The Purity of Blood: Volume I (70 page)

I could feel the
tears fighting to burst forward and with all that I had left within me was
desperately trying to hold them back.
 
I
felt like Daniel was saying goodbye, and just entertaining the thought of it felt
like losing a grip on my sanity.

Suddenly the
clang of his phone broke the silence.
 

“Thomas? …
Thomas, what’s happening?”

He stared at his
phone.
 

“What is it?” I
asked, taking a step backward to look up at him.

“I don’t
know.
 
It was Thomas’ phone, but there
was no one there.
 
I couldn’t hear
anything.”

He tried to call
him back but no one answered.
 
Then he
tried Randall’s phone, but he didn’t answer either.
 
I could feel my heart beating louder and
louder as panic started to creep in.
 
Why
hadn’t I run when I’d thought about it before?
 
I knew I should never have ignored my instincts like that.
 
I should have made Daniel run with me, run
away to that island in the South Pacific he’d told me about.
 
We could have been happy there, for a while
anyway.
 
Now what did we have left other
than these few minutes?
 

If I was to die,
I wanted to die in his arms, and with great effort, I had to beat back the urge
to beg him to take me upstairs and make love to me while we still had some
measure of time left to us.
 
I’ll admit
it; I didn’t want to die a virgin.

Daniel left me
in the kitchen as he went into the living room and opened the front door.
 
He stood in the doorway trying to listen for
approaching sounds, signs of either what had happened or what was coming.

Even from
behind, I knew he was worried.
 
The
tension he held in his finely sculpted shoulders and neck said it all.
 
As I watched him standing in the doorway, I
knew I had to come up with some plan.
 
I
crossed the room into the kitchen and picked my backpack up off the floor.
 
After pulling out my gun, I tucked it in the
back of my jeans and pulled my jacket down over it.
 
It might not do any good, but it made me feel
better just knowing it was there.
 

I turned around
and saw Daniel still in the doorway.
 
I
knew without a doubt that he would never let anything happen to me as long as
he was alive.
 
I’d always assumed he
would outlive me, but was now thinking I may have been mistaken in that
assumption.
 
I turned away from him.
 
Trying to get the image of his broken body
lying across the front lawn out of my mind, I looked down at the floor and the
cooler of blood.
 
Before I realized it, I
walked over to it and sat down on the cooler and looked to my side.
 

I wonder –
I thought to myself with a
glimmer of hope.
 
No one would ever see that coming
.

Daniel came back
into the kitchen a few minutes later.
 
The worried look in his eyes caused my mind to travel back a day earlier
as we stood together in the upstairs closet.
 
Somehow I didn’t think that was an option he was considering now.
 
He came over and took both my hands in his.

“Don’t
worry.
 
Everything is going to be
alright.”

“I trust you,” I
said, staring at his chest.
 
I said it
more for him than for me.
 
I think it was
what he needed to hear.
 
It wasn’t that I
didn’t trust that he would do everything he could, but I wondered if in the end
it would be enough.
 

Was this really
the end for us?
 
After everything Randall
had put me through, was this really where I was to die?
 
Where both of us might die?

Daniel must have
seen what I was thinking in my eyes.
 
I
think desperate to erase the look from my face, he moved to pull me into his
arms, but before he could the front door suddenly burst open with a loud bang
like a gun shot.
 
He instantly spun
around while at the same time protectively shoving me behind him.
 
From my sheltering position, I managed to
peak out from around his shoulder.
 
A
head of long silver hair atop the ghastly white features of what most assuredly
had once been a man stood just inside the doorway.
 
He was taller than Daniel and wore a long
black cloak trailing down his back.
 
His
face was beyond strange.
 
He was old,
really old in appearance, but although you could see the age in his face, his
skin was taut without any of the wrinkles of old age.
 
Maybe this strange quality was what made him
almost mesmerizing to me.
 
I couldn’t
drag my eyes away from the blackness of his.
 
Of course they were staring back at me as well, almost as if Daniel
wasn’t even in the room with us.
 
He
wanted me.
 
Yes, I know it was to kill
me, but there was something about those eyes that called to me, almost beckoned
me to step out from behind Daniel and walk willingly into his arms.

He slowly entered
the living room and came to a stop in front of the fireplace.
 
His dark colorless eyes shifted over to stare
Daniel down as if suddenly realizing he was a barrier to me.
 
Those eyes that called me were set in an almost
pearly white face, checkered with black veins that radiated outward from his
eyes and bulged up under his skin.
 
He
was scary as hell, yet oddly all I could think was
who wears a cloak anymore?

“Out of my way,”
he growled at Daniel.
 

I felt Daniel’s
back leave my hand as he ran forward headlong into Demetrius.
 
When they crashed into the timbers of the
living room wall, I felt a tremble beneath my feet as the house shook on its
foundations.
 
Demetrius grabbed hold of
him and flung him across the room towards the fireplace where Daniel fell to
the floor on top of the stone hearth with a sickening thud.
 

After a moment’s
hesitation, Daniel shook it off and sprung to his feet.
 
Quickly turning to me he yelled “Run, Sara!”
as Demetrius came hurtling after him.
 

Unable to move, from
my vantage point in the kitchen I watched as the two blurs battled back and
forth in the living room.
 
They both
moved so fast I couldn’t make out who was winning.
 
But when I was able to distinguish them, Daniel
didn’t look like he was doing very well, and Demetrius didn’t look like he was
giving up any time soon.
 
I tried to run
like Daniel had asked.
 
I knew I should,
but as hard as I tried, my feet seemed rooted to the spot.
 

In something of
a blur, I saw Daniel’s body go flying through the air and collide with the back
wall of the house, then I turned to see Demetrius’ cold black eyes as they
locked onto mine.
 
As if this was the
end, he took a seductive step towards me, but before he could take a second
Daniel came hurtling down on top of him, and I watched in horror as they
disappeared back into their blurry battle.

Suddenly snapped
into reality, I ran out the back door as fast as I could only to stop short in
the middle of the back yard.
 
Where was I
going to go?
  
Suddenly I heard Lois’
words echoing in my head,
This is where
it has to end
.
 

In my moment of
hesitation another loud crash issued from inside the house, and Demetrius’ dark
figure suddenly appeared on the back porch.
 
As I turned to run, he disappeared off the porch only to reappear a few
paces in front of me, blocking my path.
 
I reached behind, pulled out the gun and pointed it at his head.
 
Maybe it would buy enough time for Daniel to
get out here.
 
He was alright.
 
He had to be.
 
Without a moment’s hesitation, I pulled the trigger and heard the sound
of the gunshot echo through the trees of the valley.
 
Demetrius took a staggering step backward
allowing me to see the hole in his forehead the bullet had made.
 
It was marked by a trickle of bright red
blood against the alabaster skin of his forehead.
 
Feeling a sense of rage over shadow any fear,
I pulled the trigger again and then a third time, leaving three distinct holes
in his forehead.
 
As the echo quickly dissipated
through the surrounding hills, I watched as he shook his head as if all I’d
done was slap him.
 
He appeared dazed for
only a few moments before his sickeningly evil smile returned.
 

“You
are
a stupid girl,” he said in his raspy
old man voice.
 
“Did you really think
that would stop me?”
 
Then he had the
audacity to laugh.

Before I could
answer, he reached out, grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me close.
 
Leaning in, he put his skeletal nose to my
neck and inhaled deeply.
 
As he did, his
eyes lit up like black diamonds.
 
He
looked like a drug addict, savoring the anticipation before getting the last,
best high of his life.
 

I know I should
have been scared, but I was more angry than anything.
 
For a moment I stared into those black eyes
and saw Daniel lying dead in the living room behind me.
 
I saw Randall, Lois and the others about to
die and the end of all the problems and pains in my life.
 
I was angry and growing angrier by the
second.
 
This creature wasn’t going to be
my doorway to Heaven.
 
The thing that
stole my Daniel would never have me!
 

I struggled in
vain to get free of his grip, but it was no use and he laughed at how I writhed
in his arms.
 
In fact, his smiled widened
as if my attempts to free myself were arousing him even more.
 
As he raised his head like a cobra about to
strike, I heard the back door slam open and out of the corner of my eye saw
Daniel appear about twenty feet behind me.

“Let her go!” he
demanded.

“It’s too late
to save your little play thing now.”

“Let her go and
I’ll let you walk away.
 
The minute you
try to feed on her, I swear to God, you’ll be dead before you hit the ground.”

Daniel’s eyes
weren’t blue anymore.
 
They were much
darker and I wasn’t sure if I should be just as afraid of him as Demetrius at
this point.

Demetrius spun
me around.
 
With my back to his front, he
had his arm in a death grip around my neck.
 
I knew all he had to do was squeeze and I’d be dead in an instant.

“Somehow I don’t
think you will.
 
I think you’re in love
with this one.
 
It must be agony for
you.”
 
He laughed at the absurdity of it
in his mind, then leaned down and smelled my hair. “Just agony, to be so close
and not bite down on that beautiful jugular vein.”

I felt him trace
the vein in my neck with his boney finger while he looked at it with
longing.
 
Daniel took a menacing step
forward as if about to lunge causing Demetrius to increase his grip.
 
When I cried out in pain, fear flashing in Daniel’s
eyes as he instantly froze in place.

Suddenly blurs
appeared in front of me as Randall, Lois and the others materialized behind
Daniel.

“You’re out
numbered, Demetrius,” Daniel said.
 
His
eyes were now surrounded by those spidery black veins I’d seen the night I’d
cut my hand open.

Looking up into
Demetrius’ face, our eyes met.
 
In that
instant, I could see he’d never give up, never admit defeat.
 
At this point, I didn’t have to be a vampire
to tell he was crazy enough that he’d rather go down with my blood in his mouth
than leave empty handed.
 
Knowing this
was the end; I reached into my pocket and pulled the cover off the syringe I’d
hidden there.
 
Whipping it out, I quickly
stabbed him in the leg, hastily depressing the end of the plunger as I
did.
 

I knew I’d hit
my target when the look in his eyes changed.
 
At first it was anger, rage really.
 
I could feel his grip on me tighten as he started to lean down towards
my neck.
 
Then his expression
darkened.
 
Stepping back from me, he
pulled the syringe out of his leg and threw it on the ground in disgust.
 
He looked shocked now as if somehow off
balance.
 
As a searing pain flashed in
his eyes, the dark lines begin to grow, spreading out to cover the entirety of
his face.

“What did you
do?” he rasped out, barely able to speak.
 

The next thing I
saw was a blur as Daniel scooped me up in his arms and ran me up to the safety
of the back porch.
 
Once there, he set me
down and held me in his arms so I couldn’t see what was happening down by the
barn.
 
But it didn’t matter.
 
I knew Demetrius had lost and that he
wouldn’t be bothering me again.