The Vampires' Birthright (42 page)

I hadn’t really thought about dismounting until now. Excalibur neighed softly, as if feeding me a line of encouragement, or maybe he, too, wanted a drink of the life-sustaining liquid.

“Okay. Have some patience,” I said.

Using my hands, I lifted my right leg over the horse’s back until I sat side saddle, and then slid down his side. But when my feet hit the ground, I collapsed to my knees with a groan. But pain didn’t matter in that moment. I crawled over moss until I reached—gold.

Excalibur and I drank together. I filled my grimy hands and brought the cool offering to my parched lips. The refreshing water, rushing down my throat, revitalized me as I sucked the liquid back as fast as I could scoop it up. Then, despite the cold, I positioned myself so that I sat on the edge of the stream, and hung my feet in the water.

As I lay back on the moss, I heard something that shot a jolt of fear through me. I sprang back into a sitting position.

The sound came from a woman… She was singing. I held perfectly still, as did Excalibur. Then the voice ended abruptly, followed by bushes rustling. I jumped to my feet, expecting my knees to give out, but they didn’t. Frantic, I flicked my gaze to the horse. Panic set in as I wondered how I would get on his back. I was a tall human, but he was a tall stallion. He lowered his head until our eyes became level with each other’s. The lustrous honey flecks stood out against the browns of his irises, as he stared at me. Then he did something I didn’t expect. He nudged me in the shoulder, and again, until I made a half-turn.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

Whether he ignored me, or this was his answer, I didn’t know, but he snorted and nudged me again, this time between the shoulder blades. I took a step in the direction he pushed me in and glanced back.

I nodded toward some bushes, and what appeared to be a path worn between them.

“This way? Do you want me to go this way?” I walked as I spoke.

Excalibur followed close behind.

I was deep into the path and about to take another step when I heard something that sounded scarily familiar—a
click
.

From the corner of my eye, I saw the barrel of a rifle, pointed at the side of my head. Suddenly, I didn’t want to die. I stared straight ahead, sucked in my chest, and held back the next breath. Excalibur must have stopped breathing, too, he was so quiet behind me, or maybe he had taken off, after he led me to my doom.

“One more step and I’ll blow your brains all over your white-ass body.”

The fact that this was a threatening
woman’s
voice surprised me. Keen senses I didn’t know I had until then kicked in. In a flash, I grabbed the gun’s barrel and yanked it from her grasp. The gun felt light, although I didn’t know what I compared it to.

Now in control, I turned the weapon on her, but quickly lowered my defenses when I saw a petite, middle-aged woman crouched before me, her brown hands held out in front of her shocked expression.

“Tell me your name.” I issued the command in a deep, strong voice, surprising myself.

When she didn’t answer, I said, “Why do you stare?”

“Wh-why do I stare?” Her hands flew to her hips, rattling the many gold wires she wore around her wrists. She straightened, glaring at me, as if she just decided she wasn’t afraid. “Huh, maybe because there’s a naked, psycho, body builder on my land. And he’s holding the gun on me that I should be holding on him. Maybe
that’s
why I stare.”

Her brazen tone threw me off guard, and I lowered the gun, wincing as the tension left my shoulder.

She flashed me a look of disgust.

“Why are you on my land?” she asked, turning the situation back in her favor.

As she spoke, her wide-eyed gaze traveled down my body, reminding me once again of my nakedness. But I didn’t move. This was her land, not mine. I was the trespasser, not her.

“I search for my home,” I said.

Her eyes narrowed. “You were searching, huh? What’s your name?”

After a brief hesitation, I answered, “Solomon.” I scanned the bush on either side of her. “What is this place?”

“The woods?”

“No. The area?”

She narrowed her gaze on me further and answered slowly, “Savannah… Georgia.

Savannah. Georgia.
Something about the place sounded comforting.

I considered giving her back the gun as a gesture of trust—I needed someone on my side—I needed food, clothing. But I had to find out more, and if I simply gave her the gun, she might turn it on me again. I couldn’t risk it.

“Woman, is there a—”

“Woman?”

She looked like she might jump me. The intensity of her glare pushed me back a step, making me trip over a tree root. I stumbled and fell, opening a gash on the outside of my leg. Excalibur back-stepped out of the way. It was then this feisty woman seemed to notice the horse.

“Who are you?” she asked him in a surprised tone.

I wasn’t sure if she expected him to answer or not.

“This is Excalibur,” I said pushing myself to my feet. Warm blood trickled down my leg. “And I already told you, I am Solomon.”

Glaring sideways at the horse, she took a few steps backward. “Y-yes. You did.” Her gaze fell to the fresh blood on my leg. “Praise the Lord. You need a doctor.” She glanced at Excalibur again, then back to me. “Do you have a pack… with some clothes in it? Some I.D., maybe?”

I held my hand out toward Excalibur. “I have only the horse, and I don’t know for certain that he is mine.”

“And you really don’t know where you came from?”

“I seem to have forgotten, and I shall appreciate any help in the matter of finding out.”

“Really, hmm,” she said low, as if she spoke to herself. She took a moment to consider something, while drumming the fingers of one hand on her hip. After a deep breath, she said, “Okay, come with me. I’ll get you some clothes, and drive you to a hospital, but that’s as far as my goodwill goes, you got that?”

“Thank you…”

“Melba,” she said.

“Melba,” I repeated.

She untied a pink scarf that had been wound three times around her neck and held it out to me.

I looked at the garment, confused.

A blush of red peeked through the brown skin on her cheeks, and she closed her eyes and looked away. “Take it and cover yourself up.”

It was only after the scarf was in my hand that she peered at me from between two fingers.

I looked at the silky offering draped over my fingers, then back at her.

She did an eye-roll thing, snatched the scarf back, then wound it around my waist, tying the loose ends at my hip, all the while her head tilted upward.

When she finished covering me, she turned toward the path and said, “This way.”

My companion and I followed.

Although Melba was tiny, she walked with confidence, her back straight, and her stride strong. She wore her trousers and shirt loose, covering any curves she might have had, and her black silky curls bounced on her shoulders. Her appearance seemed strange to me, but how would I know what was or wasn’t strange, since I did not know otherwise. Yet, although she acted tough, she seemed refined, educated—out of place for… for a woman of color.

She never once looked back to see if I still followed, or if I was about to hit her over the head with something—I still held the gun.

A few minutes later, a familiar and welcome scent wafted past me in a teasing manner as we left the trees behind and walked into a yard. The perfume of peach and magnolia blossoms, swaying on a light breeze, greeted me, welcomed me, and somehow, foretold of spring. I could almost taste their sweet nectar on my tongue. A vision of hot peach pie, cooling on a sill, tugged at my memories. An image of a tiny, older woman of mixed race, similar to Melba, and wearing a flour-dusted apron, appeared in a haze in front of me. I tried with all my might to look past her, to see her surroundings, but like a snap, a sharp noise dissolved the haze, and the vision ended.

The siren blared again, growing louder by the second.

“They’re back,” I whispered, stopping in my tracks, halfway across the yard.

Melba turned, suspicion evident on her features. With her honey brown-eyed glare and matching skin tone, I realized she was indeed a mixture of races, not black or white, but somewhere in between, just like the woman in my vision.

The siren grew louder.

“You mean…” Her gaze widened. “Are you in trouble with the law?”

“No. Maybe… I don’t know.” I gave an honest answer.

Anxiety rushed through me. I was in trouble with the law. I had to be. Were those strangely-uniformed people the law?

After shaking her head and saying, “Why me?” while looking at the sky, she grabbed my wrist and pulled me toward one of the two small buildings that sat this side of a white bungalow.

Just as the blaring vehicle pulled into the driveway out front, Melba opened the wide door of what appeared to be a shed and shoved me inside. “You and,” she gave the horse a look of unease, “your friend can hide here. I’ll get rid of the cops.”

She shut the door on us. Through a crack in a board, I watched as Melba picked up a basket filled with peach blossoms, fussed with her hair, then headed at a fast pace toward the people she called “cops.”

With the distance between us and the breeze hissing through the gaps in the boarded walls, I couldn’t make out what they spoke of. But the cops got back inside their vehicle and left.

Melba came back in a flash.

“They were looking for a drunk, naked man in his mid-twenties, riding a horse.” She raised her thin eyebrows in question.

So I wasn’t very old, about half the age Melba looked. “What did you tell them?”

“I gave them a laugh, and then said I would be on the look-out.”

She wasn’t laughing now.

“I-I’m not drunk.”

“I can see that. But you
are
naked.” Her gaze fell to the bulging scarf I wore. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were the product of some college prank. But somehow, frat boy doesn’t fit your mannerisms. Are you sure you didn’t jump off the cover of a romance novel?” She gave an airy laugh, and then waved her hand in the air. “Forget I said that.”

“Forgotten.”

Melba spoke strangely. But she seemed trustworthy. She hid me from my pursuers. I had to believe she would help me… remember.

“I suspect you’re hungry?”

I gave her a nod. “Food would be appreciated, ma’am.”

With a laugh, Melba said, “Ma’am?” Then she looked at the ceiling and said, “Lord, what have you got in store for me?”

She stepped outside into the sunlight. “I’ll be back later. I have some things to take care of first.”

Excalibur ventured outside with Melba. He stopped to dine on the uncut clover growing alongside the shed.

“And you,” Melba held a pointed finger to him. “Don’t you touch a blossom on those trees! And stay hidden!”

Excalibur nickered in answer, and then resumed munching clover.

“That’s a fine looking Arabian.”

“Arabian?” I had no clue as to what she meant.

“Your horse. He’s an Arabian, isn’t he?” When I didn’t answer, she continued. “When I was young, there was a farm twenty miles from here that bred Arabian stallions. I always liked their regal look, compared to the old mare we had.”

I took her word for it, since she seemed to know more about everything than I did.

Inside the shed, I found something that looked like a large, green canvas, folded into a square. I opened the stiff object and spread it out on the dirt floor, then looked around for a pillow-type object. A large, shiny bag with the words
potting soil
printed on the side looked like a fair choice. When I had everything in place, I looked down on the make-shift bed, wondering where I’d slept the previous night. Then I glanced over my torn, damaged body and hauled in a deep breath… at least the searing pain in my throat had lessened. I didn’t want to take advantage of my hostess’s hospitality, but I needed rest.

With a groan, I eased onto my back, my head falling into the dent in the bag my fist created, and waited for Melba to return.

eariness from the day’s events took its toll, and my eyelids grew heavy. As I stared at a shovel and a rake spanned across two rafters, and the cobwebs dangling from them, I caught movement from the corner of my eye. A large spider scurried upside-down across the ceiling, stopping at a substantial web in one corner. I watched the arachnid make its way toward a captured fly until my eyes blurred and fell into slits.