Blood Roses

by J A Cummings

  “That’s horrible.”

  “That’s not the half of it. She’s got this incubus slave, and she gave me to him to command, so I’ve got two owners now. And when they put their heads together, they can make me do things I don’t want to do.”

  “Like attack a kind lady’s door?”

  Chester nodded. “Exactly that.”

  Heinrich went to the fireplace and held his hands out toward the flame. It did nothing to warm the cold that was a constant part of him, but the memory of a time when it did was almost good enough to make him happy. He sighed. “I wonder how we get the lady to release the Markers on you and on the vampire lad in Miss Rowena’s cabin.”

  “She won’t,” Chester told him. “You’ll have to kill her to get her to let it go, and she’s powerful.”

  “I would imagine that the resort would frown on guests killing one another,” Heinrich mused. “As much as you can, please stay inside and don’t bedevil Miss Rowena. Now that it’s daylight, I have something I must do.”

  Chester walked him to the door. “If you’re going to try to kill her in her sleep, just remember she’s ancient and powerful. She’ll wake up, and she’ll probably kill you instead.”

  Heinrich chuckled. “Considering I’m already dead, I suspect she’ll find that somewhat difficult to do.” He saluted, his hand going to the place where his forehead used to be. “I shall return, my friend.”

  The Headless Horseman considered going to Julia’s room and ending her while the daylight rendered her helpless, but it struck him as unsporting and cruel to do such a thing. Instead, he went to the administrator’s office at the center of the island.

  There was a brown-skinned earth elemental at the front desk, busily preparing the latest brochures to be sent out on the next cargo plane. Heinrich waited politely until the elemental had a moment to spare. When he at last paused in his busy work, the horseman spoke.

  “Excuse me. May I speak to the administrator?”

  The elemental looked at him, then said, “He’s busy.”

  “I see.” Heinrich sat in one of the lobby chairs.

  “He’ll be busy all day,” the elemental told him archly.

  “I can wait. The day will end, and then he’ll leave his office and I can speak to him then.”

  “Seriously?”

  Heinrich would have smiled. “Seriously.”

  The elemental stared at him, then sighed, recognizing that as a ghost, Heinrich literally had nothing but time. He picked up the phone and called the administrator.

  “Someone very determined to see you, sir.” His dark eyes flicked up to Heinrich, then back down to his brochures. “Yes, sir.”

  The horseman stood. “Well?”

  “He’ll see you. Go ahead.”

  “Thank you.”

  He went into the office, where the administrator sat. “Hello, Lieutenant,” the man greeted, standing. He wore the white clothing and elaborate necklaces of a voodoo priest. “Anton Duval. And you are?”

  “Heinrich Schultz.”

  They shook hands, then they both sat down. Heinrich could sense the energy of an old vampire in the chair he occupied, and it made his seat twitchy.

  Duval smiled. “How can I help you, Lieutenant Schultz?”

  “I’m sorry to bring a complaint to you, but one of your guests is sending her thralls to harass another guest.”

  The voodoo priest raised an eyebrow. “Indeed. That’s most unneighborly. Are you the guest being bothered?”

  “No. The one being ‘bothered’ has the bungalow next to mine on the eastern shore.”

  “I see. It’s very kind of you to bring this to my attention, but…”

  Heinrich knew he was about to be dismissed, so he played his trump card. “There attacking thrall did damage to resort property.”

  As he knew it would, that new captured Duval’s attention. The man’s dark eyebrows rose toward his hairline. “Indeed. And which guest and which thrall…?”

  “The thrall is Chester the chupacabra, who has rented bungalow three in on the east shore, just down from mine. He damaged the door on bungalow two. His Mistress is a vampire named Julia.”

  Duval heaved a sigh. “I see. Well… I shall take this seriously, I assure you. But why are you the one reporting this incident instead of the guest who was the target?”

  “Some guests are shy,” Heinrich shrugged. “I am not.”

  “I see,” he said again. He gripped the arms of his chair. “Is there anything else?”

  “Actually…” He hadn’t intended to ask this, but given the person he was speaking with, he thought it appropriate. “Voodoo involves curses, does it not?”

  Duval smiled. “On occasion.”

  “Do you understand how to undo a curse that’s been placed upon someone?”

  “Depends on the curse,” he shrugged. “Sometimes.”

  “What about the curse that keeps a creature as an unwilling thrall to a despotic vampire mistress?”

  The administrator chuckled. “I take it you want to free this chupacabra from his mistress’s control?”

  “Among others, yes. I’m told the vampire in question travels with six slaves. I’m told additionally that slavery was outlawed in this resort back in 1834.”

  Duval nodded. “That’s very true.” He frowned. “Lieutenant Schultz, please understand. We do our best to offer a human-free retreat to all the monsters of the world, and we take our clients as we find them. If they keep slaves in the outside world, it’s not our right to force them to relinquish those slaves once they set foot upon the island.”

  Heinrich tilted his shoulders as he would have tilted his head. “Why not?”

  “Frankly? Because monsters who are powerful and rich enough to have slaves are often power and rich enough to resist whatever we might bring to bear against them.”

  He sighed. “I understand. One mustn’t alienate the richest of one’s paying customers. It cuts into return business.”

  Duval sighed. “Exactly.”

  Heinrich rose. “I’m sorry that you feel that way. What this vampire is doing on your premises is unfortunate and distasteful. It’s a shame you’re not dedicated enough to your own laws to ensure that they’re obeyed.” He bowed slightly. “Good day, Mr. Duval.”

  “Good day, Lieutenant Schultz.”

  The horseman left the office, but as he left, he heard Duval buzz the elemental at the front desk. “Look and see if there’s a vampire named Julia on the island, and if so, where she’s staying.”

  Heinrich closed the door, and he would have smiled if he’d still had his head.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lucius woke slowly, feeling the torpor of day sliding away from his limbs. He could feel a warm feminine body beside him, and he opened his eyes. Rowena was lying quietly, her beautiful green eyes closed. Her long black lashes fanned over her cheekbones, and she looked like a princess from a fairytale. He wondered if he could or should wake her with a kiss, and if he did, how she would react.

  He was spared the necessity of following through on his musing when she stirred and opened her eyes to look at him. She smiled, and he felt overwhelmed by emotions he had thought himself no longer capable of feeling. There were a million things he wanted to ask her, but the thoughts collided and crowded one another until he was unable to speak and simply held his silence.

  “How do you feel?” she asked him in her soft voice.

  He answered honestly. “Grateful, and a bit confused.”

  She frowned. “Confused about what?”

  “About you.”

  Rowena sat up, and he noticed, not for the first time, the swell of her ample bosom. “How so?” she asked.

  He took a breath. “Why are you helping me? It would have been easier for you to just leave me on that bench and let it end. Instead, you got involved, and now you’re…” He didn’t know what he wanted to say. A target? A part of a drama she didn’t have to experience? He couldn’t finish his thought.

 
“I’m a witch, but a white witch,” she told him. “It’s in my nature to help. Besides, there’s something about you.”

  “Something about me?” he echoed.

  “I had to get involved.” Rowena looked into his eyes, then suddenly flushed and looked away. It was utterly charming. She said softly, “I’m attracted to you, and… I feel as if I know you, somehow. That I might have already met you. It’s ridiculous, I know…”

  “It’s not ridiculous.” He reached out and touched her face. Her skin was like silk. “It’s something I feel, too. Perhaps we did know one another before, somehow, someway. The moment I saw you at that ball, mask or not, I knew I had to know you better, just like I knew I never could. That’s why I went to that bench. I couldn’t bear the thought of a life that didn’t have you in it.”

  Rowena’s mouth fell open, and she started to speak. He silenced her with a gentle finger on her lips.

  “Please, let me finish before I lose my nerve. I am honored and touched beyond my ability to express it that you are going to such lengths to try to free me. Liberty is something that I’ve longed for since the Revolution, and it’s something I thought would always elude me. You make me feel as if I really could someday be free.”

  She took his hand and pulled his fingers away from her lips. “You can be. You will be. It’s just a matter of figuring out how to do it.”

  He squeezed her hand gently. “If I could be free, I would sacrifice it all to be with you.”

  Rowena leaned forward and kissed him, and he wrapped her in his arms, bearing her down into his welcoming embrace. She came willingly, draping her body over his. They kissed with desperate passion, clinging to one another in the conviction that a moment like this one would never come again.

  His desire for her stirred, and he knew that she could feel it pressing against her. She pushed into him, her hip against his stiffening manhood, and he pulled her closer, longing for more contact. She ran her hand down his side, then beneath him to cup his buttock and pull him up toward her.

  Lucius broke the kiss and stared into her eyes. He saw lust there, clearly, and perhaps he was deluding himself, but he thought that he saw love. He whispered the only words left to say.

  “May I love you?”

  She smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  They made love for hours, their need for one another driving them to dizzying heights of pleasure before they finally fell still. Rowena lay with her head pillowed on his chest, and Lucius revelled in how she made him feel alive. He stroked her arm with his hand while they lay together.

  Their afterglow was broken by a grumpy-sounding Grendel. “Have you figured it out yet?”

  He had forgotten her familiar, and he wondered how much the creature had witnessed. Rowena was completely unfazed, though, and asked, “Figured what out?”

  “Where were you in the year 79?”

  Lucius blinked. “I was Made in 81.”

  “I didn’t ask about 81,” Grendel said acidly. “I asked about 79. Where were you that year, both of you?”

  They answered in unison. “Verona.”

  The lovers looked at one another in surprise. Grendel walked to the bed, stepped up onto the mattress, and stood over them.

  “You, Rowena, were still learning the healing arts, and you were with your teacher Izelda in Verona. You were practicing on the injuries among the gladiators in the arena.”

  Lucius looked at her in surprise. “I was fighting there from 78 through 81.”

  “Were you ever injured?” she asked.

  Grendel laughed. “Honey, he was a gladiator. What do you think?”

  As if the familiar hadn’t spoken, Lucius nodded. “Yes. Many times.”

  Rowena looked at the grimalkin. “You weren’t with me then. How…?”

  “When you took me as a new familiar, I inherited the memories of the familiars you’d had before. I know every minute of every day you’ve been alive, my dear.” He put a big grey paw on Lucius’s chest. “This white line here. You tended the wound that left that scar. And he was wearing a heavy helmet so you never saw his face. But your souls…”

  She stared at the Roman in her bed. “But my soul met you and bonded with you that day. I remember. But you were delirious, and there were so many wounded, and they took you away before I could ever learn your name.”

  Lucius felt memories pouring through him, things he had tried for years not to remember. “I woke feeling different. Bereft. Until then, I’d never been lonely, but the day after I received this wound, I woke feeling… cut in two.”

  Rowena stroked Grendel’s fur, but she never took her eyes away from Lucius’s face. “I’ve been looking for you since that day.”

  The grimalkin pulled away from her and jumped down. “Soul mates. Bond mates. Whatever you want to call yourselves. Now you know why you’ve never been able to find the right boyfriend, Rowena, and Lucius, now you know why you’ve been so empty inside.” He flopped down beside the hearth. “Congratulations. Now do something about staying together, because if I have to listen to another 1900 years of her bellyaching, I swear…”

  Lucius no longer cared what her familiar was saying, or what he saw. He put his hands into Rowena’s black curls and pulled her down again.

  Chapter Fourteen

  A deeply annoyed Julia emerged from her bedchamber to face a smiling Anton Duval. The voodoo priest was sitting on her sofa, his outstretched ankles crossed, and he looked too comfortable. She stood before him and folded her arms.

  “Yes, Mr. Duval?”

  “I’ve received a complaint about one of your slaves.”

  She sighed theatrically. “Bonded companions.”

  He nodded. “Slaves.”

  Julia tapped her foot. “What of it?”

  “First of all, slavery is not permitted on this island. As soon as you and your ‘bonded companions’ arrived, they were free men and women.”

  She heard Hegula gasp, and she leveled a wicked glare on the witch, who wisely looked away. “That was not my understanding. I was never told such a thing when I arranged this trip.”

  “Most people don’t travel with slaves anymore,” Duval told her. “This is a more enlightened time.”

  “We’re monsters.”

  “We still have ethics.”

  Julia made a disparaging sound and waved her hand. “What complaint?”

  “Your chupacabra has caused damage to resort property.”

  “So?”

  “So, if he’s your slave, and if he was acting under your control or on your orders, then the bill for the repair comes to you. If he was free, then all of your slaves are free, and you won’t have to pay for the repairs, but you will have to release them.” The amiable light in his eyes turned cold. “Now.”

  “I will do neither. You can’t prove whether my bonded companion acted on his own or under my orders, and you certainly can’t force me to abandon my property.”

  Duval uncrossed his ankles and stood up. “I see. Well, the chupacabra in question was interviewed, and he states that what he did was directly due to your order, as delivered by an incubus that you have enslaved.”

  At the doorway, Mario said calmly, “That would be me.” Julia hissed at him, and he smiled.

  “I’m sorry to do this, Ms. Caratacus, but if you don't abide by the laws and regulations of the Bermuda Triangle Monster Resort, we’re going to have to ask you to leave.”

  Julia took a step toward Duval. “How dare you!”

  He stood tall and stared her down. “Very easily.”

  “I will pay for the damage that the chupacabra did,” she said archly, “but I will not release my thralls.”

  “As you wish. I will expect you to be on the first transport off the island in the morning.”

  She gaped at him in outrage. “I can’t travel in daylight!”

  Duval smirked. “Then I suppose you might have to rethink your answer.”

  Mario said, “I’ll put you in your coffin and carr
y you. You’ll be fine.”

  “Unless you choose to stay here,” Duval told the incubus. “You’re all free to do as you please. If you want to leave with her and continue as you are, that’s your choice, but know that if you want to stay and be free… that’s your choice, too.”

  Her thralls were all lined up against the wall, and they looked at one another. Julia glared at them, trying to exert her will to force them to stay silent, but Lora and Harry immediately left the line up and vanished from sight. She yanked the chains connecting them to her and brought them back.

  Duval said, “Apparently they want to go.”

  “I will not release them.”

  “Then I will escort you to the airport tomorrow morning.”

  “What about my missing thrall?” she demanded. “If he’s not back in time, do I just leave him here?”

  The voodoo priest strolled toward the door. “Any property left behind on the island after the guest has left is considered abandoned and falls until the control of the resort,” he advised, quoting the fine print on the booking paperwork. “So the answer is yes.”

  Julia trembled with rage. “I won’t release my hold on him.”

  “That’s too bad.” He turned and smiled at her again, his hand on the knob. “Fat lot of good it’ll do you to have that hold when you’re out there and he’s in here. You have a good night, now.”

  As soon as the administrator had gone, she turned a horrific glare onto her thralls. Lora and Harry cringed, but Mario just leaned against the wall with his arms crossed.

  “Bring me Chester,” she snarled. “Now.”

  Heinrich went to Chester’s door and knocked. After a long moment, the chupacabra emerged.

  “May I come in?” the horseman asked politely.

  “Sure.” Chester stood aside so he could enter, then locked the door again. His wrists were swollen with livid red marks all around them, and he was limping badly.

  “What happened to you?” Heinrich asked him, concerned.