The Alexandru Chronicles: The Beginning (24 page)

Fear was an unfamiliar emotion to him. During those countless time of cold blooded murder, not once did he feel this emotion. Yet, now, he was overpowered by this new feeling:

Unbelievable terror.

He couldn't understand it.

From what he had heard, this new potential victim, while muscular, was nothing compared to himself. He was over two hundred pounds of pure muscle and he knew how to kill with his bare hands. He had strangled women, men, and even children to death. Yet he got more of a sick enjoyment out of killing children rather than adults; there was just something softly arousing about wrapping his hands around a little child's throat—he got even more enjoyment out of watching a child's life drain from their eyes.

As it was, though, he wouldn't have to use the same tactics on the slayer. In fact, his friends had persuaded him to use something different. He had plenty of ammunition and once he had finished with shooting this person, he would use the blades in his trunk to dismantle his body. He would bring his mistress the head of her enemy and then she would reward him with what she had promised him.

Everlasting life...Immortality.

After ascending up the porch's steps, he stood there, just inches away from achieving his goal. Yet, before he could make a move to grab the door handle, he felt a new wave of fear wash over. Yet, it was just that thought of his red headed mistress, that him quickly squashing this new bout of fear down. He sure wanted to rule the world with her and, possibly, if he succeeded at killing the slayer for her, she would let him.

At this thought, he reached out for the door handle. Yet, before he could even turn it, it came open by itself.

It was strange, the moment the door came open, this icy chilliness, belted him in the face. 

If that wasn't strange enough, he got this unsettling feeling that someone or something, was welcoming him into this house.

While the chilliness, erupting forth from the inside, should have had him a little more warily – for he had even taken a hesitant step back – this still didn't discourage him from leaving.

Granted it was true, that he wasn't discouraged enough to leave. Yet, it was also true, that he wasn't wanting to enter the house anytime soon either.

As he continued to stand there on the porch, his conscience, that he had ignored all the way up until now, finally started getting through to him.

“Turn around and go home.
..
”

He was just about to listen to it, when another voice intervened on his conscience.

“Are you a coward...? If you are, then you don't deserve your mistress. For she needs a strong companion that won't fail her. If you want her, then go inside and do what she ordered you to do.”

Taking a deep breathe, he hesitated slightly before fingering the piece tucked into his waistband.

It brought him some comfort to know that if he needed his gun, it was there.

Eventually squaring his shoulders, he walked into the house.

As he stood on the front entrance's landing, which led down into a beautiful foyer, just looking around at all the valuable items he was going to try and sell once he was finished with this job; it was then that the door inadvertently slammed on its own.

The door's sudden slam had him so surprised, that he would have jumped out of his skin; if he could have.

There wasn't even a breeze outside.

So, how could the door have closed without one?

As he turned to open the door again, it was then that a shadowy figure rushed behind him. He was so content on trying to get the door open, that he didn't even notice that for a short time this figure had stood behind him; watching his feeble attempts at trying to get that door open.

It was only a few minutes, yet, to him, it seemed like eternity of fighting with that door. No matter how hard he pulled and turned the handle, the door refused to budge.

He knew, from just turning the door handle back and forth, that it wasn't locked.

It was just stuck.

After a few minutes more of just trying to put some more elbow grease into it, he finally gave up. As he stood there, looking puzzlingly down at the door handle, it was then that he felt this deep breathing on the scruff of his neck.

As if someone was standing right behind him.

Quickly withdrawing his gun, he turned around to see...Absolutely nobody standing there.

It was strange, he had been almost positive that someone had been there. Yet, now there was no one.

Swallowing down this, strange, painful lump in his throat, he descended down into the foyer. And as he made his way over to the winding, wooden, staircase, he suddenly halted in his tracks at this distant childish laughter; coming from upstairs. 

Staring up the staircase, he was pleasantly surprised to see a little girl scurry past.

There was something strange about this little girl. She had golden blond curls, wore a fifties pink party dress and...Well, there was really no better way to describe her, but to say that she had this translucent appearance.

Yet, while he had thought her appearance strange, he, being the deplorable human he was, still found himself aroused by this pretty little girl; little girls had always done that to him.

He had thought that this would be just work. Now, though, he knew that there was a treat waiting for him after he killed the slayer.

With a new bout of relentless energy, he swiftly made his way up the stairs. He was so busy thinking about what he would do to that little girl, before killing her, that he wasn't paying much attention to anything else.

If he had, he would of noticed that the little girl now stood at the top of the stairs' landing – with her back to him.

The moment he got to the last step, that's when he noticed the little girl.

Up close, she looked different; her hair wasn't as golden as he had thought it was. It was more dull and she didn't seem as lively as she had appeared from the bottom of the stairs.

As it was, he could only see the back of her. Yet, it was that mere sight of her that had him even more aroused.

He was tempted to have his treat, before finishing his business.

As his fingers itched for a touch of her, he had to sustain his arousal by reminding himself what his mistress wanted.

Yet, because the child was so close, he rationalized that just a taste shouldn't hurt.

“Hello, sweetie...Want to play?” he leaned out to touch her.

The moment his fingers touched her hair, he was surprised by it's dryness – there was a scratchiness to it that irritated his fingers. He couldn't, for the life of him, figure out, why her hair felt like that, but it reminded him of how hair felt when...
dead.

Shrugging away his uneasiness, he repeated his question, “Want to play, sweetie?” this time he turned her around.

Hollywood would never have come up with anything as frightening as what was staring at him, at that very moment. The little girl he had thought was pretty at a distance, was nothing more than a dead monster. Her skin was ash white, her eyes, possibly the most terrifying feature about her, had this dead gray, gleeful malice, in them. And when she smiled at him, there were rows of rotten teeth in her mouth.

The moment he yanked his hand away from her, she leaned out to touch him and, in his efforts to try and get away from her, he had forgotten that he had been standing on the second to first step of the stairs.

He didn't even have time to correct himself, before he slipped backwards down the stairs. The last that he heard as he tumbled to his death, was his own screams and the little girl laughingly asking, “Want to play?”

XXX

Cirpian suddenly came awake; instantly bolting up in bed, he, unseeingly, looked around the room.

He hadn't been sure what had woken him. He knew that it wasn't yet dark out. His body and senses told him, that at the latest, it was only late afternoon.

Yet, regardless of that, something or someone had woken him.

After draping his legs over his bed, he sniffed.

It was this faint human odor, that walloped him like a fist to his nostrils; alerting him, instantly, that someone was in his house, and this person's stench was far from welcoming.

Unlike Genevieve's provocative aroma, this individual's foul odor picked away at his senses.

He knew what this person's intentions were, and he had a pretty good idea who had sent him.

Once he had dealt with his uninvited guest. First getting out of him, who his master was—he felt strongly that it had to be Adrian—he would then deal with this vampire.

After hastily grabbing his sword, he swiftly made his way to the door.

Yet, no sooner had he flung the door open, did he hear this blood curling scream; coming from the landing.

One would have thought that the scream, alone, would have had him speeding up in his haste. Yet, it was the exact opposite with him; he slowed his pace and just leisurely made his way over to the stairs.

When he finally got to the stairs' platform, he was instantly met by the presence of the little girl – a little girl, he had come to know as being quite mischievous. The way she rationalized her actions, was that she was really the true owner of this house. And had decided that she, herself, would pick out a tenant to live with her. When it came to the other potential tenants for this house, she had deemed them all unfit; she wanted someone a little more like herself – that's why she had scared off the others and chosen Cirpian to live there with her.

To be honest, it was like having a roommate. Yet, where other roommates were alive, she...wasn't.

As she stood next to him, gazing down the stairs at the dead intruder, she, grabbing his hand, inquired whimsically,
“Did you have a nice sleep?”

“
It was pleasant..., thank you.” he smiled.  

Leaning down he picked her up, and, as he descended down the stairs, he asked, “So..., how was your day today?”

Once they had reached the bottom, Cirpian, stepping over the dead body of Caftan Hobbs, headed toward his library. 

Chapter Twenty-One

The way that Genevieve found out about Caftan Hobbs' death, was on the ten o'clock news. She had been readying herself for bed, when she heard the news announcer say that Mr. Hobbs had died in a terrible car accident.

By the time first responders had responded to his accident, his car had been engulfed in flames and any chance of retrieval was a lost cause. 

The whole time Genevieve had been listening to this, she had been rolling her eyes.

Who...the hell...cared?

The man that these stupid reporters were reporting on, was a monster. He was a child molester, who had gotten away with countless crimes against children. The last crime he had gotten away with, just so happened to be the molestation of his own niece.

According to the prosecutor, Mr. Hobbs had been molesting his niece for six months. Yet, no matter how hard the prosecutor tried to stress this point to the jury, because of insufficient evidence, and an unwilling witness, the bastard had been acquitted; the jury just couldn't find him guilty.

Well, while the courts couldn't find him guilty, someone up there had thought it only right to give these poor innocent children justice. So, now, Mr. Hobbs was spending his eternity in hell.

Before the reporter could go into anything else, Genevieve turned off the television. She had just tossed the remote on to her coffee table, when there was a knock at her door; she hadn't a clue who would be visiting her at this time of night. As she cautiously looked over at her holstered weapon, she was immediately tempted by the idea of retrieving it.

In this day and age, it was never safe to just open the door.

No telling what kind of nut case could be waiting for her on the other side.

It was that second knock, that had her ultimately deciding against her gun. And making that short distance over to the door, she stared out the peephole. When she saw who it was, she was pleasantly surprised and, at the same time, leery of the man that stood on the other side of her door. She would have been lying, if she had said she hadn't been thinking about him; he had in fact been a plague upon her thoughts for most of the day. Whether or not that was a good or bad thing, she wasn't entirely sure. 

Upon her flinging the door open, she was about to say, “What are you doing here?” when he, pulling her into his arms, planted his mouth squarely on hers; instantly putting an end to her apprehension and quizzical curiosity on why he would be on her doorstep at that time of night.