Twisted

Chapter Eight: History

Sariah hammered on the thin wooden motel door in the early morning sunlight.  From within came a gravelly male voice, full of sleep.   "Give me a minute would you?"  Slade grumbled, pulling on a pair of pants but padding bare chested to the door.  

Rubbing a hand over his face he swung wide the door and his irritation vanished at the sight of the girl on his doorstep.   Smiling he said, "Coming over for a wake up call are you?"  his warm blue eyes dancing with a merry light.  

Sariah ignored the comment and pushed past him into the room.  Couldn't he at least have put on a shirt?  She thought to herself, intentionally  roaming the room to get her bearings and ignore the tanned, rippled six pack abs and broad shoulders of his naked torso.   

Slade knew she was uncomfortable and smiled wider.   He was so used to women throwing themselves at him that when one didn't he found it alluring.    But he also knew they were on a mission, one fraught with danger and hunted by death at every turn.   Sighing, he reached across to a chair, grabbed the tee shirt tossed over it and pulled it over his head.    "I figure this isn't a social call Sariah....so why don't you tell me what's going on?"

Walking to the coffee maker he plugged it in, scooped coffee into a filter and turned the machine on.      He turned, leaning against the counter, waiting for her to begin.    She looked like she'd had a hard night, he thought, noting the wrinkled clothes she'd worn the day before, the haphazard way her hair was tied up.    Normally this woman was one of the cooler people he'd been around, not much bothered her.   He was interested to see what had...

Relieved that he'd put on a shirt, Sariah stopped her restless prowling, deliberately met his brilliant eyes and said, " There's a complication I didn't foresee."   Pausing to take a breath she looked away from the tall man with some embarrassment and continued, "He can walk through my dreams.   I wasn't careful enough to shield myself, didn't think I would need to, but last night he made an impression."

Slade noted the sudden rush of pink to her alabaster face and laughed inwardly.  Some dream, he thought, then frowned.   The monster shouldn't be able to access her that easily, and that was a very big problem.   "Impression?" he asked, watching her face knowingly. 

"Let's just say he definitely made known what he would be happy with..." Sariah said, turning to peer out the window.   "The problem is that this began long ago.  I wasn't sure if it was the same vampire, but I feel like I need to tell you everything I do know, so we can better plan how to destroy him" 

Sariah began her tale.       When she was young, only fifteen, she had learned the truth about herself.     She hadn't believed in magic, hadn't believed in any of the fantasy type figures so prominent in books and movies.    But there was no denying she'd always been different, the odd ball in her classes, the one nobody knew how to approach.     "The day of my fifteenth birthday my parents held a small family party"  she said, turning troubled eyes on Slade.  

"This was a rare occurrence because all through my growing up they were really against having anyone over to the house.  Of course at the time I had no clue why, but that day everything changed."  Sariah paused, letting her mind wander back to that night.   

She remembered the smell first.   She'd been about to open a present wrapped in silver paper when she'd smelled the earth.   Strong and musky it had caused her to stop and look out into the night.    And she saw him.   Standing there, pale as the moonlight, dark hair gleaming and fangs glinting as he smiled.    

Her father had reacted immediately,  flinging himself between her and the figure outside the glass.   "Sariah, get to your room right now and lock yourself in!" he'd yelled, pulling from his coat pocket a wicked looking black blade.  

Unable to recall everything about that traumatic night she said, " I ran as fast as I could.  The tone of my Dad's voice....but I didn't run fast enough..."  She swallowed and continued, "The sound of glass breaking, of my father shouting and my mother screaming."   She stopped, raised grief filled eyes to Slade.  

"He materialized in front of me.  Holding my mother by her throat."  She said, sucking in a breath.  "His eyes...they were unlike any I'd ever seen.  Intense, burning in a way that hurt to have him look at you.....and he told me, then and there that my mother should have told me what I was....."     

She fell silent, pressing fingers to her eyes, closing them as the memories started flowing.   The look on her mother's face, pleading with him, not to spare her life, but to spare Sariah's.   

She recalled the horror as he leaned into her mother,  said to her, "Tell her what she is.  Tell her why she should make the choice to let you live, and to come with  me."  

She knew him as a vampire by the look of him, but her mind refused to cooperate, even as her mother began to speak.    Sariah looked at Slade and said, "She could barely speak she was crying so hard.   But she told me, told me what I was.   And then she screamed at me to deny him, no matter what the cost to anyone."

Slade stayed silent, knowing she needed him to listen and absorb all she was telling him.  Sariah felt it again...felt the confusion, the questions, the anger....even as the monster killed her mother right in front of her, snapping her neck with a sharp crack.     "He killed her in front of me. " She said, " and then he moved to touch me."  

Shaking on her long legs, Sariah remembered the look in those eyes, silky, commanding and yes, excited.   And saw the change when she screamed at him to leave, screamed at him she wold not now nor ever be part of his despicable world.   "I thought he'd kill me right then and there too" she said, continuing, "But he didn't.  He snarled at me and said that he would never forget me and that we would meet again.  And that he would imprint himself in my mind in a way I'd never be rid of him." 

Scrubbing viciously at the lone tear that escaped her iron control, Sariah said, "It was that day I dedicated my talents to becoming a hunter of the predator.   The day I took the gifts of the fae that my family passed down to me and started to learn to use them."  

Sariah sat on the end of the bed, finishing her story.  "  He disappeared and left me with my parents' bodies.    He didn't want to turn me, he wanted to use my powers for his own needs, and yes, to use me as well."  

She looked across the small room at Slade and said, "It's why I am so useful against vampires in particular.  I'm the last descendant  of a long and ancient lineage of wood fae whose earth magic is so powerful that the elements themselves bow to my control." 

Slade remained quiet.   He'd known she'd had special power, that she wasn't fully human.  Now he understood why the danger was so grave with this particular demon they faced.   Nothing would stop him in his quest to acquire Sariah, and that , Slade would not allow.     Finally finding his voice he said, "Thank you for telling me.   I'm sorry about your parents, but you are the best at what you do thanks to the heritage they passed to you.    And we'll use that to our advantage.  This vampire will not be allowed to have what he wants...of that I guarantee you." 

Sariah nodded, but raised disturbed eyes to his.   "There can be no guarantees when the most powerful of vampires wants to possess you.    But I will die before I will submit to him, that I can assure you..."

At that moment she felt the whisper of him in her thoughts, tauntingly, temptingly....."Mine..." came the one word in her mind.....