Jesse closed her eyes tight, forcing herself to remember. Why was her memory in such a poor state? Was it because after she had been turned into a human … and then all her past memories were virtually wiped out? But Jesse was able to retrieve some of those memories … she could still remember Maggie and her trying to revive Rellie at the forest … she could remember turning Ken into a vampire in order to save him from eternal death … she could remember fragments of the past, but she couldn’t remember who actually came to abduct her.
And then, Jesse saw something black inside her mind. Masked men in black clothing. They pounced on her like tigers of the night, and the last thing she saw before she blacked out was water being sprinkled onto her. Yes, one of the masked men sprinkled some kind of water onto her. She recalled seeing a clear bottle of water, which she assumed contained some kind of magical properties. It was sprinkled onto her, and then she felt excruciating pain … and everything went black.
Now Jesse remembered what had happened. A group of masked men had abducted her, using some kind of unknown water to take her down. Who were those men? And how did Jesse end up in Catan’s lair? Did the masked men work for Catan? That should be the case, or else Jesse wouldn’t have ended up at Catan’s lair.
What kind of connection did the masked men and Catan share? Curiosity seared deep within Jesse, sending more questions … more than she could bear. She had to get to the bottom of this. But how? She couldn’t even break out from Catan’s lair. She was as weak as a human, literally.
All of a sudden, the door of her chamber burst open, and Jesse knew that Catan had arrived. God knew what he was going to do to her this time.
Jesse flicked a glance at the door, waiting for Catan to drag her out of the chamber and proceed to kill her as he promised he would.
But what she saw drew an audible gasp from her. It wasn’t Catan who was standing at the doorway. The familiar face greeted her, and it brought a hint of smile to her lips. It was none other than … Lipton.
“You’ve manifested!” Jesse cried, dashing over to Catan and instantly wrapping him in a tight embrace. “I have never felt so glad to see anybody in my entire life.” Tears streaked down Jesse’s cheeks, and she didn’t want to let go of Lipton for another second. She wanted to feel the warmth of his body close to hers, and she wanted to forget of all the horrifying things she’d experienced in Maze of Doom.
“Jesse, are you OK?” Lipton asked, pulling his head back to have a good look at Jesse.
Jesse shook her head. “No, I’m not OK. I don’t know what has happened to me. I think that I’ve been turned into a … human.”
It was Lipton’s turn to gasp. “Human? How is that even possible?”
Jesse began to explain about the red blood she’d shed, and how she felt completely human, devoid of all the supernatural senses she’d felt when she was a vampire.
“I don’t have those heightened senses anymore,” Jesse said in a shaky voice. “I feel so frail … like a human. And what confirmed my fears that I’ve been reinstated as a human being was when I shed red blood, not blue …”
“What?” Lipton stared hard at Jesse, his eyes running down the length of her body, and he saw traces of red blood on her shoulders. “Oh, God. What happened? How did you hurt yourself?”
“I slammed hard onto the door earlier, trying to break out of this chamber. And in return, I got bruised up.”
“We need to get you out of here, and fast, before Catan manifests again.”
“But before we go, can we explore the Maze of Doom first? I know that there’s some secret chamber where Catan keeps his source of dark powers, and we need to destroy that so Catan will be rendered powerless, and we’ll be able to defeat him.”
Lipton nodded. “Alright, let’s go find that. Hopefully we’ll be able to put a stop to Catan’s evil plans for good!”
Seeing that Jesse was physically weak, Lipton carried her on his back, and then headed out of the door into an empty corridor with walls of white stretching on both sides. Lipton flicked left and right, wondering which direction he should take.
“Where should we go?” Lipton mumbled, feeling so lost all of a sudden. “Left … or right?”
Jesse followed Lipton’s glance, and wondered the same thing. The Maze of Doom seemed like a huge place, and to find the secret chamber where Catan had kept his source of dark powers would be like finding a needle in a haystack.
Jesse decided to follow her instincts, and murmured, “Maybe we should just take a left.”
“OK, we’ll go left then,” Lipton said with as much confidence as he could muster, even though doubts pierced his mind.
Lipton swerved to the left, and started to flap his wings, slowly rising into the air as Jesse clutched him as tight as she could. Lipton sailed across the long stretch of the corridor, where the doorless white walls passed by in a flurry. Lipton reached the end of the corridor, and then made a steep right turn into the next corridor of the maze. Lipton flapped his wings harder, gaining speed, flying so fast that he almost knocked onto one of the walls. Jesse’s hair flew in tangles around her face as Lipton accelerated through the air. As her hair brushed against her face, Jesse’s mind was instantly pierced by the memory of having her head shaved not long again. Images of having her locks sheared flitted across her mind, sending waves of shock through her. The memories slowly returned to her, and she finally recalled that she had her head shaved for the Return Spell to locate her loved one. But eventually, it turned out that it wasn’t her husband Ken who had emerged when the spell was completed … it was none other than Catan, who Jesse eventually came to discover was actually also Lipton. So if her head had been shaved, then how come she still had hair on her head, as though her locks had never been sheared? Jesse made a wild guess that when Catan had holed her up in his Maze of Doom, he had probably used dark magic to restore her crowning glory. Maybe he couldn’t stand to see a bald woman in his presence, and had magically grown her hair back. That could be the only plausible explanation as to why Jesse her her hair now. If that wasn’t the case, then Jesse had no idea how that could have happened.
“Damn!” Lipton howled, hurtling through the air with an agonized look on his face. “I’ve been flying for quite some time now, and there are still no doors. This maze seems to go in endless circles and circles, and I’m feeling lost …”
Jesse silently agreed with Lipton. Lipton had zoomed down the maze, making left and right turns whenever they reached the end of the corridor, but still, they couldn’t locate any doors. The cotton white walls seemed to stretch infinitely, and it seemed like they were never ever going to find the secret chamber where Catan had stashed away his source of powers.
Lipton started to lose hope, and he just wanted to land onto the ground and call it a day. He had been spinning in circles and circles around the maze, but to no avail.
All of a sudden, he heard a female voice crying out his name.
Lipton! Lipton! The voice sounded so familiar that it immediately sent chills down Lipton’s spine.
Lipton flicked a backward glance, wondering if he had hallucinated and it was actually Jesse who was calling him. But Jesse shot him a dazed look, silent as a mouse.
“Did you just call me?” Lipton asked, easing down on his flying speed.
“No, I did not,” Jesse responded in a slightly hoarse voice, sounding as though she was getting dehydrated.
Lipton! Lipton! Lipton! I’m here! Lipton!!!!
This time, Lipton couldn’t ignore the voice anymore. There was indeed someone calling him.
“Lipton, did you hear that?” Jesse asked in a panicked voice.
All of a sudden, Lipton halted in the air with such a jolt that almost sent Jesse tumbling down onto the ground. Fortunately, Lipton’s wings stretched up in time like a protective arc, preventing Jesse from falling.
“I’m sorry about the sudden halt,” Lipton said, shooting Jesse an apologetic look. “I mean … you also heard that? You heard her voice?
”
“Yes, I heard someone calling your name,” Jesse admitted, her face contorting in deeper confusion. “Who’s that? And who could be calling your name? For a moment, I thought I was hallucinating. But you heard that too right?”
Lipton nodded. “I thought I was the one who was hallucinating … but I guess I’m glad to find out that I’m not. So there is actually someone calling out for me … but who?”
Lipton slowly drifted downward, and finally landed on the ground. Jesse slowly scrambled off from his back, but clung onto his shoulder as if she didn’t ever want to let him go from her grasp.
“Lipton, I’m here!” the familiar voice cried.
Lipton whirled around frantically, trying to locate the source of the voice. Where was it coming from? There was not even a single door on both sides, but yet, the voice sounded so near, as though it was just beyond those walls.
“I’m hearing the voice, alright,” Jesse said. “It seems to be coming from the insides of … that wall!” Jesse pointed at the wall right in front of her. “I can’t be so sure though … because I don’t have my heightened senses with me anymore. If I were a vampire, I would be able to confirm for sure.”
“That’s alright,” Lipton replied, knowing how hard it was to lose your supernatural abilities during a moment where you really needed them. “We’ll search every nook and cranny until we get to the source of that voice.” Lipton walked over to the wall Jesse had indicated, and pressed his ear against the wall, trying to hear better.
The voice continued calling his name, and Lipton was pretty sure that the caller was behind the wall he was leaning against.
Lipton shot Jesse a quick glance. “She’s behind this wall … I’m pretty sure of that. But how do we get through this wall? There’s no door!”
“Lipton!” the female voice cried again. “Yes, there’s no door. I can see you from the other side of the wall … but you can’t see me. The walls here are magically constructed like a one-way mirror.”
Lipton was so startled by the reply that he almost knocked his head against the wall. “You can hear me? I mean, you can really hear me?”
“Yes!” the voice replied. “I can hear you … and I can see that you have brought a female friend with you.” There was a trace of envy in her voice.
“Who are you?” Lipton asked, his heart pounding with anticipation. He had heard her voice, alright, but he still couldn’t remember the face to that voice.
“Don’t you remember? Oh, my God, Lipton! You don’t remember me?” She sounded extremely offended.
Lipton tried to think harder, and when he was finally able to recall, he let out a gasp. “Kalista?”
22. Pulse
“Bingo!” Kalista cried, faceless, from the other side of the wall. “For a moment I thought that if you’ve really forgotten me, I was going to wring your neck if I ever get across from the other side of the wall to you.”
Lipton thought that she was dead serious, but when he realized that she was just only joking, he relaxed a bit.
“Who’s Kalista?” Jesse asked, her face twisting with curiosity.
Lipton began to briefly explain everything about Kalista to Jesse, about how he had met her several times in the past and how he’d rescued her from Catan a few times before.
“Really? And you never ever told me about her?” Jesse’s voice dripped with a hint of jealousy.
Lipton opened his mouth but no words flowed out. How was he going to justify this all to Jesse without sounding like he had gone behind her back and had some sort of short-lived affair with Kalista because Jesse rejected him in the first place? No, he wasn’t going to explain himself at this moment, not when there were urgent matters to attend to. They were now stuck inside the Maze of Doom, and the last thing Lipton wanted to do was to start explaining to Jesse about how he had known Kalista.
“I’ll explain everything later,” Lipton said with a sense of urgency in his voice. “All I can simply say is that I’ve rescued Kalista a couple of times from Catan. Catan is the one who has feelings for Kalista, but Kalista despises him. So whenever Catan gets suppressed and I manifest, there are times I would encounter Kalista, as she would have been in Catan’s presence.” Lipton paused, and turned his glance at the wall. “And now we have to figure out how to get through to Kalista through this magical wall.”
“But how are we going to get through this wall?” Jesse asked, the back of her mind still burning with questions about the connection Kalista might have shared with Lipton.
Lipton didn’t respond, but instead, he darted toward the wall and slammed against it with all his might. Lipton ended up tumbling onto the ground, groaning in pain.
“The wall looks like it’s made of flimsy clouds,” Lipton growled. “But it’s so hard like stone. I can’t break through it.”
Jesse dashed to Lipton’s side. “Are you OK?”
“I’m fine. We just need to figure out a way to get to Kalista.” Lipton flicked his glance back at the wall. “Kalista, what does Catan want with you? Where are you exactly?”
“Catan’s disgustingly sick!” Kalista fumed, the voice burning with toxic. “He has kept me holed up in this barren room for days. He thinks that by keeping me here longer, I’d develop some feelings for him! As if I would ever love that repulsive beast! I’d rather die than harbor some feelings of love for th-th-this …” Kalista trailed off, her emotions choking her up. After mustering some composure, she continued. “But he has tried feeding me for the past couple of days. But I’ve tried starving myself. I didn’t even want to touch the meals he has prepared for me. Like I said, I’d rather die. Seeing that I have been refusing to touch the food, he tried to force-feed me … with dark magic. I know that Catan doesn’t want to see me dead. So he has been using dark magic to get me to eat. There are times he would hypnotize me into eating, and of course, I am powerless against his hypnotism, and I eventually end up eating. I can’t even starve myself to death! I hate Catan! I hate him! I don’t ever want to see his face anymore!”
“If Catan is able to hypnotize you into eating,” Lipton started aksing, “then wouldn’t he be able to hypnotize you into … loving him?”
“He did try to do exactly that! But it has never worked! You want to know why? I’m filled with Urukan blood, remember? Urukan blood is one of the powerful bloods in the world, and it’s so powerful that it cannot be affected by dark forces. Urukan blood is filled with the essence of love which binds the Urukan tribe, and thus that is why we have the Urukan Tingle, which is triggered whenever Urukan people are in close proximity to one another. Love is one of noblest virtues of the Urukan tribe, and it’s our blood which binds us together so strongly that no outside forces are able to tamper with. So when Catan tried to hypnotize me into making me love him, the Urukan blood within me rejected the dark energy that tried to seduce me into loving Catan. Catan was upset when that happened, and he knew that he would never be able to use dark magic to make me love him as long as the Urukan blood flows in my vein.”
“It’s a good thing to know that Catan will never be able to force you to love him with dark magic,” Lipton said, still figuring out how to break the wall that was separating Jesse and him from Kalista. “But right now, we need to find the secret chamber where we believe is the source of Catan’s dark powers, and also to find a way to break down this wall. Hopefully by destroying Catan’s source of dark powers, we will be able to destroy Catan for good. And then, if all turns well, we’ll escape from the Maze of Doom once and for all …” Lipton’s voice trembled toward the end of the sentence, as he wasn’t entirely convinced that the plan would work in their favor. But he had to hold onto the hope that good would always prevail over evil.
“But let’s say that if Catan is finally destroyed for good,” Kalista began in a tentative voice, “wouldn’t that mean that you would be … gone for good … given that you and Catan are both linked by the curse?”
Jesse’s face instantly fell, and her eyes were filled w
ith so much pain at the thought that she would lose Lipton. She never actually thought about the part where Lipton would also be gone when Catan was killed, as she had been intent on making sure that Catan was defeated. And now that Kalista had mentioned about the tragic part about the link of death, Jesse wasn’t so keen now … on killing Catan.
“We can’t kill Catan!” Jesse exclaimed. “We have to find a way to contain him, and not kill him!”
“No!” Lipton protested. “There is no way to contain someone as powerful as Catan. It’s either we kill him, or let him live. There’s no loophole around this. And if we have it my way, I’d want to kill him for good.”
“But you’ll die!” Jesse cried, tears streaming down her face. “I can’t have that. We won’t have that!”
“It’s a sacrifice I’d have to make. I’m sorry, but this is the path I choose. My mind has been made up. No wind or fire is going to stop me.”
For a moment, everyone fell silent as a ghost. Even Kalista had nothing to say from the other side of the wall.
Jesse knew that once Lipton had made up his mind, there was no turning back. Her heart was ripped apart, knowing that she would have to lose the one she had loved all along, knowing that she would never ever hold his hands anymore, ride on his back as they sailed across the skies. The thought of losing Lipton overwhelmed her, but she knew that Lipton would do anything for the greater good, even sacrificing himself.
“We need to focus now on breaking this wall and not let the thoughts of my imminent death bring us down,” Lipton said firmly, breaking the ominous silence. “Any ideas on how we can get through this wall? Is there a door somewhere in this maze that would allow us to get to Kalista?”
Jesse pushed the thoughts of Lipton’s imminent death away to the back of her mind, and tried to stay positive.
“There are no doors inside this room!” Kalista cried from the other side of the wall. “I think I’ll be stuck here forever!”
In Love With A Vampire Page 40