This is your official invitation to join the fun

“Pretty much.”

Michael frowned and brought his folded hands down to rest in his lap. The lines in his forehead deepened as he receded into his thoughts.

Sonya picked up her duffle and slung it over her shoulder. “I want my weapons back though.”

“Of course.” He muttered, getting to his feet. He went to a cabinet in the corner of the room. Opening a small drawer, he retrieved her knife—it was cleaner than she’d ever seen it—and her Glock, though all the ammunition was gone. “I prepared a room in the hopes you would accept. That is, if you don’t mind sharing quarters with something like me.”

Sonya smiled a bit as she took her weapons back. Maybe she shouldn’t have called him a leech. “Fine with me.” It would make it easier to attempt another incantation, especially if she ended up needing his hair or blood or something creepy like that. “So, lee— Michael, you mind me asking why you want this particular vampire dead?” She knew he was hiding something about why he hadn’t managed to kill Claire yet, but she doubted he’d be willing to share that answer at their current level of friendship.

“She took something precious to me. I’m going to take it back.”

And that’s not cryptic or annoying at all. “This room you mentioned: upstairs?”

“On your immediate right,” he said. “It should be unlocked.”

Sonya nodded, taking her duffle with her as she left the room. The hall opened up into a parlor type room with draping curtains and puffy chairs. Like the kitchen, the rest of the house felt old and untouched. Turning the corner, she found the spiral staircase leading up to the next two floor. Each step creaked loudly under her feet and she almost tasted the dust that hung in the air. The landing stretched out in both directions, the walls lined with four closed mahogany doors.

She went to her assigned room. It was simple—a twin bed, some drawers and a beat up chair. Cobwebs cluttered up the corners and she moved the furniture to try and keep them out of sight. Changing into clean clothes and taking out the journal, she went back into the hall to find the bathroom to clean her pants. Two bedrooms, both rather grand and impeccably clean, were at the other end of the hall with a small washroom between them.

Stuffing her jeans in the porcelain sink, she filled it with cold water and let it soak as she flipped through the book. Even after all the work, most of the ‘translations’ she’d managed to work out were still guesses.

Healing, strength, summoning, protection.

Sonya stopped at that, looking the page over. She’d worked out the pronunciation but only understood a few of the words: guardian, mirror, surrounding. Rubbing the back of her neck, she weighed the risks. What if the migraine came back? What if she messed up and something even worse happened?

She locked the bathroom door. It wouldn’t hold back a vampire but it made her feel more secure. Sitting down in the tub with her head resting against the wall—in case she blacked out again—she said, “Korden sek amme cre sirshutan sek perto vin segai rihon cre naven.”

Sonya closed her eyes when she finished, waiting for the pain to come: anything to signify a change. She waited before peeking out at the bathroom. Nothing. No headache. She got up and checked her reflection—same as before. Maybe the book only worked once, or she’d said it wrong, or one of a million other things.

Tossing the book aside in frustration, she started wringing out her pants when she felt a sharp tug in her chest. She took a half step toward the door and latched onto the sink. Trying to move away from the door, the sensation solidified until it felt like someone had reached inside and wrapped their fingers around her spine, reducing her to a puppet.

“I take it back,” she said out loud, dropping to her knees so she could reach the book. “Let me take it back.” She nearly ripped out the pages as she flipped through them. Another pull on her spine. It grew stronger and threatened to throw her up against the door.

“Please!”

Her body went slack like cut kite string. Slowly shifting onto her back, she got up and checked herself. She didn’t feel any different.

“What did you do to me?”

Michael’s roar echoed from downstairs and Sonya jumped back from the door. The fury in his voice scared her more than being attacked by the Tracker. She looked around for something to fight with, but there were no loose bars, no heavy objects, and the window was too small for her to fit through.

The bathroom door rattled before she even touched the doorknob. “I can hear your heart racing.” He pounded again and Sonya raised her fists on instinct, her mind blanking on what she could do. “What have you done? Tell me!”

The door shattered as Michael punched through and Sonya knocked a towel on top of the journal. She wouldn’t risk him destroying it before she’d figured out what had happened. She turned around, ready to confront him, but stopped short: Michael looked exactly like her. Her height, her face, even her clothes. She glanced to the journal and wondered if she’d blacked out again and this was the next stage of her delusions.

“What did you do?” He demanded, descending on her and clasping her arms. His grip hurt. And it was his grip. He might’ve been a reflection of her but he sounded and felt like himself.

“I… I um…” Sonya looked between her eye level and where she guessed his to be. “I don’t know.” Mirror. It had been one of the few words she’d been sure about. But how the hell did this mirroring effect give her protection?

“You’re responsible for this. I know you are.” Michael’s grasp shifted to her shirt collar. The cloth tore slightly under his grip as he lifted her up. “Tell me what you did, witch.” He spat out the word like acid.

“Don’t call me that.” She grabbed his wrists—a surreal experience as his wrists were larger than hers so it looked like she was holding onto nothing. Despite his rage, his pulse beat calm and steady. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” she said. “I—I don’t understand what happened.”

Michael looked down at her hands and, as though realizing what he was doing, promptly let go. Sonya dropped a couple inches down onto her feet and swallowed hard. She looked into the bathroom mirror. It was bizarre seeing two of herself at the same time.

“Would you kindly mind explaining what you intended to have happen?” Michael’s voice was tight like a cable on the verge of snapping.

Where to begin?

“There are… certain things which I seem to be able to do.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, obviously not content with her answer.

“Look, I don’t know how it works. But I’m not a witch.” She paused and amended, “Okay, so I might be a witch. I honestly don’t know. All I wanted was a bit of protection. Can you blame me for that? You drugged me and tied me to a chair—yes, I shot you, I haven’t forgotten that, but you’re a vampire. And you’re asking me to turn into a pawn between you and another vampire, a whole coven, in fact. So yes, I did this to you, whatever this is. But I never meant for anything to happen to you. Whatever I’ve done, I’ll fix it.”

“I had no intention of using you as a pawn.” He clenched his fists and kept them firmly at his sides. A vein throbbed in his forehead. “This is no game that I am playing.” Not even Isaac on his worst day could match the contempt in Michael’s face as he marched out of the bathroom. Sonya held in her breath until his stomping footsteps faded to the first floor.

Sonya sat down on the side of the tub, wishing for the first time she hadn’t gone off on her own. She’d been insane to think it would work—taking down a high ranking monster by herself. But she was on the path and for better or worse, she was going to see it to the end.

She started to rise when she noticed a small flash under the sink. Getting on her knees, she peeled a small metallic device from underneath the porcelain. She flipped it over a few times. While listening devices weren’t an area of expertise for her, she doubted it could be anything else.

“Pervert,” she muttered, tossing the bug outside the window into the snow.

***

He shuddered, wishing he could rip it all away like putty. He moved closer. Thin scars lined the corners of her eyes and when he rolled up his sleeves, he found the pattern continued along her arms. Even her hands were rough, particularly around the knuckles. He suspected if he continued looking, her body would be covered in the violent markings so typically found on Hunters’ bodies.

Michael turned his back on the reflection, determined to block it all from his mind. The girl would be useful if she could pull a trick or two over Claire. And once the witch had served her purpose, he would ensure their separation was permanent.
Chapter 17
“You really shouldn’t scream so much,” Michael said with a frigid tone. “You’ll age even faster than you already are. How old are you now, thirty?”

Sonya glared up at Michael, her heart still hammering. Since the night before, she still hadn’t figured out how to undo his appearance change and in revenge, he’d started hiding in the shadows or waiting until she was falling asleep to scare her. This time, she’d been tipping back in a chair when he’d “accidentally” bumped into it.

“How long did you stare in a mirror to try and figure that one out, leech?” She muttered, picking herself up off the floor.

“Longer than you spent studying that book you carry around, witch. But that’s not what I came here to discuss.”

“Enlighten me.”

“I came to divulge my ‘plan of attack’ as you so delightfully put it.” He paused as though for dramatic effect, his lip up in a subtle smirk of superiority. She wished she had something hard to chuck at his head. “My schedule has been rushed somewhat which means your currently futile efforts to restore me must be overcome by tomorrow night. At that time, Claire has a scheduled feeding in one of the clubs she owns—she’ll be vulnerable while she feeds. I can distract the guards which will allow you to rid the world of her.”

It didn’t sound half bad but, “You still haven’t explained why you can’t just do it yourself.” In fact, all he’d done was call her names, lecture her about returning him to normal, and boss her around. If she didn’t have such a tight deadline for bringing something high ranking back with her, she would’ve already left. And while she and Michael were connected, she didn’t dare attack him—what if the damage he received transferred to her?

Michael came around to face her in a single, graceful move. “Do you understand what happens after a human is first turned?”

She thought back to the drills Evelyn and the others had put her through but honestly, Hunters weren’t concerned with the origins of monsters, just on their endings. “I know that they sometimes experience a blood lust.”

“No, they don’t.” He straightened his back until he seemed to fill the entire room with his presence. “When a human is first exposed to the blood of the vampire and the change occurs, it’s as if… as if you are being reborn into an entirely new body. The way you perceive the entire world changes, how you feel, how you think. The thirst, of course, is there but not in the way you might imagine. No, what happens is the destruction of freedom. The vampire that does the turning can enact a blood pact which makes their freshly created followers slaves to their will.”

“Claire is your mistress.”

Michael nodded. “In a very literal sense.” He turned and faced the window, arms folded behind his back. “She stole my freedom, my home, my entire life from me. That is also why I cannot kill her on my own. But you—I can make a hole big enough for you to slip through.”

There was such a nostalgic pain in his voice it made her own heart ache for him. And she hated herself for it. “What about Claire? Doesn’t she have a master to kneel to?”

“No. She killed him before he could bring her under his control. At least, that’s the story she likes to tell.” His mouth set in a grim line. “I am telling you this as an act of good faith. Once the job is finished and you have undone the idiocy that binds us, you will take your prize and drive far away from here to leave me in peace. Is that agreeable?”

“I can’t wait.”

Michael smiled a little. Or maybe it was a twitch. Watching his emotions play across her face was giving her a headache. Each time she saw him at the edge of her vision, it spooked her. His anger and resentment rested on her face like a mirror possessed with a haunting sprit.

“If I’m going to be taking her on,” Sonya said, “I’ll need dead man’s blood to work with.” Just a few drops into her system and it would paralyze her enough to make the job easy to finish.

“I suppose I could arrange that.” Michael said. Sonya arched an eyebrow, surprised he wasn’t putting up more of a protest. He had to realize how easy it would be to turn the dead man’s blood on him.

Walking over, he brushed his fingers along the top of her journal. The gesture was gentle enough but the underlying threat was clear—figure out how to make me normal again or I’ll turn on you first.

Sonya stared up at him, her chin lifted. “Get the dead man’s blood and I’ll give you back your face. Though why you wouldn’t want to keep mine is beyond me.”

His face gave another little twitch, contempt this time, before he marched past her to the hall. A moment later, she felt the cold of outside invade the house before the door slammed shut. She pictured him in a graveyard with a black coat and black hat to block out the sun as he dug up what she needed.

Checking her phone, she had a couple messages from Core asking her how the job went. Sonya responded that it was a work in progress and returned to the odd writings in the book. With Michael’s patience wearing thin, she needed to find an answer before his temper got the better of him and she ended up “tripping” off the top of the house head-first.

Leaving the table and sneaking up to the door, she scoped around to make sure Michael was really gone before rolling her shoulders and going to the kitchen. He hadn’t restricted her movements through the house but constantly monitored her instead, which made it infinitely harder to sneak around.

The kitchen was less ornate than the rest of the house. If she hadn’t seen it for herself, she never would’ve believed anything in the room had ever been used before: delicate china stacked precisely in the cupboards, a sink without any hint of water marks, marble counters so polished she could see her own reflection.

The whole room felt mechanically perfect.

Opening the fridge door—feeling dirty as she did so because her fingerprints stood out against the stainless steel—her gnawing hunger strangled and died in her stomach. Four blood bags sat innocently on the top shelf, each labeled with a different blood type. She didn’t know why she was caught off guard. Michael was a vampire. Blood was food.

Milk, fruits, vegetables, and a few other boring foods were stacked in the fridge as well but she ignored them all and took to searching through the cupboards, more out of curiosity than actual hunger. Tea. More tea. English biscuits, sugar, honey, and bread. And even more tea. He had enough to stock his own shop if he wanted.

Sonya moved on to the bedrooms upstairs. One was soft, feminine, and lifeless. No pictures, or clothes, or anything to suggest a person ever lived there. The other had walls lined with old books and a leather chair with patches worn through to the padding underneath. Michael’s room. Despite wanting to take a closer look, she had the nagging suspicion that if she touched anything, he’d be able to sense it.

Returning to the main floor, there was still one door in an alcove at the back of the house she hadn’t opened yet. Poking her head inside, the overwhelming scent of mildew made her cringe. She couldn’t see any kind of light switch or lamp around and the light squeak of something small echoed up the stone walls, she slammed the door shut again.

“I should’ve known you’d go sneaking around,” Michael said from behind her.

Sonya turned around. Like she’d guessed, he was fully dressed in black to the point where only his disapproving eyes—nor purple—peaked through.

“Don’t look so offended. It’s not like I found your diary and read through it.”

Michael didn’t respond but held out a small vial. The blood had congealed to the point where she could barely see the red tint. She took it, inspecting him. The black coat and shoes he wore were dirt free so he hadn’t been out disturbing any graves. Other than a thin layering of snow, it was impossible to tell he’d even been outside. But if he had a supplier for the blood she found in the fridge, it wasn’t hard to believe he could get his hands on this as well.

When Michael moved past her, she asked, “Where are you going?”

She’d expected another round of shoulder-hovering while she studied.

“If you weren’t able to tell by the sunlight poking through the curtains, it’s the middle of the day. I am going to sleep.”

“You sleep?” The other rooms did have beds but it hadn’t connected in her mind that he’d actually use one. It wasn’t like he used anything else in this house.

“Not nearly as much as you do,” he said with a snap. “But yes, I sleep. And having to carry your cumbersome face around has been particularly exhausting.” He was on the stairs when she hurried around to confront him. His willingness to get her what she wanted, the worn grief in his face when he talked about what they were going to do.

“You’ve attempted this before.”

He didn’t meet her gaze. “Many times.”

“What happened to the others who helped you?”

His face snapped up. “Most of them are still alive if that’s what you’re concerned about.”

“If she let them live after attacking her,” Sonya started, wanting to get a rise out of him, wanting to know if he was telling the truth, “is she really all that bad?”

Michael’s glare held so much anger that she physically drew back. “She is the type of creature who feeds off the pain of others. They lived, yes, but by narrow escapes and force of strength. I would normally say you’re welcome to leave but with the attachment between us, that is an option I can no longer allow.”

When he tried to continue up the stairs, she latched onto his arm. “I’m not brand new to this, Harcourt. And if I wanted to leave, there’s nothing you could do to make me stay.”

“Whatever you’ve done, it wasn’t enough.” He didn’t respond to the rest of her statement. “Now, we have one full day left before our best window of opportunity is lost. I suggest you use it.” He took her wrist and forced her grip to loosen before leaving her there on the stairs.

Sonya stomped to the table, staring at the vial of dead man’s blood. She wondered if Michael would detect a drop or two with his next cup of tea. Grumbling under her breath, she turned to the most promising section. It was dark outside before she’d translated the passage. Time for stage two.

Retreating to her room and barring the door as well as the sparse furniture would allow, she worked through the strange words. The incantation, if she’d understood it correctly, was like an undo button which would restore Michael to his pleasant, surly self.

She waited.

A gentle tugging grew along the back of her spine, the same thing she’d felt earlier before the mess-up. Assuming it was the spell undoing itself, she relaxed. The tugging grew stronger and she was thrown up against the door. A loud crashing noise came from the other end of the hall followed by Michael shouting, “What have you done to me now?”
Chapter 18
Sonya stared down at her fingers. Sitting on the bed—it was now the only piece of furniture still intact as Michael had destroyed the rest getting into the room—she felt Michael’s eyes burning a whole into the top of her head. Her incantation had worked. He was sullen looking as ever. But an unexpected side effect had taken place; they couldn’t be more than ten feet apart. If she moved, he was dragged along with her. Thankfully, the reverse wasn’t true. When Michael had tried storming off earlier, he’d looked like an old-time cartoon trying to run in place. The harder he’d tried to get away, the sharper the tug on her spine.

“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” Michael demanded.

“It worked, didn’t it.”

His sharp intake of breath told her he was one set of principles away from attacking her.

“I’ll figure something out.”

Michael stepped forward and she finally looked up. His fists were clenched and he spoke through gritted teeth, “There’s only a few hours left. It took two days to get me where I am.”

“If you weren’t looming over me, I might be able to make some progress.”

“And where do you propose I go? Did it escape your attention that I can’t move?” He shouted the last few words before running a hand through his hair.

“We could postpone the plan, Michael.”

“No! I’m done with being in this position. Most of her guard will be occupied; this moment is so incredibly rare, Sonya.” He came closer. Instead of anger, there was a repressed hope in his face. “Please. I only wish to be free of her.”

A twinge of sympathy rose up against her natural dislike on him. “I’ll do what I can,” she promised.

Michael gave a reluctant nod, drawing as far back as the circumstances would allow before turning around and sitting down. She suspected it was his way of giving her privacy.

Sonya rubbed the bandages over her injured arm. Lugging her journal over, she opened the page that had healed her ankle. She checked to make sure Michael wasn’t looking before she whispered the words under her breath. A burning sensation sparked up behind her eyes. She grabbed a pillow and buried her face into it to stifle a moan. The pain flared up and died as an itching sensation stole along her arm. It dispersed throughout her body and a great weariness forced her to yawn.

She unwrapped the bandages and ran her fingers along the freshly healed skin.

Michael kept his back to her.

Sonya spent the next few minutes scanning through the section about protection. She paused at a diagram of two figures connected by faintly dotted lines. The writing around the image described a literal connection between multiple beings, a connection that could be manipulated by the caster. It took over an hour of studying before she felt confident telling Michael, “I think I can do it.”

He turned in a lurching motion like a machine that hadn’t been used in years. “Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, I think I kind of messed up earlier when I tried to undo everything but—”

“Miss Fletcher,” Michael cut in with an irritated huff, “Just do it.”

“Right.” Sonya cleared her throat and stretched out her arm in preparation. With a deep breath, she closed her eyes and focused on the pressure along her spine. She pictured threads tied between her and Michael and tugged at them with her mind. Like the healing spell, it sapped her energy but she kept tugging. The process felt like pulling back the string of a crossbow with her bare hands. And once she managed to separate the strings out, the bond remained loose.

“Is it done?” he asked after a while.

“I think so. There’s one way to find out for sure.”