We had also picked up Daisy in the meantime. As we were hurriedly getting in Monty’s vehicle, she sauntered over with her overnight bag and said, “Where are you guys going?”
“Professor McGuinness is staying in Savannah,” I said. “You want to road trip?”
“Hell yeah. Get me out of here.” She climbed in the back seat, tugging on her miniskirt but still flashing Firian with pink underwear as he was waiting to hop in after her. She turned around. “Do you like being petted, Robin Hood?”
I gave him a cool look. “He hates it.”
Firian just laughed at my jealous moment and jumped up next to her.
“Where did you get your ride, Monty? Didn’t you used to have a street racer? What happened to you?”
Montague hunched defensively over the steering wheel. “The warlock council confiscated my car. Harris chose this…gem.”
“I wonder if we should have invited Harris,” Daisy said, glancing at the retreating school gates.
“No time,” Montague said. “We just need to keep the wand safe. You know, we invited you, Daisy.”
“Right, well, I just want him to know that it wasn’t personal that I dumped him.”
“Let’s stay friends never works anyway,” Montague said.
“In this case it does,” Daisy said. “You know he wasn’t into me. For some reason.” She frowned out the window.
“But you weren’t into him either, right?” I said, as I held my wand close to my chest. I hadn’t realized how much more powerful I felt with the wand until it was gone. I felt like the wand and I had already enjoyed a long relationship. I carved you with my own hands…
“No. I need a man who can bring some fire. It isn’t Harris and it damn sure isn’t Piers. But how is it that I could be twenty-one years old and never have fallen in love when I’m so passionate and sexy? Am I not a catch? Shouldn’t I be fighting them off?”
“It’ll happen,” I said. “You just haven’t met the right ones yet. When I was in high school I had the saddest love life. Guys just treated me like I was one of their friends.”
“When we’re in Savannah, I need to stop in somewhere because I ran out of Chanel No. 5,” Daisy said, shaking it off. “I know that’s so basic but it’s like my thing.”
“Well, I do need to get the next Outlander book,” I said. “Maybe we could meet Professor McGuinness at Barnes and Noble.”
“It’s not as if we had anything important to do,” Montague said. “Savannah has a small parallel. It’s very elegant. We were going to meet at a cafe.”
“Yeah, but we just need to shop first, though,” Daisy said. “I just need the Chanel and maybe a new bra and I also need a cute scarf. But it’ll be fast.”
“I believe you,” Firian said dryly.
“Actually…maybe we should meet at the mall,” Montague said. “It’s a public place, so the council will have to be very careful about getting in our business. Firian, can you pass the word to McGuinness’ familiar?”
Five hours later, we were at the mall at the designated meeting place. Professor McGuinness was sitting at a table in a mall food court across from us carefully unwrapping a Chick-Fil-A chicken sandwich and spreading mayonnaise on it with a knife in an even layer.
“Chick-Fil-A is anti-gay,” I said.
“I am aware, but considering the state of my love life, I might choose these sandwiches over sex,” he said.
I looked at my bourbon chicken and now wished I had also gotten the Chick-Fil-A, if I’d known he wasn’t going to judge me over it, while Daisy walked over to him with her Cinnabon.
“This is too hilarious! Let’s get a selfie with our mall food.” She held out her phone and took a picture of Professor McGuinness who looked like he had no idea what was even happening.
“So you have the wand safe and sound?” Professor McGuinness asked.
“Yes.” I had the wand wrapped up in a towel poking out of a tote bag, which was sitting at my side. I knew I had to hand it over for safe keeping, but I was very reluctant. I didn’t want to let it out of my hands ever again. How did I know we could really trust Professor McGuinness to keep it safe? He wasn’t even my favorite professor. What if he broke it? What if he was working for the enemy? All I knew about him was that he was a glum old gent who wore depressing suits and once loved Samuel.
“Let’s see, now…,” Professor McGuinness said, starting to reach.
I held up my fork. “Wait a sec. Before I give this to you…I want to summon Samuel. He had the first Wyrd wand, and if he says I can trust you with it, then I’ll hand it over.”
Professor McGuinness looked like he wanted to protest, but instead he gave me a reluctant nod. “I suppose you will insist. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about you, Charlotte, it’s that once you have an idea in your head…”
“Yep. I just want to see Samuel one time and I think you should too. We’re not going to try and keep him here forever. Just once.”
“Since it is such an act of trust to leave your wand with me, I will relent,” he said. “If you come back to my house tonight, I will help to summon him.”
“The girls need to do some shopping,” Montague said. “I actually need to do some shopping myself, and anyway, you don’t want me around when you’re summoning the dead. It’s not my specialty. Do you mind taking them back to your place and I’ll meet you there later tonight?”
“What do you need to shop for?” I asked.
“My mom’s birthday present, for one, and I need new shoes.”
“Your shoes look pretty new to me…”
“I hold myself to a high standard. What, you really want to come with me? It’s boring. I thought I’d get it out of the way while I’m at the mall.” I got this suspicious feeling again. Montague was more present in recent weeks… Maybe I was just paranoid because I’d lost Firian to a curse, and Alec to the demon world, and I was worried over both of them, while Montague was the one that all the concerned adults seemed to think would choose his vampire life over his human life, sooner of later.
“Just be careful,” I said.
He lifted my hand and kissed it. “Always. I’ll see you tonight.”
“That didn’t work out in Cancun,” Daisy said.
“I’m wiser now,” he said, slipping gracefully out of his chair, leaving us to our food.
That, at least, I believed.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Montague
I drove past a few of Savannah’s picturesque squares and cemeteries. Spanish moss dripped off the old oak trees, occasionally even touching the tombstones and monuments, until I reached the address.
I drove a little further to park my hideous car out of sight and walked back. The wrought iron gate was shut but low enough for me to hop over without going full-on vampire acrobat. I walked up a flight of steps to the double doors and rapped the knocker, as tourists strolled by behind me. It was astonishing to me that vampires lived right in the city in plain view like this.
Vampires really aren’t like other magical beings, I thought. They usually started their lives as ordinary humans, for one thing, and even though they were deemed Sinistral, they didn’t live in Sinistral like werewolves or demons. They remained in the real world, moreso even than warlocks.
I know this house.
It was new, then, the smell of the paint still faint on a warm summer night, candles blazing from every corner, silk dresses brushing each other as ladies moved through the doorways. The gowns came from every era, going back to Medieval days.
Rayner brought Lisbeth here once, a long time ago.
“Don’t worry, tulip, you’re always safe with me,” he said, but he still kept her close as the aroma of her made heads turn and fangs flash. “I brought you here for a reason.”
He looked up to the grand staircase to meet the eyes of a broad man in the dark cloak, fastened with a silver pin, and robes, his face pale and somber as carved marble.
“A sweet that none shall taste,” he sa
id. “An impolite gift to bring to a party, Mr. Vanderberg…”
The vampires left me hanging there on the stoop. I knew I was probably being observed, appraised, and discussed. I could faintly smell them, clean and cold. If humans were summer days, full of life and flowers but also likely to stink, and demons were the smoke of autumn, vampires were snowfall.
So they certainly knew what I was.
An old woman, walking determinedly with a cane, came down the sidewalk. She looked at me. “I’m not sure you want to be knocking on that door,” she said.
“I’m afraid I am sure,” I said.
She shook her head, walking as fast as she could to get away as she crossed herself, a small gesture that stung me because it made me think of being banned from the basilica where my ancestors had worshipped for hundreds of years.
As soon as she was gone, the doors swung open at once, with no one behind them. It was enough of an invitation that I was able to walk inside, and they shut behind me, just as smoothly. I stood in the grand entrance hall, looking up at the staircase. A massive crystal chandelier, wax candles still stuck in their bases, hung down.
Somewhere in the house above my head, I heard a woman gasping and moaning, somewhere between pleasure and pain. But she fell silent almost as soon as I walked inside. The house paused at my entrance, the flooring and walls letting out a soft groan.
Further in the depths, an old telephone rang. I heard the clatter of a receiver and a muted female voice saying, “Allo. Oui. He just walked in.” The phone went back in the cradle heavily.
I should have felt out of place, but Rayner’s memory had given me just enough to know that this house was always full of activity, the center of vampire life on the southeast coast. It was both the spectator and the show. This house was the home of a six-hundred-year vampire, and it would make no particular effort to accommodate itself to me.
A girl hurried down the stairs, wearing a long silk kimono, a flash of a bandage showing beneath the sleeve. She quickly tugged it down, ignoring me. At the foot of the stairs, she paused, swaying dizzily, but before I could offer help, she opened the door without looking at me once.
Meanwhile, Ulf came to the top of the stairs, to the same place he stood to greet Rayner.
“Rayner’s youngest creation,” he said. “Montague Xarra. This is quite a moniker. You are a warlock, I am told?”
“Yes, sir. I’m from the St. Augustine Xarras.”
He nodded without the slightest interest. “You are not with your clan,” he said. “So you have not embraced this life yet. You do not obey…? Rayner, is he still looking for that little cursed girl of his?”
“Lisbeth,” I said. “She’s cursed?”
“Well, we call it cursed,” he said. “That is, Rayner cannot turn her. Her family put a protection upon her soul, so he loses her, over and over…” Ulf came down the stairs like it was a slow sort of dance. His accent and his movements both seemed alien. People spoke and moved in very different ways six hundred years ago, I guess.
“I never knew that…”
“It explains a lot, doesn’t it?” Ulf said, with the smallest spark of humor. “Why have you not joined your clan, boy?”
“I already have a life,” I said.
“With humans…,” he said. “Well. Yes. For now. Patience, then.”
A woman brought out a tray with two glasses of blood for us. “Be my guest, Mr. Xarra.”
The blood smelled so tantalizing, so fresh and sweet, that it was only after I put it to my lips that I could even think of refusing it. And by then, it was already down my throat.
“I know that look,” Ulf said. “Not enough fresh food in your diet.”
“It’s good blood,” I said. “But—I’ve also heard drugs aren’t bad until they fuck up your life. I imagine that’s the same deal.”
He laughed. “I’ve only seen it a thousand times,” he said. “Every young vampire tries to resist. Not all of them argue with me, I’ll give you that. But Silvus sent you to me, he said, because you wish to know more about how to yield the power you were given. You cannot speak to Rayner, then, because he does not wish to teach you anything that isn’t in service of finding his beloved.”
“I guess that’s it,” I said. “Silvus recommended this place, so I came.”
“Let me see you…” Ulf clamped a hand on my shoulder and lifted his eyes to mine. He seemed to be peeling back my soul with plenty of experience. I wanted to look away.
Six hundred years. So many years that they scared me. Who wanted to live that long, to see the world change that much? Ulf hadn’t just outlasted friends, he had outlasted forests and nations and entire ways of life, more than once. Even his face seemed to be a strange face, some idea of what was handsome from a long time ago, in some provincial place. His eyes were penetrating and blue, and I couldn’t decide if he was brawny or graceful. It was a little of both. He seemed like a rock softened by water, from a time when nearly all men knew how to ride and swing a sword or a hammer or a scythe, but now he lived in a mansion in Savannah, hosting parties for other vampires who saw him as nearly god-like.
He finally eased off. “You are not ready for what I have to say,” he said.
“If I’m not ready, I’ll just ignore the advice,” I said. “But if you won’t tell me what it is, how can I become ready for it?”
He chuckled. “None of it will surprise you. Your body knows what it needs to become stronger. It’s really so simple. Vampires are not complicated like warlocks. They are like animals who can survive on their own in the wild as soon as their eyes open. You simply have not opened your eyes yet, but the time will come. Sometimes, it does not come until you see the ones you love begin to fail.”
“I need blood…,” I said. “That’s all you’re saying.”
“You need blood right from the vein, boy. You must be well nourished to fight.”
“So that girl…”
“She is one of my thralls,” Ulf said. “She takes great pleasure in giving herself to me. When she has recovered from today, she will be back. Sometimes, sooner.”
“She’s addicted to it?” I didn’t like this.
“As you get older, you learn control. You will not hurt anyone. Their blood is power for you, and your venom is a drug to them.”
“I can’t imagine this is a life anyone would choose,” I said. “Getting addicted to any drug can be pretty great, I’ve heard, for a little while, and then…”
“Not ready,” Ulf said. “I told you. Eventually, you will stop concerning yourself over it. You see the humans suffer and die, and all you think is, how nice it is to take what you need and bring them a little happiness. Or maybe you don’t even care about that very much. I can’t say I think about it anymore, but we are comfortable in our routines.”
“So you never fall in love with them?”
“I don’t,” Ulf said. “I choose my partners among vampire society, or I did once. These days I don’t even think about such things. But everyone is different. Your sire, yes, he is my opposite in so many ways. He lives for his thrall. So, maybe…you are more like him. But the one thing Rayner and I have in common is that we take what we need, and that is the end of it. If you want to be strong, you will take what you need.”
“Taking blood from a living person is very…intimate,” I said.
“Oh, yes. Your thrall will crave you, and likewise.”
“My clan drank Harris’ blood and I don’t think he craved them.”
“He is very cold, or he lied, this Harris,” Ulf said.
I snorted. “Either is possible.”
“If you don’t fuck your thralls you are not really living.”
So, drink Charlotte’s blood, or…betray her love?
Of course, Alec and I aren’t so different, I thought. He needs her, too. I could drink Alec’s blood, but…
I knew that would mess everything up just as badly. Alec was a demon, he couldn’t really be my thrall, and if we started to want to ha
ve sex with each other, that would just be very awkward on multiple levels.
Charlotte was the one I wanted, the way Rayner had Lisbeth. She was the girl I wanted to taste…and fuck. Nobody else. Rayner lives for his thrall.
I never wanted a thrall. I wanted a wife. Kids. A home. Normal stuff.
“You’re right,” I said. “I’m not ready to hear it.”
“I know,” Ulf said. “It takes time. That’s all. Time and pain. But what a relief it is, when you finally let go of your human life. My doors are always open for any vampire who needs a place to get on their feet.”
I struggled not to choke on the sickening feeling of ever losing my human life, mingled with the sense that a part of me wanted it.
It could have been good, maybe. But only if I didn’t lose Charlotte. And Charlotte would lose Firian. So it could never be and I was just going to have to pretend I was still normal for as long as I could.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Charlotte
“I guess that’s everything,” I said, paying for some clearance socks with llamas on them while Daisy had a bag-full.
“I do wonder if maybe I should get something to wear,” Professor McGuinness said. “Since Samuel was always so fashionable.”
“Yeah, definitely,” Daisy said. “I mean, now that mention it you look you dress out of a haunted mansion.”
“I’m a necromancer,” he said.
“Does that mean if I become a necromancer I have to dress like a funeral director too?” I asked. “I mean, talking to spirits is a totally different job. I think you could use some color. You’d look younger.”
“And a haircut!” Daisy said. “This is all just kind of shaggy.” She waved her hand around his face. “I think you have a good face for hats.” She grabbed a wool tweed cap and tip-toed to put it on his head. “See? This Professor of Necromancy just got Necro-fancy.”
Professor McGuinness looked confused. “I just never think about these things.”
“We need to Queer Eye for the Straight Guy him!” I said. “Or—Straight Eye for the Queer Guy…?”
A Fine Necromance Page 18