Secret of the Vampire

by L. E. Wilson

  And now, there was the vampire…

  Her blood sweet on my tongue, I got out of the car and went inside the house where my source had assured me I would be undisturbed. Although most of the back had been destroyed by weather, the front of it was still intact. And as it was barely habitable anymore, I highly doubted anyone would mind me using it for the brief time I would be here.

  Inside, I took off my long, black coat and hung it by the door. Hands linked behind my back, I wandered over to the side window to watch the sun rise over the swamp and think of how I was going to get a vampire away from her master. A feat that was nigh impossible and not without great risk, but one someone like me could overcome.

  The harder part was going to convince Alex and Alice that their place was with me.

  Alice.

  The name brought up memories I would rather forget. Memories of another woman with that name, also a witch, who I’d had wrapped around my finger for a time.

  Or, I would have if it hadn’t been for that insolent brother of mine.

  Victor had wanted her for his own, and, somehow, he had convinced her that I was the bad guy in that whole scenario. And just when I’d managed to talk her into using her magic to bring me into this world, they’d quickly sent me back to my own. Fools that they were, distracted by their fairytale happily ever after, they’d expected me to stay there.

  Forty years later, I came back and killed them both. Then, I took over Alice’s coven.

  In that time, they’d had children, who also had children. By this time, unhappy with my rule, some of the witches had scattered, leaving their mountain outside of Seattle. One of those witches had born the twins I’d now just discovered here, in New Orleans, far from the home of their birth. Direct descendants of my brother, Victor, and his love, Alice.

  My blood. My family.

  The man, Alex, I’d been told was the one who’d removed my curse from the vampire.

  What I hadn’t counted on was his continued protection of the female vampire. I’d decided she was too much of a distraction, one that needed to be removed. I didn’t want him to have anything else that would tie him to this place. But all things happened for a reason. If last night’s occurrences hadn’t occurred exactly how they had, I would not have tasted her blood. And I would not now know what I did…

  That this vampire could bring back my Alice. I admit, I’d been hasty in my anger when I’d killed her, for I missed her more than I ever thought I would.

  So, I will bring her back. With the two of us ruling side by side and my niece and nephew back where they belong, none would be more powerful. Every other coven in the world would have to come into our fold or be extinguished. No other creature, supernatural or otherwise, would be able to touch us.

  We would be immortal.

  We would be all powerful.

  We would rule the fucking world.

  All I needed was the vampire with voodoo in her blood. And my nephew would be the one to bring her to me.

  Chapter 5

  Alex

  My sister, Alice, was waiting for me when I got home. I wasn’t surprised. She was a strong witch. A locked door did little to keep her out when she really wanted to get in somewhere.

  I hardly spared her a glance, sitting prettily on the edge of the couch in my small apartment, fingers laced together on her lap. As usual, she wore what our mother would’ve called “hippie” clothes, all loose and flowing and bright.

  I rather liked that look on her though. It suited her.

  Taking off my coat, I tossed it onto the back of a kitchen chair. “I’m tired, Alice. What is it that you want?”

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I would like to go to bed, except my annoying sister has made it a habit to break into my home and keep me awake with her incessant questions.”

  “It’s morning.”

  “I can see that,” I told her, indicating the daylight coming through the single window.

  My home was a tiny, one bedroom apartment on Saint Charles Ave in The Garden District. It wasn’t much to look at with its fake wood floors and beige walls, but it was clean. And it was mine. And I didn’t need much. There was a tiny coat closet by the entry door and another, only slightly bigger closet, in the bedroom. The kitchen was shoved into a small hallway that connected the entry to the living room and consisted of a white sink, a small, white oven, and a miniature refrigerator. There were three white cabinets above the sink, and maybe a foot of counter space made of some sort of ugly, brown laminate taken up by a microwave that took care of most of my meals.

  Luckily, I wasn’t much of a cook.

  My bedroom, if you could call it that, had an air conditioner shoved into the window. And when it came on, it shook the entire building. A queen-sized bed was squeezed into the corner, and that left me just enough room to open the closet doors where I stashed my clothes and my camera equipment.

  The old, black, leather couch my sister sat on was the only other furniture, other than the secondhand TV near the window. I hardly ever watched it. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for me.

  By the way she perched on the edge, careful not to touch any more of the cushion than she had to, Alice gave off the distinct impression that she did not agree. “You could’ve just called,” I told her.

  “So you could ignore my phone calls and messages?”

  With a sigh, I grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge and sat down beside her, offering her one.

  “Alex, it’s barely past sunrise. And don’t you have to work today?”

  “No. I’m between gigs.” Winters were slow for me. “And your point?” I asked, offering the beer again.

  She stared at me with what I like to call her “mom stare,” because it was the same look our mother used to give me before she died and left the two of us alone. Well, not exactly alone. We had Judy, and the coven. And we had each other.

  Her expression softened, and her brown eyes filled with concern.

  Gods. Here we fucking go.

  “Alex, I’m worried about you.”

  “And why is that, Alice? What the fuck are you worried about this time?”

  “Your obsession with the female vampire,” she told me bluntly.

  That was one thing I liked about my sister. She didn’t waste my time. Or anyone else’s, for that matter.

  “Kenya,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Her name is Kenya.” I took a long swig of my beer, trying to fight down the reaction I had just mentioning her name.

  “All right. Kenya,” she repeated. “I’m worried about your obsession with her.” She paused. “I know where you were all night.”

  “If you know that, then you also know why I was there.”

  “It’s not up to you to protect her, Alex. She’s just a vampire.”

  I exploded up off the couch. “Jesus Christ, Alice! Stop fucking saying that.” We’d had this same conversation when she first found out I was hanging around the outskirts of The Quarter in my free time.

  Luckily, she was used to my moods, and hardly reacted anymore. “It’s true. She’s not your concern.”

  Finishing off the bottle I was on, I set it down on the TV stand and popped the cap off the other one. “She wouldn’t even exist right now if it wasn’t for me.”

  “That doesn’t make her yours.”

  I stilled. I couldn’t look at her. Because that’s exactly how I felt. My lovely sister had nailed it on the head with a few softly spoken words. “I never said she was.”

  Her skirt rustled as she stood and made her way over to me, putting her face in my line of vision until I had no choice but to look at her. “Alex, you’re my brother. You’re all I have left. Getting involved with the vamp…with Kenya,” she corrected, “will cause you nothing but a whole lot of trouble. It may even get you kicked out of the coven, if her master doesn’t kill you first.”

  “Killian is mated to a witch.”

  “A witch who isn’t p
art of our coven. At least, not officially. And do you honestly think that will make him—or Aunt Judy—more lenient?”

  I searched her delicate face, so like my own, and yet at the same time so different. I didn’t want to think about Killian or Kenya’s blood tie to him. “How did you know?” I asked her, giving up the pretense.

  One side of her mouth lifted in a patronizing smile. “How do you know what I’m feeling all the time?”

  Tipping the bottle to my mouth, I chugged down half of it before I could meet her eyes again, and changed the subject. “Why do you think that is, Alice?”

  She shrugged. “It’s a twin thing. It’s always been like this with us.” She shoved at my shoulder playfully. “It’s the same reason I’m not afraid of your temper.” Her expression got serious. “I know it’s only because you feel things so deeply, Alex. And sometimes it’s too much for you, and it has to come out.”

  But I shook my head. “It’s more than that. And don’t try to tell me it’s not.”

  “Your temper?”

  “No. You know what I mean.”

  Alice just looked at me with that patient expression of hers, the one that made me want to scream in her face.

  Instead, I cocked my head to the side, regarding my sister with narrowed eyes. “Do you really believe this is just normal magic? And don’t fucking lie to me. Because you know damn well there’s something else with you and me, Alice. Something within us that’s not the same as the rest of the family.” I paced to the window and back, unable to stand still. “Not one witch was able to help Kenya at the swamp that night, Alice. Not fucking one. Even Judy, who, as the High Priestess, is supposed to be not only the eldest but the most powerful, didn’t know what to do.” I leaned down into her face. “I did, Alice. I knew what to do.”

  She backed away. Not because I was in her face, I knew better than that, but to hide her own. “It was a lucky draw—”

  “No! It was more than that and you fucking know it. It was,”—I looked around the room, desperately searching for an explanation on the beige walls—“I don’t know. Instinct. Something dark inside of me that responded to the evil inside of her. I’d sensed it before that night, but I’d never tried to tap into it.”

  “Why not?” she challenged. “If it’s been there all along, why haven’t you tried to harness it before now?”

  She didn’t believe me. “Because I was fucking scared,” I told her gruffly, afraid if I said the words too loud the shit inside of me would hear and make itself known, just to fuck with me. “And stop acting like you didn’t feel it, too. We were linked. All of us were linked. There’s no way I could have done what I did without drawing on the magic of the entire coven. So don’t stand there and act like you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.”

  “If you’re so sure about this, why are you just saying this to me now, brother? It’s been weeks.”

  I shook my head. I didn’t know.

  “Because you’ve been too busy obsessing about your vampire,” she answered for me, getting back to her original subject. “You have to stop, Alex. You can’t just go to the vampire’s club by yourself without permission. If you get caught sneaking around to see that vampire, the peace between our covens will be over.”

  I didn’t bother to ask her how she knew where I was. It was obvious now why she was here, other than to lecture me. She’d needed something of mine to do a tracking spell. “How long have you been here tracking me?”

  “Long enough to know you had the balls to not only go to The Purple Fang, but to go to their house. Their home, Alex. How would that not have come off as a threat if you’d been caught?”

  “I wasn’t caught.”

  “But. What. If. You. Were.”

  Finishing my beer, I went to the fridge and grabbed another. She was right. She was completely fucking right. If I’d been caught, there would’ve been no getting out of it. I doubted Killian would’ve listened to Kenya long enough to give her a chance to fight for my life, even if she would have.

  As I stood staring into the open fridge with a cold beer in my hand, I felt my sister’s touch on my arm. Turning my head, I looked down at her, letting her see the anguish on my face. She was the only one I ever exposed myself to like this. “I had to do something. Whatever had come after her the first time is back. It’s here, in New Orleans. And it’s not here to sightsee. It’s here for her.”

  “Perhaps you should just let it have her.”

  She didn’t mean it in a hateful way. I could feel her emotions nearly as well as my own, and they were as heavy as mine. She was only trying to keep me safe. To keep our coven safe.

  “You’ve always been so hard to control,” she told me. “But you have to remember, Alex, it’s not just you. It’s all of us.”

  “You have it, too,” I told her. “Stop skirting around the subject. I feel it within you, Alice. It’s not as strong, but it’s there.”

  “Alex. Stop.”

  “I felt it that night at the swamp. The darkness in you flowing through the coven’s combined magic. It fed into mine. It helped me grab onto the ugliness inside of Kenya and rip it out. There’s no way I could’ve held onto it without your help. She would’ve died. Kenya would’ve died.” My voice broke and I turned away. Embarrassed.

  “But she didn’t.” Alice squeezed my arm. “However you did it, however we did it, doesn’t matter. We saved her, and we prevented the war that surely would’ve started if Killian had lost one of his most precious possessions. Because that’s exactly what she is, and what would’ve happened. In his grief, he would’ve come after us, and the rest of his vampires would’ve reacted the same. It was why Aunt Judy was so determined to stay out of it to begin with, until Lizzy convinced her otherwise.”

  Closing the door to the fridge, I turned around and leaned up against it. “Why won’t you just admit it?”

  She held her hands out, genuinely confused. “Admit what, Alex? That we have some imaginary demon magic inside of us?”

  With a frustrated sigh, I looked away.

  “Look,” she told me. “All I’m asking is that you think of the rest of us before you go running off to try to be the night in shining armor to a female who does not need your help.”

  “She needed it tonight.”

  “She won’t anymore. I’m sure she’s telling her master all about it even as we speak.”

  “Gods, Alice! Stop calling him that.”

  “Why? That’s what he is. And you’d do well to remember it.”

  I was growing tired of this conversation. If she wasn’t who she was, I would’ve kicked her out long before now. “I need some sleep.”

  Though I wouldn’t look at her, I felt her eyes searching my face for a long moment before she finally said, “Okay. I’ll go. But…just think about what I said. And stay the hell out of The Quarter, Alex.”

  I nodded, letting her know I heard what she was saying, but neither confirming nor denying I would do either one.

  Following her to the door, I grabbed her arm before she could leave. “And when you’re ready to talk about the fact that there’s something else going on with us, feel free to come break into my apartment again so we can try to figure out what the hell it is and what it means for us.”

  “I didn’t break in,” she deflected.

  “Do you have a key?” I asked.

  She stared up at me with big, guileless, brown eyes. “If you didn’t want me in here, you’d ward the apartment to keep me out.”

  A laugh broke out from my chest. Grabbing the back of her head, I pulled her toward me and dropped a kiss on her honey-blonde hair. “Now get out.”

  Opening the door, she stepped out into the hallway. “Don’t forget we have a thing tomorrow night at Aunt Judy’s.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Closing the door behind her, I threw the lock. Out of respect for my sister, I’d think about what she’d said. It wouldn’t keep me away from Kenya, but I’d think about it.

&nb
sp; I was already feeling uneasy being so far away from her.

  Chapter 6

  Luukas Kreek, Master Vampire Seattle, WA

  I stared through my apartment window at the lights of Seattle, concentrating on my breathing. Taking a deep inhale and then slowly releasing the breath, I focused on the beauty outside and attempted to slow my heart rate.

  I’d loved my city since the moment I’d first set foot in it. Even now, in the state my head was in, it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge she was even more beautiful after the invention of electricity.

  However, these days it was a struggle to find any appreciation for the view that had always brought me so much peace.

  With the side of my closed fist, I swiped at the bedroom window, foggy from the rain, though logically I knew it would do no good.

  My emotions churned out of control.

  Closing my eyes, I pressed both palms against the cool glass. Was I dreaming? It was difficult for me to decipher the prison of my mind from reality at times…

  Still. After all these months.

  Flashes of bloodstains and the stench of burning flesh assaulted my senses. My flesh. My head fell forward, the sting of my fangs punching down as my fingertips slid along the smooth glass, trying to find something to anchor me in my new reality.

  Slowly, gradually, the horrors faded. I lifted my head, and the city came back into focus. I took another deep breath. Then another. And another. It did little to calm my racing heart.

  Rubbing my damp palms on my bare thighs, I glanced over at my witch, asleep on the bed. The sun would be up soon, and she was passed out hard, oblivious to my loss of control. Her long hair was a dark cloud across her pillow, one arm flung out as though searching for me even in her sleep. I listened to her soft breathing as my eyes travelled over the smooth skin of her back and shoulders. I matched my breath with hers, and finally, my racing heart settled into a more normal rhythm.