by Eden Laroux
Well, that's alright, he thought. It wasn't quite time to introduce himself anyway.
He hadn't yet figured out exactly how he would handle that little detail; but he had to do it, and soon. Secret Lavalle played a very important part in his future and he would not let her get away; not after he had waited so many lifetimes to find her.
So, he moved deftly from rooftop to rooftop as he tracked Secret and Marielle.
SECRET FOLLOWED MARIELLE in her car on the short drive to her friend's condo. It was conveniently located in the Marigny part of New Orleans. She had found a great deal on the place considering the location. Three bedrooms and two baths were almost impossible to attain, unless you had quite a bit of money to sink into the place. But Marielle had found exactly what she was looking for by acting as her own realtor.
It was a gorgeous place, with a very nice garden in the back, off of her patio. She had furnished the place in an eclectic fashion that worked perfectly with her personality. Secret always loved coming here. She preferred her own house, but Marielle's was a great second home.
Since it was pretty late, the women said goodnight and went to bed.
Normally, Secret slept very well when she was at Marielle's; but tonight, she couldn't shake the feeling that someone was more interested in her than they should be. It wasn't so much that she still felt that sensation of being watched, but more the frequency lately, especially today. Now she knew it wasn't her imagination.
When she finally did doze off into a fitful sleep, dreams of men in long black coats and red eyes plagued her... In fact, red seemed to be the dominant color in her dreams. Deep red, the color of blood, was splashed everywhere. Someone was chasing her and she couldn't seem to run fast enough to get away. It was a man, yet he could fly. Hovering over her as she ran, his huge black wings covered her with their shadow. Just as his talon-like fingers reached down to pluck her up, she awoke with a scream in her throat.
At first, she wasn't sure if she had actually made any sound at all. When Marielle didn't come bursting through the door, she assumed that the scream was only in her dreams.
Glancing at the windows, she could tell that the sun was up. Picking up her phone, she noted that the time was 8:45AM. Even though she didn't have to worry about any appointments until 1:00 this afternoon, she decided to get up. It wasn't like she was actually going to get any more sleep anyway.
She showered, brushed her teeth, put on a small amount of makeup, and brushed out her hair. Lured by the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee, she put on the dress that she had worn the night before and headed to the kitchen. There, she found Marielle dressed for the day.
As a book illustrator, Marielle worked from home more often than not, unless she had to meet with a client or visit a publisher's office. Apparently, she didn't need to go anywhere today, since she was wearing a pair of comfortable jeans and a bright pink tank shirt. Her red hair was pulled back into a ponytail and her face was free of makeup. Even completely natural, she still looked quite stunning.
Looking up from the newspaper she was reading, Marielle gave Secret a smile and saluted her with the cup of coffee she was holding.
"Good morning! Help yourself to some coffee."
"Thank you, I believe I will. It smells amazing!"
Secret walked to the counter, where a mug and coffee awaited her. Adding a tablespoon of honey and a hefty dose of French Vanilla creamer, she stirred it all together. Carrying it with her, she joined Marielle at the breakfast bar to see what was so interesting in the paper today.
"So, it seems that there's been another murder," Marielle said, as Secret settled herself into the bar chair.
"Seriously? How many does that make now?"
"They're saying that this is the eighth one in the last three months," Marielle said, as she scanned the article. "The police don't seem to have any leads as of yet."
"That's too bad," Secret said, as she sipped her coffee. "It's also kind of scary knowing that there's such a monster out on the street."
"Yeah," Marielle agreed. "Oh, but they do have a name for him now!"
"A name? Really? Naming these aberrations only makes them more determined to keep killing, doesn't it?"
"Possibly, since most of them love the attention. Want to hear what the name is?"
"I'm not sure, but I guess I'll have to. So what is it?" Secret asked with a cringe.
"They're calling him, The Blood Drinker."
"Oh, my God! How awful!" Secret cried. "Why are they calling him that?"
"It's pretty simple," Marielle started to explain. "All of the victims have been found with two puncture wounds to their throats and their bodies completely drained of blood. Apparently, there was once a murderer called, The Vampire Killer, so they didn't feel that they could duplicate that name."
"Ugh!"
"Right? Anyway, they don't have a single lead because this guy doesn't leave any evidence behind."
Both women were silent as they continued to sip their coffee, lost in their own thoughts.
"How about something to eat?" Marielle asked, as she got up from the chair and headed to the refrigerator.
"I'm not sure if I'm hungry now or not," Secret laughed.
"Oh, sure you are! I'll make pancakes and bacon. You always like my cooking!"
"Okay, okay," Secret agreed. "Just don't serve anything with tomatoes or tomato sauce. That includes tomato juice, too!"
CHAPTER FIVE
PROMPTLY, AT 1:00 PM, Secret's first client of the day arrived.
Mrs. Harriett Bennington was dressed as if she were attending a formal afternoon tea. She wore a flowered print dress with stockings and sensible heels. Her ensemble was complete with a sunhat and gloves. Her age could have been anywhere from fifty to seventy, but it wasn't easy to nail down with such a flawless makeup application over perfectly sculpted, plastic facial features.
Once Secret escorted Mrs. Bennington to the reading room, they both sat on opposite sides of the round, cloth-covered table where the readings took place. Since she had never read for Mrs. Bennington before, she let her spider senses reach out to see what they would pick up from the woman. Almost instantly, she hit on the one thing that Mrs. Bennington would do almost anything to keep hidden.
Yes, I will need to tread very carefully with this one, Secret thought.
"What can I do for you today, Mrs. Bennington?" Secret asked her.
"You mean you can't tell that already?" the woman barked at her. "I would think that as a psychic you would already know things of that nature."
Oh wonderful! A rude one, Secret thought with dismay. Well, that's why I work alone. I can always send someone away when they're rude.
"I ask the question as a courtesy," Secret replied. "There are many gifts that I possess as well as various services that I offer. I simply ask because I'm not clear as to which ones you're here to experience."
Mrs. Bennington sat up straighter in her chair and sniffed disdainfully.
"Just tell me what you see," she said sharply.
I could scare the hell out of her, thought Secret, and just start talking. Or I could make a show of using the Tarot cards to tell her. Either way, it's going to be the same.
Making a decision, she picked up her deck of Tarot cards. Shuffling them well, she cut the deck, and started to lay them out. Normally, she would have the client cut them and choose cards from the deck, but she didn't want this horrible woman's energy to infiltrate her cards.
"The High Priestess card," Secret said, as she turned it over. "This card shows that you have secrets, Mrs. Bennington. Some very deep secrets that are soon to be revealed."
"What exactly does that mean?" the woman huffed.
"Just what I said," Secret replied. "There's a secret that you're holding very tightly to you, and you'll do almost anything to keep it from coming to light."
Glancing up at her, Secret was somewhat gratified to see that Mrs. Bennington had turned a bit pale.
Turning over the next card, s
he saw that it was The Tower.
"This is The Tower," she said. "It shows that things are going to start crumbling around you sometime very soon. There will be changes in your life that must happen, but they may not happen the way that you had hoped or anticipated. You may even need help in dealing with these changes."
"I don't know why I'm even here! I've never heard such garbage!"
"I'm sorry you feel that way, Mrs. Bennington. Shall we continue with your reading or shall I simply refund your money?"
That seemed to stop her in her tracks. It was clear that this was a woman who was used to getting her way all the time. The fact that someone as inferior as Secret Lavalle had the nerve to speak to her in that way infuriated her. On the other hand, she was starting to become nervous about what Secret was actually picking up around her.
"No, no go on."
"Very well. Your next card, as you can see, is the Ten of Swords. This shows that there's been some violence around you recently, and that you probably feel you have been betrayed in some way. The next one is the Death card, which shows that you're going to have a new start but, in this case, it may not be the one that you had hoped it would be."
"Well, none of that makes any sense," Mrs. Bennington cried. "You're a charlatan, just like the rest of your kind that crowd the streets of New Orleans!"
"A charlatan? Is that what you called me?" Secret barely managed to whisper the words.
"Yes! It's clear that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about!"
Secret swept up the cards with one hand and put them to the side.
"I'll show you what a charlatan I am, Mrs. Bennington," Secret said, as she leaned toward the woman's face with a dangerous look. "I was trying to be kind and considerate, but I can see that you're beyond understanding something so basic. So here it is."
Mrs. Bennington had gone from being livid to somewhat nervous.
"Your husband has recently died, Mrs. Bennington, and you've been left a rather large amount of money. However, you won't get to enjoy any of that money. You see, your huge secret that I was able to pick up within minutes of your darkening my door is that you killed your husband. Granted, he wasn't a very nice man. He was the typical rich man who couldn't keep his pants zipped up, and was constantly dipping into the recesses of every gold digger that came along. You got tired of it, but you just couldn't give up all that money. So you started to slowly poison him with something that will never turn up in an autopsy. A Wiccan High Priestess mixed it up for you and told you how to use it, and it worked like a charm. The problem is that you didn't hide the leftovers very well and the police are now searching that big, old house of yours for evidence. They're minutes away from finding the little bottle of poison, and your fingerprints are all over it. The medical examiner is going to look more closely at your husband's body and this time, he'll find what the police need to put you under the prison!"
Secret finally stopped talking long enough to take a breath.
"Now, tell me again what a charlatan I am."
Mrs. Bennington had now turned a dangerous, pasty white, eyes wide and jaw hanging open.
"How... how could you possibly know any of that?" she whispered in shock.
"Because I read it in you as soon as you sat down."
"Are the police really at my home?" Mrs. Bennington shuddered.
"Yes, I'm afraid they are. You need to go home and face what you've done."
Secret stood up and looked at her client meaningfully.
At first, it didn't seem as if the woman was going to move, but she finally braced herself by placing her hands on the table and stood up.
"Don't even try to run, Mrs. Bennington," Secret warned her. "This isn't something that you're meant to avoid. You chose a path and now you must follow it to the end."
Mrs. Bennington did her best to regain her regal composure, but it wasn't working so well for her.
"You need to go now, Mrs. Bennington," Secret said in more compassionate tone. "They're waiting for you, and it will go easier on you if you just confess to it all."
"I can't go to prison," she said, as her face started to crumple.
"You're stronger than you think, Mrs. Bennington."
Actually, Secret could see that this woman wasn't going to do well in prison at all, but she couldn't see that telling her so would be helpful at all. In fact, Secret almost felt sorry for her now. Her husband really had been a dick in the worst way, but she had made the wrong decision in getting even with him. Sadly, Mr. Bennington would be having the last laugh.
Escorting a very shaky Harriett Bennington to her front door, Secret was relieved to see that there was a driver waiting with the car in her driveway. She had been a little worried about the woman driving herself home.
At the door, Mrs. Bennington stopped and turned to face Secret.
"I do apologize, my dear, for my horrible manners and rudeness," she said in a trembling voice. "You're not a charlatan. In fact, you're very accurate. Everything you said is the truth. Everything."
"Mrs. Bennington, I'm very sorry that this has turned out like this for you, but you cannot get away with this type of vengeance." As Secret spoke, she motioned surreptitiously to the driver to come and collect his employer.
"Thomas, please take me home," she quavered.
"Yes, ma'am," he replied, as he offered her his arm for support on the way back to the car.
Secret watched them as Thomas settled his employer in the back seat of the large, shiny black car.
She felt a heavy sadness descend upon her heart. Yes, the woman had been rude to her, but in the end, that was such a small thing. Harriett Bennington was about to have everything torn away from her, and she didn't know the half of what she was about to face.
She was relieved that she had an hour to gather her thoughts and center herself before her next client arrived.
CHAPTER SIX
KANE AWOKE AND sat up.
He wasn't quite sure what caused him to wake because the sun had not totally set. Something stirred his rest, though. Of that, he was positive.
Listening carefully, he trained all of his senses in the direction of where the disturbance seemed to have emanated.
There it was!
A scream and then silence. Blackness.
He had, of course, been keeping up with the current murders that were happening in and around the New Orleans area. So far, he hadn't focused on who was doing it. Other things were consuming his attention.
That dreadful name the newspapers were calling the killer simply grated on him. The Blood Drinker. Seriously? He assumed they didn't fully believe that the murderer was actually drinking the blood of the victims, but it seemed that humans always had to sensationalize these things.
He would have to see who was encroaching on his territory and calling attention to them all. This had to stop. That meant, even though his current project was quite important, it would have to be shelved for the moment so he could sort out this murder situation.
Well, he thought. There's no time like the present.
Since he had already heard the scream, he knew what direction to take. It was, of course, too late to save the woman, but he could still catch the culprit and dispatch him in whatever way seemed appropriate.
Moving with his supernatural speed, he was at the murder site in seconds. As he had known, the victim was long past any help humans or his kind could offer to her. Sniffing the air, he caught the scent he needed and followed.
In no time, he spotted his prey. He stared at him in amazement.
No wonder he continues to collect victims so easily, Kane thought. He looks as though he's no older than fifteen or sixteen years old, and has the face of an angel. Before the boy could move in on his next target, Kane swooped down on him and flushed him into a deserted alleyway. . Pushed up against the brick wall, the boy showed no fear until he got a good look at Kane's face. Recognition, as well as terror, sank in rather quickly then. Even he knew who Kane was.
<
br /> Leaning right into the young vampire's face, Kane hissed "So you're trying to call attention to all of us because you're stupid?"
"I... I'm hungry and I can't seem to stop myself."
"Oh, you can stop yourself. You just choose not to do so. What is your name?"
"My name is Bonn," he trembled. "You're not going to kill me, are you?"
"I haven't decided yet. Who is your maker?"
"She said her name was Lisette."
"Dammit!" Kane spat out as he shoved Bonn away from him. "Where did she find you?"
"She's here in New Orleans. I was out with some friends and we got separated. Suddenly, she was right there in front of me."
Lisette was a very dangerous vampire because she possessed a lethal combination of both beauty and evilness. Outwardly, she had beauty that defied description. It was that appearance which fooled so many humans over the years; even those who knew of and believed in vampires.
Her hair wasn't dark like a good many vampires'. Rather, it was the lightest shade of blonde. The only time her eyes took on a red tint was when she was getting ready to feed or when she was compelling someone. The rest of the time, they were a shade of blue that the sky would envy. She was tall and slender.
The look of innocence that she wore drew more people to her than if she had used her powers to compel them to come closer. Everyone who saw her wanted to be near her.
For her to have snatched this boy from the street, meant that her hunger had overtaken her. This fact made Kane very curious. Lisette had been around long enough to control her surroundings and sort them in a way suitable to her. What could have happened that would have caused her to take someone just because he was handy? Even more puzzling, why had he not been able to sense her? Usually, Kane knew whenever Lisette was close.
"Did she speak to you?" Kane demanded to know.