A Kiss Beneath the Veil (7 page)

Daphne
couldn’t see Isaac’s shadow anymore. They’d left the town behind and were
heading into the forest and patches of cleared farmland that surrounded it.
They swung into a turn too fast and nearly spun out in a full circle as Mark
took the exit to a gravel road. Daphne slid into Mark’s side before he
overcorrected and she was bounced back against her door. She looked around
frantically to see if Isaac had been thrown from the car and saw only the
silhouette of a farmhouse in the distance.

“Mark!”
Daphne cried as she caught site of movement on the gravel road ahead of them.
He slammed on the brakes and fishtailed into the ditch as a small boy ran
through their headlights and disappeared into the night. Daphne screamed as the
car slammed into the embankment, nearly rolling before crashing back down in a
cloud of dust.

Chapter Five

 
“Daphne!
Daphne!
Are you all right?” Isaac’s voice finally penetrated the fog she’d
entered when her head slammed against the dashboard.

“Yes! Yes,
I’m fine.
The little boy!
” Daphne cried, sitting bolt upright and seeing
Isaac’s concerned face at her window, and the open door and empty driver’s seat
at her side. Had they hit the child? Where had he come from?!

“I will find
him. Mark was thrown from the car, stay away from his body,” Isaac said. He
leaned in to kiss her gently before disappearing.

Daphne let
her head fall back and rested her palm over the lump above her eyebrow. She prayed
the little boy was okay and peered from behind her fingers toward Mark’s open
door. She could see his legs sprawled across the dirt. Was he dead? She tried
to feel glad about that. At trial he might have found a super-slimy lawyer who
could’ve gotten him off on an insanity plea or something. This way justice
really was served.

One of
Mark’s legs suddenly twitched. Daphne’s hand slid down to stifle her gasp. She
tried to quietly open her door, hoping she’d be able to get up the embankment
before he made it to his feet, but the door was jammed shut from the crash.

Where was
Isaac?! Should she scream for him?

Mark’s leg
twitched again, then both of his legs started flopping, not like a person
waking up, more like someone having a seizure. Or struggling.

The gurgling
wheeze of a person choking came through the open door. Daphne didn’t want to
see Mark’s death throws, but something felt wrong about his movements. She forced
herself to lean over the seat and peer through his broken window. A hooded
scarecrow was crouched over Mark’s head, its gloved fists wrapped around Mark’s
throat, choking the life out of him.

An
inarticulate scream burst out of her. The creature’s head snapped up and it
lunged for the open door. Daphne scrambled between the seats, shouting Isaac’s
name. Rough leather fingers wrapped around her ankle as she swiped at the door
handle, dragging her back across the gear shifter and out the open door.

“No!!!
Isaac!!!” she screamed, landing a lucky kick to the man’s gut that made him
stumble back over Mark’s still form.

She didn’t
have time to stand and simply dragged herself under the car as the scarecrow
came after her again. She couldn’t see the ground beneath her and could barely
distinguish the edges of the car and the movements of the man stalking her.

“ISAAC!!!!”
she screamed again
with everything she had.

“I’m gunna
gitcha!” The killer shouted through his mask as she tried to keep herself out
of his reach. Her eyes were opened as wide as possible, trying to see in the
almost total darkness. He threw a handful of dirt and rocks in her face when
she turned to watch for his groping hands, momentarily blinding her. She
couldn’t see him coming around the vehicle and suddenly found herself being dragged
across the rocky ground by her foot. He twisted it sharply to keep her from
kicking him as she scrubbed frantically at her streaming eyes, trying to catch
hold of anything that could be used as a weapon.

Her hands
were still empty when she was finally face to face with the murderer again, and
he punched her before she could raise them in defense. The world went white and
red with the shock.

Movies lie.
When you’re hit in the face, you don’t just bounce back swinging. Daphne felt
like the Earth had shifted with that blow. It almost knocked her already
bruised brain the rest of the way to unconsciousness, but she was still partly
there when the killer began choking her.

The feeling
of so much pressure on her wind pipe was indescribable. Her already burning
eyes felt ready to burst with the blood pooling in her head.  Her desperation
for air, for a single breath shot adrenaline through her whole body, but she
still couldn’t do more than kick her legs helplessly the way poor Mark had. The
scarecrow was kneeling his full weight on her arms. Her entire body was lit with
pain and terror, and she was blacking out quickly. Sparks of purple began to
eat away the edges of her vision.

She was
almost gone, almost drifting away from herself completely, when the killer was
knocked off of her. She was able to finally suck air through her swollen throat
and roll to her side to let her muddy tears wash her vision clear.

Daphne could
see the scarecrow through a blurry haze. He was lying on his back nearby while
Mark bent over him, punching him repeatedly in the face. The murderer’s mask
was turning black, probably from blood. Daphne wanted to do something, but she
could barely move. The muscles in her arms that he’d crushed refused to lever
her upright.

  Isaac
reappeared by her car door without warning. She blinked once and he’d already scooped
her up and flashed her away from the dark road to a well-lit parking lot. Daphne’s
head was spinning from lack of oxygen and all the sudden movements he was
making. How long had he been gone? Minutes? It felt like days.

Isaac ran
through the sliding doors nearby, his stride so smooth that it didn’t jostle
her, and began yelling, “Help us, at once! Help us!”

Daphne was
immediately surrounded by a group of nurses, doctors and uniformed police officers
scurrying around and looking shell shocked.

“Is she
another victim?”

“Miss,
are you having trouble breathing?”

“I need a
gurney!”

Everyone was
talking at once, except Daphne. She couldn’t force any words out of her
battered throat. Her eyes were still filled with sand and she was blinking
rapidly, seeing the room in strobe effect. Then she caught sight of Isaac’s
face as he was being pressed farther back by her attendants.

Mark
, she mouthed repeatedly until Isaac
nodded sharply and disappeared.

She finally
relaxed back and allowed the hospital staff to help her. Over the next hour her
eyes were rinsed out and she was given several kinds of drugs for pain and
swelling. Her arms had purple bruises from shoulder to elbow. She could only
imagine that there was a similar ring of bruises around her neck.

Daphne
needed to know if Mark was okay, and whether the murderer was dead or at least
apprehended. Most of all she needed Isaac. Why hadn’t he come back yet?

It took
another two hours before that question was answered.

Daphne was
drifting in and out of sleep when the curtain around her bed rustled open.
Isaac slipped in and took her hand. Relief rushed over her and she tried to
smile, but her lip was split. So she settled for squeezing his hand instead. He
began whispering softly in French, and by the look on his face he was probably
cursing himself, taking responsibility for what had happened to her. She
squeezed his hand again, unable to tell him that she was okay, that it wasn’t
his fault. He bent over her, his soft lips trailing kisses over her eyes and
mouth. His touch was so light that it didn’t hurt at all and seemed to draw
away some of the lingering ache there. She wondered briefly if that was another
secret vamp gift.

He finally
lifted her hand and spoke against her fingers, his beautiful eyes tight with
regret.

“I am so
sorry, my love. I should have been there. I should never have left you. I
thought Mark...” he said, trailing off and shaking his head with another string
of foreign curses. “The little boy, that monster had been strangling him. I had
to get him to the hospital. I tried to be quick, but they asked so many
questions...”

That
explained a lot. She tried telling him that he’d done the right thing, but
nothing came out except a shredded whistling sound. She winced in pain, but
knew that he’d understood by his stubborn expression. He wasn’t going to
forgive himself, no matter that Daphne didn’t blame him one bit. She pursed her
lips in annoyance at how mulish he was being. Isaac had thought that Daphne
would be safe waiting while he transported the child to safety. And she would
have been if Mark were actually the killer, which, as it turned out, he wasn’t.
Daphne was incredibly relieved by that. She liked Mark, or at least she had
until his pouting turned him into an annoying jackass. Still, she hoped that he
was okay and mouthed as much to Isaac.

“Mark is
fine. He’s here actually, wanting to talk with you,” Isaac said. Waiting until
she’d mimed an affirmative to call the other man in.

Isaac leaned
a hip against the side of her bed and trailed his fingers lightly across the
back of her hand. It was a possessive gesture, and one she appreciated greatly
after the look of shock Mark gave her when he saw her face. She obviously
looked like hell, but Isaac hadn’t given any indication that she wasn’t ten
times as hot as a V.S. model doing a spread for hospital play.

“Oh god,
Daphne! You look horrible! Jeeze, I’m so sorry,” he babbled, scrunching up his
face as though he were grossed out.

She raised
her eyebrows at him and winced again as the bruise from the car crash began to
sting. Her face probably was mashed up really badly. She ran her tongue over
her teeth just to make sure they were all still there before pointing at Mark
and making her own grossed out face. Both of his eyes were blackened and he
sported red bands across his neck where the murderer had begun to choke him.

Mark flicked
a glance at Isaac and immediately schooled his face into more neutral lines.
When she looked to see if Isaac had been throwing the evil eye, he simply
smiled down at her reassuringly. She’d just have to thank him for it later.

“I, ah, just
wanted to see how you were and to apologize and to explain everything,” he
said, stumbling and obviously trying not to look her in the face again.

Daphne waved
at him encouragingly, she was still in the dark and wanted an explanation for
what had transpired that night. Mark nodded, his eyes skating over her. She
noticed that his hands were shaking as he tucked them in his pockets. She wondered
if their trembling had always been the reason for that gesture and she’d just
never noticed before.

“The guy,
the murderer, I helped convict him eight years ago. He maintained his innocence
back then, but the evidence had been so damning. He had pictures of a murdered
child on his computer. He said he’d found them on the internet, but it just
seemed-” Mark said, cutting himself off abruptly. “It turns out he was innocent
in that murder. DNA evidence proved that he wasn’t the killer about a year ago
and he was released. He blamed me for his conviction, sent me letters when he
was in prison saying as much. When he got out, he moved back into the old farm
where his parents used to live on the outskirts of town. I should have
suspected him from the start. I guess my guilt over being wrong before made me
ignore him. I should have known...”

Mark’s face
blanched with pain. Daphne felt swamped with guilt herself, if she’d just told
Mark what Emma had said earlier he might’ve been able to stop the killer before
he hurt the little boy.

“You figured
it out in time to keep him from killing again, and you saved my life as well,”
Daphne mouthed and Isaac translated. “I’m sorry I thought you were the
murderer.”

Isaac’s tone
of voice conveyed his own apology as well and his gratitude for saving Daphne’s
life.

“No problem,
I know how easy a mistake that is to make,” Mark said bitterly.

When she
gestured for him to continue he told her that Isaac had returned and helped him
subdue the killer, whose name was actually Randal Rican, until the squadron of
cop cars that he’d called for help finally arrived. The little boy was doing
well. He’d been stolen from his bed that night and taken to an overgrown field by
Randal. The killer had been startled by Mark’s sudden appearance and allowed
the frightened child to escape.

“The only
thing that doesn’t add up is how you and him got to the hospital so fast,” Mark
finally said, looking confused and turning to Isaac questioningly.

Isaac leaned
toward Mark and spoke in a low voice, “That is not a question that will plague
you again.”

Daphne felt
her sore brows lift in surprise as Mark’s eyes went wide and vacant. She
smacked Isaac on the shoulder hoping he wasn’t giving Mark permanent brain
damage and he threw her a devilish wink.