Theron smiled and wiped the blood from his face with the back of his hand. “You can stop staring at her. She’s not going to move. She’s dead.”
Kallias barely heard Theron. In fact, as the minutes and hours passed, he was only vaguely aware that Theron had returned to torturing him. His mind seemed to distance itself from everything around him. He continued to stare at his wife’s body. She lay facedown on the floor with her arms sprawled on either side of her. A stream of crimson blood coated her bluish skin and her peplos. Watching her die was more painful than anything Kallias had ever experienced. As a matter of fact, he felt so much emotional pain over her death that he didn’t even notice the pain of the torture as Theron continued to slice at his skin.
Theron eventually lost interest in torturing Kallias. It ceased to bring him satisfaction once it stopped affecting Kallias. With a disappointed sigh, Theron plunged the dagger into Kallias’s heart. Kallias felt relieved as the blood poured from his chest and the darkness began to overtake him. His suffering was finally over. He welcomed the coldness and darkness of death.
When Theron heard Kallias’s heart stop beating, he found himself even more disappointed. Killing Phoebe had brought him no satisfaction. Torturing Kallias had brought him no satisfaction. And killing Kallias had brought him no satisfaction either. He still didn’t have what he wanted, which was the Stone of the Eklektos. Instead, he had given Kallias what he wanted, which was death.
Theron froze as he remembered what Kallias had told him. Kallias had said he’d rather die than become a monster. He smiled as he realized one last way that he could torture Kallias. Theron used his fangs to pierce the arteries in his wrist. Then, he knelt in front of Kallias’s lifeless body and placed his wrist against Kallias’s mouth. He watched as his blood poured into Kallias’s mouth.
And then he waited for the change to begin…
The Old, Stone Box
2,485 years later…
Early for class, as usual, Rose Foster waited in the empty college classroom for her art history professor and her classmates to arrive. Her eyes scanned the student artwork on the wall until one painting caught her eye, a painting of two women, a woman lying on a floor with the other hovering over her, her mouth against the other woman’s throat. Red paint colored the hovering woman’s lips and the neck of the woman lying in the floor. It was a painting of a vampire and a human, she realized. She’d never noticed it before.
She sighed and glanced at the color-wheel clock on the wall that clicked loudly, echoing through the quiet classroom. Deciding she had time to waste, she pulled her worn, black backpack into her lap and unzipped it. She reached into it and pulled out an old, stone box. She opened it gently, not sure how much the ancient relic could handle. Her long red hair fell around her shoulders as she leaned forward to peer inside the box at the strange blood-red stone.
Rose hesitantly reached toward the stone, and just as her fingertip brushed it, the stone seemed to spark and glow. She jerked her hand back.
“Family heirloom?” a male voice asked from beside her.
Startled, Rose jumped and slammed the box shut. Her wide, blue eyes shifted to the man sitting in the chair next to her. His sleek, black hair brushed his brows as he leaned forward over his bag, pulling out his books for class.
“No… Yes… I mean…no,” she stammered.
He glanced at her as she began to hastily shove the box back into her backpack. His thick black eyebrows arched curiously, and his lips twitched as he glanced back and forth between the box and her. “Uh…are you okay, Rose?”
“Yeah, I just…” she sighed, shaking her head at her paranoia. She turned toward him and laughed. “Sorry, Liang. I’m acting weird today, aren’t I?”
His small, dark eyes studied her. “I would say yes, but you always act weird,” he muttered, tossing his bag under his chair. He smiled. “No offense.”
“None taken,” she laughed.
“So,” Liang said, glancing at the closed bag, “what was it?”
“Nothing,” she said a little too quickly. “Just something I’m studying.”
He surprised her by bursting into laughter. “Is there anything you don’t study?” he asked, grinning at her. “I mean, it’s just an old, ugly necklace.”
“It’s an ancient relic,” she muttered defensively.
“Right,” Liang said, still smiling. “Rose, what do you do for fun?”
“Rose doesn’t understand the word fun,” said a familiar female voice.
Rose glanced toward the doorway, narrowing her eyes at her best friend. Audrey stuck out her tongue at Rose as she crossed the room and took the seat next to her at the round wooden table, large enough to seat six people.
“That’s not true,” Rose told both of them. “I read for fun.”
Audrey snorted as she propped her legs, clad in tight blue jeans that were permanently stained with neon pink paint splatter, on the table. Her round amber eyes, framed by thick, black eyeliner and smoky eye shadow, shifted toward Rose, and her thin lips tilted into a grin. “Nerd activities don’t count.”
Rose raised an eyebrow at her friend. “Nerd activities? How old are you? Five? Oh, wait, don’t answer that question. Of course you’re five.”
“Twenty-five, next month, actually,” Audrey said, smiling. “By the way, you owe me a birthday party with dancing, alcohol, and socialization.”
Rose shuddered at the thought. “I consider all three of those activities very dangerous,” she informed Audrey. “So…yeah, sorry. Not happening.”
Audrey laughed and ran her hand over her unbrushed mess of long brown hair, temporarily taming it. “Like I said, you’re no fun,” she complained.
Rose frowned curiously at the yellow Beatles T-shirt that hung loosely over Audrey’s thin figure. “I didn’t realize you were such an avid Beatles fan.”
Audrey glanced down at the shirt, and her lips curled into a guilty smile. Her tanned skin flushed. “Uh…it’s not mine, actually,” she giggled, winking.
“Ah,” Rose said, nodding, “that explains why you weren’t there when I got home from the airport last night. So, who’s the guy? Do I know him?”
“I doubt it,” Audrey said. “He’s this hot guy in my pottery class.”
“Will there be a second date?” Rose asked curiously.
“Probably not,” Audrey muttered. “He was a bit self-obsessed.”
Rose scowled. “That sounds like an unpleasant date.”
“Not at all,” Audrey said, smiling. “He was a good kisser.”
As it grew closer to time for the professor to start class, the college students were slowly making their way into the classroom, filling the many chairs and tables and talking to each other. The students’ voices had begun to blur into unintelligible noise, but Rose vaguely noticed that, next to her, Liang and a group of four other students were discussing a student that had gone missing recently.
She turned her attention back to Audrey. “Audrey, sometimes, I worry that you would forgive murder as long as the guy could kiss,” she laughed.
Audrey frowned thoughtfully as she opened her green messenger bag that had also somehow managed to obtain some neon-colored paint stains. She grinned. “For murder, I think he’d need to be good at some other things, too.”
Rose rolled her eyes. “So, what else did you do last night?”
Audrey raised her eyebrow. “You want details?”
Rose’s eyes widened. “Uh, no, no, not those kinds of details,” she clarified quickly, grimacing. “I meant, what did you actually do on the date? I don’t think kissing and…whatever else you did with him…counts as a date.”
“Like you would know,” Audrey scoffed as she continued to rummage through her messenger bag. “It’s been two years since you went on a date.”
“Wow, thanks, Audrey,” Rose muttered sarcastically. “What ever would I do without you to constantly remind me of my nonexistent love life?”
“You would forever brood at ho
me with your books,” Audrey said as she triumphantly pulled out a crushed bag of barbeque chips from the bottom of her bag, “and you would forever hold the record for World’s Oldest Virgin.”
“That’s not even a real record,” Rose commented. “And I don’t brood.”
“And you would forever be a smartass,” Audrey added.
Rose shrugged. “That’s not going to change anyway.”
Audrey ripped open the crushed bag of barbeque chips, completely ignoring the No Food or Drinks sign on the wall beside her. “To answer your question, though,” she said, tossing a handful of crushed chips into her mouth, “we ate at this really nice Spaghetti restaurant, and then, we went to a concert.”
“You mean an Italian restaurant,” Rose corrected.
Audrey ignored her. “By the way, if you want to go on a date, I could set you up with someone. I’ve made a list of the guys that I think you might like.”
“You made a list?” Rose repeated incredulously.
“It’s only two pages,” Audrey said with a mouthful of chips.
Rose blinked. “Two pages,” she sighed. She grimaced as she remembered the last guy Audrey had tried to set her up with. “No, thanks.”
“Ah, come on,” Audrey whined. “I left the ex-convicts off this time.”
“It’s not that,” Rose said. “I’m just not interested in dating anyone.”
“Okay,” Audrey said, nodding. She leaned in close to Rose’s ear so that no one else could hear. “I also know of a few women, if you would prefer…”
Rose laughed, “I appreciate the disturbing amount of effort and thought that you’ve put into this, but Audrey, I’m not interested in dating anyone.”
“Do you want to wind up a lonely, old cat lady?” Audrey scolded.
“I do, actually. It’s my life’s aspiration. When I was a kid, the teachers would ask, ‘What do you want to be when you get older?’ And I would say, ‘Childless and lonely,’” Rose said dryly. “I’m twenty-three, Audrey. I have time.”
Audrey finished her chips and started rummaging through her bag again, apparently looking for more food that she’d stashed under her textbooks at some point. “Ugh,” she complained loudly, gaining the attention of several students. “It’s too early in the morning to deal with Rose Foster’s sassy mouth.”
“Besides,” Rose sighed, “I’m focusing on my studies right now.”
Audrey snorted at that. “Rose, you have a perfect GPA, and you’re literally a genius,” she laughed. She pulled a crushed candy bar out of her bag. “I don’t think a couple of dates every now and then would affect your studies.”
Rose scowled at the candy bar. “How long has that been in there?”
“No idea,” Audrey mumbled as she took a bite out of it. She glanced at Rose, suddenly very serious. “Not everyone is like Ethan, you know.”
Rose froze at the mention of her ex-boyfriend. She closed her eyes, counting the seconds as she waited for the sick feeling in her stomach to pass. “I know that,” she said impassively. “It has nothing to do with Ethan.”
“If you say so,” Audrey muttered. “So, how was your trip to Greece?”
Excitement lightened Rose’s bright blue eyes. “It was interesting.”
Audrey held her hand up and gave Rose a bored look. “Interesting by Rose-standards or interesting by Audrey-standards?”
Rose frowned. “What’s the difference?”
Audrey took another bite of her candy bar. “Interesting by my standards includes meeting a bunch of sexy foreign men. Interesting by your standards usually involves looking at old, boring stuff and learning about dead people.”
Rose sighed, “Mine, obviously. It was a study trip.”
“Ugh,” Audrey groaned. “All those sexy accents, and you studied.”
Rose frowned. “Do you even know what a Greek accent sounds like?”
Audrey shrugged. “It’s an accent. Who cares how it sounds?”
Rose rolled her eyes. “You know, if you devoted half as much attention to your classes as you do to guys, you wouldn’t be failing so many classes.”
“Yes, mother,” Audrey said, flashing a sarcastic smile at Rose. “If I only had to take art classes, I wouldn’t be failing any classes. I care about art. I don’t care about all of this other stuff. Speaking of… I need your Psychology notes.”
Rose pulled a thin, black notebook out of her backpack and set it in front of Audrey. As Audrey busied herself in copying them, Rose leaned closer so that she could speak quietly. “Something did happen on the trip, though.”
Audrey froze and glanced at Rose. “What kind of something?”
Before Rose could speak, the art professor hobbled into the room and set her armful of books down on her desk. She glared expectantly at the noisy students, as if she were not fifteen minutes late for her own class. Rose cast a wary look at the irritated professor and pulled her books out of her backpack. “I’ll tell you after class,” she whispered as she flipped opened her textbook.
“Dang it. Now I’m curious,” Audrey pouted.
The art history professor spent most of the class time lecturing on the use of nudity in art throughout history, from the Ancient Greek kouros to contemporary nude paintings and performance art. Rose listened closely and took detailed notes to ensure she would do well on the next exam, but Audrey seemed more concerned with making silly comments about the examples.
“Look at this one,” Audrey whispered, pointing at a picture in the book.
“Shhh,” Rose hissed as she jotted down every word the professor said.
Audrey shrugged and returned to flipping through the examples in the textbook. A few minutes later, however, as the professor discussed a Renaissance painting, Audrey leaned over and whispered in Rose’s ear, “Is it just me, or is Dr. Grandma a little too excited about these naked men?”
Rose scowled at her immature friend. “Pay attention,” she hissed.
The professor continued chattering excitedly about the beautiful paintings of that time period, and Audrey listened quietly for maybe a total of fifteen minutes, at most, before she leaned over again. “Do you know who I would like to paint naked?” Audrey whispered. She pointed at an attractive, blonde, young man sitting at the table in front of them and answered, “Him.”
Rose glared at Audrey and then blushed as the guy that Audrey pointed at actually turned around and looked at them. Audrey just smiled and waved.
He seemed amused. “Were you talking about me?”
Rose’s blush deepened. “She was talking about the penguin,” she blurted suddenly, pointing at a strange, creepy penguin statue on the windowsill.
Audrey clamped her hand over her mouth to muffle her laughter.
The blonde man stared blankly at Rose for several moments as he tried to figure out whether she was joking or not. Finally, he just chuckled and turned around to face the professor again. Audrey, on the other hand, continued to stare at Rose with a raised eyebrow, her lips twitching as she tried not to laugh.
As soon as the class ended, Audrey ran out of the classroom and fell back against the brick wall as she finally burst into hysterical laughter.
Rose slung her backpack over her shoulder, grabbed her coffee thermos from the table, and joined Audrey outside, sighing as Audrey continued to laugh. The Florida sun felt too hot and too bright on her skin for the autumn morning.
“It’s not that funny,” Rose muttered.
“Penguin? Really, Rose?” Audrey snorted.
Rose scowled at her. “What was I supposed to say?”
“Anything but that,” Audrey laughed.
Rose pursed her lips. “Well, it’s your fault,” she muttered. “You’re the one who embarrassed us. You know I can’t lie when I’m embarrassed.”
“I know you can’t lie at all,” Audrey corrected. She shook her head, still laughing as if Rose’s mistake was the most hilarious thing she’d ever heard. “And what I said was not embarrassing. What you said was embarrassing.
”
Rose rolled her eyes. “Can we just forget this ever happened?”
Audrey finally stopped laughing but continued to smile at Rose. “Deal,” she said, offering her hand for a handshake, “as long as you buy me lunch.”
“I was already planning on it,” Rose laughed.
“Well, aren’t you a gentleman?” Audrey teased, flashing a playful grin.
Rose rolled her eyes. “I need to tell you about my trip anyway.”
Audrey nodded seriously. “I guess I’ll see you at lunch, then.”
—
Audrey bit into her second cheeseburger. “Aren’t you going to eat?”
Rose scowled and continued picking at her salad. “I am eating.”
Audrey set her half-eaten cheeseburger on the large plate next to her three sides of French fries and slice of chocolate cake. Rose was convinced that her slender friend could win national eating contests if she tried. “You know, a wise woman once told me that if God wanted us to eat grass, we’d have been born cattle,” Audrey said in the most sage-like voice she could muster.
Rose laughed. “And who was this wise woman?”
Audrey took another bite of her greasy cheeseburger. “My grandmother, of course,” she answered with her mouth full of burger.
“Your grandmother also tried to feed me an entire chocolate pie once because she said chocolate was the cure for a bad day,” Rose reminded her.
“Chocolate is the cure for a bad day,” Audrey said defensively.
Rose smiled. “Yeah, well, it’s easy for you to say. You eat whatever you want and never gain a pound,” she sighed. “I don’t have that problem.”
“Oh, shut up,” Audrey mumbled with her mouth full. She finished swallowing her food and set her cheeseburger down on her plate. She gave Rose her most disapproving scowl, the one that she always wore right before she started lecturing someone. “You’re not fat, Rose. You’re insecure. And before you say something like, ‘You’re obligated to say that because you’re my best friend,’ because I know that’s what you were about to say, ask yourself this: When have I ever hesitated to tell you my opinion on something? Never. That’s the answer. I’m honest and blunt, and you hate that about me, and you love that about me. You have a gorgeous, curvy body, and you have boobs.”
The Stone of the Eklektos Page 4