Dracula: Hearts of Fire (Dracula Heart's) (18 page)

  
With two days behind Mich
ael
he had
no word of Lauren’s
fate.
Michael was literally sick with worry. The images that continued to flash in his head were all dreadful things with awful endings.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that her bones were laying in some gutter or behind some abandoned building
. Over a dozen red sheriffs were searching for her
but they also had no luck.
A meeting had been arranged by
John Shaw with a low-level wizard that had one particular talent
. The private eye said once again that he promised nothing, and Michael was starting to think that that’s what he should be paying him.
He should have had those words painted on his vehicle
I Promise Nothing.
John told Michael that Sebastian had basically one spell that he could
conjure up that might aid in locating Lauren.
At this point Michael was willing to try just about anything.

    He
had been told that Sebastian
would meet him at the monument,
that he would be dressed
in red. He was ten minutes early as he scanned the area for Sebastian. It didn’t take
long when he observed
the
wizard
running across the street from
in between the carriages. He was only four and a half feet tall, wearing shiny candy apple red pants and shirt; he even had a
matching red flat cap
and
a goatee tied in a long tail.
Sebastian was carrying
a clear vase of roses with lots o
f water, which Michael found a little strange
.
But the ways of wizards was something that he wasn’t privy to; he just wished that he could have made contact with a more powerful magic man.
If the wizard blurted out that he promised nothing, he just might decide to give him a damn good bite.

    Sebastian ran up to Michael. “You must be Michael, must be Michael. I am Sebastian. You have the money, have the money?” The wizard repeated himself as he nodded at Michael.
He looked around as if he was expecting some sort of trap; he knew that sometimes wizard’s preyed on one another.
He appeared to be nervous and ready to run without notice.

    Michael took out a wad of cash out of his right pants pocket but then hesitated. “What exactly are you going to do for me?
I was told that you can help me find her but I wasn’t told how.
”

    “I can show you where she is, where she is. Now I must warn you before we proceed. It might show her from a distance, from a distance, or it might show her close up, close up. We’ll get a single vision, only one, only one
. If neither of us recognise the location there’s nothing I can do about that, about that. If she’s bones it’ll show it, so please don’t kill the messeng
er
. Do you want to proceed?
Whatever it is that we are going to see cannot be unseen.
”

    Michael nodded and handed him the wad of cash which he quickly pocketed. “How does this work?”

    “I’ll
need a tear from you, a tear from you to add to the other
s
.”

   
Michael took it to mean that the thirteen roses were sitting in tears, and so he hoped that it was
n’t some sort of evil spell;
he didn’t feel that it was something he could ask
, nor something that the wizard
would admit to in any case
.
It didn’t take long for Michael to shed a tear. With an eye dropper it was captured and placed into the vase with the other tears. The roses were placed on the ground to form a hexagon as passers-by stopped to watch. Sebastian thr
ew the water inside the roses and
the water flowed unnaturally and formed a mirror with gasps from some.
(And “Did you see that?” from others)
The tears turned into a silver reflective surface that was at first cloudy, but then got clearer as Sebastian waved his right hand over it; the imaged focused like binoculars being adjusted.

     There was Lauren in the glass-topped coffin.

    “Oh my GOD! There she is!
Is this happening now?” Michael demanded. “What the hell is she in?
She’s in a coffin? She’s not bones.
”

   
Bent over at the waist t
he wizard concentrated on the image
, he cocked hi
s head, spitting out strange words that Michael didn’t recognise in an attempt to strengthen the enchantment
. “
It l
ook
s
like some sort of box, s
ort of box.
”

   The image brought such emotional pain to Michael that he could barely stand it. “She’s not moving! If she’d dead why isn’t she bones?
Is
s
he dead?
”

    Sebastian removed his hat and scratched his head vigorously, disturbing some dandruff. “Looks like some sort of binding spell, some sort of binding spell. No look, she’s not dead! Her eyes are blinking! She looks angry.”

    Ripples went through the image of Lauren which was lost for
a second
or two
but then returned.
Michael was becoming more anxious.
“What’s happening?”

    Sebastian
placed the round flat cap
back onto his head. “I’m sorry but the spell won’t last much longer, not much longer.”

    “
How the hell am I supposed
to tell where she is from that?
Lauren!”

    The image was shown from about two feet away fro
m Lauren, not much to go on. He
could see her and part of the coffin but not much more. There wasn’t nearly enough information to show Michael her location.

    Inside the image Lauren looked puzzled
as she shifted her head
. “Michael?”

    “She can hear me! Lauren where are you?”

    “Michael, I don’t know where I am. Can you hear me?
”

    “Yes, I can hear you.”

  
But with those words the reflection
turned into water and the connection was lost. Michael looked angrily at the wizard. “Bring her back! I need to find out where she is!
I need more information. Bring her back!
”

    “I cannot, the spell is finished, the spell is finished.”
Sebastian was surprised as no one had ever b
een able to communicate with through
image before this. He could only assume that
the
fact that she was
a red sheriff
made it possible, unless there was some sort of magic flowing through Michael.
True love had
power as well.

    “Make another one,
make another one!” Michael demanded
and mocked
.

    “It
would take several
month
s
to gather the tears
to cast another. My abilities are limited, very limited.”

    Michael pulled his sword and decapitated the wizard, and watched as he turned to bones. Only he didn’t really kill the wizard, he simply imagined it. Sebastian sped off into Central Park
and out of sight
.
Michael
stared down inside the roses and felt so utterly helpless that he started to cry.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

    S
HERIFF ALEXANDER TOWERED OVER ABBEY
as they waited for Arym to be released from the facility. Everything appeared to be white, the long halls, the ceilings, and even
part of
the main desk. Abbey thought that it was a bit of a strange setup.
People walked by and she wondered if they were all vampires.
The red sheriff coul
d sense that
Tessy was about to come around the corner, and sure enough they both appeared. After Abbey signed a single
piece of yellow
paper at the front desk they all made their way toward the security exit, flanked by two black security guards. Nods were exchanged as they exited the building.

   Abbey hugged her child. “How are you
? What did they do in there?”

    Arym shrugged
. “It was kinda weird. P
eople came in to read my mind, and they drew blood for some tests or something. This guy came into my room in the middle of the night
and Tessy escorted him out,
I never seen him again after that. One of the doctors said that he was gone and wouldn’t be back. Not
sure
what that means
maybe I don’t wanna know.”

     Alexander smiled and nodded. “We’ve received permission for you to return to the apartment. Tessy and I will escort you.”

    “
I wish I had a dog like Tessy.
Oh, Mom, they gave me blood to drink, and you wouldn’t believe how good it tasted.
It m
ade me feel like a thousand times stronger.
”