A nurse was quick to enter, to administer the IV and the blood transfusion again. After her vivid dream this process, which she had undergone before in her life, just traumatized her further. Taking someone else’s blood into her body just to sustain itself kept Vincent’s words bouncing around in her head until her skin crawled. She cursed Michael for sending the nurse back into the room. To punish him, Adele told her to take the crucifix from the wall. It was a useless piece of metal at that point anyway. Learning one was the offspring of evil made one skeptical of the power of a piece of tin. After all, her mother’s many statues had done nothing to keep her safe.
The nurse seemed reluctant to do as she asked, but she understood that with Adele’s history it was best to humor her.
As she finished up, Roman knocked at the door. He pushed it open without waiting for her reply. The nurse didn’t like the intrusion. “Miss Lumas is not up for visitors,” she told him tersely.
“It’s okay,” Adele insisted and motioned for Roman to sit. The nurse left them alone after the briefest of hesitations.
“What can I do for you, Roman?” Adele asked after she’d gone.
“You can tell me everything you know.”
She just smirked. “No, I can’t. We tried that before, remember?”
“He’s gone,” Roman interrupted. “Vincent escaped when they took him to the ER for his arm.”
The memory of what happened to her brother filled her instantly with rage. The kinship and bond she had with Vincent should have taken a lifetime to build, but it turned out nine months in a shared womb was enough. “Well, they wouldn’t have had to do that if they hadn’t broken his arm in the first place.” He didn’t respond. “So what makes you think I know anything? Why aren’t you out questioning Dense Carter? Vincent was her informant.”
“I would,” Roman stated flatly. “If I could get in touch with her.”
The news didn’t sit well with Adele. Roman tossed the bag with the bloody handkerchief on the bed. “So anything you tell me could really help me make sure nothing happens to her. Considering you were the last one to see her, and this seems to be a running pattern.”
A knock interrupted their conversation. It was the nurse, and Nicholas stood behind her. “I told him no more visitors, but he was insistent.”
As usual, just seeing Nicholas did a lot to improve her mood. She smiled and nodded her approval. The nurse scowled as Nicholas brushed passed her and rushed to Adele’s side. “I came as soon as I heard,” he said, taking her injured hand in his. He glanced across the bed to where Roman sat.
Adele made the appropriate introductions. Both men sized each other up, and Nicholas noticed the handkerchief on the bed. He said nothing. “Roman was just leaving,” Adele said, shooting a pointed glance at Roman.
Roman nodded, grabbed the bag and stood. “You know where to find me if you need me.”
Nicholas was on the bed holding her before Roman could make it out the door. “My poor baby,” he crooned in her ear. “Did he hurt you?”
She shook her head.
“What happened?
She shrugged. “I went to see – I went to see the suspect of the child murders.”
Nicholas looked shocked by the very idea. “Why would you do that, Adele?”
Her sad eyes met his. “How could I not?”
He just sighed as he lifted her hands into his own. They just seemed to fit together, as though made for each other. Adele was overwhelmed by that. He turned her palms upward to examine the injury. “I should have insisted you get this looked at,” he muttered. “Forgive me for being selfish.” His eyes met hers. “Thinking I could save you. I should know better than that by now.”
Tears ran down her face as she reached up for him. “Don’t blame yourself, Nicholas. I love you for trying,” she whispered, her face buried in his sweet smelling skin.
He crushed her to him, overcome by emotion. “Promise me something,” he whispered.
She was ready to say, “Anything,” but a softly spoken command rendered her silent. “Never see that man again.”
Her heart stopped. No matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t promise that to Nicholas. Instead she just clutched him tighter and prayed he would understand.
Michael went immediately to Vincent’s bookstore. Cops were already there, swarming the place. He could tell from the bits and pieces of their various conversations that Vincent had escaped. They were scouring the joint for any clues they could find to point them in the direction in which he was hiding.
Michael made himself as inconspicuous as possible. Wearing mostly black that was easy to do. He rounded the building to the alleyway. The boys in blue were all over the building top to bottom, front to back, so Michael instead bounded up the fire escape of a nearby building.
He made it to the roof and hunched down to watch the activity. Police carried out boxes of stuff, books, papers and personal belongings.
Just then a hand snaked around his neck and clamped across his mouth. Michael fought but the man holding him was much too strong. He turned Michael to face him, and Michael immediately stopped fighting. It was Vincent.
“If you love Adele, you won’t scream,” he whispered.
Michael just nodded.
Vincent withdrew a package from his coat. “When the time is right, she will need this,” Vincent said, handing it to Michael.
“She’ll want to get it from you,” Michael insisted.
Vincent nodded. “I wanted to give it to her. But things have changed now. And I may not get that opportunity.”
“If you’re innocent…”
Vincent just shook his head. “No one will want to believe the truth, Father. They will want to hang a killer of flesh and blood.”
Michael couldn’t argue. “She needs you,” was all he could say.
“No, she needs you,” Vincent corrected. “He knows who she is now. He will stop at nothing to get to her.”
“But who is he?”
“Hey! Up there on the roof!”
Both men hunched down as the police on the ground caught sight of them. “Protect her,” Vincent told Michael as turned to leave. “And protect that little girl.”
With that he ran across the roof and sailed over the side.
Michael tucked the package under his coat and made a hasty departure down the fire escape.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Dani nudged open the hospital door with her wheelchair. Adele was so frightfully pale she nearly disappeared against the white hospital bedding. Dani had never seen her so wane. She wheeled herself over to Adele’s side and just watched her sleep.
To Dani, Adele was a hero. She had saved her from her biological mother and given her love where there was abuse.
Dani remembered all too well what it felt like, living with someone she could never predict to be the same person from one minute to the next. Sometimes her mother would cook hot cereal, read her bedtime stories and tuck her into bed. But other times, most times, her mother was loud and cruel. She’d scowl at Dani that it was all her fault they were living hand to mouth. She’d mumble about how she could have run far away if she didn’t have a brat to feed, then she’d drink herself into unconsciousness on the cheap whiskey that cost more than any food she’d ever bought Dani.
Dani remembered all too well seeing her mother face down on the linoleum floor, a band strapped around her arm, her own skin so gray that Dani was certain that she’d died.
And, God help her, it was what she secretly hoped for, especially after her mother began to dress her up and parade her around those scary old men who would give her mother handfuls of cash just to have her sit on their laps.
Dani barely even spared her mother a second thought these days. It wasn’t worth the pain and the anger that always rose up in her throat, nearly strangling her with its intensity.
Instead she chose to think about Adele, Michael and Adam. They were her real family.
They were the ones who never said
a cross word to her, even though she did not make it easy on them in the beginning. She had trusted no one. The only person she could love was baby Adam, who was still so sick being born to a drug-addicted mother. He needed her. Everyone else, she concluded, was just out to use her.
But Adele and Michael didn’t give up. They visited her even when she wouldn’t spare them a word. They took her places kids should go, ice cream parlors and the park and the movies, even when she refused to show them how happy it made her to go all the places all the other kids from school would brag about going, and places she’d never before gone.
They were the ones who told her that she wasn’t a mistake, that she wasn’t a problem or brat or imposition. Instead they tried to show her that she was wanted and loved. They would hug her when she would stand stiff as a board in their embrace. Adele was the one who took her to each and every therapy session, and never ask her once how they went. For months Adele and Michael would be there if she ever wanted to talk, which she never did. But somehow it was a comfort just to know that she could if she chose to. She just made sure she never let on.
Michael and Adele were the ones who stayed in that courtroom when she had to testify all the horrible things her own mother had done. Dani remembered the tears that ran down Adele’s face as she listened to the horrifying young life Dani had to endure. When it was over Adele hugged Dani so tightly Dani could barely breathe. “I am so proud of you,” she whispered and Dani finally let the last walls down. She threw her arms around Adele and finally let the anguish of her brief six years free. They stood there for what seemed like forever, but Michael and Adele wouldn’t move or even allow anyone else to interrupt the important moment.
When Adele finally told the courts that she wanted custody of her, Dani couldn’t have been happier. The months that followed Adele fought as ferociously for custody as she fought for any story. It was the fight of her life, she said more than once. And Adele was confident that the courts would agree that placing Dani into her permanent care was the best thing for her. No one could understand Dani like Adele, or appreciate the special challenges her life would bring to any parent.
Neither one of them could have been prepared for the Child Protective Services worker to give testimony against Adele’s adoption request. Both looked shell-shocked as the evidence of Adele’s suicide attempt and subsequent psychiatric hospital stay were dropped like bombs in the courtroom. When the judge rendered his verdict, he was compassionate but clear. He could not, in good conscience, put an emotionally damaged girl like Dani into the custody of a woman who clearly had severe emotional problems of her own.
Dani wailed a haunting, “No!” into the courtroom. It echoed against every wall and bounced off every desk and chair. The CPS worker had to drag Dani kicking and screaming from her seat beside Adele, who was so devastated she could barely speak. Michael pleaded to the worker that she give Adele and Dani at least one moment to say goodbye. She finally relented, and Adele produced a gift bag she had saved for the day the courts would let Dani come home. In that moment Adele understood that day would never come.
The pink teddy bear Dani pulled from that bag had been her constant companion ever since. The courts may not have seen things the same way, but Dani was convinced that families of the heart were much stronger than families on paper.
She was lucky; she got to choose her mother.
And there her mother lay, so sick and so fragile. It broke Dani’s heart.
Why did she always have to lose the ones she loved? First Adam, now Adele. Just when she got on her feet, life wanted to pull the rug out from under her all over again.
What had she done that God hated her so much?
Dani’s mind returned to the night of her own attack. She was fortunate that she survived, unlike those other poor kids who were killed. But the devil had come to claim her, no one could tell her any different.
There was no one that could convince her now the bogeyman wasn’t real. She’d seen him, up close and personal. Every time she closed her eyes she could still see him. She could feel his breath on her neck. She could feel the sharp teeth digging into her flesh.
Dani stood on wobbly legs to get closer to Adele. Her fingers brushed the hair away from Adele’s neck but there was no injury there. Dani understood far too well for someone so young that the injuries Adele endured were inside and not outside. Dani heaved a sigh as she gazed into Adele’s still face.
Something in the corner of the room caught her eye. It was a pile of Adele’s belongings, and under the clothing poked the edge of a black book. Dani made her way over there and pulled the book out slowly.
“Vampires, The Mythos and the Reality,” she whispered, and then gasped.
“Michael?” Adele murmured. Dani darted back over to the wheelchair and hid the book under the blanket she used to wrap around her bare legs.
“No, it’s me. Dani.” She went immediately to Adele’s side.
Adele gave her a groggy smile. “You shouldn’t be out of bed, young lady,” she tried to scold, but it was clear she was thrilled to see the young girl.
“I brought you something,” Dani whispered. She grabbed the pink teddy bear from her wheelchair. “I thought it could help you sleep.”
Tears slid from Adele’s eyes as she accepted the bear. She opened her arms to Dani. “I’d rather have you.”
Dani crawled into bed next to Adele and hugged her tight. Both of them ached for what they wanted with all their hearts, but what they still couldn’t have.
As night fell Roman Piccoli went through his file on the Darlington Child Killer for the hundredth time. He pored over the photos and the reports. He slammed his fist on the desk with a muttered curse. How could things have gone so wrong?
The one suspect they had was MIA, and their search of his store and loft had come up totally empty. Their one witness was also MIA. All he had was Adele, a woman with a history of hallucinations who was convinced vampires were on the loose. Even then she wouldn’t talk to him, which left him a plastic bag with a bloody handkerchief.
Roman made his way to the research lab where a tech worked hard on their one and only piece of evidence. “What’s the verdict?” he asked.
“I don’t know why anyone would use this for a bandage,” the tech said. “It has to be at least two hundred years old. You see this?” He offered the handkerchief for Roman’s inspection. “That’s a family crest.”
It was a unique handkerchief, to be certain. Roman held it closer then flipped it over. There, in very small stitching was a distinct “N”and “S.”
He was immediately on his cell phone. “It’s Roman,” he barked into the headset. “Find out everything you can on Nicholas Sterling. Call me on my cell.” He snapped the phone shut. He put the handkerchief back into the bag and stuffed it into his pocket. “I think it’s time I paid Nicholas Sterling a visit.”
Back at the hospital Adele moaned in her sleep as she twitched from side to side. In her dream she actually got up from the hospital bed and slipped easily from the tubes she was attached to. Her feet didn’t even touch the floor as she floated from the room, out the window and down the street toward the police department.
The wind pushed her along until she stalled just yards away from the entrance. It was there she saw Roman bound down the steps toward his car. She tried to call his name, but the words were caught in her throat. All that came out was a strangled whisper.
Along the other side of the street a mist wound around the corner and straight toward Roman. Adele tried to scream again, but felt as though she were drowning and unable to breathe.
As if sensing someone nearby, Roman turned around. His hand went immediately to his gun holster. “Who’s there?” he called out.
His question was met with a cackling evil laugh as the mist transformed and solidified into a tall, dark figure in a black hooded cloak, walking straight toward Roman.
Roman brandished his gun. “Stop right there,” he called. Try as she might Adele
could not move from where she stood. Her feet felt as though they were cemented to the ground. “Roman!” she tried again, but still no sound came out.
The hooded figure drew closer. “Stop or I’ll shoot!” Roman commanded, but the relentless figure advanced undaunted.
The loud sound of gunfire exploded into the air. Roman took several shots directly into the hooded man, first aiming at his legs, then finally dead center in his chest. The creature kept on going and did not stop until he was an inch away from Roman, who was staring helplessly hypnotized by the ancient man with the bright yellow eyes.
She watched helplessly as the figure overtook Roman, opening his cloak and surrounding the stronger, younger man with ease. She could hear Roman’s cry of pain and the sounds of teeth tearing through flesh from where she stood.
“No!” she screamed and pulled with all her might, finally set free from her dream state's restraints. She flew right toward the black figure, screeching all the way. Her fists pummeled against his back. “You let him go!”
He turned to face her, blood dripping from his skeletal chin. Roman collapsed in a heap on the ground. The creature stood back and waved a hand toward the dying man. “If you love him, you will do it,” he said.
Adele’s head bent back as she yowled in anguish, her own fangs bared and her eyes glowing yellow.
Adele woke from her dream with a start, sitting straight up in bed, her scream filling the room. She was no longer strapped to any tubes, just weak as hell. But she couldn’t let that stop her now. She knew what she had to do.
She had to find Vincent. Together, they could end this.
The nurses and the doctors all advised her against leaving, but it was clear there was no stopping her. And since her condition wasn’t serious, there was little they could do. Her brother needed her, and she was going to be there for him.
In order to find Vincent she had to confront her mother. Adele wasn’t looking forward to it; her mother was loath to talk about the events around the night Adele was conceived. Adele had never pushed before, but it had never been this important before.
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