The Kingdom of the Nine; The Vampire Legacy IV Read Online Free PDF Page B

my neck
one day. They were light now, barely noticeable, but still there.
They seemed to have appeared overnight and it really didn't answer
my question, but, as I found out, that would be answered very
shortly.
     
    I put the journal down and looked up the
stairway. Damien was awake, and so was my curiosity. My mind was
made up, tomorrow I was going to Connecticut, and I was going to
put an end to this strange daydream I had gotten myself into.

2
    Sitting behind the wheel of the car, staring
at the long stretch of road in front of me, I could do nothing but
sigh, loudly, and keep tapping on the steering wheel. I was edgy,
not sure if I really wanted to do this, but then again, was I ever
going to be sure. Julian might have been someone that I knew six
years ago, someone that I seemed to have loved, but was I really up
to seeing him again, after all this time, after all I had done with
my life.
    I had read the remainder of the journal that
I had kept when I was younger, those summers that I had gone down
to the house, as I packed my bags this morning. It had occurred to
me that I had purposely not put anything really personal in them,
for the exact reason that it might be read, or worse, taken away,
so, there was little about what really went on with Julian and I to
tell me exactly how involved we really were.
    Connie had stressed the need to be safe,
especially this morning when I had dropped my son off at her house,
but no matter what she said, nothing could stop me from finding out
the truth. I was going to see if this was real. I needed to, but
now, as I drove down the road, alone, heading for a place I
remembered little about, it struck me that I wasn't really prepared
for anything major. I had taken all of this in stride and never
really thought about what was going to happen to my life AFTER
this, but I remembered the desperation of words written in the last
entry of the journal and my need to figure out what exactly Julian
meant by the danger he had put me in.
    It went repeatedly in my head and I remember
stopping at the kitchen counter, my coffee cup in hand, to read
what I had written.
     
    Dear Diary:
    Several weeks have passed and I have not yet
seen any sign of Julian, and although Connie still insists that the
man who comes often to see her is in fact, Julian, I have never
seen him. There is only one thing that seems to separate Connie's
description of him and what he actually looks like. Connie's young
man has a “mop of curly hair” on top of his head, and Julian has
straight black hair.
    The darkness frightens me and I find that I
have to keep the light on for most of the night; I believe my
mother turns it off when she finds it on. I've had nasty dreams,
ones that I have never had before and most of them make almost no
sense to me, but they all have to do with vampires. I wish Julian
would come, maybe he could explain them to me...
    This entry is the same day as the one written
above, sometime in the early morning hours. After many restless
nights, Julian has once again appeared, this time in my bedroom. I
opened my eyes and looked around the room after feeling the strange
presence enter. I noticed the man sitting in the corner, near the
head of the bed, hiding between the wall and the dresser. His head
was down, his knees were pulled up and he had his hair pulled back
in a ponytail, as he always did, but something was different.
    He had his hands at the side of his head, and
slowly, as I turned over to stare at him; he lifted his head and
looked at me. I smiled at him, and got out of bed, then slowly
reached a hand down to him, which he took, and the two of us moved
to sit on the bed together.
    He looked tired and sick, as he sat beside
me, holding my hand. I touched his cheek, lightly, with my fingers
and smiled at him.
    “What is it, Julian?” I asked him. He leaned
forward and put his elbows on his knees, then folded his hands in
front of him. He looked at me, and shook his head. It was quite
obvious