Chapter 37

I woke up to see Anissa's face leaning over me. I gasped and tried to move back, but I was lying on a bed and couldn't go anywhere. ‘Drink this, Bunny.'

She was holding blood in a hospital cup with a straw. Well, that would be a new experience. I tried to push it away.

‘Drink it, Bunny, dammit,' Connor growled from my other side. I turned my head and he was standing over me as well. I realised it wasn't anger that had sharpened his tone but fear, and that scared me enough to drink.

I drank the blood fast even though I couldn't hold my nose – and there was no point when you were drinking through a straw. I finished it with a grimace. ‘What happened?' I asked. My head felt muddled and hazy.

‘You were cursed,' Anissa said grimly.

‘Was it the same curse?' I looked down at my limbs but it didn't appear that I had started wasting away. ‘How long have I been here?' My voice cracked.

‘An hour,' Connor answered.

Relief filled me. I hadn't let my mum down; I still had time to find her.

‘Not the same curse,' Anissa confirmed. ‘It seems to be a curse to send you to sleep, sap your energy.'

That's how I'd felt: sapped, limp, wrung out. I'd experienced true weariness since I'd been turned – daylight exhaustion was a real thing – but this tiredness was far greater.

‘It has to be the kidnapper. They don't want you on their case,' Connor snarled.

‘Why give me an ultimatum that I can't follow?' I asked, confused.

‘Did you touch anything, or eat or drink anything new or strange?' Anissa asked.

‘No, nothing. I—' That bloody note. ‘I touched the note that was on my door,' I groaned. ‘It's in my jeans' pocket.' I hadn't worn gloves, a rookie error.

Anissa retrieved a plastic bag full of my clothes from next to the bed then pulled out my jeans and waved a hand over the pockets. ‘This is the source.' Her hand blazed brightly for a moment and I felt pressure in my ears. ‘Not a strong curse, but effective. I've neutralized it.'

‘Thanks, Anissa,' I said. Connor's statement about the kidnapper had started my brain racing. ‘If mum's kidnapper is cursing me, that probably means the kidnapper and the curser are the same person – or two people working together,' I mumbled. I scooched back in the bed and sat up. ‘I have to get out there. Time is ticking.'

‘No,' Connor said firmly. ‘You need to stay here until Anissa clears you.'

I looked at Anissa. ‘Am I curse free?'

She nodded. ‘But you're going to need more blood and some rest or you'll be in here a lot longer than a few hours.'

‘Hours?'

‘Hours to heal up is better than days, so lie back and relax. I'll bring you more blood in thirty minutes.'

I felt the first stirring of panic. Mum had less than twenty-four hours and I had to find her. Connor, brilliant as always at reading me, said, ‘Gunnar has a search party out. They're looking everywhere – homes, businesses, the woods. They'll find her.'

‘If it's the curser, we'll never find her. We don't have any clue who it is!' I protested.

‘Sidnee has a list of possible suspects. Whoever this is, they made a mistake when they asked for the gems. She and Gunnar have narrowed down our list to people who are against the barrier.'

I shook my head and started to swing my legs over the edge. ‘No, no! This is like before! Because it seems to be about the barrier, doesn't mean it is. The gems are valuable and powerful, and they're also possessed and evil. Check the new gem witches first. Maybe they're being possessed like Wintersteen was.'

Connor picked up my legs and swung them back into the bed, then whipped out his phone and texted someone. He waited a second until his phone vibrated with a return message. ‘Sidnee is on it and Thomas is helping.'

That calmed me a little; Sidnee would do anything to help my mum because she was my mum, but Thomas was a true hunter. If anyone could track her down, my money was on him. ‘Okay, thanks.' I looked around. ‘Where's Fluffy?'

‘Sidnee has him and Shadow at the Nomo's office.'

‘I talked to Mum,' I blurted out. ‘She told me everything. You were right about the bus.'

Connor's jaw worked but he held his silence as I continued. ‘My dad ordered me to be turned into a vampire, and my mum cursed Fluffy.' I turned to Anissa. ‘She said it was a transformation curse to change a threat into a lesser one. She said it would turn a bloodsucking vampire into a mosquito, or a werewolf into a dog.'

I continued. ‘She can't undo it. She said she's not a curse breaker, nor was she its maker. If she can get the spell from the person that designed the curse, do you think you could break it?' I asked Anissa. My heart was in my throat.

She cocked her head as she thought about it. ‘If we have the original spell, or better still the curse-breaking spell from the person who designed the curse, there's a good chance I can end this.'

I closed my eyes: a good chance was better than the chance Fluffy had now. Even if I lost my dog because he turned back into a werewolf, I couldn't leave him stuck in that form forever. My poor boy. He'd made the best of everything and loved me even when he should have hated me. I'd love him forever for that one fact. ‘Thank you, Anissa. It might be his only chance.'

‘I'll give it a go. Now, I'll be back soon to give you more blood. Rest. I don't want you out of that bed. If you have to pee, you call me. Got it?'

‘Yes. Thanks.'

Anissa walked out and I turned to Connor. ‘There's more. Dad paid Octavius to get me turned, then Octavius made sure my parents wouldn't help me leave London.'

Connor grimaced. ‘I think I know why.'

‘Why?'

‘That book I told you I went for? It was old and it had some details about vampires that have been forbidden for a few centuries.'

‘Why are they forbidden?' I asked curiously.

‘Jealousy, I think. These vampires don't need blood to survive; they don't have to battle with bloodlust. And,' he paused, ‘they all have magic.'

I swallowed hard. I didn't have bloodlust and I had magic. ‘What am I?' I asked Connor.

‘I think you're a hybrid.'

Perfect: I was some sort of forbidden vampire. ‘You think Octavius knew I'd be a hybrid?'

‘Without a shadow of a doubt,' he said grimly. ‘A hybrid is created when a magic user is turned, and you come from a long line of fire witches. He had to have known.'

‘I thought that turning a witch wasn't possible.'

‘That's what people believe. Even I thought it was true until I found this book.'

‘I don't understand why hybrids are forbidden.' I frowned. ‘Just because they don't need blood in the same way? And if I don't need blood in the same way, why am I in hospital being fed blood?'

‘Blood will still help you, but you can get sustenance other ways.'

‘Through food?' I said hopefully.

He shook his head. ‘Through auras. You can feed off other people's energy.'

‘Like some sort of succubus?'

‘Kind of, but without the need for sex. You can feed off anyone's energy.'

‘How?'

He shrugged. ‘The book wasn't clear on that.'

‘So again – tell me why I'm in hospital getting filled with blood?'

‘Because we can't afford for anyone to realise that you're a hybrid.'

‘Why? Why are they so dangerous?'

‘According to the book I found, the magic and the vampirism combine. You remember I said that older vampires get extra powers?'

‘Yes, like you can compel.'

‘Right. Well hybrids get their extra powers when they're much younger. And you stop being vulnerable to the sun, too.'

‘What?' I asked, eyes wide.

‘In a year or two you may not need that charm around your neck. That's why hybrids are forbidden – no vulnerability to the sun, no bloodlust, extra powers when they are much younger… You're a threat to the status quo and the older vampires who are in power have plenty of reasons to keep things the way they are. A new breed of super-vampire could threaten to take over. Also, the book says that there were a lot of failed magical turnings the last time someone tried this. Those failures made the magic users turn against us vampires – and we don't want or need another war between us. Forbidding hybrids being made is self-preservation.'

‘What happens if the vampire council finds out I'm a hybrid?'

He looked at me sombrely. ‘They'll have you killed.'