B005EMAYWS EBOK (13 page)

They were coming to the edge of the cemetery and what appeared to be a house. It was dark, and shrouded on all sides by massive oaks. At first glance one might think the house was grand - a dwelling of the upper class. As they approached, it was easy to see that the structure was abandoned and in bad need of repair. The front window had a gaping hole where someone had tossed a rock at it, shattering the glass. Most of the wooden shutters no longer protected the windows, attached to the frames by twisted and weakened hinges.

Summer scanned the area around the house, but there did not seem to be any neighbors nearby. On one edge of the house was the cemetery - a thicket of trees hugged the rest of the property. There was not another living soul in sight.

Her captor pulled her up the stairs to the massive double doors. Using his free hand, he pushed at the weathered wood and the doors gave way with a tired moan. Inside there was no moonlight to chase away the dark. The room was so black that it was impossible to see anything.

Summer felt her throat tightened when she heard the scurry of rats across the hardwood floor. She yelped when she felt the air stir near her head and heard the flapping of bat wings.

She heard him strike a match and the room was filled with flickering candlelight. The glow from the flame cast his angular face in yellow-orange light, giving him the look of a demon that had just risen from the pits of hell. Despite his satanic appearance, he was strikingly attractive.

While sizing up her captor, Summer saw something move in the shadows, beyond the light of the candle. She shifted her eyes to the area of the room where she had detected movement. In the murky darkness, the ghost of a little boy stood there - watching them. She did not recognize him as someone she knew, but she did know the woman that was holding the boy’s hand. Penny also watched at her through lifeless eyes, her throat still shredded to pieces - strings of flesh hanging from her wounds.

Instead of screaming, Summer bit down on her bottom lip. She had no idea how the vampire would react to a hysterical female, but she wasn’t about to find out.

Were these ghosts warning her, or were they there as a reminder of what her fate would be?

“Answer me,” he demanded.

Summer looked away from the apparitions. When her gaze came to rest on Marius, she stared at him with hard - defiant eyes. He waited, but she said nothing. There was no sense in giving this vampire anything more that he might be able to use against her.

“I am a descendant of the Jaguar shifters.” Summer kept her answer short and sweet. It was better to put his attention on the jaguars than the wolves. She was concerned about what he’d do to her if he discovered that she was the daughter of the leader of the wolves - the
Sungmanitu
.

“Why is it that a wolf would have any interest in you?”

Summer gave him the sweetest and most sarcastic smile she could muster. “I don’t know. You would have to ask him … that is if you dare.”

The vampire’s laughter left her feeling chilled.

“Killing him would be far too easy a punishment for what he has done. I much prefer to torture his heart and soul.”

Summer let her eyes wander to the corner where she’d seen the ghosts. They were gone. She didn’t know if she felt relief or disappointment. Even having ghosts for companions was better than being alone with the vampire Marius. She had no illusion as to what he really was. He might seem subdued at the moment, but she knew he was a vicious killer and it was only a matter of time before she’d join Penny among the dead.

“If you are so intent on killing me, why haven’t you done it yet?” she asked. It was a good idea to find out where she stood now, and not let it come as a surprise.

“Why are you so anxious to die?” Marius gave her a wicked smile. “Though I must admit, you are the most interesting of his women yet.”

Summer lifted her chin in a gesture of rebellion. “What women? You mean those innocent girls that you killed that didn’t even know him.”

Again Marius laughed. “I made a mistake,” he shrugged, “but hopefully you are not naive enough to believe that you are the only woman he has wooed into thinking she was in love with him?”

Fire leaped from Summer’s golden eyes. “I don’t believe you.”

“So you
are
that naive,” Marius shrugged. “That is unfortunate for you.”

“What are you going to do with me?”

“I will kill you eventually, but I find you amusing … an interesting distraction from this miserable existence they call immortality.”

“But why? Why do you want to kill me … why did you kill the other?”

“I believe I made myself clear about that. He will feel the pain that he has caused me, though he is lucky that his pain will end eventually. Mine is infinite,” he told he before turning away.

“The least you can do is tell me why you are going to kill me. What is it that Anton has done to you?”

Marius’ eyes reflected his agony and rage. “He took someone from me. My Sabina was all that I had left. He made her pregnant and then tossed her away like rubbish. She could not live with her shame and took her own life.”

Pulling something from a small plastic bag near the table where he sat, he focused his attention on Summer.

Summer was not surprised when she saw him holding a black rose in his hand. He held it out to her but she looked away, refusing to take it.

“Take it!” he roared.

Startled, Summer took the rose he offered.

As quickly as his raged had appeared, it was gone – replaced by sadness. “I would bring her a white rose every night. To me it was a symbol that represented the purity of our love. Now I give his women a black rose as a symbol of her death.”

“If she was in love with you, why was she with Anton in the first place?”

His laugh was sadistic and unnerving. “I found her in the woods crying. Her wolf lover had dumped her because she wasn’t good enough. I tried to heal her heart with my love, but in the end …”

“Why? I didn’t kill her, and Anton didn’t either. That was something she did on her own. You must understand that she had to have been a troubled girl to take her own life.”

“It was despair,” he said through clenched teeth.

“I understand her pain … and yours.” Summer again reached out to touch his arm. She did not give any sign to the revulsion she was feeling at how cold his skin was. It was important that she show compassion. If she did, just maybe he might.

Marius reached out to touch her face and Summer made the mistake of flinching. With the speed and precision of a rattlesnake, he had a hold of her, clamping his hand around her arm until she cried out in pain.

Saying no more, he drug her to a door and threw it open. Beyond the threshold was an abyss of thick darkness. With no light to guide her, Summer was forced to let him pull her down the stairs, hoping that she would not trip. A vampire’s eyes could see through the dark, but she was left groping for some type of handrail. There wasn’t one and Summer stumbled behind him.

At the bottom of the stairs she heard him open a door. With tremendous force, he shoved her inside, slamming the door behind her. She heard a lock click and his footsteps retreating.

The room appeared to be some type of storage space. It was small - not much bigger than a walk-in closet. There were no windows to let even a hint of light in. Summer rested her back against the wall, hoping beyond all reason that this was a nightmare and she would wake up safe and sound next to Anton.

At least he hadn’t killed her yet. That was something to be thankful for. He was vulnerable – she had witnessed that much. The question was could she penetrate that vulnerability to get him to see that what he was doing was irrational?

But there was another question in the back of her mind that would not stop nagging at her. Was the vampire Marius right? Was she just a plaything like all the other women that he had dallied with over the years?

The thought was too painful to contemplate for long. After all, he had basically told her that it would be only sex, but maybe she had been naive enough to believe she could entice him into something more.

* * *

Like invisible fingers, the dry desert wind played with her long black hair until her curls were in wild disarray. Despite her near constant exposure to the relentless New Mexican sun, Kathrina’s skin remained perpetually pale. Her dark luminous eyes were like onyx against creamy white skin and a stark contrast to her soft - angelic features.

She stood there, staring into a blazing orange-red sunset. Her backdrop was the majestic rock formations common across the Navajo reservation of northwestern New Mexico. In the distance she could see the small two-lane highway that wound through the rock canyon for miles. Traveling toward the little trading post where she lived and worked was a black vehicle. At the moment the vehicle was so far away it was little more than a dark spec against the desert landscape.

Kathrina’s heart thudded wildly in her chest. Her whole life had been leading up to this day. This knowledge was as deeply seeded in her soul as the instincts she was born with. All of those years of being an outcast among the wolves had brought her to this moment.

Not that her adoptive parents had not done their best to love her and give her the best home they could, but she had always felt as if she didn’t really belong. She was neither wolf nor vampire - she was a freak of nature. Though she could walk among humans and not standout from the crowd, they sensed that she was different - a danger to them. The wolves feared getting too close to her, with the exception of her parents and her cousin Summer. As for the vampire, she had never actually met one and wasn’t at all sure that she wanted to.

She knew very little of her biological family. Her mother had been a
Sungmanitu
, a wolf, and had died giving birth. Her father was an elusive and mysterious vampire that no one had any knowledge of, at least none that they would share with her. Kathrina felt the essence of the vampire now, and a certainty that her destiny was hurling toward her whether she was ready for it or not.

The black spec in the road was now recognizable as an SUV. It would turn into the trading post, Kathrina knew that without doubt, but was she ready for what would come next. Her life was about to change in unimaginable ways, but Kathrina was no longer sure that she really wanted that change.

Day and night was indistinguishable in the little room where she was being kept prisoner. All Summer could do was estimate the time. She guessed that it was probably late afternoon, but she had no idea for sure. The minutes ticked by excruciatingly slow, and what might seem like hours, could really be a fraction of that time.

During her captivity she had familiarized herself with the room as much as possible without the benefit of light. Opposite the door were some shelves that she had pushed out of the way to see what was behind them. The process of moving the shelves had been slow as she tried to keep from making too much noise. Marius might be asleep or out hunting his prey, but he could also be right outside the door. There was just no way she could know.

Behind the shelves there was a small crawlspace. A minute amount of light seeped through from the outside. Summer knew that many houses as old as this one had escape routes that were used during wartime.

Escaping might be a risk, but if she stayed it was a sure bet she’d be dead by daybreak. Marius would tire of toying with her and eventually take her life. If she waited idly by to see what would happen, she would be a sitting duck.

Summer slithered into the crawlspace. She started moving but her progress was slow. The space was narrow, forcing her to scoot on her stomach. She tried to block out the vision of the rodents and spiders that undoubtedly occupied the passage. The dirt didn’t bother her. She was already covered with so much grime that it would take several baths to wash it from her skin.

She could see slivers of light coming from the other end of the crawlspace. It was dim, but at least now she was sure that the passage was leading her outside. Summer tried to move faster, but it still seemed to take forever before she finally reached the metal door that closed off the passage from the outside. The light she’s seen was coming from the edges of the door where it did not fit tightly against the house.

Holding her breath, Summer pushed against the metal. Relief washed over her when it swung open, the hinges squealing loudly. She wiggled out of the opening and onto the ground - scraping her hands and elbows against the hard dirt and rocks. Once outside, she surveyed her surroundings. At the front of the house there was a dirt road that ran through the trees. Aside from the dirt drive, all she could see were woods and the cemetery that bordered the property.

It was dusk. Deep purple shadows had descended, bringing with it a sense of foreboding. Marius would wake soon and that left her little time to find her way to help. Her eyes strayed to the sea of headstones. If she could make it through the cemetery, she would probably find the road much faster. The dirt road could go on for some distance before intersecting with a well-traveled street.