Chapter 27
Katelina and Jesslynn slid to a stop on the ground floor. Alexander clutched his mother's hand, and the baby clung silently to her, as if her terror had infected him. The terror of The Guild.
Torina barreled through a doorway as they reached the ground floor. Terror twisted her sultry features. "Jesslynn, they're here!"
"I know." Jesslynn answered breathlessly. "I am hiding the children - if they get in, stall them until I return."
Torina nodded, and hurried off toward the sound of a bone chilling scream. It was the kind of scream that made Katelina think of blood and horrible ways to die. Though Jesslynn looked in the direction the sound had come from, she didn't let it distract her for long.
They bolted through the kitchen doorway, and Katelina choked back a shriek as Bethina stepped from the shadows, her face a mask of calm. Jesslynn nodded at her without slowing and wordlessly the mad woman-child turned and followed them as they ran.
They wound through the house quickly, then down to the cellar where two lines of empty coffins sat waiting for their occupants to return. Despite her efforts not to acknowledge the tiniest coffin, which she assumed housed the baby, Katelina found herself shuddering as they hurried past.
Jesslynn lead them to the back wall of the cellar. Her hands shook in fear and haste as she quickly pressed a series of stones. A door sprang open from nowhere to reveal a tiny, dark room. She shoved the blanket wrapped baby into Katelina's arms and pushed her through the door, then forced Alexander and Bethina to follow. As the door swung shut she whispered urgently, "Protect them."
Katelina stood in the black, gripping the baby tightly, torn between terror and confusion. What was going on? Obviously they were under some kind of attack. But from who? Was The Guild another coven?
The baby grew heavier in her arms. Afraid she'd drop it, she sat on the cold floor and leaned against the wall. She shifted the baby gently, rocking it unconsciously, unsure which of them she was trying to calm. The darkness pressed in on them as heavy as death itself, but she chanced speaking, "Alexander?"
"Yes?" His voice seemed small, but very close.
"Just seeing that you're here," she responded. "I suppose we should be quiet."
"Uh-huh."
Suddenly the door swung open and light flooded the tiny enclosure, temporarily blinding her. She cried out as hands grabbed her and pulled her roughly to her feet. Only her instinctual reaction kept her from dropping the baby and trying to free herself.
"Shhhhhhh," hissed Jorick's voice, very close to her ear. He moved like lightning. Before she could answer, his fingers dug into the backs of her arms and crushed her against his firm body. A sharp pain blossomed on the left side of her neck, just above her collar bone, as his teeth sunk into her for only a second.
She flinched as something else cut into her soft skin and Jorick explained hurriedly, "I am marking you. If they find you they'll know you belong to me. I'm sorry, but it's the only thing I can do to save you."
"Who are 'they'?" she asked, one hand pressed against the new injury, the warm moisture of blood on her palm.
Jorick released her and drew away. He looked down into her face, offering silent reassurance. "'They' are The Guild." He glanced urgently to the basement. "I must go. Stay here, make no sound," and then he was gone. The door swung shut behind him and the darkness was back, only it seemed even more suffocating after the few moments of light.
She leaned against the cold stone and slid down the wall until she was seated on the floor again, the silent baby cradled in her lap. He hadn't told her anything she didn't already know. "The Guild," she whispered out loud. That was what Jesslynn had said too. But who were they, and what did they want?
"The Vampire Guild," Alexander said from the darkness, answering her unspoken question. "They control everything and oversee everyone. When someone breaks a law, they come for you." She felt his small body shudder against her leg.
She took a deep breath to steady her voice and asked softly, "What do they do if someone breaks the law?" She suspected she already knew the answer, given what she'd witnessed of vampire nature.
"They kill them," he whispered.
She nodded, signaling that she understood, though no one could see her. Or maybe they could. She had no idea what they could see, but she did understand who was now waging a small war in the house. A vampire assassination squad had come here tonight looking for someone who'd broken the law.
The Guild.
She suddenly remembered where she'd heard those words before. It was in the nursery, and from the way Jorick and Oren had spoken she was sure that the children were considered illegal. Had they come because of them, or was it something else?
She couldn't hardly ask Alexander if he was against the law, so she settled for, "What did Jorick mean by saying he marked me?" She felt stupid asking a child questions, but he was probably hundreds of years older than she was, no matter how macabre and impossible it seemed.
"He marked your neck." Alexander's voice sounded tired and defeated. "Each vampire has their own mark. It's like a symbol. By putting it on you, he's claimed you so that everyone who sees it will know that you're his human."
She didn't like the sound of that. "What does that mean?"
"It means he owns you. I thought you already had one since father said you belonged to him."
"Oh," That single syllable surfaced again to fill in a silence that she had no words for. Jorick had marked her as a sign of ownership, like Claudius and Arowenia. Without so much as asking he'd turned her into nothing more than a pet iguana!
"They're supposed to do it to all their humans," Alexander continued. "Though Father doesn't bother with it anymore. He says that as long as they've been fed on it should be good enough."
Katelina shuddered at the boy's words. Fed. Was that what they would do to her? Her life flashed behind her eyes; snapshots of her memories, stupid moments encapsulated forever for no apparent reason. A field trip. When she'd fallen down the stairs in seventh grade. Rain falling as she peered from beneath bleachers on the football field. The funeral for Sarah's cat. Patrick holding that stupid glass ash tray and beaming so proudly.
She reached up with one hand and wiped tears from her face. She tried to assure herself that they were going to survive, and that each minute crawling past made their situation better and better. At any moment Jorick would open the door and announce they were safe.
But the minutes ticked past and Jorick didn't appear. There was nothing but blackness and cold and the faint smell of mold. The baby lay perfectly still and silent across Katelina's knee. Neither Bethina nor Alexander made the slightest noise - the ability of the undead not to move, not to breathe. In the silence, her rasping breath was the only sound to discern living from death. She wanted to scream just to prove she was alive, but she stopped herself and bit her lip until she tasted the coppery sting of her own blood.
The fear in the room thickened until her every breath was laced with it. She asked herself silently how she'd come to be there, crouching in a hidden room with vampire children, waiting in terror to be killed. She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed that when she opened them she'd be back in the real world with' Twinkies and sunglasses and motor oil.
She opened her eyes to darkness. It hadn't worked. Maybe reality was nothing more than her imagination, maybe it had never existed, would never exist. Maybe this darkness was the only real thing she would ever know again. Even Jorick's omission didn't seem to matter anymore; nothing mattered except for the raspy feeling of fear rattling in her every breath and the slow minutes sliding past, a silent countdown to her impending death.
Seconds became minutes, and minutes became hours as they sat in the impenetrable darkness. Suddenly, scraping noises from outside the secret room broke the silence. At first they were low, almost indistinguishable from the buzzing in Katelina's ears. Then they grew louder and louder, until she couldn't deny their existence.
Katelina's body tensed and she reached out in the darkness to touch Alexander. "Come here," she whispered. He obeyed by curling over her lap and covering the baby. Bethina moved closer too, using her body to shield the boy, so that he was completely hidden from view.
The scraping grew in volume until it echoed, a steady rhythm that Katelina's heart pounded in time with; the sound of their demise. She wrapped her arms around Bethina and, by contact, the children. Fearfully, she tucked her chin down to hide her face, and squeezed her eyes closed in an effort to shut out the terrible reality of what was coming.
The noise stopped. Before she could breathe a sigh of relief, the small room was flooded with light that dazzled her eyes. She tightened her grip on the pile of people in her lap. The ever-silent baby stiffened against her. Though only an infant, even he could sense the danger.
