The Link

by Dara Nelson

He woke me with a gentle kiss at nine a.m., with breakfast ordered and on the table. I was famished and I ate like a pig. “What happened last night?” I asked.

  “Omoruyi’s grandfather gave me some incense made from a thousand year old secret recipe that we’re supposed to use during the change process. The smoke and scent of it is supposed to put us in some sort of a trance,” he said.

  “Okay, sounds interesting. And where are we going today?” I asked between mouthfuls.

  “Egypt,” he replied. I stopped eating and stared at him. “I’ve always wanted to go there. See the sites and experience the history. Do you think we might be able to stay a little longer there?”

  He reached over, and placed his hand on mine, “Sarah, I promise you, if we, no, when we get through this, I will take you wherever you want to go and we’ll stay for as long as you want to be there.” I nodded my reply, sighed and went back to my breakfast. I showered then, asking him to please stay out because I knew we didn’t have time for anything else, to which he grudgingly agreed. When I emerged from the bathroom I noticed a new outfit laying across the bed for me. I raised an eyebrow at him and walked over to it.

  “It’s very nice,” I said as I put it on. Of course it fit perfectly. I grabbed the rest of my things and went to put them in my bag, instantly noticing that there were a lot more clothes in there now than when we started. “When, exactly, did you have time to shop?” I asked.

  He smiled, ignoring my question, and said, “There will be a car downstairs for us in a few minutes.”

  Suddenly Carlos burst through the door, the ever-present smile on his face, “The car’s here already, kids.” I started to say something but then noticed Matt out of the corner of my eye, with tension written clearly across his face.

  “What’s happened?” he asked. I sank down in the nearest chair, not sure I wanted to hear this. “They’re on their way to Mexico. They’re still not sure what you’re up to, but they know you went there and they are trying to find out why.”

  “Well then,“ Matt looked at me, “it won’t be long before they know that you’re with me, it should only be a matter time before they figure everything out,” he said. “We’ll need to step things up and move faster.”

  “Easy for you to say,” I replied.

  Matt smiled, “True, true.” He turned back to Carlos, “Thanks for the update.”

  Carlos smiled, bowed to us, said, “I’m having too much fun here. Happy travels, friends,” and he turned to leave, but I stopped him.

  “Wait, Carlos. I have a question for you,” I said. I saw Matt shaking his head next to me. I turned to him first. “What?” I said.

  “I can’t believe you’re going to ask him. Can you go outside? I really don’t need to hear this,” he said.

  “Oh, this must be good,” Carlos grinned. He put his arm around my waist and led me outside. “Ask away, beautiful,” he said.

  Suddenly my nerves hit. I squeezed my eyes shut, “I can’t believe I’m going to ask you this,” I said.

  “Oh, Sarah. Now I have to know. Don’t leave me hanging here.”

  I looked at him, “Okay,” I said and then I took a deep breath. “Well, do your fangs ever drop during, ummm, certain times when you’re, when you’re, well, when you’re having sex?” I said. There, I said it.

  His mouth dropped as he gaped at me for a second, but he soon recovered and unleashed his biggest grin yet. “Why? You want to go somewhere so you can find out?” he grinned. “Just kidding, Sarah. But to answer your question, I haven’t really thought about it, but yeah, I guess sometimes they do. You gonna tell me why you want to know? Wait!” he gasped. “It didn’t just happen with you and…? And you’re okay? He must not have pierced you or you’d be…” he said as he squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them again, I held my hand up to show him the pin prick on my thumb. “Whoa,” he said as he looked at it. “Sarah, promise me you’ll be more careful. It would devastate him if he…” I nodded my head.

  “I will, I promise,” I said then I leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks, Carlos,” I said, then I turned to head back in.

  As he left he said, “Just let me know when you want to see my fangs too, Sarah.” I smiled as I closed the door. Carlos was really growing on me and he was definitely a great friend to Matt, who was smiling and shaking his head as I walked back in. “I can’t believe you did that, Sarah,” he said.

  “Neither can I,” I said.

  “Well? Did you find out anything useful? But, please, nothing graphic,” he grinned.

  “There’s nothing wrong with you, Matt. It happens to him too. We just need to be more careful.” He nodded and held his arms open, where I gladly went.

  Once in the car, it was a fairly short ride to the airport, then about a four hour flight to Cairo. I looked longingly out the window at the pyramids, knowing this was all I was going to see of them, this time. Matt leaned over and whispered into my ear, “Soon, I promise.”

  We made our way to the hotel and just had time to unpack when there was a light knock on the door, “Well, that can’t be Carlos, because whoever it is knocked,” I muttered under my breath. Matt smiled as he walked to the door. When he opened it I gasped, as in walked the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She had pale white skin, long black hair, hypnotizing, black, cat’s eyes. Matt walked over to me, closed my mouth (I didn’t realize that it was hanging open), placed his arm around my shoulder and said, “Sarah, I’d like you to meet Bahiti. Bahiti, this is my Sarah.” She glided over to me and took my hand in both of hers. Her hands were cool and smooth like Matthew’s.

  “It is very nice to finally meet you,” she said, with a slight accent in her voice. “Matthew has been speaking of you for so long now that we were all beginning to wonder if you were a figment of his imagination, I’m very glad to see that you are not.”

  “It’s… it’s very nice to meet you too,” was all I could manage, as I wondered how many “we” meant.

  “Well, shall we go?” she said and she turned, keeping my hand firmly in hers, and headed towards the door. I was used to having to stay behind during these times, so I hesitated and said, “We?”

  “Yes, we,” she replied. “We’re going down into the hidden temple of Sekhmet, an ancient Egyptian goddess who drank blood and was actually a vampire. I feel you, as a woman, could be very helpful in interpreting some of the symbols we will see,” she said.

  “Okay,” I squeaked, the excitement clear in my voice, and out the door we went. I was glad it was evening, I wouldn’t want to be wandering in this heat in the direct sunlight, and neither would they I assumed. As we moved through the crowds, with the two of them trying very hard to be patient with my ‘human speed’, I noticed that everyone stopped and stared as Bahiti moved passed. “I know the feeling,” I thought, smiling to myself. We wandered for what seemed like hours. Down an endless maze of streets and alleys and I really was beginning to think we were lost. When we turned into a narrow alley that ended with a brick wall, I said, “Okay, now I know we’re lost.” Bahiti just smiled and her hands began moving at lightning speed as she pressed different places around the wall. I had no idea what she was doing, but suddenly a door sprung open at the end. It led to a staircase that went down. Where the heck did that come from? I wondered.

  She handed me a flashlight. “You’ll need this,” she said and gestured with her hand for me to go first. I headed down the longest staircase I had ever seen. I had no idea how many steps but I stopped counting when I reached one hundred. The steps finally ended at a narrow hall and we walked on, passing several small rooms off to the sides. The hall ended in huge room. My flashlight swept around the room, trying to fathom the scope of it. There were small statues, bowls, carvings, and other artifacts all around. The walls were painted blood red (maybe it was blood, I thought) and were covered with hieroglyphics from the top of the twenty foot tall ceilings to the floor. My flashlight continued to sweep around, then stopped, dead in its tracks, when it
reached the center of the room. Sitting on a huge throne was a ten foot tall statue of a woman, one whom I could only assume was Sekhmet. No big deal seeing a statue but it was her eyes that stopped me. They should have been looking straight ahead, but instead I would swear they were watching us. Bahiti and Matthew grabbed hold of my hands and I watched as they bowed their heads, so I followed suit. We stayed that way for a while and I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. Suddenly something happened that made both Matthew and Bahiti squeeze my hands tighter and Matt clamped his other hand over my mouth to keep me from screaming. In that moment an ancient, grating, gravelly female voice said, “You may proceed.” My eyes were wide as I stared at Matthew. I wanted to scream, I wanted to ask him what the hell that was. I wanted to say, ‘Please tell me that wasn’t really the statue that spoke.’ But instead, I only swallowed hard and nodded my head at him, letting him know I would be quiet. We silently moved around to the back side of the throne, although they had to help me because my feet didn’t seem to want to work right now. There were more hieroglyphics carved into the back of her throne. I noticed Bahiti tracing her fingers over some as if she was searching for something. She seemed to have found what she was looking for and she pressed first one - a hand with an eye in the middle, then another - a snake with dripping fangs, then another - a male holding a goblet, then one more - the goddess Sekhmet drinking something red from a goblet - and suddenly this panel of symbols slid down to reveal another one, hidden inside. Bahiti seemed to want to work quickly now. She handed me a small camera and pulled a notepad out of her bag. “Please take pictures, quickly,” she said as she began drawing and whispering to herself while she did it. I started snapping pictures then I jumped back and gasped when the panel suddenly slid shut and the voice said, “Enough. Leave now.” I could only hope that we got everything we needed. We walked back to the doorway and, once again turned and bowed our heads and waited.

  The voice finally said, “You may go,” and we turned and quickly walked into the hall. I was suddenly overcome by the loneliness of Sekhmet’s existence, sitting by herself on her throne for who knows how long, perhaps thousands of years. I realized that I was crying as I handed the camera back to Bahiti. She wiped away my tears and said, “She chooses to live this way for now, it hasn’t always been like this and it won’t always be this way for her, but for now this is how she wants it.” I nodded and tried to stop. Bahiti smiled and said, “Now, we have to work quickly and I’m afraid you are much too slow, so please sleep precious human.” Confusion filled my face as she reached out and touched my temple… that was the last thing I remember.

  I awoke several hours later. The room was dark except for the small lamp by the dining table in the corner of the room. And I heard voices whispering. I stretched and yawned, and excused myself to the bathroom. Then I walked over and sat down with them. “Okay,” I said, “who’s going to tell me what that was about?”

  She smiled at me, “We needed to return quickly so we could get to work, and I didn’t want you to have a heart attack or something when we flew.”

  I turned and looked at Matthew, “We FLEW back here?”

  “Yep,” he replied, smiling.

  “And I missed it? That is so not fair,” was all I could manage. I was definitely disappointed that I hadn’t been awake for it. Maybe next time. I looked down at the table. It was covered with the drawings and pictures from the temple. We discussed them for hours, trying to make sense of them. My eyes continued to be drawn to the one of the hand. It was an open hand, palm side out, a large eye in the middle of the palm (and was that a flaw or was it a scar along the lifeline?). The fingers were stretched out wide. Matthew and Bahiti kept talking about the eye in it, but something kept telling me that the eye wasn’t the important thing about it. I didn’t know why and I couldn’t figure out what else was important about it, but I really felt it wasn’t the eye, and I knew without a doubt that this drawing was an important piece to the puzzle. Suddenly Matthew stood up. His eyes appearing completely unfocused. He managed to turn to us and quietly say through clenched teeth, “I need to go out for a bit. Bahiti, will you stay with Sarah, please?” She nodded her head and didn’t seem surprised. It was almost as if she was expecting this. He quickly kissed my cheek and then was gone. I looked at her with questioning eyes. She smiled gently and said, “He shouldn’t have to exist on pints alone, you know. And with all the traveling you’re doing, he really needs better nourishment. There is a serial killer nearby, very close, who is stalking his new target and preparing to strike again. Matthew went to stop him.”

  “Oh,” I whispered trying to remain calm. I wasn’t used to this part of him yet and I really didn’t want to ever be okay with it, but it was a part of him and it might someday be a part of me, so I needed to accept it.

  “How do you not fight each other if you’re both near someone evil?” I asked.

  “Our minds are somehow connected in such a way that when one of us locks in on a prey, it causes other vampires nearby to lose sight of it. Others can no longer smell or sense the evil and they have no choice but to back down. As soon as Matthew locked in on him, I could no longer see where he was,” she replied.

  I thought about this as we continued to go over the symbols for a short time. Was I really prepared for this to be a part of me? Even if I never acted on it, it would still be a part of me. Is that something that I could accept? Could I do that for him?

  When Matt finally breezed back in through the door, he looked calmer, more relaxed and more alivethan he had in days, weeks even. Despite knowing what he had done to look this way, I felt relief for him. He came in, whispered something in Bahiti’s ear causing her to smile slightly and nod her head. She turned to me, gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and was quickly out the door. I opened my mouth to him to ask why she had left so abruptly without saying anything, when he scooped me up in his cool embrace and carried me to the bed as his mouth found mine. I instantly understood. Each time he did this my mind always thought “I really could get used to this” as I surrendered.

  Chapter Six

  Much later we were packing (again! I thought) when Bahiti tapped on the door and then glided in. “Better now?” she said to Matthew with a smile.

  “Much,” he replied as he looked at me, smiled and winked, making me blush.

  “Your plane leaves in an hour,” she said

  “Where to now?” I asked.

  “Paris, France,” he replied. My eyes grew wide, another place I’ve always wanted to go but have never been.

  Again I wanted to ask if we could stay there a bit, but instead I said, “I know, I know, soon.” He rolled his eyes, but then smiled. The flight to France didn’t take too long. For someone who used to absolutely hate flying, I really was enjoying this First Class stuff. It was just after two in the afternoon when we arrived at our room in Paris. It was the most luxurious hotel room I had ever seen. The Eiffel tower was visible just outside our window. I knew we had until after midnight before he would be leaving, alone this time he had already told me, and I was torn between spending that time in the room with him and going out to do some normal touristy things. He seemed to sense my indecision.

  He grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the door while saying, “We will have an eternity of days to spend together in bed, Sarah. This is your first time in Paris and you should see a few things.”

  I smiled and happily, though reluctantly, followed him. I was an excited tourist then for the next few hours, going to the top of the Eiffel Tower, walking along the Seine River, going to the Louvre museum. I filled up the memory card on my camera along the way. I was pretty exhausted when we returned to the room at 10:00 p.m., but definitely not too exhausted to thank him for the afternoon.

  He stayed in bed with his arms wrapped around me, until he had to leave at midnight. I was sleeping, but he lightly kissed me on my forehead, traced the scar on my palm and whispered, “I love you.”

  “I love you too,” I mumbled ba
ck, reaching for him but he was already gone, with Pierre. They were gone to the Catacombs of Paris, tunnels beneath the streets of Paris filled with the bones of millions of Parisians, seeking more of the answers we were looking for. I rolled over onto his pillow, happily smelling his scent, and fell into a deep sleep.

  I began to realize that something was… off… shortly before dawn. But the realization began in my dream. In my dream, I thought Matt was sleeping next to me. But he smelled different. And when I rolled over and rested my arm on his, his skin felt different. I frowned as I tried to figure out what was wrong. As I did this, I gradually began to wake up. Finally, as the sun peaked through the curtain, my eyes fluttered open and then closed again. My subconscious told me,“That was strange, Sarah.” Then my eyes fluttered again, staying open a bit longer, and then closing again. Suddenly my subconscious yelled at me, “That’s not him, Sarah,” and my eyes flew open. I gasped then relaxed a bit when I realized who it was.

  “Jesus, Carlos. You scared the hell out of me,” I said, as I made sure my naked body was completely covered.

  “Apparently I confused you too. You were frowning in your sleep,” he grinned.