“Do whatever you want. I do not care.”
Stroker placed the stake over Rachel’s heart letting the point of it sink into her. It pierced her colorless, white flesh in the middle of her décolleté.
Miranda turned and left. She shut the door so she wouldn’t be tempted to watch. She dashed into the living room. Now that she was safe, thoughts of Chase surfaced. She had to find out about him. She retrieved her purse from the rubble. Her phone had fallen out. By feeling around, she located it. She listened to the message left by the Chicago police over Rachel’s shrieks and pleas for mercy. Chase was dead. They found him on the sidewalk in front of his high-rise. He’d jumped and died on impact.
As horrendous and chilling as Rachel’s cries were, they weren’t enough to bring about a sense of justice or retribution for what had happened. Chase had been like a little boy. He was naïve and gullible about life and love. There was no honor or skill used to set him up for the killing. And Tiffany….
Tiffany!
Miranda felt her heart sinking. She couldn’t get the horrible scene out of her mind. She ambled to the bedroom for one last look.
Death did not become her friend although her beauty fought the foulness of the bestial attack. Her face held its beauty intact – an artpiece to be placed on a pedestal and admired. Although the human impulse was to reattach the pieces, it could never be. Otherwise, she would turn into one of them.
She closed the door behind her, granting her privacy and the right to be alone. She hadn’t been given this courtesy in the last few minutes of her young life, but she would accord her that right now. It would last until her peace was once again interrupted. She needed to be moved to a final resting place, but would she ever find peace?
Miranda had no answer to the grand question. She surveyed the once magnificent condo seeing the enormous devastation. She stumbled out onto the terrace – how she made it, she didn’t know. She was sick with grief and craved a solace that would never be found. It was her fault. All her fault.
Stroker came out of the bedroom. He peered into the dark recesses of the apartment, but saw no signs of Miranda.
“Mademoiselle,” he called out softly not wanting to disturb the dead.
He wandered into the living room. It was in shambles. The carpet was flooded with water from the broken water fountain above the fireplace’s mantle. Everything about the dead girl and her life had been destroyed. He was pinned by that thought. The ceasing of movement allowed him to hear the soft sobbing.
The crunch of the broken glass under his thickly-creped soles accompanied his march to the empty metal rims of the glass patio doors. The outline traced the dark void where the panes should be. They were now smashed and underfoot.
He saw her small silhouette, hunched on her knees looking up at the moon. She resembled a dog that was chained in the backyard, gazing up at the light and wondering what had happened to its freedom. He had dealt with the emotional devastation of victims before and approached her with trepidation. Survivors of such tragedies were unpredictable. After all, their hearts were ripped open and bleeding on the floor much like the trampled glass.
“Mademoiselle,” he called out quietly to the despondent figure on the terra cotta terrace. He was not surprised that she didn’t even notice. He slowly lowered himself using his hands to brace her against the tides of tragedy that had risen up to overwhelm her.
Miranda’s eyes glistened from tears that fell silently on her cheeks and down her naked lips. The cheerful color they had been painted was a distant memory as was Tiffany – her ever faithful friend. How could she have let her down so catastrophically? How?
“I watched him. I watched him escape to the moon. He flew up in the air – his wings beating, lifting his body up and up and up, but I saw him …” Miranda murmured in a hushed tone that bespoke her misery. She raised a finger shaking in anguish that comes from having your life torn away. She pointed it at the moon as if that were the culprit that had committed the crime, “ … he disappeared into that sky.”
Stroker let her speak – not interrupting. He would give her time, but not too much. There was work to be done.
“Mademoiselle, you are in shock. It is understandable, but I need you to have your wits about you. Please Mademoiselle, we must hurry.”
Miranda turned her head towards him – blinking – her face blank. She had no thoughts other than the pity that was engulfing her. It was obliterating her will – sucking her down into an abyss from which there would be no escape.
“Mademoiselle, do not allow yourself the luxury of self-pity. It is not for me that I’m asking you to do this, it is for your friend. She needs justice and we can give that to her. There is retribution waiting. She needs this to have her sleep be peaceful.”
“There’s more … my brother,” Miranda gasped, trying to get the rest of the sentence out. Stroker needed to know what they’d done. Everyone needed to know. They needed to pay for it and the only way to make them pay was to let everyone know.
“… he’s dead.”
She’d done it. She’d gotten it out, but at what price to her sanity? She felt the person she was dissolve and drift away. She grabbed a hold of Stroker’s shirt, pulling him to her. She buried her face into its folds – staining the light blue cotton with her tears.
“He’s dead! My brother is dead!” she uttered in guttural, breathy cries.
Stroker reacted to the information. He tenderly wrapped her in his arms and let her cry. They’d been too late.
“I’m so sorry for not believing you!”
He patted her back letting her cry. His rough hands were comforting and seemed capable of protecting her from the world’s evils. She wondered if they could just stay like this – push everything away and just kneel together in the darkness of the moment and the night.
“Mademoiselle, I am so sorry to hear that. I know you are blaming yourself, but it’s not your fault. It was a lot to believe and I had no proof. It is even more reason for you to pull yourself together. I need you, Mademoiselle. They need you.”
Her hands grabbed her arms as his words sank into her like a sword. What he said was true. It was that monster Peter. He was responsible. He was the mastermind of this well-crafted misery. She would see him dead.
That single thought was the genesis of the new Miranda – the one that rose from the ashes of her shattered life. This Miranda had been tempered with fire and the blood of people she loved. Miranda allowed herself one more moment of sorrow. She then sniffled and drew herself back from Stroker using the back of her hand to wipe away the last of her tears. She would no longer cry. She would vanquish the town of its monster so that he never unleashed his evil again.
“Fine. What do we do?”
“You’re back?” Stroker said with a meek smile. He had guessed she was a fighter, but her resilience was surprising.
“Of course, I’m back. What did you think? That I would allow him to destroy my life and everything my father built without so much as a whimper?”
“Then I can count on you?”
“Count on me? You can do much more than that, Monsieur, for I want him dead.”
Stroker’s eyes gleamed with intensity. The gray held secrets as deep as the eternal sea. She ran her hand down the side of his cheek. He was a man you could trust. It was a pity she hadn’t come to that realization before it came to this.
“Good. As for your question, you should go home.”
“What? But don’t you need me here to talk to the police?”
“Police? Those are the last people I would be calling. I need to dispose of those bodies.”
“But Tiffany ….”
“She is dead. There is no bringing her back. And that creature in the other room? I killed her by driving a stake through her heart. Do you know what happens when you do that? They resume a human appearance. To the police it will look like I drove a wooden stake through the heart of a woman. I would have much to explain as to why I would do that – as
would you for not calling them before you called me. I would undoubtedly be arrested for murder and you might be detained … or charged. That would mean we would lose time and that is something we cannot afford to waste.”
“You’re right,” she answered. There would be no sane way to explain what happened. And it wouldn’t bring Tiffany back.
“Also if they were called, they would control what happened to the bodies. The stake would be pulled out. It would mean that they would unwittingly resuscitate her. She would resume her activities as a vampire. You can see how they amuse themselves. It is always at the expense of someone very human and most often loved. No, I need custody of her body, for the stake is not enough. If her body were ever found, then, well, you know how people are about interfering. I cannot take that chance. To be sure, I need to separate her head from her body – as they did with …” he let his voice trail off not willing to finish.” It’s the only way to be certain. Do you think the police would permit me to do that?”
“No,” Miranda responded. She knew full well what he said was true. The only way she knew any of this was true was because she’d witnessed it. The police would never believe her. They wouldn’t care who she was. They’d believe their own eyes in much the same way she had done. Vampires would be only a fantasy created by the woman that murdered her best friend and the man that assisted her. The blame would be placed onto them instead of the filthy Peter Adduné. He would get away scot-free.
“And then there’s your friend. Her head … there is no easy way to say this, but it needs to remain separated from her body. Do you think her family would allow that?”
“No,” she answered quietly.
“Then let me do my job.”
“But how?”
“Let me worry about that. I need to call some people and … and the less you are involved the better.”
“Then this is it? Don’t we need to go after him?” she grabbed a hold of his rumpled shirt. “I told you I want him dead!”
“As do I!”
“Well, then how do we do that?”
“We do that by you going home – and thinking. It’s another reason I need you safe because you are the one that is being attacked. This is all collateral damage – you are the true target. It means that you probably know a great deal more than you realize.”
The words hit Miranda. They harkened back to her last conversation with that brutal murderer Peter.
“You’re right! That murderer Peter Adduné said as much. He said he’d been leaving me clues or some such nonsense.”
“Yes, I knew it! They think they are so smart, but we will show them they are not so clever,” he said rubbing his chin. “Now the one that I killed was begging for her unworthy life. I played a game with her. Before I pounded the stake into her, I told her she could be spared if she told me where Adduné’s coffin was.”
“But why? She would never betray him! Isn’t there a code or …”
“A code of honor? Mademoiselle, you are insane to believe such drivel. You have been reading too much fiction. These creatures operate on base carnal instincts and no more. They are driven by the need to kill and to satiate their enormous sexual desires. Nothing in them exists that even approaches the quality of honor. They would do anything to save themselves.”
“But I thought …”
“You thought wrong! Didn’t you see the way her beloved master left her to face the consequences alone? Isn’t that proof enough to believe what I’m saying is true?”
She pushed her hair back from her face. It was dry and had burst into wild curls that the wind was using to obscure her vision. She kept her hand clamped on the side of head until the breeze calmed down.
“Yes, yes, you’re right. He did leave. I’d forgotten. I’m so confused.”
“As well you should be. I’ve been doing this for many years, Mademoiselle, and am prepared. I know my enemy. She bought the lie, but then I knew she would. However, what she said makes no sense.”
“What was it?”
“She said that it was in Siberia. I asked her a second time and she repeated the same thing. It was then I impaled her. I couldn’t stand to have my sight fouled by one so loathsome. Do you know what that means?”
“No.”
“Well, you’d better think! Go home and calm down and think it over long and hard until you have an answer, Mademoiselle. Otherwise, he will get away with all this. Do you understand? “
“Yes.”
“Good. Now leave!”
Miranda walked through Tiffany’s once magnificent apartment. She heard the muffled tones of Stroker as he spoke hurriedly into his cell phone. Everything was moving too fast. She didn’t have time to think and that was the one thing she was being required to do. The water soaked into her ballerina flats – wetting her feet and making her feel cold and uneasy. She roamed through the war zone drinking in the damage. She stopped before Tiffany’s door wondering if she should say goodbye. She hadn’t a chance before. Her mind filled with the atrocious sight of her murdered friend. Twice had been enough - she’d rather remember her the way she was in life.
She rested her hand on the door and murmured to her friend.
“God bless you, Tiffany, my friend. I’ll make sure he pays.”
Miranda patted the door lovingly as she kissed the polished teak.
“Goodbye.”
She had no more business here. She glanced one more time at Tiffany’s condo. The memory would have to last a lifetime.
CHAPTER 39
Miranda paced her apartment – a cup of tea in her hand. She’d figured it all out. It had been so simple. All the pieces – all the clues. The obvious solution fueled the growing fire within her to exact revenge. It was a double-edged sword. While she was satisfied there would be a reckoning, this had been preventable. She berated herself for being obstinate. It had only been her unwillingness to believe that had allowed this onslaught to occur. Because of Miranda, the people she loved most in the world were dead. She flinched and closed her eyes wincing in pain. How could she have been such a fool?
The sound of the buzzer broke her self-indulgent derision. There was plenty of time for her to revisit that bottomless well of self-loathing. She couldn’t wallow there any longer. Stroker was right – time was of the essence. She had showered and dressed for the occasion. She didn’t know what rules of fashion vengeance demanded, but she’d make due. She was ready for the flight. She’d chartered a plane, fixing its destination on Siberia. That had been the clue Rachel had offered and she’d gotten it.
She hadn’t called the Chicago police. There was nothing she could do about Chase’s death. Of course, they’d need to fly there after they dealt with Peter. Stroker would need access to the corpse to ... to do whatever was necessary. The last thing she wanted was for her brother to end up like Rachel. She didn’t relish having him hacked apart, but it would be a slap across his face to allow the transformation to take place. After all, he had willingly sacrificed his life to prevent it.
She opened the door for Stroker. He had changed his clothing. His satchel was gripped in his hand. He looked even more grim than usual. It was good though. It meant at least one of them was handling things the way they should be and not treating this as if it were a game of tug of war. She relived the sensation of Peter between her legs and flushed from embarrassment and shame. How could she ever have let him touch her? The murderer of her best friend and brother? The real executioner of Jake? The game master who had eliminated Figgs and Pinckus and held Reginald in an icy stasis? The fact that she still found enjoyment from the memory of his touch made it all the worse. She felt sick and wished that feeling of pleasure to be excised from her by a knife.
“Is everything …” Miranda started to ask. She stopped not knowing how to finish the question.
“Everything is taken care of,” Stroker assured taking off his hat and sitting down on her couch. He chose almost the exact spot Peter had. She wanted to tell him to move so he wouldn’t b
e tainted by Peter’s disease, but she knew it wasn’t as simple as avoiding germs. This was a much more foul virus afoot – one of the mind that was contracted through the letting of blood.
Miranda sat next to him feeling the need for closeness. Stroker was giving her a safe harbor – a foothold in this madness. How had her world suddenly become this way? She didn’t know, but she should have heeded the warnings that everything would happen fast – so fast that she wouldn’t have time to think.
“And you? Have you thought about things?”
Stroker placed his hand over hers. It was a comforting touch and one she needed. She siphoned strength from him – it helped stir her anger.
Adduné (The Vampire's Game) Page 57