“Come on,” Chase said. “Rom’s right. The police could show up at any time.”
Zen had already thought about that. He’d taken off back in the tunnel. The big bad special ops guy ran away. What was with that? All he'd said was for us to reconnoiter tomorrow at o-nine-hundred. I personally wanted to reconnoiter all over his head...or the ghoul’s head, or Rom’s head, or Billy’s head…I just basically wanted to bash someone or something.
Franky. Oh God.
Crossing the sidewalk to a nearby trashcan, I put my hands on either side of the opening and kicked it as hard as I could. The pain shooting through my foot from the impact with the metal was a relief.
Between sobs, Petra kissed Franky’s forehead. She walked away with Chase’s arm around her shoulder.
“Bye, man” Senji touched Franky’s arm. After nodding to me, he also walked off.
Rom came up behind me and placed a hand on my shoulder. I shifted to face him.
“Do you also wish to perform some ritual?” Rom led me back to the bench.
“No,” I said. “He isn’t here anymore. He won’t see it.”
“The doing of it may help you.”
Shaking my head, I turned and ran from the bench. I didn’t stop running until I was out of the park. Rom kept pace with me and when I slowed to a walk so did he. For a few moments we moved silently together.
My iPhone rang, startling me. After amazement that the thing was still in my pocket and in working order, I pulled it out and examined its face. I recognized the number: Billy.
“This is your fault,” Billy said after I’d answered.
“Did you call just to tell me that?”
“I called to tell you you’re on your own. I’m gonna get Juliette back my own way.”
“Fantastic. You do that,” I said with a full dose of sarcasm in my voice, but he’d already hung up.
Rom’s expression told me he wondered about the conversation.
“Billy,” I told him. “He's just spewing nonsense.”
“I will come for you on the morrow.” Rom spoke as we reached my house.
Nodding, I proceeded to scramble up the tree before entering through my bedroom window. As I pulled the sash down to close it, Rom walked away.
At the click of the switch of the bedside table lamp, light flooded the room. I jumped and whirled at the same time.
“Have a good time tonight, Kizzy?” Mom asked. The sarcasm in her question was sharp enough to cut glass.
* * * * *
Of course I didn’t tell my mother any of what had actually transpired that night, but I did tell her a version of the truth: that my friends and I had been trying to find Juliette and Franky. But I said we didn’t have any success—What an understatement.
Mom of course noticed how grungy I was. The stuff stuck in my hair? I didn’t even want to know.
“We were on foot and I fell,” I explained.
Mom’s eyes scanned the extent of the damage including the cut on my hand.
“I fell more than once.”
“But why go back out?” Mom asked. “Do you know how frantic I was when I saw you weren’t here?”
“I’m sorry.” And I was. Sorry about everything. I couldn’t even think about all I was sorry for or I'd lie down on my bed and never get up again. “I couldn’t sleep. It seemed more important to get Juliette and Franky back.”
“Oh, honey.” Mom took my hand, pulled me down to sit beside her on the bed, and put an arm around my shoulder. “You shouldn’t feel responsible for fixing everything for everybody.”
“That’s not how I feel.” Mom had no idea how truly responsible I actually was.
“I know you care deeply about your family and friends.” Mom gave my shoulder a little shake. “And while I definitely would like to see the end of that bitch-who-doesn’t-care-about-anyone act you’ve been performing the last few months, that doesn’t mean I want you to get hurt trying to make up for what happened to Adam either.”
Stiffening, I swallowed hard.
“Nothing can make up for Adam.”
Mom wrapped me in a tight hug and I could tell by the way she held her body so rigidly that she was trying hard not to sob. When she pulled back, Mom's eyes and nose were red, but no tears had escaped.
“Okay,” she said. “Promise me you won’t pull any more dangerous stunts like staying out until 3 a.m.”
“I promise. No more dangerous stunts," was what I said out loud. What I meant was: I promise I'll do anything I have to in order to get Juliette back alive. A stunt was some kind of lark. This shit was deadly serious.
* * * * *
Fortunately, Mom gave me permission for an excused absence from school and saved me from having to skip. However, I was supposed to stay in the house, without guests, while she was at work and until the court hearing this afternoon. So, naturally, I was out the door within ten minutes after Mom left the house at 7:45 a.m. Rom waited in his parked car at the curb.
“Did you sleep here?” I asked, bending to gaze in at him through the driver’s side window of his Mustang.
“I had not trusted you would await me this morn.” Rom’s eyes were a bit bleary and red. He yawned and a smile quirked up one side of his lips.
How right he was. But I didn’t exactly trust him either. Jump his bones. Heck yeah. Trust. No. As I thought about the events of last night, it became obvious Rom hadn’t necessarily refrained from killing me because he cared. He had lowered his gun when logic convinced him opening the vortex was the best way to protect his world. But could I blame him? I wanted to protect mine too.
My feelings were a jumble of conflict.
“I also had fear the ghoul would make an attempt to capture you.”
Awww, how sweet. My bodyguard.
“There’s somebody I want to talk to.” Rounding the front of his car, I opened the passenger door and hopped in. “Let’s go to Zen’s house."
“You wish discourse with Zen?”
“Not exactly.”
We drove for a few minutes in silence until Rom spoke.
“Do you wish discourse with me of any matter?”
“A lot happened last night.” Like us making out. Like you almost killing me. Like Franky dying. “Are you asking if I want to talk about that?”
“Accord.”
“No.”
We were silent for a few more minutes with me making a point of keeping my attention focused out the passenger window.
“I do have a question,” I said, finally glancing at him. “If you’re from another dimension how did you afford this neat car, and school tuition, and all that?”
“We have seen through the oracle that your world values gold as we do,” Rom wheeled his car around a corner. “My father has much. Gold coins were provided to me for the journey. These will purchase anything in your world.”
My cell phone pinged with a message from Petra: U@?
My thumbs flew over the touch keyboard typing a return text: W/Rom. Meet@Z’s.
“Okay, Mr. inter-dimensional traveler,” I said as we pulled into Zen’s driveway. “How should we go about finding the ghoul and getting Juliette back?”
“I know not.” He threw the car into park. “Whether any good may come of opening the portal to Dorcha again is uncertain.”
“I’m not leaving Juliette there.”
“Truth.” His sad smile pulled at my heart.
Was he agreeing with me or just acknowledging he couldn’t change my mind?
* * * * *
“Pawn to queen’s knight four.” Prince Leopold's elegant, pale hand picked up the piece and placed it down again two spaces forward on the chessboard in front of him.
After surveying the board, I decided on my move. “King’s knight to king two,” I said and the prince moved my piece to the square I’d designated.
What I wouldn’t have given for a day at Double Dick High. But instead of a lovely, boring day at school, I was sitting here playing chess with a vampire throu
gh a psychomanteum.
The saddest thing about it was that the prince had been almost childishly jubilant when I'd suggested the game. I'd thought it would be easier to talk and find out information in a more casual circumstance. Casual? What a laugh. Anyway, so far it'd been pretty much all play and no talk. At least I was holding my own. But then I didn’t want to win this game anyway. How good a loser was a vampire likely to be?
“So,” I said. “In Dorcha are all paranormal beings like you out of the closet so to speak?”
Prince Leopold glanced up. He had repositioned the mirror to a chair opposite him at the table, which gave our game an intimacy I struggled not to feel uncomfortable with.
“Out of the closet?” He asked.
From this vantage point I had a close up view of his unnaturally pale handsomeness. And he could certainly be charming when he chose to be.
“The paranormal beings are out in the open. No hiding from the humans,” I clarified.
“Paranormal? No, we are the normal now,” the prince replied. “There are very few free-range humans left here and those who still exist are in hiding.” He smiled. “Queen’s knight to queen two.”
“Is that why you want me there?” I asked. “So I can open the door to other dimensions and give you a food supply?”
“Yes,” admitted the prince. “A few more years without an influx of stock will render us extinct, wiped out by starvation. As their monarch, it is my duty to save my subjects.” The prince met my eyes again through the mirror, with an almost pleading expression. “Am I so very different from you, Kizzy?” he asked. “You do all you can to save your sister and your friends. I merely do all I can to save my people. I wish to prevent them from perishing in unspeakable agony. How can that be wrong?”
Was it wrong? Maybe not for him, but certainly for me. Apparently, even the morality of monsters feasting on human flesh and using their bones as toothpicks was relative.
“What is your next move?” he asked.
“Huh?” I awoke from my own thoughts.
He nodded toward the board.
“Oh. Queen’s bishop to castle six.”
He slid the piece across the board and smiled.
“Very good. I look forward to a time when we may play each other in person.”
“Have you always been a vampire?” I asked.
He glanced up seemingly startled by the question.
“I meant no offense.” I offered a smile.
“No offense taken my dear.” The prince fingered the crown of his black King. “I was not always as I am now. In my human incarnation, I began life as sickly baby. When I was seven, doctors diagnosed my malady: hemophilia. My mother was devastated.”
“I can imagine,” My mother was devastated by the loss of Adam. “A mother should not be asked to outlive her child.”
“Yes,” he said. “But because of my mother’s position as monarch of the realm, the disease brought not only a mother’s natural concern for the jeopardy to her child’s life but also shame. And since hemophilia is a disease of the family, my diagnosis posed a threat to our dynasty’s rule and the continuation of the monarchy.”
"Every doctor of any reputation in Europe and the colonies was consulted. They could do little." Prince Leopold's brown eyes darkened with pain. "When I was seventeen, I took a fall. No one could stop the hemorrhaging.” His lips curled into a wry smile. The upward quirk at one side of his lips reminded me of Rom for a moment.
“By this time, my mother had been studying spiritualism," he continued. "Through this she found an alchemist, a wizard, by the name of Gethin. He promised to cure me of my affliction and he did. But let us say the cure was less than ideal.” The prince’s wry smile turned to a grin revealing his two gleaming incisors.
“I’m sorry, your Highness,” I said.
“Do not be, sweet Kizzy.” He chuckled. “For a time I mourned my humanity and fought against the nature of being a vampire. I soon discovered this cure was not only a curse but also a salvation and so I embraced my darkness."
"In what way?" I asked not certain I wanted the answer.
"I sought out other creatures like me." His eyes gazed into the distance as if remembering. "Other creatures humans thought were only mythical. Other creatures who had been driven underground and into the shadows by human kind. I gathered them together." His attention snapped back to me. "Then I created an entire aristocracy of vampires."
"And also an army of ghouls," I muttered.
"Quite so." He seemed pleased at my understanding. "And not just an army. In fact, the ghouls serve me faithfully in many areas of civil service, household staff..."
"You've created an empire of the supernatural."
"I have ruled now for more than one-hundred years." He sat back in his chair leaning there with happy ease. "It is good to be the prince.”
Not being able to think of anything to say in response, I joined him in silence for a few moments before he returned his attention to the board.
“How is Juliette?” I asked finally.
“She is well,” he said, still examining the position of the pieces.
“Why isn’t she with you?” Was she okay or had he drained her dry?
He glanced up again. “I would not kill her. You can trust my word.” The prince must have read uncertainty on my face because he continued. “After all, if the fair Juliette were dead I would lose my ghoul, Stephan.” The prince grinned. “He is my eyes, my ears, my hands in your world. I would not like to give that up until I must. There are many beautiful sights. Even your cemeteries are beautiful.”
The prince moved the black bishop to take my white on the board, knocking it over. With a triumphant grin, he picked up the piece and tossed it into the air. He caught the bishop in a tight, strangling grip.
“All the same,” I said. “I would like to see Juliette.”
A dark anger invaded his eyes and the prince’s brows converged in a vee.
“I have given my word of her safety and the word of a prince is not to be questioned,” he bellowed. “After all, I did not kill your little friend, Franky. It was you who did that.”
“That’s enough.” I rose from my chair. “You may be a prince but you are not my prince. I want to see Juliette.”
“How is your gorgeous friend Rom? Does he feel quite well?” The prince’s smirk taunted me. “What a shame it would be to lose another friend so soon. Poor Franky,” the prince cooed. “What a waste. He was soooooo young and sweet. It made his blood quite tasty.” He made a smacking sound.
Feeling the heat of an angry flush rise up in my face, I backed away a step.
“I won’t listen to you,” I whispered. Step-by-step I moved until the fog filled the mirror once again obscuring the prince and his palace.
Outside the psychomanteum room, Zen waited. “What did you find out?”
“Not much we didn’t know before,” I said. “I lost my temper when he started taunting me.”
Pushing past Zen, I headed down the stairs and found Rom and Petra in Zen’s living room. Each held a text and from the looks of the book covers, quite old ones.
“We needed some clue if we are to find the ghoul before tonight.” Zen yelled, stomping after me. “Need I remind you it would be safer to locate him during daylight hours when he’s in a weakened state? Prince Leopold was supposed to provide that clue.”
“I’m aware of all that but he was talking about Franky and I lost it, okay?”
I kicked the copper umbrella stand near the doorway and immediately felt ashamed at my loss of control. “Sorry,” I said to Zen.
“It’s okay,” he reassured me. “I shouldn’t have been so unreasonable.”
Wow. Even on a short acquaintance with Zen I knew that was quite an admission.
“So have you two found anything in Zen’s reference books?” I asked.
Petra nodded. “There’s a bit here about how to kill a ghoul. Apparently they have remarkable healing powers, but they can be destroyed
by fire, electrocution, acid or decapitation.”
“Well, now we know what not to do, I guess."
”It also says here ghouls can be disabled by silver.” Petra glanced up at me. “So we know they’re pretty limited when choosing affordable jewelry.”
I turned to Rom. “How about you? Find anything?”
“Nothing of consequence.” Rom's gaze dropped to the book in front of him.
Was he hiding something?
“In all these books, there’s only one reference to ghouls?” I asked, centering my attention on Rom. He didn’t respond. I’d have to read that text myself. I turned to Zen with an irritated huff. “What about the internet?”
“Mostly, the information on the web is what we already know. But last night I located one thing I hadn’t seen before,” Zen said. “An anecdote about a ghoul hanging out with his vampire in a burial ground. But I don’t see how that could be useful.”
“Wait a minute.” I strode to the window. Staring outside, I was actually staring into my memory. What was it Prince Leopold had said? “Burial ground!” I murmured. “That might be something.” I spun around. “The prince said the ghoul was his eyes and ears and hands in this world.”
“We already know that,” Zen said. “The ghoul can channel his master. So what?”
“The prince said 'even your cemeteries are beautiful.'” I crossed to Zen. “Couldn’t that mean the ghoul is hiding out in one of the cemeteries? Maybe that’s where we can find him.”
Rom stood. “You have reason.”
“Yes,” Zen said. “I think you may be right.”
“Now we just have to figure out which cemetery.”
Chapter Fourteen
“The most likely cemetery is one of these three.” Zen touched three spots on a map he'd spread across his dining room table.
“Not Bonaventure,” I said, referring to the first one he’d indicated.
“It’s considered the most beautiful,” Zen responded. "The prince said the cemetery was beautiful."
“Yes, but Bonaventure's at least five miles from downtown. I can’t believe the ghoul would travel that far from the vortex portal.”
Paranormal Realities (A Paranormal Romantic Suspense Box Set) Page 13