The Power (5 page)

“Mother!” She cried out in sobs
, and she ran to her mother’s side. She looked up at me with tears flooding from her eyes, and she screamed in horror. “You killed her! You killed my mother!” she shouted at me, and then I heard footsteps running down the hall. I turned. I had nowhere to go. The only door that led out would be filled with servants and guards in no time.

“
“This way, Lillian.” I suddenly heard Gina’s voice in my mind. It called to me from the huge, stone window at my back. I ran to the window in my fright, and I did not stop. I jumped straight through the opening, feeling the wind rush against me as I tumbled clumsily down the three stories toward the earth. I landed crouched on my bare feet, unhurt with no idea to how I had done so. I looked back up at the window to see Miss Willis standing there, staring down at me in shocked amazement.

“
“She’s evil!” she sobbed hysterically. “A demon!”

“
I stood. I ran, and I did not look back. I could never go back, I told myself. I knew that now. I was what Gina had made me: a vampire. I had to find the vampire, Gina, or I would never survive. Suddenly, I wanted very much to live even if it was as a creature of the night. I had killed someone, someone who had deserved death, but still, I was a murderer. It had felt good, draining the wicked woman’s life from her. It had felt like sweet revenge. If I had it to do again, I knew that I would. Her blood pulsed through my veins. It made me feel alive if only for a brief moment, and I hadn’t felt alive in days. I knew then that the only times I would ever feel alive again was when I fed, when the blood of another pulsed through my veins. I had felt it with the butler’s cat. I felt it even more with Widow Winter’s blood warming my insides. My rebirth as a vampire had officially begun. I had to find Gina, my dark mother. She would save me from my ignorance. As she had told me, I was a babe in the world of night. She would teach me all that I needed to know to survive. I stopped. I listened to the music pouring into my mind. It spoke to me. It told me which way it was that I should go. I followed the music and soon I found her: my dark mother, the vampire, Gina.”

Terrified by the story she had just read, Nicole set the journal aside. It had to be a hoax, she reasoned, but the damage had been done. She closed her eyes and she was seeing white-eyed creatures with long, bloody fangs and hearing the tortured screams of her parents. She shook her head in denial. She was being silly, stupid even. Vampires were not real, she told herself. Any fool knew that! Then why was she trembling so badly? She had let her imagination get away from her, that was all, she reasoned.

Suddenly, she was thinking of her parents. She had never been told how they had actually died. No one had ever re-opened the subject with her. She was fourteen years old, she thought suddenly. How could she possibly find any answers now? The Internet, she thought suddenly. She could look back over old newspapers. There had to be something in there about her parents’ murders. She would go to the library tomorrow, she vowed. Tomorrow, she would force herself to look up those old newspapers and at last face the truth of what had happened to her parents that fateful night so long ago.

Chapter four

Present day

The breeze took the edge off the humidity and cooled the sweat on his brow as he ducked his head, shoved his big hands in the pockets of his baggy slacks, and picked up his feet once more in pursuit of the child ahead of him. She was young, probably eight or nine years old at the most. Her shoulder-length hair wasn’t quite blonde, but it wasn’t quite brown either. It tended to bounce just slightly off her shoulders as she rode the shiny, new, pink bike down the cracked sidewalk before him. What a child of that age was do
ing out this time of the night alone on a street that was notoriously known to be home to drug dealers and gang members, the man hadn’t the slightest idea. He just counted himself lucky that the child’s parents obviously didn’t give a shit about the girl.

O
n the sidewalk before the child a group of teenage, Hispanic boys were having a lively conversation packed full of curse words and loud hoots of laughter. One had brandished a long, silver blade and was showing it off to the others in his circle. This could pose to be a problem, the man thought, and he raised a big hand to scratch the three day’s growth of graying beard on his rather feeble chin. Weak chin, he thought. Men with weak chins grew beards. There was no other way around it, but God how he hated the way the coarse hair seemed to scratch him from the inside out.

He stopped momentarily, watching as the little girl honked the shiny, gold horn on her new bike as if she were riding in some fancy, perfectly safe, suburban neighborhood instead of down the middle of
Hell Avenue. He was surprised when the gang members actually parted to allow the girl to ease by. She rode right through them without any of them really giving her much notice.

Well hell, he thought, and he started his pursuit once more. He made a wide berth around the young men, whistling as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He shoved his hands in his pockets once more, and caught sight of the child again. Her small, skinny legs pumped the pedals of the bike in slow appreciation. She was enjoying herself, he thought, and his hands tightened into fists in his pockets. Soon, he would enjoy himself as well, he thought anxiously. This was too easy. It was as if it were meant to be, he reasoned as he continued to whistle the sweet little tune, and follow the child toward a dark alley not twenty feet ahead. It would be simple, like taking candy from a baby, he thought, and a greedy grin curved his thin lips before he could stop himself. This was what he lived for. It was the only thing that kept his heart pumping, that kept him alive. The thrill of the chase was the best part, he thought, but then he thought of what would happen when he captured his prey, and he nearly groaned out loud. It was difficult not to rub his hands together in hungry anticipation. His heart pum
ping hard, straight adrenaline and his skin tingling with excitement, he followed the child toward the alley. Just a few more steps, he was thinking, just a few more, Oh God, just a few more steps!

No one seemed to notice the slight change in the wind when the creature dropped to the ground beside a filthy, decaying trash dumpster. A candy wrapper blew across the street and came to a stop in the gutter to mingle with weeks’ worth of filth and grime. An old man in moth eaten, filthy clothes, dipped and scooped it up, turning it over and over in his hands before deciding it was nothing he wanted, and tossing it back into the street. An elderly woman sat on her front stoop staring blankly ahead as if she had tuned out the loud laughter and cursing from the young men not twelve feet in front of her. It was evident she was captivated by her own little world.

The creature stood in one fluid movement. It moved in skilled, calculated steps like a well trained dancer on silent feet. It moved toward the Hispanics at the end of the street. The scent not far ahead, it followed it like a large cat t
hat had just caught whiff of its prey. As the creature was passing the loud, boisterous boys, a hand shot out and gripped it by the elbow. The creature halted, but her soft blue eyes still looked anxiously forward, catching sight of her prey as it stepped into the black alley after the child.

“Hola, beautiful.” The boy holding her grinned at her as his greedy, brown eyes looked her up and down in slow appreciation. She could hear his eager heartbeat, could feel his nervousness too. His false bravado masked his fear of rejection, she realized. He was doing this more for his friends’ benefit than for his own, though she did feel his attraction toward her as well.

“Oh baby, I could eat you alive.” The boy’s Hispanic accent rolled heavily from his lips as his heart slammed against his ribs again and again, seemingly louder to the creature than the boy’s own voice. She had no time for fools, she thought suddenly. Her prey was getting away, and so with strength that was not human, she gripped the thick fingers holding her at the elbow and peeled them back. The boy tried not to cry out, but the pain that she was causing him as she bent his wrist back to the breaking point and brought him to his knees on the sidewalk before her caused him to let out a startling yelp. She turned, her soft blue eyes meeting his pleading gaze. The boys around them had stopped to stare in shock at what they were seeing, but they soon erupted in laughter as she let the boy go with a flick of her wrist, and turned walking after the man she had come there for. She ignored the shouts of laughter, hardy teasing, and the cursing taunts that came from behind her as she, too, slipped into the black alley.

“That’s a nice bike.” The man was kneeling down beside the child that was still seated on her bike. The child’s big, brown eyes were wide in fear, her tiny heart beating away from her as the man’s dirty, wrinkled hand smoothed over the silver handlebars of her bike in loving care.

“It…it was a birthday present…from my mommy.” the little girl said in a high-pitched voice.

“It’s real nice.” The man replied. “Your mommy must love you a great deal to get you a bike as nice as this one.” he spoke in a loving manner. He did this often, or at least as often as he could get away with, the creature thought. The creature stood there seeing into the darkness as if it were as clear as day. The strong, male heartbeat called out to her, but she paused momentarily to listen to his sick thoughts. He wanted the child. He wanted to he
ar it cry out. He wanted to…

“Where is your mommy
tonight?” he asked of the young girl. The child turned, looking in the direction of the creature. There were tears in her big eyes as she said, “She’s asleep on the couch. She wouldn’t wake up.”

“That’s too bad. A little girl like you needs someone to take care of her, to look out for her.” The man was coaxing as if he were some kind of a hero instead of a monster. His thoughts were turning to that of lust and greed. His heartbeat sped up as sweat gathered in the palms of his hands and on his brow. He gripped the handlebars of the girl’s bike in a tight fist. “I can take care of you.” he told the child, but the words that were supposed to be reassuring to the child held an entirely different meaning to him. Oh yes, he wanted to
take care of the child very, very much.

The creature chose that moment to step forth from the darkness. Her light blue eyes washed over the child as she let her presence be known. The man on the ground jumped to his feet in startled alarm. He shoved a hand through his thinning, dark hair and his angry eyes came to the tall, slender woman dressed in black. He could barely make her out in the darkness, but she could see every line of his rather handsome face. He was probably no more than forty, she thought as she stepped even closer, and the child screamed in delight.

“Lillian!” the little girl cried out in glee as she ran to the woman, throwing her little arms around the woman’s long, slender legs. Lillian made no move to embrace the child. Her light blue eyes stared hard into the dark eyes of the man who had come there to do the child harm.

“Did you lose a little girl?” The man smiled, but it was a false smile. Inside he was angry, seething that she had wrecked his fun. Slowly, Lillian crouched down, taking the child by the arms. She met the child’s deer brown eyes in a scolding manner. “What did I tell you, Kylie?” she asked of the child that she had known for only a few short weeks.

“Not to go outside alone.” The child repeated guiltily. “But I got a new bike, Lillian! It’s my birthday! I wanted to show you.”

“It was foolish of you!” Lillian scolded, and the child sucked on her bottom lip as big tears filled her eyes. “You could have been hurt.”

“But I wanted to see you.” The child whimpered. Lillian could feel the child’s pain, her loneliness. It had been alone for so long, the only child of a drug addicted mother who half the time wasn’t even aware she had a child, and the other half, when she was sober, tried hard to make up for all of the neglect that she had dished out. “Take your bike and go back under the light. Wait for me there.” Lillian ordered sharply as she stood.

“Look. I don’
t know what you’re thinking, ma’am. I simply came in here to warn the child how dangerous it is to be out alone, especially traveling in a dark alley.” The man threw up defensive hands as he watched the little girl slip back out of the alley. The loss that came over him then made him feel incredibly agitated, Lillian sensed. For a moment, he thought of going through her to go after the child, but for some reason, he halted. Lillian waited until Kylie was completely out of earshot before she stepped forward. “What?” the man asked, smiling arrogantly. “Are you going to beat me up, give me a good tongue lashing?” he scoffed. He wasn’t afraid, she realized. He should be, Lillian thought as she stepped even closer without a word spoken to him. “I don’t need this.” The man growled fitfully, and he moved to go past her. She moved in a gush of wind, the palms of her hands shooting out, slamming into the center of his chest and knocking the breath from him as he went flying backward, crashing into the crumbling brick wall at his back. He came down with a thud, and Lillian crouched down before him, examining him more closely now. She could see the fear shining brightly in his eyes now, the uncertainty of what had just happened to him.