My dream ended all too soon for my liking and dragged me back to the present, my lids fluttered and opened to find myself staring into Luke’s face where he slumped forward in his chair, his chin resting on his chest. I stayed lay back in my bed and studied him. He was handsome for a vampire; I’d never looked at a vampire like this before and never had I wanted anything more than friendship that stayed within the work boundaries, but with Luke it seemed and felt different. Whether that was forced from the dreams he’d propelled to my mind or whether it was real, I wasn’t sure. The one thing I was sure about was the fact that it could never be.
A witch and a vampire were a forbidden combination that the agency never would allow. It would cause such an upheaval in the agency for those that worked inside and outside if it; it wasn’t a chance I was going to take.
“Stop staring,” his deep voice broke my reverie, “it’s rude.”
“I wasn’t staring at you,” I said. “What makes you think you’re so special to think I would want to do that anyway?”
“Because you were thinking that I am attractive and you’d quite like the idea of trying something with me, but you’re not sure what it is.”
I groaned as I lay back on the pillow. Of course his kind of people didn’t sleep which was equally annoying, because mortals and witches alike slept whenever we needed to. His abnormality was engraved across the secrets of time as to why they’d been made without the need to sleep.
“Will you stop already,” he said standing agitated by my thoughts, “it's very distracting.”
“When was the last time you ate?”
“Pardon?”
“You heard,” I said. “So when was it?”
“I don’t know,” he said putting his fingers through his hair, “day before yesterday.”
“Then I suggest you go down to the canteen and get something before you start to fancy the taste of my blood.”
“I doubt that,” he said smoothly, “it's probably too salty for me.”
With saying that he turned on his heel and left the room, leaving me plenty of time to think, without worry of anyone hearing me. I pressed the bell to call the nurse, if there ever was a time to try and gain some distance between me and my watcher it was now.
“Yes,” she peered around the door, “everything alright?”
“I’d like to go home now,” I said. “I feel so much better. Please bring the documents for me to sign and I’ll be out of here.”
“I really don’t think that’s a good idea,” she warned, “you’ve been through a very bad experience and you were barely alive when they brought you in here. Please stay and let us make sure you’re alright before you decide to leave.”
“No can do,” I said smiling brightly, “I’m leaving right now.”
She nodded tersely, evidently displeased by my insistence to leave the hospital. She bustled back rather quickly and in tow trailing behind her, came Luke.
Much to my annoyance he was there and made sure to follow me, his cup in hand which I assumed carried his meal. It was set down in the rules that all canteens must provide the food for every living creature that existed inside the agency; this way it would protect anyone human from becoming someone’s meal.
“I’ve been told you’re leaving so soon,” he muttered from the rim of his cup. “I hope you weren’t expecting to leave without me.”
“Now would I do something like that to you?” I feigned innocence. “Besides, you’re my watcher right? This means we have to be together all the time so I hope you like sleeping outside because there’s only room for one at my place.”
“Now you see,” he said as he edged his way around the nurse who was removing the IV from my arm, “I was thinking about that,” he paused, “and I reckon its far better that you come and stay at my place.”
What, stay in a crypt that houses a vampire? How comfortable is that for a human?
To Luke’s amusement, I had been thinking while staring open mouthed at him, he burst out laughing and couldn’t strike another sentence.
“I guess the arrangement would work well providing you do actually have human food and it’s civilised.”
“Of course it is,” he choked out, “I’m not a complete monster you know. The human food part we can work on tomorrow morning when you’re well enough to go to the store with me, but for now we can take some snacks from one of the vending machines out in the corridor. How does that grab you?”
“Well,” I said cocking my head to the side, “I guess it’ll be alright; you can do the shopping though there’s no way I’m heading to any stores for a little while.”
He considered my answer and a flash of some kind of recognition crossed his eyes as he watched patiently for the nurse to finish bustling around the room. I swung my legs out of the bed and reached the floor with the tips of my toes feeling the coolness of the tiles on my bare skin. I grabbed the nearest pile of clothes that resembled mine although bloodied beyond recognition and exited through the door into the bathroom where I could change without a vampire watching. Seeing me naked was not part of his duties.
Brushing my hair with my fingers and feeling the knots that had appeared without any kind of hairbrush and not having a clean decent change of clothes, I sighed deeply resigned to the fact that I would have to go as I was, a shabby mess. Did it honestly matter? After all, I was leaving the hospital with a vampire, the forbidden fruits of the realm’s most dangerous and yet trusted protectors.
“Ready?” he queried from outside the door after tapping lightly with his knuckles.
I opened the door slowly, suddenly afraid to face this complete stranger that I thought I knew. He was standing with his hands in his pockets and looking perky which probably came from the blood source he just eaten which gave him a new lease on life.
“Ready,” I said and handed him my keys.
“What are those?” he asked confused, “Why do I need them?”
“The keys to my house,” I said, “We need to go by there for me to get some clothes, etc. How else am I supposed to stay at your house or rather your crypt?”
“Will you stop thinking I live in a crypt,” he complained, “I don’t. My place is nice and neat; it’s actually a house on the other side of town and I’m certain you’ll like it. Your stuff has already been transported there.”
I turned to gape at him again for the second time since waking up. How on earth had anyone thought to take my belongings to his house? Unless he’d pre-planned it before I’d regained consciousness.
“How did that happen then?” I asked feeling way out of my depth beside him.
“I asked Lilly to arrange it earlier on when you were asleep,” he answered holding the door open for me to pass through, “did you like your dreams?”
“My what?” I was amazed again, “How did you know about them?”
“I’m the one that summoned them for you,” he said mildly not seeming to care that he’d invaded my rest time for the hundredth time this month, “and besides, you didn’t seem to like the other ones so I thought I’d give you something else for today.”
“That’s one thing we need to have a long serious talk about,” I ventured to reprimand him. “You have to stop invading my dreams and listening in on my thoughts.”
“Look listening in on your thoughts isn’t something that I want to do, because believe me hearing your thoughts of make up or clothes isn’t much fun,” he pointed out. “It’s a curse that I have and my gift is being able to summon dreams of the nicest possible kind to humans; that’s what I like passing onto you. The other dreams, I don’t know why I did that to you. I won’t do it again, if you’ll promise me that you won’t start hunting around for details of the murderer; you’re not a detective and you’re not strong enough to fight off other living creatures.”
“I know that,” I sighed. “I was only trying to help and he was like a father to me since I arrived at the agency.”
We stopped in mid stride down the corridor. Ot
her beings were around us, some mortal and others were creatures of many descriptions, all of them hurrying about with their own places to be. The hospital itself had been designed to withstand any attacks from unknowns with its own circle of protectors in place and the spells that offered a particular amount of protection until other forces arrived. Thankfully, nothing like that had happened in about a hundred years according to the records. Before that, the hospital had been attacked viciously by an army of hounds that had come from a distant planet. Their snarling and ferociousness had caused the deepest of harm to all that had entered that night; they’d left nothing behind that could resemble even a whole person. Remnants remained and were used to identify those that had been killed; a body count of three hundred was the last count when the trail of records had ended. Things like this, I was required to look after to make sure history didn’t get an opportunity to repeat itself.
“I know,” he said sadly. “And I also know you’re not going to give up that easily either; you’re the kind of person not to.”
“Do you blame me?”
“Not really. I would do the same thing.”
Holding onto his arm for support as the world started to spin crazily around me, I hadn’t envisaged that my body wouldn’t be able to keep up with me at this stage. I was stubbornly exhibiting the facts that I would leave the hospital to be able to find the murderer or at least add to the investigation.
“Are you ok?” he asked worriedly beside me. “You look pale!”
“What, as pale as you?” wickedly I replied with something that would have upset another vampire, but not Luke. “Sorry,” I quickly added.
“No, don’t be sorry,” he counteracted, “there’s nothing to be sorry for.”
“No there is,” I said, “I was unbelievably rude to you.”
Luke didn’t wait to answer instead I found myself gripping onto his shirt again as he lifted me into his arms and insisted on carrying me the remaining distance across to the car. His small low car was waiting, shining like new and gleaming beneath the parking lot lamp. His smile of satisfaction at my instant reaction, ‘ah’, when I saw it was funny, but I was more interested in getting inside and having a deeper more fulfilling look.
“Luke,” I gasped, “is this your car?”
“Of course it is,” he chuckled. “Who else’s would it be?”
“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “For all I know you could have borrowed it.”
“Look,” he said shaking with laughter, “I may have lied to you in the past,” he reminded me pointedly, “but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to carry on lying to you.”
“I know,” I said quietly, “but I can’t forget how much you lied to me. I trusted you in a weird sort of way and now I find you’re a watcher and sent to watch over me.”
“In time you’ll see why but for now just admit you liked the fact that I was so mysterious, didn’t you?”
I laughed; his smile warmed me and I couldn’t help but secretly agree with him although I tried my hardest not to show it.
“Well,” he said standing me on my feet and holding onto my arm tightly, “get in.”
I climbed into the car and felt the luxurious leather seats against my skin, the coolness and the sleek inside of the car was so enormously outraging, where on earth did someone get the money to pay for something as exquisite as this?
I slumped blissfully down into the seat, while relishing the clean fresh smell that came from the interior of the car, and watched Luke as he sauntered with a dramatic pace around to the other side of the car. The mortals stood in pools of people surrounding their own vehicles.
A mother tried in vain to get her child to get in the car; She shouted, reprimanded and then she quickly reigned it all in and began to reason with the child. Her expression was one of tenderness and unconditional love. I’d only ever seen this kind of love in films; my adoptive mother had loved me, she still did but it wasn’t the love that came from the mother that had carried me inside her womb for 9 months.
“So,” he said as he climbed in next to me startling me out of my reverie, “are you ready to see where I live?” Seeing the pained look on my face and hearing that I still thought he lived in a crypt, he laughed.
Throwing his hands in the air, “I promise it’s not a crypt,” he said, “anyway, do you have any objections to joining me?”
I left his question suspended in the air; there was no way I was going to answer that and he knew it as well. When I risked a look in his direction as he drove the car, his smug smile only alerted me to the fact that he knew his summoned dreams had left my body confused and in a constant clash with my mind.
I was caught between the rules and regulations of two worlds and he was breeching the rules by setting free my innermost exquisite dreams. Without knowing it, he’d set off the one thing I tried to hide, the fact that I was an orphaned and longed to belong somewhere. This is why I joined the agency, to set my name in the lights of the sky and make myself known for something good and something I thought I might actually be good at.
And here was this ‘dead’ person named Luke, for all intents and purposes trying to please me, teasing me into submission and aiming to make me comfortable when I was being held at his house against my will; I wanted to return home, to my house.
“Are you ok?”
“Yes,” I coughed and slumped further into my seat, “why wouldn’t I be?”
“Your thoughts,” he mentioned, “are a little random; are you sure you’re alright? I didn’t mean to upset you so much by sending the dreams; I thought I was helping you by giving you something to concentrate on.”
I sighed inwardly, he obviously wasn’t aware of the effect he had on me; every dream had turned my heart to mush, making me taste with the greatest vivid details of the love that I could never hope to have. It was embarrassing for me to think I’d made love to this person in my dreams, only I hadn’t known it was him. It was an invasion into my inner feelings and emotions, and I wasn’t entirely sure I could forgive him for subjecting me to that.
“I'd appreciate it if next time, you didn’t poke your nose where it doesn’t belong,” I replied rather sharply. “Anyway,” I said waving my hand, “it’s forgotten and you’ve promised not to do it again.”
“True,” he agreed. “We’re nearly there; see that next bend,” he pointed in the direction, “well, it’s just round there,” he said when he saw me nod.
Much to my surprise, the house was ordinary looking. After thinking he lived in a crypt or anything that would suit a vampire and never having seen a vampire’s dwelling before, how was I supposed to know it would be a normal house?
“See I don’t live in a crypt,” he teased when he helped me out of the car. “Some of us,” he said, “like to live a normal life, but there are a few exceptions to the rule.”
“Such as?”
“Tye for example,” he grimaced at having mentioned his name. “He thinks he’s above the rest and it’s not the first time he’s been caught in some weird deal or other. Last time, when he was caught and banished, he was trying to gather together his own vile coven. He’d actually trained a small army of vicious vampires, newborns and set them loose.”
“Oh no,” I gasped my hand flying to my mouth, “what happened?”
“Well,” he cleared his throat, “he was obviously caught and exiled from earth; the others he’d turned were destroyed. According to what I was privy to, it was Matace’s idea and his instructions.”
“Why isn’t this in any of the records?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugged, “it was supposed to have been a hush hush affair, purely because of the magnitude of the situation and the amount of mortal deaths that were sustained at the time. Do you think that could be a reason why?”
“No,” I said shaking my head, “everything including the deaths of mortals is recorded so we can trace the ones exiled in case they come back, like Tye has.”
“Well,” he said changing the
subject instantly, “are we going to sit in the car all night or shall we go inside.”
Without waiting for my answer he leapt from the car, I must have blinked because one second later he was round to my door and holding it open, his hand outstretched to help me from the car.
“Do you ever actually act human when you’re at home?” I asked nervously checking to make sure no one had seen his fast movements.
“Not here,” he said, “I own the entire block and as you can see,” his arms swept around him. “We’re the only ones for miles.”
To my astonishment he was right. His apartment block was well chosen. It was far enough down the road so that he didn’t have to be disturbed, which meant he could act how he chose to when he was at home. This included moving so fast that it was unnatural to the naked eye of mortals.
The glass windows shimmered in welcome; the air whirled around the car causing a dramatic effect. Luke’s low whistling added to the intrigue of his house. Not only were there enough windows that I could see from this angle, but there was also a gigantic wooden front door. There were great stone steps leading to the entrance that curved upwards and gracefully sloped to the ‘welcome’ mat, or so I supposed; I couldn’t see from where I sat.
“Welcome to my home.” He grinned and grabbed my small bag from the back seat.
Walking slightly behind him as he continued to whistle a low tune, we marched towards the front door. The outside of the block was impressive but normal at the same time. The sheer magnitude of the fact that he owned the entire complex was a little weird; there must be at least 40 or so rooms inside. I hadn’t the faintest idea why he needed that many rooms.
“I like lots of rooms,” he grinned back at me. “Sorry.” he said when he saw my cheeks blushing. “I’ll try not to listen when you’re thinking. I guess it’s a bad habit and not having a mortal with me made it a little too easy to hear you.”
The Depths of Darkness Page 4
