The baby, now lying across Marceline’s lap, cooed at just that time, and wrapped her tiny fingers around Marceline’s thumb. “Do you like that, little one?” Marceline asked, looking down at the child. “I know!” Marceline said excitedly. “We shall name you Solange. It is the name of a martyred saint, and means solemn, dignified. And some say it means ‘angel of the sun’. You are already strong, not even a whimper as you entered the world. And you shall certainly be our little angel of the sun. Welcome, Solange,” Marceline said softly.
Facing the window, purposely keeping her eyes away from her daughter, Adrienne sent up a little prayer to mother earth, to all the gods and goddesses she’d ever heard of and learned about, to the nymphs in the forests and any other who may hear it, to protect her daughter, her little angel of the sun, because she knew without a doubt that she was not long for this world. She couldn’t be. She was the greatest threat her little Solange had at this point in time, and she couldn’t have anything happen to the innocent little child who didn’t ask for any of this.
~~~
Alastair stalked down the path leading from one hut to the next in the hot, sticky, tropical heat. There were only six huts here. They were used by some of the males of a local tribe during fishing season, while the rest of the tribe remained at their regular village. He made no effort to quiet his steps or disguise his presence. In the weeks since leaving his Mouse while in the throes of childbirth with the witch Marceline and all her pathetic following of females, he’d slowly lost even more of his sanity. It was that way with those of his nature — vampires. If they were foolish enough to bond themselves to another, they had to be certain the one they chose, chose them as well. If they were ever separated, both would slowly lose themselves to insanity, any remembrance of themselves before their turning lost forever, along with any sense of humanity they may have managed to hold onto prior. And the one he’d bonded with, he’d never planned to keep as his own. He’d thought he could keep himself separate, while bonding her to him. He wanted her to suffer when he left her to birth his bastard alone, and himself to have the freedom to step away unscathed. But it hadn’t worked that way. In binding Mouse to him, he’d bound himself to her, and now he was paying the price for it. He’d known that he’d one day slip further into the darkness that eventually swallowed most of his kind — if the slayers didn’t get them first, but he’d never thought it would be over a mate that he willfully abandoned.
He’d long ago embraced his destiny of hunting those he needed to survive. But now, he’d taken to hunting just for the thrill of the hunt, not even needing to or wanting to feed from them. Hunting to survive was one thing, hunting for the thrill of the kill was another entirely. His nose wrinkled as he caught the scent of fear and raised his face into the air to better locate those who hid from him. He detested these worthless humans. They were nothing but a smelly, whiny pollution of parasites on the face of the earth. It physically pained him to have to depend on them for sustenance. He lifted his lip in disgust as he picked up the steady thumping rhythm of terrified heartbeats.
Alastair paused in his hunt as the many rapid heartbeats surrounding him, resonating in his ears, feeding his blood frenzy as it grew, told him his prey knew he was near. He giggled a high-pitched maniacal sound. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he singsonged. He waited a beat before beginning on his way again. “If you don’t come out, I’ll have to come in!” he promised, ending on a slow, evil laughter. “I do so love it when you try to outwit me. If you give in too easily, it’s just simply a bore,” Alastair said aloud to the darkness.
Alastair was pure evil. Even the monkeys and the cicadas in the trees sensed his presence and stopped their calls. He was surrounded by silence as he saw two figures step into his path about twenty feet up ahead. They held torches. One held a machete, the other a sharpened cane. “Well, well, well. Of all the men here, you are the best they have to offer? Shouldn’t take long, then I can be away to your families!” Alastair said excitedly as he launched himself in the air to land just behind them.
The men turned striking out at the red-eyed, deathly pale, demon blood-drinker — but it was hopeless.
By the time the first man raised his cane in an attempt to bring it down through Alastair’s chest, the vampire had already snatched his head from his shoulders and used the cane to impale the second man who held the machete.
As the first two men fell, another three men advanced out of the shadows of the jungle to attack as one. The sounds of battle, and the scent of death hung heavily in the air. Though the men fought bravely, there was never any doubt how this would end — at least not for Alastair.
The sunrise brought shock and disbelief to the sleepy, little fishing community as the few survivors that had run away in the night, flanked by the rest of the village and the wives of those that remained to fight, returned with the local shaman to face whatever evil had attacked them in the night. But that evil was no longer there, he was nowhere to be found. Instead, they found a pile of their dead friends. All who’d thought to attack the evil the previous night had been killed. Most had been drained of their blood and tossed carelessly in a heap.
An instant wail from the widows of the fishermen went up on the wind to be carried far and wide. And in a hastily dug trench beneath the floor of the farthest hut from the shore, buried in sand so deep the mourners would never find him and sunlight could never touch him, a blood-drenched, and now sand-encrusted fiend, who had no clue he’d ever been human, smiled a smile of satisfaction at the pain and heartbreak in the wails the wind carried to him. More to hunt tonight, his fractured mind whispered.
Chapter 3
Adrienne sat huddled in the corner of her bedroom, a gaunt, skeletal specter of her former self. It had been three weeks since she’d last seen Alastair. Three weeks since she’d given birth to their daughter, and three weeks since she’d fed. She was ravenous, and she was frightening — a threat to all who lived.
She’d attacked one of her coven-sisters, but the sister managed to get away. Now, though, she was locked in her bedroom, with none tending her except her grandmama, Pauline, and occasionally Marguerite. Her hearing, sharpened from her need to hunt and feed, picked up the soft coos and murmurs of a child, a baby, from time to time. And those coos and murmurs had become her focus. Now she waited, hunched in a corner, for whichever woman entered her rooms next. She was focused. She was starving. She was a predator.
Finally, the sound of a key in the lock signaled her chance. They were coming to offer her the meal they always did. A raw steak, thick and bloody on the plate, and beside it a regular meal. Regular in that it was something humans would eat, prepared and cooked as though it were being served to a proper woman at a proper dinner. Neither the proper meal, nor the proper woman was anything she had interest in. And the bloody steak — the steak was an insult to a predator such as herself. She needed the blood of the living, and she needed it now. But she was weak from hunger. So her target had to be as weak as she. She smiled as she heard the soft cooing of the babe carry to her from the floor below. Soon, she thought. Soon I shall be a bit stronger, then I’ll hunt the rest of them, but first… the babe. She grasped the ceramic pitcher in her hand, balancing it in her grip as she stepped just to the side of the door and hoisted it above her head. The woman stepped inside the door, shifting the serving platter to one hand to reach for the light switch with the other, and at the same time, Adrienne brought the pitcher down on her head. The woman screamed, dropped the serving platter to crash to the floor and made a blind grab for Adrienne in the darkness. But Adrienne evaded her, and slipped through the door.