But I can’t keep living like this, hiding, waiting.
I need to get out.
I don’t even have an ID or my wallet, just cash they give me, and I miss my phone. I talk to Elle on Facebook on the computer, but it’s not the same. It’s keeping me tethered to the room.
And there’s a hunger and thirst that’s building inside me, that doesn’t go away no matter how many bottles of wine and bloody steaks I get delivered to my room.
I need to feed.
I hate myself for it.
But I can’t ignore it anymore.
So, on a foggy-day, I leave the Fairmont, catching the California Line cable car with the tourists, heading over the hill, dropping me off on Van Ness where I walk across Koreatown until I’m at Alamo Square.
The walk would have been nice, the fact that I’m getting fresh air, that I’m out of the hotel, but with every person I pass, I grow increasingly paranoid that I’m going to attack them. I’m starting to smell them, the unique scent of each person’s blood, and it makes my veins feel like they’re shriveling up inside me.
I probably should have come here by way of the black and white world, but honestly that place gives me the creeps. I keep thinking I see those shadows in my room at night.
I come to a stop in front of the house, staring up at all the stories, the tower, marveling at how I know exactly who lives inside the walls. The urban legends about this place only scratched the surface.
There’s movement at one of the windows, and I stare up, wondering who is watching me. I can feel the frosted gaze of a vampire, I’m just not sure who it belongs to.
Then the front door opens. There’s a middle-aged woman, short, but with a long, elegant neck and straight posture. From the cut of her jaw and the dark grey-streaked hair piled on her head, I can tell this is Amethyst’s mother, Yvonne, the human housekeeper I never got a chance to meet.
She gives me a quick smile and motions with her hand for me to come forward.
I go up the steps.
“Yvonne?” I ask quietly.
She nods and then steps back, gesturing for me to come inside.
I step through, expecting to either be bounced back by an invisible force field or feel some sort of charge, but I walk on through without anything unusual happening. The only thing I feel is an intense sense of calm come over me, like a weight lifted off my shoulders.
“Ms. Warwick?” Yvonne asks, and I realize that I’ve been standing in the middle of the hall with my eyes closed.
“Is Absolon here?” I turn to face her.
“He’s coming,” a raspy voice says from behind me.
I look to see Ezra on the staircase, though he wasn’t there a second ago.
I haven’t seen Ezra since he abducted me, and there’s something about him that still makes me stand up straighter, the calm dissipating. In the daytime, in this house, he seems taller than I remembered, wiry and lean, but full of power. His style is much more relaxed than Solons, a black denim jacket, a navy graphic t-shirt, grey jeans. His dark fair falls softly across his forehead, his skin tone tanned, not pale like Wolf or Solon. He has the look of Italian nobility in a casual, yet deadly, package.
“Hi,” I say in a meek voice. “I came to get my bag.”
Ezra purses his lips in disbelief, his brown eyes raking over me. I’m wearing jeans, and a thin, off-the-shoulder sweater, and the bare skin it exposes is where his gaze finally rests.
Ice burns my shoulder as his eyes slowly roam up to my neck, making me feel unsteady and unsettled.
Yvonne clears her throat loudly, snapping Ezra out of it. I don’t have to turn around to know she just gave him a cutting look, because even he looks mildly afraid.
“Solon will be with you in a moment dear,” Yvonne says to me, briefly touching my elbow. “Would you like me to stay with you?”
I blink at her. How brave this woman is, standing with two vampires, one of whom desperately needs to feed. “That won’t be necessary.”
She nods, a wash of relief coming across her, and then she disappears down the hall.
Ezra watches me for a moment, then slowly walks down the stairs, his gaze unnerving.
I look away, finding my focus drawn to the staircase bannister. There are numerous deep gauges in the wood, like something had clawed at it. Someone has tried to cover it up with a few coats of shiny paint, but they still remain.
I had done some more reading about the Westerfeld house the last few days, trying to meld together what was fiction and what was reality. Apparently, Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, used to frequent here, and prior to his conversion into Satanism, he was a lion tamer and kept a cub inside the house. He also used to hold satanic rituals in the ballroom, which I’m guessing was Dark Eyes.
The whole thing makes me shiver, even more than the fact that this is a full-blown vampire’s lair.
“Is that from the lion?” I ask him, gesturing to the bottom of the bannister.
Ezra eyes me in surprise. “Lion? No. That was Solon.”
My mouth opens. How the hell did Solon do that? He’s got sharp fingernails, but they aren’t claws.
“Do you want something to drink?” Ezra asks me, gesturing to a large set of doors.
Yes. Blood.
But I don’t feel comfortable telling him that. I don’t want to mention blood around other vampires, and the last thing I want is for him to offer himself, despite how hungry am.
“I’m good,” I tell him, walking toward the room, Ezra right at my back. I can feel his frozen stare on my shoulder, practically smell the lust and desire rolling off him in waves.
We enter the large library, a gorgeous place filled with books from floor-to-ceiling, all teak wood shelving, old chandeliers hanging from a gilded ceiling, but it’s hard to focus on that when all I can feel is Ezra’s hunger.
He places a hand on my shoulder, and I gasp at the contact, freezing in place. Fear floods all my senses, setting off panic, while the ruby in my necklace starts to burn on my chest.
“Please remove your hand,” Absolon’s quiet but deadly voice comes from behind us.
Ezra hesitates, then takes it away. I breathe a sigh of relief, turning around to see Solon leaning against the doorway, black pants, a burgundy dress shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows.
But despite the casual pose, his eyes possess the lethal self-assurance of a cold-blooded killer.
Ezra raises his palms as he saunters past him. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t dream of hurting your beloved protégé.”
I know Ezra was being sarcastic, but the word beloved hits me deep. For a moment, I wonder what it would be like to have this man’s love, if he’s even capable of it. Surely vampires fall in love, don’t they?
Not for you to find out, I scold myself, willing the butterflies inside my stomach to settle.
Ezra goes back up the stairs and Solon watches his every move. Finally, he comes away from the door, walking toward me.
“You came,” Solon notes, gesturing to the blue velvet couch behind me. “Have a seat.”
I don’t move. “I came to get my purse.”
A smoky look takes over his eyes. “That’s not why you’re here.”
“You think I’m propositioning you?”
His brows go up. “I didn’t think that.” Then he smiles. “Now I do.”
I scowl at him as he takes a few steps toward me, his eyes coasting over every inch of me. “You really should sit down,” he says. “You look tired. Vampires rarely look tired.”
Then he turns and takes a seat in the leather armchair across from me. Reluctantly, I sit down on the couch, both relieved and disappointed that there’s some distance between us, unlike the last time I saw him.
“You shouldn’t have shown up at our lunch like that,” I tell him, still pissed.
“I told you,” he says calmly. “Had to keep an eye on you. You’d be foolish to think I haven’t been watching you these past few days.”
I sw
allow, averting my eyes to the indigo carpet, trying to focus on the designs on it. “You must have better things to do with your time.”
“How I spend my time is up to me, moonshine. When you’ve got an eternity waiting for you, time tends to lose all meaning.”
I glance at him, once again stricken by his carnal beauty. “You’re not immortal.”
“You’re right. I’m not immortal. But I do excel at living.”
I think that over for a moment. “Still, you put me in danger by showing up.”
“You’re the one who put herself in danger by leaving the hotel,” he replies simply. “You also put the both of us in danger by trying to reveal who we really are.”
“Well, how am I supposed to know you aren’t even supposed to joke about it? There’s no rule book.”
“But there is me.” He gives me a pointed look. “Perhaps you should be staying here instead of all alone and unprotected, with only your helpless witchy parents as company.”
“Maybe staying here sounds just as dangerous as staying anywhere else.”
But it’s a lie the moment it leaves my lips. Because, despite Ezra giving me the heebie-jeebies, I feel calm here. Safe. Even sitting on this couch I feel like my body is melding into it, letting go of so much tension and anxiety. I have to force myself to stay alert.
“You don’t worry about Ezra,” Solon says, his face darkening for a moment. “He knows I’ll kill him if he touches you again.”
My heart thumps loudly at that.
“Don’t romanticise my words,” he adds. “I’m merely possessive over what’s mine.”
“I’m not yours,” I remind him stiffly. “Though clearly you treat me like I am, think you can just touch me any time you want.”
He gives me a twisted smile, his eyes glittering. “I’m sorry, am I not supposed to get you off in the span of ten seconds?”
My whole body burns from the memory and I take in a deep, shaky breath to steady my nerves—and my hormones. “No.”
But also, yes. My body wants it, my heart does too, but my brain says otherwise; my brain says he needs to keep his distance at all times.
He makes a sound of irritation. “Don’t think about it too deeply. I’m just exerting my power over you.”
I give him a sharp look. “Yeah, well maybe one day I’ll get to exert my power over you.”
That brings a small smile to his face. He gets to his feet, comes over to the couch and peers down at me. “I’m counting on it,” he says steadily.
Then he turns and walks off to a bar cart in the corner. “Want a drink?” he asks, taking the top off a crystal decanter with a satisfying pop. “And I don’t mean blood. You’ll get that later.”
I’m getting emotional—and physical—whiplash from our interactions. I take in another deep breath, then decide a stiff drink is probably what I need. Stiff something, that’s for sure. “Okay.”
He glances at me over his shoulder, as if he heard that last thought, and then pours the drinks, coming over with two crystal highball glasses in his hands. “Here,” he says, handing me one. He brings his glass to mine, tapping it against the rim with a musical chime. “And here’s to new beginnings.”
I stare up at him, immediately locked in his gaze, his pupils growing larger, blacker, until they’re all I see. He raises his glass to his lips, never breaking eye contact, and I do the same, swallowing down the delicious burn of Scotch.
Then he sits back down in the armchair, one leg crossed, ankle on the knee, taking an elegant pose. He reminds me of a big cat, and I think back to the claw marks on the stairs, wondering what happened there. But I have so many questions for him at this point, that will have to wait.
“You’re still wearing the necklace,” he says appreciatively.
I automatically press my fingers against the ruby, a habit now. “I’ve been too afraid to take it off.”
His forehead creases. “Really? And why is that?”
“My parents said it’s bewitched.”
“And they were fine with you wearing it?”
“They said,” I pause, licking my lips, “that it was for my own good.”
“They’re right,” he says after a moment, taking a sip of his drink.
“What is it? A way to track me?”
He scoffs. “I can track you without that, moonshine.”
I stare at him to go on.
“It lets you know when I’m near,” he explains. He has another sip of his drink.
“A warning?”
He gives me a cold look. “Sure. If you like to think of it that way.”
I decide to switch the subject. “So, what happened to me the other night? What is the…Black Sunshine?”
He observes me for a moment before he relaxes slightly. “Some call it the Veil, but it depends on who you are and where you go. It’s a world between worlds.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that there are more dimensions to this world than what we exist on,” he says with added patience. “And by we, I mean humanity. The Black Sunshine is used primarily by vampires, but sometimes you’ll find people in there too, those with special abilities. Not quite witchcraft, but something else.”
“So normal people can’t go there?”
He lifts a shoulder. “Normal people might, but it’s getting into the Veils that poses the problem. You have to create your own door and not many people can do that. You also have to be careful as to where you’re going.” He notes the puzzled expression on my face. “Think of it like…back in the day, when you paid with your credit card, they’d put it in an imprinter and make several copies on carbon. Think of the top layer as this world, the next as Black Sunshine, and the rest as the layers under that.”
“So, there’s another layer underneath the one I was in?”
He nods.
“Can we go there?”
“Yes,” he says cautiously. “But you don’t want to.”
“Why not?”
“Because the levels go down, Lenore, not up. You understand what I’m saying? Even those as damned and soulless as we are don’t want to flirt with Hell.”
“Soulless? Speak for yourself.”
“I am,” he replies curtly, staring at me until I look down at my drink.
“So, do all vampires go in there? I didn’t see anyone there at all. Just…shadows. Creeped me out.”
“Those are shadow souls. You have a right to be creeped out.”
“Shadow souls?”
“Souls trapped in purgatory until they burnout, just the darkness remaining. They’re hungry for anything with a heartbeat. Spirit-hijackers. Best to stay away from them if you can.”
My eyes go wide. “Spirit-hijackers? I’m never going back in there again.”
“It’s not a pleasant place,” he says with a sigh, twirling his glass around, watching the caramel liquid swirl. “But sometimes it’s necessary. Not only because time moves differently in there, but because it allows us to hide for long periods of time.”
“Wait, time moves differently?”
“The time it took for you to escape from Dark Eyes and run to your apartment took less than a minute.”
I shake my head. “No. I was running full-stop, but it was at least ten.”
“Not to this world. It’s the closest thing we have to teleporting. You still have to do the work, time feels normal down there. But up here, it gives the illusion of being gone for just a moment.” He pauses, sucking in his lower lip in thought. “Long ago, when we weren’t used to the real sunshine yet, we’d have to escape into the Black Sunshine for six months at a time.”
“Why?”
“We come from the land of the midnight sun,” he says. “Half the year we live in darkness, the other half the sun never sets. That world was our salvation.”
This is a segue, and I’m taking it.
“Tell me about Skarde,” I say.
His mouth tightens. “Who told you about him? Your parents?”
“Wolf, actually. My parents too, but I still don’t know much.”
“Hmmm.” He swallows down more of his drink, his jaw tense. “Well, what do you want to know?” he finally says.
“He’s still alive, right?”
His eyes bore into me. “Yes.”
“Do you know him?”
A subtle nod, his mouth firm.
“And…where is he? In San Francisco?”
“God, no,” he says in a hush. “He’s far away. Norway. A tiny village no one can find. No human, that is.”
I’m so intrigued, despite the fact that the couch feels like it’s swallowing me whole. “Have you been there?”
“Of course,” he says, like I’m an idiot for asking.
“How old are you?”
“Old.”
“Why don’t you tell me? When were you born? Or reborn, I should say.”
“What makes you think vampires are reborn?”
I open my mouth, then close it. “So, you can’t make a vampire? I thought that was the whole point of creating a vampire, being a vampire?”
“What’s the need to do that if we can create them the other way?” he asks pointedly. “By fucking.”
The way he says fucking sounds extra crude, but of course it sets my skin on fire, brings a fierce ache out of me.
He totally said that on purpose.
I clear my throat. “So you can’t make a vampire, then.”
“We can,” he says slowly. “But it’s not allowed anymore.”
“Who says?”
“Who do you think?”
“Skarde?” He nods. “Why not anymore?”
“Because it was done for a while, to get vampires established, and then it was outlawed. It rarely goes the way you want it to. Humans that become vampires are…mentally and physically unstable, to put it mildly. It’s an awful life, if you’re unlucky enough to even survive it. Most kill themselves, one way or another, on purpose or not. You want to know how vampires became such feared and condemned creatures? That’s how. They’re the true monsters in this world.”
I shiver despite myself. “Have you turned anyone into one?”
His eyes narrow sharply. “I would never do that. I’m cruel, remember, but not that cruel.” He pauses, his fingers tensing around the glass, enough that I worry about it shattering. “The less blood-hungry savage creatures there are on this earth, the better.”
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