I was a man without a heartbeat, a creature unable to walk in the sunlight. Neither dead nor alive, I was someone who existed only in the shadows. A figment of most humans’ worst and darkest imaginings. The bad guy in their legends and fairytales.
I had spoken the truth when I told Grace I was no good for her, yet none of my reasons kept me from wanting her. Wanting to speak with her. Wanting to get to know her better. Wanting to kiss her again. Even though it was unrealistic. And unwise. And wrong.
My instincts told me she shared the same overwhelming attraction I felt for her, and that did nothing to bolster my resolve to walk away — like anyone with an ounce of decency left in him would. I hated myself for my weakness, but that didn’t help either.
I still wanted to be with her.
As far as she knew, we’d only met twice at the club but that wasn’t exactly true. I’d followed her home at a discreet distance. I knew where she lived, where she attended school, and the places she and her friends liked to hang out. I hated myself a little more for discovering those things about her. It was the act of a predator — a monster — to follow a human around that way. But in the end, the guilt and self-loathing for my actions did not prove strong enough to make me stop.
I tried to convince myself I was some sort of guardian angel, keeping watch over her. Lord knew she needed one. From what I could tell, she lived alone, which was odd for a person her age. And she cried herself to sleep way too many nights. It took every ounce of my strength to stop myself from shattering her window and leaping over the sill to comfort her.
It’s not like I’d never seen a human cry before. Or in pain. Or injured. I’d seen men and women of all ages in their worst moments, their most desperate, agonizing, and tragic moments. So I’m not sure why Grace’s unhappiness called to me in ways no one else’s ever had. But it did. Unequivocally. Every tear she cried stained my already dark soul a shade darker. Every word she uttered called to me like a siren. Every breath she drew mattered to me. More than anything else had ever mattered.
“Stellen, my man.” Ivan breezed up to me and clapped my shoulder.
I jolted at the abrupt intrusion on my private reverie, eliciting an acidic, assessing glance from Olga.
He and she must have turned up their wineglasses and drained them the moment I walked past them, because they’d caught up to me in record time. Technically, we’d only been killing time at the club. Our real mission tonight was to pay a surprise visit to one of my Uncle Anatoly’s black market business meetings.
Without being detected by him or any of his top lieutenants, of course.
Moonlight spilled from the sky, illuminating the busy sidewalks of laughing, talking, and occasionally tottering pedestrians. Germans loved their beer and consumed it in vast quantities after hours. I did a quick sidestep to avoid one particularly jovial man who was talking so animatedly and gesturing so wildly with his hands that he almost fell off the edge of the sidewalk and into the street.
“You met up with the same girl as last time. Who is she?” Olga inquired. “She used a lazy, offhand tone as if my answer didn’t really matter, but I knew better. She was put out by the fact I’d danced with another woman besides her tonight.
We were business partners. We’d never been anything else, but she continued to flirt and hint about the possibility of something more between us. Under normal circumstances, I would be flattered by the attentions of a beautiful woman, but I was prevented from enjoying her regard by the knowledge that Ivan cared for her deeply. I wished she’d give him a chance — a real chance to see where things might go between them — instead of continuing to toy with him. I’d lost count of the number of on-and-off, no-strings flings they’d indulged in. That was Olga’s style. Seduce and conquest. Rinse and repeat.
Ivan swore to me he knew better than to take the flirtations of our gorgeous business partner seriously, but sometimes I wondered if he really believed what he said. I’d intercepted more than a few longing glances at her when he thought no one was looking. He definitely harbored hopes in her direction whether he intended to or not. Poor fool.
As far as I could tell, Olga was Ivan’s only weakness. Otherwise, he was a hard-as-flint vampire, coldly ambitious and ruthless to cross. He was also unshakably loyal to his personal convictions and to his friends. I counted myself fortunate to be one of those friends.
“The girl at the club. Is she someone you’ve known awhile?” Olga slung an arm loosely around my waist and fell into step with me. On the other side of her, Ivan stiffened.
“No.” Take a hint.
“Oh, throw us a bone, will you?” She stretched her neck to give me a kiss on the check. “You rarely give any women the time of day. What was so special about this one?”
I shrugged my response to her questions, uninterested in discussing Grace with her. With anyone, for that matter. I was still sorting through my own feelings about her.
What had first drawn my attention to her was the strong and salty scent of tears wafting from her face, hands, and clothing. What had kept my attention were her lovely, soulful eyes. And her intelligence. And her infinite well of kindheartedness and compassion. They stirred things in me that hadn’t been stirred in a very long time.
In a nutshell, being around Grace made me feel alive again.
“She smelled really good,” Olga teased. “Lonely and sad with a tinge of salt.”
I tugged on a strand of her hair, hoping to distract her.
It worked. I think. Olga melted against my side with a feminine giggle and didn’t ask any more questions.
Irritation rolled off Ivan in waves. He stalked on ahead of us.
My thoughts drifted back to Grace. She was young in years, but I suspected she possessed a much more refined soul. Like a well-aged whiskey. Besides the grief reflected in her features, her eyes sheltered a much older, more long-suffering spirit than most people her age. In my experience, those kinds of expressions took time to develop. They were born of years of unfulfilled hopes and layers of disillusionment. She was so lovely, it was hard to imagine anyone disappointing or neglecting her to that extent, but they had.
It was a cruel, unfair world. Always had been. Always would be.
But when Grace had moved from her table to the dance floor, I’d been forced to stop feeling sorry for her. After a few moments, she’d thrown her entire heart and soul into the dance. She was pure, natural beauty in motion. There was no other way to describe her slender, lithe body, and the artful way she personified the each set of lyrics through her movements. She effortless adapted to every number blaring from the DJ’s table. Fast, slow, modern, or throwback. The change in cadence didn’t matter. She still managed to deliver a uniquely masterful interpretation of each song played. A connoisseur of the performing arts, I could have watched her for hours. For days. For an eternity.
The combination of artist and melancholy had drawn my gaze again and again to her as if pulled by marionette strings. But it was more than that. I was utterly entranced — not by just her performance — but by the young woman herself.
I’d joined her on the dance floor and reached for her, almost without thinking, for one simple reason: I’d been unable to resist her any longer. When she’d opened her eyes, for a split second, it felt as if her soul had reached out and touched my soul. Or what was left of it if I still possessed one.
What had ensued was the most delicious sensation of drowning. In pleasure. I wanted to swim and float and do the backstroke in it.
Until I returned to my senses and remembered I’d had no right to approach Grace in the first place, much less touch her. Whatever she was going through, whatever had made her weep before entering the club that night, would only be made worse if she hooked up with the likes of me. I had nothing to offer her. Like a wild animal, I lived in the shadows of depravity and danger with an uncontrollable thirst for blood. No matter how many times I’d tried and failed to reform, I remained little more than a shell of my former self. A shel
l with the humanity part stripped away.
Grace deserved better. She deserved things like sunlight and rainbows. She deserved warmth and hope and goodness — none of which I was any longer capable of offering.
“It’s about time,” Ivan announced, interrupting my thoughts again as we rounded the next street corner. We were leaving the more populated part of the city. The sidewalk grew narrower and more pitted with bumps and cracks from age. It was quieter, too, since the night crowd mainly congregated in the club district behind us.
Olga gave me one last affectionate squeeze and let go. “Alright, my broody friend. Snap out of it. The party’s about to begin, and you’re tonight’s headliner performance.”
Before us rose a red brick structure, three stories taller than its basement level. The interiors of the windows were sealed by heavy drapes, while the exterior panes were encrusted with spiders and webs. What used to be trays of window plants were now shriveled, dry vines waving in the night breezes like gnarled fingers.
The silhouettes of two women materialized from the alleyway to our right. They stood in front of us, arms crossed, forcing us to halt. Though it was dark, I had no trouble making out the fact they were both wearing black velvet robes. The symbols embroidered on them with silver and gold threads indicated they were practitioners of dark magic. No great surprise. They were the exact sort of company my uncle would associate himself with. He was drawn to everything dark and evil. I hoped Olga knew what she was doing.
“These are the contacts I was telling you about. Salena and Sabrina. They’re twins.” Olga stepped forward to confer with her witchy companions in undertones. Her hourglass hips swayed more than necessary as she walked away from me, probably for my benefit. Unfortunately for Ivan. I couldn’t help comparing her practiced movements with Grace’s more natural gait. It brought on a fresh wave of longing for her that so intense I had to close my eyes a few seconds to suppress it.
Olga spun around like a ballerina to face Ivan and me. “They’ve lifted the cloaking spell on the building, so it’s safe for us to go inside. You sure you’re ready for this, Stell? You look a little…” She made a spinning movement around her temple with one, blue-lacquered fingertip. “Preoccupied.”
She was right, and preoccupied was something I couldn’t afford to be tonight — not without putting all of us in further danger than we were already in. Like turning off a light switch, I forced all thoughts of Grace from my mind. Only then was I able to retake control of my emotions. To focus once more on what needed to be done.
“I’m ready,” I assured my friend with conviction. More than ready. Having my mind controlled by Uncle Anatoly’s the past century was like living in a horror show without the commercial breaks. I would do anything to severe the connection between us, to no longer have to listen to his gangrenous thoughts and follow his increasingly irrational commands.
Fortunately, I’d met Olga about six months ago, and she’d sworn to make this living nightmare of mine go away if Ivan and I would give her a safe place to live and practice her craft.
She’d been rescued from the sex trade by a group of white witches. They’d developed her skills for wielding white magic, though I suspect her heart no longer had the capacity to exclusively channel good magic; she’d already seen and experienced too much ugliness in the world. She operated more in the gray area, pushing her boundaries and practicing her art on the outermost edges of what her coven had considered appropriate. It was the reason they’d eventually decided to part ways, leaving Olga alone and vulnerable again.
Ivan and I considered their loss our gain. Our misfit witch friend had proven herself faithful to us time and time again in the few months we’d traveled and worked together. Beneath her many layers of self-absorption, penchant to manipulate others for her personal gain or amusement, and overall femme fatale personality, Olga possessed a loyal heart. There was also a streak of unexpected kindness in her beneath the shallow layer. Like Ivan and me, she was fiercely opposed to using her special abilities to harm humans — at least not the ones she considered innocent.
Ivan and I had leaped at the chance to bring a witch with her skill set on board to our secret business venture. We were calling it The Body Park. And thanks to her, for the first time during its seven-year construction phase, the park was secured beneath a cloaking spell.
Our business venture was actually far more than a recreational destination as its name implied. It was a one-of-a-kind surgical center and rehabilitation resort located on our own very private island, a place where we planned to change the world one badly broken or burned human body at a time. It was our attempt to give something back to the human race we vampires had taken so much from. A way of redeeming ourselves, to some extend, and setting us apart from the vampires who continued to unleash their bloodlust on the world’s populations.
But first things first. In order to move forward with our radically innovative business plan, we needed to sever my unique bond with my maker so he could no longer manipulate my thoughts and control my actions. There was no way I could serve as chief surgeon at The Body Park while dashing to and fro across the planet on one hell’s mission after another.
Anatoly was my maker, not my uncle as I’d led Grace to believe. There was a distant blood tie between us, since we were both descendants of the Romolov family from Central Russia. How he’d discovered my existence I might never know. Nor why he had chosen to turn me. What I did know about him was nothing good.
A very old vampire whom I suspected had been a sick and twisted soul before he was turned, he’d spent the last few centuries profiteering on the misery of others. A pirate, an arms dealer, and the owner of a black market shipping firm, he was as evil as the devil himself and I couldn’t wait to break his hold on me. If Olga’s spell worked, I would be free of him for the first time in a hundred years.
The witch twins led Olga and I inside the rundown office building. Ivan remained outside playing the part of lookout. We walked down a narrow flight of concrete stairs to the basement level. The stairs were as cracked as the sidewalk outside, and the railing was loose. Fortunately, I had my acute sense of sight and agility to maneuver my way down them. I leaped down the last six to eight stairs and skidded to a halt on the dusty ground level. Olga leaped after me and landed to my right.
Salena and Sabrina arrived at the base of the stairs at the normal speed of humans, walked around us, and pulled open a metal door that creaked on its hinges. On the other side, another witch sat cross-legged inside a hand-painted circle. A small cauldron rested in front of her. She was muttering over it and rapidly tossing things in it.
“That’s Skyla, their coven leader,” Olga explained. “She was hired by Anatoly to cloak the building and everyone in it while he negotiates his next arms deal. Sounds like he’ll be meeting with an Armenian terrorist sleeper cell.”
Anger curdled deep in me at the thought of these witches using their gifts for something so vile.
“Try not to think about it,” Olga whispered, laying a hand on my arm. “I did my homework. Word on the street is they lost the rest of their coven to a turf war and are in desperate need of money. They are fighting to stay alive.”
“Doesn’t make it right,” I snarled, but I understood what she was trying to say. Desperate people did desperate things sometimes. Of all creatures, I should know.
“Don’t forget they leaped at the chance to help us.”
There was that. “What is she doing?” And how will it help us?
“She’s using her magic to jam all nearby electronic devices. It means the street cams did not record our entrance into the building.”
It also meant we couldn’t reach Ivan by cell phone if things got hot down here. “When do we begin?”
“Now.” Olga took my hand and led me to the edge of the hand-painted circle. “We’re going to step inside the spell together. You ready?”
Okay. I nodded and stepped with her into the ring.
Salena and Sabrin
a busied themselves adding several dozen more candles to the circle until it appeared to be one solid blazing ring. Then one of them — I wasn’t sure which twin went by which name — reached inside her robe and drew out a ceremonial dagger. It bore an unbroken line of magical symbols etched along the handle. She handed it across the circle of fire to Olga.
Olga slid the sharp side across her palm to create a shallow cut. Her magical blood oozed out. She closed her fist to contain it and handed the dagger to me. “We’ll need a few drops from both of us for what comes next.”
I complied, and she pressed her fist to mine, knuckles to knuckles, directing me to follow her lead as she squeezed the bloody droplets into Skyla’s cauldron.
All at once, Skyla tipped her head back so her face was upturned to the ceiling. Her irises rolled upward to reveal solid white orbs. An unattractive creature to begin with, she looked ghastly in her trance-like state. “Anatoly has arrived,” she intoned.
Olga faced me and gripped my hands in hers, moving with me to hold them over the cauldron until it rested between us. “Blessed mother, show us the way.” She sounded breathless and excited, visibly energized by the magic crackling in the air around us.
Salena and Sabrina joined us inside the circle. They settled on the outer perimeter like Skyla, legs folded beneath them like pretzels, facing inward and forming a human chain around us with their outstretched arms and clasped hands. They chanted something about the power of three that caused a flume of white and orange lights to spew straight up from the cauldron. The sparks singed our hands along with my hair and clothing.
Had the witches forgotten that vampires don’t fare well in fire? I grimaced but held my feet firmly place. I needed this spell, even it if came with a few nicks and scratches.
Suddenly, the basement room with its low-hung, dusty rafters disappeared. It was like a show on a television screen being flipped off in the middle of an episode. In its place, a dark void appeared that contained nothing but Anatoly and me. No walls. No furnishings. Just him and me in the blackness. He stood directly in front of me staring at me, though it felt more like he was looking through me rather than at me.
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