by Gayla Twist
“How am I supposed to know?” Vilma growled, tossing her hands in the air. “I tried to get that out of her, too, and she said she didn’t know anything beyond that she feels connected to Jessie, and she has some crazy dreams that are probably memories of the dead girl. I guess that could indicate a past life, but it’s hard to know for sure.”
“Do you have anything else you want to add?” Winston asked.
“I think they’re both idiots,” the vampiress replied. “She’s got a death wish, and he’s got a human fixation. But,” she continued, “I do believe they sincerely care for each other as much as they can given their circumstances, so maybe killing Viktor was a natural thing to do. Twisted and wrong, but understandable.”
“And what about the witness from the Vanderlind’s maker’s day party?” the senior vampiress asked. “He’s the one that started all of this. Why isn’t he here to give testimony?”
“He refused,” Winston told her. “He said giving testimony would jeopardize his standing in the community.”
“Coward,” Jessie hissed under his breath. I gave his hand a sharp squeeze to silence him. He was right; tattling but then not facing us was extreme cowardice, but Vilma’s testimony, although excessively bitchy, did put us in a good light. Maybe they would rule in our favor. I actually felt hopeful. It was hard, sitting in a conference room under the glare of fluorescent lights, to think they could actually order my execution.
Winston looked at the assembled Bishops. “Does anyone have any more questions before we deliberate?” When no one answered, he looked over at us and said, “Okay, you’re excused. We shall summon you when we’ve made our decision.”
“That’s it?” I asked Jessie as vampires started getting to their feet to leave.
“Yes,” he nodded. “What did you expect?”
“I don’t know. Something a little more formal, at least.” It felt like we’d just agreed to proceed with a business merger or something. Not at all like a vampire tribunal. It seemed like the worst they were going to do was deny me stock options.
As we headed through the lobby and back toward the elevators, Jessie pulled me to one side. “Would you mind waiting here for just one second?” He strode over to Vilma, who appeared to be waiting for him, and they had a quick, hushed conversation. I was listening very attentively and couldn’t pick up one single word.
As we headed over to the elevators, one of the doors was open, and there were quite a few vampires crowded inside. I could almost feel them sniffing my humanness. “We’ll wait for the next one,” Jessie told them, adding a little wave to keep it friendly.
It was just Vilma, Jessie, and me riding down to the lobby. I, for one, kept my mouth shut. Jessie and Vilma chose to do the same. As we exited the building, Jessie looked over at the vampiress. “So, we’ll hear from you soon?” Vilma nodded before signaling a black sedan that was waiting for her.
“Is that the way you expected things to go?” I asked, once we were alone.
“Not really,” he told me. “I thought the questioning would be a lot more intense. I thought they would pry a lot more into our lives to see what kind of relationship we had. It makes me nervous that they didn’t.”
“What do you think that means?”
He lifted his shoulders in a bewildered shrug. “I don’t know.”
“What do we do now?” I asked.
“We run,” Jessie replied, sweeping me into his arms and launching into the sky.
Chapter 31
Between the cold, my surprise, and the speed of Jessie’s flight, I was having trouble catching my breath. He flew higher with me than he had ever flown before and faster than I realized was even possible. It was like being on one of those amusement park rides that uses centrifugal force. For a few seconds, everything was very blurry. But once we got high enough and I no longer had the buildings of Budapest as a frame of reference, it was a little less nauseating.
“Where are we going?” I managed to ask.
“A safe house,” he told me, barely moving his lips he was so focused on making our getaway. “It’s something I set up with Vilma. If it looks like things will go in our favor, we’ll return. Otherwise, we’ll already have a good head start.”
“Vilma?” I exclaimed, doing very little to conceal my surprise.
“Yes. She’ll contact me once she feels confident she knows the decision.”
Of all the vampires in the world, Vilma would be on the top of my “don’t trust” list. I couldn’t say that to Jessie, though. He obviously trusted her with both our lives, and he’d known her a lot longer than I had. “If you say so,” I told him, trying to shrink down into my coat. It was damn cold out, hurtling through the night.
I don’t know how long we flew. Maybe twenty minutes, maybe an hour. Jessie was focusing all his energy on flying as fast as he could and not letting me fall, I presumed, so I kept my mouth shut and tried to concentrate on not shivering to death.
Finally, I noticed we were starting to descend. I could make out silhouettes of the countryside, and it was a rocky, mountainous place. I didn’t know where we were, but it was obviously a long way from the lights and bustle of Budapest. There was a river below us, so I asked, “Is that still the Danube?”
“Yes.”
“Still?”
Jessie laughed. “The Danube is the second longest river in Europe. After the Volga, of course.”
“Of course,” I said, wishing I’d paid closer attention in geography class.
We approached a small town. Jessie came down very close to the road. From what I could make out, there were houses and various buildings lining the river and butting up against the mountains. Instead of landing, Jessie just floated a few inches above the ground as we went along. I felt like a ghost bride being carried over a threshold. “I can just as easily walk,” I told him.
“No,” he replied. “I don’t want you to leave a scent trail.”
“Oh.” I resisted the urge to sniff my armpits. Well, if he wasn’t going to let me walk, he could at least answer my next question. “Where are we?”
“Durnstein,” Jessie said. After I gave him a blank stare, he added, “Austria.”
“Austria?” I was a little stunned. I knew we’d traveled a long distance, but I didn’t realize we’d left Hungary. “Jessie, I can’t be in Austria. I left my passport back in my room.”
Jessie chuckled. “You won’t need it for the moment.” He leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. “Don’t worry. We’re almost there.”
“Where?” I was tired, cold, and starting to feel a little annoyed.
“The castle,” he said, nodding toward a distant peak above the town. Its top looked irregular, and I tried to see a castle but wasn’t having much luck.
“There’s a castle up there?” I asked, squinting into the dark.
“There used to be,” Jessie admitted as we started floating up a steep incline of rocks piled upon each other. “Now there’s mostly just a ruin.”
“Why are we hiding in a ruined castle?” I had to ask.
“Because I knew you’d be disappointed by the Bishops’ sterile office building. It was hardly romantic. And hiding in a ruined castle is very romantic,” Jessie said, giving me a bit of a squeeze. “Plus I know a secret room in the castle, so I thought, why not?”
He knew me too well.
We started to ascend the side of a very old stone wall. From what I could tell by the light of the waning moon, there was moss growing in between irregularly shaped boulders. I looked up to see the ruining castle teetering above us. “Are you sure that thing is stable?” I asked. “It looks like it would fall over in a stiff breeze.”
Jessie glanced up toward the Jenga tower of stones. “It’s been around for about a thousand years, so it should last a couple more nights.”
Eventually, we came to a large chink in the wall. It was not very tall but wider than a man. Jessie fed me through it like he was loading a pizza in an oven. “Step down,” he told me.<
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Feeling around with my feet, I found the floor was only a few feet below me. The room was pitch black, so I just crouched there, trying not to flounder while Jessie floated in.
“What do you think?” Jessie’s voice came out of the inky darkness. He sounded pleased with himself and eager for praise.
“Of what?” I asked. I tentatively felt along the damp, cold stone floor and found what felt like a rug a foot away from where I was crouching.
“The room,” Jessie said, sounding a little exasperated by my thickness. It had been a long night for him, too, after all.
“Jessie, I can’t see the room,” I explained. “I can’t see my hand in front of my face. Is there a light you can turn on or something.”
“Oh,” he said, his voice much smaller as he realized his mistake. “I... I’m sorry, Aurora. I didn’t think about a light.” I felt hands upon me, which made me involuntarily flinch, but then I realized they were his. “I can go get one real quick,” he said, coaxing me to my feet and guiding me across the room.
“Don’t you dare leave me alone in here,” I told him. Even though I knew he’d hurry, he would still have to leave me for a few minutes, and that was a few minutes longer than I could take sitting alone in the pitch black of a ruined castle. “I’m telling you, I will freak out.”
“Shhh, it’s okay.” He hushed me. “I won’t leave you. There’s a couch right in front of you. I’m going to sit you down on it.”
I sat, finding the couch surprisingly low to the ground, and Jessie settled next to me, sliding his arms around me and snuggling me tight. I closed my eyes and tried to stop trembling. Jessie shifted around a bit and then pulled a blanket around me. From the nylon sound and feel of it, I assumed it was down filled. “I feel like a jerk about the light,” Jessie said in a quiet voice quite close to my ear. “I remembered food and water and this couch as a place for you to sleep, but a way for you to see never occurred to me.”
“It’s okay,” I assured him. “Most guys wouldn’t even think to pack a few snacks. I’m safe and warm and with you. I can look at the room in the morning.” I fought back a yawn. “Are you sure no one can find us here? German tourists aren’t going to climb over a pile of rocks and wonder what we’re doing here, are they?”
“No,” Jessie replied, giving me a little squeeze. “Not unless they can lift a few tons of stone. The entrance to this room is blocked. That little fissure is the only way in or out.”
His words echoed in my brain. “Jessie, don’t you think there should be at least one other exit? I mean, what if we’re attacked or something? Vampires could easily block off that hole in the wall.”
“Okay, there is one more secret way out,” he admitted, “but I don’t think any humans know about it, and most vampires wouldn’t realize it’s there. You’d have to spend a lot of time flying around the castle to find it.”
“Would you mind telling me how to find it?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said, “but it would be impossible for you to use.”
“Yeah, I understand that,” I told him, “but what do I do if something happens to you? What if you take off somewhere and don’t come back? How the hell would I get out of here?”
“Oh,” he said. I couldn’t see his face, but I assumed he was frowning. He shifted a little, and I knew he was running his fingers through his hair. “I guess you could always try to signal someone on the road. Wave a shirt or something. But I really don’t think it’ll come to that.”
“I hope not,” I said with a yawn. I wondered what time it was. It felt like I’d been awake for days. “Tell me how you know about this place,” I said, cuddling against his chest.
Chapter 32
I’m sure Jessie probably answered me, but I didn’t hear him. Sleep overcame me like a thick, pillowy fog, and I was not aware of a thing until I cracked open my eyes the next day. It took me a few minutes to remember where I was. I can’t say the light was streaming in because the opening in the side of the castle wasn’t that large, but the room was illuminated. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all made out of a gray stone. There was a couch, which I had been sleeping on. It had no legs, which explained why it felt so low when I sat down. Jessie probably had to remove the legs to get the couch into the small opening. I also spied a large cooler, which I assumed contained the food Jessie had mentioned, a table, two chairs, a small bookshelf piled with books, a bureau piled with dishes, and a screen with a potted plant in front of it. Further investigation showed that there was a travel commode behind the screen, along with some toilet paper, all of which I greatly appreciated.
In the far corner of the room was a large box that at first threw me off, and then I realized that Jessie was probably using it for the daylight hours. It wasn’t exactly a coffin, but the thought of him lying in there, not moving, not breathing, really gave me the creeps. I gathered the blanket around me and sat for a minute, wondering what to do next.
Thinking back, I counted the days since I’d left and came to the conclusion it was Saturday. My mom probably wasn’t worried yet. She hadn’t called my dad in a panic; she hadn’t called the police in tears. The worst emotion she probably felt was annoyed with me for not calling on Thanksgiving. I had that excuse covered; I didn’t bring my phone charger with me, so my phone was out of juice. That was, if I ever got home again to make the excuse. Thinking about my mom missing me made me feel very, very sad.
I decided that if I didn’t do something, I would get quite depressed, so I opened the cooler and perused the treats Jessie had stocked for me. Lots of fruit, a large slab of ham, bottled water, croissant in a zip-locked bag, chocolate, two bottles of white wine, and a bottle of champagne all packed in ice.
Grabbing a croissant, I wandered over to the bureau to see what it had to offer. On the top there were plates, utensils, a carving knife, a corkscrew, glassware, and linen napkins. The bureau itself had three large and two small drawers, the smallest two being at the top and side-by-side, just like any other bureau. I decided to start at the bottom and opened the largest, lowest drawer first. On one side was a stack of pants and on the other was a set of flannel pajamas and a fleece robe. Next drawer up were sweaters, sweatshirts, and sweatpants. I guess Jessie wanted me to be warm and comfortable. The last of the larger drawers contained t-shirts, tops, and blouses. I opened the small top drawer on the left and found lacey underwear, camisoles, and bras. How did Jessie know my bra size? And why did he buy underwear with so much lace? I could feel myself blushing even with no one else around. I hesitated before pulling open the last drawer. What was possibly left? Hats? Scarves? Shoes? That seemed unlikely in one of the smaller drawers. I eased it open, peeped inside, and breathed in a sharp, “He didn’t.” Although, obviously, he did.
The drawer was filled with hinged velvet boxes in a variety of shapes and sizes. Did Jessie really think I needed a selection of jewelry to hang out in the ruins of a castle? Still, I was excited like a little kid at Christmas. I wanted to tear through the drawer, pawing at everything, but I forced myself to go slowly. I had most of the day to fill, so there was no rush beyond my anticipation.
The first box, which I thought was a ring box, contained a pair of diamond stud earrings. I had always wanted a pair of diamond stud earrings, so this pleased me to no end. I knew I couldn’t keep any of the jewelry, but I decided to just relax and enjoy playing with it for a while. The next box actually was a ring. A large, oval aquamarine set in white gold and surrounded by diamonds. It fit perfectly on my right hand ring finger. I went over to the hole in the wall to get a look at it in the sunlight. The stone danced and sparkled like the sun on the blue waters of the Caribbean. Or at least how I imagined the waters looked in the Caribbean.
Far below my little hideaway, I could see a road with a few cars going up and down. It would be awfully hard to signal anyone’s attention way up here, I thought. Perhaps tourists came to the castle ruins and I could let them know I was trapped by shouting really loud. I didn’t want to think
about it, so I went back to the jewelry.
Besides the ring, there was also a matching pair of aquamarine and diamond earrings, a bracelet, necklace, and most perplexing of all, a tiara. Did Jessie really think I was going to need a tiara? That didn’t stop me from trying it on, of course, and waving to the imaginary people lining the streets to see the princess and her procession on their way to the cathedral for the royal wedding.
There was also a choker of black pearls, a half dozen diamond rings, a diamond-encrusted compact, more earrings, a citrine brooch that was really more fitting for my great grandmother, a gold cigarette lighter, and a very perplexing tiny gold tube with a ball on one end and a loop for suspending it off a chain on the other. When I pulled gently on the ball, it slid open and small gold tendrils slowly extended dancing around it. When I pushed the ball back in, the tendrils retracted into the body of the tube again.
What the heck was it? I really couldn’t figure it out. I must have opened and closed it a hundred times and still was no closer to solving the mystery. I was half tempted to rap on Jessie’s box and make him shout the answer out to me.
After a while, I put everything away but the tiara and the tube. After all, how often does a girl get to wear a tiara? It was pretty chilly in the ruins, so I put on the robe, had more to eat, and then started browsing through the books. Jessie had selected a mixture of classics and modern. At first I tried the modern, but found I couldn’t concentrate from one page to the next, so I turned to the classics for something that was familiar. Pride and Prejudice fit the bill nicely. I’d already read it a few times, so I didn’t really have to concentrate too closely. I opened one of the bottles of wine, got cozy on the couch, and prepared to get lost in the world of balls, gowns, carriages, and arranged marriages.
After a while, I got up and started wandering around. I somehow found my way out of the castle. I wasn’t trapped there after all. There was a set of stairs that were surprisingly intact given the state of the rest of the place. All I had to do was just stroll down and out into the countryside.
