“Sarah!” He gasped. “Where did you learn to do that?”
“From the fabulous grimoire you gave me,” said Sarah with a wink.
She dashed to the tavern doors and pushed them closed, bolting them together with the giant wooden barricade.
He was behind her in an instant.
“But they’ll return! They’ll try to get back in!”
“They won’t! If they do, I’ve got worse magic tricks up my sleeve. That’s the end of it. I have no tolerance for racism.”
She dusted off her hands and flitted back to the bar. A large female Troll, the bartender, stood with pudgy hands clasped over her mouth.
“Black tea. Straight. No sugar,” Sarah demanded. She peered over her pointy, little shoulder at Valek, who still gaped, astonished. “You?”
“Nothing for me.” Valek grinned at her.
“Oh. Right.” She blushed and turned back to the barmaid. “Quickly.” She tapped her nail down on the polished surface. “Or I’ll do the same to you and retrieve the drink myself!”
In a few moments, the two of them were seated by the fire and the barmaid delivered Sarah’s tea in trembling fingers.
“Hold on. Here’s your tip,” Sarah offered.
The barmaid stopped.
Sarah leaned over the arm of her unnecessarily tufty armchair and whispered, “Leave now, and I won’t turn you into a toad and use your legs in my stew.”
The barmaid quickly obliged and scrambled for her things behind the bar before making her way out into the night.
Howler’s Tavern was suddenly empty.
Valek leaned up on his elbow in the chair across from Sarah, unable to stop the surge of amusement forming itself in the enormous grin across his face. “You are fabulous. Have I ever told you that?”
“You don’t have to,” Sarah said with her own satisfied grin and sipped her tea. “Francis taught me not to take abuse from lowlifes and degenerates. Ever. Now,” she began, “tell me why we could not discuss this at home.”
Valek leaned forward, his forearm on his knees. “I did not want to discuss this at home for fear that Charlotte would try to listen. Sarah…you’re only finding out some of my secrets. If Charlotte knew about my past, she’d hate me forever. Even worse, I fear she’d want to leave and would never trust me again.”
“But you can’t go on lying to her, Valek—”
“I know. But certain things need to be explained at certain times. Please. Also…I didn’t want her to see this.”
He pushed a small piece of parchment across the table toward her.
* * *
Valek Ruzik,
* * *
We know your secret. Your bloodline is alive.
You’ve broken a law most sacred.
You will answer to us.
Eventually….
* * *
Yours truly,
C.D.
* * *
“The boy,” Sarah mused.
Valek nodded slowly. “The note is from Abelim –the Dark City…it’s from Cicero Drăculești—Francis’ creator.”
Sarah frowned. “Drăculești. Why do I know what name?”
“Order of the Dragon,” Valek sighed toward the fire. “It isn’t the name he came into this world with. The Drăculești dynasty was the greatest of our kind. Cicero is undead royalty. He is horrific. Very dangerous. In my earlier days, I used to work under him –perform his bidding. If someone needed to be destroyed, they called upon me. I’ve done horrible things, Sarah. Horrible things to countless people.”
Her eyebrows lifted, though remained silent.
“He is liege of the Parliament, the greatest secret society on earth. He’s the only one who knows how to help Charlotte. He says so in his note to her. I have to seek counsel with him, but if I do…I am his. He will not let me go free again. He’s been hunting me longer than Vladislov. But I do not wish to turn Charlotte, and she cannot die, so the Parliament is our only hope I fear.” Valek frowned down at the floor struggling with the idea that Sarah might find him evil –more so than even before. “I can already feel the shackles around my wrists.”
“Maybe not!” She sat up straighter in her chair, proceeding to explain more about the other night—when she and Edwin went to visit the Witch’s boarding house and what her grimoire had revealed to her. “Baba Yaga has come out of hiding, too. The uprising has stirred a lot of people awake, Valek. Perhaps, the Parliament isn’t our only answer.”
He gulped, his dead heart lifting. “Your serious?” She nodded. “Please. I’d like to find her, Sarah.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do!” She clapped her hands.
Valek leaned even closer to the Witch, glancing around to make sure no one was listening. “What I shared with you is between us. Cicero’s lure is a trap. You must understand why I so vehemently do not want Charlotte knowing too much. Abelim is one of the most dangerous places in the world. The city of death. It is a place of perpetual darkness, home to the seven original Vampire covens. They don’t want her help, they want her blood.”
“Many of our kind thought Abelim to be mere legend,” Sarah admitted. “And long since destroyed by early Light leaders. I don’t know any Witch whose even stepped foot over the city’s border.” Sarah’s whisper grew just a bit quieter. “If you think our little coven is bloodthirsty, I can’t even imagine how the oldest coven in the world would react to your human ingénue.”
“Do you really think the hag will know what to do? Can we trust her?” His voice quaked.
“It is the only thing we have to hold on to. How are you going to protect her if you’re the one who keeps hurting her?”
“You’re right.” He closed his eyes and inhaled slowly through his nose, sobering himself. He didn’t want Sarah to see him upset. “I never meant to hurt her.”
She sat back again in the armchair. “You can either change her—”
“No.”
“Or you can kill her.”
Valek scowled at her.
Sarah’s response was a simple shrug. “Then we must go. Even if the Bone Mother herself has no solution, she is ancient.”
“So?”
“So she has ancient friends. Bring your Anatomy of Vampires. Both of them. Show her what you’ve discovered. Either way, I have faith that your best bet lives with her.” She hopped up from the chair and placed two coins on the table next to the teacup. “We’ll pack up the house. We’ll leave by the morrow. But we cannot bring Charlotte with us.”
“Why not?” Valek gasped.
“Because! Tell me that isn’t a bad idea! She is ailing. There are people hunting you, now. She will be safe with the coven. Mr. Třínožka will look after her. I’m telling you. If she comes, she is dead.”
Considering she was right, Valek got to his feet and lumbered after Sarah out of the tavern. He glanced back at the bar left in havoc. A stool was in splinters. The ale bottle was still smashed over floor. All of the other patrons watched them in utter horrified silence.
“What about the boy?” he asked, mostly to himself.
“What did you see in Lusian’s mind?”
“He nearly killed him. The final image is the boy bleeding on the floor of a darkened house.”
“And then?”
“And then….” Valek frowned with the curiousness of it. “Lusian’s memories fade to black.”
“He’s family, isn’t he?” Sarah asked from over her shoulder.
Valek nodded reluctantly, disbelieving. Gruesome memories of the night his wife died in childbirth circled around his mind as though it happened yesterday. “He is. My grandson…six times removed.”
“And his immediate family?”
“Dead.”
Sarah frowned. “Then, he’s one of us now.”
Untitled
Chapter ThirteenDegrees of Separation
* * *
A day and half passed since Valek’s little exchange with Charlotte. He’d kept away from her on purpose, workin
g with Sarah to discretely pack away things they’d need for their journey. But the closer they got to leaving, the more guilt clawed at him. He needed to talk to her.
Coming down from his bedroom, Valek found Charlotte in the library with Edwin and Mr. Třínožka. Charlotte, dazed and vexing over a million issues, sat beside a chessboard in play as the two went at it in an intense round. The spider ruffled his giant, knobbed mustache as he moved his pawn forward.
“Wrong m-move,” Edwin sputtered, grinning as his shaky hand pushed one of his knights forward.
Their game was silhouetted against the dying glow of the fire. Charlotte’s curls were messy around her lovely alabaster face with freckles as faded as the stars at sunrise. Her gaze remained extremely distant, as she was lost inside her own mind, replaying the tragic scene of Valek Kills the Poor Human over and over again in her mind. He must have entered too quietly, for she didn’t look up at him at all. How fortunate he was, to be able to watch her so candidly—to get to witness every emotion, reaction, and thought play within her giant eyes, without her having any sort of knowledge he was watching her at all. It was for this ability he was able to know her better even than she sometimes knew herself.
Valek deliberately approached her at a steady human speed, so he wouldn’t startle her.
His little doll finally glanced up at him, a sad and tired smile turning up the corners of her pale lips. He was more than surprised to see that smile. Apparently, she’d already forgiven him for his horrific stunt.
“Where did you and Sarah go?” Her gaze flickered toward something just behind him. Valek sensed it was the aforementioned Witch, who appeared behind him in the library doorway. He heard her shoes on the wood as she flitted off at once down the hall into some other part of the house.
Valek extended a hand toward Charlotte. “May I steal you for a moment?”
She blinked at him once before taking his hand, allowing him to pull her to her feet. Edwin and the spider stopped their game, both turning to Valek with curiosity.
“No, you cannot steal her. Who will be here to witness my win?” Mr. Třínožka grumped.
“I will have her back shortly, gentlemen.”
Mr. Třínožka muttered something unintelligible and moved his queen to the F7 space on the board. “Check Mate,” he said to Edwin, his mustache bristling over a massive grin. Edwin began to sputter.
Valek led Charlotte out of the library by the hand, noticing as soon as they walked out of the room, Sarah slipped back into the library behind them. Her thoughts told him she was taking a few of her spell books for their journey and did not want Charlotte to see her doing so.
Valek stopped just before the staircase, thinking for a moment, though not letting go of Charlotte’s warm hand. He hated this plan. He did not want to simply leave her. He looked down into her wide confused eyes as she searched his face. His initial goal was to just be alone with her one last night before he and Sarah stole away to go find the Wood Witch, but he decided being in that house, with all of them listening was not exactly being alone. He needed to find a way to tell her about his plan without upsetting her.
His eyes began to swell with blood tears and he turned his face, hiding from her. He seemed to be doing a lot of hiding those days. It was his best and only defense. He feverishly blinked them away as he thought of a place he’d rather go. His memory traveled back over the previous weeks and months until he locked on a favorite memory in particular. It was the night Charlotte admitted what her true feelings were –the same night she’d found him with Evangeline, the night they had their conversation by the fountain outside of the Elven cathedral. In spite of his digression, the memory truly was a happy one.
“Grab your sweater,” Valek whispered, though he did not wait for Charlotte to respond as he reached up to tear her cable-knit sweater from the coat rack.
“Where are we going?” She asked, her voice small as she shrugged it on, quickly fastening the wooden hook.
He pulled the door open and ushered her out into the night. “I need to get out from these walls. They’re driving me mad.”
Hearing her pulse pick up, he realized he sounded rather manic. He pulled her down the crooked porch steps and back into the snow, where only her footfalls made wet hurried sloshing sounds.
“You’re acting strange,” Charlotte accused, wrapping her free arm tightly around herself. Her teeth began to chatter. “What did Sarah say? Where did you two go?”
Valek found it increasingly difficult to make eye contact with her. “The tavern.”
Charlotte lifted an eyebrow at him. “Why would you go to the tavern?”
“Sarah wanted to go and she wanted company.”
She frowned up at him. “Why didn’t you invite me?”
“We thought you might have been too tired to go. At any rate, I thought you were furious with me.” Lying to her was as uncomfortable as holding his breath –doable, but distressing. “Speaking of which, how do you feel now? Is your scar bothering you?”
“It throbs just a bit,” she admitted. “But it isn’t hurting me right now.”
Valek pulled her along a bit faster. “Good.”
They walked past the center of the square that had once been so busy, you could barely move through it. Ogres, Elves, Phasers, Witches, and any other imaginable creature of the night would crowd there, peddling items from their fruit and deli carts. The smell of smoked meats used to hang on the air among the bustling sounds of inhabitants bartering with one another. Those sounds and smells were now only ghosts in his memory as he and Charlotte began to approach the Elven church wedged between Broucka General Store and the tavern.
“What are we doing here?” Her glassy stare focused on the gothic façade and then darted from one screeching gargoyle to the next until it rested on Valek again.
He could hear the fear build in her mind. She was thinking that Aiden could perhaps be hiding in the bowels of this cathedral. While that made sense, Valek knew he wasn’t. If Aiden were anywhere within the Occult radius, Valek would surely know. He imagined the Elf’s thoughts would be so loud because of some unbridled passionate rage he’d be able to hear him coming from a kilometer away.
Valek thought back to the enthronement, both dreadful and brilliant. Charlotte clad in a champagne gown, the most glorious vision against the light of the coming day. That had been Valek’s first sunrise in more than one hundred years. That memory was branded into his mind for eternity—the enamoring vision of Charlotte’s scarlet curls and emerald eyes against the pale yellow light, her beauty set aglow by it. Each and every time Valek looked at the sun now, that was what he saw.
They did not enter the church. Instead, Valek led her by the arm around the side of the cathedral, down the cobblestone pathway, and into the garden. He would never forget that night, either. All of the confusing impulses. Her exhaustion. His embarrassment.
This garden was the only thing that remained consistent about their Occult city now. It looked just like it had when he’d originally found her there, crying by the fountain, face buried in her delicate little hands. The place was probably under some spell, he’d suspected. The jasmine continued to bloom against emerald green leaves and grass. In spite of the snow falling all around them, the season had no effect on this small paradise, like it was tucked safely under the shelter of a glass globe.
“Valek, why did you take me here?” she asked, as he listened to the many happenings inside of her mind.
She was confused –afraid of him, even. She had every right to be. But the beauty of the spring that lived in this oasis, paired with the white winter coming down all around them, was enough to ease her, if only a small amount. Her gaze finally left his face as it trailed around where they were. For a moment, Valek’s peace returned as he watched her appreciate it.
“Because I do not know where else to truly be alone with you.” He released her hand.
Charlotte looked at him expectantly as he circled to the front of her, taking both of her
hands in his. “Valek—”
“I need you back. I need the real you to return to me.”
Charlotte gaped at him. “But I am the real me.”
“You aren’t. So much has changed, and I feel like it’s all my doing. Lottie, I am so sorry for what I’ve done to you. I created this.”
“You didn’t! I’ll be fine—”
Suddenly, she groaned, gritted her teeth together. It was coming back. The pain was so palpable it almost became physical for him as well. He could sense the burn begin at her throat and spread all the way across her chest and shoulders. Her thoughts screamed it at him as she bent double. Panicking, he grabbed up her hot hands in his cool ones again, willing the incineration to stop. This was it. He refused to experience another night of putting her through this. Sarah was right. This needed to end.
“You are sick,” he argued. “You are dying, it’s true.”
“Is that what you and Sarah were talking about?”
Valek didn’t want to answer anything further. Instead, he shut his eyes as tightly as he could and continued to tune in to her immolation, wanting to be punished by it as well –wanting to experience the pain along with her, as she did. He hoped it would distract from his overwhelming guilt.
“Valek, did Sarah tell you to take me here?” Her fingers knotted up in the lapel of his overcoat. “What is going to happen to me?”
He didn’t answer.
“Valek!” Charlotte shook him a little. Silvery tears slipped, glimmering down her face.
They were leaving the next evening. It would be his last and most desperate attempt to save her. There was no other choice. But he wouldn’t just abandon her. He needed to say something. He pulled her against him. She resisted slightly, but he pulled until she collapsed into his arms.
“You are acting so strange.” She whimpered against his chest.
He placed his claws on either side of her face and kissed her once on the cheek. “I have to fix you, Lottie.” He pressed his lips to her forehead, feeling her small hands wind around his wrists. A light tugging sensation suggested that she was trying to fight him away. “I promised that everything was going to return to normal. I won’t break my promise.” He couldn’t look her in the eye, so he just held her even tighter to him. “I’m leaving tomorrow, but I promise I will return,” he confessed.
Of Blood and Magic Page 29
