Eden's Charms (12 page)

“Jules!” Savanah whispered her demeanor fed up.

He just smirked at her then winked. “I got your back, Peanut.”

Chapter Seven

With the subtlest twinge, André stretched his fingers, one at a time. They were stiff, rigor mortis had set in. He attempted to lift his arm, but it was dead weight. His gut clenched and for a brief moment he thought he would vomit, but then a hunger pang like nothing he’d ever experienced or wanted to again, rode him like a cowboy on a bull, gripping him for dear life. His hand snaked across the bed, and with a crushing force, latched on to the first thing he found.

Jovan.

****

“Three hours tops, my saucy little tomato.” Duncan told Molly, “One quick stop at the morgue to pick up blood products for André’s replacement when he comes out of his slumber, and we’re good to go. Serina says a transfusion will hopefully ward off the initial shock of being bloodless. The one thing I’ve learned living with vamps is that they aren’t a fussy bunch. Blood is blood, no matter where it comes from. I mean look at me! Who in their right mind would want a piece of this?” Duncan grinned to his reflection in the rear view mirror. Serina and Lucian burst out laughing. He stuck his tongue out at them. “Other than you, of course, my red-hot momma.” Duncan laughed into his cell phone.

Savanah grabbed the cell from Molly and begged, “Duncan, just this once, drive like me and get home fast?”

“Molly? Savanah? Did one of you get another speeding ticket?” Dial tone!

****

By the time they reached Saratoga, André was wide-awake, and busy battling his own demons as well as everyone in the house. He gnawed Jovan’s wrist open the way a starved animal would ravage his prey, ruthlessly. Feeling a heavy blow in the back of the head, André turned to see Julian wielding the base of a tall, iron floor lamp. As he lifted his arm to defend himself, talons burst out from beneath his fingers and replaced nicely manicured nails.

“What the hell is happening to me,” he screamed in agony and disbelief.

Julian dropped the lamp and took one step toward him. “Ands?”

André unleashed one powerful blow in the center of Julian’s chest. Not a second passed before Julian’s shirt turned a wet crimson color. André watched with a newfound enthusiasm. He rolled his eyes the length of his brother-in-law. His nose twitched like a rabbit, scenting a sweet, coppery aroma.

“Oh shit,” was all Julian said.

“Papa?” Savanah took a step toward him.

André heard the word
Papa
and started to laugh and like the clutch on his car, he switched gears and began to cry. He stared into his family’s faces and screamed, “Who in hell are you people?”

Savanah clasped her hand over her mouth, shocked at her father’s apparent amnesia. She expected the bloodlust, but not knowing her or her mother was incomprehensible.

“André? It’s me—your wife.” Jovan pointed to Savanah. “This is your daughter.” She pleaded, “Please remember us.”

With André distracted, Jonah and Payton jumped in and tried to wrangle him to the ground, but André spun on them. He grabbed Jonah by the forearms and dropped backwards, bringing Jonah down with him. As he hit the floor, André jammed his foot into Jonah’s groin and pushed up sending Jonah sailing over his head and into the wall. “One down.” André brushed off his hands. With his next breath of air, Andre did a scissor kick and took Payton’s legs out from under him. Payton tumbled to the floor and slammed his head on the edge of the coffee table. “Who’s next?” André stood and struck a boxing pose.

“You, Ands.” Julian aimed his taser gun at his brother-in-law.

Jonah protested as he stood, “No, Jules, that thing is inhumane,” and stumbled into the line of fire, intercepting the four darts into his own hide.

For a minute no one moved, spoke or bit anyone.

Jonah turned to Julian, a mixture of pain and disbelief plastered all over his face. He lunged awkwardly to the left and landed on a small winged-back chair in front of the window. His hand automatically went to the darts, trying to pry them from his skin, but his entire body writhed with supercharged volts of electricity. Before he passed out his last words were, “Could someone find my balls?”

Donovan rushed Andre, but André used his forward momentum to his vantage and hoisted Donovan up over his head, across the room, into and then over Julian, ending at the foot of a dresser, breaking a large antique mirror atop it.

****

“Hello, hello!” Duncan shouted, as he shoved open the front door with a foot. “Molly?”

From the second floor landing, Raven stuck her head over the railing and screamed, “Get up here, now. Duncan, Luce—André woke up with a vengeance.” Raven ducked as a chair went sailing past her and over the balcony. The chair shattered only feet from where Duncan stood.

With their next breaths, Serina took the stairs, Elyza cradled to her chest while Lucian and Duncan passed her taking five and six steps at a time. At the end of the hallway they were greeted by an anxious mob of family members.

“Papa’s gone bonkers, Uncle Luce,” Savanah cried. “Auntie, get Elyza out of here. He doesn’t recognize any of us.”

“Lucian, go to your brother now.” Serina started to follow, but hands from every direction grabbed her. “Let go of me,” she protested. “I know what I’m do—” Seeing her mother, her words caught in her throat like insects in a web.

“You are not going in there with that baby?” Olivia’s question to her daughter sounded more like a direct order.

“Hello, Mum. Nice to see you too,” she added, intent on sounding sarcastic.

“Can I hold her?” Olivia asked her arms out.

Serina gave her a vexatious glare. “Are you insane? How do I know you won’t evanesce with her?”

Olivia’s arms dropped limp to her side.

“I’ll be joining my husband on the other side of that damned door. Excuse me.” Serina shoved open the door and found her husband, who’d hit the stairs running when they’d entered the house, and brother-in-law on the floor, André on top and Lucian the bottom. Getting mauled.

Broken furniture, shattered glass, and blood-splattered walls now gave the room a morose ambiance. All that was missing was the
crime scene investigating team. “André?” Serina whispered, “I have someone who wants to meet you. Look at me.
Pssst
!” She tried again and when no one answered she yelled, “André, it’s me, Serina. You need to listen to me. Stop biting your brother.”

When he lifted his head and turned to her, she gasped. His sunken, blood-shot eyes looked right through her. Bloody tears splattered his cheeks. His hair, which he always kept neat, was a cluster of angry curls and new fangs rested over his bottom lip, stained red, but Serina was thankful he recognized his name.

Serina, the true optimist. If she’d had a free hand, she’d have pat her own back.

“Serina!” Lucian’s voice spilled onto the floor, along with his blood. “My brother sits on the brink of madness and here my wife and daughter stand, like a fresh milk and cookie snack. My wild rose, you wouldn’t go to the zoo and play with the lions, tigers and bears before they’d been fed, would you?”

Lucian, it will be fine. You need to trust me.

“Serina, André isn’t himself at this moment. He’s not feeling well. I have to wonder about you too, bringing your baby into this.” Jovan spoke up as she pulled the darts from her unconscious brother.

Serina asked, “Jovan, come to me. Now please.”

Jovan didn’t budge.

With a bug-eyed glare and nod of her head Serina urged, “Take the baby and walk to your husband.”

“Serina, no!” Lucian screamed again, louder.

“I’m not deaf, Lucian,” She snapped. “If Mohamed won’t come to the mountain… Jovan, meet Elyza, your niece. Elyza, this is my stubborn, older sister, Jovan.” Serina skirted around the broken glass and objects and placed her little angel in Jovan’s arms.

André methodically followed her every step.

Jovan met the little girl’s curious gaze and tears fell. “This baby is a miracle, a new beginning—a lifeline to carry on our love and families. She brings us hope, when we have had none for so very long.” Jovan blew a kiss to her sister.

Jovan stood and carried the baby to her husband and in a soft tone said, “Look who I have in my arms, André. See what you and I have to look forward to in five months. André, she is so beautiful and full of life. She needs both her parents just as the two babies I carry will need you.”

André swung his head back to Lucian then glanced at Serina, his head off to one side, his giant bluish-black eyes void of life.

Lucian tapped his arm. “André, do you remember when I first turned?”

André followed the sound of Lucian’s voice back to him, and rested on all the blood covering his twin. He licked his lips then gave pause. “Ask me first if I remember you.”

“You will. Serina is going to set up a few things and give you blood. You are a little anemic right now. It’s why you’re having trouble concentrating.”

“Anemic? That’s what this is called now?” A gurgled laugh crawled from André’s throat.

Apprehension still very apparent, Lucian looked at his wife and nodded. “Serina, ask Raven to get the blood ready.”

“André, what do you think of your niece?” Jovan gingerly put her hand on her husband’s shoulder to keep his train of thoughts to more pleasant things.

He turned, and she jerked back her hand. The blood oozing from her wrist caught his attention.

Speaking in a low monotone pitch, Lucian suggested, “André, if you take her wrist to your mouth, two things will happen. You will get a small taste of what your wife has to offer you and your saliva will coagulate the wounds you’ve given her. You can heal her right now. I didn’t have anyone to help me when I first turned. You have all of us.”

“You are a sick son of a—” He inhaled. The scent of blood exploded in his airway; he doubled over, a tight grip on his abdomen. “Why would anyone want—” André squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. In what felt like a lifetime to him, memories of his previous life flooded his circuits. About to say something he gagged, then spit-up some gooey, black sludge that looked like something drained from a 1920’s pick-up truck all over his twin.

Lucian wiped the mess from his eyes. “And I thought Elyza’s spit up was foul!”

André reached for Jovan.

Jovan readily stepped back.

Wiping his mouth off with his sleeve André tried again. His voice raspy he asked, “Lucian, what did you do this room? Who pissed you off?”

Lucian choked back a mixture of tears and laughter.

André turned to Jovan. “Cherié? What happened? Did Lucian hurt you?” More sanguineous tears rolled from his cheeks. “I’m so confused. Please tell me what the hell has happened. I don’t recall anything. I feel like Jack Nicholson in
The Shining—
completely insane.”

Trapped under him, Lucian coughed a few times. “Uhm, what about me? Forget who you’ve pinned to the floor? And for the record—”

“I know. I haven’t been able to do this in years. So why can I now?” André shifted his weight to allow Lucian to move out from under him. He plopped down on the floor beside him. “Luce, what happened? Can I hold her? She’s so little,” he said reaching for Elyza.

The three of them screamed a collective, “No!”

André recoiled. “Explain to me why you are both covered in blood, and I can’t remember a damn thing.”

“What is the last thing you do remember?” Donovan asked his garlic gun aimed at André.

Looking cross-eyed down the barrel of the gun, André asked, “What have I done to deserve this?”

“Point the gun at the floor, Donovan.” Lucian slapped the weapon out of André’s face.

André shrugged his shoulders. “Donovan, Jules and I went looking for the vamps that killed the cops and Ethan.”

Lucian answered, “Maybe it’s a protective brain mechanism. Amnesia or something like post-traumatic stress.”

André stood, aggravated. “You still haven’t told me what happened and why can’t I hold my niece?”

“Jovan,” Serina said, “it’s all right. Let him hold her.”

Within a heartbeat, Lucian wormed his way in between them. “Oh, I think not.”

Serina walked around Lucian as he turned with her trying to block her, which proved futile. Serina placed Elyza in her brother-in-law’s arms. “Lucian do you honestly think I would endanger our daughter?”

“Why the hell am I a danger to anyone?” André asked, exhausted. He immediately covered Elyza’s little ears. “Oh, Elyza, I’m so sorry. Uncle André isn’t used to holding babies, or his tongue.”

“Papa, mouth,” Savanah slid in as she crossed the room to sit beside her father.

André glanced at Savanah out of the corner of his eye. “Good one, Peanut.”

Elyza produced an all gums smile before curdled milk shot onto his shirt. “Uncle André isn’t used to that either.” Jovan handed him a towel to wipe up the mess.

Lucian said, “Listen to me carefully. Ands, you and I are now identical in all matters of life and death and all that falls between. Welcome to my world.”

The words didn’t register at first. André thought they were pulling a fast one on him until Jovan wouldn’t look him in the eye, nor his brother. He noticed Donovan disappeared again, literally. Without thinking he bent down and kissed Elyza’s forehead, lingering momentarily, enjoying that new baby smell because she definitely had a fresher scent than he did.

Lucian lunged, but André held his hand up. “She’s fine.” Seeing Lucian so distraught, André handed Elyza back to him. Even though he knew the answer he asked, “Tell me you are joking?”

No one answered. André looked at himself lengthwise, touching body parts randomly, making sure everything was intact and where it should be, including his manhood. He took in the room, the damage done to his family and the furniture. Bending over, he picked up a piece of broken mirror and peeled his lips back. The reflection sliced into his sense of self. The glass fell through trembling fingers back to the floor, and shattered to even smaller pieces, just as his heart did seeing a new set of dents.

“Oh sweet mother of God. Who did this to me? I’ll kill them.”

“Actually, Ands,” Raven came in with all the paraphernalia to set up a transfusion, “it was me.”