Talon interjected, deepening his voice, “Are we doing something illegal?”
“The yellow tape was already removed, and it’s not private property. So I suppose not. It’s just curious to me,” Detective Ashford started pondering to himself. He eyed Talon suspiciously, “You wouldn’t happen to be the ‘guy-friend’ Avery was with the night of her sister’s death?”
“I am,” Talon confidently confirmed.
The detective continued his questioning, “So you can verify she was with you that night.”
“I can.”
Avery interrupted them, “Why does he need to verify it? Do you think I did it?”
Detective Ashford drew his attention back to Avery, and his stern look softened, “No. But to be honest, I think you know something, and I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want justice for your sister.”
Because I already got it, Avery thought as she narrowed her eyes and clenched her teeth.
Talon came to her defense, “Have you ever lost anyone close to you Detective? Had them taken from you before their time?”
The detective went silent, his face blank and words unsure of themselves, “Not exactly, no.”
Talon continued, “Then understand that you don’t understand a damn thing about the grief she’s suffered or how she’s dealing with it. You are only making it worse.”
Detective Ashford shoved his hands shamefully in his pockets and shuffled his weight, but kept his head held high, “I apologize. I’m a seeker of the truth and can’t help but delve deeper when I have a gut feeling about something.” He turned to face Avery and gave a nod, “Miss Langdon…”
She hated being formal. “Avery,” she stated.
“Avery,” he corrected. “If you ever want to talk, you have my number. I apologize again.”
Avery impulsively added, “I accept your apology, Detective.”
“Call me Jace,” he smiled at her.
Talon grabbed her arm protectively and opened the car door for her, guiding her into the seat. He could still see the detective watching them in his rearview mirror as they left the lot. He didn’t like that guy. Or the way he looked at Avery.
“That’s the second time he’s ‘randomly’ run into me today,” Avery filled the cold silence.
“Random my ass,” Talon muttered. “He may be following you. And I can tell that he likes you, even if you are part of a case.”
“Is that jealousy I detect?” Avery giggled.
“Jealousy? I have no need for that emotion,” he stated. Talon wasn’t insecure or afraid that Avery would run off with the detective, but if that guy kept harassing his woman, he would no doubt have to dispatch of him. Talon mimicked under his breath, “Call me Jace…” When he caught himself being petty, he hoped she hadn’t heard.
“Do I give guys the wrong impression or what?” she wondered aloud while looking at the passing scenery.
I say you stop being so alluring to anyone but me, Talon thought to himself. Maybe they could just run away to an exotic paradise, some remote island, where he could keep her solely to himself.
“I almost thought you left me,” Avery randomly mentioned.
“Huh?” She snapped him out of his daydreaming.
“When I was on the phone and turned around to find you gone….”
Talon immediately pulled over to the side of the road. He turned to face Avery, brushing his thumb up against her stinging, cold cheeks. “I would never abandon you. Believe me,” Talon smiled at her in reassurance. While looking into her crystalline green eyes, some strange, overwhelming feeling came over him.
“Move in with me.”
Avery winced, “What… are you saying?” He could hear her heart beating faster.
“You heard me,” he smiled.
“I don’t know what to say.” No one had ever asked her that question before. She fumbled over her thoughts.
“Say yes,” Talon persisted.
“I’ll think about it.”
“Well, to add to your list of things to think about…” Talon brought her lips to his and enveloped them in a tingling heat, sweeping his tongue into her mouth like a force of nature she didn’t want to fight, just endure. Talon pulled away just a bit and gave her a smoldering look, “You’ll get this and more, every night you want it if you say yes.”
“Mmm… tempting,” Avery smiled and looked to his lips once more.
After being dropped off, Avery retrieved her hidden apartment key and fidgeted with it in the lock before cursing aloud and violently jiggling the knob. To her surprise, the doorknob pulled from her grasp and left her standing face to face with her roommate.
Avery stuttered, “I didn’t expect you to be home this early in the night…”
“I was waiting for you, actually,” Rose motioned for her to come inside.
“Oh,” Avery hesitantly walked past her friend. She had been secretly dreading the talk she knew was about to ensue, but it needed to be done. She just hoped she wasn’t going to be kicked out because of Caleb.
Rose shut the door and headed for the kitchen, “Have a seat. I was just making some tea and popcorn and watch an old movie.”
Avery plopped down on the couch and rubbed her hands together anxiously, “Which movie?”
“It’s a Wonderful Life,” Rose poked her head out of the kitchen, yelling over the sound of a whistling kettle.
Avery forced a smile, “Oh, getting into the Christmas mood already?”
“You betcha.”
Avery continued to sit on the couch, pulling her feet under her to get more comfortable, as she flipped through charred page after page of the gibberish in the book they had found. She listened to the array of noises escaping the kitchen. The aroma of buttered popcorn seeped into her nostrils as Rose brought out a bowl with two cups of tea and placed them on the coffee table in front of her.
“So firstly I guess I want to know what happened with Caleb. He was pretty pissed off and insisted he couldn’t live here anymore…”
“It’s my fault. Well, sort of. We got back from dinner with his parents…”
“Ah… grueling…”
“Yeah. That’s how I felt. Anyway, he came onto me, and I told him I didn’t feel that way, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. I had to use force to get away.”
Rose took a sip of her tea, “It did look like someone bashed him in the nose pretty good.”
“Well, that was both me and…”
Rose interrupted, “He’s used to taking hits, but he’s one of those guys who's sensitive about his face. But it sounds like he deserved it anyway. He has a tendency to be the forceful type sometimes.”
“I’m sorry if I’ve caused you problems in your finances by his leaving. I will do what I can to pick up his half of the rent and…”
“Don’t worry about it. The money I get each month can cover the bills. And as for our friendship, nothing has changed between him and me. I hope nothing has changed between you and me either. I still see you as a good friend no matter what your relationship with Caleb is.”
Avery sighed in relief.
“There is one thing though. Caleb had mentioned you, and Talon were… together.”
Avery cringed, “Oh… that…”
“I get that he’s not like the others. I’ve caught a glimpse of it myself. I just wonder if you can really say that you’re not making a huge mistake by dating him. He’s still the very thing you have spent your life hating.”
Avery bit her lip searching for the right response to her question. “I suppose it does make me look like a hypocrite… but as you’ve already said, he’s not like the others. I look at him, and I don’t see a vampire. I see a man; a good man.”
“I can see how being around him is changing you, and it’s not a horrible thing, but… I’m just gonna say it: I don’t know him like you do and I don’t trust him. I would feel safer if you didn’t invite him into this apartment.”
Avery nodded her head in agreement, “I wouldn’t
disrespect you by doing so.”
Rose smiled, “Well, that was the tough part. Now I can tell you the good part. I got a hold of a witch who can read Latin. The soonest she can be here is tomorrow evening around seven o’clock.”
“I’ll make sure I’m here.”
“And…” Rose shuffled through some papers on the coffee table before pulling out a map of the town. “I’ve been looking at possible vampire hunting grounds, besides the college campus, based on patterns of recent attacks. I thought we could use this information to predict where attacks will happen before they do.”
Avery took the map from Rose’s hands, “This is great. I wouldn’t have even thought of this.”
“Also, the vampire clan that occupied the mansion, it got me thinking that there might be other clans. I thought tomorrow night we could confirm with our contacts about possible locations for other vampire nests.”
Avery looked it over approvingly, “That’s why you’re the leader.” After a moment of thought, she continued, “I think I have the perfect guy to ask about that too. All his information is not entirely reliable, but he hears a lot of gossip in the demonic community. He might have something useful to say.”
“Great, we can go there tomorrow night. But for right now, let’s spend the rest of the wee-morning hours inside and enjoy this movie,” Rose smiled as she grabbed the remote and pressed play.
Avery blew at the surface of her cup before taking a sip of her tea and gagging, “What kind of tea is this?”
“It’s vervain tea. It’s an herb that’s toxic to vampires, so I drink it twice a day to put it into my bloodstream. If I get bit, it stops them from drinking almost immediately and weakens them like a poison.”
Avery abruptly dropped her teacup onto the table, “How can you drink this stuff? It’s so bitter.”
“My parents have been making me drink this tea for as long as I can remember, so I’ve gotten used to it. I’ll go get you some honey. That should help.”
Rose disappeared soundlessly into the kitchen again, and Avery breathed deeply. Their conversation wasn’t nearly as bad as she had thought it would be. She eyeballed the map again, anxious to check the hot-spots out for herself. It was hard to sit still and watch a movie with all the things that weighed on her mind, but she knew it was good for her to just ‘be still’ if only for a moment.
Rose came back into the room and plopped the honey jar on the table next to Avery’s cup. Both girls curled up on the couch, turning their attention to the television with the bowl of popcorn between them.
As the triumphant song played and ‘The End’ appeared on the screen, Avery looked over to find Rose slumped over on the other end of the couch, lightly snoring and clutching a pillow. Avery carefully grabbed the map from the table and silently slipped into her room, tinkering with her cell phone to make a call.
Her eyes grazed over the heavily marked paper as she listened to the phone ring before someone picked up.
“Rico? It’s Avery.”
“No, no, no. I am not giving you any more information until you pay up on the last bit I gave you,” the annoying voice screeched on the other end of the line.
“I’ll pay you double your usual.”
“No. I’m not gonna...”
“AND I’ll get you a date with Rose,” Avery interrupted. She could hear him suck air through his teeth. That silenced the weasel.
“What can I do for ya, babe?”
Avery let that remark pass. She told him of the suspected places and got confirmation on a handful of them.
After getting off the phone with Avery, Rico turned to converse with a pale man who mockingly wore a cross necklace. “I told her what you wanted me to say. Now, keep your end of the deal. I want to be strong like you. Are you going to turn me or what?”
The last thing Rico beheld was a dark blur before his neck was snapped.
CHAPTER 16
At seven o’clock the following evening Avery stepped into the apartment cradling the book to her chest, leaving Talon lingering outside the doorway looking in. She came upon Rose sitting on the couch with a mocha-skinned woman who possessed curly black hair and big, brown eyes.
The busty woman rose to her feet and reached her hand out in greeting, “You must be Avery. I’m Nadine. I’m quite interested in translating that ancient text Rose told me about.”
Avery gave the witch the satisfaction of a quick handshake before looking her up and down, questioning her, “You a good witch?”
“Avery!” Rose gasped in disbelief.
Nadine looked confused, “Excuse me?”
“I don’t mean to be rude, but the last witch I met that had an interest in this book wasn’t exactly citizen of the year,” Avery bluntly stated.
“If you must know, I am a white witch. I only have interest in obtaining knowledge, not power,” Nadine confessed.
Rose jumped in quickly to her defense, “She is a professor of Medieval History at the university.”
“I also dabble in a bit of philosophy and religions…”
Rose interrupted her, seeming in a hurry, “Anyhow, I trust Nadine, so I’m asking you to just this once. So why don’t you show her the book, Avery.”
Avery reluctantly handed the weathered tome to the witch, and they sat down across from each other in the living room, Talon looking on-edge where he stood in the open doorway.
Nadine flipped through the marred pages, glancing occasionally at the foreign writing, “It seems to contain history about a man who lived throughout the millennia. He was powerful and important. There are prophecies, curses, spells…” She stopped halfway through the book. “This,” she breathed.
“What?” Avery leaned in closer to the witch’s proximity.
Rose whispered, “What is it, baby?”
Baby? Avery looked up and could see Rose’s face side by side with Nadine’s, the blonde’s hand creeping up onto the witch’s shoulder in a soothing rubbing motion. No way.
“I can feel the energy pouring off this page. The spell written here has been invoked before and recently.”
Avery looked quickly to Talon, almost to assure that he was still around, and then back to the two women before her, “That has to be the one that Daedra used then. From what I understand, she was trying to summon some kind of power for herself from sacred objects…”
Nadine concentrated hard on the page a moment before explaining what she was concluding, “The objects appear to have belonged to a powerful and formidable man. Inciting the first part of the spell brings forth the energy of these objects, concentrating them into a useable force, his original power that was lost upon his death. The second half of the spell is completed with blood.”
Avery grew tense, “And what does the second half of the spell do?”
“It resurrects the owner of the objects. The blood creates his body, and his lost power flows back into his veins,” Nadine said grimly.
“That doesn’t sound good,” Talon commented from the peanut gallery.
“What else does it say about him?” Avery pressed.
“This says that he is the marked one. Abandoned by God and cursed by Lucifer. He was the first of his kind; a drinker of man’s river. His name is….”
“Cain,” Avery stared blankly.
Nadine nodded her head slowly. Rose’s eyes widened as she stared intently at her friend, “Avery, how do you know his name?”
Avery squeaked, “I’ve seen him in my dreams. In person too, though I’m not sure if it was real.” She remembered the terror of it being real though.
Nadine’s tone dropped, “This is serious. He is not to be taken as lightly as any other vampire.”
“How do we kill him?” Talon raised his voice, crossing his arms and leaning up against the doorframe.
“Unlike previous deaths, Cain cannot be killed like other vampires because the spell made him even stronger; a true immortal. So a stake to the heart, decapitation, sunlight; none of that will work. A summoning is not the t
ype of spell that can be reversed either, but usually, there’s a loophole. When the scales tip in favor of darkness or light, the universe finds a way to restore a balance,” Nadine flipped through the following pages. She abruptly pointed, her index finger making a thump on the paper, “This spell requires a dagger to be cursed. When the dagger is thrust into someone, it draws out all of their energies, releasing them back into the earth. This weakens the target, making them more vulnerable to typical death.”
Avery pondered this a moment and looked to the mocha-skinned witch, “Does it have to be a special dagger?”
“No, any dagger can be spelled.”
Avery abruptly rose and disappeared into her room, before coming back out with a small, silver-hilted dagger in hand. She tossed it onto the table in front of Nadine. “What else do you need?”
Rose stood up with haste, obviously annoyed, “You can’t possibly mean for her to get further involved?”
“Magick is our only option,” Avery argued.
Rose protested, “We can find somebody else to do this…”
“Do you know how long it would take to find another witch? Let alone to explain all this, and convince them to help us? We don’t have that kind of time,” Avery complained.
Nadine silenced Rose’s growing anger with her hand. “I can’t commit myself to dangerous activities when I have my own family to think about.”
Avery took Nadine’s hand into hers, desperately pleading with the woman with her eyes. “Curse the dagger for me, please. That’s all I ask,” Avery’s gaze lingered on Talon. “We can do the rest.”
The witch looked as if she were fighting a battle with her own thoughts before she sighed, “There is no way that I could know what I know now, and do nothing about it. I will curse the blade for you, no more, no less.”
“Thank you,” Avery breathed.
Nadine searched the book before her, “I will need five candles, any kind will do, then some dirt, salt, and the ash of a vampire.”
“I can get you the first three right now,” Rose walked away.
Avery turned toward the doorway, “Talon…”
“I’m on it,” the dirty blonde vampire disappeared.
Love and Bloodlust: The Sacred Objects Page 14
