by Debra Dunbar
“Not to worry, Mrs. Ainsworth. I fed before I left town and should be fine for a few days. If such activities are not allowed in your home, I’ll be more than happy to pop down to the neighboring village each evening.” I choked back a laugh at Dario’s cheerful tone. It was as if he were discussing a tobacco habit. “Just to ensure I’m not seen, I’ll make sure I fly there and back as a bat.”
Shit. I tried to hide my laughter as a coughing fit, but Mom knew better. “That won’t be necessary, Dario. As long as you are discreet, we will tolerate your taking care of these things within the home.”
We barely made it upstairs before I collapsed on the bed laughing. I knew Mom would put me in my old bedroom, the one that hadn’t been redecorated since I was twelve. I’d rebelled against all the jousting and hand-to-hand combat lessons by painting my room bubble gum pink. Fuzzy kitten pictures lined the walls, side by side with sparkly unicorns. My bed sported a million lace pillows and a lace draped canopy. The joke had been on me, though. Mom had refused to let me change it back, and I’d been in girly-girl hell ever since my teen years.
“Did you see her face? Sucking lemons couldn’t be more appropriate a term.” I started laughing again. This guy was hysterical. Maybe hanging with a vampire wasn’t so bad after all.
Dario tossed a few lacy pillows to the floor and sat down on my bed. “I’m beginning to prefer the rest of your family’s icy silence.”
I snorted and sat up. “Except for Essie. Better lock your door. She’s pretty spry for her age and I think she fancies you.”
“I’m worried she’d bite me. Can you loan me a sword or a javelin or something? I wouldn’t be surprised to wake up tonight with her on top of me.”
I fell back onto the pillows laughing at the image of my great-grandmother, naked and sexually assaulting a vampire. The beer on an empty stomach was getting to me, and I found myself in a happy buzz-land place, where it was perfectly okay for me to be sprawled across my bed next to a vampire. There was one of those odd moments where his eyes met mine and the silence held all sorts of meaning.
Dario cleared his throat. “So where is this dragon room? I’m assuming there aren’t actually dragons there. Surviving your great-grandmother is going to be difficult enough without having to fend off fire-breathing reptiles, too.”
“It’s early. What are you going to do all night?”
I knew I was treading on dangerous ground, that I really didn’t want to go there, but I couldn’t help myself. Blame the beer, or sexy vampire come-hither magic, or the tension of being around my family, but I didn’t want to be all alone in this pink bedroom.
The vampire gave me an odd look. “Read a book or something. Maybe prowl around your gardens if you’ll assure me that there aren’t any spells to set me on fire, or launch a stake through my heart.”
I rolled around on the bed, knocking pillows to the floor. “Nah, you’ll be safe. Although I’d rather you stay here.” I looked upside down at the wall beside my bed and began to laugh uncontrollably.
Dario had that look on his face. The same one he’d had when Essie had been eyeing him up. “What’s so funny?”
“The pictures,” I gasped. “Can you imagine having sex and looking up to see some unicorn smiling benignly down on you? Would you be able to keep it up with all these fluffy kittens staring at you with their big eyes?”
I looked up at Dario, my grin fading. There was no doubt he’d be able to keep it up, and he was indeed imagining the very thing I was. I held my breath. Waiting.
“How are you drunk on one beer?”
Guess that was a “no”. Not that I was really sure I wanted a “yes”. Sex with Dario sounded really good right now, but I had a feeling that activity and drinking blood went hand-in-hand with this vampire. I wasn’t about to head down that slippery slope.
“All I’ve eaten today is six cannolis and an apple spice donut.”
Dario swore and stood up. “Stay there. I’ll be right back.”
I was half asleep when my door opened again. Dario set two plates and a bag of chips on top of my bed, and a huge glass of water on my bedside table.
“Here.” He stuffed a sandwich into my hand. Crumbs rained down on my lacy pink comforter. “Eat. Drink. Then show me where this dragon room is before you go into a food-induced sleep coma. This house is huge and I’m worried if you don’t show me which room is mine that I’ll fry come morning. Or worse yet, climb into bed with your great-grandmother.”
I giggled with my mouth full. I was coming down off my one-beer buzz but still feeling silly. Dario joined me, eating the other sandwich and sharing the bag of chips. It was fun. More fun than I’d ever thought I’d have in this god-awful pink bedroom.
We tiptoed down the hallway and up one more set of stairs to the upper floor which had once housed servants and provided storage for generations of crap. The dragon room was at the end of the hall, next to the wooden door that led to the attic. I flicked on the light as we entered and admired what had been one of my favorite rooms as a child.
Each wall boasted a huge tapestry, hanging ceiling to floor from sturdy brass curtain rods with gold embossed pineapple-style ends. They made the room cozily warm on damp, chilly winter nights, and provided a perfect spot to hide. Many times I’d snuck between a tapestry and the wall, avoiding Latin lessons or the dreaded herbal identification quizzes our tutor insisted on torturing us with. The old fabric smelled of dust and incense, and I’d always pressed my nose against them, trying to hold my breath until our tutor gave up his search.
“Nice,” Dario commented. “Not many humans enjoy sleeping with scenes of beheading and fatal gut wounds surrounding them.”
“Would you rather have the kitties and unicorns?”
“No.” He shot me a quick smile. Guess Dario wasn’t as expressionless as I’d thought. Maybe he was warming up to me. Maybe I shouldn’t think about that at all.
“Here’s how you work the blinds.” I showed him, then flicked off the lights to illustrate the completely light-proof nature of the room.
“I’ll admit I thought I’d be down in the wine cellar,” he confessed. “Judging by your family’s greeting, I didn’t assumed they ever had vampire guests.”
“Uncle Beo,” I told him. “He gets out-of-his-mind drunk and goes on a rampage if there’s a hint of sunlight in his room before late afternoon.”
“Part vampire?”
I didn’t know someone could be part vampire. I’d always read it was an all or nothing kind of thing. I made a note to research further. And remember to take my birth control. Just in case.
“Nope. Just an old Knight who hits the scotch rather hard, especially during the equinox. He’s been a bit off ever since that sand wyrmm incident in Egypt a few decades back.”
Dario nodded. “Well, I think I’m good. Thanks.”
I winced at the dismissal, lingering just a second longer than I should. “Goodnight.”
Idiot. I cursed myself the whole way back to my Pepto-Bismol colored room. Yeah, Dario was mighty sexy, but he was a vampire. I’d had no problem keeping myself from doing anything but ogling and mild flirtation back in Baltimore, but here among my family I was grabbing at him like a drowning woman clinging to a buoy. Luckily he hadn’t been the type to take advantage or I’d probably be showing up to breakfast claiming a curling iron mishap. Then moving in with him once we were back in Baltimore, never to be seen alive again.
And I was clearly insane that the thought of a vampire related death seemed more sexy than terrifying. I needed to snap out of this, get the information I needed, high tail it back to Baltimore then stop indulging in this death-fetish fantasy I had going on.
And find a boyfriend. Or at least some guy willing to participate in regular booty calls. Because curling up in bed thinking about what sort of other facial expressions I could coax from Dario wasn’t healthy.
Chapter 7
DAD WAS SERVING up a dose of fatherly advice along with his famous French toast. Luck
ily I was the only one awake to hear it. I hated getting lectured in front of an audience, even if that audience was my family.
“I get it, Solaria, really I do.” He flipped the bread expertly and it sizzled in the pan. “We all need to sow oats, some of us more than others.”
He winked, and I knew what he meant. Great-grandma Essie’s blood flowed through our veins. We might not talk about it, we might pretend that she was just an eccentric branch off of our stately family tree, but in spite of our ability to deny what was right in front of our faces, we all knew. Essie was a witch, a gifted woman of the wild, a dark-haired gypsy from Eastern Europe. And thus she was the scapegoat for every undesirable trait her descendants possessed. I felt a stir of anger about that. I was more than a mish-mash of my family’s genetic pool, I was me. And only I was responsible for my life choices.
“I’m not sowing oats, Dad. Nor am I planning on harvesting grains of any kind. I’m just living my life, which happens to be different than the one you and Mom had planned for me.”
He smiled and shook his head. Mom got angry. My sister, my brother, and I got angry. Great-grandma Essie really got angry. Dad never got angry. I mean never. He’d get that stern look in his eyes sometimes, but that was as close to a display of temper as I’d ever seen. He was the most controlled man I’d ever met in my life. Dario came close, but his dry humor put him a lap or two behind my father.
“Come on. Your mother and I both know that vampire you brought home isn’t your boyfriend. Aren’t you a little old to be acting out like this? I get it that you feel this need to express your individuality, to rage against the family way, but this sort of thing is juvenile.”
He slid the French toast onto a plate and handed it to me, just a hint of disappointment in his bright blue eyes. It worked. I felt like shit. Why was it that when it came to my family I always reverted into an immature, rebellious teenager?
“He’s not my boyfriend. I’m researching something for the vampire Balaj up in Baltimore, and he’s allegedly facilitating.”
“Ah. Making sure you get the job done, huh?” Dad. There was no fooling him. “What are these vampires paying you?”
“Nothing,” I lied.
He smiled again, and this time it reached his eyes. Just barely. “Good. That’s my girl.”
Templars weren’t supposed to take payment for our work. It was all for the betterment of humanity, for the glory of God and the Righteous Path of Truth. Of course, even guardians of the Path can’t exist without food and shelter. There were donations, tithes. Substantial ones, and I suspect many of them were not voluntary. Basically we were all trust-fund babies, each earning according to the level of their knighthood. Inheritance rights also had some play in the matter. I’d never been privy to the details, but we had an estate in horse country, went to private schools, and enjoyed regular vacations in Europe.
I didn’t get a stipend. I wasn’t a Knight and thus was not eligible. Those regular deposits into my other, untouched checking account were courtesy of my parents. Yes, it stung to be the black sheep of the family, on a sort of allowance at the age of twenty-six, but I’d been raised to be a Templar. There weren’t exactly living-wage opportunities for those skills outside of knighthood, and slinging coffee on the corner didn’t even pay for my lousy apartment. Still, it would take a lot for me to swallow my pride and accept what I’d come to view as charity. Demanding payment for my work for the vampires somehow seemed better than dipping into my “allowance”.
“So, let’s see it.”
“Huh?”
A tiny frown creased Dad’s brow in response to my speaking with my mouth full of breakfast. Swallowing, I tried that again. “See what?”
“Whatever it is that brought you home this weekend.” He reached out a hand. “Normally wild horses wouldn’t drag you here for family time, so I’m assuming your visit has something to do with your research for the vampires.”
Did I mention that nothing got past Dad? Well, nothing except my lie about not taking payment. I took another bite of French toast and dug in my pocket, unfolding the crumpled copy of the symbol.
Dad ran a finger over the creases, smoothing them and tracing the lines of my photocopied version. “Got some Mars influence here, it seems.”
I felt a swell of pride. Yeah, I’d seen that.
“Did you check Cicero?” he asked.
“Yes.” Sheesh. I might not be a Knight, but I knew the basics.
“Swift and Beachum?”
I nodded. “Yes. It doesn’t match anything there either.”
Swift and Beachum’s Cabalistic Rites was a huge, heavy tome only printed in eighteen-by-twenty size. Thus I’d left my copy here. After I’d left Dario’s room, I’d been unable to sleep, so I’d stayed up nearly all night scouring the enormous book.
I leaned over, my shoulder touching his. “I thought this circle here could be the one for health, but maybe it’s life?”
His finger traced the symbol again. “I wish you had the original. Pressure points in the ink often reveal the individual symbols and which one is predominant in the spell.”
A warmth washed over me. This felt so good, so right, to be here with my father discussing the finer points of symbolism in magic. God, how I’d missed this. Had I made a mistake to leave all this behind? Then I remembered the joy I felt in the summoning circle—and the fear when the demon broke free. Never had I been so close to death, and to life.
“I also saw the symbol on some graves this week—graves where magic raised five specters.”
He nodded. “Necromantic?”
“That’s what I was thinking. The symbol on the graves was very faint. I’m thinking whoever the mage is, he or she figured it would have washed off before anyone noticed it. I don’t know how that relates to the vampires, or what their interest is in the symbol.”
Dad turned the paper upside down. Sometimes viewing from a different angle brought a revelation. “Well, technically they’re dead, too. Could be this is something that could be used against them?”
That was one possibility. “Or it could be they have an interest in the necromancer for other reasons, and are trying to find a way to track him or her through the symbol.”
Magic was personal. Even following a ritual from someone else’s grimoire didn’t keep a mage from leaving what amounted to a graffiti tag of magic on the sigil, the site, even the spell’s residual energy. Every practitioner knew to be careful with hair, fingernails, and especially blood. There wasn’t much they could do about magic tags, though. No matter how skilled, everyone left a calling card.
“We’ll need to check the vault tonight.”
I felt a tingle of excitement at Dad’s words. The vault could only be opened at certain times, and was sealed with a blood lock. The books there were some of the most definitive works on magic and the divine ever written. We were honored to be caretakers for a few original versions, but most were copies, laboriously scribed hundreds of years ago.
“Bible of the Curses?”
Dad nodded. “It’s a good place to start. Or possibly Peterson’s Monsters of the New World.”
I frowned. “You don’t think it’s European?”
My father folded the paper and handed it back. “I think it’s custom crafted, an amalgamation of European and North American magicks.”
I tucked the paper back into my pocket and thought as I finished my breakfast. Initially I had assumed that whatever this symbol did, it was detrimental to the vampires, rather than a method for them to trace the practitioner. To track down the necromancer, they’d need a magic user of their own. A Templar Knight was supposed to freely give information, but concocting a trace spell was beyond our duties and responsibilities. I doubted Leonora had a mage on retainer, or she wouldn’t have come to me for this information, so I was banking on the first theory. The symbol was involved in raising dead spirits, and something about that made the vampires very uneasy.
A custom symbol was one that only worked
under the hands of a powerful magician. A question to add to my growing stack was one about the caster’s intent. Was he purposely targeting the vampires, or was the effect toward them only a byproduct? Hopefully we’d find out tonight once Dad opened the vault.
“You know, if you’d stayed, you would have had access to the vault yourself.”
I cringed, covering my reaction up by taking my plate to the sink to rinse and stack in the dishwasher. My brother and sister were good Knights, really good, but I had been the golden child. The youngest of three, I’d shown the most promise. The power of the third, Mother had always said. And thus the pressure, and the ultimatum.
“But that’s history.” Dad waved his spatula. “Go get your tennis clothes on while I finish cooking these up for your lazy siblings. We’ve got a busy day ahead of us.”
Shit. Tennis. I closed the dishwasher and glanced over toward my father. The bones in his hands were sharp; brown spots that I didn’t remember now dotted the skin. Time was a foe none of us could conquer. We’d had our differences. I still dreaded family time. But deep down, there were memories of my childhood that I’d always cherish, long after my parents left their mortal shells behind.
“Love you, Dad.” I kissed him, and saw him flush with embarrassment at the physical affection. “And this time I’m going to kick your ass on the court.”
He transferred the spatula and swatted at me. I easily evaded his hand. When had I become quicker than my Dad?
“Watch your language in this house, young lady,” he scolded. “And you most certainly won’t ‘kick my ass’. Not this time. Not ever.”
Chapter 8
I CAME IN dead last at tennis. Again. Which is the reason why the entire family always argued over who was going to be my partner. Great-grandma Essie finally yelled that she’d participate. I wasn’t hoping for much, especially since I doubted she’d ever played tennis in her life. She hadn’t. It didn’t matter because she broke all the rules and used magic to return the ball, cackling gleefully when she managed to slam it into an opponent’s legs or torso.