My hands shoot out to grab her before she topples under its weight. “Need help?”
Shaking her head, she hefts it to the middle of the room and lays it on the nearest white table. “Most people think cherubs are winged babies.”
“Like cupid,” I say.
“That’s what artists would have you believe.” She opens the tome, revealing not a crumbly page, but a painting of the Madonna and child with pretty cherubs floating at either side. It looks like an early draft of Raphael’s Sistine Madonna.
My mouth drops open, but no sound comes out. Why on earth would the Order possess this kind of art?
“Those winged babies are actually putti, a lower form of celestial being,” she says.
My head tilts to the side, wondering how this is related to the monster. “What’s a cherub, then?”
Poppy flips the page, again and again, leafing through more renaissance paintings, until she reaches one of a ferocious-looking angel with a lion’s face on one side of his head, and that of an ox on the other. Two pairs of wings sprout from his back, one with eagle feathers, and the others white. I can’t stop myself from staring at his eyes. They’re amber, like the monster’s, and like the monster’s, they have no whites.
“This is a cherub,” Poppy says.
I place a hand over my mouth. Pluck away the feathers, pickle the human body for a century and add lots of teeth, and this could probably be a cousin of the monster. “Angels aren’t real.”
“They’re not, but what if someone wanted to create a creature that would fight vampires?”
“And retire the slayers?” I make a flipping motion with my wrist, a silent request for her to turn to the next canvas.
Poppy obliges and reveals a painting that reminds me of the one I saw on the seer’s elevator. Instead of a hellish landscape, this is a full-body portrait of either the devil or a demon. My brow furrows. If angels aren’t real, was someone trying to create them based on the artwork?
“You know the history of vampires and mages, right?” she asks.
I nod. “Justinian turned on mages and tried to feed on their powerful blood?”
She returns to the tome and pulls back the demon painting, revealing one of a man standing in a crucifix position. A membrane of skin stretches from his arms, down his torso, and to the sides of his legs. “Before the Mage Council sided with the Order, it considered alternatives to breaking free of the vampires.”
I rub my chin. “Like making their own slayers?”
Poppy shrugs. “Saint Theodora turned prostitutes into warriors. The Council thought it could do the same.”
“So the monster is some kind of throwback from the sixteenth century?” I ask.
“It’s the only logical conclusion.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and squeeze my eyes shut. “How do we kill it?”
“Until we know how the mages created the creature, I’m not sure.” Poppy closes the tome.
My shoulders slump. “What if it attacks someone else?”
“The quicker you can hand Presbytera Driver your report, the quicker the slayers know which methods don’t work on it.” She gives my hand a gentle squeeze.
I nod, and the tight band of tension around my chest loosens, allowing me to exhale. Poppy’s words remind me that there are women stronger, faster, and more qualified than me who might be able to defeat the monster. She’s right. A lone slayer might get herself bitten, but a team backed with conciliars, weapons, and technology would ensure the monster doesn’t survive the night.
After placing the huge tome back on the shelf, Poppy guides me out of the room and back to the downstairs desks, where she researches the mages’ historical attempts to create a slayer.
I sit closely at the banks of computers and type up my report, putting as much detail as I can remember into my account of the monster’s capabilities. Something about it doesn’t add up. It’s never shown up on any of the instructor-led patrols, so where did it come from, why now, and why did it wait until everyone else had boarded the van before making its attack?
Hours later, we return to our room, where I read over my report and make some final edits. It’s nearly sunset by the time I email it to Presbytera Driver, and Poppy is making a video call to Madoc and talking about the upcoming Halloween party at the hotel ballroom.
I step into the bathroom and fill the tub with hot water. When it’s ready, I drop a bath bomb into the water, which sinks to the bottom with an explosion of pink, and floats to the top. It bubbles and fizzes and moves in a spiral of pink and white, reminding me of the cube of ether in Alaric’s blood.
Lavender and musk mingle with the steam, and I climb into the tub for a soak. Bubbles tickle my skin and massage my tight muscles. I remind myself to thank Aunt Clarissa for the thoughtful gift.
It’s so relaxing that I drift off to sleep, only waking when the water turns cold. I drain the tub, shower off the salts, and return to our room. Poppy lies on her night sky coverlet, fully-clothed on her side in front of her open laptop. It looks like she fell asleep in the middle of her research. I place the computer on her desk, pull off her shoes, and change into a nightshirt.
“Wear something else,” says a voice from outside.
My heart jumps to the back of my throat. Balling my fists, I whirl around to find a tall, dark figure standing on the balcony. Even though the net curtains obscure his face, I can tell it’s Alaric.
“What are you doing in my room?” I hiss.
He raises both hands. “Balconies don’t count as a threshold.”
I fold my arms across my chest. “Don’t act like you need an invitation. I know you don’t.”
“It’s impolite to enter a lady’s chamber without being specifically invited,” he murmurs with a smile in his voice.
“That hasn’t stopped you before.” I pull the net curtain aside.
Alaric leans on the balcony’s metal railings with his arms stretched along the handrail. The breeze blows strands of dark hair off his face, revealing eyes that twinkle in the moonlight.
His lips curl into a smile. “I came to make sure you were still alive.”
“What were you expecting?”
“One can never tell with the order.” He steps toward me but doesn’t cross the threshold. “I was sure you wouldn’t transform, but I had to see you for myself.”
“It almost sounds like you care.” The moment those words tumble from my lips, I cringe because they sound so needy.
He raises his brows. “A conciliar must always tend to his slayer's needs.”
Anticipation skitters down my spine. I’m not sure if he’s talking about protecting me from discovery or something darker, something forbidden between vampires and slayers. My skin, which is still damp from the long bath, tightens into goosebumps. Alaric runs his warm palms down my arms and chases away the chill.
I exhale a long breath and tilt my head up to meet his eyes. What am I going to do? My life as a slayer is completely wrecked. I know too much to fit into the mold of an Augustine, and now it feels like I’m obsessed with a vampire less than a century younger than Theodora and Justinian.
Alaric leans close and encases me in his masculine, woodsy scent. It penetrates the last of my defenses, and my legs tremble with the need to submit. He inches closer and closer until our faces are mere millimeters apart and just as I think he’s going to kiss me, his face glides past mine, and his lips graze my ear.
“Get dressed, little slayer,” his warm breath tickles my skin and makes my toes curl.
“Why?”
“If you insist on slaying vampires,” he murmurs in a voice that makes the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, “I’m going to train you not to get hurt.”
Chapter 18
Excitement ripples through my insides at the prospect of spending time with Alaric and at the opportunity to spar with a vampire who doesn’t want me dead. I stare up into Alaric’s smiling eyes, place my hands on his broad shoulders, and turn him a
round toward the lake.
“No peeking,” I say.
He glances over his shoulder with a mock frown. “You’re comparing me to the apprentice mages?”
“None of them have ever stood at my balcony after dark,” I say with a grin. “In some circles, that’s the very definition of a lecher.”
The rumble of his laugh vibrates through my fingertips. “You can be assured, dear slayer, that I will keep my eyes on the rippling waves and nothing else.”
I step backward, through the net curtain, and into my room. Poppy’s soft breathing mingles with the press of my bare feet on the floorboards. Not wanting to alert my friend, or anyone else in the convent of my upcoming nighttime jaunt, I tiptoe to my dresser, where I keep my combat clothes.
After casting a glance over my shoulder to make sure Alaric is keeping to his word, I slip on some underwear under my nightshirt, pull on my pants, and change into a tank top and a hoodie. Finally, I place Aunt Clarissa’s crochet blanket over Poppy’s slumbering form and hope she doesn’t wake in the middle of the night and wonder where I’ve gone.
I walk to the balcony and poke my head through the net curtain. “Will I need my weapons?”
“What do you fight with apart from stakes and crossbows?” he asks, still keeping his gaze on the water.
“Hand cannons, daggers, handguns, mage whips.”
He nods. “Do the Order still teach swordsmanship?”
“Only as an elective.” My shoulders droop. “You want to teach me how to use a sword, don’t you?”
He turns around and beckons me close.
I step out into the balcony, where a warm breeze blows the scent of juniper and wild garlic all the way to my tower. Now, all the measures the Order placed to keep vampires out seem useless. “How can you cross the wards?”
“Would you believe me if I said you issued the invitation when you carried part of me over the threshold?”
“No I—” The memory of our encounter at the airport slams back to awareness. I took a case that belonged to Alaric. Panic lances through my chest. If he had been a bad vampire, there’s no telling how many girls he would have killed before someone stopped him. “Oh, no.”
With a chuckle, he wraps his arm around my back. “Invitations only work on beings who drink human blood. Undead creatures who don’t partake can cross any threshold. Your convent’s magical wards are different, as they specifically forbid vampires. I put a lock of my hair in that case.”
“That explains why you let me take it,” I mutter.
He smirks. “Are you ready?”
“For what?”
Alaric’s fingers curl around my middle, and we rise a foot into the air. The movement is so slow and gentle that I don’t even squeak.
“Oh,” I say, my voice breathy.
“Are you ready?”
I wrap both arms around his neck. “Ready.”
He rises straight up, over the roof of our tower, over the clocktower and its weathervane, and through an invisible barrier of magic that tingles across my skin. My heart quickens, and my breaths turn shallow.
“How far up can you fly?” I whisper.
“I once tried flying into the clouds, which wasn’t very interesting,” he murmurs. “Although I heard about a vampire who flew through too high and got burned by the sun.”
“Are you sure you’re not confusing that with the story of Icarus?”
“Perhaps. People were more prone to embellishment in those days.” He floats over the lake, which reflects the crescent moon, and over the buildings that make up Agia Square.
I raise my gaze from the water’s surface and stare at his profile and the way the dim moonlight exaggerates the sharpness of his cheekbones. “Where did you say we were going?”
“I didn’t,” he says with a smirk.
I roll my eyes. “Is this where I’m supposed to get scared that I’ve been carried off by a stranger?”
“Are you?”
“Are you?” I snap my teeth at his neck, which I hope reminds him of the time I drank his blood.
He turns to me and frowns. I press my lips together to suppress a smile. Big, bad vampire, indeed.
We fly over swathes of farmland along the highway. Smaller roads bisect the land into rectangles and squares and the occasional triangle. This is the second time I’ve flown in the arms of a supernatural creature, but this experience is infinitely more pleasant than the last. The farmland gives way to the desert, and the desert gives way to rugged hills that stretch out for miles.
The wind changes direction and blows through the fabric of my hoodie. I shudder but not because of the cold. What if what Alaric said was true, and vampires aren’t the only creatures that rise from their graves, and how on earth can someone inadvertently invite a vampire to their home?
“What are the other undead creatures?” I murmur into his neck.
“Corpses reanimated by magic,” he replies.
I draw back and stare into his dark eyes. Only the truth of his words reflect back to me, and I gulp. The Order never taught us about those in Supernatural Biology, and I always thought they were fictional.
“Are you talking about zombies?” I ask.
“That’s what they’re calling them these days,” he murmurs. “When we lived with Roger Bacon, he referred to them as homunculi.”
The first signs of trees appear on the landscape, and in the distance, I spot the ocean. The farther Alaric flies, the more wooded the area beneath us becomes, and soon, we’re flying over a dense forest. It’s too dark for me to see the pines, but the wind carries their menthol scent.
I’m pretty sure that in Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, the monster was called a homunculus. The term was used by Alchemists to describe things that represented a human. Outside the realms of mythology, neither Poppy nor I have heard of large winged creatures, so it makes sense that it might have been made or altered by an alchemist or a mage.
“Do you think the monster that attacked me was made of dead parts?” I ask.
“Not even magic can make a corpse move so quickly and effect so much physical damage.” He squeezes me around the middle. “If you met a real zombie, it would take you seconds to defeat it.”
“Right.”
A fresh, sea breeze caresses my skin, and I relax into Alaric’s embrace. It’s funny how the past few days have brought us close. Maybe it’s because we share blood that his body feels so comfortable next to mine, but right now, it feels like it's me flying him through the sky.
We continue toward the end of the wood, where the sound of water crashing against rocks reaches my ears. I drop my gaze down to the land to find us approaching a flock of fireflies swarming over a rocky cliff.
“What’s this?” I point at the mass of glowing lights.
“Your training grounds.” Alaric swoops down to a flattened boulder, where an array of weapons glint in the light of the fireflies.
There are two of everything: long swords, short swords, rapiers with thin blades, daggers. He’s even provided a few crossbows of different sizes, including one similar to the hand ballista I gave Galla for repairs.
As soon as my feet land on the hard ground, I release my arms from Alaric’s neck and walk toward the boulder. My fingertips skim the leather pommel of a sword that looks like it comes from the realm of King Arthur.
“You set this up for me?” I whisper.
He flashes me a smile. “We need a place where no one will hear you scream.”
“The same could apply to you.” I pick up the sword, turn around, and point it at Alaric’s chest.
In an instant, he’s behind me with his hand wrapped around my wrist and another around my waist. He envelops me with his larger body and fills my nostrils with his woodsy, masculine scent. Without the wind as our companion, and the altitude as a distraction, his presence is overwhelming.
Exhilaration pierces my heart, and my breaths quicken. This doesn’t feel like the gentle Alaric who drinks ox blood and sacrifices himsel
f for a slayer he barely knows. The creature behind me is far more dangerous, and from the way my instincts are screaming at me to defend myself, I’m about to experience the power of an ancient.
Trying to keep the tremble out of my voice, I murmur, “None of the vampires we fought on patrol moved so quickly.”
“A slayer’s advantage isn’t her speed.” His voice pours down my ears like molten honey. “Nor is it her strength.”
“Then how—”
“The average vampire knows nothing about the Order.” Alaric runs the pads of his fibers down my sleeve. When they skim the back of my hand, jolts of electricity surges up my arm and settles into my spine, making me wonder if this is anything like being struck by lightning.
He rubs tiny circles over my knuckles, sending swirls of pleasure across my skin. My heart beats so hard, I’m sure he can feel its vibrations against his chest. I swallow once, twice, three times, wondering if this is the moment he will reveal his true intentions, but instead, he threads his fingers through mine.
I slow my rapid breaths and force my mind back to our conversation. “If slayers aren’t quick enough for vampires, what’s our advantage?”
“The same as it was the day Diona Augustine stormed General Mundus’ villa. A vampire who believes himself elevated beyond the level of a mere human won’t expect anything from a young woman except her blood.”
My lips press together into a tight line. “You’re saying they underestimate us?”
Alaric releases me and steps away, leaving my back exposed. “In the first few months of a vampire’s existence, they possess perhaps twice the strength of a human. New vampires are clumsy, ignorant, more likely to turn others, and always overestimate their powers.”
I turn around and lock gazes with the vampire. “True.”
“To the outside world, the Order is an exclusive convent school that mostly caters to girls. Slayers seldom use the public entrances, so all people see are the nuns who wear those gray habits. What do you call them?”
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