Murder in Vein (2010) (21 page)

"You can't stop thinking about it, can you?"

Madison gasped in surprise. Wilhelm had quietly returned,
startling her once again.

She shook her head. "No, that's not it. I didn't get much sleep
last night. I'm afraid I was dozing off."

From the smirk Wilhelm gave her, she knew he wasn't buying
her bullshit.

"I found her information." Wilhelm held a piece of paper in
his hand. "I wrote it down for you. According to our membership
notes, she left the coven about a year or so ago to get married, so
she might not have the same last name."

Madison thanked him and held out her hand for the paper,
but Wilhelm didn't give it to her. Instead, he sat back down on
the sofa, closer to Madison.

Wilhelm looked into Madison's eyes while his fingers stroked
her neck again. Her brain told her to get up and leave, but her
body wasn't listening. She was getting lost in Wilhelm's eyes, just
like she'd gotten lost in Samuel's.

"I gave you what you want," Wilhelm told her in a lullaby of
words, never taking his eyes off of hers, "now it's your turn to
help me."

"What do you want?" In spite of her resolve being sapped, her
words challenged him.

"Every day when I wake up," Wilhelm explained, "I feed off
an acolyte. It's my privilege as high priest. Today, Geoff was to
serve me, but he didn't show up." His fingers played with her hair,
using it to tickle her neck. "Today, I shall feed off of you."

She shook her head, both to dispel the trance and to say no.

"Yes, my girl, today you're not Colin's. Today you're mine. I'll
be your first."

Keeping his eyes glued to Madison's, Wilhelm reached back
and picked up the lancet. He held it up in front of her face, its
sharp point bright and inviting. "This is just the beginning to
new worlds for you, Madison," he said in hypnotic words of
seduction. "Just the beginning. Embrace it."

hen Madison came to, she was stretched out on the red
velvet sofa in the back room of Bat Beauty. She was alone.
Her sweater had been pulled up from behind. Her arms
were still encased in the sleeves, but the neck had been pulled up
and over her head, exposing her entire back. She sat upright and
pulled her sweater back over her head, covering herself. Next to
her on the sofa was a piece of paper. She picked it up. It contained the contact information for Sylvia Hannaford.

Leaning back against the sofa, she felt a stinging on the upper
part of her shoulder, near the back of her neck. Reaching back,
she felt a bandage. She also smelled alcohol. At least Wilhelm had
sanitized the wounds.

A fuzzy glance at her watch told Madison she'd been at Bat
Beauty for almost two hours. How much of that time was spent
passed out or being sucked on by a gay vampire wannabe, she
wasn't sure.

Taking the paper, she looked around for her bag before
remembering that she'd left it locked in the trunk of her car. She headed out the door and through the bar while fishing her car
keys out of the pocket of her jeans. She didn't look at the people
at the bar, nor did she look for Wilhelm. She just wanted to get
the hell out of Bat Beauty.

When Madison returned to the Dedham home, she went
straight upstairs to her room. She wanted to plug into her computer and see if she could find anything on Sylvia Hannaford.

Once upstairs, she noticed the door at the end of the hallway
was open. It was the door to the master suite. Thinking Doug and
Dodie were up already, she went to the doorway and knocked.
When she didn't get an answer, she stepped inside the dark room.

A gasp escaped Madison's lips before she could clasp a hand
over her mouth to muffle the scream. On the bed were the Dedhams-side by side cadavers. Doug was on his side, one arm
thrown across Dodie. Dodie was on her back, her hands folded
ladylike across her chest like a relief on a sarcophagus. Her eyes
were closed, but Doug's were open, staring without seeing. Dodie
wore a nightgown; Doug, pajamas. Neither were covered by a
sheet or blanket. Notwithstanding their spray tans, they were
deathly white and waxy. And stiff.

"What are you doing in here?" a voice behind her demanded.
Madison jumped. It was Pauline, standing in the doorway. In one
arm she cradled folded laundry. The hand of her free arm was
glued to her thick hip in annoyance. "You were told not to come
in here."

"I ... I ... ," Madison stammered, her voice shaking. "I saw the
door open and thought they might be up." She looked back at the
bed. "They're dead," she whispered, a catch in her voice.

"Of course they're dead," Pauline said, not keeping her voice
down. She snapped on the light, making the death scene on
the bed even more ghastly. "They're vampires. What did you
expect?"

Pauline pushed by Madison and walked to the triple dresser.
Opening a drawer, she placed some of the clean clothing inside
and closed it. She repeated the process with the remaining clothing in the next drawer down.

"But they're really dead, not sleeping." Madison inched back
toward the door.

"Vampires don't sleep." Pauline took Madison firmly by
the arm and guided her out of the room. On the way out, she
snapped off the light and closed the door behind them. "Every
day when they go to bed, they die. If you called in the coroner
right now," Pauline explained, "he'd examine them, then call the
meat wagon. And they can't be woken up like you and me. Shaking, noise-nothing brings them out of it until their bodies come
back to life on their own. It's just the way it is." Pauline squeezed
Madison's arm until it hurt. "It's also the only time they're vulnerable to attack, so it's important that no one goes in there
while they're like that. They trust you, Madison. That means you
must keep them safe, just like I do."

"There's no way to wake them?" Madison asked, looking back
at the closed door.

"Only one way," Pauline said, her face close to Madison's.
"Blood. The smell of fresh blood is the only thing that will snap
them out of it."

Pauline let go of Madison's arm when they were in front of
the guest room. "The Dedhams will be up soon enough." Pauline started down the stairs. "I'm heading home now, so you keep your nose out of their business and don't go in there again." She
shook a finger at Madison. "You hear?"

Madison looked at the closed door to the master suite and
shivered. She had no intention of going in there again.

The sun was almost down as Madison started up her computer and connected to the Internet. She checked her e-mail
account. Nothing. There was never much, except spam. She
started by Googling the name Sylvia Hannaford. Quite a few references popped up. She was starting to work her way through
them, looking for something that might connect her to the right
Sylvia Hannaford, when the wounds on her shoulder started
throbbing.

As she reached over her shoulder to touch the place were Wilhelm had fed off of her, tears welled in her eyes. When it became
difficult for her to see the computer screen, she got up and went
to the window.

Twilight was upon the canyon, settling over it like a soft veil.
Madison fixed her eyes on the house across the street, on the
corner of the roof that peeked at her through the trees. In a few
minutes it would be too dark for her to see it. Her tears came in
earnest. Rolling down her cheeks, they dripped unchecked onto
her sweater. She wiped them away with the back of her hand and
went to the bed, where she'd tossed her duffle bag. Opening it,
she started taking out the clothing, moving robotically as she
hung the items in the closet.

Grabbing the tampon boxes, she headed into the bathroom
to put them away, keeping busy to keep the memory of what had
happened at Bat Beauty at bay. But when she saw her reflection
in the mirror, a choking sob escaped her lips. Then another. She didn't look different, but she felt different. Wetting a facecloth
with cool water, Madison pressed it against her swelling eyes.

Continuing to coo in a rhythmic, spellbinding voice, Wilhelm
had coaxed her into submission, even as her last shred of will
had stood against him like the last soldier standing in a conflict.

"Turn around," he'd ordered gently. "Face away from me."

When she had turned on the sofa so that she was sitting with
her back to him, he'd raised her sweater from behind and lifted
it over her head, leaving her arms encased in the sleeves. She'd
helped him, not understanding why. Once the sweater was off,
Wilhelm had gathered up her long hair, sweeping it over her
right shoulder. Then he had kissed her on her neck, on the left
side, at the very place he sought to defile. It hadn't been a sexual kiss but one of preparation, almost of worship. Madison had
relaxed, taking a deep breath. Soaking in his words of persuasion,
she'd given in to Wilhelm like a drowning man who realizes he's
too tired to thrash any longer and accepts his fate.

When the lancet first stuck, Madison had cried out in pain.
It had been fast, and the instrument had penetrated surprisingly
deep for such a small blade. Almost immediately, Wilhelm had
encircled her waist with one arm and clamped his mouth down
on the wound, making gleeful sucking noises like a babe to a
breast. Beneath his grasp, Madison had whimpered.

When Wilhelm pulled away, she'd thought it was over, but the
lancet had struck again, and again she'd cried in pain. By the time
the tiny blade had ripped into her skin for a fourth time, an emotionally and mentally exhausted Madison had passed out.

Lifting her face to the bathroom mirror, she lowered the facecloth and studied her reflection again. What horrified her wasn't
what had happened but the fact that, if she were honest with herself, she'd liked it or had found it stimulating on some bizarre
level. Jerry Lerma had called being bitten just that-stimulating.

Madison felt ashamed.

Turning her back to the mirror, Madison slid to the bathroom
floor until she was sitting with her long legs straight out and her
back against the cabinet. She tried to focus on the bathtub across
from her, using the clean white porcelain to cleanse her mind.

"Madison, are you all right?"

Madison didn't move, just continued to stare glassy-eyed at
the tub while she sniffed back tears.

Dodie Dedham, dressed in her nightgown and robe, stepped
into the bathroom and looked down at the devastated young
woman. "What is it, dear? We could hear you crying."

When Madison started weeping harder, Dodie slipped down
on the tile floor next to her and took her in her arms. Madison
gave in to the comfort of the older woman and nestled against
her soft but cold body, clinging to her as the tears continued to
flow.

Doug Dedham appeared in the doorway in his pajamas and
looked down at the two women, a look of concern stamped on
his face. Cradling the crying Madison, Dodie looked up at her
husband and indicated for him to leave them alone for a bit. He
tiptoed away without Madison ever noticing he was there.

For the next several minutes, Dodie held Madison, whispering words of comfort as she rocked her gently.

"I let him do it," Madison finally choked out without looking
at Dodie. "I'm so stupid."

Keeping her voice soft and even, Dodie asked, "Who did what,
Madison?"

"Wilhelm. I let ... I let him suck my blood."

The rocking stopped as Dodie stiffened. "Wilhelm? The high
priest at Bat Beauty? He attacked you?"

Still weeping, Madison shook her head against Dodie's shoulder. "He didn't attack me. I let him."

With ragged words, Madison gave Dodie a summary of what
had happened at Bat Beauty and why she'd gone there. When
Madison was done, her tears again flowed heavily. Dodie continued rocking and murmuring words of comfort, but her face was
hard and her eyes flashed with anger.

"Someone will deal with Lord Wilhelm," she told Madison. "I
can assure you.

"No" Madison turned her puffy face toward Dodie. "You
don't understand. I let him. I bartered with him for the information about Sylvia. It was no different than if I'd dropped
my pants and spread my legs." A sob from deep in her gut tore
through Madison. "At least it felt no different." She pulled back
a few inches and wiped her face with her hand. "Mike's right-I
am a whore."