Dream the Crow's Black Dream - A Tale of Vampires Book Four

by John Hennessy

  He had no reason to trust Gretchen of course, but he could trust that she would kill without reason or care if he crossed her. Besides, she could have killed Rosalyn in the hospital, but she let her live. He had to trust that whatever Gretchen was up to, both he and his new wife could survive it.

  With Rosalyn safely in the car, Seth gave a twenty-pound note to the driver, and pressed a small note into his hand. Written on it were the directions to Daisy’s plot, along with don’t ask any questions about this.

  He smiled at Rosalyn, whilst looking around the interior of the car for something to attack Gretchen with. He didn’t know if his wedding day was supposed to be the best day of his life, but it would certainly be the most memorable.

  Maybe this was how it was meant to be. Seth, Rosalyn and the vampire. Either Seth and his new wife would see the day out, or the 140 year old vampire would. Experience would seem to favour the latter, whilst determination would definitely lie with her younger adversary.

  However, he lacked will – the will to act. Gretchen had told him so on the many occasions she forced him to find more groups for her to feed on.

  Seth had trawled through many websites and books in order to understand the mind of a killer. His retort on one occasion to Gretchen was ‘I have studied the mind and actions of killers for years. Saying you don’t have to have a reason to kill, is unacceptable to me.’

  “I imagine it is,” replied Gretchen. “Studying murders are one thing, but to know how to murder someone, how to kill them, that is something completely different, wouldn’t you say? Let’s face it Seth, you could have a degree in this stuff and still not be qualified.”

  “I just can’t believe you don’t have any remorse.”

  “Does a cat feel remorse when it crushes the bones of a mouse?”

  “I suppose not.”

  Gretchen smiled before saying to Seth, what she had said to him many times before.

  “I could make you like me, you know. Then you wouldn’t be so repulsed by my actions. As one of us, you would finally understand.”

  “I’d fight you with every ounce of my being,” replied Seth.

  “Yes, you would. But the outcome would not be in doubt, would it?”

  Seth had to hope that the outcome of his next meeting with the vampire would be the last. His thoughts were broken by a chill that wrapped around him suddenly. He leaned forward in the car, and asked the driver to turn the heating up.

  “Sure, squire,” came the reply.

  “Pardon me?”

  “Of course, no problem,” came the amended reply. The driver had no reason to know why calling Seth squire scared him so much.

  Rosalyn looked rather faint. Seth squeezed her hands, which felt ice cold. Her cheeks looked gaunt, and her neck, strained and wizened, like a woman fifty years her senior.

  “Roz? Are you alright?”

  “I’m okay, just a little overwhelmed from all the day’s events. Don’t worry Seth.”

  The driver did as he was directed on the slip of paper, and turned into the cemetery. Rosalyn nuzzled her head onto Seth’s shoulder, and with great fear in his eyes, he looked out of the window on approach to Daisy’s grave. He could see someone standing there, but it was not Gretchen.

  It was Ricky.

  As they approached the plot, the road became too narrow for the driver to continue.

  “I have to stop here sq-, I mean, sir.”

  “Yes, of course, just stay here a moment will you. Keep my wife safe and sound.”

  The driver nodded.

  “Ricky, what are you doing here?”

  “Oh, it’s you again squire, and in all your finery too. What are you doing here in a cemetery? Can’t stay away, even on your wedding day? I wonder what Mrs Squire will think about that?”

  “Stop calling me that ridiculous name,” growled Seth. “Now what is going on?”

  “Take a look for yourself.”

  Daisy’s grave had been tampered with, and her coffin was missing. Her body, however, was still in there. Seth was surprised how much of it was intact. Thick strands of hair remained stuck to her skull, but she was face down in the mud, with her back twisted at an acute angle.

  “Who the hell has done this?” snarled Seth, anger welling up in him. “You’re supposed to be keeping an eye on this place.”

  “And you should be keeping an eye on your young lady there.”

  “She’s safe in the car.”

  “Yeah, but your driver isn’t.”

  Seth turned to look in the direction of the car, and he was shocked to see Rosalyn lean forward, wrap a cold arm around the driver’s neck, and sank her teeth into him, whilst keeping a dead-eyed lock on Seth.

  “Roz!”

  The pain in Seth’s voice was replaced by pain in his legs, which caused him to fall to his knees.

  Ricky had hit the back of his legs with a shovel. The pain was excruciating.

  “Rick, you bastard, you-”

  “Easy now, squire. Don’t make a fuss. You’re going in the hole with Daisy, and that’s all there is to it.”

  Ricky grabbed Seth by the throat, and flung him into the grave.

  “Don’t try to get out, or I’ll smash your head in,” menaced Ricky, whose appearance changed to that of Gretchen.

  “You. It was you all the time.”

  “Of course it was. Say Seth, someone wants to say hello.”

  Rosalyn peered into the hole, blood splattered on her ivory wedding gown. She was still eating something in her mouth, before spitting it into the grave.

  “The driver?” asked Gretchen, to which Rosalyn nodded. “Ah well, that’s commitment to the job, isn’t it Seth?”

  “You said you wouldn’t hurt Rosalyn!”

  “I haven’t hurt her. Did I hurt you, Rosalyn?”

  “Oh no, you didn’t hurt me,” replied Rosalyn. “But he did! He never loved me, only her.”

  “Now he can spend eternity with her, can’t he?”

  Rosalyn kicked some of the dirt into the grave. Seth struggled to get up. He expected that the blow to the legs had broken his bones. The grave was deep. He would not be getting out of there.

  Rosalyn then picked the shovel up, and started to put the soil back into the hole.

  “Roz! Stop what you’re doing, don’t you know what you’re doing?”

  But Rosalyn looked blankly at him, pausing only to tear some skin from her neck. It had turned out to be a simple skin graft, which had covered up the bite marks on her neck. She threw the dead skin into the grave.

  “You always wanted to be a part of me Seth, well, there you go.”

  Seth groaned and whimpered, but there was nothing to stop the soil entering the hole. Rosalyn’s expression did not change even slightly, as Seth’s screams were silenced.

  “Good job, Rosalyn,” said Gretchen. “Now I have another job for you.”

  “What will that be?”

  “A family reunion of sorts. You and Seth were living in a house, weren’t you? Well, with your help, we’re going to reclaim the castle.”

  “The Dreymuirs? Won’t they be too strong for just the two of us?”

  “There will be two of them, but three of us. En route to the castle, we will join with Darius.”

  “Won’t Seth try to stop you?”

  Gretchen turned around and looked at the soil, which remained undisturbed, her wicked laugh filling the air.

  Out of Sight

  The vampires had gone, the driver was dead, and pretty much everyone inside the cemetery had died some years before. However, two people ran from their hiding place, behind one of the large gravestones, towards the mangled plot containing Daisy and Seth.

  “We have to hurry. We have to hope he is alive.”

  “Are they gone? You’re sure?” the other man asked. “Are they out of sight?”

  “Yes, yes. They don’t think anyone is coming to save this guy. But he has had more experience with the vampire than anyone else we know, including ourselves.�
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  The two men, who looked around Seth’s age, began to dig furiously. They could not use shovels for fear of hitting Seth’s body.

  Soon, the soil was disturbed enough and they felt something emerge. Seth had managed to thrust his arm up from the clotted soil of blood and bone. One of the men grabbed his hand, and leaned back, using all his strength to heave him clear of the grave.

  He panted heavily for a few moments, whilst the other man checked on Seth’s vital signs.

  “He is weak, but still alive. His pulse and heartbeat are strong.”

  Seth coughed dirt from his mouth, and tried to say something. One of the men leaned his ear in close, to listen to what Seth was saying.

  “Who are you? How did you find me?”

  “That’s what we do. We find people,” he replied. “In fact, we’ve been tracking your movements for ages, though this event was not foreseen. Just glad to have gotten you out in time.”

  “When I’m…when I’m better, I want to…I want to kill Gretchen. I want to kill her. I don’t care how it’s done, or what happens to me.”

  “We’ve come to the same conclusion about our predicament.”

  “What predicament?”

  “That we have a vampire to kill as well.”

  “You’re vampire hunters?”

  “Of a kind, yes. My name is Marcus and this is my brother Rocco.”

  “You know they’ve gone to the castle?”

  “Yes, and in time, that’s where we’re headed too.”

  The two men helped Seth up, and bundled him into the back of the wedding car. They wrapped a blanket around him to keep him warm, and one of them started the engine.

  “What are you going to do when you get there?”

  The two men paused before answering in unison.

  “We are going to kill our sister.”

  Author Reflections

  A story which contains Juliana and Mariana, along with the formidable Gretchen was always appealing to me as the writer.

  The story that runs parallel to the vampire legend – that of Seth’s pursuit of a normal life, married to his long term sweetheart Rosalyn, is ruined once the Crow’s Black Dream (engineered by Gretchen), is actually intended to bring Seth to his doom.

  However, unlike Gretchen, I am not bored of Seth as a character, and wanted his story to go on.

  All the same, destroying Gretchen won’t be easy. As for the next book in the series, two ‘family reunions’ could happen. In Gretchen’s case, she wishes to return to Dreymuir Castle to carry out some wicked act against Mariana and especially Juliana.

  Marcus and Rocco, the now much older siblings from Murderous Little Darlings will not pass up the opportunity to kill Juliana either.

  It’s just a question of who will get to her first.

  - John Hennessy, April 2015

  By the same Author

  A Tale of Vampires: V

  Coming soon.

  By the same Author

  Dark Winter: The Wicca Circle

  Romilly Winter is no ordinary heroine, just a reluctant one.

  She has a gift. She can see the future. But can she see far enough? The world in which she lives is under attack – the dead are rising, and evil follows her at every turn.

  Will she be able to save herself – and the world?”

  ***

  From the Diary of Romilly Winter, October 14th.

  "I’ve had two years to prepare for this. In that time, I have never told a soul. Of course, my Nan knew. She’d bequeathed me the mirror, after all. Now, maybe tonight, tomorrow, in a few days, the event that I don’t want to happen with all my heart, will come to pass. I’m not ready. I know I’m not ready, and yet, it will happen nonetheless.

  Nan had this thing in her possession for nearly seventy years. She had told me I simply had to be at Rosewinter, prior to my sixteenth birthday no matter what objections my parents raised. She said I was ‘special’, and was the only one equipped to deal with what was coming.

  The problem is, I don’t feel special, I just feel…different, and in all probability, that isn't going to be good enough.

  In just two days time, I will be sixteen years old, and if anything my Nan said is remotely true, I will be lucky to survive that long…."

  Stormling

  In an age when Stormlings have only known peacetime, one man's desperate action threatens not only the stability of the mystical world of Mordana, but Earth as well.

  Teenager Ophelia Drewe discovers a jewel that has been lost from its homeworld, and whilst she thinks she can keep it, demonic forces believe otherwise.

  She’s not alone, but who can she trust? The head Stormling, Anadyr, hasn’t been to the Earth in 500 years, but go there he must – if the jewel is not returned, it will destroy both Ophelia’s world and his own…

  Dark Winter: Crescent Moon

  The second book in the Dark Winter trilogy.

  Murderous Little Darlings: A Tale of Vampires: I

  Three siblings. An endless list of victims. A whole lot of time to kill.

  * * *

  With two specimens of the undead on either side of her, Juliana knew there was no escape. Kill the one they had selected for her, or be killed, and become one of them. What had the neighbours in the road called them, back when their childhood pranks were just that?

  Oh yes, she remembered now. Murderous Little Darlings. They had the faces of angels, but possessed the very soul of the Devil.

  Marcus had fully embraced his vampire side from the moment he was born. Rocco was the second eldest, and had fought the temptation all of his life. Then Marcus finally broke him.

  That just left Juliana. Will she resist them, or join in the hunt?

  The Blood and the Raven: A Tale of Vampires: II

  A group of teenagers spend a night amongst the ruins of an old priory, taking turns to scare each other with a tale of horror, the next tale more frightening than the last.

  When it comes to Seth, the last storyteller, he is reluctant to tell the story, because once the tale has been told, those who hear it, will begin to die.

  His friends think Seth is bluffing - but is he in fact, telling the truth?