Clarity: A Young Adult Paranormal Vampire Romance (Blood Haze Book 4) (11 page)

“Logan!”

My face turned crimson and I whirled around, shielding my eyes. He’d apparently just shifted and he was wearing no clothing.

“Sorry, Alice,” he apologized. “I smelled you a few minutes ago and I had to get to you quickly. I figured there must be trouble if you were here alone.”

“Well, not exactly,” I said, still facing away from him. “My friend has made a Wolf’s Bane potion that we intend to use on Carson and his pack. We also have an antidote. The trouble is, we can’t test it.”

“Why not?” Logan asked.

“Because we need a wolf to test it on,” I said. “Do you think one of your pack would volunteer?”

“No,” he said. “But I will.”

“No, Logan, you can’t!” I gasped. “What if it kills you? The pack would have no Alpha and they need you right now!”

“I am the strongest,” he said. “Tell
Alexi I volunteer.”

“Um… actually, Alexi doesn’t know about the potion,” Alice said. “And I’d prefer to keep it that way until it’s been tested.”

“Understood,” Logan said. “Shall I meet you behind the building?”

“That will be fine,” I agreed. “Shall I brin
g you some pants?”

Logan chuckled and said
, “Turn around.”

“No, thanks, I’m fine,” I said.

“Turn around, Alice,” he said.

Reluctantly, I turned to face him, surprised to see he was now fully dressed.

“How did…”

“We keep caches of clothes hidden here and th
ere,” Logan said. “Just happened to have a set in a crevice in the wall over there.”

“Well, gee, I wish I’d known sooner,” I said. “I felt like an idiot talking to the tree in front of me!”

Logan laughed heartily and said, “I’ll meet you out back in a few minutes.”

“Alright, see you soon,” I said.

I jogged back to the main building and peeked into the dining hall to summon Jamie. Alexi wasn’t there, and my heart began to skip. He knew I was gone already. I turned to flee, but I slammed right into him. Meekly, I peered up at him.

“May I ask where you have been?” he asked calmly.

“I… uh… I was looking for…” I couldn’t think of a suitable lie, and it pained me to even thing of being dishonest to him after all we’d been through. So I finally blurted out, “I need to find Jamie because Logan volunteered to test the Wolf’s Bane potion she made.”

Alexi’s face was eerily stony as he stared at me for what seemed like an eternity. Finally he said, “Jamie has retired to her room. You may find her there.”

He followed me in silence as I ran up the stairs and knocked on Jamie’s door. She opened it and noticed Alexi behind me. She knew immediately that he knew.

“Don’t kill me,” she said quickly. “I was just trying to help.”

“Retrieve the potion,” Alexi told her.

She disappear
ed into her bathroom and brought out a large vial of swirling jade-green liquid and a smaller one of a clear, faintly rose hued liquid.

“I also made the antidote,” she said.

“Come with us,” Alexi said.

Jamie followed us, her head hanging as though she were
headed to the gallows. I took her hand and squeezed it to let her know she wasn’t in trouble, and she smiled weakly.

Logan was waiting outside as he had promised, and he looked rather confused upon seeing Alexi with us. He smiled and extended his hand, an
d Alexi shook it warmly.

“Logan, this is our friend Jamie,” Alexi introduced him. “She has prepared the potion and the antidote.”

“Nice to meet you,” Logan said. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I’ve only been making potions…” Jamie started to speak,
but I nudged her sharply in the ribs and she quickly closed her mouth.

“She’s a genius!” I gushed. “I have no doubt the potion is perfect!”

Alexi shot me an odd glance, but said nothing.

Jamie handed the potion to Logan and said, “Take only a tiny sip. It
’s powerful stuff.”

Logan popped the cork from inside the vial and said, “Here goes nothing.”

He tilted his head back and he took a sip of the dark green liquid. He quickly handed the vial back to Jamie and replaced the cork. Then he waited. And waited. And waited.

“It’s not working!” Jamie groaned.

Then Logan twitched. I noticed his eyes starting to water, and then they began to bulge. His face was swelling rapidly, and he started to cough.

“Antidote! Quickly!” I said to Jamie.

She handed me the vial of rose liquid just as Logan dropped to his knees, clutching his throat and struggling to breathe. I held the vial to his lips and he took a sip, but he fought to swallow it. His throat must have been closing. Finally, I saw him gulp and he rolled onto his side on the ground, his face swollen grotesquely. He was turning blue.

“Do something!” Jamie squealed.

Alexi started to kneel beside him, but Logan took a deep gasp for air and some color began to return to his skin. Slowly his swelling began to recede, and he was breathing normally a minute later. Alexi offered his hand, and Logan took it, allowing Alexi to pull him to his feet.

“Well, it works,”
Logan said hoarsely, his face still oddly swollen.

“Let’s try to make sure this only gets used against Carson’s pac
k, eh?” I suggested.

“How can we do that?” Jamie asked. “Won’t the wolves all be hard to recognize?”

“True,” I said. “How can we tell you guys apart?”

“I really don’t know,” Logan said. “We don’t have any unique look that sets us apart when we’re shifted.
We will know, but you all won’t.”

“How about uniforms?” I suggested.

“We don’t wear clothes while shifted,” Logan reminded me.

“Bandanas,” I said.

“Huh?” Jamie asked.

“How about red bandanas?” I clarified. “Your pack can wear them loosely around your
necks and when you shift they should still be there, right?”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Logan said. “That should work just fine.”

“Perfect!” I said. “Then we will easily be able to spot your pack in the crowd.”

“I better get back to my pack,” Logan said. “I
never know when Carson will attack, and I don’t feel right being gone for long. Thank you all for your help.”

“Please keep in touch,” I said.

“Either I or one of the wolves will howl when it’s time,” Logan said. “You’ll hear it.”

With that, disappeared beh
ind a tree and removed his clothing, shifting quickly after stashing the clothes in the crotch of a tree limb.

“Let’s go see if they’ve found out anything about that crystal,” I said, and we all headed back inside.

Nothing had been found thus far in Barnabas’ journals that referenced the crystal, so we all ate a quick meal and began to search through them together. Before long, we each had a journal - Alexi, Liam, Will, Jamie, Kai, Max and even Denise. The other Council members were busy training, leaving us alone in the darkened dining hall with nothing but the sound of the rifling of pages.

“There must be
something
in here about it!” I finally growled after hours of finding nothing.

“Not necessaril
y,” Alexi reminded me. “This information was top secret. Perhaps our father did not write of it, or perhaps it was later redacted.”

“No, I can’t accept that,” I said. “There has to be something here. There has to be!”

“If there is, we will find it,” he said, touching my arm gently.

His touch began to calm my stricken nerves, and I picked up another journal and began to flip through the pages. Suddenly, it was right in front of me. The crystal drew my eye in the form of a drawing.

“I found it!” I gasped.

The
others gathered around me as I read the minimal information in the journal.

We have located a crystal of unknown origin buried far beneath the site where our second building is being built. It is violet in color and towers above even the tallest of us. Th
is crystal hums with an odd energy that only a couple of us can feel, but those who cannot feel it are severely injured when they try to approach it. The crystal’s energy seems to resonate with only select individuals, repelling all others with potentially disastrous consequences.

While I am not free to write many details in this journal about the crystal’s properties, I will say that I have heard it trying to communicate with me on more than one occasion. I do not believe the crystal is evil by nature, but
its danger cannot be ignored, as we have already seen two Council members lured by its siren song to their death, and several others are gravely ill. I am sealing the crystal inside a room that can only be opened by one with whom the crystal wishes to communicate, and I can only hope that I am not wrong in my assumption that the crystal is not inherently evil.

I flipped the page, but there was nothing further written in the journal. I kept flipping for a while, but I saw nothing.

“That’s it?” Liam asked.

“
Afraid so,” I said. “That was useless.”

“It wasn’t entirely useless,” Liam said. “Father believed the crystal wasn’t inherently evil, which means you might be able to get your abilities back.”

“But it doesn’t explain why they were taken, or how I might go about getting them back, or even how to get back into the room now!” I argued.

“Maybe it’s not time,” Liam suggested. “Sometimes these magical things have a way of doing things we don’t understand for our own good, and in time we come to understand the how
’s and the why’s.”

“Well, this is the worst timing ever,” I grumbled. “Why did it have to do this now? I need my abilities!”

“Well, I have an idea for you,” Jamie suggested.

“To get my abilities back?” I asked hopefully.

“Well, no,” she said. “But it’s an idea that will give you something useful to do until you do.”

I was disappointed, but I tried not to let it show. “What’s the idea?” I asked.

“We need to deliver the Wolf’s Bane to Carson and his pack,” Jamie said. “And to do that, we need people who can stand back behind the battle and shoot it into them with bullets, arrows or darts laced with the potion. You could learn to do that.”

“Sounds easy enough,” I shrugged. “At least it would give me something to do.”

“We have a variety of ranges weapons to choose from in the armory,” Alexi said.

“We have an
armory
?” I asked, surprised. “Why do I know so little about this place after being here so long?”

“You will learn,” Alexi said. “This is a very large place built for a very large task.”

“Apparently,” I said.

“Let us go and find the weapon with which you are most comfortable,” Alexi said.

Alexi took me to a hallway in the basement that I hadn’t even known existed. It was filled with more rooms, mostly locked. He waved his hand in front of a sensor, and the corresponding door clicked. He pushed it open, and we entered a room with glass cases and vaults full of every sort of weapon I could imagine. There were knives and daggers, swords and shields, various types of body armor, crossbows, long bows, compound bows, dart guns, and about a thousand different types of guns of every caliber.

“Why don’t you ever use this stuff?” I asked. “It all seems rather useful.”

“We usually have no need of it,” Alexi explained. “Many of us have abilities we use, so this type of equipment is rarely needed. Those who do need it are equipped when necessary.”

I ran my hand along some of the glass cases, slowly walking around the room and eyeing the various weapons. I almost picked up a compound bow, but it looked far too heavy for me
to wield successfully with no practice. A figured a gun might be easiest to learn. But then my eyes fell on a killer crossbow. It was a shining black and inlaid with rubies, accented with gleaming silver metal. My eyes widened and I pointed it out.

“I want
that,” I said confidently.

“Crossbows are notoriously tricky to learn,” Alexi warned me. “Perhaps a handgun might be…”

“I want
that
,” I repeated more emphatically.

Alexi shrugged and removed it from the glass display, handing it to me. It felt like the pe
rfect weight. It fit my hand as though it were made just for me.

“Are you certain that is the one you want?” Alexi asked.

“Oh, yes!” I said, still eyeing its sleek black design.

“We have some hollow point bolts that could easily be laced with the potion an
d delivered via your crossbow,” Alexi said. “For now you can practice with regular bolts.”

“Where can I practice, and who will teach me?” I asked him.

“I will.”

I turned to see Kai standing leaning against the doorjamb.

“You know how to use one of these things?” I asked incredulously.

“What do you think I’ve been doing the last few months?” he asked me. “Combat training.”

“Oh, that’s right,” I said. “So you know how to use all of these weapons?”

Kai glanced around the ro
om and said, “Most, yes. There are a handful I don’t really recognize, but I’ve only been training hardcore for a few months now.”

“There is an archery practice range down the hall,” Alexi said. “I will show you.”

Kai was frozen in place, and I said, “Kai, are you coming?”

“
Hm?” he muttered, not moving.

“Kai!” I snapped. His head jerked toward me and I said, “Are you coming?”

“You may take it,” Alexi told Kai.

Kai turned back toward the glass case he was standing in front of and eyed something inside it lon
gingly.

“Are you sure?” Kai asked.

“Of course,” Alexi said. “It suits you.”

Kai lifted the heavy glass lid and reached inside, retrieving a long sword tucked inside an ornate sheath made of black leather and garnished with red and gold patterns. The hilt o
f the sword appeared to be made of ivory or some similar material, but it was painted red in parts and tipped with gold. He pulled the sword partway from its sheath and admired the craftsmanship.

“It’s beautiful,” he whispered reverently.

“As I said, it suits you,” Alexi said. “May we go now?”

Clinging to the sword, Kai followed us from the room, and Alexi closed the door behind us. We followed him several doors down and entered a dark
room. Alexi flicked a switch and the room was immediately illuminated with bright white light.

The room was a type of indoor shooting range, but with archery butts of different sizes and distances sprinkled throughout. The wall contained a shelf that held boxes of various types of ammunition. Kai located the proper crossbow bo
lts and took the box down, setting it onto a small table in the corner.

Kai showed me how to load a bolt into the crossbow, and then how to aim it properly. I fired a test shot and hit a
bullseye. Kai and Alexi both cheered.

“Great job, darling!” Alexi sho
uted.

“Awesome!” Kai said.

“Well… I have to be honest about something,” I told them both. I pointed to a target about 10 feet from the ones I’d hit. “I was aiming for
that
target.”

“Oh,” Kai muttered. Then, more cheerfully, he said, “Well, keep trying. You
’ll improve.”

Kai was right, of course. After just a few hours or practice I could hit the target at which I was aiming. Granted, I couldn’t get anywhere near the
bullseye, but it was still encouraging.

Alexi had taken a seat in the corner and was watching
me as I practiced. He continually commented on my improvement. Kai made corrections to my aim from time to time, and before long I was getting much closer to the bullseye with each shot.

“I can’t believe how much you’ve improved in just a few hours!” Kai
said. “It took me weeks to aim like this!”

“Well, I’m just really motivated,” I said. “I need to be useful.”

“Speaking of which, I believe it is time for you to take a break and eat something,” Alexi said. “It is nearly two o’clock in the morning and you have only eaten once today.”

“I’d rather just go to bed so I can train some more early in the morning,” I told him. “I’ll eat breakfast in the morning.”

“Alright,” he relented. “Let us go.”

“Goodnight, Kai,” I said. “Thanks for your help.”

“See you tomorrow?” he asked.

“Bright and early,” I answered.

*****

Sometime in the middle of the night, they came. I heard the long, lonesome sound of a wolf howling outside the compound, and it jarred me awake. I bolted upright, my heard pounding, and I shook Alexi aw
ake.

“The wolves are here,” I told him.

He was on his feet in a flash, and he dressed faster than I’d ever seen. I hurried into some clothes and we rushed into the hallway to sound the alarm. Fortunately, the wolf’s howl had already woken almost everyone, and those who had awakened alerted those who had not. A few groggy souls were still stumbling from their rooms and wiping sleep from their eyes, but most of us were wide-eyed and alert.

“I will meet Logan outside,” Alexi said to me. “You stay here until I
know for sure what is happening.”

He kissed my cheek and then flew down the stairs. Jamie glanced at me, and I nodded. Ready or not, it was time to get weapons loaded with her Wolf’s Bane potion.

We rushed to Jamie’s bathroom where she had stored the potion and antidote. She’d already portioned the antidote into individual syringes so we could deliver it to members of Logan’s pack in the event that one of them accidentally got hit with the Wolf’s Bane.

I gathered a quiver and as many hollow-tipped bolts as
I could find and raced back to Jamie. There, we loaded the tips each with a significant dose of the Wolf’s Bane potion. Kai used a cotton ball to wipe his sword with the potion and then dried it with Jamie’s hairdryer. Then we filled some hollow bullets with the potion for Kai to use in his handguns.

I heard Alexi calling from downstairs, and I called to him, beckoning him upstairs. He found me by following my voice, and he was surprised to see us loading the ammunition with the potion.

“Are you still planning to use the crossbow?” he asked.

I nodded and said, “What choice do I have? I may not have had enough practice, but it’s all I’ve got, and I have to try.”

“Just try not to hit one of us,” Kai said.

“I won’t fire unless I have a clean shot,” I promised.

“It is time,” Alexi said.

I filled my quiver with the bolts and slung it across my back. Kai holstered his guns and sheathed his sword, which hung by his side. Jamie had an army of antidote-filled syringes in a pack, which she attached to her waist.

“Let’s go,” I said.

Logan, in wolf form, was waiting for us outside. His ears pricked, listening carefully into the distance. He whined anxiously. I glanced at Max, and noticed he was alone.

“Where is Denise?” I whispered.

“She was afraid, and I didn’t want anyt
hing to happen to her, so she’s staying behind,” Max answered.

I nodded. The outside air was chilly, and I could see my breath in white clouds. I shivered, but the anxiety of the impending battle soon warmed me. Either that, or I simply no longer noticed t
he cold.

As soon as everyone had entered the yard, Alexi nodded to Logan, who took off like a shot, sprinting across the yard toward the forest. We followed him, the crowd surging forward. When we reached the wall, we noticed Logan
had already dug a gaping hole underneath it, and we followed him, crawling on our bellies to make it through.