The Man of my Dreams (11 page)

I thought I'd do some research on the Ghost and see what the online stories said. There were hundreds. All were of a handsome, dark haired stranger arriving just before death and saving another innocent victim from being raped or murdered. No eye witnesses described what I'd seen, and all were either unconscious or incoherent at the time of their rescue.

I was right. He needed that unconscious mind to get in. So how did he come to me? I really didn’t understand. I tried to think back to exactly when the moment it happened, the moment he knew he was going to transform. He'd been fine, almost jubilant, as he belittled my captor. Suddenly his face had changed and he looked terrified. It was right after I felt our baby kick. Could that be it? Had the baby been asleep long enough for him to appear human? Had the baby woken up before he'd been able to free me from the shackles? It would certainly make sense and was the only plausible reason for my handsome dark haired man to appear while I was still awake. It also tied in with the other witness statements of being unconscious and not seeing or hearing anything.

There was a knock on the door. It opened slowly and a head poked round.

“Can I come in?” Jenny asked.

Chapter 23

Kindred Spirits

“I read about it in the paper but didn’t realise it was you until Maria rang me. Tell me everything,” she said, looking at me as if waiting for me to speak.

I told her how Hayley had just left my place and I was walking back inside when someone put a cloth soaked in chloroform over my mouth. I told her how I slowly became conscious, but my body was still drugged. I could hear a man cooking and singing. He came over and touched me while I was still paralysed. We ate and drank. He gave me a bath. And then I told her about the bedroom and the horrors I'd seen in there.

“Did you see him?” she asked.

By “Him” I knew she meant the Ghost. I wanted to tell her, but I couldn’t. How could I describe to anyone what I'd seen? Besides, I felt as if I should protect my dark haired man at all costs. He'd protected us.

She was right, and I owed him mine twice. This was the second time he'd saved me. I told Jenny how I found out about the close call when I was a teenager, explaining why her story had sounded so familiar to me.

She was amazed and it made her faith in the Ghost even stronger.

“He's a wonderful man. A real Guardian Angel,” she said. “I thank God for him every day and wish there was some way I could thank him.”

“Me too, Jenny, me too,” I agreed.

How desperately I wanted to thank him for saving me, not once, but twice . . . and especially for giving me the one thing I wanted most in the world— a baby to love and call my own. I was forever indebted to him and he had no idea how much I loved or needed him. I don’t honestly think I'd realised just how much until this very moment.

“I should go and let you get some sleep,” said Jenny as she stood up and squeezed my hand.

“I'm quite tired. Really nice of you to come Jenny.”

“Let me know if you find out any more on our mystery man. He really does intrigue me,” she said as she opened the door. She looked back at me and smiled, and then she was gone.

You and me both, Jenny. You and me both.

Chapter 24

Changing

“It's over,” he sighed, his shoulders drooping. “Now she'll never be able to love me and this stupid curse will burden me for yet another lifetime.”

It was true. He had allowed himself to hope as he'd done so many times before. He was the hero rescuing damsels in distress only to be tossed aside once his true colours were revealed— his ugly and monstrous side that mortal women found so hideous. Even his own mother had been terrified of him.

Of course there were females of his kind, but he was not attracted to them as he was to the humans. He still felt humanity inside him, although he knew this was seemingly impossible. Perhaps it was because he had once been a doctor, a healer of mankind. He cared to his core about the plight of people, and perhaps some remnant of humanity clung to the monster he'd become. The only way into the mortal world was through the love of a mortal woman. The curse would then be lifted and he could walk among them as if one of them. But for that to happen, the woman would have to first love him in his monstrous form . . . not that of the man she saw in her dreams.

Vampires had such a bad rap. Not all of them were blood sucking fiends. Well, not the fiend part anyway. They had to suck blood to survive and he'd found what he thought was a fair way of doing it, killing two birds with one stone so to speak. Not only was he getting the blood he needed to survive, but in the process was also ridding the streets of vile, disgusting men. He compared himself to a modern day Robin Hood, saving the weak and defenseless and stamping out the bullies.

Certainly there had been very bad Vampires throughout history, which hadn’t helped his cause. The most famous of all was, of course, Vlad the Impaler. He'd impaled thousands of people for all the town to see— not exactly the best way to keep yourself anonymous! But there were worse and less known Vampires, too. Gilles de Rais was a French Nobleman who was even one of Joan of Arc’s guards. He was very trusted and respected until he was outed and his shocking reality revealed to all. He gave all Vamps a bad name, as his favourite delight was to torture and murder young boys. He would hang them until almost unconscious and then let them down, cuddling them and kissing them and telling them he never meant to hurt them. He'd then go about raping and decapitating them, sometimes even gutting them and pulling out their intestines and wrapping himself in them.

This was why he had the urge to kill evil men. He did not want to be labeled or put into the same category as the vile Vampires who perpetuated the horrible legends. But of course, it was not only males who caused the negative myths. Countess Elizabeth Bathory had kidnapped and murdered young virtuous girls and bathed in their blood. Of course everyone knows that a Vampire stays looking as young as the day they were turned as long as they keep up their blood intake. She just took it that step further and bathed in it as well!

He was ashamed to come from the same bloodlines as any of these treacherous monsters, but unfortunately they were all tied together one way or another. He'd never turned a human, always careful either to kill them or take just what was needed to survive. He, personally, had never been given the choice and, of course, would never have chosen to be like this. He missed feeling the sunlight on his face and the taste of food. He could eat food, but it was tasteless now and served no purpose. He missed interacting with humans most of all. He had been a very social person with a busy medical practice. He missed those days when he'd spend almost every waking hour either at the hospital or partying with friends. He didn’t even see his fate coming.

He'd been a little drunk and had stopped for a pee on the walk home. He never saw what or who hit him but remembered coming to in excruciating pain. A young vampire sat beside him apologising for what she'd done. She couldn’t have been more than 17 and looked more like a waif than a Vampire. Her clothes were tattered and her face sunken in. She really appeared to be in a bad condition and he found out later he was the first meal she’d had in weeks. She tried to explain to him what she'd done, but he could not comprehend it at the time. In his confusion he thought she was some kind of lunatic and that she'd somehow poisoned him.

In inexplicable agony he begged her to tell him what she'd given him so he could figure out how to stop the pain. She kept telling him she'd turned him into a Vampire. He knew such things did not exist and believed she was some sort of mad woman. Eventually the pain eased, but then the intense hunger took over and he knew he needed to find food. He was so hungry and told the girl he needed to find a meal.

“I'm so sorry. I was very hungry and should have stopped before I drained you. But when I realised your heart stopped beating and I'd killed you, I panicked and fed you some of my blood. I never wanted to be like this and certainly never wanted to make anyone else this way.”

She was serious! He stood open mouthed, staring at her. She looked away, avoiding his eyes. He reached into his pockets to see if his money was still there. Okay, so this wasn’t a mugging and his keys were still there, too.

Again she followed but kept her distance. He sighed but was getting hungrier and couldn’t be bothered worrying about her anymore. He got to his front door and put the key in the lock, heading straight for the fridge. He was craving something meaty and juicy and knew he had a big rump steak in the fridge.

He put the frying pan on and chucked in the steak. It sizzled and spat but seemed to be taking forever to cook. He flipped the steak, decided it was cooked enough, and pulled it out of the frying pan. Onto a plate it went, and he picked it up with his hands and took a bite out of it. Cardboard. It was tasteless! He tried another bite from the middle this time. The blood ran down his chin and tasted amazing. The steak itself was bland, like chewing paper. He licked some blood up off the plate. It was delicious and intoxicating. He started to suck the blood out of the steak, it tasted so good. He was like a madman sucking and licking blood and then suddenly stopped, realising what he was doing.

He dropped the steak on the floor and looked at his hands. They were covered in blood. He wanted to lick them but was so shocked at this that he jumped up and ran to the sink. He started to wash his hands vigorously, trying to get the blood off. But no matter how much he washed them he couldn’t rid his hands of the smell.
Blood
. What the hell was going on? He went to the fridge and grabbed out an apple. He took a bite— tasteless! He threw it on the floor and grabbed a piece of salami. That too was tasteless. The smell of blood was overpowering and his stomach was yearning for more.

The girl, where was the girl? Had she been telling the truth?
He ran to the door and opened it to find her sitting on the doorstep. He ran to her and pulled her roughly to her feet. She shied away and cringed before him.

She was no longer a demure little girl. Her eyes were ice blue and her canine teeth had grown in length. She looked very scary and very angry. He dropped his hands to his sides in shock.

“I tried to tell you, I turned you into a Vampire,” she said talking through her teeth and not taking her eyes off him.

“Now, if you will shut up and stop whimpering, I'll tell you what you need to do to survive. It's my duty, as I'm the one who changed you. But once I've warned you and told you how to hunt . . . the responsibility stops there and you're on your own!”

He nodded and sat down on the step next to her, docile and attentive. She proceeded to tell him that life as he'd known it was over, as was his career, until he could get a handle on the blood thing and find a mortal woman to love him!

Chapter 25

Questions

It was more like an order than a request, but I didn’t mind and started telling them what had happened. The nightmare had started with Hayley leaving my driveway . . .

“He was waiting for you when I left? Oh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t notice anything.”