moment. And he also remembered Gregory’s insistence that Grayson could get away, could stop his killers from getting their hands on the golden ticket, that this was all that could be done. 

You need to take that golden ticket and go. Go. Go. Go, Gregory’s words echoed in his head.

Part of him wanted to go. Part of him wanted to run. To send the door flying at the woman and to just take off into the night. He would leave Charlie and Gregory behind. Who could blame him? Other people just slowed you down. He couldn’t do anything further for either of them, could he? 

But this came from the little, frightened boy inside of him who had been hurt and let down countless times. The man he was, or maybe should have been, didn’t move. He stayed. He would stay. He wouldn’t leave Charlie and Gregory to whatever terrible fate this woman had in store for them.

This is crazy. I’m crazy, he thought. 

But he still stayed.

There was a faint scrape and Grayson’s head shot back towards the woman. She was two steps nearer to them. The little smile on her face indicated that she knew he noticed and found it amusing. He moved the door so that it was directly between them. He had the small pieces of metal spinning in her direction. His lack of practice had a tremor running through him. How long could he keep this up?

I should have practiced. I should have!

But it was too late for this encounter. And what was more disturbing was that this woman didn’t seem afraid of him or what he could do. She was studying him like a bird of prey. Normally, the simple evidence of his telekinesis terrified the predators, but not her. Not her at all.

“The police are coming,” Grayson lied, not believing it for one second any longer. He didn’t know if his call had been intercepted or if the police were simply in on it. Both sounded as insane as he felt, but the evidence in front of him told him that one of those things had to be true. Yet he insisted to her, “You need to leave.”

“Because I’m the one showing paranormal powers?” She smiled at him. 

Were her eye teeth pointed? 

“They won’t look at me,” Grayson told her even as his heart hammered in his chest. That wasn’t true. They’d looked at him before. They hadn’t thought he could move things with his mind, but they had thought he’d done something bad. “I’m just a store clerk. I’m no one important.”

She stared at him without blinking. The irises of her eyes moved like liquid. “You’ve gotten good at hiding. I suppose you would have to.  Someone so unique. Someone so interesting. I guess getting two for the price of one makes up for this mess.”

The “mess” wasn’t stabbing Gregory, Grayson guess. It was letting Gregory get away. And now, she acted like Grayson was another prize. Like the bloody letter in his back pocket. 

A wash of arctic cold went through him. Normally when he’d used his powers, people were sacred. But he’d always feared the day when someone was more interested than afraid of him. And she was that person. 

The weight of the door was growing and he swallowed hard. Soon he would have to drop it to the ground. Better to drop the small bits of metal first so he could use his remaining strength on the door. But the moment he let one nugget of metal drop, her head snapped towards it and those luminous, silver eyes narrowed while her smile grew.  She knew he was tiring. Grayson did not let another metal piece drop. He fought not to shake visibly.

He gritted out at her again, “The police--”

“Aren’t coming, dear. No one is coming,” she said almost wearily. 

No one is coming, those words echoed inside of him, reminding him of so many times when he’d been in danger and a predator had sing-songed that dark promise to him. No one is coming to save you. No one is coming to stop me. No one is coming to end this. No one...

Charlie made a low sound of fear and began to slap Gregory’s face. “Grayson! Grayson! I think--oh, damn, I think--”

“He’s dead, yes, but I wouldn’t mourn Gregory too deeply,” she said.

Grayson’s heart seemed to stop. He hadn’t known Gregory.  And that was wrong for a man to die among people he didn’t know. When he had been on the cusp of something great. But Gregory was gone. He felt it. There was an absence in the room. 

The Kaly Vampires say there is something beyond this life. I pray that Gregory finds it and it is wonderful, Grayson prayed.

She took another step closer. It was a small step.

“Don’t,” Grayson said through gritted teeth. 

“Gregory was a very naughty person,” she continued as if he had said nothing at all. 

She actually reached for one of the spinning metal pieces and touched it. Her eyes widened in pleasure as it spun away from her.

“I don’t believe anything you say,” Grayson told her. 

He pushed the door towards her. It wobbled, but only a little. She backed up again. A single bead of sweat ran down his right temple. He prayed she wouldn’t notice, but her eyes went directly there and she licked her lips as if imagining tasting his sweat.  If he hadn’t already been alarmed, he was now. He needed to get himself and Charlie the hell out of there.

She’s likely not the only one involved in this either, Grayson thought. Others are probably out front. Waiting on her.  So that’s not an escape route.

The convenience store’s back door was blocked by one of those large, industrial trash bins in the alleyway behind the store. It was a fire hazard and he’d complained about it loads of times, but there wasn’t enough space back there unless the trash bin was pressed right up to the door so nothing had been done. He was glad about that now. He figured the Sect or whoever had done this to Gregory wouldn’t be waiting back there. But he could use his powers to bust through and run.

I have to take Charlie, too. Grab him and run after sending the door hurtling towards her, he thought.

Another bead of sweat trailed down his right temple and then a third down his left. A shudder went through him. He had to build up the energy to do what he needed. He concentrated on the flicker of flame inside of him that he’d always imagined as powering his gift. He imagined throwing in logs to this fire to build it up. He wasn’t sure what truly happened when he did this, but his gift did grow. He shoved this imaginary “wood” into the flames.

“Gregory worked for us, you see,” the woman continued. She looked at her nails. They were beautifully painted a black-red color that changed depending on how the light hit them.  “He analyzed everything we knew about the Bloodlines and, of course, the two people most responsible for choosing the students. Balthazar and Caemorn are not exactly shrinking flowers in the Vampire World. Their personalities are well known.”

Grayson fed another log into his fire. Sweat though was now freely coursing down his face and dripping off of his chin. Charlie had drawn his legs up against his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He was rocking and moaning softly, sure that he was to likely die.

“Gregory was… well, a student of human nature. He was brilliant at it,” she said with a small smile at her nails. The sleeve of her coat on her right arm slid up towards her elbow and he saw a tattoo there. A lightning bolt. 

Silver eyes. Ability to use the weather. Lightning bolt tattoo. She’s a Horys Vampire! Grayson realized. But what would a Vampire be doing in the Sect of Dawn? 

Maybe he had been right that the Sect was simple nonsense and Gregory mistaken. But she was saying Gregory worked for them, for her, so why would she pretend to be a member of the Sect?

“Gregory found the perfect candidates,” she said as she negligently pulled her sleeve down to hide the evidence of her Bloodline. “He helped them craft the perfect entrance letters and interviews. He just also must have realized that he… well, that he was a perfect candidate, too.”

Grayson didn’t want to speak to this woman. He didn’t really care what she had to say. But he needed more time to fuel himself. And the more she talked, the more wood could be added to his fire.

“How did he get past the Eyros Vampires? They can read minds, right?  So they would have known that he was working for the Sect,” Grayson pointed out.

She nodded. “Look at you. A little Sherlock Holmes! If the Eyros Vampires were perfect at what they did all the time well… then the War would never have happened. But it did.”

He vaguely remembered hearing about the War between the various Immortals who sired all of the Bloodlines. They had battled for supremacy when King Daemon had chosen to go into an almost death-like sleep to await his fledgling’s birth. Many Vampires had died. Many Immortals had too, which Grayson found fitting and yet ironic because of their title. If they had been foolish enough to fight simply to be yet more powerful than they deserved what had happened to them.

“Aren’t there other Vampires though that can see the future? Those Seeyr ones? Surely, they can see what you’re planning,” Grayson suggested, not really interested, but still trying to keep her attention elsewhere.

More wood.

More fire.

More sweat.

More shaking.

But he was almost ready. His eyes flickered down to Charlie. The man didn’t weigh much. His bulk coming from the layer upon layer of clothes he wore. The only calories he likely got came mostly from alcohol. Grayson thought he could lift and carry Charlie if he had to until they burst out the back door. Then he’d set the homeless man down and they’d both hightail it out of there.

“Seeyr?” the woman laughed. It was not a nice laugh. “She couldn’t even stop herself from being imprisoned in the damned Spire. She says it was the only way to ensure that Daemon returned and got all the good things coming to him. But we know better. She is limited.”

Grayson frowned. He felt what she was saying was wrong, though really how would he know? There were rioters in the streets against the Vampires. There were religious cults--outside of the Sect--that hated the Vampires and wanted them destroyed. Surely if the Vampires were as gifted and powerful as everyone said they would have made a better job of revealing themselves to the world.

Unless it has to be this way, a part of him whispered. Unless King Daemon is enjoying himself. Setting up a challenge. Winning…

He snapped back to the moment as he realized the woman was practically pressed against the door. And the door had sagged a few inches towards the ground despite the wood. There was the sound of screeching tires outside and the thump of car doors opening and shutting.

“Ah, our ride,” she said with a wide smile. “I don't want to get wet again.”

Before he could do anything, she moved. Somehow she was around the door and on top of Charlie. Her teeth were at the homeless man’s throat. Charlie let out a wail of terror.  Grayson couldn’t use the door against her as it would harm Charlie, might even kill him. Besides there were two figures by the threshold of the store, about to come in. 

He sent the door flying towards the entrance and jammed it there to keep the other Sect members out. The tiny bits of metal he sent spinning towards her. She let out a scream as one sliced her arm and another cut open her cheek. He tried bringing them around again to cut her more. If he could move them fast enough they could blast through her like bullets. But they seemed slow and sluggish.

She whirled around to face him. Her mouth was covered in blood. It ran over her lips and down her chin. Her fangs were fully out. The moment should have paralyzed him with fear. But some part of him recognized this as if he’d seen it many times before. 

“Should have taken you out first,” she wheeled. “I’m sure you taste better than an old drunk anyways. But I needed to dampen my enthusiasm. You need to live after all.”

Grayson’s eyes slipped past her to Charlie. It had only been a moment. Not long at all. But the homeless man was dead. She hadn’t just sunk those needle-like fangs into his throat. She had torn out the front of it. Charlie gazed skyward, eyes unblinking, unseeing. The room again felt empty. Charlie was dead.

“Why are you so upset by their deaths?” she asked as she wiped the back of one hand over her mouth, just managing to smear the blood. “You’re a loner. You’ve had a hard life. You keep to yourself. Yet here you are, all bleeding heart! Another interesting thing about you!”

Bright, hot anger burned suddenly in him. It burned through the fear. It burned through the voice telling him to go, go, GO!

“He had nothing. He was a homeless drunk. But he was kind. He was gentle. He didn’t hurt anyone but himself,” Grayson told her. “And he shared what he had with those who…”

His throat closed up. Charlie had been the first street person he’d ever met who hadn’t been cruel, but genuinely kind. He’d shared food with Grayson when Grayson had first taken to the streets. He’d given Grayson a blanket. He’d told Grayson where it was safe to sleep and where it wasn’t. He’d even urged Grayson to go home… if only that had been a possibility.

“You killed him for what?” Grayson’s voice was taut. “Because you were hungry? Or bored?”

She stared at him almost blankly. If his words reached her, he didn’t know. But then she smiled. A bloody smile and said, “I bet you taste sweet.”

And then she lunged for him. 

But he was ready for her. And the anger inside of him fed that fire far better than imaginary wood. He thrust his arms out at her and she went flying backwards.  She hit the edge of the metal shelving so hard that some of it buckled, but the sturdier parts didn’t. A long, ragged piece of metal withstood his push and speared her through the chest. 

For a moment, the two of them stared at one another. Shock in both of their eyes. He expected death to enter hers in an instant as blood began to rain out of her and patter on the linoleum floor.

But she didn’t die.

She let out a garbled scream of rage and started to inch her way off of the metal spear. More blood cascading down her front.  There was the crash of glass as the people at the front door smashed the glass out of the door and started to make their way inside. 

There was no one left here to save.

Grayson turned and ran towards the back of the shop. He ran at full blast. His powers shredded the back door and trash bin beyond and he kept going. He didn’t slow down. He ran and ran and ran. He wasn’t heading anywhere. Just away. 

But he knew that there was only one place where he might be safe.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend, the old adage floated through his mind.

He was going to seek the help of the Vampires at Ever Dark Academy.

Next Chapter Will Be Posted Soon!