“Who was that?” a quiet voice piped up as he ended the call. “Is there something we should be worried about?”
The Count turned from his place in the corner of the room.
Haley was standing just left of the centre. She was dressed up perfectly for their evening out – her curly dark hair fixed symmetrically, her purple dress shimmering with rare and magical stones. He walked across the floor and took her hand.
“Darling wife,” he said. “There’s nothing you should ever be worried about.”
Haley smiled nervously.
“Except keeping me happy.”
He let go of his hand and snapped his fingers.
A trio of servants hurried into the room.
“What shade of black is this?” the Count demanded, taking a lock of Haley’s hair.
“What shade is it…?” one of the servants stammered. “I’m not – it’s black –”
“I know it’s black,” the Count thundered. “I’m not blind. But I’m not sure you used the right shade of black.”
“I understand, Master,” the servant said apologetically. “We’ll get to work on it right away.”
“Which shade would you prefer?” a second servant asked. “Should it be lighter or darker?”
“Darker, of course,” the Count spouted. “I want it as dark as it can be. Need I remind you of our affairs tonight?”
“Of course,” the servants mumbled leading Haley away.
The Count watched her go a moment, before signaling for them to wait.
He walked back over to Haley.
He sensed her anxiety. Her fear.
Her disgust.
“Kiss me,” the Count commanded.
Haley immediately obliged, setting her hands gently at his waist, and standing on her toes to reach him.
Someone once strong. Someone once unbreakable.
Stood here broken.
The Count leaned forward and whispered in her ear. “He’s not coming back for you. He’s gone. He’s dead.”
A tear rolled down Haley’s cheek.
And the Count seized her up and kissed her passionately.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Jason didn’t park in the driveway. He let the car sit in the road for a minute just outside his house, as though he was about to turn. Instead he pulled up to the curb.
Nadine leaned forward and glanced out the window beside him. “That’s your place right?”
“Yeah,” Jason said. He shut off the engine.
They sat there for a moment.
“So what’s the plan?” Nadine asked. “Are we going in?”
“I think I had better go in first,” Jason said. “Make sure Amelia is in a good mood.”
“You think she’ll have a problem with me? With what we’re doing?”
“I don’t know,” he mumbled. “Probably.”
He pushed open his door and got out of the car.
“Can I listen to the radio or something?” Nadine asked.
“Yeah. Sure.”
He put his hand through the open window and adjusted the controls.
“She’s all yours.”
“Thanks,” Nadine said. She watched him for a moment walking up the driveway to the house.
She could see the blinds were still open. Bright lights within.
A dark figure passed by the front windows.
Nadine turned her gaze downward to the radio, not making anything of it. She needed her eighties pop-rock again. The sound and atmosphere to bring back her former self.
So it was easy.
To just believe.
She scrolled through the stations till she found an appropriate song, and then pushed her seat back. There, she drifted. Her eyes were almost closed when the headlights of a car behind her pushed through the back window.
Almost.
Her eyelids parted slowly.
The light was on her. Not moving.
Standing still.
Nadine glanced over her shoulder. She saw the outline of the car sitting there.
Someone was watching her.
Nadine anxiously pushed open her door and stepped out to the road, just as the car booted up again and drove quickly passed her.
Nadine watched it to see where it was going. It hadn’t left the street yet…
“NOOOOOO!!!”
Jason’s scream ripped through Nadine’s eardrums. It shook her to the core of her being, and the suddenness of it, made her weak in the head.
As though she was going to fall over.
“Shit,” Nadine breathed, balancing her hands on the car.
When she looked up again to Jason’s house she could see him running through the windows. She walked quickly around the front of the car just as a tall figure emerged from the side of Jason’s house, wearing a hood over their head, and keeping their hands in their pockets.
Nadine stopped dead where she was, perplexed.
The front door burst open.
Jason stood there with the light behind him, his face colored red, his body hunched over, shivering.
Saliva drooled from his mouth as he made inaudible sounds.
The figure on the lawn stopped dead.
He glanced back at Jason.
“Hey!” Nadine shouted. “Stop! You there!”
Jason looked up, suddenly seeing the figure in yard.
He launched forward, slamming his cane into the ground. It broke in two.
The pieces fell to either side of him, but it was as if he did not notice.
That he did not need the cane.
That the strength inside had never left.
Trying to appear casual, the figure backed away onto the footpath and walked bristly away from them.
“Jason – what’s going on?” Nadine began as Jason rushed by, not hearing her words. She hurried behind him, watching in dismay as Jason leapt several feet into the air and pounced on the fleeing individual.
“You bastard!” Jason screamed. “You monster!”
Nadine ran up from behind. She still couldn’t see who he was tackling they were moving so fast.
“I’m gonna kill you!” Jason roared.
“Wait, Jason,” Nadine said, trying to stop him. “Just – wait –”
“NOOO!!!”
He lashed back at Nadine, sending her to the ground.
She watched as the figure on the ground danced about in a flurry, waving their arms around. Something metallic glinted in the moonlight.
It swung through the air.
“Jason – watch out –” Nadine cried.
The bar slammed into Jason’s head. He sloped down to the pavement.
The figure stood up.
“So it’s you then,” Nadine said now the intruder’s face was clear. “I should have known.”
He stared back at her coldly before turning back around and running to the car waiting for him at the edge of the street.
Nadine knelt down over Jason.
“Why didn’t you stop him?” Jason seethed. “Why didn’t you –?”
He started crying.
Nadine put her arms around him.
“Do you know what he did?” Jason demanded. “Do you have any idea?”
“You don’t have to say it,” Nadine said softly. “I already know.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Haley was on the castle’s roof. High heels pointed and still. Hair as dark as the shade would allow.
A circle of ravens were making their way around her. Their beaks bopping forward and back. Little legs wobbling along.
She could feel their feathers brushing past her shoes.
She could feel their feathers against her skin.
She bent forward, wondering for a moment if the time had come. If the true raven had chosen to visit, and things for her would ultimately change.
One of them flew a little into the air, and landed perched on her outstretched arm.
Its beady eyes stared into hers.
As if it were thinking a million thoughts.
Trying to tell her a million things.
Haley couldn’t help herself. It was all too easy to fall into the dream.
“I’m glad to see you’re making friends,” a cold voice boomed behind her.
She straightened back up and the birds flew away.
The Count walked across the roof towards her.
His arms were folded. His coat concealing.
“Are we ready to leave then?” she asked.
“You’re going to go on ahead without me,” the Count informed her.
“I am?”
“Yes … there’s some pressing business I need to attend to.”
“Won’t our hosts be upset?”
“The feast doesn’t begin until midnight,” the Count murmured. “I shall make sure I am present at that time.”
“What about me? Shouldn’t I just stay with you until you’re ready?”
“Strange things are taking place tonight. I have some faint concerns that some people from our past may want to reach out to us. It is best to keep you away from them, if I can.”
Haley’s heart skipped a beat. “Who is it?”
“Pardon me?”
“Who is looking for me?”
“I didn’t say…” the Count trailed off.
He decided to approach her further.
“You were thinking about him, weren’t you?” he said touching the side of her face. “The birds could sense it. You were drawing them to you.”
“I can’t help what’s in my heart,” Haley sighed.
“But you know your place is beside me,” the Count reasoned. “You know he was the one who killed your family. The one we destroyed together.”
Haley nodded.
“Do you have regrets?” he asked.
“I can’t regret … what other people did…”
“Come here,” he beckoned. “Let me hold you.”
She walked into his embrace.
“Close your eyes,” he said stoking her hair with his gloved hand. “Think not of the past. Think only what is going to be.”
But Haley couldn’t do it.
She saw herself trapped. Held prisoner by a monster who all but confessed to the crimes against her and others. The monster who wanted nothing more than to watch her die.
And then there was him.
Her hero on the other side of the bars.
He had said he would rescue her. Dearest, dearest Brock. He had said they would run away together. The monster would be slain, and peace would be restored.
“Now look at me,” the Count said.
She opened her eyes and looked up at him.
“Tonight is our great test,” he said. “If we can survive this, then we can survive anything.”
Haley nodded.
“On you go then. I won’t be far behind.”
He kissed her cheek and then let go of her.
Haley stepped away from him, her eyes not directly on the helicopter ahead. She was watching the ground. How she could still the ravens’s reflections in the shallow puddles.
And how everything was blue.
The only color that had survived.
“Don’t forget, Haley,” Brock’s voice echoed behind her. “Don’t forget how much I love you…”
CHAPTER FIFTY
Blood. I’m so addicted it enters my dreams. To paint you the definitive picture, I’m quite often lying in an ocean of it, my back supported by a raft. My body just drifts along with the current, my toes touching its endless oblivion. A dark shadow soon rises over me and I realize I’m about the pass underneath a bridge. I can see the faces of humans, indistinguishable from race, gender or age. Their wrists are open for me. Their blood is falling in a downward spiral. Each carrying, its own magnificent waterfall. Passing underneath, I close my eyes and open my mouth, the substances flowing across my tongue and down my throat – filling my lungs with spectacular satisfaction. This is here, I think to myself. This is what’s in my heart.
My dream ocean – My eternal paradise –
It’s the bare minimum I require for a gentle disposition.
In other words, that place is about as real as my heroics.
The real world hasn’t even met me halfway.
“Avril,” I spoke into the mouthpiece. “Come in, Avril.”
“Yessss,” Avril purred through the speaker. “How … may I be of service…?”
“Give me a status update.”
“I’m in the house.”
“Whereabouts?”
“The rest room, dummy. Don’t want to get caught talking to you, do I?”
“Have you secured all the rooms? Made sure he’s not home?”
“Almost. I highly doubt the wife is lying. She seems so friendly. Had no trouble letting me inside or anything.”
“Where is she? What’s she doing?”
“Making us some tea, I think. Do you want her killed once the house is secure? Or should I continue to stall?”
I waited for a moment.
Sat in silence.
“Are you still there?” Avril piped up.
“I’m here,” I answered. “Don’t do anything yet. Unless you have to.”
“Okay. I’ll let you know of any developments.”
“Thank you, Avril.”
I unplugged the audio from my ear and left it on the seat of the car. I then pushed open the door beside me and stepped out into the street.
Rainbows and sunshine.
A still and breathing, cloudless sky.
I flexed my fingers, and then pulled my gloves on tightly.
I glanced back at Jason’s house.
Sideways.
“Fuck it.”
I stormed quickly up the driveway and pushed open the front door of the house. I walked down the hall a few meters before I could see Avril sitting at the kitchen counter, her back to me. Jason’s wife was on the other side of the counter, and she still hadn’t seen me.
Now it’s time.
Don’t think. Don’t explain.
Don’t say a word.
Cover your ears and close your eyes.
“Hey – Hey, hey, who are –”
And then my hand was around her throat. Smashing her head into the counter.
She dropped to the floor, crying in agony.
Begging for her life.
Avril put her elbows on top the counter, peering across with an inquisitive smile.
I put my foot to the woman’s neck as she turned over on her back.
“Why?” she choked. “I don’t know you. I did nothing to you.”
I bent over her, my head craned forward.
Not human.
Not animal.
My lips were but the sharp beak of a bird burrowing into her neck, spilling their contents, ripping her apart, sucking her dry.
She fought a little.
Then she was dead.
When I came up for air, my body launched itself over the kitchen sink, feathers and black goo accompanied by purple smog falling out amongst the vomit. I heard Avril leave the room soon after.
A few minutes passed and then I was back to my regular self.
I went into the lounge and stood beside her, enjoying her unease.
“Is there something wrong with you or –?” she stammered.
“Or what?” I replied flatly.
“Nothing,” she shook her head.
I licked my lips. “Do you have the sheet I printed out for you?”
“With – with the addresses –?”
She fumbled about her handbag sitting on the sofa.
“Well?” I fired again.
“Here,” she said turning with the paper.
I snatched it off her and went into the hallway.
Gazing along the wall I saw various pictures of Jason and his family.
I took down one from his wedding and let it smash on the floor.
I mounted the paper.
“Are we sending a message then?” Avril asked, slinking round the cor
ner.
I took a marker out of my pocket and colored Jason’s address out with a black marker.
“Where are going next?” Avril wanted to know.
“You’re not going anywhere,” I stated. “You’re staying right here.”
“I thought we weren’t supposed to be killing the paranormal crew, just their families.”
“What did I say?” I snapped at her. “Do not kill Jason. Under no circumstances. If he turns up here later you’re to get out of the house before he sees you.”
“Then why the hell am I hanging around?”
I screwed on the lid of the marker and put it back in my pocket.
I took a few steps towards the front door.
“Jason’s daughter will be coming home from school at some point. When he finds her, I want you to make sure he knows she suffered.”
I walked on towards the front door.
“May I say something? Before you go?” Avril called in a most apologetic fashion.
I turned with a glint of violence in my eyes.
“Are you sure you want to do this? They’re going to be out for our blood.”
I chuckled under my breath and left the house without giving her an answer.
I was laughing all the way to the car.
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BOOKS BY ROSETTE BOLTER
Vampire Dating Agency
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GB6NLFW
Shared By The Dragon Clan
(Paranormal Saga Book 1)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NW436ZC
Badass Dragons
(Paranormal Saga Book 2)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QIYMP1Y
Worshiped By The Bear Kings
(Paranormal Saga Book 3)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00RWDP18O
Engaged To The Vampire Twins
(Paranormal Saga Book 4)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VGU2LTQ
Vampire Dating Agency III Page 10
