I tried to ignore the pain of his bite. I looked down at Thierry. He looked helplessly up at me. I wanted him to stay back. It was safer to have to deal with a stake in his chest at the moment than come any closer to this.
“Open yourself up to this, Sarah,” Steven instructed. “Give Gideon everything.”
“I can’t,” I said.
“You have to.”
His voice was strange and different from before. Darker. Scarier. I tried to look at him and noticed that his eyes weren’t just red anymore, they seemed to be blazing.
Hellfire.
It was the demon, wasn’t it? Steven channeled demon powers in order to work his wizard magic. Had Gideon known that? I didn’t think so. It would have been too risky. Gideon was trying to avoid hell, not welcome it into his life and invite it out to a leisurely, candlelit dinner.
The demon wanted Gideon. And Gideon was trying to escape by having me sire him.
“Do it, Sarah,” the demon possessing Steven again told me—only his lips didn’t move. I heard his voice in my head. “Let it go. I can help you.”
A helping hand from a demon to help transfer my power to Gideon Chase. Okay.
“No,” the demon said as if it could read my mind. “Not just your power. Your curse as well. Everything.”
My eyes widened. Then I slammed them shut and concentrated every ounce of energy I had on relaxing and opening up my mind. Gideon wasn’t feeding only on blood then, but on everything behind it as well. My power—the energy that came from three separate master vampires. With the demon’s help, I felt that strength slip away from me as it was channeled into Gideon.
A moment later he raised his eyes to mine. His were black with power. They looked exactly like death.
“More,” he said. “I need more.”
I hesitated. The part of me that cared for Gideon on some strange level tried to pull away in an attempt to save him from his own greed. But he held me firm and continued to drink.
“Give him everything,” the demon instructed me in that voice as cold as the night around us.
I nodded, and I did as he said.
My nightwalker held on tight for a moment, kicking and screaming, as she was scraped away from my insides by the pull of the demon’s magic. I felt the black poison of my curse curl into a ball from where it had settled deep inside me. She liked it there. It was comfortable. But, like rotten taffy, sticky and smelly, it finally pulled away and I felt it channel out of me and directly into Gideon.
His eyes widened and his lips peeled back from his long, sharp fangs. He looked around at the night as if seeing it for the first time.
“I never thought it would feel this good,” he said. “You did it, Sarah. You gave me everything.”
I swallowed hard. “You’re welcome.”
He smiled and it chilled my insides. He was a monster. He even looked like a monster now, black eyes, sharp teeth, and a strange maniacal look of too much power in too small a space.
I was afraid of him. And for him.
I wasn’t sure if he knew just how much he’d taken from me. The demon inside Steven had transferred every last ounce of my extra master vampire strength to him. Plus, as an added bonus, he now had my nightwalker curse.
I’d leave the celebrating for a bit later, though.
Gideon cocked his head to the side and looked down at Thierry, who was now struggling to get back to his feet. “Why don’t I finish him off for you, Sarah? I hate loose ends.”
He took a step toward Thierry, but I moved to stand in his way.
“So now what?” I asked. “You got what you wanted. You’re a vampire now.”
“I’m more than just a vampire.”
“True. But what’s your next move?”
He smiled. “Anything I want. But I’m going to start with killing the master vampire.” He blinked those black eyes of his. “Both of them. I think I’ll do it with my bare hands just for kicks.”
“What about me?”
He studied me. “What do you want me to say?”
“Just tell me the truth.”
His lips quirked. “For a moment I thought there was something there. But perhaps it was only the pain. I will be forever grateful for what you’ve done for me, Sarah. But I warn you not to stand in my way right now.”
“Or what?”
“Or you’ll be sorry you did.”
I drew in a shaky breath. He noticed. He placed his hand over my chest to feel my heart beating and he raised an eyebrow. “Very interesting.”
“You’re the proud owner of a shiny black nightwalker curse.”
“Lucky me.”
“Probably sorry you burned the grimoire now, huh?”
“I’ll get used to it. Like I said, it’s an asset. It only gives me more power.”
He flinched then and backed up a step from me. I realized that something invisible had slashed his chest. There was now a deep scratch on his flesh.
“What the hell was that?” he snarled.
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“I did that,” the demon said.
I backed up until I felt Thierry behind me. Somehow, in the last couple of minutes he’d managed to soundlessly remove the stake from his chest. There was a sheen of perspiration on his forehead and his eyes were shadowed with pain.
“You’re ours, Gideon,” the demon said. He looked so harmless in the body of the teenaged wizard—Death Suck T-shirt under his black jacket. But he wasn’t harmless.
“Ever since the hellfire touched you, you’ve been ours. You can run, but you can’t hide.”