by Lexi C. Foss
He closed his eyes, sending out feelers, searching for any connection to Solange or Alastair. Solange would be a long shot since he’d not fully mated her, but Alastair was another thing entirely. Slowly his smile spread — he felt him. Alastair was close.
Crispin looked down at Mr. Scruffikins. “I may not be back, Scruff. But I’ll make sure your mistress is.” He closed his eyes and allowed his senses to become centered on the invisible bond he had with Alastair. Locked onto the path he needed to follow, he thought of Solange. Then he dematerialized, sending Mr. Scruffikins into a barking frenzy. He smiled thinking of the name he’d found on the electricity bill — Solange LaCelle De’Mers. His little slayer was a witch — of the most powerful kind.
Solange walked around the old, stately mansion, looking for a way in. Finding none, and assuring herself that a very large, very evil presence lurked inside, she simply closed her eyes, wishing herself inside.
Finding herself in a very large sitting room, she looked around herself for any indication that someone had been there recently. As far as she could tell, no one had been there, at least not in the sitting room. Carefully, quietly, she began her search of the house, one room after another, methodically making her searches as she was taught to do, prepared at any moment to find herself in a surprise battle.
Having eliminated all rooms on the level the sitting room was on, and the floor above that, she moved to ground level. Searched each room, and found nothing. Having determined that she was alone in the home with only a few squirrels, mice, and rats, she was comfortable knowing that she’d not be attacked from above while she made her way through the basement. Not all homes in New Orleans had them. But the finer, grander homes did. They were usually just below ground level, with walls of cement or cinder block, with windows or vents that just barely cleared the ground at their top edges, and this one was no different.
Solange found the entrance through the pantry in the kitchen. Stealthily she made her way down the stairs, her senses and energies alert for any occurrence. Her energies told her she was not alone. Slowly she reached the bottom of the staircase, and paused to allow her eyes to adjust to the darkness there. She glanced around the room and noticed it looked much like the basement she explored in London. Scattered pieces of furniture, dusty stained sheets draped over stored furniture, old clothes — utter disarray basically scattered from one end to the other. And the presence she sensed when she entered the house was no doubt down here with her.
Solange started making her way through the stored furniture, clothes and other items. Some were stacked albeit haphazardly, and others were just strewn about. She did her best to remain quiet and not to disturb anything as she moved as though in a maze throughout the room. As far as she could tell, there was a place near the far wall, that had a section cleared. That was her focus. That was where she needed to be.
Almost there, her shirt caught on an old Tiffany floor lamp, causing it to fall over and clatter to the floor, the decorative, glass lampshade shattering on impact. Movement could be heard right away, over toward the clearing she’d been moving toward. Her adrenaline ramped up, and instinctually she muttered a protection spell around herself.
Solange waited a few moments to be sure nothing was moving toward her and took one step toward the far wall. Then a voice called out. “You’ve been a naughty mate, Mouse,” the voice singsonged, giggling wildly.
Solange said nothing, but she stopped moving.
“Oh come, now. It’s not that bad, you have after all come back to me. There is that to consider.”
Solange remained where she was, not answering, waiting, giving the owner of the voice the opportunity to make the first move.
“Come along, Mouse. I tire of this game. I am waiting. One does not keep their mate waiting. Especially when their mate is also their maker. Come! Now!” the voice snarled, obviously building with anger.
Solange very slowly moved toward the voice, which was also in the cleared area she’d been moving toward. Only moments later she stepped from between two large boxes and came face to face with Alastair. He reclined on a filthy bed, his clothing the same as the last time she’d seen him. And his eyes were pinned to hers.
“Mouse. I am warmed that you came home of your own volition. It is quite endearing. It will not save you from being punished however — you have been hiding from me for a very, very long time. It shows a complete lack of respect.”
Solange stood still, listening to the absolutely insane male lying on the bed before her. Her emotions were roiling. She was facing a soulless creature who slaughtered innocents with absolutely no remorse. She was facing her mother’s murderer. She was facing her father. She would kill him.
“Do you not understand me?” he thundered, sitting up on the bed. “Come here at once and kneel before me. Prepare yourself to pay the price for not serving your maker as you should.”
Solange watched the psychotic vampire order her to her knees. She smiled, then she laughed.
Alastair became enraged, jumping to his feet. “You think me a joke?” he demanded.
Solange shook her head, her laughter dying off. “No. I think you a sick fuck.”
“You will pay for your insolence,” he said, moving toward her.
“And you will pay for murdering my mother, Daddy Dearest!” she shot back, reaching up and snatching her cross from her throat. The moment the cross was no longer around her neck, her teeth were easily seen to have slightly elongated fangs, and her eyes glowed red.
On being faced with a female vampire he wasn’t familiar with, Alastair paused, taking a moment to really look at her. “You are not my Mouse,” he finally whispered.
“My mother, Adrienne, died at your hands. A pawn in your game against our family. She was never a Mouse. She had more courage and more strength than you ever thought to have.”
Alastair laughed maniacally, losing concentration as he dissolved into laughter over the comment he found immensely funny.
Solange chose that moment to attack. She materialized on his side of the bed, her left hand gripping his throat as she punched his face — direct impact with his nose once, twice, three times, before releasing his throat to spin and kick him in the stomach, sending him flying across the mattress as he snarled out his rage at being attacked.
Alastair launched himself at Solange, who met him head on. Blow after blow rained down as they battled each other relentlessly.
At one point Alastair disappeared as Solange spun one direction, then the next trying to locate him. He was still there, she could feel him. “Where are you, Alastair?” she said seductively. “Do you fear me, is that why you hide yourself away?” she taunted.
“Who. Are. You?” his voice echoed around her, his hatred and anger dripping from each slowly uttered word.
Solange smiled. “Don’t you recognize me? I’m the curse you left my mother with. I’m the curse you cast upon her family. I’m the curse you gifted them, come back to haunt you. I’m your daughter.”
Alastair was suddenly visible, about ten feet away from her, his ancient, bloodstained, filthy face registering shock. “Daughter?” he whispered, moving a few steps closer to her. Solange didn’t move, she held firm where she stood.
“Mouse had a daughter?” he asked. He was confused, having a hard time distinguishing between his own warped version and reality itself. Suddenly he turned, charging across the basement. There was the sound of metal ripping away from the wall and then a girl’s scream. “Did you have the child? Did you?” he screamed, snatching the missing girl from the crawlspace where he’d shoved her until he decided to deal with her again.
“Oh, fuck!” Solange muttered, moving quickly to get to Alastair and the girl that had somehow miraculously managed to survive more than twenty-four hours in his grasp.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I don’t have a child, I promise!” she answered, apologizing profusely in order to appease the creature who had her in his grasp.
“Leave her alone, f
uckface,” Solange ordered.
Alastair spun with the girl held up off the ground, his fingers wrapped around her neck as he held her up to his eye level. He looked at the girl in his hand, then looked at Solange, before focusing on the girl again. Finally, seeming to have reached a decision, he tossed the girl from him, causing her to land some fifteen feet away from them. Then he advanced on Solange.
“I’ll kill you,” he promised.
“I'm okay with that, as long as I take you with me,” Solange answered.
Alastair advanced on her, snarling and growling the entire way. She stood her ground, flicking her fingertips at first one object then another, raining everything from floor lamps to dishes down on him as he tried to get to her.
Each step he took was met with a piece of furniture or a stack of debris falling on him. Irritated with the constant assault on his person, with very little-to-no action from the female in front of him, he finally screamed. “What are you?”
“I’m a deadly combination. I’m my mother’s daughter, and my father’s curse.” With that she attacked anew. Punching, kicking, striking, and Alastair fought back. A fight that actually lasted less than ten minutes felt like hours to Solange.
Solange misstepped and found herself flat on her stomach with Alastair on top of her, strangling her from behind. Scrambling to find anything to fight him off with, she realized she’d have to dematerialize and come up behind him. She didn’t want to do that. It was the same reason she brought no weapons, the same reason she used as little of her magic as possible other than to taunt Alastair into being so flustered he made mistakes. She wanted to kill him with her own hand. Not with magic, not with weapons, she wanted to feel his life seep from this earth from between her fingers.
Suddenly, her own hand grasped the broken leg of a wooden chair lying tangled in one of the sheets that had been covering the furniture stored there. She smiled as she gripped it, taking it with her when she vanished and then materialized behind him.
Alastair was startled when at first she vanished, but then he heard her behind him. He spun, attempting to get to his feet and attack her again. But he didn’t move quickly enough. Solange gripped the broken, wooden chair leg in both hands and plunged it through Alastair’s heart.
Alastair’s eyes grew wide with surprise, blood poured from the wound in his chest, seeping out around the chair leg, now stake, sticking out of his chest. He struggled to his feet and looked from the stake through his heart to Solange. Then he smiled weakly at her, blood spilling from the corner of his mouth, before falling forward, face down on the floor, his body weight forcing the broken chair leg the rest of the way through his chest.
A thud behind her had her spinning, prepared to fight again. But she was anything other than prepared for the sight that greeted her. Crispin had arrived just in time to materialize in the basement just as she drove the chair leg through Alastair’s chest. As Alastair collapsed, so did Crispin.
“Crispin!” Solange shouted, limping toward him as quickly as she could. “Crispin!” she screamed, kneeling beside him and running her hands over him. “What is it? Where are you injured? Tell me!” she begged.
Crispin offered her a resigned smile. “Maker,” he managed to get out.
Solange continued to run her hands over him, smoothing her hands over his face. “What?” she asked trying to understand.
Crispin focused on her red eyes, managing to raise a hand and just barely touch her temple near her eyes. “Vampire. Witch,” he said slowly, stutteringly, before calmly closing his eyes.
“Crispin!” Solange screamed, shaking him.
The girl Alastair had thrown started crying from somewhere off to her left. That was enough to draw Solange’s attention since she was still on high alert. When she looked back to Crispin, reality broke through her foggy, emotional brain. He’d said maker. Her eyes flicked to a very dead Alastair, as his body shriveled and dried out. Alastair turned Crispin. Alastair is dead, so all vampires he created will die, too.
“No!” Solange shouted. “No!” she shouted again. Then she leaned over Crispin and pressed her ear to his chest. She started to sob, then heard a thump. She popped up and looked down at him. A heartbeat! Solange wasted no time. She grabbed his hair, yanking his head toward her, pressed her mouth against his throat and sank her fangs into his throat. She drank, and drank, and drank.
The girl Alastair had tossed across the room had crawled her way toward the staircase hoping to escape since she was no longer his focus. The moment she stumbled across Solange draining Crispin’s blood from his body, she began screaming.
Snarling her frustration, Solange flicked the fingers of one hand in the general direction of the girl, lifting a dusty sheet from a pile of wrecked storage boxes and draping it over her. The girl was so startled and frightened by the development, she stopped screaming, thinking that she’d been captured by another vampire.
Solange returned her attention to Crispin. With her fangs buried in his neck, she could feel his life force as it slowly ebbed away. Finally, she felt no heartbeat and his life force was so weak, she wasn’t quite sure there was one. She closed her eyes, sending her energies into Crispin, and there it was. A tiny, almost extinguished flame. Hurriedly Solange sat up, tearing into her own wrist until the blood coursed down her forearm toward her elbow.
Solange gathered Crispin to her and pulled him into her lap, cradling him there as she allowed his head to hang off her legs, forcing his mouth to fall open. She held her wrist over his mouth, allowing her blood to spill into Crispin’s open mouth.
Solange repeated prayer after prayer, and muttered spells she’d not thought of since she was a child obsessed with the idea that she could bring her mother back to life, and between the prayers and spells, she begged. “Just live, Crispy. Please, please! Even if you never want to speak to me again, just live,” she pleaded, sobbing as she tried in vain to drain his blood and turn him herself.
She finally gave up, dropping her wrist to his mouth and laying her upper body across his chest as she cried in heartbreak over the only male she’d ever been drawn to, the only male she’d ever loved.
Then the strangest thing happened. She felt movement against her torn wrist. Her breath caught, she popped up and looked down at Crispin. His eyes were closed, but his mouth was definitely moving against her wrist.
“Crispin!” she cried, positioning her wrist more tightly against his lips. “There you go. Drink, drink,” she begged.
And he did. Slowly her blood began to fill his body. The entire time he fed from her, she murmured spells of life, spells of strength, and begged him to live.
Crispin latched onto Solange’s wrist. He drank until his heartbeat was once again steady and strong. His senses were beginning to return. His sense of smell picked up blood, then Solange. He forced his eyes to open and fought against the need to let them fall closed again. After a few moments they finally focused on the two red pinpoints he could see through the fog he struggled to overcome.
Then the area around those eyes came into focus. Solange. Those beautiful red eyes looking anxiously down at him belonged to his beloved Solange. His bloodstained lips trembled, he breathed deep, and struggled to speak. Finally, he managed to get one word out. “Mine,” he whispered.
Solange smiled through her tears, finally laughing in relief. “Yes. Okay, yes.”
Crispin seemed satisfied with her acceptance of his claim. He gave her half a smile and let his eyelids fall back over his eyes.
Solange looked around the basement as she sat still holding Crispin in her arms. She couldn’t call for clean up like this, not with Crispin here at all, much less in the condition he was in. And the whimpering girl beneath the dusty sheet had seen her turning him. She couldn’t have E.V.I.E. hunting her Crispy.
She scooted as close as she could to Crispin, then pulled him tightly into her arms. She glanced over at the sheet-covered shape not twenty feet from her and called out loudly, threateningly. “Do not move un
til someone comes for you. If you speak of me, I will hunt you down. Do you understand?”
The sheet fluttered back and forth, so she took that to mean the girl was nodding. Then she pressed her face against Crispin. “Hold tight, Crispy. I’m taking us out of here.”
Crispin’s hand was draped across his body, lying limply near her arm where she held him. He rubbed two fingers against the inside of her arm to let her know he heard her. Then before he knew it, she’d called the winds and whisked them away to the bedroom she was born in at Grandmama’s house. The room that still had blacked out windows, the room that would keep Crispin safe until she could figure out what to do next.
17
Marceline lay propped up in her bed, doing her best to concentrate on the book in her hands. The house around her was quiet despite the unsettled, anxious feeling that had befallen her in the last hour. The feeling had to do with Solange, of that she had no doubt. Somewhere, somehow, Solange was in trouble.
Marceline threw back the covers and slid her feet into her house slippers sitting beside the bed. She gathered her robe around herself and checked herself in the mirror. At over one hundred years old, she was still a force to be reckoned with. Her magics, her energies and her gumption in general, kept her strong and spry. She rose every day and styled her silver-grey hair in a French twist piled high on her head, dressed in her elegant yet understated skirts and dresses, and her matching heels. Granted they weren’t as high as they once were, but they were far from flat-heeled shoes.
Marceline smiled at herself in the mirror. Even when dressed for bed, one had to be presentable at all times. One had to always appear to be in control. Satisfied that her hair was still sightly, and though dressed for bed, she was properly covered, she opened her bedroom door and started her third inspection of the house for the night. She started on the first floor, finished the second floor, and insured that all was as it should be. Some of her coven were still moving about the house, relaxing, watching television, whatever they wanted to do.