"I got her to stop that. For the moment."
"Yeah," he said, shaking his baggie of shrooms. "I bet you found a way. And, what, you want to know how to break a thrall free?"
"Pretty much."
"Why?" he asked, shrugging. "They don't get forced into what they do. They make the choice willingly."
"He was killing her," I told him. "She was wasting away."
"That's his right, isn't it? They kill them all in the end. They just get to choose when the end is."
"It's different. The situation was different. He was this wrinkly-balled fucker who—"
"Davor?" Arick asked, interest piquing.
"Fuck if I know."
"Don't know a lot of old vampires," he said. "Davor has been around for a while. Last time I saw him, he had two thralls he was leading around on chains."
"Were they thin and transparent?" I asked, anger giving my words an edge.
"Come to think of it," he agreed. "So, you stole a thrall," he said. "And you don't plan to give her back."
"That about sums it up."
"You're one fucked demon, Drex," he said, letting out a whistle as he rose from his couch, walking over toward his bookshelves. He walked his fingers over the spines, mumbling to himself, then finally pulling out an old, dusty book with yellowed edges and a partially ripped material spine. "There's nothing I can do for you when it comes to dealing with the war you likely just started. But there is some anecdotal evidence of breaking enthrallment in the past."
"Anecdotal?"
"Based on journal entries of a once Elsabeth Flannery," he told me, waving the book. "Her sister was enthralled by some vampires about a hundred and twenty years back. But the girls were daughters of a local pastor who knew a thing or two about otherworldly things."
"What'd they do?"
"They tried a great many things," he said, running his fingertips with their chipped black polish down several pages. Almost as if he was reading them that quickly. I wanted to say it was impossible. But Arick had made many impossible things possible before.
"Such as?"
"They prayed over her. They baptized her. They married her off to her ex-beau, thinking the ties of godly matrimony might break the evil ties with the vampire. They didn't," Arick told me.
"How'd they keep her from going insane through all this?"
"Who said she didn't go insane?" he asked, brow arching. "They finally did break the connection, though, after nearly six months of dealing with her unending screaming and psychosis."
"How?"
"They planned a trip. Traveling only by day, making sure they made it to churches before sundown to sleep, keeping her safe from the masters who pursued her."
"And?"
"And that's it. They took her far enough that the enthrallment grew thin and snapped."
"So, you think I could just travel with her?" I asked.
"You'd have to do it quickly. The pain won't go away," he told me. "Eventually, her body will acclimate to the drugs, and the pain will return. Then the screaming will return again. I don't imagine you'd have an easy time transporting a woman shrieking in pain across several states to break the enthrallment. And there is only so many drugs the feeble human body can take," he said, putting the journal under his arm as he went back to the couch.
And I couldn't travel by plane with a pocket full of illicit drugs.
We'd have to travel far and fast on the only mode of transportation available to me at the moment.
My bike.
I'd traveled long distances on it before. I was used to it. Nova? She would be in for a sore ass and thighs for a while.
But it would get her free.
That was what she wanted.
It would be worth it for her.
I had enough cash stashed and accessible to get us by. But since I couldn't go back to the house to collect more, or any of my shit, I was going to need to rely on the hospitality of some of the biker clubs I'd gotten to know through the years on the way across the country.
It was not going to be a pleasant trip on any front. But I could make it happen. That was what mattered.
"I appreciate the information, Arick," I said, nodding.
"Oh, it is never for free," he said, opening the baggy of mushrooms and taking a sniff. I don't know if the bastard picked up on some magical scent or some shit, because the fucker groaned. And I knew for a fact that there was nothing to groan about when it came to the smell of fucking mushrooms. "If you need any supplies for your trip," he said, waving toward his house.
"What would I owe you for that?" I asked, smirking.
"I think I'd like the story," he said, waving toward his bookshelves. "For my collection," he added. "Should you manage a nearly impossible feat, I would like the tell-all story."