by Meg Ripley
"I'd say call the police on this one. I think it might be stolen," Miriam explained.
"I don't know how you do it," he said, scratching his head, "but I sure am glad for that gift you have." He smiled proudly at her, then proceeded to hobble to over his back office to make the anonymous report.
Miriam had the uncanny ability of sensing where an object came from, whether it was store bought, or had a history that went back hundreds of years. Miriam didn't know how she knew, she just did. Although she couldn’t tell what the previous owners’ specific identities were, she could sense the type of individuals who owned these objects before they made their way into her grandfather's antique shop.
Perhaps she wasn't gifted, as her grandfather put it, but just had a sense for appraising antiques.
Either way, her grandfather was the only one who had noticed her unusual ability, which was why he'd enlisted her to work in his shop over the summer. It worked out, as Miriam needed the cash to pay for her studies in the fall.
She liked the casual pace of working with antiques. The store was quiet, which created the perfect atmosphere for reading up on the historical topics she’d be studying in the upcoming fall semester. She hoped to one day work at a museum, and working here was her first step towards that goal.
The bell above the door jingled and Miriam looked up from her book.
"May I help you?" she called out when she realized she wasn't able to see the customer. The front door was obscured by a bookshelf filled with baubles. She moved out from behind the desk, wondering if the disgruntled man had returned. She heard someone breathing, but no reply. She sensed something was very, very off. "Excuse me?" she called out again.
The door jingled again, signaling that the stranger had left. She paused for only the briefest moment before she decided to pursue the mystery customer, fearing that he might have stolen something.
As she swung the door open, she toppled over a small cardboard box that had been left on the front steps. Miriam let out a few frustrating expletives and realized that the strange customer was nowhere in sight. She quickly picked herself up and dusted off her jeans, kicking the box for good measure; just then, she noticed the fresh scrapes on her hands beginning to sting.
It would appear that the mystery customer had left something behind. She was curious to know why someone had found it necessary to leave behind a box full of—well, she wasn't quite sure what it was yet. She decided, against her better judgment, to carry it inside for further inspection.
As she brought it in, she called for her grandfather to come take a look. The older man shuffled his way out to the front counter, took stock of her bedraggled appearance and raised a curious eyebrow.
"Don't ask…"
"I wouldn't dream of it," he chuckled. "What's in the box?" he asked as his attention turned to the package in Miriam's arms.
"I don't know, but want to take a look?" Her eyes gleamed with the excitement of a mystery.
Miriam pulled back the cardboard flaps in order to take a peek inside.
"Yeah, it looks like it's just junk."
"Are you sure?" her grandfather prodded. He reached in and pulled out a copper medallion. "Here," he said, extending the shiny object towards her, "why don’t you hold this and see if you can get a reading on it."
Miriam took the medallion, but as her fingers touched the ridged sides, she felt nothing. It appeared to be valueless junk. "Nothing," she reiterated.
Her grandfather shot her a curious look. "Perhaps," he mumbled as he began rummaging through the box.
"Well, while you explore your new treasures, I'm going to go clean myself up." She held up her scraped hands as proof.
As she cleaned her wounds, she pondered the possible reasons why someone would leave this box on their doorstep. The cynical part of her figured a neighbor was cleaning house and saw their shop as an opportunity to do the old dump n' dash.
"Typical," she muttered. She finished up in the bathroom, then returned to the front counter and her book, yet, despite her best efforts to focus her mind on the words in front of her, her eyes kept roaming to the box in the corner.
She put her book down in frustration. Miriam knew she wouldn't be able to focus until she gave the items a second look; she wanted to make sure she didn't miss anything.
As she peeked inside the box, it was the copper medallion that drew her attention. She picked it up and played with it in her hand, turning it over and rubbing her thumb over the rough edges. Despite her best attempts to use her gift to gain a reading on the object, she felt nothing. This was odd, as Miriam usually had no problem picking up on an item’s past.
She picked up a different item: a small tin cup. Her mind began to tingle as her senses came alive; this had been a birthday gift for a young boy.
She picked up the medallion again: nothing. It was like trying to read a blank slate.
Miriam pocketed the medallion and returned to her book. She figured the piece was worth holding on to, at least until she could discover the reason why she couldn't read its past.
****
Dominic Kane roared in frustration the moment he realized his medallion was gone and proceeded to tear apart his penthouse apartment in search of it.
"Gone," he breathed. He felt wild without it; it was the one entity that had the ability to control his bloodlust. The medallion helped Dominic hold onto his last shred of humanity; without it, he would just devolve into a merciless creature of the night.
He lifted a mahogany side table and threw it across the expansive room. It crashed against the stone fireplace and shattered into several pieces.
"Bloody hell," he roared again.
"Is something amiss?" asked Rogan, Dominic's brother, as he entered the room.
Dominic zeroed in on his younger sibling. "Everything is fine," he seethed through gritted teeth.
Rogan raised an eyebrow, surveying his brother with the scrutiny of a trained predator.
Dominic's eyes met his in a challenge, daring him to incite him further and give him a reason to redirect his rage.
Dominic knew that Rogan was too clever for that. Rogan was tall, with a slim build and sandy blonde hair; the antithesis of his own darker energy. Dominic was tattooed, muscular, and had an intensity about him that intimidated those around him.
"Why are you here, Rogan?"
"I came to invite you to Mother's dinner party," he replied. Rogan's chirpier tone just added to their differences, his light ease contrasting with Dominic's broodiness.
Dominic shot him a suspicious look. "You’ll have to extend my apologies," he replied sardonically.
He hadn't returned home in a few years and wouldn’t dream of doing so without his medallion; his Anima. When certain vampires are turned, their humanities are tied to objects as a way of reminding them that even immortal creatures have their weaknesses. If they become separated from their respective objects, they begin to swiftly lose control, becoming senseless, bloodthirsty fiends. Dominic did not want that to happen.
"She will be quite disappointed," Rogan mocked in falsetto.
"Are we done yet?" Dominic cut him off. He only had a few days—a week tops—before his inevitably grim transformation would begin.
"Tsk, tsk, Brother," he said as he clicked his tongue. Rogan turned to leave, but tossed one final mocking look over his shoulder before closing the door behind him.
Dominic returned to searching his house with desperate fervor. When his search yielded no results, he knew that he would have to resort to using dark magic to track it—something he had hoped to stave off, as it would only accelerate his dark transformation.
At the moment, he knew he had no other choice.
****
Miriam awoke gasping for air. She felt disoriented and it took her a moment to realize that she was in her room at the back of the antique shop. She'd had the most strange, vivid dream.
A handsome, enigmatic man strolled through a room full of courtiers. He was dressed in tradit
ional Elizabethan wear, but his clothing couldn't hide the fact that he appeared out of place in a room full of opulence, deception and schemes.
He spoke to a well-dressed couple first, before he approached the red-haired woman sitting upon the throne. She smiled down at him, revealing blackened teeth. It didn't seem to disturb him, as if he had seen far worse than a woman who had allowed her penchant for sweets to ruin her smile.
He bent to whisper something in her ear; Miriam strained to hear.
Miriam continued to watch him from afar, as if she were an outside observer looking in on a scene that she should never have witnessed.
The man must have sensed her gaze, as he suddenly turned away from the woman on the throne and leveled his piercing brown eyes at her.
Their gazes locked—
She'd awoken with a gasp.
She’d never had such a vividly accurate dream before. Furthermore, she had never seen that man in her life, yet he appeared as real as if he were standing before her now. It left her with a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach.
She got up and went about her morning rituals in an attempt to push the strange dream—and even stranger man—to the back of her mind.
Miriam opened the shop and went about her job of assisting customers, moving items and assessing the condition of questionable antiques. Her day was ritualistic, predictable, and slow—until he walked in.
He was exactly as she had seen him in her dream: tall, muscular, and exuding a dark intensity that Miriam found intriguing. She felt like her heart stopped the moment she sensed him walk through the front doors. He gave off such an intense energy that Miriam could literally feel him from across the room.
When he looked at her for the first time, her heart stopped for just a moment. The room felt a lot smaller as his eyes caught hers, and she suddenly had the feeling that he was looking at her the way a hawk would survey its prey.
Miriam opened her mouth to speak, but she found it difficult to think clearly enough to form proper sentences. Her mind kept racing with the realization that she had seen him before.
He was the man from her dream. The sinfully handsome man that had at walked amongst Queen Elizabeth's courtiers, spoken to the Queen herself, and had shot her a curious look when he saw her watching him.
She knew that it couldn't be him; that wasn't logical. Yet, as her mind rebelled against the notion, something primitive within her sensed that it was him.
"Beautiful shop." The man spoke in a deep, sensual voice, and as he came closer, he continued to hold Miriam's gaze.
"Thank you," she whispered. She was relieved to have regained the use of her tongue again. "It belongs to my grandfather," she added.
As he glided towards her, Miriam had the sudden image of a lion entrapping his prey. His brown-eyed gaze traveled down the length of her body before coming up to lock with her eyes once again. Miriam let out the breath she hadn't realized she was holding.
"And a beautiful granddaughter," he said with a mischievous grin.
"I agree," interrupted her grandfather.
Her grandfather's voice jolted her out of her thoughts. She turned her eyes away from the stranger to look at her grandfather as he stood next to her; she had been so enchanted by the mysterious stranger that she hadn’t even noticed him come in.
Her grandfather extended a warm smile to the man before him. "How can we help you today?"
"I hope you can," the man replied darkly, but with a shimmer in his eye that hinted at mild amusement. "I'm a collector, and I'm looking for a certain type of copper medallion. Do you have anything resembling that?"
"Hmmmm," her grandfather thought out loud.
Miriam had a sudden vision of herself slipping a copper disk into her jean pocket. She also had the sudden urge not to relay this information to the stranger.
"We did get a box of copper objects yesterday, now that I recall." Her grandfather moved around the edge of the counter looking for the mysterious box. "Ahh, here it is."
"Allow me." The stranger moved to pick up the box and carry it back to the counter. He pulled back the flaps and looked inside. "Sorry," he said. "I don’t see what I'm looking for."
Her grandfather moved towards the box. "Oh, sorry about that." He took a peek inside himself. "I could have sworn that we received something that matched your description."
All this time, Miriam stood silent. Although he didn't explicitly describe the object in her pocket, something within her new that it was exactly what he was looking for.
"Well," the stranger gave a heavy sigh, "how about I leave you with my card," he said, reaching into his pocket, "just in case you find something similar." As he spoke, he sent Miriam another one of those curious looks.
"No problem," her grandfather said as he took the card. "I'm very sorry we could not help you out more today."
"Oh, but you have," he smiled. His eyes briefly locked with Miriam's before he turned away.
As the door clanged shut, Miriam once again let out the breath she hadn't realized she was holding.
"Very odd," her grandfather mused. He glanced at the card in his hand.
"Oh, how so?" she asked, prodding him for his thoughts.
"Just that…oh well." He handed her the card. "Put this on file in case we find whatever it is he is looking for."
"Sure thing," she said with forced cheerfulness. Once her grandfather had left the room, she eagerly glanced at the card.
She whispered his name, "Dominic Kane."
It also included an address that she recognized as being in the wealthy part of town, which only added to the mystery, she thought.
Miriam reached into her back pocket to retrieve the copper medallion she'd been carrying since yesterday, running it through her hands. She still wasn't able to get a reading from it, yet, somehow, she knew that the arrival of this copper medallion and the strange dreams about a handsome man—and his sudden appearance in their store—could not just be a coincidence.
She quickly put it back in her pocket, along with the mysterious man's business card.
"Grandfather!" she yelled to the back of the store. "I'm going out for a bit."
She knew there was more to the story and she'd bet her life that Dominic Kane held the answers she craved.
****
Dominic had sensed his humanity token—his Anima—in the shop, but couldn't quite place it. It had been close enough to reinvigorate him and allow him to regain some of his normal senses, but he still needed it to be on his person in order to arrest his full transformation.
The moment he knew that it was there, he had two choices: tear the whole shop apart to search for it, or wait to see how the cards fell into place. He decided to go with the latter. While using his magic to track his Anima's whereabouts—sparingly, in an attempt to preserve his humanity longer—he ended up in a part of town that he’d never been to before. He suspected that someone was playing a bigger game with him, and he wanted to know why.
He also wanted to know where he had already met the strange, beautiful girl in the shop; she had been looking at him like she knew him from somewhere. Dominic knew that there was more to the picture than what he could see at the moment, but the one thing that he knew to be clear was his sense that she would come for him. And he was fairly certain that she held the clue to finding the individual responsible for taking his medallion.
He leaned back in the sumptuous chair of his expansive office and settled in to wait.
****
Miriam felt small and inconsequential standing in the lobby of Dominic Kane's building. Her nerve failed her and she quickly turned on her toes to head back outside.
"Nope, not today," she thought out loud. She couldn't just walk into a high-profile building, ask to see some guy who worked there and then confront him on why she had been dreaming about him. And how would she explain that she actually did have what he was looking for but lied about it back at the store?
Yeah, that would go over well.
; She trudged to the corner of the sidewalk and plopped herself down. The hot sun hung low in the sky, signaling the end of the day. He had probably already gone home for the night, she thought. She figured she might as well do the same, so she stood and began to make her way back to the bus stop.
As she walked by the back exit of the building, she noticed a black car parked by a door. She didn't pay much attention to it until the moment the door opened and a familiar figure stepped out.
Miriam sensed him instantly. Likewise, the dark figure sensed her, too.
She lifted her eyes and their gazes locked from across the lot. Her breath hitched in her throat.
She felt herself move towards him, her feet quickening their pace before her mind had time to register the action.
"Hey you!" she called out as she moved closer. She was both surprised and exhilarated by her sudden boldness. She stopped right before his car; she could sense that he was dangerous and her intuition urged her to keep some distance between them.
"Good afternoon," he said coolly. His voice was seductive and his eyes gleamed with recognition.
Miriam knew she had to speak before she lost her nerve. "Hey, look," she began, not sure exactly what to say now that she had his attention. "This may seem strange, but I somehow knew you before you came into the shop."
The seductive gleam slipped, the man before gave her a scrutinizing look. Miriam felt as if he could see right through her soul.
"How about we speak in a more private setting," he said, motioning towards the car with dark tinted windows.
"Oh, um," Miriam hesitated. It was one thing to confront this stranger in public; it was another to get into a car with him. Her common sense screamed to hightail it out of there while she still had the chance. But another part of her—a more primitive, almost ancient part—wanted her to get into the car despite the danger.
She knew it would be a mistake to accept his offer, but it was the only way to get the answers she was looking for.
She nodded her acceptance. The driver of the car instantly got out and came around to open the passenger door for her.