Secrets In The Bones: The Curse of Blood Bay

Forty-three

"Arrgh, for fuck's sake. Why do you always get yourself in a mess?"

I skidded over the edge, about to drop, when something sharp clamped onto my forearm. Blood ran down; I twisted in the wind, and my chest bounced into the cliff's face. Thankfully, it wasn't from another illusion. With the wind carving across my face, I see Michael with his claws gripping me. My stomach was settling, and I was more than done with this place—first, a little matter of some bloodsuckers.

Michael yanked my arm up a bit before clamping his other hand on. I latched onto the biggest rock I could reach before kicking into any crack I could to hold steady. Michael's claws dragged painfully through my flesh, enough to make my eyes water. A small price to pay to stop from dropping into the choppy waters. Each roll away revealed some nasty-looking rocks I didn't fancy meeting.

"Urghh. Not to sound ungrateful, but why are you up here?" I say as Michael dragged me to my stomach, scraping across the edge. I gripped a jagged slither in the floor to help.

"Because you were bugging out and looking a little frantic. As you danced too close to the edge, I figured it was my turn to be the saviour." Michael's timing was perfect, and it was not the first time I could say that. With a last look at the crashing waves, I got to my feet, relieved.

The trouble was, the worst was yet to come. We were facing the pathway to move forward again, no more voices travelling on the wind to torment me; the rest was. The pain mixed with sadness and, most of all, evil. How could this be so if the elder had disappeared as quickly as he came?

He was in my head and knew what I was going to do. With all those emotions I was picking up on, we could head into a trap. What else made sense when my senses were being ravaged, and now Michael was being roped into it, leaving Skip vulnerable, keeping watch?

"With good reason. A certain pointy-toothed bastard won't take no for an answer,"

"Hey ... I only asked you once for a night with Ellena. There's still life in this old dog, yet you know," Michael jokes; the most I could manage was a brief smile. I didn't have the energy, even though the old sod eased my tension a little.

"Less of it, you twat. I mean the other pointy-toothed bastard. He still thinks that I could join his army of supernatural misfits. Use my blood to help the vampires stick a bandaid over their weaknesses."

"Sooo, you're thinking about it?" Michael continues taking the piss as we slipped through the path.

"Things may be worse. I told him when this was all over, his rotten heart would be ripped from his bony chest, head torn from that shrivelled neck and mounted it to the door of that bloody castle for the whole town to see."

"Reckon he took that well," Michael says, and guilt was eating me up. My flippancy may have poked the bear too much. Especially with the ease at which the elder pulled my strings.

"Well, he said, 'What makes you decide who lives and who doesn't? I needed blood, so I took it, and then the world decided it was evil; my right to live was evil. So, I ask you, what makes your need to live any greater than mine or others like me?-

Is- it all because they named my rare condition vampirism? Did you know werewolves naturally lean into the wild? They want to run free and hunt, eat meat and tear through flesh, no matter what kind. When a wolf is wild, they don't care; when instinct takes over, the beast embraces its primal urges and need to survive. How are your urges, George? Have you ever felt the adrenaline rush of the 'wild hunt'? The winter solstice? No, because you scare yourself; once the genie is out of the bottle, the world will know what you're like. A savage beast forged in the bowels of hell. So, don't pretend to be all high and mighty; we are the same. I offered you the chance to join us. One last chance because your gift is a waste, I could help you become the real you.-