Call of the Vampire (4 page)

Even without dragging my comatose friend, it seemed unlikely that I would be able to make it out the front door, across the immense lawn, and through the iron gates without anyone noticing me. I decided I would have to leave the way we came in.

There was a weighty silver candlestick on a small table, so I grabbed it. If any perv came near me, I was going to give him a smack over the head with it. I knew a makeshift weapon was better than no weapon at all. I wasn’t a fall-down–and-whimper kind of girl. If the perverts caught me, I was going to fight.

I slipped out the door, closing it firmly behind me. Blossom was as safe as I could make her. The hallway overlooked the great hall and no one seemed to be about, so I slunk down the stairs. It was only as my bare feet touched the cold marble floor of the main room that I cursed myself for not checking if the wardrobe had contained any shoes in my size. Still, I didn’t want to risk going back up. There was the sound of water running and pots rattling coming from one direction, which I assumed was the kitchen. The staff must have been cleaning up.

I tiptoed along the wall of the great hall, heading for the patio. There was a drunk passed out on the floor, but besides that, the room was devoid of people. Standing to one side, I peeped out the large glass doors that opened onto the patio and dock area. It appeared deserted.

Once outside, I immediately started shivering. It was much chillier than when Blossom and I had started our misadventure. I hurried out on the dock and stepped onto the first yacht. “Hey! What are you doing there?” someone called from the patio doors. It was a servant, still in his purple livery.

“Oh, I’m not feeling well, so I’m calling it an early night,” I told him, trying to keep my voice calm. “Thought I’d lie down in our boat, but I didn’t want to disturb anyone.” I’d made it across the deck of the first boat and was transitioning to the second.

“Wait right there,” he told me, then disappeared.

When you are trying to get away from someone and they give you a command, like “Be quiet,” you should do the exact opposite of what they want. My mother taught me that, and I applied the principle immediately, scurrying across the second deck and leaping for the third boat.

A few more minutes of frantic scrambling and I was only two boats away from land. My movements, plus an unexpected wake, had all the boats bouncing, and I was grateful for my bare feet to help keep me from plunging over the side. As I sprinted across the deck, my foot caught on a rope, and I went sprawling. My knees would be bruised, and my legs were scraped. I was limping but not greatly injured. Unfortunately, I had let a small yelp escape my lips as I tumbled. It turned out there was a crew member asleep near the bow of the yacht, and my commotion woke him up. “What are you doing there?” he barked in an angry voice.

“Nothing. Just moving on. No reason to worry,” I assured him as I prepared to transfer to the final boat before I could step off onto the public pier.

“You come back here!” he commanded, darting forward to grab me.

“Get the hell away from me!” I shouted as I leapt to the next boat. He was hard on my heels, obviously used to dealing with bobbing boats more than I was.

I scrambled across the final boat as fast as I could and was about to make the leap for the pier, just as he reached out to snag me. He didn’t get a firm hold, but the contact threw me off balance, and I plunged into the cold, dark waters of the Tiburon River.

I made the mistake of shrieking as I fell, so when I landed, I got a good lung full of water. This caused me to panic a little, so when I tried to surface, I got disoriented in the dark and ended up smacking my head on the keel of the boat. At that point, I guess I really panicked because I started thrashing around, trying to find the surface while I choked on the water that desperately wanted to expel itself from my lungs. Because it was dark and there were no street lamps or anything, I was having trouble telling which way was up.

I’m going to die
, I thought.
I’m going to drown because I was stupid enough to go on another one of Blossom’s harebrained schemes
. I felt myself starting to lose consciousness.

The cold arms of death grabbed me, pulling me down. They were so strong and held me so tightly, there was nothing I could do. I didn’t have to fight. I could just let go.

Then we burst through the water’s surface and someone was slapping me in the face shouting, “Breathe! Breathe, damn it!”

I started coughing, throwing up, and breathing all at the same time. I had gotten turned upside down in the water, and that’s why I thought I was being pulled under rather than up. “Help me! Help me get her up!” my savior commanded someone who was apparently on the pier. I felt another set of hands reach for me, and I was lifted out of the water quite easily then dropped unceremoniously onto the wood planks of the pier. “Careful!” the man in the water barked as he hauled himself up beside me.

It was Jessie. He had risked his life to save me. His brother, Daniel, stood towering over both of us, looking down at me with disdain. “Now what are we going to do with her? You should have let her drown,” he told his brother.

“No,” Jessie said, sitting up and then pulling me into his lap where I continued to cough, unabated. “She’s so like Colette, I could never do that.”

“You deal with her, then. I’m not protecting her,” Daniel snarled, turning on his heel and walking away.

I was freezing, half drowned, and my head was killing me, but being in Jessie’s strong arms felt wonderful. I could have stayed curled in his lap all night. There was just something about him that made me feel so safe, even though his brother didn’t think I was worth saving.

“Why didn’t you just stay in the room until morning like I asked you?” he said, smoothing my sodden hair off my face.

“There was a man,” I managed to say between coughs. “He was torturing a woman. He’d cut her throat. I have to get help. She might die.”

“I think you’re a little confused,” he said. “No one has been hurt at the castle. Everyone is fine.”

I pressed my hand to my head where I had whacked it on the bottom part of the boat. There was a lump beginning to form. “Ow,” I whimpered. Clouds that had previously been eclipsing the moon started to move aside, and I could see that the palm of my hand was red with blood.

“You’re bleeding,” Jessie said in a husky voice.

I looked up at his handsome face and started to scream. Peeking out between his full, beautiful red lips, I could see a set of gleaming white fangs.

The Vanderlind Castle had a dungeon. I knew that for certain. I was lying on a cot in one of the cells, so I definitely knew there was a dungeon. Jessie was on the opposite side of the iron bars, looking in at me with a stricken face. I don’t know what happened after I started screaming. I saw Jessie leaning over me with those horrible fangs marring his perfect face, and then everything went black. When I woke up, I was in the dungeon.

“Are you all right?” Jessie asked in a low voice.

“No, I’m not all right,” I said. The cot was in the corner of the room furthest away from the bars, but I pressed myself against the stone wall, trying to put even more distance between us.

Jessie’s eyebrows narrowed in concern. “Is it your head wound? I don't think you have a concussion.”

“No,” I said, wanting to laugh, feeling a touch hysterical. “It’s the fact that you’re a vampire.”

He sighed, deflating a little. “I’m sorry you had to find out. It was the smell of your blood. I wasn’t able to keep my fangs retracted.” He put a hand, self-consciously, to his lips. “But you’re safe now. I’m under control.”

“Safe?” I laughed bitterly, waving a hand at the stone walls. “You’ve got me locked in a cell.”

“I know.” He nodded. “It was the safest place I could think to keep you.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out an iron ring with a few large skeleton keys hanging off of it. “Here.” He tossed the ring into the cell, missing the cot by a few inches. “Hang on to these, and don’t open the door for anyone. I mean anyone. Do you understand me?”

I didn’t understand him. I mean, he was speaking English, and I understood the words, but I was confused. “What do you mean? What are you doing?”

“I’ve got to go find your friend, and I need to know you’ll be safe. Don’t leave this cell. Not until morning. Promise me?”

“I promise,” I lied.

“Good, now where’s Blossom?”

“Like I’d tell a vampire,” I blurted before I could think of a better answer.

“Aurora, listen to me,” he said, pressing his face between the bars and looking directly into my eyes. “I need to get your friend and bring her here to you. I’m not the only vampire at the castle tonight. I can find her by myself, but that might take a while. If someone else discovers her first, she’s as good as dead.”

“She’s in the wardrobe,” I told him. “In the room where you left us. The one with the wolf’s head carved over the door. I left her in the wardrobe.”

“Good.” He nodded decisively as he stepped away from the bars. “I’ll get her, but you must do as I tell you, and stay in the cell. And hide the keys. You don’t want anyone to know you have them.”

Instantly, I snatched the ring off the floor and stuffed it under the thin blanket that was covering the cot. “Okay. I’ll be fine. Just go get Blossom,” I told him.

As soon as he was gone, I grabbed the keys and wrapped the blanket around my shoulders. My impulse was to make a run for it before he got back. But I knew from experience that my first impulse wasn’t always the best. Jessie had saved me from drowning and trusted me with the keys. On the other hand, he admitted to being a vampire and locked me in a dungeon. My head throbbed. I was freezing, and I couldn’t think clearly. I just didn’t know what to do. My fight-or-flight instincts told me to run, but there was something about Jessie. Deep in the core of my being, I felt that he cared about me. I got the strong sense that I could trust him.

Footsteps caused me to conceal the keys with the blanket. I was so glad I did when Viktor appeared. “Well, hello, my little hors d'oeuvre,” he purred, eyeing me through the bars. “I’m so glad to see you’re still here. Where is your delightful friend?”

I sent up a silent prayer of thanks that I hadn’t unlocked the cell. Viktor was much easier to endure when there was a set of iron bars between us. I decided to ignore him.

“I asked you a question, little chick,” he said, sounding a little annoyed that I wasn’t eager to respond.

I decided to focus on the far wall and just wait for Jessie to return. I couldn’t imagine any conversation with Viktor going in a direction that wouldn’t haunt my dreams for the rest of my life.

“Answer me!” Viktor shouted, rattling the bars of my cage.

I didn’t want to look at him. I knew without looking that he had fangs that he was desperate to apply to my neck. All I could do was wait it out and hope that Jessie didn’t return with Blossom while Viktor was still there.

“You little bitch,” the vampire snarled. “I was just going to enjoy a small taste of your blood, but your behavior is impudent, and I don’t like impudence, especially from humans. I am going to drain you of every ounce of blood in your body. When I am through with you, you will be nothing but a dried out husk.”

“Viktor!” Jessie appeared behind him, thankfully without Blossom. “I told you the girls were not to be touched.”

Viktor wheeled around. “I don’t take orders from you.”

“This is my house,” Jessie informed him. “If you do not want to obey the rules of the house then you need to leave.”

The older vampire laughed, his fangs fully exposed. “Try to make me.”

What happened next went so very quickly and the vampires moved so fast that I could barely follow it. Jessie went to grab Viktor by the collar, presumably to force him from the castle. Viktor knocked his hand away, and then the two of them were slugging and tearing at each other. I guess Viktor had underestimated Jessie’s strength because it was only a few seconds before he was racing for the dungeon stairs, Jessie hard on his heels.

I could hear the scuffle for a few minutes, but then it faded, and I heard nothing. I sat alone in my cell and tried not to cry. Vampires were real, and one of them had developed a strong dislike for me. That couldn’t be good. I had no idea what had happened to Blossom. For all I knew, Jessie had drained her, and she was already dead. I never should have told him where she was.

But that didn’t seem right. Something told me that wasn’t an act of violence Jessie was willing to commit. My heart kept telling me I could trust him.

I forced myself to remember he was a vampire. By his own admission, he was a bloodsucker. The undead. A creature of the night. How trustworthy could he be?

After what felt like a year, Jessie finally returned, carrying the still unconscious Blossom in his arms. The shoulder of his jacket was a little torn, and there was a fine spray of blood staining his face and the white collar of his shirt.

Before I knew what I was doing, I sprang to my feet and ran to him, shoving my hands between the bars. “Are you all right?” I touched his ear, his cheek, his chest. I could find no wound that went with the blood.

Jessie gave a small shiver under my caress.

“Where is Viktor?” I asked, feeling embarrassed and quickly withdrawing my hands.

“He’s gone,” Jessie said, shaking his head as if to wipe the memory away. “He won’t be bothering you again.”

I didn’t know if that meant the other vampire was dead or just driven from the property. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. “How’s Blossom?” I asked.

He looked down at my friend. “Still out cold. I’m so sorry this happened to you.”

“We shouldn’t have snuck into the party.”

Our eyes met. “Would it be too terrible if I said a small part of me was happy that you did?” he whispered.

I held his gaze, feeling lost but also found. His face was so perfect, so beautiful. His eyes so deep and warm. He looked at me like I was the most precious thing on the planet, like I was a treasure that he had to keep gazing upon to convince himself that it was real.