Breathless (3 page)

“Ha! Don’t even think that,” Leesa said after polishing off another bite. “I’d probably explode.” She rubbed her stomach. “But I’d explode happy,” she admitted with a smile.

Later, after the table had been cleaned and the dishes rinsed and crammed into the dishwasher—Leesa had offered to help, but Aunt Janet had forbidden her to lift a finger—Leesa sat with her aunt and uncle in their cozy living room, rocking slowly on a surprisingly comfortable oak rocking chair and sipping a can of Diet Pepsi. Max sat beside the chair, cleverly positioning himself so Leesa could pet the top of his head while she rocked. Uncle Roger reclined on a plump easy chair, a cup of steaming coffee on the small wooden table next to him, while Aunt Janet enjoyed a glass of red wine on the three-cushioned floral couch. “Peaceful, Easy Feeling” from the Eagles greatest hits CD played softly in the background, and a bright fire popped and crackled in the stone fireplace. With the heat from the fire radiating across her face and Max’s soft fur under her fingertips, Leesa could not remember ever feeling quite so at home and relaxed. She didn’t want to spoil the feeling, but she couldn’t wait any longer to ask about Bradley.

“Did Bradley visit you guys much?” she asked.

“Every couple of weeks, I’d guess,” Aunt Janet replied. “Usually for dinner.”

“No surprise there,” Leesa said, smiling. Bradley’s appetite and Aunt Janet’s cooking would have been a perfect match.

“He’d stop by the bakery now and then to take a pie back to campus, too,” Uncle Roger added.

“Just one?” Leesa laughed.

“Well, now that you mention it, sometimes he’d take a couple partial pies. ‘For variety,’ he’d say, but I think it was his way of getting more pie without seeming greedy.”

“We saw a fair amount of him the first couple of months, less often as he settled in on campus and began making friends,” Aunt Janet said. “Still pretty regularly after that, his first year at least. Not so much the second.”

Leesa stopped rocking, balancing instead on the front of the chair. Max looked up at her, disappointed the petting had stopped, but she didn’t notice. Her heartbeat began to quicken. “Did he ever say why? Why he stopped coming so much, I mean?”

“Not to me,” Aunt Janet said. She turned toward her husband. “Roger?”

“Nope. I had the feeling his girlfriend was keeping him pretty busy. Not so unusual for a college boy, you know.”

Leesa remembered how Bradley’s calls and messages began tapering off after the girlfriend appeared. She wished she’d asked him more about it when she had the chance. “Did you ever meet her?”

Aunt Janet shook her head. “No, never. I invited him to bring her for dinner several times, but they never made it. I don’t know why.”

“Bradley was very reticent about her for some reason,” Uncle Roger said. “I think she was in the car one time he came to the bakery, but he never brought her inside or even mentioned she was out there. I didn’t want to butt in or mess with his privacy. Maybe I should have,” he added with regret.

“Did he tell you much about her, Leesa?” Aunt Janet asked. “I know how fond of you he was. He talked about you all the time.”

Leesa felt warm and sad at the same time, thinking of Bradley sitting in this very room talking proudly about her. “No,” she said after a moment. “Only that he’d met someone special, but never anything specific. I wish I’d asked. I don’t even know her name.”

“Edwina,” Aunt Janet said. “He told us that much.”

Leesa leaned back and began to rock. Edwina. At least she had a name now. Her hand found Max’s head again and she stroked his soft fur. She had no idea if Edwina had anything to do with Bradley’s going away, but she had nothing else to go on, and the timing made it possible, if not likely. “Did he say anything else about her?”

Uncle Roger rubbed his chin. “She was a Weston student, I know that. I remember Bradley mentioning them being in a class together. And he called her a local, so I guess she grew up somewhere around here.”

“I remember him saying she was exotic,” Aunt Janet added. “I’d asked him if she was pretty, and I distinctly remember him replying with that word. Exotic. I don’t know what he meant by it, though.”

“He was clearly quite taken with her,” Uncle Roger said. “But the longer he was with her, the less he spoke of her, which seemed kind of odd.”

“Have you heard anything at all from him, Leesa?” Aunt Janet asked.

“Nothing,” Leesa said. “Not since an email saying he was going away.”
I don’t know if I’ll ever be coming back.
She didn’t see any use in sharing that part with her aunt and uncle. There was nothing they could do about it anyway.

She stood up and paced in front of the fire, frustrated by how little they all knew about what had been going on with Bradley, but it hadn’t seemed that important at the time. Not until he suddenly vanished, and by then it was too late.
Please don’t try to find me… Forget about me.
Why would he say that? What did it all mean? She stared into the fire, but there were no answers in the crackling flames.

There was only one thing Leesa was sure of—she was going to do everything she could to find out what happened to her big brother.

4.  A PILE OF ASHES

I
t was a pleasure to burn. Rave smiled as he watched the tiny blue flames dance from his fingertips—the outward manifestation of the magical inner fire coursing through his body. The heat shone dimly through the bronze skin of his face, making his long, dark copper-colored hair seem to shimmer in the shadows of the woods. The reason for the flames crouched behind a gnarled oak some fifty yards away—a vampire, stealthily watching humans at play in a grassy park below.

This vampire was apparently young and foolish, having chosen a spot that hid it from the humans but left its back exposed. The vampire should have known better. The humans posed no threat—any danger would come from elsewhere.

Chancing upon so careless a vampire was unusual. Still, Rave remained cautious, for even a foolish vampire was a foe to be reckoned with. Vampires were strong, impossibly strong, stronger even than volkaanes. Only a fool would underestimate a vampire, careless or not, and Rave was no fool.

As the heat within him grew, he tasted a sharpness in his fire he hadn’t felt in many years. Magical energies in the air and in the earth were combining—if they grew strong enough, they would produce a phenomenon called
Destiratu
. And
Destiratu
meant trouble. Somehow, in a way he didn’t fully understand and none of his elders could fully explain,
Destiratu
roused the killing ire in volkaane and vampire alike. Hunger and bloodlust raged, becoming uncontrollable for many.

Rave had lived through only one such period, more than a hundred years ago now, but he remembered it clearly. He’d feasted on four vampires that year, but he had lost several friends to the creatures as well. Humans suffered the most from the increased vampire bloodlust, but they remained blessedly unaware. Few knew or believed in the existence of vampires. Almost none knew of volkaanes. Such blissful ignorance might not be possible in this modern age, and that could be a problem for all three races.

But now was not the time for such thoughts. A tall blond girl had entered the park and was heading across the field. Moving quickly despite a noticeable limp, she was already more than halfway to the woods. The determined pace of her stride and the direction of her path made him certain she planned to take the hiking trail in front of her—a trail that would lead her much too close to the lurking vampire.

Leesa was enjoying her walk. After spending most of yesterday cooped up in a plane, it felt good to stretch her muscles and exercise her leg, especially in such a beautiful place. A half-mile stroll through her aunt and uncle’s picturesque neighborhood brought her to the county park they’d told her about. She turned into the entrance and skirted the edge of a mostly empty gravel parking lot toward a large grass field. Rustic wooden picnic tables and metal barbecue grills dotted the area closest to the lot, while off to her left, a group of young men kicked a ball in front of a white soccer goal.

She saw only two other people in the park. A man and woman close to her aunt and uncle’s age sat in folding chairs near one of the grills. Thin white smoke wafted up from the grill, and the succulent smell of slow-roasting meat made Leesa’s mouth begin to water. From the amount of supplies covering three of the picnic tables, she guessed that the couple was making early preparations for a fairly big gathering.

The park’s relative emptiness didn’t surprise her. Today was Sunday, and it was not yet ten o’clock. She imagined that by this afternoon, even if the gray clouds overhead refused to give way to blue sky and sunshine, such a pretty place would be much more crowded. The day promised to be warm and pleasant in either case. Leesa had already unzipped her sweatshirt and was pretty sure she’d soon be taking it off and tying it around her waist.

Beyond the open field, she spotted several trails leading up into the woods, just as her aunt had promised. She angled across the grass toward one of the paths, pausing briefly at the head of the trail. A carved sign on a wooden post indicated the path was a two-mile loop—perfect for what she wanted—so she forged ahead. The trail was wide enough for three people to walk abreast, and the dirt surface was packed hard, making walking easy. It sloped upward into the trees, but not steeply enough to affect her pace.

The woods were beautiful—much more lush than what she was used to in San Diego. Young saplings and leafy underbrush flanked the path, while just a bit farther from the trail tall oak and ash trees spread a green canopy that blocked out all but the tiniest pieces of gray sky. The remnants of an old rock wall snaked through the undergrowth like a narrow gray stream. It was hard to believe these thick woods must have been a field once long ago. Interspersed among the other trees, Leesa saw the distinctive white trunks of a stand of birches. A stone wall and birch trees—Robert Frost would be quite happy here.

The air felt at least five degrees cooler in the shade. A gentle breeze rustled the leaves, and unseen birds whistled busily from the higher branches. Leesa wished she knew what they were saying to one another.

She hadn’t gone far when she was suddenly struck by the feeling she was not alone. Something briefly rustled the bushes off to her left, but she couldn’t see anything through all the growth. Probably a squirrel or a rabbit, she thought. Whatever it was, it was likely more frightened of her than she was of it.

She’d gone less than a dozen steps when the rustling sounded again. She whipped her head around and thought she saw a dark shadow flow swiftly through the trees, but it was gone before she could be sure. Her heartbeat quickened. Even the birds had fallen silent, as if they shared her fear. She tried to calm herself, but could not shake the feeling of being watched. Someone—or something—was out there.

Her mom’s story came flooding back to her, making her heart race. She had to force herself to breathe. What was going on? This was so not like her, to be scared by a mere noise in the woods. It was broad daylight, for god sakes. She wondered if her fear came simply because she was in Connecticut, home to childhood tales of one-fanged vampires. Maybe New England
was
as spooky a place as she’d imagined.

Rave crept from his hiding place, his gaze fixed upon the vampire. The creature flashed to a spot closer to the trail, making almost no sound. Rave followed, moving just as quickly, and even more silently. From his new vantage point, he could no longer see the girl, but his keen ears heard her footsteps drawing closer. There was little time left. He was going to have to act more quickly than he would have liked. Haste could be dangerous, but he had no choice. With luck, the vampire’s attention would be totally focused on the girl.

             
The vampire darted through the trees once more, perhaps overeager, for it made a bit more noise than before. The sound of the girl’s footsteps stopped. Had she heard the vampire’s approach? Or had she simply sensed that something was amiss? The woods had grown silent. He needed to act now.

             
Drawing a deep breath, Rave launched himself forward. The vampire barely had time to turn before he was upon it, locking his muscular limbs around its chill body and pressing his open mouth over its nose and lips. The raging heat of his magical fire sucked the life force from the creature, funneling it into Rave’s lungs. In less than a minute, it was over. He let the vampire’s limp body drop to the ground.

Rave remained crouched over the body, hidden in the lowest, thickest layer of underbrush. Enhanced by his vanquished foe’s energy, the blue flames danced more brightly now, forming a flickering blue halo around his fingers. He closed his fists to hide the glow.

Except for a slightly unnatural twist to its torso, the vampire looked unharmed, almost as though sleeping. But even now, the heat from Rave’s fire continued to consume the beast from the inside out. He watched the vampire’s pallid face slowly grow lighter, becoming almost translucent, until with a sudden, barely audible crackling sound, the creature shimmered and crumpled to a pile of gray and white ash.