Vampyre Blue (11 page)

Star had been waiting what seemed forever to date her handsome Prince. It had only been a week or so. She felt bad for Blue, she thought her and Daen would be more into each other. Star thought if Blue wasn't that into him, she could get into him. She thought about that and it made her smile. Blue wasn't interested, so she may as well have her fun.

The Prince had sent a new Range Rover to pick her up. The Range Rover pulled up to a huge Mansion, a huge fountain at the front. Star had a strange feeling that she’d seen all of this before, but put it aside thinking that she must have seen the pictures in OK or Hello magazine. The Prince walked up to the car and regally slid in.

'Hello Sweet Princess.'

Star gushed, she was awestruck and smitten. She could feel herself loosing control of herself, letting herself become infatuated. He was the perfect gentleman.

'Not many people know that I'm of regal blood,' She was really trying to impress him, 'My father is Sheik Abbu bin Khalifa and my mother Princess Adaeze Yawa Zuri, they were in love, a forbidden love until I arrived.' Star missed her parents, but she didn't know them as well as she would have liked. The Prince acknowledged her parental information.

'My parents are long dead.' He said to her, before looking out of the window thinking of his childhood.

They drove to London, he took her to J Sheekey, one of his favourite restaurants. He loved the monumental sea food they prepared, it was a delight to the eyes. Oysters, lobster, shrimp, octopus, squid, clams and muscles all set out as a sheer volcanic wall of crustaceans. They were to die for. Champagne poured like cheap plonk. The Prince had a really hard accent, Star couldn’t speak Arabic either so she struggled through.

After the humongous mountain of Seafood, Star excused herself to go to the ladies room. The bathroom was downstairs, beautifully decorated, new age styled marble and glass. She touched up her make-up in the mirror before walking back upstairs. The Prince had ordered more Champagne, '
Wonderful!'
she thought.

Star was getting giggly. The prince seemed to make more sense the more they drank, she was convinced that she was just getting used to his accent, not that he was slowly talking less and less with an accent. The Prince as it were, loved the fact that he was dating best friends and knew he had to be careful with them. They told each other everything. But then he was convinced that Star was selfish, self involved and stupid, so anything that he did with Star she would twist to her own conceited benefit.

She hadn't realised his house the Prince’s house and Daen’s house were one in the same. She herself had checked out the property before she’d let Blue anywhere near Daen. She had betrayed her best-friend and herself to this man and she hadn't even realised she was doing it.

He knew now that he had Star exactly where he wanted her, hook line and sinker. Now all he had to do was drive the divide between Blue and Star. It would be hard to manipulate Blue, but Star would be all too easy.

Chapter Ten.

Jayne revelled in the fact she had the mansion and Teresa practically all to herself. Star had gone for what had seemed ages and Blue had just about turned into a hermit in her room.

Jayne believed herself to be the luckiest girl in the world, Teresa was beautiful and she was all hers.

They had spent the entire weekend together. Jayne had to be going back to work soon, so the incredible weekend was coming to a close. She decided to cook a meal for Teresa to celebrate their time together, she was busy in the huge kitchen.

Meanwhile Teresa had slid out of bed, like the ninja assassin that she was, tiptoed down towards Cleo’s room, gently closed the door behind her and started rummaging through all of Cleo’s personal belongings. She lost herself in her search for the location of Cleo and her family.

'You’re in DANGER!' Shrieked Amelia, but Jayne couldn’t hear her. Although Jayne suddenly got the feeling that pricked her skin and sent shivers down her spine. It reminded her of what Blue had said when Amelia would speak to her. That made her skin crawl even more. She knew at that very second that something was fundamentally wrong with this whole situation, doubts were being cast into her mind about Teresa, all the little things that could be ignored all of a sudden pieced together in her mind. Alarm bells started going off. Jayne left the kitchen and walked quietly upstairs.

At this point Blue was strolling down the stairs towards her.

'Hey Sweetie, I’m going out. I think I’ll end up at Daen’s.'

'Oh have fun. Oh, Blue have you seen Amelia?' Jayne asked, tucking her short pixie hair behind her ears.

'I’ve not seen her, but I can feel her around. Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!'

'I think I did, I’ll be fine.' Jayne shrugged and added, 'You have a good time at Daen’s.'

'I will.' Blue smiled, her and Jayne hugged. Blue carried on downstairs and slipped out of the front door moments later. Jayne heard the car drive off.

All was quiet in the house. So Jayne continued up to her room, she was conscious of her breathing and her foot falls squeaking across the floor. She got to her own room, it was tidy, clean and empty of Teresa. Jayne looked in the en-suite, under the bed and in the wardrobe. She thought to herself '
She shouldn't be anywhere else, so where the hell has she gone?'

She walked out into the hall and stood in silence, listening. She could hear movement coming from Cleo’s room. She padded gently over to Cleo’s door, lent down and looked through the keyhole. She felt like such an idiot peering through a tiny gap in the door, that was until she saw Teresa. Jayne wasn’t in the slightest bit prepared to witness what she was seeing. She froze there staring at Teresa routing through Cleo’s belongings, she was going through everything, and she looked like she was on a mission to find something. Something that was particularly important. Teresa paused, looking around, Jayne’s heart stopped in her throat. She panicked and held her breath as if to relieve her momentary stress. She slowly backed away from the door and quietly tiptoed back to the kitchen.

She carried on with dinner and pretended everything was fine, even though everything that had made her happy in the last few weeks was now crumbling away in her mind.

*

Eliza was in the Museum of Egyptian History in Cairo. The curator Brett Hanson was a close personal friend of hers, they’d known each other since university. And unbeknown to Eliza he was head over heels in love with her.

He would let her have the run of the museum after closing time. She was going to be there for the night, they both would be. He had even gotten her access to the vaults. He had contacted Eliza as he needed some help with a ritual book he’d recently found on a dig. It could have been any excuse, he hadn't seen her in what he thought had been an age. The ritual book he had found was utterly interesting, a very comprehensive book and written in at least three languages. Fortunately for Brett, Eliza could read all of the ancient languages, unfortunately he couldn't read any of it. Quite unbelievable of someone in charge of the ancient articles. The Egyptians liked it, they figured that if he couldn't read it, he wouldn't get himself into trouble. She asked him where the book had been found and convinced him that they should go look at the site, as it would give her a greater understanding of the rituals where and as they would have been performed.

Eliza could easily talk him into anything. The Egyptians would not like Eliza. They would think of her as trouble. The site wasn't far from the Nile, not far from the Great Pyramids, far enough out of Cairo to be comfortable. Quite a way from the museum. The dig was deep, thirty meters or so. It was also surprisingly dry to be so near to the river.

Brett left Eliza at the site at first light, he had to do some work at the museum so he had to go. He told her he’d pick her up just before it got dark. So off she trundled into the ancient buried building with a torch and her ghost of a sister for company.

'Brett fancies you.' Amelia chimed. Then she went on with an entirely seriously topic, 'Jayne knows there’s something wrong with Teresa.'

'I wonder who gave her that inkling.' Eliza gave Amelia a look, 'And no he doesn't!'

'I am so sorry I can be wherever I want. It is useful you know! And he does fancy you!'

'I know it's useful! Who wouldn’t want my perpetually eight year old sister hanging around with them?'

Amelia blobbed out her tongue and pulled a cute face.

'Come on. Let’s have a look around here, there’s a tunnel over there. I wonder where that leads.'

*

Blue had driven around and around. She couldn’t think of anything or anyone other than Daen. He seemed to be penetrating her deepest subconscious. The dreams of Pierre were a warm distant memory. All she could do was think of Daen, she didn’t like this one bit. Obsession was one thing Blue didn’t appreciate feeling. That is exactly how she’d describe it, but she just couldn’t help it. She wanted to feel safe and warm. Pierre was gone. There was only Daen. She should have gone to the Zero, talked to her old colleagues, bar staff, got drunk, pulled an unsuspecting random and given him the time of his life. She just wasn't that girl any more, she was beginning to wonder who she was.

Before she knew it she was pulling up in Daen’s courtyard, the fountain flowing before her.

Daen watched her pull up the driveway. He was in the guise of the Prince. Star was asleep in his bed. If his heart could beat it would be in his throat right about now.

Blue knocked on the door with the knocker.

Daen changed into himself as he swept down the staircase. He knew if Star happened upon them she would believe he still looked like the Prince, but he wasn’t about to worry about that, Star was out for the count and he had control of her mind now, she was his.

He opened the door with a whoosh, Blue looked startled.

'Blue!' He smiled a huge handsome heart warming smile.

'Er, Hi.'

'I’m so sorry I haven’t spoken to you today, last night was amazing!' He said.

'You weren’t answering your phone. I guess I worried about you.' She awkwardly waited in the doorway.

'Where are my manners, come in, come in!' Daen held her waist as she brushed past him into the house, 'Oh come here.' He grabbed her, turned and swept her off of her feet into his arms and kicked the door shut behind them. He kissed her taking her breath away.

'I’m so sorry, my love, so sorry I didn't ring you.' Daen said gently.

Blue closed her eyes and snuggled in close to Daen’s chest. She forgot about the worries and let herself get carried away with the moment.

*

Pierre had left Isis a few days ago now. She had told him he should treat this journey as a pilgrimage. Take time to think things through on the way back to Blue. Not to rush straight back to her.

It took him ten days to get back to England easier with the long winter nights. He spent his days in darkened hotel rooms. He went around the Mediterranean, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Syria, Turkey, Greece, Albania, Croatia, Italy, Switzerland and France. Pierre visited his home town in France, drank in the new sights. He went to his house, drank in the local public house, reminisced of his old life and smiled to himself. He then made his way to Blue, to try to rescue her from Daen. If he could.

*

It was early evening in Italy, Cleo was busy making a good home made Italian dish for her family when the home phone rang. The only people with the number were the girls.

'Hi guys.' Cleo said with a big smile on her face, she’d not talked to them in what seemed forever.

'Hello Cleo.' A mysterious voice said to Cleo. Cleo's heart came up to her throat.

'Who is this?' Cleo asked intrepidly.

'I have Jayne.' Said the female voice, 'If you want to keep your family and friends you’d better listen to exactly what I have to say.'

Cleo’s heart froze at the realisation that whoever had rang this number now knew exactly where she was.

'Go on.' Cleo said.

'My name is…'

'Teresa.' Said Cleo remembering the morning after the party and Jayne rambling on and on about Teresa.

'Good memory. And we've never even met.'

'I saw you at the party, what do you want?' Cleo asked.

'The same as everyone.'

'World peace?' Retorted Cleo.

'Don’t get smart with me, you know I only have to make one call and your life will fall apart within a matter of hours.'

'Money?'

'Of course money!' Teresa said firmly.

'So how much do you want exactly?'

'What have you got?'

'You know how much I have if you got this number, you know everything about me.'

'You are smart.'

'So you want ten million, by when?'