Eternity and a Year (9 page)

Sophia’s voice was acidic. “I know what it’s like to have the one you love ripped away from you forever and to be left as an empty shell that can only ever hope to be filled by revenge. I won’t do that to anyone else.
That’s
why I won’t let you kill her.”

Isadora laughed again. “As if you could stop me.” She paused thoughtfully, still throttling Carrie. “Fortunately for you, though, I don’t plan to kill her now. She’ll serve too well as bait to do away with just yet.”

The shrinking collar of cold flesh was suddenly gone from Carrie’s neck as Isadora flung her to the floor. Carrie flopped painfully on the grimy cement surface and curled in on herself, gasping raggedly. The air burnt her throat as she gulped it in desperately. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing her head to stop spinning as she wondered vaguely if she’d ever be able to breathe again without feeling knives in her throat. She teetered on the brink of unconsciousness, barely hearing the voices that argued above her. It wasn’t until something hard was thrust against her cheek that she opened her eyes and tried to blink away the fog that had invaded her mind.

“Brendan!” Carrie exclaimed suddenly when his frantic voice called her name. Her heart leapt, then slowed as she realised it came over the cell phone being pressed against her face.

“Carrie!” he said desperately. “Carrie!”

“I’m here,” she said thickly, feeling the cold pressure of the floor against one cheek and the plastic of her cell phone digging into the other as Isadora held it there.

“What’s going on?” he asked, sounding panicked.

Before Carrie could reply, the instrument was snatched away. She blinked up at Isadora as the vampiress held the cell phone to her own pale cheek.

“Be here at nightfall,” Isadora said. “I’ll be waiting, and so will she.” With that, she snapped it shut and tossed it so it clattered across the hard floor, spilling its battery.

Carrie dared to glance up at Isadora, unable to stop herself from picturing her kneeling before Brendan, robbing him of his humanity, and nausea swept through her once again.

Chapter Five

The thin strip of light that the barely-open warehouse door cast across the dusty floor faded slowly from a yellow bar to a pale sliver of grey—a welcome harbinger of dusk. Carrie’s heart beat nervously against her ribs, pounding the ghost of a tattoo into the cement on which she lay. Brendan would be there soon, she told herself. Soon.

She had passed the afternoon on her face, pressed uncomfortably against the floor under Isadora’s watchful eye. Sophia had left hours before, her white gown fluttering behind her as she abandoned Carrie to the assumption that her captor would not kill her before nightfall. But would she be back then? Carrie thought so. She had never seen anyone who looked as if she wanted to kill so badly. Yes, she would be back, and so would Brendan. It was a thought that made her want to weep with both joy and dread at the same time.

Carrie flexed her wrists against the bindings that held them together behind her back—Isadora had torn Carrie’s shirt off her and ripped it into strips of fabric with which to tie them—and found the knots were as secure and tight as ever. Her arms tingled, threatening to fall completely asleep, something she had only narrowly avoided by wiggling and stretching them as best she could under the circumstances. Every once in a while she’d wince as her wrists brushed the bandage that covered the small of her back, concealing the freshly-stitched wound beneath.

“Surely you’ve realised by now you can’t possibly wiggle your way out of those knots?” Isadora asked, snorting derisively.

She had been surprisingly quiet as she watched over Carrie, breaking the silence only occasionally with a scornful remark, giving Carrie the impression Isadora didn’t even consider a human worth taunting. Carrie had expected her to gloat, perhaps even to torture her with talk of what she had done to Brendan, but she did not. Instead, she stood against one of the walls, a post she had kept since she’d bound Carrie hours before. There was an odd stillness in the way she waited, a confident and unnatural patience. It made her seem more spider than human, Carrie thought—the vampiress was a creature who was used to laying plans and having them succeed.

Carrie stifled a rude response. She would not speak to Isadora, she’d decided—not as a captive, anyway. When she was free to strike out, to unleash a year’s worth of fury on the wretched creature, then she would tell her what she thought of her or die in the attempt.

The soft crescendo of approaching footsteps swiftly wiped all thoughts of what she might say when the time came from Carrie’s mind, and sent her heart into overdrive as she strained to hear more. If the bar of light admitted by the door was any indication, the sky had faded to a dusky grey, perhaps dark enough for a vampire to walk beneath it unaffected. The footsteps grew closer, and her heart matched every one footfall with several frantic beats.

The strip of faint twilight disappeared as a body darkened the threshold. The eclipse proved to be brief as the door burst wide open, flying from its hinges with a spectacular bang. Carrie winced, squeezing her eyes shut instinctively as it slammed to the cement floor and slid several feet across it. When she opened them, a tall, male form stood silhouetted against the late evening sky in the gaping doorway, quivering in a tense fashion that suggested either rage, fear or both.

“Brendan?” Carrie gasped.

“Carrie.” His voice gave her name many different meanings—it was a prayer, a curse, an apology and a thousand other things.

“I love you,” Carrie called. Tears pricked her eyes as she spoke, but a small burden lifted from her shoulders nonetheless. No matter what happened, no matter how the confrontation ended, he would know she loved him. Their relationship wouldn’t end with sour words and doubt. Not this time.

“I love you, too.”

His voice was husky with raw emotion and taut with what Carrie would have identified as madness had he been anyone else. His long hair had been mussed into wild spikes and whirls, and she wondered if he had been pulling at it. If that were the case, she couldn’t blame him. She would have been pulling her own hair out with worry, too, if her hands hadn’t been tied.

Isadora’s sharp laughter pierced the tender silence, maliciously amused.

“Shut up, you evil bitch.”

Brendan’s voice held more hatred than Carrie would have thought was possible, and she couldn’t help shrinking slightly from the sound.

Isadora stopped laughing. “You don’t have to put on a show for her,” she said, waving a dismissive hand towards Carrie. “She’ll soon be dead.”

Brendan’s fists tensed in reaction and the ghost of a growl escaped from somewhere deep in his chest.

“If you please me well enough, I might let you share her blood with me,” Isadora taunted.

“Shut up!” Brendan snapped, trembling with rage.

“Tsk, tsk.” Isadora shook her head in mock disappointment. “You are selfish. Last time we met, I got on my knees and served you. It’s only fair that this time, you please me.” Isadora took a step towards where Brendan stood, glaring, near the doorway.

“Brendan!” Carrie cried, her voice weak with the pain the vampiress’s words had caused her. “She’s planning to kill you!”

Brendan’s eyes met Carrie’s for a brief second, and the agony in his caused fresh tears to well in her eyes, hot and desperate.

He took a step forward, too, as if he were unwilling to let Isadora come any closer to Carrie than he. Carrie stared in wide-eyed horror, and the distance between them shrank as they advanced on each other—and her—like two storm clouds charged with electricity.

Where was Sophia? Carrie eyed the open doorway hopefully, but there was no sign of the petite blonde. Carrie had been counting on her help. Now, she blinked back tears.

Isadora darted forward suddenly, and Brendan imitated her but was too late. The vampiress’s strong grip settled into Carrie’s hair, yanking her up onto her knees, which had long since bruised due to an afternoon of contact with the cement. Carrie gasped, causing a searing pain to rip through her still-sore throat, as she struggled to maintain balance. Her breasts bounced in her bra, which had once been white but was now thoroughly coated with grey grime from the floor.

Brendan snarled, and his elongated eye teeth flashed.

“On your knees before me,” Isadora demanded in a tone of cool satisfaction, “or I shall destroy her.”

The bones in Carrie’s neck cracked audibly as Isadora pulled her hair with steady pressure, bowing her head backwards and exposing her throat. White-hot pain shot up her spine and into her skull, and her breath left her in an anguished sigh.

Brendan glared at Isadora, eyed Carrie regretfully and settled to his knees with a miserable groan.

“Very good,” Isadora said. “Now, you will continue to do as I say, or I’ll kill the girl then do what I wish with you anyway. Do you agree?”

Brendan said nothing.

Desperation permeated Carrie’s pain, causing her to sigh again. What possible escape was there? She could see Brendan continuing to obey Isadora in her mind’s eye, and the images it produced made her want to scream. Sophia! She seemed to be their only hope. But where
was
she?

“I asked you whether you agree to my terms,” Isadora said acidly.

She pulled harder on Carrie’s hair while simultaneously driving a knee into her spine just above the stitches, forcing Carrie to arch backwards, suspended in agony, and rendering her unable to collapse. Carrie laboured to breathe as the upper halves of her breasts swelled above the confines of her bra cups, freeing her nipples to harden in the cool air.

Brendan eyed Carrie’s body with wide, red eyes and opened his mouth to speak just as a shadow fell over her, darkening her pale, exposed curves.

Isadora hissed and tightened her grip reflexively on Carrie’s hair, causing Carrie to cry out in pain. Brendan lunged forward, taking advantage of Isadora’s shock and striking her hard across the face. Carrie collapsed, gasping, onto the cement as Isadora lost her hold on her hair, and Brendan bent as if to scoop her up into his arms.
           

Isadora was too quick for him. She darted between the two of them in one deft movement, and Brendan collided with her.

He jerked away as if he’d been burnt, his face contorted with rage. Meanwhile, Isadora grasped Carrie’s hair again, twisting it painfully. Carrie whimpered and looked beyond her captor and Brendan to where Sophia had appeared in the doorway, casting the shadow that had caused the disturbance. Carrie’s heart rose from where it had settled at her toes.

Isadora appeared to be doing her best to divide her attention between Brendan and Sophia, paying little attention to Carrie, whom she was jerking about by her soft, nutmeg locks like a rag doll.

“Release her,” Brendan said.

The urgency in his voice and eyes hurt Carrie almost as much as the physical pain. She hated that her disobedience had driven him half-crazy all day and pushed him to the brink of tears now.

“No,” Isadora said.

She jerked Carrie’s hair suddenly, so Carrie was forced to rise to a standing position. Carrie stood beside her captor, wincing as sharp cramps attacked her calves.

Isadora tilted Carrie’s head backwards again and leaned her own close to it with a cruel smile. “You’ll both obey me. If you don’t, I’ll have her blood.” She pressed her mouth against Carrie’s neck in demonstration, parting her lips and baring her fangs so their tips threatened to dent Carrie’s skin.

Sophia’s brow plunged in irritation, and Brendan moaned in anguish.

Carrie’s heart pounded frantically. A few silent moments stretched by, during which each vampire in the room remained infinitely more still than Carrie, who trembled from the upheaval in her chest.

“I thought so,” Isadora said, smiling in cruel satisfaction.

She removed her mouth from Carrie’s neck and stared levelly at Brendan. “Now,” she said, “I came here to have you, and I
will
, even if your pitiful human has to lie beside us with my hand around her fragile neck as I do.”

Brendan stared back at Isadora, a hint of fear in his eyes. Another pang of guilt swept over Carrie.

“As for you,” Isadora added, glancing sharply at Sophia, “you’ll stay out of this if you value your existence.”

Sophia responded with a vicious glare.

Isadora ignored her, turning instead to address Brendan again. “Return to your knees.”

Brendan obeyed, never removing his gaze from Carrie. It was not accusing but apologetic. Carrie wilted, held more or less upright only by the iron grip Isadora maintained on her hair.

Sophia lingered by the door, watching the scene unfold. Carrie wondered if she had a plan to help her and Brendan, praying a silent request that if she didn’t, she would come up with one quickly.

“Strip,” Isadora said.

Brendan opened his mouth to protest.

“Do it,” Isadora said, then flicked Carrie’s neck with the end of her cold tongue.

 
Carrie trembled with both revulsion and dread.

Brendan sighed, pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it aside quickly to reveal the smooth, pale bodyscape of his muscular torso. Isadora bared her fangs and pressed them against the soft curve of Carrie’s neck, wrenching her hair cruelly to make her cry out for emphasis. Brendan, his expression disgusted, unbuttoned his fly and obediently slid his jeans down over the strong expanses of his thighs.

Carrie glanced briefly at Sophia, who was watching Brendan shed his clothing with an unreadable expression. Her pity rose for the vampiress whose husband had been taken from her by Isadora years ago.

Isadora sighed as she regarded Brendan in his nudity. “You’re beautiful, you know,” she breathed. “I knew you would be. That’s why I chose you.” She spoke more quickly as she continued. “I always choose the beautiful ones. And why not? I can have anyone I want. After all, you’re just like the others, nothing but a toy to me—a fragile toy, but beautiful while you last.” She laughed breathily. “Now,” she said when she’d regained most of her composure, “rise.” She punctuated her command with a sudden movement that tore her dress away from her body and cast it aside so she stood nude before her small audience.