by Aria Sparke
‘He’s a psychopath who bites people. Why is he allowed to roam around and why didn’t you call the police?’ Anger and disbelief bubbled up. ‘You’re the dean of this college. Are you telling me you’re not going to do anything?’
He stared at me with a stony expression that only fuelled my rage.
‘How many days was I unconscious?’
Alexis shifted as though rattled by my question.
‘It’s an easy question, Alexis.’
‘Four hours.’
‘No, my neck has already healed. That’s impossible.’
‘Dr. Acres is very skilled.’
‘Rubbish.’ I glared at him. ‘Tell me.’
‘Lily, you’re in a very different world now. Nothing like what you’ve experienced. Vincent Berisha comes from an ancient family—the Berisha clan. What we tried to explain to you at the Ruberio mansion was true.’
I felt afraid again. ‘He’s just a delusional, crazy man.’ My words sounded hollow and fearful.
‘Berisha is the leader of a large and powerful clan or what we call a coven.’
‘Like a gang, you mean? So why can’t we go to the police?’
Alexis ignored my questions. ‘Tonight you were lucky unlike my mother.’ He sighed. ‘Flynn, Martin and Anya saw you on the oval from a window. In future as long as you stay inside at night and keep your windows locked, you’re not in any danger.’
I tried again. ‘Why won’t you report this to the police? You know he’s criminally insane.’ I knew we were going round in circles, but I had to rake over the details and explanations to hammer home the awful truth to myself.
He stood and walked to the window. ‘Because Berisha controls Wicklow’s police, local government and any other position of power you can imagine.’
‘Well Wicklow isn’t the only town in the country and I’m sure there are higher authorities somewhere. What about the FBI?’
‘The last person who tried to expose Berisha was my brother, Stephan.’
‘And?’
Alexis shook his head.
‘Don’t shake your head at me.’ My voice sounded shrill. ‘What do you mean?’
‘He’s dead.’ Alexis turned and faced me. ‘Lily, you have to accept it. Vincent Berisha is no ordinary mortal. I’m also convinced he was behind your mother’s death.’
* * *
Before classes the next morning, Leah visited me and told me to rest and skip classes for the day. Restless and with my head buzzing, I felt strangely energized yet detached as though in a dream. Was it shock? Leah said it was a normal reaction to the attack and the blood transfusion. Alexis’ revelations certainly didn’t help.
When she had left my room, I unearthed Elise’s diary, but it gave me no more information. The pages were blank beyond the last page I’d read. Unable to rest, I picked up a pen and began to list my own questions:
How did my mother die?
Where is the Berisha clan and who belongs to it?
What was the gift of sight and the monster she spoke of?
How could I protect myself?
I tore the page from the diary and screwed it into a ball. How could I believe Alexis? I needed to investigate and speak to others at the school to see how far the delusion reached before it consumed me. If I could find someone who didn’t believe it, we could go to the police together. But even as I thought this, I knew it wouldn’t explain how I’d miraculously healed from the savage attack in a matter of hours. It was an unsolvable puzzle.
Someone knocked on the door. It was Flynn. He looked at me with a worried expression. ‘Are you okay?’
I nodded. ‘I don’t feel anything.’ I don’t know why my tone sounded so surly and uninviting.
‘That’s just a reaction, you know, to the shock. It’ll wear off.’ He sat beside me on the bed. ‘Come on, it’s time for breakfast.’
‘I’m not hungry.’ I looked him in the eyes. ‘So you really believe this Berisha stuff?’
He shrugged.
‘Is that a yes?’
‘I’m afraid so.’ He stood and pulled me to my feet.
‘Come on, Flynn. I know you. Why would you believe this insanity?’
‘Because it’s true. Everything I told you at my parent’s house was true, I swear.’
Suddenly I rushed to him and he held me tight. ‘How can I make this nightmare stop?’
‘You can’t. None of us can.’
He brushed my hair back from my face. ‘How about you come for a drive with me tomorrow and I’ll show and tell you some more?’
Outside the sky was leaden gray. ‘The weather looks ordinary.’ I felt vulnerable just thinking of venturing out there.
‘They don’t come out in the daylight,’ Flynn said quietly.
* * *
CHAPTER 21
Deeper
Flynn came by my room after breakfast to pick me up for our drive. He handed me an elegant glass vase holding a bunch of white lilies.
‘How beautiful, thanks, Flynn. But you’re going to get in trouble with the gardener for pinching all the flowers.’
He grinned. ‘He’s got to catch me first.’
I wished we could go back in time to when we first met and begin again. Right now I felt like we were playing romantic games while outside chaos was erupting. Driving out the gates of Anubis College, I felt a longing to keep going and never come back. I wanted to get out of this nut house and head back to the fresh air and sunshine in Florida before it consumed me.
We stopped for coffee and pancakes at a small cafe that overlooked a picturesque valley close to town. Inside it was cozy with only a few customers sitting quietly at tables covered with red and white check tablecloths.
‘Two coffees and pancakes with maple syrup, please,’ I said to the waitress who had tattoos across one side of her neck and closely-shaven, red hair.
She scribbled the order on her pad. ‘Bad weather’s settling in. Late for snow, but forecast says it’s coming. Driving far?’
‘It’s certainly cold. We haven’t decided how far we’ll travel.’
‘Are you locals?’
Instinctively I felt defensive. ‘No, we’re from New York.’
‘Really? Wouldn’t have picked the accent. You’re a long way from home.’
Paranoid that she suspected I was lying, I avoided prolonging the conversation. ‘I guess.’
‘Sit where you like. Your order won’t be long.’
Flynn had gone to a television on the wall and after selecting a music program, turned it up to muffle our conversation. We chose a secluded booth in the far wall close to the open fire.
The transfusion yesterday left me feeling strong and steady. I felt ready to confront the truth. ‘So now I know more about Vincent Berisha. What about your family?’
Flynn nodded as though he was expecting this question. ‘As I said, when my father takes mortal partners they produce dhampirs or half breeds.’
I swallowed. ‘Okay, what does that mean? What’s a dhampir?’
‘We share attributes with each species—human and vampire.’
I wished he had burst out laughing and told me it was a sick joke, but he was looking at me earnestly with those deep blue eyes, so I knew he was telling the awful truth.
‘A vampire can’t tolerate any form of sunlight—they’ll burn and die in the sun. We call them sizzlers when we’re lucky enough to blast them with daylight.’
‘What happens to them?’
‘They go blind and suffer epileptic fits while their skin blisters and cooks. And then they turn to ashes.’
‘Charming.’
‘I suppose, but you know what they’re capable of doing to humans and believe me, I’ve never known one to show mercy.’
I looked at him curiously. ‘You don’t particularly like sunlight either do you?’
‘Not overly. Dhampirs avoid the sun but can cope with small amounts. Overcast weather, rainy days are fine. If we venture into full sunlight and stay in it too
long, we become unwell and it takes us a long time to recover. It fries our immune system.’
I dug through my memories of gothic novels and films. ‘Do you, um, live forever?’
‘It’s complicated. Many dhampirs die before birth. Once they’re ready to be born, they can kill their mortal mothers in childbirth unless they have vampiric midwives to assist. Infants grow extremely rapidly, but around maturity somewhere between eighteen or twenty they stop aging.’
I frowned. ‘What about Alexis? He’s at least a decade older than you.’
‘His choice.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘If we don’t feed on blood, we begin to age.’
I looked at him with a horrified expression. ‘Feed on blood?’ The thought vampires couldn’t tolerate light comforted me, but this new detail threw me.
Flynn seemed mortified as he reached forward and held my hands across the table. ‘The blood we dhampirs drink comes in bottles and transfusion bags.’
I was repulsed at the thought but refrained from saying so.
‘I promise Lily, dhampirs very rarely attack humans.’
I hadn’t even thought of that. ‘Very rarely?’
‘I’ve heard the odd dhampir has gone haywire and experimented, but I don’t know of many.’
I suddenly remembered the clinic’s IV stands and questioning Dr. Acres about them. ‘So you receive blood at the clinic?’ I tried not to sound horrified or judgmental although I was.
‘Dhampirs usually protect humans. For us to attack a human would be akin to cannibalism for your kind.’
My kind? Flynn’s choice of words disturbed me.
He stopped talking when the waitress brought coffee and pancakes to our table on a tray. She seemed to dawdle as though curious about our conversation.
Flynn helped her unload the tray and thanked her.
When she had returned behind the counter I looked at Flynn again. ‘What about full vampires like Berisha?’
‘They live to hunt and feed. It’s their nature.’
‘So tell me, what happened the night I met you in the woods?’
Flynn stirred his coffee. ‘Martin, Anya and I were following a male from Berisha’s clan. We got to the picnic area late and he had already attacked the woman. Martin and Anya tried to help her but were too late.’
‘She was killed by a vampire?’
‘By the time you and I saw her in the parking lot she was dead. He carried her to the car and was finishing her off.’
‘But we saw him kissing her.’
Flynn focused on the ground.
‘Couldn’t you have helped her in the park?’
‘No, it was too late.’ I sensed he was ashamed. ‘And although I told you I went to the police, I couldn’t. It would’ve been pointless.’
‘Why did you come after me on the trail?’
‘Because I feared there were more of Berisha’s guys about that night. At first I thought you were one of them, but when I recognized who you were, I knew I had to get you to safety. That night I watched over your home from my car—too afraid to leave you.’
I must have looked surprised because he launched into an explanation before I had a chance to ask the obvious question.
‘Yes, Lily, we were told who you were as soon as you started at Wicklow High. We were already keeping an eye on you and your mom.’
I didn’t know what to think, whether to be relieved or horrified I had been watched since we arrived in Wicklow. Another disturbing thought crossed my mind. Had Flynn’s romantic interest in me initially been a ploy?
‘But what about us? Were you were always honest about your feelings for me? Was it ever an act to hide the fact you were guarding me and my mother?’
Flynn’s eyes widened. ‘Never ... I would never be dishonest about us.’ I could see he was hurt by the suggestion.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.’ I gave him a wry smile. ‘It’s just that all of this is a lot to take in.’
‘I understand.’
‘Why do you chase vampires? Surely you’re endangering your own lives.’
‘Dhampirs are vampire hunters. It’s our nature.’
‘Your father’s a vampire.’ A sudden thought occurred to me.
Flynn sighed and fiddled with his teaspoon.
‘Is he still alive?’
‘Yes.’
I gasped. ‘So he must feed on humans?’
He gave me a stricken look. ‘Please don’t judge him, Lily. He sleeps by day, but at night he wakes and feeds and mates. He produces generation after generation of dhampirs to fight the vampires.’ Flynn was speaking quickly as though mounting evidence to convince me his father wasn’t like Vincent Berisha. ‘The battle’s eternal. My father feeds but usually doesn’t kill unlike the rest of his kind and that’s one of the reasons Berisha hates us so. They see him as an abomination and enemy.’
‘Who does he feed on?’
He shrugged as though he was having difficulty with the topic.
I ran my fingers through my hair and stared at the pancake drowning in a sea of syrup. ‘So the Ruberio’s reason to be is to keep the Berisha clan in check?’ I gazed at him directly. ‘You kill them?’
Flynn squirmed.
‘How?’
‘Silver blades or bullets to their hearts, dragging them into daylight from their coffins or decapitation,’ he whispered as though to soften the brutal reality.
Nothing felt real. I pushed my plate to one side.
‘The alternative’s worse. They’d run rampant, converting more to their clan and requiring more humans as fodder.’
‘You brought me to Anubis College on purpose, didn’t you?’
‘Believe me; we deliberated for ages before we did. Martin tried to dissuade us because he thought you might be safer going back to Florida, especially after your mother ....’
I remembered how offhand Martin had been toward me at school and him commenting that it was my last chance to turn around when we drove into Anubis College for the first time. Now I understood.
‘In the end Martin agreed with us.’ Flynn inhaled deeply. ‘We had to bring you to the college for your own protection—at least until you had some training.’
I half laughed. ‘Fat lot of good that did.’
‘Vincent Berisha’s attack in the college grounds completely convinced Martin. If you had been anywhere else, Vincent Berisha or his clan would’ve made short work of you.’
‘I’d be dead?’
‘Not necessarily. Either you would’ve been recruited or yes, killed.’
‘Recruited?’
‘Once they’ve drained your blood sufficiently, a vampire can turn you with a fresh infusion of pure vampiric blood.’
‘Turn you into a vampire, you mean?’
‘Yes. Vincent Berisha may not have realized who you were the other night. My guess is that he does now.’
‘But how?’
‘Blood has a flavor distinctive to its owner. Once he tasted yours and realized it was infused with witch-like qualities that would be enough. He’ll have a taste for you. My guess is he’ll return.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘He’ll know your blood flows from a great witch clan. After failing to recruit your mother and aunt, you’ll be his next target.’
My head swam.
‘Your mother didn’t come to Wicklow by accident. She was asked to come by Alexis’ brother and my half-brother, Stephan before the Berisha clan killed him.’
‘And now they’re both dead.’ I crossed my arms over my chest and sobbed. ‘I just wish my mother had chosen to confide in me earlier. No wonder she’d seemed so tortured.’
Flynn stroked my hand. ‘She only wanted to spare you the pain. She thought she could shield you from all of this by not telling you.’
My stomach lurched as I recalled the strange entries in her diary. If I hadn’t been sitting, I would have fallen. I was Alice slipping down a rabbit hole stuffed
with darkness and nightmares.
Flynn rubbed his forehead as though searching for the least alarming words. ‘She possessed certain abilities. Like I tried to tell you, she was a seer. You’re not in any danger with us, Lily. Elise was helping us before she was murdered.’
The word ‘murdered’ echoed in my head as I felt sick and faint at the same time. I tried to reject it, but knew all the Ruberios were convinced of the same truth.
‘The strange thing is that we have an alarm system of sorts and Vincent should never have crossed our walls undetected. Something went wrong the night you were attacked. Don’t worry, we won’t make the same mistake.’
I hoped I could believe him.
‘Like I told you before, we need your help, Lily, yet for you to do that we’ll need to train you.’
Although it countered everything I believed about life and the universe, this time I found myself considering it as a possibility. The knowledge my mother had been murdered clicked something in my brain and replaced my reluctance with anger and a longing for revenge.
The doors of the cafe swung open and a blast of icy air sent the temperature plummeting in the cafe. A police officer rugged up in a parka with a gun in his holster strode to the counter although not before giving us a long look.
I felt the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. Everyone around us was potentially a danger.
‘Relax,’ Flynn murmured. ‘Remember it’s daylight. Finish your pancakes.’
‘I can’t.’ My stomach was doing back flips, so the last thing I wanted to do was eat. My eyes kept wandering to the burly form of the policeman leaning over the counter and murmuring to the tattooed waitress while glancing our way.
Flynn placed his fork on his plate and then rose and stretched before sitting on my side. He put his arm around my shoulder and gave me a long passionate kiss, so the presence of the officer faded from my awareness. All I felt was a deep primitive urge to respond. My attraction for Flynn was growing exponentially. I could feel it and breathe it like gravity or magnetism. It was an uncontrollable force of nature and I loved every moment of it.
When we surfaced many minutes later, the officer was leaving with his coffee and donuts.