Darkling

by Sabolic, Mima

“Terrifying. How sure are you?”

  “About 99%.” I winked.

  “And what had you thought of doing?” She didn’t miss a thing.

  “I remembered your advice to let my dreams lead me, but then I woke up,” I lied, not wanting to share any of the sexy stuff that had happened with Belun.

  “Were there any cards near the antique mirror?” I knew she was thinking of the ones in her dream, the ones with the strange symbols. But no, there had been no cards.

  “And were you wearing a white lace buttoned shirt with a brooch on it in your dream?” I asked.

  “That sounds like 19th century clothes.”

  “Yeah. It was weird; there were many antique elements, but the feeling was as if I lived in a faraway future.”

  “Those cards said the same kind of thing to me!”

  “And there was a huge feeling of loneliness, as if the planet had rid itself of the weight of humanity, and I was the one who remained. Alone.”

  She gave me an odd look and then she grinned. “You know, you are pale, but not that pale.” We laughed.

  Time with her passed quickly. We talked about so many things, but my dream stuck with me, spreading like a corrosion through my thoughts. I remembered the censored part and felt my thighs start to tingle. And there was one thing more I hadn’t realized before: in my dream I was living in eternity.

  Chapter 10

  The Bite

  For three weeks I’d been waking up at 7:30 am, so, of course, the following morning I was again staring at the ceiling at the same hour. Ugg, it was a long time until ten. I flipped over and tried to sleep again, but it was useless. My body apparently wanted to move. Damn training—they had even found a way to discipline me! So, after tossing around for a while, I finally got up and decided to go running.

  After showering and dressing, I went down to the track that I’d been running over the past weeks. I was grateful for Doris’s gift of scarf and gloves, especially on this chilly morning. The sharp sting of the morning wind on my cheeks brought a tiny smile to my face. Who would have guessed that running would grow on me, bringing me such a sense of freedom and relief after all the loathing I had toward it at the start? In addition, I did a couple of exercise series, and I could see some results finally. I wasn’t tiring as easily, and my muscles were starting to develop. Hooray.

  It was too early to catch any of my colleagues at our regular table in the dining room. But while I was getting my food, I felt someone staring at my back. I turned and nodded politely to Belun, which, after eyeing my sportswear, he returned just as politely. He was standing with two other guys I’d seen before during meals, so I went to a far and lonely seat, turning my back to all of them.

  Cereal was becoming my standard breakfast, and while I was eating with my head hovering over the bowl, I heard a polite cough beside me. At first, I didn’t recognize him.

  “Good morning. My name is Gustavo.”

  “Hi, I’m Nika,” I said, indicating that he should join me. Somehow I doubted this was a social visit. For the whole month that I’d been here, I’d seen the man maybe twice and never in the company of another Inquirer. He had lived in this place for two decades or something. Respect.

  “I heard interesting things about your first encounter with the Original.” There was something frightening and resolute in his face, but he tried to keep it as soft as he could. And not without effort. Who knows what this man had gone through in his life?

  “Yes, it was fun,” I said.

  “No Inquirer has ever described the first encounter as fun.”

  That had actually been the second encounter, but I didn’t correct Gustavo.

  “I heard there was some mention of dreams, correct?”

  “Yes, it seems that the magic of this place has a strange influence on me.” I smiled a little.

  “It seems so.” He looked me straight in the eyes. “When did they start?”

  “What? The dreams?” Um, why are we talking about my dreams? I mean, I’d never given them much meaning until I came to this place; first Doris, now him. “Since arriving here, I guess . . . Do you have the same problem?” I asked, not knowing what else to say.

  “No. I sleep like a baby in this place.”

  What about in other places? And why did he suddenly come out and directly ask me about my dreams? Really, dreams?!

  “At least someone does,” I said, eating a spoonful of cereal.

  “I would recommend writing them down. Maybe there is some magic in them, after all,” he said with a grin, and then he stood up. “It was nice meeting you. Good luck with your work.”

  “Thanks, the same to you.”

  I watched him leave, wondering if he only wanted to talk about my dreams. Awkward. But I decided to give my nocturnal pictures a chance. I would not write them down, but I could pay more attention to them. After all, it could actually have something to do with magic; I did joke about it, but it could be possible. Mr. Matthews mentioned the Priest’s magic protection around the compound, and in some weird way that magical element could be near my room and causing a reaction through something that’s familiar to me, like weird dreams with people I’d just met, because, really, I had never ever believed in stuff like magic.

  However, I’d never believed in vampires, either.

  Later, while preparing myself for work, I searched for Lena.

  “Hey, do you know where I could find some yellow flowers?”

  “Do they have to be yellow?” she asked, and I nodded.

  “There’s a flower shop in downtown Tromsø.” And since I didn’t answer, she added. “When do you need them?”

  “Um, now?” I smiled at my own stupidity.

  “Come on.”

  She took me down a floor and we entered a room that was smaller than mine, but tastefully decorated. I didn’t know if it was her room, and wasn’t comfortable about asking her. Lena pointed me toward a dresser, and there was a blue vase with some wild flowers in it. They looked as if they’d been taken from trees or bushes, and not from gardens, but I found some tiny branches with small white and yellow flowers on them.

  “Take whatever you need,” Lena said, and I pulled out a branch with yellow flowers.

  “Thanks a lot.”

  Lena turned to be my savior.

  On the way to the cell, I cut the branch in half to make something that kind of looked like the flower from my dream. Well, at least it was yellow. Belun was waiting for me in the same place as the day before.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey.”

  He noticed the thin branch with its small flowers, but didn’t say anything. We walked in silence. Before I entered the cell, he told me that he was going to monitor me from the office, and that was when I realized that the cell was full of cameras. Silly me, I hadn’t even thought of it the last time I’d been inside. He also said I should ask for whatever I needed from Lee and Jacob, who would be standing at the cell door the whole time—and every time I was in there. Belun opened the door for me in the same way as the day before, leaving no room so I had to brush against him to enter. Was that on purpose?

  The doors closed behind me.

  “Good day,” I said.

  Tertius sat in the same place in the same suit; nothing indicated that he’d moved since the previous day. There was something oddly pleasant about meeting his gaze, and I smiled, reaching for the vase and taking it to the kitchen sink. The vase was close to him, but I approached from the other side in order to have more space between us. After all, making room was a smart thing to do. When I returned with the vase and its flowery branch he was still silent, watching my every move.

  “Just like in that dream of mine.” I smiled.

  He studied the branch warily, as I took a seat at the table in the same manner I did with Mr. Matthews—not directly facing him but a little further to side.

  “I received praise for not freaking out on you yesterday.”

  He looked at me, but I could swear there
was something like a tiny smile dancing on his lips.

  “There’s a coffee machine in the interrogation room, if you want me . . . .”

  And then he looked at me. It was not exactly friendly, but it wasn’t hostile either.

  “My dear, there is only one thing I drink. That would be your blood,” he said in a low voice, but it didn’t sound violent or threatening.

  “I thought you preferred vampire blood.”

  His expression became perplexed and, in a sudden switch of emotions, he laughed. Even though it was merely an attempt at deep laughter, gooseflesh rose on my arms. I assumed if he had had enough energy, that laughter would have been one terrifying expression of emotion. Then, silence fell again. He was calm and still, while my eyes flew around the cell in search of something, anything that might be useful for conversation. Nothing bore his personal signature, and the only detail that stuck out was the flower I had brought.

  “Why yellow?” he asked, after some time.

  “Beats me. That’s how it was in my dream: I had come here and you were sitting at that table; there was a yellow flower in a vase and I had entered bringing another one.”

  “Lolo feeds from the white and yellow flowers.” His voice was barely audible.

  Lolo was the moth that had given the mind and spirit to the Four Original Vocati. It reminded me that I hadn’t even checked the Internet to see what it looked like, and it also made me think of the Vocati neck tattoo.

  “What does your tattoo look like?”

  His brows lifted in slight surprise. “Come and see if you want.”

  The mention of such proximity made my eyes unconsciously fly toward the mirror, and then came a knocking of warning from the other side. Tertius didn’t pay attention to it, and it seemed he was curiously awaiting my decision. So I lowered my gaze from lack of courage and fell silent.

  “What were you doing in that hotel?” he asked, breaking the silence.

  “Running away from my problems.”

  “Why there?”

  Shouldn’t this be the other way around, my being the Inquirer and all?

  “It was my finger’s choice,” I said.

  “Fate, then.”

  “Not really. More like a luck, or lack thereof, depending on your perspective. What were you doing in Iowa?”

  “I was searching for something.”

  “That rural place surely seems full of traffic these days.”

  “It surely appears that way,” he agreed in a tired tone; and suddenly that little chat was all I needed to stand up and go to his side of the table, approaching him from behind. I wasn’t afraid anymore, and, knowing why I was there, he leaned his body over the table so I could see it without making me come any closer. There it was, a little black butterfly-looking tattoo on the center of his neck. Its wings spread out as if it was landing a flower.

  But I did get closer, very close to his neck. The tattoo was quite hypnotizing, waking some strange feeling in me that I couldn’t define, as if that little moth had some meaning to me, though I had no idea what.

  I sensed a commotion from the other side of the door, so I stepped back. Tertius’ eyes followed me while I sat back down at the table.

  “It’s pretty,” I said quietly, as if I was afraid that the vamps would hear me and make me eat my words later.

  “Each Vocati has it.”

  “Why?”

  “We accepted that as our symbol, to differentiate ourselves from the Rogues.”

  “There have been no created vampires for a long time, I heard.”

  “Right. A long time,” he said, with an effort.

  But his eyes seemed to be telling a different story. Is it possible that the Rogues still existed? Or was I seeing something that wasn’t there? I’d been told that Rogues were extinct. I eyed Tertius suspiciously, but he was looking at the flower. Yes, I had probably imagined it all.

  “You can speak much better than yesterday,” I offered.

  “I am maintaining my energy.”

  “I’m glad. I’d be bored sitting here for four hours without a word from you.” I smiled, realizing that spending time here wasn’t as horrible as I’d feared. It was even pleasant in some awkward way, and definitely much better than a dining room full of vampires.

  “Are there differences in blood?” I asked, and he looked confused. “Blood type diet.” I clarified. When had I become so bizarre? But he seemed to like it.

  “Vampires have the same blood type,” he said.

  “Really? I didn’t know.”

  “And with humans—it really doesn’t matter; it is not proper food, anyway.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We could drink human blood in whatever quantity and we would still be hungry.”

  “Then why attack them in the first place?”

  “Hunger comes in many forms, and satisfying that one is less painful.”

  When our time came to an end, I felt like it had passed rather fast.

  “See you tomorrow,” I said, on my way out.

  Belun was waiting behind the door.

  “I thought you were staying in the office.”

  “Don’t you ever, ever get so near to him!” His face came too close to mine and he seemed furious, so much so that in the moment I found it funny. But I restrained a laugh, not wanting to embarrass him in front of the two guards. Maybe he was the team leader, but there wouldn’t be a team to lead if there was no me in it. We headed to our office to write reports—in silence, of course.

  Our desks positioned us across from each other, and I would be lying if I said that it felt normal and okay. It didn’t, it made me nervous.

  “You went running this morning?” he broke the silence.

  “Mmm hmm,” was all I said, looking in my laptop, wondering what to write. I wondered if it had to be purely informative or more like a diary. I didn’t want to ask Belun, so I just started to write, not worrying how it would turn out. A half an hour passed.

  “Gustavo approached me this morning.” I said, when writing about the dream and the flower. Actually, I didn’t write too much about the dream, only mentioned it. After all, it’s my private business.

  “I saw.”

  So, he was watching. Okay, I shouldn’t give much importance to that, and he was probably watching Gustavo not me.

  “I hadn’t met him before,” I said.

  “And what did he say?”

  “He came to say hi.”

  Belun lifted one eyebrow in disbelief. I have to admit there was a certain pleasure found in teasing him.

  “And to tell me to write down my dreams. Weird, right?”

  “He said that?”

  “It surprised me too. Okay, I’m finished here.” I saved the file and closed the laptop.

  “See you at training,” he said, watching me go.

  I didn’t see any of my colleagues at lunch, either. I ate some curry, and then went to my room and stretched out on the couch. I had four hours to kill before training. Ugg, why couldn’t we have been in some European capital where I could walk around and shop, instead of being stuck in this wilderness? I sent a text to Doris: Drinks?

  She answered right away, and said that I should have someone bring me downtown immediately. She was with Bryn and Mia, and apparently they were about to do something interesting, so I told them to wait for me in front of that bar I was at with Blake and Tibor a few days earlier. I didn’t know its name, but she guessed when I described its window. Cool! Boredom solved.

  I decided to drive myself. If I could stand four hours in a cell with a killing machine, as the vamps liked to call Vocati, why would I need a babysitter on the road? It’s not like I’d never driven before. I missed my car and wondered what had happened to it. Was it still parked in Iowa?

  I drove one of the many SUVs out the garage and its pleasant roaring put a distance between the compound and myself. It was dark; not even the sun was on the horizon. After reaching downtown, it wasn’t hard as I thought to fi
nd the bar again, and the girls were already waiting, chatting away.

  “Nika!” Doris almost jumped on me.

  “So what’s this thing we’re doing?” I said, and they all giggled.

  “Bryn was bitten by a Love Bug, therefore, no peace is to be had,” Mia said.

  Bryn rolled her eyes and added in her defense, “I heard Vuk mentioning some witch from Tromsø, so I asked around.”

  “And now, off to a fortuneteller,” Mia said.

  They didn’t seem to be kidding. A witch? A fortuneteller? I really hoped they were joking.

  “You guys for real?”

  “Sure, why not? It’s fun,” Doris replied.

  I couldn’t suppress my laugh. “Who’d have thought that vamp chicks could be so superstitious?”

  “You’d be too if you had been born when we were.”

  “Ay, c’mon, you guys are like babies in your world.”

  Despite my words, the excitement grew among them the closer we got. I still couldn’t believe we were actually about to visit a witch. Complete nonsense, not to mention the absurdity of looking into a vampire’s future. But I guess they needed some fun.

  Doris knocked on the door of a dark green house. Before long a woman of Julia’s age opened the door. She frowned at first, and then she relaxed and let us in.

  “I am Arna,” she said, leading us to the living room, an ordinary one I must add. She offered us a tea—a tea! What kind of fortuneteller was she anyway? Shouldn’t there be tons of bats, spider webs, snakes and such? Well, this wasn’t as fun as I’d thought—there wasn’t even a broom in sight.

  The four of us sat on a large sofa. There was a bowl on a nearby wooden table with some handmade jewelry in it. I noticed that each piece contained the same rune, and assumed it must have been some stupid protection charm. I wondered if she sold them or gave the away for free; I also wondered how much the visit would cost.

  Arna moved a chair in front of Bryn. We were all silent as she asked for her palm.

  “Love troubles, I see.”

  Oh, really?! Why else would girls come to such a place, if it were not for love issues? And leaches like this were feeding off their misery and stupidity.