Chapter 4 The Legends are true

I woke up with a violent start as freezing water was doused on me.

I lay on a large bed with my hands clasped together, and bound to the headboard.

"Oops," came the all too familiar voice of the woman towering over me.

"Master asked that you sprinkle water on her, Stacy," that was Alfred. He sent a frown her way. One she ignored.

Stacy placed a hand to her chest, "My hand slipped." She sounded remorseful but I knew she was anything but.

Just then Lukas strode in, "Is the girl awake?"

"Yes Master," Alfred said, offering a bow to the vampire.

I must have passed out. The memories before that came flooding in. The dead woman. What had they done with her body? Just how many victims died in such a horrendous way? And why had she been so willing? My stomach churned once more as the familiar acid crawled up my throat again.

"Don't you dare think about it," Lukas warned.

He turned to his butler and head maid. "Leave us."

Whilst Stacy was reluctant, Alfred made sure to escort her out.

Lukas rotated the ring around his little finger, making his way over to where I lay. The smell of spices - and something else was so prominent, it almost knocked me out.

When he finally reached me, he placed a knee on the bed and sunk to my level.

My nerves skyrocketed when his face came close to mine.

A finger began to trace my jaw, from my maxillae down to my throat. I gulped unconscionably and his fingers traced that too, his eyes snapping to mine.

His hand wrapped around my throat and squeezed, cutting my oxygen off. My legs began to flail and thrash like a fish out of water. Was he finally about to kill me? Would I really disappoint mother?

The hand on my throat suddenly disappeared, and reached up to my hands instead, tearing my bounds apart.

I watched, horrified as the vampire rubbed my reddened wrists.

This man was simply bipolar. One minute cold, the next.

He dragged a stool from the vanity table and placed it directly in front of me, sitting on it as well.

He pulled up a tiny trinket from his pocket and tossed it to the space before me. It landed on the bed with a soft thud.

"Now. Why don't you show me that little trick of yours?"

I stared uselessly at the trinket. Was I expected to use my decay on it.

“Destroy the damn thing girl!” His voice reverberated around the room, startling me. “I saw what you did with my blade. You still need to pay for that. Now don’t test my patience.”

My hands shook violently as I picked the object up with two fingers on my right hand. I spread my left palm open and placed it in it.

As expected, the trinket crumbled into a pile of nothing. I looked up to see Lukas transfixed. He walked up to me and turned my wrists dumping the ashes into his own hand.

That look, the one from earlier, returned. The excited look.

He retrieved another object from the vanity table. A hair brush this time. “Do this” and tossed it to me.

I caught it with my hands this time and folded my fists over it.

Gone.

He threw a nail cutter next. Gone as well. His eyes were fully blown by now. Engraved with pure madness.

Ten minutes passed and I was covered in sandy ashes with half of the items in the room decayed. Lukas ran his fingers through his hair.

“So the legends are true," he said. "The Anathema. The cursed one. The walking decay."

I'd heard that word before. From my mother. She'd been whispering to strange men. I stood by the corner. Hiding. Listening.

"They're hunting her," my mother had said. "The Church. The vampires. Everyone."

She had chased me out when she caught me eavesdropping. And then she sold me. To keep me hidden. Or to get rid of me. I never knew which.

Lukas turned to me. I shook my head wildly. “No more. Please no more!” I didn’t want to use any more of my curse.

The memories of all my victims haunted me still. But Lukas only smiled wider. “No mouse. You belong to me now. When I say sit, you sit.” He took a step closer.

I scrambled back to put some distance between us. “If I say bark, you bark” more steps towards me.

My back hit the headboard. “And if I dare say destroy” He grabbed my left wrist and splayed my open palm on his right cheek “You destroy.”

“Arghhhhhh” A scream rippled out of me. I tried to break free from his grasp but he refused to let go. His grip was solid and there was no doubt this was simply a fraction of his vampire strength.

Tears streamed down my face as I struggled still, all to no avail.

It was the first skin I had touched in over half of a decade. Not the metallic feel of the trinket, nor the wooden feel of the hairbrush. None of the objects I had been decaying.

His skin was smooth and silky. Ice cold. The moment was short-lived when I started to feel it crumbling beneath my palm. I heard the crunch of muscle and cartilage shedding.

Lukas had his eyes closed when he finally pulled my hand off. But the damage was already done. What had been a perfect face was now a perfect half face. While his left cheek was still intact, the right one was only a skeletal hollow.

Worse of all, my decay was not an on contact thing. It was more of an activation curse. Forgive me, what I’m trying to say is, the decay would spread until there was simply nothing left to decay.

But this lunatic must have known this already. A scream erupted from me once more when he brought a knife up to his face and scraped the decaying part of.

Blood tricked down his face to the bedding, staining it. But just as it came, it quickly disappeared. Before my very eyes I watched his tendons and ligaments stitch back into place.

Enhanced healing. A gift vampires possessed. Master George had advanced healing too. But not like this. Not this quickly.

The man who wouldn’t have been able to smile a minute ago, grinned at me from ear to ear. His face- good as new.

It dawned on me at that moment that I was staring at an immortal. I had no way to defend or protect myself. And my little curse would be defective against him.

“Did you think you were the only one with a trick up their sleeve. Now. What is your name?”

My mouth moved on its own, “Louise”. No one ever called me that. I went by ‘Lou’ most times, but I’d never tell him that.

“Mm, Lou sounds better, don’t you think?” This prick.

A knock resounded from the door. Three sharp beats against the oak wood.

Lukas looked mildly annoyed. “Come in?”

It was Alfred. He bowed. “Master. It is director Creed. He wishes to invite you to his premiere opening.”

Lukas merely waved his hand at him. “Nonsense. Why waste my time-“, his words are drowned out by my thoughts. Would Michael be there? I wouldn’t hate him if he went without me? I wonder if he was searching for me this minute?

The Vampire’s eye cut across to mine sharply. He appeared to be angry, like I said, bipolar.

“On second thought Alfred, Prepare two tickets.”