Bloodstone Heart

by T. Lynne Tolles

  "Well, first off, I think you are jumping the gun here. Until you know for sure, you should not approach either of them. No reason to bring up all of this if you find none of it's true. But...on the off chance that Josh IS your son, I don't think Anton will have a problem with it. It's not like you cheated on Sophia. It's been over a hundred years since she died. I'm sure Anton knows you have...relations...on occasion."

  "Why make that horrible face when you say that?"

  "Well, it's like thinking of your parents having sex, it never really conjures up a pretty picture in one's mind and you are the closest thing I have to a parent so..."

  "Ahh...point taken."

  "I think Josh is another story, though. I don't know him. I don't know what he's been through or how he reacts to stress. My only advice is if all of this is indeed a fact, then you need to tell him as soon as possible. Keeping it from him will only make it harder on both of you."

  "Yes. I suppose it would. Thank you, Devon. I was right in coming to you about this. You've been very helpful.

  “Okay, then, if we are through, I'm beat."

  "Me too."

  "I'll see you in the morning, Dominic, and thank you for the party. You outdid yourself. It was definitely a nice surprise and I know Darby loved it.”

  “Thank you, Devon.”

  “Sleep well."

  “You too."

  Chapter 27

  Bernard got up very early the next day along with Dominic. Dominic didn't often cook, but with the crowd they had eating this morning, he felt it only right to help Bernard. Besides, frying bacon and scrambling eggs was certainly no rocket science. Bernard made a ton of pancakes. After the last time Mark, Dean, and Blake were together at breakfast, he had learned that there could never be too many pancakes for these boys.

  Dominic had to laugh when he and Bernard had set the table. "Bernard, my friend, I never thought I'd say this with owning such a huge dining table, but we might have to get a bigger one if this keeps up."

  Bernard chuckled as he continued laying out the silverware. "I'm afraid you may be right, Master Dominic. However, I can't think of a happier reason to purchase such a thing."

  "I couldn't agree with you more. It's tiring, but wonderful to have so many happy folks around. Especially the boys - all three of them getting along now. There was a time when I didn't think that would ever happen, but here we are." He happily sighed as he too continued to bring things out to the sideboard for the guests who would be down soon.

  Slowly the masses started to emerge from the bedrooms upstairs and made their way down to the dining room. Blake and Dean along with their sleepy companions were the first down. Dominic wasn't surprised they were the first to show. Within minutes, Mark and Alyssa joined them. Josh was next and then the happy couple came through the front door. Once all were seated, Dominic made Bernard join them. He and Bernard often ate together, except when there were guests, but he felt Bernard had been up for hours making massive amounts of pancakes. He deserved a little break with which to watch the boys enjoy his labor. At the rate that the boys were eating the pancakes, Bernard started to panic and was about to head for the kitchen again, when Blake said, "No, no, Bernard, we're good. Relax, enjoy."

  Bernard took a deep sigh of relief and scooted his chair back in and took a sip of coffee. When all but the three pancake-consuming boys were done eating, Dominic said, "Well, I suppose this is as good a time as any since we are all in one room, to talk about some issues that have arisen.” Dominic looked at Josh, who looked mortified to have the topic of his problems being the foremost conversation, but maybe with so many heads together, someone would come up with a plan to get Lanie back.

  "Blake, do you want to start this ball rolling or shall I?" Dominic asked.

  Blake took a big gulp of milk, wiped his mouth with his napkin and said, "No, Uncle, I think it should be me, since it started with us."

  "Fine," Dominic agreed.

  Devon looked puzzled as Bernard cleared away the plates. Blake looked at Devon and Darby and said, "I guess an introduction would be the best place to start. Josh Brenner, this is my brother Devon and his fiancée Darby. That's going to take some getting used to saying." He chuckled then said, "Josh and his friend Melanie drove down from Washington on a motorcycle, no less, being chased by a vampire named Dimitri Strotsky. Have you heard of him?" Blake directed the question to Devon and Devon shook his head.

  "Why, should I have?" he said.

  "No. Probably not, but Dominic recognized the name right off, so I thought you might have. Anyway, Dimitri is resurrecting the Order of the Black Orchid and from what we have gathered, he is pretty bad news."

  "Let me stop you right there," Devon said. “I don't think I want to jump into something dangerous after what Darby and I have been through over the last couple of months - no offense, Josh. I'm sure you are a wonderful guy, but..."

  "And I wouldn't even bring it up if it hadn't related to you and Darby, but it does," Blake said.

  "How so?" Devon said.

  "It was Melanie, Josh's friend that brought them to us. She was looking for Darby's help and had come to the bookstore where Sally and Rowan told them that Darby was in Massachusetts looking for you."

  Darby said, "Melanie? Melanie who?"

  Josh said, "Melanie Harper. She said you might be able to help us."

  "Melanie Harper?" she repeated in a state of utter shock.

  Devon said, "You know her?"

  Ignoring Devon, she looked at Josh and said, "Melanie Harper rode on the back of a motorcycle through two states with a vampire chasing you both to come see me?"

  Josh nodded. Darby looking imploringly at Devon and said, "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I know you've been through a lot, but at the very least I need to help. If Melanie came to me as they say she did, then this is very serious and they are in great danger. Melanie would have never made such a trip for something trivial, in fact I've never known her to make any trips, EVER."

  Devon could see the concern in Darby’s face and knew she could not back out of helping. "Okay, then, Blake...tell us more."

  Darby interrupted rather distraught, “But if Melanie came to California, where is she now?"

  “She's luring Dimitri away from me - us - so we can come up with a plan," Josh said. He seemed so ashamed by this that Darby's heart broke for him. This was obviously killing him. Devon sensed it too and it was at that moment that he was all in whether or not Darby wanted him to be.

  Blake said, "Yes, and she has been gone now for more than two weeks."

  Devon said, "What does Dimitri want?"

  Josh pulled out the bloodstone heart from his pocket and held it up for all to see. "This."

  Devon said, "What is it?"

  Dominic was completely in awe as he looked upon the legendary stone and he said very slowly, "The Bloodstone Heart." He politely asked Josh, "May I?"

  Josh handed it to him.

  Devon said, "I'm sorry, but what is 'The Bloodstone Heart'?"

  Blake said, "Dominic? You want to take this one?"

  Still in awe at holding something he had only read about in books he snapped out of it to answer, "Yes. Well, the bloodstone heart is an ancient relic from vampire legends. It's also known as the 'Heart of the Crone' in witch legends. It is said that there were once two sister witches, Margarite and Diedre. Margarite had a heart as black as obsidian and Diedre a heart as pure as light. When Diedre fell in love with a human, Margarite vowed to hunt him down and kill him. In order to protect her love, she carved a heart shape out of a huge piece of bloodstone. She enchanted this stone with her love, sweat, tears, and blood. She gave it to her love and told him as long as he wore the stone, nothing could kill him.

  “Over the centuries the stone came into the hands of the Order of Black Orchids and therefore into vampire legend. The order was initially formed by a group of vampires to teach young and rogue vampires to adapt and control their hunger in a supervised environment. Their hope was to lessen the lo
ss of human lives by educating both human and supernatural races to live in harmony.

  “At some point, though, the order was splintered by power hungry vampires and slowly split into two. The black orchids became a corrupt, dangerous order whose goal was the enslavement of the human race and to hone their own abilities into a master race. The other side became the ‘Preservers of All Life.’

  “Occasionally the Order would come upon a powerful leader, whose corruption would spread like a disease exposing vampires to the rest of the world as horrible creatures. That's when the Preservers of All Life would step in and eliminate the threat to the world. No matter how many times or how hard they tried, another power hungry vampire would always step up and rebuild the order. Which is where Dimitri comes in. He is the latest and greatest of those leaders of the Order.

  “Originally the temple that was used for the Order’s meeting place was the home of the old crone who made the bloodstone heart. It was she and her love that sought to bring humans and supernatural beings together to work and learn as one. When the heart was not worn, it was placed back in the indentation of the slab of bloodstone, where it glowed and pulsed with light much like a true heartbeat. Their love was so strong that when it was laid in its place on the altar, it absorbed the love around it, making it and them more powerful.

  “When the order corrupted, so did the bloodstone heart. With so much evil around it, it turned from an instrument of love and endurance, to some kind of stone battery to enhance evil destruction. The leader of the order would wear the stone almost all the time. When new members of the Order were initiated, the stone would be set in the altar, as the new members would place their right palm on the altar around it. The leader would say a few ancient words and a blinding light would emanate from the stone, burning a small black orchid on their wrist.

  “Not only would they receive this branding, but each member would receive power from its leader and other members, distributing that power equally among them through the stone. This equal distribution of power made for a very strong army where there were no weak links. Of course the leader always was the most powerful since he was the one who commanded the stone."

  Dominic handed the stone to the person next to him for inspection until it went entirely around the table and back to Josh.

  Devon said, "Okay, but how did Josh end up with it?"

  Blake answered, "By accident, really. A vampire had stolen it from Dimitri and then accidentally dropped it in an alley, doing God knows what. Josh happened by, saw something on the ground and picked it up without thinking. Next thing he knew he was being beaten and thrown around the alley. When the vampire decided to quit playing with his food, he went in for the kill. Josh picked up a piece of sharp wood to defend himself and ended up killing the vampire in self-defense. At first we thought this was luck, but we later found that it was the bloodstone heart in his pocket that probably made his aim true.”

  Darby asked, "But where does Melanie come into play?"

  Josh quietly said, "A chance meeting at a little store in the middle of the night. This vampire incident all happened after I walked her home from the store that night."

  "So you knew her?"

  "No, not really. She slipped on some ice and I caught her. When I touched her, I..."

  Blake continued, "I think when he touched her skin her power of psychometry and this telepathic ability formed some kind of link. Darby, I’m sure you’re aware of Melanie’s abilities – Josh too, has an amazing ability, but no one taught him to control it, so most of his life he avoided people because he couldn't turn off the volume, so to speak. The thoughts of everyone around him would come rushing in. He spent most of the time drowning them out with music or avoiding them all together. But the link between him and Melanie is something I've never seen or even read about. She can't be read. I can't get a thing from her, neither can Josh. When Josh is with her, her thought blocking envelopes him too and blocks out the world and all its chatter. So when his hand touched her arm he was overwhelmed with this sense of peace. Having never had that, it drew him to her like a magnet." Blake directed his gaze at Josh for confirmation that he was on the right track.

  “Okay, so you walked her home but that's not really a relationship that would bring someone so sheltered and scared of the world out of her safety cocoon. No offense, Josh!” Darby said.

  Josh smiled, "No offense taken. I met her, walked her home, and on my way back, I got beat up by the vampire in the alley and accidentally killed him. I was pretty freaked. I didn't believe in…you know...all this..."

  Blake added, "He'd never seen or even knew vampires existed up until then. He hibernated in the safety of his home for a while, but eventually he needed to venture out. He decided to check out the alley when he came upon Dimitri investigating the scene, but I think mostly he was looking for the stone.”

  Devon said, "Right, because he needed it as a leader of the order to make his invincible army."

  Blake agreed, "Exactly, but in the interim, Josh had totally forgotten that he had picked up anything. When he did remember he couldn't find it in his pocket because there was a hole in it. He just figured he'd lost it and that was that - he'd never really seen what it was anyway.”

  Rowan said, "But we later found that it had been there all along; it had just slipped through the lining of his jacket."

  Darby asked, "How'd you find it?"

  Blake said, "Well we are skipping ahead a bit, so let’s go back to Dimitri and Josh in the alley. Josh could sense Dimitri was another vampire and took off running for the store, when lo and behold Melanie comes in again. She touches him and reads that he is in danger. She then talks him into coming back to her place to talk about what's happening. She figures he's been dealing with vampires and that they may come after him looking for whatever they think he has. She talks him into taking her to the alley so that she can see what she could sense."

  Devon says, "What kind of ability does she have?"

  "Psychometry," Blake answers.

  "And premonitions," added Darby.

  "That's right. So she feels around the alley, confirming her suspicions and she thinks that he should stay with her until they can figure out what the vampire wants. They go to his house and find that it has been tossed - ransacked. Melanie senses it was Dimitri and rushes his packing to get him to safety. When they get to her apartment they find Dimitri there questioning her neighbor. They decide they have no choice but to run, so they go back to Josh's to get his motorcycle and take to the road."

  "So since I owned a bookstore based on the supernatural, she decided maybe she could get more information on what you were dealing with and hold up in California for a while," Darby said.

  "Not at first," Josh said. "We headed south just because we wouldn't need passports, but after Dimitri found us the next morning because he had used the GPS in my iPhone to track us, we decided we needed help, and that's when we decided to head for the bookstore."

  "So if he found you so quickly the first night, how come you've been safe in California since then?" Darby asked.

  Blake said, "He did find them in California. I guess he went back to Melanie's apartment and found the bookstore in her address book. When we went to the bookstore the next day, Josh was looking at books on telepathy and I’d just gone outside for something when the entire bookstore blew up with Josh in it."

  Darby's face went pale. "What? But how did he survive?"

  Rowan said, "The bloodstone heart. We still hadn't found it at that point and he was wearing his jacket. He walked out of the flaming building with what looked like a sunburn and nothing else. Melanie found the heart later that day as we were checking out everyone's cuts and scrapes."

  Darby looked at Sally. "So the bookstore is gone?"

  Sally said, "I had it fully insured. We are rebuilding as we speak."

  Darby was slightly relieved.

  Blake said, "Melanie got Josh to lie down a while and we all talked about what I had found out abou
t Dimitri. I had seen him on the street right after the store blew up and I took off after him. I never caught up with him but Dominic had sent us some information on him and the order by then. When we went over all this with Melanie, that's when she decided the best thing for Josh was for her to lure him away.

  “It really was a good plan too. We were pretty sure that he knew where the house was at this point so we knew he'd be watching our comings and goings. She grabbed Josh's iPhone and a couple of his credit cards. She knew Dimitri was tracking the iPhone when it was on and figured the same was true with any credit cards. Sally and I took off heading almost to Napa hoping Dimitri would follow, which he did. That's when Melanie packed up Devon's car and took off to the south east."

  Devon said, "My car? Why not your car?"

  “Actually, it was my idea. She didn't need any added attention. When I tossed her the keys to the Mercedes she balked that it would be too flashy, but we all laughed and told her it would be better than her driving the Audi," Blake said.

  Devon laughed, "No kidding. At least she had a dependable car she wouldn't have to worry about breaking down. So where is she?"

  "Actually we don't know. We haven't communicated with her since she left so as not to let Dimitri know that he was on a wild goose chase after Melanie. She knew he would assume the two of them were together and that the explosion at the bookstore had them on the run again."

  "So how do you know she's okay?" Darby said in a panic.

  "Well, we don't for sure, but I figure if he had caught up to her and realized Josh wasn't with her, he'd immediately head back to our place or call for a trade, but we haven't heard anything so we assume the ball is still in her court," Blake answered.

  "That's a pretty big assumption," Darby said.

  "I know. That's why we are hoping a few new brains in the mix will help us come up with a plan to get her to safety."