“Stay with me,” LeeAnn cooed.
“LeeAnn, you are incredibly lovely, but my heart is somewhere else,” Zell stated flatly. “Please release me. I have to go.”
“I can make you happy, Zell,” Lee Ann suggestively offered as Zell placed his hand over hers.
“You will make someone very happy, but I’m not the one. Annie makes me happy,” Zell replied as he once again lifted her fingers from his arm.
“But Annie’s taken,” LeeAnn sulked.
The pain of her words showed on his face. Zell felt as if the breath was knocked out of him. He turned without a reply and walked toward the beach unbuttoning his shirt as he walked.
I shivered again, and this time every hair on my body stood up on end. I looked to where the dark forms of trees met the sand and saw a figure separate from the trees. Immobilized with fear, I couldn’t scream or cry out. The figure seemed to glide quickly toward me. I tried to run toward the house, but I could not move. I tried to scream, but nothing came out. I tried again to move, but it was as though I was frozen in time. My voice would not work. My legs and feet felt as though they weighed a ton. As the dark figure neared, I could see that its body was shaped like a man’s, but its eyes were the eyes of a creature, red as blood. The figure was within striking distance of me when it slowed.
“Where is your savior, now?” the thing hissed at me. As he did, I could see a gleaming set of teeth reflecting in the light of the torches, two, three-inch fangs, hung menacingly from an otherwise impeccable set of teeth. The creature reached for me with a hand who’s blue, dead looking nails were like sharpened knives.
I shrank from him. Instantly, he was within inches of my face. He was incredible looking. Handsome, in a hellish kind of way, his features were every bit as attractive as Zell’s except his eyes were that of the dead, cold and unseeing. Instead of Zell’s beautiful silver-colored eyes, this creature’s eyes were red and dilated.
Everything in me said to run. Run for my life. I honestly tried, but I could not move. The creature bared his lips and opened his mouth. He grabbed the neck of my sweater and ripped it back exposing the flesh of my neck. Jumping backward, I fell over one of the beach chairs.
“Now,” he growled, “I’m going to rip your throat out.” Grabbing me by the sweater, he jerked me up, and bent his head. He was centimeters from sinking his razor-sharp teeth and fangs into my neck when suddenly his head snapped back with a grinding crunch.
“Get off her, bloodsucker.”
His body was thrown backwards a hundred feet across the beach hitting the side of the dock. I could hear the sound of breaking bones as he hit. I forgot everything when I looked into the face of my hero. Standing tall and magnificent in the moonlight, stood Zell. He was still impeccably dressed in his off-white jeans and sandals. Though bare-chested, his silver sheaths that held his swords laid against his massive chest as if they were a part of him. He reached to take my hand.
Crying out his name, I jumped into his arms instead.
“Have you been bitten?” Zell asked pushing my hair back to inspect my neck.
“I don’t think so.”
At that second, we both heard the sound of breaking bones again and turned to look. The vampire’s body snapped back into place from its broken form. Waist-deep in lake water, it stood upright. The sound of bones pop, pop, popping back into place filled the silence and drifted toward us as the vampire’s head and neck jerked back upright to sit once again upon his shoulders. An arm that was hanging at a grotesque angle snapped around 180 degrees.
Zell turned looking at me.
“Run! Run back to the lights and the house,” Zell ordered and then turned facing the dark creature. He began to change and grow. He was becoming as fearsome as he was beautiful. His jeans ripped open as his muscular form tore through.
I took a couple of steps in the direction of the house and stopped. I could not make myself leave Zell. If he died, I didn’t want to live either. I had known him only a few days, but he had become part of me. I’m not sure when it had happened, but I was sure that I would never get over it if I lost him now.
“Are you crazy?” I asked myself. “You’ve only known this guy a few days.” However, even as those thoughts formed on my lips, I knew that it was not the truth. I could feel memories flooding into me tumbling one over another into my brain as I saw him shape-shift into his Anak transformation. I knew this was not the first time Zell had saved me, and I would not leave him.
I looked back toward the dock and saw the vampire leap into the air in Zell’s direction. I heard the whispering metallic sounds of swords being withdrawn from their sheaths. Zell faced the vampire with swords drawn and in each hand.
The vampire landed within a few feet of Zell.
“I’ll finish you. Then, I’ll drain your girlfriend,” the Dark One snarled teeth glittering like jewels in the moonlight.
“I don’t think you will do either,” Zell countered.
The vampire snarled moving to Zell’s right. Zell countered his actions by moving with him, keeping himself between the vampire and me.
The vamp leaped for me. Zell met him about fifteen feet straight up in the air. Their bodies collided making a thunderous noise. The ground trembled beneath my feet causing me to lose my balance. The lights from the house and boat docks flickered, and then the lights went out. The vampire sank its teeth into Zell’s arm. Zell grabbed him by the hair of his head and threw him to the ground. Instantly, he followed him and drove the swords into the body of the vampire. The vampire was quick, and instead of driving the swords through the heart of the creature as he intended, they pierced his shoulder.
The beast screeched an inhuman howl that caused every dog within two miles to start barking. The vampire rose stiffly as if from a coffin, the swords still buried in his shoulder. Zell grabbed the hilt of each sword, and placed his foot against the belly of the creature. He pushed the creature with his foot while simultaneously pulling the swords from the shoulder of the vamp. The vampire screeched an inhuman sound again flinging itself in my direction sand flying up in a spray from behind him as he moved. Zell met him once more tackling him, as though he were a football opponent causing another horrendous noise, which sounded like a clap of thunder. I could hear squeals from the pool area near the house as my friends sought cover thinking it was about to rain. Both hit the sand and rolled toward the water. When they stopped rolling, the creature was on top, and Zell was holding him off with his swords.
I did not think about what I did next. I grabbed one of the flaming torches and yanked it from the sand. I ran toward where the vampire had Zell pinned to the ground and drove the pointed bottom of the wooden, burning torch into the back of the creature.
The vampire threw its head back and let out an inhuman howl that made my blood run cold. Zell threw the creature from him and jumped to his feet. He walked to where the creature had landed and drove both swords into the heart of the creature. He pulled his flaming sword from his back sheath and amputated the vampire’s legs. They instantly caught fire and began to burn. Then, he cut the arms and watched as they burst into flames. Next, he separated the head from the creature. It too began to burn from the flame of the sword while the vampire’s head, though separated from its body, still hissed and hurled profanities at him. Next, he withdrew his swords one by one and returned them to their sheaths. Finally, he thrust the flaming sword into the gaping holes left by his swords, and what was left of the torso of the vampire burst into flames.
I ran to Zell jumping into his arms, wrapping my legs around his waist, and burying my head into his shoulder.
“Are you hurt,” I asked rubbing my fingers over the wound on his arm.
“No,” Zell replied looking at the blood running down his arm, “Dark Ones don’t affect me the way they do humans. It’s just a bite. Be careful the blood doesn’t get on you. It is full of bacteria and deadly to humans.”
“Would I turn into one of those if it bit me?”
“No, but you would most likely die.” Zell wiped the blood from his arm with a towel someone had left draped over a chair on the beach.
“I need to shift before someone comes, and I need to find my shirt,” he whispered. Zell held the towel in place stemming the flow of blood while I looked for his shirt. He paused and began to shift back into his human form from that of the Anak. He slowly shrunk by several feet as the alabaster glow faded from his body, and color crawled back into his skin. I found his shirt lying on a shrub and ran back to him with it. Zell smiled sweetly at me.
“Thank you,” he said simply.
I helped him slip it on over the sheaths that were still in place. Zell pulled back the towel making sure the wound had stopped bleeding. He threw the bloody towel on the vamp bonfire.
“Does it hurt much?”
“Just stings a bit,” he replied as he buttoned his shirt. As if on cue, as soon as the last button was buttoned, Jon stepped onto the beach. He was in the act of handing me my jacket when he saw my sweater half ripped from my body and stopped in mid-air. I plucked the jacket from him. I quickly pulled it on and zipped it up over my torn sweater.
“Did he do this to you?” Jon growled.
“No, he didn’t. Don’t be a jackass Jon,” I said coldly. I fell over one of the beach chairs. Zell heard me cry out and helped me. I guess my sweater caught on a nail or something.”
I couldn’t tell Jon it was a vampire’s nail that had ripped my shirt, or the whole truth about what had just happened.
“What’s that stench,” Jon asked covering his nose.
“Someone set a bag of garbage on fire down by the water; I think,” Zell explained.
“That is an awful smell,” Jon said gagging.
“Zell is taking me home since I ripped my sweater,” I calmly told Jonny.
“No, I can take you home,” Jon replied still looking a somewhat greenish color. Jonny’s weak stomach decided the issue for us as he began to retch on the sand forgetting about Zell and me.
I turned and took Zell’s hand. We walked toward the house leaving a clueless Jon alone on the beach with the burning corpse of the vampire.
7. ZELL MEETS DAD
I FELT DISAPPOINTED WHEN ZELL LEFT ME
on the doorstep at home with only a peck on the cheek. I don’t know what I expected, but after saving him from the bloodsucker, I thought there would be more. I wanted more. I wanted to tell him that I was beginning to believe his outrageous story. I wanted to tell him how I was beginning to feel about him, but I didn’t have the courage.
I say that I killed the vampire, but I know that Zell would have managed without my help. Yet, I did thrust a wooden pole through that vamp’s black heart. That brought up another whole dilemma. I actually killed something. I know it wasn’t human, and it was certainly intent on killing me. Still, I felt like I had committed a sin or something. Technically, I guess Zell ended the creature with his flame thrower, but even so, I was still an accessory to murder. If you murder a killer though, is it still murder? It was surely self-defense. That thing was getting ready to rip my throat out.
How was all this possible? The events of the night brought back jumbled memories of the monster in the school parking lot, and I knew I owed Zell my life at least twice. Maybe, there were more memories just lying there waiting to surface. Maybe, Zell saved me from sure death many times. At that moment, I decided to allow Zell into my life. When I realized that he really was there to protect me, not harm me, I knew I needed him. I knew, too, that more than just needing him, I wanted him to be with me.
I could not sleep. Every time I drifted off, nightmares would begin about vampires, giant werewolves, and silent dark angels all waiting for a chance to kill me. In my dreams, I was running from them screaming out Zell’s name, but he didn’t come. There were other things in the darkness. Things that were even worse, more terrifying, more evil than anything I could possibly imagine. I was in a dark, cold forest running from them, and I couldn’t find Zell. They were behind me. I fell to my knees, and blood poured from a gash. They must have honed in on the smell of my blood because suddenly they were there all around me, dozens of them. Each creature more terrifying than the last. They were coming for me, closing in on me. They wanted my blood. I screamed for Zell once more, and there he was. He gathered me in his arms stroking my hair damp with perspiration.
“Shh, sweetheart, I’m here. Don’t cry. I’m here. You’re safe,” Zell whispered in my ear.
He kissed my cheek. Then he kissed my forehead and let his lips travel down to my eyelids. Gently, he kissed each eyelid before kissing each tear on my face. Hungrily, his lips sought mine. He kissed me deeply for a long minute. I realized that he was not part of the dream, but he was here in my bedroom, sitting on my bed, calming me down with his kiss.
Like before, the mere touch of his lips on mine made me go limp. He stopped then and gently lowered me back on my pillow. Tenderly, he lifted locks of hair damp with tears and perspiration from my face. His fingers lingered on my lips. Then he rose, moved to the end of my bed, and watched as I drifted off in a deep sleep.
I overslept the next morning. It was Sunday, and Dad had knocked on my door expecting me to be up and ready for church. As a preacher’s kid, I was usually dreading the never-ending Sunday; however, today I wanted to go as penance for my murder the night before. Sleepily, I rolled over and opened one eye. I remembered Zell had been here last night, and I looked around the room for him. He was gone. Disappointed, I dragged myself from the bed and washed my face in cold water. I went to find my dad.
I found him sitting in his chair by the fireplace reading.
“What are you reading?” I asked leaning over to kiss him on top of his balding head.
“DNA Interaction Protocols,” Dad answered smiling.
“Ugh! My dad, the ultimate nerd. Can’t you ever read anything interesting?” I teased.
“But Annie, this book is very interesting. Should I take offense with the nerd comment?”
“No Dad. Everyone’s dad reads about DNA interactions in their free time,” I groaned and threw myself on the couch picking up the remote.
“Do you want me to make breakfast Dad?” I asked.
“No, I fixed some eggs and toast hours ago when I first got up. I left some for you in the microwave. You need to get dressed. We leave for church in thirty minutes.”
My dad was a strange mix. Not only did he have a PhD in religion, but he had a Doctorate in biochemistry also.
I lay back against the cushions of the couch procrastinating about getting dressed when the doorbell rang.
Dad gently closed his book and went to answer the door.
“May I help you?” I heard my dad say politely.
“Good morning, sir.” I knew the voice at once and jumped up running my fingers through the mess that was my hair. “My name is Zell Starr. I’m a friend of Annie’s.” I ran past my dad and Zell at the door headed for my bathroom. Zell’s eyes followed me obviously amused. I caught a glimpse of the smirk on his face as I passed them.
I tore off my clothes and hopped in the shower. Before I could rinse out the lather in my hair, I heard a knock at the bathroom door.
“Annie dear, a young man named Zell is here to see you,” my dad said through the door.
“I’m in the shower Dad,” I yelled over the water.
“Yes, dear, I can hear that, but the young man is waiting in the living room.”
“He can just wait then if he wants to see me,” I yelled again over the water.
“I’ll tell him,” Dad mumbled. I knew he was totally confused. The only boy that who been to my house in two years was Jon. And Zell . . . well, Zell was unlike any boy I had ever seen or known. It was like Johnny Depp or Brad Pitt walking in unannounced through my front door. There was no one else like him. I’m sure my dad was wondering what in the world Zell saw in me. No, knowing my dad, he’s sitting there thinking that no one will ever be good enough for me—not even this
perfect young man.
I finished my shower, wrapped a towel around my head, and another around my torso. In my closet, I couldn’t find anything to wear. I didn’t see what Zell was wearing, but I knew it would be perfect. I chose a pale pink dress and cashmere sweater in a similar shade of pale pink. I found a pale pink pair of shoes with a three-inch padded heel to match my dress. It was nice being able to wear high heels and your date still towered over you.
“Annie, I have to leave for church. Zell has offered to drive you when you’re ready. He is a friend of yours, correct?”
“Yeah, we’ve met,” I answered sarcastically. Of course, my dad didn’t understand the sarcasm, but I’m sure Zell could hear me.
I picked up the hair dryer again and resumed blowing my hair dry. For some reason, I didn’t want Zell to think I was anxious to see him. He could wait. I heard the garage door open and close. I guess Dad was gone. Then, there was a soft knock at my door.
“May I come in,” I heard Zell say softly.
“I guess you can. If I say no, you’ll just come in anyway, so come on in.”
Zell opened my door and stepped in just barely clearing the top of the door frame. My heart felt as though it would flip right up and out of my mouth. I knew how gorgeous Zell was, but it seemed as if every time I saw him, I was reamazed. He stood there in a pair of black trousers, a stiffly starched white button-down shirt and a black tie. He had on a pair of black leather shoes that looked obscenely expensive. His long, golden hair was slicked back and pulled into a small ponytail at the nape of his neck with a silver cord, real silver, I was sure. The white of his shirt set off his eyes and deep tanned complexion. He surely was a dream. No one could be this incredibly handsome.
“Are you ready, sweetheart?” Zell asked.
“Stop calling me that! I am not your sweetheart.” I answered rudely.
Dark Angel (Anak Trilogy) Page 11