Monster (A Cassidy Edwards Novel - Book 1)

by Carmen Caine

  For a while, I screamed.

  No one even came to shut me up.

  Food and water? They didn’t offer a drop, but then, Dorian knew better now. I winced, trying not to recall just how much I’d told him. If only I had my knives … but that just made me wince again. I didn’t want to remember just how I’d lost them.

  Disheartened, I returned to the wing-backed chair in front of the dying fire and tossed my booted leg over the arms for another nap to pass the time.

  I was a deep sleeper. It always took me a bit to open my eyes. I stirred drowsily. Apparently, I’d fallen asleep again. I could hear the crackling of rekindled flames and smelled the pleasant aroma of smoke.

  And Dorian.

  Startled, I rose halfway out of the chair, eyes flying open. I’d reached for my knives, but again, my hands came up empty.

  Dorian stood right next to my chair, still wearing his hot, steamy kilt but no shirt this time. Why? Did he think I’d find his impressive array of muscles a distraction? A deeper, second look at his face revealed that he wasn’t there for another seduction. He was pensive. Subdued. His hands were folded behind his back as he stared at me, but in a distant manner. His mind was clearly somewhere else.

  “You can sleep,” he said, as if finally noticing that I was awake. His voice held more than a single note of bitterness. “Ach, I can’t remember how it feels to do so, lass.”

  Slowly, I rose the rest of the way out of the wing-backed chair to ask uneasily, “Weren’t you just asleep for a long time? For what, over four hundred years or so, in that plague grave. I’d think you’d be sick of it.”

  “Buried,” he corrected. Rotating on his heel, he moved to the fireplace. Leaning against the mantle, he peered down into the flames. The firelight played across his shoulder blades, accentuating his strength.

  Irritated at the turn of my thoughts, I scowled and forced myself to concentrate on his words.

  “’Tis far different than a peaceful night’s rest,” he was saying. “Nay, ‘tis naught like sleep. ‘Tis simply lying there in the dirt, listening, waiting. Hungry. Never slumbering. No sweet release of death.”

  I drew back, startled. I hadn’t realized they’d been awake the whole time. It sounded like the worst kind of torture—enough to drive someone totally mad.

  Heaving a sigh, he added in a heavy voice, “To wake and find the world changed beyond what you knew. And then to be caught, staked, and have to wait through another four hundred years more. Aye, ‘tis a mad existence. A curse I’d wish on none.”

  Apparently, it wasn’t the first time he’d played Rip Van Winkle. I wondered how old he really was and almost felt sorry for him.

  Almost.

  “For centuries, I’ve seen only the shadows of night,” his deep Scottish brogue dropped into a whisper. “Tell me, lass, how it feels to have the sun kiss your skin. I’ve forgotten. Aye, ‘tis been too long.”

  I didn’t know what to say. What can you say to something like that?

  Silence fell. A very long one.

  Finally, Dorian drew a long breath. “They’re my kin, lass, you must understand,” he murmured, still staring into the flames. “My clan. Those cursed to walk through the centuries with me, finding little solace. Tell me, where are my kin? I must free them from their torment. Just tell me, so that I can help them.”

  Maybe he was playing me again. Suspicion rose in an instant, but it was mingled with sympathy. He sounded so sincere. I guess because he was. Being one of the Chosen sounded like a hellish existence. I had to admit, so far as pity parties go, his was quite the grand affair.

  But in the end, it didn’t really matter. In this particular case, it wasn’t hard to answer his question—to tell the truth. The literal truth. Yeah, I didn’t know where their bones were. I just knew about Lucian’s voodoo doll suitcase.

  “I honestly don’t know,” I finally said. “The Night Terrors took them out and gave them to Lucian. I left. You saw that, didn’t you? I know you were watching me. I never saw the bones after that.”

  That wasn’t the answer he’d wanted. Rubbing the back of his neck and flexing his massive shoulders, he heaved another sigh. A long, even louder one. And then with a shade of amusement coloring his voice, he said, “’Tis a place to start then. The Night Terrors sell their services to the highest bidder, unless matters have changed since 1576.”

  I found myself appreciating his humor. “Things may have changed … just a little,” I replied with my own shade of sarcasm.

  He chuckled but then grew serious all at once. “Why do ye fight me so, lass?” His soft voice pressed. “And why for the love of Mary, do you trust this Lucian Rowle? I’d wager the man has more than one hand dirty with betrayal.”

  He really knew how to manipulate me. Push me right to the brink of anger and then draw me back with humor, just to push me all over again. Hex it. I was going to have to get away from him if I didn’t want to find myself falling right back into whatever net he chose to cast.

  His next ploy really sweetened the trap.

  “And if you’re truly after this Emilio Marchesi,” he murmured, turning to face me as he dangled the name. “Then we are allies forthright! Allow me to aid your quest. There’s no love lost atween us, I assure you right well.”

  Hope coursed through me. Yes, I’d been a bit distracted with this newly discovered Charmed world, but my thirst for revenge ran deep. It was unquenchable. Emilio Marchesi was my goal—finding him, making him pay, and also making him confess who else he’d involved in the mad plot that had ruined my life.

  “Cassidy?” Dorian’s soft voice broke into my inner tirade.

  I blinked and took a deep, steadying breath. “You know … Emilio?”

  He knew he had me hooked then. I saw the gleam in his eye. It made me even more suspicious, but I was desperate for any new crumb of information. It was all I could do to keep from running over to him and shaking what I wanted to know out of him.

  “Aye,” he finally said in his soft rumble. “Emilio is an enemy that we share, but I’ve been at war with him longer, I’d wager. Centuries. ‘Tis a matter of honor for me, amongst other things.”

  Centuries? A wave of apprehension rippled over me. If Dorian hadn’t been able to vanquish Emilio given centuries, how could I hope to accomplish it? I almost hoped he wasn’t telling me the truth.

  But Dorian was still talking. “It all began the day he ruined my own wee sister, Gloria.”

  “Gloria?” I repeated.

  Gloria. The name in the book. The book with the silver swing. So, that book really had been inscribed by the Emilio—the Emilio I’d been searching for this entire time.

  My jaw dropped open.

  “Aye, ’tis because of Emilio that I stand afore you now as a Chosen One, doomed to the torment of slaking my thirst only with blood,” Dorian confessed, his green eyes riveted to mine. “We should be fighting on the same side, lass. He’s an enemy we share.”

  To have someone fight with me, to take Emilio down … it was tempting, beyond tempting. But could I believe him? Was this some new snare? I couldn’t put anything past Dorian. He was brilliant. Sharp. Wily. And I’d never had anyone try to help me with anything before.

  Reading the suspicion creeping across my face, he let out a growl of frustration. “Ach, can you have no trust in me? No?” he shouted, striking the mantle. “We’re of the same clan, lass. Look into my mind!”

  Look into his mind? I couldn’t admit that I didn’t know how to do that—if it was even possible. I really wasn’t one of them. I wasn’t as swift, my fangs didn’t function, and apparently, I only received information via the clan link. I was pretty sure I couldn’t send it.

  But I wasn’t about to list my weakness for him again. Instead, I scowled and crossed my arms. “Trust takes time,” I snapped.

  His shoulders drooped a little, but then he suddenly stiffened. Cocking his head to one side, he paused a moment. And then, without one word of explanation, he swiftly left the ro
om.

  Silently, I watched him go.

  Deranged. Maybe even more than Lucian.

  With a sudden pounding headache, I wandered over to the fire. I was getting hungry—really hungry. Was he planning on starving me into cooperation? Peeved, I kicked at the logs. Sparks showered the floor.

  I heard it then. A squeal of delight followed by the tiniest of nasal giggles.

  Ricky?

  Whirling, I searched for him, but in a fire-lit room filled with shadows, finding a small spindly creature made of black smoke was an impossible task.

  “Ricky?” I hissed hopefully.

  The door burst open then. I saw only a large blur flash across the room, knocking through the pictures and pillows stacked in the corner.

  A moment later, Dorian stood there, holding Ricky at arm’s length.

  Great.

  So it was Ricky. And the first thing he’d done was get himself caught.

  Honestly, could I have expected anything else?

  With a gleam in his eye, Dorian approached me. “Aye, ‘twill be a simple matter now to acquire the bones,” he announced in triumph. “I’ll have your imp singing secrets afore the hour has passed.”

  That alarmed me. I really don’t know why, since my confusion over which side to ally myself with only grew by the hour. But I felt a wave of concern for Ricky as Dorian raised him up for inspection.

  Would he torture him—err, how did one even torture an imp? Would Ricky squeal? That really alarmed me—partly because he probably knew more about Lucian’s voodoo dolls than I did and partly because a spark of loyalty to the dark-haired warlock suddenly coursed through me.

  But the moment I caught a glimpse of the imp’s face, I found myself relaxing.

  His eyes, glazed over. His lips, open wide. And the drool. He was like a faucet. Apparently, he’d hit another turmeric bottle in my absence.

  This would be amusing. And I could do with a bit of humor. Blowing Dorian a kiss, I chuckled, “Good luck getting anything useful out of him, your lordship.”

  Ricky would sing all right. But I didn’t think Dorian would really understand Oppa Gangnam Style. When leaping four or so centuries, you could only adjust so far in a few short days, even Chosen Ones.

  Puzzled, Dorian followed my gaze.

  I guess imps back in the sixteenth century had been just as troublesome. He recognized Ricky’s useless state at once.

  With a snort of disgust, he dropped Ricky on the floor.

  That woke Ricky up enough to actually start singing. And just as I suspected, he warbled: Ehhhh, Sexxxy Lady, oh, oh, oh, Oppa Gangnam style!

  The confusion on Dorian’s face was priceless.

  It kind of made the whole experience worth it.

  Kind of.

  Dumbfounded, he asked me in astonishment, “Why keep such a daft vagabond of a beastie? This one, ‘tis not even trustworthy!”

  I just shrugged my shoulders, watching Ricky with amusement-threaded concern.

  He must have really overdosed this time. He couldn’t keep his form. Still singing, he melted into a puddle on the floor—and I mean really liquefied. He dissolved into a small black pool of swirling smoke with two blinking eyes and protruding lips that kept crooning the K-pop song.

  Dorian didn’t find Ricky as hilarious as I did at that point. Not in the slightest. Clearly, his temper threatened to break loose, and he mastered it with only the greatest difficulty. Glowering, he practically shouted, “Come. ‘Tis time to leave.”

  “Leave?” I asked, perking up. “Where are we going?”

  His laugh was a sinister one. He grabbed my hand and pulled me to the door, but once there he paused to stare down at me with a strange expression. Slowly, he lifted my hand and brushed his lips over my knuckles.

  Yes, I enjoyed it, but only for a few seconds. Snatching my hand away, I asked pointedly, “Do you always get what you want that way?” I asked.

  With a devilish smile, he whispered, “Aye, I’m an unscrupulous soul, lass.”

  “Yes,” I couldn’t resist agreeing. “That’s for sure!”

  He just shrugged and, opening the door, invited me to precede him. “’After you, my lady.”

  Hesitating, I glanced back at Ricky, but he was snoring in puddle-form. There was nothing I could do but leave him there for the moment. I guess it was for the better. He and Dorian were better off far apart. And besides, he was an imp. When he recovered, he could just slip beneath the door or out the fireplace. It was impossible to trap smoke.

  Glad to be leaving, I faced Dorian and asked again, “Where are we going?”

  Dorian surprised me with the answer. “Oh, ’tis time you met your creator, lass.”

  He smiled a dark smile.

  A Soap Opera of the Worst Kind

  Creator? Didn’t think he referred to a god, thank goodness; being a vampire, I highly doubted he believed in an “Almighty”. And I knew he didn’t mean my mother, or Emilio for that matter. He had to mean the actual vampire who’d turned my mother. At last, another piece of my family puzzle and a step closer to achieving revenge. Whoever the mystery male was, he’d feel my wrath for condemning my mother to eternal vampirism, and me, essentially to the lonely life of a parasitic recluse.

  I strode down the stairs after Dorian, wishing in vain for my knives. Hex it all! Why had I traded it all away for a momentary touch of his lips on my skin? He didn’t kiss that good.

  At the bottom step, Dorian took a sharp left and waved me to an open door.

  We entered a room as shabby as the one I’d left. A three-legged table swathed in cobwebs. Faded drapes which were closed. And dust so thick it could be sculpted.

  A woman stood near the drapes, wearing worn jeans and a gray t-shirt. Her scent told me she was a Chosen One, but strangely, she reminded me of one of those Save-the-Earth-Go-Organic types of people. She was tall and notably slender, with fiery red hair that was tied back in a simple ponytail. Her face was covered entirely with freckles and her blue-eyes were clear.

  It took me a moment to recognize that her scent was familiar to me already. I’d been a bit distracted, looking around the room for the vampire who’d turned my mother. I hadn’t expected to encounter Dorian’s sister, Gloria. She smelled just like the trace she’d left on the book in Lucian’s library, the book that Emilio had signed with his eternal love.

  Again, her aroma also reminded me of my mother—and Dorian, too, come to think of it.

  She wasn’t too happy to see me. I’d have said outright displeased, mixed with a dash of horror—the horror part had me puzzled.

  “Meet Gloria,” he began. “My own wee sister. And, Gloria, meet—”

  I really don’t know why Dorian bothered to introduce us. There was no one else she could be.

  “I know who she is,” Gloria interrupted in a hoarse whisper. Apparently my thought had been shared. With a thin veneer of a smile, she added, “Fate has quite a sick sense of humor.”

  I raised a brow.

  Gloria came up to me then, and slowly, ever so slowly, she reached out to touch my chin only to jerk her hand back, catching her breath in dismay. Turning away, she covered her face with her hands and moaned.

  I glanced at Dorian. Was his sister a wee bit—how would he say it—daft?

  Dorian eyed his sister in open concern. “Then ‘tis your handiwork, aye?”

  “No!” Gloria gasped. “Yes. Not mine, but yes, I did it.”

  I held still.

  “Ach, you make little sense, Sister—” he began.

  Gloria held her hand up and choked. “You don’t understand. She’s dangerous, Dorian. She should never have lived. Never! There are rules—even for Black Magic.” Her shoulders sagged.

  Silence followed—a long one.

  At last, I broke it with, “Tell me … what am I?”

  She wouldn’t face me. She refused to look into my eyes. “I really didn’t think you’d live,” she confessed in the faintest of whispers. “I unleashed the curse upon your m
other and never has a babe survived. They always die.”

  “Curse?” both Dorian and I asked at the same time.

  Gloria didn’t want to answer; that much was obvious. But when Dorian raised a stern brow, she quickly added, “The warlock swore the curse would obliterate her beyond any hope of rising, even as an Undead. He betrayed me. The curse made me his puppet … it made me turn her, and she became a Chosen One for her Emilio. The babe … the babe … had no choice in the matter.”

  I was more surprised by the fact that my mother had been turned by a woman than my lack of a choice, which I already knew about, but Dorian was more horrified over that part.

  “How?” he asked his sister, clearly stunned by the revelation. “How could her choice be taken away? Chosen Ones can only become Chosen by choice. They die—they choose to return. No one can force that. Blair chose—”

  Gloria raised her chin, her blue eyes burst into life with a passionate flare. “Yes, she chose. She chose to do it for Emilio! She turned in mere minutes, Dorian. Minutes! That’s how long it took her to consider the rest of her eternity—her other children, her spouse. She gave them all up in just minutes for Emilio … in the mere blink of an eye! It wasn’t supposed to be possible.”

  “But the babe?” Dorian shook his head. “It makes no sense that she should have survived.”

  “It was a puppet curse, a very powerful one.” Gloria paused, swallowing several times before adding, “The babe returned with her mother’s soul, back to Earth, like a puppet on a string.”

  “And the warlock who …” Dorian didn’t finish the question, but he raised a brow.

  It was obviously going to be a question that Gloria had hoped to avoid. She practically squirmed under his gaze.

  “Tell me!” he demanded. “Why did you not tell me of this sooner? It cannot be the work of a Terzi warlock!”

  She resisted him for a few minutes before finally screeching her confession. “It was a Marchesi—a Marchesi warlock, and he sorely deceived me. A mere apprentice. So, I’d not thought him capable of such deceit—”