23. Valtu
Valtu
M y head explodes in pain, shrapnel stabbing my temples and I press my hands over my eyes, as if they’re going to start leaking out of my head.
A certain pain I’ve only felt once before.
Oh fuck.
I go still, my breathing ragged and adrenaline pumping through me, and there’s a taste of bitter floral in my mouth, violets and dandelion greens, and I instantly know what I’ve done. The sense of dizziness, of emptiness, of having your brain scooped out, is prominent.
I’ve used the spell of erasure again.
Why the hell would I do that again?
I hear a sniff and I slowly take my hands off my face.
There’s a girl kneeling in front of me, dressed in a bathrobe.
She’s bawling, like an animal in pain, tears flooding her face.
The air smells like oud and salt.
Something is very wrong here.
It’s the girl that’s wrong.
Her head snaps up and she stares at me and I realize I’m staring into the eyes of a witch, her power brimming off of her.
I don’t need an explanation.
She’s done something to me.
I launch myself at her, grabbing her by the throat and forcing her on her back.
She yelps and tries to scream and I have my fingers wrapped around her neck, squeezing harder and harder as I bear down on her.
“Who are you?” I growl, feeling her cartilage breaking under my grip.
Her hands are at mine, trying to pry my fingers off, and she looks scared more than anything. A wild kind of fear that kicks more adrenaline into my system. She could be unpredictable.
And she is, because she suddenly does something I didn’t expect her to.
She goes limp. Relaxes completely. Stops fighting me.
But she’s not dead, nor dying. Not yet.
Her eyes, a brilliant green, stop flashing and go hazy, her expression as if she’s resigning herself to this fate.
As if she doesn’t want to fight.
As if she expects to die.
Her hands drop away and she’s staring up at me.
Go ahead , Val , she projects into my head. Do it. Rip my head right off.
I blink at her, my fingers loosening slightly. Rip her head off? That’s a little extreme.
And that’s when I realize she’s not using parlor tricks to get into my head.
She’s just thinking. Because she’s a vampire.
And that’s why no matter how hard I squeeze, she’s still breathing, her chest rising and falling, and when I look down I see an ugly fresh wound near her heart with faint lines radiating outward.
Like she had been stabbed with the blade of mordernes .
I quickly remove my hands and straighten up, rocking back on my heels.
“You’re a vampire,” I whisper.
I blink at her and it’s all coming together, at least a little bit.
I don’t know who she is, but I know I have the taste of erasure in my mouth, and there’s a woman here that knows my name and seems to be both a witch and a vampire.
I breathe in deeply and I’m getting both scents, one of power and magic, and the other of ancient blood. It reminds me of Lenore.
“I’m sorry,” I quickly say, getting to my feet. “I…”
I look around. I’m standing on a massive balcony that juts out over a crowded city, a river flowing nearby. Then I realize it’s not a river and I’ve been here before. We’re in Istanbul.
Why am I here? I think, looking around frantically for the proof of what I’ve done. I spot the empty vial on the ground and go over, picking it up. So much power in such a little thing.
Why did I do this? Again? Why is it so hard to remember anything?
“Who are you?” I ask hoarsely, turning to face the girl again.
The girl slowly sits up, rubbing at her throat. Red hair spills over her shoulders, beautiful red hair the color of autumn leaves and sunsets. Now that I’m able to get a better, calmer look at her, I realize she’s the most stunning woman I’ve ever seen.
She fixes her eyes on me and I’m immediately pulled into their depths, my heart skipping a beat, and I immediately know why I don’t know her. I know why I chose to erase her.
Because how could I not have been in love with her?
And from the way she’s looking at me, absolutely broken, like she just watched a loved one die, I realize that she’s in love with me.
“What have I done?” I ask.
“What you do best,” she says quietly, getting to her feet. “But if you want a real explanation…”
She walks a little off-balance through the French doors and into a hotel room.
I follow, enraptured in a mystery of my own doing.
She stops by a desk and tightens up her robe, then hands me a pad of hotel stationary and then quickly steps back, as if needing to keep a safe distance from me. I don’t blame her.
I briefly eye the book on the desk, a sense of relief at the sight of it, then proceed to read the notepad.
It’s in my handwriting, a letter addressed to me, perhaps only written moments ago.
It explains most things. Where I am and why I’m here. And a little bit about the reason I took the potion. The reason for the spell.
“Rose Harper?” I ask her, looking up from the paper. “That’s your name?”
Her face contorts, her jaw quivering but she nods. “Yes.”
“But you’re not dead,” I say. “In the past, when I erased…someone else, it was because she had died. You’re alive.”
She lets out a sad laugh, looking at the floor. “Yeah, well, I suppose this time you wanted to do it before it got that far along.” She sniffles and wipes away a tear with her fingers. “And once again I’m here to sift through the pieces of what we could have had.”
I frown, wishing my headache would go away. “Once again?”
The girl, Rose, she just shakes her head. “Never mind.”
She turns around her back to me and puts her head in her hands.
I feel like I should go over there and comfort her, but honestly I have no idea what I would say. How do you comfort someone you just purposefully forgot?
“Well, I guess I should probably figure out what to do next,” I say. “You can keep this room, I’ll go to the front desk and get myself another.”
“That’s it!?” she shrieks, whipping around to face me.
Her eyes are on fire. “That’s it!? You just go and get another fucking hotel room and that’s it?
! Like everything is back to normal for you?
Oh, it must be nice to be Valtu Aminoff, motherfucking coward of the year, keeps running from problems that don’t even exist yet, just another clean slate and another clean slate, never having to be the one left behind when someone erases your existence! ”
I put up my hands, taken aback by her rage. “Hey. Listen, Rose, I don’t know what to say, I didn’t choose this—”
“Yes you did!” Her face flames with anger as she storms over, getting right in front of me.
“You chose this! Don’t pretend there are a million different versions of yourself because there’s only one and he’s a fucking coward that puts the title of Dracula to shame.
You’re pathetic, you know that? Absolutely pathetic and selfish and a gutless, scared little boy.
You’re all of those things and yet I still love you and I fucking HATE you for it!
And I hate me too! And all of this, I hate all of this, all of this! ”
With a final shriek that nearly blows out my eardrums she picks the book off the desk and grips it hard between her hands.
“I hate this book for coming into our lives, for ruining our love and what we had and making you believe that living without love was the only way to live. You are so wrong, Val, so fucking wrong, and one day you’ll see it.
One day, centuries from now, you will be so alone it will curdle your blood and hollow your bones and you will wish that you had someone you could love.
And there will be no one there! You will live forever with only your own emptiness for company and it will be what you deserve! ”
With another scream she raises the book high above her head and stares up at it with fury so strong that her whole body starts trembling violently and she’s levitating off the ground.
“I wish this book never existed!” she howls, her voice bouncing off the walls. “I want it destroyed!”
“Wait, what are you doing?” I ask, fear clutching my chest. “I need that to—”
Lightning jolts through the open doors of the balcony, hurtling right into the room, right into Rose with a fiery CRASH.
Everything explodes into white.
I go flying backward, hit by a ball of spreading nuclear light, my back slamming against the wall where I get the wind knocked out of me and fall to the floor. I hit my head on the tiles, wincing, covering my face as smoke fills the room, the smell of burned pages.
Shit.
I cough, and try to sit up, to look through the smoke. Pieces of burning paper rain down from above, electricity crackling around us.
The book.
I feel it in the very depths of me, like someone removed one of my organs in my sleep.
It’s gone.
The book is gone .
She destroyed it, she…she…she…
Suddenly a figure steps out of the smoke.
A woman. A naked woman.
I stare at her open-mouthed. Not because she’s naked, but because I know that body.
I know those hips and that stomach and that warm spot between her thighs.
I know the curve of her breasts and the slope of her shoulders.
I know that neck, a neck that I’ve drank from, blood that made me more alive than anything else in this world.
I know that face. The strong jaw and nose, the soft lips, those cheekbones and those eyes.
I’m staring up into eyes the color of March leaves and late summer moss and they’re staring back at me.
I can’t breathe.
This can’t be.
“Dahlia?” I manage to say, and she flinches like she’s hit by another bolt of lightning.
And then they all come back to me.
She all comes back to me.
Mina. Lucy. Dahlia. Rose.
Rose.
“Rose?” I ask, her name feeling like honey on my lips.
I can’t breathe. This can’t be.
Now her mouth parts, her eyes wide and she presses her hand to her chest and she’s gasping. “Val?” The hope that spreads across her face is like a firework.