by J. P. Bowie
“Get out of here!” I yelled at him. He took one look at Roger and Angelo still struggling on the floor, and Ron beating Angelo over the head with a bookend—and he took off like a shot from a gun, slamming the door behind him.
I had picked up another bookend to try to help Ron with the Angelo-bashing, when an almighty roaring sound erupted through the store.
Ron, Roger and I were sent spinning into book displays, sending most of Barnett’s Books’ inventory flying all over the place. I looked up as Angelo towered over us. He seemed to have grown an extra two feet tall, and his face was no longer remotely handsome. It was black and evil with a wicked rage that chilled me to the bone. He bent and picked me up as if I were a rag doll.
I heard Ron yell, “Micah…oh dear God!” Everything around me grew dark and
muffled. I was aware of a sharp, tearing pain in my neck then the world went dark, and I could feel or hear absolutely nothing at all.
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Chapter Ten
The sound of loud thrumming woke me from what had to be the strangest and most
terrifying dream I’d ever had. Jeez, wait ‘til I see Ron and Roger again, I thought. They’d never believe what I imagined. I opened my eyes slowly. Where the hell was I? What was that burning sensation on the side of my neck?
Oh, no…Oh, God, no. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs. That had not been a dream, and, oh Christ, I was locked in Angelo’s arms and we were soaring thousands of feet above the ocean. No, no, no…this can’t be happening. I must still be asleep. Wake up, Micah, I raged at myself. Wake up! I struggled to get out of the repulsive embrace.
“Take care, Micah.” His voice was as I imagined a snake or lizard would sound if they could talk. “Don’t struggle so much, or I might drop you.” The words slithered from his mouth, then he chuckled as I lay still in his grasp. “That’s better. I do want to deliver you to Joseph in one piece.”
Joseph. So, Marcus had failed to rescue him. And where were they all now? And Ron and Roger back in the bookstore—and Roger with those teeth. This couldn’t really be happening, could it? I looked up at Angelo’s grim expression. At close quarters, he was not the hottie I’d seen enter the store. His skin was marked with pock-like scars, and fine lines and broken veins ran from under his greying hair, down the sides of his face. He looked old…very old.
“Where are we going?” That was all I could think to ask.
“Why do you care?” he rasped at me. “Surely, all that matters is that you will soon be with the man you love.”
I took a tentative look down between my feet. Now we were flying over green fields and forests, and the ground looked a lot closer. Despite my disbelief that this was actually happening, I was relieved that we’d be landing soon. Landing soon…from a flight in the arms of a monster. I’d never complain about Delta again. Ahead, I made out the buttressed outline of a castle. My God…we must be somewhere in Europe, I thought. We landed with a bit of a bump outside the castle walls. Angelo released me and stood back, panting heavily. He DUET IN BLOOD
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looked terrible—old and worn out. I turned to run, but he wasn’t that worn out. He grabbed my arm in a vicious grip that made me cry out from the pain.
“Don’t even think about it,” he snarled, dragging me towards the gates that opened as we approached. Two cloaked and hooded figures stood waiting as we passed through the gates which clanged shut behind us with an unsettling finality.
“Take him,” Angelo said, shoving me towards the two guys in black. “Prepare him. I must refresh myself.”
Without a word, the two grabbed me by the arms and hustled me across the castle
courtyard and into a gigantic hall, the roof of which soared above me for what looked like hundreds of feet. Waiting for us was another cloaked figure.
Jeez, but these guys were creeping me out.
“So, this is the pretty mortal Joseph loves and would die to protect.” He let out a nasty chuckle. “I was expecting more.”
Up yours, I thought, then I flinched as a deformed hand appeared from under his robe and touched me on the neck.
“I see Angelo has prepared you for the change.”
What did he mean? I wanted to rub the spot where he’d touched me. It had started to burn again, but the two bozos holding my arms prevented me from moving.
“Where is Joseph?” I asked, none too politely.
“He awaits you in his cell. We have prepared him for your visit. But first, we must get you ready for the ordeal.”
“Ordeal? What does that mean?”
His chuckle was sinister as hell. “You will find out in time…”
I was marched away by my two silent black cloaks, down a long passage lined by
wooden doors. We stopped suddenly, and one of the black cloaks pushed open the door in front of us, before shoving me inside.
“Take off your clothes.”
“Excuse me?”
They didn’t tell me again, just started tearing off my shirt and pants.
“Hey,” I yelled. “Cut it out!” I struggled like mad, but they were way too strong for me, and in no time, I stood there naked as a jaybird.
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“Now wash.” One of them pushed me towards a large basin of water sitting on a
marble washstand. I stared at myself in the mirror over the basin and let out a gasp of horror.
My neck was covered in blood. That fucking Angelo had bitten me… bitten me! Oh, Jesus. The words of the old guy with the nasty hand came back to me.
I see Angelo has prepared you for the change.
What was I being changed into? Grabbing the sponge that lay beside the basin, I
dunked it into the water then rubbed hard at my neck. Under the blood were two puncture marks. Oh, my God. I started to shake all over at the thought of what had been done to me.
Now I really wanted to wake up!
“Be quick.” The voice behind me made me jump. “You must wash your body then put
this on.”
I looked at him and he held out some kind of white tunic. I turned away and soaped up the sponge, rubbing it vigorously over my body. If I was going to die, I’d at least leave a clean corpse behind. I took the tunic from the black cloak and slipped the flimsy material over my head. It was ridiculously short, just long enough to cover my privates. Talk about feeling silly. I’m glad I’m ‘a grower not a shower’!
“Can I put on my shoes?”
“No, come now. Master Gragon awaits your presence.”
They led me out of the room, back down the passageway and into another, much bigger room. Angelo and who I presumed to be Master Gragon stood in the centre. Angelo looked a helluva lot better than when we’d first arrived. His ‘refreshment’ had obviously worked wonders. He smiled at me. I would have loved to smack that vicious smirk from his face.
“So, young Micah,” he said, his reptilian voice grating on my nerves. “We think the time has come for you to know why you are here.” Without waiting for me to comment, he went on. “Many years ago, Joseph betrayed the Wizard Brotherhood to our enemies, the vampires. Marcus Verano aided him in that betrayal, causing widespread destruction to our brothers. Many died in the battle, but some of us survived. We have grown strong over the decades since that attempt to destroy us. Stronger than our enemies who are now massing to attack us.”
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I struggled to take this all in. Joseph and Marcus battled these guys decades ago?
Vampires, wizards? Okay, this nightmare had gone on long enough. Wake up, Micah! But I was awake, and all this was real—and I wanted to run like hell.
“This time our victory will be complete and our enemies destroyed,” Angelo said. “We have a powerful ally fighting alongside us. An ally who is indestructible and
unrelenting in its punishment of those who would make war on them.”
“What has all this got to do with me?” I asked, getting tired of his oration.
“Joseph is blocking Marcus Verano’s ability to find him. Marcus has gathered an army of vampires, ready to swarm in and rescue Joseph, but your lover knows of the trap we have set for them and will not let Marcus know our location. We want Joseph to tell Marcus where we are hidden. So, dear Micah, you will provide him with the incentive to change his mind.”
“I’m not going to help you,” I said. “If Joseph made that kind of decision, I know he’ll protect his friends first. Besides,” I added, going for the big lie, “we hardly know each other.
We don’t mean that much to one another. You’ve brought the wrong guy here.”
Angelo shook with silent mirth. “Oh, a good one, Micah.” Then he snapped his fingers.
“Bring Joseph in here, now!”
My heart pounded in my chest as the black cloaks brought Joseph into the room. He was dressed as I was in a short white tunic—except he looked great in it. Oh God, but he was so beautiful. He stared back at me, his eyes full of apology and sadness.
“Micah,” he whispered huskily. “I am so sorry I have caused this to happen to you.”
I ran to him, throwing my arms about him and holding him close. “Oh Joseph, I’m just glad you’re still alive. I’ve missed you so much.”
My hackles rose as Angelo and Gragon cackled like the wicked witches they were.
“Such a touching scene,” Gragon said, laughing into his deformed hand.
“Do you still maintain we have the ‘wrong guy’, Micah?” Angelo asked with relish.
“Now, here’s the best part, Joseph.” He walked slowly towards us, his eyes shining with predatory eagerness. “Look at your beloved’s neck.”
I tightened my arms around Joseph as he put his fingers on my throat and tilted my head slightly. I felt as well as heard the long anguished groan that erupted from deep inside him.
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“You devils,” he hissed at them. He kissed my neck where I’d been bitten. “Oh Micah, my love…”
Angelo’s light laughter tinkled in my brain like so many razor blades. I want to kill that son-of-a-bitch, I thought wildly.
“Yes, I’m afraid the balance has tipped to our favour, Joseph. If you do not make him yours, he will become one of us. If you change him, he will hate you forever—forever being a relative word, of course. For soon, you and all your vampire cohorts will be but a distant memory.”
What the hell was he talking about?
And then, in an instant, the words of Marcus Verano came back to me. Words he had said I would remember when the time was right. As the realisation of what Joseph represented became clear to me, instead of the shock and horror I might have felt had Marcus not prepared me for it, what I felt was an overwhelming urge merely to be alone with Joseph and to hear the truth from his lips.
“Why don’t you take your pretty lover to your cell,” Angelo said. “And explain what is going to happen to him? You have one hour before it will be too late to save him from being part of the Brotherhood.”
Part of that Brotherhood? No way, José!
Joseph gazed at me silently for a long moment as we stood in the tiny cell that had been his prison since the day the ‘uglies’ had brought him here. I reached out to touch his face, and he grasped my hand, kissing my palm then pressing it to his cheek.
“Oh God,” I moaned, moving into his embrace and kissing his neck. “This is bad, isn’t it, Joseph?”
“I’m afraid it is, my love,” he whispered. “Do you have any understanding as to what has happened, or is it all too bizarre for you to fully comprehend?”
“Most of the time I think I must be dreaming or something—that this can’t really be happening. But then I remembered a conversation I had with Marcus. A conversation he DUET IN BLOOD
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erased from my mind until this moment. He said you were going to risk telling me the truth about yourself, and what he had revealed to me would make it easier for me to understand.”
“And has it?” he asked, tightening his arms about me.
“I know you and Marcus are vampires,” I said, still not quite believing I could say the words. “Jean-Claude too, and…Roger. God, Joseph, when he bared his fangs at Angelo, I nearly peed myself! But that hasn’t changed the way I feel about you. I love you, Joseph, and if I can help get you out of this mess, I will.”
He kissed me long and sweetly, and despite the pickle we were in, I felt a hot rush of desire sweep through my body. I could tell by the way Joseph pulled me into his crotch that he felt it too, but then his arms released me and he stepped back a little, his eyes fixed on mine.
“I have to explain some things to you, Micah.” His voice was hoarse with emotion.
“Come sit here by me.” He took my hand and led me to a tiny bench that made us sit close together, our thighs touching. He put an arm about me and held me close.
“You are right about me. I am a vampire, but there is more you should know. You said on our first meeting you thought I was in my twenties. You were almost correct, for I was twenty-six years of age when I was changed, but that was almost five hundred years ago.”
My mouth fell open, and I gaped at him like a dummy for a full five seconds. “You can’t be,” I finally gasped. “How is that possible? You don’t look a day over twenty-six.”
Although, I thought, it would kinda explain a lot—like his very proper use of English, for instance. But that gorgeous face and body, his skin unlined and smooth as silk. How could he be as old as he’d just claimed?
“Vampire blood is very powerful,” he said, answering my thoughts. “It keeps us young in appearance, as long as it is supplemented by…by the blood of others.”
“You mean humans, don’t you?”
“Preferably human blood, yes. But Micah…” He gripped my hand as he continued. “A person cannot die from a vampire’s bite, nor can he or she be changed by it. That transition is much more involved. Most humans never realise they have given their blood, for we are able to erase it from their memory.”
“Angelo bit me,” I said, rubbing my neck. “I guess he wanted me to remember it.”
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“Angelo is not a vampire. He is a creation of the Master Gragon. Once, Angelo was a very beautiful young man—a tender, compassionate and loving human being. When I was a slave to the Brotherhood, many years ago, he tended to me after they…well, after they had enjoyed me.”
“Oh, my God.” I stared at him in horror. “You mean, they abused you?”
“Yes. I was their slave for many, many years.”
“Years!” The feeling of horror intensified. “But how could you survive such a terrible thing as that? I just can’t imagine what that must have been like!”
“And it’s best that you cannot, Micah. I will not dwell on it, except to say if not for Angelo, it would have been ten times the hell I endured. But of course, they had other plans for him, so they took him away and changed him into what he now is.”
“What is he exactly?”
“He is a demon…a demon created by Gragon and fed vampire blood to keep him
strong. He has learned the art of shape-shifting from the wizards. He can appear as young and handsome for short periods of time, but it strains his power to do so.”
“He didn’t look too good when we got here,” I said, remembering how he’d seemed to have aged during our flight here.
“Angelo is not an immortal. He will die eventually, although his lifespan is many times that of a human. When he exerts a lot of power, like when he flew to Los Angeles to abduct you, his power drains from him and he needs blood to sustain him.”
“Why did he bite me? Just out of spite?”
“No…and t
his is the hardest part of what I must tell you.” He turned to face me, holding me close, kissing my lips and cheeks so tenderly, I came close to tears. “Micah, what he did must be reversed, or you will be lost to me.”
My heart jumped with apprehension. “What do you mean?”
“He has contaminated your blood. It will induce a coma within a very short time. When that happens, they will either leave you in that comatose state forever, or they will begin to change you, just as Angelo was changed.”
“Jesus…” My head sank onto his shoulder. He stroked my hair gently and kissed my forehead.
“There is a remedy, Micah.”
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“Oh, thank God.” I looked up into his beautiful eyes. They were filled with tears and sadness. “Wh..what is it, exactly?” I stammered.
“I must drink your blood, and you must drink from me.”
I know I went as white as a sheet. I felt the blood drain from my face, and I started to tremble in his arms.
“When I drink from you,” he continued gently, “the power of my vampire blood will negate the contamination from Angelo’s poisonous bite. Then you must drink my blood to regain your strength.”
“And I’ll be a vampire,” I said, sounding strange to my own ears.
“No, but you will feel differently from before. Our blood will bind us to one another just as Ron is bound to Jean-Claude and Roger to Marcus. We will be inseparable for as long as you live—if you so wish it.”
“Well, that sounds all right.” I managed to smile at him. “I like that part.”
“Micah, our troubles do not end there. What Angelo and Gragon do not know is that I have already informed Marcus of our location. I had to when I found out they were bringing you here. He sent Roger to warn you, but unfortunately, he arrived too late.”
“Yeah, Roger and Ron tried hard to stop that freak, but I guess he was just too strong.”