by J. C. Diem
Taking to the woods, I ended up in the last place I’d have chosen as a refuge if I’d been thinking straight.
My steps slowed when I reached the cemetery on the far side of town. I sat on the damp ground in the middle of the boneyard and was soon surrounded by ghosts. They looked even gloomier than I felt. Drifting a few inches off the ground, they mournfully stared at the grave markers of long dead people.
None of these spirits had a grave to call their own. Their bodies had been unceremoniously dumped in pits and left to rot. How they must envy the dead who had managed to move on to wherever they’d been destined to go. These poor souls were instead trapped in perpetual limbo.
I didn’t know how long I’d been sitting there before the boy appeared beside me. He stared at me forlornly. I was decades too late to save him, but maybe I could offer him some small comfort. I opened my arms and he sat down on my lap.
Coldness sank into me as I tried to wrap my arms around him. My mother had done her best to see me dead and his mother had succeeded in killing him. That made us kindred spirits in my book.
As if thinking about her had conjured her up, a spectral finger ran down the back of my neck a few minutes later. The ghosts roused from their misery and turned to confront the undead woman who I so closely resembled.
“We are alone at last, my darling daughter,” Katrina said. Her teeth were still stained with Reece’s blood when she smiled.
“We’re not alone,” I pointed out. “We’re surrounded by spirits.” I noticed that she was staying a safe distance away from the church grounds. That had to mean it was still hallowed ground after all this time.
Looking beyond me, Katrina concentrated. Her eyes widened when the ghosts became apparent. She waved a hand negligently. “They are but fragments of the past and are of no consequence.”
The boy in my lap turned to look up at me. “You matter,” I said to him. “You all matter,” I told the dead who crowded around me protectively. “My friends and I will find a way to put you to rest. If my mother doesn’t kill me first,” I said as an afterthought.
Katrina studied me with a small smile. “Is your mate dead yet?” she asked sweetly. “He was very…tasty.”
She licked her lips and I made a sound of disgust. “Reece is still alive and he’ll hunt you down and rip your head off if you touch me,” I threatened her.
She uttered a childish giggle that raised the hairs on my arms and gave me gooseflesh. I wasn’t sure at what point she’d lost her mind, but I was pretty sure she was totally insane. “No shape shifter has the strength or the speed to kill me,” she declared.
I struggled to my feet, numb with cold from having the ghost child cradled in my arms. The spirits crowded closer. Some were beginning to look menacing as Katrina drew closer to the edge of the graveyard. As long as I stayed inside the boundary, I’d be safe.
“Come, daughter, it is time for you to succumb to your destiny and join me.” She held out her hand and I made the mistake of looking into her eyes.
While her link to me was muted thanks to the holy ground, she could still control me with her will alone. Now that I was caught in her snare, I was irresistibly drawn to her. The boy shook his head and tried to stop me, but I stepped through his insubstantial form. Cold shocked me for a moment, then I continued on.
Realizing their only hope of salvation was about to be snatched away, a transformation came over the spirits. Their benign, human forms were replaced with figures out of a horror movie. Clawed, fanged and hideous, their flesh melted away to reveal their bones. Their hair grew long and tangled and their clothes became tattered black shrouds.
The hairs on the back of my neck rose as I heard their hollow moans of anguish. They converged on Katrina, rushing towards her en masse. A flicker of fear spread over her lovely face. She blanched as the first ghost lunged at her and entered her body. Screaming in pain, she thrashed as if she’d been electrocuted. It passed through her and exited from her back. Before she could recover, another spirit invaded her.
Broken from her spell, I backed away as my undead mother was hounded by the protective ghosts. They drove her away from the cemetery until she turned tail and ran. Only the small boy had retained his normal guise. He lifted a hand and waved at her, smiling nastily as she disappeared.
One by one, the other spirits returned to their natural forms. My heart was thundering in my chest and I wondered if they would turn on me next. The kid looked up at me sadly then patted me on the leg and disappeared.
“Did I just see what I think I just saw?” Kala said as she jogged into view. Her eyes were wide and she was shaken. She’d seen many weird and horrible things during her job as an agent, but this was apparently something new.
“What did you see?” I asked her curiously.
“The vampire being driven away by something invisible,” she replied and shuddered.
“It was the ghosts,” I told her. “Be glad that you couldn’t see them.” A shudder wracked my entire body.
With the threat of a vampire hanging over us, she searched the shadows. “Are you okay?”
I tried to nod, but it came out as a shake instead. “This has been a really crappy day.” I came close to embarrassing myself with a sob.
Kala’s hug was comfortingly warm when she put her arm around me. She kept her other hand free, ready to defend us both with her gun. “Your father is on his way here. He’ll be here soon.”
I pushed away from her, angry all over again at the secrets my dad and Mark had kept from me. I’d been in the cemetery longer than I’d thought and dawn wasn’t far away now. At least we’d be safe from Katrina once the sun came up. “I guess we’d better get back,” I said with a sigh. It had been a smart move to send Kala to retrieve me. I wasn’t sure I’d have been able to hold my temper if any of the guys had come to get me.
“She’s your mother, isn’t she?” Kala said as we started back towards the B&B. I shot her a cautious glance, expecting to see anger but not finding any. “You look just like her,” she explained. “Apart from the fangs, extreme paleness and utter insanity, that is.”
Her solemnness made me smile, then we were both laughing. I didn’t know why I found that so funny. I attributed it to stress and a lack of sleep.
“Yeah, that’s my Mom,” I said when I had myself under control again. “I must have the strangest family in the world.”
“Let’s see,” she started counting off on her fingers. “Your Dad is a crack sniper, your mother is a vampire and you’re a werewolf. I’d say that qualifies as being pretty strange.”
We shared another giggle and I could only imagine that she was as tired and stressed as I was. We might not all share a bond, but we were a pack, if a rather strange one. What impacted on one of us impacted on us all. “I should have told you guys,” I admitted.
“I can understand why you didn’t,” she said and slung her arm around my shoulder. “No one would want to admit that their mother is a murderous, bloodsucking, crazy vampire.”
“Thanks, Kala,” I said dryly. She grinned, willingly admitting that she completely lacked tact.
₪₪₪
Chapter Twenty-Four
We took our time walking back to Dawson’s Retreat to find that my father hadn’t arrived yet. Margaret was already up and she was surprised to see us gathered in the dining room. She offered to make us an early breakfast and Mark accepted.
We heard a car arrive just as breakfast was being served. A couple of minutes later, Edward escorted my father into the dining room and pointed at our table. The gesture was unnecessary, since we were the only people in the room. “Your party is just about to begin their breakfast, Major Levine. I’m sure they’ll be delighted for you to join them.”
“Thank you, Edward,” my dad said politely and strode across the room. With Margaret standing right there, he had to pretend that everything was normal. Tension had seeped into me and my back was rigid.
“Oh,” our hostess exclaimed when she realized she had another
mouth to feed. “We have another guest! I take it you all know each other?”
“We do,” Mark confirmed. “I’m glad you could join us, Philip.” His expression was guarded. He wasn’t sure what reaction he’d receive from the soldier. My father’s visit to our compound in Colorado had been decidedly strained.
I knew my father well and he was tightly controlling his emotions. I refused to meet his eyes and shot a glare at Kala when she moved over, leaving the seat beside me vacant. My father didn’t hesitate and sat next to me. “I’m glad to be here,” he said with what sounded like sincerity.
Margaret was delighted to offer him breakfast from the trolley she’d wheeled in. He accepted a plate and she piled it high with bacon, scrambled eggs and hash browns. When we’d all been served, we concentrated on eating. By mutual agreement, we ate in silence.
Finishing my breakfast, I pushed my plate away and started when the boy appeared beside me. He looked from me to my father and back again. He pointed at us both and raised his eyebrows in query.
“Yeah, he’s my dad,” I confirmed. Concern crossed the child’s face and he moved in front of me protectively. “He’d never hurt me,” I told the child. “He loves me.”
My father had paused with his fork halfway to his mouth when I’d first started to speak. He was staring at me like I’d gone crazy. “Who are you talking to, Lexi?”
“This house is haunted,” Kala responded for me. Her tone was nonchalant. “Five ghosts live here and she can see them all.” I could also see every other ghost that was tied to this area, but it would feel a little too much like bragging to mention it.
Astonished to hear that news, my father put his fork down. “How long have you been able to see ghosts?” he asked me.
“Since my undead mother bit me when we were in New Orleans and tried to turn me into a vampire,” I replied bitterly.
“The vampire is your mother?” Flynn said in disbelief. He looked around to see that no one else was surprised by this knowledge. “How come I’m the only one who didn’t know about this?”
“I only found out when she bit me,” Reece said. His hand went to the fresh scar on his right shoulder.
“I figured it out when I went to get Lexi and saw the vamp being driven away by invisible ghosts,” Kala said, drawing a shocked silence from everyone. “The resemblance between them is uncanny. They look more like sisters than mother and daughter.”
“How about you, boss?” Flynn asked. “How long have you known that Lexi’s mother is a vampire?”
“I’ve known about Katrina for eighteen years,” he replied calmly.
Both Kala and the ghost put their hands on me when I tried to leap to my feet. I didn’t know why the boy wanted me to stay, but the ghosts had saved my life and I was willing to follow their guidance. Crossing my arms, I scowled down at the table rather than meeting anyone’s eyes.
“Maybe you’d better start at the beginning,” Reece said. His tone was cool and I felt his annoyance that we’d all been kept in the dark for so long. This secret had impacted on more than just me. The entire squad had been in danger once we’d come to my mom’s notice. Their excuse for not telling us about her had better be a good one.
A young couple entered the dining room, accompanied by Margaret. “If you’ve all finished eating, we should take this discussion somewhere more private,” Mark said.
Kala stuffed a final piece of toast in her mouth and stood. “After you,” she said to Flynn and he shook his head in mock disgust at her mangled words.
I was the first to the door and Reece was right on my heels. My father hung back, knowing I wasn’t ready for him to speak to me directly yet. In the past, it was rare for me to become truly angry. My emotions were far more unstable now and he didn’t know quite how to take me.
Reece unlocked the SUV once we emerged through the backdoor and I climbed into the back. Mark explained where we were going to my father as Kala, Flynn and Reece took their usual seats. With a nod, my dad strode over to a dark blue hire car. It was a nondescript sedan that would blend in with other traffic easily. It was automatic for him to think in terms of stealth. I just wished he’d passed that trait on to me.
He followed us to the abandoned church and his car bumped along the rutted, untended roads. It wasn’t as equipped for rough terrain as our SUV, but it made the journey without breaking down.
The church was the one place nearby where we knew we wouldn’t be disturbed. As always, it was empty when we arrived. Not even the ghosts were here this time and we had the place to ourselves. The decrepit old building suited my mood perfectly as I leaped over the saggy stairs.
We’d left the door open and I entered first. I came to a stop in the middle of the room and crossed my arms. I still couldn’t look at Mark or my father. It was hard to say if my anger or disappointment in them was stronger. My team mates moved to surround me with Kala on my left, Flynn on my right and Reece at my back. I didn’t find it strange that they were siding with me rather than with our boss. We were all feeling betrayed and we wanted answers.
Mark gestured for my father to tell the tale. Standing at attention, my dad clasped his hands behind his back and addressed me. “I met your mother in Romania when I was deployed on my first overseas mission.”
I risked a glance at him to see him lost in his memories. He hardly ever spoke about my mother and I’d rarely asked him questions about her. I always figured her disappearance was too difficult for him to speak about. I knew she’d been born somewhere in Europe. Having Romanian genes explained my dark hair and eyes and almost exotic features.
“Her family was poor and she was near starving,” he reminisced. “They lived in a small town near where I was stationed. I snuck away as often as I could, meeting Katrina in secret. We were young and stupid and we fell in love.” He smiled sadly. “I told her I’d make her my wife if she came back to the US with me and she agreed.”
I wondered if Katrina had truly loved him, or if she’d just used him to escape from poverty. “I had to call in some favors to bring her home, but we were married within a month.”
I met his gaze and saw his pain. They couldn’t have been married for very long before she’d been snatched away from him. He’d loved her so much that he’d never remarried. As far as I knew, he hadn’t even dated anyone.
“You were only a week old when I was transferred to the Army base near New Orleans. Your mother feared and hated the city from the moment we arrived. Her family were superstitious folk. They raised her to believe in what I thought was nonsense about zombies and vampires. It bothered her that there were so many cemeteries right there in town. I think she had a touch of clairvoyance because she sensed that something bad was going to happen to her. She told me she wanted to leave, but my superiors wouldn’t have been happy if I asked for a transfer so soon.”
He shook his head in weary regret that he hadn’t listened to her instincts. “Nearly four months after we arrived, Katrina began to change. She became withdrawn, moody and sullen. She’d always been pale, but she looked anemic, sickly and far too thin. I woke up several times to find her missing from our bed. One night, I went searching for her and found her in the nursery.”
Our eyes locked and I couldn’t look away from him. “She was cradling you to her chest and the look on her face was…” He searched for a description and the one he came up with made me shudder. “Monstrously hungry.”
“Didn’t you see the bite marks on her?” Kala asked. She was anguished that I’d had to go through such a horrible ordeal when I’d been so young.
He shook his head. “She wore shirts and dresses with high collars and refused to let me near her. I didn’t get a chance to see her up close,” he explained. “Besides, how could I possibly have known that she was being drained by a vampire? As far as I knew, they were just a myth.”
“When did you figure out what she was?” Reece asked. He was standing close enough behind me for his chest to brush up against my back. His presence wa
s more comforting than I was willing to admit even to myself.
“A couple of days later,” he replied. “I came home from work the next afternoon to find Alexis screaming with hunger. She hadn’t been tended to all day as far as I could tell.”
Kala and Flynn pressed in close beside me and Reece’s hands went to my shoulders. Mark flicked me a sympathetic glance then returned his attention to his old friend.
“I called out to Katrina, but she didn’t answer me. I searched the house and she wasn’t there. There was no note and no sign of a struggle.” He drew in a breath, held it for a few seconds then let it out again. I sensed he was struggling against tears, which shocked me. My father had never cried in front of me before.
“I notified the police that she was missing and took the day off work to take care of Lexi,” he continued. “The cops came to search the house, but they didn’t find anything useful. Then a federal agent showed up, asking strange questions about my missing wife.”
All eyes switched to Mark and he shrugged. “I’d heard there was a new vampire nest in New Orleans. Once I arrived, I heard rumors that Mrs. Levine had gone missing. I knew it would only be a matter of time before she reappeared.”
“I told Mark about the changes I’d noticed in Katrina,” my dad said. “I knew they rang alarm bells for him. He wouldn’t tell me what he suspected had happened to her, but he warned me to keep a close watch on Alexis.”
He dropped his eyes and his shoulders slumped. “I didn’t listen to Mark’s warning and I put you to bed in the nursery as usual.” He was silent long enough for Mark to put his hand on his arm. “I heard a muffled cry in the middle of the night and sensed that something was wrong. I went to check on you and heard a horrible noise coming from the nursery.” I didn’t need to ask what the noise had been. I’d heard the disgusting sucking sounds for myself as she’d fed from Reece.
“I opened the door to see your mother holding you.” He mimed holding a baby up to his shoulder. “At first, I thought she was just hugging you,” he said to me. “Then I saw the blood on your clothes and realized she was biting you.”