Melabeth Forgive Me, For I Am Sin! (9 page)

Someone approached me.
I turned my head to see an old man walking slowly toward me. He wore a round little hat and a long raincoat. He was carrying a long umbrella cane. It was too dark to make out all of his features, but he had a long beard and wore round glasses. He wasn’t looking at me. He was watching the ocean as he slowly walked. I went back to looking over the railing. With my second sight I knew that he passed behind me and kept walking. He stopped a few feet away and looked out over the ocean.

I ignored the old man and went back to enjoying my moment of peace and tranquility. The stars were bright with wisps of clouds and no moon in sight. I let that peace come over me and tried my hardest not to think about anything.

I realized as time slipped by that Michael may be coming to looking for me. I had not yet found a victim to feed on. It would probably be wise to check in with Michael and then resume hunting. I’ll check in, in few more minutes.

“Beautiful night, wouldn’t you say dear?” The old man was speaking to me.

I didn’t raise my head or look at him as I replied, “Yes, most magical.”

The old man spoke again. T
his time there was an edge to his voice, “It feels awfully cool out here. When I passed the thermometer it was hovering at forty degrees, not counting wind chill.”

I raised my head and
I used my second sight, but there was no one there except for the teenagers I passed earlier. They were sitting on a bench behind me, sitting quietly. I answered the old man and tried to play off his concerns. “I hadn’t really noticed, must have gotten overheated from dancing.”

The old man said thoughtfully, “Well one does get hot and sweaty from dancing.”

I quickly agreed, “Must have been it.”

I tur
ned and looked at the old man. He was about eight feet away, and looked familiar.

The old man started talking again, like he was trying to solve a mystery. “Umm, the thing is, you
are wearing a thin dress. If you did get all sweaty in it, then it would be wet and you would have become cold faster than if you had not sweat at all. You’ve been out here for twenty minutes and not one chill, not even steamy breath.”

I hadn’t noticed until he said that, but it was cold outside and steam rose out of his mouth every time he exhaled. Oh great, I’ve really screwed up, we’re supposed to be undercover and I’ve allowed some human to see me. If it weren’t for the teenagers I could drain him and throw him off the ship. Still
, I knew this guy… how did I know him and from where?

My
curiosity got the better of me. I ignored his inquiries about how I was staying warm. Instead I asked him, “Do I know you from somewhere?”

The old man cocked his head to one side. Then, rubbing his beard as he spoke, “Funny thin
g is, I always remember faces. It’s a little gift of mine.” He stopped rubbing his beard as his facial expression changed from wonder to surprise. “I do know you… well, well, look what we've got here.”

I didn’t like how he said that.  “Where do you know me from? I can’t place your face.”

He laughed a deep laugh, “Don’t worry, you’ll remember… give it some time.”

I had noticed the teenagers had gotten up and walked over to us. They quietly moved to the old man’s side. In fact, they had made no noise at all as they walked over. No cloud of steam came from their mouths.
I looked at the two teenagers. The boy looked like he was in his early twenties, older then I had thought at a glance. He had short brown hair with brown eyes. The girl looked younger, with Hispanic features and straight black hair. Her eyes were dark black coals. Both their eyes were oversized. I was truly a fool.

The old man’s eyes were what I remembered first. He had aged since last I had seen him. Green eyes, cruel eyes… those eyes, his name slipped from my mouth, “Alex.”

Alex clapped his hands together in delight, “She does remember me. So the legends are true. You do walk the earth again. I would love to know how someone brought you back from the other side.”

I was frozen in sh
ock. My expectations had not been my killer, the man who raped me and murdered me with his own hands. Now he stood before me with a vampire protecting him on both sides. I could feel my revenge, so close, so far away. I prayed a small prayer, for revenge. Of course I needed to be careful. Alex was the wizard we had been looking for. He had been going by Subam, but who knew what his real name was.

Without emotion
, Alex announced, “It looks like we have been discovered my friends. Peter, come with me.” Then he looked over at the girl. “I’ll leave her in your capable hands.”

The vampire girl just nodded as Alex turned his back on me and walked off. He was flanked by th
e boy vampire he called Peter. The nameless girl stood between me and Alex. She let her claws come out along with her teeth, her face no longer resembling a young girl. It was sharper, the eyes were wider, and her mouth was bigger. We must have looked the same as I let out a hiss.

She snarled back and gave me a wicked smile
. I returned the smile, then flashed forward and attacked.

I clawed at her and kicked at her, but my hands and feet found nothing but air. She moved between my attacks as if I were the slowest thing on earth. She flashed sideways,
forwards and back again. I couldn’t seem to make contact with her.

She retaliated, and got in some pretty good scratches and hits. I healed quickly, but
this fight was costing me time. I needed to warn Alice and Michael.

The thought
of Michael made me move faster. Time to take her out. I swung at her head, but she ducked. She spun against the ground and did a spin kick. Taking my feet right out from under me.

She was a little surprised when I didn’t fall, instead I went weightless. I flew up into the air did a back flip and landed back on the deck a few feet away from her.

Her surprise was short-lived as she flashed the distance, and we continued our dance. It felt as if we were at some kind of draw; she knew better than to let me get a hold on her, and she was too fast for me to hit.

Still, she didn’t know about my second sight, and I came up with a plan. She moved in and attacked again, but this time I let my guard down. She hit me, and I pretended it hurt more than it did.

She then kicked me, my face slide down across the deck of the ship. Faking injury, I started to get up slowly, holding one hand on my stomach where she had made contact. I had my back turned to her, but I could see her perfectly with my second sight.

She flashed in for the kill
and several things happened at the same time. She grabbed my neck with both her hands to rip my head off. My right hand that had been holding my stomach was really holding one end of the metal wire I had put around my waist.

As soon as she flashed, my hand had whipped out the wire like a lasso. When she grabbed my neck, she didn’t even
see the cable until it hit her neck. It wrapped one time around before I caught the other end of the cable with my left hand.

I then
pulled my arms apart. There was a sound of a dull thud behind me. Her head fell against the deck, shortly followed by her body.

I tossed the bloody cable off the ship.
Throwing her head overboard, waited a few minutes, and then tossed the body. No one would find her before her blood died; she would never be put back together. One down, two to go; I hurried back.

I was in a hurry to get back to the casino before Alex and his vampire spotted Michael. I knew I was moving a little too fast for humans as I weaved in out of the crowds and headed toward the entrance of the casino.

I calmed down as soon as I laid eyes upon him. Michael was still sitting in front of the same slot machine with a concerned look about him. As soon as his eyes reached mine, he relaxed, but not for long. I rushed to his side, and he knew immediately something was wrong.

In hushed tones, Michael asked, “What happened? Did you spot them?”

“Yes…” I started hesitantly. I knew that Alice wanted us to spot them first then we could lure them into a trap.

Michael’s face tightened, “And?”

I stuttered out, “And they spotted me… then I had to defend myself.”

Michael was now upset, “Just tell me what happened.”

I quickly told him what went down, but before I could tell him about the Wizard being Alex, he was pulling me across the ship. He tugged me along by the hand through the crowd. We descended down a staircase toward the lower levels.

I blurted out, “Does this mean that the honeymoon is over?”

Michael ignored my remark as he pulled me down the hallway faster. “Melabeth, we need to get to Alice, instead of telling jokes. This is serious, and surprise is no longer on our side. We need to get Alice and find these two fast, before they can get off this boat.”

That made me think of something, “Can’t Wizards just teleport?”

He looked at me funny, “If he could teleport, he wouldn’t have bothered to get on this boat in the first place. The fact is, he can teleport, but the book cannot. It is common practice with magical items to cast spells so they cannot be teleported.”

This kind of bothered me; I knew the mission was to get the book, but that wasn’t my mission anymore. My mission was to kill Alex… I better not tell Michael or Alice. They don’t need to know what’s important to me.

Michael was knocking on a cabin door. Alice opened the door wearing quite the get up. She had a dress that looked to be from the eighteen hundreds or older, but yet there were some more modern cuts. It was black with white trim. She had large knives attached front and back, and, to top it off, she was wearing a black witch’s hat.

I took one look and said, “I didn’t know it was Halloween.”

Alice snorted at me, “Ha, some things never go out of style. I have struck fear into the hearts of men for hundreds of years dressed like this.”

I laughed, then added, “And women, I know I am afraid, but you don’t need
an outfit to do it.”

Michael’s voice was impatient, “We don’t have time for this. Alice, Melabeth has already made contact with our prey. She was recognized; they left one of the vampires to cover their
retreat. Melabeth killed the unknown vampire, then found me. This means the Wizard knows we’re here for him and is most likely getting ready for us.”

I thought Alice might get upset as Michael, but, instead, she smiled. “Leave it to Melabeth to announce our arrival; well at least we outnumber them now.” Michael looked as if he was going to interrupt her, but she put a hand up and said, “Relax Michael. Melabeth, tell me the name of the vampire you killed.”

I shrugged my shoulders, “I don’t know.”

Alice giggled, “You’re such a killer; why take names? Tell me what you do know, and describe what they all looked like.”

I sneered at her remark about being a killer, but I didn’t comment on it. Instead, I told her everything that had happened. I could describe Alex in great detail, but didn’t tell her who he was to me. When it came to the other vampire, Peter, I couldn’t really recall what he looked like. In fact, the more I thought about it, the less I could remember. I had thought he was a teenager when I had passed him on deck, but, when he stood next to Alex, he seemed to look older and much taller. The memory wasn’t very clear.

After listening to me try to describe the vampire, Alice spoke very thoughtfully. “Well, I hope this isn’t the vampire I think it might be. No matter, we do know that he is powerful and most likely blurred Melabeth’s memory.”

I inquired, “How do you know he is powerful?”

Michael answered, “It takes a lot of skill to blur a memory, and your mind is hard to reach.”

Alice, with a giggle, added, “You could say that again.”

Michael and Alice both laughed at my expense. I interrupted their little joke, “What now then…if you two are done?”

Alice smiled, “We will stick together. Let’s go hunt these two down and boil them in their own pudding.”

With that, Alice shut the door to her room and started heading down the hall. I followed with Michael taking up the rear.

I asked Alice, “How do we find them? There must be hundreds of rooms, and where will we find that much pudding?”

Alice explained, “They know we are after them. They will have to assume that we know what room they are in. We don’t know what room they are in, but they can’t count on that. If I were them, I would have a backup plan just in case this very thing happened. It would have to be a place away from the passengers and crew where they could set up defenses. Also I am assuming that they brought their own pudding.”

Michael was so serious and grumbled just loud enough for us to hear him, “Enough with the pudding already.” Me and Alice ignored him.

I asked, “And where would that be?”

Alice turned her head and looked at me, then gave me a wink, “Ask Michael.”

Still following Alice, I redirected my question, “And where would that be, Michael?”

Michael sounded a little grumpy as he answered, “Well if either of you would have done a little investigation before we boarded, you might know.”