Wake of Darkness (28 page)

Sophie remembered the time she’d
been out in the garage at one of the numerous foster homes she’d stayed at:
they lived on a small farm. She was looking for something high up on a shelf,
but she couldn’t reach it.

She watched Alexander's face as his
expression changed, effected by her emotions, but suddenly, she didn’t see him
any longer. It was as if he wasn’t there anymore. She looked beyond him and
back into the past.

The door creaks open. I am on my
tip toes, reaching for something, and Danny comes in, his hands in his pockets.
He wears an amused and condescending look on his face. He is seventeen and
makes me a little nervous, but he’s always been nice—he likes to tell me about
cars. His thoughts have never betrayed anything malicious towards me, though. I
don’t know to be afraid of him, but there’s something about him that makes me
nervous.

Maybe that was the most traumatic
part of the whole thing: it hadn’t been premeditated. What he’d done was absolutely
spur-of-the-moment there in that dark, hot garage.

He comes up behind me and
presses himself against my bac
k.

“Lemme get that for you,” he
says, too close to me, his breath on my neck.

He reaches up and grasps
whatever it is that I’ve been reaching for. I can’t remember what it was. I try
to turn around, but he is pressing so close to me, towering over me, that it is
nearly impossible to move. I finally turn around and his thoughts flood me with
disgusting images and desires…things thirteen-year-old girls should never know
about. He pushed me to the ground and pushed himself on top of me.

Sophie shuddered, coming back to
reality for a minute. Alexander’s hands were clinched in fists before her; the
veins on his neck bulging in his fury. His eyes were black. She’d never seen
him like that. She slowly reached down and placed her hand on one of his and he
exhaled heavily.

“What happened?” he managed to ask
through clinched teeth.

“Nothing good,” she replied with a
resigned shrug.

She didn’t want to go back there
anymore than she already had, but she had to. He had to know.

“My foster mother found me out
there, a few hours later, in the shed. My clothes were all torn up. She had to
throw a tarp around my shoulders to get me in the house,” she explained. “I’ll
always remember how scratchy it was, and how ashamed I was. The blood had run
down my legs, but of course by the time I'd made it to a doctor, they couldn't
tell where the trauma had been. He didn't leave any physical scars.”

She remembered everything, of
course, and as her mind ran through the memories, she watched his face become
grimmer, his eyes become darker.

“My foster mother was absolutely
mortified.
Thankfully,
she believed me when I told her it was Danny
who’d left me there like that…who’d done those…
horrible
…things to me,”
she sighed. “I’ll always remember his thoughts; when he’d decided to attack
me,” she said quietly, to herself as much as to Alexander, “…and I'll always
remember when he decided
not
to kill me.”

She cautiously glanced back at Alexander’s
face. His jaw was like iron, clamped shut; his eyes were burning. For the first
time, she saw something terrifying in his face, something that made her believe
that he was part vampire, something that would have made her back away from him
if it hadn’t been
his
face etched with such fury.

She stared at him and reached for
his hand. “It’s in the past,” she whispered, trying to be soothing. “It’s
painful, but it’s done.”

He stood and walked away from her. He
suddenly turned, walked back towards her and then turned away again. He was
pacing, and deep in rage. She watched him warily as he growled under his
breath, pacing towards her and away, stewing and plotting.

“What happened to him?” he demanded
in a roar, giving her a glimpse of the violent anger she’d thought only she was
capable of before then.

Sophie shook her head. “I didn’t
know; he ran away afterwards,” she answered. “I was moved to another home and
the one I’d been in was closed. I went to a therapist for a while.”

Alexander looked back at her—
glared
at her, actually—and an absolutely lethal thought crossed his mind.

“Oh, no you don’t, Alexander!” She
declared, standing immediately after hearing what he was thinking. “Just leave
it alone.”

He exhaled roughly and crossed his
arms, not pleased.

Seriously, Alex, leave it alone.
It’s in the past,
she thought firmly, glaring back at him. She stepped
forward, which caused him to take a step back.

“But he
hurt
you!” He roared
back, the mirror on the wall behind him shaking with the sound. He moved a step
forward as she stepped back. "He
raped
you!"

“And I lived through it,”
she
yelled back. “Just…
leave
it.”

            Jim was suddenly in the room. “What’s going on?”
He demanded.

            The room quickly filled with the rest of her
family. Sophie held her hands up as she watched the rage churn inside
Alexander.

            “Stay back,” she ordered. Laney backed slowly
away and Catherina stood silently in the corner looking on.

            “Why
shouldn’t
I?” Alexander demanded
through violently clinched teeth, glaring at her. “Give me
one
good
reason why I shouldn’t hunt him down, choke the life out of him, and make him
regret every last disgusting thought that’s entered his head and every horrid
thing he has
ever
done!”

            “Because, there’s no point!” She yelled back. “So
much for superior self-control…Get a hold of yourself, Alex!”

            His nostrils flared and his mind ran at
breakneck speed through the possibilities in a thought stream that only Sophie
could hear.
It wouldn’t be difficult to find him. No one would know. I have
done it before…

            Sophie snarled and pushed him back with a mighty
shove delivered to his chest. Jim and Zoey exchanged a worried look while Dante
stepped forward as if to intervene.

            “That's enough. Drop it!” Sophie ordered. “Get a
grip, Alex. It doesn’t do any of us any good to go that route. Leave. It.
Alone!”

            She pushed him back again when another
determined look came into his eyes. She shook her head in warning and kept him
at an arm’s length. She could feel his heart beating under her hand where it
rested on his chest.

He glanced over at Catherina who
still stood like a specter in the corner. Sophie followed the glare in
Alexander’s eye to the other woman. Catherina looked warily at Sophie; as if
she had something to fear from her. She bowed her head, and instantly Alexander
and Sophie were alone in the room as the others quickly followed Catherina’s
lead.

            Alexander sighed and closed his eyes. He rested
his head on the wall behind and took a slow, deep breath.

            “Are you okay?” She asked briskly, still too
keyed up to sound calm.

            “Hmm,” he replied, nodding his head, but not
opening his eyes.

            Sophie took a step back from him.

He finally opened his eyes and
looked at her questioningly. “You think about him often.”

            “No,” she replied. “Just lately, and
remembering
is the better word. Something about dredging up personal histories and all the
talk about violence has done it.”

            “And…” he began, studying her, his eyes
narrowing. “When
I
touch you? Does that conjure up demons?”

            She sighed and smiled gently. She felt suddenly
deflated.

“No. Not at all,” she promised him,
reaching for his hand. “It’s
completely
different, Alex. Being with you
is nothing like that day, nothing at all. And I don’t even think about all that
when I’m with you.”

She looked deeply into his eyes in
a needless effort to convince him of her honesty; he knew she was telling the
truth.

“Are
you
alright?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yeah. I think it’s
actually easier now that you know.”

“I can appreciate that,” he said
and silently pulled her against his chest and simply held her there. “I am so
sorry that you had to endure that,” he finally said.

She shook her head quickly to chase
the thoughts away, hopefully for a very long time. She looked up at him with a
reserved smile.

“It’s okay now,” she replied. “
I’m
okay now.”

He nodded as Laney bounded back into
the room, pulling their attention from painful memories and to the more
important present. She said nothing, but quietly took her place at the piano,
trying her best to distract them with a melody.

Chapter 24

Jim and Alexander strode down the
wide stairway to find Dante waiting with Catherina and the others in the front
living room. Laney was sitting at the piano again, her fingers lightly dancing
over the keys, a tentative tune coming out of the instrument. Sophie looked up
when she sensed Alexander entering the room.

Dante immediately rose and met them
in the entryway. They spoke in hushed tones. Sophie watched curiously, the book
in her hands forgotten.

“Head west on St. Charles,” he said.
“Begin searching in the Quarter. It is very populated. Catherina believes that
you may find something or someone useful there.”

Alexander nodded.

Dante clapped him on the back “
Respice
finem,”
he said:
Look to the end.

Alexander shrugged.
“Audaces
fortuna iuvat,”
he replied:
Fortune favors the bold.

“God willing.”

Alexander chuckled under his
breath.

Sophie stood and began walking
towards them. “Mind if I come along?”

Alexander abruptly turned to look
at her. “Yes, I do actually,” he answered briskly.

She rocked back on a heel as if
he’d physically struck her. Her lip curled in anger, but she said nothing. Alexander
grimaced; he regretted his words the moment they escaped his lips.

Jim looked warily from one to the
other. “Uh, we’re gonna be out really late and we don’t really know what to
expect,” he interjected quickly, trying unsuccessfully to salvage the
situation.

Alexander quickly walked over to Sophie.
He grasped her by the arms. “Please understand that I want you to be safe.
Remain here with everyone else. You’ll go with us soon, I promise.”

“Fine,” she replied curtly, her
eyes on fire. She turned on a heel and took her place in the oversized chair
next to the piano. She picked up the book she’d abandoned a moment before
without another word, and she didn’t look up at Alexander.

Alexander frowned at her, but
didn’t say anything.

Jim clapped him on the shoulder. “Come
on.”

They closed their eyes and were in
the garage when they opened them.

“I’ll drive,” Alexander said
quickly.

“Aw!” Jim grumbled, disappointed. “Alright
man.”

They slid into the Audi and were on
the road in moments. He headed north on First to St. Charles, and then headed
northwest towards the French Quarter.

“Geez, how long’s it been?” Jim
quietly asked after a minute, looking around at the scene outside of the windows.

“A little more than five years,”
Alexander replied.

“Really? It seems a lot longer.”

“It does.”

The city was typically festive,
just as any other Crescent City evening. This time of year, with the
approaching holidays, it seemed to have an added undercurrent of excitement. Alexander
was reminded that he would need to find a Christmas gift for Sophie.

“Yeah you do,” Jim agreed.

Alexander nodded. He steered the
car to a metered parking place where he and Jim slid out to continue their
search on foot.

“Let’s go this way,” Alexander
suggested.

They swiftly passed bars,
nightclubs, and restaurants. The smells of Cajun food and alcohol saturated the
air as they scanned the crowd. They walked perhaps a bit too fast for humans,
perhaps a little too quietly, but in the highly-congested streets they were
still able to go largely unnoticed. They were dressed as inconspicuously as
possible and nothing about the two revealed that they were not what they
appeared to be.

 “Hey man!” A youthful voice called
out.