He smiled. “No.”
She tensed and glanced down at her clenched hands because how cold his voice suddenly was did not at all match his amiable expression.
“Relax, Audrey.”
It was a command and should have had the opposite effect on her but instead her body immediately responded. Curiously, she watched her fingers slip apart as if they were people with minds of their own stripping off their clothes as she pulled off her black leather gloves. She held fear at bay by reminding herself that Wilona trusted this man. Her mother had contacted her through him after twenty-two years, during which everyone had believed she was probably dead, raped and murdered and buried in the woods somewhere. But that wasn’t the case at all; Wilona was actually alive and well and desperate to see her daughter again so she could explain why she had abandoned her family, as if any explanation could ever justify emotionally torturing people she supposedly loved.
“That’s a good girl. Now take off your hat and your coat. We’ve a long drive ahead of us. But don’t worry, we have everything we need right here.”
As she obeyed him she told herself it was what she wanted to do anyway, that she was in full control of her body and that anything else was merely her own paranoid delusion. “Where are we going… my lord?” She struggled not to address him in that fashion but it was impossible to stop her mouth from forming the words, which strangely enough stoked her anxiety to the point where it almost felt like excitement.
“I can’t tell you that, Audrey.”
Slowly, she began unbuttoning her coat, intensely reluctant to do so and ashamed of herself, as though she was completely naked beneath it, which of course she wasn’t. Jonathan is following me she thought. I’m not alone… Jonathan, her closest neighbor, whom she had never met until just a few days ago when he finally came home from Afghanistan, and yet it felt as though they had known each other much longer than that. She recalled the conversation they had had at the burned out church, in the mist flowing like a mysterious exhalation from another dimension. She had christened the impenetrable fog the “Dragon’s Breath” and walked into it without her body to visit a woman she had once been…
“Let me help you with that,” Falkon said when she turned sideways on the seat to take off her coat.
“Thank you,” she responded automatically, and as he slipped it caressingly down her arms, she closed her eyes. She couldn’t hear the car’s engine or feel the tires spinning across the road. There were no city lights, no stars, just a pleasantly cool darkness embracing her as the dead weight of her coat fell away from her, freeing her... she was her true self unencumbered by anything. Fears, worries, doubts, they were all such a waste of time, and time was measured by her heartbeats… she was in control of space, her desires shaped it…
She opened her eyes again and, like a baby reaching hungrily for her bottle, accepted the wine Falkon offered her. The glass was so fine it scarcely weighed anything at all and it was practically empty; he had poured her a mere mouthful. Thinking it must be a very old and expensive vintage, she looked up into his eyes and distinctly heard his silent command:
“Drink it!”
“No!” A voice moaned and it shocked her to realize it was her own. She was alone. Jonathan wasn’t there; he couldn’t protect her. He had warned her she had to fight her own battles. She didn’t even know why she trusted him as deeply as she did, a man she had only just met… a man who had probably killed dozens, if not hundreds of people in the Middle East… a man who, more than once, she had seen in the company of a wolf-like dog very much like the one her mother had written about in her journal twenty-two years ago just before she disappeared…
She held the glass up to her lips. It was easier not to resist. And the longer she stared at the face of the man in front of her the harder it was to think of Jonathan or of anything else.
Inhaling the wine’s bouquet, she swooned and might have dropped the feather-light glass if his hands hadn’t fallen over hers and forced her to hold onto it.
He whispered, “Don’t be afraid!” and tilted the glass up against her lips, which were forced to part as the dark red wave flowed slowly toward her.
She thought of her father, Stuart Goodrich, the renowned historian, who had no clue the scholar he had corresponded with for years knew Wilona was alive and well and hiding from her husband, whether of her own free will or because someone was obliging her to was impossible to tell. That’s why she was alone in a limousine with a complete stranger, because she had to learn the truth. Stuart would agree the truth—Maat as the ancient Egyptians had called it—was all that truly mattered and she was wearing the scarab he had given her, the scarab he had told her would protect her from evil forces. She savored this small comfort as the dark liquid poured onto her tongue and the world exploded.
Images like shrapnel assaulted her from all directions and every single one of them seemed to stab her in the heart. The colors were so bright, the scenes so vividly detailed she couldn’t possibly absorb them as they flashed so swiftly out of the darkness she could barely focus on one before it was replaced by a whole new series of three dimensional snapshots. She tried to open her eyes but couldn’t locate her lids, as though everything existed inside her and there was no escaping it. Her disembodied awareness was rushing down a tunnel of exquisitely detailed still-frames that were all somehow a part of her. She had no sense of direction, only the impression of being caught in an endless stream of miniature stage sets evocative of a cosmic honeycomb. When she realized there was more than one kaleidoscopic umbilical cord, she sensed her awareness fraying at the edges like burning paper on which all her thoughts and feelings were written in a beautiful violet cursive so elaborate it resembled flowering trees. Reaching out with her willpower, she gripped a metaphorical branch and was immediately flung back into the limo, transformed from an obscenely expensive car into a magical cockpit.
She gasped. “Oh my Lord!” Referring to God and not to the man who smiled as he casually tossed aside the empty glass.
“You are strong,” he said admiringly, sitting back.
“Did you drug me?” she demanded, sounding more like a hurt child than an angry adult; it was a shock to be betrayed even though she hadn’t trusted him in the first place. “What was that?”
“Blood.”
“Blood?!”
“Ancient blood,” he added proudly. “My blood. You should be honored.”
She stared at his face, at the fine black goatee that almost looked like a shadow, at the equally dark hair brushed back away from his regal features. His lips and nose were fine, distinctly sculpted, firm and sinuous at the same time. Only his eyes were unrestrained, intensely expressive, demanding and observant. She searched those eyes now for her fate and was relieved to see in them—even though it was impossible to explain to herself how she perceived it—that she was in no danger of contracting a disease, at least not a physical one. The much more subtle health of her soul was another matter entirely.
“Why did you make me drink your blood, Falkon?” The situation was so impossible she saw no harm in attempting to discuss it reasonably.
“I didn’t make you do anything, Audrey.” He was wearing a white dress shirt over black jeans that flowed into those heavy black leather boots she clearly remembered walking away from her down the corridor at the Red Fox Inn. “I merely encouraged you to follow your own deepest inclination.”
As if they were merely discussing an unusual weather front she said, “And why would I want to drink your blood?”
“The answer is what you experienced, which is what you truly are.” With his arms resting across the back of the seat he looked at once perfectly relaxed and disturbingly crucified. “The fact that you’re here proves the truth is more important to you than the illusion of helplessness most people cling to with such pathetic tenacity. You’re not here merely because you want to know the truth about what happened to your mother. You’re here, Audrey, because you want to know the truth about
yourself.”
Well, she couldn’t really argue with that. She looked away from him wishing she could draw open one of the curtains and see roads and signs and street lights which would help anchor her in normality. It took her a long time—as he waited with a patience that unnerved her further—to ask the impossible but inevitable question, “Are you a vampire?”
“Would you like me to be vampire?”
“Why on earth,” she glanced back at him in astonishment, “would I want you to be a vampire?”
“A great many women think vampires are sexy. Irresistible even. Would you say I was irresistible, Audrey?”
Deep in her purse her cell phone came to life—the forceful strains of Prokofiev’s Dance of the Knights sounding tinny and powerless.
“A rather ironic ring tone,” he raised an eyebrow, “considering you’re at everyone’s beck and call at every moment.”
With elaborately feigned calm, she reached for her purse. “I only give my number to people I want to talk to.”
“It would be extremely rude of you to answer it.”
“But it might be important…”
“Your priorities are hopelessly confused, Audrey, but it’s not your fault. You’re a child of your times. However, there’s a treasure buried deep beneath your conditioning I intend to unearth and restore to its full glory.”
A debilitating blend of emotions rendered her speechless as her phone went silent. She was frightened and excited; proud of his interest in her and profoundly ashamed by it; insulted yet flattered for there was no separating her soul from that other woman’s…
He whispered, “You know!” leaning toward her. “How do you know?”
The feelings warring inside her reached a paralyzing climax. She mustn’t tell him about the impenetrable mist in the burned out church, where Jonathan’s eyes had transformed into suns that cooled into windows leading into a single room in a seemingly endless mansion where she saw a woman she had been a long time ago. She mustn’t tell him Jonathan had promised to follow her wherever she went…
“Have you dreamed of her?” Falkon cradled her left hand tenderly in his. “Tell me.”
Her right hand reached up and clutched the scarab resting against her chest. “Yes,” she lied, and held her breath.
“How often?”
She exhaled, “Just once!” relieved he believed her.
He let go of her and sat back. “When?”
“Last night… perhaps because you were in the house.”
He rested his left ankle on his right knee. “Why do you say that?” Looking down, he caressed the sleek leather of his boot.
“I’m not sure…”
“Have you seen any wolves on your property, Audrey?”
“Wolves?!” The nervous shock his abrupt question gave her came out sounding convincingly like astonishment. “God no! There have never been any wolves in Ashbury that I know of.”
“Wilona told me she saw a wolf beneath her balcony more than once.”
“Really? Well, she never told me, but then again I haven’t seen her since I was eight-years-old, which was a long time ago. I can’t believe that, for all these years, she’s permitted father and I to fear the worst! It’s unforgivable! If she wanted to leave him for another man she should have just asked him for a divorce!”
She heard her voice rising hysterically and didn’t care at all, in fact it felt good and healthier than the unnatural calm she had been forcing herself to adopt in the face of all the seemingly impossible things happening to her.
“Where are you taking me, Falkon? And why all this secrecy? Am I going to disappear like my mother? Did she get brainwashed by some cult whose members fancy themselves vampires? How sick! Vampires aren’t sexy, they’re killers. How can cold blooded killers possibly be considered sexy?”
“We’re all killers. You eat meat, don’t you?”
His reasonable tone—and how casually he produced and popped opened a bottle of what was apparently merely champagne—at once calmed her by abruptly putting her on the defensive. “Yes, I eat meat, but all of it is organic, humanely and sustainably raised. Our cows and swine and chickens all live happy, healthy lives-”
“Until you kill them.” Smiling, he handed her a tall fluted glass in which hundreds of tiny bubbles floated eagerly toward the surface. “Although of course I realize you never bloody your own hands.”
Desperately, she decided they were simply playing a game. What he had given her to drink must only have been red wine laced with some fast-acting and apparently short-lived hallucinogenic. She felt completely sober now and determined to take control of herself. She said tauntingly, her confidence receiving a further boost when he drained his glass in one hearty swallow and promptly poured himself another, “Real vampires only drink blood.”
“Is that so?” He balanced his glass on his knee and with the index finger of his right hand lightly stroked it.
“Personally,” she crossed her legs defensively and paused to take a fortifying sip of the fine alcohol, “I would hate being a vampire. It would be a curse not to be able to eat food. I love eating delicious food. I consider it to be one of life’s greatest pleasures.”
“Mm, yes, dining is life’s supreme pleasure, no doubt about that.”
She wasn’t sure if it was the champagne or his smile that was making her feel so warm and heady. He was having a bit of fun with her and she was enjoying it. She had never ridden in a limousine before or drunk such fine bubbly or been so titillated by a man’s remarks, all of which insinuated something thrilling while leaving most of it to her imagination.
He asked, “What are you thinking?” but the look in his eyes made her feel he already knew.
“Nothing…”
“So, Audrey, is there anything else you care to tell me about myself?”
“Well, all the traditional rules about the undead are being bent these days. It all depends on the family or coven of vampires you belong to and how politically correct whoever makes them up feels like being.”
He laughed.
It was as though a warm ocean wave washed over her; she couldn’t breathe for a moment. “You should laugh more often, my lord.” Suddenly it felt very right to call him that.
“You’ll have to make me want to laugh,” he chimed his glass against hers, “by making me happy.”
She discovered it was possible to feel empowered and humbled at the same time. “How can I make you happy, Falkon?”
He regarded her soberly. “By remembering who you really are.”
“I’m Audrey Goodrich,” she said firmly.
“That’s your present facade, yes.” He paused to sip his champagne. “But it’s beginning to crack in places, don’t you think?”
It was true. Her thoughts and feelings, her perceptions, her awareness, she could feel them opening up in unexpected and tantalizing ways. Being with Jonathan had a similar affect on her but she felt safe with him. She didn’t trust Falkon. And yet did that have anything to do with him or was it merely knowing he was associated with Wilona that was causing her to be so wary of him? Was she unfairly shooting the messenger? Perhaps the heightened emotional state she had been in ever since she met Jonathan—coupled with the shock of receiving a letter from her long-lost mother—had contributed to the sexy illusion Falkon possessed a mysterious power over her. It was much more likely the only power he had over her was the one her highly active imagination was choosing to give him.
“If I understand you correctly, my lord,” this time she was simply being gracious by acknowledging his social status, “I do believe the façade so painstakingly erected by my reason is indeed beginning to crack in places as the intelligence of my heart—what the ancient Egyptians called it—deepens and begins asserting itself more fearlessly, even knowing the proof my reason demands won’t be forthcoming, not in this lifetime at least.”
“Don’t be so sure about that.” He refilled her empty glass. “There are ways to train the mind so it serves r
ather than hinders you.”
“I take it drugs play at least a small part in this training?” The more intrigued she became by the direction the conversation was taking the more relaxed and content she felt; her body was much like an animal obeying the chemical leash of the exceedingly fine vintage they were enjoying together. “It would have been polite of you to ask me, my lord, if I was in the mood to have my mind bent this evening before you slipped a hallucinogen into what I believed was merely wine.”
“Would you have agreed to drink it,” he studied the excited crowd of air bubbles dancing in his glass, “if I had asked you to?”
“No, definitely not.”
“And yet you sensed it was much more than wine, Audrey, admit it, otherwise you wouldn’t have resisted, which you did at first, before you willingly, of your own free will, drank it all.”
She looked away. “You made me feel I had to.”
“Did I? Or did you choose to believe I was compelling you to drink in order to justify your secret desire to accept what I was offering you because the mystery and the danger excited you?”
She had to admit it was an excellent question. A growing respect for his intellect deepened the effect his intense good looks had had on her from the moment she ran into him in the Red Fox Inn which.
She cleared her throat. “Falkon?”
“Yes, Audrey?”
“What was that I experienced when I drank whatever it was you gave me?”
“The way your brain visualized the truth.”
“The truth? Would you care to define what you mean by the truth?”
“What you really are.”
“Are we still playing the vampire game?”
“We’re always playing games. That’s the nature of incarnation.”
She sighed. “I was hoping you’d be honest with me for a minute.”
“I am being honest with you. It’s you who aren’t being honest with yourself.”
Eternal Blood - Books 1-3 Wolf Shield, Sword of the Blood, Vampire Bride Page 9