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Embraced by the Shadows
By Mayra Calvani
Twilight Times Books
Kingsport, Tennessee
Embraced by the Shadows
No person, persons or places in this book are real. All situations, characters and concepts are the sole invention of the author.
Copyright © 2002 by Mayra Calvani.
Previous edition published by Amber Quill, 2003, with title, “Dark Hunger."
Author's preferred edition published April 2006.
All rights reserved. Except for very brief quotes in reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form.
Twilight Times Books
P O Box 3340
Kingsport TN
twilighttimesbooks.com/
Credits
Cover artwork—Ardy M. Scott
Managing Editor—Ardy M. Scott
Publisher: Lida E. Quillen
Electronically published in the United States of America.
PROLOGUE
Istanbul, twelve years ago
As soon as he saw her, he knew the time would come when he would make her his eternal companion.
She shone like a sparkling jewel amidst the crowd, with her slightly-slanted large black eyes and her silky reddish curls rippling down her small back. A mere child-woman, she stood in front of one of the many shops which swarmed this ancient place, gazing intently at an oil painting of angels displayed in the vitrine. Dramatic and somewhat disturbing, the painting depicted in painful detail an auburn-haired angel being cast out of Heaven.
He caught her scent. Somewhat dazed, he stared at her.
The same slanted black eyes, the same long reddish hair. Uncanny, the resemblance. She looked so much like...
For a bitter second he closed his eyes and commanded himself to forget. Then everything was fine again, and his eyes opened and the faintest shadow of a smile crossed his face.
Would he drink from her tonight? Would he allow himself that luxury? Three-hundred years ago he would have been unable to take the little drink. He would have been too fervent, too lost in rapture. But that was three centuries ago. Not that he indulged in the little drink too often, for he liked to take his victims completely, loving the gush of warm blood in his mouth, until he ceased to hear the haunting, drum-like beat of the heart.
No, he would not touch her. He would leave her intact.
He studied her in silence.
She seemed mesmerized by the painting of the fallen angel. The virulent clouds, the agonizing faces of the good angels surrounding the “fallen” one, the almost palpable sadness and rage—these seemed to strike a deep core within her. He could see through her artistic soul; unbeknown to herself, she had fallen in love with the beauty of the colors, the purity of the lines, and the tragic fatalism of it.
A sigh escaped her. She glanced distractedly at the passing tourists with an annoyed spark in her eye.
Turning to face the street, she waited for her mother and uncle, who were inside the shop. She pouted, restless and tired and bored.
He scanned her crystal thoughts. It was like breathing in the delicate scents of spring mountain air, so intoxicating. She loved the painting, but there's no way her mom would get it for her; it wasn't too large but looked way too expensive. She wanted to go back to their hotel, she wished she were back home, where she could roller-skate with her best friend. This place stank of old clothes and sweat, and she didn't want to see another stupid museum or mosque in her entire life. Why in the devil had they brought her here?
And then something happened. She seemed to have sensed his piercing gaze, and looked right to his direction. For an intense moment her black eyes locked themselves into his.
She seemed startled, her pale face solemn. She averted her gaze, slightly turning her face away, only to throw him a curious sideways glance a second later. A perfectly unconscious gesture, yet she couldn't have guessed in a million years the effect it had on him.
He would have consumed her right then and there, if it weren't for one of his self-imposed rules about staying away from children. Not that he was doing a great job at this moment. Here he was, wasn't he? Devouring her with his eyes as a wolf devours a lamb.
But even in his mortal lifetime, sticking to rules had never been one of his greatest qualities.
Her mother and her uncle, carrying bags of goods and souvenirs in their hands, stepped out of the shop. The little princess pointed to the painting and pleaded with her mom to get it for her. Her mother took one look at the painting and shook her head. “That's morbid!” she said, then went on to argue that she had already bought her many gifts and her unreasonable requests would make her bankrupt. Nevertheless, she went inside the shop to ask for the price. A moment later she came back, looking incredulous and muttering in disbelief, “Ridiculous! A thousand dollars for that thing. Sorry, mi amor, but I can't afford it."
It was late, almost ten, but the Grand Bazaar was bustling with locals and tourists, as it had always been on warm summer nights for the past few centuries. The glitter of gold and copper and brass, lavishly displayed behind dozens and dozens of shop windows, could dazzle anybody's eyes: Heavy spices, Ottoman sweets of grape and nut pastes with the promise of aphrodisiac qualities, sacks filled with Arab coffees and the best teas from the northeastern little city of Rize, almond oils and musks, hennas, hundreds of hand-made silk carpets with exorbitant price tags, their bright colors and details blinding. And the leather—endless leather shops, filled with the soft yet pungent scent of animal skins. A very loud, wildly exotic belly-dancing melody came out of one of the shops, and an oddly pleasing smell, that of cigarette smoke mixed with incense and raki—the local alcoholic drink made from anise—hovered in the air.
Her uncle took her by the hand, and they all started to walk toward the exit passage of the bazaar.
She suddenly glanced over her shoulder to look at him, her eyes wide with curiosity and wonder.
It caught him off guard.
He gave her a smile, and quickly had to close his mouth. Damn! He had gotten carried away, and in spite of himself, his canines had partially lengthened. He could feel their sharp and pointed little tips against his lower lip.
She frowned, startled and a bit uncertain, not sure whether what she had seen was illusion or reality. Then she turned her head forward and that was that, she was lost amidst the crowd.
He felt just a twinge of guilt. He had not meant to frighten her.
For an awful moment he craved to hold her, to pierce the tender curve of her throat. The image was too tortuous for him to tolerate.
He despised himself. She's too young, you old fiend.
In long easy strides he went out of the bazaar and into the open night air, and from a distance watched them get into a taxi and ask for the Istanbul Hilton.
Her uncle now seemed in good spirits, clapping his hands and saying he couldn't wait to get to the casino.
Suddenly overwhelmed by a keen urge to appease himself, he walked into one of the many ill-reputed, dark narrow streets near the bazaar and finished off a couple of shabby, despicable-looking mortals in two intense short draughts.
Then he walked back into the bazaar to p
urchase the painting.
Once out of the shop, he headed to the Istanbul Hilton...
CHAPTER 1
Alana woke with a start. She lifted herself on her elbows and glanced quickly about the room.
Darkness.
A bit panicky, she fumbled for the night lamp by her bed and switched it on. She could hear herself breathing. Her heart pounded hard inside her chest, and a sticky film of perspiration covered her skin. She felt exhausted, confused, even mortified, and yet secretly excited, fascinated.
It had happened again for the third time.
The dream. Or was it a nightmare? But nightmares are supposed to frighten, and she had not been frightened. She had been ... but no, it was too weird.
She rose heavily from the bed. She walked over to the dressing table and, leaning on it, stared at herself in the mirror. Her dark almond-shaped eyes looked huge under the subtle yellow light. Her long lashes cast eerie shadows across her face and gave her a ghostly appearance. Her hair tumbled in wild tousled waves to either side almost to her waist. Annoyed, she shoved one heavy strand away from her face.
What a morbid creature you are, she told herself. Then she laughed, softly. It felt good, laughing; strangely comforting. At least her sense of humor never abandoned her.
She walked over to the sliding glass door and opened the curtain. The clear Puerto Rican night sky spread out before her like an enormous luminescent tapestry. At seventeen stories high, she couldn't ask for a better view. Unlike many people she knew, she didn't mind the height at all. In fact, she loved it. A few months ago, when she had been looking for an apartment to rent, she had told the real estate agent that she wanted a really high place, that she wanted to live high up in the skies, that she wished to have the feeling of being able to fly off one night if she wanted to. Fly off? Why had she said such a silly thing?
She pushed open the sliding glass door and stepped out into the balcony. There was no moon tonight, no breeze, only a bold and disturbing stillness. Closing her eyes, she began to massage her temples with the tips of her fingers in soft, circular motions. She tried to go back to her dreams, tried to submerge herself into the murky waters of her subconscious. She tried to force herself to remember the whole thing from beginning to end. But, as usual, it was no use. Everything came to her in little fragments.
The creature.
Or was it a man? The strength and safety of the powerful arms that could have crushed her in a second. And the face, a face she couldn't remember but which she knew—somehow she knew—to be wise and magnificent and ancient. The hypnotic way the fingers had touched her, caressing her ever so lightly, and sending such powerful shivers into her body that she had almost convulsed. The finger had traced little circles on her throat ... no, it had been a long nail, she could recall that distinctly. A long and pointed nail like storybook witches have. Yet she had not been afraid nor repulsed by it. On the contrary, it had sent her into a delicious trance from which she had not wanted to escape. The raspy tongue, icy cold, had licked the soft curve of her throat, the nape of her neck, and she had felt herself lost, drowned in a bottomless lake of rapture.
And the teeth ... yes, the evil teeth! Uncannily long, sparklingly white, razor-sharp.
"Oh, my God,” she whispered, opening her eyes and shaking her head. “I'm going crazy."
She had always been an unusual child, perpetually obsessed with anything that had to do with the occult, ghosts, werewolves, witches. In secondary school she used to pretend she was possessed by the devil and frighten the other girls, staring at them with a demonic expression on her dark-eyed face. She always had her nose in a book, the kind of book that wasn't suitable for an innocent girl of her age in a Catholic convent school—books about witchcraft, demons, the psychology of criminals, famous murders in history. But even though she was morbidly interested in all of this, most of the time, simply out of boredom, she enjoyed shocking her classmates.
One day, for instance, she drew on the blackboard a picture of a woman, a large curved knife in hand, stabbing a man. It was a very detailed picture—droplets of blood dripping from the wounds and the knife. Of course, the nuns became horrified. The news of this demonic act reached Mother Superior, who summoned Alana into her office. But Alana, with her sweet nature and good grades, told her that it had all been a joke, a bad joke to scare her classmates. The nuns always forgave her, loved her, thinking that they understood her. Alana was sure the nuns attributed it to the loss of her mother. They had to, after all, the girl was most likely suffering, had recently lost her mother.
Apart from this fierce curiosity for the supernatural, Alana had been a totally normal child—with all the good and bad that goes with it. That's why she couldn't understand this darker side she had. She felt as if it had always been part of her, though it had intensified after her mother's death. But then again, perhaps it was only human to have a darker side. Perhaps everybody had one.
And the dreams...
"It's all because of that ridiculous place,” she muttered, turning back into her bedroom, suddenly angry at the world in general. Who had thought of opening that silly place, anyway? La Cueva del Vampiro—what a cliché. If she were the owner of the place, she would have been more original than that. Perhaps she would tell the owner. But she didn't even know the owner, had never met the person, didn't even know if it was a man or a woman. Wait a minute. She knew it was a businessman, the old man who gave her the job had said so.
"Congratulations, Señorita Piovanetti. The job is yours.” It was a soft voice, nearly caressing.
"Really?” She stared at him, surprised.
"I don't see why not. A degree in philosophy from the University of Boston, magna cum laude, and from what I can tell from the interview—imaginative, responsible, enthusiastic. These are important qualities in a manager. It's true that you don't have any working experience, but that's not very important."
"No?” This was crazy. She didn't know anything about business. She hated anything having to do with business!
"Not at all. It's always better to hire somebody young, with fresh ideas ... like you.” He smiled vaguely. Had there been a strange shimmer in his eyes? A tall thin man in his late sixties, he'd been clad in an expensive-looking grey suit, with an oddly alluring smell emanated from him, redolent of pines and humid earth. He explained how he was not the owner of the restaurant, no, not at all, the owner was an important businessman who traveled a lot. No, not Puerto Rican, not American, why was she so interested in his origin? He had smiled, condescending. He represented the owner's business interests here in San Juan. He had been put in charge, whatever problems she might have she should contact him....
So, even though she was only a twenty-two-year-old Nietzsche freak fresh out of college, she had gotten the job as the restaurant manager of La Cueva del Vampiro, the new nightclub everybody in the city was talking about.
She would get an excellent salary, ridiculously so, and she needed the money to pay her share of the apartment. Later, after having acquired some working experience, she would look for another job, maybe go for her master's. Restaurant management was definitely not for her, but the truth was, as soon as she had read the job opening in the newspaper, she had been instantly and magnetically drawn to it. The idea of dressing up as a vampire, of pretending to be a vampire became an immediate obsession.
It appeared too good to be true, and yet she had a bizarre feeling deep inside her, as if the job had somehow been waiting for her. For her. But no. As usual, she kept falling prey to her imagination. Her friends, who knew all about her perpetual fascination with the supernatural, had been happy for her, congratulated her, joked about how at last she had fulfilled her dreams and become a vampire. A vampire! Ominous jokes, they were. And she had laughed, they had drunk champagne until two in the morning, and she had gotten shamelessly intoxicated.
And then that night she had had the first dream. The creature or whatever it was. Taking her in his arms, doing terrible yet wonderful
things to her, taking her away, far, far away, somewhere....
She glanced at the clock on the night table, a Mickey Mouse mechanical clock she had bought in Disney World when she was a little girl. It said 3:05 a.m.
It looked out of place, the Mickey Mouse clock. Smiling Mickey, with his thin arms and white-gloved hands pointing at the numbers. It looked too innocent, somehow contrasting sharply with the sober, modern furnishings. She had walked into the shop with her mother, who pointed out to her that the Snow White clock was much nicer. But no, just to go against her mother, Alana had chosen the Mickey Mouse clock. Even after all these years, the memory still made her wince.
Taking a long deep breath, she went back to bed, trying to clear her mind, to shove away the thoughts about her dead mother. She knew from experience how damaging they could be.
And the creature...
She closed her eyes tightly, as if by doing so, she could push away the haunting memory of that long pointed nail at her throat, of the gooseflesh the mere recollection of his proximity gave her.
Go away, damn you, go away, leave me alone, let me sleep!
She needed sleep.
Tomorrow was the opening night at La Cueva del Vampiro.
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"What would you like?” Valeria Acosta said, her moist brown eyes scanning the menu with childish relish.
"I'm not very hungry,” Alana said. “I'll just have a salad and a glass of wine."
"You're not hungry? I'm starving! I'll have ... I'll have the T-bone steak with French fries."
They were sitting at their favorite corner table at El Metropol, a lively Cuban restaurant with low prices, friendly waiters, and generous portions. As usual at this time, the place was filled with voices and laughter and the clinking of forks and plates and glasses. Lots of noise, lots of cigarette smoke. Frantic waiters rushing trays from one end of the place to another.
After they had ordered and the waiter served them their wine, Valeria lifted her glass to Alana and said solemnly, “To my twin soul. May you have unlimited success in your first job. Or should I say, in your first immortal job?"
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