“So where’re we going for dinner?” I asked. My voice was more stable than I expected, but it still needed a few of the quivers ironed out. It didn’t help that my heart rate was still around one hundred and thirty after having Carter scare the death out of me, standing at the door like he was. “Are we taking my car or yours?” Much better, I encouraged myself.
“Figured we’d walk,” Carter said. “No sense passing up on such a ‘perty evenin’ like this’n.”
A pretty January evening in North Carolina? Was that even possible? I didn’t have the heart, or the guts, to disagree – the heart because Carter seemed dead-set on walking through the cold – the guts because I wasn’t about to impose my will on his. As far as the chill, it didn’t matter to him anyway. His blood was already in the forty to fifty degree temperature range.
“Anywhere in particular?” I asked.
He shook his head, frowned. “Be good to get to know ya’, that’s all.”
We turned right onto Avent Ferry and trucked on towards Gorman at a leisurely pace. Though there was nothing leisurely about it, not with my heels and not with the cold air whipping around me. “Okay, you first. What’s your favorite food?”
He gave a deep throaty chuckle. “Next question.”
Oh yeah…probably shouldn’t have started there. I thought to ask, “What do you like to do for fun?” but I figured that question to be equally inappropriate. “What’s your favorite television show?” That’s a good one, right?
He gave another laugh. “You gone find this kinda’ funny. But keep yer’ opinion to yerself, ya’ hear?”
“What? You’re a big Man vs. Wild kinda’ guy?”
“No…I’m kinda’ into Downton Abbey.”
“You can’t be serious,” I said
“Remember now, you’re supposed to keep yer’ opinion to yerself. But it’s the characters mostly. The Crawley family is sum’n else. And the theme song draws me right in from the get-go. You ain’t gone believe it, but I watched all of season one and two and part of season three in the same day.”
The same day? He’s lying. How could he have stayed up that long? Oh…right… “That’s a long time to sit and watch one show.”
“When it’s good, it’s good.” He let his thumbs rest on his belt, walking along side me as we crossed over Gorman Street and continued on Avent Ferry.
I wasn’t sure where we were headed since there were no restaurants for miles in this direction.
“You got any shows you watch?” he asked.
I made a tsking-thinking sound. “Not lately. I haven’t had much time to devote to television these days. I’m a reality show kinda’ person though. If I let one episode suck me in, I’m hooked.”
That brought a mocking grin to him. “Reality television – nothin’ more real than that.”
“Hey, I thought we were keeping our opinion to ourselves.” I backhanded his arm like he was Lyle, and immediately retracted. “I-I’m sorry…I didn’t…”
Carter cracked into a hefty, belly bouncing laugh, grabbing his “injured” arm. And for once, I wasn’t afraid of him. All the stories of the mindless hunter out for blood and entrails took a backseat. I even let out a nasally laugh – one where my mouth didn’t open.
Still holding his arm, Carter said, “With reality television, I reserve the right to share my opinion in hopes that you don’t dirty yer’ ‘perty lil’ mind wit’ that garbage no more…Snooki?” he scoffed. “What the blood is a Snooki anyway?”
“I didn’t say I watched Jersey Shore.” I pushed my hair behind my ear again.
“Yeah, but you didn’t say you didn’t neither. Now come clean.”
“Okay, okay. I might have watched a season or…six. But it wasn’t like it was on purpose.”
“So, lil’ missy, you just accident’ly stumbled upon six full seasons and you expect any man from North Carolina to Nebraska to believe a word of that hogwash?”
My mood deteriorated from jovial to offended. “If you didn’t want to know, you should’ve never asked, okay?”
“Whoa, whoa, hold yer’ horses. Didn’t mean for ya’ to get yer’ pannies’ in a bunch. If you ya’ wanna’ know a secret, I actually caught up to ‘bout season three.” He kept his eyes forward, like he was ashamed he’d ever let himself endure even one episode.
“Three seasons? That’s a lot. Sure it wasn’t by accident?” I smiled.
“Wasn’t nothin’ else to do,” he shrugged.
The busy cars and streetlights faded away slowly as we came upon Johnson Lake. The entrance was closed so Carter hopped the wooden, waist-high fence, offering me his hand as I stepped over. Oh, and when I say he “hopped the fence,” I mean both legs were off the ground at the same time, none of that one leg at time stuff that I was doing. His palm was surprisingly warm, and when his obsidian eyes met mine, I felt fireworks go off inside me. What in the name of the dead is going on?
Carter had withdrawn his fangs, which I’d never seen him do before. Quickly, I shook my head and fixed my coat after I’d made it over the fence, remembering something Umara had told me about vampires – something that relieved me that I wasn’t truly falling for him.
Vampires, like all predators, have ways to lure in their prey. One of such ways was to release a pheromone that triggered endorphins in their quarries, giving their prey – namely me in this case – a sense of trust and euphoria.
The relief was short-lived, when I realized he was going to kill me. I made a mental note of my obelisk in my pocket, quickly inspecting the environment to find what resource I’d use when he made his move.
Carter put his hands on his hips, his big belly sticking out. “Sorry ‘bout that, Rebekah.”
“About what?” I pretended not to know.
“What you’re feelin’ right now. I know you sense it. But it ain’t for you.” He scratched the back of his head. “You lookin’ at my belly?” He patted his stomach, as we made our way to the shoreline of the lake away from the road. The water was black, reflecting the moonlight with tiny rippling waves that licked at the embankment.
“I wasn’t looking at your stomach,” I lied, also not willing to let on that the wind rushing over the lake felt like arctic icicles.
“I wasn’t always this big, ya’ know. Almost as thin as you, if you can believe it. A guy like Lyle might’ve thought me weak…before I turned, that is.” He put his hands into the pockets of his wrinkled blazer, stared out at the water. “Fought it for a while.” He glanced at me, then turned back. “Made it two or three months. By then I wasn’t nothing but skin and bones. Didn’t talk to people that much. Couldn’t. Every person who smiled or waved or thought I was a bum on the street and dropped a coupla’ coins at m’feet – all of’em weren’t nothin’ but food to me.”
“What pushed you over the edge?”
He put his head in his hand, grimacing, rubbing his temples. His index finger and thumb slid to the bridge of his nose, then he tucked his hand in his pocket again. “Back before I turned, I was a hunter. Killed more than my share of buck, elk, bear, you name it. Downed them with bows and rifles mostly, and didn’t think nothin’ of it. Even took pictures of the kills. But hunting a man is different. I know what a man’s pain feels like, what his family thinks about him, what his kids think of’em. I know his cries for help, every bit of it.”
“Then why keep doing it?”
“Look at me.” He grabbed his gut and let it flop down. “After the first one, I couldn’t stop. I thought it was like all the movies; you drink blood and move on. Figured I could do one every few months or so. But it ain’t like that. Every part of a man or a woman satisfies the hunger. And even after one, I still can’t get enough. Some nights’re bloodier than others for that very reason.”
“Have you ever talked to my trainer Umara? She’s helped other vampires with their appetite; maybe she can help you.”
He laughed and kicked a few stones into the water. “You mean so she can give me the miracle pill that’s
supposed to take the hunger away? Or send me off to raid a blood bank if I’m an extreme case? Nah, I ain’t never talked to’er. But I’ve had one or two of the pills and several gallons of blood from the bank. Ain’t worth the package they put it in. Nothin’ tastes as sweet as blood pumped straight from the heart. It’s the same as grapes versus grape soda. Two totally different flavors. And that pill ain’t nothin’ but a joke no way. The more I took, the hungrier I got.”
“Have you ever told Umara that? Maybe she could make something specifically for you.”
Carter shook his head, lips curled into a frown. “Won’t do me no good.”
“So you like killing then?”
He nodded, and that caught me of guard. “As much as one man likes takin’ a woman that don’t belong to’em when he knows he got his own at home waitin’ on’em. Feels good in the moment, but the next morning, just like him, I gotta’ look at myself in the mirror.” He bit his lip, and I saw that his fangs were out. I stepped to the side a little, keeping my eye on him.
“What was it like, the first time?” I asked.
“Like the second and the third,” he shrugged. “And the fourth and the fifth. And the fortieth and the fiftieth on up to however many it is now; I don’t even know. Don’t care at this point. Can’t care. ‘Cause when I do, that’s when I gotta’ start hatin’ who I am. And that ain’t good…hatin’ yerself. Ain’t good for nobody.”
I agreed, staring at the dark trees across the lake, hearing the occasional water disturbance that I assumed was a fish or a turtle making its rounds.
“First guy I killed wasn’t nobody special – at least not to me. He was out jogging off Wake Forest Road. I followed him and that was that. Took his wallet and threw it in a dumpster somewhere so I wouldn’t have to ever know his name. Raleigh PD put some detective on the case named Andrea Mainiero, but she never found nothin’.”
Andrea Mainiero…my half-sister. I haven’t heard from her in years.
“The wound in yer’ side,” he said, nodding to me, “how’d it heal up like it did? Was it that Druid you had me chasin’?”
“Yes. Lyle and I think she might have had help from a witch doctor.”
“Glad yer’ better.” He drew in a deep breath. “Now I know part of you is scared to death of me and the other part is scared of somethin’ else. Care to ‘laborate?”
“I’m not scared of you,” I lied.
“That right?”
After a pause, I told him about Marcus wanting to summon Vár and how we needed to stop him no matter what Marcus’s ultimate plan was. “And then there’s the problem of me not having a soul in my obelisk. I can’t even try to fight him without one – and a strong-willed one at that. Besides, Umara warned us to leave Marcus alone, so that’s what I’m going to do.”
Carter grunted. “Sounds like a lots goin’ on for ya’. That all?”
“Oh yeah,” I remembered. “There’s the issue with the death of all those cops downtown. They think I did it, when I know it was Castella. She tries to act like she never killed anyone, but I know better. There were only two of us in that alley that night. I had the bullet in my side, and when I woke up, I was hearing stories of all of these officers who’d been sawed in half and mangled. I’m going to prison for the rest of my life.”
“Won’t lie to ya’; it don’t look good.” When Carter breathed, I noticed that no mist plumed from his lips, an indication of how cold he was on the inside. “But I’mma tell ya’ something that might take the weight off ya’ for a bit.”
I rolled my eyes. “What could you possibly say that could take this weight off me?”
“It wasn’t Castella that killed all those cops.” His dark eyes met mine, then he turned back to the water.
“What? You were there that night?”
“Just so happens, I’mma big fan of Funkuponya myself. When I heard the shots, I had the right mind to get up outta’ there. Until I saw that they was chasin’ you.”
“Carter…” It came out as a breath. “Why would you do that? Why’d you kill the police? They were there to help me.”
He shook his head. “Then you didn’t see what I saw. After that bullet went in ya’, there was something else happening with ya’ that blew their mind. Heck, it was enough to send Castella dartin’ off down the road, leavin’ you behind. Cops never even saw her.”
“What do you mean? What happened to me?”
“Can’t say for sure, but I ain’t never seen nothin’ like it. When you hit the ground, you was lyin’ there, reaching up for somethin’, probably a soul I guess. Not too sure ‘bout that. But what I do know is what happened after that.”
My insides stiffened.
“Yer’ eyes went as black as mine, and missy, you screamed. Shriek was so loud that it dropped me to m’knees, and that ain’t never happened before. When the screamin’ stopped, you got up, standin’ just like you is right now, and all these black lines started absorbin’ in yer’ body like you was summonin’ sum’n.”
Summoning? How could I have been summoning? I wasn’t even conscious. And I’d lost the soul. Then I remembered that I hadn’t completely lost the soul that night. It was still hovering into the night sky, reflecting off the freezing rain. If Carter was telling the truth, I must have used that soul to make the binding.
“The cops yelled their orders,” he continued, “but you didn’t listen to not’a one of’em. When I heard their guns cock and saw that you won’t gone stop, I figured I’d take’em down before they did sum’n horrible to ya’.”
What could I have been summoning? Black lines? What could that mean? The æther maybe?
“Just know that you ain’t gotta’ worry ‘bout the cops. I’mma take the fall for this’n.”
“Carter…I can’t let you do that. Once this goes to trial, there won’t be any evidence that I killed those cops that night.”
“Doubt it,” he said. “According to the reports, you was the only one there.”
“Carter…”
He held his hand up. “I’m doin’ it, and that’s final.” He laughed a little. “Worse they can do is hit me with five life sentences. They’ll be long dead when my time is served. Got nothin’ but time on my side.” He paused. “Might help me with this hunger thing, being behind bars.”
I wasn’t sure how sure that was true. No wall could keep a vampire like Carter out. No iron bars were strong enough. Maybe they’d give him the restraint he needed, but even that was doubtful.
Carter scratched his head. “Lyle texted me today.”
“Yeah, he told me. That’s how I found out about our date tonight, remember?”
“Sum’n a lil’ more serious than that,” he said, voice heavy.
Oh no…Lyle told him about Boyd and me. “Look, Carter, I think you’re a nice guy—”
He stopped me. “No ya’ don’t. But I shore’ do ‘preciate you goin’ out with me tonight. I know about yer’ boyfriend. Knew before I asked ya’ out,” he admitted.
“You did?”
“Yup. Look at me, Rebekah.” He gripped his stomach again. “I’m not the kinda’ guy who could ever get a ‘perty lil’ lady like you to love me. I just figured if I could spend a coupla’ hours with ya’, then it’d be well worth every minute of it.”
“Carter…that’s sweet.” I wasn’t sure if it was the pheromones or not, but I actually blushed a little.
“But, like I was sayin’, Lyle texted me today. Said I might be able to help you out a little.”
“With Marcus, you mean?”
“That too, that too,” he said.
That too? What’s that supposed to mean? “Trying to get another date outta’ me, Carter?” I gave him a soft punch in the arm.
“Be nice if I could, but that’s not why I wanna’ help. Figured I’d get to know you though, and that seems to be goin’ well. But Lyle texted me, and he uh…he said that you might need a soul.”
“He what?” My jaw dropped.
Just then I heard a grogg
y moan coming from the woods to my left.
“Is somebody out there?” a man called.
I hurried over to where the sound was coming from deep within the darkness, barely able to see the middle-aged man who was sitting on the ground tied to a tree. His glasses had fallen to the edge of his nose, and dark stains – probably blood – painted his button-up shirt.
“Please…help me…”
“Are you okay?” I asked, reaching down behind him to untie the ropes.
“Might wanna’ leave him tied up,” Carter mentioned, coming up from behind me.
I stood up and immediately berated him. “Are you out of your mind? I’m not going to just stand here and let you kill this innocent man.”
“Wha…what?” the man said. “Kill me? What the…”
Before the man could holler for help, Carter’s foot struck him across the face, sending his glasses spiraling off into the blackness, along with some blood and maybe even a tooth, knocking the man unconscious again.
“I can find souls in other ways. Not like this.” I started walking off, throwing my hand up, knowing that there was no way that Carter was going to let me free the man. But I wasn’t about to let the man die on my account.
That’s when Carter’s hand clenched my arm at the elbow. I say clenched because I could almost feel the bones shifting under his power. When I turned to him, I could see on his face that he hadn’t meant to grab me so hard, but his primal instincts were slowly taking over.
“This man is gonna’ die, one way or another,” Carter said, pointing to him. “I gotta’ feed. But this man ain’t gotta’ die in vain. If you use his soul to help you stop Marcus, then I’d have to say that this ole’ boy might’ve met a nobler end than some of the others who crossed m’path.”
“I’m not fighting Marcus. And this…” I pointed to the man, “…this has nothing to do with Marcus. Look at him. What has he done to deserve this? You can’t just kill him, not without a reason.”
“What reason is there that’s good enough to kill a man?” Carter said. “Robbery, rape, murder? What? I’m not out here trying to decide who lives and dies. I just pick. And today I just happened to pick somebody with a strong will ‘cause I know that’s what you need. I can’t guarantee that it’s a pure soul, but it’s a start.”
Seize the Soul: Confessions of a Summoner Book 1 Page 16
