He wore a creamy white turtleneck over tight-fitting black slacks. He had a silver stud in one ear.
He must be the gorgeous new teacher. That girl was definitely right!
“Sorry. It was my fault,” he said. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.” He had a slight Italian accent.
“No problem,” Destiny managed, a little overcome by his dark-eyed stare, his amazing good looks.
“My name is Lorenzo Angelini,” he said. He took her hand and shook it. “But everyone calls me Renz. I’m new here. I truly hope we’ll get to know one another.”
Part Four
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Lorenzo and Laura
As Renz watched the students hurrying to their classrooms, a familiar longing swept over him. Memories of his youth came flooding back. He pressed his back against the tiled wall, remembering….
If only he could make time go backward. Back to those bright, cloudless days two centuries ago when Laura Hanover walked her father’s fields in the tiny farming village of Dark Springs.
Lorenzo Angelini had lived his life in a fog of hunger and desire. For centuries, he knew only hunger—the hunger to remember, the hunger to feed, and the hunger to find the beautiful, lost Laura again.
These desires shaped his life. He had been a vampire for so long, and had consumed so much blood—it had kept him from aging. He appeared young and robust. He could walk in bright daylight without being burned up by the sun.
But daylight was no different than night to him. He lived only to survive the blackness that surrounded him day or night. He lived only to find Laura.
Laura with her creamy skin, her high, proud cheekbones, her sparkling emerald eyes, as green as the high pasture grass they walked through together.
Her voice…her wonderful laugh…
Renz could no longer hear them. Time had taken them away from him. And now he struggled to hold on to her smile, to remember the sweet gardenia aroma of her perfume. It took all his power to picture her walk, those long strides beneath the skirts that swept over the ground.
That night in the alley in New York, the vampire changed his life forever. Now he lived in eternal winter. Eternal winter…until he saw Laura.
A gray fall day. He had been running, fleeing one angry town after another, a stolen, beaver-fur overcoat draped over his tattered black suit.
“What town is this?” he asked the owner of the ramshackle, two-story boardinghouse. Dark Springs, he was told. Lorenzo took a room for a half dollar a week. At the end of the week, he didn’t pay it. He bit the old man’s throat instead and drank him dry. The blood was sour, too old, spoiled like a wine gone bad.
That day, he saw Laura. A town market, villagers crowding the narrow Main Street and the open plaza. She was helping her father, carrying a basket of potatoes to a market stand.
Their eyes met.
He stared. She didn’t lower her eyes. He felt something—an attraction. Did she feel it too? He couldn’t tell by her slow, half smile.
He gathered his courage and walked over to the stand. He knew already that he was in love with her. He knew that he had to win her and keep her with him for all time.
He had to make her immortal too.
She laughed as he teased her about the potatoes. He drew a face on one and said it resembled her father. She grabbed it away from him and protested, “How can I sell it now? Go away. You will make us poor.”
But he could tell by the blush on her cheek and the flash of her green eyes that she didn’t want him to go away.
Lorenzo knew his charms. So many young women had fallen for him, for his Italian good looks, his wavy dark hair, the mystery in his black eyes. So many young women had fallen…and died.
But not Laura, he decided. Laura will live with me through the centuries.
Soon, he was taking long walks with her through the pleasant little village, laughing with her…kissing her, gently at first, then showing his passion. What a thrill when she showed the same passion for him!
Seeing his tattered suit and, perhaps, the wild look in his eyes, Laura’s father didn’t approve of Renz. The couple had to meet secretly in town or at the bubbling springs at the dark rock hills.
One warm summer night by the springs, the scent of marigolds and pine floating in the air, a full moon high in the cloudless sky, Lorenzo wrapped Laura in a tender hug, brought his face close, and whispered, “I want you to be with me always.”
To his surprise, she pulled away. “Father will never allow it,” she said, tugging tensely at the long sleeves of her blouse. “He is set against you, Renz. For reasons I cannot fathom. He will not allow us to marry, and as much as it tears my heart in two, I cannot go against my father. I have no choice but to follow his wishes.”
Lorenzo had expected as much. Farmer Hanover was a big, strong-spirited man, quick to anger. Once, in fury, he had heaved a pitchfork at a traveling salesman and nearly killed the man. And Lorenzo had seen him lift a three-hundred-pound hog off the ground and toss it back into its pen.
The man was a lion with a lovely, gentle doe for a daughter.
Lorenzo gazed up at the yellow full moon as Laura fell back into his arms. Tears rolled down her cheeks and stained the shoulder of his shirt.
“I would wish it any other way,” she sobbed, “but we must continue to meet in secret. If Father finds out, there is no telling what he would do. He could kill you, Lorenzo. If his anger got the best of him, he really could.”
“I know a way we can be together for always,” he whispered. “It will cause a little pain, but only for a short while. And then we will live side by side for eternity.”
She gazed at him, her cheeks red and tearstained, her lovely, green eyes wide, brimming with more tears. “Lorenzo, my darling, what are you saying? I have explained to you that Father will not allow—”
“Your father cannot stop us, Laura,” he said. And then he could wait no longer, for the full moon had reached its peak. His curled fangs lowered from his gums. “Ignore the pain, my loved one. After this night, we shall know only pleasure.”
He sank his fangs deep into her throat.
She uttered a startled gasp, but made no cry, no scream of protest. She did not fight him or try to squirm free.
Drinking her warm, sweet blood, he knew she was his.
That moment was the happiest of his life.
As he finished, she sank her teeth into his chest and drank his blood.
The bloods mix under a full moon at its peak, he thought. And now Laura is mine.
Blood dripping from their lips, they kissed.
Renz heard the angry, shouting voices, but he didn’t want to end the embrace. Hands grabbed him roughly and pulled him away.
Renz turned to see Laura’s red-faced father, chest heaving under his black coat, hands clamped into tight fists. His entire body quivered with rage.
Two somber, bearded men in long waistcoats stood at Farmer Hanover’s side. Renz lowered his gaze to the muskets with their long bayonets in their hands.
“Kill him,” came Hanover’s command.
The men obediently raised their bayonets.
Laura jumped in front of Renz and opened her mouth in a wail of protest. Her father shoved her aside, sent her sprawling to the grass.
Then the two men grabbed Lorenzo by the arms. They held him in place as Hanover raised his giant fist and pounded it into Lorenzo’s face.
I can feel pain, Lorenzo realized with surprise.
The fist came down again, this time on Lorenzo’s left ear.
He heard Laura scream again.
Another powerful swing and the fist caught him between the eyes. Pain roared through his head.
Groaning, Lorenzo climbed unsteadily to his feet. He jerked free of his two captors, ducked another swipe from her father’s tight fist—and took off running into the woods.
Lowering his head into the wind, he dove through the trees. He could hear the thuds of the boots of the men pursuing him. B
ut they could not shift shapes as he could. As he reached the trees, his body shrank into a new form, and he ran as a field mouse, low in the grass.
But his thoughts were not of escape. His thoughts were of Laura.
Her father came too late. He cannot separate us now. He cannot keep us apart. For I have drunk her blood and she has drunk mine, under the light of the full moon.
Lorenzo scampered into a deep hole in the ground. He could hear the men searching for him through the trees, cursing under their breath. He waited for their footsteps to fade.
Laura, I will come to you later tonight. I will come to you after your churlish father has fallen asleep. And I will take you away, take you far from here where you will no longer have to fear him.
He waited until the moon dropped behind the trees. Then, still a field mouse, he made his way through the tall grass of the north pasture, to the back of the low, pine farmhouse.
The field mouse stopped on the sandy ground behind Laura’s bedroom window. Its body raised up, shifted, cracking noisily, the sound of stretching bones, as Lorenzo resumed his human form.
He leaned against the rough wood wall and edged up to the sill of the window. Curtains fluttered in the gentle, warm breeze. The window stood open wide. As if inviting him in.
Yes. Laura would be waiting for him. Of course, she would expect him to come rescue her. To come carry her away from this dreary farm forever. To lead her to a life that would transcend the centuries.
He gripped the windowsill and pulled himself up. His boots scraped the pine wall as he let himself inside. The silky curtains tangled around him as he lowered himself to the bedroom floor.
“Laura?” His whisper came out louder than he’d planned, but he heard no reply.
Can she be sleeping so soundly after the terrible scene at the springs?
Lorenzo untangled himself from the curtains and took a step toward her bed. “Laura? I have come for you.”
Still no reply.
Her bed came into view against the bare wall. Lingering moonlight cast blue shadows over the folds of the bed quilt.
“Laura?”
He could see her head, tilted slightly on the pillow, her fine, blond hair falling over her face.
Yes. Laura. Beautiful Laura. Waiting for him with her window open.
“Laura? It’s me.”
He reached out a hand and gently touched the shoulder of her nightdress.
And then he raised his eyes to the bed quilt and saw it…
…saw it…
His eyes bulged and his hand fell off her shoulder.
Howling in rage, in shock, in pain, Lorenzo staggered back, fell back against the curtains. Let them wrap themselves around him again, muffling his screams, his wails of horror and sadness.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Laura, Again
Through the gauzy curtains, he could see it silhouetted in the faint, dying moonlight.
The stake.
A wooden stake, driven through Laura’s chest. A circle of dark blood, dried now, around the stake, running onto the quilt.
Laura. Beautiful Laura, sleeping so peacefully, arms under the quilt, hair sliding over her lovely, pale face.
Laura, murdered by her own father, murdered to keep her from Lorenzo, from the eternal life he had planned for them together.
Lorenzo pulled the curtains around him as if forming a cocoon—a cocoon to hide him from the sight of his beautiful Laura, lying so peacefully in her bed, the wooden stake protruding up from her still body, tilting toward the wall.
Another sob escaped his throat. He wrapped the curtains tighter around him and shut his eyes. But that didn’t stop the tears from falling.
And then his grief turned to fury. He ripped the curtains away, planted a final kiss on Laura’s cold cheek. Then he made his way to her father’s room.
The man was awake, sitting in a wooden rocking chair beside a dying fire. His features were twisted in anger. Large drops of sweat glistened on his forehead.
His big, powerful hands gripped something in his lap. Only his eyes moved when Lorenzo entered the room.
He’s waiting for me, Lorenzo thought.
In the flickering red light from the remaining embers, he saw the object in Hanover’s hands—a pointed fence post.
He plans to kill me too. But no. Laura will be avenged.
Lorenzo dove for Hanover’s throat and sliced into it with his fangs. Hanover opened his mouth to protest, but only a gurgling sound escaped.
The wooden stake fell from his hands and clattered onto the floor.
Lorenzo drank his fill, drained the man, then ripped open his throat with his hands. He wrenched Hanover’s head off, and flung it into the fire.
His heart still pounding with fury, he took one last look at the goggle-eyed head lying upside down in the orange embers. Then he left, lowering himself from the window, into the darkness.
Darkness for the decades to come. How many years passed? Nearly two hundred? He couldn’t remember.
He couldn’t bear to venture very far from Dark Springs. He kept to himself, prowling at night for creatures on which to feed. The decades passed without hope, without pleasure of any kind, without light.
Until he saw Laura again.
Laura?
No! It couldn’t be!
But she had Laura’s face, her high cheekbones, her smile, her bright green eyes. Lorenzo stared at her, frozen in disbelief. Stared at her across the high school parking lot.
She leaned against a black SUV, her eyes on the back entrance, tapping the car roof impatiently with one hand. Her fine, blond hair fell loosely to her collar. Her face…
Her face…
Laura.
She checked her watch. He saw the wedding ring on her finger. She brushed back her hair. She bit her lip fretfully.
Lorenzo’s excitement, his disbelief, held him back. But he forced himself to approach her. “Have we met? I believe I know you.” He flashed her his most charming smile.
Still biting her lip, she narrowed her eyes at him. “No. I don’t think so.”
Lorenzo scratched his head. “I’m so sorry. My mistake. I knew a woman named…Hanover. She resembled you so much, I—”
“Hanover?” the woman’s eyes grew wide. “Really? There were some Hanovers in my family. But that was way back, generations ago.”
He grinned. “I see. I must be confused. I’m Lorenzo Angelini,” he told her. “Are you waiting for someone?”
She turned back to the school. “Yes, my daughters. I told them I’d pick them up now. I should go in and get them.” She saw his outstretched hand. “Oh. Sorry. I’m Deborah Weller. Nice to meet you.”
The touch of her hand thrilled him. He held on to it until she pulled it away.
The back door of the high school opened. Two blond-haired girls came running out.
“Destiny! Livvy! Over here,” Deborah called.
She motioned to her daughters to hurry, and pulled open the car door. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Angelini.”
“Nice to meet you too.”
Very nice indeed.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The Vampire’s Kiss
“Who has the cheese fries?”
Ari raised his hand and the waitress dropped the plate in front of him next to his double cheeseburger.
“You on a diet, Ari?” Ana-Li reached across the table and grabbed a cheese fry off the plate. “Ow. They’re hot.”
Ari grinned at her. “Take another one and I’ll smack you.”
Ana-Li grabbed another one.
Ari grabbed her wrist. “Drop. Drop.”
Destiny saw the manager watching them. “Give it a rest, guys. How embarrassing would it be to get kicked out of Donohue’s?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Ari said. He bent Ana-Li’s wrist back until she dropped the fry—into his Coke. Ana-Li burst out laughing.
Livvy appeared beside the booth. She gave Ari a shove. “Move it over.” She squeez
ed in next to him. “You already ordered?” She gazed at Destiny’s plate. “Two hamburgers?”
Destiny nodded. “I’m starving.”
“You never used to eat burgers rare like that,” Ana-Li said. “Yuck. It looks like blood dripping from them.”
Livvy waved the waitress over. “I’ll have a hamburger too. Very, very rare, and a diet Coke.” She turned to Ana-Li. “What’s up?”
“Ari won’t share his fries.”
Ari slammed his hands on the table. “Here. Take them all.” He shoved the plate toward Ana-Li.
“Thanks.” Ana-Li began eating them one by one.
Livvy leaned across the table and whispered. “Hear what the girls in the next booth are talking about? That new guidance counselor. What’s-his-name? Renz.”
Ari grinned. “Yeah. He’s always telling everyone to call him Renz. What kinda name is that? Sounds like something from a sci-fi movie. Renz the Destroyer!”
“He is definitely cute,” Ana-Li said.
Destiny put down her fork. “Cute? You’re kidding, right? He’s not cute. He’s totally gorgeous.”
Ana-Li giggled. “Dee likes the dark, mysterious types.”
“Hey, I have an appointment with him after school,” Destiny said. Across the table, Livvy had a scowl on her face. “Liv, what’s your problem?”
Livvy shook her head and sighed. “Nothing. No big thing. Really. Well…”
“What is it?” Destiny asked.
Livvy played with one long, dangling earring. “Just thinking about Bree. You know. How she’s missing senior year and everything.”
“I miss her too,” Ana-Li said in a whisper.
Ari swallowed a big chunk of cheeseburger. “On TV this morning, they said the police don’t have a clue about the Vampire Killer. And the hunters don’t have a clue either.”
Destiny gaped at him. “The hunters? What about the hunters? They were on TV?”
Ari’s cheeks burned red. “No. Some guys were talking. You know. About vampires in town and the vampire hunters. I really don’t know much about it. You’ve heard the rumors too—right?”