Authors: Ginger Voight
Just as their lips met the window of her bedroom shattered. Nicholas and Adele jumped apart to find Thaddeus standing larger than life in the middle of her bedroom. His angry eyes glowed dark red.
“You traitor!” he hissed at Nicholas.
Adele covered herself
with a blanket as Nicholas advanced on Thaddeus. “I betrayed no one!” he shouted back. “This is what you promised me!”
“
I promised you would be with her again,” Thaddeus corrected. “And you have. But she is mine. She always will be!”
Adele stepped in between Thaddeus and Nicholas.
“I do not belong to you,” she hissed at Thaddeus. “I do not love you. I never did.”
Thaddeus’s
snarling face morphed into a smile. “So you remember everything. You know now what you were born to do.”
“
Yes.” She held her head high. “I was born to love Nicholai. Death could not change it. You cannot change it!”
“
I do nothing,” Thaddeus said, his eyes glinting evilly. “As always, the choices are yours.”
Nicholas cried out in pain behind her. She whirled around to find one of his scars erasing itself from his skin. Nicholas stumbled back and fell on the ground, aging quickly and painfully.
“No!” Adele cried as she ran to him.
“
Come to me, my princess,” Thaddeus crooned, his arms open to her.
“
I will never come to you,” she screamed. Another scar was ripped from Nicholas’s chest. His dark hair turned stark white as his body began to deteriorate under his sagging skin.
“
Are you sure?” Thaddeus asked but Adele could only focus on Nicholas.
“
I cannot lose you again, Nicholai,” she wailed. He reached up to capture the tears pouring from her face.
“
Natasha, my Natasha…”
“
Make your choice!” exclaimed Thaddeus.
Another scar erased, Nicholas was an old man in her arms. She shook her head as she rocked him.
“If you love him, you will do it,” Thaddeus said.
Nicholas looked up at Adele.
Hundreds of years of instant aging could not even touch the pain of living them without her. He had experienced heaven when he found her again, touched her again, felt her alive and warm and well in his arms. If those hundreds of years of evil deeds meant she could live again, then it was worth it even if they were never meant to be one. “Let me go, Natasha.”
She shook her head, unable to do as he asked. She
couldn’t lose him now that she’d found him. Life could not be so cruel.
Only Thaddeus was that cruel. Adele watched as the final scar filled itself in until it was gone. Nicholas slumped in her arms.
“No!” Adele screamed.
Thaddeus laughed as he watched her stumble away from her dead lover.
“Now you see that you have nothing without me. Come to me, Natasha. Do not forsake what you were born to do.”
Hatred burned with a white hot intensity as she rose to face him.
“Get the hell out of here!” she screamed. “I revoke my invitation!”
With a hideous scream Thaddeus was yanked from her bedroom, his body folded completely in half as he was sucked backward out of her broken window.
When Adele turned back to hold Nicholas one more time, he was gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY
-ONE
Michael
wasn’t going to stop the next morning as he passed her apartment. He hadn’t even wanted to come but his heart had pulled him there. He was just going to walk by, he told himself. He didn’t think he could take it if she didn’t answer the door. He knew she’d gone to him. In his heart he knew.
He
wasn’t going to go up onto her doorstep and play the will-I, won’t-I knocking game yet again. He knew his knock would go unanswered. She was with him and was lost to Michael now. Deep in his heart, he’d felt her go.
That deep part of her that had always belonged to him in some unspoken way had been wrenched out of his soul and he
didn’t have a say about it. All he could do was stand outside her door like some lovelorn idiot and face the reality he’d always feared deep down. His love for her would always be unrequited. Despite each beat of his heart that called her name. Despite the fact he didn’t know how to take one breath without her. Despite the love, the real, uncompromising love, he could promise her that no one else could… she was gone.
In his heart he knew.
As he turned to leave her stoop he noticed the window to her bedroom. Curtains flowed through the broken shards that clung to the frame. Michael spun back to the door and knocked so loud the door was pushed open by the force.
He rushed into the living room where he found Adele curled up in a ball on her sofa, clutching the tiara in her hand. She lay there, sobs spent, tears dried on her face. Michael rushed to kneel beside her. Her deadened eyes met his.
“Oh my God. What happened?”
This brought a new onslaught of tears as her face crumpled with the memories of the night before.
“Go away,” she muttered, curling herself tighter into a ball.
He touched her leg and asked as tenderly as possible,
“Did you do it?”
She yanked away from him.
“Do what, Michael? What the hell am I’m supposed to do?” She jumped off the sofa and started to pace. “Why am I the one who has to do anything?” she demanded. “I’ve got news for you, Michael Pierce. I’ve done enough!” She flung the tiara across the room.
Michael’s
head slumped. To know she was in love with another man was bad enough. To see it – that hurt worst of all. “You didn’t do it,” he concluded. “He’s still out there, isn’t he?”
She spun around to him angrily.
“If you mean Nicholas, no. He’s not still out there. He’s dead. He was murdered by the real vampire. My dear ol' dad. Thaddeus Dragomir.”
She collapsed to the floor in anguish. Michael rushed to her immediately, longing to hold her in his arms. He held back, unsure of how much comfort that would actually bring her.
“I’m sorry,” he told her.
She cast an angry glance his way.
“No, you’re not.”
He sighed. He
couldn’t tell her she was wrong. She wasn’t. “Tell me how I can help,” he offered.
She stumbled to her feet.
“You can go away, Michael. You can get the hell out of here and never come back. You can forget what happened and leave me alone. That’s what you can do.”
He stood too.
“That’s impossible.”
“
That’s the only choice you have,” she told him, turning away.
He grasped her arm and turned her back. This time he was angry, and he
wasn’t going to spare her from it. “What choice does Dani have? What if he goes back to finish the job?”
“
He won’t.”
“
And how do you know?”
“
Because it’s not Dani he wants.”
Michael let her go.
“As far as I’m concerned he can’t have either one of you.”
He stalked from the room.
“M
ichael!” she screamed. “Michael, where are you going?”
Her question was punctuat
ed by the slamming of the door.
That night Adele watched from her perch at her window
as night crawled over the city. Her heart was destroyed. Not once but twice she’d been denied her greatest love. What good was remembering when all it did was bring her pain?
She turned from the still night air and went to find comfort in unconsciousness.
Only sleep eluded her as she lay on the bed where Nicholas had touched her, had kissed her… had loved her. After a long night of tossing and turning, Adele went to the hospital to visit Dani. Michael’s warning about the little girl they both loved had scared her. Thaddeus truly was a monster, and he wouldn’t be above using her to force Adele into doing what he wanted her to do. Just because Nicholas was gone didn’t mean he still didn’t have leverage. She had an entire human family he could still threaten.
Dani slept
so peacefully that Adele didn’t have the heart to wake her, so she kissed her gently and then left. But before she could leave the hospital she decided to peek in on Roman. He too, was asleep when she entered the room. She lingered at the door and he stirred, as if feeling her presence.
Adele walked silently to his bedside. He was
so ashen his eyes seemed to sink into his body. With one look she could tell he was far worse off than Dani. His neck was bandaged and bloody there were no holy water cures for him.
She reached for his hand, which he clutched. Their eyes met and in his she could see his apology. She just nodded.
He opened his mouth to speak but it was garbled. “Shh,” she told him. “Save your strength.”
He shook his head. He had to tell her. He owed it to her. He knew now the strength it took for her tell him the truth, and he wanted to let her know how much he admired her. How much
he’d always admired her. “I just never thought…” he managed before he had to gasp for air.
She nodded, holding his hand tight.
“I know.” She stood there for a long moment, willing her strength to him.
That night Adele resum
ed her perch by the window. A smoky mist floated by her building just as she opened the window. It hovered there for a moment and she glared at it in return. He was no longer an invited guest, so he could not cross the barrier of her home. She crossed her arms on the other side of the window the mist could not breach. Finally the wind followed its master into the darkness of the forest, where the shrill cry of the hunted filled the night air.
This explained all the wolves, she thought. They had an entire legion of the undead to feed, and they were free to hunt the streets and the forest for human an animal game as the ultimate apex preditors.
Adele hopped up, went over to computer and logged into her webcam. She straightened her hair, noting that the white streak much more profound than before. She wore no makeup and looked like death warmed over, but she pressed the button to record anyway.
“
My name is Adele Lumas. This is a special report from Action News.” She trained her camera on the window behind her. “What you hear now is a symphony of death that has haunted our beloved woods for months now. Much speculation has circulated on why and what has been hunting our wildlife and our children. But now this reporter can finally tell you the truth behind all the murders that have happened there.”
When she had finished her report, she
popped it on the Action News server and sent an email to Sam. Tomorrow she’d go back to the studio to ensure the truth would finally be told. Let someone else save the world for a change. Her job was done. She’d done all she could do.
In a hospital room on the other side of town,
Dani finally turned the last page of the old black book. Her brow furrowed when she found Vincent Capriotti's address on the back.
Just as the nurse
entered her room, Dani shoved the book under the blankets quickly. The nurse checked her IV bag, tousled her hair and then left. Dani slipped from her bed and went to the cabinet where all her things were. There was the package that Michael had given her.
Without a second thought she withdrew the package and opened it carefully. It was a tea of some sort. She lifted one of the bags for closer examination. When she brought it to her nose her senses were immediately filled and in a very hazy picture she could see Michael.
In a cheap motel not too far from her, Michael took down a cheesy painting and replaced it with a crucifix. He dumped a backpack on the bed and withdrew a sword and a plank of wood. He sunk into the springy mattress just before he withdrew a pocket knife from the bag and began to whittle a sharpened edge to the wood.
Dani dropped the tea back into the bed. Michael was going to go after the monster. She snatched the tubes from her ar
m and slipped into her clothes.
She
wasn’t about to let Michael face that killer alone, especially now that she knew how to destroy him.
With a little too much expertise for her young age, Dani crept silently from the hospital as the other patients dozed. Easily she slipped by everyone
and disappeared into the night.
She was only ten years old. But she was going to go kill the monster.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Adele was dragged
from her sleep by the insistent ring of her cell phone. She didn’t recognize the number so she didn’t even bother to answer. Instead she got up, got dressed and went to work, where she marched straight into Sam Duncan’s office.
Duncan, however, was none too pleased with her independent report.
“You want to explain this latest report you sent to me?” he said as he fell into step behind her in her office.