by Ana Calin
His jaw tenses and his kissable lips draw in a thin line, but he refuses to answer.
“You don’t know what to say, do you?” I inspect him up and down again like he’s some goods. Even though I won’t stoop so low as to come on to him again, I do want to give his ego a well-deserved boost. It’s the least I can do for him after I took his human life away and turned him into this.
“You’re a really attractive young vampire, you should know that,” I say coolly, looking out the windshield. “I wonder how Juliet Jochs could resist giving in to you all these years. I would have slipped, at least once.”
“Attractive or not attractive,” he responds, to my surprise, “I’m not Radek the Handsome. His beauty is....” He chews the inside of his cheek. Clearly, it’s not easy for him to admit it. “His beauty is unparalleled.”
A flash of Radek’s face in my mind is enough to send a sting through my chest. I swallow the dry lump in my throat.
“Yes, it is.” I push the designer glasses back up to cover my eyes. “But beauty isn’t everything.” I turn my head to Lazarus. “Otherwise, you’d be bending me over the hood of this car tonight.”
I don’t give him time to react. I just look ahead and fire the engine. From the corner of my eye I catch that he wants to say something else, but there’s no need, I know why he approached me in the first place.
He might be smart, but I’m more cunning, after all the years of spy work I’ve done for the great Dracula. All Lazarus Raica wanted by approaching me directly was to get me off of Juliet Jochs’ back. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to be here anymore anyway.
I rev the engine, and Lazarus has to step away. I shoot off with a screech of tires, determined to find some young guy with a hard cock for tonight. While I fuck him, for the first time in five years, I won’t be thinking about Radek the Handsome. I’ll be thinking about Lazarus Raica.
CHAPTER IX
Juliet
I brace myself, rubbing my own arms while Radek walks in front of me, twigs and dry leaves crunching under his shoes. We’re in the thick forest around the dead Nazi’s villa, where Martina and Clara brought us. They keep Ruxandra somewhere around here. I’ve already started to feel her, and it gives me the chills.
The women are supposed to let us know when we’re close, but all I notice is that they fall behind. I turn around to find them holding tightly on to each other, eyeing the ground suspiciously.
“She’s here, isn’t she?” I whisper.
They don’t answer. Martina manages to keep her eyes steady on me, but Clara’s eyes slip to a spot by a tree a few yards away.
“Leaves seem arranged artificially here,” Radek says, going down on one knee and starting to spread away the leaves, then digging into the ground powerfully.
The two women shriek and pull back, since the way Radek moves isn’t normal for a human being. He shovels out entire chunks of earth and stone, and rips out tree root with his bare hands, until I feel Ruxandra so strongly that my stomach clenches painfully.
“Ahhh,” I let out, bracing myself from the waist.
Radek throws a glare over his shoulder, his usually opaque eyes now luminous blue, scary in the night. The women shriek loudly, pushing against each other like scared hens.
“Mercury—quicksilver,” Radek says as strings of liquid metal begin to creep out of the ground like small metal worms. My insides twist.
“You buried her alive?” I glare at the two women, feeling a raging need to hurt them. “You rotten bitches are no better than your grandfather and his people!”
“She’s evil,” Martina blurts out while Clara hides her face against her cousin’s shoulder, sobbing like crazy. I fight away a sense of pity for the weaker cousin. “She would have killed us if we hadn’t done this.”
While I understand them on one hand, they must have at least an evil bone of their own in order to be capable of this.
“Get out of my face,” I scream at them. I could really scratch their eyes out right now.
“What the—” Radek says, drawing my attention. A small hand rises from the ground, making bile pool in my mouth. I take a few steps back, scared to death when another hand emerges, clawing its way out of the ground, the mercury leaving the grave like silver snakes.
Radek grabs one of the hands without the slightest sign of fear, pulling the girl out of the ground.
All I can see of her in the light of the moon and its reflection in the pond is an emaciated figure, so skinny it reminds me of pictures from Auschwitz. Only that this is a child, not an adult, an undernourished little girl.
“God sakes,” I whisper to myself, eyes in awe on the dark, earth-covered figure. “How long have they been keeping you there?”
I look behind me, but Martina and Clara have run away. Too taken with the figure emerging from the ground, I didn’t notice. Radek must have though, he never misses anything, but he kept his focus on the girl.
He looks curtly inside the hole in the ground, then at me. “The bones of a big dog. They buried her over the older remains of one of the family dogs.”
My lip curls over my teeth, and I wish I could beat those two up. But, deep down, I understand their fear of the unusual girl. People fear and hate what they don’t understand.
The girl straightens up with difficulty, seeking support on Radek’s arm. He stands really close to her, searching her face. I can’t see anything of her features, she’s all dark from the mud, her hair sticking to her bony frame, wet and dirty, but I can sense the recognition.
She tries to say something, but her voice sounds like an instrument that hasn’t been used in far too long. She coughs and bends over, Radek helping her. He looks at me, and I see awe in his luminous eyes that light up the dark.
“She looks very much like her,” he says reverently. “Like Vlad’s Ruxandra.” He scoops her up, heading with her towards the mansion.
I walk behind him towards the mansion that seems a horror house rising from the forest, only the weak orange light from the drawing room shimmering inside it like lanolin in the night.
“Is it safe to take her back there?” I say when I’m close behind Radek.
“It’s the only safe place,” he says. “In her state, and with her yet unknown powers, it wouldn’t be a great idea to take her to your place, or any place that Irina and Dracula’s people monitor.”
“But I’m not sure about this place either. Martina and Clara ran away, they could get people—”
A long, piping screech stabs my ears, making me cover them with my hands. Though my brain seems to be quivering inside my skull, making the image before my eyes tremble, I see the girl’s skeletal legs rising in the air on one side of Radek, her long wet hair whipping around on the other side as he cradles her.
“Shhhhh,” he tries to calm her down. Jesus Christ, she could drive terror into anybody, and I don’t want to imagine what it would feel like for me alone here, without Radek. But then it hits me.
He goes down on one knee and props her on his other thigh, caressing her face, managing to calm her down a little. I approach slowly, looking over his shoulder. I freeze in place.
Now that we’re closer to the light from the drawing room, on the outer terrace with the cracked stone tiles and overgrowth, I can see Ruxandra’s face clearly. Her cheekbones protrude, the arches above her eyes as well. Her eyeballs strike me as abnormally large, but it actually only seems that way because she’s incredibly thin.
She’s wearing what seems to have been a white dress, her chest bones also protruding, moving fast up and down. Her big eyes are widely open, the irises black as tar, so black that it gives me the chills, small in comparison to the whites. Because of the emaciation, no doubt.
I know why she reacts like this. I fall to my knees beside Radek, my eyes on her. Fear is starting to leave me, even though the sight of this girl seems torn from a Stephen King book. She could probably drive fear into Carrie herself.
“She’s having a panic attack,”
I whisper to Radek, listening to my healer instincts.
“She is like a snake,” I say. “She bites because she’s afraid, and people attack her because they are afraid of her.” More feelings flood me, giving me answers. “I think her channels are open to all the pain along her bloodline.”
Thoughts spin in my head and feelings in my chest until I understand perfectly.
“That’s it, Radek,” I say with urgency, coming back to my feet. “We need to cut her communication channels to the past. She can feel all her ancestor’s pain, down to Adara. It’s what made the others evil as well, they could feel Adara.”
Radek scoops her up and follows me inside the house.
Juliet
I PUSH THE DOOR TO the first bedroom we find upstairs, Radek with Ruxandra in his arms right behind me. It seems a room that hasn’t been fully used in a long time, but the bed is fresh, with clean sheets, as if someone has slept in it very recently. Martina or Clara must have used it since they moved in here.
Radek heads with Ruxandra to the bed, but I stop him.
“No. We need to get her cleaned up first.”
The bathroom seems to not have been renovated in many years. The tiles are small and white, the joints between them blackened from dust and dirt, and the bathtub chipped and yellowed at the drain hole.
Ruxandra screeches and arches in Radek’s arms, clawing to him with small, bony hands. Only now, in the stark—almost sickly—bathroom light, I see her fingernails are short to the flesh, and bloody from how much she fought to get out of that grave, on which the mercury weighed too heavy for her, a creature with dark powers.
I dare take her hand, soothingly. I can even feel how soft and silky my skin is in contrast to hers, warming her icy bones. She stills, and I catch her black eyes as she’s staring at me from Radek’s arms.
“I know it reminds you of the orphanage where your great-grandmother suffered,” I say in a voice so sweet and musical, calming like balm, that I have trouble recognizing myself. I have to pause, but then she starts wriggling again, and I go on.
“I won’t be leaving, I’ll be with you in here the entire time,” I say warmly. “If you want me to, I can take my clothes off as well, and get in the tub with you.”
I can sense the protest oozing from Radek, but he doesn’t voice it. I turn on the water, and sit on the edge of the tub, making sure it’s the right temperature, all the while not taking my eyes from the girl.
A connection forms between us in a very natural way, but I’m aware this only happens because of my healer powers. I create it instinctively, and my genuine concern for her, my true desire that she gets better seeps into her mind. I know she senses my good will, and she clings to it emotionally. My senses play along but, on a conscious level, I’m freaking out.
When the tub fills with warm water, I shake in some bath bubbles, smiling at Ruxandra.
“You’ll like this,” I say with a careful smile. I wouldn’t want to come across as too energetic, the girl needs to find her peace and comfort. And all I want in this moment is to offer her all the comfort that I’m capable of squeezing out of my powers, no matter how much it drains me.
Radek makes to bring her closer, but her arms still clench around him. He looks at me, prepared to follow my instructions. It gives me strength, being able to rely on him like this.
“It’s all right, Radek will come in with you as well, yes? He will climb into the tub with you in his arms, you don’t even have to let go of him.”
Radek does exactly as told, slowly and carefully not to scare her.
The first part of her to touch the water is her long, dirty dress, mud spreading into the clear liquid, but when her body begins to sink into it, the color becomes jet black, spreading like ink.
Radek looks at me with urgency in his eyes, and I know he wants me to get out. But no. I shake my head.
“You can leave us, Radek.”
“Juliet, be reasonable. That—” He glances at the ink black liquid. “Could be anything.”
“He can leave us, right?” I address Ruxandra. She keeps looking at me with those jet black eyes, without blinking, fixing me like a demon. I want to shudder, but I manage to refrain. At this point though, I understand how come people are so afraid of her. She’s scary as hell.
When I expect it the least, she nods slightly, her arms loosening off Radek. She sinks slowly into the bathtub, and I do the same. Soon we’re facing each other in the tub, she at one end, me at the other. Radek retreats until he reaches the door, but he doesn’t leave the room.
Radek
THIS IS INCREDIBLE. The woman I love, the healer Juliet Jochs, is incredible. Though she’s scared as hell—I can feel it—she faces the demon girl in the bathtub, holding her inhuman stare.
She begins talking at a certain point, telling Ruxandra calming, sweet things, then she moves carefully in the water, and starts to wash the girl’s hair.
I watch fascinated how Juliet’s hands move and, by the way Ruxandra relaxes, I’m afraid Juliet is quickly becoming a sort of mother figure to her.
Soon the girl is cleaner than she’s probably been in months. I realize that, despite the dirt, she didn’t smell at all when I got her out of that grave. The more I look at her, the clearer it becomes that there is indeed something demonic about her.
But after only a little longer, I also realize that she would never hurt Juliet, who keeps talking to her as she gets her another white dress from the wardrobe and then seats her at the vanity table, brushing her hair.
The hair brushing in the mirror takes an eternity, until Ruxandra’s eyelids begin to droop. Juliet helps her up and leads her to the bed with promises that she would keep stroking her softly until she falls asleep, if that’s what she wants.
The more I watch this, the more worried I grow, but not because this creature might hurt Juliet, no. Like I said, after hours in which I watched them fascinated, a bond has been created between them. But because I’m afraid that the girl will cling to my Juliet emotionally, eventually draining her.
After a while the girl falls asleep, her slumber so peaceful and deep that even her bony rib cage seems to gain more flesh.
“I don’t think she’s been so peaceful in years,” Juliet whispers, stroking the girl’s forehead and cheeks. “Actually, I don’t think she’s ever been so peaceful in her life.”
I hear tears behind her voice, and my heart aches. I walk over to her, placing a soft hand on her shoulder.
“She’s sleeping now. You did a wonderful job, Juliet, and I’m proud of you to the moon and back. But maybe it’s time to take some distance, replenish your energy, she must have drained you.”
Juliet shakes her head. “I don’t want to leave her side.” She keeps looking at the girl’s face with a frown on her brow, as if she’s thinking of a solution. “The poor thing, she absorbs all the darkness of her bloodline, all the way back to Adara.” She scrunches her eyes shut and shudders. “It terrifies me, the amount of power this girl has access to, but believe me, she doesn’t want it. She has to pay with so much pain.”
“We will help her,” I assure her. “But right now I need you to go with me downstairs, have a drink, try to relax. We’ll be close enough to hear her if she wakes up. But you need to refill your tanks as well.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave her alone.”
I follow her gaze, also inspecting the girl. She’s so fragile it’s heartbreaking, and yet, indeed, there’s so much power about her.
I wonder what Vlad would feel, seeing her like this, I wonder if he’d make the same difference I make between this girl and his true Ruxandra from centuries ago. She was a woman in full bloom, while this girl is a skeletal creature with some, not even all of Ruxandra’s features. Then a flash of Vlad coldly lunging to her carotid hits me, sucking her dry, then howling to the full moon with blood dripping from his fangs as his powers become limitless.
“You’re right,” I whisper to Juliet. “We have to cut off
her access to her ancestors’ dark energy, but not only. We also have to cut her off from her own, personal memories of the past.”
Juliet looks at me from beside Ruxandra’s bed with a frown. “You want us to wipe her memory?”
“Not exactly. Just block it.”
“And how do you suppose we do that?”
I think hard.
“Come downstairs, let’s have tea, and we’ll talk about it. We need to find a way, and we need to find it fast. The pain will end up killing her if we don’t do something about it.”
CHAPTER X
Juliet
I flop on the dusty couch on which we sat earlier while talking to Martina and Clara. From here I can look into the small kitchen, watching Radek make us tea. He moves smoothly while he does it, elegant and appetizing. It makes me fantasize about the two of us as husband and wife, having a life together.
“Here you go.”
I pick up a cup of spicy scented tea, trying to mask the trembling of my hands.
“Are you feeling better?” he inquires softly, a hand on my shoulder. I’m enjoying his closeness too much, relaxing dangerously in his presence. Damn it, transferring energy to Ruxandra made me needy.
“Yes,” I force myself, but then my eyes fall on the remains of metal on his hands. I realize it must be the mercury, but it’s no longer moving, as if the metal is... dead. I frown, balancing the saucer with the tea in one hand, pointing to the dead remains of mercury with the other.
“H-how did that happen?” Then I realize. My eyes widen, fully on Radek’s ivory face. “Shouldn’t you be sensitive to mercury as well? I mean, you are...” How do I put this? “Evil?” I whisper.
He smiles a sad smile, looking at the drops of dead metal on his wrist, just above his cuff.
“I used to be evil, yes. Until I met a woman who loved me despite my midnight ugliness, a woman that I....” His voice trails off, and he frowns as if he tries to keep tears in check.
My core clenches, my jugular pulsing. Please, God, let him tell me that he loves me.