|
The hotel provided a large table in the main room of the suite. Bradford had his laptop resting on the fake wood and his files scattered over the surface. His s his aching back muscles as he left the chair that was starting to feel like a second home. It was time to walk off some of this tension before the migraine pounced out to attack him. His long legs ate up the distance across the living area in mere steps and he poked his head into the room where Jonas slept. The boy's tousled head was half hanging off the side of the bed, the covers torn from their moorings at the bottom of the mattress. His dark hair, inherited from his mother was getting long and was a bit shaggy against the white sheets. Brad felt the deep visceral love that surprised him every time he looked at his and Jo's son. They had created this beautiful child together. No one else could have made such a wonderful combination of their strengths. When Jo had found out she was pregnant they'd almost panicked. She was working so hard to make head of ER Surgery and he was struggling to make a go of Westcourt Consulting, they didn't see how they'd make the time that a baby needed and deserved from good parents. Jo, of course, had undertaken the task with her typical panache and energy. During her last trimester she'd worked in an advisory position for the hospital and took on some lecturing until she went into labor. Of course, the pains had started around one in the afternoon, in the middle of a lecture on uses on anaesthesia in the emergency ward and she didn't check herself into the hospital until close to seven after Brad had gotten home and they'd had dinner. After Jonas' birth had altered their lives in almost every way. Jo worked out a schedule so that one or the other of them was almost always with him. He spent very little time with sitters. These days Brad mostly worked at home and Jo took over the child duties when she came home. It worked out pretty well, and the stress level was lower than it could have been. His wife was a damn smart woman, Brad thought with a grin. He had shown excellent taste when he courted that tall lady of his. Thoughts of her turned his mind to the time. He glanced at the travel clock in the kitchenette and frowned as he saw how close to midnight it was. Jo was never out this late at home. He walked to the balcony doors and swung them open with one hand, the other in his pocket. The view of the Windsor's gardens was spectacular during the day, but on this misty night all Brad could see was the spotlights in the many fountains scattered through the crushed shell paths. He stared out into the rain and tried not to worry. Jo was with Dr. Monroe, a man who had served as her mentor ever since she graduated high school. The only reason Brad and Jonas hadn't accompanied them out was Jonas' cough that he'd picked up in school. The man was a careful driver and would take no chances on a nasty night like this. They'd left from the hotel hours ago leaving directly after the last speaker at the convention had finished, waving goodbye, smiling and chattering in Monroe's Cadillac. Brad shook off thoughts of muggers and rapists and returned to the table and the workstation he'd made there. He'd worry if they hadn't returned within two more hours. That way he wouldn't look the fool when they arrived in the midst of a panic attack. He sat back down in the chair and peered at the screen. The numbers and tables seemed to embrace him in welcome as he went back to work. An hour later he was startled as the door to the hotel room smashed open on it's sturdy hinges. The suitcases that were resting next to the door in a neat pile cascaded across the polished wood floor with a loud racket that was almost eclipsed by the slamming closed of the same door. Jo's large crystalline eyes were wide and near terror as she pressed against the door behind her. Her lovely dress that had started the evening as ivory was now stained with mud and long half wet streaks of some crimson colored liquid that might have been red wine. She looked like she'd walked through hell itself to get to that door. "Jo! My God, what happened?" Brad's chair teetered on two legs but didn't fall over as he shot towards his shaking and obviously terrified wife. Her eyes were glazed and her breathing hitched and caught in her chest with a scary irregularity. "Brad.... Gerald... he's dead." Her normally cultured and calm voice that never lost it's tone of command was choppy and squeaked on every other word. "He's.... gone." Shock froze Brad's forward momentum and his voice. He searched for and found no words that could appease sudden loss of Gerald Monroe from their lives. Gerald was Jonas' godfather, the man who was father, teacher and friend to Jo and a solid shoulder for Brad when things got rough. It would shatter poor little Jonas who had loved the big bluff man as a grandfather for all of his six years of life. "What happened? Are you all right?" Brad reached out to touch Jo, but she ducked under his arm and walked further into the room on shaky legs. Her face was very narrow, the cheekbones pushed sharply against her alabaster skin as if she'd fasted for weeks. Her normally lush lips were nearly white with strain. Her hands when she reached out for the back of a chair were just as startling. Instead of her usual impeccable clean hands with short but shiny buffed nails they were caked in grime and more of the rusty substance that stained her dress. The nails looked thicker, rougher than when he'd seen her earlier in the evening. For an instant as he looked at her, he felt a completely inappropriate shiver of revulsion. "I'll never be the same again...." Jo looked out the still open curtains of the balcony, her expression grave. "We were attacked at a street light. This man walked out in front of the car, and when we stopped to let him go by, his cohorts jumped out of the alleys around us and dragged Gerald and myself out of the car.... I thought it was a gang, and they wanted the Caddy. I told them to take the car and leave us alone. Apparently they thought this was funny and made jokes about me being a 'high and mighty bitch'." Brad jerked, having never heard Jo use a curse word harsher than 'damn' or 'hell'. "They taunted and played with Gerald, telling him they were going to rape me and kill him. He tried to fight them... He tried to 'save' me. As if he was capable of defeating six strong, young men in a street brawl. I think I did more damage than he did, actually. "The leader, a man they called Fortunado held me while they beat Gerald to death." Things like this didn't happen to people like them, Brad thought briefly. His dilated eyes fixed on his wife's blood smeared form in horror relayed to his brain the untruth of that thought. "They left him in the street, a bloody, broken corpse and carried me off with them to an empty lot next to a construction site.... They tortured me for a while."/p> Brad jerked as if he'd been shocked and reached again for her. His fingertips brushed against the skin of her neck and the icy cold permeated his very bones. She must be deeply in shock to be so very cold. He barely registered how cold she was before she jerked away again. The smell that clung to her skin made his stomach turn. For a second he was reminded of the mauselium where they'd buried Jo's parents after their death in a car accident only a year before. She moved towards the room where Jonas slept. Speaking over her shoulder. "They took me to a cemetary and buried me in a grave, Brad... They pushed dirt over me and left me there for a long time....." Despite his concern for Jo, Brad couldn't stufle the urge to ward her away from the room where their son was safely ensconced in bed. She was skipping something in the story, he could tell that. Ten years of marriage at least gave him a good radar to tell when she was lying. He strode towards her, his big hands reached to take her by the arms and hold her still. He wanted to touch her again, to disprove the chill that radiated from her, to prove to himself that she was alive and well. With a move quicker than he thought possible Jo turned on him. Her hands, crusted in dirt and what he now thought was blood, closed around his lapels. They stood eye to eye, as they always had in bare feet, and he could see the madness shining in her wintry stare. Her mouth dropped open a fraction and he could see the gleam of light on her pearly white teeth. The curve of her snarled lips revealed inch long fangs curving down from where her canines used to be. "Now, Josephine... do it now." Brad jerked his head around to see a young man who hadn't been there before. His voice matched his appearance, regal and arrogant. The man had a leonine mane of golden hair and bright blazing green eyes but stood a good four inches shorter than Brad or Jo. "Who the HE--" Brad's voice receded into a gurgle as Jo's fangs were buried in his throat. The sudden pain was quickly overwhelmed by a wave of erotic arousal such as he had never experienced. His knees lost their strength and he swayed towards his wife, she held him easily in her grasp as she drank from him. Fortunado looked on with pleasure. Brad's blood was like wine to Josephine's deadened senses. What had seemed dull and lifeless now glowed with color, and every sensation was multiplied a thousandfold. Her husband's blood held all that was him. His passion, his ambition, his love for her and the little boy on the other side of the door she was so close to poured into her greedy mouth and barely sated the hunger that burned in her belly. His emotions flavored the heated essence that rushed from his opened throat. When the body of the man who had been her mortal husband drooped in her arms she let it fall to the floor where it landed with a solid thunk. The sound startled her eyes open. She looked into Fortunado's almost tender eyes and her lips curved into a blood rimmed half smile. "Good, my dear one." He touched a finger to her lips, coating it in Brad's blood, and brought it to his own lips. With a delicate move her licked the trace of coppery liquid from his finger and savored the taste with closed eyes. "Now, the child..." Jo nodded and turned to the closed bedroom door. She pulled it open and slipped into the room with the silent grace of a cat. The darkness was her home now, her sharpened senses widened in scope until she could see everything within the small chamber and she could smell Fortunado in the door behind her where he watched her every move carefully. "Jonas," her voice was soft and whispery. Her sire and packleader had been quite thorough in instructing her how to handle the child. "Jonas, wake up." The boys thickly lashed eyes fluttered as he slowly awakened from slumber. Finally, he roused and she was looking into eyes that mirrored her own exactly, shape and color both had passed from mother to son with faithfulness that mocked the randomness of genetic code. Even confused from sleep the obvious, uncomplicated love that shone in the boy's eyes was unmistakable. He reached out to her, his small fingers twined with hers in total trust. "Mommy?" He blinked at her with glowing innocence and her hunger surged like a wave at high tide. "Where's Daddy?" Josephine leaned down, very close to the child she'd carried within her own body for nine months. Her hand smoothed back his hair, brushing the slightly shaggy growth away from his eyes. She pressed a soft kiss to his cheek, so acute was her sight that she saw the skin around his mouth wrinkle as his face scrunched up at the scent of the grave that wafted with her every move. She rubbed her cheek against his softer than possible skin and marvelled briefly over his beauty. Under his baby skin was a cunning mechanical construct that engendered his every move and governed every bodily function. It was hiding right there, under that so fragile encasing of thinner than breath skin. She pushed him back as if tucking him in, reaching into the sleeve of her dress that she'd bought the day before at Macy's. Jonas' eyes widened almost comically at the sight of the knife that she withdrew. It was a fillet knife and it's wikedly sharp blade curved backwards in a thin flexible piece of steel that felt amazingly right in her hand. "Mommy?" the tremulous cry went unanswered as she held the child down with one hand on his shoulder. "What're you doin'? Where's my real mommy?" "I am your real mother, Jonas." Jo carefully laid aside the knife before taking the boy's arm in both hands and staring down at it, her fingers massaging and caressing the pliable flesh. She tore her attention away from the perfection she and Brad had created and made the boy clasp his fingers around the bars at the top of the bed. "And you've been exceptionally good tonight. Now, it's time for your reward." Jo held his fingers tightly around the wooden bar, she concentrated for a few minutes, summoning the power that Fortunado had given to her with his blood. When she took her cold touch away, Jonas' fingers had melded around the makeshift handhold. His flesh had solidified into a mass of gristle. With a soft smile Jo ignored the struggles of her son and repeated the process with his other hand. Now the child was safely restrained by his own skin. "Nicely done, Josephine...." Fortunado came closer, moving to press against her back, his hand resting on her stomach. "Now... see the way his eyes glitter? The elegant curve of his throat as he strains to get away? The delicious movement of muscle and bone under his skin? It's fascinating isn't it?" Josephine could only nod, her eyes held by the small body in front of her, the rest of her senses tuned to her sire. His shorter body against her back, as he directed her attention, his touch on her abdomen as he rubbed in small circles. His voice as he purred for her alone. Jonas couldn't make his voice work, the terror was so strong, the confusion making him sluggish and uncomprehending. All he knew was that his mother hated him and wanted to hurt him. He had no idea what he'd done to anger her so badly. This strange man spoke with the voice of God but touched his mom in ways only Daddy did. It all worked together to render him helpless and voiceless. "You want to know how it works don't you, Josephine?" He stroked her arm, his fingers tracing over the blood encrusted on her sleeve before curving around her wrist in a guiding hold. "You yearn to see how the life inhabits him. You ache to see what life looks like. All your training and education ever taught you was the mechanics of the whole thing. "They never told you what makes them live. They never taught you how to see life, how to touch it and taste it, how to learn what makes it work." He guided her hand until the blade quivered against the trapped boy's belly where it was bared by his Power Rangers pajama top. "I can teach you these things, Josephine. I know the secrets of life and the thought of the dying." Fortunado's released her hand, leaving it hovering above the squirming whimpering child. He rubbed against her back and buttocks. " We can learn more together than those fools ever thought possible. You and I will uncover the secrets of the dead and make them ours. We will control the living and the unliving. You and I are almost one. "This is the last step, my love." The finely honed edge of the blade caressed her son's flesh. Inside she would find the answers to conundrums that had haunted her mortal life and inspired her to become a healer. She'd find it all..... "Open him up, learn his secrets, watch his eyes as he dies. This is what it's all about, Josephine. This is real power.... This is real." |