Deadman's Blood (29 page)

“You know you have an annoying way of seeing everything in a pessimistic light,” Anton said.

“I’m a PI. I’ve been around the block a few times and being pessimistic, as you call it, has kept me alive in a few bad spots,” Mark countered.

“Right. I apologize.”

“No harm. I’ll take this room over here and see if I can find a lever or hollow sounding wall - something that stands out as odd; you take the room on the other side,” Mark said.

“Good.”

“Just tap the wall with your knuckle. If it’s hollow it will sound different,” Mark advised.

“I know how to find a secret room, Mark,” Anton said rather annoyed.

“Right. Then get with it. I’d like to get out of here before dark. It gets creepy in these tunnels in the dark,” Mark said.

They split up. Anton started tapping the walls and moving things around noisily. Mark had more experience at being discreet, so he was much quieter.

Tap, Tap, Tap, Tap, Thump, Tap.
Hmmm
, Anton thought. Tap, Thump, Thump, Thump.
Definitely sounds hollow
. He felt along the base board and trim of the room near the hollow sounding space but could not find anything that looked like a trigger. He touched, pulled, twisted, tugged, lifted, and swiveled all that he thought might move or be some kind of latch for a room. This went on for quite some time. Anton could hear Mark tapping walls and moving around, when after about an hour they both headed for the main room again.

“Anything?” Anton asked.

“Nope,” Mark said disappointedly. “You?”

“Nothing that screamed,
Open Here
,” he said as he leaned against the cold bloodstone of the altar facing the hearth. Mark sat on the hearth running one hand through his hair and rubbing the other hand on his chin. Anton could only assume this was what he did when the gears in his head were working overtime.

“There’s got to be something we’re missing,” Anton said as he glanced around the main room, then made his way to one of the side rooms for one more look around.

Because Mark was sitting on the hearth, he had a different perspective of the Black Orchid mosaic that he would not have been seen from the vantage of standing. He was just starting to move towards it to get a better look when the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and a chill ran through him. A flash of black raced past him and before he could move, the Dark Angel had grabbed Mark around the throat, pinning him to the wall opposite the orchid.

Anton had heard a rustling of movement and had entered back into the main altar room when he saw Mark staring at him from across the room, struggling to breathe. The Dark Angel followed Mark’s gaze, finding Anton in the doorway. Seemingly surprised, the Dark Angel whispered, “Anton?” and temporarily loosened the grip on Mark’s throat. Mark gasped for air. Realizing the greater threat in the room was Anton, the Dark Angel pushed Mark towards the door, knocking him off his feet as it headed for Anton.

Mark could barely see what was happening as the two vampires lunged and dodged one another in blurs of movement. Anton knew that he was no match for an ancient vampire, and though he got in a few good shots with his fist and a toss across the room, he knew it would not end well for him. The Dark Angel came at Anton, and surprised him when instead of shoving or hitting, it squatted and spun with one leg out knocking Anton off his feet and flat on his back.

Anton was pinned to the ground with just one gloved hand of the Dark Angel. He knew it was over. Flashes of his life played out in his mind. He hoped that during their scuffle Mark had at least had a chance to get out of the tunnels to safety. He just hoped his death would be swift and painless. As the hand around his neck moved its grip and Anton was sure this was the end, an odd sound came from the other side of the room.

Anton couldn’t see anything as stars were starting to appear in front of his eyes from the incredible pressure at his throat cutting off the source of blood to his brain. A roar was heard like nothing Anton could recognize or comprehend. The hand around his neck loosened and let go as the Dark Angel turned to acknowledge what was happening. When the Dark Angel stood up and Anton’s head started to clear, he saw what the Dark Angel was seeing and shook his head in disbelief.

The room was almost entirely filled with a creature that boggled Anton’s mind. Iridescent green scales covered the gigantic beast. It had huge horns on its head, and eyes of glowing embers, and steam came out of its nostrils as it growled at the Dark Angel again. The monster was hunched over and its wings beat the side walls and ceiling as it struggled in the small confines of the room. The showing of bone crushing, razor sharp teeth during the latest growl had the Dark Angel and Anton scrambling backwards in the room towards the hearth, when the Dark Angel tripped over Mark’s duffle bag and fell backwards, flailing, and smacking its head hard on the base of the hearth, which knocked it out.

Still moving backwards like a spider, Anton stopped when the dragon in front of him winked. The whole creature started to blur and a second later Mark was on his hands and knees, naked, where the huge creature had been.

“Holy….what the…..” was all that Anton could say. Mark got up and quickly grabbed a pair of sweat pants from the duffle bag, along with the “vampire” twine he had made. Following his lead, Anton helped Mark in rolling the Dark Angel over as Mark tied the Dark Angel’s hands behind its back and tied its ankles together, making sure it was good and tight. Anton tried to avoid the twine as much as possible, but rolled the Dark Angel over, propping its back against the hearth in a sitting position.

“See, I told you that twine would come in handy,” Mark said.

“Not as much as the dragon, but yeah. Problem is we still don’t know if it will hold a vampire.”

“Guess we’ll find out,” Mark said coughing. “I need to get out of here for a moment. My lungs feel like they are full of smoke.”

“Yeah. Go. I’ve got the crossbow if the twine doesn’t hold,” Anton said.

*****

Mark headed down the tunnel and Anton noticed the Dark Angel was coming to.

“Well, shall we see who the infamous Dark Angel is?” Anton asked himself as he bent down to remove the black hood of on its head.

“Don’t do it, Anton. You won’t like what you see,” the Dark Angel said directly to Anton’s mind with no words physically spoken and revealing no gender.

“I don’t think you get to make that decision,” Anton said as he pulled back the hood. The Dark Angel was right. Anton didn’t like what he saw, for under the hood was a beautiful head of auburn tendrils and eyes of sapphire blue.

Stepping backwards away from the Dark Angel, Anton stopped when he met the wall and then slid down into a sitting position.

“Oh God, no! Jules. Say it isn’t so. You’re the Dark Angel?”

The slightly British accent slowly and remorsefully, rolled off her lips when she said, “I told you, you wouldn’t like what you saw.”

“But…”

“I’m sorry, Anton.”

He wanted to scream. He felt angry and sad, shocked and appalled all at the same time. Words wouldn’t come to him, but there was so much he wanted to say. He shook his head in disbelief slowly.

“What are you doing here, Jules?”

“I think you know why I’m here. I wanted to see how much you knew about the artifact,” she said.

“So THIS….all of this is about the artifact?” Anton asked.

“No. Not all of it, but some of it,” she admitted.

“So how were you going to explain killing my family off, one by one?” he asked.

“What? What are you talking about?” she asked.

“The Deadman’s Blood, Jules, that’s what I’m talking about,” Anton said, resting his forehead in his palm. She looked at him befuddled, but didn’t say anything.

“I had a dream, a vision, or whatever you want to call it. I watched a vampire stalk, kill, and then drain a man in a dark parking garage. Then another night I watched the same vampire come here looking for the artifact in the very place my father told me he found it after our fight with Dimitri’s vampire goons. When the vampire didn’t find what it was looking for, it left but not without walking by a window where I saw the reflection of the vampire and it was the Dark Angel, which now I find out is you,” Anton said.

The shock on her face was all he needed to know that what he had seen was real. He was pretty sure the events had come to pass and that the dreams weren’t just dreams, but it wasn’t until he saw her face that he knew it was real. He shook his head again.

“Josh, too, had seen you when Melanie was abducted by Dimitri. He has this amazing ability to leave his body behind, but travel over great distances to be with the one he loves - Melanie. You…the Dark Angel, were part of that nightmare. You were Dimitri’s puppeteer. You gave him the Bloodstone Heart so that he could put together his army of super vamps. Did you know Dimitri tried to drown Melanie? Did you order it?

“Are you the reason my cousin Blake is lying in a coma in San Francisco after having ingested Deadman’s Blood? What about Josh’s parents? Were you the one that blew up the plane in hopes my newly found brother was on his way back to Minnesota with his folks and Melanie? Are you going to kill my father when you catch up with him to get the artifact back? Is that what this is all about, or do you just have some vendetta against the Larsens in general? Is that why you went out with me? To get close to me so you would have a convenient way to kill us all? What has my family ever done to you?” Anton exclaimed.

“The Larsens have done plenty to me, but that’s not…” Julianna started.

“The Larsens have done plenty to you?” Anton interrupted. “What? What has my family ever done to you?”

“The story I told you about how I became a vampire,” she said angrily. “It never sounded the least bit familiar to you? How convenient for you noble blooded bastards.”

“How is that related to this?” Anton asked.

“Your great uncle Owen. He was the man that never showed in the barn that night. Your great uncle Edward was the one that turned me and left me for dead. Then when I came to, I reached out to Owen’s family to find out why Owen never came, and find out what was wrong with me. Why was I brought back from the dead? My family disowned me and the Larsens slammed the door in my face!”

“My great Uncle Owen is the one you’ve been so angry with all these years for abandoning you? It never dawned on me when you told me the story, but I guess I should have noted the similarities in the story to the ones my father told me. Well, have I got a surprise for you, Julianna. Let me tell you what really happened that night.

“Owen was KILLED by his own brother, Edward, for a stupid family diamond his father had given to him. Edward had always been jealous of his older brother and it wasn’t until much later that Owen’s journal was found, in which he talked of an undying secret love he had for a local girl. He had a ring made out of the family diamond and was going to propose to the girl that night. He knew his family, being blue bloods, would never permit the marriage, so he had planned to run off with her and marry her. He left the journal for his father to find, in hopes that at some future date when he came back with his wife that the family would eventually accept his marriage.

“Edward had seen Owen packing and knew he had been seeing the village girl on the sly. He admitted to his father in a horrid violent argument that he’d met Owen in the barn before the girl showed up and beheaded his brother. He searched his brother for the diamond, but didn’t find it on him. He then tossed his body behind some hay bales and waited in the shadows for the girl in hopes that she would have the diamond on her person.

“Surprising her when she arrived in the barn, he drained her, thinking he would leave her for dead, but when she wasn’t wearing the ring, he had to come up with an alternative to cover his deadly dead, so he turned the girl, then framed her for Owen’s murder,” Anton relayed to her from his father’s research and dreams.

“So the family thought I killed Owen?” Julianna asked.

“Yes. I guess. That’s probably why they turned you away,” Anton said.

“So Owen had come that night?” Julianna asked.

“Yes. Some of it is recorded in Owen’s journal that my father has pieced together. You can ask him if you don’t believe me,” Anton insisted.

“I believe you, I just….” Julianna started.

“Just what, Jules?” Anton said.

She knew she couldn’t say anything that would make up for what Anton knew she had done. Part of her had been so mad for so long, she didn’t know who she was. The anger had been such a big part of her and who she had become - who was she now that the secrets had been told? It had never even dawned on her that Owen could have been murdered. She had been blinded by so much anger and resentment that she couldn’t see the truth. For four hundred years she’d been holding a grudge - now to find out that everything she thought she knew was wrong.

“I’m sorry, Anton. I was wrong. I’m not trying to kill your family. I never was.”

“Really? What about Dimitri? The airplane? What about the ‘Deadman’s Blood’?” Anton demanded.

“Dimitri acted on his own, and I will admit that I did not advise him against torturing the girl, but I didn’t know he planned to kill her. The airplane I know NOTHING about except that I heard of it on the television. The ‘Deadman’s Blood’, well, I…I did kill that man and I did drain him, but after that I gave it to someone. I didn’t poison your cousin,” she explained.