Chapter Fourteen

 

 

 

 

 

She’d heard the sound of one of the doors of The Galley opening and closing, had been sure it was Sampson since Alaric had called the Viking before sending her away and hollered over her shoulder for him to come help her find the First Aid kit in the enormous closet. No sooner had the words left her mouth than the creepy feeling of spiders crawling up her spine made her shiver and the stench of old beer and stale whiskey nearly made her gag.

Slowly standing up, she turned towards the smell and tried not to react as she took in the eerie, gaunt man standing behind her. Tall, lanky to the point of being nearly emaciated, with his long black hair matted in clumps as it hung in oily strings well past his shoulder, the stranger’s nearly transparent skin confirmed that he was a Vampire even before she saw his fangs as he smirked in her direction.

Trying to muster the courage to speak, Ashlynn refused to be bullied as she threw back her shoulders in defiance when the Vampire lisped around his fangs, sounding more like a snake than a man, “Sso, thiss iss what all the fusss iss about? The bastard’ss Bloodmate.”

“If you’re looking for Alaric, he’s over at CRAVE fighting the fire.” She pointed, proud that she’d kept the tremble from her voice and attempting to distract the Vampire long enough to figure out how to contact Alaric with that mind trick he kept using. “Do you know where that is?”

Yeah, it was a stupid question, but she was still trying to call to Alaric. Stepping forward, the unnerving Vamp slowly shook his head, “Nay, I have found who I want.”

Moving back as the man raised his fist, Ash didn’t even get the chance to scream as the jerk opened his hand and blew some kind of nasty smelling shit right into her face. Coughing and sputtering, she remembered falling backward before her world went completely black. The whole fainting and waking up in weird places was getting really old, especially since this time there was no sexy Alaric.

Musty, decayed, and bitter, the scent of old bones, long-forgotten earth and formaldehyde filled her nose making her eyes water as her hacking cough echoed through the darkness. Just as if someone or worse yet, something, had heard her thoughts, a torch, hanging from a sconce on the far side of the room burst to life. Once her eyes had adjusted to the sudden influx of light, Ash immediately wished she was back in the dark and unconscious.

Looking up and down one wall and then the other, she counted over eighty crypts in what she now knew was a mausoleum. Squinting to read their names, she saw things like Jezebel, Matthias, Adam, Ezekiel. Pushing her sight as hard as she could, she was finally able to make out what at first had seemed like a strange emblem but soon she recognized as pictures of broken shackles.

“The Old Dallas Burial Ground,” she murmured, trying to show reverence and her respect to the cemetery that was formed in the early 1840s in an impromptu manner when the first death to occur in the newly formed village of Dallas dictated its necessity.

She remembered visiting the graveyard in her undergraduate years while taking forensic biology. Professor McKinnley’s voice still rang in her ears, his deep Texas drawl somehow adding to the importance of the place. “Now, students, it is important to think of all factors when searching for forensic evidence, not just what you find on that remains of the deceased. You must look at the whole picture, for example, this mausoleum, as well as the cemetery as a whole, is highly atypical for the antebellum South. The Old Dallas Burial Ground which was later named Freedman’s Cemetery marks the final resting place of white settlers, enslaved African Americans, and freed slaves.”

“Researchers have found that Freedman's Cemetery’s origin ultimately traces back to a slave cemetery that later became the first ever communal graveyard and led to the name of the town of Freedman, in which men of all races were considered free and could own land.”

“Kind of ironic that you find yourself shackled to the statue of St. Benedict the Black, the patron saint of freed slaves.” He walked around her, talking in a haughty tone with one arm behind his back like a nobleman and the other motioning as if he was addressing Parliament. The only comfort that she could find was that he was no longer lisping which meant his sharp, deadly fangs were no longer showing and he was talking instead of draining her dry. All she could do was pray Alaric would find her before Cuckoo Pants ripped her to shreds.

“Did you know that the Italian black Catholic saint’s, Benedict, was the son of African slaves. He gained sainthood because he inspired black identity and pride. I wonder if there will ever be a Vampire saint. Don’t you think there should be? We are, after all, the superior race.”

Not answering the raving lunatic, Ashlynn tried to untie the ropes securing her hands behind her back. She may not be able to outrun the fucker, and fighting him was a fool’s errand, but she damned sure wasn’t prepared to die with her ass in the dirt while some deranged asshole gave her a history lesson.

Stopping in front of her and smiling, the asshole Vampire surmised, “I’m sure you have questions.” Standing so close to Ashlynn’s outstretched feet that she jerked them towards her body as she craned her neck to look up at his grossly decorated face, the idiot actually smiled – one that reached all the way to his beady black, soulless eyes making them sparkle in the firelight. It was literally the creepiest thing she’d ever seen, and she oversaw the insect breeding program at Harvard for a year-and-a-half.

Taking in the layers of dried, caked-on blood, dirt, bits of hair and flesh, she shoved the bile rising in her throat back, tried to school her expression and nodded, “Yes. Why am I here?”

“Excellent question, my dear. You really are as smart as they all say.”

Wondering who ‘they’ were, but was working so hard not to throw up that she had to breathe through her mouth while sitting perfectly still as the crazed predator before her went back to walking and talking.

“You are here simply because you, lovely girl, are the only thing in this world that Alaric loves. You,” once again he stopped right in front of her, “Are the only thing I can take from him that will make him understand the pain I have suffered for nearly four hundred years.”

Remembering something she’d learned in an Abnormal Psychology class about speaking to someone who was suffering a psychotic break, Ashlynn took a deep breath, slowly letting it out, kept her tone soft and even and coaxed, “I am so very sorry for your loss. Would you like to tell me what happened?” Then recalling that she was supposed to use his name as much as possible, she smiled and asked, “Can I know your name?”

Praying with all her might that she could keep Captain Crazy talking, she continued to look into the void that was his gaze as the Vampire responded, “I am Androu, of Clan MacAngoran and your Beloved’s Maker.”

Holding her smile while stuffing her shock at the fact that the Vampire before her could have had anything to do with the man she’d spent the last twenty or so hours with, Ash sweetly replied, “It is nice to meet you, Androu.”

Barely nodding to acknowledge her words, the Psycho went on, “Alaric betrayed us, every member of our Clan, every person who ever loved and cared for him, by leaving Scotland and heading to the New World. He left us when we needed him most, when the Jacobites were invading our island.” Kneeling down to her right, so close that she could feel his cold, fetid breath on her cheek, he seethed, “He left his dear grandmother, Brygid, the woman I loved more than my eternal life, the only woman who ever truly saw me for what I was, and appreciated me, to die, to lose her head on the battlefield like so much fodder for the Duke of Agryll’s war.”

Leaning even closer, his spittle bathing her face, the lunatic spat, “That bastard Sir John Campbell thought it was funny to mount my dear Brygid’s head on a pike outside MacAngoran Castle with a placard reading ‘The Queen is No More.” Grabbing her face with such force that the ragged tips of his nails dug into her skin, Androu jerked her head towards his until they were eye-to-eye and with a maniacal cackle added, “But you see, Brygid and I were meant to be together forever, to live out eternity side-by-side.” He gripped her hair even tighter. “So, in the dead of night when the fool was sleeping, I saved my dear Brygid. I took her back.”

Flinging Ash’s head backward with such force that her skull bounced off the statue behind her, the crazed Vampire dashed across the room, returning as quickly as he left with a duffle bag he waved in front of her face like some sort of flag. Trying to clear her vision, her head pounding like a bass drum in a marching band from Androu’s abuse, Ashlynn gagged as he hand disappeared into the bag only to instantaneously reappear with the decomposed skull of what she could only assume was Brygid.

Holding the bones of the woman he obviously loved with a tenderness that belied everything Ashlynn knew of the deranged psychopath, Androu smoothed the dark, dry strands of hair remaining on the skull as he added, “I can only hope Alaric will also keep what remains of you after I have disposed of you. It is, after all, what one owes his one true Bloodmate.”