The Lie (The Skyy Huntington Series) (10 page)

“I thought you would be mad. I was so scared to call you tonight and apologize.” Well, he seemed like a real nice guy at least. We hung up on a good note. I almost felt sorry for him. But this conversation left me even more curious about what he looked like. I hoped he would get over his shyness soon, so I could get a good look at my vampire.

Little did I know that it would be the next night. After an early dinner at home, I decided it had been a while since I went to St. Mary’s Cemetery to visit my grandfather. The sun was just setting as I left my house, and I decided to bring along Cupcake just in case I ran into any trouble while I was there. I grabbed the pooper scooper, a couple baggies, my coat and the dog, and away I went to the cemetery.

I spent about an hour there total, walking around the cemetery and spending about twenty minutes visiting with my grandfather. I didn’t see another soul there. Well, living soul anyway…heh, heh, heh. It had been nice to go back there, and I felt very relaxed as I got back into the car. I decided to stop by Friendly’s and get a sundae on the way home. Sure it was still cold outside but I was in the mood for a strawberry sundae for some reason. I got a little cup to share my ice cream with Cupcake and we enjoyed the treat together in the parking lot in my car. It was a little after 9 p.m. when I started to head home.

I should have realized something was wrong when I went to unlock the front door and it wasn’t locked. I had been known once or twice to leave without locking the door, and since my hands were full when I left I reasoned that was what had happened. I felt very uneasy walking into the house, and I pulled my pepper spray out as I turned all the lights on and opened the doors.

Cupcake was growling when I opened the door that I always kept shut to my grandfather’s room he used when he was here at the cottage. I had not been in there since I moved in, and I was procrastinating about boxing up all his old belongings. I checked the closet, which was empty and the room was clear. Nobody was in the house, thankfully. Cupcake was still growling as I shut the door, hair on end. I had been through all the rooms, and closets and the house was empty, and I was satisfied.

After calming down a bit, I decided to take a hot shower to relax before climbing into bed with the Frankenstein book Aiden had lent me. I let the hot water spray over my neck and shoulders for a good while before I lathered up my hair and body. It did the trick, because I felt one hundred times better once I got out. I dried my hair quickly and pulled it up into a ponytail, threw on some PJ’s and hopped into my bed. I was only two chapters into the book when I heard the heater click off. The house became totally quiet when the heat was off.

About five minutes later, I heard the hardwood floors somewhere on the top level start to creak. My heart stopped beating for a good few seconds. I thought ‘it might be the wind’ for a few seconds but I could hear faint footsteps and more creaking. Cupcake heard it too and she was off the bed in a flash growling at the bedroom door. I started to panic. I didn’t have my pepper spray, didn’t own a gun, and I had no available weapon anywhere near me. I tiptoed as fast as I could into my bathroom and decided who to call. Christian was too far away, he would never get there in time. Aiden was, as far as I could tell, very close by to my house and he was a vampire so I am sure he could be here in a flash. I pushed the button to call him.

“Hello?” he answered. I was terrified by this point. I could hear things being moved and shuffled around in the other room, my grandfather’s room.

“Aiden, its Skyy, there is someone in my house! Someone broke in!” I whispered so fast I wasn’t sure he could even understand me. He did though.

“Skyy, are you in your bedroom?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied quickly.

“Ok I need you to listen to me, go to your balcony in your bedroom right now and open your balcony door. I will be there in less than sixty seconds,” he said and he hung up the phone on me.

I was terrified to move or make any noise but I did as he instructed me, no sooner had I opened the balcony doors did I see a dark figure literally fly…no
zoom
…up and onto my balcony. It was so dark out there I couldn’t make out anything but a tall slender male figure.

“Are you ok?” he asked me as he placed his hands on my shoulders.

I nodded. “Yes, he’s in the bedroom across from mine, I think. Definitely on the top floor. I don’t have any weapons in here though.”

I could almost hear him grin in the dark. “You don’t need any weapons, you have me. I want you to go into the bathroom and lay down flat in the tub until I tell you it is safe. No matter what you hear do
not
come out of that tub. Understand?”

I nodded. I still could not see Aiden’s features on the dark balcony, and he had turned to walk into my dimly lit bedroom by now. He was tall though, easily over six feet tall, and his hair was cut short on the sides with a little bit of length on top, it looked like a dark brown color. As he moved towards my bedroom door, so quietly I couldn’t even hear him, I ran to the bathroom and lay down inside the tub as he instructed.

I held my cell phone tightly and wondered why he wanted me to lay down in the tub. Then I guessed it was in case there was gunfire. Great. Just great. I heard a bunch of movement, voices exchanging, and sure enough, a gunshot. I wondered who had been shot. I started to panic. What if this burglar had shot Aiden or even worse shot and killed Aiden? I had not called 911 yet, and he would be sure to come after me next. I started to cry without even realizing it. Aiden had told me not to get out of this tub no matter what, and I was going to follow those instructions. He was a vampire after all and had made it this far without getting killed, I doubted he would get waxed in Salem, Massachusetts in some human’s house.

I heard more muffled voices and then a huge
THUD
. Some more movement. And then nothing. A few moments later, I heard footsteps coming back into my room. I hoped they were Aiden’s. I closed my eyes tight and more tears came flowing out.

“Skyy, it’s me. I’m coming in, don’t be scared,” Aiden said from inside my room somewhere. He opened the door to the bathroom and flicked the light on. “You can stand up. Don’t be scared, I’m hurt and bleeding but I’m ok. I need you to come identify this man, tell me if you recognize him.”

He moved the shower curtain back as I sat up. I was trembling with fear and I am sure I looked like shit. The tub was still wet from my shower earlier and the front of my PJ’s were all wet. He held out his hand to help me up, and I noticed he also had on PJ bottoms and a plain gray t-shirt. Looked like he was in relax mode when I interrupted him. Finally, I got a good look at Aiden. This guy was insanely good looking, he looked like he walked off the front page of a modeling magazine. His eyes were a light green color, and his jaw was strong and defined, his nose was just perfectly shaped with a little slope towards the end that was adorable. Yeah, his skin was definitely pale but what in the heck was this guy thinking when he said “I guess I look normal”. I was expecting a freak show, not eye candy.

I noticed he was bleeding on the tile floor, from his left shoulder, it was dripping all the way down his left arm. I began crying again involuntarily. I was shaking like a leaf and felt so helpless.

“You’re bleeding, let me get you a towel,” I managed to say. I grabbed a clean towel out of the small linen closet in the bathroom. Aiden took it and I helped him wrap his shoulder in it.

“I’ll be ok, don’t worry about me. Are you alright? You’re pretty shaken up,” he asked as he looked at me with genuine concern in his eyes. I nodded.

“I’ll be ok. Is the guy still in the house?” I asked.

“Yes, he is taking a little rest right now.” he said with a grin. His smile was perfect, his teeth were perfect. Was there anything not perfect about this guy? I felt so homely next to him. “I’d like you to come tell me if you recognize him though, so we can determine if this was a random attack or deliberate.”

“Should I call the cops?” I asked him.

“Well, when I am done with him, he won’t remember his own name let alone you or breaking into your house. It is up to you if you want to involve the police, but I have bled all over your upstairs and I don’t particularly want to be involved in this crime scene if the police come here. I personally think you can skip it but if you would like to call them you can.”

I trusted him, and knew he would probably wipe this guy’s memory just like he had the bartender’s the other night. I hated the police, and I was fine with not calling them, besides what kind of protection can they offer me that Aiden can’t?

“Ok, I’ll skip the cops. Let me splash some water on my face and I will take a look at the guy.” I noticed that the towel I gave him was already almost soaked through with blood. Yet he was standing there like nothing at all was wrong. I went to the sink and splashed some cold water on my tear stained face, then dried it off, and straightened my pony tail. I was cold from the wet PJ’s. Aiden stood there silently watching my every move. I had really wished we had met in person under better circumstances.

My dog had high-tailed it under the bed, and came out from under it when she saw me. Aiden saw the dog and bent down to pet her. Cupcake was wagging her tail like crazy and licking his good hand. Well, at least she liked him, which made me relax a little more. I am always uneasy around people my dog doesn’t like. “Stay here sweetie, Mommy will be right back,” I said to her as Aiden stood up to open the door.

We walked into the hallway, which I noticed also had blood all over it. In my grandfather’s old room, on the floor, was a large man, I would say in his late forties, racked out unconscious. I had never seen him before. He was overweight and unshaven. He smelled like shit, and I would almost peg him for a homeless person if it wasn’t for the clothes he had on. He was dressed in black dress pants and a light blue dress shirt and fancy wingtip shoes.

I noticed as Aiden bent down to the guy that he had taken the man’s gun from him, it was holstered in the back waistband of his PJ pants. He slapped the guy on the face hard a few times to wake him up. Once the man had opened his eyes, Aiden started talking to him, demanding to know why he had broken into my house.

Whatever his agenda was, he wasn’t easy to break. I didn’t like violence, but I felt it was deserved in this case. I watched as Aiden kept slapping his face or punching him in his stomach. When that didn’t work he began to kick him in his privates. That finally got him to loosen his tongue.

“
STOP!
” he screamed in agony. I wondered if any of my neighbors might hear this, though it was unlikely since most of the lots were a good distance away from the next door neighbor. If they hadn’t called the cops after hearing a gunshot I guessed they wouldn’t hear this.

Aiden was holding him up by his hair in a sitting position. “Tell me why you broke into this ladies home!” he yelled at him. I would
not
want to be on the receiving end of his wrath. As he said it he pointed over towards me and glanced at me. I noticed his green eyes were literally glowing. Not like on fire glowing, but definitely glowing, a pale green. I also noticed his canine teeth were out, just like the movies in true vampire style. Wow. Scary stuff.

“Look man, I don’t know who sent me, it was all done online or via phone. I was paid to come here and find a book. I don’t know what it’s for, all I know is I was paid and that’s all I care about,” the fat man said. He was sweating bullets now and his body odor was enough to make me gag.

A book? I wondered what kind of book would be in this house that would interest anyone. Aiden had read my mind, and asked the same question.

The fat man answered, “All I know is it is really old, with a black leather bound cover with some weird symbols on the cover. I was told to handle it carefully and put it in an airtight bag once I found it and not to open it. It’s some kind of antique.”

Aiden glanced over at me again with his glowing eyes. “If you please, milady I will remove this stinking bag of lard from your house?” I nodded at him. I wanted the fat guy out ASAP. “You might want to go into the other room for this…” he added.

I walked back into my bedroom and heard Aiden talking in some other language to the man. This went on for about three or four minutes, then I heard him escorting the man down the stairs and out the front door. He was gone for about fifteen minutes before he came back. I was sitting on the bed wrapped in one of my comforters crying like a helpless fool.

His arm was still bleeding, pretty badly. He walked over to me and rubbed his clean hand on top of my head. I sniffed loudly, wiped my tears away and stood up.

“You’re still bleeding badly, let's get this taken care of,” I said. He smiled at me but didn’t argue. We walked into the bathroom and I asked him to unwrap the towel from his shoulder. I couldn’t get a good look at the wound with his shirt on so I asked him to take it off. Yeah, just as expected, his arms and abs were perfectly sculpted too.

“You have some tweezers?” he asked me.

“Sure,” I said as I reached into my everything drawer as I liked to call it, the drawer where odds and ends I didn’t know where to put went in my bathroom. I handed him the tweezers and I started searching for some alcohol to disinfect the tweezers with and first-aid supplies.

He looked at me again, and smiled. His eyes were still glowing green, and I could see them better now that we were up close and personal and in the light of the bathroom. They looked like a dogs eyes do at night when light hits them almost. Eerie, yet beautiful at the same time. His fangs had retracted though, not that I feared he would hurt me, but I was glad about that.

“If you’re squeamish you might not want to watch this,” he informed me.

“I don’t mind blood, but I can’t be near someone who is vomiting. Or poop either for that matter,” I said as I laughed. I had found some gauze, Neosporin, Bactine, and some hydrogen peroxide. That should cover the first aid part anyway. I realized as I set the items on the counter that my hands were still trembling. I wasn’t sure if it was from the excitement or from being so close to a vampire.