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TWENTY-FIVE | SPELLBOUND
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2024-10-29 19:42:56“And you’re sure you don’t remember anything out of the ordinary?” Trigger asked, tapping her sleek purple boot against the linoleum floor. Her boiler suit – orange today – shifted with the bouncing movement, tightening at her waist only to tug loose again immediately after.
I swung my own legs haphazardly from my seat on the desk. Tonight we were in my old school – they often hired out the assembly room and larger classrooms, and it was a good second best for us when the town hall was booked solidly. We’d dragged in tables and chairs, though most of the chairs were left unused and had been discarded to one side, as the majority of us had opted to sit on the tables or stand.
I’d settled myself down next to Sierra, who had been alone and off to one side. Though she was well-liked, there was still some unease between the other hunters and her, especially since the mishap with Old Tim. I&rsq
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The Hunter and the Vampire TWENTY-SIX | SIERRA
Sierra rented a small flat down by the coast. It had to be extortionate – it had a sea view, for God’s sake – although it was a studio, and about the size of mine and Harper’s living room. It had the closed in, cosy feel of an academic space, like a towering library or study nook, as it was crammed with books and other odds and ends that looked old and worn. I decided that I liked it.“Sorry it’s such a mess,” she said, flapping her arms wildly as she shoved clothes around, kicking shoes under the bed and launching jackets across the back of the sofa. “I knew you were coming, but I guess I’m so used to living in it that until I saw you stood in here I didn’t realise just how bad it was.”I grinned, and shook my head at her. “No, no, it’s fine. Harper and I are the same. Especially after he’s been at work, or I’ve been on a hunt – I just want to ge
The Hunter and the Vampire TWENTY-SEVEN | RESEARCH
I leant back in my chair and stretched. My legs, outstretched and resting on the desk, shifted and jostled my latest stack of unhelpful documents.“I forgot what it was like to read this much in one go,” I groaned, resting my current book on my lap. “How do you do it?”We’d been working all day, and, as of yet, we’d found nothing of substance. It was exactly what I’d expected – I’d had a hunch, nothing more, and the hunch would always remain just that. It was a vague idea, an uneasy feeling, and there was no literature anywhere in Sierra’s collection to back it up.The sky had darkened hours ago, which made me feel even more separated from the outside world. Sierra’s flat was cosy and warm, with huge bulbs dotted across the walls, slung over her small, ancient television, and wound up the sides of her multiple bookcases. There was enough light for us to wo
The Hunter and the Vampire TWENTY-EIGHT | DROWNING
I held the switchblade carefully between my hands, weighing it across my palms and tilting it back and forth in the morning sunlight. It streamed through my childhood bedroom window, slanting across my bed and catching the silver of the blade.I’d left Sierra’s feeling uneasy last night. I’d checked the back of my car for intruders at least ten times before I’d settled myself in the driving seat, and even then I’d felt the need to continue checking over my shoulder.My Dads had both been asleep by the time I’d got back, and I was glad I hadn’t had to talk to them, even though I’d wanted to ask if Diamond and Trigger had uncovered anything useful on their trip so far. I couldn’t shift the description of the vampire from my mind, and, paired with the re-appearance of my knife and the nagging feeling that I was forgetting something – something huge – from my night with Cyrus, I&r
The Hunter and the Vampire TWENTY-NINE | APPEARANCES
The diner was crowded, full of locals who were full of gossip. I had to push my way through to get to the staff room at the back of the building, and I immediately regretted coming in through the front. It was early afternoon, which wasn’t usually a busy time for Ella’s, and, though it was bright and sunny outside, creeping through the wet leaf mulch and around the bins out the back felt less dignified than entering through the front doors, with the flickering neon sign overhead.“They say he jumped,” one old man was saying to another."I heard that he was pushed," the other man retorted.“Ben, his name was,” said a middle-aged woman, before taking a tiny sip of her coffee. She looked up at me as I passed, and I smiled at her politely.Mae was behind the counter, and, despite the crowd, she was leaning against the bar and chatting idly to an older couple, who had l
The Hunter and the Vampire THIRTY | EDGE
“Cyrus is here?”My bones locked into place, and I froze. I wasn’t prepared to see him, not yet, and I’d wanted a few hours of freedom from my thoughts. I wanted to dip in and out of idle conversation with the locals, focusing on taking orders and making coffee, not taking out vampires and making enemies.“Oh, is that his name?” Mae smiled. “Yeah, he’s out there somewhere amongst the old-timers. Come on, let’s get us both a hot coffee and we’ll work the room. I think dinner will be the busiest time, so if you want to talk to Cyrus you’ll have to take your break before or after the rush.”I nodded. “That’s fine. I can ask him to leave?”“Don’t worry about that. He’s a paying customer, and he’s not been stingy on the tips so far, either. It just seems like he has something to say that&rsquo
The Hunter and the Vampire THIRTY-ONE | BREAKING POINT
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The Hunter and the Vampire THIRTY-TWO | MISTAKE
I yanked myself backwards, stumbling in my sudden effort to avoid any and all contact with Cyrus’s lips. The damage was done – they’d touched – but a brush couldn’t be called a kiss, and my momentarily lapse in sense and reason could be forgiven, perhaps, if it was only a brush of lips, and not a kiss.“Callie,” he murmured, his tone laced with concern. I winced.“I’m sorry, Cyrus.” I took an uneasy step backwards. “I can’t do this.”“But you want to.” His voice had warped, the concern twisting into smugness. There was a tiny smile playing about his lips, too, even as his eyes softened with sadness. “I’m sorry for pushing you. I shouldn’t have.”“This isn’t your fault,” I sighed. His smile dropped.“I thought you would have let the blame lie wi
The Hunter and the Vampire THIRTY-THREE | MYSTERY
“I can’t believe she’s dead.” I wrung my hands together, cracking my knuckles one by one. We’d failed her, and the guilt choked me. First Old Tim, and now Bethan.I couldn’t help but feel as though this was some sort of twisted punishment for my indiscretions with Cyrus. We’d not kissed, not quite, but the intention was there, and it was clear. By the time I’d got home I’d received a text message from Harper, too, and I’d shut my phone off without so much as looking at it.I’d parked hurriedly, desperate to get inside, to speak to my Dads and find out what, exactly, had happened to Bethan. But once I’d turned off the engine I’d found myself unable to move, my legs turned to lead and my muscles stuck.I’d dropped my head against the cold steering wheel, bumping my forehead and narrowly avoiding the angry pink line down the side
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The Hunter and the Vampire 116 | EPILOGUE
I braced myself, lifting a bandolier weighted down with silver bullets and resting it across my chest. My knife was strapped to my ankle, a gun was slung low across my hips, and a silver dagger rested at my thigh.I’d laced my boots with resolve, each knot a promise. I was doing this for the right reasons. I was a protector, not a monster. The sword down my back was double-edged, both killer and saviour, but I wielded it with the power to choose. I would not allow myself to be what I had been, and what many of the others still were.Cyrus caught my wrist, pulling me close. Our lips met in a heated kiss, his tongue and teeth searing my core. Hands tugged the plait from my hair, and fingers tangled in the dark waves. My skin tingled with his touch, and bolts of lightning fractured down my spine.The bond between us swelled, crackling with glossy sunlight and soaring blue waves. The heat of Cyrus’s affection bec
The Hunter and the Vampire 115 | SWORD
Gaudy lights flashed above, drenching Cyrus’s face in bright reds and blues. With alcohol humming in my veins and his arms holding me close, I moved past the flashing, burning image of blood that overlaid the reality of the coloured, moving lights. Even as my mind whispered that it was blood, blood and pulsing blue veins, Cyrus swept me into a spin that threw aside my fears.I grinned at him before he pulled me in again. His joy brushed mine, intertwined within my chest. It didn’t lessen the ache that I dragged with me, but it smothered it, forcing the pain to submit.“As much as I like it when you curse and tease and fight,” he murmured, his lips ghosting across my ear, “you are truly beautiful when you smile, Callie.”Before I could respond, Cyrus tugged me around so that my back was pressed to his front, and his hands cradled my hips. We swung from side to side together, my steps cl
The Hunter and the Vampire 114 | LIGHTNING
I had to move on. At least, I had to try. And, though understanding and enacting were two different things, it was easier to try if I kept myself focused on the present – rather than my jarring, pain-distorted past, or the murky and indistinct waters of my future. Looking back brought forth only blood and terror, and I couldn’t see through the thick, cloying mist shimmering softly ahead. It coated my crumbling relationships, Cyrus’s vampiric nature, and my comparatively short lifespan. Behind, my Dad’s words had carved themselves into my bones and tattooed themselves onto my skin. I could taste Veronica’s fear with every swallow. The walls closed in around me whenever I was alone, and the neat, sharp clicks of Alice’s footsteps followed me around every corner. Even in Wiley Manor, a hotel so detached from my old life in Seafall, monsters found me in my sleep. Sleepy, soft kisses to my forehead, my temples,
The Hunter and the Vampire 113 | SANDBAR
“Get out,” Dad hissed, his face contorting. Shadows crept across his cheeks and nose, distending it into something twisted and evil. Fear filled my gut, and I stepped backwards. My hands trembled as I reached for the door.My fingers turned to claws as I scrabbled behind me. Dismay rose in my throat as I flattened my palms, feeling desperately for the door. I turned slowly, knowing before I saw it that the door was gone.I was trapped. The windows shuttered, and my Dad loomed before me. Paps cowered at his side, shrunken and rat-like with front teeth that slipped from beneath his lips. As I watched, they sharpened into points and became fangs.My feet skidded under me, slipping on something wet streaking across the floorboards. I looked down to get my bearings, to get my balance, and bile clung to the back of my mouth. It wasn’t just something wet. It was blood.Flames shuddered acr
The Hunter and the Vampire 112 | RIFT
The drive to the hotel was quiet, but comfortably so. Perhaps because there were no words that could have made the situation any easier, Cyrus and I allowed the silence to swallow us whole. He rested his hand on my thigh, a steady pressure that kept me grounded enough that thoughts of shoving myself out of the car and rolling across the road – just so that the physical pain overshadowed the emotional for even a moment – seemed nonsensical.Without him there, I wasn’t entirely sure what I would have done. I heard my Dad’s last words to me on every inhale, and I saw the dull look in my Paps’s eyes with every exhale. I breathed, but it didn’t make me feel any better.Get out. Get out. Get out.The sun was just starting to break through the clouds as we pulled in to a car park, nestled alongside a shaggy stretch of woodland. I turned to Cyrus, confusion drawing my eyebrows down. H
The Hunter and the Vampire 111 | BLOOD MOON
My back stiffened. Any attempts at lounging went out the window the second my Dad entered the room. I curled my hands into fists, digging my nails into the soft, broken skin of my palms.His face was shadowed. I ached to go to him, to bridge the gap between us. He’d placed a blanket on me as I’d slept mere weeks ago, and now he was staring at me as if I was a stranger. My breath latched in my throat as I tried to speak.“What is your decision?” I asked. My voice did not sound like my own.“This has not been easy for me, Callie. For us. You have made it incredibly difficult.”I stood on shaking legs. There was a softness to him beneath the hard shell that forced his mouth into a downward tilt. It spilled out rarely, but it was there.“I am sorry for what I have done,” I said. “But I do not regret it, nor do I wish to t
The Hunter and the Vampire 110 | FAMILY
The world collapsed in on itself as I waited for the door to open. My right hand remained curled in a loose fist, raised against the wood, knuckles bared. I flexed my fingers and, slowly, lowered my hand.I focused on my breathing, caught in that everlasting moment. With every rise and fall of my chest, I could feel the passage of time. It had to be moving. I was not trapped here.I turned halfway back towards Cyrus, needing to see him, to reassure myself that he was still here with me, when the door finally opened. I caught a flash of hair so dark it shone blue even in the dim light, and then hard arms were pulling me inside.“Callie,” Paps breathed, his body warm and unyielding as he held me close. “Oh, thank God.”I stilled against him, my arms at stiff angles by my sides. My heart leapt – he seemed glad to see me – even as it twisted and tangled, knotting itsel
The Hunter and the Vampire 109 | NOSTALGIA
“You know,” Cyrus said, his tone carefully casual, “I could do the same for your Dads – and the other hunters, too.”He set down the photograph he’d been holding, the wooden frame knocking against the hard surface of the kitchen counter. I didn’t have to look to know which photo in particular he’d been about to pack into my old, worn suitcase, scraped from years of overuse.The day had dawned slowly, the sun hiding behind blank white clouds that had grown grey as they had settled into the sky. The kitchen was dim, though Cyrus’s eyes still somehow glittered like stars on a calm sea as they met mine.I sighed, shoving the last of my cutlery into the same wicker basket I’d used to move my utensils to and from university for the last three years. It smelt faintly of fruity cider, and my nose crinkled slightly at the faded red stain down its side.
The Hunter and the Vampire 108 | HARPER
“Harp?” I called out. It was the first time I’d spoken to him since our argument. I’d heeded his wishes; as such, I had no idea if he’d even still be at home. I hoped he was. Whether for me or for him, I longed to offer him this chance to move past this. I had ruined myself. I didn’t want to destroy Harper, too.“Callie?” Harper thundered into the hall, eyes wide, chest heaving. “I – I went to find you, and you were gone.” He pulled me into a crushing hug, pressing me tightly against his chest. “Fuck. I was so worried, Cals.”My heart ached. “I’m sorry.” My voice sounded tiny.“I – I thought–“ he spoke wildly, the words spilling out between panted breaths. “I thought you were – oh, shit,” he swore, and then pushed me away, holding me at arm’s length to appraise me. &ldqu
