The Night the Vampires Came

Chapter 34

Chapter 34

We were transferred from the helicopter to a private jet in Jacksonville. We were about half an hour off the shore of Georgia before the jet changed course and headed toward the Northeast. The jet's controls had been compromised and the pilots were unable to change course. Someone wanted us to stay on this continent, someone even the Levarsi couldn't outmaneuver. My father approached me as we faced what appeared to be certain doom.

"It's true," my father finally said as fearful silence enveloped the plane. "Ailith, my daughter, never returned from that surgery. She was so young at the time, and the treatment was experimental at best. The surgeons told me she suffered an anoxic brain injury during the course of the stem cell transplant and she would never wake up. But she did wake up. It was a miracle, they said. But she never woke up the same."

"Thank you," I muttered even though that particular confession was the last one I wanted to hear. I wished he could take me into his arms and reassure me that I was crazy, that the Blight Rain was making me see things that weren't real. My father blinked back some tears and placed his hand on my shoulder.

"You're the only Ailith we've ever known. You are still my daughter, and always will be."

His words seemed to stab me to my very core. Yes, now I was his only daughter. It suddenly made sense to me why my parents always seemed to favor Grace over me. It was because Grace was their only child. My father knew there was something off about me after that surgery. Those KoRi cells went to my brain. They repaired the damage the oxygen deprivation had caused but when I woke up, I was thinking with those cells. They never took over my body, not entire the Blight Rain came. That was why, up until a few days ago, my KoRi celled heart always seemed to rebel against the rest of me.

There was nothing left to do except wait. Holly was sitting by herself at one of the passenger seats by the window. This jet was far less luxurious than the one which went down in the storm. It looked to be a cargo transporter that had been converted to a passenger jet at the last second. It was just as well, the bare steel walls and haphazard netting seemed fitting considering our plane had just been highjacked in midair.

I went to Holly. Her eyes were heavy and only the whites of her eyes could be seen. She reminded me of the little girl from the exorcist even though to everyone else she simply looked as though she was napping.

Yes, Holly was napping but the spirit inside her was very much awake.

"You caused the Blight Rain, didn't you?" I finally asked. "You did it to punish humanity for using the gifts I gave them. And then, after you turned the innocents into vampires, you went after the companies producing the Lumin pills. All for what? To hurt me?"

"No, I am so tired," Holly muttered as though she was talking in her sleep. Jaduerial couldn't control her as well as he had Iain. He was still getting used to her body, to speaking through her lips. I saw a droplet of drool trickle down the side of Holly's full, pouty lips. I knew that Holly wasn't the type to drool but then again, Holly wasn't alone in that body anymore. "I was trapped in that hole for five thousand years. I want to destroy everything. To know silence when all life is gone." Then as she said those final words, Holly curled up against the back of her seat, tucked her hands into the sleeves of her blue sweater, and started to snore. She was gone, Jaduerial was gone, I would have no more answers.

I sat back and closed my eyes. Even though I saw glimpses of my past lives when that car crashed into the lake, I wasn't those other women. I was still Ailith Ying, and I was afraid. Why was Jaduerial in Holly's body? What will he do to her when he regained his strength? Was the only solution to kill her?