The Vampire And The Nightwalker (3 page)

“I refuse to discuss this with you because it’s simply not worth the effort. I do, however, have some real issues going on and I need to figure them out.”

“Okay, okay,” Marielle said as she held up her hands in surrender. “So do you want to stay at my place tonight?”

“You know, I think I will,” Secret agreed. “It’s not that I’m really scared or anything like that, but I do need a good night’s sleep. Being nervous and on the lookout for a possible stalker isn’t conducive of decent sleep.”

“I do believe you’re right,” Marielle said in mock seriousness. “One more and then we hit the road?”

“Sure,” Secret said as she nodded.

FROM THE SECOND floor roof of the building housing the bar, Kane watched as the two women made their way carefully down the crowded sidewalks to where they had parked their cars. His keen hearing already alerted him to the fact that Secret was staying with her friend for the night.

Well, that’s alright,
he thought. It wasn’t quite time to introduce himself anyway.

He hadn’t yet figured out exactly how he would handle that little detail; but he had to do it, and soon. Secret Lavalle played a very important part in his future and he would not let her get away; not after he had waited so many lifetimes to find her.

So, he moved deftly from rooftop to rooftop as he tracked Secret and Marielle.

SECRET FOLLOWED MARIELLE in her car on the short drive to her friend’s condo. It was conveniently located in the Marigny part of New Orleans. She had found a great deal on the place considering the location. Three bedrooms and two baths were almost impossible to attain, unless you had quite a bit of money to sink into the place. But Marielle had found exactly what she was looking for by acting as her own realtor.

It was a gorgeous place, with a very nice garden in the back, off of her patio. She had furnished the place in an eclectic fashion that worked perfectly with her personality. Secret always loved coming here. She preferred her own house, but Marielle’s was a great second home.

Since it was pretty late, the women said goodnight and went to bed.

Normally, Secret slept very well when she was at Marielle’s; but tonight, she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was more interested in her than they should be. It wasn’t so much that she still felt that sensation of being watched, but more the frequency lately, especially today. Now she knew it wasn’t her imagination.

When she finally did doze off into a fitful sleep, dreams of men in long black coats and red eyes plagued her... In fact, red seemed to be the dominant color in her dreams. Deep red, the color of blood, was splashed everywhere. Someone was chasing her and she couldn’t seem to run fast enough to get away. It was a man, yet he could fly. Hovering over her as she ran, his huge black wings covered her with their shadow. Just as his talon-like fingers reached down to pluck her up, she awoke with a scream in her throat.

At first, she wasn’t sure if she had actually made any sound at all. When Marielle didn’t come bursting through the door, she assumed that the scream was only in her dreams.

Glancing at the windows, she could tell that the sun was up. Picking up her phone, she noted that the time was 8:45AM. Even though she didn’t have to worry about any appointments until 1:00 this afternoon, she decided to get up. It wasn’t like she was actually going to get any more sleep anyway.

She showered, brushed her teeth, put on a small amount of makeup, and brushed out her hair. Lured by the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee, she put on the dress that she had worn the night before and headed to the kitchen. There, she found Marielle dressed for the day.

As a book illustrator, Marielle worked from home more often than not, unless she had to meet with a client or visit a publisher’s office. Apparently, she didn’t need to go anywhere today, since she was wearing a pair of comfortable jeans and a bright pink tank shirt. Her red hair was pulled back into a ponytail and her face was free of makeup. Even completely natural, she still looked quite stunning.

Looking up from the newspaper she was reading, Marielle gave Secret a smile and saluted her with the cup of coffee she was holding.

“Good morning! Help yourself to some coffee.”

“Thank you, I believe I will. It smells amazing!”

Secret walked to the counter, where a mug and coffee awaited her. Adding a tablespoon of honey and a hefty dose of French Vanilla creamer, she stirred it all together. Carrying it with her, she joined Marielle at the breakfast bar to see what was so interesting in the paper today.

“So, it seems that there’s been another murder,” Marielle said, as Secret settled herself into the bar chair.

“Seriously? How many does that make now?”

“They’re saying that this is the eighth one in the last three months,” Marielle said, as she scanned the article. “The police don’t seem to have any leads as of yet.”

“That’s too bad,” Secret said, as she sipped her coffee. “It’s also kind of scary knowing that there’s such a monster out on the street.”

“Yeah,” Marielle agreed. “Oh, but they do have a name for him now!”

“A name? Really? Naming these aberrations only makes them more determined to keep killing, doesn’t it?”

“Possibly, since most of them love the attention. Want to hear what the name is?”

“I’m not sure, but I guess I’ll have to. So what is it?” Secret asked with a cringe.

“They’re calling him, The Blood Drinker.”

“Oh, my God! How awful!” Secret cried. “Why are they calling him that?”

“It’s pretty simple,” Marielle started to explain. “All of the victims have been found with two puncture wounds to their throats and their bodies completely drained of blood. Apparently, there was once a murderer called, The Vampire Killer, so they didn’t feel that they could duplicate that name.”

“Ugh!”

“Right? Anyway, they don’t have a single lead because this guy doesn’t leave any evidence behind.”

Both women were silent as they continued to sip their coffee, lost in their own thoughts.

“How about something to eat?” Marielle asked, as she got up from the chair and headed to the refrigerator.

“I’m not sure if I’m hungry now or not,” Secret laughed.

“Oh, sure you are! I’ll make pancakes and bacon. You always like my cooking!”

“Okay, okay,” Secret agreed. “Just don’t serve anything with tomatoes or tomato sauce. That includes tomato juice, too!”

PROMPTLY, AT 1:00 PM, Secret’s first client of the day arrived.

Mrs. Harriett Bennington was dressed as if she were attending a formal afternoon tea. She wore a flowered print dress with stockings and sensible heels. Her ensemble was complete with a sunhat and gloves. Her age could have been anywhere from fifty to seventy, but it wasn’t easy to nail down with such a flawless makeup application over perfectly sculpted, plastic facial features.

Once Secret escorted Mrs. Bennington to the reading room, they both sat on opposite sides of the round, cloth-covered table where the readings took place. Since she had never read for Mrs. Bennington before, she let her spider senses reach out to see what they would pick up from the woman. Almost instantly, she hit on the one thing that Mrs. Bennington would do almost anything to keep hidden.

Yes, I will need to tread very carefully with this one,
Secret thought.

“What can I do for you today, Mrs. Bennington?” Secret asked her.

“You mean you can’t tell that already?” the woman barked at her. “I would think that as a psychic you would already know things of that nature.”

Oh wonderful! A rude one,
Secret thought with dismay.
Well, that’s why I work alone. I can always send someone away when they’re rude.

“I ask the question as a courtesy,” Secret replied. “There are many gifts that I possess as well as various services that I offer. I simply ask because I’m not clear as to which ones you’re here to experience.”

Mrs. Bennington sat up straighter in her chair and sniffed disdainfully.

“Just tell me what you see,” she said sharply.

I could scare the hell out of her,
thought Secret,
and just start talking. Or I could make a show of using the Tarot cards to tell her. Either way, it’s going to be the same.

Making a decision, she picked up her deck of Tarot cards. Shuffling them well, she cut the deck, and started to lay them out. Normally, she would have the client cut them and choose cards from the deck, but she didn’t want this horrible woman’s energy to infiltrate her cards.

“The High Priestess card,” Secret said, as she turned it over. “This card shows that you have secrets, Mrs. Bennington. Some very deep secrets that are soon to be revealed.”

“What exactly does that mean?” the woman huffed.

“Just what I said,” Secret replied. “There’s a secret that you’re holding very tightly to you, and you’ll do almost anything to keep it from coming to light.”

Glancing up at her, Secret was somewhat gratified to see that Mrs. Bennington had turned a bit pale.

Turning over the next card, she saw that it was The Tower.

“This is The Tower,” she said. “It shows that things are going to start crumbling around you sometime very soon. There will be changes in your life that must happen, but they may not happen the way that you had hoped or anticipated. You may even need help in dealing with these changes.”

“I don’t know why I’m even here! I’ve never heard such garbage!”

“I’m sorry you feel that way, Mrs. Bennington. Shall we continue with your reading or shall I simply refund your money?”

That seemed to stop her in her tracks. It was clear that this was a woman who was used to getting her way all the time. The fact that someone as inferior as Secret Lavalle had the nerve to speak to her in that way infuriated her. On the other hand, she was starting to become nervous about what Secret was actually picking up around her.

“No, no go on.”

“Very well. Your next card, as you can see, is the Ten of Swords. This shows that there’s been some violence around you recently, and that you probably feel you have been betrayed in some way. The next one is the Death card, which shows that you’re going to have a new start but, in this case, it may not be the one that you had hoped it would be.”

“Well, none of that makes any sense,” Mrs. Bennington cried. “You’re a charlatan, just like the rest of your kind that crowd the streets of New Orleans!”

“A charlatan? Is that what you called me?” Secret barely managed to whisper the words.

“Yes! It’s clear that you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about!”

Secret swept up the cards with one hand and put them to the side.

“I’ll show you what a charlatan I am, Mrs. Bennington,” Secret said, as she leaned toward the woman’s face with a dangerous look. “I was trying to be kind and considerate, but I can see that you’re beyond understanding something so basic. So here it is.”

Mrs. Bennington had gone from being livid to somewhat nervous.

“Your husband has recently died, Mrs. Bennington, and you’ve been left a rather large amount of money. However, you won’t get to enjoy any of that money. You see, your huge secret that I was able to pick up within minutes of your darkening my door is that you killed your husband. Granted, he wasn’t a very nice man. He was the typical rich man who couldn’t keep his pants zipped up, and was constantly dipping into the recesses of every gold digger that came along. You got tired of it, but you just couldn’t give up all that money. So you started to slowly poison him with something that will never turn up in an autopsy. A Wiccan High Priestess mixed it up for you and told you how to use it, and it worked like a charm. The problem is that you didn’t hide the leftovers very well and the police are now searching that big, old house of yours for evidence. They’re minutes away from finding the little bottle of poison, and your fingerprints are all over it. The medical examiner is going to look more closely at your husband’s body and this time, he’ll find what the police need to put you under the prison!”

Secret finally stopped talking long enough to take a breath.

“Now, tell me again what a charlatan I am.”

Mrs. Bennington had now turned a dangerous, pasty white, eyes wide and jaw hanging open.

“How… how could you possibly know any of that?” she whispered in shock.

“Because I read it in you as soon as you sat down.”

“Are the police really at my home?” Mrs. Bennington shuddered.

“Yes, I’m afraid they are. You need to go home and face what you’ve done.”

Secret stood up and looked at her client meaningfully.

At first, it didn’t seem as if the woman was going to move, but she finally braced herself by placing her hands on the table and stood up.

“Don’t even try to run, Mrs. Bennington,” Secret warned her. “This isn’t something that you’re meant to avoid. You chose a path and now you must follow it to the end.”

Mrs. Bennington did her best to regain her regal composure, but it wasn’t working so well for her.

“You need to go now, Mrs. Bennington,” Secret said in more compassionate tone. “They’re waiting for you, and it will go easier on you if you just confess to it all.”

“I can’t go to prison,” she said, as her face started to crumple.

“You’re stronger than you think, Mrs. Bennington.”

Actually, Secret could see that this woman wasn’t going to do well in prison at all, but she couldn’t see that telling her so would be helpful at all. In fact, Secret almost felt sorry for her now. Her husband really had been a dick in the worst way, but she had made the wrong decision in getting even with him. Sadly, Mr. Bennington would be having the last laugh.

Escorting a very shaky Harriett Bennington to her front door, Secret was relieved to see that there was a driver waiting with the car in her driveway. She had been a little worried about the woman driving herself home.