“I want you to see what they are doing this evening, the night before you return home.”
His voice sounded distant, as if he were already disappointed for her.
She looked up at the two-story house, it was like any house on the block. The lights were on inside making it look warm and homey. They walked from the sidewalk of the quiet empty street to the lawn of the house she had always considered home. They crept along the side of the house to the back porch. He walked first to the kitchen window, crouching so as not to be seen. She glanced around feeling guilty about sneaking around the house like a criminal. She walked slowly to his side and peered in the kitchen window carefully, so as not to let her face be seen from the inside.
Her uncle was at the table mixing something, a white powder into the sugar canister. She looked at Marcus who nodded, “Poison.” He mouthed. She frowned again looking in the window to see him wearing rubber gloves while doing it. He closed the lid and handed it to her aunt, who looked distracted by something she was reading. She put it down on the table in front of him, it was a piece of paper. She couldn’t read it from the distance the table was from the window. She watched as her aunt put the canister on the counter and frowned, “Now bloody well remember not to use the white sugar, tell her you’ve switched to honey.”
He nodded reading the letter, “What if we just asked her for the money?”
Her aunt flew into a rage slamming her hand down on the counter, “YOU IDIOT. YOU KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF WE TELL HER ABOUT THE MONEY. SHE WILL LEAVE AND TAKE IT ALL WITH HER. SHE WILL FORGET ABOUT US. SHE IS A SELFISH TEENAGER WHO HAS NEVER THANKED US FOR RAISING HER. WE ARE OWED THIS.”
Her rant caused Hanna to wince and shrink down from the window. She looked at Marcus who nodded, “The cookies.” He mouthed.
Her eyes flew wide-open, “The cookies? They killed her?”
He nodded, “She was poisoned, it never got released to the media because you were missing and the culprit was never found.” His whispers were hard to read but she got he point.
“I will kill them both.” She whispered softly not looking at him, "How could they?"
"Money Hanna. You have a lot of it."
Her skin crawled.
She crept back from the window and snuck off the deck into the back yard. She ran into the bushes behind the house. She wanted to scream, she wanted to run until her legs collapsed beneath her. How had the police missed it? How had her father not seen it was a possibility? How had Roland let her feel guilty about Rebecca’s death? How had someone like Marcus known and no one else? How had the beautiful police officer not told her about the poison? What was she? She wanted answers, she knew where to get them but she didn’t know how to get them. She didn’t know what Marcus wanted from her. She didn’t know where she fit into his plan but she could see from what he had done he wanted something. Why else would he have cared enough to show her what he knew about her aunt and uncle?
She screamed when she was deep in the woods nearly to the stream, which was a mile from her house. She stopped running and screamed, she screamed for Rebecca who never got the chance to scream. She screamed for her parents who never got to know her. She screamed for good measure, in case she missed anything she couldn’t put her finger on at that moment.
“You can't kill them, you will be caught.”
She spun to see him standing beside her not out of breath, not sweaty as she was from the run and she screamed at him, “WHAT ARE YOU?”
He laughed, “I am everything and nothing, literally.”
She started to laugh and cry simultaneously, “You’re god then. Hey, god? Well god what I want for Christmas is a gun.” She laughed harder realizing she was making no sense, but then she felt it. The sweating progressed, the world spun and a scream filled her ears. She looked at Marcus as her world distorted. The last thing she would later recall was his beautiful face laughing at her, but backing away.
Chapter Five: Even grumpy pancakes can't cure that
“Miss Hanna?” Roland’s voice soothingly woke her from her restful slumber. She moaned feeling his warm hand brush against her face, “Oh Miss Hanna I’m so sorry. I thought it would be like your father.” His voice sounded devastated.
She opened one eye feeling the dim light of the room bring on an instant headache. She squinted, “Roland?”
He smiled, “Yes, it happened again.” He looked over his shoulder, “Fortunately Mr. Dragomir was with you.” His voice changed to something she recalled from earlier, when he warned her against the man.
She looked past him to Marcus standing in the entrance to her room. His face was like reading a stone. She wondered if he were worried or disgusted at the hideous monster she no doubt become.
Her throat was raw, “I need some water.”
Roland passed her a glass from her nightstand. She smiled weakly taking it, “Thanks.” The water felt amazing.
Everything from before the change came rushing back, “My aunt and uncle, I need to deal with them.”
Roland nodded, “Yes Mr. Dragomir was kind enough to fill me in on the latest discovery although I dare say he might have known the entire time.” He looked at her deeply, “Forgive me for assuming you had done it.”
She shrugged, “Nothing to forgive, it isn’t exactly impossible I would kill someone when, I uhm change.” She hugged him tightly. She looked past him at Marcus, “What did I look like?”
He raised an eyebrow, “Do you truly want to see?”
She nodded pulling back from Roland whose face grew severe, “Don’t look.” He warned.
She shook her head, “No I need this. I need to see what happens. I can't stand not knowing.”
He closed his eyes and nodded, “Just as your father would have said.”
He stood from her bedside and walked to the doorway, “I will leave you two to it then. I will make you something to eat.” He left the room silently as usual.
Marcus walked to her side pulling out his iphone, “I think I can reasonably say that man doesn’t like me.”
She frowned at him, “No kidding. You don’t exactly inspire trust in people.” She felt as if she had known him an eternity. It was possibly from reading about his life from her father's perspective. To her father he was a savior and true friend. She didn’t quite share her father's beliefs. Something about him bothered her, perhaps the way he made her feel.
He touched the phone several times and then held it to her face. She took it as the video he filmed started. She was in the forest behind her house, she screamed in agony clutching her face. Her knees buckled. She knelt on the forest floor screaming as her face twitched unnaturally. She felt her eyes widen at the sight. She fell back with her legs trapped underneath her. Her skin quivered and twitched as if snakes slid around under it. Suddenly a leg shot out from the forest floor stretching to size of a whole human being. The other leg did the same. Muscles bulged from her veining legs. Her pants and socks ripped revealing her ruddy skin. Her body grew from the waist up, again shedding her clothes, except what seemed to stretch with her. Her head shook back and forth violently.
She turned away from the phone for a moment as the screaming grew to a horrendous level. She sounded as if she were being murdered slowly. Her face seemed to rip as suddenly the screaming stopped. Where she had been, stood something she couldn’t imagine. It was nearly identical to the thing in the movie she had seen of her father.
It was huge and bulging with hideous features. It was a monster of horrifying proportions. It looked around itself, smelling in the air. It looked at the phone and laughed. It charged at Marcus but the video ended suddenly. There was no hair on its head, no feature that looked as if it could be her, except the eyes. They were her honey brown eyes.
She sat still horrified.
She looked at Marcus, “It's true. It's all true. I’m a disgusting freak.”
He laughed, “That’s not you, that is something unnatural Hanna. It’s a part of you that can't be controlled nor helped.”
She sighed, “I need to find my fathers chemist. I need the elixir he was working on, Roland said its something that will control the changes.”
He smirked, “Do you have any idea who it was?”
She tilted her head, “I thought maybe you but really there are so many secrets I haven’t been able to find my way through them all yet.”
He clasped his hands together, “Well you are in luck, I have been helping your father with his work for a couple hundred years. I know of the tincture you’re thinking of and yes the whole point to it was he would be able to control himself while changed. I believe the main feature was that he would control when he changed, change at will so to speak.”
She shivered thinking about the hideous creature she had become, “Why would he want to change?”
He shrugged, “I need to discuss the possibility of a partnership with you.”
She blushed, “What kind of partnership?” She couldn’t help think of the scent of him and the passion in his kiss, as he spoke of partnerships.
He chuckled to himself quietly, “Not the kind your wicked mind is negotiating. No, your father and I had an agreement which required an exchange.”
“What kind of exchange?”
“A simple one. I would need only a few droplets of your blood every now and again in return I would give you what I gave him.”
She nodded, “Help in chemistry.”
He looked puzzled for a fleeting second and smiled, making laugh lines appear around his ancient eyes. He looked older for a passing moment, as if a shadow had cast upon the room. It was lifted as quickly as was set, "Not exactly but yes."
“So you will take a bit of my blood and you will work on the elixir my father was trying to perfect? It will cure me?” She asked again watching his eyes intently.
He nodded not flashing even a slight hesitation, “Precisely.”
“Your meal my dear girl.” Roland interrupted carrying the tray to her lap.