Amaranthine Special Edition Vol I

by Naylor, Joleene

  “Luggage?” she repeated angrily. “Luggage?”

  Jorick took another deep breath. “Yes, I was in a rather large trunk. I called him and asked him to take it to the house on Farm Mill Road. He and some of his friends showed up and did as I requested.”

  “I can’t believe this,” she muttered. “All of this just to spy on me!”

  Jorick lost his patience. “I wasn’t spying! Don't you think I had better things to do with my time?”

  “Evidently not,” she said coldly. She pulled her knees up and hugged them to her chest, refusing to look at him. “You obviously had a pretty free schedule – or else you thought it would be amusing.”

  He knelt down in front of her, trying to control the anger dancing in his eyes. “I didn't find it amusing.”

  “Oh really?” She pulled away from him. “Then what? Thrilling? A bit of a voyeur are you?”

  With a growl he jerked to his feet. He started for the door and stopped to turn back and shout, “Fine, you know what – fine! Just sit in here and starve for all I care!” He stormed out and slammed the door. The lock clicked loudly and then she heard his angry footsteps pound away.

  Alone, grief clutched her and refused to let go. She buried her face against her knees. She couldn’t believe how terribly wrong everything had gone. Sarah was dead and the only person she had at the moment had spied on her and then lied many times over. As sobs shook her, she was pretty sure she'd found the limit that a person could take.

  **********

  Chapter Twelve

  Katelina had a terrible night, and a terrible day. Her emotions ranged from fury to sorrow and back again. Her mind refused to settle on a single topic or emotion. It was too much information in too short a time: Sarah was dead, Jorick had betrayed her, and they were all vampires. What was next? Maybe she was really a fairy. Or perhaps they’d kill her mother and put her head on a spike in the front yard. At the moment nothing seemed impossible.

  Even the golden sunlight that fell through the window couldn’t stop the swirl of horrible thoughts. She tried to sleep, but every time her eyelids closed Sarah would appear behind them; sometimes as she’d last seen her, standing in the parking lot, and sometimes as a bloody, fanged monster with mangled skin. Finally, near sundown, Katelina managed to slip into an exhausted slumber, replete with dreams that left her blushing and even angrier at Jorick, as if it was his fault that she’d had them in the first place. She wanted to beat him, not imagine kissing him!

  Jorick woke her late in the evening, a box of microwave food in his hand and a look of penance on his face. She sat up too quickly, and then glanced down to notice the revealing nightgown. With a little gasp she pulled the blankets up to her chest.

  “What time is it?” She demanded, not sure if she’d forgiven him or not.

  “Ten o'clock,” he answered quietly. “I'd have come sooner but I was detained.” He handed her the cardboard tray of food. She looked at the rice and chicken mixture and felt like throwing up. It all tasted the same, only the shapes changed.

  “I thought you might be hungry,” he explained, nodding towards the carton in her hand.

  She looked from the food to him, speculating. She wondered if this was his way of apologizing for his parting remark. If so, she'd have rather he apologized for lying, for keeping things from her, and most of all for spying on her..

  Wordlessly, she ate the disgusting dish and tried not to let it linger on her taste buds any longer than she had to. When she'd finished she met his gaze. His dark eyes asked if he was absolved of his sins yet, and her blue ones refused to give an answer. He shifted from one foot to the other and then leaned against the canopy pole. His hands nervously wrapped around the smooth wood. “How was your night?” he asked conversationally.

  She asked sharply, “How do you think it was?”

  He studied her, his head cocked to the side.

  “Yes?” she asked and clutched the blanket tighter to her chest.

  “If you want to get dressed... unless of course you prefer to spend the night in that.” The corners of his mouth turned up, the hint of a joke in his eyes.

  She blinked at him, incredulous that he would try to be humorous. “No, I'll get dressed.” She reluctantly threw the blankets off herself, and tossed the empty cardboard box into the trash can.

  He watched her slide out of bed, her arms crossed over her chest. “You don't have to get dressed,” he teased as she started across the room. “Really, I don't mind.”

  “Very funny,” she threw over her shoulder. She shut herself in the bathroom and quickly changed into the white dress he’d brought her yesterday – or, she thought to herself, last night. Day or night, she was glad that it was over.

  She gazed at her reflection in the small mirror above the sink. Her thoughts skipped to the dark haired vampire on the other side of the door. What did Jorick think he was doing? He woke her up and acted like everything was fine, like nothing had happened. It was as if he wanted her to believe that she’d dreamed it all and that he hadn’t lied to her – or omitted facts– or whatever damn term he wanted to use! Did he really think she was just going to forget?

  She used the hairbrush to take her anger out on her unruly hair, then she strode into the bedroom and found Jorick where she’d left him.

  “You really need some chairs,” he commented grimly.

  She ignored his attempt at friendly conversation and went straight to business. “Are we leaving today?”

  “Tomorrow. I have the car, but there are some other arrangements – ” he stopped suddenly, his hand held up to signal her to silence. He stiffened until he stood perfectly still, like a statue.

  “What?” She squinted and strained her ears, but heard nothing. Was this supposed to be another joke? “Look, this isn’t – ”

  “Shhhhhhh,” he hissed and motioned her to be still, listening intently. He sniffed the air and then growled low in his throat. “No! God damn it!” He hurried out the door and shouted back to her, “Stay here unless I come for you!”

  The panic in his voice left her wide eyed and terrified. She held her breath, but she still couldn't hear anything except the buzz of blood in her ears and her heart beating. What was going on?

  She paced the room, wringing her hands for something to do. Minutes passed like hours and silent fears assailed her. She peered through the window but saw only a wall of blackness outside, while inside she was alone; waiting and scared. Her fingers fluttered to her lips, but she stopped herself from actually biting her nails.

  Her head snapped up as the door opened to a disheveled Jesslynn. She was desperately clutching the vampire baby in one arm and hanging on to Alexander’s small hand with the other. Her dark hair had fallen from its dramatic up do, so that long, loose tendrils fell around her pale, scared face. Her dark eyes were wide and terror shimmered in their once mesmerizing depths.

  “What’s – ” Katelina began, but Jesslynn cut her off.

  “Come human.” Her eyes lingered for only a moment before she glanced down the hallway. “We must hurry.”

  Katelina started to object, but again her sentence was left unfinished. “Jorick said – ”

  “If you don't come with me now, you'll die when they find you.” Jesslynn looked back down the corridor impatiently, and then to Alexander.

  Katelina only stared, opened mouthed. The sound of footsteps from somewhere else in the house reached her ears. “When who finds me? What’s happening?”

  “The Guild.” As the words left Jesslynn’s lips her whole frame shuddered in fear. “Come quickly,” she added and disappeared into the gloomy hallway, tugging the frightened child after her.

  Katelina decided she didn't need to see that performance twice to believe it. She plunged after the vampiress and tried to keep up with her as they raced down the corridors. They forsook the main staircase for a back set of stairs. Noises from the ground floor floated up to them and Katelina could see an occasional flash of light through the window
s. As they ran down the stairs she tried to remember where she’d heard The Guild mentioned before. Who were they and why were they here? Did they have something to do with Claudius?

  Torina came barreling though a doorway as they reached the ground floor. Terror twisted her sultry features. “Jesslynn, they're here!”

  “I know.” Jesslynn answered breathlessly. “I am hiding the children – if they get in, stall them until I return.”

  Torina nodded, and hurried off toward the sound of a bone chilling scream. It was the kind of scream that made Katelina think of blood and horrible ways to die. Though Jesslynn looked in the direction the sound had come from, she didn’t let it distract her for long.

  They bolted through the kitchen doorway, and Katelina choked back a shriek as Bethina stepped from the shadows, her face a mask of calm. Jesslynn nodded at her without slowing and wordlessly the mad woman – child turned and followed them as they ran.

  They wound through the house quickly, then down to the cellar where two lines of empty coffins sat waiting for their occupants to return. Despite her efforts not to acknowledge the tiniest coffin, which she assumed housed the baby, Katelina found herself shuddering as they hurried past.

  Jesslynn lead them to the back wall of the cellar. Her hands shook in fear and haste as she pressed a series of stones quickly. A door sprang open from nowhere to reveal a tiny, dark room. She shoved the blanket wrapped baby into Katelina's arms and pushed her through the door, then forced Alexander and Bethina to follow. As the door swung shut she whispered urgently, “Protect them.”

  Katelina stood in the black, gripping the baby tightly. It seemed to get heavier and heavier as the moments passed. When she feared that she’d drop it, she sat on the cold floor and leaned against the wall. She shifted the baby gently, rocking it unconsciously, unsure which of them she was trying to calm. The darkness pressed in on them as heavy as death itself, but she chanced speaking, “Alexander?”

  “Yes?” His voice seemed small, but very close.

  “Just seeing that you're here,” she responded. “I suppose we should be quiet.”

  “Uh–huh.”

  Suddenly the door swung open and light flooded the tiny enclosure, temporarily blinding her. She cried out as hands grabbed her and pulled her roughly to her feet. Only her instinctual reaction kept her from dropping the baby and trying to free herself.

  “Shhhhhhh,” hissed Jorick’s voice, very close to her ear. He moved like lightning. Before she could answer, his fingers dug into the backs of her arms and crushed her against his firm body. A sharp pain blossomed on the left side of her neck, just above her collar bone, as his teeth sunk into her for only a second.

  She flinched as something else cut into her soft skin and Jorick explained hurriedly, “I am marking you. If they find you they'll know you belong to me. I'm sorry, but it's the only thing I can do to save you.”

  “Who are ‘they’?” she asked, one hand pressed against the pain on her neck, the warm moisture of blood on her palm.

  Jorick released her and drew away. He looked down into her face, offering silent reassurance. “’They’ are The Guild.” He glanced urgently to the basement. “I must go. Stay here, make no sound,” and then he was gone. The door swung shut behind him and the darkness was back, only it seemed even more suffocating after the few moments of light.

  She leaned against the cold stone and slid down the wall until she was seated on the floor again, the silent baby cradled in her lap. “The Guild,” she whispered out loud. That was what Jesslynn had said too. But who were The Guild, and what did they want?”

  “The Vampire Guild,” Alexander said from the darkness, answering her unspoken question. “They control everything and oversee everyone. When someone breaks a law, they come for you.” She felt his small body shudder against her leg.

  She closed her eyes and hoped to open them and be somewhere else, but it didn’t work. Still trapped in darkness, she took a deep breath and asked softly, “What do they do if someone breaks the law?” She suspected she already knew the answer, given what she’d witnessed of vampire nature.

  “They kill them,” he whispered.

  She nodded, signaling that she understood, though no one could see her. Or maybe they could. She had no idea what they could see, but she did understand who was now waging a small war in the house. A vampire assassination squad had come here tonight looking for someone who’d broken the law.

  The Guild.

  She remembered where she’d heard those words before, and from the way Jorick and Oren had spoken she was sure that the children were considered illegal. Had they come because of them, or was it something else?

  Fears and questions ran through her mind alternately and she finally gave vent to one of the former. “What did he mean by saying he marked me?” She felt stupid asking a child questions, but chances were he was hundreds of years older than she was, no matter how macabre and impossible it seemed.

  “He marked your neck.” Alexander’s voice sounded tired and defeated. “Each vampire has their own mark. It’s like a symbol. By putting it on you, he's claimed you so that everyone who sees it will know that you're his human.”

  She didn’t like the sound of that. “What does that mean?”

  “It means he owns you. I thought you already had one since father said you belonged to him.”

  “Oh,” That single syllable surfaced again to fill in a silence that she had no words for. Jorick had marked her as a sign of ownership, like Claudius and Arowenia. Without so much as asking he’d turned her into nothing more than a pet iguana!

  “They’re supposed to do it to all their humans,” Alexander continued. “Though Father doesn’t bother with it anymore. He says that as long as they’ve been fed on it should be good enough.”

  Katelina shuddered at the boy’s words. Fed. Was that what they would do to her? Her life flashed behind her eyes; snapshots of her memories, stupid moments encapsulated forever for no apparent reason. A field trip. When she’d fallen down the stairs in seventh grade. Rain falling as she peered from beneath bleachers on the football field. The funeral for Sarah’s cat. Patrick holding that stupid glass ash tray and beaming so proudly.

  She reached up with one hand and wiped tears from her face. She tried to assure herself that they were going to survive, and that each minute crawling past made their situation better and better. At any moment Jorick would open the door and announce they were safe.

  But the moments ticked past and the door stayed closed. Jorick didn’t appear. There was nothing but blackness and cold and the faint smell of mold. Her rasping breath was the only sound to discern living from death. She wanted to scream just to prove she was alive, but she stopped herself and bit her lip until she tasted the coppery sting of her own blood.

  The fear in the room thickened until her every breath was laced with it. She asked herself silently how she’d come to be there, crouching in a hidden room with vampire children, waiting in terror to be killed. She longed to be somewhere in the real world where monsters didn’t exist; some place that had Twinkies and sunglasses and motor oil.

  She opened her eyes and felt tears sting them. In these moments it felt like all of the things that meant reality were nothing more than figments of her imagination, and that this darkness was the only real thing she would ever know again. Even Jorick's omission didn't seem to matter anymore; nothing mattered except for the raspy feeling of fear rattling in her every breath and the slow minutes sliding past, a silent countdown to her impending death.

  **********

  Chapter Thirteen

  Seconds became minutes, and minutes became hours as they sat in the impenetrable darkness. The baby lay perfectly still and silent across Katelina’s knee. Neither Bethina nor Alexander made the slightest noise – the ability of the undead not to move, not to breathe. The other side of the door was equally silent, and Katelina really started to wonder if they were already dead.

  Scraping noises from outside the
secret room finally broke the silence. At first they were low and almost indistinguishable from the buzzing in her ears, but they grew louder and louder until there was no denying their existence.

  Katelina’s body tensed and she reached out in the darkness to touch Alexander. “Come here,” she whispered. He obeyed by curling over her lap and covering the baby. Bethina moved closer too, using her body to shield him so that he was completely hidden from view.

  The scraping grew in volume until it echoed, a steady rhythm that Katelina’s heart pounded in time with; the sound of their demise. She wrapped her arms around Bethina and, by contact, the children. Fearfully, she tucked her chin down to hide her face, and squeezed her eyes closed in an effort to shut out the terrible reality of what was coming.

  The noise stopped. Before she could breathe a sigh of relief, the small room was flooded with light that dazzled her eyes. She tightened her grip on the pile of people in her lap. The ever – silent baby stiffened against her. Though only an infant, even he could sense the danger.

  Hands grabbed Bethina and pulled her away from Katelina and the children. The woman–child hissed and struck out at her captor. She bit and scratched, but they took her anyway.

  Katelina’s hands scrambled to clutch at Alexander, but they pried him away and then they grabbed her. Her free arm attempted to bat them away while the other held the baby close to her. Despite her struggles, she was dragged from the tiny room and into the cellar as though she weighed nothing.

  She was released and she jerked away ferociously. Five pale vampires were gathered around, an identically evil smile pasted on each of their faces. One was dressed all in black leather, another in red. They both had long matching coats of black and around their necks hung amulets made of three silver bands twisted together in an intricate knot.

  The other three vampires wore a mixture of dark colors. Two of them were struggling to maintain their grasp on Bethina while the third bore a flickering torch that lit the basement and threw harsh shadows against the musty stone walls and floor.