Blood Bond (PULSE, Book 5) Read Online Free Page B

threatened or killed those who refused. And now we know something about him – at long last. For I doubt this place has any renegades – not if Molotov is as powerful as he was, and I don't doubt he is even as powerful now as then”
    “What's that?” Justin turned to him.
    “He wants Kalina.”
     

 
     
    Chapter 3
     
     
    “ O h, hell no!” Jaegar stood up. “If we're in enemy territory, we need to scrap the plan. We need to get out of here, and fast! I'm not willing to risk my hide – not to mention Kalina's – going toe to toe in our present condition. We haven't got any soldiers – we're on the run, not in any position to attack.”
    “Calm down, Jaegar,” said Octavius. “I haven't finished yet. Jaegar – that village we were in. It did not feel... normal to you, did it?”
    Jaegar shuffled his feet. “Well – no...”
    “Something uncanny about it?”
    Jaegar nodded. “Something about that girl – you saw it too, didn't you, Octavius? It reminded me of a place I'd been long ago. I went to Thailand about two hundred years ago to scout out vampire recruits for Octavius. It was a busy place then – chaotic, noisy. Western merchants and Eastern peasants – so much was going on. But as I walked along the shores into the jungle one day, I found myself in a place of...no, peace isn't the right word. Silence. Solitude. Where I felt more alone than I had ever felt before in all my hundreds of years alive. But yet I was not alone – I felt that rather I was surrounded by something that both was and was not...existing. That was and was not alive, was and was not dead. It was the strangest feeling, and I remember it still. I remember leaving the village as quickly as I could, convinced nothing but danger or worse could be found there. And I never had such a sensation again. Not until tonight. That village the girl took us to...it wasn't...it was empty, but it wasn't empty. Do you understand?”
    “Yes, Jaegar,” Octavius nodded. “I understand completely. I thought the same thing. I have been to such places – places that feel as if they are on the edge of the world. Deep in the Russian mountains, for example, I have seen a village such as this one. And a strange sight it was.”
    “I don't understand,” Kalina broke in. “What do you mean, dead or alive?”
    “In Mongolia,” Octavius began, “there are many villages scattered along the steppes. Few outsiders have ever seen such a village; fewer still have lived long enough to make it back to their homes. I am not surprised that there might be, among these villages, one which all have forgotten. Time and chance. All except for the ghosts.”
    “That girl....” Jaegar furrowed his brow. “She told me I had to help her. She said vampires were attacking her village, that I had to follow – but...nobody! And yet she felt so real. She didn't sound like she was lying.”
    Octavius gave a knowing smile. “I know you are an old vampire, Jaegar,” he said. “But you are still young yet. And you can still experience new things. A rare pleasure, I think, for a vampire. And one I too am encountering. For I have heard of such things, Jaegar, but never have I before experienced them. I believe that, Jaegar, you have encountered a ghost village. And a particularly pained one at that – one that has suffered an incredible loss, experienced incredible pain – at the hands of renegades or else Molotov's men.”
    “Ghosts?” Jaegar scoffed. “Humans can't have ghosts; why, they're barely more than...” He looked around at Justin and Kalina. “I mean, of course humans have some life force. But...ghosts? Humans aren't nearly so special as to have supernatural powers. And those vampires showing up just in time when we left?”
    “They may have attempted a false alarm,” said Octavius. “But that girl, I believe, was real. Although that does not excuse our absence. Real or not, we owe it to luck that Justin was able to help stave off – stake off,