The Vampire Hunter's Daughter: Complete Collection(16)

“Are you okay?” Drew asked. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know.” I shook my head. Tears threatened to surface again. “I don’t know.”

“It’s your senses, Chloe, telling you something is off.”

Drew and I both spun around and Drew whipped his gun out from underneath his jacket.

“Who are you?” Drew yelled.

There, sitting atop one of the gravestones, bathed in the green glow of florescent lights, was a woman. Even though it was freezing, she barely wore anything, and what she did have on looked like leather wrapped around her body and a halter top with crude lacing holding it together. Snowflakes drifted down and passed through her tanned skin, dissolving into nowhere.

“How do you know me?” I shouted. “Who are you?”

My stomach was still flooded with warmth, and it made me feel like I had to pee. I wished I had brought my gun.

She clicked her tongue and tossed a wave of dark brown hair over her shoulder. “You do not need your weapons, my children. I do not come to harm.”

She slid off the gravestone, and I watched her bare feet sink into the snow. They left no footprints.

“Who are you?” Drew demanded again.

She moved forward slowly. “I am your mother, many times over.”

This chick scared me. Was she a ghost? I moved backward a few steps as she approached, using Drew as a shield, since he had the gun.

She smiled, her dark eyes intently focusing on Drew. “Andrew, lower your weapon. You cannot harm me.”

As if under a spell, Drew lowered his arms and his gun came to rest by his side. “What do you want?”

“I am here to help, Chloe.” She nodded at me and smiled. “You need the help of your ancestors. Your mother cannot help you, so I have come to give you guidance.”

The warmth in my stomach turned into fire in my heart. I can’t explain it, but I felt the connection with this apparition. I moved out from behind Drew.

“Who are you?” I whispered.

She lifted her chin arrogantly. “I am Sostrate, the daughter of Artemis, and as I have told you already, your mother, many times over.”

“Why are you here?”

“I have come to give you the guidance your mother cannot give you. It is my duty.”

“Are you a ghost?”

She only shook her head and gave me a crooked grin. “I am a demi-goddess. I gained immortality from my mother. I do not come as an apparition, because I cannot die.”

“Holy shit.” Drew actually dropped his gun in the snow.

I moved forward, not afraid anymore. I knew she was who she said she was. As we approached each other, I stretched out my hand, wanting to touch her. She also extended her hand and as my gloved fingers connected with the solid fingertips of hers, I gasped. “You’re real.”

She nodded. “Of course.”

“Sostrate,” I pulled my hand from hers, “How can you help me?”

“Chloe, it is time that you think with a clear head. Revenge has taken over your heart and your soul, taken over so much of you that you cannot possibly win this battle. It takes more than thinking with your brain. You must fight with love,” she pressed her fist against her heart “not only hatred.”

“I don’t understand,” I told her.

“Wars are not won because of hatred for the enemy; they are won because of love for what is being defended.”

“Told you,” Drew whispered from behind me.

“Shut up!” I hissed back at him.

“Chloe, I am going to give you something tonight, and I want you to remember to use it with love. The vampire is a monstrous creature, and you are created from them as well as angels and gods, so it is easy for you to hate.”

“I don’t think I can ever feel differently about this. He killed my mother.”

She lifted a bow out of thin air from behind her.

“You take this, Chloe,” she extended the bow out to me, “and every time you release an arrow, imagine how much you loved your mother, not how much you hate her murderer.”

She handed me a hard leather quiver full of arrows that she also plucked from thin air. The quiver had ornate carvings of little swirls and shapes along its borders. I examined the bow, which also bore carvings of swirls and shapes. It was very light; I imagined that would make it easy to carry.

“But, Sostrate, we are hunters… how can we not use hate as a weapon? Shouldn’t it drive us harder?”

Sostrate began to back away from us. With a final smile and nod she whispered, “We love to hunt.”

And then, she was gone.

“Oh. My. God.” I breathed.

“What the hell?” Drew whispered.

I had never seen Drew freeze like that before. He was in awe. A mythological demi-goddess had just appeared before us, and I held in my hands gifts from the gods, quite literally. The tingling feeling began to spread again. The more I tried to ignore it, the worse it got. I clutched my fingers around the bow even tighter and slung the quiver on to my shoulder.

“Let’s go home, Drew.”

Drew nodded and continued to stare at the spot where Sostrate had appeared.

“C’mon, Drew! It’s freezing out here.” I trudged through the snow and out the gates. As soon as I passed through the gates, the tingling went away.