Page 63 of Bitten By Desire

Instead of continuing to lunge at me, Daphne grabbed Lorraine and wrestled her to the floor behind the trashed table.

“Afraid to face me?” I yelled, trying to get her away from the changeling that had helped us when it counted.

Daphne punched Lorraine’s face, and the other woman lay unmoving on the ground as my fake friend worked her way to her feet once again. She held two syringes up, one in each hand.

“I’m not afraid. I’m just not stupid,” she said and launched them both.

I swept out an arm, knocking them to the side, but she’d thrown a third right after, and I didn’t see it until it was embedded in my shoulder. Staring at her in horror, I plucked it from my flesh, panic strangling me. Yet I felt nothing.

“Do what I say and don’t fight me,” Daphne breathed as she stepped over a pile of broken glass and needles.

I tried to raise my hand to send her flying again, but I couldn’t.

“The suggestion serum,” I said in horror.

Daphne smiled, smoothing back her blonde hair and fighting back a grimace of pain. I turned to run, but she said, “Stop.”

My feet remained planted as she halted just inches from me.

“I win,” she said. “Now let’s take a nice walk to the portal in the woods so I can bring you home.”

I couldn’t fight her, and worse, I knew I’d obey. But a tiny shred of hope still remained as I watched Lorraine rise silently from the floor behind her. I had to keep her distracted.

“That will take a while,” I said. “Would you rather I call Zoe and have her open a portal?”

Daphne laughed and slapped my cheek lightly. “Cute. You’d love to call your sister and get some help here, wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t need to,” I said, and waited as she pieced together my words, the grin slipping from her face.

Lorraine lunged from behind, and Daphne spun, grabbing her wrist, with the syringe held high and stabbing her clawed fingers into the other woman’s stomach. Eyes wide, Lorraine stared for a moment until Daphne yanked out her hand, pulling entrails out in her fist and smiling into the woman’s shocked face.

Without another thought, I sprang forward, grabbed the syringe from Lorraine’s hand, and shoved it in Daphne’s neck. She released Lorraine, who fell to her knees, her insides hanging grotesquely before her. Then she spun on me, clutching the spot on her neck.

“How?” she rasped.

I knew what was in that syringe. It was my last dose of GodKiller, the drug I’d accidentally created in an attempt to cure vampirism. I’d watched as Lorraine pried open the cabinet and removed it. I would have recognized it anywhere.

And I knew exactly what it did.

It would return her DNA to its original state.

Dirt.

“You disobeyed,” she croaked as she also dropped to the ground, arms and legs already crumbling away into piles of fresh soil, the smell of lavender filling the room.

“No, I didn’t,” I said, taking a step back. “See, I’ve learned over time to be very careful how I word things when I give a command. You said not to fight and to listen to you. You never told me not to kill you.”

The shock on her face was her final comment as her skin sank into earth, falling onto the top of the mound that used to be my mother’s killer.

An odd sense of calm overtook me as I stepped around it to check on Lorraine. But her grey aura had faded to practically nothing. Kneeling down beside her, I took her hand in mine.

“Thank you for saving me,” I said earnestly.

“I was a pretty good…person,” she answered in a whisper.

Her head lulled to the side, unbreathing, and I stood to back away, a tear running down my cheek as her body disintegrated into ash.

“Yeah. You did make a pretty good person,” I agreed.

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