Behind her was the empty bench covered in black feathers, its white paint smeared with blood.
“That’ll teach her,” she mused, and pumping up the volume of her iPod, she walked to her car.
The frontispiece's wall-mounted lanterns gleamed an amber light. Cassandra stopped before the gates. She jumped off the bike and headed to the back entrance.
The door was locked. Dad kept a spare key somewhere... She knelt on the sidewalk and reached through the gate's bars. Cassandra pulled off one of the footpath stones, et voilá: There was the shimmering key, pressed against the dark soil.
10:28 PM. Dad would be having breakfast with Tilly and Josie at the small bistro near Mom's house in Neuilly Sur Seine. What she wouldn't give to join them... But that couldn't happen. Dad was still upset with her for leaving.
Cassandra opened the gate, its rusty hinges squeaked all the way. She wouldn't run into Mona, anyway. It was time for her evening jog—or at least that's what Mona claimed. Cassandra had grown suspicious of Mona's mysterious jogs. A week after the wedding, Cassie had bumped into her in an event at the Palace of the Fine Arts. She was in the company of a very handsome man. They were not exactly holding hands when she saw them.
This house used to be her home but a few weeks ago. And still, she felt as a complete stranger, marauding through the backyard, ready to break in.
She opened the door. The house looked so different. Not only had the decoration changed, but the air felt dense and eerie.
“Oh, mon Dieu!” she uttered. An enormous portrait hung over the living room’s grand fireplace. It was a picture of his father and his gleaming bride. “What have you done to my home, Mona?”
But she couldn't linger on the dramatic changes in the living room. There was little time. She had to move.
Cassandra rushed upstairs and reached her old bedroom.
“You better not have laid a finger on my stuff, Mona…” she muttered, turning the doorknob.
She sighed in relief. The room was exactly as she had left it. Cassandra smoothed her fingers over the walls. The white wallpaper with its many trees in shades of gray pleased her eyes. She stopped before the portrait. “Hello, Granny,” she whispered, looking at the five-year-old girl in the picture. She wore Grandmama Katherine’s heels and pearls and had the sweetest look in her eyes.
Cassandra pressed the frame against the wall. “Reveal your secrets, ma cher…” she said. A hidden lock within the wall clicked. The portrait unhinged, revealing a safe. Cassie dialed the combination and opened the safe quickly. Wrapped in Granny's Prussian blue pashmina, she found the book.
She pulled out of the closet an old leather messenger bag and slipped the book inside. “Mission accomplished.”
Cassie stopped at the door. She looked back and blew a kiss to Granny's picture.
“Oh! Almost forgot.” From her jeans pocket, she took a small felt bag. Opening it, she poured a fistful of translucent powder. Kneeling on the carpeted floor, with the powder she drew an invisible line on the doorstep.
“You’re not changing a thing in here, darling.” Cassie dusted off her hands and got on her way back to Deveraux Hall.
As she stood before the gate, something caught her eye. There was a bike tossed in the middle of the sidewalk, next to the garden’s door.
“That’s strange…” she mused, heading towards the garden. From this spot, she looked at the house’s backdoor. It was open. “Whoever broke into my home is going to regret it.”
Confident in her Magic skills, Mona walked through the main entrance.
Light poured out of the kitchen's door. There was movement inside.
You're not getting away alive.
“Made it!” Cassie clutched her messenger bag under her arm, smiling proudly. “What do you think of me now, Deverauxes? Look at me—ow!” A harsh tug to her hair pulled her back, she almost fell.
“Where do you think you’re going, thug?” a woman screeched, yanking her hair once more.
“Get the hell off me!” Cassandra tumbled back and somehow became free from the woman’s grip. In the struggle, her bag flew in the air. Annette’s journal fell out of the bag and landed on the rosebushes.
On her knees, Cassie reached for the book when the woman tackled her and pinned her to the grass. As they rolled over, Cassie caught a glimpse of her attacker.
“Mona!” she said. “What the hell?”
The menacing grin on Mona’s blushing face disappeared. “Cassie, honey… Is that you?” releasing her. Cassandra got on her feet.
“Of course it’s me!” she muttered. She reached over the rosebushes and grabbed the book, still wrapped in Granny’s pashmina.
“I’m so sorry, sweetie…” More fake concern from Mona, fake as her eyelashes. And why the hell did she call her honey and sweetie? “I thought you were a thief… Won’t you stay for dinner?”
Cassie pursed her lips. “I have to go.” With the book in her hand, she slipped the bag’s strap on her shoulder.
Mona’s expression soon changed. Tilting her head, her narrowing eyes landed on Granny’s journal.
“What’s that?” Slithering as a snake, her hand reached for the book.
“Nothing that concerns you…” Cassie pressed the journal under her arm. “Get out of my way, Mona.”
Mona’s red lips curled in a mischievous smile. She snatched the corner of Granny’s pashmina. Giving it a quick tug, she revealed Cassandra’s secret.
“The book!” Mona's eyes flew open. “Give it here!”
How dare she? Anger brewed in the pit of her stomach—no, it boiled! Her hands tingled and grew warm.
“I said… It’s none of your business!” Cassie flashed her palm at her. Mona’s body flew past the doorway and slammed hard against the kitchen’s pantry.
Gaping like a codfish, Cassandra stepped forward, then back again. “What was that?” she said. “I gotta get out of here.”
Cassandra ran through the garden. With panting breath, she picked up her bike and pedaled far from that house like chased by the devil.
Ivan
“You would have me be alone for all eternity?” I whispered. “You, my maker who walked away the moment you turned me into this thing? What did you expect?”
He remained silent for a while, pondering my words. They caused a heavy blow to his heart, or at least it appeared to me that way.
“You're right. I should never have left you so soon,” Dristan said. “But this must be remedied.”
“What are you implying?”
“She's not meant to be part of our world—”
“That is out of the question!” I slammed my hand on the balustrade. “If there is a price to be paid for my mistake, then I shall pay it. Not her!”
Lightning flashed in the distance, but it wouldn’t rain for at least a couple of hours. Carrying his suit’s jacket over his shoulder, Ivan strolled through the villa’s gardens. Invariably, he found himself humming to Bob Dylan’s Forever Young.
Peace is a rare commodity for an immortal. It’s seldom within grasping distance, and when it is, it does not come cheap. Ivan found peace each time he killed, but it was not true peace. It was the kind of serenity that washed away too soon.
The rapist, the killer, the one who prowled attacking precious infants... those were the victims he pursued, and their pernicious blood satisfied his anxiety in more ways than could be told.
Still, Alisa’s deep-blue eyes and pink rosebud lips remained engraved in his mind. And nothing—not even the Kill—had silenced the myriad questions haunting his mind. But one question bothered him above all others: Was the past not better left undisturbed?
The villa loomed on the horizon. Ivan smoothed his hand over the anemone bushes, a habit from his mortal days. He used to pick flowers from the rosebushes that lined his home's entrance. Those flowers often found their way into Alisa's hands... Ivan once thought her frail and delicate. But Alisa's sheer strength had rescued him from the depths of hell when their broth
er Viktor had died.
The old questions came back to stir the guilt in his soul: Was Viktor's death his fault? Why had he hesitated as his brother drowned in that accursed lake? Was it fear, the shock of the moment, or did he secretly wish his death?
No more. Time to bury the torturing voice…
Phillip’s silhouette surged in the distance. Standing by the deck’s sliding doors, he waited. He’d spotted Ivan long ago.
Alisa’s presence would alter life as they knew it. But if Ivan had learned anything after three centuries in the Blood, it was this: Rejecting change is not an option.
“Play the game, Ivan... Roll with the punches.” He wouldn’t turn into one of those stubborn blood drinkers. The ones that stuck to their old ways, refusing to keep track of the world’s innovations... Such a waste of eternity. Hollowness—that was the true death of a vampire.
“You disappeared in the middle of our argument…” Phillip said, ready for a smoke. His vintage gold cigarette case gleamed as he slipped it in his pocket. One quick snap to the lighter and the cigarette lit up. Nasty habit, not even his vampiric condition had been able to cast it away.
“I had to,” he answered. “Otherwise, I would have said the wrong thing.”
“I shouldn’t have said… It was unfair.”
“Nothing is fair.” Ivan pursed his lips.
“It wouldn’t hurt if you practiced your manners, though…”
“You’re preaching to the Devil, my friend.” He smirked and patted Phillip’s shoulder before stepping inside.
The hearth’s warmth enveloped him the minute he entered the living room where he met a familiar face. Marianne sat on the sofa. Phillip sat next to her. Both faces turned sullen. How odd.
“Don’t you two look a fright,” he mused. “Have I missed something?” Heaving a sigh, he tossed his jacket on the back of the sofa and plummeted on the comfy thing.
“Well…” Phillip pursed his lips. Leaning forward, he steepled his fingers. “Edgar Bolden dropped by and—how should I put this?” He paused. “She ate him.”
Ivan flinched. “Ate him? What do you mean, She ate him?” The news didn’t quite sink in his brain.
“Marianne killed him,” Phillip added. “She didn’t know who he was.” As if that would lessen her deed.
“This is completely unacceptable,” Ivan said. What about their legal affairs? What about the transfers, the contracts—? Edgar managed their entire fortune. He could lose everything, and all because of her rotten mistake!
“I’m sorry.” Marianne’s lips quivered. She feared Ivan, and rightfully so.
“You…” Ivan whispered. His fierce green eyes pierced her through and through. “I’ll deal with you later.”
With a slight tilt of his head, Phillip suggested her to leave the room. Good thinking.
Ivan paced before the hearth. How could he sit when faced with the possibility of destitution?
“I leave the house for the evening and this happens?” Ivan swept the room with a quick gaze—lest he were to step on Edgar’s body. Nope. No sign of him. “Phillip, what can we do? If we don't act fast we’ll surely be ruined!”
Relaxed and with a candid expression, Phillip listened. But of course, this was to be expected from him. The world could blow up in flames and his cool temper would never be shaken.
“I’ve taken care of everything,” he finally uttered. “You mustn’t worry.”
“How can you say that, Phillip? We need a lawyer!”
A flash of a confident smile. “I used to be one, remember?” Phillip raised his brow. “I have every single document regarding our legal and financial affairs. With Edgar’s death, his representation has been terminated. So you see, we have nothing to worry about.”
Not convinced by his brief speech, Ivan persisted. “But have you considered every possibility?” he asked. “What about our houses in Venice and Paris, or the London flat? Is everything safe?”
Phillip pursed his lips. “Will you please stop troubling yourself with these matters? Is it possible for you to leave them in my hands without second-guessing every minor detail?”
Anger was not far from his words. At least he’d managed to strike a chord of his fledgling’s immortal beating heart. “You’re right,” Ivan said under his breath. He plummeted on the sofa. “You’ve always handled our legal affairs, and you’ve done wonders at it. I do appreciate it… Thank you.”
Genuine surprise emerged on Phillip’s face. “That’s nice to hear after over eighty years.”
“You have my complete trust in these matters,” Ivan said, “and in others too. I don’t even want to know what became of Edgar’s body.” Another quick look at the room’s carpeting. Still no clue where he was.
Amused, Phillip leaned closer and spoke to his maker’s ear. “Ah, but you do want to know.” He paused. “See, this is what almost a century has taught me about you: You’re a curious fiend.”
Unable to keep the pretense going, Ivan sighed. “Fine… I need to know. Where is he?”
“He suffered a car accident on his way home.” A hint of a smile.
Satisfied with his answer, Ivan smirked. “You think of everything, don’t you?”
Phillip avoided his maker’s stare. Wait. Was he actually blushing?
“He left something for you.” Phillip was quick to change the subject before Ivan even addressed it. “A special assignment of yours, he called it.” He slipped a folded piece of paper into Ivan's hands. The presentation itself mattered little. Ivan only cared for the contents.
“Ah! Yes. Thank you, Edgar…” Ivan mused, snatching it. He then hid it in his shirt’s pocket.
“I can’t believe he’s gone…” a hurting Phillip said with glazed eyes. “I offered him the Rémy Martin.”
“Well, that was generous of you. Good for him.” Ivan patted his fledgling’s shoulder.
“He never tried it. Not one sip.”
Where was this heading? Not a cheery place. “Oh… Too bad, then.” Ivan pursed his lips.
Phillip’s fingers weaved on the nape of his neck as he ducked his head between his knees. “He deserved at least that—to experience the taste of it before he died.”
Let’s change the subject, shall we? It was the one thing on his mind but he couldn’t say it, now could he? “And this burdens you?” He tried to sound as gentle as possible, not managing it all that well. “Edgar is dead and all you can think about is how he missed out on some fancy Cognac?”
Phillip shook his head. “You don’t understand,” he mused. “It’s the irony of it all that annoys me—but you wouldn’t get it. It’s been too long since you were a mortal man.”
“Oh?” Ivan repressed a snicker. “May I remind you, whether today or three centuries ago, death remains the same. It is harsh, unpredictable, and knows no mercy.
“Death creeps behind them when they least expect it. And it does not care for righteousness upon its arrival. A stroke, a heart attack... anything could have prevented Edgar from tasting that drink, but it was a vampire’s thirst that killed him.” He paused. “Irony plays no part in this story, Phillip. It’s the harshness of reality that disturbs you.”
“It is what it is.” Phillip sighed. “But, dammit—I liked him.”
“I’m afraid I cannot say the same,” Ivan teased. “He’s wrecked all anonymity for me—at least in this lifetime.”
“Haven’t you heard?” his fledgling said, raising his brow. “The world’s coming to an end on December 31… You’re old news, Ivan.”
Ivan laughed under his breath. “One can only hope.”
Phillip frowned. “Which part do you mean, the end of the world or the return of your anonymity?”
“Both.” Ivan smirked.
Phillip laughed. Did he make him feel better? His offspring seemed to have recovered from his bout of sadness. And speaking of which… “Oh! I’ve just remembered,” he uttered. “I have something that’ll cheer you up.”
“What is it?”
> Mona
Mona adjusted the rear-view mirror to check her makeup—cherry red lips, porcelain skin, thick dark eyelashes. Soft waves of black hair framed her doll’s face.
She pursed her lips and inhaled sharply. Her heart raced in anticipation. The sole thought of seeing him sent a rush of warmth through her body.
It’s been a while.
She closed the Beemer’s door behind her and moved towards the decadent house across the street. All Hallows Eve’s paraphernalia decorated shop windows and houses. Flickering carved pumpkins, dancing skeletons, black cats… the works.
Halloween was but a week away. Black and orange were Mona’s favorite colors, and so was the pagan celebration. There was no better day to cast a fast-binding spell. The veil that divided this world from the next came down, opening the doors for witchcraft.
She stopped before the Victorian-styled house, the facade of The Devil’s Coven. Not only was it an exclusive nightclub, but it was the San Francisco Coven’s headquarters. Membership was mandatory to gain access. And although Mona had none, she headed to the backdoor.
“Miss Mona Mai…” a deep voice said. A tall bodyguard emerged from the courtyard’s shadows.
“I’m here to see—”
“No need. Come right in.” The man reached for the door. Keeping an unreadable expression at all times, he escorted her inside.
Crystal chandeliers pended from the ceilings and provided dim lighting. A round burgundy tufted sofa lay at the center of the hall. Around it, a crowd smoked and drunk what she figured was not red wine. Large mirrors hung on every wall, reflecting the candlelight and the flash of purple light beams. Nu Metal boomed from the many speakers carefully concealed under exotic arrangements of snake plants and philodendrons.
Call of Blood: A Novel of The Unnatural Brethren Page 10
