Wicked Obsession

by Cora Zane

  The woman insisted on introducing Julian to the rest of the staff on hand, as well as several of the artists. Eleni found it all very amusing, the number of people who had heard of Julian, but had never seen nor met him until tonight. They clung to him, walked him around making introductions and pointing out paintings, showing him remodels and innovations to the gallery and studio that his donations had paid for. Eleni beamed with pride, watching him. Here, he could not hide the way he did at the chateau, and yet, Julian didn’t appear at all out of his element.

  The contact was good for him, and Eleni didn’t try to interfere. She wandered around the gallery, chatting with a patron now and again, but mostly moving from room to room to look at the paintings.

  Julian finally met up with her as she was standing in front of a series of photographs depicting traditional courtyard gardens, some in full color, and others in black and white. She loved the magical, secluded look of them.

  “I’m sorry I was away for so long,” Julian apologized as he recaptured her arm.

  “They’re curious about you,” Eleni teased. She loved the way his eyes were shining, alive with quiet excitement. “Not that I can blame them.”

  “So it seems. Are you ready to go?”

  She looked around. People were leaving, chatting at the door while preparing to go out. A man with a neatly trimmed beard and tan trousers was picking up champagne glasses and setting them onto a tray. “It looks like they’re shutting down for the night. There was talk of an after-party. You might get swept away by the crowds again.”

  “Wicked girl,” he said roughly. “I’m ready to go home.”

  Eleni grinned. “So am I.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The ride home was quiet and comfortable, almost restful, after visiting the gallery. Eleni enjoyed the night view while Julian drove them back to the chateau. Through her window, the vineyard looked so different now than when she’d first arrived a little over three months ago. It was hard not to notice with the snow was gone, and the leaves breaking out on the vines.

  Eleni yawned on her way in through the door when they reached the house around a quarter to three. The house had settled for the evening, it seemed. The lights were out at the back of the house, and while the smell of chicken soup permeated the downstairs, the door to the kitchen was closed and there was no sign of Claudette.

  “It’s late. There’s no need to disturb her,” Julian said as he stripped off his coat and hung it in the front closet. “If you don’t mind, there’s a bottle of bloodwine in my office. I’m going to grab a drink before bed. I will join you upstairs in a few minutes, okay?”

  Eleni nodded and started away, but Julian grabbed her before she got out of arm’s reach, and tugged her into an embrace and kissed her quickly on the mouth. “Am I going to find you asleep when I get up there?”

  “You just might,” she warned, which made him laugh—and kiss her again.

  “Ah, all right.” He swatted her on the behind. “Go on, then. I’ll meet you in bed.”

  “I’ll try not to steal all the covers before you get there,” she teased, kissing him on the end of the nose before he finally let her go.

  A smile lingered on Eleni’s lips as she started up the stairs. Mid-flight, she paused long enough to remove her shoes then padded the rest of the way to her room in her stocking feet, thoughts of Julian and the gallery foremost in her mind. It had been a very long time since she’d had such a good time out on a date.

  She flicked on the light, and on her way into the room, tossed her shoes and her handbag onto the little chair just inside the doorway. Tired, and ready for a shower, her jewelry was the next to go. She moved around to the dressing table and removed her hairpins and her earrings, dropping them all into one of the little drawers directly under the large, chevron shaped mirror.

  Humming to herself, she paused to light a few scented candles, and had just reached into a drawer for a set of pajamas to take with her to the bathroom when out of her peripheral vision she glimpsed movement.

  Eleni darted her eyes to the mirror, and jumped in startled surprise at the sight of her closet door swinging wide open. A woman with golden blonde hair rushed from the shadows brandishing a knife.

  Eleni spun around right as Gisele lunged at her with a large knife held high. A scream caught in her throat, shrill and rippling.

  “You bitch! I hate you! I hate you!” Gisele attacked like a berserker. Slashing wildly, she looked like a madwoman with her hair flying around her face. Eleni backed away, mouth agape, and lifted her hand to guard her face and felt the white hot sting as the blade sliced across her palm. Her gasp transformed into a shocked cry of pain. Gisele caught her again on the shoulder, and left her forearm in the same strike. A howl of agony broke from Eleni’s lips. She began to swing blindly, fighting back, sweeping things off the dresser at her attacker—Gisele wasn’t stopping, and she didn’t want to die.

  They kicked and struggled, toppling the bedside lamp and pulling down the ornamental drapes hanging near the head of the bed. Eleni managed to wrench the knife from Gisele’s fingers, but then she stumbled back, her foot tangled in the fallen drapes. The knife spun away, under the bed and out of reach. Gisele shrieked at her in rage, and pounced on her, beating her with fists, grabbing her hair and yanking with brutal fierceness. Eleni had a hand braced tight against Gisele’s throat, and with her other hand reached up and slammed the woman on the nose with the heel of her hand. She felt a crunch, and blood flowed, but Gisele was deterred for barely a second.

  “You can’t have him, you hear me, you bitch! We were happy before you came! He loves me—Julian is mine!” Gisele continued to rage as she punched and clawed as Eleni did her best to block the blows and still fight back. Briefly, Gisele ceased, but it was only to reach for something near the bedside table which had upended, and laid half on Eleni’s hair. Then Gisele brought her hand back, and raised it up like a fist. Tucked in the palm was something smooth looking and shiny black.

  Gisele brought the stone panther statue down on Eleni’s head in quick, fierce blows. Eleni felt the first strike through a veil of pain and blunt shock. By the third blow, she went limp.

  Her breathing quick and irregular, Gisele scrambled back and sat on her haunches, looking at the Acolyte unconscious on the floor. Her nerves were shot. She looked down at the stone statue in her palm and noticed the way her hand was trembling. The statue tumbled from her fingers and landed with a heavy thud on the floor. She wiped the blood off her hand on the carpet, as fear rose up from the pit of her stomach when she realized that she had actually done it.

  For a long minute, Gisele sat beside the bed, trying to center herself. She was cold and shaking all over, her rage spent. Rage that had boiled inside her from the moment Julian told her he planned to allow an Acolyte whore to live in his house. Now she was numb, and didn’t know what to do. She had planned to seduce Julian. That was the whole idea. To be his lover, to live forever—to live—something her mother had barely had the chance to do.

  She glanced over at Eleni’s body lying prone. A trickle of fear began to course through her. There would be no way to hide what she had done to her, or to Claudette. Julian wouldn’t be happy with her. She hadn’t thought that far ahead. It hadn’t been her intention to hurt Claudette, but the woman had threatened to call the police. In the thick of it all, she couldn’t remember what she’d been thinking, or what Liev had told her…other than to be smart and have patience. He’d told her she wouldn’t have to do anything, that if she could only see the woman doing something…inappropriate, or dangerous, she wouldn’t have to deal with her anymore.

  Liev was wrong. Now what to do?

  Being smart meant leaving no witnesses. And still, she wanted immortality. Julian. Tears streamed down her face as her world came crashing down around her. She was a murderer, a victim of her own jealousy. She leaned her head against the bed to think, and for a moment, she was mesmerized by the candles flickering on Eleni’s dressing t
able.

  * * * * *

  Julian poured a second glass of bloodwine and carried it with him to the elevator to take him up to his room. Tonight at the gallery had taught him a valuable lesson. I’m getting old, he thought with dry amusement.

  All the way home, he’d felt contemplative and drained, and wondered what Eleni would think of him if he pulled over and asked her to drive the rest of the way back to the house. He wasn’t unfit, or out of shape, but being led around the social arena for the night was enough to leave him reeling and in need of blood. If his brothers had been around to witness it, they would have fallen back into the apples laughing over this weakness, he just knew it.

  He climbed into the elevator, with fond memories of the evening and his Charles and Yves on his mind. It was good to feel needed, accepted, despite his scars. And yet, he didn’t want Eleni to see how weary he was. Not that he thought for a minute she would turn away from him, or chide him for needing rest, but because to his shame, he wanted to impress her.

  He loosened his tie before opening the grate and stepping off the elevator on to the second floor. Taking a sip of his drink, he sauntered to the bedroom, ready to hit the bed and settle in with Eleni. He’d prepared himself for her playful teasing, he’d spent more time downstairs than he’d expected, but when he opened the door to his room it was dark and cold. Empty. Eleni wasn’t there. No fire burned in the hearth.

  Instantly, Julian sensed that something was wrong. Claudette was meticulous. Her routine was precise and in clockwork order. She was very particular about it. If Eleni realized the room wasn’t ready, she would have prepared it herself, and then checked on Claudette. Had she gone downstairs? Was she still in her room?

  Alarmed, Julian left the room with unexplained dread spreading through him with every hard beat of his heart. He had just reached the stairs when he smelled smoke. A shiver passed through, a sense of déjà vu that he didn’t want to acknowledge even as a prickle of cool sweat popped out across his body. Breaking into a jog, he hurried crossed the balcony, his thoughts racing. He shouted for Eleni, his voice boomed off the walls in desperation, but no one answered, and at the far end of the Acolyte’s corridor, the air grew considerably thick and dusky, and distinctly warmer.

  Heart galloping with fear, Julian sprinted through a veil of gray smoke that had collected in the hallways like a ghostly cloud. He rounded the corner final corner leading to the premiere suite, and broke into a sprint. Racing toward Eleni’s door at the end of the hallway, he felt a sense of unreality, like he had passed inexplicably from one horrible time into another.

  The heat reached out to him from beyond the closed door. On instinct, he grabbed for the door handle and gasped in pain as the metal seared his palm like a hot poker. Backing up a step, he steadied himself, his palm smarting, a pulse beating hard in the burned flesh. He kicked the doors open, and the blast of heat from the room staggered him.

  Julian flinched back, but as he looked into the room, into the inferno of rippling, flowing fire. The sound was deafening, a steady rushing roar that cracked and moaned.

  Panic washed over him, a cold wave of fear that swept through him and lodged in his stomach like a ball of ice. For a moment, he was back in the past. In that moment that still came to him in his darkest nightmares. The crackling in the room was so loud it sounded like screaming—hellish cries of anguish and agony.

  “It’s happening again,” he rasped in horror. But, at the same time, awareness rose up in him, the memory of a face. His heart leapt to his throat at the thought of Eleni burning, screaming for him. Torment gripped him, determination. A rush of adrenaline surged through him. The thought of losing her forever sent his fear fleeing into a remote part of himself that clamped down on the notion that he had to find her, save her, even if he destroyed himself.

  “Eleni!” he shouted as he dashed into the burning room.

  Julian searched frantically, squinting through the orange brightness. His skin instantly drenched in sweat as he turned a small circle and saw flames dancing on every surface of the room. It had crawled up the curtains, bubbled the wallpaper and was eating through the carpet like a grass fire. He flinched at the fire licking along the ceiling in roiling waves. It was when he turned to escape the room that he saw her through the ripples of wavering heat. Eleni was lying unconscious on the floor near the bed. His heart gave a frantic leap. He rushed over to her, and crouched down through the littered debris—signs of a struggle.

  He swept her up into his arms, shocked by the sight of blood and the awareness that she wasn’t breathing.

  He rushed to the door as the ceiling began to rain fire over them. It burned his back, his arms, but he thought only of sheltering Eleni, escape. He stumbled from the room into the hallway. The flames were lapping over the top of the door, pouring fire and black smoke into the hall. Julian had just regained his footing when he glimpsed dark movement out of his peripheral vision. He glanced to the left, and to his stunned horror, he saw a dark form emerge from Eleni’s bathroom into the center of the bedroom.

  “Gisele!” Julian gasped her name. He almost didn’t recognize her. Her sooty face was swollen, her eyes ringed with darkening bruises. Blood streamed from an obviously broken nose. His gaze zeroed in on the bloodstained pullover sweater, the way the smears of blood looked like a macabre finger painting.

  His breath held as their eyes locked. Motionless, she watched him, her gaze flat, the flames turning them a glistening shade of ebony. Sweat, or maybe tears, ran through the smudged soot on her cheeks. She looked haunted, distant and ghost-like. He opened his mouth to call out to her, when without a word, she opened the door on her left and walked into Eleni’s closet, closing the door behind her.

  In shock, Julian began to run with Eleni in his arms. Halfway down the hall, Gisele’s bloodcurdling screams pierced his heart, and shivered through the burning walls of the house. Her cries of helpless agony chased him from the room as flames took root in the hallway, pulling the oxygen from the air and devouring the house from the inside out.

  Running on automatic, bent on survival, he made his way down the corridor with Eleni in his arms. At the top of the stairs, he paused to boost her higher against his chest. Her body was so slick with sweat and blood, he very nearly dropped her. His lungs burned, and sweat rolled off of him. The heat was incredible, building up in the house at an alarming rate. Eleni’s blood had soaked into his shirt, and slicked his hands. Looking down at her, he sobbed. She looked so crushed and helpless. He feared she was already dead.

  At the bottom of the stairs, he remembered Claudette. Eying the front door, he cursed under his breath. He was right there by the doorway to the kitchen. It would take but a moment to yell at her if she was there.

  He veered to the right, kicking the door open with his foot and entered, holding the door open with his shoulder. “Claudette!”

  Copper pots boiled angrily on the stove, the lids bouncing, boiling over in foamy stock. The central island with the chopping block surface had various vegetables sliced, the scent of spices and chicken stock and vegetables was as thick as the humidity in the room, but through it all, Julian could also smell the rich tang of blood. He stepped around the edge of the central island, and saw Claudette lying on the kitchen floor. He winced in shock at the sight of her, frozen in death. She was covered in blood—someone had slashed her throat with a large knife from the wooden block on the counter. Her eyes were closed but her tongue bulged, her face fixed in an eternal expression of horror.

  The cloying odor of raw blood hung thick in the air. It blended with the kitchen smells, the stench of onions and hot oil, and made his stomach turn. There was nothing to be done for his beloved housekeeper. Her life had bled out of her at Gisele’s hand. He couldn’t save her, and he feared that if he didn’t hurry and get Eleni out of the house, he wouldn’t be able to save her, either. Already, the heat of the fire intensified as it ate into the ancient wooden walls of the house. It seemed as if every surface radiated hea
t. The entire chateau was going up like a tinder box. He had to get Eleni out of the house now, or they were going to die.

  Stepping over Claudette’s lifeless form, Julian nearly slipped in the growing pool of blood. He quickly regained his balance, and went to the door leading out to the garage and flung it open. Heat blasted him in the face like the open door of an oven. He backed away, his mind reeling as down the dark tunnel, the sounds of cracking beams echoed, and drops of fire began to rain down.

  Turning on his heel, he dashed out of the kitchen and headed toward the front door. The fire hadn’t yet reached the foyer, but above, all along the hallway and the balcony the fire had spread like a huge, rolling wave.

  Flames licked at the ceilings, and had spread along the carpet, creating a frame of fire around Saint Vincent’s window. Julian felt an odd sense of finality while he stared, as the window began to darken and crack. The panes of glass fractured in places, sending shards of colored glass tumbling from the window. Through it all, Eleni never stirred.

  Julian hurried out of the house, carrying Eleni across the driveway to a grassy slope downwind of the house. He had just settled her down, was checking for her pulse when he saw a dark shape coming up the hillside toward the house from the direction of the vineyard.

  “Monsieur Julian!” It was Henri. The old man had a walking stick and was making his way up the hillside, heading in his direction.

  As the driver neared, Julian could see he had his cell phone in his hand.

  “I saw the blaze from the small hill, and called for a rescue. The fire brigade is on the way.” Panting, Henri eased down onto his knees. He swiped his face with a handkerchief and looked around. “What has happened? Where is Claudette?”