Page 10 of Blood and Hexes

Change in the Air

Diana had to admit, she was impressed with her new cruiser. The weight of the man strapped over the back seat didn't affect the stability or speed of the machine purring between her thighs. Maybe this was it: the bike she'd keep when she finally settled somewhere. If she finally settled somewhere. After almost a thousand years of roaming, it wasn't certain that she'd ever pause long enough to own anything bigger than a laptop.

The night air was cool enough for Diana to notice it, though the temperature didn't bother her one way or the other. She could be affected by extreme heat or Canadian winters, but British autumns weren't harmful to her kind.

She'd been in Scotland for some time before she needed to stop for gas—and another drink. She checked on the man on the back of her bike. Still down for the count. He was going to be stiff as hell when he woke up.

Diana tilted her head, watching him as she sipped her lukewarm Olla. Maybe she should ditch him here. He was far enough from The Lion's Claw to be out of his little friends' reach. She stuck out her tongue, licking her dry lips. The fleeting idea held no appeal. She was too nosy to leave things like this. Diana wanted to know who he was, why he'd been cornered. Despite the fact that his attackers had clearly been assholes, he could still be in the wrong. There was a possibility that she'd helped out a sadistic murderer or something. If that was the case, she needed to remedy the situation by ripping out his heart, or something equally gnarly. She hadn't given the situation much thought earlier. She'd intervened because the other men had been rude to her, that was all.

And if she admitted it, at least to herself, she wanted to hear him thank her for saving his skin. It was going to be hard for him, she could tell. There was something satisfying about humbling strong, powerful men. She was twisted enough to enjoy it. Diana had never pretended to be a saint.

“I guess you’re stuck with me for now, ginger. Let’s go home.”

Home. The word crossed her lips so easily. She'd always seen Oldcrest as her home, although it had been centuries since she'd last visited it. Smelled it. She didn't doubt that the place had changed in all this time. Everywhere else had. The Industrial Revolution had seen to that. It was rare to breathe without feeling that the air she inhaled came right out of her exhaust.

The sky was turning red in the distance when she heard sirens behind her. She grinned, surprised it had taken so long for the human police to stop her; she was lugging around a two-hundred-pound guy on her back seat, after all. It would be hard to look more suspicious.

She pulled up on the side of the road and removed the helmet she’d bought just because it was black and pink. Its only use was to ensure her hair didn't look like a magpie’s nest. Even if she did end up in an accident, which was unlikely given the agility and speed of her kind, she could walk away without so much as a scratch.

"Hey there." She greeted the approaching officer with a smile that revealed the elongated canines that still hadn’t retreated. They wouldn’t anytime soon, unless she forced it.

The human froze, eyes zeroing in on her mouth. He lifted his flashlight to eye level to get a better look.

"Excuse me, ma'am. I thought you were—"

Human. He'd thought she was human, and therefore under his jurisdiction.

"It's all good, sir. I'd say I look pretty dodgy right about now."

He laughed awkwardly, starting to relax a little. Unless she didn’t like them, Diana had a gift for setting people at ease. Even those who shouldn't relax around her. Even those who were technically built to be her prey.

"Right." His flashlight traveled away from her, to the back of the bike. "And…him?"

She tilted her head. "He's one of us, I promise. I mean, you could check, but he'll be hungry when he wakes up." That much was true. Never mind that he wouldn't come to for quite a while.

The officer took a step back. "All right, ma'am. I bid you good day."

"You too." Some might have called him a coward. As far as Diana was concerned, he was smart. Smarter than anyone else she’d encountered that day.

Not every vampire was as controlled as she. The smell of blood was enough to send a starving vampire into a feeding frenzy, whether they wanted to kill or not. The handful of ancients like her needed to feed far less often than newly turned vampires, and weren't slaves to their bloodlust, but they were generally bored, twisted, and cruel enough to kill for the heck of it.

She put the helmet back on and kept going, past towns and cities, past highland hills, fields, and fluffy cows, until she reached a stretch of land by a glistening lake. Her heart beat fast, with something closer to apprehension than excitement running through her veins. She'd been away for so long. Long enough for everyone to forget about her. Long enough for her brother to not recognize her.

He'd gone rogue when he first went through the change any born vampire suffered before becoming immortal. Out of control, out of his damn mind. But it hadn't been his fault as much as hers. Their kind, the descendants of the original seven vampires, prepared for the change throughout their lives. They learned about it, were trained to control themselves and all of their urges long before they settled into immortality. Only, her family had been so focused on her—on training her and on keeping her alive and breathing long enough for her to change—that they'd completely ignored Alexius, leaving him to his own devices. No wonder he'd gone off the rails.

After he was hunted down and brought back to Oldcrest, his punishment was having to forever remain there, locked in his home. A punishment he hadn't deserved. She'd been turned by the time he came back. Diana couldn't even bear to look him in the eye. So, she'd taken off, and she'd stayed away, swearing that as long as he had to pay for his sins, so would she. He couldn't leave Oldcrest; she would not return. It was just fair.

Now, she'd heard that Alexius had broken his curse. It was time. She had to come back. Even if she wasn't welcome. Her blood demanded it. Staying away from Oldcrest for this long wasn't healthy for a Helsing. The source of her family's power was buried here, under the hill, beneath their home. Cutting herself off from it had slowly drained her. She deserved nothing less, though.

The moment Diana's bike reached the wards of Oldcrest, she grinned. For a second. Then, her wheel hit an invisible wall at full speed. Her grip tightened on the handlebars, but the force of the impact still sent her flying forward, and she crashed face-first into the wall.

The bike drifted sideways on the field of grass with a plaintive squeak.

On the ground, her clothes ripped to shreds on her right flank, and her skin irritated enough to piss her off, she blinked, confused for long moments.

Then she realized what was going on.

Juniper had been right.

She'd been locked out of Oldcrest.

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