Vampire Soul Box Set

"I'm willing. . .to take a chance. . .at finding a way. . .to lift the curse," I replied.

  "You care for him so much and yet you would have him die?" he challenged me.

  The Devil looked past me and beckoned with one hand. I glanced over my shoulder and watched Roland float off the ground and over to us so he hovered beside the Devil and me. Roland looked hideously pale and the hand that held his chest shook.

  "If you doubt my word then look at him," the Devil dared me.

  The Devil wasn't lying. Roland looked like he had a foot and three-quarters in the grave. I pressed the box closer to me. One of the corners brushed against the necklace. A flash of light lit up the dark night. I looked down and saw something had changed. Was the box. . .?

  A smile lit up my face. I grasped the necklace in one hand and wrapped my other arm around the box.

  "There's more than one way to skin a cat, and open a cursed box," I commented.

  "What are you doing?" the Devil questioned me.

  "Just letting a little love into Roland's soul," I replied.

  The Devil's eyes widened and he reached out with one hand. "No! Don't-"

  I touched the necklace against the box. An explosion of light washed over me. I was wrapped in a warm blanket of soul that had just come out of the dryer of love. The lid of the box sprang open and something brighter than the sun flew out. It arched into the air and arched down into Roland. He snapped his head up and his eyes widened as he was engulfed in a blazing ball of light.

  "No!" the Devil screamed.

  The light was so intense that I turned my face away and squeezed my eyes shut. The air quivered with heat and the ground trembled with the force of the impact of light and Roland body. The earth-shaking lasted for a few moments before the shaking and light faded. I opened my eyes and risked a glance at Roland.

  He lay face-first on the ground. The glow around his body faded into him.

  "Roland!" I yelled.

  I dropped the dark, empty box and scrambled to my feet. My feet pounded dirt as I rushed over to him and slid onto my knees by his side. I grabbed his shoulders and rolled him onto his back. His face was as pale as ever, but when I put my hand on his chest I drew back. My fingers felt a distinct thump from inside his chest.

  "You bitch," a voice growled.

  I whipped my head up and glimpsed the Devil rise to his feet. His black suit was covered in dust and singed at the edges, and his cane was broken in two. He glared at me with a pair of red eyes that glowed in the dark like a night light made to give children a fear of going to the bathroom at night.

  I covered Roland's body with mine and glared at him. "You want some more then come and get it."

  A sneer slipped onto his lips and he limped towards us. "You have nothing left to protect you, human, and you have touched far more than was good for you."

  "I beg to differ," another voice spoke up. Roland climbed up onto his arms and lifted his head. His brilliant blue eyes glared at the Devil. "So long as I live I will not leave her side."

  CHAPTER 9

  I knocked him upside the head.

  "Don't scare me like that!" I scolded him.

  He winced and rubbed his head. "It wasn't my intention to fall unconscious."

  "Then you could have woken up sooner!" I argued.

  Roland sat up, turned to me, and grasped my hands in his own. He smiled and his bright eyes twinkled. "Misty, I'm whole."

  I blinked at him. "You're holy?"

  He shook his head. "I'm whole."

  My eyes widened. "No more box?"

  "No more box."

  I turned my eyes up to heaven. "Thank God."

  "He has nothing to do with this trouble," the Devil spoke up. He held his cane out in front of him and slim black tendrils slithered out of the object and repaired the damage. The same happened to his clothes. His eyes blazed with fury as he struck his fixed cane against the ground. "Whole or not, that soul is still mine by your existence as a vampire."

  I stood up and crossed my arms over my chest. "Oh yeah? Says who?"

  The Devil opened his mouth, but a bolt of lightning struck the ground between us. We all glanced up. The stars twinkled back at us. I tilted my head to one side.

  "God?"

  Another bolt of lightning struck the ground, but this time closer to the Devil. The man in black jumped back and snarled. He looked up at the sky and shook his cane.

  "His soul is mine! It has been mine for centuries!" he protested.

  Another bolt cracked overhead and connected with the Devil's cane. The bolt of electricity threw the Devil back. He rolled and skidded across the ground for five yards before he came to a stop face-down in the dust. The Devil sat up and coughed out the dirt. He glared at Roland and me.

  "Very well," he growled. He stood and brushed himself off. "I will revoke my claim, but your troubles aren't finished. A vampire with a soul is a rare thing, and others will learn of it. Then there will be no place on earth or above and below where you will find peace."

  The Devil cracked his cane against the ground. The earth beneath him split and a ball of fire flew out of the crack. The flames engulfed the Devil and pulled him and itself back into the depths of the earth. The crack sealed after them.

  Then there was silence. I looked around and turned to Roland.

  "You think we're alone?" I whispered.

  He chuckled and stood. "I find it comforting that God is always with us."

  I snorted and smiled. "That's just because you have your soul back." My eyes caught on something on the ground nearby. I bent down and picked up the necklace. The violet emblem was cracked. I looked up at Roland. "You think it still works?" I asked him.

  He closed his eyes and shook his head. "No. The strength of your love and the use of it against the Devil's curse has ensured it can never be used again."

  I shrugged and pocketed it. "I guess I'll keep it as a memento."

  Roland stepped up to me and grasped my hands in his. "I still owe you a meal."

  "I'll have to give you a rain-check. My aunt wants us over for Thanksgiving," I told him.

  "Both of us?" he wondered.

  "Why not? Can't that soul body of yours handle a good turkey?" I asked him.

  He smiled. "I'm willing to try."

  "So does that mean we can start working on that relationship now?" I teased.

  He leaned down and pressed our lips together in a passionate kiss. His body was still cool, but the warmth he evoked in me more than made up for his lack of body temperature.

  "What's going on out here?" a voice yelled.

  We broke apart and glanced at the house. A bony man of forty stood in the doorway clad only in his boxer shorts. He had a table leg in his hands and a wild look in his eyes. His nose was flat. He spotted us and squinted his eyes.

  "What the hell are ya two doing out there? Take yer filth somewhere else!" he snapped.

  I glanced at Roland and grinned. "You know, there is that extra box of fish in the back seat," I reminded him.

  He smiled. "An excellent idea."

  Flat-Nosed Finnegan's eyes widened a few moments later when we came up to his porch with a familiar box in Roland's hands. He stumbled back and shook his head.

  "Don't ya dare do nothing with them! Git them things away from here!" he ordered us.

  "You heard the man. Don't do nothing with them," I told Roland.

  Roland tossed the fish box through a second-floor window. Flat-Nosed Finnegan yelped and flew back inside. In a few moments we saw his silhouette as he batted the fish out of the air. I didn't feel too sorry for Flat-Nosed Finnegan. He had the counter-curse to deal with his trouble, and Ralph had a bit of revenge.

  I wound my arms through one of Roland's and turned us towards the car. "Now about that soul. What do you say to testing it out with a nice sunrise?"

  He smiled and grasped my hand. "Only if you are by my side."

  I leaned my cheek against his arm and smiled. "Forever."

  That wasn't a promise I
could keep just then, but things would change soon enough.

  JUST DESSERTS

  CHAPTER 1

  "Watch it with that thing!" Ralph yelped.

  "I'm being careful!" I argued.

  "Yer fingers! Yer gonna lose yer fingers!" he screamed.

  I put my hands palms-down on the top of the cardboard box and glared at him across the void of dead wood. "You want to open these boxes?"

  He scowled back at me. "Ya know what happened the last time Ah opened a delivery!"

  Ralph and I stood in the middle of the kitchen with a new shipment of plates and cups for the diner. The regulars had had a fight the other night. Somebody had made the comment that their pistons were bigger than somebody else's and chaos had ensued. The ancient china of the diner, much of it from the Tang dynasty, had exploded against walls, windows, stools, foreheads, pocketbooks, tiles, the coffee maker, and even in the cracks between the tables and the walls. There were no survivors. Of the china, that is. The truckers all made it through with only a minor amount of scratches, cuts, stitches, and loss of blood.

  "I don't think these dishes are going to be haunted," I told him.

  "Ah'm not taking any chances, now stop yer yapping and start using that box cutter right!" he ordered me.

  I held a box cutter in my right hand. This was the first time Ralph had allowed any of his employees to handle such a weapon. He usually just gave us the knives and forks with which to defend ourselves against unwanted advances.

  "I know how to handle one of these," I assured him as I returned to cutting the packing tape off the top of the boxes.

  "Don't cut towards yerself! Cut away!" he snapped.

  "Then I'd be cutting towards you," I pointed out.

  The color drained from his face and he hurriedly stepped back. I appreciated the room. His breath smelled like a tuna-head sandwich after it sat on the counter for a biblical amount of time.

  "Well, don't cut so fast! This stuff ain't going nowhere!" he ordered me.

  I pocketed the box cutter, opened the first box, and peeked in. Ralph stretched his neck and looked inside. The china was of the finest quality that a Third-World, pre-industrial country could offer. The white color was off and the plates weren't completely round. Ralph stepped up and took the top one in hand.

  "Not too bad," he commented.

  "I don't know if they're thick enough," I added. The interim between the rowdy night and the arrival of the plates had seen Ralph's food eat away dozens of plastic and paper plates.

  "They'll work," he growled. He set one on the counter. The plate rocked back and forth showing its bottom was as flat as a soup bowl. "Yer just gonna have to be careful with 'em, that's all."

  "Yeah, we wouldn't want the customers to think this place wasn't on a fault zone," I quipped.

  "Ain't it time for ya to leave?" he snarled.

  "Past time," I told him as I closed the flaps of the box.

  "Ah'm not paying ya-"

  "I know, I know, no overtime, holiday, or death-of-a-family-member's-dog pay," I finished for him.

  "Darn right!" he agreed.

  I snatched my jacket from its hook and slipped it on, but I paused at the door and turned to him. "I forgot to ask. Did that Finnegan guy ever stop bothering you?" I wondered.

  "Yep. Last message Ah got from him was some phone call about fish and stuff," Ralph told me. He shook his head and flipped off the front lights. "Some people are just nuts."

  "Aren't we all?" I murmured as I opened the door.

  I stepped outside and shivered. Gone was the autumn, and in its place was the cool chill of winter. A light snow fell as I stood at the top of the dangerous stairs. The steps beneath me were covered in crunched and frozen snow. One false step and you'd be pushing up daises a few months before spring.

  "Can't we buy a bag of salt for the stairs?" I yelled over my shoulder at Ralph.

  "No, and don't let me catch ya using the table salt, neither!" he shouted back.

  I rolled my eyes and shut the door behind me. I grabbed the railing and stepped carefully down the steps. My car sat a few yards off, and a few miles off was a warm apartment and a certain frisky vampire who waited for me with a hot bowl of soup and hopefully no clothes. On the vampire, not the bowl.

  My foot reached the last dangerous step when a sudden gust of wind blew over me. I was pulled forward. My hand lost its grip on the railing and I tumbled to the cold, ice-hardened ground. I fell on my side and skidded a few feet before I stopped a yard short of my car door.

  I sat up and rubbed my bruised side. "Damn it. . ." I muttered.

  "Too late," a voice quipped.

  I whipped my head up and found myself face to ankles with Rose the Brat Vampire. She grinned down at me with her sharp, pearly-white fangs. Behind her loomed a taller shadow of a man in a black coat. I put on a brave face and put myself in full reverse as I tried to scurry away from them on my hands and knees.

  "Get her," Rose ordered her companion.

  The man swept past Rose and into the light from the diner kitchen. My eyes widened when I beheld Ginsleh the vampire hunter. He stooped and caught me by the collar. I was lifted off the ground, but I kicked and swung my arms. He pulled my back against his chest and pinned my arms to my side with his own limbs.

  "What the hell are you doing helping a vampire?" I shouted at him. "She's you're enemy! Let me go and go after her!"

  He sneered at me. "I don't listen to humans," he growled at me.

  "Don't try to trick my servant into believing he's someone he's not," Rose scolded me as she came up to us. Her eyes glowed bright red and I felt myself getting sleepy. "Now we shall have our fun with you and Roland."

  My heavy eyelids closed and I lost consciousness.

  The next thing I remembered was waking up with a bad hangover and even worse memories. I lay on my side, and my arms and legs were pinned against me. I opened my eyes and saw I was in the center of some sort of large, shadowed room. The only source of light came from the dozens of candles that melted around the edges of the space. They let me see that the walls were made of stone and were covered in cobwebs, dust, spiders, and slots for coffins.

  I did a double-take. There were definitely coffins in those wide, long alcoves. My last memories of Rose and Ginsleh's union told me I'd better find a way to escape. There was a tall, open stone doorway in front of me, and I could see a dark night sky and the shadow of trees and short slabs of stones. I twisted and turned, but the bonds that held me were tight.

  "You won't find an easy escape from those ropes," Rose's voice spoke up. She stepped from the shadows at my feet and smiled at me. "My servant is quite adapt at creating bonds even a vampire would have difficulty breaking." Something glistened in her hand. I squinted my eyes and beheld my cellphone. She noticed where my gaze was and tossed the phone to me. It clattered to the ground and slid until it hit my gut. "I hope you will forgive me, but during your temporary sleep I used your device to call a friend. He promised to be here in a few minutes."

  My eyes widened. "Mhmh!" I yelled. You'll have to forgive my strange way of speaking. I was gagged.

  She laughed. "Exactly. And I have such a surprise awaiting him." She swept her hand over the ground. I looked at the floor and noticed there were chalk lines around me. "I hope he appreciates the welcome I have for him. It took quite a few tries to get the precise measurements of the room to align with the symbols."

  A soft breeze blew through the open door and extinguished some of the candles. Rose frowned and pulled a lighter from her pocket.

  "Blasted night air. . ." she muttered as she went to relight the group of candles.

  I took advantage of her distraction to struggle in my ropes, but Rose was right. That guy could tie a mean knot. My hands could move just enough to wiggle, and I could flop from one side to the other. I did a single barrel roll and something fell from my pocket. My eyes widened when I beheld the box cutter. Ralph had forgotten to snatch it from me before I left.

 
I rolled back to my starting position and my fingers grasped the box cutter. Rose paused in her lighting and turned to me with a frown. I tried to give her an innocent smile, but it came more as a grimace. Her eyes narrrowed, but she returned to managing her war against electricity.

  I grasped the box cutter in one hand and worked away at the ropes. Fortunately Ginsleh hadn't heard about the miracles of chains or I'd have been in worse trouble. With a little distraction from another gust of wind I managed to cut through more than half the rope before Rose finished her candle lighting business. The loss of lighter fuel had forced her to use the candles, and she held one in her hand when I heard a noise at the doorway. Rose and I looked and saw Ginsleh in the doorway. He bowed his head to her.

  "My Mistress, he comes," Ginsleh informed her.

  "Good." She dropped her candle into place and moved to the rear of the room. A tall table of stone stood at the back and on it lay a few dozen candles and a large book that would have made Tolstoy envious. She picked up the book and looked to her new servant. "Move to the side and allow our friend entrance."

  Ginsleh stepped over to her and against the coffin wall. I sawed faster through my bindings, but it wasn't easy keeping the pair from noticing. In a moment there came another sound in the doorway, and I looked up dreading what I would see.

  Roland, my roommate and boyfriend, stood in the doorway.

  "Mmm!" I yelled at him.

  The message must have been lost in translation because Roland stepped into the room.

  "Not a step closer," Rose warned him.

  He jerked to a stop and glared at her. "What was your purpose in stealing Misty away?" he questioned her.

  A wide smile slipped onto her lips as she flipped open the book to one of the last pages. "I will show you." She raised one of her hands above her head and her dark red eyes lit up with glee. "May the dark lord's power rise without and trap this dark one's soul within!" she shouted.

  A wind tore from the book and the markings on the chalky ground lit up with an eerie white glow. The wind tore the gag from my mouth, but not the ropes from around my arms. Dark light burst from the symbols beneath Roland's feet and morphed into bars. They reached from the floor to the ceiling, and emitted a dark, pulsing glow of light from their thick bodies. Now we were both trapped.

  And I really needed to go to the bathroom.