Night Marked: The Darkfell Vampire Clan: 1 by L.A. McGinnis

Author:L.A. McGinnis [McGinnis, L.A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fools Journey Press
Published: 2021-07-29T16:00:00+00:00

Luthor’s burned back was already healing, the blisters disappearing like magic, his skin turning pink, then white beneath the thick coating of grime.

I was fascinated.

This accelerated healing… it defied logic, not to mention the laws of physics, which I now realized were created by humans to explain human phenomenon. Vampires, it seemed, lived by their own laws.

Despite numerous attempts, I could not make more black shadows flow from my fingers and decided I must have imagined it.

I set the painting on a narrow stone shelf jutting from the wall, my throat burning as I thought of Gram taking the time to give it to me.

What she’d said.

It took Cyrus several trips to gather what we needed. I tried not to think about surveillance cameras and security footage when he dumped his loot on the floor, then left for another foray into the retail extravaganza that was the twenty-first century.

He was naturally curious and had a serious affinity for brightly colored candy. I sorted a few more boxes of sour gummies into his Halloween-sized candy pile, next to the brand-new Coleman lantern.

We had milk, cereal, bread. Peanut butter—crunchy—and several boxes of trail mix. He’d gotten a king-sized comforter, pillows, and clothing for all of us in various shades of sedate gray and bright, pastel colors.

I didn’t have the heart to complain about his dubious fashion sense as I ripped into a bag of beef jerky, tearing the safety strip off with my teeth before offering the contents to Luthor.

He gave the beef a derisive sniff before biting into it and chewing thoughtfully.

“It’s probably like prison food.” I kicked myself for the thoughtless comment, but he answered immediately.

“We didn’t have food, Viktor liked to starve us. It prevented us from healing. The hunger kept us half-mad. Do you remember what you felt like, when you first woke up?” I nodded. “Imagine that feeling, day after day. That’s what prison was like.”

“How are you not dead?”

“Viktor would never allow his favorite toys to die. He’d feed us just enough to survive, but we couldn’t fight back. He enjoyed torturing us, knowing we were too weak to heal. That’s what happened to my leg. And Cyrus’s neck.”

I chewed another piece of jerky, then unscrewed the milk cap and drank from the carton, ignoring the sour spike of sadness. Gram never liked when I did that, and I expected there would be many things, over the next weeks, that would remind me of her.

After Mom died, everything reminded me of her.

So many things seemed to trigger this deep, smothering melancholia. From the scent of a flower to something someone said, Mom had been everywhere I looked for months.

Then she’d faded away, until the only time I thought of her was if I tried.

I resisted the urge to check the divot on my arm, but knew Luthor was right about Viktor. I believed they called people like him psychopaths. “He likes to leave marks on people, doesn’t he?”

I remembered his cold satisfaction when he saw my arm.

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