Marked - Prophecy of Aries - Book 1 Read online

  The other man charged over, and with one hand, he ripped open the throat of the cafe owner. Hearing the commotion, the man’s wife ran out from the kitchen. One of the men darted over and broke her neck before she could utter a sound.

  Ciaran grabbed a chair and whacked it as hard as he could at the man who was now standing in the doorway, blocking their way out. The chair broke into pieces, but the man—who didn’t look like a man anymore—still stood there, a smirk on his face which was now as pale as a piece of paper. Fangs had emerged from his mouth.

  “Bloody vampire—” But before he could finish his sentence, Ciaran found himself flying through the air toward the far end of the room. His body crashed into the wall. He could feel his bones rattle. The vampire who had just killed the owner’s wife now approached Ciaran, who was trying to get up from the floor. The vampire from the door also moved toward him.

  Margaret stood at the door. She could have run, but instead, she picked up a piece of wood from the broken chair on the floor and charged at the vampire who had his back to her.

  She stabbed, but the force wasn’t enough to kill it. It roared.

  The vampire standing over Ciaran turned to look at his friend. Taking the opportunity, Ciaran grabbed another chair and struck the distracted vampire. When the chair’s legs snapped, he grabbed one of them and shoved the jagged end into the vampire’s heart from the back. The chair leg pierced it from back to front.

  The other vampire turned around and reached for Margaret. He pushed her against the wall then slammed her down to the floor. He bent over and sank his teeth into her neck.

  Ciaran darted over and stabbed the vampire in the back of his head. He roared in rage then quickly died and melted into a liquid black substance that rained down on Margaret.

  She lay on the floor, gasping, her eyes wide open. Some of the black liquid had gotten into her mouth and the wound on her neck. She was in shock, that much Ciaran knew. With his limited knowledge about vampires, he wasn’t sure if she would die from the bite wound.

  “Margaret, you’re in shock. I’ll take you to the hospital.”

  She continued to gasp.

  “Can you tell me what to do?”

  “Poison…poison…”

  The vampire’s blood and gore must be the poison she was talking about. He picked her up in his arms and darted outside. The sight of him carrying a gore-spattered Margaret in his arms startled a pedestrian approaching the cafe.

  “Call an ambulance!” he shouted.

  CHAPTER 8

  M adeline waited patiently at the delivery door of the hospital. She didn’t like that it was close to the morgue, but there wasn’t much choice. There were only two entrances to the hospital, general admission and emergency, neither of which she could walk through safely without being detected. Her Eudaizian combat outfit—a lot of black leather, belts, buckles, and a jacket with more technology than she was capable of using—would make her stick out like a sore thumb.

  She had her eudqi on to enhance her supernatural ability. It gave her a super-sharp sense of everything around her and the ability to move incredibly fast. But still, she couldn’t fly. So the open window above her wouldn’t be an entry option.

  She knew where blood was stored in the hospital, and that was all she needed to know. She would grab just enough blood for Alex and then get out of there in a heartbeat—her heartbeat that was, because Alex didn’t have one.

  Waiting wasn’t an option. She inhaled and told herself, “I have to do this!” She decided to enter through the morgue and use the internal door there to access the room where the blood was stored.

  An ambulance had just dropped off a dead body, so she ran through the open door of the morgue using her supernatural speed. She was sure no one saw her enter. She hid in a dark corner. After laying the body on a table, the men exited the room and locked it from the outside. The light turned off automatically.

  The smell of death engulfed her. She stepped out from her hiding place and bumped into a table. Her hand brushed against a dead body. “I’m so sorry,” she said and stumbled her way through the dark to the door.

  She switched the communicator of her wrist unit on and saw Jo smiling and waiting for her.

  “I see you have your eudqi on. Do I need to remind you to protect your weak point?”

  Madeline rolled her eyes. “No, ma’am. I know what to do, and anyway, nobody ever aims for that point in combat.” With her eudqi on, the supernatural power included several perks, but the downside was that if she was struck at her weak point, it would be fatal. She was lucky that her weak point was on the bottom of her left foot. Ciaran had joked several times that she had her own Achilles' heel.

  Jo smiled. “All right, so tilt your screen toward the lock for me.”

  Madeline obeyed. Jo made some adjustments on her end that Madeline couldn’t begin to understand. Her comprehension of the game technology in use was poor and didn’t even come close to Jo or Ciaran’s caliber. In seconds, she heard a faint laser sound, and the door to the morgue slid open.

  She walked out, snatched a white lab coat from a hook on the wall, and slid it on before stepping out into the corridor. The map on her wrist unit navigated her to a smaller hallway, and she approached a steel door. She didn’t have to think too hard to figure out it was a refrigerated room where the blood supply was stored.

  As Madeline approached the room, Jo scanned it and detected there was no one inside. Madeline turned her wrist unit toward the lock and let Jo work her magic once again. In a couple of seconds, the door slid open. As she expected, the room was as cold as a refrigerator.

  She had no idea how much blood Alex would need. She stashed a few of the bags inside her jacket.

  As she stepped back out into the corridor, her wrist unit buzzed again. Jo’s image had disappeared, and the screen displayed static. Knowing the technology was playing tricks on her again—and of course, when she needed it most—she concentrated and summoned her psychic ability.

  Madeline was a mind tracker and the first councillor of the Eudaizian council. Her scan had stumbled on a familiar mind, one she knew and loved.

  “Ciaran,” she whispered and darted to an exit door which led to a nearby stairwell.

  Through the small window of the door, she watched the hall and saw Ciaran walking, a couple of doctors flanking his sides.

  Jo reappeared on the screen of her wrist unit. “Something’s going on with the signal. Where are you now, Madeline?”

  “In the stairwell. I’ve just seen Ciaran.”

  “What? How? I’ve got nothing on my end.”

  “Well, he’s right in front of me. I mean, he’s outside the door. I don’t know what he’s doing in the hospital. It doesn’t look like he’s injured—”

  “Madeline!”

  Madeline could sense the heat from Ciaran’s body and the foreign substance in his blood.

  “He has a fever…from a wound…” She peered through the small glass window and could see a tiny wound at the nape of his neck, almost like a bite mark. It looked negligible, but his body didn’t like it. She was sure it was the cause of his fever. And soon, if he didn’t fix it fast enough, his brain would give up on him.

  She was sure the bite had been poisonous. She was aware more than ever that Ciaran had no supernatural power in this time period, so he wouldn’t have any way of knowing what he was dealing with.

  “You can’t interact with him,” Jo said. “You know that, right, Madeline?” No response. “Madeline!”

  “Huh?”

  “You can’t interact with Ciaran. He’s not supposed to meet you yet. You time traveled, remember?”

  “But he’s been poisoned. Are you saying I have to just stand here and watch him go down with the poison?”

  “But based on what happened in that time period—without your interference—he was okay. He didn’t die then, did he?”

  “I don’t know, Jo. I don’t know when the soul trader marked him. What if it was when h
e was weakened by this poison? What if it took the opportunity and marked him?”

  Jo nodded. “You might be right. You can use an emergency medical patch to help release the pain and the effects of the toxin.”

  “But how can I stick the patch on his neck without interacting with him?” She pressed a button on her suit, and a patch was issued immediately. She looked up at the window and could see that Ciaran seemed to have finished his conversation with the doctors, and they had gone away in another direction.

  She sneaked the door open a crack and saw Ciaran turn right at the end of the corridor. She opened the door and walked out to follow him.

  On her left, she watched as a nurse walked past her. When her eyes left the nurse and returned to the corner where Ciaran had turned, she saw him coming back toward her. She immediately turned and headed back for the stairwell. Before she could switch on her wrist unit to consult Jo, Ciaran pushed through the exit door after her.

  “Excuse me, doctor, my friend needs help. I think she can’t handle the medicine the other doctors just gave her. I pressed the emergency button, but it didn’t work.”

  CHAPTER 9

  A lex knew he could normally run a lot faster, but his injuries, the loss of blood, and the side effect of time traveling had impeded his abilities. Except for being an old, wise, and powerful vampire, he didn’t have any supernatural ability like Madeline. But regardless of who was more powerful than whom, he disliked waiting here for her while she went out to hunt for his food. He knew she wouldn’t have to kill someone to get the blood. But he was here to help, not to be a liability.

  He tilted his head up, allowing the cool breeze to blow into his face, and he got what he wanted—a scent. He knew Ciaran wouldn’t be pleased to know he could trace Madeline’s scent. But he was a vampire after all. Each vampire had a unique talent. Tracing the scent of people he had been in contact with was his.

  He ran in the direction of the scent.

  The hospital appeared in front of him like the magnificent sight of heaven—a place he’d never dreamed of going. The scent of fresh blood pleased him, but the scent of Madeline was stronger. The problem was that she was not in the same place as the blood.

  He couldn’t resist the lure of the blood. He needed it to function. So he leaped to the roof and then descended into the room where the blood was stored.

  “Damn it,” he cursed and turned in the direction of the building Madeline’s scent was coming from—it now suggested to him that she was in trouble. She wasn’t too far from where he was. He made a mental note of the location of the blood and headed down a narrow corridor to find Madeline.

  MADELINE GLANCED QUICKLY at the stairs. She could make a quick run down the steps and away from Ciaran. But that wouldn’t solve the problem at hand. He must have seen her walking through the exit door, and her stolen lab coat made him think she was a doctor, so he asked for her help.

  “What room is your friend in?” she asked.

  “121.”

  She nodded. “You have a wound on the nape of your neck.”

  “It’s nothing. Please take a look at my friend.” He gestured at the door leading back to the corridor.

  Madeline showed him the medical patch her wrist unit had just issued. “Patch up your injury with this, and I’ll take a look at your friend.”

  Ciaran looked at the patch in her hand with suspicion.

  “I can do it for you if you like. It won’t hurt.” She stepped toward him.

  He picked up the patch reluctantly. “I can do it myself… What brand is this?”

  Madeline mentally rolled her eyes. The LeBlancs ran one of the largest pharmaceutical corporations in the world, so of course Ciaran would frown upon an unrecognizable medical supplier.

  “It’s a generic brand. You wouldn’t know it.”

  Ciaran put the patch on his wound. He winced with pain. She knew the drug had taken effect immediately, starting to cleanse the poison from his blood. He reached up again and was about to pull it off. She grabbed his hand.

  “Leave it, please.”

  She knew if he tried to yank his hand away hard, he could throw her to the wall in one swift move. But she knew he wouldn’t do that to her or to any woman. All she needed was two seconds.

  As she predicted, he didn’t pull away. His body swayed.

  “Easy now,” she said as he leaned on the railing of the stairs.

  He pushed her away. “Who are you? What are you doing to me?”

  “I’m just trying to help.”

  They heard the noise of a chopper landing somewhere nearby. Madeline didn’t need to check to know that Ciaran had called his people. The medical supplies, staff, and facilities at the LeBlanc private hospital and even at home were better than those of any medical center in the country—and maybe in the world.

  However, there was something else. Using her super senses now, she isolated a noise that did not belong to the helicopter. She performed a mind scan, sweeping across the first floor of the hospital. She found nothing. The noise intensified. The haunting chants of devils from hell. If she had to guess, she’d guess it was the humming of a female creature. Her gifted instinct suggested it was close by.

  Ciaran seemed to be feeling the positive effects of the drug. He directed his attention to the sound of the helicopter landing. “It’s my people. Thank you for your help, doctor.” He turned toward the exit door.

  Before he got to the door, the shadow of a woman materialized in front of him. Ciaran was startled and staggered backward. The woman had long dark hair and blood red eyes and wore a long white dress. She reached her bony arms out toward Ciaran.

  Madeline didn’t need Alex there to tell her this was a vampire, but it was definitely a different kind of vampire, one unlike Alex. More importantly, this was the soul trader she was looking for. The woman didn’t register Madeline at all. Or maybe she didn’t think of Madeline as a significant opponent. Her entire focus was on Ciaran.

  Madeline instantly pulled out her folded sword, expanded it, and swung at the woman. There was only a short distance between Ciaran and the soul trader, so she had to be careful not to swing the sword too widely. It slashed through the body of the woman from the shoulder down to the middle of her abdomen.

  No blood came from the cut, which didn’t surprise Madeline. The woman was cut almost in half, but her body still stood, the upper half dangling at her side. Madeline stepped forward to finish off the soul trader, but the dangling part reached its arm out and pulled Madeline’s leg with an incredible force that knocked her off balance.

  As she fell, dropping her sword to the floor, Madeline felt death close at hand. The bony fingers wrapped around her left ankle, and the red eyes, now upside down, stared at her. A smirk appeared on the woman’s face. She knew about Madeline’s fatal point on her left foot.

  This wasn’t coincidental.

  Ciaran immediately picked up Madeline’s sword and hacked off the bony arm. The arm let go of Madeline’s foot.

  The dangling half of the woman’s body righted itself and united with the lower half. She smiled at Ciaran and vanished before he could slash at her again.

  Madeline sat on the floor, too shaky to speak now. Half of her body was numb because of the grip that had been much too close to her fatal point. She had seen Ciaran attacked many times. Even with protection, whenever he was hit close to his fatal point, it paralyzed him for hours. This was the first time she felt the impact of such an attack.

  Ciaran crouched. “Are you okay?” She could see the genuine concern in his eyes, the kind of gesture that always melted her heart.

  She nodded.

  Before he could ask anything else, to her relief, Alex dashed in with his vampire speed, scooped her up in his arms, jumped through the window, and ran away from the hospital.

  CHAPTER 10

  C iaran looked at the sword in his hand and recalled the strange doctor who had just a moment before tried to help him. There was something in her eyes that was fam
iliar—so familiar that it felt almost intimate. Where had he met her?

  She wasn’t a doctor. No doctor would pull out a folded sword and slash a woman—if that thing had indeed been a woman—in half. And the man who had scooped her up and then flown through the window was not a human. Based on his previous encounter with the vampires at the cafe, he was quite sure the man was a vampire. But he could tell the male vampire was not the woman’s adversary. Whether the woman was a vampire, too, he didn’t know.

  Ciaran folded the sword, tucked it inside his jacket, and rushed back out to the corridor. He knew his people were coming down to this level from the roof of the hospital and would help him load Margaret onto their helicopter. No one ever said no to the LeBlancs because they were one of the largest medical equipment and medicine suppliers to all medical clinics and hospitals in the country. That power was coming in handy right now. He would provide Margaret the best care at their private facility.

  He came to a skidding halt in front of Margaret’s room—her bed was empty. Doctors hurried around the corner. From the stairs, his people approached.

  “Where’s Margaret?” Ciaran asked one of the doctors.

  “Her sister checked her out, Ciaran.”

  “I went around the corner for five minutes. She was here when I made the emergency call.”

  The doctor shook his head. “It wasn’t five minutes. It was an hour. You called, and I came right here, but I couldn’t find you. Then Margaret’s sister arrived and checked her out.”

  Ciaran felt the sword inside his jacket and looked back to the hall with the exit door. The long corridor looked normal—white walls, plain light green floor, fluorescent lights. That was all real. So how could he have spent an hour on the landing of the stairs behind that exit door? He didn’t think he’d lost consciousness at any point.