Page 31 of Kept 4
“I’m not much of a fighter,” I say now, as we tramp through the snow, our destination close.
“Then run if you need to,” he says gently, his voice quiet, his mind obviously on something else. “And you are sure he said Elsbeth was under his protection?” he frowns, clearly mulling over our previous conversation about Gerald, his face beautiful even in worry, his eyes shining, illuminated by the full moon as we walk.
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Well, I took no chances. I have not told him what we are doing tonight, and he is, by all accounts, still in Germany tracking the hunters he believes killed Margarita. If all goes well, he need never know, although in all the centuries I have known him, Gerald has never once mentioned that he knew Elsbeth personally, let alone felt anything for her.”
“But he also never mentioned he had extra mind powers,” I say quietly, “I’m beginning to think you know as little about Gerald as I do.”
He shakes his head but says nothing as we continue walking past Constance’s grave, towards her former house. But we barely get a few metres beyond the cemetery, when we hear laughter.
“Fitting,” a girl’s voice calls, still laughing, “that this is where you choose to lose your second love.”
Nicholas stiffens, dropping my hand, and we spin to face Elsbeth, sitting irreverently atop Constance’s headstone, her black cape flapping in the light breeze, making her appear like a large crow.
Having the opportunity to study her, I realise she is just a child. I don’t know how they could have imagined someone so small was old enough to marry and have children in the 1500s. She looks like all the students I have served in high school cafeterias, a girl of just 14, or less, and as overly emotional as any teen I’d met.
‘No wonder she’s so obsessed with him.’
“I’ve come to introduce you to my Kept,” Nicholas says, his eyes two cool pools of ice.
“Have you now,” she drawls, flicking her eyes to me, and back to him, “you won’t need her now that you and I are reunited.”
I know what she is going to do before she does it, and I quickly dodge behind Nicholas as she makes a lightning-fast lunge at me, nails outstretched, fangs bared.
“You know the lore,” Nicholas bellows.
But her laughter is the only response as they collide, and the sound of snarling and growling echoes through the cemetery.
I dodge to hide behind a large stone Angel and cross my fingers that Nicholas truly can beat this powerful creature. They are moving sometimes so fast, they look like a blur to me, and at other times their blows are so powerful, it seems like it is in slow motion. As they fight, she goads him, laughing at him, at his weakness for dark-haired mousey women, and I screw my nose up.
‘Mousey? You bitch.’
His response though seems to annoy her just as much.
“I hear a rumour you are under Gerald’s protection,” Nicholas grunts, feigning left and laughing as her kick to his head misses its mark, “he offered no such boon to your prodigy.”
“Protection,” she spits, lunging again, this time hitting him and laughing as he grunts in pain, “his obsession with me knows no bounds. If I could, I would destroy him in an instant.”
“You know each other?” Nicholas spins, catching her with a blow to the side of the head which sends her momentarily reeling towards where I hide. I duck down low and let out a breath of relief when I peek up to see her launch herself at him again.
“Don’t you know?” she laughs, “he made me.”
Nicholas is momentarily stunned, and gasps as her nails rake down his face, but he recovers quickly, and kicks out, sending her sprawling yet again.
“You lie.”
“Do I?” she pants, rising quickly and retaliating with two fast blows to his chest, “he turned me on my deathbed, my babe torn from my womb. He wanted to keep me as his vampire bride, confessed he loved me like no other,” she laughs hysterically, “but later he killed my son when he found I had given him my blood. I vowed never to see him again – it was no hardship on my part, I never cared for him.”
“Gerald and I kill the hunters,” Nicholas grunts, twirling mid-air and wrapping his arm around her throat, squeezing his eyes shut as he tries to rip her head from her shoulders, “we have done so for centuries.”
“They are all my descendants,” she screeches, back-flipping and landing on his shoulders, grabbing his head as he had just held hers and beginning to twist, “as well he knows.”
I scream as I see his face contort and she spins, seeing me as though for the first time.
“I told you,” she hisses to Nicholas, “you will love no other.”
Turning faster than the speed of light, she pushes off him, towards me.
