by Dima Zales
One set scary-sounding and the other not.
So far, this seems to support what Nostradamus said, but I have to know for sure.
I sprout two ethereal wisps and touch two random shapes from each of the clouds.
Overflowing with grief, I stare blankly at the round-faced EMT guy.
“Again, I’m so sorry,” he says, looking down at Felix’s cooling body. “I wish—”
I’m bodiless.
Felix and Maya are sitting in the kitchen of our apartment, with him munching away on a potato salad and her looking at him worriedly.
“No, Maya,” he says. “I still don’t feel any urge to drink vampire blood, especially from Sasha’s mother, of all people.”
“It’s only been a week,” she says. “What if the craving starts later?”
“That’s not how this works.” He puts his hand on hers. “The craving starts right away or not at all. Trust me, I asked a lot—”
I’m back in the blood-splattered office, with Lilith, Nostradamus, and Marius looking at me expectantly.
“Give him the blood.” I start taking off my gloves and mask. “Let’s also move him out of here so he doesn’t faint from seeing all this blood.”
Lilith walks over to Felix and forces a droplet of the blood-infused water into his mouth.
He almost instantly looks healthier.
His broken nose begins to align back, and his breathing returns to normal.
Carefully picking him up, Lilith takes him to the bathroom and places him into the bathtub.
Then Marius and I stare at him intently while Lilith and Nostradamus take off their own gloves and masks.
Felix opens his eyes and looks around wildly before his gaze settles on me.
“Sasha,” he gasps, sitting up. “What’s going on?”
“Michel, can you be a dear and explain the situation to him?” Lilith says, and before I can object, she grabs my upper arm in a steely grip and leads me back into the blood-covered office.
“Nostradamus says human police are on their way.” She wrinkles her nose. “We need to clean up this mess and leave before they arrive.”
As if to demonstrate her point, she viciously kicks one of the wounded chorts in the head.
There’s a crack of skull breaking, followed by the mushy sound of a foot decimating a brain.
Though my stomach is stronger than Felix’s, I feel bile coming up.
Unsurprisingly, the chort dematerializes, as does some of the blood and gore around the office.
Leave it to my psychopathic progenitor to call that “clean up.”
The rest of the chorts must realize their fate because they start wailing and begging for their lives.
Lilith gives them a chilling smile in response, then rips off one’s head—paradoxically making the room a little bit cleaner still.
“That one is yours.” She nods at the Sasha chort. “He caused Felix all that pain, so I suggest you return the favor.”
“I was just following orders,” the chort gasps out. “I—”
I’ll never know how he was going to try to talk his way out of this situation because Lilith kneels next to him, pries open his mouth, and rips out his tongue.
It’s official.
I just threw up in my mouth.
The rest of the chorts gasp in horror, and my namesake’s eyes roll back as he starts twitching like he’s being electrocuted.
“I know what you’re thinking.” Looking at me, Lilith lifts the tongue and swallows the blood dripping from it with relish. “How is he going to eat ice cream now?”
I stare at her blankly, then look at the sorry torturer at my feet.
“Go on,” Lilith says. “Finish him.”
My heartbeat accelerates as Rasputin’s memory swirls through my head. I witnessed it thanks to our Headspace conversation, and in it, he’d had a vision of a future where a child version of me was murdering people.
Obviously, it was mommy dearest who was making that version of me do that, and now I wonder why.
Was she trying to make me more like herself? Or toughening me up in this macabre way?
Whatever Lilith’s reasons in Rasputin’s vision, this is similar. In fact, this might be why she’s helping me in the first place. Except I don’t see how she benefits from turning me into a cold-blooded killer. Maybe it’s some sort of psychotic family legacy thing? Some doctors want their kids to grow up a doctor, and she wants hers to be a serial killer?
Too bad for her I’m in no mood to follow in those footsteps.
“You finish him,” I say, turning to leave. “I’m going to be with Felix.”
“But he hurt your little friend.” She sounds genuinely confused by my lack of bloodlust. “How could you not want to rip out his liver?”
“You’re right. Something must be wrong with me,” I say flatly. “Maybe I should see a professional.”
Trying to shut out the sounds of ripping flesh resuming behind me, I make my way to the bathroom and slam the door closed to make sure Felix doesn’t hear anything.
Nostradamus and Marius intercept me by the door. “I told her you’re not going to kill anybody,” the seer says in a low voice. “But she hoped her luck would overrule my prediction, since sometimes it can.”
“Uh-huh. Sure.” I’ll unpack that later. For now, I step around the seer to examine Felix—and breathe a sigh of relief. Though my friend is still sitting in the tub, he’s looking much better, and all the chort blood is gone from his body—no doubt because Lilith has already massacred everyone.
“How are you?” I ask him, kneeling next to the tub.
“Fine.” Felix rubs his no-longer-broken nose. “Just having trouble with all this.” He nods at the giant canine and the elderly seer.
“I know,” I say. “I haven’t digested it either.”
As if my statement were her cue, Lilith walks in—not a single drop of blood left on her stylish outfit.
“Hi there. I’m Lilith.” She extends her delicate hand to Felix.
I half-expect him to kiss the hand as if he were a knight and she “Her Ladyship,” but he gives it a limp shake, mumbling something that sounds like, “Pleasure to meet you.”
“The police will be here in a few minutes,” Nostradamus says, then looks at Felix. “Remember what I told you.”
“Right. I had to help another client and wasn’t here when the break-in occurred.” My roommate frowns at the seer. “Are you sure that will work?”
“I’ve seen it,” Nostradamus says. “But even if I didn’t, think about it. Nothing of value has been taken. There are no bodies. No—”
“Let’s just go, Felix.” Rising to my feet, I extend my hand to help him get out of the tub.
He stands up shakily, then carefully steps out of the tub.
As he exits the bathroom, his gait and demeanor become more and more normal.
Lilith’s blood is potent stuff.
A neighbor peeks from behind her door as we enter the corridor. Lilith captures her gaze and does her glamour thing to make the lady remember large male criminal types breaking into the apartment instead of us.
As we ride the elevator down, I look at Felix and clear my throat. “You’ll have to stay at the apartment for a while.”
“Oh?” he asks. “Why is that?”
“Woland and Boris escaped,” I explain. “They might get you again.”
My roommate pales.
“Not just those two,” Lilith says. “A few chorts jumped out of the window. If they timed their phasing properly, they could’ve survived the fall.”
“Right,” Felix says weakly. “Sounds like I’m staying home.”
I pat his shoulder. “I did see you alive a week from now in a vision. And you were craving-free.” I nod at Lilith.
Some color returns to Felix’s face, but then he looks at Lilith—who gives him what she must consider a seductive smile. In reality, it’s rather creepy.
He turns ghost white again.
; Oblivious, she says excitedly, “We should all hang out before you officially become a shut-in. You know, stop by a museum, take a stroll in Central Park, visit the—”
“As much as we’d love to play tourists with you, Felix has his work and I have a prior commitment,” I say, doing my best to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
Lilith pouts. “That’s a pity. I want to get to know you. How about we hang out after you’re done with your errands?”
“Let me think about it,” I say carefully. “For now, I need to bring Felix home.”
“Fair enough.” She grins at me as the elevator doors open.
Letting everyone go ahead, I use my phone to summon a cab and put two stops into the app—our apartment to drop off Felix, and JFK to finally catch up with Nero.
“I still can’t believe I was attacked by chorts, of all possible creatures,” Felix says once we’re outside. “I’ve heard about them, of course, but I never expected to meet one in the flesh. Not in America, at least.”
“That was a fair assumption.” Nostradamus pushes his shades higher up his nose. “That lot works for the St. Petersburg Council. Woland is the head Enforcer there.”
“They’re Enforcers?” I instinctively turn to meet Nostradamus’s gaze, but then spot the scars and realize my faux pas. “Shouldn’t they be vampires?”
“Not always,” he says. “There are no vampires in or around St. Petersburg. Woland and his people killed the more stubborn ones, and the rest thought it wise to move elsewhere.”
Interesting. I wonder if that’s why Vlad left his homeland. Then again, I’d classify him more as the stubborn kind of vampire.
“Wasn’t Baba Yaga on the St. Petersburg Council?” Felix whispers, as though the deceased witch might hear him.
“Yes, she was, a long time ago,” Nostradamus says. “She was one of the nice ones.”
“Baba Yaga was one of the nice ones?” I look at him for any sign of this being a bad joke. “Then what’s the rest of the Council like?”
“Russia’s history should give you a clue when it comes to that,” Nostradamus says. “Whereas our Councils usually stay out of human affairs, such is not the case for the Moscow and St. Petersburg ones.”
I blink. “Are you saying that things like the revolution, then Stalin and—”
“Yes.” Nostradamus leans down and scratches Marius behind the ear. “Recently, they decided to stop meddling as much, so hopefully, things will improve with time.”
“Wow,” Felix says. “And this is who’s looking for Rasputin? The St. Petersburg Council?”
“I doubt it.” Nostradamus turns toward Felix. “They’ve probably long forgotten Rasputin’s misconduct, just never called off the official execution order. That’s not why Woland is doing this. It’s personal for him.”
“You see,” Lilith chimes in excitedly, “before he met me and fell hopelessly in love, your father had a little crush on your namesake, the tsarina. This is what led to his exposure and pariah status—but, more importantly for Woland, there was the issue with the prince’s alleged hemophilia.” She runs her hand through her hair in a familiar fashion—the exact way I do it. “Long story short, it was Woland’s daughter who’d been preventing the boy’s blood from clotting—a lot of chorts have that particular power. In his effort to remove her from the royal household, Grigori had her removed more permanently from existence. He claims it was an accident, but I doubt Woland cares about such minutia.”
My phone dings, informing me that our cab has arrived.
I almost don’t want to leave.
I’m curious to learn more about my father’s past—even if that’s part of Lilith’s evil plan.
And of course it is.
I can see it from the smirk on her face.
The same kind of smirk I’d have on my face if I had my hooks into someone.
“We better go,” I tell Felix.
“Right,” he says, then looks at Lilith. “Thank you.”
“Yeah,” I say reluctantly. “Thanks for helping me. I might’ve had trouble dealing with those chorts on my own.”
“How about you give me a hug, and we’ll call it even?” she says, grinning.
Crap.
I walked into that one.
Approaching my mother as carefully as I would a poisonous cactus, I give her a reluctant hug.
For a vampire, she’s pretty warm and smells nice—and not just from Victoria’s Secret’s Sexy Little Things Noir.
I let her go and awkwardly stumble toward the cab.
“Bye, Nostradamus,” Felix says. “Bye, Lilith.”
“Bye, Sasha’s little friend,” Lilith says mockingly. “Stay safe.”
Was that last bit a threat?
Marius whines like a dog. I guess that’s his goodbye.
Before Lilith changes her mind and decides to kidnap me after all, I grab Felix’s shoulder and shepherd him into the cab.
Chapter Eleven
“Dude,” Felix says as soon as the car departs.
“Dude,” I reply, matching his tone.
“That was—”
“Yep,” I say.
“But she—”
“I know.”
Seemingly running out of things to say, we sit there, each processing the recent events.
“How about you tell me everything,” Felix finally says, rubbing his temples in a circular motion.
So I tell him what little there is to tell: I was on my way to save him when Nostradamus and Lilith intercepted me. Switching to Russian so the driver doesn’t hear any Cognizant stuff, I fill him in on the altercation with the chorts.
“But what does this mean?” Felix says when I’m done. “Is Lilith not as evil as we thought?”
“I wish I knew.” I realize I never buckled up, so I do so now. “The cynic in me says there was nothing maternal in that encounter. She needs me for something, and my dying as part of that rescue effort wasn’t convenient for her. But of course, the more naïve part of me can’t help but hope there was more to it. Maybe she has a beating heart, after all. Do vampires physically have those, by the way?”
“I think they do,” he says, then waves his hand. “What about Nostradamus? What’s his deal?”
“I don’t have a good read on the guy,” I say and wonder if Nostradamus might’ve already heard this very conversation in one of his visions. “Given the mess with Darian, I’m making it my policy to not trust seers too much—my father included.”
“I have the same policy.” He winks at me. “Barely trust even you.”
“I wouldn’t trust me either.” I grin. “I once seriously thought my TV name would be Sasha Devious.”
Felix chuckles. “Your TV magician name, or if you ended up in porn? Because it sounds more suitable for the latter. Or for stripping.”
I give him a mock frown. “In your dreams. The only reason I won’t smack your shoulder is your recent brush with death.”
At my reminder, he pats himself all over, then shakes his head in wonder. “I can’t believe I’m okay.”
“Are you sure you are?”
“Yeah. It’s like that time Isis healed me, but somehow even better.”
I frown at him. “Don’t dwell on any good feelings her healing gave you. That way lies addiction.”
He grimaces. “You’ve got a point. I think I’m going to dive back into coding—distract myself as I recover.”
“Good thinking. Play video games too, or watch TV.”
Felix nods, and we ride in silence for a few moments until something occurs to me. Turning to Felix, I say, “Thank you.”
“For what?” His unibrow curls in bafflement.
“For not telling Woland and co. where Rasputin is. I’m not sure if I would’ve been as strong as you if they were hurting me like that.”
A visible shudder ripples over Felix’s skin. “I think I was just too scared to talk. If there had been a round two, I’m not sure I’d—”
“I wouldn’t have blamed you
if you told them.” I reach over and squeeze his hand. “I’m sorry you got drawn into my mess again. I’m like a curse. The worst f—”
“Oh, shut up.” He rolls his eyes. “You saw what the chorts are capable of and rushed to save me—without backup or even a plan, mind you. I don’t know if I would’ve been able to do that in your place.”
“I’m sure you would’ve. You’re braver and stronger than you think.”
He starts to respond, but the car stops and I realize we’re next to our building.
“Crap,” I hiss, ducking down as quickly as I can.
“What are you doing?” Felix frowns at me.
“I’m not going home,” I whisper-hiss from the bottom of the seat. “If Thalia and the goons see me, she might try to make me go.”
“Hold on. If not home, where are you going?”
“I want to locate Nero. And before you ask, you’re not coming with me. Not after what just happened.”
“But—”
“Please go. If they see you dallying, they might get suspicious.”
He looks at me, then longingly at the building.
“Dude, I’m begging you.” I make my trademarked puppy eyes at him, figuring there’s never been a better time to play dirty.
“Fine,” he grumbles and opens the door. “But for the record, I don’t like this.”
“Noted. I definitely owe you one.”
Felix leaves, and the cab proceeds to the second leg of our trip—the JFK airport.
I wait a few blocks before I sit up.
Crap.
We’re stuck in traffic.
I peel my eyes away from the million cars and mentally replay the encounter with Lilith.
Was she genuine when she said she wanted to get to know me?
It’s hard to say.
I’m not sure what I expected from my first meeting with my biological mother, but it was nothing like what happened.
Once on Gomorrah, I’m going to have to question Rasputin in greater detail about Lilith. If it’s true that he loved her at some point in the past, perhaps she’s not all bad?
Or more likely, she’s just that good of an actress… or in bed.