by Dima Zales
When I wake up, Nero is still wrapped around me, his breathing warm on the back of my neck.
He’s clearly still sleeping, whereas I’m as alert as if I’ve had a triple espresso. Must be a side effect of not needing sleep in the first place.
I savor being enveloped in his powerful arms for a few blissful moments, then realize enough time has passed for my seer powers to have recharged.
Assuming I retained them when I turned into a vampire, that is.
My contentedness begins to evaporate, so I decide to put this question to rest.
Steadying my breathing, I settle into the state of required focus—and effortlessly find myself in Headspace.
Phew.
It’s official.
I’m a seer and a vampire. A vampseer, as it were—or maybe a clairvampoyant.
Regardless of what I’ll call myself, I now have one less thing to worry about—which leaves just a few million more to resolve.
Floating around, I focus on the soothing shapes that surround me. If I were to experience them, they’d undoubtedly show me luxuriating in Nero’s arms.
As tempting as that is, since I’m here already, I might as well do something more practical—like checking on my friends.
It doesn’t take me long to decide whom to start with.
Overeager to experiment with my glamour skills, I used them on Felix yesterday—so I should probably check to make sure the effect has worn off.
As I dwell on Felix’s essence, a new set of shapes shows up.
Like the prior ones, these are pretty chill, which is great—the last thing I need is more Felix-related drama.
Reaching for a random shape, I let the vision start.
Felix is sitting at a fancy kitchen table across from Ariel and Rasputin.
I recognize their surroundings. This is the digs Nero provided to Rasputin at his club. I once spied them sitting there, plotting.
Holding some Gomorran pastry that looks like a cross between pizza and a Cinnabon, Felix seems completely recovered, which relieves me greatly.
“A vampire,” Felix says in English, his unibrow dancing a jig on his forehead. He then repeats the word in Russian—I guess with him around, Ariel and Rasputin don’t need a translating gizmo to communicate. “She used glamour on me and put Eric into such deep sleep that he was still napping by the gates when I headed over here.”
Eric is still knocked out? Oops.
“I can’t believe it.” Ariel frowns. “I don’t want to believe it.”
Oh no.
I know that expression. Ariel is deeply unhappy, and I realize why.
By becoming a vampire, I’ve turned into a walking, talking fix of her favorite drug.
Does that mean she can’t be around me anymore? Or would she be okay if I just told her that she can never, ever have my blood?
“I can confirm this,” Rasputin says after Felix translates Ariel’s words. “I’ve seen the future where Sasha comes here, to Gomorrah, and she is, without a doubt, a vampire.”
Felix bites into his pastry, then sips his tea. “At least she’s fine in this vision of yours,” he says to Rasputin after he swallows. “I was afraid she’d get herself killed saving Nero this time.”
“Yes, she was perfectly okay,” Rasputin says. “And before you ask, she was grateful for your research.”
Felix looks confused, but Ariel makes him translate what Rasputin says anyway.
“What research?” Ariel asks Felix.
“What research?” Felix asks Rasputin.
“The phone stuff,” Rasputin says. “I already had this conversation with you in a vision, you see. It’s why you came here, is it not?”
“That’s trippy,” Felix says in Russian. Looking at Ariel, he explains in English, “I came here because I wanted Rasputin to seek out Sasha in Headspace and tell her about my findings as soon as possible.”
“I already tried to reach her in Headspace,” Rasputin says. “It didn’t work.”
I wonder what I was doing at that time… sleeping or Nero?
Of course, I could’ve also been out of juice.
“Can you tell me what this phone stuff is about?” Ariel says when Felix brings her up to speed and stops oohing and ahhing about Rasputin’s foreknowledge and its implications.
“Sasha gave me a bunch of numbers and asked that I find out with whom Lilith spoke—and I did,” he says smugly. “One of the numbers was Nostradamus, but the other was that Woland guy—the head of the chorts.”
Rasputin cringes at the Russian word.
“Wait… what?” Ariel blinks at him. “Didn’t you say Lilith saved you and Sasha from someone named Woland?”
“Exactly,” Felix says. “But before she saved us from him, she disguised her voice and called the bastard.” He grabs another piece of the pastry. “She told him that Sasha and I might have information about his”—he nods at Rasputin—“whereabouts. Then she told the chort where I could be found.”
So it was Lilith. She was the “good authority” Woland kept mentioning during my torture. I can’t believe that woman. She told me fairy tales about St. Petersburg probability manipulators sniffing out Rasputin’s trail, but it was her all along.
“That makes no sense,” Ariel says. “Why put you in danger, then save you?”
“To make Sasha think she’s a good mom?” Felix suggests uncertainly. “Or maybe she wanted to make sure Sasha would become a vampire.”
“Couldn’t she have just forced Sasha to drink her blood and then killed her herself?” Ariel asks, and I can’t help but notice how disturbed she looks when talking about her kryptonite. Clearing her throat, she says, “Lilith is powerful enough to do so, isn’t she?”
“Maybe she didn’t want Sasha to hate her more than she already does.” Felix sips his tea. “You’re asking me to get inside a very twisted mind.”
“I think you’re only partially right,” Rasputin chimes in as if he understood their English. In reality, though, he must be relying on what he learned in the vision he mentioned. “I believe Lilith took Nostradamus’s advice, and it was he who came up with the convoluted plan.”
“But why?” Felix asks, then translates for Ariel.
“To lessen the chance that another seer would be able to thwart the outcome in a single counteraction.” He waits for Felix to translate for Ariel, then continues. “I believe Nostradamus knew I was out of commission after giving Nero his war plans, and he must’ve tricked Sasha to run out of her seer powers at a critical point in this scheme. If Lilith’s plan had been simply to attack Sasha, my daughter could’ve seen that coming and fled—plus, as you said, Lilith might want to retain Sasha’s good opinion of her. The woman is certainly deluded enough to think such a thing is possible.”
Wow.
My head spins as I process Rasputin’s words.
Could Nostradamus really have planned such a thing?
There are clues that confirm it.
For example, he started the conversation about seers and then offered to “teach me something.” Granted, I was the one who asked him how to target a specific time, but maybe he influenced even that by foreseeing different threads of that conversation in order to guide me where he wanted.
And he was definitely the one to urge me to test out the skill—which was how I later ran out of seer juice.
I bet if he didn’t teach me what he did, I could’ve defeated Woland without dying.
I’m angry but impressed with Nostradamus’s skills.
He was so confident in his plan, he even warned me that the skill uses up a lot of seer juice—no doubt so that I’d trust him more.
“I’m beginning to really hate seers,” Ariel mutters when Felix translates the rest to her.
Yep. She stole that thought straight out of my nonexistent head.
“We are a meddlesome bunch,” Rasputin says—again without needing a translation.
“Here’s what I’m wondering,” Felix says. “Now that Woland is dead, wi
ll you be able to come to Earth and spend some quality time with Sasha?”
It’s a great question, but before Rasputin can answer, the vision terminates.
Finding myself back in Nero’s arms, I try to process what I’ve just learned.
Lilith and Nostradamus are the reason I became a vampire.
Though I should be furious with them, I can’t help but realize that in doing what they did, they also inadvertently made sure Nero survived. Because if I weren’t a vampire, there’s no way I would’ve made it in time to save him from fake Claudia—let alone been able to fight her dragon ass.
Also, in a way, they might’ve given me my only chance at vampire life. I’ve been avoiding vampire blood like the plague because of Ariel’s addiction, and if they hadn’t tricked me into imbibing some of Lilith’s, I would’ve continued to do so. So if someone had killed me, I would’ve been really dead.
Still, being thankful doesn’t make me stupid.
Knowing what I know now, I’m going to stay as far away from those two as I can. Except…
My blood chills as I realize that they know about one of my major weaknesses—my adoptive parents. In fact, their plan relied on putting them in danger.
No. Surely Lilith isn’t enough of a monster to—
What am I saying?
She’s enough of a monster to do the worst thing I can possibly imagine.
With a sinking feeling, I jump into Headspace.
Ignoring the default shapes around me, I focus on Dad’s essence.
A set of safe shapes show up.
Another phew.
Dad is okay in the near future, which is good.
But what about a few days from now? Or a week?
Well, I can use the “targeting specific time” technique that ended up costing me my first life.
Maybe to start, I should check to make sure Dad is alive in a month?
It sounds like a good idea, only I don’t know how much seer juice this will cost me. Does seer mojo expenditure go up with the length of the time interval—meaning the vision will be thirty times more “expensive” than when I targeted a day ahead to see Nero’s second battle?
Nostradamus didn’t specify, but I guess it doesn’t matter.
If there was ever a good place to run out of seer reserves, it might be in Nero’s embrace, on a world he rules and where he has a huge army at his disposal.
If I’m not safe here, I don’t know where I would be.
Continuing to focus on Dad, I do my best to conjure up the essence of a month—starting with the mental gymnastics I did for a single workday, then picturing twenty more like it. From there, I also visualize my weekends—doing something fun with Felix and Ariel, learning magic effects, binging on TV shows, and going to Orientation on Sunday.
Whatever I did must work, because the safe shapes go away, replaced by ones that are anything but.
Actually, I’ve never heard this flavor of creepy music before.
It’s not so much danger they radiate but something like grief.
Anxiety spiking, I sprout an ethereal appendage and reach for the worst of the shapes.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
I’m bodiless, inside a familiar high-tech office that also doubles as Dad’s meeting room.
There are schematics of the latest 3D printer up on the board in front of a big group of people—except they’re not looking at it.
They can’t… because they’re all dead.
No, not just dead. They’re mummified in the way I’ve seen recently.
They look like Tartarus sucked the life out of them.
No.
It can’t be.
I must’ve made a mistake in my seer targeting, and this is the world I passed through on my way to dragon world—the one that seems so much like ours but is long dead.
Could that world have a Boston equivalent with an office that looks like Dad’s?
It’s feasible but for one huge problem.
At the head of the table is Dad himself—dried up, like the rest of his people.
Still, maybe—
I’m back in Nero’s arms, on the verge of a panic attack.
There has to be some other explanation.
That can’t be the future.
With great effort, I even out my ragged breathing enough to leap back into Headspace.
Once I’m floating among the shapes, I very carefully conjure up the essence of a month, then the essence of my mom. Then, for good measure, I do my best to focus on the essence of the Otherland known as Earth—the blue planet I’ve thought of as home all these years.
As a result of my efforts, a set of shapes shows up—emitting the same creepy vibes as before.
I go through the essence rigamarole even more carefully, but the result is the same.
I might as well get the horrific confirmation.
Like a masochist, I reach for the worst of the shapes once again.
I’m floating in Times Square, New York.
Right. This is one of Mom’s favorite haunts, Broadway show aficionado that she is.
And there I find her, clearly on her way to see The Phantom of the Opera for the umpteenth time.
Except she didn’t make it.
She’s lying on the asphalt, a raisin-like shell with life sucked out of her.
I wish I had a mouth so I could scream.
Despite the dried-out husk of her body, there’s no denying that this is my mom. I recognize those perfectly tailored clothes and tastefully applied makeup.
And she’s not alone.
Tens of thousands of tourists and locals alike have met the same fate, their bodies lying everywhere.
They must’ve died recently, as the enormous Times Square screens are all still working, showing ads and glimpses of life preceding the disaster.
On a few screens, however, the newscasters are the same dead husks as in the Square itself—as if they’d been struck by the plague mid-broadcast.
One seemed to have been reporting from China, one from Australia, one from Germany.
And in the background of those horrifying broadcasts, everyone is just as dead.
Back in Nero’s arms, I’m ice cold and shaking uncontrollably.
I can’t deny it any longer.
In a month or less, Tartarus is coming to Earth.
My Earth.
And he is going to kill my parents.
He is going to kill everyone, like he did on so many other worlds.
Behind me, Nero stirs, his warm lips brushing against my neck, but for once, my body remains cold and stiff, locked in terror.
Because if everything I’ve heard about Tartarus is true, there’s no stopping this Armageddon.
But there’s no choice.
I have to try.
THE END
Thank you for reading! I hope you’re enjoying Sasha’s story. The next book, Smoke, Vampires, and Mirrors, is coming February 18! You can pre-order your copy HERE.
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Love audiobooks? This series, and all of my other books, are available in audio.
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Want more exciting action and adventure? Check out:
Mind Dimensions - the action-packed urban fantasy adventures of Darren, who can stop time and read minds
Upgrade - the thrilling sci-fi tale of Mike Cohen, whose new technology will transform our brains and the world
The Last Humans - the futuristic sci-fi/dystopian story of Theo, who lives in a world where nothing is as it seems
The Sorcery Code - the epic fantasy adventures of sorcerer Blaise and his creation, the beautiful and powerful Gala
I also collaborate with my wife on sci-fi romance, so if you don’t mind erotic material, you can check out Close Liaisons. Visit www.annazaires.com for more information and to get your copy.
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And no
w, please turn the page for an exciting excerpt from The Thought Readers.
Sneak Peek at The Thought Readers
Everyone thinks I’m a genius.
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Everyone is wrong.
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Sure, I finished Harvard at eighteen and now make crazy money at a hedge fund. But that’s not because I’m unusually smart or hard-working.
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It’s because I cheat.
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You see, I have a unique ability. I can go outside time into my own personal version of reality—the place I call “the Quiet”—where I can explore my surroundings while the rest of the world stands still.
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I thought I was the only one who could do this—until I met her.
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My name is Darren, and this is how I learned that I’m a Reader.
Sometimes I think I’m crazy. I’m sitting at a casino table in Atlantic City, and everyone around me is motionless. I call this the Quiet, as though giving it a name makes it seem more real—as though giving it a name changes the fact that all the players around me are frozen like statues, and I’m walking among them, looking at the cards they’ve been dealt.
The problem with the theory of my being crazy is that when I ‘unfreeze’ the world, as I just have, the cards the players turn over are the same ones I just saw in the Quiet. If I were crazy, wouldn’t these cards be different? Unless I’m so far gone that I’m imagining the cards on the table, too.
But then I also win. If that’s a delusion—if the pile of chips on my side of the table is a delusion—then I might as well question everything. Maybe my name isn’t even Darren.