Vampires Seduction #1 (The Paranormal Town Romance Series) (4 page)

A voice in front of her said, "Indeed."

Her face was covered with scratches from the
branches she had to push away when she climbed the mountain. Her hands were
black with dirt. She pulled the hair out of the corners of her mouth.
"Oh!" she said startled. "It's you."

"Of course it's me." Gunnar pulled her to
his side. "What happened down there?"

She paused before she answered. A lot had happened
down there. "There was this horrible sound and the next thing I knew,
Tapio
was dead."

"I saw him. He had shifted to his mighty
self." Gunnar nodded. "In his world he was a king."

"What was he?"

Gunnar demonstrated by roaring. "He was the lion,
king of beasts." Gunnar swallowed and
Anca
was
once again fascinated by the Adam's apple going up and down. He seems so human,
she thought, but he is NOT human. He is a vampire. She stepped back with that
thought.

"He seemed like a decent sort of
fellow
,"
Anca
ventured.

"Oh, and he was!
Quite
decent."
Gunnar stepped forward to brush her hair out of her eyes.
"And I am quite a decent fellow once you get to know me."

She pulled away and said matter-of-factly, "You
drain people of their blood and kill them."

She thought she saw his eyes begin to glow, but then
again, she could have imagined it. He answered, "I do." Then he
added, "But only very special people."

Her eyes got wider and she turned to run. "I
wouldn't drain you. You're not that special." His laughter vibrated
throughout the mountains and she feared the hunters would hear it. "I
don't drain humans any more. I drain cattle, or sheep, and in desperation a cat
or dog." He heard her gasp in horror.
"Only on a
rare occasion of imminent starvation."

She whispered, "Of course."

"Now, come here, I'm starving." He
grinned.

She jumped back and he grabbed around her shoulders.
"I'm only kidding, you silly woman. I will not bite you. Look, see these
fangs?" He clicked out his fangs. They shone very bright and white in the
moonlight. "I can control them. In. Out. In. Out. See?"

She mutely nodded.

"Now, where were we?" He took her hand and
brushed his lips along the back of it. "I am very charming, you
know." Gunnar placed his cool lips against her cheek. "I even bathe
often." His laughter roared again through the mountain crevices.

"
Shh
. They will hear
you."

His eyes scanned the area around them. He grabbed
her wrist and pulled her up to higher ground on a rock. He could see everything
from here. He kissed her cheek again. "Feeling better?"

She nodded.
"Just
tired."

"Of course you're tired. You buried your
parents tonight and you drove and you…"

She interrupted him. "How did you know I buried
my parents tonight?"

He lowered his head.

"Oh
my gosh
, you were
the man in the back row! Why?"

He put his hand against her cheek, but she withdrew.
"Why?" she asked again.

He wanted to tell her of the larger plan. It had
nothing to do with the coven or the hunters. It was much bigger than that. She
was part of a larger puzzle. He tipped her chin up to him with his index
finger, "I will tell you everything, but not right now."

She pulled her head back and stomped her foot.
"Now, Gunnar. Tell me now or else…"

His voice lowered, "Or else what?"

She shook her head. "I just need to know. Don't
you think I need to know?"

"I do, but not yet, not now." He turned
away from her. "There are things you wouldn't understand.
Borders and boundaries and loyalties that go back thousands of
years.
You have heard of quests and…"

She put her hand over his mouth. "I want the
truth Gunnar. I think you owe me that." The sun was beginning to rise in
the east and it lit up her auburn hair. Little golden flecks of light
surrounded her face.

"The truth is you are beautiful.
Absolutely beyond words, beautiful."

"Stop it! Tell me the truth!"

A rustling of bushes brought out Gunnar's fangs.
"Maybe she can't handle the truth." Emil was grinning. "Truth
is, bud, we have to get the little gal out of here. The witches and the hunters
are headed this way." He pointed to the hint of light on the horizon.
"And the sun is coming up."

"To the bunker then."

Anca's
mouth opened in protest as she felt herself rolled into Gunnar's arms and
lifted up. In a moment she could see the earth as a blue round ball below them.
Just as quickly her feet were back on the ground and he was leading her by the
hand into a damp dark tunnel.

She felt herself being pulled and pushed along. At
one point Gunnar released her hand and she could hear him moving ahead. Emil
grabbed her hand as they rushed along. "Come on, we have to keep up."
She could see nothing in front of her—just the velvet black. No shape. No
outline of objects.
Nothing to guide her in case she needed
to know how to return quickly.
The dampness clung to her hair, making it
wet and stringy as the strands began to stick together. She tasted the mildew
each time she inhaled. Every now and again she had to steady herself, placing
her free cold hand out to her side and it slid down a slimy wall, almost making
her fall to the hard rock floor. Emil steadied her. "Are you
alright?" She nodded, not even thinking that he couldn't see her nod, and
then, as an afterthought, she whispered, "I think so."

She could hear Gunnar's heavy boots hitting the rock
floor with a steady "flap, flap, flap" They wound left, then right
and then right again. They went up a slight incline and then down a long
slippery slope. She felt Emil's hand grip hers more tightly.

Then, enchantingly, a
mammoth room seemingly became liberated in front of them. It was lit with
candle sconces on the walls, standing candelabras, and gigantic wheels hung
from the rock ceiling, mounted with hundreds of flickering candles.
Anca
closed her eyes quickly when the light first hit, like
a camera's flashbulb narrowing her pupils.

Emil let go of her hand. "Where is
everyone?" His eyes encircled the room.

Gunnar, too, was turning in a circle, staring at the
fifty or more high-backed velvet blue chairs lining the chamber. He slowly sat
down and his huge hands rested on his knees as his head moved from left to
right. His voice was a whisper. "I don't know."

***

Calypso glared at the full moon. If she didn't
capture that wretched bronze bitch soon she would have to wait until the new
moon. She glanced at
Zucar
Kendlesmith
.
His boney hand trembled as he stroked his white silken beard sagging from his
ashen face; over and over his hand went from his wrinkled prune mouth, jaggedly
slid down to the tip of his beard where he twirled the tip, momentarily between
his index finger and thumb, and then he started the process all over again.

Zucar's
voice was shaking and low, but there was no mistaking his words. "There's
a spell for this."

Calypso indeed knew the spell, but since she didn't
have the powers of a wizard, she could never use the spell.
Zucar
Kendlesmith
, as a warlock, wasn't born with the
powers either, but he had captured Yon
Frinkle
, the
master wizard, over 100 years ago.
Zucar
had likewise
captured Yon
Frinkle's
wizard powers.
Zucar
was a very powerful warlock slash wizard at one time.
She stared at him now. She knew that 1000s of years of battles and spells and
undoing spells had taken a toll on him. His back was hunched over with a huge
hump. Tiny pinkish-red warts that resembled small growing brains with crevices
and ravines dotted the old man's wrinkled face. She, in truth, had at one time
been very attracted to him. He was younger then, of course, and quite handsome,
in a warlock-wizard kind of way.
Certainly, not hideous like
he appeared now.
But for some reason they never were able to make the
necessary chemistry to be together. In those days he had sired many witches and
warlocks. But there had been so many vicious battles. It wasn't always as
peaceful as it had been the last 200 years. Of course everything got
complicated quickly with the escape of Yon
Frinkle
—no
one knew where he had
vanished to.

 
Zucar
had devoted many years trying to find
Yon's
hiding place, to no avail.
Zucar
stole all of Yon's powers. Yon would always be vulnerable with
Zucar
alive, or perhaps it would be the other way around,
that
Zucar
should beware that
Yon
would want revenge. But of course, with the safety wall up, no one could come
into Lompoc unless the Lompoc residents wanted
them
to.

Looking at him there, staring into his depthless
black eyes, not unlike a snake's eyes, she thought and she wondered, '
how much power does that old wizard truly
have left'
?

 
"It's
risky," she stated matter-of-factly.

Zucar
nodded and his tongue slipped out of his toothless mouth. He quickly recovered
it. His wrinkled claw reached out and lay atop her hand. He enclosed it there
in a tight death-like grip, leaning in so his face was very close to hers where
she could smell the sweet, yet pungent sour of his breath, like a pumpkin that
was rotting inside out. She tried to pull back, but he continued to grip her
with his claw. He hissed, "It's the coven's only hope, Calypso."

She knew the ancient warlock was right. She watched
as he absentmindedly picked at a black scab on his arm. He continued to hold
her hand tightly for some time. He sniffed and then released her. She stepped
back trying to avoid any more encounters with him. She looked at the skin
sagging across his forehead, falling onto his bushy white eyebrows. How long
could this old warlock survive? Could he even conjure up anything anymore, let
alone a little semen! The spell was the only way to guarantee that they could
capture
Anca
Marius. The crone's eyes became narrow,
her brow wrinkled. Under her breath she hissed, "I will find
Anca
Marius." Saliva gathered in the corners of her
cracked brown mouth. "The spell is the only way."

Little did she know that someone else was arriving
in Lompoc on the train that very moment,
who
had an
even grander spell…

***

Haasinholf
Grendlekin
sat on the bench in front of the small
train station waiting for the bus. Actually, it should never have been called a
"station" in the first place. The grandeur of the train stations of
London and Paris came to his mind, but then, they didn't have the marvelous
ocean view that the Surf Train Station had. He could have flown, of course, but
after 500 years he had learned to
smell
the roses
, as humans were so fond of saying. It was such a pleasure to just
people watch and co-mingle with the humans that he had indiscriminately been
murdering for thousands of years. He felt very human at these times—watching
them going about their lives—rushing into the bank to make a deposit, grabbing
a sack lunch at a fast food restaurant. It amused him. Wasn't amusement what
life was all
about
? He chuckled. He looked at his
reflection in the silver handle of his cane. He really did very well look
human. That was his goal. He looked like a youngish retired professional,
silver temples, groomed, but slightly thinning dark brown hair, hazel soft,
almost romantic eyes. He chuckled again. Oh, I
am
good! He had chosen his shirt and tie carefully and he admired
his forest green fedora. Was that what this type of hat was still called? He
acquired his first one in 1891. His lips pursed together as he remembered how
he had simply provided a wind impetus and caught the hat sailing through the
air off the fat German man's pate. Sometimes he got his centuries all mixed up!
He hoped that the hat wasn't too fancy for this town of—his thoughts stopped as
he shuffled through papers in his hands that the Chamber of Commerce in Santa
Barbara had given him. They weren't that friendly at the Chamber when he told
them he was headed here.
The town of Lom Pock.
He
shook his head. What kind of a name was that?

A voice broke into his reverie, "
Haasinholf
Grendlekin
! How
wonderful to see you! What brings you to Lompoc?" There it
was,
Lompoc (
lom
-poke), and who
was this ravishing lovely lady? He stood immediately and offered his hand.

"Pleased, I'm sure." He looked at her
slicked shoulder length mousy brown hair that flipped gently on the ends and
her cherry red mouth. She wasn't beautiful, but yes, "lovely" was the
word that came to mind. He wanted to reach out and cradle her chin in his
smooth
uncalloused
hand and look into her waterless
blue eyes. He knew that they would look like cascading waterfalls if he made
her cry.