A Curse Of Glass And Iron (Dark Heralds Book 2)

by Lynn S.

  Marissa stumbled through the apartment, back into the kitchen. She sat at the table once more, running her fingers through her hair as if trying to quiet that voice down. Her hands begged for it, as the ring on her finger hummed softly, adding a layer of anguish and confusion to her thoughts.

  It was well past midnight and Marissa still sat in the kitchen, looking about, noticing little details that escaped her before. Esteban had spared nothing, coming across as extravagant with his choice of decorations, but he had also been careful. During his absence, and in one precious moment of clarity, Marissa noticed the absence of iron in the house.

  While the exterior sported the typical wrought iron decor, giving the place the illusion of being a filigreed cage, the interior had nothing. Cooking utensils were wooden, pots and pans covered in bronze, cabinets of sleek, modern design, conveniently lacking handles. Too close to the aesthetics of the house on the hill in upstate New York.

  She rushed upstairs once more and looked through her things. Esteban warned her to leave everything behind, but Marissa had kept Malachi’s amulet for its sentimental value. She told Esteban about the child, his ominous words of warning now a possible sign that kept her from telling him about the amulet. Perhaps the fact that it identified more than one evil, her bloodline included.

  Marissa remembered the child fondly, their interaction her only moment of peace during that dreadful weekend. She held the amulet, half iron, half silver, crafted in perfect balance. While it once had made her skin burn, now it felt cool to the touch. Yet the ring on her finger, when placed against it, made an agonizing sound, close to a screech. It all sent a heavy jolt of pain rushing up her arm and spreading through her chest. Marissa was well aware that her kind was not susceptible to human afflictions. Dhampyrs were meant to die of old age, otherwise she would have thought she was having a heart attack.

  On the floor below, a clock struck three as Francis Alexander turned the lock and made his way inside the house. Marissa’s hand grew heavy and the skin of her finger scorched, peeling and burning, as if trying to make her get rid of the amulet.

  “We are close. Concentrate on him, the blue-eyed monster. He can lead us back to Adriana.”

  This time she saw the profile of a man. Dark hair framed those blue eyes. He leaned forward in a booth, at half-light, while his long fingers cradled a whiskey glass. The vampire listened to someone who might have been telling an interesting story, judging by the expression on his face. A flash of blue and she felt anchored to reality once more. Marissa’s instinct took over, her keen sense of hearing locking on to Alexander’s steps as the man made it through the hallway that connected garage to kitchen. Another set of locks turning. He was home.

  ***

  Francis frowned, wondering why the kitchen was left in such disarray. Marissa was nothing if not neat. The lights were on and there was a half-empty plate on the table.

  “Marissa?” he called out. Though she didn’t answer, he heard her rushed steps, almost running downstairs. As she made her way to the kitchen, Marissa froze, and it only made him suspicious.

  “Is there something wrong, sweetheart?”

  She clutched her hands close to her chest. There was an almost imperceptible smell, masked by her shower scents, like burned skin. She looked straight at him, through him. And Francis knew exactly what she was seeing. There was someone else under Esteban O’Reilly’s skin. A creature the white of ivory with fierce green eyes and raven hair. Patterns of living ink told his story, shifting, changing, trying to succeed at keeping an illusion in place.

  “Marissa, don’t make me repeat myself. Come here.” Assertive as he was, there was a hint of worry in his voice.

  She moved her head side to side in a quick negative response.

  “I said, here!”

  That order and the ring on her finger were about to subdue her once more. Her instinct, however, had the upper hand. The amulet had not counteracted it as it had done before. Counting on Malachi’s blessing, it only emboldened her.

  With one swift, unexpected, and fluid motion, Marissa came close to Francis. She hit him across his face as hard as she could, while pressing the amulet into his cheek. Surprised and out of his element, with her instinct unleashed, Francis caved. His flesh burned with the impact. Though the casing of human skin was meant to protect him, he had let the best of his vanity come forward. The Dark Herald wanted out, to slash at her, even if it cost him dearly. Pride always marked a Fae’s fall.

  As much he tried, his wits never came back to him. Short, powerful talons clawed at the soft skin of his neck as Marissa slashed. He tried to connect, hitting her with enough force to knock her down. He had done if before. This time, though, she was prepared. As he freed his hand, she took advantage of it. It was not enough to hit him with the amulet, so she shoved it on the wound she had just opened between his neck and shoulder.

  Human flesh protected him still. The iron didn’t kill him, but it hurt like hell as it burned its way through Alexander’s fairy blood. The Sidhe gagged, and a rush of thick, yellow bile came out of his mouth as he fell, retching, to the floor, unable to move while the amulet spewed venom into his system.

  “Run! If he sheds that human skin and unveils his true self, we won’t make it out of here alive!” Marissa took a knife from the kitchen stand and ran, listening to the voice that guided her. “Far…away from here. Into the city. Safe…embraced by waters…”

  ***

  Four in the morning. Veronica kept her promise of late hours at Azure. Garan stayed through the night, and by the end of the shift he was sure Benny knew more about him than he was telling. Through the course of their conversation, he noticed the old man becoming wary and introspective. He might have not fully guessed at his nature, but while Veronica excused herself, the old man told him he could feel Brigitte’s imprint upon him. “She’s laid some kind of claim on you…hasn’t she? To keep your soul in place. You have the look of someone who has seen the other side and came back. Somethin’ about you is out of place, man.”

  The vampire didn’t read Benny as a threat. The old man knew enough about the Lady of the Cemetery not to mess with her business. If anything, Benny pleaded for Garan to disappear once more, for all their sakes. Those who lived in the city and had crossed paths with the loa knew better than to get involved in their private games.

  “This has been a good night, old man.” The vampire knew quite well what he had to do. He had to compel them to forget their night together. He’d bless them with no points of reference. No need to see him, let alone care. It was his way of saying thank you for a night of getting back his lost humanity. Garan Nolton had been made whole between vice and blood, friendship and soul.

  He was about to do it, when a piercing scream made everyone stand and bolt toward the main entrance. One of the kitchen girls heard a thud against the door and, believing it to be a patron coming back for something, had opened it.

  “Oh my Lord! Oh my God, this woman is hurt!”

  Tiny as she was, the kitchen aide struggled to bring in a woman who had all but fainted in her arms.

  Garan made his way to the entrance. Helping them both, he volunteered to carry the woman in. They all looked perplexed. The woman was dressed in soft green satin pajamas stained by splotches of blood. Her hair had been fixed into a ponytail but now just hung stringy and wet, fixed to her clammy skin. Garan cleared the hair off her face and that was when he knew who she was.

  He couldn’t believe it. It was her. Beaten, frail, hurt, her beauty marred by more pain than a body could handle. But it was her, nevertheless.

  “We need to call 9-1-1!” Veronica was reaching for her cellphone as Garan turned toward her.

  “Hang up. No one’s calling anyone. I’ll take care of this.” It was more than volunteering; the command in his voice made them all stop from doing anything other than his will.

  Garan checked where the blood was coming from. The vampire held the woman’s left hand in an upward position while
asking Veronica to help him.

  Marissa, trapped by desperation and unable to remove her ring, had cut through bone with a knife, severing her finger.

  Chapter XV

  The Lost Annotations of Sebastian Salgado

  Notes of the Order:

  Vampyrs, Dhampyrs, and Instinct

  Through the years, both field agents and observers have contributed a variety of notes on vampirism. It has been a collective effort to explain this phenomenon, as vampires are as varied as their bloodlines dictate. Some of them subscribe to curious behavioral patterns. There was no such thing as a traceable origin for vampires. They have evolved and adapted along with humanity, hiding in plain sight.

  Long before the invention of the wheel, humankind’s pressing priority was to banish the dark. They did their best to get hold of that spark born of friction and patience. Nyctophilia, the love of darkness, was not natural to humans. It was the equivalent of throwing out millennia of objections and fears. Humans needed to be drawn into the dark, and there were creatures out there who have made this their mission.

  Vampires and their ilk were creatures of choice, and in most cases, they chose to keep some semblance of humanity. Some were beastly and cruel, others followed patterns that mirrored life of human society. They cherished friends, family, potential lovers.

  Of the many bloodlines of undead, vampyrs, the most curious of vampires, walked between worlds with impunity. They were not the run of the mill revenant, reproducing through bite. These vampires could reproduce through sexual intercourse, as long as there was a generated attachment to their mates. Unfortunately, that sentiment did not have to be love. Potential mates could be forced through manipulation and fear. Some vampyrs were masters of Stockholm Syndrome.

  Dhampyrs were the product of such union. Half human, half vampire, they were the missing space in those stories about dead men who came back from the grave to revisit their wives. Old legends and folktales spoke of the call of blood, and until recently, the purpose of these visitations was thought to be deadly in their intent: a vampire ready to erase all traces of their human existence. In actuality, visitation inevitably led to the death of the mother, either at the moment of birth or before the child hit puberty. If the child lived, what a bizarre lot in life awaited it.

  A dhampyr, be it male or female, would always be a witness to their father. Father and child were united by the call of their instinct, a vampire’s second self, akin to a demonic presence or a split of personality whose only purpose was guaranteeing survival. Together they would go into the world, both father and child striving to keep some semblance of life for themselves. While the dhampyr looked for connection through the freedom granted by being able to walk in the light of day, the vampyr did so by indulging in death.

  Blood was a vampire’s only sustenance, and the loss of life guaranteed their continued existence. However, for a vampyr, the act of consuming blood was more than an element necessary to sustain themselves. It was the manifestation of a need of communion with their victims. The casual survivor of a vampire attack hardly remembered the violence. Victims somehow almost always sublimated the pain and testified to the encounter being something perilously close to a pleasurable experience. A vampire’s bite transmitted into its victim a taste of the instinct. Survivors would often speak of a soothing voice inside their heads, an echo that would haunt them until their dying day.

  And who wouldn’t give in? Between glamour and instinct, a vampire offered a human the possibility of freedom, even if briefly. To accept the embrace of a vampire was to be seduced into acting on all impulses the id had been trying to push to the surface.

  For a vampire, however, the struggle was constant. It was id without a lid. Vampires were not in for a brief ride. They had to battle that beast constantly or otherwise, if they ever gave in to the instinct completely, they would be creatures of sole impulse, need, and desire.

  If there was such a thing as a healthy vampire, regardless of bloodline, it would have to be one in a well-balanced relationship with its instinct.

  The day Sebastian decided to kill Adriana’s father, he asked her, “Why do you think we are all so fascinated by vampires? I can understand a scholar’s need to know, but what about the people out there?”

  As they walked back from their first encounter on 30th Avenue as business partners instead of enemies, she looked at him and winked.

  “That’s easy, my righteous Saint Sebastian. Look at the herd out there, rushing in and out of the subway station, so worried about deadlines in all aspects of life. If given the chance, they’ll run for it. Even at the cost of pain of the flesh and loss of the soul. To be infected with our tainted blood, to hear the call of the instinct for the very first time, is to indulge in freedom without boundaries, man. To have total control over life and pander to all the fantasies you’d ever sketched pertaining to sex, violence, and intimacy without fear of punishment. Wouldn’t you?”

  Chapter XVI

  Machinations of the Instinct and Other Unsavory Displays

  Fever. It was not just the natural response while trying to fight the infection of a self-inflicted wound. It was the hell released when the thirst was not sated, mixed with urgency and desire. Her tongue slithered between her lips, teasing, tasting the dark. Marissa’s instinct had taken over; her other self felt the presence of a stronger, full-fledged vampire and decided to manifest. It was leaning toward any means necessary. The dhampyr needed to be claimed, protected. In Adriana’s absence, this other would do. The instinct guessed at certain…undeniable needs and, taking complete control, made Marissa dance in a sensuous choreography as the woman’s body writhed between the sheets.

  Garan observed her, half curious, half amused. Dwellers didn’t delve much in the separation of being and instinct; they were one with their impulses. They slept for years, balancing the need for blood by indulging in every other human emotion their host could grant them. All one and the same, until a trigger woke up the monster within. All experience, a welcomed one.

  The woman on the bed, however, looked as if she were gingerly stepping into her potential as a sexual being. There it was again, a slight flutter of eyelids, as if struggling to wake up, and that nervous stretch of the mouth downward. Part of Marissa did not approve of what was going on. But that body of hers had other plans.

  Arms crossed over his chest, the vampire leaned against the pillar of the bed, waiting to see if the woman would come fully to her senses. She had been mostly gone since he carried her home from the bar.

  As he had originally planned, Garan made the guys at the bar forget about their encounter. Under his influence, Veronica volunteered to drive them both back to his apartment on St. Peter. By the time she drove off from the bar, the owner of Azure had no memory of Nolton, an incident with a bleeding woman, or the location of the violinist’s house.

  Nolton carried Marissa upstairs into the apartment. No questions were asked. It might have been close to five in the morning and whomever was still out in the streets was certainly entertained with other pursuits. If anything, they quickly dismissed a guy carrying a drunken girl. It was still dark enough for people not to notice blotches of blood on her clothes.

  The wound in her hand kept bleeding. It might have had something to do with a dhampyr’s need for a vampire’s presence in order to fully function.

  He thought about it.

  Dwellers had remarkable restorative properties. A lick on that wound would seal it completely. But then that meant he had to taste her, and it was a risk. They had been tricked by the Dark Herald who controlled her before. He needed to know if she was there of her own free will or if Francis Alexander had set her up. What if the Fae had guessed at his presence? What if her blood was laced with something that might not agree with him at all? Garan stopped the bleeding the old-fashioned way, and now the woman’s left hand was tightly bandaged.

  There were several things to consider. Garan toyed with the idea of calling Brigitte. A couple of chalky
traces on the wall would be good enough to summon her. The Lady had promised not to interfere in their lives for forty-eight hours and it looked like she meant it. Otherwise she’d be there already.

  Did he want Brigitte to get ahold of this woman? At this point, the Lady might do Marissa more harm than good, seeing her as a means to an end, the end being Francis Alexander. Not that he cared much but…turning her in right away might cut him out of the loop. And suddenly, Garan found himself wanting in desperately.

  Then there was the Fae. Killian had a claim on the young woman as well. Summoning the prince would be quite a mundane process. Bound because of the overwhelming presence of iron in the city, the envoy of Aval could not use magic. Still, placing a phone call might get him there in twenty minutes or so, and that was not enough to answer Garan’s curiosity.

  His interest was purely…scientific at the moment. Dwellers were old blood gods bound by both Light and Shadows, servants of their thirst and slave to their nature. This woman, Marissa, had vampire blood, yet was not his type of monster. She walked a thin line between grace and damnation—all too human.

  The dweller found her appealing. If she ever took a step away from her human frailties, she’d be the closest thing to a natural vampire. Unbound, capable of choosing her destiny. Even as a simple dhampyr, the woman had all the advantages and none of the difficulties granted to creatures of the night. Such freedom as the one he desired…yeah, there were things to learn. Feverish and weak as she was, her hair smelled of sunshine. The vampire found himself oddly pleased.