Dracula: Hearts of Fire (Dracula Heart's)

by Albert Gallant

  Jenny was frightened.

  The old man started to laugh.

  The girl was trapped.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  SEVERAL HOURS LATER KEITH made his way back to the edge of the forest where he could observe the postmodern colonial house, but this time he was a lot less confident. He was nervous as if he expected something untoward to happen. Deep in his bones he was unsettled and wary. The Cadillac Sport wagon remained in the driveway. It appeared to be clear sailing for the vampire, no black cats in sight. He hesitated in thinking that the cat’s black spell might be still on him. If it was his luck would surely turn and he supposed that someone would do him in. He imagined his bones in a pile.

  “Do I dare risk it?” Keith whispered to himself. “How long does it take for bad luck to wear off?”

  A black bird landed into the tree beside him, and it didn’t go without being noticed; if a black cat crossing one’s path was indeed bad luck then why not a black bird? What if there were a myriad of things that his father had failed to warn him about? The bird jumped from branch to branch and kept his eye on Keith. Was it his imagination or was that damn bird acting strange? Why was it concerned with his presence? Maybe it had a nest nearby?

  “Get out of here,” Keith said to the bird.

  But with that the bird landed on his right shoulder and Keith’s small beady brown eyes appeared to get a lot bigger. The vampire was frozen with fear even though it was only a damn bird. Was the bird warning him? Telling him to run away? Wild birds were supposed to be frightened of people; those were the rules of nature. Why wasn’t that damn bird following the rules? The Eurasian Blackbird chirped twice angering Keith. He decided then and there to kill the damn thing and forget it. He grabbed the black bird and stared at it, but as much as he wanted to crush the life out of it he couldn’t bring himself to do it. After all that act in itself could be bad luck. He permitted the bird to fly away but it didn’t, it simply flew up into the tree and looked down at him.

  “What is this world coming to when birds won’t act like birds?”

  Keith saw movement past the curtains in the house and then caught a whiff of the blood pumping through their veins, like a hungry dog smelling a juicy piece of meat. His mouth started to water as the bird chirped and again took his attention. He shook his head only to see the black cat exiting the forest with a rat this time, it got away from the cat and ran for its life but the cat was too fast and killed it. The black cat locked eyes with Keith once again, and the vampire was forced to blur off into the forest.

  Keith wondered if the cat and the bird were sharing a high five; he also wondered if he’d ever get to eat that family.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  LAUREN HEARD SOMEONE OUTSIDE on the steps and strained her neck to see who was approaching; she desperately hoped it was someone was coming to her rescue. The sheriff wondered if hearing Michael’s voice had been genuine or some sort of hallucination. Whatever was out there sounded too heavy to be human. Then she saw it. It was a white Arabian horse on the porch. It seemed to be eating something out there, but she was limited in seeing through the crack in the curtains. The animal had the potential to be her rescuer, unlikely but least the possibility existed; if she could only mind the horse to smash through the window and knock her out of that coffin.

  “Turn this way.” She called to the horse but it was too late, jumping off the steps it trotted by and then was out of sight taking care of its own business. Her potential hero had turned out to be an indifferent horse.

  Lauren didn’t know for sure how long she had been trapped in the coffin; she thought that it had only been a couple of hours but wasn’t sure. If her situation wasn’t bad enough now she had a headache. She turned her head and looked at the hourglass as it continued to flow. The wizard that had kidnapped her had started it but for what purpose? At the rate it was flowing it was indeed measuring an hour of time. It seemed likely that nothing good was going to happen when the sand emptied. It was then that she recalled the story she had heard long ago, how a wizard would use some sort of magical sand. Once the sand ran out it would extract all the properties of a vampire, then would be contained in the hourglass to be used to enhance a wizard’s ability. She also remembered that it was a sneaky way to do it, because the wizard wouldn’t return for days, lessening his chance of being caught or identified for that matter. By the look of it she had maybe twenty minutes remaining.

  “If only I could move!”

  It appeared that her chances of escape were miniscule at best. Time and luck were both against her. The end was near at the hands of some coward that didn’t even have the guts to face her. She would go to bones without even having the opportunity to defend herself. Lauren would never know who did her in, unless she could come back as a ghost and kick his ass.

  Grains of sand continued to fall, with a slight mist commencing to form inside the hourglass.

  Again she concentrated with all that she had in her to move her right leg so that she could kick her way out of that contraption. She thought that she felt her right toe move. Perhaps the binding spell was wearing off but was scared that it wouldn’t be in time to save her. It appeared that there was maybe ten minutes of time remaining. Once her essence was sucked out she would turn to bones within minutes. She wondered if the end would be painful. A clunk at the bottom of the window took her attention. The horse was again outside. It was playing with a small tire, tossing it around. It picked up the tire and tossed it and again it was gone. Because of the crack in the curtains was small, it was almost impossible to make contact with the horse. She was unable to get into its mind.

  Time was flowing way too fast, literally. The hourglass now had less than five minutes remaining. A degree of panic had set in and beads of sweat ran down her face making her itchy, and of course she couldn’t scratch it. In a panic an attempt was made to bang her head and break the coffin open but it didn’t work, all she accomplished by the act was to worsen her headache. The mist was now drawing towards her, preparing the commencement of its evil incantation.

  At four minutes she was able to move all her toes but of course it did her absolutely no good. By the time she could move her legs and free herself she’d have been bones for hours. Hope was an invaluable thing, without it all was lost. With it possibilities for the future were endless. Lauren now had no hope.

  Outside the white Arabian ran with the tire and tossed it. The tire bounced and rolled down the incline and he chased it, moving further and further away from the ranch house. The animal was like a child with a toy. He caught up to the tire and tried to bite it but missed. The horse then stopped and listened. He could hear Lauren calling him in his mind but he didn’t know her and refused to go. The tire fell on its side, grabbing his attention and again the horse took after it.

  With about three minutes of sand remaining Lauren wanted to stop staring at the grains of sand counting down the seconds of her life but she couldn’t. It was like looking at an approaching train heading straight for a car stuck on the tracks. It was impossible to look away. Grain after gain continued to fall and it was maddening. She thought that if she had any magic in her that she could perhaps reverse the flow of the sand by simply willing it. She concentrated on its reversal, visualized it, commanded it but nothing happened. There was no stopping the sand from flowing.

  Lauren was waiting for the guillotine to fall.

  When there was approximately two minutes of sand remaining she started to recall different moments in her life. How she had been involved with drugs and how she had gotten herself out of it. She remembered how she had always been for the underdog even in grade school. She remembered her two past loves before Michael, and how they had both cheated on her, one had been a vampire. She closed her eyes and remembered the best times of her life. The situation was surreal and unforgiving.

  “Oh Michael.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Under the summer sun

  Beneath a puffy white cloud
<
br />   Stood the cabin by the lake

  The sound of silence extremely loud

  Inside its wooden walls

  On an expensive Persian rug

  Her naked body lay in a pool of blood

  beneath its hardwood floors

  an ant carried his piece of cake

  happily enjoying the summer day by the lake

  THE RED SHERIFF FINISHED READING the poem, slowly shaking his head. Vincent could smell the blood from within, but detecting no heartbeat he guessed someone was dead. Vampires had a subtle but distinctive smell to other vampires and there was something on the air but it was faint, seemed that whoever did the deed had left the area. He had received the call from an adventurer with a satellite phone. The fellow had gone into the cabin looking for a drink, discovering the body and believing he could also be in danger fled the scene.

  Vincent’s rugged good looks were slightly diminished by the pain on his face. He wore a classic trench coat with a black Stetson hat. In his sheath a Katana sword, in his holster an 1878 Colt revolver. He had killed seventeen vampires with that gun over the years; he sometimes had the ability to know where they would be when the bullet arrived, a distinct advantage. However it only worked less than half the time and he had no idea why that was. It was said that all vampires had at least a little magic in them, but he had no idea if that was factual. Perhaps his magic ebbed and flowed. Dracula had told him that the magic within certain vampires was much more effective with a new moon.

  “Chica dee dee dee dee dee!”

  He had dusted the note for prints but found none. The note was written on typewriter paper in red ink. Vincent listened intently to the sounds of the forest. Chickadees were nearby, a rabbit, some mice and several other animals but that was it. It was a bit of a strange spot to have a cabin out in the middle of nowhere, but he supposed that was the point. The perpetrator had fled the area leaving behind a little of his scent but that body odor would be ingrained. If he ever came across him again he would recognise his smell. That scent somehow seemed a little familiar.

  Vincent went up the steps and entered the cabin and there she was, blond and beautiful only hours earlier, now lying in her own blood. Her throat had been torn out. The ID in her purse showed that she was Mary Mai Brown from Connecticut, a lawyer of means but her luck had run out. Interestingly enough, only a small amount of blood appeared to have been taken. Sometimes that was a sign of a vampire serial killer, even when they were full they continued to hunger for the kill. Being alone by the lake must have been an opportunity too good to pass up. She had managed to get her gun out and got off a single shot, but it had been a futile attempt. Vincent could see where the bullet went into the wall. He dug it out and put it into a small plastic bag; there was no smell of blood on it and so she had missed him.

  After the sheriff completed his investigation on the inside, he sat on the steps outside and listened once again to the sounds of the forest. Sometimes killers liked to watch from a distance as their gruesome scenes were being discovered, but the only things that he could hear were the sounds of nature. Those sounds would have been enjoyable had it not been for the crime scene. A cracked branch had him going for his gun but he saw the deer that had broken the old branch.

  As Vincent sat and waited for the authorities to retrieve the body, he was wondering how much longer he could continue to deal with such acts of cruelty. He had gotten used to the carnage long ago but lately, for some reason, all the killings had commenced to bother him once again. All those wasted lives were starting to pile up and poke at his soul.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  JENNY WAS TRAPPED inside Jeptha’s mind and she was frightened. Being so inexperienced at being a wizard wasn’t good at all. She thought about Dracula, that he had probably already been in that freaking cottage. Being trapped in another’s mind wasn’t something she would have thought possible. Such a thing had never occurred before and she had no experience on how to extricate herself from the situation. Her body was now prone on the forest floor. The old man stood near her with his arms crossed and a big nasty smile. One wizard had taken advantage of the other and it was always satisfying getting the upper hand on one’s own kind, even though she was a child. He reached down and poked her as if to say TAKE THAT. One wizard was never allowed to touch another for fear of magic trickery, so the fact that he was able to touch her made his day.

  Jenny found herself inside the wizard’s mind at the point where her white portal should have been, but there was nothing there. Without that door to escape, she was stuck in there, perhaps forever. How had it worked? Had her soul been imprisoned in there? She could hear Jeptha laughing and it sounded hollow, the mocking made her angry and more determined. If her white way out wasn’t here, then she knew it had to be somewhere in his mind. Was it now disguised as another door? Jenny ran down one of the black corridors and her foot falls sounded like they were in an empty gym, with reverberations off the walls. She entered the first door on the left only to find another fire pit; stopping there she stared at it. After a bit she realized that the flames had a hypnotic effect, it was trying to keep her in that one location. She put her hands in the flames not thinking that it would really burn her but it did. Her body on the ground jerked from the fire, and the burn on her finger healed instantly.

  “Not so easy is it Jenny, even with your power. I’ve got you.”

  All the doors in that labyrinth had been red and so when she discovered the bright yellow one she was a little puzzled. What if what lay beyond that door with the golden doorknob was actually a deeper trap, sinking her to an even lower level, but it could also be the way out. She could continue on in a different direction or go through it. She stood akimbo staring at the door. What to do? Jenny placed her right hand on the doorknob and discovered that it was quite cold. She tried to turn it but it wouldn’t budge. She checked the door up close and it was genuine. In a fit of anger she kicked the door and it swung open, as it commenced to close it creaked like a door in a haunted house, as if it was a hundred years old.

  The world that she was now stuck in wasn’t real but yet just as dangerous as the physical world. There had to be a way out but would she find it in time. She was becoming more frightened and that could influence her actions.

  In the new room she had entered the walls were butter-yellow. The fire pit in this chamber had yellow flames that shot up almost to the ceiling. Instead of heat it was producing a banana smell. She was getting the feeling that a lot of this was a distraction. Was he making fun of her in his mind? She then saw the second door, also yellow. As Jenny approached it there was a pounding from the other side; she opened it to discover a large African male, so muscular that he must have spent every waking hour in the gym. His muscles had muscles.

  “You are wanting to come in here? You no get by Badru.” He spoke with some sort of accent but the girl didn’t recognise it.

  On the outside her magic would be an advantage, but in here who could tell what the rules were. His body language told her not to even attempt to get in there. He smashed both of his gold bracelets together; causing sparks to fly from them. Then one fist loudly struck the palm of his hand.

  “I’m going in there, like it or not.”

  “I break you head.”

  Jenny considered that this guy ate more than her weight for lunch. She stuck her head through the door to observe its contents; it was full of flowers of every kind. It smelled wonderful. Besides the fire pit the place was nothing but flowers. She was knocked down by a sucker punch to the top of her head, and boy did it hurt. “You bastard!”

  “Hurt head? See big bump.”

  Jenny kicked him in the crotch so hard that it sent him flying some ten feet into the flowers, with pots and flowers flying everywhere, breaking one of the pots with his head; he screamed repeatedly.

  “Hurt head?”

  Badru got up slowly, seemingly in a lot of pain, but surprised her as he rushed her exceptionally fast. He picked her up over
his head, throwing her right out of the room, back into the yellow one. He crossed one hand over the other as if to say that she was out and staying out, but before he could finish she was on him; she swept him off his feet and he fell hard. Badru got up and she jumped and kicked him into the fire; in mid scream he disappeared, as if he had never existed. One didn’t have to worry about killing someone that was the product of a sick imagination. He hadn’t been real but his punches had certainly felt genuine.

  A little Bichon Frise ran in seemingly from the yellow room and started to bark up at Jenny. It was as white and as puffy as a cloud. She looked down at the dog and wondered if it was some sort of trick? It was so cute that she bent down and it licked her face. Although she didn’t know it, some of Jenny’s magic was on automatic. The dog had come out of her own mind and not from the wizard. It barked as it moved back and forth. It ran out the door and she followed it through several doors before going down a purple corridor and into a room on the right. The room was full of books, some on the floor in the corner, but most of them on brown bookshelves. The floor was a reflective white and she could see herself in it. She picked up one book and looked at it Madman in the Mirror; she’d never heard of it and tossed it. The white puffball ran and pawed at a bookshelf on the far left.