Then, suddenly, it was like the earth burst open. Translucent forms, glowing softly in the darkness, sprang up everywhere. Some looked like normal people. Others were horrible, their faces gaunt and skull-like. Ghosts. Spirits. They surrounded us, their presence making my hair stand on end and sending a splitting headache through my skull.
The ghosts turned toward me. I’d had this happen before, on a plane, when apparitions had swarmed and threatened to consume me. I braced myself, trying desperately to summon up the strength to build barriers that would shut me off from the spirit world. It was a skill I’d had to learn, one I usually kept in place without any effort. The desperation and panic of this situation had cracked my control. In that horrible, blood-curdling moment, I again selfishly wished Mason hadn’t found peace and left this world. I would have felt better if his ghost were here.
Then I realized I wasn’t their target.
The ghosts were mobbing the two Strigoi. The spirits didn’t have solid forms, but every place they touched and passed through me felt like ice. The female Strigoi immediately began waving her arms to fend the apparitions off, snarling in rage and something almost like fear. The ghosts didn’t appear to be able to hurt the Strigoi, but they were apparently pretty annoying—and distracting.
I staked the male Strigoi before he ever saw me coming. Immediately, the ghosts around him moved to the woman. She was good, I’d give her that. Despite struggling to fend the spirits off, she was still able to dodge my attacks fairly well. A lucky punch from her made stars burst before my eyes and sent me into the barn wall. I still had that ghost-induced splitting headache, and my head slamming into the barn didn’t help. Staggering up, dizzy, I made my way back to her and continued my efforts to get a shot in at her heart. She managed to keep her chest out of my range—at least until one particularly terrifying ghost caught her off guard. Her momentary distraction gave me my chance, and I staked her, too. She fell to the ground—leaving me alone with the spirits.
With the Strigoi, the ghosts had clearly wanted to attack them. With me, it was a lot like on the plane. They seemed fascinated by me, desperate to get my attention. Only, with dozens of phantoms swarming, it might as well have been an attack.
Desperately, I tried again to summon my walls, to block the ghosts off from me as I’d done long ago. The effort was excruciating. Somehow, my out-of-control emotions had brought the spirits, and while I was calmer now, that control was harder to bring about. My head continued throbbing. Gritting my teeth, I focused every ounce of my strength into blocking out the ghosts.
“Go away,” I hissed. “I don’t need you anymore.”
For a moment, it looked like my efforts were going to be useless. Then, slowly, one by one, the spirits began to fade. I felt the control I’d learned before gradually slip into place. Soon, there was nothing there but me, the darkness, and the barn—and Sydney.
I noticed her just as I collapsed to the ground. She was running out of the house in her pajamas, face pale. Kneeling at my side, she helped me sit up, legitimate fear all over her. “Rose! Are you okay?”
I felt like every scrap of energy in my brain and body had been sucked out. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think.
“No,” I told her.
And then I passed out.
I dreamed of Dimitri again, his arms around me and beautiful face leaning over me to care for me as he’d done so often when I was sick. Memories of things past came to me, the two of us laughing over some joke. Sometimes, in these dreams, he’d carry me away. Sometimes, we’d be riding in a car. Occasionally, his face would start to take on that fearsome Strigoi image that always tormented me. Then I’d quickly order my mind to brush such thoughts away.
Dimitri had taken care of me so many times and had always been there when I needed him. It had gone both ways, though. Admittedly, he had not seemed to end up in the infirmary as much as me. That was just my luck. Even when he was injured, he wouldn’t acknowledge it. And as I dreamed and hallucinated, images came to me of one of the few times I’d been able to take care of him.
Just before the school had been attacked, Dimitri had been involved in a number of tests with me and my fellow novices to see how well we reacted to surprise assaults. Dimitri was so tough that he was almost impossible to beat, though he still got bruised up a number of times. I’d run into him in the gym once during these tests, surprised to see a cut on his cheek. It was hardly fatal, but there was a fair amount of blood showing.
“Do you realize you’re bleeding to death?” I’d exclaimed. It was kind of an exaggeration, but still.
He touched his cheek absentmindedly and seemed to notice the injury for the first time. “I wouldn’t quite go that far. It’s nothing.”
“It’s nothing until you get an infection!”
“You know that’s not likely,” he said obstinately. That was true. Moroi—aside from contracting the occasional rare disease, as Victor had—hardly ever got sick. We dhampirs had inherited that from them, just as Sydney’s tattoo gave her some protection. Nonetheless, I wasn’t about to let Dimitri bleed all over.
“Come on,” I said, pointing to the small bathroom in the gym. My voice had been fierce, and to my surprise, he’d actually obeyed.
After wetting a washcloth, I gently cleaned his face. He continued protesting at first but finally fell quiet. The bathroom was small, and we were just a few inches from each other. I could smell his clean, intoxicating scent and studied every detail of his face and strong body. My heart raced in my chest, but we were supposed to be on good behavior, so I tried to appear cool and collected. He was eerily calm too, but when I brushed his hair back behind his ears to clean the rest of his face, he flinched. My fingertips touching his skin had sent shock waves through me, and he’d felt them too. He caught hold of my hand and pulled it away.
“Enough,” he said, voice husky. “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. He hadn’t released my hand. We were so, so close. The small bathroom seemed ready to burst with the electricity building between us. I knew this couldn’t last but hated to let go of him. God, it was hard being responsible sometimes.
“Yes,” he said. His voice was soft, and I knew he wasn’t mad at me. He was afraid, afraid of how little it would take to ignite a fire between us. As it was, I was warm all over, just from the feel of his hand. Touching him made me feel complete, like the person I was always meant to be. “Thank you, Roza.”
He released my hand, and we left, both off to do our own things that day. But the feel of his skin and hair stayed with me for hours afterward. . . .
I don’t know why I dreamed that memory after being attacked near the barn. It seemed weird that I’d dream of taking care of Dimitri when I was the one who needed care. I guess it didn’t really matter what the memory was, so long as it involved him. Dimitri always made me feel better, even in my dreams, giving me strength and resolve.
But as I lay in that delirium and moved in and out of consciousness, his comforting face would occasionally take on those terrible red eyes and fangs. I’d whimper, fighting hard to push that sight away. Other times, he didn’t look like Dimitri at all. He’d turn into a man I didn’t know, an older Moroi with dark hair and cunning eyes, gold jewelry glinting on his neck and ears. I’d cry out for Dimitri again, and eventually, his face would return, safe and wonderful.
At one point, though, the image shifted again, this time into a woman’s. Clearly, she wasn’t Dimitri, but there was something about her brown eyes that reminded me of him. She was older, in her forties maybe, and a dhampir. She laid a cool cloth across my forehead, and I realized I wasn’t dreaming anymore. My body ached, and I was in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room. No sign of the Strigoi. Had I dreamed them, too?
“Don’t try to move,” the woman said with the faintest trace of a Russian accent. “You took some bad hits.”
My eyes widened as the events by the barn came back to me, the ghosts I’d summoned up. It hadn’t been a dream.
“Where’s Sydney? Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. Don’t worry.” Something in the woman’s voice told me I could believe her.
“Where am I?”
“In Baia.”
Baia, Baia. Somewhere, in the back of my head, that name was familiar. All of a sudden, it clicked. Long, long ago, Dimitri had said it. He’d only ever mentioned his town’s name once and, even though I’d tried, I had never been able to remember it. Sydney would never tell me the name. But now we were here. Dimitri’s home.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Olena,” she said. “Olena Belikova.”
SEVEN
IT WAS LIKE CHRISTMAS MORNING.
I wasn’t usually big on God or fate, but now I was seriously reconsidering. After I’d passed out, Sydney had apparently made some frantic calls, and someone she knew in Baia had driven to us—risking the darkness—to rescue us and take us back where I could be treated. That was no doubt why I’d had vague sensations of being in a car during my delirium; it hadn’t all been part of the dream.
And then, somehow, out of all the dhampirs in Baia, I had been taken to Dimitri’s mother. That was enough to make me seriously consider that there might truly be forces greater than me at work in the universe. No one told me exactly how it happened, but I soon learned Olena Belikova had a reputation among her peers for healing—and not even any sort of magical healing. She’d had medical training and was the person other dhampirs—and even some Moroi—went to in this region when they wanted to avoid human attention. Still. The coincidence was eerie, and I couldn’t help but think there was something going on that I didn’t understand.
For now, I didn’t worry too much about the hows and whys of my current situation. I was too busy staring wide-eyed at my surroundings and its inhabitants. Olena didn’t live alone. All of Dimitri’s sisters—three of them—lived in the house too, along with their kids. The family resemblance was startling. None of them looked exactly like Dimitri, but in every face, I could see him. The eyes. The smile. Even the sense of humor. Seeing them fed the Dimitri withdrawal I’d had since he’d disappeared—and made it worse at the same time. Whenever I looked at any of them out of my peripheral vision, I’d think I was seeing Dimitri. It was like a house of mirrors, with distorted reflections of him everywhere.
Even the house gave me a thrill. There were no obvious signs that Dimitri had ever lived there, but I kept thinking, This is where he grew up. He walked these floors, touched these walls. . . . As I walked from room to room, I’d touch the walls too, trying to draw his energy from them. I’d envision him lounging on the couch, home on break from school. I wondered if he’d slid down the banisters when he was little. The images were so real that I had to keep reminding myself that he hadn’t been here in ages.
“You’ve made an amazing recovery,” Olena noted the next morning after I’d been brought to her. She watched with approval as I inhaled a plate of blini. They were ultra-thin pancakes stacked and layered with butter and jam. My body always required a lot of food to keep its strength up, and I figured as long as I wasn’t chewing with my mouth open or anything, I had no reason to feel bad about eating so much. “I thought you were dead when Abe and Sydney brought you in.”
“Who?” I asked between bites of food.
Sydney sat at the table with the rest of the family, hardly touching her food as usual. She seemed clearly uneasy at being in a dhampir household, but when I’d first come downstairs this morning, I’d definitely seen some relief in her eyes.
“Abe Mazur,” said Sydney. Unless I was mistaken, some of the other people at the table exchanged knowing glances. “He’s a Moroi. I . . . I didn’t know how badly you were injured last night, so I called him. He drove down with his guardians. He was the one who brought you here.”
Guardians. Plural. “Is he royal?” Mazur wasn’t a royal name, but that wasn’t always a sure sign of someone’s lineage. And while I was beginning to trust Sydney’s social networking and connections to powerful people, I couldn’t imagine why a royal would go out of his way for me. Maybe he owed the Alchemists a favor.
“No,” she said bluntly. I frowned. A non-royal Moroi with more than one guardian? Very odd. It was clear she wasn’t going to say anything else on the matter—at least not for now.
I swallowed another mouthful of blini and turned my attention back to Olena. “Thanks for taking me in.”
Dimitri’s older sister, Karolina, sat at the table too, along with her baby girl and son Paul. Paul was about ten and seemed fascinated by me. Dimitri’s teenage sister, Viktoria, was also there. She appeared to be a little younger than me. The third Belikov sister was named Sonya and had left for work before I woke up. I’d have to wait to meet her.
“Did you really kill two Strigoi all by yourself?” Paul asked me.
“Paul,” chastised Karolina. “That’s not a nice question to ask.”
“But it’s an exciting one,” said Viktoria with a grin. Her brown hair was streaked with gold, but her dark eyes sparkled so much like Dimitri’s when he was excited that it tugged at my heart. Again, I had that taunting sensation of Dimitri being here but not here.
“She did,” said Sydney. “I saw the bodies. Like always.”
She wore that comically tormented expression of hers, and I laughed. “At least I left them where you could find them this time.” My humor suddenly dimmed. “Did anyone . . . any other humans notice or hear?”
“I got rid of the bodies before anyone saw,” she said. “If people heard anything . . . Well, backwoods places like that are always filled with superstitions and ghost stories. They don’t have factual evidence of vampires, per se, but there’s always sort of this belief that the supernatural and dangerous are out there. Little do they know.”
She said “ghost stories” without any change of expression. I wondered if she’d seen any of the spirits last night but finally decided she probably hadn’t. She’d come outside near the tail end of the fight, and if past evidence was any indication, nobody else could see the spirits I saw—except Strigoi, as it turned out.
“You must have had some good training then,” said Karolina, shifting so the baby leaned against her shoulder. “You look like you should still be in school.”
“Just got out,” I said, earning another scrutinizing look from Sydney.
“You’re American,” said Olena matter-of-factly. “What in the world could bring you out here?”
“I . . . I’m looking for someone,” I said after a few moments’ hesitation.
I was afraid they were going to press for details or that she too would have blood whore suspicions, but just then, the kitchen door opened and Dimitri’s grandmother, Yeva, walked in. She had poked her head in earlier and scared the hell out of me. Dimitri had told me that she was a witch of sorts, and I could believe it. She looked like she was a gazil lion years old and was so thin, it was a wonder the wind didn’t blow her away. She barely stood five feet tall, and her hair covered her head in patchy gray wisps. But it was her eyes that truly frightened me. The rest of her might be frail, but those dark eyes were sharp and alert and seemed to bore into my soul. Even without Dimitri’s explanation, I would have taken her for a witch. She was also the only one in the household who didn’t speak English.
She sat down at one of the empty chairs, and Olena hastily jumped up to get some more blini. Yeva muttered something in Russian that made the others look uncomfortable. Sydney’s lips twitched into a small smile. Yeva’s eyes were on me as she spoke, and I glanced around for translation. “What?” I asked.
“Grandmother says you’re not telling us the whole truth about why you’re here. She says the longer you delay, the worse it will be,” Viktoria explained. She then gave Sydney an apologetic look. “And she wants to know when the Alchemist is leaving.”
“As soon as possible,” said Sydney dryly.
“Well, why I’m here . . . it’s kind of a long story.” Could I be any vaguer?
Yeva sa
id something else, and Olena retorted with what sounded like a chastisement. To me, she spoke gently: “Ignore her, Rose. She’s in one of her moods. Why you’re here is your own business—although I’m sure Abe would like to talk to you at some point.” She frowned slightly, and I was reminded of the earlier looks at the table. “You should make sure you thank him. He seemed very concerned about you.”
“I’d kind of like to see him too,” I mumbled, still curious about this well-protected, non-royal Moroi who had given me a ride and seemed to make everyone uneasy. Eager to avoid more talk of why I was here, I hastily changed the subject. “I’d also love to look around Baia. I’ve never been in a place like this before—where so many dhampirs live, I mean.”
Viktoria brightened. “I can definitely give you a tour—if you’re sure you’re feeling okay. Or if you don’t have to leave right away.”
She believed I was passing through, which was just as well. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what I was doing anymore, now that it seemed likely Dimitri wasn’t in the area. I glanced at Sydney questioningly.
She shrugged. “Do whatever you want. I’m not going anywhere.” I found that a little disconcerting too. She’d brought me here as her superiors had told her to do—but now what? Well, that was a concern for later.
As soon as I finished my food, Viktoria practically dragged me out the door, as if I was the most exciting thing that had happened around here in a while. Yeva hadn’t taken her eyes off me for the rest of the meal, and even though she’d never said anything else, her suspicious look clearly told me she didn’t believe a word I’d said. I invited Sydney along on the outing, but she declined, choosing instead to lock herself away in a bedroom to read about Greek temples or make world-controlling phone calls or do whatever it was she did.
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