Chapter 1
Three days later…
"Please don't make us go back to that place again, Savy," Emma pleaded with the woman as she led them back inside the inn.
"Yeah, Slavica. That guy in there kept giving me the creeps," Ryan said.
"I didn't like him either," Travis chimed in.
"Enough, children," Slavica told her seven charges. "Your mother and I both agreed that you all need some religion in your lives. Now I've been going to this church for almost a year now and Father Bastian has been there since the beginning. He's a priest. He's devoted his life to the service of others. How can you possibly think he's a bad guy?"
Before anyone could answer, a scream was heard coming from the back alley behind the inn. "Inside children, now." Slavica frantically rushed the children through the front door. "Go straight to Gary and don't stop anywhere else. Do you understand?" Slavica didn't have to repeat herself. The children were already rushing to Gary's room.
"Mother!!!" Slavica heard her daughter scream her name.
"Angelina what happened?" Slavica called back as she rushed towards the scream.
"Mother come quickly!"
Slavica ran to the back door to see what her daughter was screaming about. That's when she saw her. On the ground, a woman was lying naked in the mud. Around her neck was a golden collar covered in blood. She looked badly beaten, and she was struggling for breath and mumbling incoherently.
"Angelina, get your father and Jubal Sanders. We need to get her inside."
Slavica yelled into the hallway. "Gary you keep them safe in there and don't let those children out of your sight! Don't let them leave the room for any reason!" She didn't have time to wait for an answer. She had to trust that Gary would keep the children occupied. That woman could die if they didn't act now.
Several minutes later they had the woman in one of their vacant rooms. The woman was delirious. Her skin was hot to the touch and she was sweating blood. The sweat had already stained the thin sheet they had draped over her to cover her nakedness. "Ice!" Slavica barked the order to no one in particular. "I need ice and lots of it. We have to cool her down." Her husband Mirko came back about a minute later with a huge bag from the freezer. "Drape the bag over her chest." The instant the ice touched her skin, the woman on the bed jerked and started shivering uncontrollably.
"Cold. So cold." The woman's spoken words were barely audible.
"I know its cold, dear heart. I'm sorry, but we have to get the fever down. Your skin is so hot I could fry eggs on it."
The woman on the bed shook her head violently. "Not hot. Cold. So cold. Always so cold. Inside. Soul so cold. Can't let him die. Can't let him die."
"Who? Who's going to die?" A scream ripped through the stranger's throat and she started convulsing. I guess I'll find out later, Slavica thought to herself. "Jubal! Mirko! Hold her down!" Slavica shouted to the men. "We don't want her hurting herself." The men held her down until the convulsions stopped. "The girl needs a healer. We have to keep her awake until Gregori or someone else can get here. We can't take her to a hospital. She's not human. Not if my bloody sheet is anything to go by."
Slavica looked at the ice bag Mirko had placed on the woman's chest. It had all melted in less than a minute. "Mother this isn't working!" Angelina was crying hysterically.
Jubal grabbed the battered woman's head and forced her to meet his gaze. "We can't help you unless you tell us what's wrong. What do we do?"
"Can't breathe. Need air." The woman pushed Jubal away from her and grabbed at the golden collar around her neck. The smell of burning flesh reached Jubal's nostrils. Smoke emanated from the woman's hands. Jubal wrenched her hands off the collar only to find them blackened and burned.
"It's the collar. It must be laced with vampire blood. It's amazing she can even speak. We have to get it off her."
Mirko grabbed some gardening gloves from a cabinet and put them on. He walked over to examine the collar. "Hold her still; I have to take a look." With the gardening gloves protecting him from being burned too quickly, he ran a finger around the collar. "There is no break in the metal. I can't get it off. It's like it's welded on. We'd have to cut off her head to remove it."
"Can't breathe. Too tight." The words were coming now in short gasps. The collar was shrinking around her throat.
"Her skin is getting hotter." Slavica announced after she burned her palm on the woman's arm.
"That's it!" Jubal exclaimed. The hotter she gets the tighter the collar is." He turned to Mirko. "Get me a fire extinguisher and a thick dry towel."
"I'm on it." Mirko rushed into the kitchen and ran back with the items Jubal requested.
"Slavica, I need you to hold this towel over her face but make sure she still gets air."
As Slavica followed Jubal's instructions, he prepared the fire extinguisher. "Okay everybody. Close your eyes and hold your breath. Slavica don't let her move." With that Jubal released the catch on the fire extinguisher and aimed a steady stream of the foam straight at the collar. After about ten seconds of the woman shaking and kicking, he stopped spraying and put the fire extinguisher down. "Alright, now that that's over, let's see if it worked." Jubal carefully approached the woman now shivering on the bed. He took the towel from Slavica and used it the grab the collar. The collar crumbled to dust at the first touch.
The woman gasped, filling her lungs with much needed air. Then her rescuers watched in stunned silence as she flung herself off the bed, collapsed onto the floor and screamed as her body erupted in flames.