Adduné (The Vampire's Game)

  ADDUNÉ

  PART I: THE VAMPIRE’S GAME

  By Wendy Potocki

  To Edie –

  This book is dedicated to you, my most amazing sister. Thanks for all the good humor, insight, and kind support. You’ve always been my number one fan, and that sentiment is easily, and most assuredly returned.

  © 2010 by Wendy Potocki All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  CHAPTER 1

  Weatherly Manor loomed oppressively before Miranda Perry. She eyed it suspiciously as Weatherly returned the favor. Intrepid sunlight penetrated the façade’s thick foliage awaking a glittering, shuttered eye. It gave the impression that while she was watching it, it was watching her. She was no longer sure she wanted to leave the safety that Reginald’s luxury car afforded. Weatherly sensed her discomfort and, as if in response, its etched spires cast barbed shadowy fingers in her direction – its reach ending just outside the passenger door. There was now an invisible boundary drawn.

  Miranda shook her head. What was it about the sprawling structure that was unnerving her? This was the last piece of property her father had purchased. She had been expecting to feel something of him in its presence, but instead was treated to a rising sense of panic. She ruled out that size alone could account for her distress. Although the massive building dwarfed her, she’d grown-up on an estate of its approximate dimension. There was something else – a characteristic that impinged on her sense of well-being. While her family estate had exuded a warmth, the most that could be said about Weatherly was that it had survived. It was nothing more than a corpse, losing parts of itself all over the lawn.

  Before she could express a word of her apprehension, Reginald exited and started across the lawn. Her hand rested uneasily upon the handle watching Reginald briskly stroll towards the front door. He seemed remarkably nonchalant. There wasn’t a trace of the anxiety and uneasiness that Miranda was feeling in his demeanor. It convinced her that she was being ridiculous in letting an overactive imagination take hold. It was turning an old, stately building in need of repair into something of monstrous proportions. She shoved her discomfort in the same place she shut away all her unpleasant thoughts and followed his firm lead.

  Reginald waited patiently at the front door for her to join him. She quickly crossed the meager distance giving him a quick smile. Reginald Charles had been her father’s barrister and was now hers. If Reginald had been good enough for her father, she certainly saw no need to change. She stood to the side watching him forage through his pockets. It was leisurely entertaining. He gave each pocket of his Savile Row suit a good pat. She waited impatiently as he shifted his leather briefcase from one hand to the other, hastily probing his outfit’s hidden recesses. He took care to smooth what he rumpled, but then he was always the picture of sartorial splendor. He couldn’t abide being unkempt. While attorneys were judged on their appearance, Miranda was certain that the care he took in selecting his ensembles was due to fastidiousness, and not concern over attracting clientele. Today’s attire reflected this preoccupation. While an informal look would have better befitted the occasion, his was anything but sporty. The nattily tailored garb was too carefully constructed to be considered anything but rigidly formal. It was because of the inordinate effort put into appearing casual – right down to the merest hint of that expensive manly cologne that always happened to appear when Reginald did.

  Miranda put one hand on her hip and stretched the other out. She raised her eyebrow and tapped her foot to deposit even more pressure on her father’s trusted confidante. She became satisfied only when her change in posture very slightly jarred his composure. It had been the effect she was after. Miranda’s opinion was that Reginald was almost too orderly and organized for his own good. Therefore, it was satisfying to illustrate that he wasn’t perfect. Of course, quite a few people could have made the same statement about Miranda and her remarkably fine opinion of herself, but right now Miranda was having too much fun pulling the chair out from under the stodgy barrister. When the explorative digging yielded no fruitful results, Reginald started retracing the circuitous route, beginning with his uppermost jacket pouches. He went methodically down, lingering in each finely-appointed pocket just long enough to find out the object of his scavenger hunt wasn’t there. Finally, the tremendous moment of success as he pulled an impossibly large iron key out of his English tweed pants pocket. An expulsion of air that was a reserved English version of “I told you so” followed as he tried to place it in Miranda’s open hand. She pulled back slightly, hesitating a moment before taking it. It had nothing to do with Reginald or his offering. It had more to do with being at Weatherly Manor. This was the first time she’d seen it with her own eyes and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know it on more intimate terms. She eyed the key disparagingly, trying to conjure up reasons to not enter at all. One look at the outside convinced her that entry just might bring the old structure falling down around their ears.

  “You’re sure this is the right place? It looks like something out of the Middle Ages and not in a good way. Definitely must have been on the losing side of a Normandy invasion. Look, it can’t even protect itself from ivy anymore! What’d they do, forget to raise the drawbridge? And where is that old bridge? Hiding out back? Did it shift from sheer boredom?”

  “Ah, Miranda, your lack of respect for history is appalling, and so typically American. And stop making faces at the key. Here! Take it and enjoy its largesse. That is the original lock on the door and this is the original key.”

  Miranda felt the cold-blooded object make its way into her palm. She wrapped her fingers around it, hugging it tightly in spite of her intuition telling her to toss it away. Right now she pointed it at Reginald using it as a rudimentary instrument of intimidation.

  “I am as English as you are,” she retorted, unabashedly telling a falsehood just to get a rise out of him. “How you can so cavalierly dismiss me as a wanton child who loves only modern artifacts is beyond me. You of all people should know better. And your attaching this unfair characterization to me because of my association with America is thoroughly ridiculous!”

  “Well, you wallow there, don’t you? Often and deeply? Isn’t that what the hip boots are for?”

  She wasn’t surprised at his smart retort. She was only surprised that he didn’t defend his superior English pedigree first, but she certainly wasn’t going to remind him.

  “Wallow? You mean live. I went to college there and now stay for business. And what’s so wrong with America, anyway?”

  “Everything,” he sneered, tugging at his major-style moustache. He always did. He was so supremely proud of it. He was always so quick to point out to anyone that would listen, that it was the center gap that defined the growth on his upper lip. “It’s the gap that makes it military style!” he would bluster.

  Miranda couldn’t begin to count the number of times she heard him say that. Consequently, ever since Miranda was a small child, she had wanted to catch Reginald asleep and fill in that gap with a colored pencil or crayon. How would he describe his moustache then? He continued his rant – unsuspecting of her private thoughts of unleashing vandalism upon his hairy prize that covered his thin upper lip.

  “It sums up everything that’s wrong with the world t
oday.”

  Miranda clucked her tongue. It was so typical of Reginald to be overly dramatic in his dismissal of America and all it offered. She didn’t know why he acted with such disdain over her preference of residing in America over England. Maybe he considered it unpatriotic, but, after all, it was her life and not his. She liked to be kept busy and being kept busy meant being in New York and not New Auckland.

  Miranda rocked back onto her heels and then forward on the ball of her toes. She raised herself up and bounced on her toes and then repeated the action. She shared the gesture with her late father who had performed the movement several times a day or when under stress. It didn’t escape her attention that several notable boxers of worth also had this peculiar movement in their repertoire. She wondered if all fighters shared it. She glanced up at Reginald wondering if he was enjoying this verbal exchange as much as she was. Reginald gave no notice to her silent question and launched into a brief history of Weatherly Manor. She crossed her arms in front of her and continued to rock.

  “Weatherly Manor was built on a foundation that dates back to the 12th century. It’s a fine example of English Tudor architecture and features the impeccable construction that the English have always used in erecting buildings, unlike those silly wooden things that are built in that place over there,” he said wagging his finger in a direction that had nothing to do with where America was actually located. “Since it has had the good grace to last all this time and is still standing, your turning your nose up at it is an insult to those who built it and to England herself, God Save the Queen!”

  Miranda sighed heavily at this last remark. What was she supposed to do? Bow down before every ruin in England? If she started now, she’d never finish since England was full of them. It was so like him to use some preposterous argument to try to prove that she was uncaring of the country of her birth. It just wasn’t true.

  “And take that sour expression off your face, young lady. It is unbelievably unattractive. After seeing it, I quite understand why you haven’t married. You probably scare off any possible suitor with those withering glances and assorted glum moods.”

  Miranda raised herself to her full height and attempted to interject the fact she had been asked to marry several times, but had turned down the prospective husbands and not the reverse. The ending of those relationships – and the offers of marriage – had nothing whatever to do with her facial expressions and had everything to do with her being extremely picky. That selectivity and taste extended to residences and that’s why she didn’t approve of this one. Reginald talked over her, keeping on that rigid path of being rude. He knew which of Miranda’s buttons to push. Her being 27 and unmarried was a favorite one. It never failed to get Miranda riled.

  “Really, men do not like argumentative women and that remark did not call for a response, since it was more of a statement than question. Why you thought it solicited a reply at all is yet another queer trait of yours that you should think about eradicating. It will drive those sparse few men that are unfortunate to make it near you far, far away, Miranda. I’m just telling you this for your own good for all the good it will do.”

  “Well, good,” Miranda shot out. She loved catching Reggie using the same word once too often. “You used it twice in one sentence. Is that the only word you know? You’d think the least a barrister could do is have a large vocabulary – especially with the prices you charge.”

  Reginald gave Miranda a stiff-upper-lip look concealing his immense enjoyment at being in her company. He was masterful at covering his emotions and true intent. He had used his game face many times in the course of his legal profession and had an outstanding success rate in doing so. This was especially true in negotiations. Miranda’s father often told him he should quit law and become a poker player, but moving to Las Vegas never much interested Reginald. He loved living in England, loved being a barrister, and loved having Arthur Perry as a client.

  Instead of giving any of that away, he once again masked his true feelings of affection for Arthur Perry’s daughter and continued on dryly instead, “As much as you would probably like this entire day spent on the subject of you, I will return to a topic of some interest to everyone else, except one very haughty young lady. Weatherly Manor once served as a hunting lodge to Henry VIII. There are stories that he and his guests saw ghosts wandering about. The structure was routed by vandals and thieves who left this noble building in shambles. It remained that way until 1729, when Mr. Cornelius Weatherly identified the grandeur in the rubble, and had the entire place restored in the Tudor styling you see today. He, his wife, and five children lived here, but within a span of less than 5 years, his entire family died, one after the other, in some horrible, mysterious way.”

  Reginald watched Miranda’s harsh posturing soften. Her hands dropped and there was the slightest widening of her eyes. Reginald knew what he was saying was affecting her. Miranda didn’t like to admit it, but she was scared of these types of subjects. It was only because Reginald was well-acquainted with her that he knew about this chink in her armor. He and his wife were her godparents and had been involved in her life since the day she was born. That meant he’d been there to witness her suffering bad nightmares as a child. They were brought on from seeing the most mild of suspenseful tales on the telly. Even some fairy tales were too brutal for her to withstand. Her mother and father went to great pains to surround their lovely daughter with only cheerful stories that ended happily ever after.

  Reginald could still see that frightened child in Miranda’s eyes. She hadn’t changed at all. Reginald pressed on taking full advantage of his opponent’s weakness. This joust was going to be fun.

  “What do you mean horrible? An illness?”

  “There is a tale that attributes the deaths to the plague, but no one is certain. All we know is that their coffins needed to be kept closed due to their faces contorted in permanent testament to the agony they suffered right up until the end,” Reginald blustered, lowering his voice and forcing her to crane her neck towards him. Her arms were by her side – limp and lifeless. Her mouth was very slightly parted. He had her! Now to reel her in.

  “Mr. Weatherly was broken-hearted and lived here as a recluse until he moved out, pronouncing the place cursed. Of course, a pronouncement like that kept those that could afford the place away. One family, the Beaterlies did eventually take the place off his hands. By that time, Weatherly was a broken man – half-crazed by grief and sorrow. Living in London, he’d long ago lost what was left of his fortune to gambling, bad investments, and the excesses of drink. The Beaterlies bought Weatherly Manor from him for a song, although they didn’t live long enough to enjoy it.”

  “Why? Don’t tell me there were more mysterious deaths afoot?”

  Reginald could read people like a book – most especially this Miranda child who he now felt obligated to protect. This unnerving her was fun, but also part of a grander plan. He worried about her. She was too self-assured for her own good. Yes, her father had been that way also, but Reginald had worried less about him. Arthur Perry had entered Reginald’s life when already an adult. Since Reginald’s memories went back to her birth, he’d forever think of her as that precious baby. Then there was the fact that he took the privileged position of godfather seriously. He remembered visits where she –having just learned how to walk – tried to toddle to him. If he closed his eyes, he could still hear the sounds her tiny feet made as they shakily met the ground. Her unsteadiness never stopped her from rushing to greet him with open arms and a winning smile. He’d scoop her up into his arms just before she fell over, and hold her steadfastly in his arms promising himself that he would never let anything happen to his friend’s wondrous daughter. He was making good on that oath he pledged by reminding her, in a roundabout way, that she had weaknesses. Yes, this playful banter had a deeper purpose. Reginald was attempting to expose those weaknesses to her. He was hoping against hope it would back her off and make her realize she was vulnerable to ha
rm. He doubted seriously that she entertained such mundane thoughts as vulnerability, but maybe she should start. If she did, it would – in the end – make her indestructible. That was how Reginald saw it and how he had raised his own children. He taught them that if you knew your frailties you could cover them or fix them, but if you refused to acknowledge and accept they were there, it made you very, very fragile. Reginald thought that now about Miranda. She was very vulnerable because of her inability to recognize her shortcomings. Pushing them away didn’t make them go away. There was a difference to be learned and Reginald was attempting to teach her in a very unorthodox way because nothing else had worked.

  Reginald watched Miranda’s arms come up to her waist. It was the body language of someone trying to protect themselves. Reginald knew that she was trying to recoup her forces and recover her self-confidence with sarcasm. He’d make sure his answer didn’t comfort her in the slightest. He wanted to keep her off balance for a little while longer.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, there were. Mr. Beaterly, his wife, and seven children died less than a year after taking up residence.”

  “But was that unusual? I mean, there were rampantly voracious diseases back then, weren’t there?” Miranda rationalized, dropping her hands to her sides once again. Her eyes went wide and her face took on a slightly frozen look. She kept pressing to gain control, but Reginald wouldn’t let go. He needed to teach her a lesson. What better way to learn than from an old friend that loved her as much as he did his own children?