Undeniable

by Doreen Orsini

  She turned a corner and froze. The crowd below the helicopter, though still quite small compared to the one that had greeted her, were attacking each other as they frantically tried to be the first to reach Diana. Their nostrils flared. Their roars rent the night.

  And Diana?

  Angelina had expected to hear her screaming in terror, to see her frantically trying to climb up the rope.

  But with nothing more than a tremulous smile, Diana stared down at the teeth snapping at the air inches from her descending feet.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Damien took a deep breath and rang the doorbell of the small Cape Cod. When the door opened, he grabbed hold of Frank Nostrum’s neck and lifted him until their faces were level. “Don’t move. Don’t talk. Don’t even breathe. Just listen.”

  Frank shook his head in denial. “You’re dead. I watched you die!”

  “Poor Frank, you saw me in Marek, but you failed to see yourself.” Damien spat into his face.

  “Myself? What the hell are you talking about?” Clawing at Damien’s hands, Frank shook his head. “Oh, God, it wasn’t you. The eyes were the same, but the mouth… the mouth was not as full.”

  “And what about his nose, Frank? Ever seen that crooked bridge before? In the mirror? On your daughter’s nose? Ever notice how your ears look too small for your head too, Frank?”

  Frank glared back. “What are you saying? That he wasn’t a vampire? I saw his fangs.”

  “Oh he was a vampire, Frank. He was my son.” Damien fought the urge to snap Frank’s neck, to release the grief and rage choking off his words. “Mine and your mo—”

  “No.” Frank struggled to get free. “You’re crazy.”

  “Am I, Frank? Did your brother cry for his mother, Frank? Your mother?” Damien nearly smiled at the horror filling Frank’s eyes, but his heart still ached for the child he heard years ago beg his mother not to leave. The child who’d faced a monster to keep his mother.

  “I have no brother! That baby died right after he was born. I went to his funeral,” Frank cried, his voice sounding like a small child.

  Damien probed his mind and felt his anger shift. Frank had held Marek for what he’d thought was the first and only hour of his life, had fallen in love with him the instant their eyes met, had cursed God for taking his brother so swiftly. “He lived, Frank. He was the vampire you mistook for me.”

  “I did not kill my brother. I didn’t.” Frank stared at him with imploring eyes. “I wouldn’t.”

  “We took him after he was born to protect him from monsters like you.” Damien dropped the sobbing man to the floor.

  “My mother would have never given him up. You didn’t see her when she held him. She would never—” Frank’s head dropped to his chest. “If she knew he was yours, why would she give him up and not me?”

  “She never knew. We have doctors, vampires committed to protect life, vampires who inform our orphanages as soon as one of our own is born to an unbonded human female.”

  “No. It can’t be.” Frank stared up at Damien.

  “I knew, as soon as I laid eyes on him, that he was my own. Mine and your mother’s. I took him into my home and prayed you would never lay eyes on him. How did you find him, Frank? How the hell did you get your hands on Marek?”

  Frank closed his eyes. Tears seeped from beneath his lashes. “He came to me. He showed up at my door one night and asked if we could talk. I should have known it wasn’t you. After all these years, to just walk up to my door? I told him we had to go someplace more private, that I knew a place where no one would hear us. My God, he walked right into the pen. I should have known something wasn’t right.”

  “He walked into the pen?” Damien rubbed the tension from the back of his neck and tried to make sense of the scene Frank painted.

  “He hesitated. But then he mumbled something about trusting me, about needing to tell me something, and followed me in.”

  Damien slumped down next to his enemy, his anger overwhelmed by his grief. Marek trusted everyone, was said to have the purest heart of their kind. But to walk into a pen they all feared? To even approach Frank Nostrum? “Did you listen to him, Frank? Did you ever bother to find out why he’d come?”

  Frank leapt up. “How could I not listen? The whole time he raved like a lunatic. He said he was my brother, he said his name was Marek, but I thought you were trying to trick me. And what if he was my brother? He was still no better than an animal. A sick, dangerous animal that needed to be destroyed for the safety of mankind!”

  Damien sighed. “Diana’s in trouble.”

  Frank froze. “Diana? What have you done with my daughter?”

  “Not me, Frank. We too have lunatics who believe they’re saving their own race by destroying another. But then again, like the lunatic I’m talking about, you’ve always been more driven by jealousy, haven’t you, Frank?” He reached up and nearly tore the man’s arm off. “Sit!”

  “Diana’s with my mother,” Frank stated, but his voice caught.

  “That’s right, Frank. She is. They have your mother too.”

  “I just saw her.” Frank shifted away, eyeing Damien warily.

  “They’re gone, Frank. God, will you just listen. I need your help. Someone’s taken them to the Isle of Fentmo—”

  “No.” Frank once again leapt up. “But they’re not like the Slashers. God, Diana has never even met a goddamn vampire, much less bonded…”

  “You know about Slashers?”

  “One of the vampires we caught thought he’d be spared if he gave away a few secrets.” Frank cast his eyes down. “My mother swore Diana hadn’t met any vampires,” he mumbled, then glanced up. “Are you telling me my mother lied to me?”

  “I’m sure she only wanted to protect Diana from you.” Damien rose, snatched a set of keys from a small glass table, took hold of Frank’s arm and pulled him toward the door.

  “Where are we going?” Frank tugged back. His heels slid across the floor.

  “First we’re going to release Tomas.” Damien dragged Frank to the car, ignoring the nauseating smell of the man’s fear. “Get in and drive.”

  Frank quickly opened the car door and slid across the passenger seat to the driver’s side. Damien joined him before he could even think of opening the other door. His hands shook so much that he couldn’t get the key in the ignition. He screamed when Damien’s hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. With Damien’s help, his hand steadied and the engine roared to life.

  As they backed out of the driveway, Damien took hold of his arm. “Just remember, Frank. Don’t try anything. I’m your only chance at saving your mother and daughter. Do you hear me? Your only chance. Now let’s go get Tomas.”

  “Who the hell is Tomas?”

  “Don’t be coy. I know you have him in your pen.” His anger drove his nails deep into Frank’s arms.

  “Ow! What are you talking about? I didn’t put anyone in the pen.”

  “Don’t play me for a fool. I see him. He’s just a babe, for Christ’s sake,” Damien said through clenched teeth. The man amazed him.

  “A baby? What do you think I am? I’ve never taken babies.” Frank’s arms shook so fiercely the car swerved.

  “Not a baby. A babe, just twenty-five, just entering his eternal years. And don’t tell me you didn’t put him there, he’s calling for my help as we speak.”

  Frank drove through the village than continued north on Route 9. “I swear you, I mean Marek, was the last vampire I put in the pen.”

  Damien stared at Frank, could see the confusion etched across his face. “I know he’s in there. I can still hear him calling for help. If you didn’t put him there, then who did?”

  “How the hell should I know?”

  Damien watched the cars whiz by. “Frank, did Marek ever mention how he found out you were brothers?”

  “That’s why I didn’t believe him. He said his mother sent him to me.” He let out a short, bitter laugh. “My mother would never hand a v
ampire over to me, much less her own son. She hates me.” He clenched his hands around the steering wheel. “She never forgave me for taking her away from you.”

  “You fool. She loved you more than me. That’s why she stayed. How could you be so blind?” Damien shook his head. “I guess I shouldn’t talk. I believed Olympia, Marek’s stepmother, had grown to love him. She fooled us all. She must have sent him to you. This was all part of her plan and now she’s sacrificing Tomas, Diana and Sebastian just to get back at me and Angelina.”

  “Who the hell is Olympia and what has she done to Diana?”

  “Nothing yet, I hope. If she hurts one hair on Diana or Angelina’s head…” The handle on the passenger door snapped off in Damien’s hand. “We’ll get Tomas to help us. If only I could break through the wall Sebastian’s put up in his mind, I could recruit his help too.”

  Frank turned and drove up a steep unfinished road. After only a few minutes, he veered off the road and entered the woods.

  Damien held onto the back of the seat as the SUV bounced and seemed to head straight for a tree. At the last moment, Frank swerved around it and came out on a path so narrow the branches of the trees and bushes lining it brushed against the vehicle. The path grew so steep, he was sure they would flip over and tumble down the mountainside. He would have thought Frank planned to do just that in an attempt to get away if the man hadn’t been flicking on his blinker before every sudden turn.

  “I don’t think you have to worry about getting a ticket here, Frank,” he muttered, shaking his head and grinning when Frank cast him a completely baffled expression. “Never mind. Just step on it.”

  He immediately regretted his words. His head slammed into the roof as they sped up.

  When they finally stopped before an outcropping of massive boulders, Damien scanned their surroundings and immediately concluded they were alone and very near Tomas.

  Frank turned to gaze intently at Damien. “Why are you helping my daughter? What do you care if she and my mother die?”

  “I could never purposely harm a human, Frank. Even you. It’s against our laws.”

  “Laws?”

  Damien let out a long sigh. “Yes, laws. We’re not monsters who spend our nights looking for blood. We have families, schools, jobs and laws just like you. Anyway, Diana is the grandchild of my soul mate. I love her as if she were my own granddaughter.”

  He slid across the seat and followed Frank out the driver’s door. “When your mother refused to complete the bonding ritual, I was so heartbroken, I wanted to drag her away and force her to stay with me. And when I didn’t, I was sure she’d gone mad, like the Slashers.”

  Frank looked at Damien. “So you thought you left me with a mad woman for a mother.”

  Damien nodded. “I felt her madness was my fault. It only made sense that you’d grow up hating us. The hardest thing I’ve ever done was protect you, Frank. You killed my family and friends, but you were still Angelina’s child and, in a way, mine. Too many times I argued with elders that even though you’d captured and murdered our kind, we could not, by law, kill you. We can only kill in self-defense. And so they waited for one of those you captured to do just that.”

  Frank swallowed. “I always thought you just wanted my mother for—”

  “Her blood? Frank, you have no idea what we’re all about. Now let’s get Tomas and go save your daughter.”

  They walked along a narrow path until a huge metal gate covered with ivy blocked them from continuing further. Frank sorted through his keys and with a shaky breath opened the padlock.

  Damien followed him through the opening, still wary enough to keep his hand wrapped around the back of the man’s neck.

  Towering concrete walls topped with a multitude of five foot treacherous spikes surrounded a massive clearing. Not a tree or bush sprang from the level ground. In the middle, a crucifix shot up some twenty feet. Tomas, his naked body covered in sweat, hung with his hands and feet nailed to the wood.

  Upon seeing them, he broke down and began to cry. “Damien! I knew you’d come. I knew it.”

  Damien instantly took in the direction the youth faced. The rising sun would come from his side, extending the time it took for its burning rays to kill him. “My God, Frank, what kind of monster are you?”

  “He didn’t do this, Damien. Olympia did. She’s crazy.” Tomas sobbed. “Get me off this thing. These nails are killing me.”

  Damien climbed up to the pole and tore the nails from Tomas’ hands and feet. Screams of agony sent a flock of birds into the dark sky. Gently cradling Tomas in his arms, he carried him out of the pen. Blood poured from the gaping holes. “Take off your shirt,” he yelled to Frank.

  Frank ran up to them and tore off his shirt. “I didn’t do this, Damien. You have to believe me.”

  Damien shredded the shirt. Wadding the pieces up, he shoved them into the open wounds. Tomas let loose a heartbreaking wail then passed out.

  They had only a few hours before dawn, not enough time to get to the Isle. Gathering the boy in his arms, he raced back to the car. By the time he reached it, blood was already dripping from the saturated cloth. “If I don’t get him stitched up soon, he’ll die.”

  Frank grabbed his arm. “I have a kit in the trunk. I’ve nearly lost a few of my men while…” He clamped his mouth shut and ran around to open the trunk.

  A large black box filled the trunk. What appeared to be an innocent flashlight lay across the top. Frank shoved another light to the back and unlocked the box. Opening it, he tossed the contents aside, then let out a sigh of relief and held out a suture packet.

  Damien’s hands blurred as they moved over the wounds. A few minutes later, Tomas’ wounds were sealed.

  Tomas’ eyes opened to mere slits. “I was so scared. She said we were going to burn the pen down and catch the hunter. The next thing I knew, she had my hands nailed and—” His eyes flew open. “She found out about Sebastian and Diana. When I lied and told her they didn’t bond, she went berserk. She mentioned Fentmore.”

  “It’s all right, Tomas. I’ll take care of everything.” Damien lifted Tomas up into his arms and turned to Frank. His gaze fell to the man’s outstretched hand. Two small white capsules rested upon his palm.

  “They’re pain killers,” Frank said.

  Damien eyed the capsules suspiciously.

  “Take them.” Frank drew in a shaky breath. “I never could stand to hear them scream. I always slipped them a couple of these. Then if they didn’t take effect by sunrise, I left.”

  Frank’s shame poured into Damien mind. With a quick nod, he took the pills and convinced Tomas to swallow them. “Thanks. Now take us to Angelina’s. We’ll figure out what to do next while Tomas sleeps through the day.”

  Sebastian! Damien called his stepson again and again.

  * * * * *

  The other children in Luna’s class ignored Ms. Tindela’s pleas to return to their seats. Luna felt those crowded around the bank of windows press closer as they peered into the night, hoping to be the first one to pinpoint where in the surrounding forest the vampire would emerge. Another anguished roar, much closer than the first, had them nearly hanging out the windows.

  “Children, get down.” Ms. Tindela began tugging at their wriggling legs. “You’ll fall and break your necks.”

  “There goes another one,” Caitlin, Luna’s dearest friend, squealed with delight.

  They all watched as a young pine soared over the treetops.

  “We have a lot to learn before dawn, children. Tomorrow night—”

  “I see him,” Luna yelled, jumping up and down. “See? He’s lifting another one.”

  Another sapling soared over the treetops, landing with enough force to bury its roots in its new location.

  “Oh my,” Ms. Tindela gasped.

  Moonlight shone on the face and bare chest of the vampire Luna had known all her life. Muscles bulged from his neck as he let out an ear-splitting roar that sent some of the children scu
rrying under their desks.

  Fallon let out a long whistle. “Boy, is he ever over the edge!”

  Luna tugged at Ms. Tindela’s skirt. She peered up, her eyes filling with tears. “But that’s my Uncle Sebastian. You told us only teens in pooh-betty went over the edge.”

  Ms. Tindela ran her trembling hands over Luna’s head. “Usually. It takes an awful lot to push a full-grown male over. Children, please come away from the window. He’s dangerous.”

  “He’s coming this way,” Fallon yelled, obviously no longer in awe of the charging vampire. “Run!”

  Twenty first-grade vampires charged. Desks flew across the room, tossed out of their way with mere flicks of their wrists. Luna heard screams and the sound of crashing desks coming from the other classrooms facing the woods. By the time the entire school sat huddled in the hallway, a line of elders had entered the schoolyard. Glad she’d stayed in the classroom, Luna opened the window and watched.

  The elders cautiously approached Sebastian, ducking as one when a tree soared toward their heads. In the state he was in, with his senses overloaded by his emotions, Sebastian seemed to have no idea that they were even there.

  * * * * *

  Every time Sebastian thought of Diana and her deception, his heart shattered anew. He wanted to hurt her as much as she’d hurt him. Needed her to pay for Tomas’ certain death, for tricking him into betraying his own kind while blindly falling victim to her wiles.

  But more than anything, he needed her to convince him he was wrong.

  Tonight was their third of the final stage. They should be together so that their love could appease their hunger until the final night. They should be together!

  And tomorrow night should have been one spent baring their souls with completely open hearts and minds as they made love and fed upon each other until their bodies and blood merged to become one. Would she have hidden the truth about her knowledge of her father even then?

  “Diana!” he roared, feeling the muscles in his throat tear, the pain nothing compared to the pain crushing his soul.