Chapter 38

Double update again.  I'm exhausted from dealing with people, and I just ruined my freshly painted nails.  :(  So if there are mistakes I missed in this chapter, or something doesn't make sense, that's what I'm blaming it on.

As always point them out to me, blah blah blah.  Btw if you haven't voted for a cover (on chap 35) DO SO, so then you can't complain about the cover I use, mkay?

I already had this chapter written, so I just edited it today and I have ALMOST all of the story written.  So if you want more...

You know what to do.

I'll try to edit it over again in a few to fix a few things, so if you see anything wrong please let me know.

-Nikki

Chapter 38

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Despite the fact that Eliot didn’t seem too fond of Sage and Hazel, all three move in eerie sync that could only have come from years of living together.

Like a wolf pack.

Suddenly, Sage took off through the trees in the direction of the house, with Hazel following close behind.  Miriam could only scramble along, as Eliot took her wrist without a word and headed after them.

The three of them moved in step with each other, with Sage in the lead and Hazel keeping pace through the shadows slightly off to the side.  The formation reminded her of the symmetrical ‘v’ a flock of geese formed as they cut through the sky.

Only a lot more lethal.

“Over here,” Sage said as they approached the grove surrounding their set of houses.

“Stay back,” Eliot warned, letting her hand go to follow Sage into the shadows.

Miriam hesitated.  Her boots crunched over the snow as she considered obeying.  Now didn’t exactly seem like the best time to grow a backbone, but…

Wooooaaaoo.

Another howl cut through the darkness—much closer than before—and terror made up her mind for her.

Her hair whipped out like a cape as she tore through the trees in the direction Eliot had gone.  She could see anything—even the moonlight seemed to have faded away.  But she could hear, and she knew she was close when her ears caught Hazel’s high-pitched voice mutter a grim, “Oh dear.  This certainly ruins our vacation, doesn’t it?”

“Shut up.”  Eliot’s tone was just as uneasy.  “Go and scout the perimeter.  They can’t have gotten too far.”

“On it,” Sage grumbled.

“And you; keep Miriam away.  I don’t want her to see this…”

“Ugh,” Hazel whined.  “Of course, Sage gets the fun job while I get stuck babysitting the—”

“Go!”

Miriam through her hand out in front of her, feeling her way through the thick trees.  She was close—she could see pieces of the grove, bathed in a soft glow as the moon reappeared through a screen of clouds.

Twisting around a hanging branch, she stumbled forward and out of the woods.  Eliot stood near the grove’s center, crouched over a dark sharp lying over the snow.

She headed toward him, but she’d barely gone a step before a pale figure appeared to block her way.

“Hello!” Hazel chirped.  “Beautiful night for a stroll, isn’t it?”  The girl maneuvered her lacy parasol to conveniently block Eliot, and whatever he stood over, from view.

“Shall we go for a walk, dear Miriam?”  She tilted her head to the side, lips forming a sweet smile.  “Get away from this boring old place—”

“Eliot?”  Ignoring Hazel, Miriam made her voice loud enough to carry across the grove.  “What’s going on?”

She was afraid—terrified.  Whatever he seemed so worried about was right between their two houses—not too far from the wide steps of her back porch.

She couldn’t smell anything, like Sage, but something was wrong.

She could feel it.  Her stomach bunched into knots when he didn’t answer.

You don’t want to know, a part of her whispered.  Just be a good little mouse and run away…

Hide.

“Eliot!”  She craned her neck, trying to see him from over Hazel’s slender frame.  “You said that I should stop lying.  After everything you’ve told me, don’t you think I can handle the truth?”

“No.”  His tone was flat and his scowled as he suddenly appeared at Hazel’s side.  “Butl...I’m not going to keep it from you.”

He inclined his head for her to follow, and Hazel quietly slipped out of her way.

“I hope you have a strong stomach,” she heard the girl murmur as she walked past.

Miriam wasn’t so sure about that.

All she knew, was that her nightmares were already full to the brim—but she’d rather add a few more horrors to it than have him walk around egg shells around her too.  She had to prove that she was strong enough to handle whatever strange events came with being around him.

Even the stomach churning things…

But the moment she made it to the middle of the grove, she wished that he had made her stay back hidden behind Hazel.

A body laid there, as pale as the snow beneath it.

It was a woman, with beautiful long blond hair stained brown with mud and her fashionable jacket held open to reveal the massive wooden object stuck deep in the center of her chest.

A wooden stake.

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Sage reappeared a moment later, shaking his shaggy head.

“They’re gone,” he announced, moving over to stand near Eliot.  “I caught a glimpse of the wolf, but the asshole was too fast.”

“What about any others?”  Eliot gestured to the body.   “I don’t see any claw marks.  It couldn’t have carried her on its own if had already phased.”

Sage shrugged.  “I could smell the scent of two others, but I didn't get a good look; one was a blond—I know I caught sight of her hair—”

“Of course,” Hazel harrumphed.

“They seemed like mortals, but they weren’t normal.”  His tone seemed to imply something that made Eliot nod.

“Shadowhunters.”

“But what in the world would they be doing around here?”  Hazel looked skeptical as she jabbed the top of her parasol around at the large, looming houses.

She made ‘here’, sound synonymous with ‘hell.’

“I can assure you Eliot,” she added seriously, “Sage and I haven’t done anything near bad enough to call those leeches down on us.”

“At least not this time,” Sage grumbled.  “So why the hell…”

As if the answer had come to all three at once, they all turned to stare at the small, black cabin on the hill.

“The damn witch,” Sage and Hazel muttered in unison.

Eliot didn’t answer.   He turned back over to the body, gazing with disgust at the gruesome wound edged with black blood.  “We need to move it."

Without a word, Sage crouched down and slid his hands beneath the stiff body, while the woman’s dark eyes stared up unseeingly at nothing.  When he lifted her, the body remained flat, as stiff as a board.

Miriam turned away as something warm hitched at the back of her throat.  She gritted her teeth together and tried to breathe as the horror of it all ran through her.  Don’t throw up.

Whatever you do…don’t throw up.

“It’s alright.”  She sensed Eliot at her side and wordlessly she turned into his chest.  Those cold arms went around her like vices, locking to a frozen chest.

She didn’t care that she had effectively proved her earlier words wrong.

She wasn't brave; she couldn’t handle something like this.

But, to her surprise, she didn’t cry.

“You’ll be safe,” she heard Eliot promise against the top of her head—as if that was what was making her tremble.  “You’ll be safe…”

She didn’t waste her breath arguing that two bodies had been discovered practically on both of her doorsteps—both murdered the same way.

She wasn't selfish enough to be afraid for herself--not when she wasn’t the one susceptible to wood.

Because, now, she knew in her heart, that both ‘victims’ had been vampires.

A message.

When Eliot finally pulled away, Sage and the body were gone, and Hazel was watching them both with an unreadable expression.

“Welcome to the night life, Miriam,” she murmured, twirling her black parasol.  Tilting her chin, she turned to Eliot.  “Where do we flee to now, I wonder?  Russia?  Bulgaria?  France—I do love Paris.”

Eliot gave her a dark look.  “We’re not going anywhere,” he snapped.  “You’re going to stay here with me, while you—”

Those red eyes turned to Miriam.

“You get some sleep.”

It took a minute for what he meant to sink in; that he and Hazel would keep watch while she went to bed.

“Do I really?”  Hazel pouted from beneath the hood of her umbrella.

The look Eliot gave her made her go quiet.

Miriam figured that she should have argued.  Tried to put up some half-hearted excuse; I’ll be fine, you don’t have to…

Try to play the brave heroine who wasn’t afraid to go inside her own house alone.

But, she could read it in his face that his mind was made up.  Besides, the truth was that she was grateful as she walked up the porch steps and unlocked the door of the kitchen.

If he was here, and those...whatevers came back, at she could be close.  Hear something.  Do something.

After all she still had her baseball bat.

Later that night, huddled beneath the covers, she knew that he had held true to his promise and was out there just watching from the behind the cover of the shadows.

She didn’t get up and creep over to the window to peek.  Even up in her room she could sense him—not to mention that every now and again dark giggles played on the wind that ghosted her window.

But no sounds of fighting.  Or screaming.

Or...

She had never meant to go to sleep.

At least, as her mind faded into the black she figured she should have had nightmares.  But her only dream was of a beautiful woman with long black hair sobbing endlessly into a lake of blood.