––––––––
As soon as I rose for the night, I checked to see whether my hands were covered in plastic bags, socks or any other form of makeshift gloves. They weren’t. I was also still fully clothed and lying scrunched up on the couch.
Luc sat on the edge of the bed, grimly checking the edge of the sword. I hope it’ll be sharp when he hacks my head off with it, I thought morosely. If I had to die, I’d prefer one blow to do the job rather than several. The idea of Luc needing to take a few swings to get the job done didn’t fill me with delight.
I received a sardonic look at my rather obvious whole body inspection and chose to ignore it. Leaving the hideous couch, I headed for the tiny bathroom. Turning the water on full blast, I took care of the flesh hunger Luc knew full well was raging through me as quietly as possible. After one good orgasm, I was good to go. Of course, I had to bite my hand to muffle the sounds. Forgetting my new strength, I bit right through to the bone. My blood had definitely changed but it wasn’t quite as acidic and horrible as Silvius’ had been. Luckily, the bite marks had healed by the time I finished blow drying my hair.
“Shall we?” I said snidely to my sombre companion and picked up the book from where I’d left it on the coffee table. With my cross in place and book in hand, I was ready to leave.
Narrowing his eyes, Luc studied me then shook his head. I was a puzzle he’d never be able to solve. Hell, even I didn’t know how I worked. I didn’t have the uncontrollable hungers normal fledgling vampires had. I felt sorry for my meals. I didn’t particularly want to kill anyone. What sort of vampire was I? A fairly lame one so far.
It would take too long to drive back to France so we headed for the nearest airport instead. Luc stopped long enough to buy a long black coat to conceal the sword that would be the instrument of my death. I could imagine the screams of panic if we entered the airport sans coat.
Leaving the beat up old truck at the far end of the short term parking lot, we hurried toward the small airport. It was still early enough for it to be crowded. Luc drew stares either from his constant frown or his brooding good looks. He scanned the flight boards and located the next plane to France.
“We must hurry. The flight is scheduled to leave in twenty minutes.”
“That’s cutting it close,” I murmured. We still had to buy the tickets and make it through the x-ray machines before we could board the flight.
Smiling down at me and making me feel all fluttery in the stomach, Luc winked. “Trust me, Natalie. We will make it.”
My heart also tried to flutter but couldn’t since it was dead and shrivelled. I hid my dismay that we would be back at the Court in just a few short hours. “My hero,” I said in a high pitched falsetto tone and batted my eyelashes. This earned me another small smile as we reached the end of the ticket line.
Once again we had a space around us that kept us insulated from the rest of the people in line. I was glad we’d eaten before we went to bed. Hunger hovered somewhere in my subconscious but it wasn’t knocking on the door of my stomach and demanding admittance.
Luc handed over a credit card to the guy behind the counter and nabbed us two seats on the flight to France. The card surprised me even after having seen him hotwire the truck. He was very progressive for someone who had died not long after the dark ages had happened. If I were to live for seven hundred years, what would I see? A list flew through my head; hover cars, teleportation instead of airplanes, telepathy instead of telephones, instant meals in pill form. Again, my imagination stumped me. I need to read more sci-fi books. Then again, why bother to read them when I could potentially live to see mankind’s most farfetched ideas come to life?
Leaving the desk with our tickets in hand, Luc’s coat caught momentarily and flashed open. A young woman passing by saw the sword. Her mouth opened to scream and she made the mistake of glancing up at Luc’s face. He bamboozled her with his vampire magic and leaned down as he passed. “You didn’t see anything troubling,” he whispered silkily into her ear.
“No,” she agreed in a wooden voice, “I saw nothing at all.” She continued on without raising the alarm.
“Neat,” I murmured, impressed again by how good my new and only friend was at being a vampire. Maybe I’d be that smooth one day. Don’t kid yourself, my subconscious scoffed. It clearly knew me better than I did.
It was my turn to use my strange powers of allure at the x-ray machines. I might not be smooth like Luc but I was able to capture the eye of the guard easily enough. While I had the unfortunate sap under my spell, Luc went into action. He quickly removed his coat and hid the blade in the folds before placing it on the conveyor belt. I took my time, earning grumbles from the people in line behind me. It was hard to keep my eyes on the guard’s and to strip off my shoes at the same time but I managed it without falling over.
Luc made it through the metal detector and retrieved his coat and sword without drawing attention. I released the guard’s gaze with relief and put my shoes, cross and the prophet’s journal in a plastic tray. It took practice to bamboozle people for more than a few seconds at a time.
“Finally!” An elderly man in the line behind me muttered in a foreign language I couldn’t place. I rolled my eyes but refrained from saying anything childish in return.
Hurrying through the metal detector, I rescued my belongings and quickly reshod myself. My cross received a grimace from Luc as I stuffed it back into my pants and out of sight.
We made the flight just as they were giving the final boarding call. Again we were separated during the trip. Luc took the window seat this time. I’d have liked to have seen him try to explain away the sword if he’d been in my seat. Was it even possible to hypnotise a bunch of people at once?
This time I was trapped in between two people in the middle section of the plane. On my right was a woman about my age. She gave me a quick smile then pulled a book from her handbag. On my left was a teenage boy. His look was surly and lingered on my chest. My cool stare had him flushing and turning away, pretending he hadn’t been caught staring at my boobs.
A few minutes after the plane took off, I gingerly opened the journal and began reading through it again. I caught the woman to my right staring in open mouthed fascination at one of the illustrated pages. It was a picture of me slaying a bunch of grovelling vampires. Luckily, the Mortis in the pictures really did look nothing like me. Angling the book away from my fellow passenger and into the light more, I noticed something I’d missed last night. The shadows cringing on the ground in the pictures looked different from their masters. So it wasn’t just my imagination. The Prophet saw it, too. But what did it mean? I had no answer for that one and the prophet had relapsed back into his coma so I could hardly go back and ask him.
Again, our flight was over six hours long but there were no delays this time and we landed well before dawn. I waited for Luc to reach my row before squeezing into the line behind him. He kept his hand on the pommel of the sword to stop it catching on the seats or from banging into anyone’s legs.
We made it through customs with practiced ease and stood indecisively off to the side out of the flow of foot traffic.
“I guess the guards aren’t waiting for us this time,” I said after a couple of minutes of waiting.
“It would appear not,” was Luc’s disturbed answer. He might be fairly progressive for the anciently undead but he didn’t seem to have a mobile phone. He motioned me to follow and headed for a bank of pay phones. Dialling a number, his expression turned dark when the phone rang out.
“Something is wrong,” he said after hanging up. “No one is answering the phone.”
“I thought the Comtesse didn’t like phones.” I almost called her the praying mantis again but you never knew who was watching or listening so quenched the urge. Great, now I’m becoming paranoid. Hadn’t I heard somewhere that you weren’t paranoid if people really were watching you?
“While the Comtesse does not approve, she understands that it is a useful tool. A telephone was installed several decades ago and someone always monitors it.”
“So, it’s a bad sign that no one is monitoring it right now, huh?” My question was obvious and didn’t require an answer. Our eyes met and we came to the same conclusion. The impostor me must have made a trip to the Court and not just for a friendly cup of tea. I wasn’t entirely unhappy at the thought of hordes of vampires being slaughtered like cattle. Practically speaking, it just meant less vamps for me to take down later on.
“What do you think we should do?” I asked. As I’d suspected, he already had a plan in mind.
“I must see if there are any survivors.” I’d almost forgotten for a moment there that Lord Lucentio was the vampire equivalent of a cop. Of course he’d need to investigate what had happened. It was his duty and obligation. Now, if I could just wait somewhere safe while he went about his investigating, I’d be much happier.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? What if the impersonator is still there?”
“Then,” he said after a short pause, “you shall battle as the Prophet predicted.”
“Great,” I muttered without enthusiasm as he headed for the rental car desk. I might be the favourite for the battle ahead but that didn’t mean I was looking forward to it. I especially wasn’t looking forward to what the journal said would happen after I slaughtered my way through the bulk of vampires in the world.
“We should feed and find a place to hide during daylight hours,” Luc decided.
“Good idea.” Any plan that would prolong the moment I had to face my nemesis had to be a good one.
“I’ll meet you at the rental car desk in twenty minutes,” he said, already turning away to find his victim.
Scanning the airport, I was frozen with indecision. I only had a short time to find a meal and I had no idea where to start. Then I spotted a likely victim and knew how a lion felt when picking a vulnerable calf out of a herd of water buffalo. A cleaner was heading for a maintenance closet after a hard night of work to stash his tools away. Pushing a plastic trolley full of cleaning products, his attention was on the floor and his steps were weary. A peek at his face indicated he was half asleep.
Glancing around casually to make sure I was unobserved, I closed in on the target. He had the trolley most of the way into the closet when I pounced. Pushing him inside, I pulled the door shut after me.
“What’s going on?” he asked in French. It was completely lightless inside the small room.
“Sorry,” I said as he fumbled for the light switch, “I thought this was the bathroom.” I had no idea if he could understand me or not but it didn’t matter once the light bloomed. As soon as it came on, my eyes caught his and he was lost.
My nose was clogged with the overpowering smells of cleaning products but that didn’t deter me from biting into his neck. The taste of blood drowned out the scent of harsh bleach and lemon cleanser. The cleaner sank to the floor wearing a happy smile when I was done with him.
Opening the door cautiously, I made sure the coast was clear before switching off the light and pulling the door closed. My watch said I still had ten minutes left as I sauntered towards the rental car desk. My self-satisfied smile turned into a scowl when I found Luc already leaning against the counter, waiting for me.
“That must have been a quick snack,” he said with a gleam in his dark eyes.
“I’ve always been partial to fast food,” I said with a casual shrug.
Leaning over, he brushed his thumb over my bottom lip then brought it to his mouth and delicately licked it clean. “You missed a bit,” he said with a smile.
Mesmerized by his charm like a defenceless human, it took the pointed throat clearing of the rental car woman to snap me out of it. Luc smirked then turned to take the keys.
“Where are we going?” I asked when we were nosing out of the airport grounds.
“To a safe house.”
“Are you sure it’s still safe?” My query was dubious considering the lack of response he’d had from the mansion.
He inclined his head. “Yes. People I trust have already taken up residence in the house.” So, he’d had time to find a meal and to make another call before I’d met him back at the rental car desk. Centuries of practice must make perfect. I didn’t bother to ask who we would be meeting at the safe house. If Luc trusted them then I’d just have to trust them, too. He’d managed to keep me unalive this long, hadn’t he? My insidious subconscious tried to bring up the fact that Luc would also be the one to end my life but I ignored it. There was no use dwelling on something that I couldn’t change. My demise had been prophesized and that was the end of it. Really? You’re just going to give up without a fight? The thought was too loud to ignore successfully this time.
We drove through dark countryside in the general direction of the Court mansion but pulled up several kilometres short. The narrow road we turned onto took us to a small country town. As we drove through it, I wondered how many of these unsuspecting townsfolk had served as vampire chow over the past few centuries.
Our safe house turned out to be a rustic old farmhouse. Two levels high, it was made of a combination of brick and wood. Smoke flowed from its four chimneys, a sure sign it was a vampire abode. It could be the middle of summer and the fires would probably still be lit.
Luc pulled into a four car garage with a dirt floor that had only one other car in it. The vehicle was black and strangely familiar. I saw why when a door leading to the house opened. Igor, who had chauffeured us from the airport to the mansion and back, nodded curtly at me. He and Luc immediately began exchanging quiet conversation. I followed behind them as they entered the house.
I heard every word of their conversation and translated it without hassle. Apparently, my impersonator had burst into the Court mansion two nights ago. She had cut a swathe through several guards before being surrounded. The Comtesse and other Councillors had been whisked away by more guards who had apparently been prepared for a quick escape.
Maybe the impostor wasn’t as skilled as I’d thought if she’d already been captured. Igor shattered my illusions by going on to say that she had then struck down twenty guards. Naturally, the rest had fled before she could skewer them with her weapon of choice, a spear. She had disappeared into the night and no one had any idea where she’d gone.
“Does she bear the signs?” Luc asked quietly. Igor paused with his hand on a door leading deeper into the farmhouse. His answer was a shrug. He replied that he had been outside the whole time. He’d heard this second or third hand from survivors.
“But,” he said, “I heard from a reliable source that she does have some strange marks on her hands.”
Sharing a disturbed look, Luc and I followed him through the door.
·~·