Graced (9 page)

~A Gust of Wind~

Laura was the first to run up to Logan.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Tracks.” He pointed up ahead into the thick undergrowth. At first glance, Laura couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary… but then she noticed a single bunch of twisted grass blades. And then another bunch, not far off. And then more, and more, going on and on just like footprints in the snow. Except that whatever

– or whoever – had made these was walking very lightly on its feet.

Alexander was next to arrive. Taking one look at Logan, and glancing briefly at Laura, he directed his attention immediately to where the two of them were looking. He nodded to himself as he saw what they saw.

“Who do you think did it?” Laura asked.

“Not sure,” Logan replied quietly, “but whoever it was, they were here very recently. Otherwise I wouldn’t have picked the tracks up.”

“…how recently?” Laura asked, feeling a growing sense of apprehension.

“Fifteen minutes ago, maybe less.” Logan looked to the side as Madison arrived. “Madison should be able to tel us more.”

“You’re right,” she said, after taking a few moments to look at the broken grass. “Whoever it was, we barely missed them.”

“Do you think…” Laura gulped, “…do you think it was more of the
Vassiz
?”

“Could very wel be,” Logan answered. “We’l have to step warily from now—”

He cut off as a black gust of
something
swept in rapidly from the side to engulf him completely. And just as fast as it had appeared, it was gone. Before Laura even had time to react, much less think, Logan was missing.

“Loga—” Laura started to yel , twisting around to look behind her. But then something hard knocked into her side, and sent her flying. As she flew, dazed from the unexpected attack, she saw the same black gust appear very quickly around Madison to whisk her away, and almost immediately after, around Alexander. And both of them were gone.

Laura hit a trunk of a tree with tremendous force. Her shoulder slammed into the bark, and she cried out as a stinging pain ran up and down her arm. But she had no time to worry about pain. As she fel to the ground, she felt her vampire instincts kick in –
really
kick in, like she was back in the thril of a hunt – and she righted her fal , landing deftly on her feet.

Immediately, her first reaction was to figure out what was attacking her, and from where. She had to know the threat. Al her senses opened up to let in the stimulation of the surrounding world, and she surveyed everything around her. She saw nothing at first. Everything in her surroundings was quiet. She strained her ears, but not even the sound of the wind rustling through the dried forest leaves could be heard. She looked to al sides, and up in the trees, and down in the brush for the threat. But there was nothing.
What was that shadow?
She didn’t know. But she knew that it had taken Logan. And Madison and Alexander. She was the only one left, the only one it didn’t touch – for whatever reason – and she knew it was up to her to save the others.

But even if that darkness didn’t touch her,
something
else did. And she had no idea what it was. It moved so fast, she just did not see it was there until it hit her right in her side. She scanned the ground in front of her. Everything was so eerily quiet. Much too quiet. Suddenly, she realized something – where was Gray?

Discretion wasn’t on her side. Whoever had attacked her group knew they were there, so it wouldn’t do much good sneaking around trying to avoid notice. Gray had been just behind them right before they found the tracks…

If it were vampires attacking her, if it were the
Vassiz
, they wouldn’t have picked up on Gray. Which meant he should stil be here, somewhere. But she couldn’t even hear him. As fast as she could, she dashed back. Back to where Gray had been. And before she had even taken three steps in the direction, she saw him.

He was about thirty feet away, staring strangely right at her. Or maybe
through
her. It was like he couldn’t see her at al . Abruptly, he lifted his paw and swiped at something in front of him with immense force. At the same time, he roared – but Laura didn’t hear anything. His paw hit something right in front of him, and rebounded back hard. Laura blinked. There was
nothing
there. Gray stood on his hind legs, and again tried to paw against whatever it was in front of him. And again, his limb rebounded back as if he had hit it against a concrete wal .

Laura ran towards him. Just as she was about to reach him, she slammed head-first into an unforgiving surface. But there was nothing
there
. She fel back, rebounding from the invisible barrier like she’d just run ful -steam into a solid wal . She’d run with such speed that it took her a few moments to shake away the pain – and the shock – that had come from hitting the wal . It was like a barrier of air had been somehow set up, hard as rock and completely invisible.

Luckily – but entirely inexplicably – those few lost seconds did not bring on another wave of attacks. There was no strange force knocking into her side, no noise that could give away her attacker. And no sign of that wretched black shadow.

She got to her feet, and walked over slowly to the place where she’d slammed into the barrier. It was only a few feet in front of Gray, but, as close as she was to him, he made no sign to have noticed her. In fact, he now had both his front paws leaning against the outside of imperceptible wal that separated them. And the way his paws pressed up against it reminded Laura of a glass dome. She reached out careful y with her hand to where his paw was. And about two inches before she could reach him, she felt the surface again. The same hard, invisible material she had run straight into. It was cold, but completely smooth. She ran her hand along it, and realized that it
was
slightly curved. By the feel of the curve, she could say that she was on the
inside
of the barrier. She looked up towards the sky. She could see the clouds as clearly as before, but… every once in a while, she caught a bit of a
shimmer
running across where she guessed the top of the surrounding dome would be. It was like someone had placed an enormous glass bowl over her. She didn’t know how big it was, but suspected the barrier was solid al the way around. Which meant she was trapped.

She heard a noise behind her, and whipped around. It wasn’t noise from close by, she realized, but rather, from further away. From right about where Logan had found those tracks. And it sounded like somebody moving through the trees.

Quickly, Laura ran to a nearby tree trunk and pressed herself against it. She moved with more grace than whoever was making the noise, and was sure hadn’t made any sound herself. She could stil hear the other movement through the woods.

She tried to get a sense of who was making the noise. She could do it, she knew, based only on the sound waves that they produced and her instinctual understanding of them. She had done it once before, when she and Logan came across the hunter and found Gray. But as hard as she tried, she couldn’t quite get the same grasp on it as before. It was like there was an… interference… that blocked her from figuring it out.

But she knew that they were stil quite a ways away. She snuck a peek from around the tree she was using as cover, and, seeing no one, bolted to another tree closer to the source of the noise. She was extremely careful not to make a sound – she didn’t know who her attackers were, but she had seen what they did to her friends.

The movement she could hear continued. And, at least, she could tel by the direction of the noise that whoever was making the sound was not moving towards her, but rather to the side. Good. It meant they didn’t know where she was yet.

Just as she was about to step out from the tree to stalk a little closer, she heard a voice, hushed but stil clear to her ears.

“Where on hel ’s earth did she go?” It was a man’s voice, although not particularly deep.

“I don’t know.” Another voice answered. That meant there were at least two attackers. This voice was also a man’s and irritatingly grating. And by the tone taken, it sounded like the owner of the second voice was subservient to the owner of the first.

“Dammit man, she’s the only one we need!”

“I know, I know. But I did exactly what I was told to do!”

“How hard was it,” the first voice growled, “to capture
one little girl
, when I had taken care of al the rest?”

“It wasn’t like that,” the second voice contended. “The pendant… it should have worked against her.”

“It worked when
I
used it against the others.”

“I saw that! But not what happened with her. Maybe mine’s defective.”

“They’re the same bloody thing!”

“Then I don’t know what happened. It just didn’t work against her.”

“What the hel do you mean it didn’t work on her?” If Laura had thought one could roar while whispering, this was it. “She’s a bloody
vampire
for Christ’s sake, and the device works against al of them.
All
of them!”

“You don’t need to remind me,” the second voice answered sourly. “We’l find her. It’s not like she could have gone far, not with the little
surprise
we put up.”

“Right.” Laura heard a chuckle from the owner of the first voice. “She’s in here somewhere. Probably cowering in fear after seeing what happened to her friends. Hah! Just wait until she figures out what wil happen to her…”

Laura stopped listening, and let the voices drown out. She was
cowering in fear
, was she? She would show them the truth of that. But first, she had to figure out what these… pendants… were, that the two men mentioned. And what they could do to vampires.

She waited as the sound of movement shifted away from her. Whatever the pendants did, they did not seem to give her attackers a greater ability to track her. Which was good. It meant, if she was careful, she could stil take them by surprise.

Slowly, she moved away from her spot by the tree. She crouched low, careful to let the top of the shrubs and bushes hide her. The two men were stil walking together – two
Vassiz
, if she didn’t know any better – and they were stil going in the wrong direction. She could tel so by the sound of their movement. She needed to get closer, to take a look at them. But what had they done to Logan, and the others? If she could find them before, maybe she could avoid a conflict with the two
Vassiz.
Had they been the ones responsible for the black cloud, or was that someone else? What else could be hunting her in this domed trap? No matter what, Laura knew she had to be extremely cautious.

At the same time, Laura knew that chances were there’d be no escape from the inside of the barrier without confronting her attackers. But if she could just find Logan and Alexander and Madison,
see
that they were stil alive…

No. Laura shook her head. They
had
to be stil alive. For one, she knew the elders preferred to take her and Logan living. And two, Logan had told her that kil ing another
Vassiz
was a deep violation of the creed set out by the elders. No matter what they ordered, she doubted they would have Madison and Alexander kil ed simply because they were traveling with her and Logan. And third, she admitted, the thought of having failed them so badly as to let them be taken was just too much right now. Careful y, Laura picked her way through the trees, towards her pursuers. And slowly, little by little, she began to get closer to them. Every now and then, she picked up on bits of conversation:

…

“Maybe she’d gotten away?”

“Impossible. She was right there when we set the barrier.”

…

“Wel , where can she be then?”

“Just keep looking. Keep your eyes peeled for any movement.”

…

And so on and so forth. Her attackers were so completely preoccupied with looking for her, it hadn’t occurred to either that she might be looking for
them
. Or trailing right behind them. Suddenly she heard them stop. She dropped to the ground silently, praying she hadn’t been seen.

“Did you hear that?” one of them asked.

“Hear what?”

“I thought there was something…behind us.”

Laura’s heart jumped to her throat. Had they heard her? She couldn’t remember making any discernable noise, but she had let her mind wander for that brief moment…

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. But I was sure I heard something there.”

“Wel , let’s take a look.”

Laura’s pulse started to race. She heard the two men turn around and move towards her. She didn’t think they’d seen her just yet, but if they came closer, she had nowhere to hide. With a renewed sense of purpose, she started to crawl on al fours to an area where the forest thickened. But she could hear the two men coming. If she could get to the denser area in time, she might escape notice… but if the other
Vassiz
moved quickly, she wouldn’t have enough time to get away. And then al plans of avoiding a confrontation until she’d figured out what happened to Logan and the others would be nul ified. They were walking back, and moving faster than before. Laura crawled along the ground, scampering to get away. It was difficult: her clothes caught on the twigs and sticks that littered the forest floor, and she knew that she couldn’t avoid leaving a track. If the two men were focused, there would be no way they could miss her.

Suddenly, less than a dozen feet away from her, Laura heard something smal scamper through the bush. It was some sort of animal, and had jolted away at a dead run.

Her pursuers heard it too.

“A damn squirrel?” one of them growled. “You turned us around for a
squirrel
?”

“I told you I head something,” the other countered. “How would I know it’d be a rodent?”

“Next time,” the other one continued in a heated tone, “you need to be
sure
you’re not wasting our time chasing squirrels!” Laura heard him turn away noisily and start back into the forest further away. The other one fol owed.