The Vampire Pirate's Daughter Page 6

  Andrew laughs annoyed. “We should never have gotten into that car with Duncan.”

  I hear Mr. Van Heerden’s booming voice from outside the doors of the ward and get up slowly from the bench. Leaning down toward him, I softly kiss him on his cheek.

  Frowning he looks up at me, so I explain, “I have to go, before Amanda phones me again.”

  “Will I come visit me again?”

  I feel my heart trip over itself. Heart? It is a weird indescribable feeling and I know love does not make hearts speed up and palpitate. I do not even have a beating heart, yet, in my chest, I feel the oddest sensation.

  I smile down at him and I feel as if I could fall into the bottomless depths of his dark, brown eyes. “I’ll come again tonight.”

  The Van Heerdens come walking into the room, and like a mother hen, Mrs. Van Heerden waddles toward his bed. I move aside away from Andrew, letting my fingers slide out of his and he follows me with his eyes.

  Carmine rushes toward me. “Oh, Susie.” She starts crying, the tears flowing freely down her cheeks. She slumps against me and her arms come up around my shoulders. The small wound is close to my cheek and although there is no more blood, the smell lingered on her skin.

  Suddenly I can feel her pulse rush through her body. I can feel her heart hammering against me and I fight the feeling of tunnel vision.

  Just one small bite the monster tells me. Just a lick, a tiny, weenie suckle.

  I push away from Carmine abruptly. Apologetically I say, “I am sorry Carmine but I have to go. I am in a hurry. I will phone you later. I promise.”

  I walk out of the hospital hurriedly, almost running. When I am out of the hospital, I start to walk faster and if there were someone looking at me directly they would have thought they had seen a magic trick or a miracle, because I move away from the hospital too fast for any human eye to observe.

  I slam the front door closed behind me moments later when I walk through it and I walk straight toward the kitchen and then the freezer. I pull the popsicle from its plastic wrapping irritated. I do not know why they have to be wrapped individually. I want to snap at Amanda when she walks into the room.

  The look of worry on her face stops me though, and I pop the icy meat stick into my mouth. I take a few, because only one will not do for the moment.

  My body is going to cramp and spasm from now until when we go out to hunt. The only, only thing I would be able to think about is blood.

  *

  I wait impatiently for Ethan. Shayne insists we wait for him and I am starting to feel extra-ordinarily agitated. By the time the doorbell rings and I open the door, I growl at him.

  He greets me, smiling amused, “Good Evening, sweet Susanna.”

  I push past him and out the door, with annoyance I call, “Can we just go now.”

  Angrily I growl again and walk in circles. The need and want in me is so great, it burns like peat in the pit of my stomach. The pain is enormous. Never before have I had to wait to hunt. I long for the days when you could run into rural Europe and have your pick of clean, fresh blood. All I can think about is blood, blood, blood.

  Ethan comes toward me and takes me gently by the elbow. “Come with me. We will leave in my car. We do not always have to hunt in a pack, do we?”

  I nod my head, yes, eagerly. I cannot remember a single time that I have gone without Amanda or Shayne. Although I am over two hundred years old, they still treat me like a child they need to protect. Shayne is waiting for midnight, because he is a stickler for ritual. After spending the last few days surrounded by the smell of blood, I need to go – desperately.

  Ethan leads me toward his car and he opens the passenger door for me. I get into the car and settle into the plush seats. Irritated I watch him walk around the car. Amanda is standing by the front door and she is frowning worriedly. Lifting my hand and waving, I manage to smile reassuringly.

  Ethan starts his car and backs out of the driveway. We drive out of the security estate and then he turns south. I watch the houses and trees flash by and the night is black and dark without a moon. Everything looks ghost-like. We drive away from the city and later Ethan turns off the highway and onto a rural road. We do not speak and I doubt I would be able to hold down a logical conversation. I do relax a little, because I know not long from now I can feed my needy monster.

  I can see across the country, the flat nothingness toward the lights of the city on the horizon. A moment later Ethan turns into a neglected driveway and we bounce over the potholes. He drives to the dilapidated farmhouse and stops in front of the front door.

  I look at him puzzled, but not caring. I just want to get in there and I want to drink. I open my door and get out of the car at the same time as Ethan. He walks toward me in front of the car and smiling, he softly takes my arm.

  We walk in through the front door, which is weird. A dim thought at the back of my mind warns me that something is not right, but it is hazy. The only thing on my mind in vibrant, lumo colors is my need to feed. He leads me toward the basement and we walk down the stairs silently. When we are down in the basement, Ethan’s hand around my arm suddenly tightens and with a snarl, he shoves me forward. This is unexpected and I stumble ahead.

  As I turn back toward him, the question on my lips, I hear him slam the heavy metal door closed between us and I hear a bolt slide into a lock.

  Bewildered I look around me and wonder what on earth is happening. What is Ethan doing? I bang on the door frantically, screaming his name.

  He does not reply and I hear him running back up the stairs. After what feels like eternity, I turn away from the door and walk into the room. It is unfurnished, so I sink down onto the floor in the back corner of the dark room. My stomach aches and I fold my arms over it tightly. I trusted Ethan impeccably, and because my hunger was so overwhelming, I could not think of anything else. Briefly, I consider that I have known him for so long, who could have foreseen this. I cannot even wonder why he is doing this to me, because I feel my body start to shake. It is not a shiver or a tremble, but an internal quiver.

  I hear him coming down the stairs and I stand up hurriedly. I rush to the door.

  He yells from the other side, “Step back, Susanna. I am serious!”

  He is much older than I am and thus much stronger, but I am sure I could overwhelm him. I sense him waiting at the door listening for any sounds from inside of the room and then he slides open a little hatch in the door. He pushes a tray through the hatch slowly and I notice a glass balanced on the tray. It is a Bloody Vladimir - our interpretation of a Bloody Mary.

  I move toward it, the smell of the blood in the drink is pungent. I lift the glass toward my mouth and I feel the glass clink against my incisors. I swallow fast and eagerly.

  I put the empty glass back onto the tray and after he pulls the tray back through the hatch, he closes it.

  I ask desperately, “Ethan, what games are you playing?”

  “You and your happy little family are working on my nerves.” I shake my head disbelievingly, while he continues, “I want what Shayne has and even if I have to kill you one by one, I will get it.”

  Flabbergasted I struggle to stifle an absurd laugh. “Shayne and Amanda will look for me and you know they will find me.” I scream, “They will kill you!”

  He laughs sadistically. “I am ready and they will not live to tell the tale. You have treated me with disdain long enough, as if I am beneath your standing. I will now show you who the better of the two of us are and I am sick of my community looking down upon me.”

  I hear him walk away.

  There are no windows in the dark, dank room and I calculate the day by the amount of times a glass of blood is shoved through the hatch in the door – breakfast, lunch and supper.

  I cannot be sure, but I imagine that it has been a week and I can hear a commotion coming from upstairs. I hear furniture scraping across the floor. Suddenly a thud reverberates through the house and then everything is silent again. I w
onder if it is only my mind playing tricks with me and there really was no noise after all. Still I wait in nervous anticipation, because it could have been Shayne and Amanda coming to my rescue. Later, though, I hear the hatch open and a glass with the crimson liquid is pushed through it.

  I ask desperately, “Ethan, please. I’ll give you anything. Just tell me what is going on. Please let me go.”

  I hear a gruff voice, a voice I do not recognize. “Ethan is not here.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Gone.”

  “Who are you?”

  He replies hesitantly, “Juan.”

  I plead, “Juan, please let me go, I promise I will give you anything you want. I have money.”

  “I do not need money.” I hear a faint French accent.

  “Are you French?” I ask hopeful. “I am French too, I have an old château. It is in disrepair now but I will sign it over to you, if you let me go.” I whisper softly, but I know he can hear me, “Please.”

  I sense him hesitate, but then he turns away from the door and the hatch falls into place loudly.

  Despondently I wonder why Shayne and Amanda have not come to fetch me yet. Perhaps they have contacted friends and are planning on the best action to take. Maybe they cannot find me. I behaved like a spoilt brat the day before Ethan kidnapped me and maybe now they are happy to be rid of me.

  I sit down in the corner across from the door. I sink my head onto my arms folded across my pulled up knees and I close my eyes miserably.

  Chapter Nine

  It could have been days, it could have been weeks.

  I hear a grating noise from upstairs and I feel the earth shake violently under me. The dust from the basement roof sifts down onto me in a thick white cloud and covers everything in an ashen color.

  I hear screaming, growling and shoveling above me and then I hear someone fumble with the latch outside my door. Moments later, to my astonishment, I see Andrew fall through the doorway and into the room.

  Unbelieving, I scream aggravated, “How?” “Why?” I ask accusingly. Loudly, I realize, “Are you part of this?”

  He chokes in the dust, which is hanging heavy in the room and shakes his head no, while gagging, gasping for air.

  “Then what are you doing here?” I would rather stay here in this basement forever; perhaps convince Juan to bring me some books to read, than have Andrew here. In a while, he will realize who I am. He will then be one hundred percent convinced that I am the monster he sees flashes of after the accident. I suddenly remember, “Why aren’t you still in hospital?”

  He struggles to breathe while he pulls at my arm. “You have been here a long time, but now we have to get out of here. This whole place is going to collapse.”

  I pull back determinedly.

  “Jeez, Susie! Just come with me. It’s okay, I know who you are.”

  I pull my arm out of his grip, shocked. I hear Amanda calling from upstairs and I look at him confused.

  Something in his face convinces me, so I follow him up the stairs, running as fast as he is ahead of me toward the sound of Amanda’s voice.

  I am halfway up the stairs when I feel the heat. It is unimaginable hot. I feel my skin blister. I step backwards down the stairs again and I shake my head in denial.

  Andrew turns around and looks back at me pleadingly. “Susie!”

  “I can’t go out there!”

  “Why not?” He yells over the noise of the creaking house above us.

  I shake my head from side to side. “No! I cannot go up there.”

  He comes down the stairs again and I see his eyes, pleading into mine.

  “You said you know! Well, I cannot go out in the sun. Do you know or do you not know the truth?”

  Realization dawns in his eyes and sadly, I grasp that he does know the awful certainty of me.

  Just then, the house above us collapse. Splinters and bricks fall down around us and without thinking I pull Andrew down the stairs behind me. We run as fast as his legs can carry him. I want to physically pick him up, but even here I feel that maybe he does not really know the entire truth. If I picked him up now, as if he was a mere feather, he would never be able to love me. Forever I would wonder how it could have been and forever is a very long, long time.

  We run back into the basement and automatically I pull the open door from its hinges. I briefly notice the shock in Andrew’s eyes. I push him roughly toward the corner and then while we are both crouching down I hold the heavy metal door up and over our heads. We hear the house collapse piece by piece and then suddenly with a loud, ear-piercing crash it all comes down at once. I growl softly as the full impact hits me on the back and I have to strain my arms to keep the door above our heads.

  We sit like this for a while, as small pebbles, gravel and sand continue to fall down onto us. I move my arm painfully and notice that one of the boulders of cement had wedged itself in under the door. The other side of the door was balanced against the wall of the basement and on top of this large irregular lump of bricks and mortar. I let my hands go tentatively, one after the other. I am ready to wedge it back up if it does not hold. I sigh with relieve when it holds and I sit down onto the ground. My haunches feel lame and I want to rest my arms for a moment. Awkwardly I sit close to Andrew and then he slides his legs out from under him. He manages to slide his legs around me and in some bizarre act of fate I am sitting here with Andrew, in such close proximity I can hear his heartbeat.

  He smiles slowly. “How long do you think it will take for Amanda to get us out of here?”

  “Your first question is that? You don’t want to know why I cannot go up into the sun, or how I managed to hold an entire house on my back.”

  He is still smiling amused. “I already know. Before Amanda told me, I had my suspicions anyway.”

  I laugh derisively. “Suspicions! Obviously you read too much fiction.”

  “She needed my help and when she realized I thought I knew, she enlightened me completely.”

  “What do you mean, you thought you knew. How could you?”

  “That day at the café, I realized nobody has reflexes like that, besides I have never noticed you being clumsy ever, so your excuse was feeble. Then while I was in the hospital, it all came back to me slowly. Initially I only had flashes of you helping me out of the car, pulling my door off its frame and then also the cherry on top … lifting the car up single-handedly. I dismissed it, but then when I left the hospital and Duncan completed his community service, we got talking. The rare meat, your pale skin, your extremely fast reflexes and then you must remember that Carmine and Duncan was completely awake. I suppose Carmine knew better of what was happening around her than Duncan. So, although at the time Duncan thought it was a drunken hallucination, it became clear when we spoke of it.”

  “Yes, but these are only speculation, a wild guess. To be honest, I think it could have been only wishful thinking that you would know a … somebody like me. It is all explainable anyway, adrenaline, reflexes, fears of skin cancer, preference in eating habits – Lionel also ate his meat near-rare.” I grab desperately at excuses.

  He laughs softly. “Then Amanda phoned me a few days ago and asked to meet me. I wanted to see you and I thought you were avoiding me, locking yourself away in your house. I went and I have to admit I was nervous going into the lair of vampires, so I asked Duncan and Carmine to go with me. Duncan and I hid wooden stakes under our shirts - just in case.”

  I inhale insulted.

  He puts his arms around my shoulders and then he shuffles me closer toward him. He holds my head against his chest and his heartbeat is thunderous. His heartbeat is so loud, so close up that it feels as if it could have been my own heartbeat. It reverberates through my body and for a moment I remember the sensation of a living body, of being mortal, the feeling of being so small in this enormous universe. I close my eyes for a short moment, because it feels blissfully good.

  “Amanda told us you were kidnapped and you were be
ing held for ransom. I insisted immediately we should phone the police, but Amanda was adamant that we could not phone the police. We were going to leave, and then pleadingly she told us why we could not involve the police. I didn’t understand then that Amanda would really be as strong as they say, until I saw her in action with my own two eyes before she ordered me to come and free you.”

  “Aren’t you revolted?” I ask uncertainly.

  “No. I actually think it’s cool, unless you are feeling hungry.” He laughs, “Are you hungry?”

  Offended I murmur, “No.”

  “Don’t worry. Amanda explained everything. How you eat and how you are more civilized than the bedtime stories always describe you.” I feel him laugh and the sound escapes his mouth, “Although you hate garlic.”

  I do not think it is funny. I am still in shock that I am sitting here cuddled into him, the boy I have a serious crush on. He knows who I am and he does not think of me as hideous, an aberration of nature.

  I hear scarping above us and I say, “She is digging us out.”

  “That is a pity; I would have liked to sit here with you for a while longer. Amanda did not explain how are you able to usually walk in sunlight, but just now when we were getting out, you hesitated?”

  “We drink these big yellow pills and it builds up a resistance to the sun in us. The only thing is we have to drink it religiously every single day and I have not had any since I was brought here.” I suddenly ask panicked, “What if Ethan comes back. He will kill us.”

  Softly he says, “Ethan cannot hurt you anymore, he is dead.” He adds dismissively, “Amanda killed him.” Andrew kisses me softly on the top of my head. “I cannot believe how soft you feel though, I always thought vampires were as hard as rock.”

  “I am a half-breed. My dad was a vampire and my mother was normal, so I suppose that is why I am more … flesh-like.”

  He says jokingly, “I am not saying you are as pudgy as me. I can feel you are solid, but you still have a softness about you.”

  My hand is resting on his chest and I say, “You are not pudgy at all.” When the words leave my mouth, I feel mortified.