Of Witches and Warlocks: The Demon Kiss (28 page)

“Let’s make strawberry crepes,” she said. “We
have all the stuff for it. I was with your mom when she bought
it.”

“It sounds delicious,” I replied, as I
crawled under the quilt and pulled it up to my chin. “As long as
Dad doesn’t have any other things he needs us to do, I think it’ll
be a fine idea.”

Shelly used a little of her simulated magic
to conjure up enough power to turn out the light.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this
lifestyle,” she said, and I could hear the grin in her voice.

“It isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.”
I smiled, thinking back to my life’s simpler times, but those had
been without Vance, I reminded myself.

“Maybe for you!” she replied, breaking back
into my thoughts. “Goodnight, Portia.”

“Goodnight, Shelly,” I replied.

I closed my eyes knowing he was listening. He
had been listening to every word since he had left me earlier.

“I love you, Vance,” I said in my head, happy
that he was still near enough to me to talk to.

“I love you, too, baby,” he answered back
softly into my mind. “You were right to tell her everything.”

“Do you think so?” I asked him.

“I do. She needs to feel like she’s a part of
everything that’s going on around here. After all it was when she’d
been isolated from your life before that my mom had been able to
get to her. We don’t want her susceptible to anything like that
again,” he said.

“Thanks for caring about her,” I said, before
adding, “I’m sure missing lying next to you tonight.”

“You’re welcome to come and join me,” he
replied. “I miss having you here next to me, too.”

“I can’t.” I sighed, really wishing I could.
“She’d be hurt if she woke up and I wasn’t here.”

“I know,” he said. “But hey, look on the
bright side. Breakfast sounds wonderful.” He chuckled.

“You might want to hold that comment until
you taste it. I’ve never made crepes before,” I warned him. “I’m
not sure if Shelly has either. It could turn out to be a
disaster.”

“I’m sure they’ll taste fine,” he said,
encouraging me.

“You know what I want?” I asked. “I mean
really, really want.”

“What do you want?” He waited for my
answer.

“I want to wake up every morning and make you
breakfast,” I said, smiling at the thought.

He was quiet for a few moments.

“I would really like that, too.” he replied
back finally. “Except for one thing, I think.”

“What’s that?” I responded.

“Some mornings I want to be the one to make
breakfast for you,” he said. “I like doing things for you,
too.”

I smiled bigger.

“That does sound pretty nice.”

“Hopefully someday soon,” he replied.

“I wish for that, too.”

“Get some sleep, baby,” he whispered.

“You, too. Goodnight,” I said back to him, as
I slowly drifted off to sleep.

I woke up some time later while it was still
dark. It was well before sunrise as I wandered out onto the balcony
from the sliding glass door in our bedroom. I pulled a chair up
close to the wall, so Shelly could see me when she woke up and know
that I hadn’t abandoned her.

It was chilly, though, so I wrapped my
sweater around myself a little tighter as I burrowed back against
the chair, crouching myself into a tiny ball to conserve body heat.
I closed my eyes and just sat in the dark listening to the
relentless sound of the surf with its relaxing push and pull.

After a little while of dozing on and off, I
stood and went over to the rail, looking down, trying to see the
water that was moving beneath me. I could see the beach, as it was
dimly lit by light from the grounds of the resort, but the water
faded out into the darkness making it difficult to see on this
moonless night.

I suddenly felt the urge to go back down
there to sit by the water and let my mind just be. I needed to let
things go.

Slipping back into the bedroom, I fumbled
around in the dark until I found where I had left my slippers under
the bed, sliding my feet into them.

I quietly tiptoed out the door, through the
living room and down the hall, pausing for a moment at Vance’s door
to consider inviting him to come with me. I thought better of it,
though, as I still worried about offending Shelly if she woke and
found me out with him when I had committed to spend the night with
her, not wanting her to feel left out of things again.

I moved silently out the front door, shutting
it softly behind me, before I hurried over to the elevator and
pushed the button to go down, waiting impatiently for it to make
its way back up from the ground floor to get me.

Soon I found myself at the steps to the sand,
and I ran down to the water’s inviting edge. I sat on the ground,
much as I had earlier the day before and stared out into the
drifting sea. I couldn’t see out very far, but I was able to make
out the small white caps of the waves as they rolled inward before
thy crashed heavily into the shoreline.

It was very soothing to me. The ebb and flow
did a lot to calm my turbulent spirit which was churning inside me.
I thought of the argument I had been in with Vance, and I could
easily see that we were both suffering, yet we both desired to be
part of the same goals.

I suddenly felt very selfish for fighting
with him earlier. He really was trying to make things better for
both of us I realized. I needed to apologize to him and tell him to
do whatever it was that he felt would be necessary regarding the
situation we were finding ourselves in. I was not going to hold him
back from doing whatever he felt was right.

Sighing, I felt a huge weight lift off me,
and I knew this was the right thing for me to do.

I continued to sit by the water, watching as
a pre-dawn fog began to drift in toward the shore.

“What are you doing down there, pretty girl?”
I heard Vance’s voice in my head, and I jumped at the unexpected
sound, being completely unprepared for the intrusion into my
thoughts, though it was a welcome one.

Turning slightly, I looked up toward the
resort, and I could see him standing out on the balcony at the
railing, softly illuminated by the dim lights that were shining on
the property.

I stood up and waved my hand, smiling at him,
though I didn’t know if he could see that at all.

“I’ve been thinking about a lot of things,” I
said, through our mental connection, wanting to share my
self-discoveries with him, while also wondering why he had awakened
so early.

“Do you feel better?” he asked, as I stood
brushing the sand that was sticking to me from my shorts and legs
before I began to walk through the mist-shrouded air toward
him.

“Much,” I said, suddenly worried he might
have awakened because he was having trouble from withdrawal
again.

“Good.” he replied. “I’m glad.”

“Actually, I feel better than I have in a
long time.” I said, turning to look at a movement that caught my
eye in the swirling fog.

Fog! The fear streaked through me instantly,
my body going on full alert as I looked about in trepidation.

“What is it?” Vance asked, feeling my sudden
alarm, and I felt him tense in return.

A figure stepped out of the shadows and
walked straight toward me, and I recognized the scene from my
nightmares instantly.

“Hello, Portia,” Damien Cummings said, as a
smile spread across his face. “It is a lovely morning for a walk,
isn’t it?”

I swung my face back around toward Vance,
hoping with every fiber of my being that I was dreaming.

“Vance!” I screamed with all my might,
feeling like the word was being dragged slowly from my mouth.

“Run, Portia!” he yelled, reaching out toward
me, and I started to run toward him, my legs feeling like they were
lined with lead in the sand.

I felt two very strong arms reach around my
waist and lift me up off my feet into the air, just as I saw a
fireball shoot out of Vance’s outstretched hand, heading at a rapid
pace straight for us. I struggled to get away from the iron grip
that held me prisoner, fearful that we would both be hit by the
onslaught of powerful magic shooting out from Vance.

At the last possible second, the fireball was
diverted by some unseen magical force, zipping passed us
harmlessly, and I saw Vance lift his arm again, ready for another
attack.

It was the last thing I remembered as I felt
the hard stick of something sharp into the side of my neck.

Then everything went black.

It was dark. Something was wrong, really
wrong, I just couldn’t quite place what that something was. I tried
to rouse myself some more, but everything in my head seemed so
foggy.

I felt the crush then, as the physical pain
of separation filled my being, signaling that Vance was no longer
near me.

Had he left me again? I thought, confused,
and I felt the panic rising in my body, as my mind sought
desperately to fill in the blanks. Why would he leave me? Hadn’t we
worked everything out?

No, I thought, and I had a sinking feeling as
I remembered. I had left him, or more appropriately, I had been
taken from him. The images of my capture on the beach now danced
vividly inside my head.

“Is our little girl coming around finally?” a
strong voice, that I never wanted to hear again, permeated the air
around me, sending a jolt of fear into my cloudy mind. “Open your
eyes, Portia. It’s a beautiful day today. The sun is shining,
everything is going as it should be, and you are missing it.”

My eyes opened immediately in response to the
request, even though I had no intention of doing so. This was
instantly irritating to me, but being able to see what was going on
around me, of course, could have its advantages. I fought to focus
on the fuzzy images that floated in my sight, blinking several
times to try and get through the haziness, before my vision finally
cleared.

I found that I was restrained in a very
comfortable chair, in a small space of some sort. Damien Cummings
was sitting across from me, holding a champagne glass which
appeared to be partially filled with blood, watching me with great
interest it seemed to appear.

We were on an airplane, I soon realized as I
began to recognize the whirring sounds of the engine floating in
the air around us.

“It’s a great day for a flight, don’t you
agree?” Damien asked me, as he gave a quick glance out the window
at his left, as if to survey the world that was zipping by below
us.

I resisted the urge to try to follow his look
toward the outside world, wondering whether or not it would yield
any clues to my location, choosing instead to keep my attention on
my untrustworthy opponent.

A smartly uniformed woman came down the aisle
then, holding a crystal container, which carried some of the same
red liquid inside and offered to refill Damien’s glass for him. He
let her do so, then returned his gaze to me when she turned to walk
back in the direction she had come from.

“So I’m guessing you have a lot of questions
right now. Feel free to ask me anything,” he said, as he swirled
the macabre drink around in his cup, before inhaling the aroma of
the contents with a deep sniff.

I didn’t say a word, preferring to just sit
there and glare at him, wishing I could burn a hole with my vision
right through his perfectly coiffed head.

“Not too talkative this morning, are you? No
worries. I don’t mind doing all the talking.” He smiled then and
gave me a wink, before taking another swallow of the disgusting
looking liquid in the glass. He closed his eyes for a moment as he
rolled the fluid around in his mouth, as if savoring the taste of a
fine wine, his face completely enraptured in that second of time,
before he opened his eyes and began speaking again. “Do you want to
know how I found you?” he asked. “It’s a great story. You’d
probably really enjoy it.”

I just looked at him, trying to have a
disinterested expression, but not knowing if I was really pulling
it off or not.

“I’m hurt at your rudeness this morning,
Portia,” he said then, feigning a sad expression on his face. “I
was under the general impression that you’ve never had any problem
whatsoever when it comes to conversing with my son.”

“You leave him out of this,” I spat at him,
my anger coming swiftly to the surface at his casual reference to
Vance. “After all you’ve done to him, you aren’t even worthy to
speak his name!”

He smiled widely then, looking very pleased
with himself and the reaction he had gotten from me.

“There’s the little spitfire I’ve been
waiting for,” he said with a slight wink in my direction. “That’s
much better. Now we can have ourselves a nice little conversation
together.”

I instantly regretted speaking out, falling
prey to his game which he was intent on playing with me.

“That boy of mine is something else, isn’t
he?” Damien continued on, baiting me with his words. “I think I
knew he was going to be something fantastic from the moment of his
birth.”

He took another large swallow of the red
liquid, the supreme satisfaction moving across his face once
again.

“Where are my manners?” he said suddenly, as
if he were completely horrified with himself. He sat up a little
straighter, tipping his glass slightly toward me. “Would you like
something to drink?”

I stared hotly at him, hoping he could see my
anger over the fact that he was offering me the blood of some
innocent witch or warlock to drink.

“It’s an excellent vintage,” he said,
swirling the contents. “The best I’ve ever had, in fact. I like to
call it Le Sangue de Vance.”

My face blanched instantly, and I didn’t need
a translator to know what he had said. He was drinking Vance’s
blood!