Within The Shadows (28 page)

I got to my
feet, trying my best not to fall. The spinning sensation was still
lingering in my head, and if it had not been for Antoine’s quick
movement to my side, I think I would have fallen on my
face.

“
Thanks,” I
muttered timidly as I let him take a hold of my arm.

“
That was
quite a performance,” he joked.

I
n the spirit of things, I
thumped him hard on the arm. “Don’t dare say another word. Got it?”
I scowled.

Laughing, he
led me out through the same door. Only, we did not enter the
hallway. This time, the doorway led into a busy street. People
rushed past us, some with bags of shopping, and others on their
cell phones. We passed a group of school children following their
teacher. Each child held onto the hand of another. Not once, did
any of them look at us. They were quiet and obedient, very unlike
the children back at home. We came to a little side street, and
instantly, the smell of fresh coffee hit me. My stomach rumbled,
and I craved the taste of caffeine or food of any sort.

“
Can I?” I
asked.

He looked a
bit annoyed, at first, but he soon smiled at me. “Who am I to deny
a beautiful woman her caffeine rush, or whatever else takes her
fancy?”

I glanced
scornfully at him, and entered the small cafe. I sat at a table far
from the window, and picked up the menu.

“
It’s all
gibberish,” I remarked.

“
It may be
gibberish to you, but here it’s the norm.”

On a closer
inspection, I noticed that the words were spelt backwards. Even
numbers were the wrong way round.

“
Why?”

“
Because
we’re on the other side of the looking glass, so to speak,” he said
as he riffled through his pockets.

“
What’s
wrong?” I asked.

“
Mmm, nothing,” he replied as he opened his wallet. “I knew
I always carried a little extra.”

“
Extra
what?”

“
These!” He held out what looked to be dollar bills, except
that they were exactly like the menu, backwards. “Can’t get much
without these little babies.”

“
Oh! Okay . . . Then I’ll have a cheeseburger, fries,
strawberry milkshake, and . . . onion rings. I love onion rings,” I
gushed.

A short,
overweight woman came over, and looked us up and down. “So, what
can I get ya’ll?” she slurred with a southern drawl.

“
I’ll have a coffee, and the lady here will have . .
.”

I butted in,
and placed my order with urgency. My mouth watered at the thought
of the food. It seemed ages since I had last eaten, and I was more
than ready to fill my stomach with cholesterol-laden
goodies.

“
So, why this place? How can I be safe here?” I inquired as
I sipped the creamy milkshake.

“
Because here, we remain unseen. They cannot sense you
here.”

“
That’s what
you said about the Kerguelen Islands,” I whispered as a man sitting
at the counter looked over at us.

“
Ah, but it
was the shadows that found you, not Alex.”

“
Yeah, but . . . but can’t they, like, you know, see us?
Surely, they have their own kind here.”

I watched
eagerly as the waitress came over to us, and set my food in front
of me. I took the burger in my hands, and bit down into the meat,
savouring the taste of the well-cooked beef, creamy cheese, onions,
and tomato sauce. I grabbed a handful of fries, and stuffed them
into my mouth, gulping down the last of the milkshake.

“
You really are hungry, aren’t you?” Antoine mused as he
sipped some of his coffee.

“
Well, I am technically eating for two now. Can’t see the
problem with having a few extra calories,” I said as I chewed on an
onion ring.

I finished
the burger in less than three bites. I cannot remember having ever
eaten anything so fast before in my life, and now I knew why. A
sudden urge to belch came over me, and trying my best to conceal
the build up, I held a napkin over my mouth as I
hiccupped.

Antoine
watched me as I uncomfortably shuffled in my seat. He was demurely
sipping some more from his cup when his eyes moved in the direction
of the door. I followed his gaze, and I was surprised when in
walked a middle-aged man. He looked so familiar, as though I had
seen him somewhere before, yet he looked past me, and gestured to
the man at the counter.

“
I think we should finish up here,” Antoine urged as he
tossed two twenty bills on our table.

“
But I’m not
finished,” I complained.

“
Yes, you are. Come on,” he said as he got up from his
chair.

He stood in
front of me, eyeballing me as if I was a bad child. “Please, trust
me. Okay?” he prodded softly.

Getting up
from my seat, I turned round to walk to the door, and found the man
who had been sitting at the counter now standing in front of me. He
was big and broad, and he had a hardened face. He looked down at
me, and smirked.

“
We’ve been
waiting for you, Miss Bergman.”

Before I
could respond, Antoine moved in front of me, and held out his hand.
“I am Antoine Vilniv. I am the Princess’s keeper.”

“
Well, Mr. Vilniv, if you and the Princess would follow me,
I’m sure we can come to some kind of understanding,” the man stated
confidently.

“
What?” I balked, drawing the attention of several other
customers.

“
Giselle, not
here,” Antoine whispered in my ear.

Biting my
lip, I listened to Antoine. Something in his voice told me this was
serious, and we were about to find out just how bad things were
getting. We moved outside the little café, and were led to a
waiting black car. We both sat silently as the car moved off. I was
afraid to speak, in case I said the wrong thing. Antoine, on the
other hand, sat back, smirking at the man sitting directly in front
of us.

“
What?” the
man asked.

“
Nothing,”
Antoine replied, shaking his head.

Laughing out
loud, he nudged me in the ribs. I looked at him, confused. For a
moment, I thought he had gone mad.

“
Don’t piss me off, Mr. Vilniv,” the man
threatened.

“
Excuse my behaviour. I just find this whole thing quite
amusing.”

“
How so?” the
man asked as he folded his arms.

“
Well, we were granted refuge in your world, but now you
have sought us out, and taken us hostage.” Antoine folded his arms,
and stared hard at the man.

“
I am not at liberty to discuss this. It is not my
place.”

“
Then who
does have the authority?” Antoine asked.

The man
remained silent, and broke his gaze from us. Instead, he opened up
his briefcase, and took out a book,
To Kill A Mockingbird
. It was
obviously spelt backwards.

“
I read that last semester. It’s good,” I said, waiting for
some kind of reply.

He said
nothing as he glanced at me over his glasses, and then returned his
gaze to the book. Antoine looked at me with his perfect blue eyes,
but they startled me when they flashed red. I knew something was
going on inside him. With a sense of what was to happen, I tried to
change his mind by diverting his attention. I grabbed his right
hand, slid my fingers over his, and tightened my grip.

Shaking my
head, I begged, “Please don’t.”

His smiled
broadened. Without warning, he leaned forward, and grabbed the man
by the throat. He struggled to breath, and spit flew out from his
mouth.

“
Now, before I rip your throat out, and drink you dry, you
will tell me who summoned us,” he hissed as his fangs gleamed.
Loosening his grip on the man’s throat, he smiled. “Will you behave
if I let you go?”

The man
nodded. Breathing hard, he muttered something.

“
I can’t hear you. Speak up!”

“
Xavier
Ordina,” the man said breathlessly.

I sat
upright, and froze. I knew that name, and remembered when I had
first met him. Screaming, I tried to break free from the car, only
to be pulled back by Antoine.

“
No! We have to leave now,” I cried.

“
Giselle! We must face this,” Antoine said
calmly.

“
No . . . You can, but I can’t. He wants to kill me. He
wants my baby!”

Chapter Twenty-Four

I HID
MY
face in my hands, and tried to regain
some kind of sense of what was happening. I thought I would be safe
here, but now everything seemed to be slipping away from me again.
I had no control, and needed to regain some measure of it. This was
my life, my destiny, and I was the one who had to change the course
of action.

Antoine kept
his sharp gaze on the man as I kept mine on him. He looked
menacing, and it was the first time I had ever seen him allow the
monster within him to surface. I had all but forgotten that he was
a vampire. He had never once allowed me to see him in his true
form, and it was all too easy to think of him as human. I sat stiff
in the back of the car, afraid to move, but also wary of the thirst
that was obvious in his eyes. I could sense his eagerness to kill
the man, and as much as I disliked him, I did not want to see any
more unnecessary blood shed.

The car
braked hard as it swerved round a bend in the road. I was thrown
forward. Before I hit the seat in front of me, Antoine grabbed me
by my hair, and pulled me back to him. It hurt like hell, but it
was bearable, considering my face could have been
crushed.

My heart
raced as I realised there was something happening outside.
Raised voices sounded muffled from inside the
car. Antoine jerked his head towards the window, and listened
intently. His eyes narrowed. Something he heard caused him concern,
because in the next moment, he pulled the man towards him, and bit
down on his neck. Hearing his fangs pierce the skin made my flesh
crawl. I had never expected him to turn so quickly. Hearing him
swallow hard on the fresh blood brought the situation closer to
home.

The man let
out a small cry as Antoine drank from him. I watched, speechless,
as he drank every last drop of blood, and for the third time in my
life, I witnessed the death of someone at the hands of a vampire.
The man’s eyes glazed over as he took his last breath. His face was
pale, and fright shadowed around his eyes. Finally, death
came.

Antoine
loosened his grip, and the man fell lifeless into a heap on the
seat. He wiped the remains of blood from his chin, and smiled at
me. I was too stunned to say anything. I stared at him
open-mouthed.

“
This has been a trap. Outside this car, there is an ambush.
They are waiting for us to run, and they plan to separate us. I’m
disposable. You, on the other hand, are, as Afanas so kindly put
it, ‘a precious commodity.’ They will kill me to get to you, and
like a fool, I’d die for you,” he said as he looked out the window,
assessing the situation.

“
How?” I
asked.

“
We obviously have an informer in our midst, but that is not
our concern now. Right now, we need to escape. We have no choice.
We must run for it,” he replied as he reached down towards the
man’s body, and searched him. Pulling out a gun, he smiled, slipped
it into the back of his jeans, and pulled lightly on the door
handle.

“
Now, when I say run, you run straight ahead. You don’t
stop. You keep going. Don’t look back, okay? Never look back,” he
ordered.

“
But . . . I’m scared,” I choked.

“
Now is not the time for cowardice. Giselle, do you trust
me?” he asked, taking my hand in his.

“
Well,
yeah.”

“
Then do as I
say.”

“
Okay.”

The next few
moments went by in what seemed like slow motion. We slipped out of
the right passenger door, and stayed close to it. Antoine closed it
quietly as I held my breath.

We remained
silent, listening to the men chatter on the other side of the road.
The driver of our car was standing at a checkpoint, smoking a
cigarette, and talking into his cell phone. He never once looked
towards us. He was too engrossed in his conversation to notice me
peeking out at him from the edge of the car’s front
bumper.

Feeling
Antoine’s hand on my right shoulder, I looked back at him as he
placed a finger over my lips. I saw something in his eyes. It was
not fear. It was something else, and it was almost as if he was
getting a kick out of the dangerous situation we were in. I wanted
to believe that he was invincible, but I knew only too well how
fragile vampires were. I feared for him and his life, as well as my
own. I could not lose him as well.

“
Whatever
happens, we’re in this together, right?” I whispered.

“
I’ve made an oath to protect you, and I will keep my word.”
He smiled at me.