Blood Like Poison For the Love of a Vampire - By M. Leighton Page 0,81
signs of Bo. There were none.
Far-off sounds tickled my ears and I cocked my head to the side, trying to triangulate the location of the ruckus, a ruckus that I could only assume was Bo and the phantom creature. Pinpointing their position to my left, I pushed myself away from the tree on which I'd been leaning and forced my legs to propel me over the uneven ground toward the commotion.
It seemed I limped and exerted for miles before I could actually make out shapes among the motionless trees. And when I did, my heart stopped.
Bo was nailed to a huge boulder, spread eagle fashion, by thick wooden stakes that were protruding from his shoulders and thighs. A shimmering apparition of a man stood over him, as if waiting for the perfect moment to deal death to Bo.
There was blood everywhere and Bo's head lolled lifelessly to one side. My heart stopped and I watched his chest for movement, to see if he was breathing. He was so absolutely still that my knees nearly buckled in relief when he finally rolled his head upright and spoke to the man.
Blood spewed from his lips with every syllable.
"This isn't over," he said. "If you kill me, someone else will come along, someone stronger than me, someone who can take you down. And they will. They'll rip out your black heart out and salt the earth with your blood and then they'll tear you apart and bury the pieces."
An eerie chuckle rippled through the trees like the dark echo of an empty soul. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled uncomfortably.
"You don't even know who you are, why you must die, and yet you would send others to fall for your cause. Are you sure it is only my heart that is black?"
Bo jerked as if the man's words physically pierced him, but he said nothing.
The man continued. "If others come, they will meet the same fate as you - death. Eternal death. The death of the soul that nothing can regenerate. You will never know of the power that I wield, power that can remove your life force from your body and extinguish it from the universe. The memory of your existence will be no more. It will be as if you never were."
My mind reeled as I listened, my heart thudding wildly, painfully, inside my chest. Was what he threatened even possible? And if it was, what kind of entity could accomplish such a feat? There was only one thing, one manifestation of the purest evil, that came creeping to mind and it made my blood run cold.
Bo wrestled against his restraints, but he barely managed to move at all. Judging by the cracks in the rock to which Bo was affixed, the stakes must've been deeply embedded, an accomplishment that must have taken incredible strength.
"Stop your struggling. You brought this on yourself. Now it's time to reap the whirlwind."
With that menacing warning, the ethereal man raised his hands, fingers splayed and curved in a claw-like manner, toward Bo. At his gesture, the trees around me began to creak as the wind whipped through the branches. It stirred the leaves on the forest floor and sent them spinning through the air. A low hum began to sound, as if the ground was coming alive beneath us. Louder and louder it got until it was a dull roar in my ears.
Above the ambient noise, I could hear Bo panting, his breath coming in shallow bursts like he was in pain. His moan caused my guts to twist in agony. In my mind, I was scrambling to find a way to help him, to put an end to whatever atrocious things this man was planning to do to Bo.
As if he could no longer contain it, a reluctant scream burst through Bo's gritted teeth. The sound ripped through me like a scalpel, tearing my heart open in one quick swipe.
With no thought as to what I was going to do, or to the consequences of my actions, I stepped forward, making my way to the man who hovered ominously over Bo.
When I was no more than three or four feet from him, he turned toward me and I gasped - in recognition.