Page 20 of The Vampire King's War

I need to run away.

Just teleport to Daemon.

Tell him what happened.

I can’t do anything. I’m just a normal vampire. I’m not special. I’m just…

A girl’s face floated before her in the pulsing wave of ghosts. Four-years-old. Plump cheeks. Cornrows in her hair. A smile that caused dimples to form. A faint scar on her chin. Fiona tilted her head to the side. This ghost’s face was… familiar. But surely not! Libbie had died so long ago. So very long.

Please tell me she’s not still here!Why hasn’t she moved on?

The girl, her baby sister, smiled at her. So winsomely and warmly as she always had that the deadening cold seemed to retreat for a moment.

You need to help them, Fiona,Libbie said though there were no words. You need to help them.

I can’t! I’m just one person! I’m just--

No, you aren’t. You’ve always been different. Special. Don’t you know? Don’t you remember? Libbie pressed her. Still smiling, even as she was clearly asking Fiona to remember that terrible night.

I don’t want to remember,Fiona told her. Not with her lips. Those were numb and they felt like they were sewn together with frost.

You have to remember. You have to understand yourself. C’mon, Fi, remember,Libbie urged.

I…

For me? Please, Fi.

The memory came over Fiona of a house filled with smoke from a fire, of her on the ground in the second floor hallway of her home, thinking she was going towards her little sister’s bedroom door only to find herself near the stairs, which was the exact opposite direction. The smoke was so thick that she’d gotten turned around somehow. She turned her head to look back at where her sister’s room should be, but it was all smoke and the reflected light of flames.

The fire is coming!

I need to get out!

But Libbie!

The fire roared around her. The smoke was so thick it felt like she was breathing in water. Her eyes blurred and stung. Tears left her eyes only to dry from the fierce heat half an inch from her tear ducts.

Go to get to Libbie!

Fiona turned on her hands and knees. The wooden floor pressed against the bruises she’d gotten from playing outside that day. The floor was hot and her hands felt like sausages baking on the flat top grill at the restaurant her father worked at as she shuffled back towards where she hoped her sister’s room was. She imagined them splitting and the fat spilling out of them and sizzling as it hit the floor. She would only be able to feel the terrible rents in her skin and not see them happening as the smoke was so thick she could see nothing. She would not hear the sizzling of her own fat either as the fire roared so loudly that it was deafening.

She slid her right hand forward and let out a scream that she couldn’t hear. It was too hot. Too hot! She imagined flames licking the underside of the wood. She was being baked. The house was an oven.

She tried sliding forward again, but the heat was like a wall, pushing her back. She retreated inch by inch by inch even as she screamed her sister’s name. But it was like screaming into the void. The fire consumed her words. Suddenly, her knee had found open air, instead of more floor, and she tumbled backwards. She bounced down several steps and landed on her side in the middle of the stairwell.

She drew in a ragged breath that was more soot and heat than air. Her throat closed so tight she could only get the faintest trickle of air down it now. She turned her head and thrust her face down to the floor where the last of the clean air was. She opened her lips against the wooden stairs. She breathed against the hard material. A faint little stream of clean air flowed into her lungs, keeping her barely alive. A thin thread of oxygen.

You need to go, Fiona,a familiar voice told her.

Her head jerked up and she took in another lungful of smoke. She couldn’t speak yet she somehow said in her mind, Libbie?!

You need to go, Fiona,her baby sister told her, but the voice didn’t seem to be attached to a body.

Fiona swept her arms through the air all around her, but not Libbie. No pretty, plump girl with laughing brown eyes and hair in cornrows. No warm body to embrace and carry down the stairs like she had every morning.

Libbie?!Frantically, she grabbed at the smoke, but no sister.

You’re not bound to this place like most people are, Fiona,her little sister--though was it Libbie?--said. You need to go. Just let go.

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