Wake of Darkness (39 page)

The last head rolled to a stop at their
feet and they looked collectively to Catherina. Dante stood in the shadow
watching her, as paralyzed as any of them would be at the sight of their
companion submitting completely to evil. Catherina held Jacques like a rag doll
in her mouth, her anger and the learned hunger that had been suppressed for so
long, visibly raging in her.

“Her thoughts are confused,” Sophie
shouted Jim and Alexander as they inched towards her. “Watch out.”

Sophie could suddenly hear Catherina’s
thoughts through all the barriers she’d previously put up against her. The
transformation was complete.

“She thinks we’re here to attack
her too,” Sophie said quickly. “She’s completely identifying with them. She’s
one
of them.”

Jim looked from Sophie to
Alexander. “What do we do?” he asked, panic in his voice.

Zoey pulled another bottle of holy
water out of her bag. Alexander held his hand up to her and Jim. He glared at
Catherina, refusing to pull his eyes from her, waiting for the moment she would
decide to spring. Instead, Catherina froze and looked back in their direction.

Laney stared at her adopted mother
in horror. Catherina turned her eyes to the young girl and cocking her head to
the side, stared at her with a terrifyingly expectant smile. Laney stepped
forward in a trance to stand between the members of her family, reaching almost
blindly out to Catherina.

Catherina leered at Laney as if she
were something to eat. Sophie’s eyes bore into Catherina, but her focus was not
on Sophie. Catherina’s concentration rested on the weakest target of the group
as Laney innocently approached her in shocked, mute terror. She was within
reaching distance of Dante, but he stood helplessly by, watching his wife
embrace her evil instincts; he did nothing to stop the young girl.

No one
was stopping Laney. Sophie
stood behind them all, furthest from the group, but could see Catherina the
best of all. She saw the split-second change the rest of them missed in her
countenance. Catherina wanted human blood, and Laney's was close enough.

“
NO!!!!
” Sophie suddenly yelled,
pushing past Alexander and Zoey, nearly knocking them down, jumping to traverse
the space, and she tackled Catherina before she could charge the family.

Catherina’s body was catapulted
through the opposite wall seconds before she sprang to attack Laney. Sophie
forced Catherina to the ground, but she knew she couldn’t hold her for long. Now
that she’d changed, she was stronger than Sophie was. Catherina had one goal in
mind, and it involved Laney’s death. Sophie hurled her keys at Jim without
looking, not daring to pull her eyes from Catherina’s face.

“I'll kill her,” Catherina growled
at Sophie. “You can't stop me.”

“
Get her the hell out of here!
”
Sophie ordered him as Catherina struggled to be free.

Jim grabbed Laney, jumped to the
cars, and tossed her into the front seat of Sophie’s Mercedes before screeching
the tires in a spin and speeding out of the alleyway, getting Laney out of
danger as quickly as possible. Catherina glared hatefully at Sophie with her
black eyes; the hunger had taken over. She looked from Sophie to Alexander,
then to Zoey, to Dante and then back at Sophie from where she held her down on
the ground.

“Get a hold of yourself, damn it!”
Sophie demanded roughly, slapping Catherina fiercely across the face.

The new vampire snarled and gnashed
at Sophie in response. She fought like an animal and was quickly able to
struggle free from her grip. Catherina backed away from them slowly, stepping
over vampire bodies as she went. The black of her eyes was obvious even in the
dark night and her body was deathly pale when the lightning flashed above them.
She didn’t know any of her former family from strangers. The clouds above
opened up and a heavier rain started to pour down, running down their soaking
clothes as they stood silently watching Catherina.

Alexander and Sophie waited, ready
to spring, while Dante watched helplessly, as if he knew what would happen. He
didn’t move to stop it. Zoey watched him through suspicious eyes.

Catherina continued to back away
from them slowly, crouching low to the ground like a vampire. Her eyes shifted
from Sophie to Alexander. She had no idea who they were, anymore than she knew
who she was herself. She suddenly froze in place, a fearsome statue before them,
standing too still for reality. Sophie didn’t move as she watched Catherina’s
face.

And then, rocking back on a heel, Catherina
suddenly charged Alexander and was on him in a moment. All the hatred and
violence in Catherina hit Sophie like a tidal wave. She roared in response. Alexander
brought his arms up to fend off the attack, but not before one of his stakes
flew through the air and tore through her heart. Catherina squealed in pain and
fell backward, clawing at the stake like the terrified monster she had become. Alexander
stood above the vampire, looking down at her in disgust. She had become one of
them completely.

She clawed at the stake, but stared
viciously into his face, desperately wanting to attack him again. But the stake
prevented her from moving, as if it weighed a thousand pounds. She tried to
hiss something out at them, but it came out garbled and like the rants of a
demon.

Sophie ran to Alexander’s frozen
side as Catherina lay there twitching. She bent and gripped the sides of Catherina’s
head with her hands and looked into her face as Alexander stood frozen above her.
There was only anger and madness in the black depths of those eyes.

“I’m sorry, Catherina,” Sophie
whispered before she brought her knife down on Catherina’s neck and twisted her
head off.

The body convulsed at the loss of
its head, the mouth still moved in an effort to say or bite something, until finally,
it was still.

The night was suddenly quiet around
them, save for the soft rumbling of thunder overhead and the sounds of traffic
and laughter from adjacent streets. The rain had slowed to a drizzle almost as
quickly as it had come on. For the first time that night, Sophie’s hands shook
as she exhaled some of the stress from her body.

Alexander sprang to action, quickly
piling the other bodies together and set them on fire as Sophie remained over
Catherina’s body, a foreign heaviness in her heart, as her hair hung wet down her
back and into her face. Zoey stepped towards Sophie and stood at her side.

Sophie looked over her shoulder at
Dante, who wept silent tears. He slowly walked over to the body at her feet,
and scooping it up gently in his arms. He carried it over to the bonfire in the
narrow alleyway.

Alexander appeared at Sophie’s side
and wrapped his arm around her waist as they silently watched Dante toss his
wife’s body and head into the fire. He turned slowly to look at the three of
them. Sophie’s breath froze for his reaction; Zoey held her hand.

Dante sighed, thought about something
and then nodded his head. “I think I shall take my leave of you now,” he said
quietly, almost to himself.

“Dante, I’m…,” Sophie started to
say, but really had no words. She tried to reach out to him.

His face was gentle and serene as
he looked at her. “She would have done the same thing if your roles were
reversed. You have saved
many
lives tonight.” He looked from Sophie to
Alexander and back to Sophie once more. “Regret
nothing
of this night. It
is done.”

And with that, he was gone leaving the
three of them in the street, dripping with rain and dead blood.

“Come with me,” Alexander said,
pulling her hand in the direction of his car, but not turning his back on Dante
who continued to walk slowly away. Zoey backed away from Dante towards her
motorcycle.

The fight had taken all of five
minutes, yet so much had changed.

He opened the passenger door for her
and she slid in, dazed. He slid into his seat. Gunning the engine, they sped
for home. Zoey had ridden off in the opposite direction. The Audi was soon
passed by two police cars, lights flashing and sirens blaring in the direction
from which they’d come, but they knew the cops wouldn’t find anything but a few
broken bricks and a dumpster set ablaze.

Alexander looked over at Sophie as
he drove, but she didn’t meet his gaze. Her clothes clung wetly to her skin as she
stared out the window into the waning rain.

“Did I scare you out there?” she
muttered self-consciously.

He shook his head. “You could never
scare me. Besides, you saved my life,” he responded equally as quiet, staring
at the road in front of him.

“Not then. I meant when…I…,” she
couldn’t say it out loud, but the vision of herself flashed through her mind:
violently crouched low to the ground, snarling like one of them, the rage had no
doubt been visible in every inch of her body.

She’d seen herself in Laney’s eyes,
and it was terrifying.

He was quiet for a minute, staring
at the road before them.

“Your mind was very open to us all.
You may have been behaving like a vampire, but I assure you, you are not
anything like one of them,” he said, carefully pronouncing every word. “Laney’s
perspective was a bit skewed by her emotions.”

“If you say so,” she replied
doubtfully, though she did smile a little.

“Trust me; it is not the first time
for one of us to act like that. We
are
all part vampire, no matter how
much we hate to admit it. Their behaviors are sometimes unsettlingly natural
for us.”

“I know.” She nodded and was quiet,
lost in her thoughts which suddenly turned to Catherina.

Dante saw it coming,
he
thought as the car came to a stop.

They were already in the garage
back at the house. She looked over to see her car already waiting there and
sighed with relief. Zoey had already made it back too. He turned in the seat
and took both of her hands in his.

“I do not know how to make you
understand this, but you must know that I am not surprised or upset in
any
way. Laney and Jim will have a difficult time with this, but they will always
love you for who you are and what you have done for them, regardless of who
Catherina was. They will soon recover from this.

“You saved Laney’s life for
certain, and probably Jim’s as well. You and I both know that you saw it would
be her life or ours tonight. And Zoey would have chosen you over Catherina any
day,” he reached up to push a wayward lock of hair from her face and looked
deeply into her eyes before repeating Dante’s words: “Regret nothing.”

She nodded as he dropped her hands
and slid out of the car. He walked around, opened the door for her, and held
out a hand for her to take. They walked slowly out of the garage and towards
the house as she contemplated what to say to the others.

Don’t worry. They love you.

“Sophie!” Laney exclaimed the
moment they walked inside. She ran into her arms, regardless of how filthy
Sophie was, and nearly knocked her over.

Sophie looked over Laney’s shoulder
to see Jim and Zoey standing behind her, watching them expectantly.

Jim smiled. “I’m just glad we’re
all okay.”

Laney was clinging to Sophie as if
her life depended on it. She pulled away quickly and looked into her eyes,
trying to read her thoughts, and Sophie simply let her hear everything as the
memories ran through her head. She watched as Laney’s eyes filled with tears. For
a few moments, her eyes locked on Sophie’s as she heard the story. Then Laney resolutely
wiped the stray tears from off of her cheeks and a small, grateful smile spread
across her lips.

“Thank you, Sophie,” she whispered.

“You’re not mad at me?” Sophie
asked seriously.

She shook her head quickly, like a
little child. “She was going to kill me. That’s something
I’ll
have to
make peace with. And you saved me. I love you, Sophie. I’m so glad you’re my
sister,” she replied before turning from the room.

I love you too,
Sophie thought
as she watched her walk away.

Jim gave Sophie a small, sad smile
and turned to follow Laney out. Zoey nodded her head in a bow and disappeared,
but not without a reassuring smile for Sophie. Sophie slowly turned to Alexander
and let him wrap his arms around her and simply hold her for a while.

It was hauntingly quiet, and the
melancholy atmosphere that fell on the house that night would not let up for
several weeks.

Epilogue

SOPHIE PAGE

The weather was changing, spring
was coming on. Sitting on the front porch, perusing the morning paper, the sun
felt warm on my skin. The house was quiet behind me. Alex was on an interview
at Tulane for a professorship there because, well, what else was he going to do
during the day? He loved to teach and I’d encouraged the interview.