Katherine approached the two teenagers as Dorian wiped the blood from the girls mouth with his sleeve. It dawned on Katherine that this girl was a creature and the reason Dorian was so desperate to know everything about The Valley.
"Orla, you have to tell me what happened," Dorian asked the girl gently putting his hands on her shoulders but her eyes were on Katherine approaching them.
Katherine was nervous, she didn't think any other creatures were in the area. It made her question how many more of them were around and if what Cassie said about the wolves being at the marina was really true.
"Did you do this?" asked Katherine, as she pointed her finger to the shirtless dead man lying face down on the beach next to them.
"Of course she didn't," Dorian answered swiftly. Orla raised her hand from underneath the quilt around her shoulders and pointed with her index finger at the pier above them.
"I was up there when I screamed, when I came down he was already like this," She explained in a soft quiet voice. Orla's freckled nose turned red from the cold and she began to shiver with every passing blow of the wind. She must have felt chilled to the bone wearing nothing but pajama shorts, a thin shirt and a ragged quilt that looked older than Katherine.
"You didn't touch the body did you?" Katherine asked in a serious tone. The girl shook her head, and Katherine felt a sense of relief. It would have been a big problem for them if she had. The last time Katherine touched a half dead human, she was poisoned.
"Dorian take her home and I'll see what to do about the human man," instructed Katherine. Orla opened her mouth to say something but in an instant both her and Dorian were gone from the beach. It had not even been a minute before Dorian reappeared next to Katherine and the body.
Katherine had crouched down next to the half clothed man that laid face down in the sand and used a piece of washed up driftwood to turn him over. That's when she noticed four large diagonal slash marks running the length of his bare chest and Katherine felt like her heart was going to leap out of her throat. These wounds were exact matches as the odd man she had saved in the woods. The only difference was this man couldn't be saved, he had an additional wound on his neck and trails of blood coming from both sides of his mouth that ran down his neck.
Katherine used her fingers to search around her in the sand until she found a short stick to investigate the body with. Dorian sat patiently next to her while she poked and prodded the deep slash marks with the stick. She felt she had learned her lesson after touching the odd man from the forest with her bare hands, Marianne had said humans carry diseases and it was a mistake she didn't want to make twice.
Katherine used the stick to open the dead mans mouth, taking note that he was missing a tooth on each side of the top his mouth. She sat back on her heals needing a moment to stop and think. Why were humans being mauled? And why did he have missing teeth but the man from the forest didn't?
"Are we sure he's human? His skin looks way too thick," Dorian had asked as he leaned forward to take a closer look at the chest wounds. Oh no, Katherine thought, no no no no no. Her eyes darted between the mans bloodied mouth and the abnormally thick piece of flesh hanging from his chest wound.
"We need to leave he's a—," Katherine couldn't finish her sentence, Dorian's finger accidentally brushed against the mans thick skin and Katherine grabbed his jacket to throw him backwards into the sand.
"What the hell Kat?" Dorian asked annoyed from being manhandled dusting the sand off of his hands. Katherine ignored his questions and was on her hands and knees digging in the sand looking for shell, or rock, or anything that could be used as a magical conduit. She made a grave mistake assuming the man was a human. She was being cautious about touching him because she was worried about disease but now they had much bigger problems.
This man was a vampire, a very murdered vampire, and Dorian's skin touched his. She needed to fix this before Guards showed up to take the body and Dorian back to The Valley. Her fingers finally brushed against a pink scallop shell and she pushed it into Dorians hand.
"I need you to put as much magic into this as you can," She said slowly so he would understand.
"I.. I thought sharing magic with someone who wasn't blood related to you was dangerous?" Dorian asked confused on what was happening.
"It is very dangerous, but I really need you to just do what I say because we don't have time to argue about this," Katherine explained, "Its going to hurt, and you're going to get tired but I'm trying to save your life."
Dorian nodded his head as he held the pink scallop shell with both hands and closed his eyes to focus. A blue glowing light started to emanate from his hands, and his breathing became slow and deliberate. His face twisted in pain and slowly the light faded away, he held the shell out to Katherine with a weak hand for her to take. Katherine snatched the shell from him and closed her eyes. She tried to concentrate but nothing happened. She took a deep breath and tried to focus on the energy coming from the shell. She grunted in frustration, they didn't have time to waste sitting there hoping she would absorb the magic.
She grabbed Dorians hand and put the shell in it, then placed her hand on top of the shell.
"I need you to send a jolt of magic through the shell into my hand to start the flow of absorption," She commanded forcefully. Dorian looked at her like she had three heads, he was sweating profusely and looked like he would pass out any second.
"I'm on empty I put everything I had into the shell," He said with a yawn. Katherine grabbed his jacket to bring his face in front of hers.
"If you don't dig deep to scrape up any magic you have left, your grandparents are going to kill us all," Katherine didn't have time to beat around the bush, it was do or die.
Dorian took a deep breath and closed his eyes, He bellowed out in pain as the shell lit up in their hands and Katherine could finally feel it. Magic flowed back into her finger tips, and throughout her body like a clock whose wheels and cogs started turning again. As power filled her back up she grabbed Dorians arm to push him to his feet.
"Start running!" She yelled at him with a final push he started to wobble away from her and back towards the beach stairs.
The ache Katherine had felt in her fingers was long gone, replaced with the hum of magic. It was almost too much magic, more than she had ever felt inside of her, it made her feel euphoric and invincible. With a smile on her face she put her hands on the chest of the man where Dorian's fingers had brushed his skin and sent a jolt of magic through him to cover up any traces of Dorians magical print left behind.
Katherine could still sense a small amount of residual magic from Dorian and sent another jolt of her new magic through the man. Only this time it had been too much, she unintentionally overloaded the dead vampire and the magic she forced into him went out of control.
The vampires' head and both feet exploded with a loud pop as Katherine froze in place with her hands still on his chest. Blood and vampire brains spattered the beach but Katherine got the bulk of it. The creatures blood was speckled and spritzed all over Katherine's face and clothes, bits of brain clung to her cheeks and forehead as she sat in shock, horrified at what just occurred. It was an accident, she hadn't meant to blow him up, in her defense he was already dead.
Katherine could no longer sense any residual magic traceable to Dorian so she hopped up and took off running toward Dorian who had barely made it half way across the beach. She pumped her arms as hard as she could, and willed her feet to fight against the sand to close the gap between them. When she got to him she made a risky gamble and tackled Dorian, but before they hit the sand the air rushed past her face and her ears popped as they landed face first on to the hardwood floor of the apartment kitchen.
Katherine pushed herself up making as Dorian rolled over to his back groaning in pain. Even though she hadn't felt any residual magic from where Dorian had touched the vampire she didn't want to take any chances. She got up from the hard floor and snapped her fingers for all the blood and brains to disappear just as Alice ran into the dimly lit kitchen.
"Kat? Dorian!" Alice exclaimed at the sight of her brother and Katherine, her eyebrows were raised and disbelief was plastered on her face.
Katherine ignored Alice and made her way to Dorians legs, picking them up from the ground. She needed to cloak him so even if there was enough magic to trace him, no one would be able to find him.
"Get his arms, we need to move him to an open space," Katherine ordered Alice, who didn't question her teacher. Alice grabbed onto Dorians arms and hoisted the half conscious teen from the ground making their way into the living room.
"Geez, he's heavier than he looks," Alice commented with knitted brows straining to keep Dorian off the ground enough to not drag his head.
They set him down on the carpet and Katherine snapped her fingers for the rug to roll itself out of the way and the coffee table scooted out of the room. Her body absorbed Dorian's magic converting it to her own but she still needed to be careful with how much she used for each spell. If only she had a piece of witches chalk, she didn't want to spill her blood for a second time in the living room and she would never ask Alice to provide the amount she needed for the spell. Katherine was weighing her options when a sharp knock at the door echoed through the apartment.
Alice moved to get the door but Katherine put her arm out to stop her and shook her head.
"Don't move," Katherine mouthed to Alice while she tried to come up with a way to get them all out of there undetected. Before Katherine could make a coherent thought the apartment door was kicked in with a bang, flying off the hinges and into the kitchen.
Alice let out a high pitched scream and Katherine moved in front to shield her from whoever was coming into the apartment. Katherine felt like she was having deja vu from when she was stabbed in her home. She was not about to let anything bad happen to Alice or Dorian, now that she had some magic she could protect them.
Katherine had assumed it was Guard members at the door and they had traced back her magic to here but she would have never guessed Mabel and Adelaide would be the ones to walk into the apartment.
Mabels thick black boots crunched against the splintered wood from the door frame not caring where she stepped as she made her way to Katherine. Adelaide on the other hand tip toed in her shiny black platformed Mary-janes to avoid any of the wood pieces Mabel had broke.
Mabel towered over Katherine with her arms crossed with a deadpan stare, still in her slacks and lab coat. Adelaide came to stand next to her with her chin pointed up looking at all the lights on the ceiling with her arms behind her back as her black dress swayed around her knees.
"Mom said you are in so much trouble," Mabel taunted with a smirk.