CHAPTER 24 Graveyard Conniption
As the days came and went, the failure of Alex's friendship with Jaklin and Mikhail ever plagued her. She became increasingly despondent and couldn't keep from wondering where they were and what they were doing, if they were happy without her. Before knowing them, she'd prized time alone buried in a book, but now reading seemed empty and meaningless. She found a book of Plato's dialogues in her grandmother's library and reread Symposium, then ruminated over the purpose and nature of love.
One evening alone before the fireplace, the purr of Nălucă the only sound to break the silence, she thought she heard a faint clink in the backyard. She went to the door, opened it and peered out into the darkness. Nothing. Just as she was about to close it, she heard the noise again along with a dull clank and possibly hushed voices. She saw a dim light moving about in the direction of the gazebo.
At first, Alex felt fear, shuddered and closed the door, vowing to find out what had been going on out there in the morning light. Then she said to herself out-loud, "An immortal vampire with suicidal thoughts afraid of the dark?" She slipped out of her robe and into a pair of dark pants, pulled on Jaklin's black parka she'd left behind, more as a shield than for warmth. It reminded her of Jaklin's courage she'd demonstrated the night they saved Emelia and Rutfen. Alex raised the hood over her head to conceal her blond curls, pulled the drawstring tight about her face, opened the door again, and ventured silently into the gloom.
A wisp of fog had formed among the trees, and Alex walked across the yard into it. The commotion seemed to be coming from the graveyard adjacent the gazebo, where they'd buried her grandmother. As she drew closer, she saw the shapes of two, perhaps more, men shifting about in the dim light of a cellphone wedged in the crook of a tree trunk. She'd not seen an iPhone since she left Bucharest. In the fog, it provided a glowing halo about the workmen.
It'd been a while since Alex had fed. She'd suffered the last couple of days with fatigue and nausea, the initial stages of blood deficiency, but she wouldn't give in as self-punishment. The scent of these sweating men woke the urge, and she imagined that she could smell the blood surging their arteries. Quite the cliché, she thought. But she began to salivate and, since she hadn't had a good meal in days, envisioned herself on all fours devouring a caucus.
Alex recognized two of the men. Stefan Stanescu and Radu Cuza stood over her grandmother's partially uncovered grave that Alex had personally witnessed her grandmother being lowered into only a few weeks before. Two more men were down inside the soft earth, one digging with a shovel. This sent a surge of primal rage through her, the millennia worth of abuse and hatred felt by the race of vampires. She considered killing them all.
Even that explosion of emotion was nothing compared to the betrayal she felt by the fifth person standing over the open grave orchestrating the travesty — Father Zosimos in his dark flowing vestments, the friend of her grandmother and until recently Alex herself. She felt an instant hatred for the man, the priest who had taken her cross.
"Hey!" Alex shouted as she stepped into the light and lowered her hood. "Get out of there. You! Of all people!" she shouted, and as she did so, they turned to see who'd come among them.
"Stay back, Alex," Stefan said. "We're just verifying she's alright, that she hasn't been turned."
"Going to sever her head? You worthless piece of cow dung."
"Alexandra!" Zosimos shouted. "Leave! We have to do this. You lived with her."
"Coming after me next? Or sending the police?" she asked.
"Seize her!" Stefan shouted to the other two men. "Don't let her escape."
Alex had been walking into the scene and didn't even break stride. She felt her body come alive.
Zosimos backed away, but the others stood their ground. "She's no different than other vampires," said Stefan. "We can stake her."
"Alright then," said Alex. "Let's test this immortality thing."
She jumped down into the pit, grabbed the shovel from the frightened workman, and swung it forcefully, hitting him in the side as he lunged away from her. Her actions were smooth, coordinated, as if she'd choreographed them.
Stefan shouted at her. She looked up at him and utter hatred overcame her. But she heard something behind her and two more men jumped into the grave with her, knocking her from her feet and up against the dirt wall of the grave. She lost the shovel with the impact, but turned on her two advisories, cold rage guiding her.
Father Zosimos again shouted at her to stop, but words no longer mattered to Alex. One man grabbed her from behind, both of his arms locked about her waist. Alex struggled but he had her feet off the ground, so she reached up, grabbed him by the hair of his head, pulled it over her shoulder, and sunk her teeth deep into his neck. She didn't hit the jugular, but the flow of fresh blood then fueled the fire of her rage. She tore off a piece of human flesh and spat it out as he screamed in pain, turned her loose and reaching for his injured neck.
Alex turned on him anew. She kicked him full-force in the chest so hard that she propelled him out of the grave just as the other man grabbed her by the hair of her head and slung her in the other direction, up against the far end of the grave. Then he turned to run, but Alex was instantly on him from behind, her arms and legs wrapped around him like a gigantic spider. She clawed at his chest with her nails, tearing through his shirt and into his flesh. Her teeth found his hot, sweaty neck and again she tasted human blood, the rhythm of his heart synced with her own and driving her ever deeper toward seeking his death. The man screamed for some one to get her off him. Alex felt her fingernails penetrate to his rib bones and realized that her strength was so great that she could break open his chest cavity, if she allowed herself. She let him go, and stood in the soft earth now covered in blood looking up at a frightened bounty hunter.
Alex heard a shot rang out. Sounded like a handgun. She felt a tug at her chest, and something seemed to pass through her. She expected to weaken and feel pain, but she felt nothing. If anything she felt even stronger. She took one step and levitated up beside Stefan, who started backtracking. Alex heard another shot and felt a sting at the side of her head, as if being bit by a mosquito. She placed her hand over the spot but felt nothing. She looked at her hand but saw no blood. Three more shots rang out. Alex didn't know why she didn't fall. At lest, she should be in pain. She grabbed Stefan by the throat, and knew she was about to kill him. She could crush his larynx in a heartbeat, rip his throat from his body, but Alex felt something, just a slight fluttering in her abdomen. It was the child. Just that single thought, the child, stopped her cold. But as she did, a tremendous force hit her from behind. It knocked her loose from Stephan and to the ground. She scrambled to look back as would a cat on all fours, ready to pounce on her assailant and realized that the first man she'd bitten had tried to drive a stake through her back and into her heart.
She ran for him, and he lunged forward with the stake again hitting her directly in the chest. She hardly felt it. Instead, she was on him too, sank her teeth into his neck and fell on the ground with him. This time the blood gushed, and she swallowed and would have drained him, if it weren't for words close to her ear.
"Alexandra, please, Alex. For the love of God, don't do this. We'll cover the grave. Please. Stop." It was Father Zosimos.
Alex quit sucking and let the blood drain back onto her victim. She wiped her mouth with her hand and stood to face the priest. Words flowed from her lips without the thought forming first in her mind. "The wrath of God is upon you. Hell fire itself awaits if you ever raise this coffin."
"Yes, yes," he said. "It's a mistake we'll not repeat. But Alexandra. Don't do this. You're injured. Let us get you to the hospital."
"I shot her five times," said one of the men. "She should be dead."
"I'm not hurt," said Alex. "Get out of here before I kill all of you."
And they did. They ran like rabbits from a hound. Only Father Zosimos turned to look back.
Alex shouted afte
r him, "The cross belongs to me. Catalin said so."
They disappeared into the dark of the forest.
Alex didn't have thoughts or feelings about what she'd done. She grabbed a shovel and started filling in her grandmother's grave. Once covered, she kneeled before it, said the Lord's Prayer, and left carrying the shovel over her shoulder. She walked back into the home that now seemed more her grandmother's than it ever had. This pleased Alex greatly. She felt her grandmother's presence, her love and affection. She didn't bother turning on a light because she could see perfectly well in the dark. She ran a bath, poured a little, maybe a lot, of bubble bath and soaked for a long, long time. The baby moved again. Alex hugged her abdomen and felt as content as ever had an Earth-bound immortal creature.
*
The next morning, Alex rose early, dressed, and walked along the edge of the forest, up the cobblestone footpath, and into the Monastery courtyard. She passed the row of offices and walked directly to a little cottage. She knew exactly where she was going. She opened a side door into a small room. There, she found a startled Father Zosimos and Stefan in deep consultation. They jumped to their feet.
"I want to help," she said.