Much Ado About Vampires (Dark Ones #9) - Page 21

"What do you see, Corazon?"

"Um. Mud." I sensed the hypnotherapist's disapproval of my answer, and qualified it. "Well, mud and grass and stuff like that. But mostly just mud."

"Are you sure she's under?" Patsy asked, her voice sounding dubious. "She doesn't look hypnotized to me. CORA! Can you hear me?"

"I'd have to be five miles away not to hear you," I said, cracking open an eye and peering at her from where I lay prone on the couch. "I'm hypnotized, you idiot, not deaf."

"Is she supposed to know she's hypnotized?" Terri asked, sitting on the floor across from me, watching with bright, interested eyes. "That doesn't negate the regression, does it?"

"Hypnotism isn't a magical state of unknowing," Barbara the hypnotherapist answered. "She is simply relaxed, in touch with her true inner spirit, and has opened up her mind to the many memories of lifetimes past. I assure you that she is properly hypnotized."

"Let me get a pin and poke her with it," Patsy said, bustling over to a bookcase crammed full of books and various other items. "If she reacts, we'll know she's faking it."

"No one is poking me with anything!" I shot my friend a quelling look.

"Please, ladies," Barbara said with a glance at her watch. Poor woman. I felt for her doing personal regressions at Patsy's yearly "Girls' Night In" party. Luckily, there were only three of us this year. "We have limited time. Corazon is in a light trance, also referred to as an alpha state. Through that, she has tapped into her higher self, her true Infinite Being, a state in which she is free to bypass the boundaries of time."

"Yeah. Bypassing all that stuff," I said, giving my friend a smirk. "So sit back and watch the show. What do I do now, Barbara?"

"Look around you. Examine your surroundings. Tell us what you see, what you feel."

"I see mud. I feel mud."

"There has to be more to her past life than mud, surely," Terri said, reaching for the bowl of popcorn.

"Are there any buildings or other structures around to give you an idea of what year you are reliving?" Barbara asked.

"Um . . . nothing on the left side other than a bunch of forest. I seem to be standing on a dirt path of some sort. Let me walk to the top of this little hill – oh! Wow! There's a town down below. And it looks like there's a castle way up on a tall cliff in the distance. Lots of tiny little people are running around in some fields outside of the town. Cool! It's like a medieval village or something. Think I'll go down to say hi."

"Excellent," Barbara said, adjusting the video camera she was using to record the session. "Now tell me, how do you feel?"

"Well . . ." I examined the scene my mind had created; whether it was from a past life or just a fertile imagination, I had no way of knowing. "I'm kind of hungry. No, really hungry. Kind of an intense hunger, throbbing inside me. Oh great, I'm a peasant, aren't I? I'm a poor starving peasant who stands around in mud. Lovely."

"We are not here to make judgments on our past selves," Barbara said primly.

"Geesh, Cora," Patsy said, looking disgusted. "Terri turned out to be Cleopatra's personal maid, and I was one of Caesar's concubines. You're letting down the team, here. The least you could do is be a medieval princess in a big hat or something."

I looked closer at my mind-self. "I have shoes on. Peasants didn't wear shoes, did they?"

"Some did, I'm sure," Terri said, stuffing a handful of popcorn into her mouth as she watched my past-life regression.

"Can you walk to the town?" Barbara asked, moving a light slightly so it was off my face. "Perhaps we can find out who you are."

"Yeah. I'm going down the hill now. Hey, watch where you're – oh my god. Oh my god! OMIGOD!"

"What? What's happened?" Barbara asked, looking worried.

"A woman with an oxcart just ran me over."

"What?" Patsy shrieked.

"She ran me over. Her oxen were running amok or something. They just came barreling down the hill behind me and ran right over the top of me. Holy Swiss on rye! Now the oxen are trampling me, and the lady in the cart is screaming and – Jehoshaphat! My head just came off! It just came right off! Ack!"

Terri sat staring at me, her eyes huge, a handful of popcorn frozen just beyond her mouth as she gawked.

"Oh, my. I don't – I've never had anyone die during a regression," Barbara said, looking more worried. "I'm not quite sure how to proceed."

"You're . . . decapitated? " Patsy asked, looking as stunned as I felt, staring down at the gruesome scene. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure, Pats. My head's separated from my body, which is covered in ox hoofprints. A wheel went over my neck, I think. It . . . urgh. That's just really gross. Why the hell do I get the reincarnations where I'm killed by two bulls and a cart? Why can't I be Cleopatra's concubine?"

"Personal maid, not concubine," Terri corrected, stuffing the popcorn into her mouth and chewing frantically. "Are you absolutely certain you're dead? Maybe it looks worse than it is."

I shot her a look before relaxing back on the pillow. "My head is three feet away from my body. I think that's a pretty good indicator of death – good god! Now what's she doing?"

"The ox?" Patsy asked.

"No, the driver. She's not doing what I think she's doing, is she?"

"I don't know," Terri said, scooting closer, as if that would let her peer into my mind.

"This is very unusual," Barbara muttered to herself, checking her digital camera. "We should document it. Yes. Documentation is good."

"What's the lady doing?" Patsy said, sitting on the couch next to my feet.

"She's trying to stick my head back onto my body. Lady, that's not going to do any good. No, you can't tie it on, either. Ha. Told you so. Oh, don't drop me in the mud! Sheesh! Like I wasn't muddy enough? What a butterfingers. Now she's chasing the oxen, who just bolted for a field. Oh, no, she's coming back. Her arms are waving around like she's yelling, only I can't hear anything. It must be the shock of having my head severed by a cart wheel."

"This is just too surreal," Terri said. "Do you think she purposely ran you down?"

"I don't think so. She seems kind of goofy. She just tripped over my leg and fell onto my head. Oh man! I think she broke my nose! God almighty, this is like some sort of horrible Marx Brothers meets Leatherface sort of movie. Holy runaway oxen, Batman!"

"What?" Terri and Patsy asked at the same time.

"She's doing something. Something weird."

"Oh my god – is she making love to your lifeless corpse? " Terri asked. "I saw a show on HBO about that!"

"No, she's not molesting me. She's standing above me waving her hands around and chanting or something. What the – she's like – hoo!"

"Don't get upset," Barbara said, taking copious notes. "You are in no personal danger. Just describe what you're seeing calmly, and in detail."

"I don't know about you, but I consider a decapitation and barbecue as some sort of personal danger," I said, watching the scene in my mind's eye with stunned disbelief.

"Barbecue?" Patsy asked. "Someone's roasting a pig or something?"

"No. The ox lady waved her hands around, and all of a sudden this silver light was there, all over my body, singeing it around the edges. Oh great. Here comes someone. Hey, you, mister, would you stop the lady from doing the light thing? She's burnt off half of my hair."

"This is the most bizarre thing I've ever heard," Terri told Patsy. "You have the best parties!"

"It's all in the planning," Patsy said modestly. "What's going on now, Cora?"

"The guy just saw me. He did a little stagger to the side. I think it's because the lady tried to hide my head behind her, and my ear flew off and landed at his feet. Now he's picking it up. He's yelling at her. She's pointing to the oxen in the field, but he looks really pissed. Yeah, you tell her, mister. She has no right driving if she can't handle her cows."

"This would make a great film," Patsy said, looking thoughtful. "I wonder if we could write a screenplay. We could make millions."

"Well, now the guy has my head, and he's shaking it at the lady, still yelling at her. Whoops. Chunk of hair came loose. My head is bouncing down the hill. Guy and lady are chasing it. Hee hee hee. OK, that's really funny in a horrible sort of way. Ah. Good for you, sir. He caught me again, and now he's taking me back to my body, hauling the ox lady with him. Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa!"

"Did he drop your head again?" Terri asked, offering me the bowl of popcorn. I shook my head.

"No, he just . . . holy shit! I want out of here! Take me out of this dream or whatever it is! Wake me up!"

"Remain calm," Barbara said in a soothing voice. "The images you see are in the past, and cannot harm you now."

"What's going on? What did the guy do? " Terri asked.

"I want to wake up! Right now!" I said, clawing the couch to sit up.

"Very well. I'm going to count backwards to one, and when I reach that number, you will awaken feeling refreshed and quite serene. Five, four, three, two, one. Welcome back, Corazon."

"You OK? " Patsy asked as I sat up, gasping, my blood all but curdling at the memory of what I'd witnessed.

"Yeah. I think so."

"What happened at the end? " Terri asked. "You looked scared to death."

"You'd be scared, too, if you saw a vampire kill someone!" I rubbed my arms. Goose bumps ran up and down them.

"A vampire! You're kidding!" Patsy gasped.

"I wish I was. He just kind of pounced on the woman, fangs flashing, and blood everywhere, and then she collapsed and he had blood all over his mouth. It was horrible. I never, ever want to see anything like that again. Man alive! I need a drink!"

A half hour later, Barbara the hypnotherapist left, but only after giving me her card and telling me she wanted to interview me at length about my regression session.

I said nothing, just nodded, not wanting to remember the horrible scene.

"What really gets me is that the whole bit with me being run down and killed didn't bother me," I told my friends as we sat over a couple of bottles of wine. "But that man, that vampire . . . brrr. I'll never forget the look on his face as long as I live. It was like he was in hell. I've never seen such anguish before, and then he was just on her, biting her. Urgh. It was terrible."

"What did he look like?"

I thought, trying to separate the last images of him from the earlier ones. "Tall. Muscular. Dark hair. Green eyes. Squarish chin. Handsome, really. The kind of guy if you saw him in a mall, you'd do a double take."

"Sounds like my neighbor," Patsy said, getting to her feet.

"You have a handsome neighbor you've been keeping from us?" I asked her.

"Well, I don't see him very often. He works at night or something – I never see him during the day. But he's gorgeous, really gorgeous. He likes to swim in the nude."

"We're your oldest friends," Terri said. "You owe it to us to share gorgeous men who swim naked."

"How," I said, my mind slightly muddled because of the wine, "do you know he swims naked?"

Patsy hiccuped. "If you happen to be at the east side of my fence pruning the hedge, there's a bare spot where you can see into his backyard, and the pool."

"I wanna see," Terri said, tipping over.

"You have had way too mush wine, misshy," I said, pulling her upright. "But I agree. I want to see the naked gorgeous neighbor."

Patsy glanced at the clock. "Normally I don't see him until closer to midnight, but a little fresh air will do us good. Tallyho, ladies!"

"We're off to get a fox," Terri said, giggling as we clutched each other and staggered after Patsy, who carried a bottle of wine with her, pointing it toward the backyard.

It took a good ten minutes to get to the spot Patsy had mentioned, but only because we all had to troop back into the house, one by one, to use the facilities.

"Sucks having a tiny bladder," Terri said, wobbling slightly as she returned to where Patsy and I were lying on the grass, sharing the last bottle of wine. "C'mon, let's go find that neighbor."

There was no one in the pool.

"Dammit," I said, clutching a tree that stood next to the neighbor's house.

"Well, that's disappointing," Patsy said. "Maybe he'll be out later."

"Antimacassar," Terri said, taking a swig off the bottle.

"Huh?" I asked.

"I think she means anticlimactical," Patsy said with great precision.

"Ah. Gotcha. Well, hell. I'm all keyed up to see a gorgeous guy."

"I know!" Terri said, heading for the house. "Let'sh peek in the windows to see him."

"Ter!" Patsy said, her voice hushed as she ran after Terri. "That's illegal."

"No it isn't," she insisted. "He's your neighbor, right? That'sh not illegal to look in a neighbor's house. You ever hear of Neighborhood Watch? We do it all the time. It'sh good. C'mon. Let's peek."

"Somehow, that makes sense," I said, following the pair. "I think it's because I'm drunk."

By the time we found a window that wasn't curtained, and which looked in on what appeared to be a living room done in shades of cream and white, Patsy had to pee again, and was urging us to return to her house.

"What'sh the big deal?" Terri asked, having some difficulty navigating the one step that led up to the doors.

"He's my neighbor! I don't want him pissed at me."

"It's not like he's going to know we were here," I pointed out, admiring the intricate tile laid in the entryway.

"He's going to know I was here if I leave a big puddle of wee," she said, her legs crossed as she did a little hopping dance. "Let's go back home. I really have to go!"

"OK. I don't see him anyw – hoo! I see him!" Terri plastered herself to the glass on either side of the double front doors, loudly jabbing the glass with her finger. "Look! Do you see? Oh, baby, you're right. He is gorgeous, although he's not naked. Hey, he's looking this way. I wonder if he can see us."

"It's night outside," I said, waving my arms around to show her the night. "See? Black. Night. No one can see us. We're like ninjas. Except for the wee puddles."

The door opened, light spilling out from inside, the silhouette of a man clearly visible. "Can I help you?" he asked, his voice deep and alluring with a slight German accent.

"I have to wee!" Patsy wailed, clutching at herself. She shoved the bottle at me and pushed past the neighbor into his house.

"Second door on the left," he directed her. She ran in the direction he was pointing.

He turned back to us, but I couldn't see him clearly, what with the light behind him. "Is there something I can do for you ladies?"

"Pats said you like to swim in the altogether," Terri said, looking hopeful.

"Ah. Well, I've had my swim for the day. Is there anything else?"

He stepped out of the doorway and onto the entryway, straight into the light cast by a standing yard lamp a few feet away.

I dropped the bottle of wine, pointing at him as my skin tried to crawl away.

"What's wrong, Cora?" Terri asked, weaving slightly. "You look like you're going to barf."

"Vampire," I said, the word coming out as a croak.

The man, who had been reaching out to steady Terri, suddenly whirled around to look at me.

"What?" Terri asked, wobbling her way down the lone step.

"Vampire," I repeated.

The man narrowed his green eyes at me. "Who the hell are you?"

"VAMPIRE!" I screamed, and suddenly, the world started to spin, and a great big black hole opened up at my feet, and I fell into it.

The last sound I heard was that of Patsy. "Oh, thank you, Alec. I really didn't want to wee on your lovely tile work. What's Cora doing on the ground?"

Dear Readers,

Lest you be freaked out by the excerpt that follows – and I know right now some of you are looking worried at even the mention of doing such a thing – let me reassure you that even though the excerpt from It's All Greek to Me is (gasp!) a contemporary romantic comedy, there are more Dark Ones and dragon books coming.

Why, then, you might be asking yourself, did I suddenly run amok and write a contemporary? I can answer that in two words: my muse. Or, rather, three words: my pesky muse. She had an idea for a book that would poke a little gentle fun at some romance novel stereotypes, and I learned long ago to listen to her when she insists we write a book.

While I'm on the subject of upcoming books, let me add a note about the Dark Ones in particular. I know many of you are hoping for another Ben and Fran book, and I want to reassure you that they have a significant part to play regarding the situations brought to light via the previous Dark Ones book, In the Company of Vampires . They may have to adopt secondary roles for the next book, but they will, indeed, be present and looking for some answers.

Katie MacAlister

The man in front of her was crazy. That, or he was having some sort of an attack – one that involved dancing up and down and gesturing wildly, all the while talking a mile a minute, his words tumbling out with such speed, they all ran together into one dense, unintelligible stream.

Not that Harry could have understood the words even if he had been speaking slower. She stood up from where she'd been seated on a wooden lounge, enjoying the peace of the balmy Mediterranean night. "The temptation to say 'I'm sorry, but it's all Greek to me,' is almost overwhelming – you do realize that, right?" she asked the man.

He continued his dancing-gesturing-babbling routine, this time adding a peculiar plucking motion with the hem of her linen tunic.

She glanced around, wondering if she'd misunderstood. "Am I not supposed to be here? Is this garden off limits to us? Derek said it was the garden area on the other side of the house that was for guests only. Did I get that wrong?"

The little man – and he was little, at least a good ten inches shorter than her solid six feet – evidently grew distressed at her inability to understand, and grabbed her wrist, hauling her toward the massive bulk of the house.

"Is Timmy in the well?" she asked, a little smile curling her lips before her gaze moved from what must surely have been one of the servants to the house itself. "Only house doesn't quite cut it as a description, does it? It's more like a palace. Houses don't have wings – palaces do. And I defy you to find a house sitting by its lonesome on its very own Greek island. No, sir, this is a palace pure and simple, and although I'm sure you have a good reason for dragging me to it, I should point out that the only people who are staying in its palatial confines are guests, and I'm with the band. We have the little bungalow on the servant end of the island. Hello? You really don't speak a word of English, do you?" Harry sighed.

The man continued to drag her through a very pleasant garden, filled with sweet-scented flowering Mediterranean shrubs unfamiliar to her, attractive hedges, and pretty neoclassical statues. The night air was balmy, the heavy scent from some flower mingling with the sharper and, to her mind, more pleasing tang of the sea. It was everything she imagined a rich man's private island paradise should be. Well, with the exception of the wizened little man attached to her wrist.

"I couldn't just sit quietly somewhere? " she asked the man, whose fingers were locked like steel around her wrist. "I promise that I won't bother anyone. I don't think I could – I'm so jet-lagged, I can't even think straight. Look, that's a nice little bench right over there in the corner next to the statue of the guy with a really big winky. I won't be in anyone's way. I'll just go sit and contemplate his gigantic genitals, and all will be well."

"Harry!" A man appeared suddenly at a window, hanging out of it and waving frantically. "There you are! Hurry!"

"Derek, what are you doing in the house?" Harry thinned her lips at the sight of the young man. "You said we weren't supposed to go near it while the guests were here."

"That doesn't matter now! Hurry up!"

"If you think I don't have anything better to do than to fly halfway around the world to bail your butt out of trouble because you can't follow a few simple rules – "

"No, it's not me." He pulled back inside the window. "It's Cyn! She's been attacked!"

"What!" The fury in her bellow took the little man still attached to her wrist by surprise, for he dropped her hand as if it was suddenly made of fire. Adrenaline shot through her with a painful spike – adrenaline and a fury that almost consumed her. She leaped forward, easily hurdling the low stone balustrade of a patio area as she bolted for the nearest entrance to the house, wrenching open a pair of French doors. She didn't stop to apologize to the small group of people standing around a pool table, racing around the men and women in elegant evening clothes, making a beeline for the door that was bound to lead to a central area of the house.

The little servant trailed her as far as a marble-tiled corridor, where he veered off to who knew where. Harry didn't care – her mind was blank except for the horror of the words that kept repeating in her head. It's Cyn! She's been attacked!

"Harry, thank God – " Terry emerged from a side hall, gesturing toward a curving staircase, his face tight with worry. "We didn't know where you were. She's up here."

Harry ground off a good layer or two of enamel as the pair of them leaped up the seemingly endless stairs, one distracted part of her mind finding it ironic that now, of all times, she should be thankful for her height and long legs. "What happened?" she managed to get out as they crested the stairs, and Terry pointed to the left.

He cast her a worried look, but said nothing. Derek almost collided with her as he burst out of a room. "In here! Harry, you have to do something! The bastard . . . he . . . he . . . !"

"I'll kill whoever it is," she ground out, her blood running icy at the thought of whatever atrocity had occurred. She shoved Derek aside and entered the room, her breath ragged, her heart about ready to leap from her chest. She'd heard the phrase "seeing red" before, but had never thought it could be taken as literal. For a few seconds, though, she swore everything in the room had an ugly red tint to it. It was obviously a bedroom; a quick glance took in the usual occasional chairs, a large bureau with matching wardrobe, and a big bed swathed in some sort of filmy draperies that fluttered in the breeze drifting in through open French doors. Her attention narrowed to the bed as she dashed to it, immediately taking into her arms one of the two huddled, sobbing figures there.

Dimly, she was aware that there was another person in the room, but his identity faded to insignificance. "It's all right, Cyndi. I'm here now," she said, her fury rising as the younger woman sobbed onto her shoulder. "You'll be OK. We'll make whoever did this pay."

"He's evil! He's horrible!" Cyndi pulled back, tears spilling over already red and bloodshot eyes. She was naked, a sheet clutched to her bare breasts, her face unmarked but blotchy from the tears. There were some nasty-looking raw marks on her neck and chest, but it was the petulant purse of her lips that suddenly chimed a warning bell in Harry's brain.

"What happened? Did someone attack you?"

Cyndi drew in a long, trembling breath and glanced over Harry's shoulder. "Yes. Well . . . more or less. He dumped me, Harry. Dumped me!"

Harry blinked for a few seconds. "He what?"

"Dumped me, cruelly and . . . and . . . viciously. I came up to his room, and I thought we were going to hook up, and everything was going along very nicely, and before we could get down to, you know, really doing it, he told me to leave. Just like that!"

Harry passed a shaking hand over her eyes. Slowly, her heart rate dropped back to reasonable levels "So you weren't attacked?"

"Verbally I was. He told me that he didn't want to have sex with me, and that I should leave because he wanted to sleep." Cyndi gestured at the bed. "If it's not verbal abuse to entice someone to your bed, and get them naked, and then kiss them all over before telling them to leave, I don't know what is!"

"He enticed you?"

"Yes! Not so much in words, but he looked at me several times tonight, and a woman knows what that look means," Cyndi said with a peculiar lofty coyness. "He wanted me. So I came up here, and then everything was really nice until he went totally crazy and told me to leave. That's just not right, Harry. It's traumatizing! You have no idea how traumatizing it is to have fabulous sex and then be told to leave because someone wants to sleep. I'm not a slut! I should sleep here, too!"

Harry took a deep, deep breath to keep from strangling the young, self-centered girl in front of her, reminding herself that her whole purpose in being there was to watch over the kids and see that they came to no harm. Her eyes lit on the red marks on Cyndi's chest, and a little spurt of anger burned in her stomach.

She turned, moving aside the hovering forms of Terry and Derek. Amy had moved to cling to the latter, her eyes huge and wary. A man leaned drunkenly against the wall, dressed only in a pair of obviously hastily donned pants, the waistband undone, his face slack and devoid of emotion as he watched her walk toward him. He was a little taller than she was, obviously of Greek ethnicity, with dark eyes and hair, and what in any other circumstance would have been a classical sort of beauty that she would have to have been dead not to appreciate.

"I don't know what the hell you did to her to leave those marks, but I feel it's important to point out that she's only eighteen years old. Couldn't you have gotten her out of the room without touching her?" she asked, fighting with the need to yell at both Cyndi and the randy stallion before her. He had to have been a guest at the party for which the band had been brought out at great expense to entertain, but at that moment, Harry couldn't have cared less if he was the owner of this vast palace of sin – she just wanted to get Cyndi out of there without any further drama.

"I – " The man blinked at her, swallowed visibly, and shoved himself away from the wall to take a step forward. "The little bint threw herself at me. She was in my bed, waiting for me. I didn't screw her, if that's what you're all hot and bothered about."

"Bint!" Cyndi roared, and would have lunged at the man but for the sheet in which she was still tangled. "You bastard! I'm not a bint. Terry, what's a bint?"

"I don't care who tried to seduce whom – you should have known she's too young. You're just lucky she's legal. And obviously you were playing a bit too rough if you left those sorts of marks."

"I'm wounded!" Cyndi cried, grasping at that thought. "He hurt me! He's a beastly, horrible man who hurt me and abused me! I think I may faint."

"You're not hurt, you little – " The man wisely bit off the word as Harry frowned. "I didn't hurt her."

"Oh my God, I'm bleeding!" Cyndi cried in a dramatic voice, and clutched at Terry. "I need to go to the hospital!"

"Look, this has gone far enough. I just want you to promise to stay away from Cyndi for the rest of the weekend, OK?" Harry said with an attempt to take control of the situation.

The man scowled at her. "Who the hell are you to tell me what to do? I bet you planned all of this with that little bint, didn't you? What a setup you had, getting your friend there to screw me and then pretend she's been attacked. What's next, blackmail? You can just drop that idea, because there's no way I'm going to fall for your little scheme."

With every word, anger built in Harry. Oh, she knew full well that Cyndi was milking the situation for everything it was worth, just as she knew that Cyndi had pursued him and not vice versa, but his slander left her itching to punch him in the nose. Behind her she heard the whispered hush of the door opening, but she ignored it, saying simply, "Who am I? I'll tell you who I am. I'm your worst nightmare."

"I don't know." He leered in that sloppy way drunks had. "I'm willing to give you a try. Bet you know a few things that your little friend doesn't."

The man reached out and grabbed her breast. Harry saw red again before she knocked his hand away, stomped as hard as she could on his bare foot, swiftly bringing up her knee into his groin, and, when he doubled over with a scream, punched him as hard as she could in the eye. Still doubled over, he snapped his head back, his face frozen in shock and pain for a moment before he fell over backward.

"What the hell is going on here?" a voice roared from behind Harry.

She spun around to behold an absolutely furious man coming toward her. She blinked at the sight of him, amazed for a moment that su