by Sweet
“You mean you can’t tell that already?” the woman barked at her. “I would think that as a psychic you would already know things of that nature.”
Oh wonderful! A rude one, Secret thought with dismay. Well, that’s why I work alone. I can always send someone away when they’re rude.
“I ask the question as a courtesy,” Secret replied. “There are many gifts that I possess as well as various services that I offer. I simply ask because I’m not clear as to which ones you’re here to experience.”
Mrs. Bennington sat up straighter in her chair and sniffed disdainfully.
“Just tell me what you see,” she said sharply.
I could scare the hell out of her, thought Secret, and just start talking. Or I could make a show of using the Tarot cards to tell her. Either way, it’s going to be the same.
Making a decision, she picked up her deck of Tarot cards. Shuffling them well, she cut the deck, and started to lay them out. Normally, she would have the client cut them and choose cards from the deck, but she didn’t want this horrible woman’s energy to infiltrate her cards.
“The High Priestess card,” Secret said, as she turned it over. “This card shows that you have secrets, Mrs. Bennington. Some very deep secrets that are soon to be revealed.”
“What exactly does that mean?” the woman huffed.
“Just what I said,” Secret replied. “There’s a secret that you’re holding very tightly to you, and you’ll do almost anything to keep it from coming to light.”
Glancing up at her, Secret was somewhat gratified to see that Mrs. Bennington had turned a bit pale.
Turning over the next card, she saw that it was The Tower.
“This is The Tower,” she said. “It shows that things are going to start crumbling around you sometime very soon. There will be changes in your life that must happen, but they may not happen the way that you had hoped or anticipated. You may even need help in dealing with these changes.”
“I don’t know why I’m even here! I’ve never heard such garbage!”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Mrs. Bennington. Shall we continue with your reading or shall I simply refund your money?”
That seemed to stop her in her tracks. It was clear that this was a woman who was used to getting her way all the time. The fact that someone as inferior as Secret Lavalle had the nerve to speak to her in that way infuriated her. On the other hand, she was starting to become nervous about what Secret was actually picking up around her.
“No, no go on.”
“Very well. Your next card, as you can see, is the Ten of Swords. This shows that there’s been some violence around you recently, and that you probably feel you have been betrayed in some way. The next one is the Death card, which shows that you’re going to have a new start but, in this case, it may not be the one that you had hoped it would be.”
“Well, none of that makes any sense,” Mrs. Bennington cried. “You’re a charlatan, just like the rest of your kind that crowd the streets of New Orleans!”
“A charlatan? Is that what you called me?” Secret barely managed to whisper the words.
“Yes! It’s clear that you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about!”
Secret swept up the cards with one hand and put them to the side.
“I’ll show you what a charlatan I am, Mrs. Bennington,” Secret said, as she leaned toward the woman’s face with a dangerous look. “I was trying to be kind and considerate, but I can see that you’re beyond understanding something so basic. So here it is.”
Mrs. Bennington had gone from being livid to somewhat nervous.
“Your husband has recently died, Mrs. Bennington, and you’ve been left a rather large amount of money. However, you won’t get to enjoy any of that money. You see, your huge secret that I was able to pick up within minutes of your darkening my door is that you killed your husband. Granted, he wasn’t a very nice man. He was the typical rich man who couldn’t keep his pants zipped up, and was constantly dipping into the recesses of every gold digger that came along. You got tired of it, but you just couldn’t give up all that money. So you started to slowly poison him with something that will never turn up in an autopsy. A Wiccan High Priestess mixed it up for you and told you how to use it, and it worked like a charm. The problem is that you didn’t hide the leftovers very well and the police are now searching that big, old house of yours for evidence. They’re minutes away from finding the little bottle of poison, and your fingerprints are all over it. The medical examiner is going to look more closely at your husband’s body and this time, he’ll find what the police need to put you under the prison!”
Secret finally stopped talking long enough to take a breath.
“Now, tell me again what a charlatan I am.”
Mrs. Bennington had now turned a dangerous, pasty white, eyes wide and jaw hanging open.
“How… how could you possibly know any of that?” she whispered in shock.
“Because I read it in you as soon as you sat down.”
“Are the police really at my home?” Mrs. Bennington shuddered.
“Yes, I’m afraid they are. You need to go home and face what you’ve done.”
Secret stood up and looked at her client meaningfully.
At first, it didn’t seem as if the woman was going to move, but she finally braced herself by placing her hands on the table and stood up.
“Don’t even try to run, Mrs. Bennington,” Secret warned her. “This isn’t something that you’re meant to avoid. You chose a path and now you must follow it to the end.”
Mrs. Bennington did her best to regain her regal composure, but it wasn’t working so well for her.
“You need to go now, Mrs. Bennington,” Secret said in more compassionate tone. “They’re waiting for you, and it will go easier on you if you just confess to it all.”
“I can’t go to prison,” she said, as her face started to crumple.
“You’re stronger than you think, Mrs. Bennington.”
Actually, Secret could see that this woman wasn’t going to do well in prison at all, but she couldn’t see that telling her so would be helpful at all. In fact, Secret almost felt sorry for her now. Her husband really had been a dick in the worst way, but she had made the wrong decision in getting even with him. Sadly, Mr. Bennington would be having the last laugh.
Escorting a very shaky Harriett Bennington to her front door, Secret was relieved to see that there was a driver waiting with the car in her driveway. She had been a little worried about the woman driving herself home.
At the door, Mrs. Bennington stopped and turned to face Secret.
“I do apologize, my dear, for my horrible manners and rudeness,” she said in a trembling voice. “You’re not a charlatan. In fact, you’re very accurate. Everything you said is the truth. Everything.”
“Mrs. Bennington, I’m very sorry that this has turned out like this for you, but you cannot get away with this type of vengeance.” As Secret spoke, she motioned surreptitiously to the driver to come and collect his employer.
“Thomas, please take me home,” she quavered.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, as he offered her his arm for support on the way back to the car.
Secret watched them as Thomas settled his employer in the back seat of the large, shiny black car.
She felt a heavy sadness descend upon her heart. Yes, the woman had been rude to her, but in the end, that was such a small thing. Harriett Bennington was about to have everything torn away from her, and she didn’t know the half of what she was about to face.
She was relieved that she had an hour to gather her thoughts and center herself before her next client arrived.
CHAPTER SIX
KANE AWOKE AND sat up.
He wasn’t quite sure what caused him to wake because the sun had not totally set. Something stirred his rest, though. Of that, he was positive.
Listening carefully, he trained all of his senses in the direction of where
the disturbance seemed to have emanated.
There it was!
A scream and then silence. Blackness.
He had, of course, been keeping up with the current murders that were happening in and around the New Orleans area. So far, he hadn’t focused on who was doing it. Other things were consuming his attention.
That dreadful name the newspapers were calling the killer simply grated on him. The Blood Drinker. Seriously? He assumed they didn’t fully believe that the murderer was actually drinking the blood of the victims, but it seemed that humans always had to sensationalize these things.
He would have to see who was encroaching on his territory and calling attention to them all. This had to stop. That meant, even though his current project was quite important, it would have to be shelved for the moment so he could sort out this murder situation.
Well, he thought. There’s no time like the present.
Since he had already heard the scream, he knew what direction to take. It was, of course, too late to save the woman, but he could still catch the culprit and dispatch him in whatever way seemed appropriate.
Moving with his supernatural speed, he was at the murder site in seconds. As he had known, the victim was long past any help humans or his kind could offer to her. Sniffing the air, he caught the scent he needed and followed.
In no time, he spotted his prey. He stared at him in amazement.
No wonder he continues to collect victims so easily, Kane thought. He looks as though he’s no older than fifteen or sixteen years old, and has the face of an angel. Before the boy could move in on his next target, Kane swooped down on him and flushed him into a deserted alleyway. . Pushed up against the brick wall, the boy showed no fear until he got a good look at Kane’s face. Recognition, as well as terror, sank in rather quickly then. Even he knew who Kane was.
Leaning right into the young vampire’s face, Kane hissed “So you’re trying to call attention to all of us because you’re stupid?”
“I… I’m hungry and I can’t seem to stop myself.”
“Oh, you can stop yourself. You just choose not to do so. What is your name?”
“My name is Bonn,” he trembled. “You’re not going to kill me, are you?”
“I haven’t decided yet. Who is your maker?”
“She said her name was Lisette.”
“Dammit!” Kane spat out as he shoved Bonn away from him. “Where did she find you?”
“She’s here in New Orleans. I was out with some friends and we got separated. Suddenly, she was right there in front of me.”
Lisette was a very dangerous vampire because she possessed a lethal combination of both beauty and evilness. Outwardly, she had beauty that defied description. It was that appearance which fooled so many humans over the years; even those who knew of and believed in vampires.
Her hair wasn’t dark like a good many vampires’. Rather, it was the lightest shade of blonde. The only time her eyes took on a red tint was when she was getting ready to feed or when she was compelling someone. The rest of the time, they were a shade of blue that the sky would envy. She was tall and slender.
The look of innocence that she wore drew more people to her than if she had used her powers to compel them to come closer. Everyone who saw her wanted to be near her.
For her to have snatched this boy from the street, meant that her hunger had overtaken her. This fact made Kane very curious. Lisette had been around long enough to control her surroundings and sort them in a way suitable to her. What could have happened that would have caused her to take someone just because he was handy? Even more puzzling, why had he not been able to sense her? Usually, Kane knew whenever Lisette was close.
“Did she speak to you?” Kane demanded to know.
“Not really,” Bonn said. “She did her thing and threw me to the ground. But first, before she started feeding, she told me that her name was Lisette and that she was going to give me the gift of immortality.”
“Let me guess. She bit your neck and the next thing you knew, you woke up with a burning hunger, the likes of which you had never felt in your life. You might have even tried to eat food, but it only made you ill. Am I close?” Kane asked.
“That’s exactly what happened!” Bonn cried.
“How do you know who I am? I can see that you recognize me.”
“All vampires know who you are, and most of them are afraid of you.”
“And you’re not?” Kane asked.
“Of course I am, but if you’re gonna kill me there’s not a lot I can do to stop you.”
“That’s very true,” Kane said softly. “But this is your lucky day. I’ve decided not to kill you. However, I do have some conditions attached to that decision. You’re going to stop killing outright. Obviously, Lisette left you on your own with no training. I’ll show you how to feed without killing, and without leaving the memory of your presence behind. Am I understood?”
Bonn looked at Kane as if he didn’t quite believe his good fortune.
“You know, I don’t really like to kill,” he murmured. “I just get so hungry.”
“How old are you?” Kane asked him.
“I was nineteen when I was turned.”
“And how long ago were you turned?”
“Six months ago. I remember, because we were out celebrating my friend’s twenty-first birthday. We stumbled out of the bar and into this crowd of people. My friends went one way and I kind of fell in another direction. Then this woman comes out of nowhere. Man, she was so hot! She’s standing there smiling at me like she wants to eat me up, which is kind of what ended up happening.”
Kane was still puzzled as to why Lisette would single out this young man. At any rate, Bonn couldn’t be allowed to roam around freely until he had been taught a few things, and it seemed as Kane was the only one around to do it. Of course, he could simply kill him, but even after all of these years as a vampire, he got no pleasure from killing. No, if he could save this new vampire; he would do so.
He spent the rest of that night with Bonn, showing him the ropes, so to speak. They began by going back to his last victim and removing her from the dump spot. The police wouldn’t find another body and would simply believe that the murderer had moved on. That didn’t mean they would stop looking, though they would never find the murderer.
Just before dawn, having made sure that Bonn was satiated for a while, Kane helped him locate a resting place that would keep him safe as he slept. Heading back to his own home, Kane made it just in time to sequester himself before the sun was completely up. Even though the sun didn’t cause him to burst into flames, he found that it did drain him after too much exposure. So he preferred to not spend a lot of time in direct sunlight. Besides, his sleep was a healing one and replenished him in just those few hours.
He was a bit sorry that he hadn’t had a chance to check in on Secret that night. It was okay, though. He knew she wasn’t going anywhere that he would be unable to find her. One lost night wasn’t going to ruin anything.
Reassured that all was well, Kane closed his eyes.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“EVERYTHING IS GOING to be just fine, DeLisa,” Secret said, as she tried to reassure her young client that she didn’t have to marry someone she didn’t love.
“But what about my family?” the girl sobbed. “They adore Davis! They’ve practically had us married since we were in diapers!”
Pointing to the Seven of Swords that lay on the table, Secret tapped it with her fingernail.
“See this card right here?” she asked. “This shows that Davis hasn’t been entirely honest with you about something. All you have to do is find out what he’s been hiding and then go to your parents. They won’t have their baby girl marrying a liar!”
“But he’ll never admit to me that he’s lied about anything. How will I find out what he’s doing?” DeLisa wailed.
“Because I’m gonna tell you, DeLisa,” Secret said to her in a quiet, calm voice.
The
n she pointed to The Empress card that was on the table.
“Okay, this card shows us that he’s gotten someone pregnant,” Secret told her.
“You mean he’s been cheating on me?” DeLisa shrieked.
“I’m afraid so, honey.”
“But who? And how could he keep a baby hidden?”
“First of all, he doesn’t know she’s pregnant yet. I’m not quite sure that she even knows, but she will soon.”
“Do you know her name?” DeLisa asked.
Secret had to pause with that one. She did know who the girl was, but she had to figure out a way to make DeLisa believe that she was seeing it in the cards, when, in fact, she hadn’t seen any of these things in the cards alone. All of it had come from her special ability that she kept hidden for the most part.
“Let me see if we can get a name for you,” Secret said kindly, as she picked up her cards and re-shuffled them.
She laid out a few new cards and pretended to study them intently.
DeLisa was quite impatient and kept asking her if she was getting anything. Secret held up her hand to silence the girl. It was important to make it look good. Finally, she looked up at DeLisa and spoke to her.
“I have a name,” she said quietly. “Are you sure you want to know?”
“Yes! I have to know, Secret! This might just give me my life back!”
“Alright then, I’ll tell you. I’m getting that her first name is Bethany and her last name seems to be DuMonde. Yes, I’m quite sure that’s it. Bethany DuMonde.”
DeLisa had suddenly gone quiet and her eyes were wide.
“Are you sure that’s her name?”
“Yes, honey, quite sure,” Secret answered. “What’s wrong? Do you know her?”
“Actually, I do know her. I know her quite well. She’s my best friend.”
Secret had also seen that, but she felt that it would be better for DeLisa to work that out on her own.
“What will you do then?” she asked.
“It all makes so much sense now,” DeLisa said. “They always got along really well, and Davis wanted to invite her to come with us sometimes when we would go to a movie or out to eat. Not only that, but they would both be unavailable at the same time when I wanted to go out for the night. Now, I know why.”
