The Power (43 page)

“Lillian Saint Rose.” he read aloud, and he swal
lowed the new emotions of rage and betrayal that were starting to form in his throat. This journal was too old to belong to a woman in her mere twenties. He had realized that before he had even opened the cover. That only left one possibility.

“Do you really want to know, Jack?” he recalled Lilly’s serious tone from the other night when he had asked her of her age. “I’m one hundred and eighty-six years old.” she had told him with a stone serious expression, and he had thought that she was pulling his leg, and had promptly burst into laughter.

“Good one.” he had complimented, but she hadn’t laughed. She hadn’t laughed because she had been telling him the truth! She had told him all along that there was something that she needed to tell him, but dumbly he had suspected that what she had to share with him had to do with the night she had been raped! Regaining control, Jack stared at the neatly scripted name. Beautiful hand-writing, he admired as his gaze slipped beneath her name to the date that read, “November fourteenth, 1842”.

Seeing the date written there, the mont
h, the day, the goddamned year, Jack inhaled sharply. Silently, he counted back in his head. It took him just a few minutes to realize that if Lilly had been telling him the truth about her age then she would have been around eighteen years old when this journal had been written. His breathing hitched. His heart assaulted his ribs with hard fists of tormented beats. His furious gaze returned to the journal and he began to take it all in.                                             

                                          “London, England 1842”

              “My story is of length. It begins many years ago when I was what I was, a youthful maid to a lovely young Lady. The story begins in England, in London to be precise. I grew up there in a town home assisting to Widow Winters, a scandalous woman raising her three, equally scandalous daughters.”

Engrossed in Lilly’s descriptive writing written in the words of a young English woman in the year 1842, Jack laid the journal on his bent knees, and leaned over to read. He could feel Lilly’s pain when her cousin had been taken from her, married off to a lecher of a man. He could see it all happening in his mind’s eye as his amber gaze trailed over the pretty script along the pages. He could see Lilly, sick, raging with fever in a bed beneath the stairs in a cold, damp room. He could see her fevered face, so young, so ill, and then he could see the dark creature that had lounged in the window of her room that night.

“My name is Gina Giovani.” the creature had told her, and
Jack had sucked in his breath.

“Gina.” He said aloud. He had met her, Lilly’ s dark mother, as the creatu
re had called herself back then when she had introduced herself to Lilly.

Jack’s eyes continued to pour over Lilly’s words, becoming lost in the emotions she had felt within the moment as each event had taken place in her would be life. He was there with her when she had sat at the massive dinner table in her provider’s home. He had heard her aunt’s hated words as they had come to Lilly’s mind, as the greedy, evil woman had spoken t
he truth at last concerning who Lilly really was, and also confessing to the murders of Lilly’s family. He had felt Lilly’s rage, had felt it consume him as it must have consumed her at the time. He had wanted the aunt’s blood as much as he was sure Lilly had, but Lilly had actually taken it!

Unnerved, he sat there, clasping the j
ournal tighter within his grasp as he read of her plight as she had run for the window at the sound of Gina’s urgent, prompting voice in her mind, how she had run without stopping and jumped, falling swiftly to the earth below, only to land unscathed on her feet, without a clue to how she had done so. Jack lifted his gaze, and suddenly, he knew what he had probably known somewhere within him since it had happened. He could see her now, standing there on the rooftop. Her back had been to him, her long pale hair blowing gently in the breeze as she had lifted her hands above her head as he had instructed her to do so. And then, he could see her as she had run from him so fast that it had been a blur to his eyes. Astonished, he had watched her leap into midair and seemingly fly from one rooftop to the next. Well if she can do it, so can I, Jack had mused in an adrenaline infused moment, and he had run so fast to the ledge and over before he could fully think it through, but he wasn’t going to make it, he had realized as he felt himself start to fall Then he had felt it, the slamming force of her body as she had rocketed herself into his chest, sending them both flying back up on to the original roof they had started on. The breath knocked from his body in a loud gasp. His shoulder throbbing in pain, he had reached out to grab her, but she was too fast. Rolling forward, out of his grasp and away from him, she had run. He was able to turn his gaze just enough to see her take a running leap off of the building in the opposite direction, and then he had found the strength to stand, to limp to the edge of the building where she had gone off. He had still halfway expected to find her on the pavement below as flat as a pancake, but what he did see, caused his breath to hitch in shock even now. She had been crouched on her booted feet, having landed that way on the pavement below, and then she had stood, unharmed, and run off as if she had not just plunged five stories, as if she had simply stepped off of a curb into a street!

It had been Lilly, he realized that now. She had been the one he had been looking for all along! The female vampire! She had taken the lives of Arthur Miller, of Bobby Williams
, and of David and Jerry, the hopped up rapists in the bedroom of Helen Rogers’ apartment that night. He had chased her once before, watching as she had jumped from one rooftop to the next, as he had run below, but when he had reached the street she had been gone without a trace. She was a killer! She drank the blood of human beings!

Jack slammed the journal shut, and threw it with a great force across the room. He stood in one furious movement, and sent an enraged fist into his bedroom wall. The plaster caved
, leaving a hole double the size of his fist there in the wall. Plaster and dust crumbled to the carpet. He had been looking for her all along, feeling like such a damn fool because there had never been any clues, any damned evidence left at any of the scenes! She had known! She had fucking known all along that she was the one he had been searching for! Had she had a good laugh at his expense? She had led him around by the nose! He had told her that he loved her! He had made love to her! Hell, he had practically asked her to marry him! The curses flew from him now, penetrating the room in loud shouts of denial. He overturned his dresser in a fit of rage, and drawers broke, clothes tumbling out. He stared unsatisfied, his chest heaving at the mess he had made. It wasn’t enough, he was thinking when his amber gaze came again to the journal, lying in a tumbled mess, upside down next to the foot of his bed. Growling like a caged animal, he reluctantly snatched the damn thing back up into his hands, and crouched back down in his corner. “You owe me the truth, Lilly!” He growled out. “You owe me the fucking truth!”

Jack read every word, every damn, infuriating word. He read how Lilly had gone to Gina’s home, had stayed there in hiding while Gina’s man had booked passage on a ship bound for America. He read how Lilly had valiantly fought off the hunger inside of her while Gina had gone out hunting. He read how Gina had offered the use of her man, the blood would see Lillian through until they reached America, Gina had said, but Lilly had profusely objected
. And then he read of the night Gina had come home to find Lillian in the stables, the blood of Gina’s favorite goat smearing Lilly’s clothes and mouth.

“What have your done? I liked that goat! I even named him!” Gina had protested angrily, and Lilly had felt the guilt consume her. She had not been able to take it any longer, the blood-lust, but she had refused to feed upon another human being, one of her own. “You’re not human, Lillian! Not anymore!” Gina had shouted furiously, and all Lilly had been able to do was bow her head in shame. She had helped Gina to bury the poor animal later that evening, but Gina had not spoken to her for the rest of the evening and for most of the second. Later, they had boarded the ship for America, the Elisabeth II. They had traveled as cousins, carrying the
dead bodies of Gina’s would-be parents in coffins that had been made heavy with sandbags. It had been clever, Jack mused, though he was still infuriated, though he could still picture Lilly’s white neck between the strength of his hand as he squeezed again and again!

He read on, reading of how Lilly had grown so pale over her refusal to feed. “You’re wasting away.” Gina had protested their third night aboard the ship. “I offer you the use of a perfectly good man.”

“You offer me the blood of a living human being!” Lilly had screeched back, barely able to lift the sound of her voice beyond a whisper.

“A mortal man freely offered of his own will. It will not kill him. He knows what it is that he does!” Gina had argued.

“As do I, and to say the least, it does not sit well with me! I cannot, in good conscious, drink the blood of another.” Lilly had argued, and that was when Gina had ripped her up by the arm and dragged her from their cabin. Gina had taken Lilly below deck where they had feasted on rats and other such vermin.

Afterward, Lilly had felt even more the monster, but at least she had fed, and the strength was returning to her. She wrote of the depression that had settled within her, the unrelenting wish for death to end her misery, and Jack had found himself actually feeling sorry for her! Ha! She did not deserve his pity! Yes, she had been human once! Yes, the journal read like a woman in deep confusion and torment. The words that adorned the
pages were filled with emotion and dripped with human concerns, but Lilly was no longer that woman, Jack thought in outrage! She had refused to take life back then, but now she took life indiscriminately! He had the body count after all!

Jack continued to read, lost within the beautiful wri
tings until he came to the name Lord Ewan. His heart slammed hard against his ribs as his gaze swept over the name. The next few pages were difficult to read. She had loved the man, he realized almost numbly. She had written of finding happiness at last. She had written of Gina’s warnings, of how she planned to defy her dark mother, to run away with the suave, handsome, vampire that possessed her heart. Jack exhaled the jealousy in a long, uneven breath. He had not known her then. She had not known him, he reminded himself, but to think of Lilly staring at any man with stars shining in her eyes caused his chest to tighten to the crushing point.

He sho
ok his head at himself. “Idiot!” he scolded himself for the feelings that still plagued his heart where Lilly was concerned. She had betrayed him in a way that he had not even suspected imaginable, and there he was getting jealous over a life that had been lived over a hundred and fifty years ago! He read on to discover that the budding relationship with the vampire Ewan was over almost before it had begun. He read of the night Lilly had found Ewan and the others with the cabin boy, and she witnessed first hand the cruelty, the sheer evil that the man was capable of. She had tried to save the child, but had not been successful, and then Ewan had attacked her, had brutally raped her. Jack’s fist clenched tight to the journal. He could feel her pain, her confusion, her sheer terror of that night, and he longed to find the vampire Ewan and rip his goddamned, dead heart out!

Next, Jack read of the man Lilly had run into quite by accident that night, how the man had helped her. “My name is Sloan, Sloan Jackson.” the man had called through the closing door as Gina had backed away with Lilly in her grasp.

“Jax.” Jack looked up in sudden memory of the night that Lilly had taken him to the museum. She had called him Jax when they had first met, and then she had told him that ridiculous story concerning her great, great, great grandmother. Oh! She had told him the truth in a round about way, Jack realized. She had told him about Jax, but she had not told him that it had been she upon that ship that night, and not her relation! Jack recalled staring at the portrait now, the one of Jax. It had resembled himself so greatly. Lilly had taken him there that night, he now knew it was because she did, in fact, believe that he was her long lost Jax! A sarcastic chuckle escaped his throat. His heart panged. It couldn’t be possible! He read again, reading of the night this Jax had come to Lilly’s cabin, had sat her down, and told her that he longed to help in any way that he could. “Allow me to be your constant companion for the rest of this voyage.” Sloan Jackson had offered that night.

“You know not what you ask of me.” Lilly had returned with her head bowed, and her hands trembling in her lap.

“I know that I never want to see you hurt again, and since you will not go to the magistrate then I must take it upon myself to protect you.” Jax had crouched down before her, taking her pale hands in his own. Jack could see it in his mind’s eye. He could see this Jackson, looking so much like himself, crouching before Lilly. She would be dressed in a pale blue gown that was tight at the waist and flowing beneath. Her creamy, white cleavage spilled above, and her face, so beautifully pale, and her eyes so soft a blue. Innocent, he thought, but then he had to laugh. Lilly Saint Rose was anything but innocent! She was as guilty as hell! Jack lowered his gaze once more, and began to read.

“Several nights later, I found myself upon the lower decks of the ship where even the servants rarely appeared. Gina insisted that I play this game with Ewan, that I make the monster believe that I could forgive him, but I knew that that would never be possible. I had had but one meeting with the vampire since he had shown his true colors, and I could do nothing but tremble and shake the entire time. I could see it in his eyes then. He liked the fear that he had sparked within me. He fed on it as much as he fed upon blood!