Dark Rapture (71 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Where is she?”

Sebastian smoothed his forefinger down the length of emerald damask drapery in the study window. He had chosen the color specifically to match Scarlet’s eyes. Eyes that had haunted him for centuries. Eyes captured in the sparkle of an emerald lying against a woman’s neck. Eyes that would speak to him from paintings, abstract or surreal, the color so pure and bold that it would bring him to his knees in desire and want and need.

It had taken him over two centuries—he’d searched for Scarlet since 1769—and finally, last year he had found her. To have and to hold forever.

Would betrayal and mistrust destroy their forever?

Sebastian pulled the thick drapery away from the window. Soon, night would fall. Scarlet had been missing since last night. Not missing like taken or kidnapped. Gone of her own free will.

“Scarlet, if you can hear me, I beg your forgiveness. Please come home to me,
cherie
. I will do anything I can to help discover the answers you seek. I was being selfish. I could not stand to know that you might need more than I can offer.”

Selfish and yes, even jealous. But jealous of what?

It was as if he had become excess baggage. Scarlet was so busy lately. Always with her nose in those damn diaries in search of answers. If the vampire was possessed of great and mighty powers than surely Sebastian would have stumbled on them years ago. The only thing the diaries offered were insight to Vince’s family history. Vince. Always Vince! Had this rogue vampire become his new rival?

I did not make love to Vince and it burns me to know you would think I could.

Kinda funny that she’d let you believe something like that.

Why had she let him believe such a thing? He and Scarlet always spoke the truth to one another. Each was aware they could easily confide in the other. Perhaps she was ashamed for having killed? No.

There was no reason to let him think such a betrayal had happened.

Unless…unless there was something in the diaries after all.

I’ve been reading about Esmarelda and Adriano. It’s so fascinating.

Did the diaries hold answers he should be aware of? Secrets to the vampire legacy that had been hidden from him for centuries?

Sebastian dashed out of the room. The last he’d seen of the diaries, Scarlet had left them downstairs in the living room.

***

Once stumbled upon, Catrina’s trail was not hard to pick up. She had left bodies scattered here and there for miles, slumped in the alleyways, crawling half-dead toward the main street in an attempt to get help for themselves. When they came upon a victim who was still alive, Rico worked his vampire persuasion on them. If close to death, Vince flicked out his knife, quickly finished the job, and tucked the body out of sight between buildings or tossed it in a garbage dump. There were police sirens not far away but their vampire swiftness kept Rico and Vince well ahead of the authorities.

“That’s five now.” Vince wiped a smear of tepid blood across his shirt and searched Rico’s brooding eyes. “But I think we’re getting closer, this kid was still warm.”

Rico pushed the victim’s head to the side to hide the havoc that his sister had forced upon his flesh. He bent and picked up the bloody cross that lay near the dead boy’s hand. “Yes, we are. I can feel her heartbeat in my veins. She’s very close.”

A bloodcurdling scream prompted both vampires down the alleyway and to the back of a Chinese restaurant where a frantic little Chinese woman stood with her hands to her mouth.

She babbled incoherently in her native tongue. Rico put his arm around her and turned her away from the carnage, but at the same time looking over his shoulder.

Vince fingered the gaping wound in the young girl’s neck. He looked down her body, seeing her hand still inside her purse. He pulled it out. Her fingers had touched a gun, a .22 she had most likely kept as protection.

Red lights flashed across the shoddy brick walls of the restaurant. Rico hissed at Vince, “It’s the police, we must leave.”

“Right.”

“Don’t leave that behind!”

Vince shrugged. “What?”

“The gun. You touched it, your fingerprints are all over it.”

“Shit.” Vince slipped the gun down the front of his pants. “Whoa!” He readjusted the pistol so that it pointed to the side instead of downward. “Don’t want to lose anything I might need to use later.”

He took off behind Rico, leaving the Chinese woman screaming. They did not stop until they had crossed five or six city streets and leapt into the late evening sky to rest on the rooftops.

“She’s very close.” Rico scanned the building tops, the city streets, and the distant flashes of the inner city. “But the vibrations I’m getting…they’re…scattered. So manic.” He shuddered and drew in a deep breath. “This should have never happened, Vince. She’s lost in a world she knows nothing of. Trapped in a mind that does not know reality from nightmare.”

“We’ll find her, man.”

“And what will we do then? Lock her away again?”

Vince couldn’t understand why that troubled Rico. “You said yourself you couldn’t exist without her. If she’s locked away safe and secure, at least you’ll still have her. Isn’t that what you want?”

Rico turned away from Vince and absently scanned the city. “She is
mio cuore
,” he whispered. “
My heart.”

The shrill sirens of an ambulance echoed in the alleyway below as flashing red lights pulled up behind the Chinese restaurant. Rico turned his back to the sight.

“I have lived my life only to please her,” Rico whispered. “I would not know what to do without— Ah, you will never understand, Vince. Modern man calls the love we had for one another incestuous. I simply call it love, a passionate bond that knew no bounds.”

Vince clutched Rico’s hand in his. He felt the
shimmer
, the intense chemistry that bound their kind together as their hearts began to fall into synch and beat as one.

“I will be here for you, Rico, if Catrina…well, if we’re unable to…”

Rico swayed and fell into Vince’s arms. He held tight to his immortal companion, sniffing at a few unstoppable tears. Soft summer breeze blew the fragrance of fried rice and gasoline fumes across his face. The static-riddled radio inside the ambulance asked for info,
“What’s your location? I’ll send out a team.”

“Wait a sec—” Out of the corner of his eye Vince spied something. “What the hell?”

Below the second rooftop to their right, Vince saw flashing red and blue lights. He pulled Rico to his feet and the two vampires eyed the crowd of navy-blue-clothed police officers wrestling with a bedraggled woman.

Catrina.

Her limbs were bare of her crypt rags save for one long, faded maroon slash that hung from her shoulder and waved back and forth over her breasts. Vince recognized Scarlet’s jacket hanging from one of her shoulders. Her blood-stained mouth stretched in fear and defiance and she crouched low, her arms spread wide as a circle of officers surrounded her.

“My God, we’ve got to save her.”

Vince caught Rico across the chest. “No! We can’t go down there and risk exposing ourselves. Look at all the cops! It’s too late, Rico.”

“But they’ll put her away! I can’t let that happen.”

“Just like you put her away? She’s gone! There’s nothing left of the woman you once held dear. Let her go!”

“But don’t you see? If they try to contain her it will be behind bars in some filthy prison.” Rico struggled to keep an eye on his sister. “That’s no place for her mind! Do you know what they’ll do to her if they discover her blood is different than theirs? They’ll probe and prod and…” He stopped, catching his forehead against his palm. “Oh, Vince.”

Vince could understand the man’s heartache, having lost his own mother. But, having never known the passionate love Rico spoke of, he couldn’t be as sympathetic as he felt he should be. There was no possible way to save Catrina. There were just too many policemen. To go down there would be like committing suicide themselves.

There was only one thing to do.

Vince pulled the .22 from his pocket. “Then give her peace.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

The sight of the gun, so cold and utterly mortal, shocked Rico. He pulled away from Vince’s grasp and stood watching as the police officers took turns lunging in an attempt to capture his sister. She still possessed incredible strength and at the moment was holding her own against the LAPD.

Rico felt the cold metal slide across his palm as Vince pressed the weapon into his hand.

“Let her go, Rico. End her suffering.”

Catrina’s screams filled the air. Each of her arms was held by two policemen while her kicking legs were being secured in the same manner. With more than a half dozen policemen going at her they would have her manacled and tossed in the back of the ambulance within minutes.

“But this won’t work.” He gestured to the gun. “A bullet can’t stop a vampire.”
“I know…” Vince eyed the gun anxiously and thought about it. “Shit!” He kicked the the rooftop before pacing away. But he rushed back to Rico. “Maybe…if you shoot more than once… Yes! One bullet won’t cause her heart to burst, but three or four in a row, each in a different place in her heart, should. You’ve got to try, man.” Vince gripped Rico’s gun hand. “Give Catrina peace.”

Rico shivered. Compliance felt dirty and cold. Honestly? There was no other choice. He swallowed, nodded, and turned to the action, shakily placing the gun before his nose to aim.

Catrina was held by three officers, two holding each of her limbs, and one securing her head in the crook of his elbow.

Vince bent over his shoulder. “They’ll see us as soon as the first shot is fired. We gotta get away as soon as it’s over. Say good-bye now.”

Rico swallowed back the bile in his throat. He aimed the pistol, finding Catrina’s writhing body in its sight. “
Addio, innamorata.
” He closed one eye, wet his lips and Cat’s voice echoed in his tormented mind.
Rico always hits his mark.
Her giggle, like the silver gypsy bells she had worn about her ankle faded to manic screams for release.

He slumped against the roof ledge. “I cannot do this!”

“Here!” Vince knelt beside him, slipping his finger in the trigger. “I’ve never shot a gun before so you’ll have to aim. I’ll pull the trigger for you. Do it now, Rico. Do you see? They’ve almost got her to the ambulance. They’ll lock her up and poke and prod her for the rest of her miserable life. You don’t want that. Now, aim!”

With a deep sigh, Rico looked through the pistol sight.

“Is it aimed?” Vince asked.

“Yes,” he said weakly.

With the first shot, Catrina’s breast burst in a brilliant crimson star. She continued to thrust and fight, showing no signs the bullet had even hit her. The police officers’ heads shot up, scanning the rooftops. One pointed and yelled as the second shot found its mark a fraction of an inch from the first. A band of policemen with guns cocked and ready ran towards the building.

“
Mio Dio
,” Rico moaned.

“Aim!”

Catrina’s body fell from the policeman’s hands as the third bullet pierced her immortal flesh.

Rico stood blindly watching her death as the policeman raced toward the building. He didn’t hear Vince’s pleas to leave. Three bullets had been enough. Catrina’s body withered. Her heart had stopped. Her life began to fade. But there it was!

The angel. His mother’s angel, still wearing the same robes of lustrous sapphire.

Red heat seared through Rico’s left leg, which he gripped involuntarily, but he couldn’t tear his eyes from his sister’s dying body and the familiar angel that hovered above her right shoulder awaiting her soul. She was reduced to ash before his eyes and before the LAPD. But Rico smiled inside, assured the angel would escort Catrina’s soul to safety.

“Come on, man.” Vince pulled him across the roof. “You’ve been shot. Let’s get out of here before they have a chance to get a good look.”

Jumping from rooftop to rooftop, their silhouettes hovered briefly in the yellow circle of moonlight. Only when they had reached the mansion and Vince had to help Rico to stagger upstairs to his bed did the tears flow freely. Rico’s body shook with the years of passion he held locked in his heart for Catrina. She was gone by his hands.

A spasm of pain rippled through his left side as Vince pried the slug from Rico’s thigh and tossed it on the floor. But it was no match to the agony that rendered his heart into two jagged pieces.

***

She stood in the rose garden. A dark-haired fairy queen reigning over her white- and red-petaled subjects. Full and open, the white rose she held was as big as her fist. Her eyelids closed as she drew in the flower’s scent. Her expression was of a woman in the throes of passion, her lips parted as a satisfied breath whispered out.

Sebastian’s footsteps crunched a stray branch. Scarlet spun around, the rose brushing.

“I was worried you might never come home.” The urge to crush her into his embrace and hold her forever was strong. But he felt nervous. Not sure what her solemn expression meant.

“I’ve come to say good-bye.”

“Good-bye?” His heart slipped. “You can’t mean that. Please allow me to explain. I’m sorry—”

“I know you are.”

“I believed Vince had made love to you. How could you let me think such a thing?”

“You gave me no other choice.”

Sebastian’s closed his eyes, and his head fell back against his shoulders. His entire body shook as his lover passed him by, the scent of her salty tears strong.

“I love you,
ma chèrie.
I know now it was wrong of me to assume you could do such a thing. You had every right to act as you did. You could never betray me. I know that. I’ve been such a fool. Please, you are my life…”

“Sebastian.” She spun around, avoiding his eyes. “I need to do this. You mustn’t take this personally. It’s me, not you. I’m not going away forever. Just long enough to learn.”

“Learn?”

“From Esmarelda.”

The name was familiar. “The Esmarelda from the diaries?”

“I met her last night. She’s beautiful and smart. She knows how I’ve been feeling lately. And she can give me the answers I need.”

“But you don’t even know this woman.”

“I do! I know her life. I know she loved blindly, as I do.”

“Blindly? But—”

She thrummed her fist against her heart. “My love for you has been blind. I know nothing about you, Sebastian, and I realize that even more after hearing your story about the twins. You’ve never shared your life with me. I fear there are many more stories I have yet to hear.

“And I’ve been wondering lately, do I really know who Sebastian DelaCourte is? There are over two hundred years of your life I know nothing about. Two hundred years that shaped and made you into a man still so mysterious to me. I have no idea if there are more women out there from your past, more vampires—”

“I created no others—other than the ones you now know of,” he quickly interjected.

“So you say. But you must understand…I don’t even know
myself
. Who am I? Scarlet Rose, a vampire. But what does it even mean? Vampire?” She shrugged, finding Sebastian could only nod in silence. He knew as little about their race as she.

“There is so much I need to know and learn, Sebastian. Will I live forever? Can we die? What are my strengths, my limitations? Until I know, I don’t think I can begin to understand and completely love you. Esmarelda can open my mind and fill it with the knowledge I crave. I love you, Sebastian, with all my heart. And yet…I need more.”

He sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets. “And I’m not supposed to take
that
personally?”

One of the rose petals broke away from the flower and drifted across Scarlet’s skirt. “I’m sorry, I don’t know how else to put it.”

Red hot pain stabbed at Sebastian’s heart. Regret seared his blood and sizzled out through his veins. If only he had been more open. He wanted desperately to hold her, to kiss her senseless. Change her mind…somehow.

“I have to go now. I’ll be back.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. Not long.” She turned away.

Her long peach skirts whispered across and between her legs. The white rose dangled near her thigh. Already, with only a few feet distance between them, Sebastian was unable to smell her perfume, her hair, the rosy shampoo she used because she knew he loved the scent. Everything she did was to please him.

Sebastian rushed after Scarlet. “Wait! Perhaps you should give it a few days thought— Scarlet!”

She turned, a resolute sigh escaping her lips. The queen bid her kingdom farewell.

“I’ll tell you everything you want to know. All about my life. Please…” Sebastian pleaded, his hand outstretched before him. “Stay.”

“I’m not ready yet,” she whispered. “I need some time to myself, to spread my wings.” She placed the rose on his palm. “I do love you, Sebastian. You will never leave my heart, as I shall never leave yours. I’ll be back…when I’m ready.”

***

He stumbled up the stairway, his toes tripping him across the stones as he wandered hopelessly toward her room.

The hairline fracture in his heart began to seep and expand. Sebastian stumbled into the bedroom, clutching his chest as his breaths struggled for release. The room spun as he staggered to the open closet. Darkness enveloped his soul, squeezing his chest and forcing the blood from his heart in gushing streams. Grief encapsulated his entire being.

The tufted ruffles of the
bata de cola
scraped across his cheek. Sebastian clutched the slippery fabric to his chest and pulled it down as he sank to the floor. He pressed his face into the black and crimson ruffles and it became soaked with his tears. “Oh, my
escurido anjo
,” he whispered. “Come back to me.”