A Short Trip To Hell: Hellcat Series Origins Volume 1 (2 page)

The changes were subtle, but clear to his new eyes, despite the spattering of blood and the dirt from his travel across the moors.  He slowly and purposefully put the dagger to his forehead and drew it hard across his face, retracing the almost invisible scar.  Then he dropped the dagger, took the salt in his fingers, and began firmly pressing the jagged crystals into the bleeding injury.  Agony seared him as the salt reacted and he welcomed it.  The pain brought him release from the Hell his life had just become.  The pain brought back the Beast.

TO DANCE WITH THE DEVIL

Julius

(Mid 18
th
century, Essex, Great Britain)

Julius watched the woman lying in the bed; her hair neatly plaited, her skin pale in the candlelight and her face slack with opium-induced sleep.  A pang of regret and sorrow speared him in the chest.  How had it come to this?  They’d been best of friends, cohorts, comrades in arms.  Their parents had thought it a great kindness to betroth them.  Not many were granted the good fortune to wed someone they already knew and respected. None of them, certainly not his parents or hers, could have guessed how incompatible they were, how they were never meant to be more than friends.  

He thrust his hands through his hair, ripping it from the neat, black bow at the nape of his neck, and paced to the window.  He stood staring unseeingly out at the familiar land and buildings clearly visible in the pale light of the full moon.  

At first he and Eleanor had embraced the idea of the union.  Of course, they’d waited until their wedding night to consummate their relationship.  Julius had had a few dalliances before, and they’d been fun, enjoyable and satisfying.  He’d learned much from the women, all older than him; how to please them, tease them, satisfy them.  He’d been an eager student; they, willing teachers. 

If only his attempts to please Eleanor had been as successful.  At first he’d blamed her, and then himself.  Eventually he’d come to realise that blame was irrelevant.  There was simply no chemistry between them; Eleanor could not accept him as a lover, and her lack of passion left him cold.  It was just a few hours ago, her mind clouded with drugs, that she told him she doubted she’d find any man to her taste.  He was trying to understand, but what she was suggesting was so socially unacceptable that the idea still shocked him to the core. 

The loss of the baby had put the final nail into the coffin that their tenuous relationship had been consigned to.  If the baby had survived… If they’d just produced an heir… Well, it would’ve made things easier on both of them.  Instead she’d miscarried, almost as though her body had rejected even that small piece of him being inside her.

As he turned back to the bed he knew the toll on her had truly been worse than what he’d had to suffer.  The stress of the past few years had chased her into the eager arms of a new and inescapable master, one that dulled the senses, numbed the mind and allowed her to forget.  Yet, he couldn’t help but feel sorry for himself. 

Somewhere beyond the door to their wing of the manor house a peel of laughter echoed.  It sounded like his mother.  His eternally happy, incredibly creative, slightly eccentric, occasionally whimsical mother.  Her happiness and the general air of love that still suffused the air around her and his father just made his own situation harder to endure.  He so desperately wanted what they had.

With a low growl he strode from the bedroom, grabbing his coat as he stormed through the sitting room, and ignoring his very fashionable, but quite idiotic-looking hat.  It took him several minutes to make his way to the lower levels of the manor house and reach the servant’s door leading from the kitchen to the stables without meeting anyone in the corridors; he wasn’t in the mood for conversation or explanations. 

His stable-lad knew better than to ask questions; one look at his face and the skinny boy jumped from his pallet in the corner and rushed to saddle a large, broad-chested bay stallion.  In another mood he may have sent the lad back to sleep and done it himself, but tonight he didn’t trust himself to speak.  Instead, he wordlessly took the reins the moment the boy was done and vaulted onto the horse’s back, not even bothering to use the mounting block.  The stallion was cantering before they’d left the stable yard, and they recklessly jumped the sturdy wooden gate before the rushing boy could open it.  They galloped through the meticulously manicured gardens, churning up the paths and road beneath the horse’s iron-shod hooves.  In minutes they’d left the main estate behind and were out in tenanted farmland. 

Finally Julius felt like he could breathe.  The horse, sensing his mood ease, slowed from its headlong gallop.  It settled into a mile eating canter, hooves pounding a soothing rhythm on the hard packed road.  A cool breeze tugged at Julius’s hair and coat and he relaxed back into the saddle, his motion becoming one with the stallion.

It was so much easier when he was away at war.  He’d actually been disappointed when his commander announced they were returning to Great Britain following an unsuccessful attempt to oust France from the King’s precious Hanover.
Away from home he could pretend that all was well with his marriage, that his beautiful wife was eagerly awaiting his triumphant return.  Reality was always a cold, hard slap in the face.  But he knew that his father needed him, wanted to hand over the running of the large estate and take more time with his beloved wife.  Honoured with the title of Baron, his father’s responsibilities were many, both to home and to country.  At twenty-seven Julius was already past the time to begin assuming some of the household responsibilities.  His younger brother, born almost a decade after him, had been spoilt into, what was looking like, perpetual immaturity by his mother, so Julius would get no reprieve from his responsibilities on that front.  The prospect of running the estate, thus proving himself a worthy replacement for his father, weighed heavily on his conscience, and he knew he couldn’t run away to war forever. 

As his mind whirled in erratic circles, the horse slowed further, first to a jog and then a walk.  Giving the horse its head he silently raged at the unfairness of life, knowing that there was no perfect solution, but desperate to find one that would make life just a little less intolerable.  The stallion wandered off the road taking a footpath into a thicket of dense brush and small trees.  Less moonlight lit the way through the tall foliage and Julius debated turning back, but the horse seemed sure of his footing and the way ahead.  Julius wasn’t the only one who rode the stallion; when he was away at war his brother or one of his cousins usually kept the horse in work for him, one of them must come this way regularly for the horse to be so confident. 

A few minutes later Julius knew why. As the trees began to thin out they crested a gentle rise, and the land dropped away to reveal a small clearing encompassing a reed-lined pool and a thickly grassed bank.  Julius couldn’t help the wry grin.  It was the perfect spot for a tryst, either his brother of one of his cousins was probably coming out here to meet a lady.  Or perhaps she wasn’t exactly a lady.  Whatever their reasons it was a quiet, peaceful setting, its serenity called to him and the ride had left him thirsty.

He dismounted, loosened the saddle’s girth a little and led the horse closer to the surprisingly clear water, both of them dipping their heads to slake their thirsts.  As Julius lifted his head the sound of rustling caught his attention.  It wasn’t the quiet, irregular rustle of a small animal, more of a measured, consistent sound.  Like a person approaching from the far side of the pool.  He instantly went on the alert, berating himself for leaving the manor without his sword at his side.  While this area of Essex wasn’t known to be dangerous, bands of thieves weren’t unheard of.    

The woman who stepped from the trees made a small sound of surprise as she saw him in the moonlight, her mouth forming a perfect ‘O’ as her hand flew to cover it. 

“I’m so sorry, my Lord, I didn’t think anyone else came here at night,” she breathed.  Her voice was pure velvet, soft and smooth.  She dipped her head, allowing her mane of chestnut hair to conceal her face, but not before Julius caught a glimpse of her large, expressive eyes, dainty nose, high cheekbones and pale, creamy skin.  “I’ll just be going.”

“It’s quite alright, my Lady,” he assured her quickly, “my horse and I simply wanted a drink, don’t let us chase you away.”  She dropped her hand from her mouth, tugging on her shawl to demurely cover her shoulders and throat. 

“Thank you, my Lord,” she said, “but I should probably go.”

“What are you doing out here?  Are you alone?”  A cold shiver suddenly ran up his spine and something deep inside him flared to life.  That strange sense that sometimes warned him of an unseen enemy in the midst of a battle.  Adrenalin surged and he tensed, ready for anything. 

“I…” she hesitated, “I am alone.  I just came here for a little peace.”  Her voice dropped to almost a whisper, a tiny thread of fear laced into it.  “Please, my Lord, please don’t hurt me.” 

Julius’s innate chivalry flamed to life, burning away his internal sense of wrongness.

“Of course not, my Lady,” he reassured her.  “I would never hurt any woman.  Put your mind at ease.  Come and sit.  I will leave you to your peace.”   

Simone.  She’d whispered the name, a gentle sounding name, falling from her perfect angel’s lips.  He’d had to work hard to draw more from her, forcing him to use persistent, gentle interrogation to pull words from her.  She was in hiding, fleeing an arranged marriage to a brute of a man.  She lived in a cottage on the outskirts of the village, keeping her appearance disguised during the day.  Her nightly trip to the pond was the only time she felt safe enough to allow herself to simply be who she was. 

Her mere presence made him ache for her.  She was utterly bewitching, her beauty drawing him in, her nature a captivating mix of femininity and strong-willed defiance.  She enslaved him with her reluctance to speak of herself, feeding him only tiny morsels of herself, keeping him hungry for more.  Playing him like a harp in the hands of an angel.

He returned to the pool night after night; until the passion between them was too powerful to resist.  Their first night together, in the soft grass alongside the water, had been more than he could possibly have imagined.  She was fire to Eleanor’s ice; red hot passion to cold, hard indifference.  She was responsive to his every touch, as eager to give pleasure as to receive it.  Her body was lean and delicate but strong and indefatigable.  The chemistry between them was all but explosive. 

He was hooked, as thoroughly caught as a fat, spring trout on fisherman’s fly.  In his haze of love and lust, he was utterly ignorant of the alarm bell peeling wildly in the back of his consciousness.   He could so easily have left things as they were.  He could have continued his days as his father’s responsible son, Eleanor’s caring husband and loyal subject of the crown, all while sating himself at night with Simone’s body.  It was his sense of propriety; his need to protect and nurture Simone, his desire to give Eleanor her freedom, that lead him to make his fatal mistake.  He tried to force Simone’s hand, pushing her to marry him so that she no longer had to live in hiding, promising to put Eleanor aside using the excuse of her inability to bear him an heir.  His pig-headed respectability trumped all Simone’s warnings as well as his own.

After years of being denied its warmth, the fire of love had turned his brain to mush, it had become his opium.  The moment he’d discovered her true nature, and his own mistake, was the moment she sank her elongated fangs into his neck and began to drink. 

Vampire.  The love of his life was a Vampire.

And now so was he; a ravenous, murderous, barely-human creature who couldn’t bare the touch of sunlight nor have any part in normal society.

At first he blamed Simone, raging that she could’ve just walked away. She callously told him that she would have if she’d just been able to alter his thoughts like she could with most humans.  She couldn’t tell him why he’d been resistant to her mind control, but the fact remained that she hadn’t been able to erase his memories of her, and couldn’t leave him behind knowing what she was and that her kind existed.  It was against the rules. 

Simone liked to bend rules, even break some of them, but that particular decree was a line she insisted had to be towed, and perhaps she actually wanted him almost as much as he wanted her.  He just hadn’t wanted it to be like this.  He would’ve chosen death over this. 

It had been days before some vestige of his previous nature returned to him.  She’d chained him inside an iron-lined coffin in a dank, roughly-hewn cellar beneath her cottage.  When sanity eventually cleared the murk of bloodlust from his brain he’d finally laid his newly enhanced eyes on her and had seen the truth.  His new sight saw so much more than his old, frail, human eyes.  The imperfections of her skin, artfully hidden by pastes and rouges, her eyes, more grey than green, enhanced by careful dressing and kohl, her hair reddened by artifice.  She was not nearly as beautiful, or as young, as his human eyes had led him to believe.  Or perhaps it was just that the haze of love had been lifted.   How could he love a creature such as her? And now he himself was exactly such a creature.  An abomination that could only live by drawing sustenance from the vein of a living human being. 

He’d killed three in as many days.  The last, a girl no more than sixteen.  Her body still lay on the ground in the corner.  A serving wench, Simone had assured him uncaringly.  Someone no one would miss, save perhaps the local village innkeeper, who would find another just like her in a matter of hours.

Julius had thought it impossible to hate himself more than he did after Eleanor’s admission that his touch physically sickened her.  Now he was also a monster; a cold-blooded, serial killer.  The girl’s blood still covered his face and hands, the scent so strong he could barely keep his stomach from regurgitating the meal.  The only thing keeping it down was the knowledge that the alternative would force her to bring him another victim.