She went to the wings and scanned the crowd. The reserved seats sat empty and her heart ticked up. He should have been there by now. If he didn’t show, it would have to be someone else.
The rear doors burst open and Senator Mark Creed was escorted in and took his spot in the reserved seat at the front of the hall. Robyn heaved a sigh of relief. He made it.
Robyn moved through her repertoire of Beethoven, Bach, and Chopin. She savored each note, knowing that they could not compare to the finale. But that would come later.
Her performance was met with thunderous applause that went on for nearly five minutes. When the attendees had finally begun to file out, Robyn was surprised to see Senator Creed zigzagging his way through the thinning crowd, making his way to the backstage area. Again, Robyn heaved a sigh of relief. She thought she’d have to trick him. She had an entire plan but it looked like it wouldn’t be necessary. He was making his way to her all on his own.
“I can’t believe he would even show up here after whathappened,” a woman said to the sound engineer. Robyn angled her head to listen in on their hushed conversation.
“Yeah, well, clearly he thinks he’s untouchable,” said the engineer. “He’s guilty as sin and look at him—stalking his way up here. For what?”
“Robyn,” the woman said. “You got a ride home, honey?”
Robyn glanced up. “My mom will be here soon.”
Senator Creed stepped between Robyn and the two women. He peered down at her with beady black eyes. He reminded Robyn of a bird, maybe a vulture. He was a predator, after all.
“An incredible performance tonight,” he said, taking Robyn’s hand without her permission.
A rush of fear gripped Robyn but was quickly overtaken by a sense of calm. She’d chosen the right person. He deserved every bit of what was about to happen to him and that made her feel better.
Robyn offered him an encore. A private showing of her latest and greatest piece. He took his seat and asked his bodyguard to stand outside the concert hall doors. Robyn made note of the guard’s name. Villainous men are so rarely alone in their actions.
As Robyn took her seat, Senator Creed sat in rapt attention. Robyn played the song that had brought her the kind of love they only talk about in fairy tales, though for Robyn and her beloved, they were the villains, not the damsels in distress or the prim-and-proper princesses.Villains need love too, she told herself as the music swept her away.Swaying, rocking, her heart near to bursting, Robyn played the forbidden melody and when she was done, she turned to find the entity sitting on the bench next to her. She took Robyn’s hand in hers and nuzzled her neck as Senator Creed rose to his feet.
“I thought we were alone,” he said. “I didn’t even see you there.”
Robyn ignored him, turning to her monster. “I brought you a treat.”
The entity grinned and her eyes rolled back until only the whites showed. “Have I told you how much I adore you?”
Heat rose in Robyn’s face. “Not today.”
“Play me a song, my love,” the entity said. “Drown out his screams.”
Robyn was giddy with excitement. She kicked off her shoes and launched into Beethoven’s Piano Sonata no. 14, better known as the Moonlight Sonata. The bottom notes reverberated in Robyn’s bones. She gazed out into the hall and watched as the entity stalked a terrified Senator Creed through the empty rows. He begged and pleaded but the entity would not be moved. Robyn played on as her beloved did her terrible work, and when the senator lay dead on the floor, Robyn stood and took her into her arms.
The entity pressed her lips to Robyn’s and in that moment there was nothing except the two of them, the smell of freshly spilled blood, and the frantic pounding on the locked door.
Once Upon a Time in Charleston
ABlue Bloods: After LifeStory
byMELISSA DE LA CRUZ
ONCE UPON Atime in Charleston, South Carolina, there was a little corner of the universe called the Jazzy Java café with a light blue door that always stood open to welcome strangers who had been carried in on the breeze.
According to Gullah tradition, the type of blue the door had been painted was used to ward off evil spirits and protect those inside from harm. It was a symbol: all who enter here, be well.
But that autumn of the first year in the twenty-first century, protection from spirits was not at the forefront of most people’s minds anymore. They had forgotten what evil lurks in the dark.
On Broad Street, dwarfed between the symmetrical architecture built during the height of the antebellum South,the tiny café sat back from the sidewalk. The only clue pointing toward what waited ahead was a bewitching little stone path that wound through an overgrown garden with tall eastern redbuds and crape myrtle trees. The café was more of a mythical hollow than a hideaway coffee shop, with its white paint, wooden benches, mossy stones. One could be forgiven for thinking that the squat structure had once been a cottage in a field of flowers, transported from the wet English countryside to muggy Charleston as if by magic.
A passerby could easily miss it if they didn’t know what they were looking for, though there was nothing magical about that fact at all. It had not been built with powerful magic by powerful witches like the Beauchamp family. No, it had been built by mortal hands for mortal reasons, to be a gathering place for simple pleasures. A different kind of magic, a more mundane kind, made itself known within those four walls.
It was natural for the eye to slip by, moving from one historic Charleston landmark to the next and never looking down to wonder just where the path led to. An inattentive person might not see the pea shoots flowering in the trellis, or the blue glass bottles hanging from tree branches, or the bowls full of water and treats for dogs waiting for their people in the shade, or the most beautiful woman in town moving through the café from window to window, her coils of black curls piled on top of her head like a crown.
By day, the espresso machine buzzed, hissing as it steamed milk, and strangers murmured sweet nothings.The Jazzy Java café was a place out of time, separated from the rest of the world, tucked away like a keepsake in a coat pocket, and that was exactly what drew in a person looking to escape though its always-open door.
