Page 1 of Auctioned for Her Blood
Chapter One
Ember
“Ember! Hide!”Mom yells. “In the cellar! Now!”
I open my mouth to object—Mom can be soextrasometimes—but her eyes are wide, full of terror. Serious terror.
She tosses the vial of blood she just drew from my arm into the fireplace and smashes the glass with the poker.
“What are you waiting for?” she yells as she runs to the door to make sure it’s locked. “Cellar!”
This isn’t a drill. It’s the real thing, even though I have no idea what thatthingis, only that she’s been preparing me for it since…forever.
Heart galloping, I scramble past her and into her bedroom, and as I enter the room, her massive cherry wood armoire shifts to the side like a feather blown in the breeze. A brass handle appears on one of the thick pine floorboards, just like it has every time she’s run these drills.
The handle is unnaturally cold in the hot humid air, and when I touch it the edges of the cellar door appear in the floor like magic.
Notlikemagic. Itismagic. Magic I don’t understand, and my mother refuses to even name. I’ve had little contact with other people outside my mom, but I’ve read enough books and seen enough TV to know that the things my mother can do aren’t normal.
“Faster!” Mom yells, her arms stretched wide above her. “I can’t hold them off for long!”
I want to ask who “they” are, but don’t. Tugging on the handle, I pull up the door and quickly descend into the cold, dark space of the cellar, and then take a few steps back from the ladder as I wait for my mom to join me.
Above me, the door slams shut and steals the light.
“Mom!” I reach for the ladder to climb back up to her, but it’s gone.
Did I descend theillusionof a ladder, or can she make physical things disappear just like she can move that heavy armoire?
“Mom!” My scream scrapes my throat, but gets no response.
In the blink of an eye, the cracks of light around the cut floorboards vanish, and the armoire lands above me with a thud, moving back into position and landing as if accidentally dropped. Not my mother’s style.
The space around me glows, an ethereal deep blue, like I’m submerged in illuminated smoke, but the glow is thicker than smoke, more like a heavy liquid, and then it dissipates, plunging me back into darkness.
“Where is she?” asks a loud voice above. An unnatural voice, distorted, deep and menacing.
“Who?” my mother answers.
A slam echoes. Dust and dirt falls around me as our house shakes.
“You will pay for your disobedience!”
My mother screams. At least I think it’s my mother, but the piercing sound hurts my ears and stabs my heart. Then the bloodcurdling sound fades, as if all the air behind it was consumed.
I pry my hands off my ears, not sure how they got there.
“Where is she?” another voice shouts and it echoes in my bones.
Who are they looking for?
Me?
Still in total darkness, I want to scream out for my mother, but I’m choked by fear that makes me feel weak and childish. I’m fourteen—fifteen in seven months—and I shouldn’t be cowering in a cellar while my mother is in danger above, especially if she’s doing it for me. I need to save her from whatever monstrous beings attacked our house, attacked her.
Hands in front of me, I search the space. I’ve been down here so many times that I know it by heart, and I reach for the stone foundation to get my bearings, my nostrils filling with musty, humid air as I step forward, moving farther and farther, expecting my hands to strike damp stones at any moment, but the wall isn’t as close as I expect.
In fact, no matter how far I step, I can’t seem to reach the edge of the room. I turn back, moving toward the middle where the ladder and trap door were.
