Indulgence (230 page)

After a few moments, I asked, “And the third rule?”

Marlo smiled and continued pacing the hallway. “The third
rule involves our diet.” She turned to see my reaction at her pronouncement.
“We adhere to a very strict diet.”

“Yes, blood,” I stated matter of factly.

“Of course Allison, but it’s more than that. You see, our
kind tries to limit the damage we inflict on mankind; another of Cain’s traditions,
as you say, we carry on. We are what we are and of course need human blood to
sustain ourselves. However, we do not need it all the time. We have a very
strict regimen of what to eat and when. We pursue wild game and raid the
occasional blood bank, and only prey on humans to sustain our energy level. And
even then, we have very strict rules about who we hunt and where. It can be
difficult to stick to, to fight against nature like that, but you do eventually
grow accustomed to it.”

Marlo paused again for my benefit.

“I’ve heard ‘our kind’ more than once. What does that mean?
Are there different races of vampires?”

Marlo let out a feathery giggle. “I just told you about our
diet, and that’s the question you have?” She continued laughing. I felt a bit embarrassed.

Marlo continued after she calmed herself. “We don’t have
different races per se, but there are others out there that don’t abide by our
rules. Those vampires fully embrace what they were created to be and do not
take pity on mankind. They are quite the opposite of us and only exist to
destroy man, as the serpent had intended.”

“Why have rules at all?” I asked. “I mean, you said
yourself, your diet is difficult to stick to, so why fight it? Why try to limit
the damage to humans while making yourself suffer?”

“Good question. We hope that when the end of days –
Armageddon, as you may know it – comes that the Lord will see our efforts and
He will understand what we were created to be and see that we tried to inflict
as little damage on man as possible, limiting the amount of souls we stole. You
see, when we kill, we steal the victim’s soul, damning that person for
eternity. Likewise, when we transform someone, their soul is lost, which is
another reason why we give them the choice to transform. Our hope is that the
Lord will be merciful and grant us our souls back for limiting the damage the
serpent commanded us to do.”

“So you are good vampires?” I asked incredulously. “You are
vampires with consciences who resist the natural order of things, withholding
your desire, to limit the suffering you were created to inflict on mankind so
that you might be saved in the end?”

“As good as can be expected,” Marlo replied matter of
factly.

I scoffed at the concept and then another thought popped
into mind. “Wait,” I stood up and froze in place. “What did you just say? About
your victim’s souls?”

“When we kill mortals, we take their souls.”

“Why? Why would you do that?” I asked, fear overcoming me.

“We have no choice, Allison. It is what we were created to
do. It just happens; there is no way to avoid it.”

“So no heaven for those souls? They go to…”

Marlo cut me off. “It is how the serpent designed us. If our
kind could prevent it, we would. But we need human blood to survive. There is
no other way.”

“You know what this means?” I shouted, my voice faltering.

Marlo stared at me.

“I really don’t have a choice! My ‘ultimatum,’ if you can
call it that, is for me to give my consent to be transformed to the living dead
and lose my soul, or go uncontrollably wild to the point that you have to kill
me and I lose my soul – I’ll end up eternally damned either way!”

Marlo said nothing. I began to pace the small corridor
wracking my brain for another solution.

“Or…” I started.

“Or, what?” Marlo asked.

“Or I can just wait, try to ride this out. There’s no
guarantee that my symptoms will lead to anything. I don’t have fully fledged
symptoms, just signs that you all think mean I’m transforming.”

“Allison, even if that’s true, that you think you won’t
further transform, what’s one of our rules that we just discussed?”

I ran through the three rules in my head and threw myself
back on the chaise. “Never reveal yourself to a mortal.”

“Right. And now you know what we are.”

My mind drifted back to that night at Whipps Ledges when
Vincent told me my story, when he revealed that he was a vampire.
Damn it
,
I thought to myself. He revealed himself to me and now I know. It’s only a
matter of time before something is done with me. But I couldn’t help but feel
that Vincent was somehow trapping me into a decision. “But I promise I won’t
tell anyone,” I pleaded.

“But we already told you. Remember that I said there were
punishments in place for those that don’t follow the rules?” Marlo asked.

“Yes,” I replied, my eyes closed.

“The punishments are in place and we enforce them – our kind
enforces them. It’s the only way to ensure the rules are strictly followed.”

“What’s the punishment for breaking
your
laws?” I
asked, focusing on Marlo’s lavender eyes.

Marlo cocked her head and simply stated, “Death.”

“Death?” I asked in disbelief. “But you are immortals, the
very nature of the word means you can’t die.”

“We don’t die a natural death, like a mortal. But there is a
way, only one way actually, to kill a vampire.”

“And how is that? Sunlight? Holy water? Garlic?” I asked
sarcastically.

“No, none of that will kill us. Although sunlight is a bit
pesky. It makes the venom in our blood boil if we’re exposed too long. But the
others are just myths. To kill a vampire, you attack our only Achilles heel.
The very place where we take a mortal’s life is the very place where our
existence can be taken.”

I lifted my gloved left hand to my neck. “The jugular?”

“That’s right. To kill a vampire, you rip out its neck and…”
Marlo continued talking but I didn’t hear anything else she said.

“Do you hear that?” I asked. I peered down the hall at a
door maybe forty feet away, our original destination. I wasn’t sure how I could
hear anything behind the thick wooden door. “It sounds like there’s a scuffle
going on down there.”

Marlo listened then took off into a graceful sprint down the
hall. I followed, not nearly as fast or as graceful.

Marlo flung open the door. The room appeared to be some sort
of security center. There were numerous flat screen monitors mounted on the
wall which scanned through quadrants of the property and numerous switchboards
with blinking lights. Marlo directed me towards a chair.

“What is all of this?” I asked.

“Precautions,” Marlo replied. “Our kind can control
ourselves, but with a house full of mortals and immortals, you just never
know.”

“Felix, are you in here?”

“Right here, sis,” a man announced as he rolled his chair
out from behind a wall of monitors.

“Felix, this is Ali…”

“I know Marlo, I saw Allison arrive.”

Felix was average height and build, but like his siblings,
his looks were anything but ordinary. His face was accentuated with high
cheekbones and an angular square jaw. His hair was a deep brown with blond
highlights and was cut short in the back but long and strategically messy on
top. He had thick eyebrows perched above eyes the same shade as his hair.
Thirteen gold flecks surrounded each pupil.

Felix walked toward me and bent down to shake my hand. “How
are you, Allison?”

“I’m well. Nice to meet you, Felix.”

“Nice to meet you too,” Felix responded in a soft voice.
“She is boiling hot,” he said.

“I’m fine. Really. It’s just this gigantic costume and wig,”
I said as I fluffed my skirt, revealing the many layers to my audience. “And
I’m sure the wine didn’t help either.”

“Wine? What were you drinking?” questioned Marlo.

“I’m not sure. Vincent ordered it. It was some sort of
concoction, like nothing I’d ever tasted before. A mix of things including some
of that red wine that Vincent is fond of.”

“Hmm,” she hummed to herself as she looked me up and down.

“What?” I asked, feeling self conscious.

Marlo looked at Felix who also looked at me and shook his
head.

“It’s nothing.” Marlo stated, walking towards the window
beyond the monitors. “But we are quite surprised to see you here tonight,
Allison.”

“Really, why is that?”

“We’re surprised that Vincent was able to get you to forget
about your husband so quickly.”

“It shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. Matt has been gone
for three years. That’s enough time to mourn and move on.”

“Gone? For three years?” Marlo questioned. Felix pushed his
chair from around the corner to look at me again.

“What are you…?” Felix started to ask as the door burst
open. I didn’t see anyone enter as another person materialized in front of me.

“We have a problem,” the man announced.

Felix and Marlo rushed to the middle of the room.

“Max,” Marlo said, “this is Allison Carmichael,” she nodded
her head towards me.

“Hi Allison, I’m Vincent’s other brother.” Just like the
other siblings, Max was quite handsome. He wore his hair short, almost a buzz,
and had the same chocolate colored eyes as his brother Felix. He was about the
same height and build too, but his face had a much softer edge to it. Max and
Felix could pass as biological brothers.

“What’s the problem?” Felix asked Max.

“Look.” Max moved in a flash behind the wall of monitors. I
could hear him tapping a keyboard. “
He’s
coming and brought
her
with him.”

“Who’s coming?” I asked. My question was ignored.

“When did you find this out?” Marlo asked.

“I was just out running the perimeter, you know, to ensure
no un-wanteds were going to pay us a surprise visit. I could smell
their
scent a hundred miles away,” Max stated.

“Who are they?” I asked again. But again, I was ignored.

“Does Vincent know?” Felix asked.

“No, but he will in a minute,” Max replied.

Felix sat down behind the wall of monitors and started
tapping away on the keyboard. “There’s Vincent,” he said and pointed at one of
the screens.

I got up from the chaise, my legs weak, stomach burning and
my throat still haunted with dryness. I walked around the wall where Marlo and
Max were hunched over Felix’s shoulder, their eyes glued to the monitors.

“Oh no,” Marlo said.

The camera panned down the long winding driveway. A black
Rolls Royce was slowly making its way towards Castle Adena. “We need to warn
Vincent,” Felix stated as he reached to grab a phone.

“Too late,” Max replied. All faces focused on the monitor
that showed Vincent. One moment he was chatting with guests and in the next his
demeanor changed, revealing that he could sense something was wrong.

I could see the image, but couldn’t hear what Vincent was
saying. It appeared he was asking his company to forgive him for having to
leave to attend to something else. Vincent looked around the room for someone
or something. He stuck his nose in the air as if searching for a scent like a
bloodhound.

“What’s going on?” I asked again.

Vincent flashed across the screen, too quick for the cameras
to keep up with him, but he went unnoticed by the crowd. I saw Lorenzo
materialize by his side and the two strode with purpose towards the front door.

“Can you get sound?” Marlo asked Felix.

“I’m trying,” Felix responded as he feverishly pounded the
keyboard.

Vincent and Lorenzo flashed across the screen again, the
cameras unable to keep up with their speed. Max started tapping on buttons to
keep up with the visuals as Felix tried to reign in the audio.

The Rolls Royce approached the front of the castle and
stopped. Nothing happened for several seconds and then the driver emerged. I
squinted and focused on the screen. The driver was a tall, thin man, young with
dirty blond hair, a pointy nose and his eyes were the deepest shade of blue I
had ever seen.

“I know him,” I uttered, although I couldn’t place how we
had met.

“I doubt you know him,” Max replied.

“No, I know him, I just don’t know how,” I insisted as I
strained my mind. There was no mistaking his pointy nose or those eyes.

“Highly unlikely,” Max chimed in. “One doesn’t usually have
long after a run in with Casper.”

“Casper?” I looked away from the monitors. “Like the
friendly ghost?”

“There’s nothing friendly about Casper Devoe,” Max retorted.
“He’s henchman, a scout.”

“What are you talking about?”

“For him.” Max pointed at the monitor.

Casper walked to the passenger door and opened it. A boot
emerged before the immense body that followed it. It was a man, very tall and
lean, but with broad shoulders. He was pale, his skin practically glowing
against the night sky, and had long black hair that fell to the middle of his
back. His eyes were black pits, devoid of all color. He wore a long, black
trench coat that fell to his boots and covered the rest of his outfit.

He emerged from the vehicle and looked around, then held out
his hand. A pale, white hand emerged from the vehicle, followed by an exotically
beautiful woman. She was tall, maybe as tall as the male. Her hair was as long
and as dark as his but her eyes glowed like emeralds against the dark night.
They were vampires.

“What’s going on? Who are they?” I asked again.

“Lucious and Delilah,” Max responded.

“Who?”

“Shhhhh,” was the response I received from all three of my
companions.

“I think I have audio,” Felix announced.

There was static but then the words became clear.

“Lucious, Delilah, what a pleasant surprise,” Vincent stated
in a calm yet sarcastic voice.

“I hardly doubt it’s pleasant, but I am sure it is a
surprise,” Lucious responded coolly in a deep, raspy voice. He coyly eyeballed
the castle.