He fumbled his phone from his pocket and shone the bright LED light around him as he moved swiftly, following the slight increase in tap volume. He found himself in the middle of the foyer, and noticed the tapping sound had a slight echo now. It has to be here somewhere.
And then he saw it, or rather saw her. A slender figure with her back to him stood in front of the main statue in the house. The Blessed Virgin.
“Hello?” he called. But it was as if two stone figures faced each other, facing off in the dark. Father Thomas kept the light on the woman and he could see her hands were clenched into fists as she stood. She wore a clinging jumper and tight jeans, her blonde hair in a ponytail. Completely still. Unmoving.
Father Thomas moved forward. It was the clothes that he recognized. “Miss Hensley? Alex?”
She shivered slightly at the name, fists still tight. It was her. But she still did not utter a sound. Sleepwalking? Where on earth could she have walked from? The school? It was almost three in the morning.
“You’re too late…”
The voice was cold, creaky. Still she stared resolutely at the statue as the unknown tapping continued. “Fuck your cursed symbol. It wont save her. You’ve lost. She’s mine.”
Father Thomas reached out a hand to her still form. “Are you all right?”
His fingers touched her shoulder and in a flash she turned around. Eyes that were a sickly yellowish green bore into him, blood poured out of her sneering mouth as she groaned a cry which shook the walls…
Father Thomas snapped awake, his office coming into clearer focus. He had fallen asleep at his desk. He let out a shuddering breath and swallowed; his throat was as dry as the Australian summer. He checked his watch, just past three in the morning. So my dream could tell time? Strange.
He cleared his things and set off for bed. Long ago he had learned dreams weren’t meant to be taken literally, but sometimes there were lessons in them that could be used. Lessons from God perhaps. Or from within. He looked up as the hairs on his neck stood to attention. The tapping sound had returned, just like in his dream. He carefully edged his way to the entryway and peered across the room at the statue of the Blessed Virgin. He stilled in shock. No one stood in front of it, but he now knew why there was a tapping. Out of the eyes, came shining streaks of red. Blood. Running down the ceramic cheeks and dripping continuously under both sides of her face. They struck her chest with a tap tap and trickled to the middle part of her body and then descended.
Clarity struck Father Thomas. From where, he didn’t know. The blood formed a shape on the statue’s chest. He hadn’t seen it in the dream because Alex had stood in the way. The shape… Is that what she was staring at? Somehow, his dream and reality had merged. Was it a dream? Was it a vision? Had she really been there?
He didn’t know. But he did remember. She had said “You’ve lost…cursed symbol” as she looked over the statue. Glared at it. At the symbol. Father Thomas took a step forward to make it out properly. The blood had formed a V shape.
Chapter 34
I’ll Be Watching You
Nicole breathed in the night air of London’s West End. Surrounded on either side by Alan and PJ, they had been to see The Phantom of the Opera. Anthony had tagged along as well, but not before she’d been able to talk with him one-on one. She’d felt strongly she needed to explain that she’d be happy to be friends, but anything romantic was not in the cards.
He’d been understanding and with that out of the way, he had also been wonderful company. This had been her happiest night in London so far.
The doctor had given her good news and it was her twentieth birthday. Her morning sickness was normal, but the blood was not. The baby was fine, but she did have an ulcer that she’d need to be careful about. The doctor did find it strange that the child was much more developed than her expected due date should allow. She knew she could only be four months along roughly, yet the baby was closer to seven.
She laughed it off to the doctor as if she’d just been mistaken with her counting, but inside, she was shocked. She’d known that something was amiss, however, when the size of her belly grew like a balloon within three weeks. There was no doubt in her mind that she was carrying a wolf. She had been dreading the possibility that she would see a monster on the screen when they showed her the latest ultrasound.
But nothing of the sort was there. Her baby looked perfectly normal. Her emotions flooded over when they asked her if she wanted to know the sex. She couldn’t help herself, she had to know.
“Congratulations, you have a son.”
Alan and PJ had been in the room with her, hugging and congratulating her. Then the tears came. They would’ve come if she had been told it was a girl, too. It was just that it all became suddenly real. Not that it hadn’t been previously, but now she felt even more connected to it. To him.
Although things had gotten better on the home front with her roommates now the secret was out, Nicole still had not spoken to her parents after the phone call. She refused to answer their calls or messages. Alan tried to convince her that she should hear them out, but he didn’t interfere otherwise, and he did as she asked and kept them at bay whenever they called.
The nights alone in bed were the worst, though she wasn’t crying as much. When the tears came, they fell like a tap. She had learned a soothing technique, rubbing her hand over her stomach, softly singing to her son. Whispering things that she hoped he could hear. How much she loved him. How she couldn’t wait to meet him. That she was sorry they weren’t a family, but she would do everything in her power to provide for him. She asked for him to be patient with her, because she had absolutely no idea what she was doing, but she would try her best.
The show tonight, the mental escape it provided, was wonderful, though even the good seats hadn’t done her spine much good. As she stretched and placed her hands on her back, out of the corner of her eye she had a sneaking suspicion someone was watching her. Looking. Staring even. She couldn’t help but turn and stare back. A couple, perhaps in their fifties, coming out of the theatre, looked pointedly at her belly. Are they perhaps being judgmental about my age? She had seen fleeting looks here and there from various people over the last few weeks and it had really affected her. Disapproval from strangers was surprisingly a heavy weight to bare.
But she reminded herself that judgement was only a weight if she let it be. Slowly, very slowly, she straightened herself and made sure not to lower her chin. She was not ashamed anymore. She hadn’t been ashamed, exactly, to begin with—more that she’d been terrified. She still faced a nervous few months, and an unknown part of her entire life was just beginning, but she was carrying Nicholas’s son. If he was anything like his father, the world would be a better place and she would do her best to teach him exactly what kind of Alpha and man his father was. Everyone and their judgement could get fucked.
“Ready?” Anthony asked, holding the door of the car open. She nodded and got inside. The drive back was long, as usual through the traffic and the winding London streets. It took over an hour till they parked outside their apartment after dropping Anthony off. Alan gave her a helping hand and as Nicole climbed out, she was abruptly awash in someone’s high beams. A car had stopped, slamming its breaks only a few meters from them, dead in the middle of the road. Alan pulled her toward him and placed her protectively between him and the car.
PJ waved at them, screaming obscenities. He gestured to Nicole and Alan, leading them to the door. Once inside, she looked back to the car that had stopped. It had not moved from its position. The windows were tinted, and there was no way of telling how many were in the vehicle.
As she stood there, the back window lowered half-way down. A woman leaned forward so that much of her face was illuminated by the streetlights. An older woman, probably early forties. She stared back at Nicole and their eyes met. It didn’t feel like a look of assessment, Nicole realised. There was no mistaking it. The expression on the woman’s face was pure loathing.<
br />
Nicole froze. She had no idea what she could’ve done to be regarded with such intense hatred. Even as the woman leaned back and the car shot off, Nicole held a protective hand on top of her stomach, shielding her baby from whatever menace the woman represented.
Chapter 35
How Long?
Alex rolled over and blindly searched for her vibrating phone. She had awoken several hours earlier and plugged it in to charge. Only for Dante to wake and make love to her yet again. Four times.
Alex swiped the screen with half closed eyes and didn’t look at the caller. “Hello?”
“Hi, hun.”
Alex frowned, and then opened her eyes completely before sitting up. “Mish?”
“Tis I!” she giggled. “You’re the only one that calls me that you know. It’s really cute. Listen, I’m back in town. Wanna catch up tonight?”
“Absolutely! I would love to.” Alex had to pause half way through to finish yawning.
“Am I keeping you out of bed?”
“No,” Alex said as she snuggled back down, rolling onto her side. “I just woke up, actually.”
“You don’t have work today?”
“Not for a few hours.”
“You starting late?”
“No, the school opens at nine, dummy.”
“Nine? What are you talking about, hun. It’s one in the afternoon…”
“Wha—”
Alex turned her home screen on and Michelle was right. Oh my god, I’m so late! Alex rattled off something about agreeing to dinner tonight and hung up abruptly. She called the front office and said she would be on her way. She knew it was pointless, but she had to put in an appearance. Peggy was counting on her, and Alex had promised there would be no slip-ups. Especially not with the board watching her. Oh god, the board.
“Fuckety!”
Worry about that later. She dressed and scribbled a hasty note to Dante, kissing his cold grey lips and launched herself downstairs to her car. She raced to the school through the cold, dreary weather under the almost completely black sky.
She reached the school and ran to her classroom just as the bell rang for the end of the day. She placed her hands on her knees for several seconds. She had missed it. She straightened as the kids poured out from their respective classrooms, chattering excitedly, suddenly free from their daily prison known as school.
“Miss Hensley…”
Alex sighed internally. “Peggy.”
“Can I see you in your classroom please?”
Alex nodded but Peggy hadn’t even waited for the acknowledgment, walking away towards the room. Not her class, though. The one next to it. Alex followed, curious, and when she got inside, Peggy closed the door.
“Where the hell have you been?”
“Peggy, I am so…”
“Don’t tell me you’re sorry! I called the police!”
“You…why? Peggy, I know I was very late and there’s no excuse but—”
“Very late? Is that what you call it? Three days, Alex! And I had to take over your class for two of them because we are now three temps down. Tracey is dead, Alex. I was afraid you were too!
Alex placed her hand on her chest. Three days? Dead? She shook her head in disbelief. “What? I— What?”
“That’s why she just upped and disappeared. Her body was found mutilated in her home. Do you understand that? The police were here the other day. To tell me about Tracey. But there was a Constable Crane. He said he wanted to speak to you. He thinks this lunatic is targeting the school somehow. Then you disappeared on me. No messages. No warning. I called in on your apartment two days in a row. You don’t pick up your phone. There is a killer on the loose! I feared the worst. Where the hell where you?”
Alex placed her hands on each side of her face. Tracey… Oh Jesus. This can’t be happening. How the hell was I out three days? I was only with Dante one night.
“Tell her,” a voice said. “Tell her where you’ve been. You’ve had the greatest sex of your life. You’ve been fucked by a vampire so well, it lasted for seventy-two straight hours. That’s where you were. That’s what was happening.. There is no shame in that.”
“I…um…”
“Um?” Peggy stared at her, astonished. “After all these years, everything you’ve worked for, everything I offered you and I get um? Look at this.” Peggy pointed towards the board. Ï found out you took over Tiffany’s class when you were here last. Did you or did you not write that on the board?”
Alex looked over the dark green board at the words in massive, cursive writing.
BITCH. CUNT. SCUM.
“Wha—? Absolutely not! How could you think I would do that?”
“The students told me you wrote it. Every single one of them said so. I passed it off as some kind of joke, or that they were trying to cover up for a friend, perhaps. But I looked at the words, their height on the board. The cursive is too complex for a child their age, even if the appalling language wouldn’t be. But whatever you used—”
“I didn’t!”
“Whatever was used, isn’t chalk. We haven’t been able to get it off. Or cover it. Believe me I’ve tried all cleaning products and painting over the bloody thing. They still stick out like dog’s balls. We’ll have to get a replacement and until then, we either have to not use this classroom or put things in front of the board just to continue lessons. Alex, I’m sorry but that is just not good enough.”
“I know it’s not,” Alex said softly. The truth that she would never see Tracey again was dawning on her. And she had thought so poorly of her for not doing her job. The words on the board didn’t mean as much. She remembered writing on the board for the class, and then turning to tend to little Abigail. “But I’m certain I didn’t write that. How could you think I would do that in front of the kids?”
“Lately, I don’t know what to believe anymore. The promotion is off the table Alex, I’m sorry. And you’ll be suspended without pay. I really should fire you, but for some reason I believe that you are suffering from something you’re not telling me about. If that’s the case, I’m telling you to get it fixed. But I can’t just let this slide. You disappointed me and terrified me. I really hope your um was worth it.”
Peggy stormed off, leaving Alex alone, trying to swallow the fury burning away in the middle of her chest.
“What a cunt, wouldn’t you say?”
Chapter 36
Mark of the Beast
Alex slammed her apartment door with a thwack! She threw her bag onto her couch and stepped into the bathroom. The water rushed over her head and down her body. She used the shower for stress relief, but now, nothing. It was having no effect. She tightened the cold tap and moved the hot as far as it would go.
Alex breathed in the steam, helping her to calm. But the burning crept over her body like a syrup. She winced and cringed but her knees were locked in place, as were her hands. Alex finally managed to find the taps and shut the water off, coughing from the saturated air around her. It was like a full-on steam room in there. What the hell?
Alex steadied herself and wrapped a towel around her torso gingerly. Her back was extremely tender. She moved in front of the mirror and caught sight of a dark shape behind her. A shadow.
Alex turned but nothing was there, but in the mirror, the shadow remained.
“Who are you?” she spoke to the mirror. She didn’t expect a reply, but she got one. In her own voice, through her own mouth. She was talking back to herself, but not in charge of the words.
“Your master,” she said. “You will bow to me.”
“Bow? You’re…the one.”
“Say it.”
Alex had no idea what this was, but she knew she had to get out of here. Fast. But when she tried to move this time, only her right arm obeyed. It smacked the mirror with the flat of her hand and she screamed, “Say it!”
“You’re the Shadow Killer!”
Alex’s face turned from fright and worry to a grin. “Good,
sow. I may truly make use of you after all.”
“What do you want with me?”
“What do I want? I want you. Broken. Battered and crippled. I want you destroyed. I want your power.”
“What power?”
“Ohhh…you pathetic, simple slut. You know nothing. Completely unaware of gifts bestowed upon you. All you do is bring death and destruction to those around you. Content to suck dead cock when you could rule this country. I want your powers. Now.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have any powers. You can’t make me do jack shit.”
Alex had her hand moved to her towel, easing it free and letting it drop. She couldn’t stop herself. Her hand moved all over her body. Her stomach, her breasts and between her legs, yet she was not in control of anything. “It was you.” She realised it now. You wrote that on the board! You used me to do it. Fuck you.”
“You will regret speaking to me in such a way, harlot.”
Her fingers pinched her clitoris. “Stop it,” she whimpered.
“You think I am a trifling vampire? A wolf? I am eternal. I terrorised the souls of bitches before man even had speech. I seek goodness. Light. You are the strongest force of light I have ever encountered.” Her fingers pinched harder, holding it and circling.
Alex hissed, lip trembling, on the verge of tears. “No…please. I have no idea what you’re talking about!”
“Save your pleading. You have no idea what you are. I know what you are, what you possess. I will have it. In time. The longer you resist, the greater your suffering—the greater their suffering. Submit yourself to my will, and the pain stops.”
Alex cringed and bumped her head against the mirror, but her head wouldn’t stay there. Her fingers were rubbing faster.
“I feel it…even now. Your strength…the power within…pure and unstoppable. Wasted on you, of course.” The voice she used was breathless, orgasmic even. She looked at herself straight in the mirror. “But no, it is still out of my reach. You are not mine yet. I couldn’t rid the world of you like the others, not until I syphon what I need. And I will take it all. You are weakening…Let me in. Ah good. Cry. Go on.”
Shadow Chaser (Undeadly Secrets Book 3) Page 21