From the Dark

by Michele Hauf

  Were the neighbors burning something? He hadn’t remarked any other houses close enough to consider neighbors.

  “Plates and forks,” Jane sang as she breezed back into the room. “I got chocolate with cherry icing in the center. I’m hoping it’s your favorite.”

  “Of course it is,” Michael said absently. He tilted his head, his focus on the flames eating into the sky beyond the yard. “Is someone out back?”

  “I told you my father is out there. He’s—Michael come and eat some cake.”

  “I am not interested any more.” He strode across the room. Celebration wouldn’t happen until he got to the bottom of this. “I think it’s time we invited your father to the party.”

  Jane scrambled for him so quickly, she slid on a puddle of liquid wax and had to catch herself by grabbing Michael’s arm. “Leave him by himself. He wants to be alone. Michael, please.”

  Searching her dark eyes Michael found something he had only once before seen in them.

  “You’re lying to me, Jane.” He felt as incredulous as his voice had sounded. “I can feel it in the subtle tremor of your touch. And I can see it in your eyes. Fear.”

  Bowing her head, she prodded the edge of a wax spill with her bare toe.

  “You’ve never lied to me. It’s something about your father, isn’t it? This has to do with that argument the two of you had the other night, and then you avoided me for a whole day. Talk to me. I’m not letting you go until you tell me what the hell is going on.”

  “Michael, please, you’re being paranoid.”

  “Oh? Then why does your father have a bonfire lit at the end of the garden? What’s he doing? Dancing up demons? Speaking a spell?”

  “Don’t be silly, only my mother can do that, and Daddy would never dream to attempt the sort without bringing her wrath upon him.”

  “Yet now, you can do the same. You’re going out there in an hour to meet him. For what? A midnight fire dance? Spells and charms chanted to the moon? Tell me. I won’t be angry if you want to practice your magic. But your silence—it makes me feel this is not right. If you don’t tell me, I’m heading out there now.”

  “You can’t, Michael.”

  He shoved her away and stalked out into the hallway. Jane’s calm had fallen away and a startling fear mastered her heartbeats. He didn’t want to walk away from her, but if she wasn’t going to be truthful with him…

  “He’s prepared the ritual!” Jane called.

  Michael stopped dead in the center of the hallway. Hooking his thumbs in his front pockets, he turned and asked, “Ritual?”

  “To immortality,” she said. Her hands swept down the front of the silk dress, and fluttered at her sides as if unsure where exactly to go, what to do. “My parents decided I should perform the immortality ritual a century ago on my twenty-fifth birthday. They wanted to ensure their daughter lived as long as they did. The ritual requires a renewal every century—as it does for all witches. Tonight is that night. The ritual must be completed before midnight.”

  Michael approached. His feet felt heavy, but no heavier than his heartbeats. This was not going to be good. He felt it to his very bones, so much so, his canines ached and lowered in his mouth.

  “Nothing wrong with immortality,” he offered.

  “You did wish I would do whatever necessary to remain so.”

  “I agree, you should renew it. I want you to.” Stopping three paces from the willowy figure who seemed to stand alone in the house, he planted his stance. “So what’s the deal? Why didn’t you simply tell me about this?”

  “The ritual is sacred.”

  He shrugged, but inwardly, he shivered at that word—sacred.

  “Also—” she fretted, clasping her hands together, then as quickly splaying them furiously before her “—the ritual requires I consume the blood from a vampire’s beating heart.”

  Chapter 23

  P ressing his palm out before him as a feeble blockade against the awful words he’d heard come from Jane’s mouth, Michael felt his entire body wince. “A vampire’s beating heart?”

  To her credit Jane didn’t rush out an explanation.

  “You—” he delivered the weighted words carefully “—you…are immortal…because you drank the blood from a—a vampire’s beating heart?”

  “A century ago,” she said, as if explaining something so mundane as her choice of red as opposed to pink for her dress.

  “And now you have to do it again.”

  He wouldn’t release her gaze. If he could hold her with his eyes, then time stopped, and everything that didn’t make sense ceased to matter anyway. The faery tale would remain just that, a tale, not truth.

  But he couldn’t help himself. “A heart? From a vampire. Still…be—”

  She made a move toward him but he stopped her by fisting his fingers.

  This woman had calmly confessed to something so insane.

  “Jane, did you hear yourself? You said—What the hell is your dad doing out there? Is he—and me?”

  The pieces fell together rapidly. Michael turned and marched away from her.

  “Michael, stop! You can’t go out there!”

  “Why not? Or do you have some ritual to carry me out there? I’m your sacrifice? You going to rip out my heart and eat it?”

  “I would never dream to hurt you.”

  “Oh, really? Where you going to find another vampire on such short notice?”

  “My father has a contact. You met my friend Ravin.”

  “Friend? You have friends who will supply you with live vampires so you can rip out their hearts and have a snack? Wait—she was checking me out, wasn’t she? Did the two of you plan this? To get me, and then to—”

  He raced down the stairs and ran out into the backyard. A bonfire spat into the sky and lit the entire end of the garden. He couldn’t make out figures, but Baptiste had to be down there somewhere.

  This was nuts. All this time, had he been a part of Jane’s quest to remain immortal?

  The witch—Ravin Crosse—she’d been there when he’d arrived in the graveyard. She had been stalking him more than Isabelle had!

  “Stop right there and hear me out, Michael.”

  Spinning on his heels, he smiled at her gall. The sweet, innocent earth mother reveals her wicked side. She really was the devil’s sister.

  Raging up to her, he pressed her against the wall of the house, hands high over her head and pinning her wrists. “You weren’t going to tell me about this, were you? Were you!”

  “It’s your birthday, I didn’t want to spoil—”

  “Oh, you’ve ruined the fun, Jane. And now that you have, give me one good reason why I should let you go through with this.”

  “It’s not your place to say whether I can or cannot do a thing.”

  She pushed away from him and stomped into the center of the yard. Fury designed her hair in a wild rage about her face, and the red dress seemed so out of place. So elegant. Bloodred. So bloody red.

  “I understand now. You’ve been stringing me along since the beginning. Tap into the vampire’s sex magic and when you’re finished with him, then crack open his heart.”

  Michael kicked the wall. Then again and again. He was mad about her. Mad in love. How could he love someone so much?

  And now to hear this? How could he have been so foolish?

  Jane remained in his direct path to running to the back of the garden. “You’re more bloodthirsty than I am!”

  “Oh, and on what high moral ground you walk, Mr. Fallen Angel? Look at you! Raging over my little indiscretion?”

  “Little? Woman!”

  “How dare you judge me? You, who drinks blood every day—and not because you need to but because you want to. Don’t you dare throw stones at me!”

  She had a strange point. Why was he raging?

  Because Jane did not stand before him. She had changed, without asking him if it was all right. She was his. Her heartbeats pulsed in his veins. And he’d a
lmost had his finger on the control button. Things had been that close to being right.

  And she wanted to rip out his heart.

  “I can’t look at you right now.” He kicked in the back door to the garage and wandered inside, seeking the solace of the cool empty shadows. Anger coursing through his veins, he slammed his fist into the cement wall. The flesh cracked and blood drooled out.

  “You said you wanted me to do this!” she called from outside. “Well, now you’ve got your birthday wish.”

  Pressing his face to the wall, Michael opened his mouth wide in a silent scream. It felt as though she’d reached in and ripped out his heart, and held it dripping and bloody before him for his inspection—before she bit into it.

  He had told her he’d wanted her to live forever. For him. Selfish bastard.

  And now that she was going ahead with it, who was he to stop her?

  Jane ran barefoot through the tangled sumac that twisted upon the ground and up and around the stalks of the shrubbery. It tripped her up a few times, but she persisted, keeping one eye to the back of the house.

  She hadn’t wanted it to come out this way. Plans to lure him away to a concert for the evening had been trashed once she’d learned about his birthday. Michael had forced her hand. Yet, had she truly believed she could have kept it a secret from him?

  She landed on the open grounds out back of the garden. Twigs and dead leaves crunched under her bare feet. A bonfire blazed madly. Heavy smoke-infused air filled her lungs. He hadn’t followed her.

  There was no time for mistakes, or to pause.

  Spying the vampire roped to the tree stopped her cold. Jane stifled a scream at the sight of her. Her arms were wrenched around and behind the trunk and her ankles secured with more rope. Dressed in a pale cream suit, she looked so elegantly tattered and—

  “A female?”

  It struck at her heart, the callous disregard for another living, breathing woman that Jane swallowed back her bile. She hadn’t expected it to be a woman. Of course, there were female vampires, but…She’d thought it would be a man. And so petite and beautiful?

  Her head hung before her, long white hair streaming down the front of the cream jacket. She’d been knocked out, but Jane trusted her father had not bitten her. The source must not be tainted.

  A female. Could she do this? To another woman?

  Baptiste appeared as Jane strode around the fire. “It’s time, dearest.”

  “Why did you bring a woman?”

  “I hadn’t known you favored one sex or the other.”

  “It’s not that, I just, well—Yes, it is. I don’t feel right doing this. Who is she?”

  “Just a vampire, darling. Ms. Crosse plucked her for me. Female or male, it matters not to the final result. Does it trouble you that much?”

  Twisting her gaze from the helpless vampire, Jane shook her head. Determination stirred her to vigorously rub her arms with her palms. “No. I’m fine. I can do this. I must do this.”

  Nodding, Jane bent as her father placed an amulet around her neck. A harlequin quartz crystal suspended on a chain of solid platinum. A strand of tiny red diamonds ran through the center of the stone. It belonged to her mother. Roxane had earned it on the eve of her ascension.

  Jane clasped the quartz, diverting her frenzied thoughts from the awfulness of imminent destruction to the solid piece. “Ravin didn’t come?”

  “We made the exchange in town,” her father said. “I didn’t want to spend a moment longer with the witch than necessary. You understand.”

  Yes, the only witch her father trusted was his wife. What would he do when he discovered Jane had come into her magic through a vampire, who had in turn taken the magic from her? No time to discuss it.

  “There’s no time to waste, Daddy. Michael found out.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Back at the house. Let’s do this! Before he gets the nerve to try and stop me. I don’t remember the incantation. Oh, it’s been so long!”

  Her father drew her into a hug. Though fear and anxiety dueled with determination his embrace calmed it all. “Don’t panic. It’ll be fine.”

  Kisses to the crown of her head stilled her, brought her back to a place where all was right and nothing bad could ever happen to her. She felt him slide a piece of paper into her hand. “Mustn’t be nervous. This is you, Jane. Your life.”

  A life chosen by her parents. Had she asked for immortality? Never.

  And yet, should she not perform the ritual, she would cease to exist, to never again see her mother or father. Or Michael.

  Now that she had her magic, there was so much to learn. A whole new world waited for her discovery.

  She was not the same woman she’d been when she’d first arrived at the mansion. She’d changed. This woman who had raced toward the fire was her very core, the wild yet controlled woman who had emerged the other night after taming the vampire’s sexual beast. There was no doubt, she must perform the ritual. Yes, this is her life.

  “Do this, and you will live to love that vampire,” Baptiste said. “I pray he will not harm you for your sacrifice.”

  “And what if I harm him? I’m the dangerous one in this relationship. One drop of my blood, and Michael…” Her breaths ached at the back of her throat.

  A wistful glance toward the back of the house did not spy Michael. He hated her now. She’d played this wrong. So much she could not control. But it was too late to make amends. Too late to walk away—and she would not.

  “What is this?” She opened the paper he’d handed her and immediately recognized the handwriting.

  “Mother sent that along. She suspected you would not remember the incantation. I like the pink ink, don’t you?”

  Jane smirked. Her mother dotted her i’s with perfect circles. Like a note passed to a friend during a boring class. Yet, this note would seal Jane’s fate. A very bloody fate.

  Turning to the vampire, she saw she was not conscious. Firelight glimmered upon her pale hair like jewels embedded in white sand, and an elegant, close-cut suit didn’t show a wrinkle. “Have you harmed her?”

  “Not at all. Didn’t even bite the sassy bit. But I had to knock her out. She struggled so against the binds. Put pretty little cuts about her wrists. Very tempting, I must say. Hurry then, Jane. The moon is high.”

  Sliding her fingers over the paper, she began to read the writing. It was difficult to see in the darkness and with the blaze behind her, so she adjusted her position, but knew she must remain close to the sacrifice.

  The first words would claim her right to the incantation through her forbearers through her mother’s line. “I am of Desrues blood and forged of love and magic. Guarded by the great Protection. I am as all others. Receive my call for life everlasting.”

  Falling onto her knees below the tree where the vampire had been tied, Jane cried out her plea to the moon to grant her immortality. A boon that was once sacrificed by an entire nation of witches in order to bespell their blood poisonous to the vampires. The words put an ancient rhythm into the ether, opening Jane to receive the blessing. The gift of vampire’s blood would fortify the sacrifice.

  Stretching her arms out wide, Jane called to her father. “I am ready!”

  She did not watch. The crunch of her father’s footsteps over the grass and fallen twigs told her he approached the tree. With a pick ax. The vampire’s chest must be cleaved open, the heart torn out, and the blood consumed while it yet pulsed with life.

  Her father heaved. He swung the ax.

  “Jane, no!”

  She opened her eyes.

  The ax glinted with amber firelight. Michael ran up from behind the tree. He didn’t see Baptiste. Nor did Jane’s father seem to notice him.

  Chapter 24

  “S he can’t do this alone. She is a part of me. I can feel her in my veins. She has given me so much. Jane!”

  Michael kicked open the garage door and ran outside. At the end of the garden, the bonfire blazed wild
ly. He skirted the hedges and ran down the limestone path. The lilac bushes blocked his strides, but he slapped them out of the way.

  He could see figures moving before the fire, shadowed like demons stalking the flame. Two of them? Her father must be helping her.

  “Not without me.”

  Jane had accepted him without question. She had loved him, and had even encouraged him to fight the addiction that could have pushed him to commit murder. And had she ever asked for anything in return?

  That she could now finally control the magic had been a surprise to both of them.

  He had done nothing but take from her. Now it was time to give back.

  “Jane!”

  Michael reached the oak tree. Massive in size, it blocked the view of the figures. He couldn’t see the fire until he swung around the wide trunk. And he also saw a glint of steel. In a split second he registered it as a weapon—swinging toward his heart.

  Spurred to defense, he slapped his hands to the curved blade scything the air. Connection stung his palms but the cutting end remained safely out of play. The momentum of the swing moved into Michael’s arms, and he had no choice but to follow the direction.

  Blade gripped fiercely, he teetered to the left, and brought the one who had swung the ax down with him.

  A female scream scurried through the sky, but the bonfire muted it with its own roar.

  Michael rolled over Baptiste, who would not release the ax. “What the hell?” He managed to twist the wooden handle from the vampire’s weak grip and pressed the pick ax across his chest effectively pinning him. “You could have killed me!”

  “You shouldn’t have rushed in—” Baptiste huffed. Michael gave the ax a shove and the elder vampire winced “—without looking. The ceremony! Jane hasn’t time for your nonsense. She needs to do this now!”

  Much as Baptiste struggled, Michael was stronger. Thanks to having sex with his daughter. Hadn’t this old vampire gotten strength from his wife, the witch?

  With a grunt, Michael tugged the ax from Baptiste’s grip, and pushed up to stand. Jane stood before the fire, hands clasped in a tight clutch before her mouth. Utter horror consumed the faery tales in her eyes.