Chapter Thirty-three

Chapter Thirty-three

The cold stone walls of the tunnel felt tiny around me. The lantern flickered, and my breaths sounded savage.

My body knew I was going to die.

I made it through the tunnel with my heart racing and threw myself through the door to the tomb under Garway church. I heard whispers sounding loud, as though I was in another world. Dead knights breathing secrets. Eerie lights shining from vaulted graves. Sacred, twisted, beautiful… almost beguiling. But I didn’t have time to stop and listen. I saw Hans’ coffin in the corner, and I knew the exit was somewhere on the opposite side, but no matter how frantically I searched, there was no door to be found. Did Hans create it? Was it imaginary? Was there no door at all and I was destined to die here in this tomb surrounded by the dead?

Be more careful amongst the dead, Katherine…

Hans’ words came slamming back to me, loud and clear in my head.

It was enough to make me shiver, so I started pounding a fist against the wall, desperate. There had to be an exit somewhere…

Come on. COME ON!

It was when I heard Hans’ slow, solid footsteps echoing through the tunnel that fear catapulted me to search faster, harder.

COME ON!

Open your eyes, little one!

I spun around to the tunnel, footsteps getting louder, echoing…

Open your eyes!

I spun back to the wall and there it was, a solid wood door with a big round handle. What the hell!?

I tugged it open to find steep stone steps leading up into the night. I bounded up them two at a time with the lantern still flickering, and found myself in the grounds of the church I’d come to know so well.

This couldn’t be real, surely? There was no door from the church to the tomb. I’d have seen it hundreds of times. Was this imagination? Was this whole thing one crazy fantasy of my mind?

My heart said no. My heart told me this was as real as real could be. The limits of the rational were fake, and my eyes were open to a whole other world.

The lantern flickered and died as I stood there, mesmerised.

Luckily the moon was bright enough to light my way.

The familiar gravestones were all around me as I hurried up the path and past the old yew tree. I kicked my heels off and took the long route up the bank at the far side, and the moonlight lit up the church in a midnight glow.

It was absolutely beautiful.

I got flashes, like cards being dealt one after the other of all the things that had happened here. So many people finding faith in the Lord, so many ceremonies and powerful events. Weddings, christenings, funerals, over and over in a cycle. Sunday services, and candles being lit in reverence, and people praying to God. And now there would be me, taking my final breath at the hands of the man I loved. The vampire I loved.

The huge sense of fate was almost enough to sink my body into acceptance, almost. Until I saw the shadow of Hans approaching across the grounds.

No.

My body had a final surge of flight left in it. Just like on the cobblestones.

I kept stumbling further along the path, my bare feet soaked by the damp grass, until I broke from the familiar route and darted through the gravestones, just like I had as a little girl, and slammed straight into…

I fell back, landed on my ass. But I hadn’t slammed into anything. There was nothing there…

Be more careful amongst the dead, Katherine.

Whispers rose up into the cold night air all around me. The voices of those long gone. The dead that had watched me – watched over me.

Suddenly, with a weird sense of knowing, I felt free, not chased.

Truly free for the first time in my life. My God. It was fantastical.

Surreal but real. So real I could touch it, feel it in my soul.

I was free like the winds in the grounds, and the clouds sailing up above, and the soil in its earthy depths all around.

Free like the waters underground, and the moon overhead, and the essence of life flooding through the world.

I rose to my feet as if I was being lifted by invisible hands and it was the was most natural thing to dance and twirl as my soul took over.

For all of my time in the church with Mum and Grandma, I’d never felt anything so close to God as I spun around with the greatest feeling of joy.

It made sense. The journey beyond the body wasn’t just about transition, it was about transcendence. My body was a temple, but it was the flesh and blood of a human. It needed to give up the fight and sacrifice itself to for ever. That was the price to pay for lifetimes over with my fated mate. But that didn’t mean I was a sinner, or damned. I was pure, and loved, and guided by the force of it all.

I knew Hans was watching me from the shadows. I could feel his joy, too – his joyous soul lighting up with mine.

It made me twirl faster.

I was dancing for us. Me and Hans. For ever.

My spins had my soul soaring. My twists and turns through the gravestones were magical, just as they should be. And then came the intuition. I knew where I needed to be and my dancing feet were taking me there, twirling all the way to the bench by the old spring.

Dressed in my pretty white dress, with the moonlight glow over me, I stood by the bench and waited for Hans. There was no pressure or force in his approach, just his strong powerful steadiness as he listened to my spirit. A strength and steadiness that felt so much more powerful than before.

“You look absolutely divine,” he told me as he stepped from the shadows. “That was beautiful, little one. A display of pure, stunning soul.”

Thanks wouldn’t cut it, so I didn’t say a word, just opened my arms and smiled at my gorgeous love.

“Are you ready?” he asked, and I nodded. “Truly ready?”

“Yes.”

The heat of his presence was beyond comprehension, so I didn’t try. I let the higher forces of love soar free, and offered him my neck. My heart was ready, and my body was too. Finally, I wasn’t scared. Death of the flesh could take me, and I would go willingly.

Hans brushed the hair from my neck and his fingers gave me the finest tingles. He tipped my face up to his and brushed his lips against mine before he kissed me.

“Make me a vampire,” I whispered. “I’ve never been more ready in my life.”

“Or death,” he whispered back. “I’ll be right here for you. I’ll be here on the journey with you.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck and held him in celebration as he blessed me with his touch. His hands trailed down and hitched my dress up, and I silently thanked him as he slipped his fingers inside my panties. I wanted him so much it hurt.

“I’ll be loving you as I kill you,” he whispered and tugged my dress up and off.

The night was cold as he stripped me bare, and my skin prickled with goosebumps as I smiled at him with the greatest adoration. We would be two bodies together, and two souls meeting as one.

I adored him even more as he stripped himself bare in front of me, loving the way the moon lit up his flesh.

He guided me down onto the damp bench, and I sat with my back pressed tight against the wood, opening my legs wide for him as he dropped to his knees. His tongue was bliss as he spread and sucked and lapped at me. Gently enough to tease. Fuck. I held his head to my pussy and asked for more.

And of course, he replied with the word.

Patience.

This time it made me grin.

Hans looked up at me with a smirk.

He carried on working my pussy with his mouth as I arched my back and offered everything. He pushed three fingers inside me as he sucked and swirled his tongue around my clit, and he kept me on the edge for what felt like hours as the clouds ghosted over the moon, but I didn’t rush him, or beg.

Patience.

He didn’t make me come this time. He got up from his knees instead.

He pinned me to the bench and positioned himself between my legs, and my world was spinning as he pushed his way inside me and his lips met mine.

He was deep in the throes of fucking me within seconds. Hard slams as his flesh took mine. I gripped his ass and urged his thrusts, loving how deep he felt. I gasped with every slam, my pussy still struggling to take the size of him, and there was so much more to come. This was just the beginning.

His lips were like the whispers of the graveyard, so gentle as he brushed them down my neck. I held my breath as he kissed my throat, bracing myself.

Goodbye, life…

Bright sunshine warmed my face. Birds were singing. Children laughing.

With his cock buried deep, his fangs pricked my skin, and he bit down so hard that I cried out into sudden darkness, the pain splitting through my skull. He drank my blood with such ferocity that I gripped his shoulders in an attempt to stay steady, but it was futile. I wouldn’t be able to stay steady for long.

Relax, Katherine, his thoughts said to mine. Let your body die without a fight.

I tried to focus on his thrusts in my pussy along with his teeth in my throat – a rhythm of life and death, both at once. His cock grew bigger with every drop of my blood he drank, until I was stretched to the limit, my pussy hurting in bliss, and then, in the pain, my pleasure rose. And rose. And rose. And fuck. Fuck. FUCK. FUCKKK. I came as he came.

He came in my pussy as he drank from my throat, giving and taking at the same time.

And then my body began to fade. I was dying.

Hans pulled his teeth out of my neck and blood dripped down his chin.

“Let it happen,” he whispered. “You are at the point of death. Embrace it.”

My ragged breaths turned into shallow wisps, my lungs trying their best to hang on to the air, but they failed. My love stroked my cheek as I struggled, and then he reached down to his jacket on the floor. He took out a long, sharp blade from the inside pocket.

I smiled inside, because yes, I was dying, but I was also ready to be saved.

I watched him slice his wrist with the knife, captivated as his vampire blood spilled free and fast down his arm.

My mouth was already open as he raised my head for me and pressed his wound to my lips.

“Drink,” he said, and it came so naturally it was insane.

I sucked at his wrist and the taste of his blood was like heaven. Thick and metallic, a mixture of life and death. I swallowed it down and felt my senses returning, but they were different. Heightened in a new kind of way.

A magical way.

Magic.

I was feeling magic.

Hans’ blood was like magic through my veins.

I could hear the whispers from the graves, and sense spirits all around me. Knowledge of lifetimes and ages gone by. I felt movement in the hedgerows and rumbles under the ground, as though I’d been reborn into a whole new world.

I guess I had.

But there was more. And more. And more.

I felt chants, and potions, and witchcraft. I understood the call of the seasons, and time, and the rhythm and sound in colour. I saw a whole chain of women before me with gifts beyond all reasoning, and I was amongst them. I was a woman who belonged in that chain.

I was a child of the light, and the oneness of all time. I was a part of everything, human, vampire, church, rock or plant. None of it mattered. There was only life.

Magic.

Love.

Joy.

Pain.

Everything blurred as one.

My flesh was screaming for human life as I drank the blood of an immortal, but I didn’t hear the torment in it, just a symphony. There was only me. In life or death, as a human or a vampire, it didn’t matter. I was still Katherine Blakely.

And so my body died, and my soul lived.

Hans pulled his wrist away from my mouth and I gasped as I stared at the world anew. This time it was me who gave Hans a blood-red kiss – red with his blood as well as mine. Perfection.

I was kissing him hard as a rumble sounded loudly underneath the bench. The walls shook on either side of us as something spluttered and gurgled, returning from the depths.

Yes, of course…

I felt the spray of fresh water.

It was flowing free.

Hans broke the kiss and turned me along with him to face the spring, and it was alive again. Like it should be. It was just another thing in the chain of things that were meant to be.

I recited the legend.

There will be nine witches from the bottom of Orcop to the end of Garway Hill as long as water flows.

I was one of the nine witches.

The water was flowing again.

My spirit was home.

Hans wrapped me in his arms, and I held him back, like I’d wanted to do as Mary. Her dreams were coming to life as mine.

“Happy Halloween,” he said, and I laughed.

“The first of many more to come, I hope.”

“Many, many more to come.”

We watched the spring in silent harmony, loving our quiet embrace of our new life… until a voice sounded out like a screech in the dark.

“KATHERINE!”

I tensed in Hans’ arms. What the–

“KATHERINE! GET HERE NOW OR I SWEAR TO GOD, GIRL, YOU’LL FUCKING REGRET IT!”

It was Grandma, and she sounded insane. Absolutely fucking insane.