The Vampires of Soldiers Cove (11 page)

“Of course,” he said

“Show me.”

Chapter Fourteen

I dressed, and then followed Gavin out into the hall and we made our way down a long corridor until coming to a small opening in the stone. Gavin pressed on it and to my surprise it opened. Inside was a small room filled with books, each with a last name on the cover.  MacLeod, MacNeil, Sutherland. Gavin grabbed the one that said MacDougall and began thumbing through it.

The room looked like it was rarely used.
  There were no windows, only the one door, and it was lit by just a few small lights that were strung to the wall.

“Here,” he said, “it’s an older picture, but of course he doesn’t age so that should pretty much be what he looks lik
e.  Do you recognize him?” he said passing the book over to me. Sure enough it was the familiar face I had seen in my dream.

“It’s him,” I said passing the book back to Gavin not wanting to look at anything more.

His expression grew somber. “We have to go tell Angus.”

We returned the book to its place and Gavin led the way to Angus’ room
. “Enter,” a voice called from inside after hearing the knock. Obviously Angus was not afraid someone was plotting to kill him. He smiled when he saw us. “I’m glad to see you both,” he said. “Terribly sorry to hear about your incident today.”

A zombie vampire had ripped me open and he referred to it as an incident.
The same way as if he would have said,
sorry to hear your mail was late
.

“Thank you,” was all I could think of to respond with.

“Angus we have to talk to you about the revenant,” Gavin said.

“Yes it’s quite troublesome.
I haven’t seen one in almost a century and what worries me most is how it made its way into the sanctuary.”

“I showed Rachel a picture of Samuel just now and she recognized him from one of her dreams.”

Angus folded his arms across his chest as his brow drew down into a hard line. “Is that so?” he said eyeing me with disbelief.

“Yes,” I said.
“And he had a group of those creatures, those revenants, with him.”

“A group of them?” he said taking a seat in his old leather
wingback chair. I had been inside his home once before when I was a child and this room was outfitted in exactly the same style. Old furniture, books strewn around, it was the room of someone who was well read, an intellectual. “That would explain the murders that have been taking place in the northeastern United States.” He said.

Gavin took a seat directly in front of the old vampire.
“Angus do you mean to tell me it’s possible that Samuel has a number of revenants and is making his way here with them? That would be impractical wouldn’t it?”

Angus smiled, “I sometimes
forget how young you are Gavin,” he said. “It is possible, however unlikely it might be. If Samuel has gained enough mental control to have an army of them and be moving them from place to place he may be more dangerous than we could have ever imagined.” Angus shuddered which made me uneasy.

“What about the other
vampires?” I asked. “The other clans, if they knew about the possibility of revenants would they be more likely to help us?”

Gavin’s eyes narrowed
and stared at me like that was the most inappropriate thing he had ever heard anyone say. He could not have given me a dirtier look if I had spit on Angus directly.

“It isn’t done,” Angus
boomed. It seemed obvious to me in that moment that someone who was such an intellectual should realize there is strength in numbers. However it looked like he was willing to let the whole of Cape Breton Island be eaten up by revenants for the sake of his pride.

“This is clan business,” he said sternly.

“Forgive her Angus,” Gavin said lowering his head. He seemed to be groveling on my behalf since I was apparently too clueless to do so.

“Of course,” Angus said after a long pause.
“Thank you for bringing me this information. It sounds like this is one possibility among many that we will have to prepare for.”

“Of course,” Gavin said.
And with that he ushered me out of the room as fast as he could.

Once we were out in the hallway again and a safe distance from the door I spoke.
“What was that all about?” I asked.

“You spoke out of turn,” he said.

“Out of turn? Why does everyone hate the idea of associating with the other clans so much? If this concerns the whole island I don’t understand why they wouldn’t want to get involved or at least be informed.”

“Look,” Gavin said
, “you don’t understand. Like Angus said, it’s not done.”

“Well that doesn’t sound like a good enough reason to me,” I countered.

“Well it’s going to have to be.” He was on the verge of yelling.

Not happy with the answers I was getting or the way Gavin was behaving I was seething.
Although I had experienced anger as a human it was nothing like this. I was literally seeing red.  I felt as though if I spent one more minute with him that I might rip his throat out, and not metaphorically.

“We have to get back to work,” he said sounding as angry as I felt.

“No!” I screamed back at him. We were at my door now and I placed my hand on the knob. “I’m done with you for today. To hell with you, and to hell with Angus too. Maybe you should just stake me through the heart right now. I’m not sure I want to help you since it’s obviously such a lost cause.”

Before he could say anything else I slipped inside and slammed the door shut.
In the dark and quiet of the room I was trying to get my anger under control.  I pressed my eyes shut and squeezed them as tight as I could. It didn’t help and I knew I had to release my anger somehow. I needed to scream, throw something, or hit something. Anything to discharge some of the pressure building in my body. My head was spinning and I felt like I was going to burst into flames.

Running to the table I grabbed one of the chairs from its place and in the darkness threw it across the room at the wall. I waited for the inevitable crash but it never happened. The only sound that came was that of the chair being placed softly back down on the floor.

I focused harder and saw a pair of eyes staring back at me from behind the chair they had just positioned on the carpet.
It took me a moment to recognize him.

“What do you want?” I said.
James stared at me with his fangs exposed.

“I want you to give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you right where you stand,” he said.
I was silent.

“Come on.
  If even you can’t come up with a good plea to save your own life I can’t imagine any of the rest of us putting up with the likes of you for the next few centuries.”

He flew at me so fast that I couldn’t brace myself in time.
All at once he backed me into the wall crushing my throat with his hand. I thought about trying to scream, but he covered my mouth with his other hand before the idea was fully formed. His grip was so tight that I was sure he had the strength to rip open my chest and grab my still beating heart as opposed to outright staking me.

“I want you to know,” he said, “that decision or no decision by the council to keep you
, I’m going to kill you anyway. You are a disgrace.”

Then removing
his hand from my mouth he began stroking my face gently as if suddenly he were my lover. “I do know what my brother sees in you though. You’re very pretty. Perhaps before I put your miserable life to an end I’ll play with you for a bit.” He moved his hands up and down my body and I felt my fangs begin to come out in self-defense, but he reached up and held my jaw so I couldn’t move.

“Gavin will kill you,” I said through my clenched teeth.

“He can try,” he said smiling at the thought.
I closed my eyes and pictured James sparking and catching fire. I was going to get him off me even if it meant setting myself on fire too. He knew what I was doing and shook my head from side to side so hard that it felt as though my neck would snap.

“You evil bitch,” he said.
“Don’t you even think about it. Do that again or say anything to Gavin and you can be sure that I’ll not only end you, but I’ll end your sweet little old aunt too.” My mortal aunt could never withstand even a tiny fraction of what he was doing to me and it frightened me to think about what he might do to her.

Knocking
my legs apart he tore at my clothes leaving them in shreds. In a matter of seconds I was completely exposed and vulnerable, helpless to do anything other than yield to him and pray that I would be ok.

“Now...you will suffer slowly,” he said
baring his fangs at me, “and I will enjoy it.” With that he dug his right top fang into my breast and tracked it down, leaving a long bleeding wound. He closed his mouth over it and began drinking before the wound had time to heal itself. As long as he was drinking the blood kept flowing, and after a few moments I began to weaken.

He loosened his belt and then a moment later he was inside me, thrusting violently as he opened my neck
, continuing to drink. He must have taken a large amount of my blood very quickly because I began to slump down the wall. My fangs, which had been out slightly, retracted all the way back as he continued to violate my debilitated body. I was on the floor now helpless and unmoving. He threw his head back and released himself into me. His eyes blackened and he emitted a deep throaty growl from somewhere deep inside.  Truly he seemed more like a devil than a vampire.

He opened my throat this time and took even more.
A moment later he was thrusting himself into me once again.

Over and over he repeated his sickening
defilement. My blood filled his mouth and dripped down his face and onto mine as he smiled a sickening and sadistic smile. Finally when I thought I was ready to die or at least black out from blood loss he stopped and pulled himself out of me.

He lay on top of me stroking my hair and licking my remaining wounds with his tongue until they healed so that he could cover his tracks.

“Humans are so fragile. A touch or bite, it takes only a moment to end a human life.”  Propping himself up on his elbow he looked me directly in the eyes again. “But you know all about that don’t you Rachel?” And with that he slammed my head into the floor so hard that if I had still been human myself it would have crushed my skull. A moment later I heard the door open and shut across the room. James was gone.

Severely weakened I staggered to the bed and lay there
trying to pull myself together.  All I desperately wanted right then and there was to go back to my human life. Even if it meant hearing voices twenty four hours a day, at least I knew they weren’t really out to kill me.

I didn’t know what to do or where to turn, and so out of desperation and a need to escape, I once again willed myself to into sleep.

Chapter Fifteen

The woods moved all around me and the brightest moon I had ever seen shone down through the treetops. There were sounds off in the distance of rustling. Something was moving the earth around, digging into the ground with purpose, digging with claws. Smoothly and quickly I moved through the dark night as quietly as I could to get closer to the sound.

A feeling of dread came over me.
I didn’t want to be moving toward it at all but I felt just as compelled as I felt uneasy. Closer and closer to the noise, I was floating. My heart was beating so wildly that I was sure whatever was making that sound could hear me coming anyway.

I caught myself on the trunk of an old rotting tree and suspended myself in midair.
Grabbing a branch I pulled myself up gripping branch after branch until finally I was at the top of the tree. Looking down I could see something burrowing in the earth. I pulled myself down a few branches and got a closer look.

Revenants.
The hideous vampires gone wrong were burrowing themselves deep into the ground as Samuel watched them. He moved his hands slowly and purposefully controlling their actions. One by one the revenants burrowed themselves so deep into the ground that they could no longer be seen. There must have been about fifty of them.