Earlier in the hotel, Oswald Gray had asked me if I had a warm coat. It was only after I got off the jet that I realized that my idea of warm wasn’t warm enough.
“Where are we?” I asked, puffing hot clouds of breath into the arctic air and looking at the nearby snow-cowered mountains.
“Tromsø. Northern Norway.” White Rabbit smiled at me.
There was a black SUV and a van waiting for us, both new. We got into the SUV, leaving the van behind. It was a half-hour drive east through the twilight of pastoral Norway toward the blackness of a forest. Perfect.
The road curved as we headed up into a darkness that deepened the farther we went, and I started to feel anxious. I had been flying with these guys for hours! Why would I start feeling anxious again?! Guess the dark was all I needed for my fears to kick back in. Things are not always the way they look; sometimes they’re the way they feel.
Oswald was in the back with me and, sensing my anxiety, he started to get chatty with the other two. He even asked them to change the radio station. Thankfully. The Euro trash music was putting me even more on edge.
“Are you cold?” he asked.
“Just a little,” I lied. The car’s heating still couldn’t remove the chill from my bones.
“We’ll arrive soon. Would you like my coat anyway?”
“No, thank you.”
I was freezing. I’d never been this cold in October. Lights appeared up ahead. Soon, we passed through a sturdy gate and drove ten more minutes, arriving at the final destination: a complex of several dim buildings. We stopped in front of a dark gray, four-story house with a couple of gargoyles sticking out from the façade. How dramatic.
The inside was all dark wood and cardinal red tapestry. Medieval crested shields flanked the walls and swords were displayed in the left corner. Again with the Drama. We were just starting up the main stairs when an entourage appeared.
“Ah, Miss Young, finally!”
A tall, slender man stepped out of the group, grinning at me. His hair was dark, tucked behind the ears; his nose was straight and his suit looked pricy. He approached me with open arms.
“How lovely that you came!”
I stared at him. My mind was flipping between thank you and you kidnapped me—but since neither of those seemed right, I stuck with silence.
“Nice of you to bring her here, Oswald.” He made a joyful hand gesture. “Let’s not waste any time, shall we? Please show Miss Young to her accommodations.” Then he looked at me. “Get some rest. We shall talk before dinner.”
His porcelain-white face crackled into a smile and he turned and left with the others in tow. Only a girl stayed behind, waiting to show me the way.
“Welcome. I’m Lena,” she said, heading toward the left part of the building. She was petite with narrow shoulders, fair hair and blue eyes. She looked about my age. She was silent as we climbed more stairs and went down another hallway. When she stopped in front of what I assumed was my door, I noticed a weird sign above it.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Those are runes, but I don’t know much of their meaning. You should ask the others.”
Others? That was a bit unclear. Was she avoiding the question? I looked through the open doorway into a spacious room.
“I’ll be outside if you need anything. In an hour, we’ll head to Baldur’s office.” Her smile was hard but polite.
I took a warm shower—bliss. It peeled away the disturbing thoughts I’d recently collected, giving me a new soft and elastic layer of skin. Reborn, I was nicely surprised to find clean clothes left for me over the chair. Black pants and a rose-tinted designer blouse. I hated the color of the blouse, but it was clean and suited me well. I left my dirty clothes in place of the new ones. When I dried my hair and put it in a ponytail, I thought I might have time to lay down a bit, but there was a knock on the door. Apparently, I had thought wrong— it was time for the talk.
“Everything okay?” Lena looked at me as I left the room. I nodded insecurely.
We passed through the same passages and moved along to another part of the building. She stopped in front of a set of big wooden doors and opened them, but stayed outside. Okay, let’s finish this—a spark of a brave thought.
I entered what seemed to be a library with very old editions of books in glass vitrines. A huge, iron ceiling lamp dominated the room. In the right corner was an antique table holding a laptop, and behind it—the man who had greeted me on the stairs. He patiently waited for me to take in my surroundings.
“Come, sit, Miss Young. My name is Baldur. If I am correct, you are a Berkeley freshman, second semester? What department?”
“L&S, Social Sciences.” My voice was thin—strained.
“Interesting. And what do you plan to major in?”
“Peace and Conflict Studies.” An awkward dread started to crawl up my spine, but for some reason he seemed to find this conversation amusing. He gave a little laugh.
“Ah, the choices are in line with your talent, my dear.”
“What talent?” I couldn’t help but feeling like a scared little girl.
“The one that brought you to us. Now, let’s move on—I am conducting research here.”
Instantly, I pictured myself strapped to a loony chair, a strong light shining into my eyes, waiting for someone in white to give me a shot. My dread grew.
“For all this time, since we discovered the use of that talent which you have, I couldn’t find the adequate way to share the truth and avoid the shock, disbelief, boring questions, et cetera. Oh, such a torment. Ergo, Miss Young, do you believe in vampires?”
His face told me that he was actually waiting for my response. Response? Should I really have a response to such a question?! Suddenly the ball I had been pushing uphill for the last eighteen hours seem to crash down on me. Even Sisyphus himself would have had a good laugh. I mean, there’s only so much stupidity, right? But there he was, still waiting for something to come out of my mouth. Maybe he was some super-rich lunatic and this was his compound, some sect he had founded in the Norwegian wilderness. And here I was, probably soon to be prepared for some ritual that demanded the blood. Why mine?
“Should I?” I asked carefully.
“Probably. Since you are surrounded by them. But it’s up to you.”
It was my turn to laugh, and it came out so awkward. This craziness, this joke, reminded me of Selene’s goth roommate and her stupidity. Violent drawings plastered over her side of the room, white powder and black makeup. Surrounded by them? What did I do wrong in this life to end up in this psycho den?
My lack of comment didn’t seem so amusing to him anymore. With startling speed, he launched himself over the table and flashed his fangs at me.
Friggin’ fangs!!!??
I hit the back of the chair so hard I thought I’d fall through. There were no more thoughts in my head. Only fear.
He returned to his seat with a grin. And no fangs.
“Ah, no worries my dear, we are harmless. I simply thought I’d speed up our meeting. You’re perfectly safe here.” That mischievous look was back on his porcelain face.
Since the first time I’d seen that man, it was impossible to guess his age. He looked to be in his early fifties, but I wasn’t sure anymore.
What had just happened?!
“So, what is your answer now?”
I nodded quickly. I didn’t wait for him to ask me twice, fearing the fangs would reappear. Vampire! Vampires! Surrounded by them?!? My heart was banging maniacally while I tried to understand everything I’d just witnessed. I thought he would hear it—hell, everybody in the building could have.
“Not to sound redundant, but there really is no reason for you to worry about your safety.”
What about fear, I thought.
“You are here simply to be offered a job. If you decide against our offer, you will be safely returned to any place you wish. Of course, some of the things that you’ve stumbled upon on your way her
e,” he said with a wink, “would be removed from your memory.”
Just when I thought nothing more could startle me.
“Removed?” I whispered.
“To compel you to go on as normal, my dear. You would continue your life as if nothing unusual had happened. You might call it sort of hypnoses or mind manipulation if you like. No damage at all.”
For some ridiculous reason, the feeling of fear was starting to lose its edge. And my heart had almost returned to its regular beat.
“If that’s true, there is no real choice here, is there? You could just compel me to do by your will.”
“I could but that would be against our laws, my dear. Compelling is forbidden unless it is used to maintain our secrecy. People have to decide by their own free will; otherwise, what’s the use of having it?”
“So, what kind of talent is worth of all this trouble?”
“No trouble at all, dear. When Oswald sent me a video recording from the lobby, I was more than eager to meet with you. This talent that you have is a certain empathy that is synced with our enemies’. I don’t know what is behind it, but some people have it. And it’s extremely rare.”
“Enemies?” A chill went through my spine. I couldn’t even start to imagine what could possibly be more dangerous than those fangs and speed.
“We vampires have enemies among our own race, sort to speak. You had the luck of meeting one.”
I blinked confusedly, there’s no way the morose man from the lobby was scarier than this one facing me!
“They are, let us say, untamed types of vampires and our deadly enemies. For centuries, we fought their attacks and as the generations changed, some of my ideas evolved into projects. Like this one, for example. With time, I collected several talented people capable of quality dialog without Vocati endangering their lives. Invoked Ones, or Vocati, is the name of our enemy. And the story behind this Project is to get to know them better. Different approach to the fight.
“They are stronger and faster, and bigger in numbers than our Warriors. I believe that the old form of defense and “hit & run,” as well as the lack of strategy, are annihilating my race, especially since we are not created as they are, but are born.”
“What would my job be?” I asked quietly.
“You already had a taste of it when you made a connection with the one in the lobby.” He grinned and I tensed at the sight of his teeth. “And this particular specimen that Oswald got is a very special one. In fact, I didn’t even know that Vocati of its range would positively react to humans, and yet its reaction to you was very charming. So was yours.
“All in all, there is no danger. At the moment he is being restrained with pure silver and he cannot even walk, let alone attack. Your job would be to spend several hours with him and engage him in conversation. Four days a week. You should discover something about him, his life—or anything that he gives you. Any information is good information. Of course, you will first go through a three-week training period before meeting him. You’ll be trained to mentally and physically react to various situations.” He wrote something on a piece of paper and passed it to me.
A five-digit number.
“That would be your monthly salary. Since you are a student, online studies of your choice will be provided. Our teams would create a valid cover story for family and friends, to protect you. It’s an annual contract, and you would be an employee of Gazini, Inc.”
“What kind of cover story?”
“You can stay in contact with whomever you want. Teams would lightly compel them, feed them with some story that leaves you space to do your job with no worries.”
Listening to him, something clicked inside of me and suddenly things start functioning again. A huge weight fell from my shoulders. And then—thrill overwhelmed me. It was okay after all. Well, more or less. But I wasn’t not gonna end up as someone’s victim, food, prostitute, or ritual animal. I’d stay the way I was in the place of my choice—mythological mansion—earning lots of money in the weirdest way on the planet. White Rabbit really had brought me to Wonderland, because all of this only existed in kids’ nightmares and horror movies.
“Now, shall we proceed to dinner? You will meet the other Inquirers and the rest of those who work on the Project.”
His suddenly firm demeanor didn’t leave much space for the questions that had begun to surface.
Chapter 2
Dinner
The dining room was on the ground floor. As we approached, voices grew louder and my legs felt like they weighed a ton. I made a big effort not to lag behind the vampire, who had a graciously slow pace about him. Near the open door, I could hear the buzzing sound in my ears. I didn’t know what to expect, but I was sure there was no “Welcome!” sign. A grotesque image of persons with their fangs out wearing party caps and throwing confetti flashed in front of my eyes. It made me shiver all over again, and the air seemed to turn colder.
When we entered, the noise softened to a murmur, but there was no uncomfortable silence. Thank God. I had been dreading a grave hush with all eyes aimed in my direction, as if I was the main suspect of some indisputable crime. One of my worst nightmares: their fangs slowly dripping from the corners of their mouths while looking straight at me. If I hadn’t already been so stiff I would have been shaking again.
Not all of them looked at me. And the ones who did seemed either interested or indifferent. It felt slightly better than it did when I had been transferred to another school in the middle of semester. I hoped that I passed the worst.
I followed Baldur to the big U-shaped table. He sat at the head and offered me the place next to him. Carefully I obeyed, feeling more gazes on me. Oh, no. My heart sped up and the warmth spread over and reddened my face. I kept my eyes on the table, scared of locking them with someone else’s eyes—or fangs. Baldur made a slight move with his arm and everybody went silent.
“You’ve all heard by now that Oswald’s team got one true Vocati. What strikes me the most is that during his transport we found out an interesting fact, something that even I dismissed as impossible a long time ago. Even the Originals can make connection with humans! Thus, the presence of Miss Young.” He smiled at me, and my forehead burned with the gazes.
A new layer of redness blanketed me, but I tried to hold my eyes up, glancing over the heads in front of me.
The faces at the table were mostly pale and incredibly calm, as if in a line of porcelain dolls on a big shelf. I expected a more dramatic difference between them and me, but they only looked more pale and serene. It was the lack of pallor and calm that helped me to recognize humans at the table. There were six of them and they were sitting to my right.
They seemed most intrigued by me and somehow their presence brought me some peace. Does that make me a racist? If I weren’t so frightened I’d probably toss a little smile to my joke.
Baldur said that I would meet the rest of my team after dinner, and then called for the servants with a crystal bell. For some reason, that sound of the bell made me want to laugh hysterically, which I fought hard to keep down. It was tempting and inappropriate, like laughing in the middle of a funeral.
I expected a plate displaying a human head with an apple in its mouth, human roast, goulash of human organs, and goblets filled with blood. Luckily, I was wrong. Tonight’s menu was French cuisine, and of the three offered plates, I chose beef with cherry sauce. It was hard not to choose it, and the instant I tasted it, the subdued famine kicked in. I didn’t mind the red wine they served me. It was tasty. I thought of cows and asked myself if one could make beef out of person. A totally bizarre thought. However, I enjoyed the dinner so much that I almost forgot the table was full of vampires. Almost. Still too frightened to meet anyone’s eyes, I focused on my plate.
For dessert, we moved to another hall where a sweet feast filled a round table. There were all sorts of cakes, puddings, muffins, ice creams, fruit salads—it was like being in the Hansel and Gretel fairytale (no question of Ba
ldur’s role in that story). I stuck to him like a three-year-old with her mom, terrified of being alone. Knowing that I was not, in fact, three, Baldur had stopped paying attention to me, probably assuming that I could behave in company. But the problem was that most of them were not exactly people. So I continued to follow the known evil.
When he stopped next to the three men, three male vampires—could I call them men?—he finally turned to me, indicating to one of them.
“This is Belun, our noble blood, and great strategist and fighter. He will lead your team and you will answer first to him and then to me. Now, we leave you.” With those words, the other two men began to follow him out.
I stood nailed to the spot. In front of me was Belun, tall and in his mid-twenties. Dark hair fell across his forehead, shadowing his right eye. His deep green eyes were looking right into me with an unpleasant tension. Nervously, I lowered my gaze. In his black dress shirt and dark blue jeans, he stood like a pillar waiting for me to crash into him with my full stamina. The silence between us was too long and discomfort took over. What did I do to deserve him looking at me like I was a friggin’ insect?!
Then he spoke, his voice short and sharp.
“Andrei Belun.”
I swallowed and gathered a little courage to look up at his eyes again.
“Nika Young.” I offered my hand and a bewildered look crossed his features. He held my hand a bit stronger than necessary, and a sudden jolt echoed through my body. For sure my face reddened again.
His hand was smooth and firm, a bit colder than mine. His gaze was devoid of positive emotions, and then he let my hand go.
“The weekly training schedule is in your suite,” he said, turning and leaving.
Baffled, I stood staring at his back until he was lost among the other people—creatures, whatever! That was so unpleasant. A schedule? I don’t remember accepting the job offer, but then I remembered Baldur’s fangs, and swallowed dryly. For a second, the hall started spinning. It was either the wine or terror, or something in food. I took an unsure step in a random direction. I was standing in the center of the hall. The buzzing in my ears started up again and a little voice started screaming inside my head. I didn’t try to calm it; I helplessly watched while the floor design threatened to chew me up.
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