Cassian Legacy: The Vampire Prince
Chapter 29

My eyes fell on her face almostimmediately. In all the scenarios I imagined, I never thought I’d see this one.She watched the speaker at the head of the table, with an expression filledwith awe and inspiration. She looked like she belonged with them. I had neverseen anything like this. All those times in class, even with her teaching andlecturing, and worrying about Seth, she never looked like she was remotelyhappy. That had changed. This sudden decision on her part filled my heart withdread. I never saw her as an enemy before, but now, things between us wouldchange drastically.

The others hadn’t noticed mypresence. The speaker continued on. I didn’t hear the words, but I needn’t hearthem. My mind was focused on her. Itwas she that I was here for. I approached cautiously. When I stood near enoughthat I would be noticed, I stopped. It only took a second or two, but theatmosphere shifted, and her eyes drifted slightly. In that moment, her gazefell upon me and all expression of adoration fell away from her like a sheet ofwater. Her body froze, still like a pillar of ice.

My presence was known now. Severalof them suddenly stood up, alarmed that I had crept up on them without theirknowledge. The leader stopped speaking and turned his head slightly. Ms. Ingramdidn’t move a centimeter. One of the vampires nearest me reached out, aimingfor my torso, but I caught a hold of the back of his neck side stepping hishand with one fluid movement, and slammed his head into the polished surfacebefore he could react. I was not in the mood to be toyed with. Not after thissurprise.

Ms. Ingram slowly stood up, knowingexactly why I was here. Before when she nearly attacked me in the school, shehadn’t completely seen what I was capable of. If her new friends tried anythingthat wasn’t reasonable, she would get a glimpse of my power, before she ranaway in horror, if she even got that far. I noticed her body looked thinnerthan the last time I saw her. He skin was sallower, thin and pale. Hersituation was worse than I imagined it to be.

“Miss Harper,” she greeted me,using my fake last name. “What are you doing here?”

I didn’t answer her. How could I,knowing what she did? She tried her best at sounding curious, like she didn’tthink I would know about this place when I knew otherwise. She didn’t want mehere, and it wasn’t for my safety.

Silence settled between us, fillingthe gaps and the areas around us like cement. The others seated around thetable didn’t know what to make of this situation or what to make of me. I wasthe oddball here, but even my oddness didn’t explain why Ms. Ingram was hereinstead of at school where she belonged. It didn’t explain what she’d done.

“Who is this woman?” the headvampire growled at her, his canines already showing. “You know her…” hebreathed.

Ms. Ingram’s eyes flickered over tothe man. “She is one of my students from school. I assume she was worried aboutmy absence.” She lied so easily. I should’ve realized it before now, but wastoo late.

“But how did she know to come here?” he questioned her again.

One of the warlocks met my gaze.“Aside from that question, how did she enter?”

Ms. Ingram looked back at me, likeshe was telling me I should flee before more trouble followed. But I wasn’tmoving, not without her or a reason.

I stared at each person in turn. Ididn’t recognize a single one of them, human or vampire. They were new here inthe city. Apparently they didn’t know anything about the Tierney’s. No wonderOctavian and Finn’s father remained so long here this morning interrogatingpeople. Someone had moved in on their territory that they didn’t know. Though Iwas sure Octavian knew, but remained silent.

I switched my gaze back to theleader. He apparently didn’t like my presence here; probably he deemed me as athreat. He ordered the two nearest me to attack using a small single gesturewhich I didn’t miss. I expected it, after disrupting their meeting. I took astep backwards, just narrowly missing a dagger that suddenly flew near mymidriff. The sound of the metallic object rushed towards my ears, but I hadalready sensed the dagger in hand before it even left the vampire’s fingers.The guy I had slammed into the table jumped up, regaining his consciousness. Hewent after me, as well as the one who threw the knife. But I wasn’t scared ofthem. Their actions were sloppy and inexperienced, clueing me that this rag-tagteam was a bunch of newborns.

The short one nearest me kicked hisleg out for whatever reason, possibly trying to trip me up. I found the actionboth stupid and foolish. I grabbed a hold of his leg before it could hit me,and used his leverage against him. I hurled his body into the other guy, andthen I leapt into the air. I landed on them both, feeling the crunch of theirspines between my feet. They weren’t going anywhere for a while. The others atthe table flinched upon the sound of the crack. The few humans nearest mescooted backwards in their seats, an involuntary reaction. One of the girlswhimpered and glanced up at the leader already fearful.

“You said we’d be safe here,” shewhispered to the guy. “And now she’s killed him!”

The man she mentioned in her wordstwisted his head at the sound of her voice. I dug my heel into his spinal cordand he went still once more.

“I need to speak with Ms. Ingram,”I greeted them.

The leader, who remained motionlesswatching my acrobatics while his inexperienced lackeys did all the work, noddedhis acceptance. She made her way slowly around the table, eventually standingbefore me. She crossed her arms and the muscles there contracted, more so thanthey did the night before.

“What are you doing here?” Idemanded. “I told you to leave, and go home.” I didn’t bother masking my toneor emotion. The vampires would hear my voice whether it was whispered or not.They would know that I knew of them, before she did.

She sighed and relaxed. “I neededthis, and you couldn’t deliver, so I took matters into my own hands.”

I cocked an eyebrow at her. Was shedelirious? “By showing yourself to them? Did they let you get what you wanted?”

She nodded. “More than you couldoffer.”

I released the pressure on the twomen and pulled her towards the metallic door. The second we slipped beyond thecurtain of magic that encircled the table I knew we wouldn’t be overheard. Theothers disappeared, leaving the table empty once more.

“What did you do? What did they do?” My voice sounded more hurriedthan I wanted it to.

The change didn’t faze her though.She shook her head. “They did more for me than you ever did, Abelia. I got mychance to kill one. And I’ll get my chance to kill more.”

“Kill one? More?” I let her go. “Doyou hear yourself? You’re with them! What do you think they’ll do to you whenyou become something that they fear?”

She shook her head. “I’ll never belike that. They’ll never fear me.”

She had lost her marbles. “And whatabout teaching, what about your family?”

“Oh wake up Abelia,” she snapped atme. “What family do you think I have after I lost him? This was all aboutvengeance for my lover! And I will have it once I replace the creep that killedhim. And believe me, I will, with their help.”

I was right. She had gonecompletely insane from revenge. She was not only a danger to herself, but toothers now.

“You call yourself old, but youdon’t know the first thing about love,” she spat out and walked past me,wrenching open the metallic door.

I took it as my cue to leave.

One of the warlocks penetrated thecurtain of magic. He crossed his arms and stared at us both. “Jennifer,” hecalled out. “We need you back here. Twilight approaches.”

I swallowed mostly to relieve thetension in my throat. “Fine, I’ll leave you alone. But remember, if you get inmy way, then we’re not friends anymore.” I turned and stalked out of the frontdoor.

Once I stepped into the dim lightof the setting sun, I knew she had been lost to me. Things would never be thesame between us again. The metallic door swung shut, sealing her fate. Shewould never teach again. She would never see her family, if she had any lovedones still living. She had lost her heart to her hatred of vampires. There wasonly one solution left to me now. She had become a threat to Finn, and becauseof that threat, she would become my prey. It was a sad day as I didn’t want tolose her, but deep down inside I understood her pain and suffering.

She was wrong about her laststatement to me. I knew a lot about love and the powerful emotions it created.I knew that it could cause obsession and rage, fury and vengeance, jealousy andenvy. But it also caused other emotions that were strong and beautiful. I hadnever felt those, except for my family before…

I turned and walked away from thenest. I had used the bottle of blood in vain, and now there would be no fight.I would need to get a hold of a new bottle soon. I pulled out my cell phone anddialed Emery’s number. They needed to know what happened to our teacher andsoon. Thankfully he answered on the first ring.

“Where’s Finn?” I asked him,knowing he was somewhere nearby. The three were never far from each other. Itried keeping the emotion from my voice, but I was sure something slipped by.

“He’s with me,” he answered.“Thalia too. We’re somewhere downtown, but I don’t recognize the place.”

It would be like Finn to drag themsomewhere new and not tell them. “Ok, here’s the deal…” I started but Finn’svoice interrupted mine. He must’ve grabbed the phone away from Emery.

“Abelia? Where are you?” the kiddemanded, sounding more upset than he usually was by my supposed ineptitude.

My eyes rolled and I gritted myteeth in frustration. “That’s not important. What is important is you need togo on vacation, now. Take a holiday. Fly across the ocean, just get away fromhere.” Hopefully he’d take the hint and not question me, but that wasn’t thecase.

“What do you mean?”

I sighed not wanting to say this,because saying it aloud was like making it true, even if it was already thetruth. “Ms. Ingram is lost. Just get away from here and let me deal with this.You shouldn’t be around here as long as she’s like this. You can come backafter she’s been disposed of.”

He didn’t answer for a long time.“So you were at Thackery Streetearlier. My father said you were acting in defense of me, but I didn’t knowwhat to believe because we had never discussed the possibility of you headinginto that part of town for anything.”

“Wait, what?” I didn’t understandwhat he was telling me. I go where I want, enough said. “Defense of you? That’snot what I was doing there. I was hunting last night with Ms. Ingram to keepher off your back. It only happened that I came across your father and thatstupid warlock, and believe me when I say that was a complete accident.”

“Warlock? You mean Octavian?” Ofall the things he could’ve asked me about that commentary, he had to mentionthat fluke of a kid.

I immediately understood thesarcasm he threw at me from the other side of the phone. “Well, I get yourpoint - he’s not much of a warlock.”

He didn’t waste any time continuing.“Well, see here’s the thing Abelia. I saw you take off earlier at school. Youreally worried me, because I saw the look on your face. But you didn’t hangaround long enough for me to replace out what was wrong. I hoped I hadn’t scaredyou in the hallway…”

The rest of his ramble faded awayand I nearly dropped the phone. He had seen me. Oh no. The pit of my stomachopened up and swallowed me. That was what I was trying to avoid.

My ears opened up again once more.He was still talking. “You had me worried that something may have happened thatwasn’t supposed to. So I called Octavian and he gave me the address where he’dlast seen you. We’re almost there.”

Instantly I lowered the phone andturned on all my senses. I hated doing this, as I liked to block them out inorder to give myself peace. Using all five sometimes had this effect on me thatcaused my brain to go crazy with innate thoughts, but I needed them now.

They were extremely heightened,especially with the vial of blood I had in me. Children played on a playgroundseveral blocks over to my left - the rusty springs of the swings squealed witheach pass. Four streets down I heard the cat calls from the street-walkers asnight ascended and their clientele drove past. I even caught the movement ofpeople inside the depot moving freely about now that it was time for them to dowhatever it was they did at this time of night. They were short several peoplefrom the time I had left the building, but I didn’t bat much of an eye to them.It was Finn I needed to replace. He shouldn’t be here in this part of town,especially with Ms. Ingram the way she was.

“Abelia?” Finn questioned throughthe phone, shattering my thoughts.

In the distance sirens blared, butthey weren’t coming closer to me. There weren’t any sirens through his end ofthe phone either though, which meant he wasn’t anywhere near me, and that puthim in even more danger. I pulled the receiver back to my left ear, and turnedaround searching for the part of the city they were at. I knew they were here,my instinct told me so. I was only a block away from the depot, but that didn’tmatter anymore. Finn was in an area of the city that was dangerous to him, andhe didn’t even know it.

“Abel?” he questioned me againusing the nickname my friends gave me, in hopes of derailing me from my silentmanner.

“Shh,” I harshly commanded him.Hopefully he’d stay quiet this time. I listened for sounds beyond the breathfrom his mouth, anything that would give me clues.

He was up high, and away from thesounds of the street. The wind whispered more harshly than it did from where Istood on the pavement. Siren’s approached his location, but they quickly fadedaway again. I turned east, knowing he was in that direction. The wind caughtthe microphone once more, signaling that he was on the roof of a building. Iclimbed up the side of the wall nearest me, doing an acrobat of sorts betweenthe windows and the rusted stairwell. Once I was up top, I scanned the rooftopsfor the area in which he stood.

Movement in my left peripheralvision caught my eyes. I stopped scanning the horizon and focused my sight inthat direction. I spotted a pack of people with their backs to me, dartingacross the rooftops. I didn’t really recognize the crew there, but five peoplemoving in a formation up this high wasn’t a good sign. They moved quickly,jumping from one building to the next, moving in towards a target of some sort.As soon as I’d seen them, they leaped across two more buildings and then haltedtheir progress. They came to a complete stop, several buildings away fromme.

Through the phone connection Finnand I shared, his breath changed and became more hurried. I expected him to saysomething, knowing words were about to be formed, but instead of his voice,someone else spoke, someone whose voice sent chills down my spine.

“There you are little Tierney. I’vebeen looking for you,” it rasped aloud.

Before I could ask where he was,the connection died.