Deadman's Blood (13 page)

Dominic looked out over the table filled with guests and saw a small monkey with one arm wrapped around Alyssa’s neck and the other reaching down into her blouse. She blushed a bit and grabbed his tiny hand and scolded him.

“That’s a bad little boy.” The monkey, with his expressive little face, looked at her sadly, shrugged his shoulders, and laid his head on her chest.

“Ah…now that’s a good boy,” she replied as the little monkey melted her heart.

Dominic said, “He’s a handsome little guy. Who brought him?”

Shoulders shrugged and heads shook as Dominic looked around the table, then back to Alyssa.

“I’m not sure where he came from. He was standing on my stomach when I woke up this morning. I’m surprised you didn’t hear the commotion,” Alyssa told him.

“He just showed up in your room?” Dominic asked.

“Yes,” Alyssa answered.

“And still no Mark?”

“No - nothing. I’ve been worried something awful about him.” As she said this, the little monkey stroked the side of her face with his little hand.

Darby jumped in. “That’s so odd. Mark is not like that at all. When we were working together, he kept me apprised of his whereabouts at all times in case something came up. It seemed like a natural thing to him.”

“I totally agree, Darby. It’s not like him at all - especially without a call with some kind of explanation.” The little monkey raised his arms as if trying to get everyone’s attention then just dropped them to his sides as if defeated, and went back to hanging from Alyssa’s neck.

“How strange,” Dominic said.

“That’s not the only strange thing,” Blake interjected. “Seems another one of us has a new power.”

Intrigued, Dominic answered, “Oh? Who and what power?”

“Josh and strength. When Alyssa screamed this morning at finding the monkey on her chest, Josh was the first to make it to her door, but instead of turning the door knob, he ripped it from its hinges.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say I ripped it from its hinges, but …” Josh tried to clarify.

“Where is the door, Josh?” Blake asked.

“On the floor upstairs,” Josh answered.

“Exactly…enough said,” Blake chuckled.

“Well. That is interesting,” Dominic admitted.

“I’m sorry, Dominic. I’ll pay for the door….and the door knobs….and the….”

“Door knobs? Plural?” Dominic asked, half laughing.

Josh’s face went crimson with embarrassment as Melanie took his hand.

“My dear Josh. Don’t worry yourself about it, but you are going to have to restrain yourself a bit,” Dominic said with a proud smile on his face. Anton too was laughing as he saw the embarrassment in Josh’s face.

“Anyone else notice anything out of the ordinary?” Dominic asked.

“Why? What do you mean?” Josh asked.

“That’s right, my boy, you weren’t here for dinner last night. It seems there are quite a few of us that are experiencing new forms of power. I’m thinking that we may all have some kind of new ability.”

“All of us? How?” Josh asked.

“Well, I think it had something to do with the destroying of the Bloodstone Heart. You must have felt it. After the girls destroyed it, didn’t you feel a wave go through you? To me it felt like a ripple on a pond radiating out like a tsunami.”

“Yeah. I felt something like that in the boathouse, but Mark and I were so busy with trying to get Lanie breathing again, I really didn’t think much of it,” Josh remembered.

“Somehow, it changed us, giving each of us a tiny bit of its power,” Dominic explained.

“Huh? So who else has new powers?” Josh asked.

“Blake seems to be able to move things with his mind. We found that out last night at dinner and that is how we started thinking we might all have been affected. Sally has been seeing the ghosts of my dear sister and wife wandering this house. Rowan, we think, is showing signs of pyrokinesis. Then there is Dean.”

Dean looked up terrified and anxious. “What? I have something? What is it?”

Blake tried to calm him down. “Remember we talked about this last night, Dean. Breathe. In with the good air and out with the bad feelings.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, bat boy. What do I have, Dominic?” Dean asked.

“Bat boy…don’t start, Dean…” Blake said.

Sally’s eyes grew wide as if she were sure that Blake would say something that would send Dean off on an emotional rollercoaster. Rowan jabbed Blake in the ribs and he saw Sally’s expression. “Right. You’re right, Sally, Rowan.”

“It’s nothing to worry about, Dean…It’s just something you are going to have to get used to handling and controlling. I think what you are experiencing is empathic traits. Some who master this trait are able to calm a room full of people. It’s really an amazing gift, but very hard to control at first.”

“Really?” Dean said, almost in tears. Blake shook his head and the monkey started clapping at that moment for some strange reason.

“Really, Dean. It will take a while, but I think Blake can help you control it if you let him,” Dominic said.

“Would you do that for me, buddy?” Dean said, looking at Blake as tears rolled down his cheek.

Blake was beside himself.
Buddy?
Dean had never called him ‘Buddy.’
Who am I? Gilligan to Dean’s Skipper?

“Uhhhh…” Blake stuttered until Rowan kicked him under the table. He flinched and gave her a look, which she returned, and then he turned to Dean.

“Sure, Dean. Anything.”

Across the table, Devon was shaking his head and chuckling. Dominic looked at Devon and said, “So what about you two…anything odd you’ve noticed about one another?”

Devon and Darby looked at each other. They shook their heads and then both looked at Dominic. Devon said, “No. Not that I can think of…..” Then he smiled and started to chuckle as he said, “Unless you count that she’s hearing voices.” Then he laughed full out.

“I did not…I told you, I thought you said you were hungry and I was just responding to you,” Darby argued.

“But I wasn’t there, Sweetness. I didn’t say a word,” Devon said. Darby folded her arms across her chest with a ‘hmmph.’

“Well, at least I don’t sneak up on people all the time,” Darby shot at Devon.

“I don’t sneak up on you!” Devon retorted.

“You’ve scared me half to death at least three times in the last couple of days,” Darby said.

“I can’t help it if you’re jumpy,” Devon replied.

“Hang on you two. It doesn’t sound like anything supernatural, at least yet. Just be aware of anything odd going on around you, okay?” Dominic interceded.

Devon and Darby both looked at Dominic, a little embarrassed by their bickering, and nodded.

Melanie asked, “What about you, Dominic? Anything unusual?”

“Hmmm. Not really….although I had the strangest dream last night.”

“What was strange about it?” Anton asked.

“Well, first off, have you ever noticed when you have a dream you can’t remember parts of it as time goes by?”

Anton nodded in agreement.

“Well this dream was more like a movie, and I remember EVERYTHING, vividly,” Dominic said.

“What was it about?” Anton asked.

“The past. Our past. At least the Larsen family. Did I ever tell you the story about your great uncle Owen?”

“Yes. Wasn’t he the one that originally had the Larsen Blood Diamond?”

“Exactly. The dream was about Owen, the woman he loved, and the Blood Diamond.”

“But Dad, you’ve been telling us about that story for years; what’s so odd about having a dream about something you’ve been researching for years?”

“Because the dream filled in all the missing pieces, pieces no one could have known or guessed unless they were there. And that is what the dream was like. It was as if I was transported in time and watching it all play out,” Dominic said.

“Couldn’t it just be that your imagination filled in the blanks?” Anton wondered.

“Definitely. But some of the things I saw never even crossed my mind before. I may never know. It doesn’t really make any sense and I have no way of proving that any of it happened the way I saw it last night, but it was so incredibly vivid.

“What about you, Anton? Have you noticed anything out of the ordinary with yourself?” Dominic asked.

“Well, since you brought up your dream, I too had the strangest dream last night. It was as if I was in someone else’s head - seeing what they saw. Only it wasn’t pleasant in the least. I was watching it all through the eyes of a vampire stalking someone. I thought it was just a feeding, but when the victim was pulled into a van, the killing changed to something else. The vampire did not feed on the victim; instead, the victim’s neck was broken and as he lay dead in the van, the vampire drained his blood.”

“What? But that would be a death sentence to a vampire - drinking the blood of the dead!” Devon exclaimed.

“I know, right. But the vampire did not drink the blood; the vampire drained the victim’s blood into bags and deposited them into a cooler,” Anton said.

“But why would a vampire do that?” Blake asked.

“Unless he or she is planning on killing another vampire,” Devon said bluntly.

“A lot of somebodies,” Dominic said. “It doesn’t take much Deadman’s Blood to kill a vampire.”

Darby spoke up, “I don’t understand. When vampires drain a victim, they are killing them, right? So why would the blood of a dead person kill a vampire?”

Dominic said, “That is a misconception many have about vampires. A vampire leaves their victims alive, though barely. A victim ultimately dies from being drained of their blood, but a vampire never drains beyond the victim’s death, only just before. If they were to continue past the victim’s death, the blood becomes instantly deadly to a vampire. I know that is surprising, but blood is the elixir of life and somewhat magical.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense. You drink your blood from the baggies. How does that blood differ from the blood that was taken from the dead man in Anton’s dream?” Darby continued.

“I know it is hard to understand, but once the soul leaves the body, the magic of that person’s life is taken with it and the blood goes bad. If the blood is taken from a live person, the magic stays with it. This is true even for humans. You can’t use a dead person’s blood like you can use their organs. Even if that person was on life support, which is ideal for organ donating, it doesn’t work the same with blood. There’s something truly magical about it,” Devon explained.

“Anton, do you think that it truly was a dream or could you possibly be experiencing ‘remote viewing’? Maybe it was someone else’s dream - lucid dreaming,” Dominic wondered.

“I’m not sure what it was; it could have just been a dream, but like you described in your dream, I remember everything vividly, like I was experiencing it myself,” Anton said.

Blake suggested, “You and Dominic should probably keep a dream journal for a few days and see if anything comes of it.”

“Excellent idea, Blake. We should definitely do that. Even if they are just dreams, it would be interesting to compare them to actual events and see if anything comes of that.”

Anton agreed.

“Melanie, Dear. You are the only one who hasn’t had any input,” Dominic commented.

“I wish I had something interesting to add, but I haven’t noticed anything odd lately, I’m sorry,” Melanie answered.

“Don’t be silly. There’s nothing to be sorry about; just try to be aware of anything that might be out of the ordinary.” As Dominic was finishing his sentence, the little monkey wrapped around Alyssa started squawking and jumped to the ground, flailing its arms as if it were on fire. An instant later, a pale Mark appeared where the monkey had been. Bare naked, he scrambled for something to cover himself with as he got to his feet.

Grabbing Alyssa’s napkin, he blurted out, “Whatever you do, don’t say, spell, or even think of an animal or an insect. I don’t think I can handle another change at the moment.” Then he glared at Blake and Dean and continued, “You two, keep your snarky comments to yourself until I can get a pair of pants on. Got it?”

Embarrassed smiles appeared all around the table as he walked out of the dining room bare-bottomed for all to see. Alyssa quickly excused herself and followed him.

*****

“
Well, there’s something you don’t see everyday. What just happened?” Blake said, stunned.

“That was pretty remarkable. I suppose our Mark has found a new power in shapeshifting,” Dominic said.

“What?” Dean screamed, almost sounding like a scared little girl, catching everyone by surprise at the octave he’d reached. He cleared his throat then continued, “You mean to say that Mark can change into anything he wants? Even a wolf?”

Blake laughed at Dean’s concern and stated, ”Aw, don’t worry, Dean. You’re still our favorite male werewolf.”

Dean sneered at Blake, while Sally and Rowan both gave him a nasty look. Blake withdrew by saying, “I’m sorry, Dean…it snuck out of me. But Dominic? Is it true, can Mark change into anything?”