I stood frozen. Caden. Amelie. Fiona. Bishop. Their faces flashed in my mind.
“You’re going to go out and look for this portal for the pendant,” he continued. “Check every rock, every cave, every city.”
“The place is crawling with vampires. I’m dead if they get hold of me,” I replied warily.
“You’re dead if I get hold of you.” Viggo’s lips curled into a hideous smile.
A chorus of deep, menacing growls sounded but no one paid any heed.
“How many vampires are left on this Ratheus, anyway?” Mortimer interjected.
“I don’t know. I don’t think there’s been a census done lately,” I answered sullenly, my eyes glued to Viggo. Murderer.
“My, someone’s finally found her tongue. When did you become so grating?” Viggo asked with an infuriating smirk.
“When I found out you murdered my mother.”
“Didn’t you explain, Sofie?” Viggo’s eyebrows lifted, but his focus remained on me. “That was Sofie’s fault. She deceived me.” The gleam in his eye turned my blood ice cold. “Don’t ever deceive me.”
“You want to be free of us, don’t you?” Mortimer added, a hint of desperation in his voice.
I faltered. “And will I? Be free of you once I bring them back?”
“Absolutely.”
I don’t believe you. But it didn’t matter. Either I refused and Viggo wrenched the necklace off me right here, right now, leaving Caden and the others in Ratheus for eternity, forever beyond my sight, or I risked dying by going along with this. Highly probable risk but just a risk, all the same.
“So you want me to just wander around until the necklace starts talking to me? What if I get caught? So far, the two run–ins I’ve had with the vampires of that world haven’t exactly ended well. Remember? I almost died both times.”
“But that was before. You are so much wiser now, and the necklace has properly adjusted. I’m sure you’ll do just fine,” Viggo assured me, smiling. He stepped away, releasing the pendant. “So it’s settled?”
If I release Veronique and she chooses Mortimer, then this will be worth it. “I’m glad you’re feeling good about this plan, given you’re not the one who’s going to die,” I grumbled. “And if I die then this whole plan is finished and you have no hope of ever turning Veronique.”
Mortimer raised an eyebrow at Sofie.
She sighed. “If the lapse in time continues as it’s been going, with you staying longer and longer away from here … I’m afraid you’ll one day—soon—simply not return. Then it won’t matter. You can’t survive long in a place like that.”
“That’s why I was hungry … and tired,” I thought aloud. It also explained all the supplies for me that Sofie had packed. She had known it would happen. That or she took the ‘be–prepared’ Girl Scout Motto to a whole new level. “So every time I go over now, I’ll be there for longer and longer and eventually I’ll stay there forever?”
Sofie nodded.
Would that be so bad? I wouldn’t have to help my mother’s murderer find true love. And I could stay with Caden, Amelie, Fiona, and Bishop. In a cave, with no electricity, no running water, no food.
Four vampires and one human, living together in harmony. No, five vampires. Ugh. Unless this Rachel thing ended and she went back to whatever crypt she belonged in. Who was I fooling? She wouldn’t go anywhere. Not before she tore the flesh right from my bones as I watched, screaming.
There would always be the constant threat of death. No, not threat. Inevitability. Even if I evaded death by Rachel or some other vampire, it would catch up to me eventually with age. A vivid image popped into my head then—a wrinkled old woman in a black string bikini struggling to shuffle into a hot spring lake, watched with disgust and pity by four young, beautiful vampires. It made me shudder. That’d be worse than dying.
Unless …
“What would happen to the necklace if I stayed there forever? Would it keep protecting me? Like, from their venom?” I asked Sofie. Could I be … turned? The very idea made my skin crawl, but I had to know.
Her eyes flashed knowingly. “It could keep working, not realizing that you can’t return to Earth anymore. That, or kill you. Which one it will be … it’s a toss–up.”
Old or dead. I sighed. Well, that ended that idea. I could handle the caveman life if it meant spending it young and with Caden, but the alternatives—old and wrinkly or with Rachel—were unthinkable.
So that left me helping the vampire who’d murdered my mother or letting him kill me. Could I get away? Could I bring them all over then escape? Hope sparked for only a millisecond; he’d hunt me down. I’d spend the rest of my life being the prey of a desperate two thousand–year–old vampire. “The rest of my life” would prove much shorter than expected.
I swallowed the painful lump in my throat. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Viggo’s brow rose incredulously.
I nodded.
“Fabulous!” That deceptively charming smile was back. I saw through it now, though.
“Is there anything you need?” Sofie asked softly, sadness in her eyes. “I can go pick up some supplies.”
I hesitated. “A wet suit.” Viggo and Mortimer looked at me suspiciously. “In case this portal is underwater,” I quickly added. Or in the cave with the Merth, which was exactly where I was headed. I was going to bring back as much Merth as possible so I could wrap myself in it.
Hello, Max’s deep voice boomed clearly in my head.
My eyes widened.
Still not ready?
“No, I’m not ready to hear voices in my head. I’ll never be ready to hear voices. But that won’t change anything, will it?” I muttered bitterly, turning onto my back in bed to stare up at the ceiling. So I was having a conversation with a dog. So what? Plenty of people talk to animals.
Leo had moved my things—whatever hadn’t been damaged—into another suite. The furnishings were similar here to those in my previous room, but the magical vibe was gone. The Bloody Quarters, I mused, my eyes scanning the rich red walls and fabrics. If those giant leopards had been massacred in here, the carnage would have blended in nicely.
I reached over and touched one of Max’s massive paws. “How can I hear you?”
Because you’re my master now.
“What does that even mean? How am I your master?”
I don’t know. It just happened. Mortimer used to be my master and now you are.
“And how do I talk to you in my head? You know, telepathically?”
You can’t. I don’t know why, but it’s only one–way communication.
I nodded, somehow disappointed with the limitation. “Sofie said you watched over me?”
Yes.
I brightened with an idea. “You need to show me what you saw, Max,” I urged. “You have to if I’m your master and I order you, right?”
I heard a loud groan of annoyance. You’re sounding like Mortimer already.
“Oh … sorry Max.” I smiled sheepishly. “But it’s important.”
What would you like to see?
I thought for a moment. “My mother? Before …” Before she was murdered. “I need to get that image out of my head. Please Max.”
That picture show began in my head again. This time I was looking through a window at a girl of maybe five, her long blond pigtails tied with peacock blue satin bows, sitting on a stool in a small kitchen. She was savoring a batter–covered beater as if chocolate was the most heavenly taste ever created. A blonde woman, her back to the girl, was loading a tray of cupcakes into the oven to bake. She turned, offering a dimpled smile and a laugh to the little girl.
My mother.
Warmth warred with stabbing pain in my chest. My memory hadn’t done her justice. I had forgotten how beautiful she was, with her shoulder–length, sandy blonde hair and infectious smile. Even at a young age, I’d noticed how she turned heads. But it wasn’t just her looks. She also had that charismatic, clever personality that won people over in seconds. The room would light up when she walked in. At least for me, it always did.
Images began flashing in my mind again. Faces … faces I recognized as those in the foster homes I had moved through in my youth. Mrs. Boulding, the Avon lady. Mr. Billsbury, the drunk. Mrs. Clairmont, the evangelical loon. The Darlings. They had been relatively normal …
The images went on and on, a candid viewing of my transient life until it stopped with the image of me stumbling in front of Newt’s Brew. Watching the scene from Max’s point of view, I saw Sofie’s pricey lantern fall over and smash without ever coming into contact with my leg.
Magic. It had all been staged. A chill swept over me.
But that wasn’t the most unsettling discovery in all of this. “How did I not see you?”
I didn’t want to be seen, Max said matter–of–factly.
Of course. A three hundred pound dog lurking in my apartment and prowling the streets after me, and my Spidey–senses never kicked in. But Eddie, the crazy homeless guy, had seen him.
“How often were you watching me?”
There was a long pause. You were never alone.
The sudden urge to vomit hit me like a tidal wave. I bolted to the washroom. After several minutes of staring at the white porcelain toilet bowl—nothing was coming up, it was just my nerves—I gave up and stumbled back with the awful knowledge that there had been a pair of eyes on me for my entire life, and I had never suspected it.
“Max, show me everything you remember,” I demanded.
I remember everything.
“Okay, the important things.”
I lay down on the bed, my eyes staring at the ceiling without seeing it, getting a play–by–play of my childhood through the eyes of a dog. Some memories were specific, like the Halloween I dressed in a penguin costume—my mother’s favorite animal—and waddled out the front door, only to fall flat on my face and give myself a bloody nose because the costume bound my feet together too tightly. Other images were vague—me, sitting in my room, crying quietly as I clutched a framed picture of my mother. I had done that often in the early days.
Max showed me another flash then, one that didn’t require a replay for me to remember every second. I had just turned thirteen and was at home watching reruns on television, what I normally did while waiting for my mom to get home from work. The doorbell rang. Is your father home? a policeman asked when I opened the door. I shook my head. Do you have any family you can call? I shook my head, frowning, wondering what was going on. The female police officer smiled gently and asked me to wait a second while she called someone on her radio. Child Services showed up not long after, sending me to my room to pack a bag of things.
That was the night Viggo murdered my mother.
The images stopped.
“How are you doing this?” I asked Max.
I just can.
“Show me more, then. Show me everything.”
He obliged.
Me, studying alone in the library for hours. Me, alone and leaning against a chain link fence after school, reading a book as all the other kids hung out together. Me, alone in a park, swinging so high that I looked ready to sail off. Me, always alone.
Bitterness swelled. Of course I was alone. Viggo had made sure of it. What would my life have been like without this blasted curse?
I stared vacantly at Sofie as she walked into the room, another mountain bag slung over one shoulder as if it were filled with cotton balls.
She has your best interests at heart, Max said.
“How do you know that?” I answered.
Sofie looked up at me, frowning. I shook my head dismissively. “Oh.” She smiled, glancing over at the dog sprawled on the king–sized bed. “Ready to go? It’s time to strap you in.”
With everything that had transpired—the attack, learning the devastating truth about my mother and my life—I hadn’t had a second to think about Ratheus … about Caden’s rejection. It seemed so trivial now, yet my stomach tightened all the same, a wave of nausea draining my face of blood.
But, in the end, it wasn’t trivial. Hope that Caden might feel something for me, that I could save him and the others from their isolation, was all I had left. I had lost everything else because of this curse. Something good had to come of it.
Was there something more than friendship there? His words had been so contradictory. Was I reading too much into them, hearing what I wanted to hear—what I needed to hear? There had to be some twisted reason that had brought him—a sweet, kind, gorgeous, down–to–earth creature—together with the anti–Christ, Rachel.
I dragged myself off the bed to sit in front of the bag.
“Great,” Sofie said cheerfully, affixing the straps.
I frowned at her. She was way too cheery.
Viggo’s listening, Max said. They think she’s keeping secrets from them. They don’t trust her.