Microsoft Word - TheStormyLoveLifeofLauraCordelaisSusanCfinal Page 28

  ***

  When Mama Joe checked in on them, she found the two embracing but looking equally dead. She gave orders that they not be disturbed. Tired from their vigil, everyone in the house went to bed. It was nearly dawn.

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  Chapter 29

  David woke with a start. He looked at Laura and nothing had changed. He got up and went out the bedroom door calling, "Mama Joe?" When she appeared, he asked,

  "What time is it?"

  "Four in the afternoon."

  "No." He rushed back into the room. "Fourteen hours have passed." He gathered Laura in his arms, burying his face in her hair. "I didn't mean to kill you.

  Please, oh, God, please. I need my Laura back."

  When Donovan arrived and saw what had happened, he leaned against the doorjamb and sobbed. Mama Joe took him by the hand and led him to the parlor.

  Bernice and Eunice wept uncontrollably. They wandered out into the hall, and Denise shut the door leaving David alone in his misery.

  Pain poured out of him, unleashed by years of anguish, years of loneliness, years of unrelenting regret. He had murdered so many and never shed a tear for any of them.

  It crossed his mind that taking his Laura was God's punishment for those lives.

  "Please, God." He lowered his head and closed his eyes. "Please, give Laura back to me. She was the only truly wonderful part of my life. I know I haven't said anything 325

  since you granted my request, but I am thankful that you sent Laura to me. I'm thankful for every minute she's been in my life."

  "That's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard," said a sweet voice.

  He looked up and saw Laura's pale blue eyes. She smiled, exposing two pearly fangs.

  "Yes," shouted David, rejoicing. He lifted Laura high in his arms, laughing.

  Everyone rushed in and joined the celebration. David put Laura down carefully, and Donovan hugged her. David cut his arm and let the blood pour into one of the goblets. "It's the blood of the sire that creates the calm mind."

  Laura sipped from the goblet. She felt very whole, very settled. She drank it all and handed David the empty goblet.

  "Come, Children," said Mama Joe. "Sit with us and feast."

  David interrupted. "Please, I'd like to be alone with my wife for a little while."

  Smiling, they left shutting the door. When David turned to Laura, she sat on the bed and reached for him. He grinned from ear to ear. As he took her into his arms, he looked straight into her eyes. "Are you Laura Cordelais?"

  She laughed. She kissed him. Her hands trailed seductively down his thighs.

  He pulled her hair and pinned her to the bed. Growling, he demanded, "Are you Laura Cordelais?"

  "Oh, baby, come on," she teased playfully.

  David seethed. "You are not Laura Cordelais. Who are you?"

  "Can't you tell?" She laughed. "Ooh, want to tie me up?"

  "Daphne," he said in disgust. "Why are you here?"

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  "Why not? Laura wasn't coming back to her body, so why waste it. I mean, she wasn't going to be using it."

  David didn't want to show the devastation he felt. "Where is she?"

  "She's joined the angelic host, my boy. Why would an angel have anything to do with a vampire?"

  "Daphne, get out of my wife's body."

  "Aw, David, we could have such fun together. This body's not much, but I could muscle up these skinny arms once a gym reopens in the city. The boobs are nice, sexy and comfortable. Mine were bigger, of course, but these will do if they make you happy."

  "Daphne, get out of Laura's body!" This time he yelled it, and everyone in the house came running.

  "David, what's wrong?" shouted Mama Joe.

  "Everyone. This is Daphne Fontaine, the demon who has possessed Laura's body."

  "Well, David Hilliard, if you don't want me, someone else will." She moved to go out the door, but an angry crowd blocked the way.

  Mama Joe whispered to Bernice, who left.

  Daphne turned to David. "Honestly, what made Laura so appealing to you?"

  "She was sweet and tender."

  "I can be sweet and tender."

  "She wasn't a blood thirsty, murdering, dominatrix."

  "Hmm," paused Daphne. "No, that I can't do."

  Bernice came back with a roll of red tape.

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  "Now for the binding." Mama Joe gestured with her hands.

  Daphne rushed around the room, but her only exit was still barred. Mama Joe unrolled a large piece of tape. In an instant, it went through the air and attached itself to Daphne. Just as quickly as the mambo unrolled the tape, it wrapped around its victim, until she was tightly bound from shoulder to toe. Daphne fell to the floor. David and Donovan lifted her and put her on the bed.

  "David, I only came into her body when she deserted it. I felt sorry for you, when I heard you praying to God."

  "I wasn't praying."

  "Yeah right, you weren't," she mocked. "Laura's not coming back. She's been offered a better deal. Get used to it. The moment I saw her I knew you were out of your league."

  David walked out of the room. He went into the kitchen and sat at the shadowed end of the table reaching his hand into the sunlight and watching his skin slowly burn.

  Mama Joe walked in. She slapped his hand away. "What do you think you're doing?"

  "I don't care," he replied.

  "I can see that. Do you think Laura would want you doing this self-destructive..."

  "Laura," he yelled, "has forgotten me."

  She knocked him on the side of the head. "Did all that misery in the netherworld make you dumb? That woman leapt into hell for you. She's not going to forget you."

  Mama Joe went to her fridge and took out an orange soda. She flipped the top and drank it down. "Pretty soon I'm going to run out of gas for my generator and that will be it for my fridge." She sat down on the sunny side of the table.

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  "So, what do we do?" asked David. "Do you have some mumble jumble to cast out a demon?"

  "You don't have any respect for the magic, when it was the magic that let Laura through to you in the graveyard."

  "It was not. I came to the portal, because I heard Laura's voice. The words being said did nothing. It was only when she spoke the last few sentences, that the light flowed and the door opened inward."

  Mama Joe sighed. "The last part of the ritual was missing, so Laura made it up."

  The mambo paused, thinking. "It was the third way to open the door. Love."

  Miracles are created by love. David remembered Zak's words. He sat back further in the shadow. "I love Laura. Why couldn't I come through the portal to her?"

  "I don't know the answer to that." Then Mama Joe rolled her chair to the far end of the kitchen and went out the back door. She came back later with a basket filled with white lilacs. She went up to David and handed him the basket.

  "I don't understand."

  "I didn't either when I saw them in the garden this morning," she began. "These flowers aren't supposed to be there. But I understand now. White lilacs were Laura's favorite. Come. I remember something." She rolled out of the kitchen, and David followed her down the hall.

  "What do you remember?"

  "Dreams take us to the other side of death. I read that somewhere."

  Mama Joe opened a door decorated with garlands of ivy into a large bedroom.

  White and lavender filled his vision. On one side of the room against a lavender wall was a huge cypress desk in front of a large bookcase. A cypress four poster queen-sized 329

  bed with a fluffy white comforter and massive lavender pillows stood on the other side.

  It was frilly and luxurious.

  "Whose room is this?"

  "Mine. It's daylight, and you should be asleep. This room is the farthest from that demon. I want you to dream about Laura. Give her the flowers. I need to know what's happening there, before I can do anything here."

  "W
hat about the demon?"

  "Don't think about her. Dream about Laura." She shut the door.

  David felt awkward using the mambo's room but brushed any preconceived notions off and wandered over to the desk. He saw the paper with the cemetery ritual and shook his head. He thumbed through a book on vampires. He and Laura had read a lot of reference-type books on vampires and found some of them intriguing but mostly just preposterous.

  One caught his eye—SECRETS OF THE UNDEAD. He picked it up carefully, as it was very old. He looked at the table of contents. There was one chapter titled "Where Vampires Come From." He held his breath as he turned toward that chapter. He knew about the Keres and knew that the vampires were their children but didn't know the logistics. His fingers traced the following passage:

  The Keres in their rage for being doomed with the dark angels, loosed their hatred against the human race. For seven years, they murdered any human found after dark. And for a while that satiated their bloodlust, until one night when a village was attacked. Even their bolted doors could not protect them. The men fought to protect their women and children.

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  The Keres dispatched the men as twigs and drank down the children, which were barely a mouthful. But for the women, they had hatched a plan to beat the doom that condemned them. They raped them and from that night children were born--vampires, the Keres' heirs on Earth, the tool of their final revenge. The babes bit their mothers as they suckled. Some women kept them, until they became the food of their offspring. Some abandoned them on mountainsides. It mattered not what kindness was shown those children. Their fierceness grew, and the results were always the death of any human within their reach.

  During this time, humanity cried out to the gods for deliverance. And their voices fell into the dream of one woman named Dexithea, a Telkhine, a storm caller. On the sacred night once a year when all the damned gathered, a Kere went to claim Dexithea. She stood out on an outcropping facing the sea.

  She asked her creator for the wisdom to know what to do and tied knots in her hair. As the Kere approached extending his talon to tear her frail robe from her body, the winds answered and the storm churned. It gathered a funnel around the Telkhine holding her safe.

  The storm screamed through the planet, leaving no place untouched. It ripped a hole between the worlds, and the Keres were sucked through and imprisoned in the dark world forever. When daybreak came, their children were left behind. Slayers arose to rid the planet of them, and the vampires hid in the remote places on the Earth afraid of being known. They found they could perpetuate their kind with a bite, the vampire's kiss, and so they created a 331

  legion in the night. But they always stayed in the shadows of mankind to protect themselves and their kin.

  The world of the Keres became legend, then mist, until the vampires forgot from where they spawned. The damnation of the Keres did not apply to them. Though born of hate, they had the freedom of will given by the gods to be and do as they wished. They were given the right to choose how they would live their lives.

  David closed the book. Before coming back to New Orleans, he hadn't known where vampires came from. No one had ever told him. It was possible that his friends didn't know either. It all made a lot of sense to him now. Laura was a vampire and a Telkhine and a direct descendent of Dexithea. The Keres would have every reason to want her under their control. But she was beyond their reach, beyond his reach too for that matter.

  The only thing he could think about was Laura. Would he find her? If he did, would she want to come back? He knew in his heart, that he would accept that choice no matter what it was. Even if it meant that she wouldn't be returning to her body.

  David took a deep breath and lay across the bed's comforter. He tried to banish the sadness in his heart and only think of Laura with love. Thinking of her in that way made him laugh. She always made him laugh whether it was putting flowers all over their apartment or making snow angels in Central Park at midnight. He involuntarily laughed at the thought of it. Closing his eyes, he thought of their bed in their New York apartment. Laura had seen a feather bed on one of the shopping channels and sent 332

  away for it. He had thought the idea ridiculous, until he spent his first day on it. What a wonderful experience! The lilacs on the bed perfumed the room. Soon he was asleep.

  ***

  The world around Laura swirled with light. She was standing in the street of a great city, but unlike any city she'd ever seen. Each brick and stone emanated light, and when she touched them, energy flowed through her. Doorways arched in graceful fluid curves, and golden doors opened wide in welcome. Beings of light appeared and disappeared. Their voices were music that tickled through her, danced around her.

  Fountains of lights splashed high into the ethers, each drop a song, and then over-splashed its basin and dropped through the ethers beneath her feet. Spiraled towers soared, reminding her of soft serve ice cream cones, and she laughed. A shimmering being of light appeared beside her and joined her laughter.

  "How do you feel?"

  "Wonderful. What is this place?"

  "This is the first world of creation. Some refer to it as a highland among the heavens."

  "Heavens?"

  "Yes, there are many. You are standing on the threshold of the worlds of creation. Everything begins here and then goes on to the created worlds, heavens more similar to Earth. What would you like to do now?"

  "Everything is so amazing." Laura stood open-mouthed in awe. Time was irrelevant here. In this world, she felt love and freedom, but she felt something else too.

  "I don't want to seem ungrateful, but I am concerned."

  "What about?"

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  "David."

  "Oh, David will adjust over time."

  "That's just it. A human might, because they know when they die they'll see their loved one again. But a vampire has an eternity to mourn." Even in this completely happy and beautiful place where no one wanted for anything, Laura was sad. Her heart searched for an answer or at least a question that would fill the void inside her. Finally she asked, "What does God need me to do?" Love floated through cradling her, comforting her. But at the same time, she felt like a piece of paper torn in half.

  The being beside her shone even more brightly. "What do you need?"

  "I need to be with David."

  "Then God needs you to be with David."

  Instantly, the world around Laura and the being of light changed. The world grew more colorful and more like Earth. But the differences were still apparent. The mountains reached further, the oceans deeper. A mountain meadow of tiny blue flowers appeared around them. The being had changed too, as the world did. Laura looked up from the flowers to gaze on Juliette Cordelais.

  "Please, tell your father that I will always love him." She kissed Laura on the forehead. Everything between her and her mother was resolved. Only love existed between them now. The brilliant form of her mother smiled and disappeared.

  With a joyful heart, Laura walked down into the lush green valley. She didn't have to go far, before she heard a demon loudly complaining.

  At a place of stone and mist, she saw a large, sleek demon hopping about and cursing. Laura admired the beautiful long lines of its body much as an artist would. Its ruby red color glowed from a heat beneath the skin. The pointed tail slender but 334

  powerfully built. Wide bat-like wings extended magnificently, as it perched on its rock and stretched out. As she got closer, she recognized its very angry human face. It was Daphne.

  "What a damned, ungrateful vampire! He could have had me, but no, I'm not good enough." She spat, as she muttered to herself.

  "Daphne, what are you talking about?"

  The demon jumped, startled. She hadn't been aware of anyone watching. "Oh, Laura! What a surprise to see you! Why are you here? Shouldn't you be off with the seraphim or the cherubim or whatever bim you belong to?"

  Beyond Daphne, Laura could see the faint glowing pathway tha
t led to her body.

  "I'll be going back to my body now."

  "Well, I'm not giving it back." The demon stood in the way.

  "What?"

  "You deserted it, so I took it over. That's the way it goes, Angel Toes."

  Laura sighed. "Please, just get out of the way. I want to go back."

  "No." Daphne grinned.

  Laura flew over the demon, who flew up and slapped her away like a fly.

  "Ow!" Laura hovered. "Daphne, give me back my body."

  "No. Just because you're all shimmering and shiny, you think I have to do what you tell me. Well, forget it. I'm not scum under your feet. You can't take anything away from me anymore."

  Confused, Laura asked, "When did I ever do that to you?"

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  Daphne's huge, red bat wings were truly impressive, as she stretched them high over Laura as if to enclose her in their shadows. Laura felt threatened by the demon's face-to-face proximity and backed away.

  The demon scowled. "When I wanted Adam, when I would have done anything for him, he ripped my head off. Why? Because he wanted Laura Cordelais. Well, I want David now. And what does he do? He fucking leaves me for the second time. Why? He wants Laura Cordelais. He's not getting you. He'll just have to learn to love me." She swung her clawed fist, connected with Laura's jaw, and threw her into the air. "You can't have everything!"