Eden's Charms

by Jaclyn Tracey

  Mum? Are you all right? Please answer me! Savanah tried one last time to reach out to her family with no luck. Emotional overload, she passed out.

  Ethan lunged after Savanah before she hit the ground. “Do you have a name?” Ethan yelled.

  “Devon.”

  “Devon, before my fiancé and I leave this unholy place you won’t be breathing.”

  “Pick up your wench and move.”

  With Savanah limp in his arms, anger blurred his vision. All of this happened due to his poor judgment. Had he not shown up on her doorstep attempting the unthinkable, kidnapping a child, she’d be safely at home with loving parents and family. Never mind mentioning Xier and his involvement in Ethan’s life.

  “Devon, who wants us?”

  “Take care of your wench.” Devon walked into a room not much bigger than a pantry and showed Ethan a cot. With the snap of his fingers, a teenage girl in very snug jeans sauntered in.

  “Dylan, get some water and rags for Miss St. James.”

  “Why? He’s only gonna kill her. I don’t get what the big fuss is all about. And she’s not as pretty as everyone keeps saying.” Dylan twirled her lilac/lavender hair around her finger, and smacked her lips together on a wad of raw beef.

  Devon gave a fallacious grin to the girl with cotton-candy hair. With a crooked finger he called the girl to him.

  Ethan cringed. Seen that look a thousand times on the Maestro, and it’s never good.

  Ethan stepped back.

  Dylan smiled as Devon approached her. He gently brushed the hairs from her neck and inhaled sharply.

  Before Ethan’s eyes, Devon’s jaw elongated into something Ethan couldn’t take his eyes off. Quentin Tarantino would’ve killed for the special effects for his movie, From Dusk Till Dawn. Devon’s skin became a transparent-blue road map of veins. His fangs lengthened a good two inches before they stopped sprouting and with no warning and unfathomable speed, those fangs disappeared into Dylan’s neck. Ethan watched his reptilian eyes shrink to slits as he sucked her dry. Her body convulsed in his arms until it didn’t. When he finished he dropped her to the floor and kicked her aside.

  “Get Miss St. James up and ready, Mr. Kitt.” Devon exited the room, the door behind him locked.

  “Pippy? Wake up. Baby, we got us a dead girl in the room. We need to find an escape hatch to get us outta here. Maybe we, all right you, can torch the place, set off the alarms and get the fire department here. Sweet cheeks, wake up.” Ethan shook her limp body.

  “And just maybe we’ll all die down here, Ethan.”

  Ethan looked around the room. No one. He looked at the dead girl. “Did you say that? Please say no!”

  “No, Ethan. I’m one cell over.”

  “Aunt Raven?” Ethan’s voice squeaked.

  “Yes. Aunt? Kid you got brass kahunas.”

  “What happened?”

  “It’s a long story with a bad ending, Ethan. I am a giant ass. I’ve lost the two men in my life and now I’ve placed my family in jeopardy as well. How is Savanah? He hasn’t touched her has he?”

  “She’s out cold. Raven, have you been able to reach any of your family?”

  “No.”

  “Who’s behind this madness?”

  “I made it this far when I came to see Donovan this morning. My big plan backfired.”

  “What big plan?”

  “I wanted him out of my life so I tried to stake him mid orgasm.”

  “Whoa! Where is he?”

  “Below, in the freezer, healing.”

  Ethan closed his eyes trying to shake the thought when Savanah’s hand flailed through the air into his cheek. The pain was instant.

  Savanah looked up dazed. “Eth? You okay? What happened? Who hit you?”

  “I’m fine,” he said as he rubbed his face. “Babe, Raven’s in the next cell.”

  “Cell?” Savanah spun around taking in the tiny, windowless room they were locked in. “Do I want to know?” she asked pointing at the dead girl on the floor.

  Ethan shook his head no.

  “Auntie Ray?”

  Raven whispered through the metal bars in her door, “Peanut, listen, in a few minutes this guy’s going to be back. When he does between the three of us we should be able to take him.”

  “One can only pray,” Savanah answered.

  ****

  With a body-curling screech, the doors opened and barrels of guns protruded into the cells. “Out,” one deep raspy voice ordered. Three men pushed and prodded Ethan, Savanah and Raven down two more sets of stairs. Coming off the bottom step, the first guard jammed Ethan hard in his flanks with the butt of his rifle, forcing him off balance and into yet another room.

  Savanah took one look at the guard, wearing the same pathetic outfit the valet had on, and silently whispered, “Disintegrate pro mei eyes,” before she had a chance to comprehend what the consequences of her words truly were. The phrase came from the book she’d gotten the day before she left England. She wasn’t kidding when she told her mother the book’s first chapter could cause someone to die from a broken heart…and then some.

  A menaced glare shot over Savanah and Raven as the guard began to hyperventilate, one deep, labored breath after another. Steam blasted from his nostrils with the same intensity a pressure cooker exudes before it explodes. His mottled flesh bubbled and dripped like melted wax into one big puddle.

  “Help me!” The guard screamed before his tongue turned into a glob of black jelly, and dripped in one long chunk to the floor.

  “Doesn’t he sound like some movie about a fly?” Raven giggled.

  “Oh crap! I just killed a man. I’m a black witch now. I’ll probably grow freaking warts too, only they won’t be hanging off the tip of my nose—oh no—I’ll end up with genital warts for this deed.”

  “He and Androgen man were related so it doesn’t count, Savage.” Ethan assured her. Looking between the dead guard and Savanah, Ethan realized at that very moment she could have the car, and anything else she ever desired from him—no questions asked.

  The second guard turned a ghastly shade of blue and exited the room in haste. Guard number three wasn’t the third wise man. Savanah pointed her finger toward him, about to give him the same fate when he grabbed Raven and yanked her to him.

  Raven replaced her fingernails with talons, reached backwards and tore through his chest.

  Raven—one. The guard—dead. The heart—writhing and squirting blood everywhere as she tried to hang on to it. Getting filthy, she gave up and tossed the defiled organ on the floor. Nerves shot, she giggled. “I might pick that up on my way out and pickle it. Serina’s all ready got one.”

  “Shall we?” Savanah grabbed Ethan’s hand and tugged him to move.

  He didn’t budge, his eyes fixated on the melted body and then the man’s heart a few feet away. “Remind me to never piss you off. Either of you.”

  “Ethan, you were damn close the first day I met you.” Raven added.

  Ethan’s green eyes went wide. “Auntie Raven, from the bottom of my heart, I apologize.”

  At the top of the stairs, freedom seemed only feet away when footsteps approached, fast. Savanah and Ethan turned. There stood Seamus between the front door and escape.

  Ethan’s hopes of a swift exile faded. “Savanah,” Ethan whispered so low it was barely audible. “Run baby, and don’t turn back. I’ll stop him.”

  Hand on her hip, she countered, “We’ve already had this conversation.”

  Savanah’s next breath caught in her throat when Jacob came up from behind and shoved her into Seamus’ arms. From what seemed thin air, Jacob produced a silver garrote and snagged Ethan by the neck.

  André, he…

  With one quick jerk of his wrist, Jacob tugged the medieval torture device to end Ethan’s air supply. Ethan hung in limbo before his head slumped to the side of his body.

  Savanah’s vocal cords bounced off the interior and exterior of the restaurant with pleas for help, but between
the DJ blasting out tunes in the basement and the jazz band in the attic, she may as well had been in a soundproof room. Seamus secured his grip on her ponytail.

  His pungent breath crawled across her skin. “One wrong move, Miss St. James, and it shall be your last.”

  “Eth, get up baby. You gotta get up. Please?”

  Seamus pressed his lips against Savanah’s cheek. “Shut up, foolish girl. I won’t kill him…yet. First things first. Ingrid, get Raven back down stairs.”

  A woman equal in height to Raven with jet black hair and blue eyes, approached, a loaded harpoon gun aimed at her chest. “Give me a reason, vamp. You just give me one reason and the trigger’s clicked.”

  Raven reached out touching her niece’s hand in passing. “Show ’em Hell, baby, and then come get me.” She turned to the woman ordering her around. “You should feel good right now. Today is the last day you’ll ever be called an idiot. Or anything for that matter.”

  Seamus flagged his hand at Jacob. “Release him and take Savanah.” Seamus pulled a round nickel finished, wooden handled gun from the inside pocket of his dinner jacket. He handed Jacob the weapon. Once Jacob secured his grip on Savanah, Seamus turned to Ethan. “Oh, Ethan, I missed this.” Seamus took a knee and knelt over him, pressed his face to Ethan’s neck and tore into him.

  Coming to and trying to suck in huge amounts of air with a vampire attached to his neck, proved futile. It pretty much equaled having an elephant sit on your face and attempt to move. Ethan fought the vamp and lost on all counts. Seamus jammed a silver poker into his side. One wrong move, Ethan knew his life would end. Looking up and seeing Savanah being held at gunpoint put his adrenaline into overtime.

  “Please, Seamus, let him go. He’s done nothing to you,” Savanah pleaded. When he smiled, and Ethan’s blood spilled from his lips she uttered, “Once you awaken, the powers you have forsaken shall be taken. Blessed be to those holier than me. Your judgment day will arrive and you shan’t survive.” For a split second Savanah had the oddest of moments where she couldn’t deny a connection to Draque. A queasy bile rose in her throat. She didn’t understand anything and quite frankly, didn’t have the luxury of time to figure it out.

  Seamus stood, brushed off the dirt from his trousers and left Ethan on the floor, drained, white and shaking. “Stupid witch! Your little rhymes are child’s play.”

  “Let her go. She means nothing to you,” Ethan pleaded the same.

  Seamus hollered, “Dylan? Have you no manners, girl? Please? Escort Miss St. James to her aunt.”

  “Dylan’s dead. Some guy killed her.” Ethan scoffed. “Or not!” He reneged as Dylan appeared absence of any personality, her motions methodical, calculated as if driven by someone else.

  “So, Ethan, miss me?” Seamus asked.

  “Can’t answer truthfully without damaging that fragile ego of yours. It isn’t polite to talk with your mouth full, Maestro.”

  Confused, Savanah said, “That’s Seamus, Eth. Not the Maestro. Right? Oh somebody please tell me I didn’t have a Sinclair with his filthy hands on me?”

  “Meet my boss, Pippy. Maestro, meet my fiancé.” It was the last thing Ethan said, before passing out from blood loss.

  ****

  Hello?” André yelled at the top of his lungs. “My wife’s gone into labor, and she’s only twenty weeks along. She’s having twins!” André carried a protesting Jovan into the emergency room. Duncan, Molly and Kyle followed.

  A young man came to the rescue with a wheelchair.

  Jovan shooed the man away. “I’m quite capable of walking if someone would put me down.” Her anger rose like heat waves on sunny pavement.

  “Hospital policy, Misses.”

  “Climb in, Cherié. Please? I need no further heart attacks.”

  A red-headed nurse in a florescent floral scrub set approached André and Jovan. Her tone soft and comforting, she asked, “Sir, why don’t you go to the registrar’s office and give them all your information, and we’ll take your lady and get an exam begun. My name is Kathleen. I’m a licensed midwife. My nurse Joanne and I’ll take great care of her and your babies. I promise.”

  As another contraction tightened around her abdomen, Jovan grimaced. “Go get Savanah. I’ll be fine here. Molly will stay by me.”

  “How far along are you, Miss?” The midwife asked as she typed every answer Jovan gave her into a computer screen.

  “Twenty weeks.”

  “Age?”

  Jovan hesitated. What did she tell her? The truth was definitely out. “Twenty-five, give or take a hundred years.” She gave the nurse a crooked smirk.

  “I feel that old sometimes too. I’d have guessed twenty. You hold your age well.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m going to do an internal on you and hook you up to a stress monitor. One for you and one for the babies to monitor their heart rates. Did your water break?”

  Jovan shook her head no.

  Kathleen explained, “Good. I’m going to hook an IV of Nalepsin to you. It’s an isotonic solution of magnesium sulfate. Hopefully, it will halt the contractions. I’ll have the lab do some other tests as well. Hopefully between the fluids, the medicine, and some rest we’ll be able to stop this. At twenty weeks gestation, your twins would be in dire straits.”

  Attempting to put her best face forward Jovan grabbed André’s hand when he returned.

  “This IV is going to take a few hours so get comfy. I’ll be popping in and out checking your blood pressure and these monitors. If anything at all changes, press this call button and people will run to you.” Kathleen pointed out a small device she’d pinned next to her on the bed sheets.

  “Oh, you’re spoiling her. She’s going to go home and expect a little dinner bell for her leisure after this.” Duncan added as he leaned over André and kissed Jovan.

  Jovan gave a relieved grin. “Where’s Molly?”

  “I’m here, Jovie. Just getting a good book for the two of us to pass the time. Pick one.” She held the books up for Jovan to see. “Love story with happily ever after, or a tragic tale of two lovers who found out they were siblings after she was already pregnant, and he’d killed his first wife?”

  Jovan wrinkled her nose. “I don’t need any more stress. Give me the HEA. You guys need to go get my big baby for me. Now, please?” With that said a steady stream of tears fell.

  André ducked to Jovan’s belly. “Hey, you two, knock off whatever it is you’re up to in there and let your mother be. Stay put. I love the both of you and can happily wait the next four months to meet you. Understood?” André kissed his wife’s belly twice and then moved to her lips. “I love you, Jovan St. James.”

  That’s when his own tears started, and he couldn’t stop them. “There’s nowhere on this earth I’d rather be than by your side, raising our children. Where you go is where I go. I’m going to get our other baby now and give you your happily ever after. I don’t care what the hospital policy is, leave your cell phone on vibrate.” Trying ever-so-gently to lighten her mood he tucked the phone between her thighs. “Think of me if it goes off.” André kissed Jovan one last time with a little umph behind it and left. He didn’t turn back. He knew if he did he’d never be able to leave her.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Son of a bitch!” Savanah screamed at Jacob when he shoved her back down the stairs she’d just come up. Her jaw dropped when she caught a glimpse of the contents of a dungeon room for which the door had been previously shut.

  “That’s all my bloody relics. That’s all my stuff. How did it get from the museum to here? Stop, for the love of God!” She gripped the handrail, her knuckles now white and burning.

  Jacob pulled up a step behind her, his breath hot and heavy on her neck.

  “Ewh! Get off me!” She shoved him back and sent a little zinger through him to show she meant business. She focused on a wooden table in the center of the room and from there her eyes slowly glanced upward. Her stomach knotted and she wished
she hadn’t looked. A pendulum hung above the table. Damned thing looked awfully authentic. Deep grooves were gouged into the table. The crimson-stained blade had chips missing. Savanah tried frantically not to think about a person being severed in half, but the more she tried not to, the clearer the vision became. Magic shows came close, but without all the carnage.

  To the left of the meat slicer, a casket stood vertical, the cover open. Silver spikes lined the inside of the box. Savanah decided she really wouldn’t want to have to lie on top of those for an eternity. Then she decided that just might be the point.

  A small, silver, razor-wired birdcage dangled from the ceiling like a lethal ball of yarn. Inside sat a platform just wide enough for a pair of feet. The height—Mini Me would have had to squat. Savanah could no longer focus. Overload on the brain…about to be thrown into a cell—hopefully not the room in front of her, her mother going into premature labor with the gloomy possibility of losing her babies, her boyfriend—out cold upstairs with the one man on the planet her entire family loathed and the icing on her cake—not being able to reach her father. Think Savanah, keep it together. When all else fails, use the gifts God gave you.

  She turned to Jacob ready to charm the pants off him if need be. Not hers though.

  “I found that.” She pointed to a second casket secured by silver chains. Wonder where the chains came from? “Can you guess who owns it?” She pointed to the side of the black casket. “See the gold inlaid initials VTD? Stands for, Vlad Tepes Dracula. His casket is forged from pounded iron. Weighs a freakin’ ton. It’s lined with mink. Bastard, killing all those animals to surround his scrawny ass. Did I say scrawny? It’s not. Trust me. Seen it, been bit by the demonic thug,” Savanah prattled. She wet her lips on purpose for Jacob as he ogled and listened with a new found interest.

  “The skull is a rare find. ’Tis a mix between a jackal and a human. How much fun could that mating ritual have been? Total bestiality, baby. The mandible is longer than humans. See the teeth? Double rows of dents…”

  “Dents?”

  “Fangs. Sorry, I’ll use little words. See the smaller razor sharp canines inset? Nastier than a piranha and stronger than a bear’s. The nasal passage is interesting. The opening is so miniscule that the beast barely required air. Kinda goes hand in hand with being dead, don’t you think? The huge iron lattice cage is designed to fit over a casket. Keeps vamps in if they’re fortunate enough to escape their first casket. It’s a second layer of protection. And what girl couldn’t use a little extra?” She batted her eyes at him and ran her hand down his arm to the gun.