As soon as Valek left, the mark seemed to quell. Charlotte’s mouth fell open. “What’s under this bandage, Sarah?” Tears rolled down her face.
The Witch fidgeted with her apron strings, pursing her lips. Her lavender gaze touched the floor before bouncing back up to Charlotte’s again. There was something she didn’t want to tell her. That was obvious.
Charlotte dodged out of the room and into the hallway, finding the wall mirror hanging near the coatrack. At last, she was successful in tearing the wrap from her neck. But the horror she revealed under the bandage knocked her back a step and she stifled a cry.
A violent red crescent marred her skin. But it hadn’t been made from fangs. It was cut. Cut and stitched. Her eyes flooded. Branching out from the mark, bluish yellow tendrils sprawled, like veins, reaching up to her jaw and down over the top of her shoulder.
She pressed her fingertips to the stitches and the mark ignited. Hissing, she fell to her knees.
“Don’t touch it,” Sarah whispered, racing to kneel next to her. “And don’t make that noise. You sound like one of them.”
Heavier tears streamed from Charlotte’s eyes, her pulse going wild. “What is this?” she whimpered, her voice breaking.
“It’s medicine. It’s something I had to do when you were… sleeping.”
“What did you do?” Charlotte asked, horrified.
“It’s nothing but a simple remedy. A temporary fix. It makes your blood… smell bad.”
The two girls watched each other for what felt like an age. Sarah held on to Charlotte’s shoulders.
“I am not going to let you die. I didn’t mean it—what I said—I don’t want you to change. Not really. I promise. We will find a way.”
Charlotte started to shiver, a strange parched feeling starting in her mouth and under her skin like her veins were constricting. Dehydrated. She wondered what sort of curative it was that Sarah tried to perform.
“Where are the others?” She noticed how heavy the silence was in the rest of the house.
“Hunting. After Valek opened your skin again, they left. They couldn’t handle it.”
“He did?” Charlotte was surprised. She didn’t recall.
“For a moment, we thought you were dead. You didn’t move. You didn’t breathe. When you came back around, you started convulsing. Valek thought it might calm you down, and he was right, but only because it made you weak. Feeding from you didn’t fix anything this time.”
“Because it wasn’t fixation. It was something else,” Charlotte explained thoughtfully.
Sarah winced. “What do you mean?”
Charlotte met her eye. “Promise me you won’t tell Valek.”
“But what if—”
“No. Promise me, Sarah. Please. Is it true Valek can’t hear my mind anymore?”
Slowly, Sarah nodded.
“Then I need your help.”
“What’s going on, Charlotte?”
“I was… visited by something—someone—the other night. It felt like I’d been possessed. They came to deliver a message. They said death would find me if I did not submit… to the Darkness.”
Sarah went pale, her mouth falling open. She looked like someone knocked the wind out of her. “Well, what did they look like?”
“I couldn’t see. They were just… dark. Shadow. Mist. There was no face,” Charlotte explained. “Their voice wasn’t in the room. It was… in my head. But it didn’t happen in my head. I swear it. It was so real. It felt like I could reach out and touch them. Do you have any idea who it could’ve been? Does this sound familiar at all?”
Sarah’s wide gaze was cast to the floor while she deliberated. “No,” she admitted after a few moments. “No. I’m afraid I have no idea.”
“Sarah, we have to find the others. It isn’t safe. Something else—something other than Aiden—is watching.”
“The only person’s safety I care about right now is yours.”
Charlotte thought for a moment, mind tumbling over the last several days. “Where is the book?”
Mashing her lips into a tight line, Sarah shook her head. “Off limits. Valek made me promise.”
“I understand, but somebody is trying to communicate with me—and they aren’t from the Regime. I think, in some odd way, they might be trying to help. I need to figure out who it is.”
Sarah’s eyebrows knitted. “The Anatomy of Vampires volumes are texts forbidden by the Regime. Meaning, it was sent by a proprietor of the Dark. As it seems many people are after your blood now. The problem for them is…they don’t yet know how tainted it is.”
Glass Wings
It had only been a few days, but Nikolai swore he’d gained at least five pounds since arriving home for winter break.
He’d spent mornings glued to the radio, the television, the newspapers—riffling through any form of media for any mention the police might still be looking for him back in Prague. But so far, nothing. Good. He wondered if it plausible to believe his problems had all just evaporated. Maybe they’d admitted Peter Huba to a sanitarium—pass his story off as crazy. The fantasy of it made Nikolai happy, anyway.
No dark mysterious men had appeared to him since the day he vanished from his apartment. There were no strange messages floating in his morning cup of coffee, no glowing eyes watching him in the night. Nikolai maintained no shred of proof that such a strange day actually happened at all, that is, except for the weird note and the copy of a newspaper he’d never heard of called the Weekly Cackle. Both were still folded within the pockets of his rucksack shoved under his bed.
He’d read the paper in its entirety twice already. It was filled with strange articles and even odder quizzes;
WHAT IS YOUR ENCHANTED OBJECT and HUGO LANGOWITZ, BIRD SHIFTER FROM POLAND INVESTS MILLIONS IN WINGED DIRIGIBLE PROJECT.
Nikolai didn’t understand any of it. The only part he cared about was the photograph of the girl, the one he was supposed to find.
Was she a person like him—someone mostly normal though conflicted and alone with confusing powers? Hope coated his heart for the first time in his life.
Maybe I’m not the only freak in this world.
He’d taken a pair of scissors to the third page, cutting out her face and pinning it to the corner of his headboard. He studied it every night, fearing he might see her in a crowd somewhere and not recognize her. Finding her was his only endeavor. And he didn’t even know why.
“Who’s she?” his younger sister asked as she ran a plastic comb through the brittle hair of one of her dollies.
“I don’t know,” Nikolai had replied. “But I’ll let you know when I find out.”
“You’re weird.” And the conversation was over. Understatement of the century.
Tomorrow was a new day. Winter break was coming to an end. He didn’t know how he should go about searching for the strange girl. Perhaps he’d attempt to use his powers out in the open again—doing so might call upon another mysterious shadow-figure who’d come to provide more answers. It was a shitty idea, but it was all he could think of.
Stomach gurgling again, Nikolai padded from the living room, where the evening news blared, to the kitchen. But the sound of his parents arguing put a hold on his sandwich-seeking quest.
“The boy’s just like you, Stela.” His father’s whisper was harsh enough for Nikolai to hear from beyond the kitchen entry. “He always has been!”
“Hush!” she hissed. “You don’t know that.”
“I do. He’s been home for damn near a week now! He doesn’t leave the house. Ever. He’s never had a single solitary friend!” He leaned into her, purple faced. “Are you going to stand there and tell me he’s completely normal? You promised your strangeness wasn’t hereditary!” He sounded so frantic and violent, like his accusation was going to rip his throat apart.
Nikolai peered around the corner in time to see his mother wince, tears gathering in her eyes.
Strangeness? Hereditary? What did he mean?
&n
bsp; And then realization washed over Nikolai all at once and he gritted his teeth. His father had always been an asshole. Domineering. Controlling. A bully. Rarely did he have anything good to say about anyone. He shared nothing in common with him. But maybe…just maybe… Nikolai shared more in common with his own mother than he originally realized. This whole time, had she been hiding from him what he’d been hiding from the rest of the world?
“You’re paranoid. You’ve never witnessed a single strange thing….” She turned her back on him, fumbling with the dishes in the sink. Her shoulders were hunched, like he’d punched her in the gut.
“I don’t have to see anything to know he’s an mutant like you,” he hissed.
“Don’t you talk about our son that way!” she snapped at him a little too loudly and Nikolai recoiled.
“Your son. Thank God I came into your life. I was the only one who could ever protect you from yourself,” he sneered and began walking out of the kitchen, but Nikolai’s feet suddenly weighed a ton. He couldn’t scramble away in time, not even if he wanted to.
His father stopped in the dense shadow of the hallway, regarding him darkly. His eyes were colored in both hatred and some kind of embarrassment, before he continued to their bedroom and slammed the door shut.
Nikolai peered over his shoulder to find his mother sniffling, dashing tears away from her face, her back still facing him. He didn’t want her to know he overheard. Instead, he rushed off to find Mila. It sounded like his parents had this same argument more than once. Maybe his seven-year-old sister knew more about it than he did.
He found her sitting cross-legged on her bed in the room they shared. Instead of approaching her, he remained in the shadows near the doorframe, watching.
“And then, Miss Pudgy, you pour the tea….” He heard her say.
She picked up the little plastic tea kettle and poured some invisible tea into one of the matching pink teacups.
Nothing out-of-the-ordinary here.
“Care to join us, Nikolai?” she addressed coolly and without glancing up at the door.
He startled. Clearing his throat, he wheeled to stand in the center of the doorway, smiling sheepishly and shoving his fingers into his pockets.
“H-hi Mila.”
Her dark little eyebrows pulled down at him. “Why are you spying?” She cocked her head. “Don’t worry. You’re invited. Boys are allowed to like tea parties.”
He moved quickly to the bed, collapsing over his stomach, knocking a few of the dolls and saucers askew. Mila glowered at him, miffed.
“You’re right,” he said, taking a teacup and holding it toward her. “Pour me a stiff one, would you?”
She wrinkled her nose, but did as he asked, holding the nozzle of the teapot to his cup and tilting it. “You’re a weirdo.”
“So says the world,” he grumbled, taking a big fake swig.
“What’s got you down?” she asked like the tiniest bar tender.
Mila’s tea parties often turned into therapy sessions between her and Nikolai. He’d always thought she’d one day make a rather gifted shrink.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
He rolled onto his back, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark star stickers on the ceiling. For a kid, she was sharp. Intuitive. She spoke like an adult most of the time.
“You’ve been…different…since you got home. Quieter.”
“I’m always quiet, Mila.”
“Not this quiet.”
He turned over again, restless, balancing his chin on his knuckles as he smiled at her.
“I might be in some trouble,” he admitted. He didn’t want to burden her with his Peter Huba-sized problems, but he had to talk to somebody.
“Trouble?”
“It’s nothing for you to worry about.” He reached up to ruffle her hair. “Mila, you are a very very good sister. Do you know that?”
She turned her nose in the air and pulled her shoulders up to her ears. “Of course. I’m the best!”
“Yes.” He nodded. “Yes. The very best. I’m the luckiest brother in the world.”
She smiled at him, a slight sheen misting in her eyes. “I’m happy you’re home, Nikki.”
There was a soft rapping at the door. The two looked up to find their mother there, one arm holding herself together, the other clutching the doorframe. Her smile was tired. Her blue eyes were hollow. But there was love in her face. “Lights out.”
Nikolai hopped off from Mila’s bed and onto his own, though he watched his mother carefully. He wanted her to say something about what he overheard.
A small line appeared between her eyebrows as her pale gaze brushed the floor. He’d inherited her coloring—her features. Blue eyes, the bluest he’d ever seen on someone other than himself, dark hair, high cheekbones, and full lips. “Goodnight,” she muttered. “I love you…both.” And then her eyes locked with his.
“Love you, mom,” he returned.
With a final smile, she closed the door. The lamplight in the far corner flickered off strangely without anyone touching it, revealing the greenish glow from the stickers lining the ceiling. He frowned. He wasn’t the one who’d done that. He wriggled under his bedcovers and tucked his arm under the back of his head, considering…
“Nikolai,” Mila whispered.
“Yes?”
“I miss you when you go away.”
His chest tightened. She’d never confessed anything like that before. Perhaps he did belong somewhere. Perhaps he just never realized before, but home was where he belonged. Home.
“I miss you too, Mila. But, I’m not going anywhere for a while.”
There were some moments of gentle silence.
“Nikolai?”
“Yes, Mila?”
“If we ever get separated… if we are ever apart for a long time… no matter what, we are always connected. Right?”
He blinked away the water rippling in his eyes. It was hard to swallow suddenly. Where was this coming from?
“Right.”
Always connected.
Connected. Though there were forces now connecting him to something considerably more sinister than what he’d ever realized was possible.
He thought about the mysterious shadow-man again. Reaching into his rucksack slumped near his bedstead, he fumbled around in the dark until his fingers brushed against the note at the bottom. He pulled it out, squinting to read it in the dim moonlight.
* * *
Nikolai Marek,
Find the girl, find where you belong.
Most sincerely and with much haste,
--
C.D.
The Parliament
Abelim, One Thousand Meters Under Prague
* * *
His mind circled, but didn’t produce any kind of real answer that made any sense of all this shadow business. With the note gripped tightly in his fist, he resolved to let the thought rest for tonight.
An uneasy knot lived in his stomach. Too many questions. Too many days looking over his shoulder. He’d read the curious newspaper, read the little note a hundred times, but each time resulted in more confusion.
A noisy bang in the distance jolted him and his eyes flashed open. One of the neighbors. A dog started barking. Nikolai frowned up at the green star stickers again. Listening hard, the only other sound was his sister’s even breathing. Apparently, she’d fallen asleep fast and hadn’t heard the abrupt racket. Probably just a car backfiring, he told himself, or maybe it was those idiot kids shooting chickens again. He grumbled and turned on his side, pulling the covers up around his shoulders.
Slam!
Nikolai gasped and bolted upright in his bed, his pulse in his ears. It was his front door, followed by the sound of smashing glass. What was going on?
“Who’s there?” He heard his father bellow.
All of the blood drained out from the top of Nikolai’s head as he got to his feet. Mila was awake again too, sitting up in her bed, clutching her favorite stuffed rabb
it under her chin. Her gaze was fixed on Nikolai, pleading and helpless.
“I’ll call the police!” His father continued. “Show yourself!”
Nikolai rushed to Mila’s bedside, grabbing hold of the top of her arms.
“Don’t make a sound,” he whispered and she nodded.
Nikolai listened hard, but no one answered. After a moment, something like a violent gust of wind rattled his bedroom door. It was followed by a sinister hiss, gurgling, a sick crunch, and finally a thud. He gasped, his pulse pounding in his throat. He launched himself onto Mila’s bed, gathering the little girl up in his arms, enveloping her as much as he could.
“I’ve got you. It’ll be alright,” he whispered in her tiny ear.
Suddenly, their mother’s blood-curdling scream echoed just on the other side of the door. Something large smashed to the floor. There was another hiss and a loud, echoing laughter, unlike anything Nikolai ever heard in his life. It raised all the tiny hairs on his arms and neck. It was melodic. Ghostly. It didn’t sound human at all.
Mila released a tiny squeak, but Nikolai stifled it, throwing his hand over her mouth. Shifting away from her, he put his finger to his lips, his eyes wide. She nodded in understanding. He stood, pulling her up as well by her shoulders before indicating the darkened space under her bed.
Mila nodded again, dropping to her hands and knees and scurrying until she was tucked within the deep shadows created by her disheveled blanket and her many stuffed animals.
Be quiet, Nikolai mouthed at her.
In the very next second, something crunched through their locked bedroom door and he whirled around to see an arm—or rather, a claw—reaching beyond the splintered wood and unlocking it from the inside.
Nikolai had never experienced this amount of fear. His whole body was cold, his blood rushing through his veins like white water. Every extremity felt numb. He couldn’t lunge at the intruder, not even if he wanted to.
The door creaked open, revealing a tall silhouette standing before the bleak light filtering in from the hallway. A deep rumble emanated from its chest, its fingers curled at its sides. Nikolai noted the lengthy tapered nails, recalling the details about the man who’d appeared in his flat in Prague. But this one seemed different—less ethereal.
Of Blood and Magic Page 17
