"I think I have one in the bathroom where we—" she stopped herself and looked down at her bare feet, "—where I've always kept it." She couldn't let herself slip into old habits. He went back into the house and, about a minute later, returned with some burn cream and a cool wet washcloth.
Salena let Eric tend to the burn on her thigh while running her right hand through his thick blonde hair. Then she remembered her wrist and held it under the glow from the porch light. The bite mark was minutely visible. How can that be? She wasn't a fast healer, so there had to be another explanation. She hadn't dreamed the whole thing; there was a bite mark there this morning. She shook her head.
"What? You don't like my doctor skills?" Eric wore a silly grin.
"Ha, no, Dr. Buchanan, you did a great job." She winked at him. "What do I owe you?"
He scooped her up off the swing and carried her back into the house. "My rates are pretty steep," he said before plundering her mouth once again.
Devin had gotten close to her, even if only for a second. He didn't mean to scare her and make her burn herself. Now, as he watched the lovers go inside, jealousy filled him; he wanted to be the one to carry her to bed and provide her with endless pleasures. And maybe then, he could have figured out the mystery of this woman, who has a spell over him.
He watched the lovers in action, from her windowsill, until he couldn't any longer. Being jealous was new to him. Something about her was haunting him. Something about her was different from other women. Something about her was drawing him in, and he had to find a way to get close enough to her to find out what it is.
Eric left early the next morning. He told her he had a nine a.m. flight back to New York, but he would come back soon. He grabbed his box of remaining items, which was an uncomfortable exchange Salena had been hoping to avoid indefinitely. It was just rubbing salt in the wound. With a last kiss, he was gone. Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am ran through her mind as she shut the door, and he drove away.
Salina thought she'd tackle a few chores around the house and then go into town today. The weather called for sun and mid-eighties temperature, which made for a good day at the farmer's market. She put carpet cleaner on the paint splotch and threw a load of clothes into the washer. When she stepped out to grab the morning paper, she was surprised to find a bouquet of wild orchids on her porch. She picked them up, looking around, but no one was there. There was no card with the flowers either. She didn't think Eric could've put them there, unless he'd circled back, but who else would they be from? She felt cheap, again. She put the flowers in water and worked on the carpet stain. Memories of Eric's touch distracted her, though, and brought on a pink flush of arousal while she rubbed at the stubborn stain. Giving up on it for now, she got cleaned up and headed to the French Quarter for shopping.
The French Quarter was bustling as usual with shoppers, street performers, carriage rides, tour groups, and ladies lunching. Salena overheard a group of women gossiping about the recent murders and looked down at her wrist; it barely had a scratch on it now. It was creepy. She still debated telling the police, but now there was no proof.
Salena looked at the shop signs along the busy sidewalk, wondering where to head next; then a particular sign caught her attention. Doing something uncharacteristic, she walked down the block to Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo.
She wasn't sure what she was expecting to find, or what she was even looking for—except for answers—but she headed into the shop. She felt overwhelmed by all the paraphernalia: tarot cards, dolls, candles, jewelry and such—again, having no idea what she expected from the establishment. Although, it did remind her of her late grandmother's friend, Heloise Montreuil—a Gypsy woman whose family was into crystal balls, tarot cards, fortunetelling, and the like. Throughout Salena's childhood, the colorful woman had often regaled her with stories about white and black magic and seeing the future. She'd even done a tarot reading for Salena on her thirteenth birthday, which revealed, allegedly, that she would one day meet a tall, dark, handsome man who would change her destiny. Salena decided to call upon the woman's expertise, but before she could leave the shop, a white Creole woman stopped her.
"No! You cannot leave yet. I have much to tell you. So please, sit. Let me help you."
Help me? The question was silent, but the expression on Salena's face wasn't.
The woman, whom she assumed was none other than Marie Laveau herself, spoke with an authoritative tone, "You came in seeking answers, and I have the answers you seek; I saw them in a vision I had last night. It was a vision of a dark stranger who has come into your life unexpectedly, and he brings danger with him. You must search the past to find your answers for the present and your future, but beware, not all is what it seems."
Feeling scared and uneasy, Salena tossed the priestess's twenty-dollar fee on her table and left.
Salena met Heloise at the Café Du Monde in the French Quarter. They exchanged a quick hug and kiss on the cheek before sitting down at a secluded table, per Salena's request; she didn't think the other patrons needed to hear what she had to say.
Heloise began with the formality of catching up with her old friend's granddaughter, and Salena followed along until the waiter left with their order for iced teas. Heloise was reminiscing about fun times with Gail, Salena's grandmother, when Salena interrupted her.
"Heloise, I need your advice about something that happened Sunday night, something I can't explain. I was attacked—" she blushed at the word and looked away briefly before continuing; it's hard to refer to it as an attack when she had been enjoying herself, "—by a man when I was in a phone booth."
Heloise almost choked on her sip of water, "Oh, my! Are you alright, dear? Did you report it to the police?"
Salena, blushing again—and deciding to leave out the intimate parts—went on, "I'm okay. Nothing really happened except for this." She flipped over her wrist, so Heloise could examine the bite mark, but it was barely visible at all.
Heloise peered closely at Salena's wrist, "I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be seeing." Salena, feeling like a fool, cleared her throat and spoke softly, "He bit me."
Heloise's face paled. "He bit you on the wrist?"
Salena could only nod in response this time. The old woman placed a wrinkled hand over her heart. "The women in the news had bite marks on them. You're lucky to be alive, Salena."
Salena nodded, "I know." But you wouldn't believe what I almost did with him. "I wonder if it is the same man."
"Let me see your wrist again."
Salena held out her wrist again, feeling like such an idiot about the entire experience.
"I don't see a bite mark, though." Heloise peered at Salena over her reading glasses.
"He did. After he kissed me first." She added the last part almost too quietly for Heloise to hear.
"Something is really strange about these attacks. Let's go to my house and consult the tarot cards."
Salena laid money on the table for the drinks, not even received yet, and followed Heloise the four miles to her cottage. Neither woman noticed the black wolf following them along the tree line.
Devin kept pace with the women; he'd been watching and following Salena all day. It had taken some time to locate her, but he'd finally found her scent when he flew, as a black hawk, over the French Quarter. She had been walking out of a voodoo shop, with a look of deep concern on her beautiful face, when he caught her scent. It was her unmistakable alluring fragrance of honeysuckle and lavender.
At the café, he'd heard the woman address her as "Salena." What a pretty name. Noticing the talisman the old woman wore, he figured she must be a Gypsy. He'd overheard their entire conversation at the café; it was a good thing the wait staff hadn't noticed a black cat lying around in their pristine establishment. Now, perched on the windowsill of the Gypsy's cottage, he listened attentively. He wanted insight to all of this as well.
As soon as the front door closed, Heloise bustled into the other room to get her deck of cards.
Then she spread them out on the coffee table and told Salena to choose three. Salena did as she was instructed, although she was still not sure what she expected to accomplish here. She was looking for answers, though, regardless if they were logical or not.
Heloise flipped the first card, which she reminded Salena, represents the past. "Death."
Salena gasped at the word.
"Don't worry child, it is not necessarily about you or anyone dying. Let's see what the second card is before we determine the meaning of the first." Heloise flipped the second card, "Fool," she said, looking back at the first. "Hmm, let's see the last card." Her withered hand flipped over the final card. "Tower." She looked at all three cards, then at Salena's concerned and curious face. "You must come to terms with something from the past because it is in your present. Not is all that it seems to be, and in the future, you are going to find out that some of your core beliefs are false. Salena, you will have to open up your mind to accept what was, what it is now, and what it is destined to become. I see danger in your life now, and it has something to do with the past. We must look at what happened long ago." With that, she left Salena, bewildered, and headed into another room of the small house.
Salena sat there, thinking about the woman from the voodoo shop and her "vision." The tarot reading, not that she believed in this stuff—well not before today anyway—sounded very similar. So what does that mean?
Heloise returned to the living room with a very dusty and old book in her hands and a look of apprehension on her wrinkled, but wise, face. "This is a diary that belonged to my great-great-great-great-great, I think, grandmother who died right here in Louisiana in 1724. I remember, from my young adult years, reading about some horrifying events during my grandmother's life in the colony. I'm afraid that, if I'm right, my child, the devil himself has come back and set his sights on you."
Shocked, Salena jumped up from the sofa and paced the small room, trying to assess what that could mean. Heloise was thumbing through the book, and Salena was surprised by how fast the old woman's fingers could move. Salena glanced at the pages when Heloise paused, but she couldn't make out any of the words because the book was written in French. She studied the old woman's face as she flipped the crinkled, yellowed pages, and then she saw a look of recognition in Heloise's timeworn eyes.
Heloise clutched the talisman she wore with one hand and took Salena's wrist in the other, in order to look at the faded bite mark again. She looked into Salena's anxious eyes and wrung her hands nervously, "Could it be?"
"Could it be what? What did you read?" Salena stood frozen in place.
Heloise turned another page in the book, "I think you've been chosen."
Salena started pacing again, feeling restless, and threw her hands in the air, "Chosen for what?" her voice came out tense and shrill and she started to bite her nails. It was an old nervous habit, and with all of this stress, she'd never grow them out again.
Heloise turned more pages. "Her diary speaks of a dark and handsome stranger who was in the colony at the same time a trail of young women were left seduced and lifeless. Faint markings, resembling bite marks, were found on the bodies. It was the only proof he'd been there. The proof mysteriously vanished, though, by the time the bodies were burned. The colonists thought it must be a plague, because they didn't know what caused the young, healthy women to suddenly die and turn ashen. That is why the bodies were burned.
My grandmother wrote that only the Gypsies suspected otherwise, and there was one," she said, paraphrasing a page in the book, "a young widow with an infant son, who survived. The woman was strikingly beautiful with milky white skin, raven black hair, and eyes the color of a clear sky—who was bitten—but lived."
Heloise stopped and looked at Salena. "She sounds like you." Salena looked down at her wrist, and Heloise glanced in its direction also.
"The visitor had been seen with her often, leaving more bite marks on her neck and wrist, yet her life had still been spared, and the marks seemed to disappear right before their eyes. She had tried to conceal them, but they were discovered, nonetheless, and the colonists accused her of being the devil's mistress—a witch—and they burned her alive in her home. After that, the devil had disappeared.
Her son had escaped with a servant and was raised by his uncle in another colony." Heloise turned the page, and then her face showed comprehension. She looked at Salena with an expression of foreboding. "The condemned woman's name was Abigail Saunders."
Salena plopped down hard on the sofa, shaken to the core by that piece of information. Her formal name is Salena Abigail Saunders—after a long distant grandmother, according to her late father.
"It says here," Heloise said with angst in her voice," the Gypsies thought he was a vampire. And I think he may have returned," She tapped the newspaper on the table by the tarot cards; the front-page story was about the female victims. Then she put her hand on Salena's wrist. "You must be careful girl. This isn't a New Orleans tourist attraction; your life really is in great danger."
In a daze, Salena hurriedly left Heloise's and drove home. Seriously, a vampire? There's no such thing. The first thing she needed to do was search for the family tree documents she'd come across years before. When her parents had died in an accident, she'd found it in their belongings. Having no siblings, she took that and the other mementos with her when she moved from the family's estate, in Philadelphia, to New Orleans. Her remaining relatives had thought she was crazy to move so far away, and, just maybe, they were right. At that time, though, she'd needed to get away from the pain of her loss. She knew her Masters Degree in history would help her find work in any museum wherever she decided to go; however, something pulled her to New Orleans. She used to think it was Eric.
She spread the document out on her kitchen table and used her index finger to run up the line through her father's relatives. There it was—Abigail Saunders, born nee Abigail Adams in 1696, died in 1720. Salena was even more morose to learn her great-grandmother, to the tenth power, she counted, was only twenty-four when she died—the same age Salena is now. This disconcerting information brought fearful tears to her blue eyes—the blue eyes she'd inherited, along with her porcelain skin and black hair. She had teased her parents before, about being adopted, since her mother had been a redhead with green eyes, while her father had sported brown hair and brown eyes. Now she knows.
She never knew, either, that her grandmother had been accused of witchcraft and had been killed for it. Salena thought about the history of witch trials and could remember certain events in colonial history regarding them, but she certainly couldn't remember anything about vampires. She had to get to the bottom of this—fast.
She stepped out onto her small porch and sat on the swing; she always sat here to clear her head. Her tear stung eyes searched her yard and then her neighbors' yards—every corner, every shrub, every shadow—making sure nothing was there. My life is in danger? The words screamed in her mind. She had thought living alone in a largely populated city was dangerous enough. Now I have a fictional monster to fear? Vampires exist outside the tours and haunted cemeteries? She couldn't wrap her head around that even as she fingered where the bite mark had been on her wrist. Had been...
It was completely gone now.
She needed more information, so she headed back inside to go through her history books. She never noticed the black cat sitting behind her.
Devin had followed Salena back to her home, contemplating what'd he'd seen at the Gypsy's house. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to overhear much of their conversation because a radio had been playing loudly in the background. He knew Salena was upset, and he overheard something about "danger from the past." However, he didn't hear enough to know what that means, unless it was referring to him, and he never learned how to read tarot cards; Gypsies and vampires weren't exactly friends.
His questions remained unanswered, so, at her home, he had watched from his perch on the windowsill while she recovered something scrolled
up in a drawer; it appeared to be a family tree.
He loved how graceful she was when she moved through her house, and the sound of her voice was exquisite— it was soft and delicate like the sound of a gentle rain hitting flower petals. Her hair reminded him of a raven's wings as it flowed in the breeze behind her, along with the breathtaking fragrance of honeysuckle and lavender.
Then she had come outside and sat on her porch swing. He got close to her, sitting behind her, and wondered if he should shape-shift back into himself and approach her. However, something stopped him—and he didn't know what—still. Now, only a few minutes later, she got up and went back into the house.
He watched her again through her windows while she paced the floors of her home. She was searching for something in the drawers and bookcases. Then he saw relief flood her face, as she must have found what she was looking for; she was holding a thick book.
Salena studied one of her old history texts on colonial times. She read and reread about the witch trials and accusations, but she didn't see anything about Abigail Saunders or vampires; not even in the section on the Gypsies.
Staring blankly at the wall, she almost jumped out of her skin when her cell phone rang. The caller ID revealed it was Michael Payne. Great. She had second thoughts about picking up; Michael had been asking her out for months, but she was hesitant to date him. He was boring, plain, and better suited as a friend; she just couldn't imagine having butterflies or sparks with him. Not after Eric. She'd met Michael six months ago at work, when the historical home hired him as a security guard; although, she couldn't imagine any would-be-criminal feeling threatened by Michael. He was a short man, and the way he carried himself didn't portray confidence. He rarely made eye contact with people, Salena included, and he spoke in a quiet voice. All were reasons why Salena couldn't see herself being romantically involved with him; he just isn't masculine. If she were to start dating again, it would have to be with a handsome, virile, sexy, and strong man. Like Eric. However, she hadn't been looking for love lately; she was still too hurt.
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