Hunting Karoly

by Marie Treanor

  Well, maybe I could change that some, make a little effort. And I would work with Hilda, give it my best try, or I would end up old, never knowing if I had made the most of my life and always suspecting I hadn’t.

  Yes, it was time to take stock, more than time. If for nothing else, I should be grateful to the vampire for forcing me to this moment, for he alone was neither rooted in my past nor the inspiration of negative emotion. I had wanted change, yet in my heart had refused to move an inch from my old family and friends, had rejected everyone and everything else. Except the vampire. For some reason, I had made him my friend, my lover and if I imagined that was all down to his hypnotic powers I was deluding myself. I found him hypnotic, I found him fun and beautiful and sexy as hell. I had made love to him at least as much as he to me and then I had sent him away.

  It was difficult to know what else I could have done. I couldn’t kill him, couldn’t let Frank or Hilda kill him either. Nor could I let him hurt them. So I told him to go and I didn’t give away his playact.

  Though neither I nor Frank’s instruments could sense his presence anywhere around that flat where he’d jumped, I knew he wasn’t dead. I had spent that night sleepless with anticipation, in case he came to me in my mother’s house. But he didn’t come. There were no more dreams. And if my body ached with lust, it went unsatisfied.

  It still went unsatisfied. My own fingers just weren’t the same as his.

  Chapter Seven

  A month later, I stopped a poltergeist in its tracks.

  On a nasty London housing estate—or scheme, as we’d call it back home—lived a troubled adolescent called Victor who had inadvertently created this being. Ungrateful, it was now terrifying him and his entire family by trashing their flat on a regular basis. The Centre was called in urgently when his mother finally realized it really wasn’t Victor doing the trashing. Let in by a tiny, wide-eyed girl, we followed the crashing sounds to a bedroom where two terrified ten-year-old girls and Victor himself sat huddled with their mother on a corner of the bed while books and toys and shoes and computer disks flew round the room, crashing into walls and furniture.

  I hate poltergeists. In fact, I still blame one for making me set fire to my hair. The violence of this one made my heart sink. If it hadn’t been for my new resolution to always try, I’d have stepped back and let Hilda manage it with the other two probationers while I cowered in the hall. As it was, I had to force myself to stand still and observe as I’d been taught, to gain what knowledge I could.

  After a moment of staring at the random violence, I could actually make out its energy, like steam blasting from a funnel. And I felt its malevolence. It really didn’t like us interfering in its terror campaign. Hell, I didn’t like it either, so when it actually lifted the computer monitor high in the air and aimed at the screaming family in the corner, I acted purely from instinct.

  Enough! I roared at it in my head and from somewhere managed a bolt of my own energy to stop it in its tracks.

  The monitor fell with a thud back onto the desk—damaged but no longer lethal—and the stream of malevolent energy turned on me. There was a whooshing sound that chilled me to the core. Somewhere, I was aware of Hilda’s warning, “Jenny, back off!”

  I couldn’t. There was nowhere to back off to, except behind my colleagues, so I projected a mouthful of vicious Glaswegian and when it pulled up again in surprise, I probed into its intelligence.

  In fact, it didn’t have much. It was formed from Victor’s hate and anger and churning hormones, all his negative emotions and God knows they were powerful. But it was the personification of mindless violence. It had no aim except to carry on.

  It felt my probing, my understanding. With new fear, I realized a link was forming between us. For an instant, all that hate and fury slammed against my mind. I forced down the shutters, shoving it away.

  Go away. Lie down and be good and leave these people alone.

  Almost, it was like being back in the school library. If you spoke with enough conviction, the kids behaved. And almost to my surprise, the poltergeist backed down too. The stream of energy seemed to dissolve. The air no longer crackled.

  “Has it gone?” Victor’s mother whispered.

  Hilda nodded. “Yes, it’s gone.”

  But Victor still looked desperate. Pity for him, for all of them filled me. All I could do was start clearing up the mess.

  “How do you really get rid of it?” I asked Hilda as we finally emerged from the haunted building into the dark, bleak street.

  “Intimidate it, deprive it of what it wants and eventually it just disintegrates.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “You seemed to have it pretty intimidated,” said Zack, one of my fellow probationers. “That was you, wasn’t it?”

  “I don’t know. But I do know it’ll be back…”

  Something caught the corner of my eye and I glanced up. Among the dark shadows of the houses and tower blocks, I could see none that posed a threat. No young muggers with knives. Not even a fast-moving blur in an antique kilt. And yet something made me shiver. My spine prickled with awareness. A vampire? Or some residual effect from my encounter with the poltergeist?

  Watchful, conscious that my heart beat too fast, I climbed into Hilda’s car with the others and we drove out of London, back toward the Centre.

  “You did well back there,” Hilda paused to say to me as we all got out of the car again.

  I knew I hadn’t. “There was something I should have been able to do. I had it. But I couldn’t let it in…”

  “Christ, no,” said Hilda with feeling. “Keep your shields up at all costs. It may come back, but trust me, Jenny, it’s the beginning of the end for that poltergeist.”

  I hoped she was right. But as I began to undress for bed, the anguished face I saw in my mind was Victor’s. He knew it wasn’t over. And in my heart, so did I.

  I hurled my knickers across the room. “What else could I do?” I wondered aloud.

  Blast it to pieces.

  My whole body vibrated with shock. Karoly’s voice spoke in my head, as clearly as if he’d been in the room. I could feel him, his unique, powerful, presence that seemed to project equal measures of menace and sex. And my body remembered, flushing all over.

  I glared wildly around, looking for him.

  That’s what you wanted to do, isn’t it?

  Covering myself, I sprinted into bed and under the covers to hide my nakedness. My heart was drumming. Worse, it seemed to have migrated to my stomach.

  “Where are you?” I demanded. He wasn’t here, not physically. That would be impossible… Wouldn’t it?

  His lazy amusement seeped into my mind. I could almost see the mocking smile on those sexy lips. I wanted to die, I wanted to throw things at him. I wanted him here, palming my nipples, which had already hardened like pebbles just at the thought of his smile. How could he churn me up like this again just when I’d begun to get myself together?

  Oh, around.

  For some reason his evasive answer calmed me. I could think again, analyze what I was picking up from him. Only telepathic messages, however imbued with his overwhelming personality. I had no need to hide my treacherous body, just my thoughts, which were in total turmoil.

  “Get out of my head,” I commanded.

  Then how would we talk?

  “We wouldn’t! You killed yourself and you’re dead, remember?”

  I’ve always been dead, he pointed out with some truth, which I ignored.

  “Nice stunt,” I sneered. “But did you have to plant my underwear next to your ‘ashes’?”

  It seemed so fitting. Thanks for not giving me away.

  “You’re welcome. Now fuck off.”

  That’s no way to talk to someone who’s trying to help.

  Even when he was nowhere near, he took my breath away. My skin, my whole spine, prickled with warning. Not just because I was communicating with a vampire, with him, strengthening whatever
psychic bond we already shared, but because I wanted to believe him. Was I really so desperate that I needed to believe I’d mattered to him in Glasgow?

  I said furiously, “I don’t need your help!”

  Then why ask for it?

  “I didn’t!”

  You asked what else you could have done. I told you, blast it to pieces.

  “I wasn’t talking to you.”

  Actually, you were.

  Shite, was I? Scared all over again, not to say humiliated, I said firmly, “Bollocks. But I suppose you’re going to tell me how to blast it anyway?”

  If you want to know.

  “I don’t! Go away, Charlie—I don’t want anything to do with you.”

  Didn’t I? Churning with memory, furious and ultra-aware, did I not feel more…alive than I had since he “killed” himself in Glasgow? Was there not already a damp patch on the sheet where my willful pussy had leaked its juices? Angrily, I pushed that aside. And realized he’d gone.

  I searched warily around my mind. I was alone.

  I closed my eyes. Why was he back? Looking for more amusement in his boring life? Another blood drink, a little more frantic sex with the vampire hunter who couldn’t bring herself to kill him? Who melted into a glob of liquid lust just at the sound of his telepathic voice. He must be wetting himself laughing.

  Did vampires pee?

  Oh bloody, bloody hell!

  Throwing off the quilt, I scrambled into my pajamas and went to brush my teeth with unnecessary aggression. That done, I slid my back down the door until I sat on the bathroom floor with my knees under my chin.

  “Charlie—were you there this evening? On that roof?”

  What roof?

  I hadn’t really expected an answer. I didn’t even know if I wanted one. It had only been an experiment to see if I could reach him, but his reply came back so fast, I knew he’d been listening for me.

  I pushed my forehead into my hand, trying to focus. “Were you there? Did you see—feel?—that poltergeist?”

  I know of it.

  “You’re not giving much away, are you?” Of course he wasn’t. I was in the Centre now, surrounded by psychics far more powerful than I would ever be. I could bring them all down on him if I knew where he was.

  No really, I could.

  “Did I scare it off, or did Hilda?”

  You did.

  “But it hasn’t really gone, has it? It’s just sleeping.”

  Don’t be so afraid of it. It has a tiny fraction of the power I do.

  That didn’t help. I shivered. “I’m afraid of it,” I confessed. I didn’t mean to. The words just slid out of my head. “It tried to get into my mind.”

  Of course it did. It’s the only way it can communicate or expand its power. That’s how you defeat it.

  “By letting it into my mind? Are you nuts?”

  Again, his laughter brushed against me and I began to ache. I couldn’t think about this now, nor ever. I had to focus on poltergeists.

  Opinions vary. As for the poltergeist, you can shield your mind now. You’re much stronger.

  Resisting the urge to preen, I asked, “How can I do both at once? Shield my mind and let it in?”

  There are layers upon layers to your mind. The core you must protect at all costs. The outer layers, the ones you use to project and receive—those you may open. Then you can either blast it apart or compel it to blast itself.

  I sat up straighter. “That’s not what Hilda said.”

  Hilda is limited.

  “Aren’t I?”

  Not with me.

  I stared at my hands. What did he mean by that? What the hell did I want him to mean? Focus! “What exactly are you offering, Charlie?”

  He shrugged. I’m sure he did. I’ll—er—blast it for you. Or if you prefer, I’ll teach you to blast it yourself.

  I didn’t doubt that he could do either. What bothered me was why. In a small, hard voice, I demanded, “In return for what?”

  There was a pause. If I hadn’t felt him in my mind like some low-level, constant electrical charge, I’d have thought he’d buggered off again.

  Nothing, he said at last. Yet.

  I bit my finger, trying to squash the jolting of my stomach, the inevitable, heated tingling below. Yet. Shamefully, I wanted to believe it had a sexual implication, but what did he really want from me? My blood? My silence, my cover so he could continue his depredations? My betrayal of my colleagues?

  Christ, there were so many reasons for not doing this that I couldn’t even count them. Against which I had the terrified faces of Victor and his family. And a creeping, galloping excitement because he was with me again, if only in spirit. Although that should probably count as against too.

  I bit harder, so that when I took the finger out of my mouth, I could see my own teeth marks. I was so going to regret this.

  “All right, Charlie,” I said. “Show me.”

  * * * * *

  Early morning remedial classes with Hilda. Late night extra-curricular studies with Karoly. On top of which, as our efficiency and confidence grew, Zack, Sam and I were sent out increasingly often, usually with Hilda or Frank or one of the other more experienced operatives. It was a busy time for me and I should have been exhausted. Instead of which it came to me one afternoon as I walked down a sunny street with my fellow probationers, that I was almost happy.

  But I didn’t want to think about that, or the inevitable mess I was getting myself into by this increasing debt to the vampire. Because I found he was right. I could separate the layers of my mind—leave some open and close others down. Under Karoly’s very different tuition, I learned to strengthen my own shields and better understand the power of my mind.

  Not that I trusted him, of course. Not for one moment. How could I?

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked him one night after he’d condescended to be pleased with my progress.

  Because I can.

  I supposed boredom was the curse of a long life. It certainly can’t have escaped his notice that the stronger I grew, the more able I would be to deal with him and his like. It was one of my desperately repeated justifications for what I was doing.

  I lay back in bed. It was weird talking to him every night from there. Intimate. Almost like the pillow talk of lovers. Apart from the subject matter and the inconvenience of him being a vampire, of course. It was so tempting to touch myself to the arousing sound of his telepathic voice, to enjoy physical pleasure with the secret parts of my mind he’d taught me to hide.

  Without him knowing, I could slide my hand inside my pajamas to hold my damp, aching pussy, slide my finger inside and move to the rhythm of his beautiful voice. I needed the comfort, the release and I wanted the pleasure so badly it amounted to desperation. But I wouldn’t let myself do it.

  Not until after he’d gone. Then I’d be able to give in, as I always did, soothe my burning body with own hands, bring myself to orgasm and alleviate the unendurable need. Increasingly, I looked forward to that secret delight, indulging myself to the memory of his voice and my mind’s vivid visions of what we’d already done together in Glasgow. Though I didn’t forget the emptiness that always followed those dates with my own fingers, I couldn’t do without them either.

  I could have his spiritual company, or I could have a little physical happiness. It was my unique torture not to be able to enjoy both at once, but of the two I was well aware which was the more dangerous.

  I said firmly, “Good night, Charlie.”

  Good night.

  The electric tingle of his presence faded to nothing.

  I gazed up at the ceiling, refusing to miss him, practicing what he’d taught me, wondering what lay in store for tomorrow. He never bothered me during the day, never distracted me from my work or studies. But stupidly, I found myself saving up little events from my day to tell him about, because only he would find them funny. Almost as if I was going home to a friend or a lover, instead of a shadowy and evil teacher
.

  I slid my hand inside my pajama trousers, reaching between my legs for a little secret bliss. I remembered his voice, imagined his presence. Clutching my breast with my free hand, I kneaded it desperately, rubbed faster at my clitoris to alleviate the hunger that never really left.

  I couldn’t trust him. But I’d let him into my mind and inevitably, there were consequences.

  * * * * *

  The woods were quiet. I could sense the threat that lurked there, something huge and malevolent that I couldn’t fight on my own. Though I ran with increasing speed, I couldn’t escape it. My legs just wouldn’t move any quicker. My heart hammered with fear and then, just as I sensed its roar of triumph, I saw Karoly.

  He stood under a tree in his antique kilt, his fair hair tied behind his head, glinting under the sun, which peeped between the heavy leaves. I stopped and stared at him, confused, trapped between the devil and the deep blue sea. He smiled at me, melting my bones even through the fear and I realized the threat had gone. It was afraid of Karoly.

  He walked across the path of mud and fallen leaves, tall and lean, graceful as some predatory cat. His kilt swung around his thighs, fascinating me. He stood in front of me I saw that he no longer smiled. His green eyes were dark with lust, flecked with dancing gold as I’d seen them before.

  Beyond all fear, I ached for him. I yearned for his ravishing mouth on my taut nipples, his sensitive hands all over me. Against everything I knew to be right or even sensible, I wanted his muscular arms around me and his body heavy on mine, inside me, giving me more of the astounding sex I’d tasted in Glasgow. My mouth was dry with longing, my pussy soaked and pulsing.