The Last of the Red-Hot Vampires (3 page)

“I suppose I could humor my brain,” I said, eyeing her. “At least until Sarah gets here. Hello.”

“What is wrong with you?” the woman asked, slapping her hands against her legs. “Didn't you hear me? We don't have time for you to stand here and be strange!”

“You'll have to forgive me. I've evidently been poisoned by hallucinogenic fungus spores. What did you want to know? And…this is silly of me, I know, but could you tell me your name, if you have one?”

“Oh, for the love of…they were supposed to meet with you and fill you in when they gave you the summoning spells! Honestly, the incompetence these days, it's frightful. You'd think they could do something right after having a few millennia to work it out. My name is Hope. Who are you, please?”

I smiled at the illusion, giving my brain and the fungus full marks for creativity. “I'm Portia Harding, of Sacramento, California, and I'm currently employed by a biomedical firm as a researcher in Atomic Scale Technology. Is there anything else about me you'd like to know? Favorite color? Perfume? Shoe size?”

The look from her intense blue eyes had me forgetting for a moment that she wasn't real. “Your shoe size is irrelevant. We don't have much time at all, and even less now that I have to do everyone else's jobs and fill you in. I swear, if I ever get back to the Court, I will file a grievance about their slack ways…Where was I? Oh, yes, we don't have much time. Listen carefully, Portia Harding. What I am about to say to you is going to change your life.”

“Oh dear—the fungus isn't doing some sort of permanent brain damage?” I said, backing away from the circle a bit more. I took a few deep breaths of sweet summer air and tried to calm the worry in my mind. This circle had been here a long time—I couldn't be the only person to suck the fungus off a blade of grass, could I? If it was truly dangerous, surely the authorities would have done something about it.

“I am a virtue. I am in danger, grave danger, and I cannot stay or all will be destroyed. Do you understand? Everything! Life, existence as we know it, light and dark—it will all be destroyed. Your request came at the perfect time.”

“Indeed.” The results of inhaling the fungus spores paced around me in an agitated way. I wondered how long the delusions would last. “I hate to sound stupid, but what request—”

“There is no time for lengthy explanations,” she said, snatching up my hand and pressing it between her own. I stared down at them, amazed again at how real the whole fantasy seemed. Her fingers tightened around mine in a grip that I was almost ready to swear was real…
almost
. “I must leave now. As you summoned me, so I answer: unto you I bequeath the Gift. Use it wisely. The penalty for abuse is too horrible to speak of.”

The wind whipped past us as my hand grew hot in hers.

“This is absolutely amazing,” I said, wishing I had my laptop to take notes on the experience. Heat from her hand seemed to creep up my arm, gaining speed and intensity. “I'm sorry, but I have to try this…”

I tried to yank my hand from hers, but her grip was too strong.

Her eyes lit with a soft glow as she looked deep into me, all the way down into my soul. It was such a piercing, intense gaze, that for a moment my body froze, leaving me unable to move. As she spoke, she released my hand and touched me on the center of my forehead. “My virtue passes to you, Portia Harding. May the sovereign protect you from those who would destroy you.”

The heat that had started in my hand now swept through me, a fever of such intensity that I wanted to shred my clothes and find the nearest body of water. My skin burned, my blood boiled, my mind cried out for relief.

“Oh, great. Now this stupid fungus is making me feverish. I just know I'm going to end up in the…the…whatchamacallit. Hospital.”

The need for something to quench the raging inferno inside me left my brain confused and unable to focus, driving out all other thoughts but relief. I struggled to maintain control, to breath slowly and deeply until the worst of it passed, but the fever that burned me from the inside out didn't abate. It consumed me, sweeping me along in its inferno, pushing me deeper into its burning depths until I threw back my arms and screamed to the heavens for deliverance.

A cold, wet drop hit my forehead. Another struck my cheek.

“What…I…rain?” I panted, watching with wonder as, out of nowhere, clouds formed overhead, at first soft, hazy white wisps, quickly merging into clumps that darkened until they were heavy and foreboding. Soft little pats of noise indicated the rain that gently touched my heated skin wasn't just my imagination…all around me in the secluded copse, raindrops fell, caressing me, soothing me, blessedly taking away the fever and leaving behind a calm tranquility that gently eased the fire within. I closed my eyes and tipped my head back to welcome the blissful wetness. “Sweet mother of reason, I've never felt anything so good in my life. This is sheer heaven.”

“No, this is the Gift. I thank you for your help. And now, I must be gone before they find me.”

So wonderful did the rain feel that I had forgotten for a moment about my hallucination. I cracked an eye open to see if she was still there. The faery ring, and everything around it, was empty of all life but me.

“Good. Maybe the hallucinogen is losing its power,” I said as I swung around to make sure I was alone. Something odd struck me. I turned in a circle again, slower this time, my frown deepening as I looked upward to the cloud that still gently rained down on me.

There were no other clouds visible in the sky—just a small one over my head.

“You're part of the whole mushroom thing,” I told the cloud. “I'm only imagining you're there, and imaging that I'm wet, and imagining that strange women are appearing and disappearing without cause. Oh, hurrah, Sarah is back. Sanity returneth.”

Through the trees that ringed the hilltop, a flash of red heralded my friend's return. I was relieved to see her, and struggled with the idea of not mentioning to her that I'd been inadvertently poisoned by potent fungus, but concern that I might suffer some sort of permanent damage convinced me that it would be best to admit all, and seek medical assistance.

“Sorry I took so long. I had a little difficulty with a right turn…dear god in heaven, what are you doing?” Sarah stopped about ten feet away from me, her eyes huge.

“Hallucinating, if you must know, and all because you wanted to see a silly fungus ring. Would you mind taking me to the nearest hospital? My mind is under the influence of some pretty psychedelic mushrooms, and I think I need to detox somewhere quiet.”

“You're…you're raining!”

“No, that's just part of the hallucination.” I stopped, a little chill rippling down my back. “Wait a sec…are you saying you can
see
the cloud above me?”

“Of course I can see it,” Sarah answered, walking around me in a big circle. “I'd have to be blind to miss it. It's right above you, one cloud, raining on you. Nowhere else, just you. How on earth are you doing that?”

“No,” I said shaking my head, refusing to believe the impossible. “It's not really here; it's just an illusion brought on by hallucinogenic fungus. You must have been close enough to the ring to have breathed it in as well. We should get to the nearest hospital if this fungus is so potent.”

“Don't be ridiculous, Portia,” Sarah said, coming to a stop in front of me, her face beaming awe and delight. “It's the faery ring! This is part of the magic, although I have to admit I've never heard of rain faeries. Still, even you can't dispute that this is something well out of the realm of normal!”

“Oh, I admit it's not normal to get high off of fungus found lying around on the top of a hill, but it's certainly nothing that can't be explained by an understanding of chemistry, medicine, and biology.” I thought for a few seconds, my eyes narrowing as I mulled over a possible explanation. “It could have been Hope.”

“It could have been what?”

“Who, not what. A woman by the name of Hope. Perhaps she was real after all. It's entirely feasible that this whole thing was a setup, you know. She may well have known that there was a fungus here with properties that left someone susceptible to hypnotic suggestion.”

Sarah fixed me with a confused gaze. “Someone named Hope hypnotized you while I was gone?”

“It would explain the delusion about the rain cloud. And the lights could have been the hallucinogenic starting to work on my synapses. Yes. I like that hypothesis. I am willing to bet that if Hope hadn't heard you coming up the hill, she would have tried to rob me. It's probably some sort of a scheme to fleece innocent tourists. We should definitely report this to the police, after we go to the hospital to get checked out, naturally.”

“Portia, you're not making a lick of sense,” Sarah said, shaking her head and pointing to where the fantasy cloud hovered over me, still gently raining. “I have not been hypnotized, nor am I under the influence of any drugs, hallucinogenic or otherwise. You have a cloud over your head, raining only on you. You are standing in the middle of a very famous faery ring, and you ate something that grew out of that ring.”

“You're right,” I said, stepping outside the ring. The rain cloud followed me. I ignored it as best I could.

Sarah looked remarkably cheerful. “Really? You admit I won the bet? You concede that this is a bona fide paranormal event?”

“Of course not! I meant that you were right about me ingesting the blades of grass I was chewing on. Not that I ate them per se, but if the fungal spores had been brushed onto them, and I put them into my mouth, it could well mean that Hope had no part in it, and it's all just an unfortunate coincidence.”

“I think you'd better tell me exactly what happened while I was gone,” Sarah said, pulling out a small voice recorder. “Start with the moment I left. Er…I don't suppose you can make that go away?” She pointed to the cloud.

“It's not really here. You just think it's here. No, I mean I just think it's here…wait, that doesn't fit the hypothesis…”

“Start at the beginning and tell me everything,” she said in a businesslike, brisk fashion.

I spent the time it took to fill her in puzzling out how she could be witness to my delusion. “It must be mass hypnosis after all,” I concluded, eyeing the dirt ring. “There's just no other explanation for it.”

“There's one all right, only you are too stubborn to admit it. Oh, Portia, this is the most exciting thing! I never thought to have met someone who's seen a real faery, but you've done it!” She gripped my arm, excitement bubbling off her. “And you said the faery gave you some sort of gift? What is it?”

I lifted my eyes skyward for a moment, hoping for patience, but all I got for my effort was an eyeful of rain. “We need to leave. Now. This fungus is clearly muddling both our thinking.”

Without waiting for Sarah to answer, I spun around and marched toward the ring of trees, hoping by the time I reached the road that I might be free from the effects of the fungus.

“I'll be along in a couple. I want to get some pictures of this ring,” Sarah called after me.

“If you start to see sparkly little lights and a strange, paranoid woman, don't say I didn't warn you.”

The wind picked up as I approached the trees, the circular arrangement of them giving the wind that whipped past an oddly hollow sound, like a mournful sigh. For some reason, the sound of it made me feel jumpy.

“It's the drugs,” I told myself as I pushed aside a branch, the hair on the back of my neck prickling. “I'm just a little susceptible to imagination right no—grk!”

For a fraction of a second I thought a tree branch had slapped backward, striking my neck, but as a dark face hove into view, I realized that it was a man who had me in a stranglehold.

“What have you done with Hope?”

I was so surprised at being assaulted that my brain, rather than coming up with an escape plan, took a few minutes to notice that his voice was low and mean, with a faint Irish tone to it, while the eyes that burned into mine had a slightly exotic tilt to them. That wasn't what held my attention, though…his eyes were black, solid black, with no difference in color between iris and pupil.

With both hands I grabbed the man's arm where he clutched my throat, subsequently cutting off my air supply, but his grip on me was steely and unmovable.

“Let go of me,” I wheezed, letting go of his arm to search my pocket for car keys or a pen or something I could use to defend myself against the attacker.

He hauled me closer until little black dots swam before my eyes. “Tell me what you've done with her, or by god, I will snap your neck.”

I twisted in the man's grip, attempting to knee him in the groin, but he anticipated my move, releasing my neck and jerking me around suddenly. I had time to suck in one large lungful of air before he grabbed my throat again, his other hand immobilizing my arm nearest him. “Where is she?” he demanded.

“She left,” I managed to squeak despite the spots that were once again dancing before my eyes. I tried to get some air into my lungs, but his grip was on this side of fatal, leaving me just barely alive. Desperately, I tried to remember everything I knew about self-defense, but my brain seemed sluggish and slow to cooperate.

“Left for where?”

“I…” I threw myself backward, hoping to knock him off balance, but it was no use. “Don't know.”

The world swam around me in a nauseating way, and just when I thought I was going to pass out—or die—a bolt of blue from the sky startled my would-be murderer into releasing me.

I collapsed on the ground into a fetal ball, my lungs heaving as I sucked in air. Even as I rubbed my neck and welcomed oxygen to my body again, I was aware of the man standing over me, his body silhouetted against the sun. He was tall, taller than me, solidly built, with skin the color of a latte, and thick black hair that came to a widow's peak in the front. He peered upward for a moment.

“Stop that!”

“Stop what, breathing? You almost did it for me, thank you.”

He glared at me as I continued to massage my neck. “Stop the rain.”

If he saw the rain cloud, he couldn't be real. Then again, Sarah said she saw it too. He must have breathed in the fungus as well, triggering the same response Sarah and I had. “I would be delighted to stop that particular hallucination if I could.”

“Will it away,” he demanded, taking a step toward me.

I scrambled backward like a crab, braced and ready to run if he looked like he was going to attack me again. “I don't think you can will away hallucinations by just saying, ‘Rain, rain, go away!'”

The small cloud over my head dissipated until nothing was left of it.

The man looked at me, one eyebrow cocked.

“This just proves it's not real,” I grumbled, still watching him carefully, looking for an opportunity to run like hell.

“You are mortal?”

I frowned up at him, rubbing my neck as I got to my knees. “What do I look like, a baked potato? Of course I'm mortal.”

My voice was a croak that sounded almost as bad as my throat felt.

He swore.

“If you lay so much as one finger on me again, I will scream bloody murder. My friend is just beyond the trees, and she went to great trouble to illegally smuggle pepper spray into the country.”

He was about to say something, but the wind brushed past us, the hollow note more pronounced. Inexplicably, the skin on my back crawled at the sound of it.

“Portia?” Sarah's voice sounded distant, and very worried.

“Over here,” I yelled, slowly getting to my feet, my eyes on the man in front of me. If he even looked like he was going to grab me again, I'd bolt.

“Portia? Did you hear that voice? Oh my god, it was awful! I don't like to hurry you, but I really think we need to get out of here.” She burst through the trees, a frightened look on her face that turned to confusion when she saw the man in front of me. “Oh. I didn't realize someone else was here.”

“The Hashmallim has come. Move quickly, or die,” the man said, grabbing my arm and giving me a none-too-gentle shove toward the sheep pasture.

“Stop that!” I yelled, twisting out of his grip. “If you touch me once again—”

“What's going on here?” Sarah asked, stumbling as she ran down to where I'd stopped to face my attacker.

“That man tried to strangle me,” I answered, pointing at him.

“He what?” She turned to glare at him. “You hurt my friend?”

“It was a misunderstanding. I did not realize she was mortal.”

“What the hell else should I be?” I demanded to know.

The wind swirled around us, eerily sounding as if voices were whispering dire warnings. I shivered, despite the fact that I knew it was just the effect of the wind through the circle of trees.

“We do not have time for this,” he said, stalking toward me. “If you wish to die, stay here and continue talking. If you wish to live, run!”

“Run?” Sarah asked, looking around.

Wordless voices swept past us, setting off my flight instinct. I didn't stop to analyze the situation, I just acted.

“Run!” I screamed, grabbing Sarah's arm and hauling her with me as I hurtled down the hill.

I felt the man's presence behind us as we raced down the hill, stumbling over occasional clumps of earth and rocks, but a long-buried, primal sense told me I had less to fear from him than whatever it was the wind heralded.

Sarah would have stopped by her rental car, but the man grabbed the back of my shirt and her dress, and pushed us on, toward a small shed that sat near a curve in the road. “Do not stop! Your car is within sight of the hill.”

He half dragged us over a low stone wall, shoving us without any ceremony around the edge of the shed. I ran straight into the front bumper of a car, slamming onto the hood with a breath-stealing, “Ooof!”

“Get in,” he ordered, opening both doors on the driver's side.

“Are you insane?” I snapped, limping over to where Sarah stood. “We are not going anywhere with you—”

I like to think of myself as reasonably able to take care of myself in dangerous situations, but the man in front of me was several inches taller than me, probably a good fifty pounds heavier, and evidently spent his spare time working out with weights, or throwing unwilling women into the backs of vehicles, because he had no difficulty in doing the latter. He tossed small, delicate Sarah into the car as if she weighed no more than a bag of grapefruit, flinging larger and more substantial me in on top of her before slamming the door behind us.

“Hey!” I yelled into Sarah's left hip.

“Oh my god, get off me. I think you're breaking my rib.”

The car lurched forward as the potential murderer, now kidnapper, started the engine and slammed his foot on the accelerator.

“I'm sorry, it wasn't my choice to be here,” I grumbled, scrambling off Sarah and onto the car floor. I flailed around for a moment, but only ended up wedged in between the back and front seats. “Ow! That's my head you just kicked!”

“Sorry. Hey, you! This is kidnapping! International kidnapping! If you pull over right now and let us out, I won't get my husband, a renowned criminal lawyer, to sue your ass into a life sentence at the nearest penitentiary where you will spend the rest of your days as some burly axe murderer's girlfriend.”

“Stay down or the Hashmallim will see you,” was all that the kidnapper said.

“Hit him,” I whispered furiously to Sarah where she crouched above me on the seat. I tried to pull myself out of my predicament, but there was nothing I could grab to give me leverage.

“What?”

“Hit him,” I said again in a voice pitched low enough that just she could hear. “On the back of the head. Knock him out so we can escape.”

Sarah looked wildly around the backseat of the car. “Knock him out with what? My camera bag? It has my digital camera in it!”

“Oh, for Pete's sake, do I have to do everything…move aside so I can get out of this horrible deathtrap.”

Sarah managed to move aside just enough for me to grasp the fabric of the car seat with both hands and heave myself out of the trench. The car swerved slightly as the kidnapper glared in the rearview mirror at us.

“I told you to keep down. The Hashmallim could still see you.”

“You are kidnapping us,” I told him, untangling my purse strap from my person. I didn't have much in it but my travel wallet and miscellaneous tourist items, but I had to do something to stop our abduction. Spending time trapped in a psycho's lair while he did who-knew-what to us was not on my vacation to-do list. “Stop the damned car and let us out!”

“What you're doing is illegal!” Sarah added, scooting over ever further as I hefted my bag.

“I answer to higher laws than yours,” he muttered as he swung the car around a corner. Ahead of us, the town of Newton Poppleford hove into view.

“It's now or never,” I whispered to Sarah. “We have to get out before he goes through the town. I'm going to bash him on the head with my bag while you open the door and throw yourself out. I'll jump out my side at the same time.”

Sarah bit her lip as she watched the water rush past while we drove over the humpbacked bridge, no doubt worried about the folly of jumping out of a moving car, but she didn't let a little thing like possible death or dismemberment stop her. She nodded that she understood.

“On three,” I told her, taking a deep breath and a firm grasp on my purse.

“One…two…” I swung my arm back, prepared to wallop the kidnapper on the head as he slowed down to maneuver through the town.

As I was about to bring it forward, his head whipped around, his black eyes flashing a warning. For a moment his gaze held mine, and I was aware of a strange fission of warmth that seemed to come to life inside me. “I am trying to save you, you foolish woman!”

“Save us from what?” I asked.

“Death,” he snapped.

“Three!” I yelled, and brought my purse down as hard as I could on his face. The car jerked to the left, brakes squealing as he tried to stop.

Sarah jerked open the car door and threw herself out of the vehicle without waiting to see if I was following. The man yelled something as I wrenched at the door handle, pausing for a second at the sickening sight of the pavement passing so quickly outside the door. I didn't wait around to see what he had to say, however. I flung myself forward, wrapping both arms around my head to protect it from injury. I hit the ground with my right shoulder, skidding and rolling at the same time, pain blossoming from a dozen different spots as I tumbled along the road, finally coming to an abrupt stop courtesy of a parked car.

I lay dazed for a few minutes, too stunned by the fall to rally much awareness, but at last my senses started returning to me. I was aware that the exposed skin of my arms and hands burned, my shoulder ached, and my back and legs felt as if someone had beaten me with a baseball bat, but I was very much alive. Several horrified voices calling out questions and exclamations indicated the townsfolk had seen our unorthodox arrival. I got to my knees, flinching at the sting as my abraded palms touched the ground. Several pairs of hands reached out to help me to my feet while voices asked question after question.

“I'm OK,” I said, weaving dizzily for a moment when I made it to my feet. “Thank you for your help, but I'm just fine. A few cuts and bruises, nothing more. Has anyone seen my friend—oh there she is.”

“Why on earth did you go that way?” Sarah asked, standing on the verge of a grassy square. She brushed a few last strands of grass from her dress and straightened up. “It was much nicer falling on soft lawn. Oh! Someone stop that man!”

The benevolent bystanders turned as one to watch our abductor's car drive off down the street with a squeal of tires. I memorized the license plate number, swearing revenge, or at least justice for the assault and kidnapping.

I had expected that, as foreign visitors to the country, we would be caught up in endless red tape in both getting medical care and reporting the abduction, but to my surprise, a short two hours after we had made our dashing escape we tottered up the stairs of the Tattered Stoat to our respective rooms, bruised, battered, exhausted, and in my case, utterly confused.

The hospital had done three blood tests (two at my insistence since I was positive the prior results were incorrect), all of which showed I had not ingested any form of fungus, hallucinogenic or otherwise.

“Are you going to be OK with the séance we are supposed to go to tonight?” Sarah asked wearily as we slowly made our way up the dark back stairs to the upper floor. The pub was a popular one with the younger crowd, as evidenced by the large flat-screen TV blaring music videos. The building, however, was thankfully thick-walled, so the noise was muted on the second floor.

“You heard the doctor—I'm fine. Just a few bumps and bruises; nothing a couple of aspirin can't fix.”

She paused at her door and gave me a concerned once-over. “I know, but I still feel like you should be in bed, not attending séances with me.”

“Don't worry about it,” I said with a careless wave that I felt far from feeling. “I wouldn't miss the opportunity for exposing some hokey medium.”

“Portia!”

“I know, I know. I promised I'd go into this with an open mind. But I'm going to enjoy proving you wrong.”

“There's that little matter of the cloud that followed you that you have yet to explain,” she said with obnoxious cheerfulness.

“I explained it perfectly well. It was either the result of hallucination by a yet-as-undetermined source, hypnosis, or visual trickery.”

“Smoke and mirrors, you mean?” she asked archly.

“Smugness ill becomes you,” I said sternly, pulling my room key from my pocket. “I will offer scientific proof as to the non-existence of the cloud just as soon as I have soil from that faery ring analyzed. It could well be that there are elements at work other than possibly hallucinogenic fungi.”

“Uh-huh. I'm willing to let you get away with this one because I've never heard of a cloud associated with a faery ring, but I'm not going to go so easy on you next time.” Sarah smiled as she spoke, digging her key out of her camera bag. I rolled my eyes. “Dibs the bathtub first.”

“You're mean,” I answered, fitting my own key into the lock.

“You're not supposed to get your owies wet.”

“I am not Tyler,” I said with infinite dignity, despite the various bandages swathing my arms, hands, and one eyebrow. “He is six and an extremely precocious child whom you spoil shamelessly. I am just a friend who is subjected to your abuse under the guise of concern.” I opened the door on the last of my words, flipped on the light, and stared with stunned disbelief at my room.