“Not my rose! Alastair, can you get me another one? Please.”
“That’s just it Annie. That rose was one of three, made hundreds of years ago by some powerful wizard, that’s why I paid so much for it. The other two were sold long ago. Maybe we can track down that boy.”
Annie thought the chances of that was probably nil. “Now I’m depressed.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
THE SUN WAS A FOOT HIGH in the sky and the morning had all the qualities to make one happy to be alive, bright and warm with nature’s scented atmosphere. The birds were singing and the ground hogs were digging. A deer looked on from the edge of the forest but then quickly ran off into the deeper woods. Inside the small red shingled house Dorian was putting the final touches on the spell to bind the two eagle feathers to the last strand of his brother’s hair. He had given up on locating the other strand; it was simply an impossible task. He would probably go mad before it was located. It had depressed him to such a degree that his frame of mind had forced him to abandon the search for it.
“Well brother, I fear that without this enchantment working we’re both lost, although I’m not six feet under in a box. It sure would be nice to hear your voice again.”
Dorian looked over his left shoulder and caught a crow watching him in the decrepit window, past the bugs and dead flies, watching intently as if it was some sort of spy. He smiled at it knowingly. In the kitchen drawer he searched through more than a dozen leather pouches until he found the two that he sought, one marked with an S and the other with a D. He mixed the silver dust with the specks of dried red sap from the Dragon’s Blood Tree (Dracaena Cinnabari) which originates from a group of four islands in the Indian Ocean, Socotra archipelago. He put the two ingredients in the palm of his hand and mixing them together, said a few words to bind them, and then watched as a white mist was released from the concoction. He placed the two feathers on each end of the hair inside the mist and they bound themselves to it. A chainsaw now couldn’t force them apart.
The wizard had mixed feelings. Unless there was another spell out there that would bring him to his brother, and he had searched for years without success, then this was it. He hoped that time would at least close the wound if not heal it. A part of him wanted to run out and cast the spell, but he really didn’t want to see the last stand of hair float into the sky and into oblivion. It was likely that it would take a part of his soul with him. Hope was worth more than a tonne of gold. He quickly turned and shot a gray lightning bolt at the crow and killed it. Dorian wasn’t about to risk the bird attacking the spell as it floated up and off, disrupting its flight pattern.
The wizard exited the house and stood on the rickety porch and felt the pull of the enchantment; it wanted to be released and take to the wind. He stood there for several minutes waiting and wondering. The odds weren’t with him with but a single attempt remaining but it did depend on how far away his brother actually was. He released it and it shot straight into the air; he morphed into a bat and followed it as best he could but it was gone. It didn’t act like the others at all, none of them had gone straight up like that.
He went to the side of the cabin and kicked a hole in it.
The feathers went straight up almost a mile; its magic searched for Lemuel inside the coffin and then started to slowly float back towards the earth. It circled like a glider in free fall. Lemuel awoke from his nap and could sense something pulling at him again but had no idea what it was.
Dorian pulled his foot out of the house and fell. Even with his enhanced vision he saw nothing. It was as if his lifeblood was slowly draining, drop by drop; he was mentally depleted. Then he saw it, swirling down toward him. He couldn’t believe it. Was it really going to work? He followed it and followed it until the enchantment landed directly on the roof. What did that mean? It couldn’t mean that his brother was buried directly under the house?
“Are you down there brother?”
Dorian pushed the house about forty feet and then ran back to where it had been. He looked down at the patch of earth alive with worms and bugs. He blurred off to the hardware store and soon returned with a shovel and paused to consider. It was best not to get his hopes up too high as the enchantment could be wrong. He leaned on the shovel and thought that this was it, one way or another.
Lemuel could just barely make out the sounds of digging, because with the centuries that had gone by the ground was compacted, not allowing much sound through. He opened his eyes and stared at a small spider crawling on the top of the casket. Could it be Dorian up there in the process of digging him out? He certainly didn’t want to get his hopes up after all this time. He screamed his brother’s name but there was no response.
Dorian dug slowly as he needed time to think. He dug as slowly as a human would, throwing the dirt some forty feet in the air. When he got down to six feet he was disappointed to find nothing. At seven and then eight feet he jumped out of the large hole assuming that unfortunately he wasn’t down there. It was unlikely that they would have buried him deeper than eight feet; the location was the thing, not the depth.
Lemuel cursed for almost a minute at the sound of silence. Whoever was up there had stopped digging. At least it had sounded like digging, perhaps there was something else going on up there? After all these years he could be hallucinating. He screamed his loudest but still didn’t hear any response.
Dorian stood looking down into the hole. A nearby crow was making a lot of noise making it difficult to concentrate. He shot a bolt at it but missed and it flew off. Then he thought he heard something. It was faint but he cocked his head as he listened intently. He jumped back down into the hole and listened but whatever it was had stopped. Or perhaps it was simply his imagination. He jumped up and down in the hole.
Lemuel heard a thud. It almost seemed that someone really was up there, but what the hell they were doing he couldn’t say. He screamed and screamed and then heard the sound of more digging. If it was an auditory hallucination it was a good one. He stopped to listen some more and the sound of the shovel hitting the coffin almost scared the shit out of him.
“Lemuel!” Dorian pulled the oak coffin out of the ground. “Lemuel, can you hear me?”
“Thank GOD! Hurry up and get me the hell out of here! How long have I been in here? Can you hear me?”
Dorian smashed the dirty coffin hard and it should have broken open with his strength but it didn’t. He actually hurt his hand on it. Again and again he hit it hard. “What the hell?”
“Get me out of here!”
Dorian looked for a seal where the box would have been closed so he could pry it open but there was none. He jumped in the air and gave it the bionic elbow smash but even that didn’t work. Even after centuries the spell hadn’t weakened one iota. He jumped around with a crushed elbow and was glad when it healed.
“What are you doing up there?”
“I can’t get you out. You’re sealed in with some powerful spell.”
“You’re a wizard you jackass. Get me out of here!”
“I can’t. I don’t know how. I’ll get you out but it might take some time.”
Thrashing and screaming was heard from inside the box. “Help me!”
“Lemuel, what the hell is going on in there?”
“Help me I can’t breathe!”
“You don’t need to breathe. I think you’re having a panic attack.”
“What’s that?”
“Just what it sounds like, an attack of panic.”
“I’m gonna kill you when I get out of here!”
“Then I’m not letting you out.”
“I was just kidding. Help me.” Lemuel sounded pitiful.
Dorian sat on the coffin and started to think. He wasn’t going to be happy if it took another three hundred years to get him out of there.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
THE CROWDS GAVE THEIR TICKETS as they entered the stadium to watch some baseball. There was excitement in the air, the grownups felt like
kids. Yankee Stadium was something else when seen for the first time, definitely not like seeing it on television, so big and beautiful that the memory would remain forever stored in the most impressed place in the mind. It hugeness was the first thing one noticed and most thought it was well worth the billion and a half that it had cost to build. The field was so green and majestic, and for many it was awe-inspiring. It was a place to lift one’s spirits, making people happy to be alive. The scents and the sights were overwhelming; the smell of fresh bagels, beer, hotdogs and tubs of popcorn. The atmosphere lifted one’s spirit.
The Indiana limestone facade at gate 4 resembled the outside of the Yankee Stadium in 1923.
The Yankees were going to battle the Mets. The crowd was excited and the kids were thrilled, but with 45,121 people in attendance the place was ripe for vampires. They always announced the number of vampire sheriffs to the cheers of the crowd, always exaggerating the numbers. They said there were over forty red sheriffs in attendance, but in actuality there were only two. There simply weren’t enough sheriffs’ to go around.
It appeared to be a normal game, a normal day until the attack started twenty minutes after the first pitch, and it was timed so that all the vampires attacked simultaneously. Sharpton had sent fifty vampires and told them to kill as many humans as possible. Horrible screams went out; people were trampled to death as they tried to escape. People had their throats torn out. Police officers were killed as they approached, with their uniforms easily targeted. Players ran for their lives and managed to escape as the mayhem was concentrated in the crowd. The object was to kill as many humans as possible. Thousands panicked and shook with fear, a nightmare come to life.
The only people that were spared were the kids. Seniors and women were killed along with everyone else. The crowd was a moving entity of terror, writhing with fright. The wind caught the scent of blood and vomit and sent it everywhere. In certain areas small mountains of people were forming as they tried to run to save their lives, but so many crunching together that they formed obstacles to their own exit.
It took almost an hour to get enough sheriffs’ to kill the vampires. In the end there were over 7000 people dead, with five being sheriffs, and so many people traumatized that they would have to send many to other states for treatment. It was a day that would go down in infamy, a day they would never get back.
Sharpton knew that killing a hundred vampires nobody cared, but kill a hundred humans and it was a tragedy. Even if he couldn’t get them to give up New York City, kill enough humans and they would flee the city anyway. In time the humans would be gone and the biters would take over. Either way New York City was doomed.
The state of the world had taken another step toward anarchy.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
THE SUN HADN’T YET RISEN but its glow was perceptible as it hid just under the horizon. Allison stared out the window at the morning glow, another day was about to come forth bringing light to this part of the world, leaving darkness on the other side. How many eyes had noticed the light of the sun since creation and been happy for its comforting warmth? She thought that the sun was like a hug from a mother to her child because how utterly cold and lifeless the Earth would be without it.
“Looks like a beautiful day approaching.” Dracula smiled at her.
Her frame of mind was perhaps due to the beautiful and romantic poetry that Dracula had recited to her from memory last night. Keats was one of her favorites. She loved the way Dracula enunciated and couldn’t get enough. His voice was like soothing ripples of water on a tropical beach. His deep voice was forever etched in her mind.
Allison ran and jumped into the bed with Dracula; she was naked and so was he. She was the perfect model of the female form, beautiful and curvaceous. She looked radiant. Even with having had Jenny she retained all her attractiveness. It had been a satisfying night of lovemaking and she would need to get some sleep soon. Her loneliness needed to be concealed no longer as it had been pushed away; she felt rejuvenated. With the world in such turmoil, she would enjoy it while she was able, for in time all things came to an end, good and bad.
Dracula smiled a naughty smile. “That was nice.”
“I couldn’t have even one more of those right now.”
They were quiet for a time, a quiet born of comfort. They snuggled up to one another and thoroughly enjoyed the touching of each other’s souls, like two pieces that had been made for one another. He touched her arms and then her neck and it sent ripples of pleasure through her. They were a perfect fit with no rough edges.
“Stop it. I mean it.”
“I suppose that I should let you rest. You know that you are quite loud.”
Allison pulled the white sheet up over herself. “I know. I hurt my hands from gripping the bed. Jenny sleeps with ear plugs now.” She admired his physique. “How much can you bench press?”
“Couple of houses.”
The lion cub was outside the door scratching to get in but they tried to ignore it. It persisted and pushed it way through their comfort zone. “That cub has amazing eyes don’t you think?”
“Sarah is definitely a special creature.”
“Yes, well it freaks me out when she turns into a full grown lion. She doesn’t only do it when there’s danger or whatever. Yesterday on the sofa I was snuggling up to the cub and then suddenly she was a full grown lion. I went from scratching a cub to scratching a lion. She could tear me to pieces if she wanted.”
“Allison, she won’t hurt you.”
“Yes, well, a chimpanzee is a lovely creature until it rips your face off. Having a lion lick the makeup off your face is scary. And that tongue is so rough.”
Dracula nodded. “Even more so than mine?”
She pushed him. “Shut up.” Allison got up and put on her bra and panties, and Dracula watched admiringly as she did so. “You know you could look away.”
“Miss an opportunity for a memory of your loveliness to be etched into my mine?”
“Un huh. Going to the washroom, I’ll be back.” When she opened the door the cub ran in and tried to get on the bed.
Dracula smiled. “I shall miss every moment without you.”
In the washroom Allison took a pregnancy testing kit from under the cabinet and sighed. The odds were against her being pregnant, but she had been feeling nauseous in the mornings and that had been the first sign when she had been pregnant with Jenny. What a shock that had been. She urinated on the wand and waited. Funny how a minute could appear to be so much longer, with each passing second seemingly having a pause between it and the next.
Dracula put on his Zimmerli of Switzerland underwear and sat up in bed as the cub morphed and jumped onto the bed beside him. Sarah looked quite comfortable as the now full grown lioness took up a large portion of the queen size bed. She wanted to play with the Master as she swatted at him. He roughhoused with her until her claws cut open Allison’s new pillowcase. It would soon be time for him to head for the kitchen and a bag of fresh blood in the fridge that was calling to him.
Allison entered the bedroom and was taken aback by the lion in her bed. “Look what she did to my pillow!”
He stared into those pretty green eyes and saw that something was different. “Something wrong? Notwithstanding the pillow I mean.”
Allison sat on the corner of the bed and stared off. “Let me put it this way. You might just have to set up another fifty million dollar bank account.”
“You’re not pregnant?”
“I think I am.”
“Come over here.” Dracula stood and bent over as he placed his hand on her stomach. His pupils widened. “You’re pregnant, and it’s a boy this time. How do you think Jenny’s going to handle this?”
Allison threw herself down on the bed as she thought about it. “I have no idea. We might both have to duck. Not another wizard? Do you think?”
Dracula scratched his head. “With my DNA who knows. There’s influential magic in the air these days. I ca
n sense it but I can’t track it to its source. The unwritten rules of nature appear to be changing.”
Allison imagined a toddler pulling the lion’s tail. “Jenny’s going to have a brother.”
“I’m going to have a son.”
“Sounds like the title of a good book: Son of Dracula.”
Dracula stood up and stretched. “Jenny’s probably going to want to hit me with a good book. I believe that I shall go for a walk while you spring it on her.”
Allison patted his hand. “Like hell. That’s going to be the first of your fatherly duties, telling your daughter that’s she going to have a brother. It’ll be good for you.”
Dracula: Hearts of Fire (Dracula Heart's) Page 27