by J. J. McAvoy
“It’s morning. I wish to sleep,” Theseus replied, and I looked over to the windows, which were now tinted. Sure enough, the sun was up, but the light couldn’t get in.
“Rest well.” Was all Taelon said as the doors closed.
“And this is why I hate balls,” Theseus muttered when they were gone.
I turned to him. “Does this happen often?”
“Lucy was entertainment. There was blood all around, and yet, it was only when we were not there that she lost control. Someone did something to trigger her, but who? We will never know. How? We also will not know. What I do know is that she has a lot of control for her kind, and this was not her fault alone.”
“They voted to have her executed, how is that entertainment?”
“Ask the Romans.” He frowned. “From what I can see, President Swan enjoys the cultures of the world. He has taken a bit from each one. Did you notice the paintings? He has many other children from all over the world. His second child is Egyptian, his third from Brazil. He collects vampires like they are toys. And tonight, he wished to punish one for mating against his wishes while also entertaining his guest and keeping up appearances. A human life should not have warranted such a punishment.”
“I thought you said we wouldn’t know who?”
“Who did it exactly, we do not know. However, who could do such a thing without his permission? How did he have such a punishment ready?” he questioned.
Worry crept in. “If you’re right, he’ll try again to hurt Lucy.”
“No, he won’t,” he said, and I didn’t understand.
“Why not.”
“You.” He frowned. “He can now use her life against you. You showed him a gift and a weakness in you, and he will exploit it. Druella, when you healed that human, could you smell yourself?”
I thought back, shaking my head. “No.”
“You…you smelled like a witch, Druella. A very powerful witch.”
“How can I smell like a witch if I’m a vampire?” I asked, confused.
“Exactly.” He frowned. “And why do you have a memory that you do not remember? One of you being against some coven, and me calling you a powerful witch only for you to then smell like a powerful witch?”
“You don’t believe in coincidences.”
“I think we are beyond the realm of coincidences.” He placed his hands on my shoulders to bring me closer. “If you are as powerful as I think you are, it is possible you have a second gift. It is rare, but as a mortal, your powers would not have been dormant. Powerful witches rarely live without a coven…”
“Someone would have known of me.” I stared up at him, the expression on his face stern.
“When you were healing the human, how did you feel?”
I glanced down at my hands. “Would you prefer just to see?”
“It brings me joy to know you trust me, but drinking from each other should not replace speaking. And if you cannot make sense of it, your mind will be muddled as I tried to see. Tell me.”
He was right, of course. I had a feeling he was used to being right. “I think I prefer your drinking because I don’t believe myself or the things that happen.”
“Whatever you tell me, I will believe you…always.”
I smiled. “Even if I told you I saw a ghost?”
“A ghost?” He stared in disbelief, which was a bit ironic. Then he pulled himself together. “Forgive me; it is not that I don’t believe you, but that—seeing spirits, I have only heard of such from witches, not our kind.”
I closed my eyes, trying to organize it in my mind. Like he said, I needed to say it, put order to it, outside of him just drinking the knowledge from me. “I was trying to reverse time, trying to get my gift to work when I wanted it to. But it wasn’t, and they were all upsetting me. Judgment like that bothered me. Then I heard this voice. It was so smooth and clear. It kept telling me A life for life. I didn’t understand at first, and then I saw him. The human was standing right next to his own body.”
“He appeared as a ghost? Was it his voice?”
“No. His voice and the one that told me a life for a life were different. He asked me to save him, heal him. He told me his sister was sick, and he needed money. When I asked how, I wasn’t asking about how to kill Lucy. I meant how could I save him, and he told me, magic. Simone came to mind and how she would have healed you before I changed it, and I just knew I could do it. And doing it—it felt like—” I tried to think of something he could relate it to. “I felt like going home and knowing where everything was and how it worked. I didn’t need to ask questions. It was easy. I wanted him to heal, and he was healed. I felt it in my hand. It was raw, powerful, and ready to do what I needed.”
“Magic is like home for witches. It is who they naturally are.” He nodded and let me go, stepping back. “Northern Virginia, you’ve always lived there?”
I nodded.
“And Simone has always been close to you?”
“As in we grew up together, yes.” I wasn’t sure what he was getting at. “Why?”
“I want you to do more magic.”
Huh? “You want me to do more? I don’t even know how I did this.”
He glanced around the room for a moment, grabbing the bottle of blood and one of the two glasses left there like complimentary drinks at a hotel. He lifted it up in front of my face. I don’t know how I didn’t notice it before.
“Pour the blood from the bottle into the glass. Without touching it.”
“Theseus.”
“Just humor me for a moment. I have a hypothesis, but I need you to try.” He showed me the bottle and glass again.
“What am I supposed to say, Theseus?” I waved my finger as if it was a wand in front of him “Blood-o in glass-o?”
The bottle in his hand vibrated, and I stared at it in shock. “That is isn’t funny, Theseus. Stop shaking it.”
“I’m not,” he said seriously. “Try again…with less sarcasm and more desire. Magic allows for desire to become reality.”
Part of me wanted to. But, what did it mean if I could do this? Then again, not doing this meant I would be clueless as to what was happening to and around me as well as what had happened to cause Theseus to lose his memory. I took a deep breath, trying to think of what to say.
What rhymed with blood? Did a spell need to rhyme? That seemed a bit silly. It made me think all witches were walking around with a rhyme book just in case they needed to cast a spell.
Everything had steps. If I were going to pour wine into a glass, I needed to uncork the bottle first. I stared at the cork inside the bottle, watching it wiggle. Come on; you can do it. It wiggled and wiggled, but it wasn’t moving up, and at that point, I felt it was taunting me.
“Oh, just come out already!” I snapped at it, and it popped back, shooting out of the bottle like a bullet. The glass shattered, spilling the blood to the ground, and the cork landed a few feet from us. I stared at it shock.
“I think a delicate hand is needed for the craft.” Theseus snickered beside me.
“Don’t laugh. Look what you made me do!” I got on my knees to pick up the broken pieces, further ruining my dress.
At this point, if Lucy could save this dress, she definitely knew how to do magic. Not to mention the stains we’d just left. We were the worst guests in history.
“We have to get the stain out…” My voice drifted off as I watched the blood rise from the ground into a sphere-like blood bubble.
He knelt in front of me and lifted the wine glass from my hand. Then Theseus moved my hand over to the bubble and down. The blood followed my motion until it landed in the glass until it was full.
“Better.” He grinned. “I’m unsure how the Wiccan’s do it, but you passed my test.”
“Theseus, how the hell am I doing magic? I’m a vampire.”
“I don’t know; maybe your true gift is the gift of magic. Everything you’ve done so far is because of magic. Though the point is, you can do it, even as a vampire, which means you could most definitely do so as a mortal.” He put down the glass, and when he did, the blood bubble balanced on top of it, waiting. “You grew up in an area full of witches and next to another witch. Your magic is so strong that it follows your wishes even when you do not command it. How is it possible you do not remember ever having it? How is possible the witches around you never sensed it?”
“Maybe I didn’t want them to. Maybe I rejected the magic.” That didn’t make sense either. I would remember not wanting magic.
“Or maybe the reason the Omeron witches left you alone, Druella is because you are an Omeron coven witch and just don’t remember.” His eyes were clear and full of wonder like he was piecing the puzzles together the longer he stared. “What if my memory isn’t the only one missing? What if yours is, too?”
No. I shook my head. “How can I be missing my memory, Theseus? I remember everything?”
“Maybe there are holes—”
“There are no holes in my memory,” I said, and to prove it, I went through my short life for him. “Mother was Zira Monroe, she was an artist, and my love of art comes from her. She died giving birth to me. I spent my childhood finding comfort in her paintings and trying to copy them. My father was Dovev Monroe. He was heartbroken when she passed away, and everyone said he lost a piece of himself. He avoided me because I reminded him of my mother. He worked as an international aid worker, and I was always jealous that he spent more time helping other kids than me. So, I would misbehave in high school, hoping to get his attention.
“He’d just call the principle and apologize. I didn’t have the guts to do anything too bad because I’m a softy at heart. So, I was never expelled. I went to the University of Virginia. My first boyfriend was Marquis, a basketball player. He dumped me after we had sex. That made me withdraw more from people. I graduated at twenty-two with honors. My degree is in art history and studio art with a minor in anthropology. Then a week later, I began working as an intern at the Smithsonian. My boss, Mr. Pescoran then helped to get me an interview at the National Gallery. I got the job. I have been working there ever since. I rarely spoke to my father by that point, and I was just grateful he had paid my tuition. Around that time, he died after contracting a severe case of dengue fever in Brazil. I was grateful he didn’t ever meet me as a vampire. That has been my life up until now.”
Letting all of that out felt liberating in a way, but the look on Theseus’s face didn’t really make me feel much better. He watched me carefully.
“What?”
“You skipped the part where you turned into a vampire,” he said.
“You know that—”
“I know you were found by Lucy. How did you get there? Why were you there? Did you go to the forest often?” he questioned, and I paused to think back to that day.
But I could only remember the day before and waking up the day after. “Okay, I’m missing one day, but still, I remember the day before and the day after—”
“But you have no idea what brought you to the forest?” he asked.
Sighing, my head began to pound, so I rubbed it.
He reached over and put his palm on my cheek. “It is not my intention to distress you. I am merely seeking to understand what is happening to you…to us. But, I believe I maybe have been arrogant in thinking I could solve this alone.”
I leaned into his touch. “I’m trying to help, too.”
“It’s not enough. What I mean is, we are not enough,” he whispered. “There are too many distractions and peering vampires here, besides my authority only goes so far. In Ankeiros, not only will we not have to worry about others, but my family will be there. They will help us. My father, especially. On top of that, we have the largest collection of books, painting, and scrolls, both known and unknown to mortals and vampires alike. We will have time and freedom to uncover the truth and see if anyone else has such a gift.”
Such a long-winded way for him to simply say, “You want me to go to your home in Europe.”
He lifted my bloody fingers and kissed them. “I want us to go home.”
Chapter 18
I’d always loved hot showers, but it seemed now that I was a vampire, they were more like a form of therapy. As the water rained on me, weighing down my hair, heating my skin, washing the blood from my body, the steam rose. I felt calm. My mind was almost empty, and I enjoyed that feeling. In that emptiness, I couldn’t reflect on the past few days or worry about the coming days. I was just in the moment, in the shower, and everything else could wait. I could have stayed inside for a few more hours, but when I heard the phone ring for the second time—and Theseus’s voice more annoyed and grumpier, snapping at the caller—I couldn’t hide anymore.
Turning off the water, I stepped out onto the tiled floors, where my bloodied gown sat in a pool by the door. I didn’t bother drying my hair. I just threw it into a high puff, before pulling on my brand-new bra and underwear set and a turtleneck, black sweater dress. My socks were silk so when I put my foot into the knee-high boots, it wiggled a little more freely. Other than that, everything fit fine. So, I took the damaged dress and put it in the bag I’d gotten my new clothes from before coming out.
“You didn’t need to rush,” he said gently, sitting on the edge of the bed. He’d changed into dark jeans and a white button-down shirt, not a speck of dirt or blood on him.
“Where did you clean up?” I asked, confused.
“There is a sink.” He tilted his head toward the kitchen area, making me immediately feel bad.
“I’m so sorry.” The sun was now high in the sky over the city. I must have been in there for at least two hours, maybe three.
“For what?” he asked, standing up and rubbing his eyes a bit.
“The shower. I knew I was taking my time, but…”
“It’s fine. When I was a mortal, if you’d told me there would be a day in which people took baths daily and it was as simple as turning a lever, I would have thought you were insane.” He said, blinking a few times and forcing his eyes wide.
“You must be really tired. I heard the phone ring. Do we need to go down? I can go while you rest—”
“If you think I am letting you go to those fiends alone, you have a lot to learn about me.” He offered me his hand, and I noticed he’d also packed most of our things into black suitcases. He must have called to ask for them because I hadn’t seen them before now. It seemed he was ready to leave as soon as possible.
“I do have a lot to learn about you, regardless.” I took his hand and walked toward the elevator. “Do you know where we’re supposed to go?”
“They said the courtroom,”
“Courtroom?”
“President Swan has decided to hear the case of Jason Silber—right this moment.”
Right after I had subverted his previous “court” case. “This is about me, isn’t it?”
“It’s about us.” The look on his face was severe when he glanced down at me. “I’ve been called to testify on how I know he is consorting with witches. What was done with Lucy was more of gorilla justice or justice by the majority. This will be an actual court decided by however their system works.”
“That means you’ll have to tell him—”
“I will not. The less they are curious about you, the better. From the beginning, the Swan family has been overly involved with you, and I do not know why,” he said as the elevators arrived. He allowed me inside before following. With each passing second we stayed here, I could see him growing tenser, more aggravated, confused even. Everything I had expected when I first met him was now happening. Initially, he had been impossibly calm, carefree almost, with no plans and not much thought other than getting to know me. But ever since I l
eft my apartment that morning, everything had changed.
“I alone accused him, so I alone should be the one they must question.” Theseus squeezed my hand slightly, and I understood what he meant—I shouldn’t get involved.
Nodding, I looked up, watching as we sank lower down the tower. Just when it seemed like it would never reach the bottom, it did. The doors opened to reveal, Charline. Dressed in a tribal shirt and pants, Charline had her short brown hair pulled back, and in her large hands was a bowl of powder, the same red powder that seemed to be smeared over her eyes. Behind her were caves. If anyone had told me we were still in downtown Montréal, I would call them a liar. They were eerie-looking like something a human might write in fiction. Bats, there were hundreds of bats, hanging from the top, sleeping. And with the exception of the elevator, there was no light, no fires to guide anyone’s way, just darkness that went on and on. There was a way out. It was straight, but it was far. I could hear birds deep in that distance.
“Theseus, Druella,” she said, looking to both of us and speaking with a harshness that was a complete one-eighty from the woman who stood by watching Lucy and I shop. “You must remove your shoes. The path to the court is sacred ground,”
It was only then that I notice she was also barefoot, the bottoms of which were painted in the same red.
“I remember this,” Theseus said quietly, taking off his shoes and socks and tossing them behind us into the elevator. “It was a tradition of King Desagondensta’s tribe when I first visited him, and then he had us do the same.”
I wished I had known that before I put on the damn boots. I removed them and my socks, watching as Charline placed the bowl in front of his feet. He put his right foot in first, making sure they covered before putting in his left. When he was done, he lifted the bowl, only to set in front of my feet. Not saying anything, I lifted my right leg, but he shook his head.
“Women lead with the left foot first.”