Of Witches and Warlocks: The Demon Kiss (20 page)

Brad was taking a turn at one of the scopes,
while I was setting out lunch items for everyone else. We had
offered to share our food with the fishing crew outside, but they
had politely declined, motioning to their own lunches which they
had brought with them.

We ate together at the table, in reflective
silence, waiting for something, anything, to happen.

After lunch, Pablo set lines up on a few big
fishing poles and let those of us who weren’t at the telescope try
our hand at some deep-sea fishing. It was loads of fun, as we
reeled in several flounder, red snapper, and grouper.

We enjoyed the fishing immensely as it helped
us to pass the time, after we had to quit looking at the house
completely later that afternoon. The sun had begun to droop in the
sky, and it reflected badly against the large glass windows to the
point where we couldn’t see anything of the house except for its
blinding glare.

We also used this time to relocate the boat
again, moving in a little closer as we had throughout the day, but
also slightly off to the side to try and avoid being too obvious to
anyone who might be watching our actions.

The fishermen cast their nets into the water
once more, as the sun settled down behind the horizon. It was at
this point we started to notice the lights beginning to click on in
the house.

“All right,” Dad said as he settled in behind
his scope again. “This is what we’ve been waiting for.”

Off in the distance, I became faintly aware
of the sound of an engine moving closer toward our position.

“There’s a boat coming in around us from the
port side,” Vance said suddenly, removing the telescope from the
window and placing it down on the table completely out of
sight.

Dad quickly did the same with his glass, as
we all sank down in our seats to try and avoid any detection. Even
though it was nearly dark, the lights from the deck where Enrico
and his crew were working reflected through the cabin behind
us.

The motorboat zoomed on past and continued
heading in toward the shore, slowing until it actually slid softly
aground on the beach.

Dad and Vance lifted the scopes to begin
watching again, while I went over and closed the cabin door so
there would be nothing to illuminate our silhouettes in the large
window.

“Apparently my father has company,” Vance
said as three figures emerged from the boat and went up the beach
toward the dwelling.

“Damien is meeting them out on the patio,”
Dad added in agreement. “He’s waving them inside.”

“What’s happening?” I asked when they didn’t
say anything else for a few moments.

“They all walked inside and are standing
around the crates now,” Vance replied, continuing with the
play-by-play commentary for me. “They’re talking among themselves
and gesturing over the boxes.”

“Here comes someone with a pry bar,” my dad
added. “I hope we can see whatever is inside those things.”

I started fishing through Dad’s giant duffle
bag, looking for the two pairs of binoculars I had seen in there
earlier, not knowing if they would help from this distance or
not.

“Here!” I said, handing the extra set to
Brad. I leaned over the back of Vance to look over him and out the
window.

I finally found the target and adjusted the
focus until I could plainly see the four individuals standing in
the living room.

Two of the men were lifting the lid off one
of the crates, and everyone in the room leaned forward, peering
in.

“Can you see what’s inside?” Dad asked Vance,
sounding very frustrated.

“No. We’re not at the right angle,” he
replied.

One of the men reached into his pocket and
pulled out a pair of rubber gloves. He placed them on his hands
before he reached inside the box.

“What’s he doing?” I asked, curious about
what they could possibly need latex gloves for.

“I can’t tell,” Vance answered me.

The woman who was kneeling on the floor
suddenly sat up. She had an I.V. bag, just like those used in
hospitals, which she was holding in her hand.

“Is that what I think it is?” Brad asked,
sounding puzzled as we watched the scene unfolding in front of
us.

“If you think it’s an I.V. bag, then yes,”
Dad replied.

“They’re a medical team!” I said as the
pieces suddenly clicked into place. “There’s something alive in the
box!”

As if in answer to my comment, the two men
reached into the crate and lifted out what appeared to be an
unconscious woman, moving her to lay on one of the couches.

“What the heck?” Dad said to no one in
particular, as we watched in confusion, unable to figure out what
was happening.

“I think he might be importing people,
witches and warlocks, from all over the world so he can feed on
them,” Vance said, and I felt the wave of nausea that he
experienced at that thought.

“Why?” Dad asked. “It doesn’t make any sense.
Can’t he just search any witch or warlock out to feed on? Why go to
all the pain and expense to ship them in?”

I pondered on his comment for a moment,
thinking things weren’t adding up properly.

“What if he isn’t feeding on all of them?” I
replied, an idea suddenly popping into my head that could possibly
explain what was happening.

“What do you mean?” Dad asked me.

“Maybe he’s performing a demon kiss. Don’t
you get it? He’s probably searching out the most powerful people of
the magical community and then having them shipped here, so he can
steal all their powers. I mean, I’m sure he’s probably feeding on
some of them to help build his strength, but he saves the best, the
power he desires the most, for the kiss.”

They were all quiet for a minute while they
pondered this.

“She makes sense,” Vance said finally,
agreeing with me. “It would be harder to find someone more powerful
with each kiss he performs, which would be what he craves. If he’s
sending scouts out to look for those kinds of people, then drugging
them and shipping them here … it really does make sense.”

“But why does he need the medical people?”
Dad asked. “He could just kill them easily right now by drinking
all their blood. Why treat them?”

“I remember watching an interview with a
serial killer on television once,” Brad said. “All he could talk
about was how superior he was to his victims. He wanted to show
them how devious he could be. That was how he got his thrill.

“Maybe Damien wants them awake so they know
what’s happening to them,” he suggested. “He wants to show his
power for an audience. That’s what Juan kept saying. The demon
warlock kept talking about how powerful he was and how no one could
touch him.”

“Yeah, well, I’d like to get a hold of him
and touch him right about now,” Vance mumbled angrily.

“We need to get those people out of there!” I
said, feeling a bit frantic over their situation, knowing their
lives were in jeopardy.

“It’s too late for these people,” Dad
replied, giving a slight shake of his head. “We can’t just try to
storm in there without a plan. We’d just end up being his next
victims.”

“So we’re just going to sit here and watch?”
I said horrified, with a sick churning feeling beginning to start
in the pit of my stomach.

Vance moved away from the glass and turned
around to look at me, a concerned expression on his face.

“You don’t have to watch, Portia,” he said,
running a hand down my arm, trying to soothe my temperament. “But
we do need to find out what’s going on here, not to mention seeing
exactly how this kiss thing works. If all this gets to be too much
for you, then just turn away, okay?”

I nodded my head, and he gave me a gentle
squeeze before turning back around. I lifted the binoculars back up
to my face again, focusing in on the scene playing out in front of
us.

We continued to watch as the three remaining
crates were also opened and soon the medical people had their
contents set up with an I.V. also.

It wasn’t long before we noticed the woman on
the couch was beginning to thrash violently, almost like she was
having a seizure of some sort.

Damien calmly went over to her and placed a
hand on her head, eerily the same way Vance would do to mine when I
couldn‘t sleep, and bent over her muttering something.

The woman calmed almost instantly.

“I wish we had a microphone,” Dad complained,
to no one in particular, feeling frustrated out loud.

After a little while, we noticed that Damien
did the same thing to the other three individuals still lying in
their boxes.

When this was done, he waved at the two
medical men standing by, and they came and lifted one individual
out of the crate, carrying his limp form over to a solid looking
high-backed chair.

The man was placed on the seat, and the woman
who was with them came with a set of manacles and began securing
his arms to the chair.

“All right. This is starting to feel a little
too familiar to me,” I said, remembering when I had found Vance, as
he was being held prisoner, in almost the exact same setup as
this.

The medical woman then placed a second set of
irons around the man’s legs, after which Damien came over to touch
each of these. A magical force field surrounded them instantly in a
glowing fashion.

This same pattern was followed with the next
two victims, who were also men of different ethnical origins, it
appeared. Then the woman was lifted to a waiting chair but was left
unrestrained.

The medical crew then went over to the wall,
and I watched in surprise as they moved something. I realized then,
it was actually the wall which was in motion. It began to turn
slowly around, until the opposite side was facing outward into the
room to reveal a new set of curious items.

The wall had some type of pulley system on it
with several brackets.

One of the men pulled a belt down from the
pulley system and wrapped it around the unconscious woman’s waist.
Then as the man and woman on each side of her steadied her, the
third man pulled on the system, hoisting the woman up off the
chair, until she was touching the wall. They then slid her body
down the wall gently until her feet were near the floor, snapping
her arms and legs into the waiting brackets.

Damien began to walk around the room,
snapping his fingers in front of each of the individuals who were
restrained in front of him. They came instantly awake as if they
had never been drugged.

I watched as they slowly became aware of the
predicament they were in. I couldn’t hear their screams as they
realized where they were, but I could plainly see them.

My stomach began to churn even more
violently, but I couldn’t look away. It was like a bad horror
movie, where you knew someone was going to be slaughtered, but you
still had to watch through your fingers. My mind kept telling me to
lower the glasses and look away, but the message never reached my
hands, which were frozen in place, as if they had turned to
stone.

Damien walked over to the first man in the
chair and calmly took out his athame. He lifted it and sliced hard
into his victim’s restrained arm. Blood sprayed everywhere,
violently pumping from the deep arterial wound.

I felt Vance physically flinch beside me at
the sight of it.

I couldn’t even speak to ask him if he was
okay.

Damien placed a silver chalice underneath the
wound and magically guided the blood directly into it. When the cup
was full he waved his hand over the wound and closed it.

I could see that the man in the chair was
gasping in agony. The two male victims sitting next to him were
watching in wide-eyed terror, and the woman hanging on the wall was
sobbing.

Damien casually swirled the blood in the
chalice, then sniffed it as if he were sampling a fine wine. He
lifted the drink to his lips and took a large swallow, right before
he spit it out again and tossed the goblet onto the floor. He
clearly didn’t care for the taste.

He motioned for the medical crew, and I
watched in horror as they transformed into their demon forms, as
Krista had done once before in front of me. The small fleshy horns
protruded from their head, the brows furrowed, and their teeth
lengthened into rows of uneven fangs.

They pounced on the man while he screamed;
ripping chunks of flesh from him as they bit into his skin to feed
on him, blood spraying in every direction.

Vance was at my side instantly, ripping the
binoculars from my grasp, his eyes flaming red.

“Don’t look, Portia!” he said, as he buried
my face against his shoulder. “They’re going to kill this one.”

I let him hide my face there, not wanting to
see what was happening to the poor warlock who sat in that chair. I
could feel Vance shaking, though, as he fought for control over his
own desires.

All I could think of was the fact that Vance
had once been subjected to something very similar to this, only he
had been allowed to survive. I started weeping into his shirt as he
ran his fingers up and down over my back trying to sooth me.

“It’s okay, baby. It’s okay,” he repeated,
his clenched teeth belying the calmness he was trying to exude over
me.

I turned to look toward the cabin door,
worried about whether or not any of the fishermen were hearing us,
but it sounded as if they were still busy hauling nets in with loud
whirring machines.

“He’s gone,” I heard Dad say in a low voice
then, and I knew he meant the man was now dead.

“What’s happening?” Vance asked, as he
continued to cradle me protectively against him.

“Your dad is testing out his next victim,”
Brad replied, pausing for a moment. “I guess he likes this one,” he
added, disgust dripping from his voice. “He’s going back for
seconds.”