A Vial of Life Read online

  “Ernest,” he growled. “Now, shoo!”

  “Thank you, Ernest,” I replied.

  He flicked a hand at me before clamping his eyes shut again. His face scrunched up in concentration, and then, after a few moments, relaxed. The lines in his face smoothed and his expression returned to one of deep peace. I guessed he’d managed to re-immerse himself in the same child’s fantasy. Or perhaps this night had been a lucky one, and he’d found two happy places to lose his aching soul in.

  Chapter 7: Ben

  Rufus the ogre. Ernest had said that he was one of the guards on the island. So, abandoning the guest house, I headed straight for the wall that surrounded The Tavern. I recalled the door that Julie had led me through. An ogre had been positioned there. I managed to find my way back to that same spot, where, no surprise, I found an ogre, though not the same one as before.

  He was alone, however. Which meant that in order to find out anything about him, I had to hover near him, waiting for him to have an interaction with someone. Finally, a werewolf approached the door, requesting to be let outside onto the beach. He addressed the ogre as Hector. At least now I’d learned he wasn’t Rufus. Ogres, however, seemed to be in the minority on this island and I guessed that they would get together to eat. So I waited with Hector.

  Once the sun peeked over the horizon, Hector left his post and headed out toward the beach. I soon caught sight of where he was heading—to a group of ogres sitting around a fire. As we approached, I learned that one of them—a particularly large and hideous-looking one—went by the name of Rufus. In that very conversation, they spoke of their last venture into the human realm. How they had managed to swipe a group of six humans from a mountain range—mountain climbers, I assumed. They were planning to go again in two days’ time.

  So from then on, it became a waiting game. I stuck by Rufus’s side the whole time, even returning to his cave while he slept.

  Finally, the evening arrived and Rufus gathered near the harbor with the other ogres. They boarded a large ship pulled by five giant grey sharks and set off. Hovering near the stern of the vessel, I watched The Tavern fading into the distance and eavesdropped on the ogres’ conversation. All of them were talking animatedly about what ghastly meal they would cook up once they’d gathered their humans, and were already arguing over what the main course should be served with. I was both amazed and sickened by just how long they were able to talk about the subject of food and the tiniest details they went into. As a ghost, I couldn’t seem to block out my hearing, and thus had no means of escape from their stomach-turning discussion of the butchery process.

  I let out a deep sigh of relief when a small—apparently uninhabited—island came into view. It reminded me a little of the islet where Aisha had taken me to meet Arron for the first time after she had collected him from Aviary. I guessed that this one was probably in a similar area, because we had not been traveling long.

  The excitement rising in the ogres was practically palpable as they trundled off the boat and began hurrying onto the island. They tramped through the undergrowth, bashing aside the occasional tree with their mighty elbows. I followed and hovered above them, trying to see exactly where they were headed. Eventually, I spotted it. Surrounded by slabs of rock was a wide black hole, the depths of which were speckled with sparkling stars.

  I waited as, one by one, the ogres tumbled through—many of them letting out bellows as the vacuum consumed them.

  After the last ogre had disappeared through the gate, I approached it. My last experience jumping through one of these had been as a vampire, and a suction had pulled me down. Now, I couldn’t feel any pull at all. It seemed that the vacuum had no effect on me. I entered the hole and had to travel down it by the force of my own will. For the first time, I was able to see the inside of this crater without being rushed down at eye watering speed. Although, frankly, there wasn’t a lot to see, apart from the strange, swirling blue smoke that formed the walls of the tunnel and the apparent night sky beyond it.

  I wondered for a moment what would happen if I drifted through the wall. If I could even drift through it. This strange starry sky that appeared to surround us, what was that exactly? I guessed with my subtle body, I probably could pass through the tunnel walls, but I’d no idea what might happen, and I didn’t want to risk finding out.

  Instead I focused my gaze directly downward and sped up, until eventually a light shone through the other end and I emerged on the other side. Surrounding me was a world of white mountains. I was standing on a staggeringly high cliff. I wondered where I was exactly. I would have to travel until I found some human habitation where I could figure out where in the world I was. I wasn’t sure which direction to start in. I looked around for the ogres and spotted their large footprints in the snow, trailing down over the edge of the peak. Following them would be a good bet.

  Chapter 8: River

  My brother, Jamil, walked by my side as we ambled along the dark beach. My sisters played in the waves, while my mother watched over them.

  I drew in a deep breath of fresh ocean air.

  Since returning to The Shade without Ben, I’d woken up every day with the hope that, somehow, he would find a loophole and return to us. However irrational it was, holding on to this hope was what got me through each day. The chilling words the oracle had spoken to me that day in her cave still haunted me: “Very soon this man may not be the same one you fell for.” But I tried to stop thinking about where Ben could be now, or what state he might be in.

  Ben’s parents had recently returned to the island, but I hadn’t gotten a chance to speak to them yet. They’d been busy of course, what with Vivienne giving birth. I didn’t want to bother them yet to find out what had happened on their journey with the dragons. After all that had been revealed by Hortencia regarding Ben’s connection with the Elder, I couldn’t help but feel that breaking the jinn’s bond now wasn’t a good idea. Corrine felt the same way, but unfortunately, Derek and Sofia had left before we’d had a chance to explain Ben’s predicament. As crazy as it was, the eternal bond Ben had formed with the Nasiris was the least of his worries, and might be the one thing that was protecting him.

  I wasn’t sure if Corrine had filled them in by now, but I was anxious to find out the result of their excursion. I decided to wait another day before speaking to them. The truth was, I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to keep my voice from breaking while talking to them. Especially to Sofia. I’d promised her that I would stay with Ben and help him find a solution.

  Since I’d returned, I’d stayed with my family. I’d answered their many questions, including why I was so cold, and recounted what had happened to me before I came across them in The Oasis. Although I’d revealed most things to my mother, I refused to go into detail about what happened to Ben and exactly why I had returned. It was too raw. I just gave her a truthful summary—that although I’d wanted to stay with Ben to help him, as I’d promised that I would, he hadn’t wanted to put me in danger and so he’d sent me back with Corrine. I was glad that my mother didn’t press for more details. I wasn’t ready to talk about them. I doubted I would be for a long time.

  Telling them that I was a half-blood sent my mother into hysterics. We’d been staying on this island for days now, but she was still struggling to accept the situation. It was as though she half expected this all to be some kind of elaborate prank. The strange creatures surrounding us were just costumed actors who would leap out of their highly realistic fake skin any second. There wasn’t really a spell of night over this place, since witches weren’t real, and someone had simply erected some giant covering that looked… exactly like the night sky?

  Her convoluted theories were crazier than just accepting the situation for what it was. And, in fact, I knew that she couldn’t really believe her doubts—she’d seen too much already. She was just clinging to them as a way of coping with her reality being turned on its head. I was just waiting for her to say out loud that yes, supernatural
s existed, and we were living on an island full of them.

  We stayed with Anna and Kyle for the first few days. They treated us like family. They had three children of their own, and the older two had already been turned into vampires. Still, they cleared out two rooms for us and made our stay as comfortable as they possibly could. None of us wanted to be a burden on them any longer, and Anna found us a three-bedroom townhouse that wasn’t being occupied just a few streets away from theirs. So we’d recently moved there.

  My mother talked of returning to New York, but I told her that I couldn’t return, at least not now. First of all, I was still a half-blood and there was no cure for me yet on the horizon, and secondly, even if I could leave The Shade… it would feel like cutting off any connection I had left with Ben. This was his home. His world. As unceremoniously as I had been thrust into this world of supernaturals, I was a part of it now. Even if we found a cure for me, I simply couldn’t imagine going back to my life in New York. I could never see things the same again, nor simply resume the life I’d had like nothing had ever happened.

  Although there was much talk of supernaturals of late—especially after the footage that had been broadcast by the media—like my mother, and indeed like I had been, most of the population was still living in denial. If I were to ever speak to anyone about what I’d witnessed, I’d be deemed crazy.

  Of course, my mother wouldn’t return without me, and so we all found ourselves staying here in The Shade. My sisters found the place both wondrous and terrifying, but they were much quicker to adjust to their concept of the universe being blown apart than my mother. Jamil, on the other hand… never mind all this crazy supernatural stuff, he was still acclimating to being able to walk on his own two feet, being able to talk and perform the most basic functions that we all took for granted. We were all still getting used to this new life of his.

  One of the countless things he had asked us about was our father, and my mother told him the truth—in front of Dafne, too. My mother told him our father’s downward spiral leading to imprisonment had been many years in the making. Jamil was surprisingly accepting of it. He said that he had been aware of our father not being around much, even if his symptoms had been so severe that he couldn’t quite form the conclusion as a coherent thought.

  I looked at him now as he stood next to me, his face turned toward the ocean, his brow slightly furrowed. I slid my hand into his and squeezed it. He was still like a stranger, to us, and to himself. I hadn’t wanted to overburden my family with too much information about supernaturals, but my mother had insisted that I tell her what happened to me.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked Jamil, my voice slightly hoarse from underuse.

  He nodded slowly, glancing down at me with his dark eyes. “Okay,” he said.

  He paused, running his tongue over his lower lip.

  “What are you thinking about?” I wondered.

  “I… I don’t really know,” he replied, running a hand through his dark hair. “Everything that I couldn’t think before, I guess… I’m honestly not sure what my life was before now. It’s almost like it never happened. As though I’ve just woken up from a long, strange dream. And how I am now was my natural state all along. Like I just needed something to wake me up… am I making any sense?”

  I nodded encouragingly. “I understand.”

  “Thinking back on it now,” he continued, “it seems to be a blur of colors, frustration… and Mom.”

  I smiled, tears creeping into the corners of my eyes. “You know Mom didn’t love you any less because you were autistic. She would’ve continued caring for you for as long as she physically could.”

  He swallowed, his own eyes moistening. “I know.”

  My eyes traveled to his lower arm, bare beneath his T-shirt. His tattoo was gone, as was mine, and everyone else’s who had returned from The Oasis. This had been part of Ben’s deal with the jinn. It was strange to be without the tattoo. I’d had it for such a long time that I’d gotten used to its unpleasantness.

  I’d been scared at first that the removal of Jamil’s tattoo could somehow affect the miraculous recovery he was exhibiting. That perhaps, since I was no longer officially part of the Nasiri family, they were no longer interested. They would withdraw this gift from me. Thankfully, the cure that the jinn had given him seemed permanent, unaffected by whether he remained branded by them or whether I remained one of their serfs.

  “I feel… excited,” my brother murmured, interrupting the silence that had fallen between us. His eyes were filled with wonder as he took in our breathtaking surroundings. “I can walk, talk… heck, even think clearly. It feels like I’ve entered a new world where anything is possible.”

  I reached my arms around his neck and pulled his head down so that I could plant a kiss on his cheek. “Anything is possible,” I whispered, clamping my eyes shut. The words lanced through my heart as they reminded me of the small hope I still clung to that Ben would return to me.

  Jamil looked down at me thoughtfully, wiping away my tears with his thumbs. He kissed my forehead. “You really like that boy, don’t you?”

  I gave him a pained smile. “Yeah,” I croaked.

  Although I shed silent tears in bed each night, I’d been trying so hard not to break down in front of my family. But with my newfound brother looking down at me, his eyes so similar to my father’s, it exacerbated my emotions—the grief I felt over losing Ben—and I couldn’t stop myself. I buried my head against my older brother’s chest and sobbed.

  “Hey,” he soothed me, rubbing my back. “It’s okay. I’m sure you’ll see him again. He’s a vampire, right? They’re supposed to be immortal?”

  I couldn’t bring myself to answer, but I appreciated his comforting all the same, no matter how baseless it was.

  Screams pierced the air. Jamil and I whirled around to catch sight of our mother and sisters moving frantically toward the shore. Women tended to overreact to creepy-crawlies and slimy things in general, me being guilty of it myself, but from the urgency of their movements, I quickly realized that they had seen something much worse than a hermit crab.

  “Mom?” I yelled. “What’s wrong?”

  I sped up, knowing that I would reach them with my speed before they exited the ocean. Quickly outpacing Jamil even with his long legs, I hurtled toward the waves. Jamil and I had wandered some way up the shore, but it didn’t take long for me to come within ten feet of them. I would reach them before they reached dry sand—

  My mother took a tumble, and she fell beneath the surface, while my sisters hurried ahead.

  “Mom!” I yelled again.

  I hurried into the waves and had just about reached her when, in a blur of red and teal blue, something slimy and heavy shot out from the waves and slapped hard against my face. I lost my footing, staggered back and fell. I shot back up to my feet. My head felt dizzy from the assault. To my horror, I found myself staring down at a blue-tailed mermaid with flaming red hair. Her arms were locked around my mother’s neck, causing my mother to struggle and choke for breath as the waves rolled over her. The mermaid tugged on her and began retreating deeper into the ocean.

  “No!” I screamed.

  I launched myself into the waves and managed to grab hold of my mother’s leg before the creature swam out of reach.

  “Let go of her!” I hissed at the mermaid. I wasn’t sure whether she could even understand me.

  It only seemed to anger the creature. She bared a set of razor-sharp black teeth. Teeth that made my skin crawl. One jab of those into my mother’s throat could easily end her life.

  I had no weapons on me, and, being a half-vampire, no claws or natural defenses with which to defend myself. All I had was my speed. Moving forward as fast as I could, I balled my right hand into a fist and threw a punch square into the mermaid’s face.

  Part of me expected to miss, but I hit my mark. She loosened her grip on my mother. My mother struggled to keep herself above water as she clutched her t
hroat. She choked on a mouthful of seawater as a wave rolled over her head. I grabbed her by the midriff and began pulling her toward the beach with all the speed I could muster.

  Then came a shriek from behind us. The mermaid’s shock had subsided and she was gaining speed on us.

  I looked desperately toward the shore, where Jamil was moving toward the Port with my sisters, all three of them shouting for help.

  We weren’t going to reach land in time. The mermaid was simply too fast. Who is this mermaid? She didn’t look like the one Ben and I had brought in on the submarine—and besides, that one had been badly injured by Shadow. I would have been surprised if she’d even survived a day after the dog’s attack. Who, then, was she? As far as I was aware, the two merfolk Ben and I had carried through the boundary were the only ones who’d visited these waters. And wasn’t Ibrahim supposed to have gotten rid of the two of them ages ago?

  The mermaid caught up with us and once again grabbed hold of my mother. The creature tugged so hard at my mother’s ankle, I feared that trying to hold on might dislocate one of her limbs, and to make matters worse, my mother had a weakness in her lower spine. I could see from her eyes how much pain she was in.

  The mermaid sensed my hesitation, and with a huge tug, she managed to pull my mother right out of my grasp. The mermaid’s fierce tail writhed as she jolted away. If I hadn’t leaped forward and grabbed hold of the tip of it, she would have dragged my mother into deep waters without me.

  Although I had no claws, I dug my fingers into her scales as hard as I could, even as the mermaid writhed violently and tried to shake me off. It was like wrestling with a slippery anaconda. I knew I didn’t stand a chance for long. My mother’s head had been pushed underwater again, if I didn’t manage to get to her in time—