by Lumi Laura
CHAPTER 26 Home Invasion
When Alex got home that night, she left the lights off. She felt hunted, and with her night vision, she was on a level playing field with anyone who might try to enter her home, even other vampires. Not to mention that she was proving rather difficult to kill. She stuffed her bed covers to look like she was underneath sleeping and grabbed a dark blanket and pillow from another bedroom and took them downstairs where she curled up in a corner out of the light of the glowing coals of the fireplace.
Alex remembered the nights she'd wake to find Mikhail staring out the window. She'd get out of bed and go stand beside him, look out at the city lights below and listen to night noises. How she'd loved those times. How she missed their quiet hours together with Jaklin soundly asleep nearby.
That night was uneventful. The next morning she called Oxford to inform them that she would have to delay her matriculation one year. They gave her directions on how to accomplish a deferment on their website. She sat before her computer and cried. She didn't realize that she did actually want to go to university. She even missed her friends back in secondary school. The humiliation of being pregnant and unmarried she'd take as a blessing if she could just be a normal human again. She steadied herself and filled out the online form.
Once finished with Oxford, she went down the hill to Sinaia and asked around until she found a store that carried baby clothes. She bought the cutest little jump suit, a couple dozen diapers, some tiny little tops and bottoms, some unbelievably small socks, and a pair of itsy white shoes. She bought bibs, a rattle, a mobile and a couple of stuffed animals: a rabbit and a donkey. An adorable pink baby blanket.
She was beginning to show even under casual observation, and thought this would help her get serious about being a mother. She was going to have the baby regardless of what Father Zosimos thought. And the little girl wasn't going to be a daughter of Satan either.
Once home, she opened all the packages, laid the baby clothes out on the sofa and watched the light from the fireplace flicker on her prized possessions. When she squeezed the donkey it brayed, which made her laugh in spite of her depression.
Alex realized she would have to protect the child from Father Zosimos, that he might even try to make her miscarry. She'd have to stay indoors as much as possible. She could get much of her food from the garden, but she'd need bread and soy milk from the market. She'd go out during the day. Surely they wouldn't attack her in public and in broad daylight.
Alex considered confessing her predicament to her parents. Perhaps they'd understand and protect her. But she couldn't endure the humiliation. They'd never been close; she'd lost what favor she had with her mother by inheriting her fortune. And being a vampire was not one of the things parents ordinarily hoped for in a teenage daughter. Father Zosimos hadn't contacted them. He'd never let it get out that he believed in vampires. Alex thought of going to her sister's, but that would put her girls at risk. Alex didn't even know what she herself might capable of. Those sweet little bodies were so bitable.
Alex went up into her grandmother's attic and retrieved, with some difficulty, a small crib for when the baby arrived. The attic had been something of a family mystery, no one ever having been permitted up there, not even Alex's mother and father. Her grandmother had mentioned something about it containing a family secret that she wanted to share with Alex, something so heart wrenching that she had to gather her courage to do it. She'd not lived long enough.
Alex loved the musty smell of the place and the sense of history in the old objects cast carelessly about. The attic was a large space with unfinished flooring beneath the exposed underside of the roof. Nails stuck through the rough surface, and 2x4 crossbeams on edge reinforced it. It contained odd pieces of furniture, a small desk, and several cardboard boxes packed with old kitchen utensils.
Off in one corner against the wall, stood an iron-barred cage big enough for a large animal. It had been anchored to the house framing with huge bolts and had obviously been brought in piecemeal and welded together there. Inside were a bunk bed mattress and a portable toilet seat. The small door was chained and padlocked. Alex had never seen anything quite like it. Perhaps this was her grandmother's secret.
She also found her grandfather’s staff that he’d used later in life. He was a great hiker, even into his seventies. It came to him in the post one day unannounced. She remembered that he’d let her play with it. It was made from extremely heavy wood, straight, and practically indestructible, with a large natural knot at the top and stood to her shoulders. He’d taken to it immediately, but never learned who sent it. He’d also taught Alex how to swing it, confessing he’d been taught a Japanese style of self-defense while on the island of Okinawa during his military service. Alex felt such great affection for it that she set it aside. Perhaps she’d find a use for it.
Two chests, one large and one small, were pushed up against the wall with boxes stacked on top. Alex set the boxes aside and open the larger chest, the more interesting of the two. She brushed off the dust with a rag, coughed, and raised the lid. Inside, she found a cardboard box of old family pictures, even pictures of family members with Queen Marie, definite verification of Alex's grandmother's story of the dark side of royalty. One person stood out, a rather strange woman with black hair and dark sunken eyes. Curious, Alex thought.
Alex kept back the box of pictures, lowered the lid and opened the smaller chest. It contained love letters from her grandfather during their courtship. Interesting, but also private and not a confidentiality she wished to violate.
Next to the smaller chest, Alex noticed a peculiar pattern in the rough wood flooring. The square pattern appeared to be a firm part of the floor, but yet why would it be shaped so? She found an old table knife among the discarded kitchen utensils and inserted it along one edge. She pried but nothing budged. Then she tried along the other edge, and thought she felt movement. She tried the opposite edge, and gradually it gave way.
Alex raised the small section of flooring, and in the space below, found a small wooden box. She raised the lid. Inside was a leather-bound book. Alex removed it, and as she opened it, it cracked and threatened to fall apart. Apparently, it was a diary. She read a page in the middle dated December 22, 1921. She turned to the first pages. It was the property of Catherine Cantacuzene. Catherine was Alex's great grandmother's name. She remembered that Cantacuzene was the family name of Queen Marie's lover, the Hussar, Lieutenant Zizi Cantacuzene. This was her great grandmother's diary. She had used her father's family name.
Alex replaced the floorboard but kept the diary. She also picked up the cardboard box of pictures. She climbed down from the attic to the second floor hall and took the stairs to the living room. She located the biography of Queen Marie that her grandmother had given her and turned to the index. Alex thought she remembered something strange about a family member, and sure enough there it was. Queen Marie had a friend named Manuka Cantacuzene, obviously a relative of Zizi. And here was the peculiarity. Manuka had an aversion to light and crowds. She hardly, if ever, ventured out of doors. The thing was, she only allowed candles for lighting. Her home stayed so dark that guests frequently tripped over furniture. .could have been one of the Undead? If so, Alex's family had a connection to the race of vampires going back some ninety years.
Alex looked through the pictures in the cardboard box and again located the picture of the strange dark woman. Was that Manuka? She also found the pictures of Queen Marie, only two, but here was the interesting thing. One of them was taken with a young woman holding a child, which Alex thought had a strong resemblance to her own grandmother. Was this Catherine? Was this a generational picture: Queen, daughter, grandchild?
One other thing about the picture struck Alex. It had been taken out of doors before an open-air structure. Only part of it was visible, but it had to be the gazebo. Queen Marie had it built about the same time. What was so special about the gazebo anyway? Velinar was the source of the apparition that first night, wh
en Alex believed it had been rebuilt, and this added further complexity to the mystery. Had Velinar created the illusion to attract Alex? Was the gazebo a portal to the Divine World? Or built over such a portal?
Then she wondered what Velinar was doing so close to the gazebo when she collapsed. Had she been trying to get to it? Would she have been safe if she had made it inside? But what if Velinar wasn't allowed into the gazebo because she was a vampire? That sounded even more likely. Alu was frightened of it. Alex remembered that when Velinar first grabbed her, she bit her then shoved her into the gazebo while drinking her blood. Perhaps it wasn't just that drinking Alex's blood had saved her, but the fact that her contact with Alex had allowed her to once again enter the gazebo.
Another thing about the name Cantacuzene came to mind. Mikhail had mentioned it. Back in 1695, Prince Mihail Cantacuzino built the Sinaia Monastery after a trip he made to the biblical Mt. Sinai. The entire town of Sinaia grew up around the Monastery. And Alex's biological great great grandfather, Zizi Cantacuzene, was a member of that same family. Somehow, it all was starting to make sense. She wondered if it could have something to do with the disappearance of her great grandmother, Catherine.
That evening, Alex set before the fire petting Nălucă and reading Catherine's journal. Most of it was just personal stuff, things that would interest only the author. Toward the end, the narrative changed and was mostly about Catherine's baby, Alex's grandmother, and her antics as a child. So adorable. But the last few pages concerned an aunt that sometimes came to visit, one from her father's side of the family, and her visits caused great excitement. Catherine would then have been twenty-four years old. Catherine's excitement centered around a mysterious gift, one that would change her life forever, that her aunt would have bestowed on her, if she wished. But the narrative came to an end at that point, and the gift remained a mystery. Alex wondered if the aunt was Manuka, the woman she suspected of being a vampire. The only thing Alex remembered her grandmother saying about her mother was that she'd disappeared when she was young and never returned. Alex's grandmother was actually raised by relatives, until she was old enough to take custody of her estate. Could Manuka have turned Catherine or have had her turned?
Alex shook her head, closed the biography and the journal, put away the pictures. This was lunacy. Surely someone in the family would have known if Catherine had been a vampire. She'd never figure it all out. Perhaps it didn't matter anyway.
Alex let the fire burn low so that only the glow of coals sent a pale red light about the living room. Again, she cuddled in the corner with her blanket and pillow. The absence of Jaklin and Mikhail descended on her like a disease. Never had she felt the vacuum left by having lost friends. Always she'd been able to walk away from those she knew, even her own family, but Jaklin and Mikhail were closer than family, more than friends. They had taken a piece of her with them, if not taken all of what she had recognized as her new self. She was now a non-person, as she had been before meeting them. She was again Al-Ex, the non-existent person. Alex began wondering why she was staying among humans at all. No one liked her.
Alex longed to enter the cavern again. Vampires were the ones who truly understood. They accepted her. The only reason Alu had kicked her out was that she brought the cross with her. Not a problem now. She remembered how they'd all gathered about her and wanted to touch her. With them, she'd felt special. Yet, here she stayed, toughing it out in the World of the Living, putting her child at risk.
It was more than that. If she were to live for eternity, she wished to be among those who knew about the problems of immortality. They could tell her how to cope with the boredom that would undoubtedly set in after a while. She wondered if immortality had consolations that made seeing all those you knew and loved grow old and die while staying young yourself not seem so bad. She wished to sit amongst the small groups of intellectuals and discuss the great philosophical issues of the time, to hear of their exploits, the origin and lore of the vampire.
And then there were the orgies.
Alex's child would be safe there. It would have no father and be shunned by human society as a child of a vampire, shunned and hunted, ever at risk. Alu already had a plan for the unborn child and believed she could be a great boon to the vampire community. Somewhat of a scary thought, she had to admit.
She'd just dropped off to sleep when something woke her. It wasn't a noise or a light. The baby had moved, just a flutter, but she'd not felt it since the night she'd wanted to kill Stefan at her grandmother's grave.
From her corner of the living room, Alex saw, not shadows, but the sequential eclipsing of distant lights penetrating outside darkness. She heard a faint rustling in the backyard and even a whisper from the front of the house. Had Alu come for her? She felt panic but didn't know where to run. She saw a flash of light from the stairs and realized that someone had entered her bedroom, her grandmother's bedroom. Her panic turned to anger. They'd obviously come up the outdoor stairway to the balcony, perhaps slipped in a window. They'd know by now that she wasn't in bed. She heard more whispering, this time from upstairs.
She raised up, dumping Nălucă from her lap. Somehow, she knew it wasn't vampires. Yet she wondered who it could be: Stefan and his group of bounty hunters? And then she saw the silhouette of someone peeking in through a window in the kitchen, and that of another on the curtains. She could hear them communicating over their wireless radios. Police. She imagined them whispering into their sleeve cuffs or their collars. And then she realized that it was a swat-team, and a wave of foreboding and fear come over her, but quickly turned to rage. They'd violated her sanctity.
Instinctively, Alex moved quickly and quietly into the kitchen and retrieved a large roll of duct tape. Then she scurried up the stairs and into the hall, just in time to see one of the intruders enter her spare bedroom. Silently, she came up behind him in the dark.
As the instant of violence approached, her body seemed a finely honed instrument. When the policeman turned to see who was behind him, possibly thinking it was one of the swat-team, Alex hit him in the solar plexus, knocking the wind from him and doubling him over. She then threw him up against the wall, taped his mouth, kicked his legs out from under him, and taped both hands together behind his back. She then taped both feet together, pulled his feet up behind to his hands, and strung the tape up to his neck. He could scarcely move, and she'd accomplished it all in a matter of seconds with her vampire agility and quickness. She had the man's automatic weapon in her hands, which she didn't know how to use, but she didn't need to.
As she waited behind the door for the next one, she had to calm herself. The urge to feed was strong, but the desire to kill was even stronger. When the next policeman entered, she hit him in the temple with the butt of the automatic rifle and knocked him out cold as a doorknob. She taped him up also. Then she heard the squawking of more radios.
She had to hurry.
Alex cast aside the weapon, left the bedroom, closed the door and quickly moved into her grandmother's bedroom. The window had been pried open. No one else appeared to be upstairs. She unlocked and jerked open the door to the outside, crossed the balcony and ran down the stairs to the ground below. She saw a uniformed man standing beside a tree, shrouded in darkness. He shouted at her. "Is that you, Jarek?" He raised his weapon, but Alex collided with him as he did, shoving him up against the tree. He was a little man, fat and out of shape, and he wilted like a weed without water. She taped him to the tree.
Alex ran a few yards away from the house, took her cellphone from her pocket, and called the local television station. She gave them her address and said that she'd been attacked by a band of robbers and the police were at the scene. She'd heard gunshots and thought someone was down. Perhaps several had been wounded. Then she dialed 112, the Romanian emergency hotline. She left only her address, said, "Hurry!" and hung up.
Alex then stood back in the shadows and watched while as many as twenty policemen in the swat-team sie
ge her home. When the journalists arrived, Alex stepped out of the shadows into the headlights of their van and waved to them. The woman in the passenger seat rolled down her window
"I called you here," Alex said. "This is my home. I have no idea what they're doing."
"Have you talked to them?" the woman asked.
"No. I'm afraid they might mistake me for a burglar and shoot me. They are out of control."
Following the van, two police cars came up the drive with red lights flashing. The journalists' van started to move on ahead, but Alex stopped it.
"Can I get in?" she asked.
Once inside, she saw two more men in the back with a large video camera and boom microphone. The van continued on, headlights flashing on her home and exposing members of the swat-team. They shielded their eyes from the glare. The van stopped, and the two police cars came up behind them. A police officer stepped out of the lead car and shouted.
"Get out! You have no business here."
Alex knew that she could not run from the police and lead any sort of normal life, and being with this film crew would be the safest way to confront them.
"Start filming," she said. "You're my only hope."
She slid open the van door and stepped outside. The two journalists in the back followed her, camera whining, and the sound boom over her head.
Alex turned to look at the policeman behind them. "I have business here," she said. "This is my home. I called 112."
"There she is!" the policeman shouted to the swat-team.
The woman journalist stepped in front of Alex. "What are you here for?" she asked. "Have you come for..." she looked around at Alex.
"Alex Eidyn. My name is Alex Eidyn. I live here. Nu am făcut nimic greșit."
"What do you want with this young woman?" the journalist asked.
"This is police business, and none of yours," he said.
Alex heard the patter of feet as the swat-team converged on them.
"If you wanted to talk to me, you had but to ask," said Alex. "I've nothing to hide."
"What has she done?" the female journalist once again asked.
Finally, the policeman said, "She's wanted for questioning in the murder of Petru Balc."
"What?" said the woman. "You send a swat-team to arrest someone for killing a serial rapist? Do you think she's a vampire?"
"Police business," he said. "Get out of here!"
The word "vampire" froze Alex. Now the world knew she was at least suspected of being one. "If you want me, you have but to take me," said Alex holding both hands out in front of her.
Immediately, three men were on her, shoved her to the ground and handcuffed her. Alex restrained herself. She knew she could kill them all, and if that policeman didn't get his knee out of her back, she just might change her mind about going quietly.