Kiss Me, Kill Me Page 19

  I headed towards the back of the property. Lorenzo had told Greg there was a stream bordering his land at the bottom of a hill. I thought I’d check it out while I was out and about. Much better to be having adventures in the garden at dawn, than sleeping and having vampires attacking you, tearing you open and trying to gouge your frickin’ eyes out.

  I’d been walking for about fifteen minutes or so, and there was still no sign of a stream. I’d assumed it would be towards the back of the property. Perhaps it was to the right or left.

  If I’d known I’d be wandering so far from the house, I would have left Greg a note. Although, he’d probably be asleep for some time yet with that pillow over his ear and wouldn’t even realise I’d gone.

  Also, changing my clothes might have been a good idea. I supposed it was highly unlikely anyone would spy me in my nightwear in this neck of the woods at this particular time of day.

  I climbed up a rise. I almost lost my footing a couple of times—the grass still being wet from the rain and Crocs being a stupid choice in the shoe department when grass and wet were factors. But then as I scrambled to the top, I saw it: a picturesque vista featuring the elusive stream, which was meandering along not far from the base of the hill. Large trees lined the bank. It was so lovely, I wished I had my phone to take photos and my Greg to share the experience with. A picnic basket would have been nice. Coffee. A hammock, books, sunglasses, a sunhat, water bottle… All the possessions I’d need to set up camp and live there for a year or so.

  As I was carefully finding my footing down the slope of the hill, something in my peripheral vision caught my attention.

  I stopped and squinted at it. Way over to the left, it looked like thin wafts of smoke coming from near the water. I couldn’t imagine what it was, but of course, curiosity piqued, I altered my course and took a diagonal path downwards.

  As I neared the source of the smoke, I discerned a large lump on top of a sort of bench. I walked on until I hit even ground.

  Suddenly, a sickening smell filled my nostrils. It stopped me in my tracks for a moment before I identified what it was. It was the stench of burning hair and flesh.

  And then I recognized the picture before me for what it actually was.

  It was a person on a wooden sun lounger, and the person’s body was smoking.

  I broke into a run, slipping once and almost falling, catching myself with an outstretched arm, pushing off and running, running, running. As I approached the body, I saw the head of the person. No hair. Reddened skin, blackening in patches. My stomach clenched into a tight ball. I skidded to a stop next to the sun lounger and gasped in a wailing breath as I saw the person.

  He had been chained to the chair.

  He was shuddering and convulsing with pain.

  ‘Lorenzo!’ I screamed hysterically.

  He turned his head towards me. Opened now-lashless eyelids. He stared through me as if dazed. He blinked. I saw a flash of recognition, and then his eyes were pleading for me to help him. His mouth was taped shut with duct tape. His skin was red and brown and black and charred.

  ‘Oh God, Lorenzo!’ I cried.

  I pulled at the chains. I found a padlock and tried to force it open. ‘Key?’ I yelled.

  Lorenzo shook his head wildly.

  I turned around three-sixty, searching for something—anything—lying around that could help me. There was nothing. Not one bloody thing I could use. Desperate, I tugged the chains again and again. Knowing it was useless but giving it my best shot anyway.

  If couldn’t get him off the chair he was chained to, how could I get him out of the sunlight?

  Right then, because the sun was a great big fucking bastard, it came out from behind a passing cloud and poured its unfettered blazing heat down upon Lorenzo. He thrashed against the chains, a horrible, gut-wrenching sound coming from his throat through sealed lips.

  I had to get him out of this goddamned sunlight.

  I grabbed the base of the lounger and pulled as hard as I could. To my amazement, the chair actually moved. Then I remembered I’d had vampire blood. Lorenzo’s ancient vampire blood. I could do this!

  I heaved again and again while Lorenzo made those agonizing sounds. It seemed that it took hours but was probably only minutes until I got him under a tree. Though the canopy was a little sparse, at least he wasn’t bearing the full brunt of the sun.

  We were now only steps away from the stream. I leapt forward, scrambled over the edge of the bank and into the water. The cold was a shock to the system, making me feel as though I’d been winded. My muscles locked up. The slope was steep and slippery. I slid down and away from the edge. The water was much deeper than I expected. Unable to paddle, kick or move in any way, I went fully under. There was a drawn-out moment of terror before I regained control of my body.

  Bending my knees, I sprang upwards and broke the surface, sucking in a lungful of air. Down I went again and repeated the process. This time, when I emerged, I managed to get into a semi-horizontal position, and I frantically dog-paddled towards the bank. I let myself drop one more time and then, propelling up with all my strength, lunged for the ledge. I managed to grab it and hang on. Crooking one elbow and leaning on my forearm, I used my other hand to scoop water and began throwing it over Lorenzo.

  While doing this, my mind raced, trying to figure out what to do next. Despite the fact that I was stronger than usual, there was no way I could carry Lorenzo and his sun lounger all the way back to the house. Besides, Lorenzo would be exposed all that time, and the sun was only getting hotter. If I dragged him into the water with me, I wouldn’t be able to keep him above the waterline. I might end up drowning him. Could vampires even drown? I didn’t have a bloody clue.

  I needed Greg. I cursed that I didn’t have my mobile. I had no way to contact him. Although…with that hearing of his…might he hear me from here if I screamed loud enough? I hoped that pillow had fallen off his head.

  I stopped chucking water on Lorenzo. Heaving myself out of the water and back on dry land, I yelled at the top of my lungs, ‘Greg, help! I’m at the stream.’ I kept yelling that over and over. If he heard me, I had no doubt he’d locate the stream with ease. He’d do some vampire thing, like sniff out the water or the moss growing on the bank.

  A thought popped into my mind. I bet Lorenzo would scream like the dickens if I could get that duct tape off his mouth.

  I scratched at a corner of the tape until it curled up. I pulled it from his mouth.

  With no barrier preventing their escape, his agonised screams spewed out, bouncing off the hills, filling the landscape, saturating the air. There we no words, just incoherent sounds of someone suffering the most unbelievable pain.

  Hell’s friggin’ bells, he seemed to be smoking again. I dragged him a bit farther under the tree. I could only manage to get his head completely in the shade.

  I ripped off my silk wrap and covered his feet and most of the lower half of his body. How I wished I’d worn additional clothing!

  As soon as Lorenzo was covered as much as possible, I made for the stream again. This time, I made sure I had a good grip on the ledge as I carefully lowered myself down.

  I threw some more water at him. I yelled for Greg. I prayed to God, the universe, and anything that might listen, begging for Lorenzo’s survival.

  I felt him before I saw him. A gust of air whooshed past me and then Greg appeared, as if by magic, right next to Lorenzo. He surveyed the scene in a fraction of a second with impossibly fast vampire senses.

  ‘Ana.’ He stepped forward and reached out his arm to pull me out.

  ‘I’m fine. Help Lorenzo,’ I said urgently, pointing my chin towards the blackened, smoking body chained to the bench.

  Holy crap. Greg’s overwhelming need to protect me was mad, mad, M.A.D. times one-thousand. He couldn’t have a clue about my earlier mishap in the water. And there I was, clearly not drowning or flailing. Not floating away to parts unknown. I had a death-grip on the bank. But Gr
eg was reaching for me first, instead of someone who was half burnt to death.

  Greg snapped into action. Thank God/Universe/whoever. Grabbing the padlock with both hands, he pulled. The thing broke apart. He tossed it on the ground and started unwinding the chains from Lorenzo’s body.

  I pulled myself out of the stream, naked and shivering.

  ‘Ana, come here,’ said Greg.

  He bent over as I took the few steps that put me right next to him.

  ‘Climb up.’ He pointed to his back.

  ‘But you need to carry Lorenzo.’

  ‘Kayana, just do what I ask you.’ The tone of his voice was not one to be argued with. Plus, he’d used my given name. He meant business.

  I climbed up. He reached back and placed his hand under my bottom, giving me a bit of a boost. Once in position, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and my legs around his waist.

  He scooped Lorenzo up with one hand under the man’s neck and the other hand under his knees. I’d braced myself to hear Lorenzo’s screams when he was moved.

  Lorenzo was now silent, and that worried me greatly. Was he unconscious? Dead? There was no time to check because the next second, all three of us were moving at high speed.

  I scrunched my eyes and held my breath. The only way I could deal with moving at this velocity was by not looking at everything rushing by in a blur.

  It seemed less than a minute had passed, and then we stopped. I cracked open my lids to see we were already inside the villa, in Lorenzo’s room. Greg gently placed his cargo down on the bed.

  I jumped off Greg’s back.

  Without saying a word, Greg did his speedy vanishing act and then appeared again bearing bags of blood. He called Lorenzo’s name. When there was no response, he said it louder. Lorenzo groaned and moved.

  I breathed a sigh of relief that he was still with us.

  Greg bit open his own wrist and put it over Lorenzo’s mouth. Lorenzo immediately latched on and started sucking. With his free hand, Greg grabbed a pack of blood and, ripping it open with his teeth, drank it down. He started on another pack. I thought I should do something useful instead of just standing there, gawking.

  I ran to the kitchen, grabbed a huge cooking pot and tipped a couple of trays’ worth of ice cubes into it. Racing back, I filled it with cold water from Lorenzo’s bathroom and then placed it next to the bed. Back to the bathroom, and I grabbed a heap of towels and a bathrobe. I pulled on the bathrobe and then got to work cooling down Lorenzo’s burnt skin. After soaking the towels in the pot, I laid them on his body from his toes to his chin.

  Soon, Greg had finished feeding Lorenzo. He had a number of empty blood packs that he himself had drained on the bedside table.

  The patient fell asleep immediately.

  ‘Do you think he’ll be alright?’ I whispered, placing facecloths over his face, keeping only his nose and mouth uncovered.

  Greg regarded Lorenzo. ‘I think so. He’s had a good dose of my blood. He needs to rest now so he can heal.’ Greg flicked his eyes to mine. ‘What the hell happened, Ana?’

  I explained everything I knew since waking up from a nightmare in the early hours of the morning.

  Greg listened intently with brows furrowed in concentration.

  ‘Hey, where’s Claudio? And Maria?’ I asked, realising I hadn’t seen either one yet.

  ‘Neither of them is here.’ There was a long pause while we gave each other a meaningful look. The look meant: those fuckers!!

  Claudio seemed weird, and I could imagine he might have done such a thing, horrible as it was. But Maria? She had seemed nice. I was under the impression that she cared for Lorenzo. And I’d started to really like her. Why would you do this, Maria? I would have screamed that at her if she hadn’t buggered off somewhere.

  ‘Did you see how Lorenzo’s femoral artery was ripped open?’ Greg’s jaw was rigid.

  ‘No! I didn’t even notice. I was just so busy trying to stop him from burning. And I was trying not to focus on the damage to his body so I could keep it together.’ No point crying and screaming, curling into a ball and having a nervous breakdown while someone needs saving. ‘Also, when I covered him just then, I avoided staring at his groinal area.’

  Greg quirked a brow. ‘You were preserving his modesty?’

  ‘Uh, yeah. I mean, I don’t imagine he’s the kind of man who would want all and sundry staring at his privates while he’s unconscious.’

  Greg examined me, his face enigmatic, before continuing. ‘Well, it looks as if someone drained his blood from there. The wound’s fairly savage. It’s like the person who did it had normal teeth, not fangs. He’s all torn open.’

  I grimaced at the horrible vision of Claudio tearing into Lorenzo’s flesh and feeding on him. Ugh, there were two words that should never be seen together: tearing and flesh.

  ‘I knew something was up with that guy,’ I spat.

  I began peeling off the towels, re-soaking and applying so they’d be as cold as possible. I continued not to focus on any part of poor Lorenzo’s barbequed body. Instead, I entertained a fantasy of dunking Claudio’s head in the water pot until he was near death. Then slapping him repeatedly with wet towels. Right in the face. Waterboarding, Castello-Branco style. If Claudio considered himself bloodthirsty, he had nothing on me.

  The idea of thirst caused something to register. ‘Hey, Greg. Lorenzo mustn’t have had his digitalis tea, otherwise, he would have been fine in the sun. How could he let that happen?’

  ‘I’m guessing Claudio or Maria tricked him into believing he was drinking it. Although, it must have only been recently, which is why he was burning so slowly. If he didn’t have any of the drug in his system, he would have burned more quickly. He probably would have been dead by now. He’s so lucky you found him and did what you did, Ana.’

  ‘Cripes! Imagine if I hadn’t gone wandering about this morning. He would have burned to death out there. Gradually, little by bloody little and torturously.’ My voice broke at the end.

  Greg came around the bed. He enfolded me in his arms and hugged me. ‘It’s okay now, Ana. You saved him.’

  ‘You did, too. You saved him mostly,’ I whispered against his chest, drying tears against it as well. I inhaled deep breaths and attempted to pull myself together. It still wasn’t the best time for that nervous breakdown.

  After a couple of minutes, I was composed enough to ask Greg a question. ‘Did you hear us yelling?’

  ‘Yes. But at first, I was having a dream, and in the dream, you were calling for help. When I woke up, I saw you weren’t there. I heard you again and realised the screaming was real. And then I ran, following your scent and your voices until I found you.’

  ‘And when you found us, you tried to help me first. Did you think I was in danger?’

  Greg looked uncomfortable. ‘Not so much. It’s just that…’ His voice trailed off. He diverted his gaze; it went off to the side, where I wasn’t.

  ‘It’s just that what?’ I asked softly, palming his jaw and turning his face so he would meet my eyes.

  There was a gusty sigh, and then the words started tumbling out of him. ‘After everything that’s happened, I have this overwhelming urge to protect you—above all else. I’m so frightened that something will happen to you, my baby girl. Something that will take you away from me for good. I can’t bear the thought of it. I know I won’t survive it.’ He stared at me, pain etched deeply into his features.

  I nodded, clamping my lips together to prevent the tide of emotion his words caused from gushing noisily from my mouth.

  I was familiar with exactly how he planned not to survive it. The idea of Greg meeting his end at the end of Lorenzo’s blade made me want to scream, rage at him, pummel his chest with my fists and make him promise he would never do such a thing. I also clamped my lips against saying anything about that which I was not supposed to know.

  Instead, I fisted my hands in his hair, pulled his face down to mine and kissed him roughly and f
iercely. I wet him with my tears and showered him with every ounce of love I felt for him through that kiss. Along with the love was anger, frustration, fear. Our tongues slid and duelled, lips crushed, teeth clashed and bit.

  Only when we’d kissed for so long that I could hardly breathe, did I relinquish his mouth. I did it begrudgingly, holding his lower lip between my teeth until the last possible moment.

  We stared hard at each other for a long time.

  The possibility of wild, animalistic, life-affirming sex right next to Lorenzo’s bed seemed high.

  Lorenzo moved. We both turned to him immediately. The poor guy was still out and had merely twitched in his sleep.

  I removed the towels and could see his body had begun healing already. Some dark, crispy patches of skin were being shed and new pinkish skin was growing in its place. It was amazing to watch.

  ‘Is there anything else we can do for him right now?’ I asked.

  ‘No. Apart from watching over him so that no one tries to kill him again.’

  What a sobering thought. Not that most of what had happened since I woke hadn’t been sobering.

  ‘Ana, why don’t you go have a shower and get some food, and I’ll watch over him. And I’ll listen out for that bastard Claudio in case he comes back. Oh, and baby?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Don’t go wandering off anywhere, just in case. Can you stay in the house so I know where you are?’

  ‘Of course.’ I’d lost my appetite for solitary wanderings at the moment anyway. ‘Can I bring you back anything? More blood?’

  ‘No.’ He gave me a small smile. ‘I’m fine.’

  As I was walking from the room, Greg said, ‘Hey, Ana. So, you wouldn’t check out a guy’s groinal area if he was out cold or asleep?’

  ‘No. I’d feel like some kind of gross pervert or something.’

  He arched a brow.