The Vampire Hunter's Daughter: Complete Collection(18)

“Fine.”

I thought he might jump up and down, he looked so excited. I adjusted my stance so that I was staring at the tree, squinted my eyes, and thought about it catching fire. Nothing happened.

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to do this. It’s not working.” I told him.

He stared thoughtfully at the tree. “I think you just need to practice. Think about how you were feeling at the time.”

“Drew, I’m done with this. I just want to go home.”

“Chloe.”

“I can’t do it. Why don’t you understand that?” I stomped my foot and flung my hand toward the tree. “I can’t make the stupid tree catch fire.”

With a ripping sound, several branches of the tree burst forth sparks and erupted into large flickering flames. Both Drew and I stood with our mouths open. My arm was still extended while we watched the flames crawl along the branches until they reached the tips. I lowered my hand and looked at Drew, who must have felt quite proud of himself, because his open mouth was replaced by a gargantuan sized grin.

“Knock it off,” I told him.

“Chloe… Do you know what this means?”

“Yeah, it means I’m more of a freak than I already was.”

I didn’t want fire. I didn’t want a gift I couldn’t control. In the course of twenty minutes, I had set my shoes on fire and made a tree go up in flames without even trying.

“I’m going home.” I swiveled and marched off down the trail.

Drew chased after me. “This isn’t bad, Chloe! You can learn how to control this. You’re going to have to.”

“I don’t have to do anything.”

“Why are you fighting this? This could be the one thing that helps you get what you want most! If you want to kill Trevor, fire is an ultimate weapon, especially if he doesn’t see it coming.”

I stopped in my tracks. He was right, absolutely, perfectly right. I could blow Trevor right off the face of the planet if I wanted to.

As if reading my thoughts, Drew said “But you have to learn how to use it first.”

I nodded. “Yes, I do.”



Once we got home, I stormed up the stairs and into my room. I wanted to get a shower and change so I could go to the library. I wanted to do as much research as I could, and when I had school, I didn’t have much time to go the library. Between training, school and hygiene, I didn’t have much time for anything.

Drew said we would work on honing my new firepower after he got back from the mission. That left me all day to ponder the visit from Sostrate, not to mention setting stuff on fire. Instead of worrying about that stuff, I headed out to the library.

Of all the places in the community, the place I loved most, besides Luke’s house, was the library. It was so quiet there, and the air inside was always perfect. It smelled like history. I entered the two-story stone building and greeted the librarian. “Hi, Linda.”

She sat behind the counter and organized a cart full of books into piles. “Oh, hello, Chloe. What are you looking for today?”

She pushed back her chair and smoothed back her hair while she stood. Her glasses sat somewhat crooked on her nose. She looked sort of flustered.

I shifted my book bag to the other shoulder. “I want to look up vampire children today. I thought I’d just start with the computer.”

She waved her hand, dismissing the idea. “No, you never know where that information is coming from. Yeah, it can be helpful, but the books are better.”

I should have expected nothing less from Linda. “Okay. Well, point me in the right direction.”

She smiled and beckoned me to follow her. “Down this way.”

We went to the old section where I’d found all the books on vampire hunter history, but several rows over.

“Do you know what the child of a vampire and a mortal is called, Chloe?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“A child created by a vampire and a human is called a dhampir.” We stopped at a shelf with big, thick books.

“Chloe, you may have a harder time looking up vampires than you did vampire hunters.”

I raised my eyebrows in question, but remained silent.

She continued with, “There are many different kinds of vampires. The vampire legends range from the most common, the European vampires, to the rarest vampires, like the bat vampires from Africa and South America.”

She lifted a book and hefted it over to me. “I know that you are looking for stuff about being a dhampir, so we can start there.” She grabbed another book off the shelf and plunked it on top of the one I was already holding. “But when you start researching vampire breeds and histories, you will have a lot of work ahead of you.”

She pulled another leather bound monster book off the shelf and held it in her arms.

“This should do it for now,” Linda said.

We hauled the books over to the tables and deposited them onto the wooden surface.

“All right, then.” Linda pushed her glasses farther up onto the bridge of her nose. “I’ll let you get to it then. Come find me if you need any help.”

“Thank you, Linda,” I told her. I pulled a chair out to sit while she wandered back through the stacks of books that led back to her desk.

I took the first book off the stack and examined the cover. It was titled Vampires throughout History. The cover was leather and so old it was stiff and cracked in spots. The pages showed signs of age too, yellowing and stiff to the touch. There was no table of contents, so it looked like I was going to have to scan the entire book for what I was wanting. I flipped the pages carefully, so as not to tear any of them.