“It looked like you wanted to kill him,” I said.
“That was my first inclination. But he might be of service in another capacity. Simply put, I have not yet determined your friend’s fate.” He turned back to me with a sneer. “No need to worry about my seeking him out. Now that I have caught his scent, it will be all too easy to locate him.” He went to the door, swung it open, and met my gaze with an irritated expression. “Besides, it is quite obvious you have taken a liking to him.” Far from the gentleman he’d resembled earlier, Darius now looked feral and ravenous. “One need only find you…to find him.”
“I refuse your protection,” I said, frightened by what Darius might do next.
“You think it’s that simple? This curse has haunted me for hundreds of years. I’ve tried to remove it countless times…in more ways than you can possibly imagine. No, ignorant one: if it were that simple, I wouldn’t have wasted my time on you.”
“But you pushed me. That wasn’t very protective.”
His smile brightened. “I must safeguard you from paranormal beings, but magic does not prohibit me from hurting you.”
“So why did you choose to protect me? If you wanted to protect someone in our line, you should have chosen Celestina. No,” I said, shaking my head. “You came here looking for the grimoire.”
“And yet,” he said, removing both hands from behind his back, “you would be wrong. I have sworn to protect the weakest witch in your family. And you, ignorant one, are the most unimportant witch in the history of your line.” A harsh laugh erupted from his throat. “How pitiful!”
A sickening possibility entered my mind. “Whenever the line breaks, you turn humans into vampires. When it reconnects, you are cursed to exterminate the vamps you created.”
“How you hadn’t figured that out earlier astonishes me.”
Now I knew why Grams didn’t fully trust Darius.
“I must admit: I enjoy your simplistic mind.” He smiled, rubbing his hands together like a child who peered through a candy shop window, contemplating which treats to purchase.
I now presumed that Darius mulled over how he could use Nolan to his own advantage. Likewise, given how Darius had slowly transformed from genial to sadistic, I suspected that, the more our line fractured, the more sinister Darius became. Based on the rate of his transformation, our line had recently begun disintegrating with greater speed. It also meant that demons and other creatures might slip through the veil more frequently.
“Now that you’ve had some time to deliberate on dear old Lorraine’s death, I bet you have some questions.” He shut the door, folded his arms, and even bounced a little on his tiptoes, eager to impart some wisdom. “Ask away.”
I was unprepared to deal with the situation, but now that Darius looked at me like a plaything, I doubted he would kill me…yet. I sensed that he drew pleasure from the fact that I felt anxious around him. While I did my best not to reveal my fright, Darius had heightened senses, and he could no doubt smell it on me. Nevertheless, I might never get a better chance to learn more about a world containing demons and monsters.
“Did you ever care about Grams?”
“She was my responsibility,” he said without the least bit of emotion. “Nothing more.”
Darius’s voice hadn’t quivered, nor had he displayed any other sign that her passing affected him. It felt wrong, illogical. It seemed that his innermost feelings had vanished, which made me question if he had a soul. I made my way behind the counter again to put as much distance between us as possible. I knew he could attack me before I could mount a defense, but I felt a little safer this way.
Darius slowly made his way opposite me. “I realize that losing your grandmother was quite a blow.” He lowered his gaze, lost in his thoughts for a few moments. Then he met my gaze again. “But life is loss, is it not?”
His reaction seemed too planned, too premeditated. He also looked like he was trying not to feel something, but he couldn’t muster enough feeling to make it happen.
“No, it’s not,” I said. “I haven’t lost Grams. She came back to me. She was the one who wanted me to stab her.”
“In spirit, yes. But not in form. You will not embrace her again. You may once more catch a whiff of the perfume she wore and you may see her visit you again, but she will be nothing more than a vision.”
It reminded me that Grams’s blankets and pillows were still on her bed, that her clothes still hung in the closet, not to mention that her Buick LaSabre was still parked in the garage. Rather than let my thoughts center on Grams, I redirected my mind to Darius’s lack of “protection” tonight. I needed to know when he stopped looking out for me: it might reveal to what extent the line was severed.
“Where were you tonight?” I asked. “Did you see me slinging fireballs at a bar? How about afterwards when I had a fire-and-ice throw down with Alexis?”
Impassive, he stared at me for a long moment. “While still an imbecile, you are a quick learner. To go from throwing fire, to harnessing it, to hold your own with Alexis in such a short time shows that you are quite instinctual.”
Since that response didn’t supply any information, I decided to get as much background information about Darius as possible, because I doubted he’d be so forthcoming in the future. “If you created every vampire, who created you?”
“Zephora.”
“What? How?”
“I failed to protect her.” He flinched as though the incident had happened three days ago, rather than three centuries ago. Darius spun around and turned his back on me. “I couldn’t save her in time.” He shook his head in a maddened state. “That’s when Zephora demanded that I protect the one person in her line most similar to her.”
“And that’s me?” I asked, incredulous. “That’s crazy! What about Delphine? She’s wacko just like Zephora. Or how about Alexis? That girl has some serious issues.” Although I felt quite a bit of compassion for her, I still stuck by my beliefs.
“Zephora didn’t blame me,” Darius said, as though I hadn’t responded to his statements. “But I was so ashamed.”
I sensed that he hadn’t admitted these feelings to anyone, let alone himself, so I remained silent. And now that he became introspective, his creepiness subsided, which unsettled me even more. I couldn’t determine when he’d shift from one demeanor to another.
“I went mad,” Darius said. “I lost my mind. I couldn’t live with what happened.” He sighed as though doing so cleansed him from reliving the memory. “And because of that, Zephora changed me.”
I waited a long time, hoping he’d continue talking, but he just looked at me with a dazed expression, startled that he’d let those feelings slip past his lips. Rather than let him get lost in his thoughts, I decided to get him back on track. “How could Zephora do that? Turn you into a vampire? Did she just snap her fingers, and the next thing you knew, you vamped out?”
“I’ve spent three centuries trying to determine not only how she got her powers, but why she got them. But in all that time, I have nothing to show for my efforts. As to how she managed to turn me…” He shook his head, mystified. “You would think I could recall the exact moment it happened, but I cannot. I believe she deliberately made that memory inaccessible to me.”
“You think she hexed you to forget it?”
“Precisely.”
“If you let her down and Zephora didn’t blame you, why would she turn you?”
“Perhaps to end my torment. As a favor. I suspect her spell makes it all but impossible for me to remember why I felt such self-loathing.” He looked aggravated that he couldn’t solve that mystery. “Through it all, one question eluded me: if I cannot recall why I failed Zephora or how she turned me, why am I so certain that I felt such shame for neglecting to protect her?”
“Maybe it tore you up inside so much that it left a scar in your mind.”
“That is the most logical conclusion. But given Zephora’s penchant for magic, I couldn’t discount the pos
sibility that she allowed me to keep this memory to ensure that I would do everything possible to protect those in her line.”
Why did Darius feel such disgrace for an act that he couldn’t recall? Still another mystery interested me even more, one he hadn’t answered yet, so I decided to repeat the question: “Why would Zephora change you into a vampire? And how could she? She’s a witch, not a vampire.”
“Ah, yes. Well, that I can explain. She wanted to ensure that I wouldn’t let down another witch in her line.”
“The insinuation being that you weren’t strong enough or fast enough to help her?”
He nodded. “It adds more disgrace to that which I have endured. It’s a constant reminder that my job isn’t completed until I either protect every witch I have sworn to defend or until I die.”
“You’re the life of every party, aren’t you?”
He showed no recognition that he’d understood the joke.
I wanted to press him about now shirking the responsibilities he just mentioned, but before I had a chance to open my mouth again, he cut me off.
“I don’t think Zephora intended to punish me. I suspect she changed me so I wouldn’t feel weak.”
“Did you feel that way before she changed you?”
“I must have.”
“Maybe she wanted you to feel that way so you’d protect those in her line.” The way Darius revealed his feelings made me want to learn more about him. It displaced some of my fears. “Which reminds me: why do you have to protect the witches in my line?”
“It has always been that way.”
My mouth dropped open at that ridiculous statement. “So if your first memory was of sucking on a pacifier, why pluck it out of your mouth when you’re a few years old? Why not just walk around sucking that baby until they toss your bones into a casket?”
“I don’t have an answer for you. I have long wondered whether Zephora cursed me to protect those in her line.”
“For someone who knew her so well, you sure don’t know much about her.”
“That is quite disconcerting. But once she died, I had no other opportunities to learn about her. Your ancestors were not forthcoming with any details that could fill in the gaps of my memory.”
“They weren’t willing, or they didn’t know Zephora well enough to give you any answers?”
“Possibly both. Zephora was quite like your mother: scheming and power-hungry. She lacked the fundamentals of motherly intuition.”
That explanation made me glad to have had Grams in my life. “How well do you know my mother?”
“Not well. Despite Lorraine’s efforts, she could not dissuade your mother from following her own path, one that relied, not on building relationships but on creating them, only to further her own goals and desires. Meeting her again recently reinforced what I have long known: she is not a kind person.”
“Ya think?” That understatement made me laugh. And that response meant that I’d let my guard down. Darius had opened himself up to me, and I had to assume he did so to achieve his own objectives. Despite this, I wondered why Darius always protected a witch most like Zephora. Granted, I didn’t know much about the woman, other than the whole lunatic-who-possesses-other-people-thing in an effort to rule the world.
“How are Zephora and I alike?”
“I broke from tradition. As I said, when I chose you, I selected to protect the weakest of your line…I did so because I sensed that you needed protection. Those with tremendous power often draw enemies who wish to take it from them. Just as important, I was drawn by her inherent sense of goodness and fairness.”
“But Grams wasn’t evil like Zephora.”
“True. But Zephora was not always vicious and self-serving. She was once good. Pure.”
“So what happened? How did she lose her marbles?”
“The Witch Trials.” Scowling, he shook his head, making it known that he no longer wished to recall memories from the seventeenth-century. “Until you turned twenty-one, I had seen you no more than a handful of times, but each time I did, I could not overlook the impression that you were quite important. But that is only intuition speaking. You are unlike any witch in the history of your line. You have limited magical power, but your true influence lies outside of the mystical realm. You…intrigue me.”
I acted as if I was unaffected by his stare. In truth, his penetrating eyes made me want to rush out of the shop, but doing so would make me appear weak in his eyes. And since I no longer considered him an ally, I didn’t want to give him any reason to regard me as cowardly and inept.
“You are not the first in your immediate family. I noticed this during the duel with your sister. She was so taken aback by your abilities that she didn’t notice you barely managed to repel her power.” He placed an index finger against an unsettling smile before his lips flat-lined a second later. “But your secret,” he said in a conspiratorial tone, “is safe with me.”
His words sent a shiver down my spine. While I believed him, I also sensed that he took plenty of pleasure from knowing what my mother and Alexis didn’t. Instinct told me that he had an ulterior motive, but I didn’t know enough about him to guess what that might be. Rather than disclosing that I knew he had concealed his intentions, I decided to keep that information in the back of my mind.
Nonetheless, another question haunted me, one he’d refused to answer before. “Why not protect Celestina? She’s the youngest, the most vulnerable witch in our line.”
“Your mother and sister are powerful. They will protect her. But as I said yesterday, they need not. Celestina is the most powerful witch since Zephora. She needs no assistance.”
Those words calmed me. In fact, they almost made me smile.
Darius made his way toward the exit, but when he reached the door, an invisible force made him shudder. He swiveled around in a loose manner, far from his usual stiff demeanor. “From this moment forth, you are no longer under my protection.” His demented smile returned. All traces of the introspective, complacent gentleman had vanished. He opened the door and stepped out.
A chilly gust of air whipped through the shop and enveloped me like an iron fist.
CHAPTER TWENTY
A minute later, as I reached the hidden door at the back of the room, I heard the jingle above the entrance, despite not hearing the door actually shut. Furthermore, I’d locked it thirty seconds ago! The overhead fluorescent lights switched on.
A stout man wearing a cap atop a thatch of red hair walked into the shop. He spotted me and stopped short, arms spread out as though to regain his balance. A pair of khakis sagged at the foot of his sneakers, while a green polo likely constricted his ability to breathe deeply without fearing that the buttons at his neck would pop off, giving him a hunched over posture.
Startled by his unexpected appearance, I tried not to show my surprise while searching him for any visible weapons. Seeing none, I felt a little more at ease, since this man didn’t appear intimidating. “We’re closed.”
“I…um…” With a timid expression, he glanced back at the door before turning back to me. “I was um…” Aggravation marked his face, and he swiped a fist through the air as though he’d just lost a bet. “Shoot. So close. I thought you’d left.” The light shined down on a jagged scar an inch wide across his left cheekbone, which appeared at odds with his rather frumpy appearance. Dark rings of flesh sagged under his eyes.
“I’ll say it again: we’re closed. You need to leave.” I took out my cell phone, prepared to dial the police. But considering that this man had entered the shop and tapped the bell, rather than actually opening the door and shutting it, I figured I’d encountered a supernatural being, one whose abilities I couldn’t detect. And really, if this guy could fly or shoot laser beams out of his eyes, how much could the cops do anyway?
Keeping my ears perked for any movement behind me, I strolled over to the front counter to get the Soul Sword. I swung around the counter and grabbed the sword, gratified by the jolt of e
nergy flowing up my arms. I made my way toward the man who looked like a worn-out high school custodian that needed every minute of his three-month sabbatical during the summer to recuperate from the daily rigors of the job.
“My…what a large sword.” His breath caught and his eyes shone bright, admiring the blade as though the weapon held great appeal to him, as though aware that I’d noticed how the sword enthralled him. He redirected his gaze to mine.
“Look, Mr.—”
A pleasant smile appeared. “Please,” he said, trying not to let his eyes wander back to the sword, “call me Mephisto.”
“All right, Mr. Mephisto, as I was saying—”
“No, it’s just Mephisto. Sort of like Beyoncé.”
“But Beyoncé’s last name isn’t a secret. You should have gone with Prince or Bono. At least they’re men. And closer in age to you.”
“Prince!” he said, eyes lighting up. “A musical genius. Not unlike Mozart.” He leaned forward in a conspiratorial manner. “Would you be surprised to learn that they’re one and the same?”
I wondered if I should call the nearest psychiatric ward.
Mephisto removed his cap with one hand and scratched the bald spot on top with the other, looking unsure what he should do or say. “Well, gosh, I just wanted to come by to get the Soul Sword, and I’d be on my way.”
Dammit! If he’d come for the weapon I now held, he surely knew what it looked like. Considering that I couldn’t pretend it didn’t exist, I said, “It belongs to me. But we’ve got some nice antiques here. How about the first ever made Miller Light neon sign?” I’d planned to ask him to leave, so why did I invite him to check out a different item in the shop?
As he removed his cap once more, the man bowed to me, as though he’d traveled back in time to the Victorian Era and now planned to court a woman he wished to dance with. He wheezed for breath as though the motion required the same endurance as running a mile on a treadmill. Mephisto placed his hands on knobby knees that appeared unprepared to carry the weight contained inside his belly. He coughed and shook his head as though he suffered from a dizzy spell.
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