House of Ravens (13 page)

My own legend has begun to be
established.

The vampire who braved the light to reveal
the truth to the townspeople.

“
That was stupid,” Ian
says, disbelief clear at what I’ve just done. “Don’t you ever dare
do something like that again.”

“
Since when did I ever
listen to you, Ian?” I chuckle, relief flooding through my body as
my vision slowly begins to return. “That isn’t going to change now
that we’re engaged.”

He lets out his own annoyed laugh, shaking
his head, just before he presses his lips to mine, just once.

This morning, while we were all eating
breakfast and waiting for Lexington to finish sweeping the laptop
we found, the sound of a shattering window from the upper floor
brought out the red eyes and fangs. It was followed just a minute
later by another crash from Markov’s bedroom.

Sheriff Luke McCoy showed up just a few
minutes later, sirens blaring, pounding on my door.

A young boy of only ten years old walked to
school early. He was found just as school was starting, puncture
wounds in his neck, blood everywhere. He’d been chained to the
flagpole, his newly acquired fangs snapping at the teachers, his
glowing yellow eyes searching for his first meal as a newly-turned
Bitten.

Ten years old.

Silent Bend went after Elijah because of a
vampire child. Something so unnatural and so horrific. Such an
innocent life, turned into something they cannot control. Elijah
was blamed.

Now it’s my head they want on a stake.

This was a bold move. One that could easily
get me offed without the army having to raise another finger.

But I will fight fire with fire.

RATH PARKS THE CAR
ALONG
the curb, and I look up at the steps
leading into the town hall with nervousness. There’s a lot more
people here than I expected. I can hear all the voices already
echoing from inside, and there’s still a dozen people walking up
them to go find seats.

“
I’ll admit,” Ian says as
he reaches across the seat and takes my hand, “this scares me to
death. But only partial truths have been whispered about for too
long. It’s time everyone was given the story straight.”

I nod, a swarm of angry hornets flying
around in my stomach. Opening the door, I get out into the warm air
and the dying light. Ian goes to the trunk and pulls out a huge,
heavy duffle bag. Rath joins at his side, grabbing the second
one.

Together, the three of us walk up the steps,
and my enhanced eyes pick out the individuals hidden in the
shadows. Danny, on top of the building. Christian around the
corner, hidden, almost invisible, in the bushes. Leigh blending
into the crowd as a civilian.

Anything could happen at this meeting. The
townspeople could listen to us, could believe the truth. Or they
could ambush me, try to kill me before anyone hears a word I have
to say. But my House isn’t going to let anything happen to me. If
they have to take Henry’s approach to their mob tactics, they
will.

No matter how I begged them not to.

The burn in my eyes immediately dies away as
we step foot into the foyer, following behind the individuals who
surely do not realize who is behind them. Down the hall we go, and
finally, we break into the ballroom where Jasmine once held an
annual party in which she let her followers feed off the
attendants.

Rows and rows of chairs are set up, and
there’s probably forty people residing in them. A podium is set at
the front of the room, and a short row of chairs sits off to the
side. At the end of the row sits Mayor Jackson.

I haven’t seen him since the day I rescued
Cameron from his house, where Jasmine was holding him hostage.
They’d been feeding off of the Mayor, she and her Bitten, nearly
killing him.

The man has every right to hate our kind,
and it’s so obvious in the way he looks at us, that he does.

Our presence brings silence to the room, but
many of them shift, grabbing hold of hidden guns, sliding out
stakes in not so subtle ways.

Ian swears under his breath, his eyes
darting around the room, searching for exits and ways to defend us
if needed.

The air catches in my throat, my chest is
tight. I’m actually scared. Scared for myself. For my House
members. But more so, scared for the humans here. If it comes to a
fight, they don’t stand a chance against us with their slow
reactions and weak bodies.

“
Alivia,” Mayor Jackson
says as he stands. He does not, however, extend a hand to shake
mine. “We are all very eager to hear your address—and make
judgments based upon what you have to say.”

The message is clear: if they don’t like
what they hear, they will try to kill me.

“
Then, I hope we can all
keep our heads level and civil,” I say. My throat feels
dry.

Not good.

We walk to the front of the room, and Ian
and Rath set their bags to one side of the podium, on a table, so
that they are in view. And now that the crowd has gotten over the
sight of me, their focus shifts to Ian.

“
So it’s true,” a man
whispers. “He’s one of them.”

“
Heard he died in December.
Thought talk of him roaming around town were just ghost stories,”
another woman says quietly.

They have no idea we can hear every word
being spoken.

My eyes scan the room, and pick out so many
familiar faces. Fred, looking very conflicted. The owner of the
grocery store. A few of the construction workers from my housing
project. Others I’ve only seen, but had no one-on-one contact
with.

A few more bodies float into the room, and
the hand on the clock on the back wall slides to point to eight
o’clock. The room goes quiet, and it’s as if they collectively hold
their breath.

My palms sweaty, I step up to the podium,
Ian to one side, Rath to another. They do not sit. They stand close
to my side, hands folded in front of them, ready to grab weapons at
the slightest wrong movement.

“
Thank you all for coming
tonight,” I begin. “I know doing so must have been done
with…conflicted feelings.” The air grows heavier, so heavy I can
hardly breathe. So heavy, I hear many of them
stop
breathing.

“
I’ll be upfront,” I say,
raising my chin, standing just a little straighter. “I will not
keep up pretenses and let talk in the dark continue. I am a
vampire.”

A few gasps float through the air, harsh
words and curses pass their lips. But truly, most everyone here
does not look surprised.

“
My father, Henry Conrath,
was also a vampire,” I continue. “As was his brother, Elijah, who
was hanged for a very similar crime that happened over one hundred
and forty years ago.” I swallow hard. Sharing these facts is not
easy. And it isn’t going to make life any easier. “You need to be
aware of a few facts, in case you do not yet know.

“
There are three kinds of
vampires,” I continue, not losing any momentum while I have their
unwavering attention. “There are the Born. Those of us whose
fathers were other Born vampires, who conceived through a human
mother. You see him standing before you: Ian Ward is a
Born.”

Eyes shift to Ian, but he doesn’t waver
under their harsh stares, the questions they’re begging of him with
their eyes. He stands just a little taller, shifting slightly
closer to my side.

“
But there are also the
Royal Born,” I continue, looking around the room. “Descendants of a
King. I will not tell you any more information about that, and this
is for your safety. I mean that,
do
not
let your curiosity rise in this
matter, for it really, truly will put your life in
danger.”

I grip the podium tightly, restraining
myself so that I do not crush the soft wood with my supernaturally
strong hands. This was my biggest hesitance in sharing these
truths. I did not want to put these people in danger. Cyrus values
secrecy.

But everything will explode if they are not
told.

“
I am such a descendant, as
was my father, as was my uncle,” I continue. “As a descendent, we
are expected to rule certain areas of the world.”

“
Are you telling us you’re
our queen?” a man pipes up with blood in his voice.

“
No,” I say, my voice
strong and loud. “I am to govern the affairs of the vampires and
keep things in their order.”

“
You’re doing a shit job so
far,” another pipes up.

“
You will hold your
tongue.” Suddenly, Rath pipes up, his voice booming and commanding
to a point that it gives even
me
chills. All eyes shift to him, and there’s
something so unsettling and powerful about Rath that no one
questions.

“
I am doing my best,” I
say, feeling sheepish and judged once more. “These politics
are…complicated. But right now, you need to know about the final
kind of vampire, as they are the cause of your grievances. The
Bitten.”

The room is once more silent, and they wait
with anticipation.

“
They are not Born as
vampires, they are turned. Any one of you can be turned. And after
you turn, you are a slave to the vampire who created you—Born or
other Bitten—for a time. You are compelled to obey them and
you
cannot
fight
it. Not for even a second.”

“
You’re saying you could
turn any one of us, right here and now, into your unfailingly loyal
slave?” a woman who stands in the back of the room with her arms
folded across her chest asks.

“
Yes,” I say, and when the
uproar begins, I move on as quickly as possible. “But my House and
I, we have not created any of these horrific crimes in some time.
Yes, in the past, perhaps, under a misguided leader. But she is
dead and I swear, I will never permit any of my House members to
take an innocent life to create a slave.” My words are spoken
harsh, firm.

“
People have been
disappearing from our town for months now,” I continue, my voice
dropping in volume. “They’ve been your neighbors. Your children.
Your wives.” I turn slightly toward Mayor Jackson. And hope he
hears my pity. “And I think you already know, they’ve been Bitten
and turned. Someone is creating an army.”

“
What are they trying to
do?” a man asks fearfully. “Turn the entire town into slaves? For
what?”

I shake my head. “They’re building numbers.
But it’s not Silent Bend they are after. It’s me. It’s my House.
It’s the Born.”

“
Then leave!” several
people shout.

“
Let us live in peace!
Safety!”

“
It’s not that simple!” Ian
bellows, drawing the attention back to the front of the
room.

“
There are too many of
them, and this is not something we can ignore at this point,” I
say, feeling the fight gather back in my chest, the readiness to
battle. “I promise, we will do everything in our power to put them
down. To take care of this problem. But we need your
help.”

Ian unzips the first of the bags and takes
out a stake. Eighteen inches long, an inch in diameter. “These
Bitten are marked in two ways,” he explains as he spins the stake
in his hand, his vampire hunter reflexes sharper than ever. “Their
eyes are yellow when they’re hungry or enraged, unlike ours.”

He flashes his red eyes, and every single
one of the townspeople present flinches back in their seats.

“
And they’ve all been
branded,” he continues. Rath pulls a stack of pictures from his
breast pocket and begins passing them out. “On the back of the
hand. The symbol of the snake eating it’s own tail. Every one of
them. If you see one of them, you need to kill them. With one of
these. Straight to the heart.”

Ian tosses the stake in his hand to a man in
the second row. He flinches away, nearly dropping the length of
wood.

Ian grabs the straps of the first bag,
lifting it, and holding it wide open, revealing many, many stakes.
He walks to the front row of people, and each of them takes a
stake, looking terrified.

“
Ouroboros,” I say. “That’s
what the symbol is called. It symbolizes re-creation. Every single
one of these Bitten have been marked with it.

“
We know you are not
warriors,” I continue. “We are not asking you to become hunters.
We’d prefer to keep you all out of this. But we do not yet know
their numbers. So if you happen to see anything, don’t hesitate,
because they have orders, and will do whatever is necessary to
accomplish their mission.”

“
This is how we win,” Ian
fills in. “By creating allies they never expected. Their intent
today was to turn you all against us. Don’t help the enemy.” He
passes the bag off to a man who continues to hand out the stakes.
Ian walks back up to the front of the room and I move aside, giving
him the podium.

“
You all know me. Every
single one of you,” he says as he meets the eye of everyone in this
room. “You’ve seen me grow up from a little kid, saw me graduate
high school. Probably knew of my nightly activities over the years,
and how my parents were killed.”

I see it in their faces: they do know Ian.
And they can’t believe what they’re seeing and hearing.

“
But five months ago,
Jasmine Voltera ran a sword through my stomach and I was dead,” he
says, full of hardness at everything that happened. “Only, I woke
up four days later as the very thing I’d been hunting all these
years. Learned my mother had an affair and that George Ward was not
my biological father. And now I’m this.”