Chapter Sixteen #2
Van Helsing had been more of a leader at five than twenty-five, standing up to his father for Sam at a time when no one else would.
“That’s not what I meant—” Van Helsing protested.
“Isn’t it?” Sam said sharply. “You know, the vengeful spirits and the rusalka you destroy didn’t have a choice about becoming monsters—that was taken from them when they were murdered.
But the man who murdered them? He had a choice, and in destroying them instead of laying them to rest, you steal their chance at peace as well.
Punishing the victims because killing them is easier, because you’re terrified of what they’ve become, and because the men who made them look like you. ”
“Samantha, that’s Society policy—”
“You know, I never put it together before,” Sam continued, certain she would regret it in the morning but unable to swallow down the fury inside her.
What was more, she found she didn’t want to.
She wanted him to listen. To see her for who she was, rather than the stories he told himself about her. To see himself reflected in her eyes.
“You always wanted to hear my father’s stories about Quincey Morris,” Sam said.
“You even dress like him, with those cowboy boots and spurs—playing the hero. But Quincey wasn’t a hero because he drove his bowie knife through Dracula’s heart.
He was a hero because he listened and did what he believed was right even if it was strange, because he was generous without expectation, and because he laid down his life to protect his”—her breath plumed in the air—“his . . .” Ice crystalized up the glass of the lantern, her fingertips going sticky red with cold.
Friends.
Sam could hear the frown in Van Helsing’s voice as he asked, “Samantha?” But Sam’s voice caught in her throat as the ghost materialized before her, her hair winding in the air like weeds, her ephemeral nightgown clinging as if it were wet. Ophelia drowning beautifully.
Sam found she couldn’t move, her heart in her throat, paralyzed like the rabbit before the hawk. The ghost eased toward her, and at last her limbs unlatched. She fumbled for her knife, drawing breath to scream—
But the ghost held up her hands in surrender, her bloodred lips forming words Sam could not understand.
Despite her racing pulse, Sam hesitated.
The ghost haunting Mr. Enfield hadn’t made itself visible, nor had the ghost haunting Lord Lusk.
And though it had been frightening, Sam never would have seen Mr. Enfield’s death if not for her ghost, for all the good it had done her—or Mr. Enfield for that matter.
“Is everything all right in there?” Van Helsing called, his voice growing concerned.
Sam squeezed her eyes shut. You weren’t supposed to listen to monsters. You weren’t supposed to invite them in. But if the ghost might tell her who had marked her for death . . . was that not worth the risk?
No, Van Helsing would have said. It’s not.
Even Hel might have balked. This wasn’t just channeling—this was inviting the monster in. It might also be the only way she was going to get answers.
We need to trust each other, or there’s no point to any of this.
But was it truly trust if you had to tell someone everything? And Sam found she didn’t want to ask Hel’s permission. She didn’t want to give her the chance to say no.
“Fine,” Sam said, ostensibly answering Van Helsing, but nodding to the ghost. “I’m just tired.”
“Go to bed,” Van Helsing said. “You shouldn’t be up, anyway.”
Praying she wasn’t about to make her last mistake, Sam took her lantern and padded over to the tea set, selecting a cup thorny with roses.
She drew the small silver-and-iron knife from where she’d taken to keeping it, on a ribbon around her neck.
Flicking out the silver blade, she held it over her wrist.
The ghost’s eyes gleamed, her lips parting, as she flowed almost involuntarily toward her.
Sam’s hand trembled, the teacup suddenly seeming capable of holding an ocean of blood. What if she cut too deep? What if she couldn’t stop the flow? Then she’d have to confess everything.
It didn’t have to be much, Sam told herself. Hel had cut herself on the inside of her ring finger to assuage the phantom in the Palais Garnier—a few drops was all it had taken—and if M. Voland was to be believed, channel blood was potent.
Footsteps and muddled conversation drew her attention to the door. The changing of the guard. Perfect. Hel would not be expecting her to say anything, and so wouldn’t be listening for whatever might come.
Biting her lip, Sam looked away and pressed the knife to the inside of her ring finger, only to realize that wasn’t going to work. Resisting the urge to look away, she swiped the knife down quickly, hissing as a line of fire opened down her finger. Blood welled.
Sam held her fist out over the teacup, but before the first drops hit the teacup, the ghost flew at her. She flinched, closing her eyes, peeking through her lashes to find the ghost had stopped right in front of her, her pupils swollen with hunger, her mouth parted to reveal her fangs.
Sam still held the silver-and-iron knife, the edge wet with her blood. So close, the ghost wouldn’t even see her coming. She could disperse her if she wanted to. But she found she didn’t want to.
Slowly, achingly slowly, keeping her eyes on Sam’s the whole time, giving her time to pull away if she wanted, the ghost latched her mouth onto Sam’s finger.
Sam gasped, her breath catching like ice in her chest. The ghost stopped, looking up, her brow furrowed with concern. But Sam nodded, shuddering.
“It’s all right,” she said softly.
The ghost required no further encouragement.
Her mother had said that when a vampire drank your blood, it was horrifically sensual. But sensual wasn’t quite the right word for this. It wasn’t like her kiss with Hel, which had consumed her. It wasn’t physical.
No, this was the seduction of the dark, of letting go.
Of embracing her power, whatever others might think of her, and of not asking permission.
She felt heady with rebellion and blood loss, and let out a shuddering breath.
Startled at the sound, the ghost unlatched, licking blood from her phantom fangs like a cat.
It was as if the veil between worlds had parted, spilling color into the ghost’s features. Her blonde hair was burnished like gold, her skin pinked, a delicate bloom on her cheeks. And this time, when she moved those ruby-red lips, Sam could hear her voice.
“It has been so long since I’ve been warm,” the ghost said in a throaty whisper. Her accent was English, and somehow sounded like home. Like her father, she realized. “Thank you, Samantha.”
Sam startled. “You know my name.”
“You don’t recognize me, do you?” The ghost laughed, tilting her head to her reflection in the mirror on the wall, its frame so ornate that it made everyone look as if they’d stepped out of a Greek play.
Sam followed her gaze to her reflection and swallowed a scream.
In the ghost’s reflection, a gory line drew itself across her throat, her cheeks puffed with whole heads of garlic.
A sawed-off wooden stake embedded itself in her chest, drenching her white nightgown bloody, as if she’d just given birth. “How about now?”
Vampires had no reflections—but ghosts . . . In a mirror, ghosts appeared the way they had when they’d died, which usually meant murdered. The severed head, the garlic, the stake—these were the usual treatments for vampires. It could be any vampire.
Except it wasn’t. Sam recalled one of her father’s rare stories, told in the quiet of the night, not with the bombast of her grandfather, but with a stillness that reminded you it was true.
Before Sam was born, there had been a vampire the children of Hampstead Hill called the bloofer lady, described as a lady in white. A vampire who had been slain by those who loved her best, led in the act by Professor Van Helsing.
“Lucy?” Sam whispered. “Lucy Westerna?”
“Is that how you refer to your elders?” Lucy tutted.
It sounded ridiculous coming out of her mouth.
She’d been only nineteen when Dracula had turned her—younger than Sam was now.
Then, before Sam could protest, “No, please, I do prefer it. Your mother was like a sister to me—which means that you’re practically my niece.
Besides, we’ve known each other far too long to stand on formality. ”
Aunt Lucy, then.
“How long have you been watching me?” Sam asked.
“Oh, love,” Aunt Lucy said fondly. “I’ve watched you grow up, since you were ten years old.
Your guardian angel. Though guardian ghost would be more accurate, I suppose.
Or should it be guardian vampire? Oh, whatever you want to call me is fine, truly.
I was never the one who was good with words—that was Mina, and now you, it seems.”
“That long?” Sam said. Before she’d arrived in Ireland then, before the Wild Hunt. And it occurred to her how strange it was that, of all the ghosts in the world, she should be haunted by the ghost of her mother’s dearest friend.
“I have to say,” Aunt Lucy said, “I couldn’t have picked a better time to pull myself back together. I’ve been waiting for you to go off on that Jakob for at least a decade, and I almost missed it! The way he treated you is absolutely abhorrent, and after you were so close as children!”
“You were . . . waiting for it?” Sam said. Aunt Lucy sounded more as if she were discussing the characters in her favorite series of books than her niece’s life. But then, that’s what Sam’s life had been to her, hadn’t it? She could watch but never intervene. At least, until she’d come to Ireland.
“I just said I was, didn’t I?” Aunt Lucy said. “Though I don’t know why I was surprised by Van Helsing’s treacherous turn of heart. I had three suitors, you know, all of whom declared their love for me on the same day. I was quite overcome.”