by Kim Faulks
“I don’t care.” She growled, green eyes nailed me where I sat. There was a flicker of concern before her focus drifted lower.
Her brows narrowed. “What is that?”
My reactions were slow, too slow. I reached for my throat, fingers skimmed the tiny scars of Nova’s bite, before I grasped the collar shut. “Nothing.”
“They look like…”
She raised her head and drew her lips back from sparking fangs. “Doesn’t look like nothing to me.”
I shoved myself to stand. The room swayed then settled. The collar rubbed under my chin. Still her eyes were glued to my throat. “Thank you for your hospitality. I assure you this won’t happen again. Please thank your donors for me.”
“I’m worried about you.”
I raised my hand and focused on the door. “No need, but I’d prefer to keep this confidential.”
There was no answer, not that I’d expected one. I didn’t care. Nova was my one concern…my only concern. For me there was nothing else. I grasped the door frame as the neon lights burned my eyes. Pleading would do me no good. The threat stuck in my throat like glue, turning the sweet taste of the blood in my mouth rancid. “If word gets out…I’ll know who to come for.”
I pushed away from the doorway, running through the hall as I reached for the elevators. The threat didn’t sit well with me. I tried to swallow the panic and stabbed the buttons. The door opened with a rush, beckoning me inside. The madam stepped into the hallway and held my gaze until the doors closed. I’d made a mistake coming here.
The lift dropped lower, buttons glowed, until there were no more. The brittle smell of dust filled my nose as the door opened. Our legacy was here, our world. I exited the elevator and stepped into the dimly lit hallway. Paper shuffled somewhere in the darkness, the scrape of a shoe followed.
I headed for the desk. Vivaldi piped overhead, the soft, soothing tones leading me deeper into the labyrinth with the sounds of the song, Winter.
Ishtar’s giant lions guarded the entrance to Rurik’s Great Hall. I reached out, trailing my fingers across the stony surface, finding the fissures and cracks as my eyes adjusted. I faltered under the dull overhead lights until the outline of the walls sharpened and rows of our history were revealed.
The Archives seemed to breathe with life. I inhaled the pungent scent of old and stepped underneath the skeletal bones of a massive serpent. It was the shrine to Lilith, coiled above us, her spine the roof leading me deeper into the belly of the Archives. The air in here pulsed with life, the cool whispers of her secrets. If there was a place I could find answers, then this place was it. I exited from her open mouth, stepping up to the bowl placed between her fangs.
The water in the bowl shimmered as I came closer. Her body above, her breath inside, and her blood waited for me. I glanced around, finding movement far off in the distance. Those who tended the Archives kept to the shadows, more for the benefit of others than anything else.
Rurik’s curators were more monsters than men. No hair, hunched posture. Black pupils swallowed the whites in their eyes, luminescent skin glowed in the dark. Close up, you could see the network of shriveled black veins under their skin, it was a vision that stayed with you. The scrape of a chair echoed somewhere deep inside the hall. There was no one around, no one to hear the purge of my sins.
“I think you’d like her. She’s stubborn, selfless.” My voice echoed. I stared at the shimmering surface and tried to find the right words to say. “She never wanted this. Not like I did. I knew the moment Rurik stepped into the room what was coming. I craved it…desperate to end the life I had.”
I lifted my head to the gigantic fangs, remembering how Rurik’s cleaved through my neck. “I wanted to die. But she didn’t…is that why you cursed her? Did you see yourself in her future? Please tell me, because I’m trying to understand.”
The hiss of air gave me no comfort. Her whispers told me no truth.
“You damned her,” I spat through gritted teeth and reached for my collar. “You fucking damned her. See this? Do you see this?”
Something slick slid along my cheek. I slapped the motion and stared at the dark drop on my fingers. “I curse you.”
The words slipped from my lips before I knew.
“I fucking curse you.” Lilith’s bones trembled under my feet. I stared at the rings in the water, watching them run toward the center, and closed my eyes. “Was this your plan? Have me fall in love with someone and then cast her out so she belongs to neither humans or vampires? If this is so, then kill me now.”
The skeleton shimmered and shook, a book fell to the floor with a thud, followed by another. A curator cried out. The thunder of books felt like a stampede. I edged forward until I felt the sharpened points of Lilith’s teeth against my forehead. “I’m ready.”
The quake lingered, water splashed against the sides of the bowl, until with a roar I lunged, scampering from her open mouth and into the statues of other vampire lines. I clutched the nearest plinth, not wanting to lift my head. In the end, my shame won out.
Rurik’s line was traced back to Danto. I was grateful that we stemmed from the more subdued of the vampire lines. I turned my head, glancing to the open mouthed barbarian, Jareth.
They say the apple never fell far from the tree, and that was true for Jareth’s line. I’d never met a most vile progeny. They were the most violent, most merciless of all killers, the most vicious of hunters, leaving nothing but a steady stream of death in their wake. For them, humans survived for one reason alone—food.
It’d been a long time since I’d seen one of Jareth’s line, but once I’d met one of them, I knew instantly who they were. Their thirst for blood and death set them apart from the rest of us. Vampire decree pardoned any of Bellari’s and Danto’s line from fratricide, but the horror of killing our own kind haunted me.
I shook my head, trying to shake the memory of the hunt. I’d been newly turned the first time I joined the hunt of our own—a woman, known by many as the monster of Hells Valley. The hunt had been fierce and bloody, ending in a barn filled with many of the mortal bodies of those she’d slain.
Vampire decree sanctioned many murders, but it never washed the blood from our hands. I shoved against the stone, finding my feet. I’d witnessed the very worst of our kind…and now with Nova, I’d witnessed the very best. I raised my head to the serpent’s open mouth. Maybe…
I grasped the train of thought and followed it all the way to the end.
Maybe this isn’t a curse at all. Nova had the power to bring mortals back from the dead. Was this our chance for redemption? Jareth had been our species’ downfall, so maybe Nova was our way forward, healing, helping mortals, mending the many injustices we needed to atone for.
Hope spurred me on. I turned from the shrines and headed for the texts. I walked the long line of shelves, searching under the low light and pulling two leather-bound books free.
Soft-light lamps designed for reading sat in rows. I sank into a chair and punched the switch. White light splashed across thin, transparent pages. I ran my finger along the transcript, searching page after page until I returned the book for another.
Hours passed. I scanned each law and decree until I stopped.
If any vampire destroys the line of another, they shall inherit all valuables, property, including coven, and creed. If revoked, ownership and responsibilities are automatically passed along the newly acquired line until rights are seized and held by the maker in turn.
And there it was. My shoulders sagged. I read the passage four more times. There was no way around this. It was either take the Holland line with all its holdings for myself or pass them to Rurik—either way Seattle would be my new home…and now Nova’s.
What if she doesn’t want to come?
The puncture wound at my neck itched. She had no choice, not now—I’d taken it away when I turned her. I closed the book and rose from the seat, there was one more thing I wanted to see while I was here.
>
I placed the books back on the shelf and made my way deeper into the room. In the back, hidden amongst mortal myths and legends were the prophecies of our own kind. Vampires with the gift of foresight recorded their visions for those who wanted to see into the future.
Immortality had a way of twisting mortal desires. We no longer cared about disease and illness, nor money and power, or the love of another for that fact. Our focus was on two things alone: food and sunlight, everything else was subjective.
I snagged the end of a book titled The Future of our Kind, and shuffled to the nearest lamp. My shoulders tightened. I felt silly, rifling through pages of gibberish, fortune telling looking for what?
I stilled. I had no fucking idea what I was looking for. Guidance? Purpose? Anything that would ease her guilt. A passage caught my eye…a dark coming, night descending. My thoughts seemed to still the more I read.
A woman would be born with the gift of the sun, until she exchanged it for the night. The passage made no damn sense. I crouched closer, reading, and re-reading until a chill snaked along my spine. The room seemed to drop away. My chest tightened, crushing the silent muscle in my chest.
I shoved up from the table, the words swirling around in my head.
A dark coming, night descending.
Born with the gift of the sun, the gift of resurrection…
But she exchanged it for the night…for—
“No. That’s not her.”
I slammed the book closed, ending the words. I left the passage behind, but those words…they haunted me. My feet moved on their own. My heels slapped against the cold concrete floor, echoing through the room.
I left the statues behind, taking one last look at Lilith’s serpent as a tiny thought took flight. What if it was?
Then Lilith has cursed us.
No.
She cursed Nova.
Nova
The bedspring creaked bringing me to the surface in a rush. I blinked and yawned, cracking my eyes open to find Kol smiling.
“Good morning.”
I admired that wicked curve of his lips, reveling in the romantic notion that everything was right with this world—until the gnawing hunger returned with a vengeance, like an animal that couldn’t be controlled. I licked my lips, and prodded the tips of my fangs. I could already feel the rush, taste the blood sliding down the back of my throat.
Kol leaned lower, desire sparkling in his eyes. I dropped my gaze from his face to the line of his neck, searching for a vein untapped. Food. I flinched at the thought. No. Not food. Kol.
The stars dulled in his gaze. He pulled away, watching me not as a lover, but as someone to fear. I reached for his hand. “You okay?”
His reaction was quick, smiling, nodding. “Sure. I bet you slept like the dead.”
I shoved myself upright, scooting backwards to lean against the bedhead. “So not funny…you pulled away from me just now. Why?”
His smile faltered. “Nothing…I just.”
“Say it. Just say it. I’ve ruined us, haven’t I?” I gripped my knees. “Jesus, what have I done to us?”
“You mean, what have I done. I forced you into this. I gave you no damn choice. May as well have put a gun in your hand to your head and pulled the trigger.”
His hand shook as he smoothed the crumpled sheets. There was more than just guilt eating at him.
I squashed the insatiable longing for blood under my worry and reached for his hand. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on.”
He raised his head. His gaze searched mine. “What do you remember of your death?”
I stared at the sheet as he pulled the fabric taut. Darkness crowded the edges of my memory. I clenched my jaw, grit crunched under my molars. The smell of sodden earth filled my nose. I worked my throat, swallowing the urge to cough. My chest tightened. I slapped my hands to my neck…choking…my mouth was empty, but I tasted sand. I shook my head.
“Harder, please try harder. This is important. In the alley you said you thought that was what it wanted. What did you mean Nova? What was it?”
The ends of my hair flapped against my face as I shook. The cold, fetid air came back in a rush, filling my lungs, dragging me back to that savage hunger.
Mom. Smiling, hair flapping in the wind. Sand all around her. “Mom. I saw my mom. So much sand.”
“Good, that’s good, honey. What else?”
Be careful out there, Nova. Monsters are real, and now you’re one of them.
Air lodged in my throat. I swallowed those words like I swallowed the sand, shoving them down…down. But no matter how hard I tried, her words bobbed to the surface like a bloated corpse.
“She said I was a monster…she said that monsters were real, and now I was one of them.” I wrenched open my eyes and found his gaze. A barbed sound tore from my chest, echoing in the room. “Can you imagine that?”
His grip ground the knuckles of my fingers. “That was only part of her, a fragment of the woman you knew. Maybe in her own way she was trying to warn you. So that’s what the it was, your mom?”
I shook my head and turned inward to the dark galaxy of my mind. Somewhere a star glimmered, calling me closer, and with each step I took toward that brightness the need to consume blood burned hotter.
“You said, that’s what it wanted.”
“It’s a star.”
“A star?”
I nodded as gravity swept me deeper into its orbit.
“A star, or a sun, Nova?”
White turned to yellow. The glint seemed more than just a twinkle in the dark. I raised my face toward the light. Warmth brushed my nose and spread across my cheeks.
I was starved for the warmth, hungering for that lick of power trapped somewhere inside this celestial body. An urgency took hold, sending a shiver across my skin. Closer…closer.
“Nova. Nova stop.”
I yanked my eyes open, backing away from the light. I fisted the crumpled sheets. The rest of the bed was left discarded.
Movement drew my gaze across the room. Kol stood motionless, lips peeled back, fangs lengthened, staring at me with a mixture of fear and dread. “No, it can’t be.”
I grasped the sheets, clenching my hands until the cotton ripped. “What’s happened to me?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t know. I found something today, a prophecy about a vampire born with the gift of the sun, a gift of resurrection.”
I flinched. “And you think this is me?”
He shot forward and dropped to his knees to grasp my hand. He swayed, before brittle words spilled free. “I hope to God it’s not. I’ve torn myself apart running over what happened in that alley, and there’s no explanation—nothing I can comprehend.”
He stilled…waiting. Silence filled the space.
I swallowed, and forced the words out. “There’s something else, say it.”
He shook his head, and lifted his gaze to the wall behind me. “There’s nothing.”
Tick…tick…tick. The grandfather clock chimed downstairs. “What if I bring back more than a dead kid? What if…”
Kol shook his head. “That’s not going to happen.”
“How do you know?”
Lies darkened his eyes. “I just know.”
“You’re lying. You think I haven’t thought about it. I brought back a human, what if I brought back a vampire?”
He lunged over the bed and grasped my shoulders. “I just know, okay? A final death is a final death. There’s no coming back for us. I know you are scared, but there’s no power alive that can bring someone back from that. Trust me. Can you do that? Can you trust me here?”
Something splattered the sheet crumpled at my waist. I dropped my head. Crimson blotches spread wide.
“I’d never let anything hurt you. You believe me, don’t you?”
I grazed my cheek, staring at the glistening drop on my thumb. “I want…I want to do it again. I have to understand what’s happening to me.”
“Why? Y
ou don’t need—”
I clenched my teeth and shook my head. “I need to do this, Kol. For me.”
He nodded, and slowly licked his lips, as though he was trying to gather the strength to argue. He looked so tired. His cheeks were sunken, dark circles threw shadows across his cheeks. Haunted. A chill grabbed me, rippling along my spine. There was something he wasn’t telling me.
The last time he kept a secret I died.
“What aren’t you telling me, Kol. What are you hiding?”
He flinched, raising his head to stab me with those piercing eyes. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t even know what you are and it’s scaring me. You want to test your limits…then I think that’s the next logical step.” He eased backwards on the bed. “Hurry and shower. I know where to go.”
I dragged myself from the sheets and headed for the bathroom. I’d asked for the truth, and what I received…was silence. I hit the spigot and waited for the water to warm, then realized how stupid waiting for hot water was. I turned off the heat and stepped into the embrace of the icy spray.
My mind played tricks, the water was warm…but deep down I knew the truth…I was the one who’d changed. I was the one who couldn’t feel the cold. I was the one who was dead.
I washed and scrubbed, then hit the taps and stepped from the bath. Kol waited, pacing back and forth across the bedroom floor while I dried and dressed.
Test my limits. The idea terrified me, but that spark inside grew brighter with the notion, and I felt the draw ripple from the depth of my soul.
I pulled on jeans and a shirt, then shoved my feet into boots. “Where are we going?”
Kol scraped his hair from his face. “The best place to find the newly dead.”
The hospital building seemed to close in around me. Ghosts haunted me here, walking, breathing ghosts who had once smiled and wished me luck as I wheeled Mom out the door. I never wanted to come back here. Never wanted to see the widening jaws of this red brick monster again.
I never wanted to deal with death again.
But here I was.
“You ready for this?”
