Cult of the Hexad (Afterlife saga Book 6) (15 page)

“And so I leave you, until no doubt the next time I am summoned to finding you.”

“Oh, so I disappear a lot then do I?” The question wasn’t serious however a serious answer was what I received.

“Oh Electus, you have no idea.” Then she started to walk back into the bathroom of all places.

“Wait, you didn’t keep your end of the bargain!” She stopped in the doorway with her back to me. I think I could hear her smiling before she simply turned her head and proved me right.

“Ah yes, you’re right, how silly of me…I owe you a name.” At this point I really could have done with her saying something safe…like Eric or maybe Frank, or even Jack? Why was it those names sounded so safe to me?  I held my breath and waited, which she seemed to enjoy and just before I snapped again she said,

“My master’s name is…
Lucius.”
 

Of course it was I thought getting quite used to this new sarcastic side to me. I guess names like ‘Jeff’ or ‘Roger’ just didn’t have the right scary, bad ass vibe that bad guys were looking for these days. But then replaying that name back and I couldn’t help but hear myself speaking it. It was strange but it also felt like a part of me had once mourned the loss of this Lucius.

“There it is.” Ness said smirking at me from the doorway. She knew in the one look I had given her that I had heard it before and my quick frown now meant nothing to her.

“And my job is now complete…well
, almost.”
  She added and then her face began to change. It was as though something was travelling under her skin from the back of her head, as if her veins were close to bursting if she didn’t get it out of her as it fought its way to the surface. It quickly made its way to the front and she raised her head up as if relishing the feeling it produced. At one point her head snapped back so far it looked like she was going to howl up at the moon.

“Ness?”
I braved whispering her name and her reaction to it was as if I had screamed it. Her head cracked back to looking at me but it was almost like her neck was now broken. It was to the side and moved around as if she had turned into some ancient mechanical toy doll. The whites of her eyes started to disappear, being overtaken by black shadows that spread out like an infection, spreading under her skin. I looked to her hands that had also started to disappear into the wide sleeves of her shirt.

What the hell was going on?!

Fangs began to grow from behind her closed lips, forcing her to spread her mouth to accommodate them. They grew and grew until they passed her lips and started to curl down over her chin and around the shape of her face. She was becoming a monster!

My fear had me lost in making the right decisions on how to save myself from this. I knew I should be running. I knew I should be screaming but it was like being trapped by the shackles of my own mind. Then her body seemed to contort back on itself and I half expected something to burst from the centre of her chest like I had seen on a movie once. It was utterly terrifying and I was once again frozen because of that fear.

“Ahh!” I screamed this time as she bent over and started to gag violently on something. She looked like she was choking and any minute looked as though she would find death because of it. I was just about to move towards her as my first instinct kicked in, even if it was the wrong one, I didn’t wish her to die. But just before I could make it off the bed her head once more snapped up and what I now saw made me start to gag! Her mouth was stretched wider than I thought possible as long black, talon tipped fingers emerged from within.

They grew in size as it seemed to drag itself from inside using its nails on her skin. Her face tore as it clawed its way out using her chin, until the whole hand was out, only stopping at the wrist. Then the hand turned around until the curled nails could rip down her face all the way from her forehead until it made a fist.

I screamed again as a demon within tore itself up and out of her body, drawing in the body that remained and spinning round and round into a blur. She turned into some sort of shadowed ink banshee and then flew at me full speed until I fell backwards off the bed. I felt a pair of fangs pierce my neck for a few seconds and heard her voice in my head as my mouth opened to release a silent scream.

“I bestow my gift of sight back to you Electus, ready for your master once more…save us all.”
 

And then she was gone.

My hand flew to my neck in panic but only the slight pinch of pain told me it was nothing life threatening. She had pricked the skin enough to draw blood as I pulled back my hand back to see the evidence there. I jumped up ready to bolt for the bathroom to see for myself when I tripped and knocked the computer to the floor.

It beeped into life and as the screen illuminated I gasped at what it was showing me. There in what looked like a newspaper article was a picture of a huge old manor house, half covered in ivy.

“That’s…that’s it…” I said in awe, long forgetting the blood dripping from my neck or what the Gypsy Ness had just done to me. The fear, the confusion, had all just disappeared in that one moment as I finally saw the last scene gifted to me in my vision. The whole thing hit me again as I fell to the floor and before my eyes opened from the dream, there it was, the house I saw. I blinked back the memory of waking up in the field and simply stared at the screen almost too scared that if I blinked I would lose it.

I couldn’t believe it was real! I knew without a doubt that this was where I needed to go. This was what I needed to find as this place held the key to not only my questions but helping me get Ari out. It had to be, Ari had told me to follow my visions, to find the Demon in my dreams. And this was where he was.

I read the text below it and gasped again before reading the words aloud…

“Club Afterlife.”   

Chapter 13

Time for Goodbyes

The next morning, I finally had a plan.

Of course this helped now that I actually had an address to go by. Once more I had fallen asleep whilst trying to burn the midnight oil in my quest for research. Thankfully I had learnt most of what I needed to know about ‘Club Afterlife’ before my mind had given up the fight.

I don’t know what had happened when the laptop had crashed to the floor but whatever it was I was more than thankful for it. The site it took me to was some Gothic blog where people were talking about where they had been over the weekend and posting pictures of their night. This had led me to the first picture I had seen on there, which also happened to have been the exact picture I had seen of the place in my vision. It was as if the locked part of my mind was trying to guide me with some strange power of foresight, which led me on to even more questions.

Mainly these were of what happened last night. I thankfully found out that Lucy and Denis hadn’t heard anything of last night’s screaming and when she asked me why, I just told her I woke after a nightmare…which didn’t particularly feel like lying at the moment as that was precisely what it had felt like.

It had been after this conversation at breakfast that I decided I couldn’t put it off any longer.

“Lucy, Denis, I would like to thank you both for everything you have done for me. Without you guys I don’t think I would have made it off that road alive…you saved my life and I don’t know how I will ever repay you but one day…”

“Oh hush now…you know kindness isn’t driven by reward and…” Lucy said taking my hand but as she had interrupted me, it was Denis who interrupted her.

“You’re planning on leaving aren’t you?” The sound of Lucy’s gasp was like an arrow to the heart.

“No! You can’t leave, not yet and not after last night. You’re not strong enough and still getting over your ordeal…Denis tell her.” But Denis wasn’t listening to his wife. No, he was smiling at me and then nodded his head like his mind had been made up.

“Where is it you need to get to, Honey?”

“Denis!” Lucy shouted frowning but he didn’t react to being told off in the way you would have expected because he not only knew his wife, but his next actions only spoke of love. He got to his feet, stepped around the table and leant down to kiss his wife on the top of her head and said,

“Our help doesn’t end here, Sweetheart but she needs our support and this is important to her. Where do you need to get to Katie?” Denis asked repeating his last question, as Lucy sniffed back her tears and leant her head on the hand he had placed on her shoulder.

“Portland, New England.” He nodded again and then grabbed his jacket as he walked out the back door without another word.

“Lucy, I…” I started to explain when she got up out of her chair and pulled me up into a hug.

“You don’t need to explain Honey, Denis is right, our help doesn’t stop here and I want you to know that we are here for you. So if where you’re going doesn’t give you all the answers you’re looking for or if you get in any trouble, then you come back here…you hear me?” This time I was the one sniffing back the tears as her kindness nearly bowled me over.

“You’re good people and I feel blessed to have you both come into my life.” I told her before pulling her in for another hug, one we both shed our tears over.

After the hardest part was over and done it was time to get ready for my journey. I had no idea where Denis had driven off to but Lucy had been determined to see me fully loaded and prepared for anything. She had packed a bag for me with the rest of her daughter’s discarded clothes, which I was more than thankful for. She had also packed some bathroom essentials and as much food as I could carry. I could imagine it was this type of love one would feel towards a parent sending them away to camp for the summer.

“Now I want you to have this…just in case.”

“Oh no, I couldn’t, honestly it’s too much.” I tried to say as she made me take the small phone from her.

“It’s fine. Look, it’s one we don’t use anymore since Denis got a new contract one from work. It still works and has some credit left on there from when we took it on our last trip to Wyoming to see Denis’ family last spring.” She said turning it on and showing me how it worked informing me it was already charged and ready to go. I smiled, thinking she had certainly been busy since I told her it was my time to leave. I knew Lucy and her husband were good people but the level of concern they had for me was nothing short of a gift.

“I have programmed all our numbers in here, along with the Sheriff’s just in case you find yourself unable to get through and it’s an emergency.” It was clear Lucy was a natural born mother and if she ever felt the need or want to adopt me at this point I think I would have cried with joy! It felt so good to have people care for you that I knew the next hardest part wouldn’t be the journey itself but leaving Lucy and Denis.

I had been here almost two weeks, which had been no time at all with regards to developing a bond between Lucy and myself. But I knew that with time passing I had even more pressure to find someone that could help me get Ari out and considering what I was dealing with, I knew that no human on the planet could help.

I don’t know exactly when it had become so acceptable to me when finding about this other world that seemed to co-exist with our own but it was almost as if I had always known. There had been no real freak out or denial when finding out that the Hexad Fathers had been Vampires all along. But then I had to ask myself, had this been thanks to what my visions had often shown me. Had some subconscious part of me always known that what I saw had some truth to it? I couldn’t give myself an answer to any of these questions but the one thing I did now know for certain and that was ‘Afterlife’ was real.

The rest of the day Lucy fussed around trying to think of anything else I could possibly need and I think if I could have carried
a
contortionist doctor folded up in my bag she would have stuffed one in there. She even decided on a massive hearty meal for tonight just in case the larder she packed me wouldn’t last me the eight-hour trip. I had to smile and Denis, it seemed, had to roll his eyes.

But even though he poked fun at his wife it was clear he was just as proud of her as she was of him. And if the trophy and Veggie crown she displayed on the mantelpiece wasn’t proof enough, then the huge Superman card that said ‘I knew you could do it, you’re my HERO!’ on there was.

When Denis had got back home he produced a folded wallet from his jacket pocket and handed it over to me. I asked what it was and received only a nod for me to open it and find out. Inside I found two tickets, one was for Lancaster
,
Pennsylvania to Portland, New England and the other was an open return ticket to Lancaster. I didn’t say a word but simply got out of my seat and hugged him, showing him my thanks.

He hugged me back in one of those awkward man hugs men often give when they don’t know what to do. Then he slapped me on the back and said,

“Let’s eat, I’m starving!”

My tickets were for the next morning and seeing as Denis would be in work, he had arranged for Dex to give me a ride to the bus station as it was his day off. I was left just hoping that one day I could repay all these people back tenfold for the kindness and generosity they had shown me. The tickets had cost over two hundred dollars and God only knew how much a mobile phone and all those clothes had cost but to Lucy and Denis that wasn’t the point. What was the point in their eyes was that by taking me in that night, they had chosen to take on the responsibility of me and they felt it was their duty to do so until the end.

So no matter what I said, they felt they were only doing what most good folk would do in their situation and all I could think was how much better the world would be if this were true. As far as I was concerned everyone needed a Lucy and Denis in their lives and that wasn’t just for personal gain. They were two good and pure souls that I was happy had found each other in life and knowing I had them as friends made walking out the next day easier.

Before this happened though there was another number I added to my new phone that night and that was the number of the bar at club Afterlife. After so much internet hunting I felt I had learnt two things from all of this, one was finally I had an address for Club Afterlife and two, once this was all over maybe I could ask Dex for a job as a detective because my research skills were second to none.

Although I would have thought for being a nightclub it would have been easier to find a lot more information on the place. However, most of my finds came from Gothic blogs based around the Portland area. The only reason I had found the number was thanks to someone chatting on one of the sites about the chance of a job and which number to call if anyone was interested. Of course from the masses of replies to that particular feed, then there was no doubt they had received hundreds of applicants as it seemed everyone and their mother wanted a job there.

I had even rung up the number just to check I had the right place and someone hadn’t been trying their hand at pranking on the internet. Someone called Jerry answered the phone and quickly informed me the position had been filled before I even had chance to speak.

I can’t say I was surprised with the amount of conversation the question brought up. It seemed only two things that were spoken about the club and that was the mysterious VIP and the sexy club’s owner, a man called,

Dominic Draven.

Reading this name certainly had an effect on me and that was nothing to do with that fact that along with half the population of Portland in agreeance, the sexy man also had a sexy name to match.

“Dominic Draven.” I tried the name out for myself and doing so only invoked even deeper feelings within me. I said it again but it was only when I got to his last name that a thrill shot through me like never before.

“Draven.”

“Did you say something, Honey?” Lucy asked walking into my room and surprising me into slamming the top down on the laptop. But more shocking than this was where I found my hand had crept to and thankfully the snap of the laptop hid the snap of my underwear as my hand shot back over the covers.

I couldn’t believe what simply saying that name did to me…or more like what it made me want to do to myself! It seemed almost as familiar as my own name, in some ways even more in fact. As though I had said that name in a hundred ways before, both in anger and in ecstasy. I couldn’t help it but I couldn’t seem to take my mind off it and this mystery man that I then spent nearly the whole night trying to find a picture of.

I found it incredible then that with so many people talking about him, there wasn’t a single photograph proving his existence. There wasn’t even one when he would donate large sums of money to the various charities in the world or when he became benefactor for the college near Evergreen Falls.

There was nothing. And that in itself was both worrying and intriguing at the same time. I wanted to know more and was scared that since hearing that name I had become obsessed overnight. I had to wonder if he knew of the man I dreamed of or even the one Ari dreamed of for that matter, as either was needed at this point. Or could they both work for this man Draven? That was another question I asked myself. Either way it was off to Portland in the hope I would have all my questions answered and be that step closer to saving Ari.

The next day started with an emotional morning when it came to my goodbyes with Lucy. Denis merely wished me luck and acted as if he would be seeing me again soon. Lucy on the other hand acted as though she would never be seeing me again and that I might die in some terrible bus accident whilst being mugged by thugs and being forced to enter into prostitution by being doped up on drugs. Even for me that was a lot to go through in eight hours!

“I packed all those cereal bars you like, the ones with the chocolate chips and toffee drizzled on top.” She reminded me making Dex cough to hide his laugh. I gave her a genuine smile and hugged her one last time in an attempt to hide the tears in my eyes.

“Thank you Lucy, for everything…but most of all for being my friend when I had none and being a mother when I never had one.” After I said this there was no holding back, we were both crying into each other’s arms. The last thing I said to her was,

“Ari is going to love you guys!” And then I waved goodbye from inside Dex’s truck. They had both made me promise that when I managed to get my sister out of the Colony that I was to come back and introduce them to Ari. And this was one promise I made gladly as I wasn’t lying, Ari was going to adore them.

Dex was quiet for the first five minutes of the drive as I think he knew I needed it. Of course he thought that I was simply saying goodbye to a dear family member as that was what I had been introduced as but something told me he wasn’t completely buying it.

“There’s something I don’t know in all this…isn’t there?” With this question it pretty much confirmed what I had only moments ago been thinking. I didn’t know what to say and he knew this when it started with,

“I…um..” He held up his hand to stop me and said,

“Unless you’re in trouble or about to break the law, then I don’t need to know, but just promise me two things…”