Ch.9
Everything to your heart’s desire...
“No matter what you say...I keep coming back for more!”
Don’t leave...
So, I stay waiting in the dark...’
“Because some things are worth staying and fighting for...”
The echo of serenity voiced through a conviction that held no malice, held no hidden agenda, held no promise of a happy future...just plain and simple truth, voiced from someone who could not ever give her a happy tomorrow.
Vicki was dumbstruck, not because what Henry had said made no sense, but because it made every sense to her. Especially at a time when the only thing she wanted more than to have a healthy bank balance, her mother not ring her every single day wanting to know ‘when she will ever settle down meet a nice man and have babies?’ - was to find a deeper connection other than Mike turning up and messing with her life again!
Maybe Coreen had been right? Why settle for now when she could have so much more fun meddling with the past and hope for a brighter future? Didn’t Betty Sagara have her fun? Didn’t she find love with Henry? Was it so awful to think of being with someone who had to nip out now and again for a happy meal?
He had giving her everything, shown her ways of the night only dreamers wished to believe. Allowed her to escape into his realm and offer no guarantee that what she would see could ever change anything in her world, but change it, it did!
“You stayed, because of...me?” she could hardly contain the surprise that rushed out of her throat. Watched as it registered on Henry’s face, the trace of youth replaced by playfulness as he lifted up a lock of her hair, that had come loose from the bundle she had so haphazardly pulled up behind her head, a motion she had found slightly un-nerving at the start, but now welcomed as a sign of affection from him, “Why wouldn’t I”
His voice held a deeper meaning as she felt herself being magnetically pulled towards him, forcing back reality to break from the spell, “because of all the things that I’ve done that annoy the hell out of you? That I almost got you killed...again?” she licked her sudden dry lips, an action that was not missed as a spark of desire lit the blue embers in his eyes, “That I turned you down when you asked me to go with you? That I moved away to start my life over, knowing that I would never see you again?” A smile spread across his face as he took the space that was between them to his advantage and kissed the corner of her mouth, his voice a soft whisper that begged promise, “I could never leave, knowing how empty your life would be without me!” Vicki made a noise in her throat, forgetting just how vain and self-adulating he was, “You almost had me fooled there for a moment. I’d forgotten how vanity is an art only you can perfect?”
Henry nodded; a slight grin present on his evenly handsome face, “Vanity is not the reason why I chose to stay Vicki. I figured, in time you would understand the reasons why I give into your cynicism, adapt to your negativity, and subject myself to your self-pitying flogging of the entire male life form?”
She toyed with so much to bite back with, but seeing the merriment sparkle in his eyes, Vicki choose to play along and not be put off by wanting to rub his self-righteous face into the ground, “And that is?”
Henry eyed her with a lot of weight balancing between them. He knew enough of Vicki to understand she didn’t fall for all the romantic hype, most men would throw her direction. Let’s face it, even Celluci had his chance and blew it.
Now was the time for him to be straight forward and truthful. Allow her to make the next move, give her the choice she needed to make for herself, “We’ve been gravitating towards each other since we first met. I won’t deny that I am deeply attracted to you. Even though you seem to think me -shallow and worthless of such compassion.” She began to open her mouth but was silenced, as Henry placed a cool fingertip upon her lips, “I caused you pain through my own poor selfish behaviour, and I can never take that back”. Vicki could only nod and listen intently as he spoke with such deep emotion that normally would have had her gagging, or coming off with a quick quibble about his Hallmark references. His hands now slid to her hips and she had to clear her head of the sensual thoughts that went running through it,
“ Yes, I hurt you, and that hurt cut deep, but trust that I didn’t do it because I don’t care...I’ve lived a very long time Vicki, and relationships don’t come as freely as you think?”
“Oh, so what do you call the women queuing up outside your door like sex meals on tap?” she couldn’t hide the sarcasm that laced her questioning, it allowed Henry to acknowledge that even if his words had provoked a sense of confession, she wasn’t going to be so easily swayed. It reminded him of Jane Seymour, a woman of substance that had held favour with his father, who had loved her completely, passionately and reverently, “I cannot deny the mutual enjoyment of the flesh when feeding Vicki, no more than you can deny yourself the pleasure of the sun when it shines. But passion and the meeting of minds, the deeper connection that lasts long after the enjoyment of sex...is something I yearn for with each sunset that awakens me.”
She took a deep even breath that made Henry close his eyes and feel her response. The blood rushing through the core of her body, her heart beating rhythmically in time with each breath she took. Her resolve was wavering to the point of giving in, what could he give her that no other man could?
“You belong in this world, this mystery of darkness, even you understand that?” she nodded her head slightly as he pushed on, “freakish or not, somehow you understand things no other mortal can. You found me when I was hiding out of sight. Call it what you want, but destiny somehow brought us together for a reason?” He took her wrists and lifted them up, so both could see the markings that had been left as a diagram for all evil to pass through the world that surrounded them, “You were marked because of me. No matter how much I argue, the Dark Arts have made it impossible for me to ever leave you. As long as Asteroth is out there we need to stay connected.”
Vicki understood fully what he was trying to say. It was that very reason that had sent her fleeing to the other side of town, away from everything that had reminded her of him. Without Henry she felt incomplete, broken with no clear path for her life to travel. To return to the darkness that threatened to rob her of sight, to lose any confidence she had built up since meeting him. Swallowed up in a life of self pity, marking anyone who tried to get close to her with the same short limit of time. As much as her love for Mike would always be there, he had proven that even his love for her had limits and breaking points. Henry’s on the other hand, was unconditional, “Henry I want more than just your word that you will be there for me? I need more than you saying we have a deeper connection...”
~~~~
Detective Hoy breezed into the Toronto Police Department (TPD) with a sense of rightfulness in the world. She had just bagged her first homicide since changing divisions, something long running cops only dreamed off. Being a woman had its limits and she was determined not to be put off by the testosterone clad environment that could be mistaken for an equality workplace that housed some of the biggest and heaviest men she had ever seen. Very few women worked in the high level of the food chain. She’d heard rumours of one Amazonian who had decided working in the ‘private dick’ industry had better perks. Pity, it would have been nice to rub shoulders with a woman that wasn’t afraid of hard work.
Scanning the office, anyone else with half of what V. Nelson had to offer looked weak and unimpressionable. Katie Lam was the only female Detective worth half an ounce of interest, but even she had limits to showing just how big her balls were amongst the increase of expensive suits and killer ties. The Captain - Crowley, looked as if she was well overdue a vacation, burnt out to the point of smoking as she walked around like a drill sergeant barking orders as all stumbled in line,
“How was your day?”
Ah, the tall blond with the handsome smile and twinkling baby blues perched on the edge of her desk, stirring the excuse for coffee with a spoon, “Not too bad, considering the body I just found over by the Royal Court Nightclub?”
Now that piqued his interest, “Oh do tell?”
Francesca slung her purse over the back of her chair and manoeuvred herself around tall, blond and incredibly great smelling Detective Celluci, showing his pearly teeth as she straightened her skirt and sat down, “Mmm seems we have a serial on the loose. Another victim matching the same fatal injuries was brought in late yesterday. I have the forensics going over the two bodies, trying to match similarities to see if a marker was left.”
Detective Celluci did seem interested, he’d stopped stirring his coffee and was now looking at her with all the hallmarks of a well tuned in mind and a lot of years in homicide, “What where the injuries?”
“AH, now this is the killer,” Francesca sat forward in her seat, happy to be receiving an audience with the hot-to-trot Italian Stallion, “seems as if something or someone had plunged through the back of each victim, slicing through several arteries before puncturing out the front. Whatever or whoever it was, left a nasty hole in the victim that was found this morning - she didn’t stand a chance in hell.”
Something in what she had said most definitely stirred trouble with a capital ‘T’ in Celluci’s eyes. He jumped off her table and strode over to his own. Not that she minded one bit seeing him take a purposeful leap to the other side of the room, gave her a chance to check out his bum cakes and boy did he have a set. Dialling a number on his cell phone, tapping impatiently the index card with his spoon, gave him a profile worth capturing and placing on the yearly calendar that was handed out to all staff at Christmas,
“Dammit Vicki, where the hell are you?”
Ah oh, that didn’t sound good? Slightly disheartened with the possibility of trouble in paradise, Francesca got up to offer a shoulder to cry on, “Is everything okay?”
Mike Celluci looked blankly at Francesca Hoy and then to the cell phone still held in his hand, “Ah, no not really. Just a friend I’m trying to get in touch with seems to have changed her number?”
“OH?” curiosity sparked in her eyes, “Was it something you did?” Mike smiled at the generous grin that seeped into her face and lit up her dark interesting eyes. She was a transfer from Vancouver, the same area the preverbal pain in the neck Henry Fitzroy had vacated too with good riddance, “Not to my knowledge no.” With that he sighed recalling the last time he and Vicki had seen each other. Four months ago he had asked her to chose, him or Fitzroy? Since then his neck had been on the block and sanctions had been placed on his working environment - stop mixing with Vicki Nelson or be forced to leave the job he had worked damn hard for? As much as he wanted to tell Crowley to go and stick it, his mother, father and indeed sisters had talked him around to sensible reasoning.
Paps had been on the force for 30 years, retiring with not a blimp on his service record - he couldn’t do that to him, have a Celluci leave the force because of bad choices he made - mixing his job with his personal life. Vicki had chosen a line that was just too damn narrow for him to travel on, meddling with the creature of the night had blindsided her in more ways than one. If she chose to stay with him, then on her own head be it as long as she didn’t cross into his jurisdiction they would be okay. Problem was he hadn’t spoken to her in all that time, and now it seems she had decided to change not only her cell number, but her office number as well, “We, I mean Vicki and I had a kind of disagreement a few months ago, and since then she hasn’t spoken to me. You’d like her; she used to be a cop, Vicki Nelson?”
Francesca tried not to look surprised or shocked at this statement, “Wow Vicki Nelson heard of her, are you kidding? Best darn cop there’s ever been! What’s she into now?” trying not to sound as if she didn’t already know what Detective Nelson was up to now? This in any case allowed the yummy Celluci to keep talking as he searched his desk drawer for his badge thrown in there when he normally logged on for duty, “Eh, she’s moved to working for herself, Private Investigator and doing pretty well for herself. Listen Francesca?” Slipping his jacket on broad shoulders and fixing her with a lopsided grin, “I’m heading out of the office for a while, but it’s been swell chatting to you. Maybe we can continue this when I get back?”
‘Maybe, you betcha handsome!’
“Sure, that would be, that would be nice Detective Celluci.”
His smile got wider as he touched her shoulder with a large but well manicured hand that seemed to melt through the silk of her blouse onto her heated skin, “Please we can stop standing on formalities, the names Mike.”
Francesca could only smile, boy this man had a killer grin and killer moves to match the boyish grin. The whole pondering about Italian men hit her central nerves with a zing, “O-Okay then Mike, I will see you later then?”
She watched as he moved out of the office with all the grace of a stud in a suit. My, oh my! Didn’t she make her move to Toronto just in the nick of time? Men like Celluci didn’t become single and available for too long, judging by the volcanic glare she was receiving from Katie Lam who had witnessed their exchange of mutual ‘see-you-laters’?
Well tough girlfriend, times were a changing and her first port of call was to nail the SOB that had killed two people on her patch.
Henry was close enough to breathe in her scent mixed with perfume, a heady combination when fuelled with a yearning and a hunger that growled low in his chest, “I can offer you everything Vicki. Love, honour, passion and above all reverence to everything you are. I may not share the sunrise with you, but I can be your guiding light in the darkness that threatens to capture and trap you in its world.”
She sensed his solemn oath, and understood that what he was willing to give her went way beyond his duties as her protector or her associate, a Vampire or a Prince - he was offering her a love that would seal her to his heart, to his life. For as long as she could accept his condition, accept his way of life, his sense of immortality and never question when he had to leave her to feed from others that would allow her blood to rejuvenate and her wounds to heal,
“What you’re offering Henry needs to go way beyond any Vampire duty or code? Would you be able to stay faithful to only me? Her question hung in the air as he toyed with her hands that lay laced between his, “what I am offering is a promise to love you in ways you never dreamed off, to take your body and make it mine in return to be allowed to feed from it and bind our souls together. To guarantee my faithfulness, you need to understand that to so, I will have to leave at times to feed elsewhere...I make no promises on that other than I will return again to your side with only blood on my lips!”
The temptation was there; would she give it a try?”
Mike Celluci stood with a feeling of perplexed anxiety etched in his face. The office was empty, her apartment bare. The only thing left that signalled she had ever been there was a photo hung on the wall depicting a youthful Vicki standing alongside her mother and him...well that was a slap in the face if ever there was one! The floor was cluttered with old newspapers symbolising the packing of objects and furniture, so she had left and moved on but where?
Wasn’t too hard for him to trace where Vicki Nelson had set up business, a few phone calls later and he got the location of her new premises and apartment in a very suburban neighbourhood on the other side of town. So she had moved out of the gutter filled with low lives and up into an area that could do with her expertise? He didn’t blame her for starting over but did this also mean she was free of the fanged flapping creature than had hung around her like a bad smell?
His conscience told him not to dwell on a promise that she might? Chances were he was still around, hoping to get a shot at the one woman who had so far to date, escaped his whatever he thought stood for charm. At least with him, Vicki had a history and that could never be dampened no matter how they tried.
A smile played on the rugged plain of his face...
Yep with Vicki she needed him as much as he needed her. They were like two peas in a pod, both needing each other to keep rock hard feet planted firmly on the ground and not out playing with the bogeyman. He turned and closed the door behind him, whistling an old classic tune as he meandered purposely down the hallway.
The scream tore from his lips as with shooting force, pain ripped through his body and plunged through his ribcage before finally stopping. His heart rushed and the sensation of that made him gag as he tried to sit up. The room swam before his eyes as he steadied himself with one hand clutching the post of the bed - Alicia’s bed. Another movement caused him to crash to the floor as he writhed and circled his arms around his legs before it finally stopped - everything stopped. Eyes blinked but they did not feel like his own, nothing felt right, everything felt...alien?
He lifted his hand up to look at it and felt as if he was trapped inside a bubble and could not escape...
Nothing felt right, nothing felt his...what the fuck was going on?
Rising slowly he searched the bed until his eyes stumbled across Alicia’s naked limbs, he needed to wake her up to find out what the hell they had drunk the night before...
“HOLY SHIT!”
She lay across the bed, her skin grey and tinged with blue. Eyes that were golden brown and begged of happiness now lay vacant and glassy. Pale alabaster skin now stretched and hung, with a gaping wound the size of baseball through her chest just above her heart,
“A-LIC-IA?”
What the hell was happening, this was all a dream one big horrible dream or nightmare if you counted that it had just gone midnight and they had just spent the night celebrating their engagement? He stood on wobbly legs and felt something hard push through his back again. The final push robbed him of his sight as he fell to the floor crying in pain.
Darkness enveloped him, the sight of his sweet Alicia as she accepted his ring and awarded him with a breathy yes, was the final thing that rushed through his mind as the blood stopped rushing in his head and the heart that once beat a living life force...suddenly...stopped.
~~~~
‘What would you do when faced with a proposition to be loved unconditionally?’
Run like the devil was after you and never look back?
Nope, all that did was make the devil even more determined to find you and hunt you down...so that route was already at moot point!
Accept the inevitable because sooner or later she was going to grow old and die and if she wasn’t too careful she would grow old and die without actually discovering the joys of mutual sex, something she hadn’t experienced in far too long...
So here she was faced with a man who would out-live her, out-age her and out-sex her. Not exactly comforting thoughts but at least he could attend to her when she no longer could do it herself...yes but then again would she want him around when she got that old?
The old nagging mantra that had seemed to overtake her sense of morality kicked in, the teasing voice of Christina as she made the calculating promise that sooner or later she would beg Henry to turn her, plead that he would show her his world rose up and began choking at her. Closing her eyes she forced her feet not to flee, this is what she wanted - she needed this closure on what they had, needed to understand just what Henry wanted of her and he had delivered it all hadn’t he?
“I-I’m scared, scared that I might not be all that you think I am? That I might not live up to your expectations. Christ Henry I’m old enough to be your mother?”
Now this was an excuse he had heard many times before but it had never bother him then, so why would it bother him now? He was after all in un-dead years older than all human life form in the world so a little insecurity about growing old did not deter him from staking his claim,
“I won’t tell if you don’t?”
She smiled thinly so he pressed on, “Let’s not think of tomorrow, let’s just concentrate on now?”
Taking a deep quivering breath, Vicki nodded as Henry sealed their agreement with a kiss that brought her alive like a piece of torch paper to kindling. Wrapped in his arms, she was cocooned in sensual overload as he brought them both to the polished wooden floor.
Silas stood and dressed with deliberate methodical movements. The body was not what he needed but it would do...for now. He glanced across the room to the naked body lying on the bed with a bitter taste in his mouth; she had been useful but again did not fit the purpose he was hoping to achieve.
So much loneliness in the world...
She had been so willing to experience something new and different with the girl who was exotic to look at but had a life as dull as tap water. Again no deeper connection other than a quick exchange of bodily fluids and onto the next one. Except the next one happened to be the man who loved her, had offered her a chance of happiness...the man in which now housed this prehistoric nesting demon, with a need to find a host it could live happily in.
Dressed impeccably in a stunningly expensive suit, looking everything that shouted out rich and socially classed, he left the decaying body behind and unlocked the black BMW in the underground car park. Slipping behind the wheel, he immediately familiarised himself with gears before gunning the engine to life. He would not dwell on the bodies he had passed through; none seemed to echo anything short of vanity and hollow completion. Was this world made up of all shallow creatures? Did no one love for the right reasons anymore?
Roaring down the intersection, feeling the wind blowing through tussled well looked after hair, the moon shone high in the sky as he turned off the direction towards the centre of the city. The night was young and many bodies out there screamed for a union.
~~~~
“No matter what you say...I keep coming back for more!”
Don’t leave...
So, I stay waiting in the dark...’
“Because some things are worth staying and fighting for...”
The echo of serenity voiced through a conviction that held no malice, held no hidden agenda, held no promise of a happy future...just plain and simple truth, voiced from someone who could not ever give her a happy tomorrow.
Vicki was dumbstruck, not because what Henry had said made no sense, but because it made every sense to her. Especially at a time when the only thing she wanted more than to have a healthy bank balance, her mother not ring her every single day wanting to know ‘when she will ever settle down meet a nice man and have babies?’ - was to find a deeper connection other than Mike turning up and messing with her life again!
Maybe Coreen had been right? Why settle for now when she could have so much more fun meddling with the past and hope for a brighter future? Didn’t Betty Sagara have her fun? Didn’t she find love with Henry? Was it so awful to think of being with someone who had to nip out now and again for a happy meal?
He had giving her everything, shown her ways of the night only dreamers wished to believe. Allowed her to escape into his realm and offer no guarantee that what she would see could ever change anything in her world, but change it, it did!
“You stayed, because of...me?” she could hardly contain the surprise that rushed out of her throat. Watched as it registered on Henry’s face, the trace of youth replaced by playfulness as he lifted up a lock of her hair, that had come loose from the bundle she had so haphazardly pulled up behind her head, a motion she had found slightly un-nerving at the start, but now welcomed as a sign of affection from him, “Why wouldn’t I”
His voice held a deeper meaning as she felt herself being magnetically pulled towards him, forcing back reality to break from the spell, “because of all the things that I’ve done that annoy the hell out of you? That I almost got you killed...again?” she licked her sudden dry lips, an action that was not missed as a spark of desire lit the blue embers in his eyes, “That I turned you down when you asked me to go with you? That I moved away to start my life over, knowing that I would never see you again?” A smile spread across his face as he took the space that was between them to his advantage and kissed the corner of her mouth, his voice a soft whisper that begged promise, “I could never leave, knowing how empty your life would be without me!” Vicki made a noise in her throat, forgetting just how vain and self-adulating he was, “You almost had me fooled there for a moment. I’d forgotten how vanity is an art only you can perfect?”
Henry nodded; a slight grin present on his evenly handsome face, “Vanity is not the reason why I chose to stay Vicki. I figured, in time you would understand the reasons why I give into your cynicism, adapt to your negativity, and subject myself to your self-pitying flogging of the entire male life form?”
She toyed with so much to bite back with, but seeing the merriment sparkle in his eyes, Vicki choose to play along and not be put off by wanting to rub his self-righteous face into the ground, “And that is?”
Henry eyed her with a lot of weight balancing between them. He knew enough of Vicki to understand she didn’t fall for all the romantic hype, most men would throw her direction. Let’s face it, even Celluci had his chance and blew it.
Now was the time for him to be straight forward and truthful. Allow her to make the next move, give her the choice she needed to make for herself, “We’ve been gravitating towards each other since we first met. I won’t deny that I am deeply attracted to you. Even though you seem to think me -shallow and worthless of such compassion.” She began to open her mouth but was silenced, as Henry placed a cool fingertip upon her lips, “I caused you pain through my own poor selfish behaviour, and I can never take that back”. Vicki could only nod and listen intently as he spoke with such deep emotion that normally would have had her gagging, or coming off with a quick quibble about his Hallmark references. His hands now slid to her hips and she had to clear her head of the sensual thoughts that went running through it,
“ Yes, I hurt you, and that hurt cut deep, but trust that I didn’t do it because I don’t care...I’ve lived a very long time Vicki, and relationships don’t come as freely as you think?”
“Oh, so what do you call the women queuing up outside your door like sex meals on tap?” she couldn’t hide the sarcasm that laced her questioning, it allowed Henry to acknowledge that even if his words had provoked a sense of confession, she wasn’t going to be so easily swayed. It reminded him of Jane Seymour, a woman of substance that had held favour with his father, who had loved her completely, passionately and reverently, “I cannot deny the mutual enjoyment of the flesh when feeding Vicki, no more than you can deny yourself the pleasure of the sun when it shines. But passion and the meeting of minds, the deeper connection that lasts long after the enjoyment of sex...is something I yearn for with each sunset that awakens me.”
She took a deep even breath that made Henry close his eyes and feel her response. The blood rushing through the core of her body, her heart beating rhythmically in time with each breath she took. Her resolve was wavering to the point of giving in, what could he give her that no other man could?
“You belong in this world, this mystery of darkness, even you understand that?” she nodded her head slightly as he pushed on, “freakish or not, somehow you understand things no other mortal can. You found me when I was hiding out of sight. Call it what you want, but destiny somehow brought us together for a reason?” He took her wrists and lifted them up, so both could see the markings that had been left as a diagram for all evil to pass through the world that surrounded them, “You were marked because of me. No matter how much I argue, the Dark Arts have made it impossible for me to ever leave you. As long as Asteroth is out there we need to stay connected.”
Vicki understood fully what he was trying to say. It was that very reason that had sent her fleeing to the other side of town, away from everything that had reminded her of him. Without Henry she felt incomplete, broken with no clear path for her life to travel. To return to the darkness that threatened to rob her of sight, to lose any confidence she had built up since meeting him. Swallowed up in a life of self pity, marking anyone who tried to get close to her with the same short limit of time. As much as her love for Mike would always be there, he had proven that even his love for her had limits and breaking points. Henry’s on the other hand, was unconditional, “Henry I want more than just your word that you will be there for me? I need more than you saying we have a deeper connection...”
~~~~
Detective Hoy breezed into the Toronto Police Department (TPD) with a sense of rightfulness in the world. She had just bagged her first homicide since changing divisions, something long running cops only dreamed off. Being a woman had its limits and she was determined not to be put off by the testosterone clad environment that could be mistaken for an equality workplace that housed some of the biggest and heaviest men she had ever seen. Very few women worked in the high level of the food chain. She’d heard rumours of one Amazonian who had decided working in the ‘private dick’ industry had better perks. Pity, it would have been nice to rub shoulders with a woman that wasn’t afraid of hard work.
Scanning the office, anyone else with half of what V. Nelson had to offer looked weak and unimpressionable. Katie Lam was the only female Detective worth half an ounce of interest, but even she had limits to showing just how big her balls were amongst the increase of expensive suits and killer ties. The Captain - Crowley, looked as if she was well overdue a vacation, burnt out to the point of smoking as she walked around like a drill sergeant barking orders as all stumbled in line,
“How was your day?”
Ah, the tall blond with the handsome smile and twinkling baby blues perched on the edge of her desk, stirring the excuse for coffee with a spoon, “Not too bad, considering the body I just found over by the Royal Court Nightclub?”
Now that piqued his interest, “Oh do tell?”
Francesca slung her purse over the back of her chair and manoeuvred herself around tall, blond and incredibly great smelling Detective Celluci, showing his pearly teeth as she straightened her skirt and sat down, “Mmm seems we have a serial on the loose. Another victim matching the same fatal injuries was brought in late yesterday. I have the forensics going over the two bodies, trying to match similarities to see if a marker was left.”
Detective Celluci did seem interested, he’d stopped stirring his coffee and was now looking at her with all the hallmarks of a well tuned in mind and a lot of years in homicide, “What where the injuries?”
“AH, now this is the killer,” Francesca sat forward in her seat, happy to be receiving an audience with the hot-to-trot Italian Stallion, “seems as if something or someone had plunged through the back of each victim, slicing through several arteries before puncturing out the front. Whatever or whoever it was, left a nasty hole in the victim that was found this morning - she didn’t stand a chance in hell.”
Something in what she had said most definitely stirred trouble with a capital ‘T’ in Celluci’s eyes. He jumped off her table and strode over to his own. Not that she minded one bit seeing him take a purposeful leap to the other side of the room, gave her a chance to check out his bum cakes and boy did he have a set. Dialling a number on his cell phone, tapping impatiently the index card with his spoon, gave him a profile worth capturing and placing on the yearly calendar that was handed out to all staff at Christmas,
“Dammit Vicki, where the hell are you?”
Ah oh, that didn’t sound good? Slightly disheartened with the possibility of trouble in paradise, Francesca got up to offer a shoulder to cry on, “Is everything okay?”
Mike Celluci looked blankly at Francesca Hoy and then to the cell phone still held in his hand, “Ah, no not really. Just a friend I’m trying to get in touch with seems to have changed her number?”
“OH?” curiosity sparked in her eyes, “Was it something you did?” Mike smiled at the generous grin that seeped into her face and lit up her dark interesting eyes. She was a transfer from Vancouver, the same area the preverbal pain in the neck Henry Fitzroy had vacated too with good riddance, “Not to my knowledge no.” With that he sighed recalling the last time he and Vicki had seen each other. Four months ago he had asked her to chose, him or Fitzroy? Since then his neck had been on the block and sanctions had been placed on his working environment - stop mixing with Vicki Nelson or be forced to leave the job he had worked damn hard for? As much as he wanted to tell Crowley to go and stick it, his mother, father and indeed sisters had talked him around to sensible reasoning.
Paps had been on the force for 30 years, retiring with not a blimp on his service record - he couldn’t do that to him, have a Celluci leave the force because of bad choices he made - mixing his job with his personal life. Vicki had chosen a line that was just too damn narrow for him to travel on, meddling with the creature of the night had blindsided her in more ways than one. If she chose to stay with him, then on her own head be it as long as she didn’t cross into his jurisdiction they would be okay. Problem was he hadn’t spoken to her in all that time, and now it seems she had decided to change not only her cell number, but her office number as well, “We, I mean Vicki and I had a kind of disagreement a few months ago, and since then she hasn’t spoken to me. You’d like her; she used to be a cop, Vicki Nelson?”
Francesca tried not to look surprised or shocked at this statement, “Wow Vicki Nelson heard of her, are you kidding? Best darn cop there’s ever been! What’s she into now?” trying not to sound as if she didn’t already know what Detective Nelson was up to now? This in any case allowed the yummy Celluci to keep talking as he searched his desk drawer for his badge thrown in there when he normally logged on for duty, “Eh, she’s moved to working for herself, Private Investigator and doing pretty well for herself. Listen Francesca?” Slipping his jacket on broad shoulders and fixing her with a lopsided grin, “I’m heading out of the office for a while, but it’s been swell chatting to you. Maybe we can continue this when I get back?”
‘Maybe, you betcha handsome!’
“Sure, that would be, that would be nice Detective Celluci.”
His smile got wider as he touched her shoulder with a large but well manicured hand that seemed to melt through the silk of her blouse onto her heated skin, “Please we can stop standing on formalities, the names Mike.”
Francesca could only smile, boy this man had a killer grin and killer moves to match the boyish grin. The whole pondering about Italian men hit her central nerves with a zing, “O-Okay then Mike, I will see you later then?”
She watched as he moved out of the office with all the grace of a stud in a suit. My, oh my! Didn’t she make her move to Toronto just in the nick of time? Men like Celluci didn’t become single and available for too long, judging by the volcanic glare she was receiving from Katie Lam who had witnessed their exchange of mutual ‘see-you-laters’?
Well tough girlfriend, times were a changing and her first port of call was to nail the SOB that had killed two people on her patch.
Henry was close enough to breathe in her scent mixed with perfume, a heady combination when fuelled with a yearning and a hunger that growled low in his chest, “I can offer you everything Vicki. Love, honour, passion and above all reverence to everything you are. I may not share the sunrise with you, but I can be your guiding light in the darkness that threatens to capture and trap you in its world.”
She sensed his solemn oath, and understood that what he was willing to give her went way beyond his duties as her protector or her associate, a Vampire or a Prince - he was offering her a love that would seal her to his heart, to his life. For as long as she could accept his condition, accept his way of life, his sense of immortality and never question when he had to leave her to feed from others that would allow her blood to rejuvenate and her wounds to heal,
“What you’re offering Henry needs to go way beyond any Vampire duty or code? Would you be able to stay faithful to only me? Her question hung in the air as he toyed with her hands that lay laced between his, “what I am offering is a promise to love you in ways you never dreamed off, to take your body and make it mine in return to be allowed to feed from it and bind our souls together. To guarantee my faithfulness, you need to understand that to so, I will have to leave at times to feed elsewhere...I make no promises on that other than I will return again to your side with only blood on my lips!”
The temptation was there; would she give it a try?”
Mike Celluci stood with a feeling of perplexed anxiety etched in his face. The office was empty, her apartment bare. The only thing left that signalled she had ever been there was a photo hung on the wall depicting a youthful Vicki standing alongside her mother and him...well that was a slap in the face if ever there was one! The floor was cluttered with old newspapers symbolising the packing of objects and furniture, so she had left and moved on but where?
Wasn’t too hard for him to trace where Vicki Nelson had set up business, a few phone calls later and he got the location of her new premises and apartment in a very suburban neighbourhood on the other side of town. So she had moved out of the gutter filled with low lives and up into an area that could do with her expertise? He didn’t blame her for starting over but did this also mean she was free of the fanged flapping creature than had hung around her like a bad smell?
His conscience told him not to dwell on a promise that she might? Chances were he was still around, hoping to get a shot at the one woman who had so far to date, escaped his whatever he thought stood for charm. At least with him, Vicki had a history and that could never be dampened no matter how they tried.
A smile played on the rugged plain of his face...
Yep with Vicki she needed him as much as he needed her. They were like two peas in a pod, both needing each other to keep rock hard feet planted firmly on the ground and not out playing with the bogeyman. He turned and closed the door behind him, whistling an old classic tune as he meandered purposely down the hallway.
The scream tore from his lips as with shooting force, pain ripped through his body and plunged through his ribcage before finally stopping. His heart rushed and the sensation of that made him gag as he tried to sit up. The room swam before his eyes as he steadied himself with one hand clutching the post of the bed - Alicia’s bed. Another movement caused him to crash to the floor as he writhed and circled his arms around his legs before it finally stopped - everything stopped. Eyes blinked but they did not feel like his own, nothing felt right, everything felt...alien?
He lifted his hand up to look at it and felt as if he was trapped inside a bubble and could not escape...
Nothing felt right, nothing felt his...what the fuck was going on?
Rising slowly he searched the bed until his eyes stumbled across Alicia’s naked limbs, he needed to wake her up to find out what the hell they had drunk the night before...
“HOLY SHIT!”
She lay across the bed, her skin grey and tinged with blue. Eyes that were golden brown and begged of happiness now lay vacant and glassy. Pale alabaster skin now stretched and hung, with a gaping wound the size of baseball through her chest just above her heart,
“A-LIC-IA?”
What the hell was happening, this was all a dream one big horrible dream or nightmare if you counted that it had just gone midnight and they had just spent the night celebrating their engagement? He stood on wobbly legs and felt something hard push through his back again. The final push robbed him of his sight as he fell to the floor crying in pain.
Darkness enveloped him, the sight of his sweet Alicia as she accepted his ring and awarded him with a breathy yes, was the final thing that rushed through his mind as the blood stopped rushing in his head and the heart that once beat a living life force...suddenly...stopped.
~~~~
‘What would you do when faced with a proposition to be loved unconditionally?’
Run like the devil was after you and never look back?
Nope, all that did was make the devil even more determined to find you and hunt you down...so that route was already at moot point!
Accept the inevitable because sooner or later she was going to grow old and die and if she wasn’t too careful she would grow old and die without actually discovering the joys of mutual sex, something she hadn’t experienced in far too long...
So here she was faced with a man who would out-live her, out-age her and out-sex her. Not exactly comforting thoughts but at least he could attend to her when she no longer could do it herself...yes but then again would she want him around when she got that old?
The old nagging mantra that had seemed to overtake her sense of morality kicked in, the teasing voice of Christina as she made the calculating promise that sooner or later she would beg Henry to turn her, plead that he would show her his world rose up and began choking at her. Closing her eyes she forced her feet not to flee, this is what she wanted - she needed this closure on what they had, needed to understand just what Henry wanted of her and he had delivered it all hadn’t he?
“I-I’m scared, scared that I might not be all that you think I am? That I might not live up to your expectations. Christ Henry I’m old enough to be your mother?”
Now this was an excuse he had heard many times before but it had never bother him then, so why would it bother him now? He was after all in un-dead years older than all human life form in the world so a little insecurity about growing old did not deter him from staking his claim,
“I won’t tell if you don’t?”
She smiled thinly so he pressed on, “Let’s not think of tomorrow, let’s just concentrate on now?”
Taking a deep quivering breath, Vicki nodded as Henry sealed their agreement with a kiss that brought her alive like a piece of torch paper to kindling. Wrapped in his arms, she was cocooned in sensual overload as he brought them both to the polished wooden floor.
Silas stood and dressed with deliberate methodical movements. The body was not what he needed but it would do...for now. He glanced across the room to the naked body lying on the bed with a bitter taste in his mouth; she had been useful but again did not fit the purpose he was hoping to achieve.
So much loneliness in the world...
She had been so willing to experience something new and different with the girl who was exotic to look at but had a life as dull as tap water. Again no deeper connection other than a quick exchange of bodily fluids and onto the next one. Except the next one happened to be the man who loved her, had offered her a chance of happiness...the man in which now housed this prehistoric nesting demon, with a need to find a host it could live happily in.
Dressed impeccably in a stunningly expensive suit, looking everything that shouted out rich and socially classed, he left the decaying body behind and unlocked the black BMW in the underground car park. Slipping behind the wheel, he immediately familiarised himself with gears before gunning the engine to life. He would not dwell on the bodies he had passed through; none seemed to echo anything short of vanity and hollow completion. Was this world made up of all shallow creatures? Did no one love for the right reasons anymore?
Roaring down the intersection, feeling the wind blowing through tussled well looked after hair, the moon shone high in the sky as he turned off the direction towards the centre of the city. The night was young and many bodies out there screamed for a union.
~~~~