Cassian Legacy: The Vampire Prince

I didn’t know where to go. I needed to find Finn. No, I corrected myself. Finn should stay far away from this. It was my mistake, and I would fix it. What I needed to do was find Ms. Ingram. She was the one in the most danger.

I was torn by what I should be doing. This should’ve never happened. I should’ve never allowed her access into the vampire world. I should’ve shut it down when I had the chance. Who knew what she would do faced with death now, from feeders and nesters and… I closed my eyes and took in several deep breaths. I couldn’t think clearly.

I needed to explain the situation to Finn, but I didn’t know where that boy ran off to. I didn’t even know what class he had first block. I was a bad friend. It would’ve helped had I known his cell phone number, but I didn’t. I might have inadvertently led a pack of crazy and insane vampires onto his doorstep with my actions this year.

No one came after me, as I ran down the hallway when I half expected them to. I burst out of a side door and stood in the yard briefly, still debating in my mind on the right course of action. I barely noticed the fields of grass that surrounded most of the campus. Though where I stood was bereft of any trees, it didn’t keep autumn leaves from scouring the ground. A gentle breeze blew around me, lifting my hair away from my face and pausing time for a few seconds. The cold air from the northern front whipped around my exposed arms. Out here, away from the confines of the building, I was free. This was where I belonged…out in the open. My head cleared and I finally thought straight. My mind immediately grasped the situation.

I should’ve run away when I had the chance. This entire ordeal was my fault. I never should’ve speculated that Ms. Ingram made her way home last night. I never saw her get into her car, I never saw her drive out of that part of town, and once I left the area following the Seneca vampire she had every chance to go back there. It was clear to me what had happened. Knowing what I already knew about her nature, I figured it out. But now, I didn’t know if I would make it in time to save her from herself.

I turned slightly toward the school and looked up. For the briefest second I thought I met his eyes as he gazed out of the window he sat next to. But in the next second, it wasn’t him - the eyes weren’t the correct color. He wouldn’t see me and where I was about to go. It was better this way.

I needed to prepare, and he needn’t follow me.

It was time to leave. But there was still so much to do, and too little time for me to discover what had happened to her.

I turned tail and ran.

I ran as quickly as I could to my house without letting anyone see me. As I passed the office, Sylvia watched me go without a word. She looked concerned by my sudden presence at the apartments. I burst through the door and pulled out the spare bottle I kept locked in a small box at the bottom of my duffle bag. I tore off the lid, not bothering to unscrew it all the way and chugged down the blood that was stored in there.

I wouldn’t have time to go downtown and find someone to feed off of. I needed blood, and I needed it now. I needed to be at my best and filled with strength and power. As I gulped it down, I felt its effects immediately. My arms and legs tingled, as well as the muscles in my abdomen. I felt refreshed, as I always did after a kill. But this time, I felt power surge under my skin. This was my emergency stash, sent to me from a powerful witch I knew back in Oregon. She stipulated I was only to use it in an emergency, and this was an emergency.

In order for me to find and help Ms. Ingram, I needed to break into the nest and defeat the ones who lived there. That would be a lot of vampires, with a lot of strength on their side. I had never gone up against more than two at a time, and I had never fully tested the extent of my powers. Now was the time to see what I was fully capable of. I only hoped this blood sample was a good one. It felt like a good one, which was why I drained the entire bottle.

I changed my clothes. No way was I coming up against vampires in this outfit. It wasn’t my only set, but that didn’t matter. I threw on a cozy indigo tank top and a pair of black yoga pants. I put on my running shoes and headed for the door, carrying a hair pin.

I bumped into Sylvia on my way out. The door swung shut behind me, but she didn’t flinch from the sudden intrusion.

“What’s wrong my dear?” she queried.

I shook my head and ran past her.

Her arm snaked out trying to grab me and I caught a hold of it before she could lay a finger on me. I resisted the urge to throw her onto the ground, but I resolved pushing her backwards into the wall of the cottage, so that she would know she couldn’t follow me.

Her eyes glanced up at me with surprise mirrored in their depths. She wasn’t expecting me to act like this, I was sure.

“You cannot help me,” I began. “So don’t get in my way.” I released her arm.

She rubbed the area where I had squeezed. Her fingers were stark white, like I had cut off the circulation in her wrist.

“You can’t do this alone,” she whispered. “Finn should know…”

I dropped my mouth open in horror just as she shut down her words by the expression slathered all over my face. “Finn should come nowhere near that place. If you value his life, don’t tell him where I’ve gone.”

I didn’t wait for her to ask me ten thousand questions including the meaning behind my words. I hurried on down the path and into the low income quarter.

It wasn’t long before I reached that building. But once I did arrive, the scene before me halted my steps. Octavian stood outside talking with another human and Holden Tierney in front of the depot’s door. I couldn’t let them see me, so I crossed the street and entered an alley where I wouldn’t be seen. I really hoped that Finn’s dad wasn’t a part of this nest. It would make things worse when I took out the others. Of course if we really were a team he would’ve told me everything he knew about this place, which led my mind to all sorts of wandering thoughts regarding the Tierney secrets.

I entered an abandoned hovel and found an empty room adjacent to the same alley that pointed directly at the depot’s front door. This same building was the one I had stood on several hours earlier, which is how I knew it was abandoned. I listened through the cracked window for the sound of the limo pulling away. Until they left, I couldn’t do a thing. It seemed like hours passed before it finally happened.

Meanwhile, Octavian and Lord Tierney kept up a conversation with several of the inhabitants of the area. It took them a long time before they finally left, in which I had time to imagine different scenarios about how I would go into the nest and find out about Ms. Ingram. There were several ways that I could handle this situation, but I wanted the one that would have the best possible outcome, even when there were several varying factors.

My nose picked up her scent the moment I arrived. It was strewn all over the alley. But it not only led from the direction she left into the streets beyond, it stretched into every corner and crevice headed toward the depot itself, like she had purposefully gone the opposite way I had told her to. I had a bad feeling that she had been at the entrance of the depot earlier this morning when I was tracking the vampire. Her scent should’ve faded with the morning hours, but instead it was really strong, much stronger than last night which meant she’d been by here recently. That knowledge wasn’t a good thing, but I was hoping she was still alive.

It was feeble for me to believe in a reality like that, and I knew it all too well. Her being alive was something I knew wasn’t exactly possible at this point. If she had gone into that nest, even with her mediocre skills, they would’ve killed her knowing what she was. The vampire community didn’t take kindly to the hunters of this world, unless they were the predator.

Part of me didn’t understand why I cared about her health at all, especially after she threatened me that day. I had fought this battle before, with other humans who thought they could win against them using items and devices they thought could harm the Fae. In the end their lives were forfeit. Ms. Ingram’s life was forfeit the moment I realized what she was. Even if I wasn’t going to be the one who took it, it didn’t mean that she’d survive. She sought death, and death had found her.

I should be doing everything I can to save her. But I learned long ago, you can’t save everyone, especially people who don’t want to be saved. Maybe that’s why I was here, waiting. Maybe that’s why I allowed myself to hope because I knew what she sought was bad for her, no matter the consequences. I had made a promise long ago, that I would help the humans, and not let them come to harm by the vampires in this world. And then I broke that promise with her. I led her here, and now her death would be my fault. Her blood would be on my hands.

Eventually Lord Tierney and Octavian climbed back into the limo. But it was well into the afternoon once they left the area. They spent all morning interrogating every person that lived or walked down the street. By the time I left the abandoned building, they were long gone. I didn’t want them spotting me in the area.

I headed on over to the depot. The windows were boarded up, not a first for a vampire nest, so there wasn’t any hope of getting in that way. Plus the door was made of solid metal. It looked like it swung inward, but I had no idea if they blocked the entrance during the daylight hours, as some nests tended to do, keeping out unwanted visitors.

I patrolled the area around the massive building until I found a way in. There was a part of the wall that hadn’t been attended to, and it was open to the outside. The entrance was small, but big enough for my pint-sized body. I squeezed into the corner, making as little noise as was possible and entered right into the main room.

The street-walkers were right when they first passed me the information. It was a massive nest, but there weren’t hardly any vampires sleeping in the beds or on the couches that dominated the floor. The pieces covered most of the room in a huge mish-mash fashion looking more like a furniture warehouse than a vampire nest. The exception was a long dining table with chairs that lay in the middle of the room, separated from the seating arrangement. It stood out mostly because the table style didn’t match. The select piece didn’t match the old 1920’s sofas and chairs. The table was modern, made of polished wood, cedar if I had to guess. The sunlight glinted off the shiny surface, as it was flat, completely smooth and not marred with nicks and scratches as older things were.

I knew exactly why it drew my attention - this table did not belong. I weaved in and out of the many pieces of furniture that blocked me from the thing. And as soon as I was clear of the mess between the table and the corner, I felt the air shift and the area around me altered. It was like I walked through a curtain of magic. Before I moved through the aura, no one was near the table. Now that I had moved past the invisible curtain, a full house of humans, vampires, and two warlocks were seated around the modern table. There were a total of twenty there, including Ms. Ingram.