What I thought was sheer lust with the moaning and heavy breathing coming from David was Samantha sucking the life out of David literally. His body turned an ash grey and then it shrunk and she threw it to the side like a dirty piece of paper.
My eyes followed his stiff corpse as it landed near the fireplace. “You are dangerous to men,” I said narrowing my eyes. She took it as a compliment. She reveled in her dominance and cold heartiness.
“That’s only if there is nothing I want from them any longer. What good are they?”
“What did you want from Sebastian?” She looked away. Her dark eyes soften as if she had remembered a time when she was in love with him, and he had loved her as well. I didn’t know because he didn’t speak about her in a loving caring way. When he mentioned her name it was as if she was someone he wanted to forget.
“His love. I wanted his love,” she said her voice weak as she turned quickly to face me. Now her eyes were cold. “He gave it to you, and that’s why I will see you dead in the most horrible way. But first Sebastian will die, and you will witness it very soon, and when he can no longer protect you, I will be back for you. When you have forgotten me and gone on with your life, I will be there to take your life from you. Now call your lover.”
And she disappeared into thin air with a wisp of cold air remaining after she left. I shivered from the cold, but then I noticed that the fire had gone out.
It was too late. She knew I had summoned Sebastian and she knew he would come. It was almost daylight. I watched at a grandfather’s clock tick away and now it was seven o’clock, and at seven-ten the sun would rise. I hoped he wouldn’t come for me.
I wished I didn’t have the power to summon him. Why should I think I have that kind of power over a vampire? Who do I think I am? And there was no way Sebastian would commit suicide just to save me.
Placing my head down, I wished him away. He could find another woman like me. It’s not like Samantha harmed me. “Don’t let him come. Please don’t let Sebastian come for me,” I found myself pleading into the air.
When I looked up he was standing before me. My heart fell and broke into a thousand pieces.
Chapter Eighteen-Zoey
“How could you be so stupid as to fall into Samantha’s trap?” I shouted. “Didn’t you hear me wish you away?” I said to Sebastian. He had a look of relief and one of contempt for me.
“It doesn’t work that way. I heard you beg for me to come for you.” He waved his hand and the ropes dropped and I stood. “Now how are you going to get home in five minutes?”
“I can’t.”
Tears poured down my face. “You have to. I can’t make it without you. I need you,” I said. He just stood and watched at me with this sad look on his face as if he would never see me again.
Sebastian took me in his arms. “There is so much I want to tell you, Zoey. But I can’t now.”
“You’re giving up. Isn’t there something you can do? What am I going to do without you?” I questioned looking up at him. I looked in his face and then it came to me. I began remembering that I had seen that face when I was a teen.
“You’re him. You’re the one.” And I watched as the sun crept into the large room and soon the room will be filled with blinding light.
Taking his hand, “Follow me.”
“Where are we going?” he said.
“Down. There must be a basement or cellar some place. Try the doors,” I said rushing to the first door I found. That wasn’t it. Just a closet.
“Not enough protection,” he said. I ran to the kitchen and then I saw a door. I pulled at it but it was locked. “It’s here Sebastian, but it’s locked. It’s a cellar.”
Standing behind me he pulled at the door and the old lock fell to the floor and we stood looking into the dark cellar. Sebastian turned to me, his eyes wide and smiling, and he walked down. I followed.
“Where are you going?” he questioned.
“With you.”
“There are probably rats down here.”
“Then I’ll wait for you until it gets dark.” I closed the door and looked at the kitchen. Thinking about the body of David lying in the room caused me to lose my appetite. I walked slowly back to the living area and sat in the chair. My eyes closed. One moment I wondering what to do with David and the next I’m asleep.
When I woke, I didn’t know how long I had been out. But when I heard a knock at the door, I didn’t rush to open it. I stood behind the door and listened for a voice.
“Zoey, are you there?”
It was Ann. I unbolted the locks on the door, and opened it a little, and peeped out.
“Oh thank God you’re ok,” she said. “Can I come in?”
“Yes.” She looked at me. “Is everything ok with you?”
I opened the door wide. By now I had calmed down and wasn’t walking weak legged. But how could I explain David’s decomposing stiff corpse. When she walked passed the foyer and into the large room I heard a gasp.
“Did you do that?”
“No. Of course not,” I whispered into my hands.
“Who did it?”
“A witch.” She didn’t act as if she was surprised or confused, or thought I was out of my mind. It was as if it was natural to speak of witches with dead bodies.
“Serves him right. Every time a woman dates him, she disappears, and he comes up with some kind of excuse. We suspected something. He just came across the wrong woman, that’s all.” She inhaled and exhaled staring down at him.
I wanted to agree with her, but I wondered how she knew I was still at David’s house. “How did you know I was here?”
“When Dr. Sebastian was waiting for David to arrive, I told him that David met us at the bar across town and that he drove you home last night. If you had seen the Doc’s face?”
“I can imagine,” I said.
“He tried calling you but you didn’t answer, and he left out without David covering for him. I asked the girl at the desk to stay there so I could check on David. I get here and see Dr. Sebastian’s car. You can imagine what I thought. Someone was dead or hurt. Out here if a man finds his wife in another man’s house, and with David’s reputation, it doesn’t end well.”
She walks around me and stoops to look at David. “What a mess and he was kind of cute before this.” Ann glanced around at me, “Where’s the Doc?”
“In the cellar.”
“What’s he doing in the cellar?” She didn’t flinch when I said David was killed by a witch, but she cringed when I mentioned the cellar. So I decided to come clean with her.
“He’s in the cellar because he’s a vampire.”
“Oh. That makes perfect sense then. With the sun up, I can understand.” She blew out a deep breath. That was smart,” Ann said.
“Did you hear me?” I said puzzled and looking at her with my mouth ajar.
“Yeah. Now what are we going to do about David? You can let him lie there and stink up the place. I know. Or I can call Robbie.”
“Who’s Robbie?”
“My boyfriend of course. It won’t take him long to get over here. He likes jobs like this. Kind of weird like that,” she said wrinkling her nose.
I’d say he is, but beggars can’t be choosers. My mother would say. “Do you think he would do that for me?”
“No, but he would do anything for me.” She reached in her pocket for her cell phone and walked to the side and called Robbie. Then she turned to me, “He’s coming.”
Before I could turn and say anything, the bell rang and then a knock. I looked to Ann. “That’s Robbie.”
“Already?”
“He was nearby.” I walked behind her be sure it wasn’t the police she had called. It wasn’t because he was dressed in a leather vest and jeans with tattoos all over his body. Robbie stood over six feet and Ann barely four feet. They looked like an odd couple. More odd than me and Sebastian only in a different way.
“What’s the problem, Ann?” He reached down to ki
ss her and she smacked his face. “Where’ve you been all night?”
“You know I wouldn’t fool around on you precious,” he said. “You’re all I’ve ever wanted.” That was a wonderful picture of him declaring his love for her after she slapped him silly, but I needed David gone like yesterday.
“Ann, please,” I said, “Let Robbie do what he came to do.”
“You want that thing out of here?” He pointed to David’s shriveled up body but looked at me.”
“Get rid of it, Robbie,” I said. “I’ll see that Sebastian takes care of you later. When he wakes up.”
“Did she do this?” He said to Ann. Then taking a look at me.
“No. She’s a human. The only way she could kill him would be to shoot him or another type of lethal weapon. This dude was killed by magic. Black magic. A witch.” Robbie walked to examine the body.
“Yeah. She sucked the life out of him. Which makes her twice as dangerous.” He looked at me. “You have anyone to protect you from that bitch?”
“She has her boyfriend,” Ann said.
“Where is he?” Robbie asked turning to me, but Ann answered.
“He’s in the cellar.”
“Tell him to come up and help me with this. We either have to burn him or bury him.”
“He can’t come up,” I said, “he’s sleeping. Not until dark.” Robbie hoisted David over his shoulder and dropped him inside a sheet which earlier had covered an old tattered sofa. Then he wrapped him in it.
Turning to me he said, “When he wakes up, you can’t be here. You have to go on with your routine as if nothing happened.”
“Don’t you want to know why he’s sleeping in a dark rat infested cellar?”
“Not unless he isn’t a vampire, and he just likes to sleep in a cellar, then in that case I don’t need to know.” He lifted the body up and headed out the door. He kissed Ann and then headed into the rear of the mansion.
“Does Robbie know what Sebastian is?” I asked bewildered.
“Of course he does,” Ann said.
“And that doesn’t bother him?”
“Nothing bothers a werewolf,” she said. Does that bother you?”
“Of course not,” I said straightforward. Why should I be worried about a werewolf when my pretend husband is a vampire, and the woman trying to kill us both is a witch? There was no way I would let a little thing like a werewolf affect me.
After we cleaned up all signs that I had been there, Ann drove back to the hospital to report that she couldn’t find David, and I drove the Land Rover home amidst the pouring down rain. When I reached home, I rushed upstairs and took a shower and dropped into bed. Before I fell into a deep sleep, I wondered when this was going to end.
I woke when I felt a cool body next to mine. When I turned he was staring at me. “Do you know what I should do?”
“No. Tell me.”
“I should put you in time out the way I did when you were a...” He didn’t complete his sentence.
“Did you mean when I was a child. It was your face I remember. You were the one who took care of me.”
“It wasn’t me, you’re wrong. You’re just projecting it on to me. How could you remember something that long ago?”
“I meant when I became a teenager. I remember your face now. I remember living with you in England after you took me away.” He stopped talking and watched at me. Did I uncover something I shouldn’t have? Why did he react when I said I was a child? Was it him who stole me away from my parents and he didn’t want to admit it?
“Why did you take me away to England and abandon me in front of a church? I searched for you for days. I didn’t eat or sleep.” His face changed when he heard the truth from me.
“You want to know too much.” He made a gesture as if he would step out of the bed but I reached for his arm and that stopped him.
“I want to know why you wouldn’t let me live with you. I remember being in love with you when I was fifteen. It was just a crush, but it was real.” Sebastian glared at me. “When are you going to tell me?” I said to him.
“I can’t tell you. I want to make love to you. It will ruin everything between you and me right now.”
“I thought you were angry with me and now you want to make love to me. Well until you are truthful with me, and I can learn the truth about what happen to me when I was a child, and you reveal to me who’s trying to kill me and why, then I don’t want to be near me.” I pushed him away.
Releasing his arm, he stood and watched at me, but he still wouldn’t tell me what I needed to hear.
Chapter Nineteen-Zoey
Somehow I fell asleep. I can’t say when, but it was after I insisted that Sebastian leave me alone. When I rose only to eat, I decided to search his room. I had been there before and found nothing. Maybe this time I could do a more thorough search with more time on my hands.
Where had he gone now? I wondered.
Stumbling into his room tired of eating canned food and no meat, no carbohydrates, I felt light headed and a little weak. I needed some real food. Fresh food anything for digestion. I glanced at my stomach and it appeared bloated.
After this search I had planned to call Ann. I glanced around, nothing. I pulled open the double wood doors and my eyes fell to the last drawer of the handmade chest. Stooping down, I made myself comfortable and sat on the floor and eased the drawers open.
Staring down at nothing but old photographs, I smiled. Some of a bygone era. Men in top hats, bowler hats, and women wearing hoop skirts. I smiled at the idea of long skirts and then the skirts got shorter and the suits turned into jeans and tee shirts as I thumbed through the pictures.
“Is that Sebastian in all those pictures?” I murmured. I took a better look and tried to get some light, but the light was too dim. It sure as hell looked like him. He had all those women. What happen to them I wondered, and then it occurred to me, either they died of a natural death, or was killed by Samantha.
The drawer filled with pictures as I pulled them out and placed them in front of me. I needed to see them. Pictures tell everything. But the eyes are the mirror to the soul.
These were pictures of a time when women had a place and men were kings. Now all the pictures are on phones. All the pictures on his phone were of me, but these were of women I didn’t know. And I’m glad because I would have been so jealous. I could have been like Samantha wanting to kill them if they were with him. My Sebastian, but where is he?
Now looking at these pictures I can accept that he once had a life before me, so I was able to gaze at them and smile knowing these women were dead.
What stories would the women in these pictures tell me?
Reaching for a handful, I lay them before me on the floor and skimmed through them looking for something more telling than a bunch of black and white photos, and a few colored prints.
And then I stopped at one. It was a picture of him in a bowler hat in his hand and holding on to a pretty girl of twenty-two. This photo looked over a hundred years old, but it was as if it was in good shape. I became jealous of the photo and I threw it back in the drawer.
Then there were more pictures of young women and each girl looked as if they were one in the same, but they weren’t, because although they resembled each other, they were indeed different. However, on a closer look it was as if I was seeing myself in those pictures.
Sebastian had never changed. He said he was frozen in time and he was. He stood tall, proud, a beautiful specimen of a young man full of life but pale. He had become a vampire then like he is now with me, but he was happy then. In all his pictures you see a fresh ready smile.
Not like he is now each time I see him. Have I done this to him? I questioned.
Then I came across a photo of a child about five and he and the child were at a carnival, and the child held cotton candy in her hand, and a large stuffed Panda bear and she was holding on to Sebastian’s hand and looking up at him.
They were both smiling and then i
t dawned on me. It was me. I was the child he held by the hand, carried in his arms, against the backdrop of a large Ferris wheel filled with children and mothers and fathers.
“He took me to a carnival.” At first I was upset and then it was a lovely picture. He looked like a father taking his young daughter for an outing. They looked so happy together and he looked like he truly loved her.
It wasn’t me anymore. I had grown up and I didn’t remember any of it. And I’m glad I didn’t because I wouldn’t be able to handle it now. I looked to him as a father figure or big brother, and now he was my lover.
It was enough. I threw the remaining pictures into the cabinet and closed it. I pulled my phone out to call Ann. I hadn’t seen Sebastian for two days and I’m tired of eating pizza, I called Ann.
“What are you doing today?”
“Why, what do you want this time?”
“It’s nothing like that.”
“I should hope so because the sheriff is beginning to ask questions about David,” Ann said to me.
“Did you see Sebastian?”
“We haven’t seen him for a few days. He came in and said that he was resigning, and he would stay for a week until we got someone to replace him, and he would recommend a doctor. Well yesterday we got another doctor and he brought his nurse with him and a replacement staff. They gave me two weeks off with pay. I haven’t had a day off in six years.”
“That’s great, but has anyone else seen Sebastian?”
“One of the hunter’s came in after a routine gunshot wound. He got it from a fellow hunter,” Ann said. I waited until she finally got around to telling me about Sebastian. “He’s hanging out at this bar. It appears he has troubles and he’s drinking.”
“I didn’t know vampires had troubles and can drink like people,” I said.
“They can do almost anything a human can do. And some have feelings. I got that from being around Sebastian. I had never had the experience of knowing a vampire only werewolves. We heard all kinds of stories about them, but he appeared different. Like he had a soul. And one thing I do know, and that is he loves you.” Ann’s voice warm and genuine.
The Soul of a Vampire #1 Page 11
