Chapter 14 - The Waiting Game

Chapter 14 - The Waiting Game
Jerome knocked on one of the double doors of the study, signifying his arrival along with a female vampire his Master wished to see. It was early in the afternoon that same day. The sun was high in the sky and the air was hot and humid. Not a sign of rain was threatening to pour down.

Although Cord knew most of his subjects were inside their dark rooms welcoming a deathlike sleep, he ordered his butler to fetch one that could help him with his...dilemma.

Amanda was with Arissa in her old bedroom, busily preparing her luggage for their departure five days from now to New Zealand—to a place where it wasn’t Cord’s comfort zone; to one of the countries where he had once been rampaging and killed more than a dozen witches.

Knowing this, he needed treatment asap, or at least to learn more about what was happening with his body, or more like his shadows. He couldn’t forgive himself for the ghastly behavior he did to Amanda. It didn’t sit on him well that he couldn’t control himself that time. It was as if he had returned to his former dark self—craving for power and blood—and that his shadows actually rejoiced it, behaving erratically and wildly.

Cord couldn’t risk that event from happening again and so he needed to talk to the only person he knew who would likely find treatment.

“Sire, the doctor is here,” Jerome informed after he pushed the door halfway.

Cord cut his attention from the scenery outside his arched window and looked over his shoulder.

“Let her in,” he bade and then turned towards the wingback chair next to the burning hearth of the room.

The one called ‘doctor’ stepped inside with a clicking sound of her two-inch heels. Her hair was a short cut, almost in a bob style but with soft layers to frame her round face. She didn’t wear a doctor’s coat as opposed to being called one, but she certainly acted as the castle’s doctor due to her ability to see through what was happening inside the person’s body. It was like a CT-scan, but a much better version of it. She got this ability not from a witch but from a shaman who willingly gave it to her eight centuries ago as a gift for saving the shaman’s son.

She hated violence and would prefer staying inside her laboratory in the mansion than joining parties in the North Wing. This had spared her from Amanda’s wrath last week. Plus, she was actually a real doctor of the Vitalis Family in the past; one that unfortunately was inside the mansion when the curse was cast.

“It’s the first time you called for me, My Lord. How could I be of service to you?” she stated once she was a few feet away from him. She looked down at him like a mother would to her son—with a glint of warmth and kindness—and even gave out a soft smile that created a few lines around her eyes.

“Mera,” Cord started in a calm but lordly voice, “do what doctor’s like you do. Assess me and find whatever it is that seems odd.”

The doctor’s brow arched.

“Odd, meaning?” she asked, her assessing eyes kicking in.

Cord pressed his lips and remained silent. He didn’t want to elaborate it further. It made him uncomfortable. It made him feel...weak.

But Mera clucked her tongue in impatience.

“You’ve got to tell me the story, ′Little Cord.′ History-taking first is what I as a doctor should do,” she explained.

Cord wasn’t offended by the name she just used to call him. After all, if they were still humans, she’d be thirty years older than him. She had basically been the Vitalis Family doctor since he was seven years of age. She had seen him run around the castle with nothing on—butt naked and even babbling incoherent words. Ultimately, Cord respected her and trusted her capabilities as a doctor.

“I’ve been having this seizures or...attacks lately,” he started, choosing the right words carefully, “And when it happens, I am unable to control my shadows from acting out. They crush my nerves and squeeze my muscles. Sometimes they burst all over the room I’m in, swirl wildly and then out-of-the-blue, stop.”

Mera’s forehead creased. She expected some sort of easy problem to deal with, not this. “Do you feel any pain whenever this happens?” she asked, keeping an open mind.

Cord moved to look at the fire burning on the hearth and exhaled deeply.

“Yes, throbbing, searing pain all over my body.”

The look on his face meant that he wasn’t bluffing and the doctor could see it. Her curiosity piqued.

“When have this started?”

“Two weeks ago, the day after that mage first visited Amanda here in the castle,” Cord recollected in a sour tone. “It didn’t bother me first. I thought it was just my shadow’s way of getting excited.”

“Excited that you finally had a woman in your bed is what you mean?” she joked.

This earned her a chilly silence from Cord.

She had heard multiple talks in the North Wing about their master entertaining a human woman. She didn’t mind at all. She even thought it good for his benefit. What she didn’t expect afterwards was finding out this woman was actually a witch and had almost wiped out half of the vampire residents of the castle.

“Well then,” she cleared her throat and adjusted her stance, “When was your last ‘attack’? If…you want to call it that.”

Cord resumed his pensive mood and recollected the needed memory.

“My last attack was last night. In the middle of...” He cleared his throat realizing that such information was classified, but he knew he had to talk, so he picked a formal word from the mountain range of vocabulary he had and started again, “In the middle of acquiring...apotheosis.”

Mera understood what he meant. She bit back a knowing grin, not wanting to receive his ire. Way to go for him to subtly talk about his sex life—actually using a fancy word that lacked any semblance of sensuality.

“You want to explain more about that?” she encouraged, wanting to learn further, but Cord quickly replied.

“No.”

He couldn’t tell her that he remembered the moment when his dark side emerged after the attack, and that he also remembered biting Amanda and craving to suck her dry. It was his sin to carry. A burden he alone must bear. He didn’t want anyone else to know, not even Amanda herself.

“Just do it, Mera,” he stated, now feeling impatient. “I need to know what these attacks mean. I need to know why I’m undergoing this instability.”

The doctor released a sigh. She neared him and stopped right at his back.

“Okay, be still,” she ordered, lifting up both of her hands to his head.

Cord submitted. He closed his unconvered eyes and made himself vulnerable to her examination.

Seconds later, a bright light shone from her palms. It grew bigger and wider until it covered Cord’s whole body.

As she unlocked his memories both conscious and subconscious, there was only one thing she could finalize.

“I’m sorry,” she stated sadly, “but I only see haziness in your mind, My Lord.” She placed her hands down and stepped forward to face him again with a regretful look. “I couldn’t get past the gray and black hues surrounding your mind. This is a first for me.”

She studied the reaction on Cord’s face and the wrinkles on her forehead doubled then.

“With the way your face scowls, I take it this is bad news?” she remarked.

Cord clenched his hands in displeasure. It was not in his plans to come clean but he had to. He had no other choice.

“The attack last night robbed me of my control. My dark side took advantage. I almost suck out all of Amanda’s blood as a consequence.”

Mera quietly whistled whilst she shook her head.

“That’s bad indeed. Really, really bad.”

She had seen the first day her Master began his rampage. It was brutal; absolute carnage. This continued on for nearly five centuries. Witches blood was spilled on the earth many times than she could count. And not only that, human blood too. She had to be there every time Cord fed to save the human victim from dying of blood loss. She had to be there to clean up his traces and with the help of Jerome, she was successful in keeping the dark secret of the Vitalis Family. This was also the time when she got her ability from the shaman. The shaman’s son was one of Cord’s meal.

Learning that Cord’s dark side had briefly surfaced and even went as far as hurt his soul mate was a bad omen. The negative possibilities were endless and Cord was aware of it too.

“I suggest you observe some distance from Ms. O’Malley, My Lord,” she advised, looking gravely at him. “For her sake and yours. It’s the safest option for now.”

Silence drowned the room again for a full minute until Cord painstakingly agreed. He wasn’t sure if it was the right move to make. He wasn’t even sure if his sanity could take it but such sacrifices had to be made for her safety. It would be an ordeal. He simply loved to feel her skin, taste her lips and claim her whole being in the heat of passion.

“I have no choice,” he ground out.

Mera walked towards a valise that Jerome had left earlier by the door and stood next to it. It was full of medical paraphernalia useful to her—some ancient, some modern.

“Let me get some blood samples, My Lord. Science might help solve this problem of yours.”

Cord nodded but cringed. What an irony it was. He hated needles and to top it off, Mera had to use the thickest needle specially designed to prick through his unnatural skin.

“Do so, and make sure nobody knows about this. Hold your tongue.”

She understood his directive, but she could only hope and pray that she could find an explanation about his predicament and maybe create a treatment soon before his dark side emerges again.

“I will. I promise,” she agreed.

Directing her attention to the valise, she opened it and pulled out the necessary equipment needed to siphon his blood.

She neared him then and did the routine preparations while Cord silently sat, his attention rerouted to the flames on the hearth; his eyes looking somewhat distant but alert.

A blackish blood appeared from the tube when Mera successfully hit a vein. The color itself signified that the red blood cells in his body lacked of oxygen. It was an expected turnout. Vampires like them didn’t need to breathe in order to survive. Their hearts were not beating. They were basically the walking dead.

But they needed nourishment, clothing and shelter like humans do. And they feel pain, different emotions and crave for companionship and sex like humans too.

What a twisted, moronic, merciless curse it was, made by dark magic that was just as mysterious as being a vampire.

“I’ll update you once I get a breakthrough,” Mera stated once she got enough blood specimen in her tubes. She stood up and placed them inside her valise.

“It is a waiting game now,” Cord remarked.