Dark Rapture (15 page)

Chapter Thirteen

Sebastian drove quickly. Scarlet was on the edge of her seat with apprehension. The loose gravel threw the car back and forth across the narrow road and more than once she was sure that he was going to lose control and drive into the ditch, but he never did.

When he’d called she tried to think of an excuse to back out on their ‘date,’ but the urgency in his voice had prompted her to give in. And now she sat next to him, dressed warmly in jeans and a sweater upon his request, wondering where the heck he was taking her.

It was eleven o’clock and she had that gut feeling that she was making another mistake. But how much worse could things get? There wasn’t much more that Sebastian could do to her that would matter anyway.

He pulled over next to a iron gate that twisted around for acres into the night. Scarlet was unable to tell exactly where they were because they had driven into a cloud of fog and she could only see about five feet past the hood of the car.

Wherever they were, she didn’t like it.

A cold chill slipped under the cuffs of her jeans as she stepped out onto the soggy ground. The soil was saturated with all the rain they had seen in the past days, and the grass squished beneath her shoes. She rubbed against her nubby cotton sweater to bring some heat to her skin and sniffed the air. It was clean and fresh, like summer rain, but there was an unmistakable sour note that she couldn’t quite discern, like mildew or rot.

Looking around she could discern the outlines of barren trees whose branches sprang out of the fog like wicked fingers of death. Why didn’t they have leaves? It was the middle of summer but somehow everything around her seemed dead and decaying, from the stubbly browning grass beneath her feet to the black paint peeling on the gate. “Where are we, Sebastian?”

“I come here when I need to think.” He walked around to the passenger side of the car. He looked so sexy tonight. His hair gleamed like black diamonds, and as usual, he was dressed head to toe in black. And for some reason his cologne even smelled more enticing.

Looking away from his tempting figure, Scarlet was startled by the stone gargoyles that sat on either side of the gate. They were as big as a short man, and ugly, with thick stone tongues hanging out of grotesquely curved mouths, and wing spans as wide as her arms.

“What did you bring me here for? I’m freezing.”

“I wanted to show you a few things, teach you about yourself, and explain some of the powers you possess.”

“Did we have to come all the way out here?” She shivered and dance around, her feet making suction noises in the grass, while Sebastian seemed comfortable with the cool weather. “This is a long way out. What’s so special about this place?”

“I’ll show you. But first, lesson number one.” He took her hands from her shoulders and held them out to her sides. “You shouldn’t be cold. A vampire can adjust his body temperature to match the environment. If you concentrate, you can do the same.”

“You mean you’re not cold?” she chattered.

“No. Just relax and concentrate. Tell your body to lower its temperature, and envision in your mind that it’s happening, and it will.”

“That sounds too easy.”

“Try it.”

It seemed like nonsense to her, but she’d give it a try. It wasn’t as if she had someplace better to be, although she wished she did. Scarlet stood still, closing her eyes, and imagined her blood cooling itself so it was a few degrees less than normal. Immediately, she felt her body stop shaking, and a warmth spread through her torso and radiated out to her extremities. After about a minute of thinking of warmth and relaxation, she opened her eyes to see Sebastian smiling at her.

“Pretty easy, huh?”

“Yes. I feel fine now. I’m not cold at all.”

“Let’s go, then.”

They walked to the gate, and as they neared it the fog caressed the spaces between the bars, floating through the cold iron and billowing in thick clouds so she could barely see her feet. She fingered the gargoyle’s head and shuddered at the wings on his back. Anything monstrous inevitably reminded her of vampires and of her own situation.

Sebastian lifted the rusted lock and the thick chain that wrapped around the gate clattered dully. “Do you want to open this?”

“Me? Do you have a key?”

He laughed and placed a hand on her shoulder. “You don’t need a key, Scarlet. You’re a vampire. You now have the strength of ten men. And big men at that.”

This was hard to believe. But after thinking on it she realized that she hadn’t done anything lately that needed any strength, so she had no idea if it was true. There was only one way to find out. “I’ll try.”

She braced her feet against the spongy ground, preparing for a struggle. With her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth, she placed her hand on the cold rusty metal and turned. To her surprise, it moved easily, and the lock snapped with a crunch under her fingers. The chain slipped down and clanked against the bars and Sebastian pulled it out from the gate, tossing it to the ground while she stood staring at the old lock in her hand.

“I can’t believe it.”

“Your strength will come in handy,” he said, leading her through the gate.

She could make out a large stone building just ahead of them, though the fog hung on the ground like steam rising from hell. They weaved back and forth, since the path Sebastian was taking was cluttered with large stone blocks every so often. He moved swiftly, and she did her best to dodge the obstacles on the ground as they neared the building, but she slipped and tumbled over one of them and immediately realized what he had been swerving around.

Frantically, she pushed up from the wet grass and grabbed for Sebastian so he would slow down. Her nails nearly tore his shirt as she clutched him for dear life.

“Sebastian, this is a graveyard! What are we doing here?”

“I want you to see the inside of the mausoleum.” He pointed ahead to the stone building. Placing a warm hand on hers, he was able to pry her manic grasp from the back of his arm and put an arm around her waist.

“Why? This is so gross. I want to leave now!”

She couldn’t believe how casual he was about being here around all these dead people. The only time she had ever been to a graveyard was for her parents’ funeral. Even then, Gary had carried her back to the car before she collapsed from the horror of being in such surroundings. There was something about dead bodies beneath her feet that did not sit well with her.

She started to shiver and Sebastian hugged her close, his eyes catching the moonlight as he spoke. “This is where I stayed when I first came to America, over a hundred years ago. I wanted to show you my origins.” He smoothed a hand along the side of her face. “You are my blood child so my history is now yours, too.”

“Couldn’t you have done this at home?” she said nervously eyeing the tombstones jutting out of the stale ground.

“Don’t be afraid. I’m here and I won’t let anything happen to you. Besides, the only things out here are a bunch of bones and coffins. No ghosts, I think.”

He thinks?

“This is lovely, you taking me here to this big stone place, but . . .”

“It’s a mausoleum.”

“Whatever. But what about your real past? Where you were born, what you did as a child before you became a vampire? That’s what I want to know more about.”

The thick stone door of the mausoleum groaned and cracked open under Sebastian’s strength. He pushed it back against the outside wall and entered with the aid of the moonlight to guide his steps.

Seeing that he wasn’t going to answer her, Scarlet followed. Inside, the moon shone in through two iron-barred windows and spread across the floor. Through the hazy moonlight, she could make out a large stone coffin resting in the center of the room. All around her the walls were lined with drawers the same size as those on her dressers at home. What they were filled with she didn’t want to imagine.

“Did you hear me, Sebastian?”

“Huh? Yes, I’ll tell you about that part of my life later.” He looked over the coffin. “But right now let’s do this, okay?”

He rubbed his hands together and eagerly approached the stone sarcophagus, blowing the dust from the cover to reveal intricate designs carved into the top. Two cherubs danced over the cold gray stone cover, twirling and twined within arcs of delicate vines and roses.

He fingered the roses. “See here, wild roses. It’s always been a belief that if you place wild roses over a vampire’s coffin, he won’t be able to leave. He’ll be trapped within his own sanctuary.”

“Not true, huh?”

"Perhaps if they had been real roses, and, planted by witches."

Scarlet grimaced and swallowed. All this vampire lore and myth was making her anxious. But he motioned her closer and she forgot her fears as she examined the work. It must have taken a long time to carve.

“This is your coffin?” she asked with new wonderment.

“Yes. Well . . . sort of.” He walked around to the opposite side and fingered the curves of the intricately carved vines. “It belonged to a relative. Before it was transferred to America, I traded places with the body inside. It was my only way to get over here, you see. Or at least, at the time it was the simplest method of travel.”

She was repulsed at his gall. “You took a dead body out of here? And then laid in it yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, that’s crude.”

He chuckled, his attention on the stone sepulcher. “Do you want me to get you one?”

“Sebastian! Don’t say things like that. The idea of lying in a coffin while still breathing is . . . is . . .” She backed away from the coffin and grabbed her stomach. “Yuck!”

Scarlet turned and dashed out of the building. Tombstones jutted out of the fog in front and behind her. She couldn’t decide which was worse—dead bodies or a vampire and his coffin. The wind howled and the trees scraped against the mausoleum, and even though she could see now where the sound was coming from, the fog and the tombstones made her skin crawl.

“Sebastian!” she yelled back into the building.

“What?” The voice came from behind her and Scarlet spun to see him standing between her and the graves. “How did you get there? You were just in
there."

“Don’t get so excited, Scarlet. Just relax. I never imagined you’d be so nervous in a graveyard.”

“I want to leave now. I don’t understand why you needed to bring me here and show me this. It only proves that your
origins,
as you call them, are dead people, tombstones, and ghosts. Death and misery, that’s all this is!”

“I didn’t bring you out here to argue with you.” He was clearly irritated as he ground his jaws together. “Leave if you like, but I thought this would give us a chance to learn more about each other. I want you to understand me, not for you to write me off as some sort of monster.”

Scarlet sighed. “Sebastian, I don’t know.”

“I wanted to show you some of the powers you have. It will make things easier for you. Will you at least let me explain a few more things before we leave?”

She walked past him and the fog whispered across her face. Beyond her stood rows of tombstones hidden in the mist, and then his car. She didn’t want to walk back by herself. Shrugging, she gave in. “Then show me.”

“Come here and I will.”

She turned to Sebastian, but he wasn’t there. A thick cloud of white mist hovered in front of her and she saw only the opening to the mausoleum where he’d stood. She had heard him as plain as day, his voice was so close.

“Where are you?” She scanned the ground and the air before her, and saw only grayness and white mist.

“I’m up here,
cherie.”

His voice came from somewhere in front of her, only higher up. The fog was thickening but she looked up above the low mist. Sebastian stood on top of the mausoleum, his hair blowing in the wind. He beckoned her to come but she shook her head and stepped back to judge the distance.

“How did you get up there?”

He knelt and looked down at her, smiling that delicious smile. “I jumped.”

“So this is another one of your vampire tricks?”

“Yes, and yours too. Take a running leap. You can do it with no problem.”

He exhibited so much confidence in her. It was easy for him to say; he was already up there. She looked at the one-story structure before her. About ten feet, she thought.

“I can’t do this, Sebastian.”

“Why not? You’re no different from me now.” He stood and put a finger to his chin. “Except perhaps that you are a woman, and everyone knows that women are not as strong as men.” He looked down his nose to see if he’d sparked a little anger.

Sure enough, he had. Scarlet paced away from the building, hands in fists at her sides. She turned and faced the stone mausoleum. Fine, just run and jump, she told herself.

Her feet quickened their pace and she ran toward the building. When there was but a few feet between her and the wall, she pushed from the soggy ground, soaring through the mist until her feet touched the flat stone roof and she stood next to Sebastian.