The October Editor's Pick Story is by Jessica Barone
Please feel free to email Jessica at barone.jess@yahoo.com
RED KING
by Jessica Barone
It was quiet, dark, serene. The night had enclosed me like the leather of a glove. So soft, so warm. I could smell the ocean all around me, could feel the waves lapping at my feet.
I opened my eyes. The mist had rolled in out of nowhere. I listened as the soft gong of a distant bell echoed harmlessly from the lighthouse. The darkness was pierced by its yellow light, warning cumbersome ships of the rocks. In a flash, the light passed over my head and gone.
The ocean wind blew my hair back from my body and ran gently through my clothes. I raised my hands and face to the dark, starlit sky, arching my back, letting the sounds of the ocean fill my senses like it had never done before. I was in love with the Provincetown night. I felt free and without a care. I wasn’t even hungry like he had said I would be.
I began to walk forward into the water, but a hand, strong and powerful, clamped down onto my shoulder. He whipped me around to him, and in the matter of seconds that it occurred, I took in his whole attire. Just the same as always; crimson hair, curling wildly around his face and neck, green eyes like a cat just a bit too far apart on his face. His lips were as fiery red as his hair, his complexion so very pale, like a bleached bone. He had said it was all due to his age, so very old that he was. He wore an old green sweater and faded blue jeans, knees ripped, work boots soaked with wet sand.
I wanted to ask why he had done what he did, why he had chased me around for so long. He hadn’t even told me his name, not once throughout these long years. He was pouting now, mouth frowning, eyes narrowed. Now I couldn’t ask what I so longed to, for his presence near to me had always made me feel small and unnecessary, just this thing whose existence didn’t even matter.
He raised his hand, touched my cheek. It was cold against my skin. “What is it? Why did you leave the house?”
I tried to find the voice to answer him, but as usual, I looked away shivering. His pure power intimidated me, frightened me.
He stood silently behind me for a moment, not touching me, but then awkwardly, his hands raised up to hold me. Now, this was something he had never done before, never even had attempted to do. He didn’t really know what to do with me, I soon realized, as he just stood there with his hands resting lightly on my hips. I stared out into the darkened sea, watching the waves crash against the shore. As usual, a wondered at the very age of him, at the thousands of years he had told me of. The Millennia that had passed by as he watched.
He pulled me against him slowly, hesitantly, turning me gently. “Katia,” he whispered my name. I looked up at him, lost in his eyes, as his hands grasped me by the back of the neck, head lowering, gently kissing me now. This time, there were no vampire’s fangs in his kiss and quickness, but the same spark, the same passion lingering warm and soft against my lips. His nervousness gave me this human gesture, this one and only long-awaited kiss. I held him tight against me.
“Who are you?” I asked, resting my head against his chest. When he didn’t answer, I pulled away slightly, gazing up at his wild hair, his gleaming eyes. I reached out and touched his cheek, watching as he smiled now, his face so smooth and so very pale. I touched his lips, the smile continued. I ran my hands down over his arms. He was so very old. I was so young. Why had he chosen me? “What can I call you?”
He seemed to contemplate it for a moment. “My people called me Ruadrí…Red King. But you can call me Rory Danann.”
“Rory Danann?” I questioned.
A slight nod. His hand reached out and found mine. “Don’t be afraid.”
My heart was thudding painfully in my chest, but I denied it. “I’m not.”
Another grin. Cool long fingers twining into my hair, drawing me closer. “If I’m not to be afraid of you, Katia, you mustn’t be so of me.”
I had barely the time to nod as his lips descended upon me again, kissing my mouth, my neck, my face. He held me tightly, afraid to let go, sighing my name on the breeze. “Katia.”
Darkness, blessed darkness. The warmth of flannel blankets around my body, Danann’s arms around me. Where was I? How long had I been out? My mind drifted backwards, to the dark compartment of the lighthouse, to the sun rising around us and the fear of annihilation. To Danann’s arms around me, holding me, calming me. When the sun had risen outside of our sanctuary, we were safe together.
Hunger. Blood lust. I felt it now, strong and pulling me under. I clutched at Danann, pressed my face against his chest. I could catch the scent of immortal blood running beneath his skin. The hunger subsided a little. I looked up into his eyes and he was smiling at me, watching me curiously.
“Hi.” I whispered.
“Hello, my dear little Katia.” He stroked my hair with a cool hand.
Chills spread over me, and I ducked under the blanket against him, as his hands ran gently over my hair. Focus, and the world is at your command. Who had said that to me? Danann? Mother? Father? Oh, it was too long ago, much too far away. I hugged him tightly and let the years slip away, the memories flashing into my mind like yellowed pictures from an album.
Mother and Father had known from the start who and what Danann was, had promised me away to be with him on my twentieth birthday. I had always known him at a distance, growing up with him around. He was one of my parents’ friends to me, no more, no less. I remember him coming into my house after dinner, striding into our dining room with his hands in his pockets. I remember sitting on his lap, his eyes gazing into mine, and how he’d frighten me and I’d cry, begging Mother to make him go away. Like a nightmare thing, his face and voice invaded my childhood dreams.
When I was fifteen, my parents had died in a freak car accident, leaving me the sole survivor of my little family with no living relatives I knew of. The friend of my parents whom I so detested now became known to me as Guardian. He came to live at my house, although I rarely saw him. When I did, it was sudden. Fleeting and gone in a moment. He was a flash of red in the darkness with glittering green eyes. Ever watchful, he waited patiently. I became suspicious of him, as teen-agers are wont to do, filled my room with vampire novels. His actions were documented in there. The way he moved, acted, and constantly watched.
He’d follow me to work, watch me as I went to bed, stand over me as I slept. Sometimes he’d come into the house when I was doing the most mundane of chores, loading the dishwasher, and he’d just stand there, looking so odd, so barely held back, it would infuriate me. I’d scream at him and throw things, and he’d catch them easily, whispering, “Relax, Katia.”
Then he began to want me to make him dinner, every night. I did, but he never ate it, simply watched me eat, sipping his red wine. I demanded money from him, more and more, bought my first car at sixteen. And then, I was never at home. I didn’t see him for months, until one night, at a stop sign no less, he simply opened the door and sat down beside me.
“Drive,” he ordered, and too shocked to do anything else, I did, driving until I ran out of gas. He watched me the entire time, staring through my body, my mind, into my soul, until I screamed at him to stop. When we ran out of gas, he bought more and drove us home. I stared silently out the window.
At eighteen, I graduated high school. I wanted to go to college; a long hard fight ensued. He spoke to me more than he ever had, saying all kinds of nonsense, that he owed it to my parents to keep me alive. I accused him of wanting to keep me home for other reasons.
“You want me so much and you can’t stand to look at me!” I yelled as he turned away from me. “You’re a coward! You watch me from the shadows, never once taking what you want, and I know how much you want it!”
He turned to me, restraint etched in his face. “Katia, you have no idea what I want.”
I laughed at him. “Don’t I? I’ve known it for years. You want it so badly you can taste it, but you won’t take it. Why?”
“You don’t want me to want you like this,” he said, his face exasperated; tightly drawn, the green eyes gleaming.
“Maybe I do.” I said, walking up to him, angered as he sighed, turned away. “But wait. How could I be so stupid? You have to see it to want it, don’t you?” I reached for my purse, digging till I found what I was searching for. My pocketknife. I flicked it open, and at the sharp snap, his head swiveled to look at me. Before he could say another word, I forced it down on the flesh of my right arm, cutting lengthwise until the blood ran fast. I dropped it on the ground then, falling to my knees, watching in pain as the blood bubbled up and onto the carpet, as red as his hair, his lips.
A sharp intake of breath came from him then. I looked up; he was now kneeling on the floor beside me. “Katia…” He didn’t finish his sentence.
“It’s what you want!” I was crying, offering it to him. “It’s what you are, isn’t it?”
He pushed me down until I was lying flat on the ground. My head hit the floor, knocked me dizzy. His cold hands encircled my arm, forcing the blood up faster, and I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t believe what I was seeing now. Flecks of red were surfacing deep inside his eyes, swirling up, covering them totally, blood red, glazing over, staring at nothing but the blood. His mouth, already opened and gasping, now revealed to me what I had expected for years: Two canine teeth lengthening, becoming fangs. I whimpered as his head lowered to my arm, and his soft mouth covered the cut. I felt the fangs lying against my skin, not puncturing, but yes, they were there. I swooned, lost a lot of blood all into his mouth, and then, I passed out.
When I came too, hours later, I was lying on my bed, my arm bandaged, and he was gone. A note on my bureau read, “I am so sorry. Go to college.”
Three days later, I packed a bag, drove out to Cape Cod, and enrolled into Community College. Two years later he found me, seduced me by sheer words rather than anything physical. He whispered promises of eternal life, of love and hope and power. I gave in. I went to him. I held onto him as he drank from me. His hands never touched me. As I took that life-giving blood from his pale throat, it was all my choice. I held him, and the blood was so very good. Now, I was really home. I belonged to him.
When I killed that old man last night, I’d felt no remorse. I belonged entirely to him, my Guardian, my Danann. I’d surrendered as I should have years ago. I poked my head out of the covers, my chin resting on my hands, on his chest. I felt safe now, with him. Comfortable. Why? Because now I’m just like him.
“Danann, do you love me?”
Shadows on his face, passing, and a look of pure innocence that was a lie. Soft smile like a touch of a feather. Like the touch of his pale, silken skin. Strong arms lifting me, pulling me close and over him. I thought of lavender sunsets, swans, cascading waterfalls in the darkness, and his soft, embracing touch. “Katia, I do love you.”
His lips came to mine, mastery in that. The taste of his mouth was exquisite power. The red of his hair, his lips, his blood, his warmth.
Existence was good with Danann by my side. As we walked down the Provincetown streets, he told me tales of Vikings and Magic, of Necromancers and Fair Folk, of times long past. He held my hand tight within his.
“I will never leave you.” I told him, turning to embrace him there, in the middle of the street, not caring who saw us.
“Katia, you have taught me how to live again. I will never hold back. I will never abandon you.” The wind blew up around us as he kissed me, scalding my face with stolen warmth which was not his own.
“I love you.” I whispered, giving myself to him totally, surrendering without a care.
We returned to the lighthouse, nestling ourselves inside its protective hold. We curled up together, just two misfits defying all time and reality.
“But if I’m with you, who cares what reality is?” I asked.
“Dear little Katia, I’m so very sorry,” he said, addressing me as though I were still a child.
“Danann, it’s all right. I understand everything now. What you’ve done is given me the means to love you, just as I was meant to do. Don’t ever be sorry for me again.”
Jessica Barone was raised on tales of the old country. As a youth, her imagination soared from the crypts of Sicily to the banshees of Galway Bay. Trips as a youth to Vermont helped spark an early interest in vampire lore. A love of classical music contributed to her creative process early on. Jessica eventually traveled abroad to places mentioned in her novels, such as France, Ireland, Italy, England and Scotland.
Jessica is hard at work, teaching classes, writing, and courting publishers for a new novel currently titled The Halfling. Jessica previously wrote "The Dream Series" novels: Eternal Night, The Requiem, and The Legendary. She holds a Master's of Arts in Liberal Arts, has worked as a professional writing tutor, held seminars on writer's block, led fiction writing and journalism clubs, and has served as a reviewer and volunteer tutor for other authors. She feels her greatest achievement is that she has inspired young authors to read and write.
You can find more about Jessica HERE.
