The Touch Series: Initiation (22 page)

              My heart was his.

                                                                      CHAPTER sixteen

              Walking towards the front door to my house was an experience in itself. With each step I took on the cobble-stoned path, I felt as if my feet touched upon a mist of cloud. I would lie if I said my smile had faded  since I left Josef's penthouse. And as cheesy or crazy as I might have looked to passersby I simply didn't care.

              It felt as if time had flown by in an unimaginable way. But it stood still at the same time. It was just us. Just us in a crazy world that didn't always provide answers or explanations. Perhaps, we would never accept the difference between a vampire and human, but we could accept what we were right at that moment.

              As I stepped inside, I was completely taken aback by Nicholas who stood completely still in the middle of the hall. I had never seen him so pale, and his frightened expression made my entire body overcome with an awful feeling.

              “Nicholas, what's wrong? It looks like you've seen a ghost?”

              He quickly turned around and pointed towards the glass doors in the kitchen. He turned his head to look at me. “Bad lady!”

             
He spoke!

             
Hearing him speak for the first time in a year made me overwhelmed with emotion and happiness at first but his exact verbal response stirred a fear in me that I had not felt before. I ran past him to look out the glass windows where I scanned the yard that led to a massive forest behind. There was no one there. I made sure that the doors were locked and then ran back to the front doors to lock them.

              I turned to Nicholas who hadn't moved from his position. I knelt down  so I was eye level with him. “Nicholas, look at me. What's wrong? Who is the bad lady?”

              His expression didn't give off that he too was surprised at him suddenly speaking. “Lady with red hair from the forest. She hurt a girl who screamed. Red hair lady is back.”

                                                                                    ***

              I didn't know what to do. My parents were gone on a retreat and asked me to quickly go home to watch him since his babysitter, Nancy, wasn't picking up her phone and they got worried. And rightfully so, Nancy had fallen asleep on the couch on the living room.   After waking her and having her leave,  it was up to me to decide what to do. I called Artie who immediately came once I told him what had happened.

              Artie arrived with his top shirt buttons undone and his hair slightly disheveled; completely contradictory to his everyday, perfectly groomed style. When I tried to explain to him what happened, he waved his hand to me and walked straight to Nicholas.

              When Nicholas told him about what he saw last summer in the forest Artie tensed.

              “Where exactly in the forest did you see her?”

              “Near Coven's Pond.”

              “Who did she hurt?”

              “A girl.”             

The skin on my hand became raw after I bit down on it to relieve my tension.

              “What did she look like?”

              “Red-hair – Bad lady, bad lady!”

Once Nicholas told him that he had seen the same woman again in our yard, Artie's face looked pained. He compelled Nicholas to relax and go to sleep which allowed me to relax for once as well.

              Once Nicholas made his way up the stairs, Artie slowly took a seat on the couch near the fire place. “I don't know what to say.”

              I looked at him not entirely understanding what he meant. “You don't have to say anything. I get it. It's not something anyone of us can explain. But do you think that I should at least call the police or what?”

              He shook his head slowly and he looked hopeless. “They won't be able to do anything. I'm pretty sure that Nicholas witnessed a supernatural murder.”

              “What are you talking about? How could you know that?”

              “Last summer, around the time when Nicholas and his friends went missing, a girl was attacked and her body was found in the forest.” I had heard about it, but not much; the details were kept tightly shut by the police department who couldn't even be bribed by the local newspaper even though they usually caved into them. “The police ruled it out as an animal attack of some kind. And knowing that Illinois has a huge vampire population, I had my suspicions. So I went, compelled the head detective on the case to let me go and look at the body myself and...it wasn't an animal attack. It was a vampire.” He looked up at me and I gestured for him to continue. “I would bet anything that that was what Nicholas and his friends witnessed. Now, the main problem is that the vampire was never found.”

              “Artie, if what you're saying is true, then there is a vampire murderer walking in this  town and  freely onto my yard. We have to do something. For one, Nicholas can't handle this. He'll become even more shocked than he was before; He stopped speaking the last time, imagine what could happen next.”

              “I know but I can't do it on my own. I'll need to contact some of my friends who are good at tracking down other vampires.”

              “Okay. And for now just start looking into all the red-head vampires you know, like Gwen.”  Gwen might have a strange bi-polar complex about her which caused me to second guess my accusation but I'm not taking any risks by potentially letting a killer slip through my radar.

              “Look Quinn, as much as I would love to lock up Gwen for anything it's a lot more complicated than that.”

              “How? How is it complicated Artie?” My voice grew louder and I could hear my pulse quickening while a cold sweat dripped down my back.

              “The vampire could have worn a red wig. Remember that vampires are smart. No vampire would walk around and give out their identity while committing a crime as heinous as that.” He looked down again and closed his eyes.

              This was extremely difficult for Artie. Whenever he heard of a story of a vampire hurting a human in any way, he felt ashamed. He wanted vampires and humans to live peacefully together. And if  vampires didn't live up to the rules set up by both the human and vampire government than vampires could easily go back to living in the shadows. All it took was a few vampire murders to make the media circuit and all could change for the worst, even for the good vampires.

              “I'm sorry Artie. I didn't mean to raise my voice at you. I just... I don't understand any of this. And why would this person come back here?”

              “Most likely because they knew that Nicholas was there that night and probably wants to get rid of anyone who saw what happened. Maybe they want to protect themselves, and all of the other vampires, from being found out.”

              I started to panic once again. “Artie, we have to do something now! Call whoever you have to call. Do something. Please!”

              He quickly got up, took his phone out and ended up in a conversation with someone. I went upstairs to make sure that all the windows were locked and texted my parents to return home quickly. I would have to get Artie to compel them to stay home with Nicholas and not leave him with an irresponsible sitter again, while the both of us figured this out.

             
Hopefully, we'll figure it out...

              The sound of his voice echoed in my head over and over again in the most spine-chilling way,              

             
“Bad lady, bad lady!”

                                                                      CHAPTER seventeen

              “What exactly are we doing here?” I stood in the middle of the library in Josef's mansion. Artie was frantically looking through ancient-looking texts and murmuring to himself. My patience was quickly dwindling with each passing minute, especially since I feared for Nicholas' safety.

              Artie kept flipping through a book without looking up to see me. “I need to find a witch who can help us with this. Only a witch will be able to help us track down this person quickly and without much evidence to work off on.” He threw the book onto the ground and took another off the shelf next to him. “Josef always keeps records on most supernatural beings he meets incase he needs them and their abilities for something. And I know there was a witch in here somewhere that lives in the Midwest.”

              I decided to help him look instead of standing there and being useless. “So, we're looking for a name and it will say 'witch' next to it?”

              “It will be a list of names and, yes, it will have their supernatural origins next to them.”

              I went through several oversized leather-bound books that had been covered in dust which made me begin to cough. As I raised my elbow to cover my mouth to cough, a quick flicker of light caught my attention; towards the other end of the room was a shinny vase and to its right was a transparent curtain separating that portion of the library. Artie was so consumed with his task of finding the list that he paid no attention to me. I slowly started to make my way towards the other part of the library. Once I made it past the light purple curtain I turned to check on Artie. He hadn't noticed that I moved.

              There were two shelves on either sides of me that held relics and herbs. There was only a table in the middle of the room with large scrolls that looked centuries old. I knew that I had to help find the name of the witch but I was beyond curious as to why this section of the library was secluded.

              After a few quick reads at some of the scrolls in front of me, I quickly realized that they were about Josef's adoptive family. Each scroll had the Constane family name written  at the very top. There were lineages drawn as well as what looked like financial records of some sort. One scroll stood out the most. There were drawings of girls with long fish tails and strange writing scribbled all over. I couldn't make out what language was.  And there was something about it that made me feel as if it were important.

I should know this...

              I took the scroll and made my way to Artie who smiled widely when he turned a page. “Yes! Got it.”

              “That's great. How do we find her? Is there a number?”

              “Better. There's an address. She's here in Richmond.” Artie immediately took out his laptop to find out where exactly the witch resided in Richmond.

              “You know I live here right? Tell me her name, maybe I know her?”

              “Perrie Richards?”

              Funny. I didn't know anyone by that name at all. “No. Don't know her.”

              “Found her. She is a Psych teaching assistant at the Richmond Community College.” Artie finally looked up at me to see if anything rang a bell.

              I shook my head. “Never heard of her.”

              Artie's eyes shifted to the scroll that I was holding and he tensed. “Where did you get that?”