Haunted Destiny: A Midnight Dragonfly Bonus Short Story (3 page)

Or maybe not.

“And even in the dead of winter,” I murmured, “if you close your eyes when you inhale, it’s possible to catch the faintest trace of gardenia…”

Lafayette Cemetery always got to people. Even those who thought they were prepared. Even those who’d seen pictures or been to other New Orleans cemeteries. There was just something about walking between the two sentinel oaks that had stood there for so long, and seen so much, and through the gate of wrought iron.

One step, and the world of the living fell away, and the dead took over.

“
Lost souls
,” I said quietly. “
Old souls. Tortured souls.”
To my surprise the words didn’t feel silly or forced.

“They gather in the dance of the shadows,” I continued, and for a fleeting second, I again thought of soul mates, and wondered if they, too danced, “swaying quietly to the whisper of eternity.”

And then I said no more. I wanted the Hoods and Naomi to have their own experience, for their own impressions to form as they explored the haunting, timeless beauty of the weathered tombs, where crosses crumbled and angels wept and the vampire Lestat had hidden his valuables.

I’d been here several times, and I knew the stories, but as I turned and saw a man kneeling in the rain, with his head bowed and his hands clenched around the ornate iron fence surrounding a beautiful old crypt, a profound sadness gripped me.

The rain started again, this time harder, the wind shoving it in violent sheets across the tombs. Maybe that’s why he looked up. I knew it wasn’t because of me. I hadn’t moved.

But the second our eyes met, all of that fell away.

Chapter 5

The strangest echo of recognition whispered through me.

Shivering, I squinted against the downpour, trying to see. But even as he came into form, I was positive I’d never seen him before.

But the recognition wouldn’t go away.

Tall and thin, he had the look of a poet, with dark hair falling against a tragic face, and eyes as dark as they were decimated. I would have sworn he stepped toward me and touched me, lifted a hand to press against my chest, even though I could see that five feet separated us, and he still knelt in the shadow of a headless angel.

“Oh, my God!” I heard someone shriek, and from one heartbeat to the next, the moment shattered and Mrs. Hood came running through the torrential downpour, her husband right behind her, absolutely soaked to the bone. And when I glanced back at the man, I found him once again facing the grave with his head bowed, and from his hands, still clenched around the iron, I could see the rosary dangling in the rain.

“I’m freezing!” Mrs. Hood said as her husband gathered her against him. Mascara ran down her face—I could only imagine how the goth make-up Harmony had insisted I wear looked at the moment.

But I didn’t really care.

From behind me, Naomi splashed through deepening puddles, her umbrella destroyed by the wind. “My camera,” she said, as a vicious streak of lightning cut through the sky. “I’m afraid it may be ruined.”

Thunder shook the cemetery.

I could see their disappointment, but as the rain pelted us, I could also see the resignation on their faces.

“Tomorrow!” I said, guiding them back to the front entrance, where across the street, even the famous Commander’s Palace restaurant sat empty.

The wind kept shoving us back.

“Same time, same place,” I shouted against it. “No charge. We’ll pick up where we left off!”

We dashed outside, huddling under the dense canopy of one of the old oaks, until finally a taxi turned from St. Charles onto the rapidly flooding Washington Street.

Mr. Hood splashed to the street and hailed it.

There was only room for three.

“No, no, I’m fine,” I said as they climbed in, and the taxi driver frowned at the rain slanting into his car. “I’ll catch the next one.”

In truth though, I didn’t mind walking. It was that whole storm thing. I really did love them.

As they drove away I headed in the opposite direction, and despite how bad it had been in the cemetery, here on the sidewalk, where decades-old cracks had turned to raging mini-rivers, the enormous oaks made great umbrellas. And anyway, I was already soaked.

Fighting the wind, I made my way along Prytania, not thinking about much of anything except how much I loved New Orleans, until I felt the breath of awareness slip down my back. Slowly I turned, and slowly I saw the Spanish moss whipping in the frenzy of rain, and the old house waiting through the shroud of oaks.

I’ll never let you go…

There were a hundred reasons why I should have kept going, but I didn’t care about any of them, only how incredibly cold I was—and the low vibration moving through me, the bone-deep curiosity to experience what Harmony had, to walk through the rooms and touch the walls, smell the air—and see how much of the past really did remain.

Getting inside was ridiculously easy. The iron fence looked imposing, but the rails were frail and rusty, and as I ran my hands along them, I easily found the one Harmony had told me about, the one that wasn’t attached anymore.

Quickly I slipped through the opening, and made my way to the house.

Chapter 6

The front door was locked.

So was the back. But a few feet away I found the window with the rock wedged between the glass and the ledge, and I easily slipped it open, and climbed out of the rain.

I stood in the stillness for a long moment, absorbing it all, lifting my hands and feeling it, the silent, forgotten heartbeat of all who had come there before me.

Lightning flashed, and I saw the flowers.

Darkness returned, and they were gone.

I stepped forward anyway, keeping my steps small, until I reached the wall across the room. There I went down on my knees and ran my hand along the wood of the flooring, stilling when my fingers brushed against a scattering of dried petals.

“She loved gardenias.”

I twisted around so fast I lost my balance and went sprawling against the hard wood of the floor.

“We meet again,” he said, and when another flash of lightning streaked into the desolate old room, I saw that we did.

He had the look of a poet. That’s what I’d thought back in the cemetery, when I’d seen him kneeling before a crypt, and he’d looked up, and the echo of recognition had moved through me like a forgotten fog.

But in that one fleeting moment before darkness again merged with the stillness of the room, it was not beauty that I saw.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said quietly.

I scrambled back. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“But you are, aren’t you?” he said, and I heard it then, the timeless lilt. “I can feel it.”

My mind raced. My heart hammered so hard it hurt.

“I’ve been waiting so long,” he murmured, and even without light, I knew that he moved toward me. “But you already know that.”

“Stay away from me.” I had to get out of there. That’s all I could think. I had to get out of there, fast.

Scrambling to my hands and feet, I started to crawl.

“But you were wrong about one thing,” he intoned with another blast of lightning. “You forgot about revenge.”

A thousand things closed in on me, questions and answers and possibilities, but I wouldn’t let any of them touch me, take root. None of them mattered.

Only getting away.

“Richard could hear her,” he whispered, closer. “Hear her scream—hear her cry. And he knew. He knew his beautiful Adelaide had suffered.” Closer. “
And he sought to punish
.”

Outside the wind thrashed the old house, and tree limbs scraped against the windows. And through the grime on the window I could see the sway of shadows, and I knew that I was getting close to a way out.

“That is why he’s still here,” the man said. “That is why he will
always
be here.”

My breath stopped. I made myself move anyway, made myself shoot forward and scramble to my feet.

He laughed. “There, there,” he murmured, and when lightning again lifted the room from darkness, I saw him, saw him standing in front of me in an odd velvet jacket of rich burgundy, blocking the door. “That’s no way to greet me—”

I darted away, started to run. Up the stairs. It was the only option. Against the swirl of the long black dress Harmony had insisted I wear, my feet tangled.

He was right behind me. I could feel him, hear him…

“My friends will be here any minute!” I lied.

He laughed. “Your friends who drove off in the taxi?”

Staggering, I grabbed onto the splintered railing and dragged myself up. And then the hall was there, long and wide and stretching in both directions, and even though there was no light, I knew there would be a back staircase. All the old homes had them for the servants.

I took off, running as fast as I could, acutely aware that he tracked me with slow, deliberate purpose.

Like an animal.

“You’re making this so difficult,” he breathed as I slammed into something hard.

There was no staircase.

Horrified, I ran my hands along what felt like warped wood paneling, telling myself I was missing something, that there had to be some kind of opening.

And then he was there, trapping me between his body and the wall, and lifting a hand to the back of my neck. “Fear is such a wasted emotion.”

Except the wall slipped away, and a new room opened.

I stumbled forward, catching myself against some kind of shelf.

Outside the wind blew, but here inside this small windowless room, the faded scent of gardenia hung in the air, mingling with something pungent and earthy and—

Not human.

Twisting around, I shot toward him, not about to be cornered in that horrible dead room like some kind of animal.

At the moment before impact, he grunted and collapsed in the opening, revealing a hulking form behind him.

I gasped—I’d never considered that he wasn’t alone.

But then lightning slipped in, lingering, bathing the hall in a soft glow and revealing thick wavy hair falling against his forehead and the strong cheekbones, and eyes warm and intense, and so very, very blue.

“My God, are you okay?” he asked rushing past the unmoving heap on the floor. “I was driving by when I saw you go inside—”

And then he touched me, taking my shoulders in his hands and holding me, not threateningly or aggressively, but gently, the way it was supposed to be.

“And then I saw that guy go in after you,” he was saying, but I barely heard, barely breathed. A little dazed, I lifted a hand to the side of his rain-slicked face, and felt an invisible feather tickle the back of my neck. And when I touched his lower lip, the kiss of eternity whispered through me.

And I knew. There with the storm raging outside, the images blurred, blended, became one—the guy in front of me and the guy from my sketchbook,
my dreams.
And my mother’s dragonfly started to glow.

Destiny
, I realized with a soft smile. She always had a plan of her own.

READ ON FOR A PREVIEW OF THE FIRST MIDNIGHT DRAGONFLY NOVEL

SHATTERED DREAMS

AVAILABLE DECEMBER 2011

One

“I heard this place is like…haunted.”

Stepping around a huge old oak, I lifted my flashlight…and saw the house. Everyone else kept tromping through knee-high weeds, but something held me there, totally still, while Spanish moss slipped against my face.

The abandoned Greek Revival rose up against the moonlit sky like something ripped straight from the picture book my grandmother used to keep on her coffee table. Surrounded by seriously old trees and nearly covered by vines, it was big and boxy, with massive columns and wide porches. Once the place had probably been white. Even at night I could tell that. But now it was dirty and worn out. Tired.

Alone.

It was an odd word, but there you go. Alone. The old place with its dark windows and peeling siding looked like it was…

Waiting.

A warm breeze blew off the river, but I hugged my arms around myself as I watched them—Jessica, the stupidly beautiful cheerleader; her way-too-skinny best friend Amber; Jessica’s little sister Bethany; and the guys: Chase, the quarterback (and my chemistry lab partner); Drew, who rarely said more than two words at a time; and the massively tattooed Pitre—making their way toward a broken window. They weren’t that far away, but they might as well have been in another state.