Tears of Blood (The Blood Chronicles) (31 page)

“Fire’s the worse forms of death for anything out there, living or dead.” She admitted. “Unfortunately, being one of the undead, we don’t have the luxury of expiring before the flames consume our bodies. Our deaths are horrendous, and we feel every moment of the agony.”

“If Amado didn’t,” Meghan asked inquisitively, “who did?”

“Do you recall Declan?”

Declan. The vampire’s name flitted in her mind, figments of his taunting words echoing in the darkness. Slowly, she agreed, wondering why the woman mentioned him.

“There’s not much love lost between Amado and Declan, and there never has been,” she confessed with a shudder. “But, he did save you.”

Meghan rubbed her hands over her forearms, feeling the cold seep from her flesh as she squinted at the heavy beams above her. The information was difficult for her to digest, to realize she was in league with the undead, a creature of the night, who had regained her sight with her death.

“Oh, sweetheart, don’t let one single good deed cloud your mind.” Vivi laughed enchantingly, waving a be-ringed hand before her face. “Declan is one bad apple, and he’s as wicked as they come. Still …”

“What?”

“How he managed to drag along the wizard without being sent into the netherworld, I’ll never know.”

Meghan shook her head, still confused by the darker side of Bentham revealed to her. She had trouble believing Chesca’s enchanting friend, Sebastien, was a century’s old vampire hunter and she was surrounded by a clan of well-behaved vampires.

“Why was he here, if he’s so repulsive?”

“It’s a long story, Meghan.” Vivi sighed heavily. “My home is a place of sanctuary for any vampire that comes to the door. I won’t turn any away.”

“Even Declan?”

“Even him,” she responded. “It’s a good thing I didn’t, since he’s the one that brought you here. Amado was suffering from his own injuries, portions of his back burned by the heat of the fire, and a bullet in his shoulder.”

“Declan stayed, though,” Meghan observed. “He argued with Amado.”

“He refused to leave, waiting for you to regain consciousness.” Vivi smirked at the oddity of the vampire’s protests. “He wanted to make certain your eyes were gold, and not the black consuming his own vision.”

“Gold?”

“The golden hue means you’re one of ours,” she supplied informatively. “If your irises were black, you would’ve been part of The Sanctum.”

“He was out the door without a single goodbye or thank you for the hospitality.” She grumbled. “However, I have my own theory about Declan.”

“Hear me out, and please don’t look at me like I’m crazy.” She lifted her hand and laughed. “I think his life is so empty he chooses to follow Amado about and torture him, just to have someone to talk to.”

“It’ll take some time.” Vivi soothed. “I’ve been trying to adjust for close to seven years, and Dom still walks me through some of the more difficult times.”

“At least you have your husband.” Meghan commented. “If Amado isn’t any worse of wear, why is he avoiding me?”

Vivi shrugged. “Knowing him, there could be a number of reasons. First and foremost, I’d assume he isn’t quite certain how you’d react to becoming one of us.”

“It’s a little hard to accept at first.” She remembered the hunger that tore at her the first few nights, the agony of her body changing into the creature that she presently was. Once the transformation was complete, she had the author’s guiding hand to guide her, until she was well enough to rise from her darkened room.

Acceptance wasn’t an issue with her, though, having altered her in more ways than she believed imaginable. She radiated with calm now, lacking the insecurities previously shadowing her life. There was strength to her, a resolve making her far stronger than what she had been.

Above all, she wanted Amado.

She needed him, she realized. Her heart ached and she longed for his kiss, his touch, and his embrace. An eternity without him would be torture, and she didn’t have any need to continue if he wasn’t by her side.

Vivi rose from the sofa and went to the French doors overlooking the lake, her cheeks glowing with a rosy light and her eyes filled with a warm and loving luminosity. In the distance, two figures approached, men wearing dark jackets.

Meghan stood next to the author, her curiosity evident. Their voices carried as Vivi opened the doors, waving and whistling at the pair. The man in the lead, his skin a rich shade of brown, smiled, and waved in return. When he spoke, she heard the hint of the bayou in his words and knew he was author’s husband.

The other individual held her attention, though. He paused and stared up the lane at her, the sunlight highlighting his classical features in a delicate light. His dark hair shone an inky hue and his eyes sparkled, revealing a handsomeness Meghan thought nearly unreal.

Meghan stared into his face, recognizing him for who he had been in a past life. A slow smile curved her lips and she chuckled, her golden gaze glowing. She stepped out onto the porch surrounding the cabin, love shining from her bright eyes, before she ran into his waiting arms.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Six Months Later

The sound of a rustling newspaper interrupted Chesca’s thoughts as she stared across the plaza from her shop. Unhappy, she examined the faces of the people at the café, absently searching for the figure of her lifelong friend, before remembering she wouldn’t see Meghan’s face lifted to the sun again. At the finality of the thought, she stifled a sob.

“Are you weeping again,
cherie
?”

Sebastien’s question startled her and, guiltily, she pressed her fingertips to the corners of her streaming orbs before turning. Her watery smile quivered as she absently fingered the worn deck of cards resting on the table.

“No, I’m not crying.” She managed to utter, but the words lacked conviction.

“Chesca,” Sebastien breathed her name heavily and folded the newspaper he held in an odd fashion, deliberately forcing a single article to stand out among the rest of the print. “I understand you’ve questions regarding that night…”

“I have way too many questions and, for some strange reason, I suspect you aren’t going to answer any of them.” She huffed and scowled at him.

“Why do you always imagine the worst of me, Chesca?” He inquired with feigned innocence.

“I’ve seen too much shit over the past few months, and there isn’t a single bit that’s logical.”

The hidden meaning beneath her accusation wasn’t lost to him. Sebastien shrugged casually, the fabric of his shirt rippling over his torso like a dark flutter of silk. “You should realize there’s more to this world than meets the eye.”

“Or human minds can suffer through.” She grumbled.

“The mortal mind only believes what it chooses to accept.” Chesca sensed he was mocking her. “Just as there are those that view your cards as the fabrication of the devil, there are others who’ll never recognize the possibility of creatures beyond human norms.”

Lifting her attention to the ceiling of the shop, she watched the crystals above her head swing in the sunlight.

“I lost my best friend, the only person who ever accepted me as I am, with all my eccentricities, in the most horrific fire ever to hit the warehouse district in the last decade. I saw a man gnash some horrendous fangs at me.”

“I empathize with your confusion….”

“Confusion?” She sounded outraged. “I’m more than confused, damn it. Especially after watching
you
walk into a blazing building and later emerge unscathed!”

“You deal with the supernatural, with a domain people play with for their amusement, but your mind is having difficulty understanding?”

Chesca raked her fingers through her hair, her vision blurring.

“I thought I was aware of the truth.” She mumbled morosely, recalling the events. “I believed in a sane and simple world, where everyone is what they seem to be, and there isn’t a side a person would ever question.”

“This is from a fortune teller that amuses people with predictions of their past, present and future?”

“Mock me all you want, Sebastien DeClerq.” Chesca’s eyes shot daggers as she glared at him. “I, of all people, never took you to be a wizard.”

“Chesca,
cherie
, you only had to question those prized cards of yours.” He supplied affectionately, indicating the worn deck on the table. “Go ahead, ask.”

Chesca huffed and flipped her hair over her shoulder as she turned to the deck. Slowly, she removed her precious cards from a fragment of black velvet, spreading the fabric across the table. She raised her curious gaze to his as she struck a match and lit the single white candle before her, a murmur of a throaty hello filling the shop.

Shuffling her cards, she looked away, mentally forming the question. Trancelike, she cut the deck into three sections and, with a flourish of her hand, replaced the last section on top of the others.

“What is Sebastien DeClerq?” She requested loud and clearly. Focusing on her question, she reached for her treasured cards. Chesca flipped the card over, and pressing it firmly to the table. She gasped as she stared into the image revealed, and felt chilled to the bone.

On the worn façade of the card, a heavily bearded man sat wearily beneath a glowing light, surrounded by skeletal remains. A weighty tome rested on a table before him, and his finger pressed into an unknown passage.

“Tell me my fortune, Chesca.” Sebastien’s request echoed strangely in the shop, the crystals above spinning slightly.

“You’re one with yourself and all of creation.” Her words were firm and strong. “You bear your weapons with wisdom and wealth, and you never make one error in the path chosen.”

“Very good,” his voice was a shadow in the gradually increasing gloom filling the store, the last remnants of the sun disappearing behind the buildings across the street. Sebastien turned and she heard him whisper beneath his breath, strange words that rose and fell with an eerie intensity.

Chesca barely controlled her gasp as the room emitted a low and steady light, each ray seeming to reflect from the carved bits of precious stone hanging from the rafters. The magical light seemed to bounce off the emerald clarity of her irises, and her face shimmered with an ethereal glow belonging to another world.

“I won’t ask how you did that.” She swallowed convulsively and stared up at him from where she sat and her expression became undeniably serious. “I think the less I know, Sebastien, the better off I am.”

He smirked and approached her, the newspaper he held crumpling in his hold. “I’m not evil, Chesca. I’m a hunter, nothing more.”

“What do you hunt for, Sebastien?”

“I seek those that linger in the darkness filling the underworld of our streets, feasting on human blood, seeking the innocent for their immoral pleasure.”

“He hadn’t been for a long time,” the wizard remarked as he leaned against the oaken counter where the cash register was situated. “Trust me, I wouldn’t have allowed him to exist if Meghan were in danger. I recognized what was in his heart, or what was left of it, and your friend is safe.”