Vampire "Unleashed" (Vampire "Untitled" Trilogy Book 3) (18 page)

“He wanted me alive? Did he want to kill me himself?”

Floriana made a nervous shudder. “He wished to feed you to hungry dogs.”

“Oh really,” Paul turned his head briefly to look behind at the old man. “Be careful what you wish for,” he mumbled.

“Can I ask,” Floriana said, “about the girl in Romania? She must be very special.”

“She is special… I think. I don’t know. It’s difficult to describe. It’s more about me than her… It’s selfish. I have an attachment to her, but it’s more like she is my guide to a better life than someone I love or have deep feelings for.” The moment he said that he felt himself sinking, his mood sliding towards misery. “That’s not true… I think I love her. I do love her. But it’s a complicated love… Something happened to me. This is going to sound strange, but I’m not… I’m not really a person anymore, I’m not human in the way that I was… Wow, that makes me sound like a lunatic actually saying it out loud.”

“So what do you think you are?”

“What I am… I don’t like to say. I don’t like the word I’m supposed to use to describe it. It’s not even the right word. I don’t think there is a name for what I’ve become. I’m untitled.” He thought on it for a few seconds, mumbling the word, “untitled, untitled, untitled.” It was a word he preferred over all others. “I am the untitled,” he said firmly. “I am the unimaginable made real. I was sick in a way that human beings should never be. I suspect that most humans die from this sickness, my instinct tells me most people would not survive. But I didn’t die. I can’t explain why I feel this, but when I emerged from the sickness I was an entirely different... thing.”

Paul took a deep breath and purged with puffed out cheeks. Was this how alcoholics feel at their first AA meeting. My Name is Paul and I’m a… Can you say it? Can you be that honest with yourself?

“I’m not human anymore,” was all he managed. “I’ve become something more than human. Something superior, with less limitations. I can see things that I shouldn’t be able to see. I can react to things faster than I ever could when I was human. My memory is a hundred times better than it was, my eyesight is incredible… It was the sickness. For a long time I thought the sickness was choking me, but it wasn’t, it was purifying me… but it has left me alone. It’s like I’m a new species but I’m the only one that I know of. I may even be unique.” Paul rested his palm momentarily against her knee in a gesture of human connection. “I’ve never said any of this out loud before… Thank you for listening.”

----- X -----

They made the hovel by early afternoon. The return journey had taken only thirteen hours rather than the eighteen to get there. Paul cut the tape around Floriana’s ankles and knees and held her hands for support as she climbed out of the van. “Are you steady on your feet? Stretch your legs a little,” he said still holding her hands. Floriana complied then lifted each knee to her chest one at a time. She turned a whole circle to survey the endless vista of snow in one direction and the mountain ridge behind her. “We are many miles from anywhere,” he told her. “Please don’t try to run away. You will die in the cold before you can find help… But with luck this will all be over in a few hours. I tell you something else, I’ll make a deal with you, there is a beautiful ski resort called Poiana Brasov less than an hour’s drive from here. When this is all over, I’ll leave you there. It can be the first day of your new life.”

Paul pushed the doorway to the hovel and beckoned her inside. “What about Mr. Gjokeja?” she asked.

“Leave him.”

Floriana entered the hovel which was ice cold and almost night-time dark compared to the overbearing white of outside. Paul lit a hurricane lamp and four tealight candles and motioned for her to sit on his bed of straw and blankets. He covered the candles with a terracotta plant pot that left a small gap for air to flow underneath, then put a larger pot over the first to create a convection heater. “It’s cold in here now, but it will warm up soon,” he said. The girl sat demurely on his bed, her eyes rolling around the hovel. “I’m going to have a tea, would you like a hot drink?”

“I would like tea,” she whispered.

He went through the motions of collecting snow and melting it.

“Do you live here always?” Floriana asked.

“For more than one year. I would have stayed here too if Gjokeja had left Ildico alone. If he hadn’t interfered, I would have vanished and nobody would have heard of me again.”

The hovel was warming.

They drank tea. He sat beside her and caught the smell of her hair. Her skin was lightly tanned, her cheeks were in a blush against the cold. He looked at her breasts, pressing against her top. He looked at her lips… He put down his plastic cup, turned her head to his and kissed her.

She kissed back.

He lifted her top and pulled her arms out of the sleeves. It was like he’d brought a girl home after a nightclub. The awkward dance of awkward adults who both wanted the same thing but had to go through the motions. The post-club, pre-sex ritual of taxi, beverage, sofa, cuddles, kisses, undressing and all the while excited it was happening and terrified it might stop. Floriana wouldn’t stop, she was willing to do anything and it distracted from the uncomfortable truth that he’d kidnapped her and driven her to this place by force and fear. He left her stockings on, the lingerie adding a touch of glamour; the vintage Playboy photo-shoot of a girl who rolls in the hay of a rustic building in her finest underwear. He undressed as she did. He climbed on top of her to almost perch on her breasts that unnaturally didn’t flatten or slide to her sides. He penetrated and she pressed her hips into his like an experienced older woman. She held the back of his neck and pressed his face to her neck as she nibbled his ear, panting against his skin as he rocked his pelvis. One of her hands ran down his spine to rest at the top of his ass to pressure his motion as she writhed the muscles of her core against his stomach. Floriana played their bodies like they were musical instruments; arranging the notes and melodies like she was composing a symphony. Sex had never felt so dreamlike and exotic and perfect and Paul allowed himself to relax and cum inside her without care.

He rolled to the side and smiled. She smiled back seductively. He touched her lips with his fingertips. “I wanted you to suck me with those lips,” he said.

“I want to,” Floriana said. “Please will you let me. Don’t make me beg too much. I want to lick the cum off your cock. Please let me suck your cock.”

The spell broke. It was like a bucket of water thrown over him. Floriana the succubi, a seductress sent to hypnotise and transfix him with desires and pleasures had just awoken him by being too good.

He climbed off the hay bed and grabbed his clothes, checking the karambit first to make sure it was still where he imagined. This girl had almost seduced him into death. She would have soothed him, relaxed him, made him drop his guard and close his eyes before killing him with whatever weapon she could find or fashion. He stared at her, seeing her in a new light. She was dreamlike and seductive but to what end? He could imagine her taking the karambit whilst he was distracted. During the drive he’d found her so compliant and accommodating he’d taken his eyes off what she wanted, which was to escape. Get paranoid. Stay paranoid… and never trust a kidnapped woman who wants to sleep with you.

----- X -----

Although there was less than twenty feet from the van to the hovel, dragging Gjokeja in his wheelchair was miserable. It was dragged, not rolled. Too many stones and holes beneath the snow. The combined weight of old man and chair was light enough for Paul to lift but awkward in shape. He made Floriana come with him, but he kept her naked, not even allowing her to put her shoes on. She shivered and trembled, her arms wrapped around her body. By the time he got Gjokeja into the hovel he was so frustrated by the task he threw the chair and the old man onto the side. Aldo shrieked under the duct tape but remained in his chair thanks to the bindings. Paul pulled him upright and pushed him to one side facing the corner.

He took Gjokeja’s mobile phone and sat on the hay bed. He tapped his hand beside him to beckon Floriana. “You’re going to help me with this,” he said. “Tell me who attacked Ildico.”

Paul flicked through the address book looking at the faces of Aldo’s contacts. It was filled with old silver haired men, young thugs and beautiful young girls with professionally photographed images. There were no old or middle aged women in Aldo Gjokeja’s life. Young girls only.

“This one,” Floriana said pointing. “Loro Ahmataj. He is the man who was shot at the police house.”

Paul looked to Gjokeja. “Does he know why she was at a police house? Ask him how they found her.”

Floriana spoke to Gjokeja. He answered weakly, but he answered.

“He says they had her in safety so our men cannot speak to her. But they put her in house used by police. The address was in the police accounts.”

“But why was she there?” Paul asked.

Floriana translated. “He does not know, but it was Detective Latis who put her there.”

She leaned a little closer and shielded her mouth as she next spoke, covering herself from the old man. “Mr. Gjokeja was very happy when they found her. He told them to hurt her badly.”

Paul glared at Gjokeja for a few seconds. “Did he?”

He went back to the telephone, skimming through more contacts until Floriana pointed out the next man. Agron Jupi. Paul wrote down the details and skipped forward until he hit Corneliu Latis. He said nothing to Floriana. He wrote down the details. Latis lived on Calea Bucharest. He wouldn’t survive the house call. Paul continued until Floriana again told him to stop. The name was Ludovik Sina. Again he wrote the details and continued through the gallery of rogues and teenaged whores from A to Z until hitting the skeletal face of Miklos Zhega. “This is the one?” Paul asked. He wrote down the last name and address on the kill list. These were the men who would die.

----- X -----

Paul set Gjokeja’s mobile phone on his bed so that the camera looked into the hovel. He positioned Gjokeja in his wheelchair left of frame and rotated the old man to face the camera. He seemed resigned now to his fate. He didn’t look up or make eye contact, he remained slumped in the chair taking intermittent deep breaths.

“I want you to explain to Aldo that we are going to make a bargain. I am going to release him to the men he sent, so long as he guarantees that nothing will ever happen to Ildico, or her daughter, or to me in the future… Explain it to him.”

Floriana nodded. Paul put his hand on her shoulder. “This time tomorrow you will be skiing. Help me do this and then it’s all over for you.”

Floriana spoke to Gjokeja, part in English with a few words reiterated in Albanian to make the offer.

“Po!” Gjokeja called suddenly jerking his head up to look at Paul. “I agree. Is good.”

“Tell him,” Paul continued, “that we are going to make a video and Aldo must make our arrangement known to the men. So that when they see the video they know it is the truth.”

“Po. Po. I go.” Gjokeja said animatedly.

“That’s right, you piece of shit. If I let you go, it’s all over. Finished, you understand?”

“Finished. I understand.”

Paul unhooked the karambit and moved it to within inches of Gjokeja’s face as he leaned in. “If we make this deal, you better keep your side of the bargain, or I swear I will take you again and spend the rest of my life making you suffer… Tell him, explain it.”

Floriana translated. Gjokeja was nodding and trying to agree whilst at the same time moving his head away from the blade.

“Do you understand what you have to say?” Paul said slowly.

“Yes. I understand.”

“Then we can begin.” Paul unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it aside to be bare chested for this video. The muscles of his chest, arms and abdomen looked swollen and powerful. To Floriana he said, “I want you sitting here on the floor by Aldo’s feet.”

Dutiful as ever Floriana complied without question, completely naked and assuming the position at the foot of the wheelchair.

Paul reread his list to remind himself of the villains names, then put it away, composed himself, walked to the camera and started the video recording.

He walked back into shot.

“This is a message for Miklos Zhega. Sitting beside me is Aldo Gjokeja, your employer. He was going to pay you twenty five thousand euros to kill me. He offered ten thousand each to Loro, Agron and Ludovik… Well take a good look Miklos because he’s not in a position to pay you anything. I have him and I can kill him if I choose which means you get nothing… Now, Aldo and I have made a new arrangement. We are going to make an exchange. I am going to hand him over to you. I’ll put him in a safe place and you can come and collect him. In exchange you leave Romania and never return. If anything happens to Ildico Popescu or her daughter, Alina, I will kill you all. I know who you are, I have your faces, your addresses and I know how to find you.” Paul rotated towards the wheelchair and said, “Tell him, Aldo.”

Gjokeja cleared his throat and in a strained and faltering voice he cried out, “Give him what he ask, Miklos. It is over. It is finished. Come home. Give him what he ask.”

Paul held out a hand to indicate he wanted Gjokeja to be quiet. With his other hand he raised the karambit. “Now I need you to understand, Miklos.” Paul put a hand under Floriana’s armpit to coax her to standing. “This is very important that you understand how serious I am.” Paul’s hand slipped smoothly around Floriana’s throat from behind, whilst the karambit blade carried the other way around her body to rest its tip under her plastic breasts. The girl stood rigid, a hand on her throat, a blade over her stomach.

“Are you watching, Miklos?”

Paul jabbed the karambit into Floriana’s flank making her shriek with the sudden shock. Her hands darted to the wound in her side. Paul slipped his hand away from her neck and yanked her head sideways. The karambit flashed up catching from collar bone to ear with a deathly move across her jugular. With astonishing speed Paul stepped back and swung the karambit across the back of her legs to hamstring her, dropping her to the ground. Standing over her sliced body, he leaned down to clamp his mouth across the gash in her neck. He felt her body locking rigid, her hands raising, her tiny little fists shaking with nowhere to go. Her mouth was clamped closed, her screams were hummed. It was controlled. Like a painful visit to the dentist of just taking the discomfort without interruption.