Chapter Seven
1833 Words
Chapter Seven
Alexander hadn't gotten much rest all day. He kept thinking about what Lucille had told him.
Catherine was a Blood Bride, and now everyone was after her. And when he wasn't consciously thinking about that, he'd been replaying every moment he'd spent with Catherine in his head, as well as some scenarios that hadn't yet come to pass.
Part of him wished she'd never turned up at his party. Another, much more insistent part of him was glad that she had.
She'd made him feel alive during the short time they'd spent together.
No way was he going to let anyone, including the Council, harm the one woman who had made him feel that way, centuries after he'd been turned.
He had to intervene somehow.
He got up early—in vampire terms—just before sundown. The black-out blinds on all the windows kept him safe enough to move around freely inside the house.
So he headed straight for the library.
Somewhere in this vast collection of old books, there had to be some information, some mention of what Lucille had told him.
How would he help Catherine if he didn't know for sure what he was dealing with?
He owned an extensive selection of historical manuscripts, dating back over half a millennium. Most of the books he'd acquired and displayed had been chosen more for their decorative value than anything else. He'd never actually read them. That was about to change.
Alexander's best bet would be texts about Vlad the Impaler. Most of the works in his collection were human accounts of history though, not vampire. No matter how many volumes he removed from their respective shelves and leafed through, Alexander couldn't find anything relevant.
It was no use.
After a couple of hours of failed research, he sat down in his leather arm chair and rested his head in his hands. This was hopeless.
"Still thinking about that woman?" a voice asked.
Alexander looked up and found Michael staring down at him.
"Have you ever heard of a Blood Bride?" Alexander asked.
Michael frowned. "No."
"Wonderful." Alexander sat back and stared at nothing in particular.
"So what's a Blood Bride, then?" Michael sat down next to Alexander as he asked the question.
"In a nutshell: a human woman with very special blood."
Michael nodded in silence and folded his hands.
"Have you googled it?" he finally asked.
Alexander gave him a skeptical look. "What do you mean have I googled it?"
"Well, that is the fastest way of looking things up nowadays." Michael gestured at the piles of old volumes stacked up everywhere. "Especially since your books clearly haven't been of much help."
Alexander still stared at the younger vampire, who finally retrieved a smartphone from his pocket and started tapping away at the screen.
"Here. Try it." Michael handed him the device.
He had already opened a search, though the results didn't look promising. It was all horror movies and cheap fiction. Alexander raised an eyebrow and held back a snide remark as he scrolled through the first page, then switched to the image view.
It would be easy to give up already, but he was determined to check out everything, if only to be able to genuinely tell Michael how stupid his suggestion had been.
Page after page of blood-splattered women in wedding dresses awaited him. He scrolled and scrolled, through what must have been thousands of images, when the very last result caught his eye: an old illustration, on what looked like parchment.
It was a woman wearing what looked to be a traditional sort of frock and apron common among the lower classes during the end of the middle ages. Surrounding her stood a few humanoid creatures with monstrous faces and fangs—not a very accurate depiction of vampires, but clear enough to be recognizable.
Underneath, in Gothic style lettering, it read: Bride of Blood.
Alexander clicked through and started to read. The entire website contained extracts from an old book the author merely referred to as the Encyclopedia of Myth and Magick. It wasn't complete, but the section on Blood Brides was more informative than anything else Alexander had found.
"I don't believe it," he mumbled.
"Found something?" Michael's voice was loaded with glee.
Alexander glanced up and found that Michael was grinning at him. "Fine. You were right. Listen to this—"
Alexander held the phone up and started to read aloud.
"The existence of Blood Brides was first documented by the Ancient Egyptians, who believed that they were sent down by the gods to cleanse the world of evil. The presence of one of these women would inevitably attract all creatures of the night, making them easy to control and/or capture. What is notable about these women is that they themselves are unaware of their powers and often do not understand the attention they attract, yet at the same time, they can be extremely perceptive when it comes to the world at large."
Alexander looked up. That was it. Catherine had noticed that it was him in the hunting scene painting after all.
"In ancient Egypt, as soon as a girl was identified as a Blood Bride, she was sent off to be raised by priestesses of Isis at one of the many temples dedicated to her worship. The practice of sending Blood Brides away to become priestesses to a female deity may have extended into Roman times. Some historians believe that the Vestal Virgins of Rome in fact always had at least one Blood Bride among their ranks. There is no conclusive evidence to support this theory, though. More recently, mythical scholars have formulated a theory that the occurrences of Blood Brides in the general populace is directly linked to the amount of supernatural activity at any given time, or in any given region. It therefore follows that a Blood Bride would only be born during times of hardship or when humanity is under threat from evil forces. Therefore, it is thought that during the Great Plague, Blood Brides were a lot more common than they are today. Over the centuries, all manner of tests have been devised to identify if a woman is a Blood Bride, most notably—"
Inconveniently, that was all there was. The method for identification and specifics regarding Vampirism and Blood Brides were missing.
Alexander gave the phone back to Michael.
"So you think that's what she was?" Michael asked.
Alexander shrugged. "That's what Lucille said she was. That's why they're after her; they think she's a threat to the Council."
"Do you think she's a threat?"
Alexander folded his hands. "I just know that the moment she walked in, every vampire in the room turned to look at her."
Michael looked down at his phone, and scrolled back and forth a few times. "None of this explains how to defeat her powers, though."
Alexander turned to give Michael a disapproving look. "I don't want to defeat her! I want to keep her safe!"
"Oh." Michael turned off the phone and put it down on the table between them. "Well then, perhaps your books will be some use after all. Isn't there some law that prevents any vampire from harming another vampire's consort?"
Alexander waved Michael's suggestion away. He'd thought of that in passing already. "That only works if the intended is willing and not under hypnosis. You forget that this woman fled last night."
That wasn't the only problem, though. "I don't even know her full name. How will I track her down?" Alexander mumbled to himself.
Michael knew better than to answer that last, hypothetical question, so they both sat in silence for a while with Alexander lost in thought.
His thoughts moved back to last night, and the woman Catherine had arrived with. She seemed more extroverted, more of a social butterfly. Perhaps some of his other guests knew her.
He didn't even notice Michael had left his side, until the latter came back carrying a large envelope.
"Mail for you."
Alexander was about to discard it when he noticed the logo in the corner.
Sotheby's latest auction catalog.
As cliché as it was, perhaps some high end shopping might take his mind off things.
Michael grabbed his phone off the table and started tapping away at it; his expression suggested that the time for research had passed. The only thing he would be looking for now was a companion to spend the night with.
"Well, I'm off. I'll see you later," Michael mumbled a few moments later.
Alexander waved at him absentmindedly while leafing through the catalog. Nothing inspired him until he reached the very last page of the publication.
Anyone else might not realize what they were looking at, but Alexander did. Three pieces of old parchment, torn from one side as if they had been ripped out of a book and mounted in glass frames. If it wasn't for the illustration on the first page, he might not even have given it a second look.
He did a double-take on the description, then got up and headed straight for the land-line phone to RSVP for the upcoming auction.
Then he settled back down with the catalog and studied the image that had caught his attention in more detail using a magnifying glass to boost his already powerful vision. The illustrations bore an uncanny resemblance to the image he'd just found on Michael's phone. The lettering also followed the same style. Sadly, the image wasn't detailed enough for Alexander to decipher the writing within.
He had no choice but to attend that auction, win the bid, and study these pages in person after.
Alexander sat back and closed his eyes.
Cat smiled at him, innocently, as though she had no idea of the effect she had on him. His whole being ached for her; he wanted to hold her, love her, keep her away from all the evil in the world. She twirled a lock of her long, dark brown hair around her index finger and turned away. Alexander reached out for her arm, but she slipped away. A terrifying, guttural cry pierced the silence; it took him a moment to realize that he was the one who had screamed.
Alexander tightened his grip on the armrests of his chair, stopping only when the leather under his right thumb gave way and tore.
Great. This was the second time in 24 hours that he'd accidentally destroyed his property while under the influence of Catherine, the supposed Blood Bride.
Alexander ran his fingertip across the torn leather and got up. The longer he sat here on his own, the closer he would come to losing his mind.
All this research, all these books, and none of it would help with his main problem: he still didn't know who or where she was. He had no choice but to go out there and do the necessary footwork to track her down.
Alexander left the house in a hurry, only to wander the city aimlessly all night. He crossed Kensington, Paddington, Mayfair, and Soho, but there was no sign of her or her unique scent anywhere.
If only he got somewhere near enough, his nose would pick up on her and lead him to her exact location. He knew that.
He just didn't know exactly where to look.
Just before dawn, he had no choice but to suspend the search.
- Writer
