A Vial of Life (A Shade of Vampire, #21)

“Hans!” I croaked. My cry echoed around the chamber, causing it to sound all the more anguished.

I staggered into the center of the room, falling to my knees as I continued gazing up hopelessly. Were they dead? How were they all clinging to the ceiling like that with their hands and feet? They all appeared motionless.

Almost as soon as I had the thought, the last of the echoes of my cry fading in the room, they began to stir. The sound of cracking filled my ears—cracking bone. They loosened their tight hold on the uneven ceiling and the next thing I knew, their legs dropped loosely beneath them. Now their faces were no longer obscured, I was able to witness the full horror of their transformation.

Oh, God.

What have they become?

Their faces were shrunken, as were their lips, and their noses had receded into their skulls. Their eyes, small black dots in the center of their eye sockets, stared down at me, unblinking. I scanned the ceiling to see if I could recognize Hans. They were all so horrifically transformed.

“Hans,” I called weakly.

Please let this be a nightmare. Please. Don’t let Hans be lost to me.

Arletta clutched my hand as the body—a male—hanging directly above us shifted. We all stood back as his hands detached from the ceiling. He dropped to the floor and crumpled in a heap. Could this be him? We rushed forward, and I reached out, my insides squirming as I touched his papery, skeletal shoulder. He seemed too weak to stand up. I gripped the upper portion of his bony arm, afraid that it might snap even at the slightest pressure. Braithe clutched his other arm and slowly, we raised him to his feet.

Now I was able to take him in fully for the first time. He was approximately the right height for Hans, allowing for the bend now in his spine. And although his face was so horribly deformed, I could just about make out the shadow of his familiar strong jawline.

“Hans?” I urged.

He stared back at me blankly.

“Is that you, brother?” Braithe asked.

He continued looking at us as though he either couldn’t hear, or didn’t understand.

What happened to you?

“We need to get him out of here,” I choked, looking desperately at his siblings. “We need to get him back to the ship and feed him blood. He’ll recover. I know he will.”

Although my brain told me that he would never recover from such a state, my heart couldn’t let go. I held onto the irrational hope that somehow, if we just fed him enough blood, he would recover slowly but surely, and he would be mine again. Hans. The same man I’d fallen in love with.

“Arletta, Julie.” Hans’ youngest brother, Colin, addressed us. “Go open the door wider so we can carry him through. I’m not sure he can even walk.”

Although I didn’t want to leave Hans’ side, we did as Colin suggested. Arletta and I hurried back to the door and heaved it open wider, as wide as it would go.

A snarl came from behind us. Then a strangled yell. Braithe’s yell.

Arletta and I whirled around to see Braithe on the floor, Hans on top of him… attacking his throat.

I was too stunned to even move. But Arletta shrieked and raced forward.

The siblings hauled Hans off Braithe, and as they pushed the former away and helped Braithe to his feet, I could see that Hans had ripped a huge gash in his neck. Braithe looked in agony as he gripped the side of his throat and attempted to stem the blood flow.

Sharp fangs still bared, Hans wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his bony hand before his dull eyes fixed on me. More bodies dropped from the ceiling and stood to their feet. Their gazes narrowed in on us.

“We have to get out of here!” Braithe wheezed. He was already the slowest of all of us, his leg having not yet fully healed after Ben injured it. His brothers held his arms and dragged him toward me and the door.

I just stood, frozen. As Hans’ siblings exited the room, I couldn’t find my feet to follow. Hans is still here. We have to take him with us. Even as the emaciated vampires began lurching toward us with alarming speed—Hans at the forefront—a manic gleam in their tiny black eyes, I still stood there, stunned. If Colin hadn’t grabbed my arm and forced me through the door, I would’ve stayed there. The brothers slammed the stone door closed after us and bolted it just as bodies hit up against the other side, scratching and clawing at the stone.

“They were all going to attack us,” Arletta gasped, clutching her chest as she breathed out.

“Hans,” I whispered, staring at the door. “He’s still in there! We have to get him out.”

Braithe, who sat on one of the stairs nursing his throat, shook his head, his face ashen. “Not until we figure out what the hell Hans has become.”

“Elder? What was that?” Frederick, Hans’ other younger brother, demanded.

The voice took a moment to reply. “Something… peculiar. Perhaps even… miraculous.”