Authors: Ginger Voight
Roman was there
in the courtroom when the judge delivered the blow about Adele’s fragile mental state, shocking Roman to the core. He would have never guessed she had spent her entire life tormented by any psychological disorder. But she had, and now it was all a matter of public record, thanks mostly to his own investigation.
When it came down to it, he was the one who had done the most shocking expose, rather than the reporter who was known in their region for doing so. He had almost ravaged her career, but that
didn’t even scratch the surface what he did to her emotions. It had all been true, but had it really been necessary?
Regardless
of what the investigation uncovered, what had always been more important to Roman was that he had always trusted his gut. Roman simply knew that she would not hurt Danielle.
There had to be another explanation.
There just had to be.
Unfortunately Jim Nelson
didn’t see things the same way. He finally cornered Roman a bit later, trying to convince him they needed to get a court order for any medical reports on Adele’s psychological problems. Roman wouldn’t hear of it.
“
You don’t know her,” Roman insisted, determined not to skewer her in the justice system again. The way she had looked in the courtroom all those years ago had implanted itself on his brain. She was a victim of her disorder, something that hurt her way more than it could have hurt anyone else. And she seemed to prefer it that way.
It only made his guilt that much more wrenching.
“What’s there to know?” Jim asked. “She’s talking about vampires, Roman.”
Roman
didn’t say anything. It was the word they’d never uttered no matter what the injuries on the dead victims suggested, and despite the fact that Lily Maldonado had been discovered drained completely of any blood in her tiny body. If they broached the subject, they mentioned that a suspect wanted it to look like a vampire.
Only Adele had the courage enough to say
that was what the suspect actually was.
And she was the only one who saw the assailan
t.
“
I’m not saying she doesn’t have problems,” Roman said. “I’m just saying she’s not a killer. And I’m not going to drag her reputation through the mud in order to prove to you what I already know.”
Jim sighed.
“Listen, Roman. We’ve known each other for years. You know I trust you. But I think you’re a little too close to this case. We’ll do it your way for now. But if one more thing happens, I will take it to the D.A. myself and he’ll make the decisions then.”
“
Deal,” Roman conceded, hoping that nothing else would happen to incriminate Adele. Only now, he couldn’t be sure.
Adele wandered the familiar hallway, the doors still locked. A voice boomed all around her. “If you love him, you will do it.”
“
Love who?” she demanded. She ran faster down the hall, banged on more doors, twisted unyielding doorknobs. “Who are you? What do you want from me?”
She spun around to see Isabel
once again standing behind her. “The time is right,” she stated simply and pushed Adele right through a door.
Adele teetered right on the edge of the door jam
b, hovering over the black abyss below. Her long nails dug into the wood of the door frame, splintering tiny shards underneath her fingernails. Beneath were voices, lots of voices, and hideous, shrieking laughter that almost sounded like cries of pain. She glanced helplessly at Isabel, whose black eyes began to squirm and ooze thick black liquid as her whole body fell apart into huge angry rats that scattered across the door frame, over Adele’s bare feet. With a screech Adele fell backwards, engulfed in blackness.
She fell
hard and fast until she landed right in her hospital bed.
This jolted Adele awake in the still, cold hospital room. She was tied to the rails with restraints on
her wrists. Her lungs felt hollow, as if her chest was devoid of any more sobs, and she felt more alone than she’d ever felt in her life.
She had no way of knowing Michael had just left his steady post at her bedside to visit Dani, who was on another floor receiving a critical blood transfusion.
Michael approached the
pale girl’s bed on the side where bandages patched up her wound. He crossed himself before gently pulling away the bloody gauze to investigate the bite mark, to see it for himself.
Two holes were punched into the side of her bruised neck. They moved as though breathing, and virtually seemed to hiss when Michael pulled the
ornate bottle from his pocket.
He gulped before sprinkled the holy water over Dani.
“In nomine Patris, et Filee, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.”
The wounds began
to writhe and scream; the flesh sizzled and burned as the water splashed against the two angry red holes. Nasty green liquid began to pump from the holes and Dani convulsed unconsciously. The monitors went crazy and several nurses burst into the room.
They were to
o busy to notice as Michael fell backwards, tripping right into a chair. “It’s true,” he whispered. “God help us, it’s true.”
CHAPTER
SEVEN
Adele gulped her pills and swigged from her bottle of water. She shoved the medicinal bottle to the bottom of her bag and hid it under her desk as Duncan approached.
“Nice to have you back,” he stated, his sarcasm pointed as he perched on the edge of her desk.
“
Thank you,” she mumbled as she opened her file on the serial killings, which now contained a lead story from Denise Carter on Dani’s attack and Adele’s rescue.
“
It concerns me that you were scooped on a story where you were the eye witness.” She said nothing as she absently rubbed her wrists, which still bore the bruises from the hospital restraints. Duncan sighed. “You know, we’ve had this trouble before”
“
And I’ve always handled it before,” she interrupted.
“
Addie, you’re a damned fine reporter, you and I both know that. But I have a business to run. I can’t baby sit you and your problems.”
That hurt.
“I’m not asking you to babysit me, Sam.”
He sighed.
“I think it’s time to give this story to Ed.”
“
No!” Her sharp tone didn’t sit well with Duncan. He stood up and squared his shoulders.
“
I can do this,” Sam,” she asserted. “No more problems. My hand to God.”
“
You don’t believe in God,” he reminded her.
She laughed. It was a hollow, humorless sound.
“I’m not half as smart as I thought I was a week ago.”
He sighed again as he glanced over her pallid features.
“Me either, I guess. Because I’m going to let you keep your story. But the next time you screw up…”
“
I’ll bring the tar. You bring the feathers.”
“Don
’t think I won’t,” he tossed over his shoulder as he turned for the door. He was nearly mowed down by Brian in the process, who was on his way into the office in a hurry. Duncan just grunted as he sidestepped him. For a newsman, he was a man of few words.
“Sorry, boss,” Brian called after him.
“
Yeah, yeah,” Duncan mumbled. Brian closed the door after him.
“
Who’s got your back?” Brian asked smiling wide. He dropped a note on her desk with a name scribbled on it.
“
What’s this?”
“
Denise Carter’s secret weapon. This is her source.”
She looked up at him with surprise.
“How did you get it?”
He grinned big.
“You’re not the only one with tricks up their sleeve. I used a little good old fashioned charm on Denise’s assistant and she sang like a canary. She said this guy seems to know what is going to happen before it happens.”
“
Here’s to good old fashioned charm,” Adele said as she gathered her things.
The address took her to a
narrow street in the oldest part of Darlington. This was where most of the gypsies congregated; along the streets were psychics and tarot readers, occult book stores and magic shops. It was new territory for Adele. She had long come to dismiss it all as whimsy at best. Deep in her heart, though, she harbored some darker suspicious that it was just another capitalist con on the weak minded, who needed something to believe to get through day after monotonous day.
The clanging bell above the door announced her arrival
into a musty old bookstore. The place was dimly lit and smelled strongly of frankincense. The bookshelves went all the way from the floor to the high ceilings on either side of the room, with a bunch of smaller bookshelves in between. She made her way down the very narrow aisle to the counter where smoke rose hypnotically from an incense burner.
Hello?
” she called out. No one answered, so she browsed the aisle as she waited. Books that talked about witchcraft, spells, past lives, astrology and even creatures of the night lined the jam-packed shelves.
She pulled out
an old hardback titled
“Vampires, Myth, Legend and Fact.”
As she opened the musty book and flipped through the yellowing pages, she found a photo of a figure in a black hooded cloak, whose eyes were as burning yellow as the sun. She gasped and the book slipped right through her fingers, landing on the floor with a thud.
“
What do you want?” a voice came from behind. She whirled around to face the slight man with long hair as dark as her own barely covering a scar that scrawled from the edge of his ear to the bridge of his nose. He wore black from head to toe, as though he spent his nights headlining for a rock band. There were silver rings nearly all of his fingers, leather and stone bracelets on each wrist and his short fingernails were painted pitch black.
She sucked in a breath to realize i
t was the same man she nearly ran over as she ran from the church during Lily’s funeral. She was so taken aback that she stammered as she answered his question.“Nothing,” Adele said while retrieving the book. “Just browsing.”
He snatched the book from her hand.
“You’re lying,” he stated, shoving the book back into place. He turned from her astonished expression and headed back toward the counter.
“
Excuse me?” she finally said.
“
You’re lying,” he repeated as he perched on a stool. “Nobody comes in here just to browse.”
“
Not even tourists?” she challenged.
“Not even tourists,” he answered.
“People who come in here have specific questions and want precise answers. It’s more than curiosity that pulls them through that door. It’s a purpose. And you want to know about vampires.”
Her mouth dropped open. She was shaken, but tried her level best to recover.
“Fine. I’m here to meet with Vincent.”
“
What do you want with him?” he asked.
“
I’m a reporter,” she began but he cut her off.
“
I know who you are.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“You’re Vincent,” she finally concluded.
He nodded.
“I am.”
“
I’m here because I believe you have information on what’s going on with the child murders here in Darlington.”
He chuckled; it was a hollow, humorless sound.
“Like I said, you want to know about vampires.”
She shook her head.
“I’m not here to entertain whimsy.”
“
Whimsy? And what do you suppose it was that you saw?”
Again she was rattled, again she suppressed it.
“It seems you know more about me than I know about you.”
He said nothing as he pulled a book from under the counter. As it fell open tons of newspaper clippings slipped from the pages. He pushed it across the counter to her and then leaned back.
She began to sift through the clippings from different towns, from different decades and even different centuries. All had the same gruesome headlines detailing the same type of killer, the same type of victim, and the same damn story. There was only one thing missing from the Darlington accounts: the word vampire. “Has Denise Carter seen these?” she demanded suddenly.
He did not seem startled by the qu
estion. He just shook his head.
“
So why have you decided to play this game on me then?”
He grabbed the book and slammed it shut.
“Why do you come looking for answers only to question them?”
“
Because vampires are not real,” she retorted. “You might as well tell me the Easter Bunny is going on a rampage.”
He said nothing as he studied her. Without a word he rounded the counter and began tugging books from the shelves. He approached and dumped them rather unceremoniously into her arms.