19. Valtu
Valtu
I stare at the charred pentacle on the floor, my mind reeling so much that I have to press my fingertips into my temples, as if that will stop the contents from shifting.
I knew there was something off about Rose.
I thought tonight I had her figured out.
I thought that she was just repressed, suppressing herself from her darkest desires of being a vampire.
I thought that real human blood would awaken what she clearly tried so hard to hide and I wanted to be the one to open up that world for her.
What a fool I was. It was just an act, a role. She knew how to work me, how to play the part. Nothing she said was real. I don’t care that her name is Rose this time around, nothing was real. She played me like a fucking puppet.
She didn’t get any of you , a voice says. You haven’t lost a thing. Just a week of your time.
I try to hold onto that but I can’t.
I feel betrayed. It’s such a new feeling to me that I’m not sure how to handle it, what to do with it. But I feel it deep in the marrow of my bones.
Betrayal.
And all because I had let myself get too close to her.
Despite my best efforts, I got close. She got under my skin and into my blood.
The way she looked at me. The way she said my name.
The way she knew exactly what to do with her body.
She knew how to do that because it worked on me before, over and over again.
But then there was the way she made me play music, the first time I had felt in tune with anything in years.
And then there was the darkness inside her that so clearly wants to play with mine.
And then there was the closest feeling to salvation I’d ever had when I was buried deep inside of her, losing my mind to her body and heart and soul.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I throw my head back and roar, the sound multiplying to deafening levels in this room.
The room where the disciples sought punishment.
A testament to the universe’s sense of humor that Rose and her ghost would go straight here of all places.
Then again, it was the ghost of the boy we just killed.
I suppose it was an act of revenge to make all of this unfold, to torture us in retaliation.
And then there was this damn lightning. Rose did that.
I saw it with my own eyes as the ghost had a hold of her.
Yet I’m inclined to believe her when she says she doesn’t know how she did it.
Dahlia had been a witch, that much I knew (a witch sent to kill me, I know that part too).
Is it possible that Dahlia’s magic got reincarnated as well?
Or has Rose been a vampire witch from day one, just like Lenore?
Lenore. The key card in San Francisco. Is it possible that Rose knows her? Was she visiting her and Solon before she came here? Is that how she really found me, or Abe? And why did she wait until she was a vampire to come and meet me? Why not earlier?
I have so many questions. Too many questions.
The biggest question of all is: if Rose really is a witch and has innate powers, is it possible she can read the rest of the book, the parts that I can’t?
But I won’t get any answers to my question if the demon finds her. I don’t know what it will do if it sees she’s no longer under my command. Will it possess her for itself? Or will it kill her because it finally has permission to?
She had called it the bad thing . She had seen it before.
Does that mean it knows who she is?
Thinking about it won’t do shit. I can let it take her or I can do what I just told her I wouldn’t do, which is save her.
Fuck me.
I used to be a man of my word.
I snap into action and bolt out of the room and down the stairs, moving so quickly that I’m passing through walls. In seconds I have searched the house and the demon isn’t here.
Then I’m outside, into the whirl of the winter storm, and I see them.
The demon is a blackened blot in the snow, an alien perched on the edge of our world.
My heart leaps inside my chest.
In his arms is Rose.
One long bony black hand is spread across Rose’s face like a cage, its claws curving over her chin and into her throat. The other hand is wrapped across her chest, gripping her hard enough that blood is soaking through her coat.
He’s seconds away from tearing her head right off.
“Stop!” I yell. I want to run to her, I could be at her side in the snap of my fingers, but I’m afraid any ambush would result in her death, so I stay where I am.
The demon raises its oblong head and fixes its beady crimson eyes on me.
“She is mine!” I boom, though the storm seems to swallow the sound. “Release her!”
The demon continues to stare at me.
It’s thinking.
“She is mine,” I repeat, my voice louder, steadier. I raise out my arm as if to smote it. I have tried in the past to use the book’s magic on the demon, to destroy it, but nothing has ever worked. “She belongs to me and only to me.”
I add, “She always has.”
I can barely see Rose’s eyes through the cage of claws but they widen at my words.
I may not remember her, I may not want to remember her, but the truth is the truth.
This is a woman who has belonged to me during various points throughout my life, and if that doesn’t lay claim to her, then I don’t know what does.
But the demon continues to stare. It tilts its head, seeming to consider.
Let her go. Let her go.
It has a mouth of tiny shark-like teeth that seems incapable of smiling and yet I swear it’s grinning at me. The kind of grin that only means one thing.
“No!” I holler just as Rose lets out an ear-piercing scream and the demon begins to pull at her, muscles flexing, claws digging and—
A lightning bolt comes out of the clouds in a jagged white-hot line and strikes the both of them, appearing to eviscerate them in a cloud of black smoke.
“Rose!” I scream and start running toward them, expecting the worst.
The smoke is thick, filling my lungs, and I can’t see a thing, even the snow seems unable to penetrate it.
Then it becomes transparent, just enough that I see a flash of red and, fuck, dear god let that not be blood. Let Rose be alive.
The smoke starts to clear and with relief I see the red is actually her hair and as the tendrils lift, I’m staring at Rose.
She’s on her knees, her head down and her hair flowing forward, most of her clothes blasted away by the lightning, leaving only singed scraps behind that flutter on her body. Behind her is the demon.
Or what is left of the demon. Just a pile of charcoal and ash until the wind blows that away too.
It’s gone.
I can’t believe it.
The demon is fucking gone .
“Rose,” I whisper in shock and then drop to my knees beside her, placing my fingers under her chin and lifting it up. Her hair falls around her face and she opens her eyes, her beautiful green eyes that remind me of buds in the spring, and she looks right at me, and I can feel her in my soul.
“What happened?” she rasps. She’s shaking slightly and I reach out with my other hand and push her hair back behind her ears.
“You destroyed it,” I tell her, gripping her shoulders now. “You did what I could never do. You destroyed the demon.”
She stares at me, bewildered. “I did?”
“The lightning. Did you do it on purpose that time?”
Her swallow is audible in the storm. She nods. “I did. I figured I had one last chance. I just asked and then there was noise and heat and I felt like I was on fire.” She looks over her shoulder at the ashes. “It killed it. But it didn’t kill me.”
She seems so confused, so surprised by her power, that it only solidifies what I thought. That she wasn’t born a witch.
“You’re new to this,” I say, “aren’t you? To being a witch in a vampire’s body.”
Her tongue darts out to lick her lips and it never fails to surprise me at how fast my thoughts with her turn sexual at the most inappropriate times.
“I swear to you, I haven’t had any sort of powers or magical ability my whole life,” she tells me.
“This only started the day that I turned. The day that I got my memories back.”
“So you remembered Dahlia and somehow your subconscious remembered her magic as well,” I muse. I don’t like saying Dahlia’s name for fear that I’ll remember her, but now that she’s right in front of me, I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.
“Maybe my subconscious remembers, maybe my body does, but when I was Dahlia, I didn’t have this sort of power either. This is next level shit. This is the stuff that…” she trails off and looks away, her face looking pained.
“The stuff that what?”
She frowns as she looks at me. “I know you don’t remember me or us, but do you remember who Bellamy is?”
“Head of the witch’s guild,” I say. “At least he was. He operates his own sect now. They’ve found a way to become immortal,” I add bitterly.
She grimaces, her lips curling. “Yeah, I’ve heard. Do you know how a bunch of witches managed that?”
I can’t tell if she already knows or she’s asking. “There are rumors,” I say carefully.
“Of what?”
“That a baby vampire was taken. Experimented on. That they were able to use that vampire’s blood and isolate the genes it had, use it to make themselves immortal.”
Tears well in her eyes, her lower lip trembling, and I’m about to wonder what I said when she suddenly gets to her feet. “That baby was my brother.”
“What?” I get up, staring at her in confusion. “It couldn’t be your brother. The baby was Leif. He was the son of Wolf and Amethyst. Vampires I personally know.”
“Yeah, well, I know them too,” she says. She gives me a faint smile. “They’re my parents.”
I can’t help but look at her, absolutely dumbfounded. “They can’t be your parents. That’s impossible.”
She folds her arms across her chest, which causes a scrap of material to fall from her, and gives me a steady stare. “Tell me how that’s impossible.”