Darlings of Darkness: A Vampire Anthology Part 72

Although I watched Charlie carefully while we ate, I concluded that there didn't appear to be anything to worry about and so, exhaustion taking me by surprise, I curled up in my sleeping bag and drifted off to sleep. The sound of Charlie's and Gabriel's words did nothing to keep me awake.

"Lilly, Lilly."

I awoke with a start, someone was nudging me, "Wake up, Lilly. It's Gabriel. He's gone," said Charlie as he finally managed to drag me out of a comfortable sleep with a bang.

His words twisted my stomach into a knot, "he's gone? What do you mean, he's gone?" I asked, jumping out of my sleeping bag. I looked around and saw that Gabriel's sleeping bag was still there, exactly where it had been the night before, a few embers smouldered in the fire but Gabriel was nowhere to be seen.

"Are you sure he didn't just go to get some water or something?" I said, trying hard not to panic, even though I could feel it rising from the pit of my stomach.

Charlie shook his head and stuttered, "I've... I've been awake for over an hour. I thought the same. I a.s.sumed that he had gone for water or to the toilet. But he hasn't come back, Lilly. We must leave immediately. We must travel to the Elders together. There we will be able to get some help," he said as he grabbed everything in sight and shoved it into mine and Gabriel's rucksacks.

I didn't even want to think what might have happened, but I couldn't prevent those negative thoughts from entering my mind. Had a bear attacked him? Surely I would have heard if something so large and ferocious had done, wouldn't I? What about a vampire? Or that man who could change into an alligator, the one Gabriel had first mentioned months ago? My mind was running riot. I thought of Rose, 'Breathe, Lilly, breathe. Slowly, in and out, in and out'. I knew that's what she would be telling me to do. It's the same breathing technique to calm down as it was to change back from lion to human.

Charlie stood looking at me, quizzically, "Lilly, my dear. What are you doing? We must get out of here."

"I need to calm down, Charlie. I need to calm down and think. I need to think about this sensibly and not react wrongly. I wouldn't want to rush off only to find that Gabriel isn't far away. I can't just leave now. Anything could have happened," I whispered while I continued to practice the deep breathing techniques.

"That's exactly why we need to leave now. We need to get to the Elders now," he said authoritatively.

"You go and I'll stay here and wait," I said, standing my ground.

"Lilly you are coming with me and you're coming with me now, young lady," he said as his nostrils flared. He was angry. His whole face and demeanour changed suddenly and I began to get the feeling that Charlie wasn't who or what Gabriel thought he was. I began to think that my feelings the previous evening had been spot on. Charlie wasn't one to be trusted.

"Charlie... where is my grandfather?" I asked, knowing that Gabriel's disappearance was beginning to look suspicious. "What have you done to him?" I asked.

He turned then and laughed a deep laugh, "You're a smart girl Lilly, aren't you? I thought I had fooled you both last night, but clearly not. Now listen to me. If you want your grandfather to remain alive, you had better do as I say."

I knew I had no choice but to do exactly as he said. Until I knew where Gabriel was I couldn't risk losing him altogether. I nodded, trying hard to keep myself from transforming.

"Pick up your bag and walk ahead of me... that way," he said, pointing in the same direction where I had seen the owl the night before.

I stumbled ahead and tried to think of ways to escape this mad goat man but I knew I couldn't go anywhere. Because if I did, I might never see Gabriel, alive, again.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked Charlie after we'd walked in silence for over an hour. "What have you done with Gabriel?"

"Be quiet and continue walking," he said, while I wondered how my grandfather had trusted this beast. He was usually such a good judge of character, how could he have let this happen? But I knew it wasn't his fault. Being so close to the Elders, Gabriel had obviously a.s.sumed he could trust him. Clearly he had been wrong. But there was no point dwelling on it.

Charlie was after something. I didn't know what that was yet but I would find out soon enough.

The fact that Gabriel was gone and Charlie was kidnapping me suggested I had something he wanted. I dreaded to think what it was. As I thought about this evil creature, I began to notice something familiar on a tree a little further ahead. It was an owl. And if my eyesight served me correctly, it appeared to be the owl from the night before. It was watching me. I began to wonder if it was just an owl or if it had special abilities like me. I stared hard at it, hoping that it would swoop down and rescue me, somehow. But it didn't. Like before, it swiftly looked away and then took flight.

"Keep moving!" yelled Charlie and he shoved me causing me to stumble on the loose stones beneath my feet. As I fell onto my knees, I contemplated whether I should just change and rip the goat to shreds.

But I calmed myself down again, thinking only about Gabriel's safety. I pulled myself back onto my feet and rubbed my hands on the front of my combats, to get rid of the grit and dirt. In the distance I could see what appeared to be another cave. We seemed to be heading in that direction. After another ten minutes or so, as we approached it, I noticed that we were not alone. Somebody was waiting for us.

The person was well hidden by an old black cape that covered them from head to toe.

Charlie spoke first. "Here she is, Master, here she is. Just as you requested. Lilly Tulugaq," and he pushed me so hard that I fell once again to the feet of the stranger.

The fall angered me and I yelped. It was with great difficulty that I stayed relatively calm.

"Don't you mean Lilly Taylor?"

As she said those words, I felt as if I had been kicked in the stomach. I was winded. I closed my eyes momentarily and then looked up as she removed the cape from her face. I gasped at the sight of Vivian.

But this wasn't the Vivian that I had lived with for fourteen years. This Vivian had thin greying hair and wrinkles. Her shoulders stooped forward and her back curled over, like a hunchback. This Vivian had become an old hag.

"I might have known that you would be responsible for all of this," I spat. "Where is my father?" I demanded.

"Now that's not a very nice way to greet your dear mother, is it?" she spat as she circled me, looking me up and down with a scowl.

"My mother is dead... and you killed her, along with my sister," I shouted, as I became increasingly angry.

Charlie shoved me down to the floor again and told me to shut up.

I could feel the lion in me trying to take over but I knew if I transformed then, not only would I lose Gabriel but I would lose my father too.

"I raised you and this is the thanks I get," said Vivian cruelly.

"You haven't got a clue how to raise a child," I spat back, adding, "why are you doing this? Where is Gabriel? And where is my father? If you've hurt either of them, I swear to G.o.d I'll..."

"You'll what, Lilly? You'll kill me with your bird's claws? I don't think so, my darling. A little raven isn't going to kill me. I'm one of the greatest witches that ever lived," she announced.

"If you're so great, then why do you look like an old hag," I asked.

"How dare you!" she yelled back, slapping me hard on the side of my face.

"You hit like an old hag," I said with a glare, knowing I was. .h.i.tting a nerve.

"Get her and bring her in here," she ordered Charlie, who grabbed my arm roughly and pulled me after her. The entrance to the cave was small, but inside it proved to be a lot bigger than it first appeared.

"Throw her in there," she said, pointing to a huge bird cage in the centre of the cavern.

As I was pushed into it, it dawned on me that Vivian had no idea about my true self. She thought I had the ability to transform myself into a raven, but she knew nothing about the mountain lion. I began to think that I could use it to my advantage.

"What are you going to do to me?" I asked her, watching as she read from a large ornate book that looked centuries old.

"I'm going to take your blood and your hair... not that you've got very much of that these days... and use it to make me young and beautiful again." She said it as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Is that what you did to my father?" I asked, hoping to find out the truth.

She ignored me, instead standing up and walking over to a large shelf that had been created from an old log, similar to the ones I had seen on the beach at Powell River. On it were a number of vials filled with all kinds of creepy looking things. I recognised a few of them. They were just like the vials that the police had found in the black room where I used to live.

"Is that my father's blood?" I asked.

Again she said nothing, ignoring me as she continued to search through the little bottles. Her eyesight was clearly failing her and she had to hold things up close to identify their contents.

"Talk to me, Vivian. Oh I forgot. You never talked to me before did you? Years of no conversation. And you think you raised me," I said, hoping to irritate her enough so that she'd tell me more.

"What happened to you? Why are you old and ugly, Vivian?" I continued.

"Old... of course I'm old. I've been alive for hundreds of years, what on earth do you expect. Why do you think I became a witch in the first place? Eternal youth, of course. Don't you know anything, girl?" she shrieked like the old hag she'd become.

"I can't believe I thought you were my mother. You're nothing like my mother. She was absolutely beautiful and so was my sister. No amount of my blood and hair will ever make you beautiful. You'll never be beautiful, Vivian. Never."

"d.a.m.n you, Lillian!" she yelled, throwing a vial at the cage. The gla.s.s bottle smashed and I was spattered with blood. Whose, I didn't know.

"Is this my father's blood?" I asked again.

"No, it is not your father's blood. He's all out of that," she answered with an evil smile.

I gasped. Did that mean he was dead? I felt as if my heart had been ripped out of my chest.

"When I ran out of your father's blood, this is what became of me, if you must know," she said as she looked at herself in a large cracked mirror that had been hung on the wall. She touched her face gently, sadly.

"He gave me beauty and then he took it away," she whispered.

"Is... is he dead? Vivian please tell me what happened to him. I need to know," I asked, hoping that she might have just a tiny amount of compa.s.sion in her, somewhere.

"Dead... dead? Does it matter whether he's dead or not? It doesn't matter anymore."

"It matters to me!" I cried, tasting a salty tear as it fell down my cheek onto my lips.

"I don't believe that Jack is dead. Not entirely anyway," was all she would say.

Although it wasn't what I wanted to hear, it did give me a glimmer of hope. I just needed to know where he was to be able to rescue him from what sounded like near-death.

"Where is he? Is he here? Please Vivian. Tell me where he is."

She shook her head and looked at me, "I can't tell you."

"Please, Vivian, please," I begged as I shook the bars of the cage.

"Lillian I can't tell you because I don't know where he is," she answered finally. "He disappeared in London. I tried to find him but he just vanished. I don't know how he got away but he did. The second time that has happened to me, b.l.o.o.d.y men," she said, "they always get away in the end," she added more to herself than to me.

So my father managed to escape from Vivian and he didn't take me with him. My heart had truly been wrenched from the depths of my soul. He had run away and left me with a witch. What kind of father would do that? I was at a complete and utter loss.

"I have spent months looking for him. Months and months... and nothing. So now I have to find someone else to make me beautiful again. Until I can find myself another man, a special man, you will have to do. You are his daughter. You must carry the same blood as he. You will have to do... for now anyway," she said with a smile.

"But why my father in the first place? There are millions of men in this world, why did you have to choose my father?"

"Oh Lillian... are you that dim? I need the blood, and sometimes the hair, of only very special people. They have special qualities in their blood. When mixed with certain other secret ingredients and drunk, by me, returns me to my youthful glow and extraordinary good looks. You have your father's genes, so you must have that quality, my dear," she said as she approached the cage with a small dagger in her hand.

"Charlie, grab her hands," she said as she opened the door to the cage and pulled me half out. Charlie appeared behind me and managed to hold both my hands while she cut off a very small tuft of my hair. I breathed a temporary sigh of relief as she walked away and dropped it into a small pot. But then she turned and walked back towards me and pulled my leg so that it hung out of the cage door. She grabbed my hiking shoe and sock and tugged them from my foot. Pulling up my trousers, she very gently placed the blade against my skin and then pressed hard so that blood oozed out from just above my ankle. I winced, trying hard to stay calm.

She placed a small bucket underneath my foot and waited for the blood to drip into it.

Adrenaline pumped through my veins but I took long deep breaths to prevent myself from changing. I needed to know where Gabriel was before I could do anything.

"Vivian, what have you done with Gabriel?" I asked. "Please tell me that he's okay. Have you hurt him?"

"I have no need to harm the old man," she said and I was surprised. The evil things she was capable of made me think that she hurt people on purpose, whether she needed to or not. But perhaps she only did so when she needed something. That was until she continued, "The same can't be said for Charlie though," and she laughed heartily as if she'd cracked a hilarious joke.

She released my leg and I pulled it back quickly. Charlie slammed the door shut and locked it.

"Charlie, where is Gabriel?" I asked, hopefully.

But he just sn.i.g.g.e.red and said nothing.

"There's just one important ingredient that I'm missing. I'll be gone a while. Charlie, keep an eye on her she might try to change into a bird, although the cage should prevent her from escaping," said Vivian before she grabbed her cape, threw it on and exited the cavern.

"Charlie... how did you get here? I know she must've cursed you. You're an Englishman that she made into a mountain goat. Isn't there a part of you, hidden somewhere in there, that hates her? A part of you that wants some kind of revenge for what she did to you?" I asked softly.

But again, he ignored me and sat staring off into s.p.a.ce.

"Charlie please help me. If you can't, please just tell me where Gabriel is."

"Shut up, Lilly. Shut up!" he yelled as he bent to pick up a small stone from the floor and then flung it against me. It pinged off the side of the cage and bounced against the wall before landing on the floor by the cave's entrance.

He wasn't going to tell me so I sat in silence and waited for Vivian to return. My leg began to throb, a dull ache where she had sliced into it. Fortunately the cut wasn't too deep and the bleeding had slowed. I feared that if I didn't escape she would bleed me to death. My father had obviously come close to that but he had managed to get away before death had come. How, I had no idea. He must have been so weak by that time and to get out of that room must have been near on impossible. I wondered if someone had helped him. But why? And how? And more importantly, who?

I would find out what had happened to him and I would find out where he was. I would also find out why he had deserted me and left me in the hands of an evil witch.

I pulled my legs up to my chest and rested my head on my knees and before I could stop myself, I began to cry. I cried for Gabriel, I cried for my father and I cried for me. I knew I could escape but I was so scared that Gabriel would end up dead if I did so.

That's when I heard the sound from outside. A soft cooing noise that reminded me of something. The owl. It was the sound of an owl hooting, the same sound I had heard the night before. I recalled how the bird had watched me but had then looked away and flown off into the distance. And then again, while Charlie had been dragging me to the cave, I had seen it but it hadn't taken much notice of me. It was a soothing sound but that's all it was.

The sound, however, began to get a little louder and then there was silence. As I looked towards the entrance to the cave, I could just about see it perched on the branch of a tree close by. It was looking towards me.

There were a couple of birds circling above the owl and I gasped when I recognised what they were. Ravens. Charlie looked over at me suspiciously and I coughed to try and hide my surprise. He stood and walked around the cage, checking that there wasn't something going on. Seeing that there wasn't, he returned to sit down and just as he let down his guard to relax a little, one of the ravens flew into the cave as quietly as possible. He didn't notice. I watched it surrept.i.tiously as it stood on the floor behind him, waiting. Whoever it was, it had found me. But had it found Gabriel?

As I waited, wondering what it would do, I heard footsteps and the sighing of an old woman. The simple act of walking left her breathless.

Vivian had returned.

The raven was startled, clearly not expecting her to return so soon, so it hopped backwards and hid away in a dark corner while Vivian walked into the cave carrying the final ingredient that would help make her young and beautiful once again.

"So you're still human are you, Lilly? I'm surprised at you. I figured you might have tried to escape. Not that you would be able to. I raised you not to run away, didn't I? You never could get away from me," she laughed as she began concentrating on her strange recipe for beauty.