Page 36 of A Good Heart is Hard to Find
8
Raising the Spirits
The latest offering from strangely popular horror writer Cass Leigh,Nocturnally Yours, has no claims to literary merit whatsoever…
Observer
It felt strange to be arriving home in the grey light of dawn rather than the dark hours of the morning as I usually did after my little expeditions; but then, I don’t usually carry my research to such extremes.
My head stillached, along with all the other portions of my anatomy that had come into contact with the staircase, and I seemed to be developing a Dante-sized bracelet of bruises on one wrist.
That man didn’t know his own strength.
Although I felt absolutely shattered, once I’d had a shower and changed I settled down to write up the events of the night while they were still fresh in my mind.
Those I rememberclearly, anyway – and the rest hadbetterbe forgotten, although perhaps I really hadn’t behaved too badly with Dante Chase after all, considering I’d had a nasty bump on the head and quantities of brandy forced down my throat?
Who was I kidding?
But I was sure he drank much, much more, so hopefully he wouldn’t remember a thing about it. And if he did, he probably wouldn’t think anything ofit … unlike me. I just couldn’t believe I’d done that! And compared to my only other lover, Max, he—
No. Behave yourself, Cass, I told myself. You weren’t responsible for what happened, so just put it right out of your mind. With any luck your path and Dante’s will hardly ever cross, which will make it easier: he didn’t like you, so he’s hardly going to come looking for you, is he?
Right, lectureto myself over and uncomfortable memories consigned to box labelled ‘Pretend It Never Happened’, leaving the other strange aspects of the night for consideration.
For instance, it was interesting to discover that no matter how I rationalized the supernatural, or how often I had cheerfully walked in haunted or spooky places, the first sight of Dante Chase frightened me into illogical flight.
Mind you, if it hadn’t been for the bird in the cupboard, the second and third sight of him might have had much the same effect. A scary and arrogant man with a temper on a hair-trigger, that about summed up the impression he made, though perhaps I should have made allowances for the eagle nose. And the guilt.
He was thin for his height and frame and too fine-drawn, though he still had musclesin all the right places. His knee-breeches and ruffles had suited him very well, but he would have looked even more at home emerging out of the Celtic twilight, wearing a homespun cape and wielding a drawn sword, with snake-headed torques of gold clasped around his muscular bare forearms …
Stop it, Cass.
That unnerving way his eyes had seemed to flash green-blue in their deep sockets was clearlyjust a trick of thelantern-light, and I bet they are that shallow light blue really, like Jane’s. It’s interesting, though, because you somehow expect dark eyes to go with black hair, and it doesn’t always follow. I can use that:
‘Keturah!’ whispered Sylvanus, but where the soft hazel eyes of her lover should have been, burning-cold orbs of aquamarine shone instead.
What a coincidence thatEmma should have made him promise to try and bring her back, just like Sylvanus and Keturah! Though in Dante’s case, clearly, he was just meant to contact her beyond the grave, not actually try and raise her from it.
It was also fascinating on a personal level to meet someone even more consumed with guilt than me, though I didn’t understand why he was so guilty about his wife’s death, when hewasn’t there. What did she die of? An accident, illness, or one of those rare but horrific pregnancy complications that I’d read about in that book Orla gave me? And even being the hostage that survived seemed to be making him feel guilty too!
He had already taught me one valuable lesson (more than one really, but the rest were locked in the Pretend It Never Happened box), for until that nightI hadn’t realized it was possible to take an instant dislike to a man but still find him scarily attractive.
I decided to infuse all that frightening sexiness into the Vampire of the Manor character, an updated Dracula in a biting saga about blood relatives.
Come to that, my vampire could bite Keturah too, because for some mysterious reason she’d gone wimpy on me and I was getting quite tiredof her.
At least then she’d actually have some power to battle with whatever evil thing came back in the shape of Sylvanus … unless my vampire could choose to take over theform of what was once Sylvanus? Or maybe one of his female vampires was the one who fancied Sylvanus so much that she called him back when Keturah had failed him?
A vampire love-triangle – or pentagram. Mmm. I needed to thinkabout it a bit more.
And I was going to callmyDracula Vladimir.
By ten it was quite impossible to stop my head slumping forward over the keyboard so, not wanting the alphabet permanently embossed on my cheek, I went to bed.
Despite the neighbouring Surround Sound I fell instantly into a deep and mercifully dreamless sleep, and might have slept on and on for ever had a delivery driver notpractically beaten my door in, determined not to have to turn his van round in my thread of a lane twice in one day.
While normally paler than pale in complexion, after the night I’d had I must have looked like the living dead, because he silently and nervously thrust the pad for me to sign, shoved a parcel into my arms, and left at high speed on smoking tyres.
