Bella snapped her fingers in the air as if she were struggling to recall something. “Oh! Eddie. Do you remember that time we fought the…oh, oh, what was it? The big one.”
“The flesh-beast in Rio.”
“Yes! That’s it. Ugly thing. Oh, Maxine, you should have seen it. It was like…” Bella paused again thoughtfully.
Eddie was too eager to cut in and provide his own take on it. “Like someone had glued a hundred corpses together. All the ugly bits too. What brings it up?”
“I’m telling Maxine about all our travels together.”
Eddie snickered. “Messy. Our travels have been messy.”
“All of you be quiet. We make enough of a racket as it is.” Alfonzo was at the lead of the line, as he always was, his hand on his sword hilt. It rarely left it.
“They all know where we are,” Bella chimed. Her tone was eerily chipper despite the topic. “They’ve taken the city. We’re only allowed to walk around because they’re letting us.”
Alfonzo sighed. “I know.”
“And we haven’t gotten any closer to the center.” Bella seemed a little too comfortable with what she was saying. Maxine elbowed “her” in the side and shot her a glare as if to ask her what she was doing. Bella smiled back at her beatifically. “She” was very much doing this on purpose.
“I know.” Alfonzo’s shoulders raised for a moment, before they went slack again. Whatever was upsetting him, he decided it was not worth worrying over in the moment. “We keep going.”
“That’s why I’m making conversation, is all. We have nothing better to do than walk.”
“We haven’t even seen any other monsters,” Eddie pointed out. “They could be attacking us. But they aren’t. Why?”
“Tiring us out.” Alfonzo finally loosened his grip on his sword. “If they know we can’t get any closer…they’ll let us walk in circles.”
“Hm. Maybe they’re trying to convince us to leave,” the false Bella said thoughtfully.
“We aren’t leaving. They’re only giving us the option to walk out because they’re threatened about what we’ll do if we stay. We almost had Dracula… but Maxine got in the way.” Alfonzo turned back to glare at her. She couldn’t deny what had happened. She looked down at the ground instead. “So, we keep marching. We keep going. We will find a way past whatever spell they’ve cast.”
Bella sighed. “I think it might be better to leave. Get our bearings. Call for reinforcements. I’m sure the army will be here soon, and we could have some assistance.” The false huntress made logical points. But that was her goal, wasn’t it? To get the hunters to splinter and divide? The easiest way to do that would be to approach it from a purely rational stand.
“She’s got a point, Al,” Eddie muttered. “I hate to admit it, but retreat makes sense.”
“No. We keep going.”
So they did. For another six hours.
Right until they wound up exactly where they began. They looked up at the same house they had slept in the previous evening, and all of them groaned in dismay. Even Bella.
Zadok was quite a talented actor indeed.
“Rethinking the idea of retreat?” Eddie shoved his hands into his duster pockets.
“No.” Alfonzo stormed up the stairs to the house and shoved the door open, sending it smashing violently into the wall.
Eddie followed the older man with a shake of a head, leaving Bella and Maxine standing on the sidewalk.
Bella smiled at her sweetly. “Day one. Check.” She hopped up the stairs and looked back over her shoulder. With a tug, she yanked on the chain that still remained tethered to Maxine’s wrists. It pulled her forward a step. “Come on now, sweetheart.”
“Don’t do that.”
“This’ll be the only chance I ever get to have you on my leash.” Bella winked. “Let me have my fun.”
With a heavy sigh, Maxine shook her head and walked after the vampire. She climbed the stairs and paused next to Bella, casting her a woeful glare. “This will not end well, Zadok. Mark my words.”
“Mm…I thought you weren’t psychic.”
“I don’t need to be to see what is coming.”
“One more day, and I win our little bet. One more day, and this’ll all be over, anyway.”
“What do you mean?” Maxine took a step back from the vampire masquerading as the huntress.
“Oh, shush. I’m merely saying it will be by the end of day three that I break them down. I promise you.” Bella gathered up the chain that had pooled on the top stair and began to wind it around her hand. “I do think I very much like having you on a leash, little dove. Are you sure you wish to choose the Master over me? I can be so very kind…so giving.”
“Enough.” She glared at him—her—whichever. “The answer is, and forever will be, no.”
Bella rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. “Fine. Well, we might as well eat with the two fools then get some rest, hm? I get to watch you while you sleep.”
“I dislike you. Deeply.”
Bella grinned, a cruel and feral expression on otherwise sweet features. “I know.”
8
Dinner had been awkward at best. They did not dare use the stove for fear of attracting the creatures they all knew were purposefully avoiding them. But it was better to be cautious, even with the eerie silence and the wards Alfonzo had placed on the home the day prior.
The wards that had clearly been broken by Zadok if he could traipse in and out without worry. She still shuddered at the idea of the vampire coming up through the sewers to invade the house as a swarm of rats. She tried not to dwell on it. Nor did she want to dwell on the fact that he was still sitting there in the room with her, masquerading as the blonde huntress, carrying on idle conversation and eating a plate of dry goods, cheese, bread, and some fruit they had managed to find in the house’s pantry.
Maxine thought it best to stay quiet. No one seemed to care. Alfonzo and Eddie weren’t cruel to her by any means, but neither were they her friends any longer. She had betrayed them, and they had responded accordingly.
So, it was with mild surprise that she was dragged into the middle of their growing debate as to what to do about their current predicament.
“What do you think, Maxine?” Eddie was sitting by the window, a revolver in his lap, watching for any trouble on the streets. But there was none outside but the dead who lay where they had been abandoned. They were not moving. For the moment. She did not fault the man his caution. “Should we retreat? Or keep going?”
“I…” She looked up to see Alfonzo and the false Bella also watching her, waiting for her answer, although for two very completely different reasons, she suspected. Poor Bella. I do hope she’s all right.
“She sides with the vampire,” Alfonzo grunted and ripped off a piece of bread from the partial loaf in front of him. “She can destroy him, but she won’t.”
“I have not decided. I don’t want to hurt him. But this…what he’s done cannot be allowed to continue.”
“What do you plan to do about it, then? Say he were here, right in this moment, what would you do?” Eddie asked. The young man was much less judgmental in his tone, and for that, she was grateful.
She shook her head. “I imagine I would beg him to stop. To take us from this place and go somewhere he and his creatures would not do so much wanton damage. I expect I would fail. Then I would be forced to decide whether I truly stand behind my convictions to stop him. I do not know if I can.”
“Why?” Alfonzo threw down a hunk of bread, and it clattered off his plate and onto the table in front of him. “How can you be so docile? So gullible? You say you wish to stop him, and in the same breath say you do not think you can. You are the first person perhaps since the dawn of our kind who can stop him, really stop him once and for all, yet you waver! Is it because he can touch you? Because you want him?”
“No—”
“Then tell me why, Maxine!”
She shrank back a
gainst the sofa cushion at the man’s rage. She understood it. She did not begrudge him. “I am a fool. I understand this. I find myself devoid of all the moral fabric I had once believed I contained.” She looked down at her gloved palms and something in her heart cracked. Something she had been trying to shore up against the storm since this all began. She was exhausted, and it was all wearing her down. She could only hold the shutters closed for so long before the wind shattered the glass and tore through her.
“Why do I hesitate to kill him, Alfonzo? Why do I not know if I can look him in the eyes and dash his very being upon the rocks?” Maxine lost the war with her tears. She swiped at her cheeks irritably, hating to show weakness in front of the hunters and the vampire. But it did not truly matter. It was only what was left of her shattered pride. “Because I have seen the stars that he knew and which are long forgotten to the world. I have seen the deserts he has walked. I see the eternity that stretches behind him and the one that waits, and I hear the pain that echoes in his heart. Because I love him! That is why.”
She walked from the room, dragging the chain behind her. She did not care. She went up the stairs and found a bedroom there that would suit her desire for somewhere dark, quiet, and empty. She walked to the window and slumped down onto the ground. Leaning on the wall, she cried.
For the first time since the hunters had knocked on her door with that damnable brooch, she let herself feel her own grief. Her own sadness. Her own tragedy. Rarely did she ever experience her own emotions. She was always so inundated with those of others, she became accustomed to ignoring what she felt.
But now, it was too much.
She did not know how much time had passed when there were quiet footsteps behind her. She had stopped crying at some point, the tears having run their course and gone dry. Now she sat there, empty and hollow.
“Eddie would have come, but I told him it was better for ladies to speak of such matters, and he quickly agreed.” Zadok—as himself—sat on the floor behind her. As unnerving as the illusionist vampire was, he was much less so wearing his own face and using his own voice than masquerading as Bella.
“Please, leave me be, Zadok. I do not think I can withstand more of your goading.” Her voice sounded ragged, strained, and tired. She must have been sobbing. She didn’t quite remember.
A hand settled on her shoulder over her dress. It was gentle and unassuming. It was meant to be comforting. “That is not why I have come.”
“Then why?” She jolted in surprise as another Zadok appeared sitting in front of her, shimmering out of thin air. It was an illusion—a copy of the man at her back. But this one suffered no threat of her touch. He lifted his hand to her cheek. Cold as a vampire’s must be, but feeling no less real than anything else.
He brushed away what must have been still-drying tears and shifted closer to her. “I cannot hold you in truth, my dove. Nor can I bring you to he who would wish to comfort you. But I cannot leave you here suffering alone.”
“Why?” Tears threatened to come anew, and she pulled away from the phantom. She went to turn away, but he tutted and turned her back to face him. “Why do you care?”
“Because it is so rare that others care for creatures such as I. That anyone might dare love us, let alone him. You are a rare thing, meant to be treasured, not dragged through the muck and mire as you are now.” Before she could react, Zadok’s illusion pulled her into a hug. He tucked her head under his and held her tightly to him. He smelled of cologne. “You show such compassion for others. I wish to show some to you. Accept it, stubborn girl. Do not bring yourself suffering merely because you are under the bullheaded opinion that you somehow deserve it.”
She let the tension slack from her shoulders. For once, he was being sincere. She could sense him at her back, the real him, and knew he was not lying. There were no insidious games beneath this show of kindness. Just a gentle sadness.
Caving to the illusion, she let him hold her. “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered.
“If it were up to me, I would stab those two mortal idiots, leap into my Master’s arms, and accept his eternal kiss. I would want him, and you, to be happy. If I also had my way—and this is my fantasy, after all—you would be so very grateful for my compassion you would spend a night in my bed. Or a week. Or a month. Oh, Hell, how about a year? Dream big, I say.”
She shouldn’t laugh. She shouldn’t. But he pulled one out of her regardless. She knew he was perfectly serious, and knew he was also trying to cheer her up. “You’re an ass, Zadok.”
“Yes. I am. And sometimes people love me for it. Now. Come. Stand up. There is a bed there, perfectly soft and usable, and you are here slumped on the floor like a petulant child.” His illusion stood, taking her with him, and urged her toward the bed. “Rest. Our Master will find you in your dreams and comfort you properly.”
His hand slapped her rear.
And she rounded and slapped him across the face. Or rather, she tried. Her hand passed through thin air. The illusionary version of him vanished and left only the real one leaning on the wall, smiling at her with that fiendish expression he was always wont to have.
He shrugged idly. “Do you blame me?”
“Yes. Now, go. I do not wish to spend another night knowing you are staring at me while I sleep.”
Pushing himself away from the wall, he threw up his hands in mock frustration. “Oh, yes, make me stand in the hallway like I am your royal guard. Very well. Suit yourself. Far be it from me to have earned any leniency just now.”
“Here is your leniency. Take the chair.” She pointed at one by the wall. But when he shot her his playful smile, she suddenly wore one of her own. Damn him. He had succeeded in his game of cheering her.
“Yes, my mistress,” he purred as he plucked the chair from its spot and walked outside. He plunked it down across from the door, and as she watched, his shape changed to that of Bella. It was still alarming and unnerving to see. She turned, gave a deep curtsey. When she spoke again, Zadok’s voice was once more the blonde huntress. “Sleep well, my dove. Send our Master my regards.”
“He is not my master.”
“Mmhm.” And with that, the false huntress shut the door.
With a shake of her head, she lay down on the bed over the sheets but under the blanket that had been folded at the base. There was not much of a feeling of the previous owner left lingering to bother her. Perhaps this had been a guest bed.
Maxine tried not to think very hard about what had become of the tenants of the house before Vlad had come and released his ruin upon the city.
They were likely dead amongst the bodies out front, after all.
Her exhaustion spared her any more gory and tragic thoughts. She embraced sleep as it came for her with welcome arms.
Bella awoke with a long yawn and stretched herself out. She was utterly cozy. Totally and perfectly comfortable. It was that kind of softness that came with sitting by a warm fire, or after drinking the right amount of wine.
Where was she?
What had happened?
She remembered the poor cursed city and its fleeing residents. She remembered the man from the gala who had swept her off her feet. A beautiful, impossibly perfect man. Then…flashes of memory, nothing more. But what she could recall made her body heat, like illicit dreams. But she knew better. She could picture herself twisting in his arms, feeling him buried deep inside her, bring out feelings and emotions she had not even known she was capable of experiencing.
Pleasure. Joy. Real joy. Tangled up in a creature who brought her to that peak of the world again, and again, and again.
It had not been only in her dreams. He had been real. Very real. And the things he did to her—the things they did together.
Incubus. Demon. Monster.
She was his prey.
He had opened his arms to her, and she had fallen into them like a naïve child. Was she really so weak as to surrender to him as quickly as she had? She could remember the feel
ing of him kissing her, his lips all over her body, of him delving inside her—and her body responded to the memory as if it were still happening.
It gave her the answer. Yes. She truly was that weak. She had avoided that kind of contact with a man for so very long. It would have only caused complications in her life. It seemed her abstinence had come back to haunt her with a vengeance.
She had been prepared for violence. For a battle. For blood drinkers. She had, like an idiot, not been prepared for the warfare they might wage on her in other ways. She had fallen to the incubus. He had ravished her body, and she remembered begging for more.
Am I truly so depraved?
Something smelled divine. Something warm, wonderful, and sweet was calling her away from her troubled thoughts. She snuggled closer to it instinctively, wanting to find shelter from her guilt. Whatever was beneath her let out a hum of appreciation, and she froze.
“Good morning, sweetheart.”
9
The sound of his voice ran up Bella’s spine like fingers. Sultry and smooth. She jumped up, tripped, staggered, and fell onto something far less welcoming and hard.
Wild-eyed, she looked around to try to understand what had happened. She was lying on a cold stone floor; that much she figured out rather immediately. It was quite alarming due to another fact—she was entirely naked!
Something was twisted around her ankles. It was a blanket made of the pelt of some dead animal. She snatched it up quickly and covered herself.
“Funny creatures, you mortals are. Modesty before safety? How does that make any sense at all?” A voice chuckled. “Especially after what we’ve already done. And done again. And done some more.”
Finding the source, she was without words. He—the incubus Mordecai—was spread out on a bed. She must have fallen from it. The idea of having been sleeping so blissfully in his arms made her cheeks burst into flame.
She blushed also because he too was completely nude. She had robbed him of what had been covering them both. He was on full display. Full display.
Curse of Dracula Page 7
