Nobody's Home: A Tarker's Hollow Tale

by Tasha Black

  Adia knew that wasn’t true. Her vision had been more than just a dream. But she still couldn’t speak.

  “Either way, she is dead because of me. They all are.

  “I abandoned her.

  “But I will never do that to you.

  “My Adia, I didn’t mean to take your mortality, but I will make your immortality into a fairy tale. I will love you until you can’t help but love me back.

  “I’m going to let you speak now.”

  And just like that, the power that held her mute was gone.

  Somehow, Adia didn’t have anything to say.

  She could scream at him, ask him how it was possible to change someone without meaning to, or she could run away.

  She could tell him the truth about the fire, but did he deserve to know?

  At the end of the day, here she was, changed. It didn’t matter why or how.

  She had no Delilah.

  She had no husband, no children, no permanent home.

  Her whole adult life had been spent waiting.

  Why buy a house with a big mortgage if she could save a little longer? Why get a pet now when it meant a rent increase? Why let the nice guys who took her out on the occasional date come into her apartment, when they weren’t all that smart, or didn’t have a great job, or had a weird laugh? Why not wait? Delayed gratification was the name of Adia’s game.

  The pounding demands of this changed body told her she would have a very different game now.

  And maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.

  In death, maybe Adia could live a little.

  Adia closed her eyes and her jangled senses realigned themselves.

  She could hear the the rasp of claws from owl in the tree outside the window, the pitter patter of mouse feet in the basement.

  The scent of William’s blood still hung in the air, reminiscent of mulled wine and fertile soil.

  She opened her eyes and gazed into the oceanic depths of his.

  He had suffered long enough.

  She would tell him about the fire. But how would she even begin?

  Adia realized she didn’t have to. The connection between them, the one that had called her here, was so strong it transcended words. She could show him. She didn’t know exactly how it worked, but she was sure she could do it.

  She reached out her hand to touch him, to share the vision she had witnessed. Let him see for himself.

  15

  William stood perfectly still as Adia reached for him.

  When her soft hand made contact with the side of his face, he felt as though an electric current shot through his body. Images flooded his head. The summerhouse. A party. Delilah sitting alone.

  And then he saw her, the woman who had taken his life and left him as this creature all those years ago. She strode into the summerhouse, her pale blue eyes brimming with malice as she spotted Delilah. The red-haired woman tore into the unsuspecting party guests, butchering them like animals as Delilah looked on, frozen in horror. William watched his own parents fall before her, their screams cut of as she tore out their throats. She didn’t even bother to feed, just let the corpses fall to the floor, blood pooling around her feet.

  This wasn’t about feeding, this was personal. An act of revenge. On him? What had he ever done to deserve this woman’s wrath?

  In the vision, Delilah reached under the folds of her dress and produced a sharpened piece of wood. She took a few steps toward the other woman, but the red-haired beast was too fast. She knocked the stake from Delilah’s hand with a wicked laugh.

  Delilah tried to run, only to be dragged back in. William’s heart broke anew at the sight of her death.

  He watch the thrown lanterns set fire to the roof of the summerhouse as his maker vanished into the woods.

  William finally understood.

  Delilah had not been the cause of the fire.

  She had never given up on him. She must have continued to hunt for the other vampire, in order to finally free him from his curse. And when she got too close, the vile creature had put an end to her.

  The fire never killed anyone - it was only to cover the evil woman’s tracks.

  Adia pulled her hand away from his face, breaking the connection, and the swirl of images vanished. He stared at her, as speechless as she had been a moment ago.

  How had she known? And how had she shown him?

  16

  William had believed this girl before him to be his salvation, and now he was sure of it. She had lifted whatever tattered scraps remained of his soul, and healed him in a way he never thought possible.

  They were linked now. He would be with her forever.

  He wanted to take her, to claim her, to make her his own. The desire built inside him, like a pot about to boil over.

  Answers to all his questions would have to wait, he needed her now.

  But he waited. Exercising every bit of his self control. He waited for her, even though he thought it would drive him mad.

  Adia reached for him just as his own resolve was at the breaking point.

  It was important to him to give her free will.

  He inhaled deeply of her heady aroma. There was still human blood running in her veins. The change was inevitable, but it was not yet complete.

  William hadn’t realized that was possible. But of course the devil that had changed him all those years ago had practically drained him dry the moment she had her claws in him.

  Adia moved closer until lips brushed his. Her warmth was like a fuse, lighting his body with imperious desire.

  He pressed into her body, kissing her, thumbing her mouth open to accept his tongue, ravaging her mouth.

  She gasped, still needing oxygen at this early stage of her metamorphosis.

  He released her, only to nuzzle her neck.

  God, the ambrosia of her blood called to him from beneath the translucent membrane of her pale skin. Come home, it urged him.

  Adia was frozen in place, waiting. Her nipples hardened to pebbles against his chest.

  He buried his face in her neck, brushing his lips against her silken skin, buying time.

  “Please,” she whispered.

  “What is it, darling?” he murmured in her ear, praying she wanted what he wanted.

  “Please, bite me,” she whispered.

  He could smell the delicate spice of her blood rising to paint her cheeks red.

  It was his undoing.

  Brutally, and with none of the tenderness he had intended. William sunk his fangs into the place where the curve of her neck met her shoulder.

  He penetrated her like an icepick through an overfilled water balloon.

  The rich blood met his tongue and his eyes rolled back in his head.

  Her life flashed before him.

  A little girl, curled up with a book on a window seat, the words swimming before her eyes. The same child with large glasses, smiling down at the book in her lap and the neat words laid out precisely, charming her - the way the little marks could make her feel something. The same girl, grown older still, in a too-big dress for cotillion - no, what did they call it now?Prom. Yes, ready for prom with her glasses and comely hips and ill-fitting dress, feeling lovely and terrified. A snowy evening, shivering and ringing the bell for charity outside the shops where other teenagers gossiped and bought baubles, magic already brimming over in her, though she couldn’t see it. The way the light lingered on the ceiling inside a college library. Another girl, not as smart, watching her demonstrate problem after problem in a dorm room, the light finally reaching the friend’s eyes when she understood. A graduation. An ad in a newspaper with a drawing of a woman in a suit in front of a house with a smiling couple, an endless real estate test, a string of houses and smiling people. A cup of tea, an apartment full of books. A mysterious house on a hill. A handsome man, touching her, filling her with pleasure, then frightening her. And here she was. Story told.

  No. Her story was just beginning.

  Wistfully, he m
anaged to stop before it was too much, to slide his tongue against an incisor and paint her neck with his blood, closing her wounds.

  His body raged, insisting that he destroy her with pleasure. But it wasn’t time, not yet.

  He pulled back to look at her.

  Adia’s eyes were closed, a peaceful smile on her lips.

  “Adia,” he moaned, afraid he had killed her somehow.

  But her eyes opened at once and she smiled blissfully at him.

  He sighed in relief and inclined his head to the side, stooping a little so she could reach him better.

  Her eyebrows lifted slightly.

  “Yes,” he encouraged her. “Drink, my love.”

  17

  Adia gasped in pleasure as the whole world shifted on its axis.

  Was this really permitted?

  Before her rational mind could parse out how it might work, her body was on him.

  Her fangs slid out as she dove into his neck.

  The feeling of entering his body was exquisite. She latched on and the blood flowed into her mouth, a waterfall of ecstasy.

  When his memories began to play in her head like a movie, she was so surprised she almost let go, but the the images began to feed her soul, just as his blood nourished her belly, so she let go.

  A little boy, curled up in a window seat, a book in his lap, a half smile on his lips as he studied the marks, lined up so neatly, making him feel as if he were a world away from the green outside the window, seeing cities and castles. The same boy, meeting a little girl with blonde curly hair. Delilah - smiling back at him with a sparkle in her eye. A tree house, a secret code, another boy his age arriving at the house across the woods. Paths worn between the trees from their adventures. Growing into a different set of worn paths: the girl’s maudlin smile, the boy’s tense jaw. A hot night, curtains waving hauntingly in the breeze, flaming red hair, pale blue eyes, blood everywhere, screams, fire, then waking in the cold dark woods. Alone. Alone in Europe, alone in LA, alone in New York, alone in Glacier City, so many faces, attracted, then ecstatic, then terrified. Over and over until they all looked like Delilah, looked at William like he was a devil. Like he didn’t deserve an afterlife. And he didn’t want it. He wanted to go home. Tarker’s Hollow called to him. Back to Pennsylvania, back down the dirt road, the land now freckled with houses, his home now broken. Then a wooden box, painful hunger, a sweet smell, a brave and lovely girl, a girl with a healing magic - healing the house, healing his soul until he was drowning in a newfound will to live, to love. To love, at last. Because after all, he wasn’t a cold unloving young man or a monster, he had only needed to find her. To find his Adia.

  Instinct told her to let go.

  As soon as she did she was obliterated with desire, though the hot tears still ran down her cheeks.

  She pulled back from him, enough to see his face.

  He looked down at her with such love, with such happiness. His eyes burned blue as the summer sky. As blue as the lovely carpet beneath them.

  The carpet that had been moth-eaten and filthy just moments ago.

  “William,” she breathed, looking around them in confusion as the house changed before her eyes. “What’s happening?”

  “It’s you,” he told her.

  “I’m - I’m doing this?” she asked.

  But even as she asked, she knew it was true. She could feel it now.

  And as soon as she was aware, the transformation sped up. Layers of peeling paint disappeared from the woodwork. The broken windows mended. Cobwebs disappeared from the fixtures, which suddenly gleamed a deep copper.

  She leapt out of his arms, and ran to the windows.

  In the moonlight, she could see the cliffside was smoothing into a grassy slope, the railroad track disappearing into nothing.

  A boxwood labyrinth grew before her eyes, tiny rounded plants reaching upward to connect in rows.

  She wasn’t just fixing the house. She was taking them back somehow. This was no insight, no mere vision. She was taking both of them back to the time before the place had fallen to disrepair.

  How far was that? Decades? Was she taking them to a time before she had even been born?

  Her mind reeled at the implications. She’d never been a big fan of time travel stories, with all their paradoxes and rules. Too much to keep straight. Now she wished she’d paid more attention.

  Adia turned back.

  William was watching her, waiting.

  “Your powers are incredible,” he said.

  “I don’t care about my powers,” she replied, walking to him slowly, glorying in the way the carpet softened beneath her feet and the wallpaper turned a deeper shade of crimson in her wake.

  “I’m warning you, Adia, if you come any closer, I’m going to have you, magic or no,” he told her darkly.

  Adia kept walking.

  When she reached him, he swept her off her feet and headed for the walnut stair, gaslights illuminating as they passed.

  The carpet rolled itself out on the floor of the bedroom and the curtains fluttered onto the canopy.

  More gaslights flickered on as he laid her down on the embroidered eiderdown.

  She watched him crawl in on top of her and relished the way he looked down at her as if nothing could be more precious or desirable.

  He rested his weight on his side and ran a hand down her body, from her heart, over her breasts to her belly.

  Every cell in Adia’s body came to attention. His blood was inside her. It was as if he were stroking her from both inside and outside.

  A look of wonder came over his handsome face.

  “So beautiful,” he murmured, gazing down at her chest.

  Adia looked too. Her white nightgown was still wet from the rain. She could see the dark outline of her nipples, stiff against the thin fabric.

  She looked up at William.

  His mouth was slightly open. He licked his lips.

  “Please,” she whispered.

  He leaned down and slowly, so slowly she could have stopped him if she’d wanted to, he pushed her nightgown up, over her hips, her belly, at last her breasts.

  The air was cool against her skin and she felt her nipples tighten even further.

  William leaned down toward her breasts.

  Adia watched as he licked one nipple into his mouth, flicked his tongue against it, and then sucked hard.

  The sensation was incredible, she cried out and arched her back.

  He moved to the other nipple, capturing the first in his fingers, teasing the tip with his thumb as he sucked and nipped.

  Adia felt herself grow wet, then wetter still as William continued to tease and torment her breasts.

  When he slid his other hand down to stroke her belly and her hips, she held her breath, waiting for him to touch her there.

  Maddeningly, his hand continued over her thighs and back up again, all the while sucking and pinching her nipples.

  She ran her hands through his dark hair, wrapped her fingers in it, pulled and twisted in her frustration.

  But his big hand just slid down over her belly again, caressing her hips and thighs, then back up again.

  Adia was brimming with need. She lifted her hips when he stroked her against and she felt him smile against her breast.

  He lifted his face and kissed her mouth.

  She pulled him close, drawing his tongue into her mouth, as if to show him what she needed.

  But his hand was already going right to her, as if drawn to her heat.

  She melted against his mouth as a big finger parted her curls.

  He groaned as he ran it along the seam of her.

  Adia could feel herself pouting open, the hot liquid meeting his finger.

  “Beautiful girl, beautiful, perfect woman,” he praised her.

  But Adia could only whimper and lift her hips in reply. The need he had stoked was bigger than she was.

  Was it the magic, or the immortality? Or was it the love she felt for him? The
bright facets crashed around her addled brain like a disco ball in an earthquake. But her body craved one thing: its demand a straight line in a world of chaos.

  William, unaware that she was falling apart, lowered himself to lightly kiss her thighs and abrade them with his shadowy jaw.

  Adia cried out brokenly, when his tongue touched her. He had done this before but the pleasure was so intense now it frightened her.

  He lapped at her, then spread her open with his fingers and licked her opening.

  Adia lost track of her own sounds.

  Deeper and deeper he licked and stroked.

  Adia’s hips rose to meet him, begging for more, pleading wordlessly for him to touch the stiff nodule at the top of her opening.

  He slid a long finger inside and she moaned at the intensity of feeling him inside her.

  He growled and moved his finger in and out, as if it were his cock.

  Adia whimpered and lifted her hips again.

  He clamped her hips down firmly to the bed with the hand that wasn’t teasing her.

  For a moment she felt despair, but then he lowered his dark head and she felt his tongue slide past his fingers, up onto her clit.

  The sensation was incredible, she could feel herself swelling on his tongue, stiffening until the slightest breath of air could have sent her over the edge.

  When he closed his mouth over her and sucked lightly something inside her burst, and Adia was soaring up to the moon, and exploding, shattering into stardust.

  He kept his mouth on her, coaxing every shiver of pleasure from her.

  Then he pulled away, smiling.

  Smiling sweetly, while Adia lay there, devastated by lascivious pleasure.

  Growling, she was suddenly on her knees in the bed, ripping his clothes from his body, her lightning-fast movements shredding them all until he was naked before her.

  “That’s better,” she said with a half smile.

  He stared at her, his eyes flashing with lust.

  18

  William stood frozen before her. Stiff and lightheaded with desire, watching his sweet Adia flaunt her power, breasts heaving, eyes dancing as they took their fill of him.