A Vial of Life (A Shade of Vampire, #21)

I swept across the island and quickly arrived at the beach. I dashed across the sand, and when I reached the water I continued running over the surface of the waves. I had been onshore for some time now, and although the sensation was no different to traveling on land, the thought of running on water had become strange to me again.

I directed my gaze toward the boundary, praying that I would see Jeramiah’s dark head bobbing above the waves. He had said that he would swim in a direct line from the Port, and that was exactly where I headed, but when I arrived, to my dismay I couldn’t see him anywhere.

I scanned the surrounding water, just in case he had drifted further along. Heck, I was so desperate that I traveled several miles left and right along the boundary. Still, I couldn’t spot him. Unless Jeramiah had dallied to enjoy the scenery on his way to the shore and hadn’t even reached the beach yet—which I couldn’t bring myself to believe—this could only mean that he and Amaya had returned to the island and were now preparing for the second part of their plan.

I stopped my futile patrol over the waves and shifted my focus back to the island. My task had become significantly more difficult. They could be anywhere in The Shade now. Where would I look first?

Everyone was searching the area near the farmhouse, but as Jeramiah and his witch were invisible, it wouldn’t be difficult to dodge the searchers. The raiding of the old building would be useful for my parents to verify River’s dream, because on arriving there they would find the makeshift stone that Jeramiah had crafted in honor of his father—assuming that my cousin had not returned to the building and removed it already.

Now that I was certain Jeramiah was back on the island, the first thing I needed to do was return to the fields and check that my parents were okay. Yes, I had managed to warn them to be on their guard, but Jeramiah and the witch still had the advantage of being invisible. I could see through their invisibility, and I had not noticed them near the Great Dome while the meeting was taking place, so I couldn’t be sure if Jeramiah had been aware of their location or knew that they were now headed to the farmhouse… And where was my grandfather?

I hurried to the shore and headed as fast as I could back toward the vegetable fields. On approaching the courtyard outside the Sanctuary, as much as I was in a desperate hurry, something caught my eye and I stopped still. Lying on the ground near a barrowful of wilted flowers were two of our witches.

For a fearful moment I thought that they might have even been dead, but on nearing, I could see that they were breathing. They were sound asleep.

From the way they both lay strewn near the barrow, it looked like they might have been in the midst of tidying up after the funeral.

Oh, God.

Tearing my eyes away from the witches’ sleeping forms, I continued hurtling forward. A hundred alarm bells rang out in every corner of my mind, and as I stumbled across a group of human children—perhaps six or seven years of age—lying asleep in the undergrowth beside wooden swords and hand catapults, my alarm only grew louder.

As I made it out of the woods and approached the fields, I beheld a scene I’d feared I might find.

Scattered about the field surrounding the farmhouse were dozens of sleeping forms—The Shade’s council members.

No. No!

The only signs of life, in this field, ironically, came from the ghosts who still hovered by the old building.

I scanned the ground desperately for my parents, but I couldn’t see them. I approached the farmhouse, ignoring Lucinda as she called to me. I swept through the house in a panic.

It was empty. The memorial stone was missing, and so were my parents.

I stormed out of the house and back into the field. I raced up to Lucinda and tried to grab her, forgetting for the hundredth damn time in my urgency that my hands were made of nothing.

“What happened here?” I demanded.

“The crowd of people came,” she murmured, raising her eyebrows as she gazed around at the sleeping bodies surrounding us. “Rather strange people if you ask me… They were looking around the area, and they seemed particularly interested in the farmhouse. Then it was like they all had a heart attack at once. They fell to the ground and now are apparently sleeping. Then I spotted the man with the pipe. He came here with his lady friend. They picked up two people, and then they both just… vanished.” She looked utterly confused even as she said the words. Although she was a ghost, I guessed that she had not had many encounters with other types of supernaturals.

I didn’t bother asking which two people Jeramiah had swooped down on.

And where is my grandfather? Have they caught him already?

Amaya must have cast a sleeping spell over the island to wipe out any obstacles our witches might pose. Being able to affect the whole island like this meant that she was more skilled a witch than I had expected.