Chapter 5 – Dahlia #3
“Me?” he asks when he stops laughing. “Why not?” Then his features harden slightly, his mouth turning down. “I suppose I want to see Venice, experience it, while it’s still here.”
“Still here?”
“This city won’t be here forever,” he says as he picks up a pencil and begins scribbling something down on a library card. “With the way the waters are rising each year, they say it will all be underwater by 2100.”
I purse my lips in puzzlement. “But you’ll be long dead by then,” I say without even realizing what I’m saying. It’s what a normal person would say, of course, they wouldn’t know the truth, that he wouldn’t be dead by 2100, because he’s immortal.
Though technically he could be dead next week , I think to myself. By my own hand. But he doesn’t know that.
“Are we to only care about things that happen in our lifetime?” he asks, his eyes solemn, brows lowering so that it casts dark shadows. “There’s no harm in caring about things that happen after you’re gone. Someone has to inherit the earth, don’t they?”
Yeah, you , I think. I remember in one of my classes at university, a fellow witch said she found sympathy for vampires for being immortal, for being the ones who would truly have to deal with the effects of climate change because they would be the last ones on earth.
She then went on to mention how vampires were behind a lot of the clean earth initiatives, but she was ignored for that.
Witches don’t like to hear about vampires doing any good.
It goes against all our beliefs, all that we’ve been indoctrinated to.
“Tell me something, Dahlia,” he says, his voice going lower, rougher, enough that it causes my scalp to prickle, like I’m getting a head massage.
He leans forward, his hands splayed on the table.
Strong, large, and capable, with two silver rings, one a bird skull signet, the other a candle.
“This might sound strange but…do I know you from somewhere?”
I stare at him in surprise. “No…”
He tilts his head and I feel his eyes starting to probe me, feel myself tipping forward slightly, as if I’m standing on the edge of his irises, the shades of brown, black, and gold spreading out before me like a pond in the night, inviting me for a dip.
“Because,” he says, and now his voice is inside my head, moving around like a snake, “I feel like I’ve met you before.” He practically hisses the words.
My eyes flutter, wanting to close, wanting to fall into the pool of his gaze, to sink, not swim, and I have to fight against the pull, like a fish on a line.
“Have you ever been to San Francisco? Where did you go to university?” he says abruptly and suddenly I regain my balance again. I felt like I was about to fall over, but I’m standing straight, the book still in my hands.
I manage to swallow. “Uh. Um. I went to university in Scotland. And no, I haven’t been to San Francisco. Why?”
“Just a place I frequent. As is Scotland. Where?”
“Aberdeen.” I feel breathless.
“No kidding,” he says. “I spent a lot of time there. I had a very good friend who lived in Cruden Bay for some time.”
“Oh?” I manage to say. “When? Maybe you were there while I was studying. Perhaps you saw me on the street, or maybe we met briefly at a party.”
He chuckles, looking back to his library card. “I’m much older than you think. No, I don’t think I was there when you were at school. Guess you just have one of those faces.”
“Maybe I remind you of another girl you turned down for a drink,” I muse.
He pauses, glancing at me for a moment. “You would think I wouldn’t make that same mistake twice, then.”
Okay. Is that a sign that I should ask him for drinks again? Or is he going to rectify it? But the professor doesn’t say anything, just hums a little tune to himself and continues writing on the library card. I do detect a playful smile just teasing the corners of his full lips.
So close. I feel like I’m so close. But perhaps I’m doing this wrong.
He’s a hunter through and through. A bloodsucker.
An animal. A predator. And I’m the prey.
I shouldn’t be going after him guns a’ blazing, so shameless, putting myself on a platter for him.
He’s used to pursuing, not being the one pursued.
It probably gets him hard just the thought of hunting down a woman.
At the thought of him getting hard, my body immediately tenses, heat pooling between my legs in a sudden burst of need.
Jesus. I can’t be thinking about that.
But of course, I need to be. How the hell else am I supposed to get close enough to Valtu in order to kill him, let alone learn the whereabouts of the book?
That’s part of my job. Sometimes in order to vanquish vampires from this world, you need to do things you don’t want to do.
I’ve done it before. Done things that people would view as shameful, degrading.
Hell, even some witches outside of the slayer’s guild pity us for the things we sometimes have to do.
I guess the difference is, now I find myself wanting to do it.
I decide to take a step back. To let him be. I’ll never get anywhere if I keep coming on so strong.
“I really should go study,” I tell him, rolling off my gloves.
He looks up, his brows together in puzzlement. “Already?”
“It’s why I came here,” I say, placing them in the trash can under the table and adjusting the purse on my shoulder.
“If it’s for my class, the essay isn’t due for a few weeks,” he says.
“I like to get a head start,” I tell him. “I’ll see you Monday.” Then I’m turning around and walking out of the glass room of rare books and artifacts and into the darkened stacks of the library. I half-expect him to come after me and feel a twinge of disappointment when he doesn’t.
I sigh, blowing a strand of hair out of my face and wishing I had brought a cardigan with me. It’s been so hot and muggy here, even at night, but in the depths of the library there’s a deep chill that makes my bare arms erupt in gooseflesh.
I spend some time going through the stacks, pulling out a few books, then work my way to the tables.
There are students occupying most chairs, so I go to the back of the room, where the light gets dimmer, until I spot a long empty table, thankfully with a couple of desk lamps to illuminate the work area.
I sit down, my eyes drifting over to a metal door at the wall, complete with a keypad, then the arched stain-glass windows above it.
Where could that door possibly go? Perhaps that’s where they keep the really valuable stuff.
After all, it wouldn’t be too hard to smash the glass cases that house the books the professor was working on.
After flipping open a book, I bring out my pen and notepad and attempt to make notes.
We were given free range for our essays and I don’t really know where to start except that I think I’m most intrigued by Modest Mussorgsky, a Russian composer who was suspected of being involved with witchcraft and the occult back in the day.
I start going through the books I have that feature him, trying to find something that speaks to me.
Though I’d only graduated from university six years ago, it feels like a lifetime ago and the idea of constructing an essay feels foreign to me.
But I love research at heart. I could spend hours doing it and it seems I’ve done so, by the time I’ve breezed through two books, made a heap of notes, and my phone is telling me it’s nearing closing time.
“You’re still here,” Valtu’s voice comes from behind me, his words rough and elegant at the same time.
I suppress a shiver and twist in my seat to glance at him over my shoulder.
He shouldn’t have been able to sneak up on me like that, but I was hyper-focusing on my work, my senses are dulled, and he is a vampire after all. They can be as silent as snow.
“I must have lost track of time,” I tell him. I quickly get up and start slamming the books shut and suddenly Valtu is at my back, peering over me at the table. His scent overwhelms me and my knees threaten to buckle.
“Mussorgsky,” he says quietly as he notes the books. “He’s an interesting man.”
“Was,” I correct him, since he died in the 1800s.
“Of course. Was .”
I swallow hard. For the first time since I met this vampire, I feel afraid.
Not terrified, but the prickle of fear is distinct.
If he knows who I am truly am and what I have been sent here to do, he could kill me right here in the back of this dark, emptied library and I wouldn’t be able to stop him.
The blade of mordernes is tucked away in my closet. I am completely defenseless.
“How about I walk you home,” he goes on. “It’s late.”
I blink at him and then turn away, gathering my books. Perhaps I wasn’t wrong. The moment I put distance between us and back off, the more he feels compelled to chase.
Careful , I remind myself. That might not be a good thing.
“What makes you think I need you to walk me home?” I ask, turning to face him, the books clutched to my chest.
He gives me a sly, crooked smile. “You don’t know the city, rossa . It can be full of dangers.” His voice lowers softly over that last word, the desk lamp casting his face in shadows.
“Such as?”
“One wrong step and you’re,” he makes a diving motion with his hands, “right into the canal.”
“I think I can manage,” I tell him. “And you don’t know where I live, I could live around the corner.”
Actually, I wonder if he does know where I live. I suppose it could be on the school records. I’m not sure how strict the privacy laws are here and if teachers can access that.
“Do you?”
I shake my head. “Cannaregio. By the Chiesa della Madonna dell ‘Orto.”
“Interesting,” he notes. “Did you know that area is haunted?”
A wash of cold air comes over me. “I didn’t. Too bad I don’t believe in ghosts.”