Bound Through Blood (3 page)

Salena woke up in a daze. She was still in Eric's embrace, and he was sound asleep yet. What did all of this mean? Was he coming back to her, or expecting her to go back with him, or was it just a booty call? She assumed the latter was most likely the case. She got out of bed, careful not to wake him, and grabbed her robe from the closet. After covering her naked body, she headed into the kitchen for some chamomile tea.

With her tea, she stepped outside to sit on her porch swing. She looked at the thermometer she had posted; it read seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit, which was typical for this time in May. The muggy air reminded her that rain was in the forecast for a couple of days this week. Her week on vacation; she wondered what all she would and should do. For one thing, she should make sure Eric gets his remaining belongings out of the closet.
Unless, he is coming back? No, don't go there.
She felt like a fool for letting herself jump to conclusions.

Salena swayed back and forth on the swing thinking about her lovemaking with Eric. Hopefully, it would hold her off from attempts at public sex again, she half-heartedly mused to herself. Last night was insane. But this evening, well, that was amazing. And to think she had been mad at him for just showing up like that.

She glanced at her lawn, mentally planning a new flowerbed when, suddenly, a black cat jumped over the edge of the porch. Startled, she spilled the hot tea on herself. "Ow, son-of-a-bitch!" her shout filled the quiet night air and caused the cat to scatter off, which is good because she was about to throw her mug at it.

Eric appeared in the doorframe, "Are you okay?"

"No, I burned myself when a damn cat scared the shit out of me."

Eric couldn't help but laugh at the situation, and his warm laughter, eventually, drew her in with a giggle of her own. "Where's your first aid kit?"

"I think I have one in the bathroom where we—" she stopped herself and looked down at her bare feet, "—where I've always kept it." She couldn't let herself slip into old habits. He went back into the house and, about a minute later, returned with some burn cream and a cool wet washcloth.

Salena let Eric tend to the burn on her thigh while running her right hand through his thick blonde hair. Then she remembered her wrist and held it under the glow from the porch light. The bite mark was minutely visible.
How can that be?
She wasn't a fast healer, so there had to be another explanation. She hadn't dreamed the whole thing; there was a bite mark there this morning. She shook her head.

"What? You don't like my doctor skills?" Eric wore a silly grin.

"Ha, no, Dr. Buchanan, you did a great job." She winked at him. "What do I owe you?"

He scooped her up off the swing and carried her back into the house. "My rates are pretty steep," he said before plundering her mouth once again.

Devin had gotten close to her, even if only for a second. He didn't mean to scare her and make her burn herself. Now, as he watched the lovers go inside, jealousy filled him; he wanted to be the one to carry her to bed and provide her with endless pleasures. And maybe then, he could have figured out the mystery of this woman, who has a spell over him.

He watched the lovers in action, from her windowsill, until he couldn't any longer. Being jealous was new to him. Something about her was haunting him. Something about her was different from other women. Something about her was drawing him in, and he had to find a way to get close enough to her to find out what it is.

Eric left early the next morning. He told her he had a nine a.m. flight back to New York, but he would come back soon. He grabbed his box of remaining items, which was an uncomfortable exchange Salena had been hoping to avoid indefinitely. It was just rubbing salt in the wound. With a last kiss, he was gone.
Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am
ran through her mind as she shut the door, and he drove away.

Salina thought she'd tackle a few chores around the house and then go into town today. The weather called for sun and mid-eighties temperature, which made for a good day at the farmer's market. She put carpet cleaner on the paint splotch and threw a load of clothes into the washer. When she stepped out to grab the morning paper, she was surprised to find a bouquet of wild orchids on her porch. She picked them up, looking around, but no one was there. There was no card with the flowers either. She didn't think Eric could've put them there, unless he'd circled back, but who else would they be from? She felt cheap, again. She put the flowers in water and worked on the carpet stain. Memories of Eric's touch distracted her, though, and brought on a pink flush of arousal while she rubbed at the stubborn stain. Giving up on it for now, she got cleaned up and headed to the French Quarter for shopping.

The French Quarter was bustling as usual with shoppers, street performers, carriage rides, tour groups, and ladies lunching. Salena overheard a group of women gossiping about the recent murders and looked down at her wrist; it barely had a scratch on it now. It was creepy. She still debated telling the police, but now there was no proof.

Salena looked at the shop signs along the busy sidewalk, wondering where to head next; then a particular sign caught her attention. Doing something uncharacteristic, she walked down the block to Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo.

She wasn't sure what she was expecting to find, or what she was even looking for—except for answers—but she headed into the shop. She felt overwhelmed by all the paraphernalia: tarot cards, dolls, candles, jewelry and such—again, having no idea what she expected from the establishment. Although, it did remind her of her late grandmother's friend, Heloise Montreuil—a Gypsy woman whose family was into crystal balls, tarot cards, fortunetelling, and the like. Throughout Salena's childhood, the colorful woman had often regaled her with stories about white and black magic and seeing the future. She'd even done a tarot reading for Salena on her thirteenth birthday, which revealed, allegedly, that she would one day meet a tall, dark, handsome man who would change her destiny. Salena decided to call upon the woman's expertise, but before she could leave the shop, a white Creole woman stopped her.

"No! You cannot leave yet. I have much to tell you. So please, sit. Let me help you."

Help me?
The question was silent, but the expression on Salena's face wasn't.

The woman, whom she assumed was none other than Marie Laveau herself, spoke with an authoritative tone, "You came in seeking answers, and I have the answers you seek; I saw them in a vision I had last night. It was a vision of a dark stranger who has come into your life unexpectedly, and he brings danger with him. You must search the past to find your answers for the present and your future, but beware, not all is what it seems."

Feeling scared and uneasy, Salena tossed the priestess's twenty-dollar fee on her table and left.

Salena met Heloise at the Café Du Monde in the French Quarter. They exchanged a quick hug and kiss on the cheek before sitting down at a secluded table, per Salena's request; she didn't think the other patrons needed to hear what she had to say.

Heloise began with the formality of catching up with her old friend's granddaughter, and Salena followed along until the waiter left with their order for iced teas. Heloise was reminiscing about fun times with Gail, Salena's grandmother, when Salena interrupted her.

"Heloise, I need your advice about something that happened Sunday night, something I can't explain. I was attacked—" she blushed at the word and looked away briefly before continuing; it's hard to refer to it as an attack when she had been enjoying herself, "—by a man when I was in a phone booth."

Heloise almost choked on her sip of water, "Oh, my! Are you alright, dear? Did you report it to the police?"

Salena, blushing again—and deciding to leave out the intimate parts—went on, "I'm okay. Nothing really happened except for this." She flipped over her wrist, so Heloise could examine the bite mark, but it was barely visible at all.

Heloise peered closely at Salena's wrist, "I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be seeing." Salena, feeling like a fool, cleared her throat and spoke softly, "He bit me."

Heloise's face paled. "He bit you on the wrist?"

Salena could only nod in response this time. The old woman placed a wrinkled hand over her heart. "The women in the news had bite marks on them. You're lucky to be alive, Salena."

Salena nodded, "I know."
But you wouldn't believe what I almost did with him.
"I wonder if it is the same man."

"Let me see your wrist again."

Salena held out her wrist again, feeling like such an idiot about the entire experience.

"I don't see a bite mark, though." Heloise peered at Salena over her reading glasses.

"He did. After he kissed me first." She added the last part almost too quietly for Heloise to hear.

"Something is really strange about these attacks. Let's go to my house and consult the tarot cards."

Salena laid money on the table for the drinks, not even received yet, and followed Heloise the four miles to her cottage. Neither woman noticed the black wolf following them along the tree line.

Devin kept pace with the women; he'd been watching and following Salena all day. It had taken some time to locate her, but he'd finally found her scent when he flew, as a black hawk, over the French Quarter. She had been walking out of a voodoo shop, with a look of deep concern on her beautiful face, when he caught her scent. It was her unmistakable alluring fragrance of honeysuckle and lavender.

At the café, he'd heard the woman address her as "Salena."
What a pretty name.
Noticing the talisman the old woman wore, he figured she must be a Gypsy. He'd overheard their entire conversation at the café; it was a good thing the wait staff hadn't noticed a black cat lying around in their pristine establishment. Now, perched on the windowsill of the Gypsy's cottage, he listened attentively. He wanted insight to all of this as well.

As soon as the front door closed, Heloise bustled into the other room to get her deck of cards. Then she spread them out on the coffee table and told Salena to choose three. Salena did as she was instructed, although she was still not sure what she expected to accomplish here. She was looking for answers, though, regardless if they were logical or not.

Heloise flipped the first card, which she reminded Salena, represents the past. "Death."

Salena gasped at the word.

"Don't worry child, it is not necessarily about you or anyone dying. Let's see what the second card is before we determine the meaning of the first." Heloise flipped the second card, "Fool," she said, looking back at the first. "Hmm, let's see the last card." Her withered hand flipped over the final card. "Tower." She looked at all three cards, then at Salena's concerned and curious face. "You must come to terms with something from the past because it is in your present. Not is all that it seems to be, and in the future, you are going to find out that some of your core beliefs are false. Salena, you will have to open up your mind to accept what was, what it is now, and what it is destined to become. I see danger in your life now, and it has something to do with the past. We must look at what happened long ago." With that, she left Salena, bewildered, and headed into another room of the small house.

Salena sat there, thinking about the woman from the voodoo shop and her "vision." The tarot reading, not that she believed in this stuff—well not before today anyway—sounded very similar.
So what does that mean?

Heloise returned to the living room with a very dusty and old book in her hands and a look of apprehension on her wrinkled, but wise, face. "This is a diary that belonged to my great-great-great-great-great, I think, grandmother who died right here in Louisiana in 1724. I remember, from my young adult years, reading about some horrifying events during my grandmother's life in the colony. I'm afraid that, if I'm right, my child, the devil himself has come back and set his sights on you."

Shocked, Salena jumped up from the sofa and paced the small room, trying to assess what that could mean. Heloise was thumbing through the book, and Salena was surprised by how fast the old woman's fingers could move. Salena glanced at the pages when Heloise paused, but she couldn't make out any of the words because the book was written in French. She studied the old woman's face as she flipped the crinkled, yellowed pages, and then she saw a look of recognition in Heloise's timeworn eyes.

Heloise clutched the talisman she wore with one hand and took Salena's wrist in the other, in order to look at the faded bite mark again. She looked into Salena's anxious eyes and wrung her hands nervously, "Could it be?"

"Could it be what? What did you read?" Salena stood frozen in place.

Heloise turned another page in the book, "I think you've been chosen."

Salena started pacing again, feeling restless, and threw her hands in the air, "Chosen for what?" her voice came out tense and shrill and she started to bite her nails. It was an old nervous habit, and with all of this stress, she'd never grow them out again.

Heloise turned more pages. "Her diary speaks of a dark and handsome stranger who was in the colony at the same time a trail of young women were left seduced and lifeless. Faint markings, resembling bite marks, were found on the bodies. It was the only proof he'd been there. The proof mysteriously vanished, though, by the time the bodies were burned. The colonists thought it must be a plague, because they didn't know what caused the young, healthy women to suddenly die and turn ashen. That is why the bodies were burned.

My grandmother wrote that only the Gypsies suspected otherwise, and there was one," she said, paraphrasing a page in the book, "a young widow with an infant son, who survived. The woman was strikingly beautiful with milky white skin, raven black hair, and eyes the color of a clear sky—who was bitten—but lived."

Heloise stopped and looked at Salena. "She sounds like you." Salena looked down at her wrist, and Heloise glanced in its direction also.

"The visitor had been seen with her often, leaving more bite marks on her neck and wrist, yet her life had still been spared, and the marks seemed to disappear right before their eyes. She had tried to conceal them, but they were discovered, nonetheless, and the colonists accused her of being the devil's mistress—a witch—and they burned her alive in her home. After that, the devil had disappeared.

Her son had escaped with a servant and was raised by his uncle in another colony." Heloise turned the page, and then her face showed comprehension. She looked at Salena with an expression of foreboding. "The condemned woman's name was Abigail Saunders."

Salena plopped down hard on the sofa, shaken to the core by that piece of information. Her formal name is Salena Abigail Saunders—after a long distant grandmother, according to her late father.

"It says here," Heloise said with angst in her voice," the Gypsies thought he was a vampire. And I think he may have returned," She tapped the newspaper on the table by the tarot cards; the front-page story was about the female victims. Then she put her hand on Salena's wrist. "You must be careful girl. This isn't a New Orleans tourist attraction; your life really is in great danger."