21. Valtu
Valtu
“B ellamy is in Istanbul?” Van Helsing asks over the phone. “Are you sure?”
“They’re both there,” I correct him. “Him and apparently Leif. And I can’t be one hundred percent sure until I actually see them, but yes, that’s what the magic has revealed to us so far. We’re still getting a hang of how the spell works.”
“So now what?” he asks.
“Now you better get a hold of Solon and Lenore and whoever else you can think of and get them over here. Despite all the magic, we’re going to need reinforcements. We can’t do this alone.”
“Wolf and Amethyst will want to be a part of this,” he says. “And what do you mean here? You want us to meet you in Mittenwald?”
“No, in Turkey,” I tell him. “I’m already here.”
“Valtu!”
“Just get a hold of them. I’ll call you back when we have a plan going.”
“Valtu, wait—”
But I hang up on him and slip my phone into the locker, locking it using my mind before I grab my towel and wrap it around my waist.
I step out of the change room and into the ancient Roman cistern that the hotel has turned into a spa. Huge arches of stone converge in the middle above the pale blue waters churned by jets and in the middle of it is Rose, looking around her curiously. We’re the only ones in here.
“Built during the Byzantine Empire,” I tell her as I go down the steps and enter the hot water. “Amazing that this is still standing.”
“Way before my time. And yours, I guess,” Rose says, and it strokes my ego to see the lust in her eyes as her gaze goes up and down over my body. “Does it bother you that there’s so much history you missed out on?”
I shake my head and dip into the water, lazily swimming toward her. “Not at all. I like the fact that there’s so much mystery still. In the past and in the future.”
Right now, the future has never seemed more mysterious.
It was only yesterday that we discovered that Rose had the power to bring the pages of the book to life and make the rest of the spells appear.
With each one that revealed itself to us, I felt my feelings for her grow, like a flower blossoming in a graveyard.
My first instinct was to push back against the feelings, trample them underfoot.
They didn’t belong here, not with me, and not for her.
But I couldn’t help myself. I kept repeating in my head that I have the spell of erasure and I can rid myself of her after all of this is said and done, and that gave me permission to try and enjoy it for once.
I’ve always kept people at arm’s length, but knowing that what I feel now and what I might feel tomorrow could be forgotten makes letting her in a little easier.
And then we found the spell. Finally. A chance to get her brother back, a chance to destroy Bellamy and whoever else is in that sect of his. The so-called immortal witches.
I know that my interest in all of this is purely selfish.
I have harbored guilt on behalf of Solon and the others for decades now.
I have had to live with the fact that I never helped them when I could have.
And no, there were no spells at the time to locate him, but in those early days, it may have been easier, and I didn’t even fucking try.
So when the spell leapt onto the page, I knew that I would try and help Rose, as much for her as it is for my own salvation.
It took a while to learn the spell. It wasn’t as simple as learning a few lines or creating a potion. It’s a highly mental thing that takes a lot of focus in your own head on the individual you’re seeking. I wasn’t able to bring up Bellamy or Leif at all.
But Rose was. She was able to see Bellamy in her head, clear as day, and with that clarity she could glean his surroundings as well. She’d never met Leif because he was gone before she was born, but she says she saw him. He looks just like her brother Dylan.
I’m sure Rose was able to do it because she said that when she was Dahlia, Bellamy had been like a father to her. A father that had murdered her parents, but still a father figure all the same. The connection was strong.
Though I’m starting to wonder if Rose has taken the demon’s place. The book obviously favors her, it only comes alive now at her touch. Is it possible that when this is all over, and I have forgotten her, she’ll take the book with her?
My gut clenches and I have no choice but to ignore it as I swim over to Rose. Perhaps I’ll have to use the spell to forget the book, too.
“Did you talk to Abe?” Rose asks as I swim up to her and press her against the edge of the pool, bracketing her in between my arms. I can’t help but stare at her breasts that are nearly popping out of the bikini she bought at the gift shop in the hotel lobby.
A three-hundred-dollar bikini and one that doesn’t fit, but fuck if she doesn’t look delectable in it.
“Please don’t talk about the doctor when I’m admiring your breasts,” I murmur, dipping my head to lick along the firm swells of them.
“Val,” she warns, trying to move out of the way but I have her pinned in place. “We’re in a public pool.”
I grumble and kiss up toward her collarbone, then her neck, her jaw, her chin, her lips. “So we are,” I muse against her skin. “You don’t seem like the type that’s squeamish about fucking in public.”
She lets out a breathy huff of air and when I pull back, she’s chucking in amusement. I don’t want to touch the memory at all and I don’t want to ask, but I have a feeling I’ve probably fucked her in public before.
See how nice it would be to remember ? a voice says inside me. This voice is quiet and rarely ever speaking but sometimes it makes its point. What would be the harm?
But even if I wanted to remember our past, I can’t. There was no spell in there that would undo it. What I chose is what I am stuck with, and I am not about to feel bad about something I had to do.
“What did Abe say?” she asks again pointedly and I sigh, pulling myself together. I guess we do have a rather large mission at hand, one that neither of us are prepared for at all, hence why we need enforcements.
“I told him what’s going on and that he needs to let everyone know.”
“Do you think they’ll come all the way out here?”
“We did,” I point out.
We would have used one of the new spells, the one for teleportation, but it only works if you’ve been to the place before. I’ve been to Istanbul plenty of times, even living here for a brief period of time in the 1920s, but Rose had never been as herself or in any of her past lives.
“And you know that your parents will be on the first flight over,” I add. “Leif was taken from their arms. They want their revenge more than you probably even know.”
She swallows hard and worries her lip between her teeth. “And Solon and Lenore?”
“Solon has been asking me to use the book to find Leif for years. And the doctor is willing to help out whenever he can. Even my friend Bitrus might be of use.”
“Bitrus,” she says brightly. “That’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time. How is he?”
I blink at her for a moment, wondering how she knows him, and then of course I remember that Dahlia must have met him.
“He’s good,” I say carefully. “Though now that I’m thinking of it, perhaps it would be better if he stayed in Venice. He has a business to run.”
“Is he running the Red Room?”
I stare at her for a moment. “You’ve been there?”
A coquettish smile appears. “Remember when you said I didn’t seem squeamish about fucking in public?”
I attempt to smile back but it falters on my face.
So I had fucked Dahlia in the Red Room in front of everyone and I have no memory of it.
I want to have a memory of that. I want to have a memory of her face, what she looked like, the way everyone else watched. I want that and I can never have that.
The realization is a kick to the gut.
I erased my grief, but I also erased my life.
“Val,” she says in a hush. She places her fingers at my cheekbone. “It’s okay.”
“What happens when I want to remember?” I ask her, my jaw going tight.
“Then I’ll tell you what happened,” she says. “More than that, I’ll help you remember.”
“I won’t…”
“But I’ll still show you,” she says softly, gazing at me with such tenderness that I feel even weaker than before.
Somewhere in this large cistern there’s the sound of a door opening, and I know other hotel guests are coming to enjoy the hot bath, ruining our privacy.
Rose’s eyes go over my shoulder to the door and her eyes crinkle at the corner impishly.
“What?” I ask and then her fingers flutter in the space between us and I know she’s just used a cloaking spell on us.
“Did it work?” she whispers. “I’m kind of new to this.”
I glance over my shoulder at the couple that just walked in, both guys in their late forties. They should be able to see us but they don’t and they place their robes on the benches before going down the steps into the tub, wearing Speedos so bright it hurts my eyes.
One of them remarks on how hot the water is, and the other mentions how nice it is to have the whole place to themselves.
I look back at Rose. “I don’t think they can see us.”
She bites her lip for a moment, her eyes going a warm green. “Good.”
Then she reaches down and grabs my cock, giving it a squeeze through my swim shorts, which I admit leave nothing to the imagination.
I haven’t been swimming in one hell of a long time, so naturally I had to pick up a pair at the hotel gift shop too.
Seems the swimwear in Turkey has gotten a lot more risqué since the 1920s.
“Rose,” I say through a gasp.
She just grins and looks over my shoulder again while her grip on my cock only gets tighter. “Don’t worry, they don’t seem to hear us either.”
“They’re going to see the whirlpool forming when I fuck the hell out of you.”