Vampire Instinct (13 page)
Authors: Joey W Hill
Tags: #Vampires, #Horror, #Paranormal, #General, #Romance, #Fantasy, #Erotic Fiction, #Erotica, #Fiction, #Occult & Supernatural
As she touched the foot rail, she realized she’d placed her hand over a string of animal teeth. Fangs. The string was mixed with feathers as well, some pretty beads, several stones with sparkling crystal sides. Perhaps the teeth had come from the cats that had belonged to these coats, though the size of these fangs gave her pause, as she realized these species were roaming loose on the island. But he protected cats. So why would Mal have their skins?
Putting down the linens, she crossed from the foot to the side of the large bed and closed her hand on the tiger skin. Pulling it back, she discovered it was heavier than she expected. However, the smoothness of it coaxed her to stroke the stripes. Following the pattern made her dizzy, so she closed her eyes, inhaled the animal odor. Not unpleasant, but with her eyes closed, it was as if she were inhaling the creature as it crossed her path, real . . . alive. She could almost feel its back brushing under her fingertips, the chuff of its breath as it passed into the camouflage of a jungle of tall green bamboo, using Nature’s magic to become invisible to the human eye.
She realized then that she was humming. No, not humming. It was a wordless chant, like the Aborigines might craft. It had a soothing power that had her swaying along with it. But she didn’t know any songs like this. It startled her enough to shake her out of the spell.
“Stop daydreaming,” she chided herself, since Mrs. Pritchett wasn’t here to do it. Folding back the skins, since she was reluctant to take them completely off the bed, she retrieved the clean linens.
Tucking the bottom sheet in, she smoothed it, circling around the bed to do the other side. As she worked it to the bottom corners underneath the heavy array of pelts, the fur tickled her forearms, the creases of her elbows. She pulled the sheets taut, since one should be able to bounce a coin on a properly made bed, but it was a wide bed, and the mattress was not the typical flat surface. The stuffing was thick and gave invitingly under hands. She didn’t feel a hint of springs. Curious.
She wrestled the top sheet into place, but wasn’t entirely satisfied with the look of it. The sheet had a faint stripe pattern, after all, and it needed to be straight. She didn’t want Malachi to come to his bed thinking it hadn’t been made up right. Of course, from what she’d seen of him, she thought it more likely a bedbug would notice and complain before Mal did. She tripped over the toes of several pairs of boots that had been carelessly deposited under the bed and grimaced. If she was Kohana, she’d chase him out of the house like Mrs. Pritchett until he learned to leave those muddy boots at the door, or clean them properly before coming in.
The idea of chasing the formidable vampire with a broom gave her a smile. Warmed by that, she put a knee on the bed and crawled her way to the middle of its vast expanse, using her hands to straighten and smooth.
She had to catch her breath, so she sat down on her hip, studying the skins as she pulled them forward enough that they lay on her lap. Tiger, lion, leopard. Giving in to her curiosity and desire, she bent her head, rubbed her cheek over the lion skin. She wondered if Mal’s house cats came down here to sleep with him. The mousers at the station were wild as dingoes and not given to being petted or coddled the way it appeared Mal’s were with their sprawling indolence. That fat lot definitely
weren’t
mousers. Though with an island full of predators, she expected they didn’t have much of a rodent problem.
weren’t
mousers. Though with an island full of predators, she expected they didn’t have much of a rodent problem.
Her eyes were closing again. It was ridiculous, how often she seemed to want to sleep. At home, she could resist it. Something about this room, deep in the earth, called a body straight into the arms of a nap. It was like the heartbeat of an old woman, sitting by a fire, rocking, that chant coming to her lips again. Elisa moved with it, swaying, her body sinking into the bedding, curling around the animal skins and gathering them in to her. Drowsily, she wondered what that old woman was chanting, and why it felt so natural to join her. It was a great comfort to be part of that rhythm, part of that heartbeat here, deep in the earth. She never had to leave. She could stay here, everything else stopping so that it didn’t matter if she stayed here for eternity. Time would stop as long as she was in the center of this place, this moment.
Fanciful thoughts, nothing like her usual practical thinking. But then, nothing was usual anymore, was it? A young maid in a rich man’s house, who worked hard and let him have his way to keep the job . . . That was usual. A maid who worked for a vampire and played babysitter to six vampire children . . . That required a different way of thinking, right? The world was a daft place, far more unexpected than it first seemed.
She was in a forest, the earth cool beneath her feet. The thin air told her she was higher up, in the mountains, only they were much greener than those in her part of Australia. Hearing a chirp, she looked up to see a large cat studying her from a tree. A beautiful grayish brown creature with enormous eyes like molten gold. She had long white whiskers and touches of white on her chin and face.
Cougar. Or mountain lion. Kohana had said they chirped, right? The female cat jumped down and stalked over to her, but Elisa felt no need to run. The creature rubbed her face on her skirts, marking, and Elisa heard her purr.
The cougar is the largest of the purring cats . . .
That was Thomas’s voice, for he sat in a tree nearby, reading his book, the filtered sunlight flashing off his glasses and obscuring his eyes.
Elisa’s hand fell naturally on the cougar’s coat. It didn’t seem right to pet a creature like this. Instead she offered homage through the respectful touch. Then the cat was moving and Elisa was following, no idea where they were going, just knowing she needed to follow. Thomas was gone. A walk became a lope and then a run. She wasn’t in her skirts now. She was astounded to find herself wearing nothing but an animal’s skin. Its head, or rather the top of its skull and a portion of its face, the ears and glittering eyes, formed a headdress for her. The rest cloaked her body and was pinned at her throat with a piece of carved bone to hold it in place. Her nakedness beneath didn’t bother her, because she was coated in soil, cool and damp on her skin, making her smell like and be a part of the cougar’s world.
She ran so sure and fast, right behind the cougar’s ground-eating lope. They went up and up, until abruptly they emerged on a precipice. Elisa stopped, her breath catching in her throat. The moon hung low and heavy in the sky, so large that the cougar was outlined by it as she propped her feet on a knoll and settled down on her belly, letting out a long yowl.
“Oh my . . .” Elisa let out a delighted noise as that yowl was answered. From a hundred different throats came roars and grumbles, growls and high mewling calls like her companion. Looking down over the precipice, she saw the whole island stretching out below her, much larger and wider than it had appeared on the plane. A faint bluish light ran through the island like veins. She could feel the pulse of it like heat on her skin, and there was a pressure to it, a sense that it was aware of her, shaping itself to her form, learning her and making her part of it, tying her into it, so no matter where she went, that magic would always recognize her . . . or could call her back to it if she got lost.
She sat down on the cliff edge, unafraid as her legs dangled over the edge and she put her arm around the cougar’s shoulders. She’d been a city girl until she came to Danny’s station, and then the wide-open spaces, the very wildness of the world that pressed in on them on all sides, had become more of who she was than where she’d been born.
So perhaps it wasn’t surprising that this was the next step. This was what home should feel like, a place she could come, no matter how empty she was, and she’d be filled. There were no questions here, so no need for answers. Her grief could become part of the fabric of this place, as could her laughter, if it ever came back to her again.
If it could find her anywhere, it would be here.
8
M
ALACHI showed his teeth as Kohana blocked him at the top of the porch. “You need to take off your shoes,” the old Indian said. “They’re covered in mud.”
ALACHI showed his teeth as Kohana blocked him at the top of the porch. “You need to take off your shoes,” the old Indian said. “They’re covered in mud.”
“They’re always covered in mud.”
“Which is why they need to be left out here.”
Mal gave him a gimlet eye. “It would take two fingers for me to rip your throat out. Maybe just one.”
“I expect you could do that with or without shoes on.” Kohana sighed, made room as Mal ascended the porch with a near snarl. “Fine. Go on in, then. But the girl’s worked herself to death to clean things up today.”
Mal came to a stop. “She’s not here to be manual labor.”
“Well, you’re not leaving her with much to do, and she’s worked all her life. It’s what she knows. It helps her. She doesn’t go mad, thinking about how much she wants to see those young vampires. Look at how pretty and shiny those windows are. I hate doing windows.”
Mal scowled, pivoted and thumped down in one of the porch rockers. Kohana cocked his head as he began to tug the laces loose. From his employer’s expression, he could tell the night’s work had not gone well, and it didn’t take much of a leap to figure what had caused the problem. “How are they?”
“Damaged.”
“Irreparably?”
Mal grunted. “Pointless either way. If I can fix the damage done to them, they have nowhere to go, nowhere they’ll fit where they won’t end up in a situation that might actually be worse. In the vampire world, they’d be viewed as circus freaks. Or worse. Plenty would take advantage of it.”
“But not all. Could some of them stay here, permanently? We could surely use a few more with vampire speed and quickness, like yourself.”
“These aren’t animals.” Mal sighed, rubbed a hand over his face. “They have intellect, the root of all human mischief. It’s what makes us discontent with our lot in life, seeking higher meaning and purpose. If these fledglings had a mortal life span, say sixty or seventy years, fine, but they’re immortal, Kohana. Do you think they’d like to stay on this island for the next four or five hundred years or more?”
“I know I would. Nothing out there better than this. You see enough bad stuff, get your heart broken, you know why an animal is smarter than us, without that intellect. Maybe you learn to accept it, want that for yourself.”
“Don’t be talking to her like this. I mean it, Kohana.” Mal lifted his head. “Don’t give her false hope. Each of these fledglings is fucked-up twelve ways to Sunday. The chance any of them could reach a decent level of self-determination and stability is right up there with biblical miracle.”
“I’ve seen you pull off miracles.”
“You’re like talking to a stump. Only a stump has the good sense to keep its thickheaded opinions to itself. Where is she?”
“Probably asleep in your room. I sent her that way an hour ago to put on clean sheets.”
“What?” Malachi frowned. “You didn’t tell her—”
“Of course not.” Kohana looked offended. “I made an oath to you, Mal. You think I’d break it?”
“No.” Mal rose, put a hand on his shoulder. “It was a gut reaction. But you sent her down there. What if she screws something up?”
“You think while she’s changing out the sheets she might catch a thread of your devil-spawned universe and accidentally unravel the whole thing?” Kohana grunted. “Room’s peaceful, quiet. I knew it might coax her to sleep some. She needs more rest. I wasn’t going to disturb her until she came back, and then I was going to act like I hadn’t even noticed how long she’d been gone.”
“You probably have the right instinct, putting her to work.” Darkness settled back over Mal’s features. Leaving his socks and shoes behind, he moved to the threshold in his dusty cargo pants and T-shirt. “We won’t help by coddling her, Kohana. Nobody gets past something like she’s been through by being treated like glass. You have to convince them they’re flesh and blood, as they’ve always been. The earth keeps turning, no matter what happens.”
“You might follow your own advice,” Kohana noted. “You’ve been hiding out here for some time yourself, ignoring the outside world.”
“Not ignoring. Mindful of it. Mindful enough to know this is where I belong, just as you said. I’ll take my blood when I come back up. Just set it out on the counter. Everyone else is about ten minutes behind me and I know they’ll be hungry. They had to handle the cats without me while I worked with those fledglings. Thomas helped some, but I’m not comfortable having even a third-mark near them. Not until we figure out what’s going on in their heads.”
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