Bloody Heretic (25 page)

    “
C
’
est b
on
,”
she mumbled. “
That
’
s good,”
she corrected as an afterthought. She closed the folder and handed it back to Claude. He smiled at her but she didn
’
t return it. With a look around
the room, in which no one made eye contact, she blew out a breath.

    “
Are we finished then?”
Elliot asked from his spot in the corner of the room.

    “
Not quite,”
Adam answered. “
The old saying
‘
Cut the head off of the snake and the body dies
’
is quite
true, but there are still girls out there and the Japanese Packs still have to be held accountable. But for now, yes, I
’
d say we can rest knowing we did a job well done.”

    “
Hooah! Go Team Monster Mash!”
El called out. Once again, the more jaded creatu
res were forced into a laugh from the youngster.
Even Jeanne cracked a smile.

    “
Alright,”
Adam stood. “
We were waiting on you Jeanne. We agreed you should be the one to do the honor.”

    “
What honor?”
She asked.

    “
Burning the compound to the ground.”
He smiled. She managed to feel the first stirrings of excitement she had felt since last night.

    “
It would be my pleasure.”
He gave a bow, motioning for her to proceed. The
y
all moved out of the room, heading for th
e club. Once they reached the front entrance, Jeanne stopped.
One of them had hung a
‘
Closed
’
sign on the door.
She couldn
’
t help but think about Dom, of how they had won this battle together and how he should be here to enjoy this with her. Anger and pain
warred for supremacy. In the end anger served her best and she proceeded through the door. The sight greeting her was one she hadn
’
t seen in a long time. They had piled the dead up on the dance floor
, with Michel and his head placed regally at the top
.
Th
e bodies were haphazardly flung together, and it brought a tear to her eye to see the blatant disrespect. 

    “
For me?”
She asked Adam. He nodded, handing her a pack of matches. She took them. “
Honestly, this was too sweet. You didn
’
t have to go through
all the trouble.”

    “
Yes we did. You saved us. And you
deserve
to be the one to bring this whole place down. If you want
,
you can burn all of his properties. It
’
s your rite.”
He stepped back, letting her approach the pyre.
She took a deep breath, thankf
ul that the cold had staved off the worst of the stench. A quick flick of her wrist and the match burned brightly, illuminating the mass of doomed flesh. The cavernous room lit up quickly as the pile caught fire. Ethan stepped forward and put a hand to he
r
shoulder.

    “
We can
’
t linger. I
’
ve rigged the compound to blow as soon as the floor underneath us catches,”
he told her. She nodded in understanding. A last glance at the top just to assure herself that Michel was burning nicely, and she was satisfied.
They walked away. When the door closed behind her a hitch in her breathing alerted her that her calm facade was crumbling. She darted to the right, taking off before anyone could catch up. Not that they would. Eventually she stopped running, coming to a
h
alt in front of a church. A fitting end to the saga that had begun her life. She hadn
’
t stepped foot across a sanctified doorway in years, but some
compulsion
had her moving forward through the open doors, to the front of the sanctuary.
She knelt down, cro
ssing herself, before looking up at the statue of Christ. A tear fell. And then another. Without saying a word, without a real coherent thought she allowed all the wretched pain and suffering she had felt for the past five hundred years to wash away. When
she was finished she wiped the moisture
from her face, stood and turned toward the votives against the far wall. She used the pack of matches she still had in her jacket to light two candles. One for Gabriel and one for Dominic. Though Gabriel was long dea
d, she still hadn
’
t properly prayed for him. She had never quite believed him dead. But if Dominic was right, he had been dead these last four hundred years. Dominic was reserved a prayer simply out of guilt. She had held onto her hatred of Michel long en
o
ugh, she couldn
’
t hold onto her anger towards Dom. It was time she lived a normal life, as normal as one such as herself could live. Would she miss him? Of course. But she wasn
’
t going to blame him for leaving. It was time to forgive and move on. She felt
so tired. After this case was fully rapped up she was going home and sleeping for a week. Her last thought before leaving the church
,
strangely enough, was of Dominic
’
s
stomach and its utter lack of scars.

    Several weeks and hundreds of miles away, Do
m sat at the counter of the bar he didn
’
t use in his Caribbean home.
He hadn
’
t left in the entirety of his stay but to feed. The tourists along the beach beyond his front door kept him in steady supply. Technically the stretch of beachfront property was of
f limits to tourists but since when had a
‘
Keep Out
’
sign ever stopped anybody. He brushed absently at his short hair, thinking of nothing and everything at once, as was his habit of late. Meditation was a crock of shit. His brain refused to shut off. Eve
r
y time he closed his eyes, attempting to focus on breathing, the image of her face flashed across his vision. She permeated his every waking thought. He had even been dreaming of her. To say that Dom had fallen off the wagon was an extreme understatement,
but even so, his thoughts centered on Jeanne for most of the minutes of his waking hours. He should be thankful that he was
n
’
t
dwell
ing on what he had done in Volgogr
ad, if only t
he thought of losing Jeanne wasn
’
t so
painful.
Claude had called a few times
to see how he was doing. His answer every time had been
‘
Alive.
’
Not only was he not in the sharing mood, he didn
’
t want to hear anything about Jeanne or what she had done after he had left. She thought him a coward, he knew it. And she
’
d be right. He cou
l
dn
’
t face her after what he had done to her. Oh, she had seemed willing enough but he knew what his bite could do after the bloodlust was upon him. No one could or would stop him. Pulling The Black Sun
’
s head from his shoulders was proof positive of that.
He hung his head in his hands for the thousandth time since reliving the scene. Though Jeanne had
controlled
most of his motions, Dom remembered clearly sucking the life from Michel
’
s body and how the Vampire had clung to him as he did it. It was a memory
he wished he had stuck around long enough for Jeanne to erase as well. But he had to live with it and all the others that she had given back to him. Including the ones that wer
e keeping him warm at night, but
were
also
keeping him prisoner in his own home
for fear of
falling head long into the bloodlust that had ruled his life for hundreds of years already. He wasn
’
t sure if it was Jeanne
’
s imagined disapproval or his King
’
s but somehow he was keeping it together here on this little island. A knock sounded
from behind him and he whirled to see Adam standing in the open doorway of his living room. He let out a defeated breath.

    “
What?”
He asked, petulantly. Adam raised an eyebrow but walked in despite the rude greeting.

    “
The brooding Vampire is kind of
a cliché
at this point, isn
’
t it?”

    “
What do you want, Adam?”

    “
I was in the neighborhood,”
he quipped. Dom snorted at him. The island was five miles from the D.R. and not exactly on any Vampire hot spot lists.

    “
Come to see if I had walked ou
t to greet the sun, more like it,”
Dom hopped off the bar stool to close the front door. A bit too late but it felt good to slam the door nonetheless.

    “
No, you wouldn
’
t do that.”

    “
You
’
re so sure,”
he mocked.

    “
Yes. You
’
d have done it by now if you had it in you.”
He picked up an old magazine from the coffee table, feigning nonchalance. 

    “
Then why are you here,”
he demanded.

    “
The case is closed. Thought you would like to know.”

    “
Oh,”
he let out an angry brea
th. “
You could have called.”

    “
Claude said you stopped answering your phone two weeks ago,”
he said, continuing to flip though the magazine.

    “
Two weeks?”
It hadn
’
t felt like that long ago that they had spoken. Or that Claude had tried to speak bef
ore Dom hung up on him.

    “
Yep, two weeks,”
he answered casually. “
Vic wants to know if it
’
s okay to give the girls your number. They want to thank you for your help.”

    “
I didn
’
t do anything to help them,”
Dom said. Adam looked up then.

    “
You mos
t certainly did. You killed Le Soleil Noir.”

    “
That wasn
’
t me,”
he whispered, ashamed.

    “
Dom, don
’
t be petty. Let them give their thanks. You don
’
t have to become pen pals, just let them call, say
‘
Thank you
’
and then let them move on.”
After that scathing set down Dom got angry.

    “
Petty? How dare you call what I
’
m feeling petty! I bloody raped the man and Jeanne did the rest! I didn
’
t save anyone!”
He yelled.

    “
Did you or did you not help to distract the man long enough for you
bo
th
to incapacitate and kill him?”

    “
Again, Jeanne was the one who set off my bloodlust in the first place. The whole thing was her idea.”

    “
Well, it was
your
bloodlust that did it. Had you not been a slavering, blood addict in the first place, we mi
ght not be here arguing over who did what to whom.”
He set the paper down. “
And I would like to take this opportunity to point out that you could have told me about your addict
ion
s before we sent you into the club.”

    “
I couldn
’
t do that anymore than you
could have freely admitted to Vic how many women you had slept with.”
Adam glared at that.

    “
I would have told her eventually,”
he tried before Dom cracked a laugh. “
I would have!”

    “
Just like you would have admitted to sleeping with her in the fir
st place back in Boston? You swore on your own brothers life there hadn
’
t been a girl in your room!”