1
JERUSALEM
Virginia
June 29, 1862
The sky was pitch, and my tears blinding, so outrunning them hounds was tricky. Three times faster than the men, but just as hateful, trained from pups to big old beasts to despise dark skin as much as the rest of them. But it wasn’t so much the dogs I was worried about. It was getting through these daggone woods in the dead of night. I’d been born with better night vision than anyone, but the brush was harsh, and the trees grew close, making it hard to keep a pace. My stupid full skirt kept catching on branches. Thank the Lord the thunder and wind that had been threatening for hours hadn’t yet turned to rain. And that I was still faster than anyone on any day.
My bare feet hurt, was probably bleeding, but I couldn’t stop. Not unless I wanted to be torn to shreds like they’d just done to my brother—
I swiped at my tears and ran on. There wasn’t nothing back there for me but death. Maybe if I’d kept my head down like Pa had always said, they would still be alive. If I’d just held back and not indulged in using my abilities, the mistress wouldn’t have punished them. Lila, Matthew, Mama, Pa. They’d still be alive.
Alive and enslaved. But alive and with me, at least. Alive.
I couldn’t hear the howls no more, so I slowed. My lungs burned; my tears ran hot.
My family. Dead. ’Cause I dared to defend them.
Now you know good and well it’s ’cause you killed the master.
I laughed at the thought, muffling it with my hand when the trees echoed back.
Why you laughing, dumbass?
I let out a breath and swiped at my eyes again. At least that demon of a man was dead. His wife was worse, but I wasn’t going to see her evil ass again. Besides, my family was with God now. Safe. Free. Better off.
I was the only one still in hell.
“What you going to do now, Jerusalem?” I murmured. Them hounds would catch me up soon, just sitting here. I needed a plan. I thought hard, trying to remember the things I’d heard whispered about at night when there wasn’t no risk of prying ears. That the closest free state wasn’t too far—Pennsylvania, I think they called it. If I kept heading north, I’d hit it eventually. Black people could make a living up there. Wasn’t no whips or overseers. Maybe people like me, with inhuman strength and speed, didn’t have to hide what we could do.
Hold your horses. You ain’t even out the master’s woods yet.
Naw. I had to stop calling that man master. I was free of him. No more chains. It wasn’t his woods no more if he was dead, anyways; it was the mistress’s.
You want to be free, Jerusalem? Then talk like it.
Adelaide. Not mistress. Adelaide.
I pressed my collar into my eyes to soak up tears that wouldn’t stop. Adelaide Troy. She deserved a death worse than anything, except I couldn’t have killed her if I tried. Her husband had been a human, flesh and beating heart. But she was a literal bloodsucking monster. Soulless, wicked as the day was long. Who’d hanged Mama and Pa, let them hounds have Matthew—
A howl sounded not too far off. Speak of the devil. I straightened and lifted my chin. I outran them once; I could do it again. And this time, I wouldn’t stop.
But resting had dropped my pulse, eased the tight feeling in my body that told me to run.
Instead, I turned around and rushed toward the barking.
I didn’t know what I was doing, what I was going to do. All I could think of was my big brother. Of Matthew.
“Show them how fast you can run,” he’d whispered in my hair as I’d held on tight around his waist. It was the last thing he said before they dragged him away from me … and when I couldn’t save him, I did exactly that.
More tears gathered, and I tripped over some branches, falling hard onto my hands and knees, panting, the howls dangerously close. I felt for the branch—it was heavy, trailing off like massive antlers—and snapped off usable pieces.
They had seen my speed. Now they would witness my strength.
I’d seen them hounds plenty of times before, but up close, even in the dark, I couldn’t rightly call them animals. It wasn’t even that they was huge—a horse was bigger without being terrifying. I’d seen wolves before, too, and as wild animals, they wasn’t as ferocious. I’d even seen these very hounds as pups but was convinced that somewhere in the middle of maturation, they’d been swapped out for monsters fit to match the ones who owned them. No question, they was hell’s creatures—spawned from a fiery pit.
The shadow of a beast ran toward me, and I held the antlered end of that branch and ran right back, a crack of thunder blocking out my yell. It didn’t even have a chance to scream as I nailed it right in the mouth, running it through with a wet noise.
One down.
The second hound was farther away, but I threw a small log at it, missing. I threw another and clipped its leg, enough to make it trip to a stop with a whimper. I wasn’t no good at throwing, looked like, so I switched to a club-sized branch. These beasts wanted to make it up close and personal, and I’d give them that last request.
I rushed up to the one I’d nicked and crushed its lungs in before sinking my fingers in its fur and lifting it in time to use as a shield for the next. When that one’s teeth was good and sunk in flesh and fur, I cracked it over the head, snapping my club, a chunk splintering off and flying past my face.
Three hounds dead. There was one more, but I was down all my weapons. The last hound wasn’t running—it must’ve known something was off ’cause it kept pausing and sniffing, its ears going up and down. I used a loud crash of thunder as cover to sneak over to my first kill and broke off a piece of the branch still shoved right through it. But the cover didn’t last, and the last hound jerked up at the snap, charging at me. I quickly put the stick in my apron pocket and ran back to the hound I’d hit with the club. If something worked once, I could do it again. Use this one as a shield while stabbing the last hound in the back of the neck. Or wherever I could aim. Anything to stop it enough to land a killing blow—
The last hound didn’t move as well in the dark as I did ’cause it slammed into a tree snout-first, howling as it fell. I raised my brows—wasn’t hounds supposed to be good hunters? There was a bit of squirming, the brush beneath it disturbed, and then it was still.
I didn’t see nothing else move. I paused to listen, my swallow the loudest thing in my ears aside from my pulse. But I didn’t hear nothing else, neither.
I released a heavy breath.
Four. There was only the four. And now they was dead.
Except, Lord, there wasn’t only four. I saw another run toward me, but this one wasn’t big and bulky. It was quick as a shadow, with an artful run that dodged around trees instead of a charge like a dumb, bloodthirsty beast. I swear it was only a second that I looked down to find a weapon, but when I looked back up to where the hound had been, it was gone.
Light met the edge of my eye, and I spun quickly, but a cold hand clamped around my wrist before I could back away.
When I seen the man’s face, my body went stiff as a scared possum. My blood felt like sludge, and yet my heart raced hot. I recognized him as the overseer—well, one of them. The head of them. The worst of them. He held an oil lantern and had a big old knife strapped at his hip. He snuck up on me, even with that lantern, and now I knew why a man stood before me and the hound had disappeared. I knew why I was so scared to move it hurt, why my breath came out in terrified gasps. ’Cause this monster wasn’t no man.
He was a vampire.
Red hair like his pa, flaming in the lantern light like a demon’s, and green eyes that looked more animal than human. He was one of them New Bloods, vampires that was turned in the past fifty years or so, instead of one of them Ancients from Europe. One year ago on his twenty-first birthday, he’d asked his bloodsucking step-mama Adelaide if he could be turned ’cause he wanted to be able to beat us all better. And, Lord, could he—his pa had to make him ease up ’cause he kept killing us, and they didn’t have no money to keep throwing around buying more people to torture.
He’d been that monstrous before he’d been turned, to be honest. But now he was strong as an ox, too.
“You killed all four hounds?” he asked, and his voice was violent already without him doing nothing, like them nasty beasts meant something to him.
“One to go,” I said, tipping my chin at him.
What in the hell, Jerusalem! my body screamed inside. My muscles tightened, forget how brave I sounded. How you expect to kill a vamp?
“Never could control that sass of yours.” The edges of his mouth was raw and scabbed, and when he smiled at me with them fanged canines they threatened to tear open. “And to think, I had planned on bringing you home alive.”
He set the lantern on the ground, sending stark shadows to haunt the woods around us. I tried to jerk away while he was off-balance but he was too fast, too strong. I hit the ground, so sudden that I didn’t feel no pain till he had me by the hair, half dragging me to my feet. And next thing I seen was nothing but darkness with a flash of blurred light … Then stinging, throbbing pain hit like a brick, and I realized he done slammed the side of my head into a tree. My face was wet with something thicker than tears, warmer than rain.
Killing his human father and them hounds made me forget this man—this monster—was beyond my physical match.
He dragged me to him, and for a second, I felt dizzy from the movement. My back was at his stomach, my hands locked in his crushing grip, as he forced me down with him to kneel on the ground.
“I’m going to enjoy ripping the life out your little body. But first…” His bony fingers dug into my hair to the root, pulling my head back and sideways, stretching my neck painfully. He inhaled deeply. “You sure do smell a whole lot better than you look…”
“No, no, no…” I whimpered, kicking and fighting and crying—we was back to crying, but everything within me was revolting, my disgust of what was about to happen too much to stomach. I couldn’t die, not like this. Not eaten alive by this monster.
I shouldn’t have turned back. I should have listened to my big brother and kept running. My quiet, brave brother …
My sweet, logical Mama.
Pa, my anchor, my strength.
And pretty Lila, with so much hope.
I was about to see them again, wasn’t I? I was going to die slow, in agony, sucked dry. Forgotten. Dead and gone to the world, and no one would care. But I’d be with my family after … and maybe that’d be better.
But then … who would make Adelaide Troy pay?
I was stronger and faster than most men. I could make her regret the day she took my family, along with any other vamp who got in my way.
And dying was no way to do it.
I felt the tingle of his nasty cold lips at my skin, and I jerked my elbow back. Must’ve hit somewhere good, too, ’cause he cussed and let up his grip a little—enough for me to tear my hand from his and pull the jagged stick from my apron pocket. It was in his neck before I even knew what I was doing. The sound from him was vile, but I didn’t think to stop. I snatched the big knife from his belt and plunged it into his chest, the force shoving him to his back.
My head throbbed, and my hands shook. The vamp cussed as he tried to remove the knife, but he stayed on his back, like he was pinned there.
I didn’t know if it was my blood or his, but I wiped my hands on the monster’s shirt.
“You disgusting rat,” he gurgled, twitching, the shadow of his hand reaching for me in the lantern glow. “You don’t know the lashing you’re about to get!”
I moved out of his reach and stood. I done missed his heart, I think, ’cause he wasn’t dying. Not fast enough. Never killed no vamp before; maybe they could get up again. Maybe he’d recover.
I opened the lantern door but wasn’t about to burn myself trying to get at the oil. Instead, I looked around for a stick and lit the end of it.
“What do you think you’re doing, girl?”
I threw the lantern on the ground hard so it busted, oil running out from the bottom. The flame, oddly, stayed put.
“I said, what you think you doing?” his voice rose shrill, shifting to a scream as I set the lantern on his stomach, the hot oil and lard burning through his shirt.
Finally, he got the message. His eyes went wide as saucers as I picked up the flaming stick.
I smiled down at him. “Enjoy hell.”
I dropped the stick on his oiled belly, and an inferno leapt to life, fueled by the monster’s body and the burning wick in the lantern.
After that, I hightailed it out of there, no looking back, till the edge of the flame’s light faded to pitch night, till the screams no longer carried. All I heard was my breath, my steps, and night noises.
Mama once told me, “Jerusalem, you can’t sew like Lila, can’t cook like me, and you got a smart mouth to boot. Find you something useful you love to do and perfect it.”
Reckon she didn’t think it’d be killing.
Copyright © 2024 by Lauren Blackwood
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