Free The Vampire's Reflection by Shayne Leighton Page B

knots in the material of her dress.
    “You don’t have to eat it until later, Charlotte,” Sarah muttered, as if she heard precisely what Charlotte was thinking. It wasn’t the first time someone in that house had answered one of Charlotte’s thoughts. Everyone had a key to her mind. It was entirely frustrating not to have any privacy at all.
    Sarah knelt down next to her on the library floor and affectionately ran her fingers through Charlotte’s curls, her nails slightly grazing the back of her neck. It made Charlotte shiver.
    “Ready?” she whispered after a moment.
    Her voice wavered, like it held some heavy emotion. Sadness? Charlotte squinted at the space in front of her and wondered why. What she was going through now was entirely her own business. She didn’t want to worry anyone else. Especially Sarah, her very best friend.
    “Where is he?” Charlotte asked desperately, wanting just to fix her addiction so everything could go back to normal for a short time. Her words came out rough, like sandpaper. Every sensation about the room had been magnified a hundred times, it seemed. Due to Sarah’s magic or her scar, she had no idea. The crackling blaze in the fireplace in front of her bellowed in her ears like a roaring brush fire.
    Sarah’s touch, light on her shoulder, might as well have been hundreds of tiny electric shocks zapping at her skin. Even the Witch’s breath in her ear was enough to chill her like the harsh winter wind from outside. Charlotte swallowed. Even that was painful.
    Sarah stood up again, and almost tiptoed back to the library door. Her creeping feet, however careful she was, sounded like an elephant parade. Charlotte shut her eyes against the noise that created a pulse in her eardrum, another miserable side effect. Something suddenly oozed slickly from the inside of her ear. Blood .
    Sarah pulled the left side of the door closed before the right, bolting them together at the center of the threshold. Charlotte’s pulse reacted to the impending knowledge of what was coming.
    “They’re home,” Sarah warned, her voice low and grim.
    As if on cue, dozens of ravenous, screeching howls wailed from outside the house walls, loud enough that the foundation seemed to quake beneath them. At a distance, it sounded like the blood-curling songs of the sirens that inhabited the banks of the Vltava River—haunting. Threatening. Though very far away, the wave of harrowing screams echoed closer and closer with each passing second. A swarm that sounded like it was headed straight for Charlotte, like they had pinpointed her exact location. She could sense them closing in on all sides. Her heart slammed to the front of her chest, her fingers winding tighter around the material of her dress, though her eagerness swallowed the fear whole. The excitement they would soon arrive electrocuted the ends of her nerves as she shifted, leaning more forward on her knees.
    The sound drew nearer. It raced through the front door, so close, her eardrum felt like it might burst. Her pulse raced in her throat, stopping the flow of oxygen. Though her vision had gotten blurry again, she could see Sarah guarding the doors from within the library. She stood there, with her back pressed against the entrance, her eyes tearing, like she wanted to reach for Charlotte, though she did not move from her place there.
    They were just outside of the library doors then. She lurched forward, her hands cupped tightly around her ears, begging for relief from the hellish noise as the scratching and pounding began to fuse with the banshee wailing. Her mouth fell open. She screamed as tears began to roll from her eyes, though her own voice she could not hear over theirs. She pulled her quivering hands from her ears and looked to see fresh blood staining her fingertips, and heaved. Everything seemed to swirl together. Their granite talons, hard and stone-like, pounded against the library doors, demanding access to her as Sarah quickly moved