A Shade of Vampire 22: A Fork of Paths by Bella Forrest Read Free Book Online

Elder’s ethereal form.
    “Basilius?” Julie breathed.
    “You failed me, girl.” His voice turned to ice.
    “I-I’m sorry,” she stammered, her knuckles stark white as they gripped the boom.
    Basilius moved closer to her, and before she could even leap away, his mist enveloped her body. Her eyes bulged and her lips parted, shock flashing across her face. And then the Elder emerged again, almost as fast as he had apparently been forced to exit from the monsters beneath us. “You see,” Basilius continued, “the Novak boy was our only hope. He was the one I was meant to inhabit and now he is lost to us forever.”
    “What?” Julie and I gasped at once.
    “The vial,” he hissed. “He drank from the vial you left in his pocket. His body is now useless! He is dead!”
    Benjamin. Dead. The words hit me like a punch in the gut. My already wrecked heart had just been ripped further.
    And what vial? I hadn’t even been aware that Benjamin was carrying a vial. He’d never mentioned it to me… then again, he’d never talked to me much. He only ever spoke to me when he needed to.
    Did he really commit suicide?
    Despite the way he shoved aside my advances and made it painfully obvious that he neither liked me nor wanted me around, I couldn’t help but become attached to him during the time we spent together. I might have even loved him. Tears heated the corners of my already sore and bloodshot eyes.
    “You see that I cannot inhabit you—a regular vessel,” the Elder continued his chastisement of Julie. “Or even the Bloodless.”
    The Bloodless? I gazed back down over the pale creatures. That’s what the Elders call these things? I eyed their stark white skin. They certainly looked bloodless.
    “What are the Bloodless exactly?” Julie asked, feebly, jerking her head down toward the creatures who were still distracted, staring at the Elder.
    I wasn’t sure what made the Elders think that they could inhabit the Bloodless, if they weren’t even strong enough to inhabit regular vampires. If what Basilius had just told us was really true—that Benjamin was gone—this Elder was running only on the strength he’d built up during the time that he was able to gain sustenance from Benjamin’s blood consumption. I guessed that this leftover strength was the only reason that he was even able to travel to this ship. Evidently, they were desperate. They must have hoped that this strange species of monster would be easily inhabitable by them… their natures were certainly infused with the same evil.
    Now their hopes had been dashed to the ground. Whatever these dark creatures were, at least the Elders weren’t able to inhabit them. Due to Basilius’ bond with Benjamin, the Elder had been able to influence and gain strength from him, but with Benjamin dead, it seemed that the Elders truly had lost their final hope of a resurgence. For without vessels even one of them could inhabit, they had no means of procuring new blood or resuscitating themselves.
    “What are these creatures?” I asked the question a second time, for Basilius had still not answered Julie. Of course, the Elder had no reason to reply to a jinni, or to Julie, considering how angered he was by her. The fury in his voice was almost tangible. Julie was lucky that he was too weak to occupy her, otherwise I was sure that the punishment he would have meted out on her would have been hell. Maybe even on par with vampire-zombies ripping into her.
    Still, the question plagued my mind. What exactly are the Bloodless?
    The Elder refused to answer. With another hiss of frustration, he jerked away from Julie and began whirling round and round the ship before he vanished. Almost instantly the temperature became warmer again, and the pleasant, mild breeze returned. As though someone had just flicked a switch, Julie, the monsters and I resumed the positions we’d been in before the Elder’s interruption had paused time.
    Julie began to scramble further up the