Page 7 of Bitten

A monster.

“You wanna bite me and become one of them?”

“No,” he spat, his whole body shaking with the need to bite.

She backed away a slight bit, a slow smile spreading over her lips. “Maybe you’ll do.”

The witch walked across the room, facing the fireplace. She had it roaring on a summer night in Louisiana—and yet he didn’t feel the heat at all. In fact, he felt cold. He watched as she began to pull at one of the old, faded bricks. With her fingertips, she slowly dragged it out until it came loose. Once out, she withdrew an old bit of canvas, darkened with age. The witch took something from inside it and allowed it to dangle from her fingers.

A thin, golden chain.

With a black gem glittering from it.

Reggie could see the same glinting that surrounded the witch coming off the stone—but it appeared even stronger than her light.

She moved back toward him… and he couldn’t stop staring at the glittering blackness. When she placed it over his head and the gem touched his skin, he could feel a burst of electricity wash through his body.

Enough that it knocked him back to the cot.

After he’d taken a deep breath, he realized he couldn’t hear the witch’s heartbeat any longer.

The bloodlust… the terrible thirst… it was gone.

Simply gone.

Reggie eyed the witch.

“Better?” she asked.

He nodded.

“You were spared, Reginald Kane. Those creatures tried to take your life, but you were strong. You survived. If you ain’t gon’ be one… you gon’ be a hunter. A leech hunter.”

The anger that filled in all the empty spaces the bloodlust had created made the idea of hunting evil palatable.

“I saved you for a reason. Like the Cain from biblical times, you shall rise up in vengeance to smite your brother. Death will befall those creatures… at your hand.”

“My brother? My brothers are dead.” He gasped, fearful they’d turned like him.

“When a leech bites, he don’t only take. He releases a disease into the blood when he stabs that vein with his fangs. That villain left behind a part of himself, now coursing in your veins. He became a part of you, just as your blood became a part of him. That makes you brothers in a sense, does it not?”

Reggie eyed her, remembering the stories about her. Crazy was often bandied about when describing the woman. Seeing the strange light in her eyes, he wondered if she wasn’t off her rocker.

He bit his lip. Reggie could feel the creature in his blood. He could see glimpses of that monster’s evil. She wasn’t crazy—at least about this.

She’d helped save him.

Saved him? Or had she cursed him?

“Why are you helping me?” he asked.

“The vampire… they took something precious from me—long, long ago. I fought back an’ I failed. But now? Now I have another chance. You shall be my vengeance, Reginald Kane.” She looked away a moment before turning back to him. “As I said… you are of two worlds now.” The witch rose to her full height. “And like Cain, you must go to the Land of Nod. But first… we must prepare you for that journey.”

Reggie shook his head, her delusions thick like a honeyed haze, wrapping around him. “The Land of Nod?”

“East of Eden… lies Midnight, Mississippi. A place the leeches covet… they cannot get what they want most, boy. You will stop them. You alone.”

Alone.

Pain slammed into him as he realized he was utterly alone. His family… gone. The life he knew… decimated.

And then the anger crept back in. The visions swirled in his mind. Death. Dismemberment. Destruction. They’d handed him an education in pain and torment with the memories they’d handed over in their blood.

Vengeance…

No. He wasn’t alone.

With the need for retribution at his side, he’d never, ever be alone.

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