A Vial of Life(10)

“Hans?” I urged.

He stared back at me blankly.

“Is that you, brother?” Braithe asked.

He continued looking at us as though he either couldn’t hear, or didn’t understand.

What happened to you?

“We need to get him out of here,” I choked, looking desperately at his siblings. “We need to get him back to the ship and feed him blood. He’ll recover. I know he will.”

Although my brain told me that he would never recover from such a state, my heart couldn’t let go. I held onto the irrational hope that somehow, if we just fed him enough blood, he would recover slowly but surely, and he would be mine again. Hans. The same man I’d fallen in love with.

“Arletta, Julie.” Hans’ youngest brother, Colin, addressed us. “Go open the door wider so we can carry him through. I’m not sure he can even walk.”

Although I didn’t want to leave Hans’ side, we did as Colin suggested. Arletta and I hurried back to the door and heaved it open wider, as wide as it would go.

A snarl came from behind us. Then a strangled yell. Braithe’s yell.

Arletta and I whirled around to see Braithe on the floor, Hans on top of him… attacking his throat.

I was too stunned to even move. But Arletta shrieked and raced forward.

The siblings hauled Hans off Braithe, and as they pushed the former away and helped Braithe to his feet, I could see that Hans had ripped a huge gash in his neck. Braithe looked in agony as he gripped the side of his throat and attempted to stem the blood flow.

Sharp fangs still bared, Hans wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his bony hand before his dull eyes fixed on me. More bodies dropped from the ceiling and stood to their feet. Their gazes narrowed in on us.

“We have to get out of here!” Braithe wheezed. He was already the slowest of all of us, his leg having not yet fully healed after Ben injured it. His brothers held his arms and dragged him toward me and the door.

I just stood, frozen. As Hans’ siblings exited the room, I couldn’t find my feet to follow. Hans is still here. We have to take him with us. Even as the emaciated vampires began lurching toward us with alarming speed—Hans at the forefront—a manic gleam in their tiny black eyes, I still stood there, stunned. If Colin hadn’t grabbed my arm and forced me through the door, I would’ve stayed there. The brothers slammed the stone door closed after us and bolted it just as bodies hit up against the other side, scratching and clawing at the stone.

“They were all going to attack us,” Arletta gasped, clutching her chest as she breathed out.

“Hans,” I whispered, staring at the door. “He’s still in there! We have to get him out.”

Braithe, who sat on one of the stairs nursing his throat, shook his head, his face ashen. “Not until we figure out what the hell Hans has become.”

“Elder? What was that?” Frederick, Hans’ other younger brother, demanded.

The voice took a moment to reply. “Something… peculiar. Perhaps even… miraculous.”

“Miraculous?” Arletta cried. “My brother, he—” She broke down sobbing on the floor. I would’ve joined her, had I still not been so shell shocked.

“During their starvation, it appears they reached a boundary from which there was no return,” the Elder mused.

Before anyone could ask anything more of the Elder, Braithe let out a guttural roar of pain. It came so suddenly, my heart leapt into my throat and I jolted back in alarm.

Arletta scrambled up from where she’d been crumpled on the floor and gazed down at her brother, along with Frederick and Colin. Braithe slid from his seat on the stairs and tumbled to the ground. We were about to dip down and help him back up when claws protruded from his fingers and he lashed out, catching Colin’s arm.

“Braithe?” Colin gasped, staring down at the gash his brother had just ripped in his arm. “What are you doing?”

Braithe let out another roar, so loud and so anguished that one would have thought he was being murdered.

“Elder, what’s happening?” I asked, my voice trembling.

But the Elder’s presence had slipped away.

“I have no idea what’s wrong with our brother,” Frederick said, straining to contain Braithe, “but we need to get back to the ship. Before we can help Hans, we’ve got to figure out why Braithe is reacting like this.”

“But Hans is—” I began, weakly.

“Julie!” Colin snapped as he helped Frederick restrain Braithe, who was continuing to lash out. “Get a grip. Hans has been trapped in there for eighteen years. A few more hours, or even days, won’t make a difference while we gather together some blood for him so he doesn’t try to attack one of us again, and try to figure out what in heaven’s name is going on.”