Killing Kiss Read online

  ‘Then we are still friends?’ I ask pulling away to look into her baby blue eyes.

  ‘I hope more than that ...’

  ‘So do I.’

  ‘Then let’s start to enjoy being together, Jay. Let’s go out somewhere tonight. Not this dump. Somewhere you know.’

  Ah. There it is. Wealth is more seductive than a thousand sincere lovers’ kisses.

  ‘Amanda must have the best trousseau,’ my future mother-in-law, Lady (‘Please call me Harriet’) Newham said slowly.

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘It’s not as though you can’t afford it, Gavriel, and with all of our finances invested in the new invention ...’

  ‘Ah. I see.’ My grip tightened on the riding crop.

  ‘We wouldn’t ask ... only.’

  ‘Order whatever you need, send the bills here.’

  ‘I knew you would understand. The wedding itself will be such an expense.’ She sighed. ‘And of course George would never have approached you ...’

  ‘Let me meet all expenses. I would like also to treat you to any outfit of your choice. However ... I want a short engagement. Will that be a problem?’

  ‘No. No problem at all, Gavriel. Heaven forbid we let propriety stand in the way of young love.’

  Amanda’s smile widened as her mother relayed my generous ‘offer’ when she entered the conservatory a few moments later.

  ‘Gavriel’s paying for everything, dear.’

  ‘That is so generous of you!’

  ‘I’m sure you’re worth it, my darling.’ I returned her smile, keeping my fangs in check.

  She sat down in the single wicker chair opposite the two-seater that her mother occupied, while I stood. My hands, behind my back, held the black leather riding crop. My knuckles ached. I would have loved to use it on Harriet’s sly, greedy face. Amanda, despite her seeming innocence, showed no signs of embarrassment at finding herself once more among the plants and furniture, where her mother and father found her in my arms, her breasts exposed and her head thrown back wantonly as I kissed her throat. In fact she was altogether too pleased to be pushed into marriage with a man she barely knew; a man whose generous donations to her father’s ventures could only mean he was very wealthy.

  The ring on her finger was expensive and ostentatious and cemented the deal far more quickly than was decent. This did not worry me because Amanda was still what I wanted and her blood on our wedding night would nourish and sustain me the same as her predecessors. She was merely a product of her time, bred to marry well.

  ‘How soon were you thinking of, Gavriel?’ Harriet asked. ‘We could perhaps bring the arrangements forward to six months.’

  ‘Three weeks.’

  ‘Three weeks! Impossible!’

  ‘It has to be. I cannot wait longer because I must travel to New York to oversee some of my foreign investments.’

  Harriet pondered for a moment. ‘It could cause a scandal. People would think ...’ Her eyes trailed to Amanda’s flat stomach and flitted briefly around the conservatory interior. ‘It will cost more to arrange so short notice. The caterers ...’

  ‘No problem. Do whatever you must.’

  I bent over Amanda’s hand and kissed her fingers softly, and then the flush did appear because of the sensuality of my supernatural touch. She wanted me. I could smell the urgency leak through her skin in response to the lust. Oh yes. She would do very nicely.

  ‘Our wedding day is going to be beautiful,’ she whispered.

  The night more so. I could not help penetrating the thought that she wore on her skin like a layer of desperation. It was the same for them all when they had tasted the lust. I could have finished it sooner. No need to spend so much money on trousseau and wedding, but of course the tantalising was such a huge part of the game.

  ‘Excuse me, darling. I need to change if I’m to be half decent for the reception this evening.’

  She was aware of my male odour, excited by it. Reluctantly she released my hand.

  ‘My! You are such a lucky girl, Amanda. In every way,’ her mother whispered as I left the conservatory.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What is it?’ Carolyn asks, her forehead wrinkling as she frowns.

  ‘Sorry. Miles away. I was thinking how lovely you look.’ Good save.

  She kisses me. Long and hot. I’ve already passed far more bases than the amorous Steve and yet I feel surprisingly indifferent. I open my eyes as we kiss and I notice Alice leaning against the bar, one leg crossed over the back of the other. She looks like she’s joined the army, except her combat pants are too long and they hang off her thin legs and flat bottom so that she has to keep hitching them up. She swigs Vodka Ice from the bottle and throws a disgruntled look in our direction.

  Carolyn pulls back. She is breathing too quickly; her excitement buzzes in the atmosphere. She takes a mouthful of air and moves in closer for more. I respond to her. The pleasure she feels tugs at the blood lust and adrenaline pours through my veins in rhythm with her speeding heart beat. As my eyes begin to close - I’m determined to give her the attention she deserves - Lilly joins Alice by the bar and my radar squeaks in protest. She looks stunning. Her hair shines and the odour of lavender fills my nostrils. She looks around as though she has radar of her own and our eyes meet. She smiles, amused. I take in her appearance in one sweeping glance. She has changed into a pair of black figure-hugging denims and a pair of low-heeled black boots. Her hair is loose, tumbling in thick waves around her shoulders. She has clearly showered and changed, so why is it she is still wearing my sweater?

  Carolyn gasps. The full impact of the lust courses through her before I slam down my defences. I pull away quickly. I am shaken by the force of my response to the sight of Lilly in my pullover and feel I must exit. My fangs have grown longer again and my control is slipping. I should be more cautious. How can I be so careless?

  ‘I’d better go ... sort something out for us for tonight. Wear your best dress.’

  She flops back against the back of the booth, smiling like a cat that licked up all the cream and still wanted more.

  ‘You really have to go now?’ She smiles coyly. ‘I can’t persuade you to stay?’

  I back away, keeping my eyes averted from the bar and trip over a low stool. I am as awkward as an adolescent boy.

  Carolyn’s smile is no longer coy; she seems sure of her charms. She crosses her legs and watches me reverse with a look that resembles a spoilt child getting its way once more.

  ‘I’ll pick you up at seven ...’

  Chapter 11

  The skirt couldn’t be shorter, the top lower, as it plunges almost to her waist in a long dark V. How to tell my innocent darling that she is committing a fashion faux pas? I hold the door of my car open for her and I’m not sure where the night will take us, but I plan to dazzle her with my wealth and sophistication. I won’t think of Lilly. Carolyn slips into the car and I get a brief flash of thong. She doesn’t realise she is doing a Sharon Stone.

  She can’t help it; it’s my fault. How could I have been so hasty after four hundred years? How stupid I’ve been. This is all happening because I have waited too long to feed. Yet my body is warm again and it feels like I’m full. Is this a new level of strength I have developed and just don’t know how to use?

  Throughout the years my skills have grown and I have learnt to hone each new power that presents itself; knowing that each time it came with a price. Maybe I am a sociopath. Or maybe I am hardening to the hurt that longevity brings. For whatever reason, I feel different. I am - enjoying my life. I don’t feel the need to hold back from desire. I have denied myself always using fear of detection to justify my abstention. Any man may desire the company of woman, but I - I have refused it until desperation drove me to search out a mate. All because of one fateful night when
I woke up to learn that the world held a more virulent form of parasite than the social bloodsucker I was used to. Indeed there were perverse beings that lived on the blood and pain of mortals. And I had become one of them ...

  The late air shivered with the violence of the blow and for one moment I hesitated as though floating in mid air before falling back, tumbling down the golden staircase that just a few hours before I had climbed so carefully while admiring the paintings. On the way down the reliefs were white blurs; the artwork a smudge of mingled colours. I plummeted, unable to stop. I threw my arms out to save myself but only succeeded in bruising my elbows and hands as well as my head, back and face. Terror coursed into my limbs freezing them with shock as my whole body rolled unchecked until I crashed down at the bottom, cracking my shoulder and head loudly and painfully on the mosaic tiles of the veranda. I stood, stumbling back as the guards rushed me and I fell back over the balcony. I plunged forever into nothingness before crashing down into the courtyard. Intense pain shot through my jolted limbs and I cried out. I lay stunned. Pain beyond pain numbed my senses and I drifted into a vague consciousness. I became acutely aware of the gentle pulsing of the water from the canal that ran alongside the palace.

  And I knew that the palace dock was nearby, perhaps a little to my left. A seagull swooped above my head, cawing in sympathy over my crumpled body. I imagined I heard the tender rubbing of a cloth against silver and for a brief moment I pictured a young servant girl polishing a soup tureen in the kitchens below. The scurry of a canal rat, scratching along the tiles, woke me from my stupor and I twisted my head, cautiously testing the limit of my injuries, knowing that a serious injury could mean paralysis or pending mortality. The rat was several feet away, out in the courtyard, but I could see the twitch of its nose and whiskers as it scoured the floor looking for food. Sickened, I moved my legs and slowly sensation returned. The deadness in my head faded and pain returned in the form of a severe headache; there was nothing broken and I had the full movement of my limbs as I stretched and tested them, but I was sore and battered.

  My heart was the clapping hands of the audience at the Doge’s palace and it was difficult to separate it from the slap of footsteps as the royal guard descended rapidly down the service stairs. I sat up quickly. The world was woozy but I wrenched to my feet pulling myself up against a column. I staggered to the bottom of yet another staircase, looked up and terror swallowed me despite the pain in my whole body. I had to stand and face the onslaught.

  The taste of blood in my mouth brought a wave of sickness with a feeling of extreme hunger and I almost vomited as my stomach wretched. I clung to the wall, blind with panic as the guards drew closer and the glow of torch light fell at my feet.

  I wished with all my might that I could be invisible and a strange tingling sensation entered my fingers and toes and swooped quickly up my arms and legs. My senses turned to ice. I was as arctic as the marble framework that formed in an arch around the entrance to the stairway. My face turned granite. I was paralysed. Dread sunk in my heart. My breath came in heavy gulps.

  ‘Where did he go?’ the captain asked.

  ‘I saw him fall, sir. Right here.’

  ‘Are you mad? No one could fall all that way and live.’

  I stood two feet away, breathing loudly, still gripping the wall in the full glare of their torches and they didn’t see me. My breathing began to level as they walked around examining the spot where I fell and they found a splash of blood. I put my hand up to the back of my head and found the damp patch. The flesh was tender and I grimaced as I probed, but there was no wound to account for the blood on my finger tips.

  My head cleared and I felt well again - the relief was too sudden and I swayed with it, still confused as I watched with amazement as the blood on my fingers dispersed, disappearing. My knees gave and the nausea returned. What was happening?

  My arms and legs were intact and I was invisible. Impossible! Perhaps I was dead after all? Or maybe this night was some bizarre nightmare. Why else would I wake to find myself in the bed of the Doge’s mistress when she returned following the night’s revelry? Why else would I have to run for my life from the Palace guard, bowing under their blows and curses?

  Within minutes the guard moved away running towards the water at the landing port. They looked out over the darkness.

  ‘Nothin’ there, captain. Not a ripple.’

  ‘Yes. There was,’ the captain said. ‘We saw the criminal tumble into the water and drown. Right?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Another guard came running, the port watchman I assumed, quickly buttoning up his uniform.

  ‘Captain?’ He stood petrified.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Needed to relieve myself, sir. My replacement took sick and I’ve been waiting for hours to ...’

  ‘You abandoned your post?’

  The guard prostrated himself before the captain.

  ‘Sir. Please ... I ...’

  ‘I’ll deal with you later.’

  Unmoving and petrified, I watched as they returned, believing any minute that I would be seen, that it had merely been luck that saved me so far. However they didn’t see me. The captain looked around brushing past me as though I were part of the building structure, before turning back to the staircase.

  ‘Remember what I said. The criminal is dead!’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  As they climbed back up the staircase, I moved away from the wall. Feeling slowly began to return to my body and I hobbled out into the courtyard. Without knowing why, I retraced their steps to stand and look out into the shadowy water. Maybe they were right, maybe my body did lay at the bottom. My vision zoomed downwards and it felt like I had stepped into the water and could walk untouched to the sandy base. I roamed through the icy depths that cleared and brightened under my gaze. A shoal of tiny neon whirled and wriggled through me. I jerked back slipping and falling to my knees on the cobbles. I was still on the dry wood of the landing dock.

  I raised my head and across the canal I saw a group of masked revellers making their way through the small street to walk alongside the canal. My gaze landed on one drunken man and I saw clearly the leather straps and the miniature scratches in his carved wooden buttons as he staggered forward and almost pitched into the water. By his elaborate, bulky doublet I realised he was a foreign merchant, perhaps from Spain. I could see him as plainly as if he stood a few feet away. I closed my eyes, swaying forward. Something was wrong. My head was clear and I felt along my arms, pinching my skin until it bruised. I’m not dead!

  I stood, backing away from the water’s edge, for fear of dropping into it, and without looking back I turned and ran out through the courtyard onto the common streets, anywhere I could go on foot to escape from the terror in my soul. I was changed, but the same.

  I ran till I thought my heart would burst with the sight of the palazzi blurring with the speed with which I moved. Then my eyesight adjusted to the pace, and I took in every line and pillar of every structure as if I stood beside them examining every detail: A fly landed on a gargoyle; a hair line crack in a bronze stallion as it split a fraction more; a bird throwing the body of a dead chick from its nest - it landed with a dull splash in the canal; the face of a frightened child at a window.

  Finally I came out at the other side of the canal and leapt at it, intending to throw myself in and end my torment, because surely I had lost my mind? For a moment I was airborne. The air hurried around me with a deafening roar and I was suspended by it for a short time before I crashed onto the bank on the other side. I rolled twice before I was halted in the dirt. I had made an impossible bound across at least thirty feet of canal!

  The stench of rat faeces drifted from a dark corner to my left as I lay in the mud. I wasn’t hurt or stunned but I had to gather my thoughts, calm the panic that had spurred my exhau
sting flight. I had to think! I’d been at the Palazzo, as a guest. I had danced. Lucrezia. She had taken my arm, led me - I couldn’t resist her. I remembered. Her flesh ... white and so very cold. We’d ... My God! Her teeth ... She’d ... bitten me.

  I looked up into the clear bright night. A full moon beamed down on my head I could see clearly the pitted black cavities that covered its surface; it only took a minor adjustment somewhere, somehow in my vision. I felt its power as it fed me bringing with it my memory. Lucrezia had done something to me. She was ... a demon; a creature of evil for certain. So, where did that leave me? Was I some wicked fiend? I didn’t feel wicked or evil though for certain I was no longer myself. Under the glare of the night I was stronger and more powerful than I had ever been and ... I needed something. Yes. I was some vile undead creature refused access to heaven or hell. A creature of unknown habits. I was hungry. Starving. Then, I saw her ... Ysabelle.

  Chapter 12

  ‘The Opera?’ Carolyn asks, wide eyed.

  ‘Yes. Have you ever been to one? They are showing Aida at The Palace Theatre this week. I managed to purchase a box for us.’

  ‘Oh. I didn’t think ... Well, I’m not really dressed.’

  ‘You’re fine. The majority will be in jeans. No one in Manchester dresses to go to the theatre anymore. In fact the English really do not have a clue about how to dress anyway. They were better in the Eighties. At least they made an effort then.’

  ‘You talk like you were there.’

  ‘My Mum and Dad told me stuff ... Anyway I think you’ll like it. Visually it’s usually well staged.’

  We park up in the multi-storey car park on Richmond Street and walk around the corner and enter China Town. It doesn’t take long to pick a Chinese restaurant and we are soon seated in a corner on plush velvet seats with a wall painting of a red and gold dragon at our backs.

  I order shrimp vermicelli from the petite waitress who is wearing a mandarin dress of pale blue, and Carolyn, more confident and familiar with Chinese cuisine than she had been in the French restaurant, asks for sweet and sour chicken. Yuk! I will need to make sure she drinks lots of champagne to wash away the sickly sweet taste before I kiss her again this evening. She munches prawn crackers while we wait, and I send out waves of soothing thoughts to her to calm the lust I’d pumped into her earlier.