***
Nathaniel gently pushed open the door to Jerod’s bedroom that Vanessa had been given to spend the night. Softly, he entered the room and approached the bed. The woman looked lovely in the dark, but the sleep masked the pain that she was enduring. A heavy odor of saltwater hung in the air. She had apparently cried herself to sleep.
The vampire knelt beside the bed. Vanessa's right hand hung ever so slightly off the mattress. Most of her fingernails were broken. He took it lightly in his, allowing the chill of his flesh to bring her out of her slumber. Her reaction was immediate. She shivered and began to pull herself into a tight ball for warmth. He began to speak to her as she began to stir, hoping that his words would have a better effect while she was not yet so fully conscious as to reject him.
“Vanessa, it is I, Nathaniel. I know that you are hurting now, that you feel as if life itself is over for you. Part of it has, but not completely. Your husband was near death when he made the terrible choice to live. He did it for his friends and yours, and ultimately, he did it for you. Were it not for his sacrifice, we might all be dead now.”
Tears rolled anew down Vanessa’s bruised cheeks, pooling onto the bed linen, staining afresh the areas that had only begun to dry. Her eyes opened with a flutter and she brought her left arm across her face to catch more tears. It was then that Nathaniel detected another scent; a scent so faint that it was a wonder that even he had noticed it at all. A few days before and there would have been no way.
The vampire smiled. It was his first in a very long while and perhaps the most fitting of endings to a long, hard series of events. He let go of her hand, allowing her to warm back up.
“You have no children, is this correct?” Nathaniel asked.
Vanessa nodded, causing one hoop earring to swing. The other had come off sometime during Vincent’s attack. Another solitary tear rolled down her left cheek, crossing over to her nose and then onto the bed. She allowed it to hang a moment and then fall.
“You thought you could not conceive, is this correct?"
Vanessa said nothing, but simply did her best to hold back the tears. He could sense her effort, as well as her growing indignation that Nathaniel was questioning her this way, making her feel worse… but he also knew she had very little strength left to fight back.
“You were mistaken.”
“What?” Vanessa perked up.
“My touch is cold,” Nathaniel told her. “Please allow it.”
Vanessa stared at him, her eyes full of hesitant hope. He could see all of that anguish, those years of futile hope in those eyes, and the many prayers that she and Mark offered so they could one day have a child. So, at his words, her hands went out to him. Nathaniel took her hands in his and held them tight as he felt for the proof. Finally, a second smile crept over Nathaniel's face as he detected a second heartbeat within her. So new, so very scant, but it was there.
“You bear a child,” he said simply and then pulled back his hand, patting her twice upon the clothed shoulder before standing back up and leaving the room to summon her husband. How the two of them were going to possibly maintain their marriage, Nathaniel did not presume to know. Perhaps it would prove to be an impossible weight to either carry or get beyond. It simply was what it was, and after that it was up to the two of them to figure out.
Michael was attending to the stove and the food that was cooking there when Nathaniel came back down the hall. Barbara was nowhere to be seen. Nathaniel did not ask of her whereabouts, but simply joined Michael in the kitchen.
“How is Vanessa?” Michael asked. “Did she speak with you?”
“Yes.”
“How is she?”
Nathaniel glanced away for a moment. “I think I will allow her and Mark to tell you that. There is something, however, that we do need to discuss.”
“Tiffany?” Michael asked.
“We could not find her.”
“He told you that he killed her, right?”
“So he said.”
“And you don’t believe him?”
“Perhaps this time, in the end, he proves to be trustworthy. We could find no evidence of a body, however.”
“Now that the beast is dead, will she be human again?”
“That is a myth, I am afraid.”
“Should I be concerned?”
“No,” Nathaniel said, getting up out of his chair. “I will be.”
“Are you going somewhere?” Michael asked.
“I should go.”
Nathaniel walked over to take one last look at the children. The twins were still standing. They turned to face him and he raised his right hand to give them the slightest of waves before turning and heading for the door.
“Nathaniel, my friend,” Michael said, lowering the level of the burner that he was currently using and heading for the door himself. “Don’t put yourself in the same category as Vincent. You and he were nothing alike.” He offered his right hand. “And I am honored to have met you.”
“My touch is cold,” Nathaniel explained.
“Yeah,” Michael grinned. “I got that! Just give me your hand.”
When the vampire stepped out into the night, he found Barbara waiting there for him. Michael did not loiter in the doorway to see or hear what might take place; he quickly closed the door instead and gave them some peace. Barbara did not move from the bench, but motioned for Nathaniel to join her. He did not.
“I must go,” he said.
“Not before I speak with you,” she began. “I want you to know that you did a wonderful thing here.”
“I caused all of this.”
Barbara practically leapt out of her chair. “Don’t you dare go there with me! This house is full right now of people that owe you their very lives. Their very lives! God brought both Vincent and you into our lives. He turned Vincent’s evil into good. The Bible says that.”
“Yes, I know,” Nathaniel acknowledged. “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
Barbara was amazed. “So how can you know the scriptures and not believe?”
“Oh, I believe. I believe that I am working outside of God.”
“Still?” she pleaded, grabbing him by the arms. “After all of this, you still believe that God does not know you? That He has no use for you? That He did not use you this week for good?”
Nathaniel said nothing further. Barbara looked deeply into the vampire’s eyes and waited for a response. When none was forthcoming she threw her arms around him. “You have answered wisely.”
“I said nothing,” Nathaniel whispered, greatly enjoying the embrace.
“By your silence you have given your answer.” After nearly a minute she released him. “You may not be human anymore, but you are certainly no devil. The Lord Himself has convinced me of this. There is nothing that you can do or say to change my mind. And this may be too much for you to deal with, but I don’t think you are lost, either. Seek God, Nathaniel! I believe He is making Himself known to you.”
The vampire did not say another word that night. There was truth in what Barbara had said to him, but it was too overwhelming, too inconceivable for him to fathom. He had spent centuries hoping for a release from a cursed life, and the events of one solitary week, no matter how profound, were not going to easily eradicate that desire. However, there was something else present within him now; something that was not simply Barbara Lopez, but something else. Perhaps someone else.
Perhaps.
Like what you’ve read? Please continue to read for information on the sequel to ‘Dance on Fire’, ‘Flash Point’.
‘Flash Point’
Five years after the death of their only child Tiffany, Steve and Angie Rosen receive an unexpected guest to their Morro Bay, California home: their daughter. She comes with a tale of having suffered a terrible head wound in the fire that took their Kingsburg home, causing her loss o
f memory and migraine headaches that force her to hide from daylight. Tiffany's reemergence is treated like Manna from Heaven; however, her story is only half true. Tiffany is a vampire and their daughter in name only. She sleeps during the day and hunts for human blood during the night, and has come back to enact a twisted revenge upon those who ruined the plans of her master, the notorious vampire, Vincent. More importantly, she is not alone.
Five years after the terrible events that reshaped the Swedish Village, Kingsburg lies unsuspecting as five vampires descend upon her with a great evil in their black hearts.
Five years after old wounds have finally healed and the old fires were thought extinguished, Police Chief Michael Lopez and Officer Mark Jackson and their families find themselves surrounded when fires blaze anew. The good vampire, Nathaniel, has pledged his service to these people, but he is no longer among them. He lives high in the Oregon Mountains near the California border, seeking whether God might have a place in His kingdom yet for him.
When Nathaniel discovers that Tiffany has returned, will he be too late to stop her? And will his desire to protect his friends destroy what God has begun in him?
It will all begin with a Flash Point.
Author’s note
This is a work of fiction. The plot and characters are the product of the author’s twisted imagination. Real persons, places and institutions are incorporated to create the illusion of authenticity.
I would like to thank the Kingsburg Police Department for their time and hospitality as well as my father, Lieutenant James Garcia (ret.), for answering many a law enforcement question over the twenty years that it took this novel to reach the light of day. Any mistakes are the fault of my own.
I would like to thank my wife and children for their support and encouragement.
Lastly, I would like to thank the Lord Jesus Christ for putting the pictures in my head and granting me the talent to put the images that I find there into words.
The characters that survived will return in the second novel: Dance on Fire: Flash Point.
Author Biography
James Garcia Jr. was born in Hanford, California in 1969. In the mid 1970's James Sr. began a Law Enforcement career just up the road with the Kingsburg Police Department, taking the family there. It was not until junior high school; however, that anything of significance occurred. Discovering authors Stephen King and Michael Slade, as well as hard rock music, began to form a spark of creativity within his adolescent mind. He began to play guitar and pen song lyrics, but soon found himself confined in that tight medium, desiring to do longer works.
After graduation, he moved on to the local community college where he met his wife. By this time, he had written a handful of short stories, a couple of novellas and had begun writing the novel that would become, “Dance on Fire”.
Career changes, building a family, and the busyness of life impeded his writing at this point. It wasn’t until he came to the realization near his fortieth birthday that he did not want to go to the grave with any regrets that he plunged headlong into the dust-covered novel in earnest and completed it after twenty years.
James and his wife, Aida, and their two sons make their home in Kingsburg, where he is an Administrative Supervisor for Sun-Maid Growers of California.
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