Aaron's Kiss Series Boxed Set (Books 1 - 7) (110 page)

CHAPTER THREE

When Al woke in a hospital bed, the first thing she noticed was the pain. As soon as she opened her eyes, the entire nightmare of what had happened since they’d gotten out of the car came crashing back like a slow-moving horror movie. The stalker, her father, brother, and Diana, the wolves hurting and killing them, everything in slow-moving pictures. Her screams ripped from her, one right after the other until someone came in and stabbed her with something sharp and she was drifting back into the blackness.

The next time she woke, she used the few seconds between reality and the nightmares to get a good grip on herself and try to control the urge to scream again. She barely managed to hold on, and only moaned this time. She looked around the room, and noticed that she wasn’t alone. A woman in a hospital security uniform sat in a chair next to the bed. They stared at each other for several seconds before she spoke to Al.

“Jak se cítíš slečno Můžu ti něco přinést ?” Al knew enough Czech to get her a room and a cab before this had happened, maybe. Now she understood the woman perfectly. She wanted to know if she was all right and if she wanted anything.

“I’m fine, and no thank you. Do you know where Diana Lake is?” She didn’t have to wonder if she was speaking correctly to her in her own language. Al just knew that she was speaking to her, and she understood. She was suddenly very scared.

“Ano , ano . slečno Lakeová . Já ji dostanu .” She said that she was going to get Diana. Maybe she wasn’t hurt after all; maybe it was a bad dream after all.

While Al waited, she looked around the room again. It was the basic hospital room, she guessed. Pretty wallpaper with floral print. There was, in addition to the chair the guard had been in, a couch. The equipment, with the exception of the IV stand, had been pushed back against the far wall. The television was on, but muted, and closed caption ran across the bottom of the screen. The bed was wider than the ones her mother had been in and the sheets were pink instead of the standard white.

Her body didn’t hurt so much anymore. Lifting her arms up to inspect them, she noticed that other than the IV needle still in place on the back of her hand, she didn’t have a mark on her. Gingerly running her hand down her waist, she didn’t feel any wound there either, not even a bandage. She reached up and touched her mouth and found her lips to be smooth and soft, not broken and dry like they had been in the cave. Shaking now, she pulled the tray across the bed, opened the little drawer beneath it, and flipped up the mirror. Nothing. Not a single bruise.

Several minutes later after the guard had left the room, Diana burst into it, rushed to her bed, and launched herself into her arms. Al had never been so happy to see anyone in her entire life.

“I thought you were dead. We all did. They had to bring in this special tracker to find you. When they found you in that cave, the police actually thought you might already be dead. She said that it would take someone very strong to survive what you had probably gone through. I told her that you were the strongest person I knew and you’d be fine. And you are.”

Al looked at Diana and thought she wasn’t strong at all and if given half a chance, she’d hire that tracker to take her back to the cave and leave her there. “I wish she had left me there. What about Dad and Jacob? Please tell me that they are all right too. That this whole thing was just a bad dream.” She knew that they weren’t. She could still see her father’s intestines being ripped out and eaten by that…that thing. Jacob…she didn’t want to think about the horrors her little brother had endured before he died. But she had little hope that any of it was a dream, or in this case, a nightmare.

“Oh Miss Bennett, they’re both dead. I’m so sorry. I thought you knew. They both were killed immediately.” Diana looked away from her. She knew something; Al thought she was hiding something from her.

“What is it, Diana? What aren’t you telling me? There’s something else, isn’t there? What is it?” She was ready to run, to run back to where they’d found her and hide. She knew whatever she had to tell her, she wasn’t going to like it.

“Those animals, the ones that attacked us, they bit you to the point of almost death. That woman, Bailey, said that they infect people that way, with their bites. They were wolves, you see, werewolves. And now that you’ve been bitten by them, there’s a very good possibility that you might become a werewolf too.”

CHAPTER FOUR

EIGHTEEN MONTHS LATER—PRESENT DAY

“Ms. Bennett, it’s Diana again. Diana Lake. I was wondering if you could please call me? You have that show coming up and I was…hummm…you see, we, that is, I don’t know…when you get this message, no matter what…” BEEP. Al hit erase. She had set the answering machine for the minimum amount of time possible for the message part. Al wondered, not for the first time, how long Diana would have gone on stuttering and tripping if she had it set for longer. In the past when it was set to end of call, she had filled the disc. She glanced at the clock over the stove and thought that it couldn’t be right. But with a quick look at the microwave, she realized that it was indeed four-forty-five in the morning. She knew it was morning because it was dark outside. She hadn’t been that far gone that she’d forgotten it was light at the same time during the day. Sighing, she reached for the phone and then put it back. She didn’t remember her number, she thought. Ten minutes later she had the phone in her hand again and the number on the only scrap of paper she could find on the desk. At least she thought there was a desk in there. Wondering where all the time had gone, she dialed her assistant’s number.

It rang four times and just when she was hoping she could just leave her a message, damned if Diana didn’t answer. Just her luck, she was really hoping to have to leave a short message.

“It’s…it’s me. You said to call, I’m calling. What’s wrong?” Al hadn’t spoken to anyone in nearly six months, literally. Her voice was creaky and hoarse from nonuse. She didn’t count talking to herself really, because if she did, she’d have to consider that she might actually have gone over the deep end into true insanity.

“Ms. Bennett, thank good…”

Al cut her off. Sighing, she cleared her dry sore throat. She either needed to talk out loud to herself or get a dog. She laughed at that. “Diana, you’ve worked for me for a long time. We’ve been through a lot, please stop calling me Ms. Bennett. I’m not that person anymore, I told you. Call me Airic or Ms. Alastriona, I don’t care. But Ms. Bennett is dead.” She had leaned her head against the cabinet and was slowly banging against it. It didn’t hurt, but it kept her from screaming. Again.

“All right, I’ll call you Airic then. Your show is in just a little over one week. I haven’t heard from you; no one has heard from you actually. Which is quite possibly because your phone had been shut off for nonpayment of bill?” She knew Diana had had to of paid the bill or they wouldn’t be talking right now. She had noticed two days ago, or was it two weeks ago, that there hadn’t been any messages for a while from her and had picked up the receiver to call her only to discover that there wasn’t a dial tone. Bummer, she had thought. Then, not really. She didn’t want to talk to anyone.

“And…I’m sure you didn’t call to talk to me about the date of the show, or the phone bill. I’ve been…distracted. And I don’t spend a lot of time in the house.” Her voice had a tone, one she had heard even in the conversations she had with herself in her head. She looked around the kitchen. Yeah, she thought, I really don’t spend a lot of time in the house.

“The gallery owner called and wants to know how many pieces you have for them. I told him I would check with you and get back with him. Are you ready? We promised that it would be twenty pieces and that they would have them delivered day after tomorrow.”

“No, I have more.” She paused for a long time. She didn’t know if this was the right move, but she’d told herself if she didn’t get let them go, move them along, they would keep taunting her.  “I…I…Diana, would you see if they’d be interested in showing some canvas work of mine too? They’re oils? I’ve been painting, you see. I have the pottery pieces, about…more than we told them and some art too. It’s different, a different style, well, the paintings are anyway.” Al waited. She knew that Diana would do it, if only because she had asked her to, but she might not be too happy about it.

“Can I see them first?”

She heard the hesitance in her voice. She didn’t blame her. Al, or Airic she was calling herself now, had been a lot more than distracted as of late. And they both knew it.

“Yeah, I guess. But they want it soon, don’t they? Are you coming here, or do you want me to just send it with the rest of the stuff?” Please say send it; please say send it, went around and around in her head.

“No, I’ll come there. I can be there by lunch time. Airic, hummm, when was the last time you…when was the last time you were out of the house?” That hadn’t been the question she wanted to ask, but it was good enough to get her point across.

“Same as always, during the last full moon.” She hung up. She didn’t want to talk about anything, especially that.

CHAPTER FIVE

Diana showed up at eleven-thirty. And almost turned around and left again. The house, usually so spotless, was a mess. No, not a mess. She was sure it was just this side of being condemned. Just. She went to the phone and made two calls. One was to a local cleaning service, and yes, ma’am, they could be out within the hour, and was she sure she needed ten cleaners? Yes, she assured them, ten. The second was to the local grocery store. They agreed, especially when she mentioned the bonus if they could be here at six pm, that they could and would deliver food stuffs to this address.

Walking around the house, she spied the mail. It looked as if Ms. Ben—err Airic hadn’t opened anything since the last time she’d been there. Well, that explained the phone bill. And when the desk had been too full to handle another piece, she’d simply thrown it in the vicinity of the desk. She started to sit down and take care of it, but decided to go and find her boss first. She figured she was in the studio, and wasn’t wrong. Walking out over the field to the back of the property, a good mile from the main house, Diana could hear the pounding music from a good hundred yards away. Apparently, she was working.

She opened the door cautiously and stepped in. The room was pristine. All along the walls were movable shelves, and on each shelf was a piece of pottery, fired, glazed, and ready for shipment. Each piece was packed in bubble wrap first and then a large, wooden framed structure surrounded it. She did a quick mental count and was surprised to count fifty-six crates. Shit, she wasn’t kidding, she really had been working. There was another room to her studio, this one that was off limits to most anyone who came by. Diana went to the door and found it unlocked. There was also a note written in paint on an old newspaper. It said, “D, enter at your own risk.” She did, opening the door carefully, and was immediately assaulted by the music throbbing out of the speakers all around the room.

Airic had always had music playing when she worked, but this was vastly different. The usual was classical, Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach. This was more hard, hard rock. And very loud. Extremely loud. Frowning, she moved over to the wall just behind the wheel.

She watched her work. Diana had always been in awe watching Airic work the wheel ever since she had started working for her. Airic was centering a lump of the white porcelain by interlocking her hands and pushing down on it with her upper body weight. She was using her hands to force the clay into the shape she wanted. Once it was the way she wanted it, she took a wet sponge from the nearby bucket and using its moisture, she pushed a well in the center and began pulling the sides of the soft clay up with her fingers at the same time. The shape of the piece started out tall, about ten inches with straight sides. Then with another dip of the sponge, she flared out the lip, gently curving it under, guiding it into the shape she wanted. Grabbing a metal tool from the tray in front of her, a tool that she had no doubt made herself, she finished off the piece by putting a “foot” on it, a smooth, rounded edge that cupped the body of the piece to the completed edge. When she completed that, she picked the finished piece up with the bat, a flat square of masonite that had been varnished, and pushed it to the portable shelving unit she had situated next to her wheel within easy reach.

Airic must have caught her in the corner of her eye because she jerked to look at her suddenly, nearly dropping the piece she had just finished.

“I’m sorry, you were working and I didn’t want to interrupt you.” She had to shout over the music, but it looked as if she had heard her. She watched as she got up and turned the music down but not off.

“I have you ready to go on the pottery and the moving van will be here sometime after two-thirty. If you want to look at any of the pieces, then I’ll have to uncrate them. I didn’t think about you wanting to see it.” She moved to the big stainless steel sink and began washing up. The clay was everywhere, running down her legs and into her shoes. It was also in her hair. But Airic didn’t seem to notice it or care about that.

“No, that’s all right, I know your work as well as anyone. Hummm, I hope you don’t mind, but I set up a cleaning crew to come in and try to find the house. It seems to have gotten a little messy. Also, there will be food delivered at six. I told them to bring you lots of meals that required little to no prep time. I’ll have the crew clear out the fridge first thing when they get here. Before I leave, I’ll sort through the mail and pay what needs to be done right now. The rest I’ll take with me. I’m going to have the mail sent to the office from now on, if you don’t care.” She had taken out her PDA and was checking off her list as Airic finished cleaning up.

“No, that’s fine. I’ve been distracted, as I said earlier. The house sort of got away from me. I’ve…I spend a lot of my time out here, not so much in the house unless I’m starving. I was making due with whatever I could find still in the house, or pizzas. I sleep on the cot over there most nights.” She had finished up and was leaning against the sink, and Diana thought she looked…nervous, maybe even a little scared. That was so out of character for her that she could only stare.

“Airic, what is it, what’s wrong?” She wanted to reach out and touch her, but knew from the past that she didn’t want to be touched, not in any way.

“The paintings…there are a lot. I…” She looked over to the wall where an easel was standing and several canvases were stacked against the wall, all of them facing away from the room. “I…they were an outlet, something I had to do. I couldn’t work on the regular stuff, the wheel, without…I had to paint in order to throw. The paintings, they’re alive to me.”