Chapter 5 – Dahlia #4
“You don’t have to believe in ghosts for them to exist. They just need to believe in you.” He gestures behind him with his chin. “Come on. We’re the last ones in here. I need to close up.”
“You’re the librarian here too?”
“When I need to be,” he says mysteriously.
I step away from the table and then nod at the metal door at the back. “Where does that go?”
“Headquarters for the Secret Society of Undervalued Librarians,” he says, walking off to the main door.
I watch him for a moment, then follow behind.
He’s wearing black jeans, black moto boots, and a slim-cut black sweater which makes him look like a creature of the night, but there’s no denying he also looks like a sexy piece of ass at the same time.
“Not much of a secret now,” I say to him when I catch up. I know he’s being facetious, but it does pique my curiosity even more.
He opens the front doors and then waits till I’m close enough before flicking off the main lights. The library goes dark, putting him into silhouette and for a flash his eyes seem to glow red, shots of crimson in the void where his face should be.
I suck in a shaky breath and step out into the hall, feeling relief at the light.
He gives me a quick smile and then locks the door behind him. “Now where were we?”
“You were trying to walk me home,” I say. “Think I need protection from ghosts and stuff.”
“Men, mostly,” he says as we head down the hall to the stairs.
“Oh is that so?”
“I’m sure you have a flock of Italian men following you down the streets.”
“And you’re supposed to protect me from them?”
“I just want to make sure you don’t offer them a drink as well,” he says, which makes me laugh. I’m not used to vampires being funny. I’m not used to being relaxed enough around them to actually laugh, but somehow with Valtu he lets me put my guard down.
He’s compelling you, that’s why , I remind myself. None of this is real. He’s making you feel what he wants you to feel.
I keep that in mind as we step out into the night, the scent of brine, exposed tide, and seawater combining with fried garlic from nearby restaurants flowing over us.
Even in September, Venice is busy and tourists walk past, German, English, and Mandarin filling the air as people dressed in carnival costumes try to entice them into schmaltzy gift shops.
I turn and walk up the street, Valtu walking beside me. He has such a way about his movements that makes me jealous, like he’s barely here at all, just moving with silky ease. He could be part of a dream for all I know.
“So, Dahlia Abernathy,” he says, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Tell me more about yourself.”
Here it goes. Time to keep my lies straight by telling as much truth as possible.
“What do you want to know?”
“What made you go to university in Aberdeen?”
“My dad was Scottish,” I tell him, which isn’t a lie. “So I wanted to go to school there. In the end it was between there and Glasgow, but I wanted to be by the ocean. Grew up in the Pacific Northwest and all.”
“And what did you take?”
“Don’t you know all this?”
He gives me a quick smile. “I don’t research every student that steps into my class.”
“Maybe you should. What if they turn out to be a psycho?”
He laughs lightly. “I have a way of figuring that out.”
“And?” I ask him as we pause at a bridge to let a swarm of drunk backpackers stumble through. “What do you think of me?”
“You know,” he muses, putting his hand at the small of my back as he guides me onto the bridge, “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
Even though the pressure of his hand is light, this is the first time he’s touched me. I feel his skin against me as if I’m wearing nothing at all. It shoots down into my veins, turning them warm, thick, like honey, and that peculiar knee-buckling feeling is back.
I manage to keep it together and walk onto the bridge with him guiding me, even though I feel like I’m unraveling on the inside. All the vampires that touched me (and then some) before, none of them made me feel like this .
While I’m pondering this feeling, we pass by a nun who shoots us a frightened side eye and does the sign of the cross.
“She seemed to think you’re a heathen,” Valtu says, leaning in conspiratorially.
“Me?” I say. For a moment I’m aghast, because he’s the heathen here.
But of course, that’s not true. Witches are just as blasphemed as vampires are.
The only time I’d ever group our species as the same is the only time we’re met with the same prejudices.
I guess the difference is that people know witches exist, they merely suspect that it might be true for vampires.
“Nuns don’t lie,” he says. “But it’s okay. I prefer my company on the sacrilegious side of things.”
If you only knew , I think. But since he’s implying he enjoys my company, I’m taking it.
“So the University of Aberdeen,” he goes on. “That’s an interesting school.”
“Is it? Honestly I don’t remember much. More partying than studying.
” The thing that both of us know is that there is a secret department within the university.
It’s like Hogwarts but without the capers and whimsy.
I studied history on the outside and walked away with my degree, but on the inside I was learning how to murder vampires along with the rest of the slayers.
The other witches called us The Buffys, for obvious reasons.
There were only six of them in my class. Each year there are less and less.
But, of course, Valtu doesn’t know this about me since my glamor is working.
“So you graduated with a hangover. Then where did you go?”
“Back to Canada,” I tell him, while the truth is I was living outside of Boston, ready to be dispatched to wherever Bellamy and the guild wanted to send me.
Some years I’d have a vampire to kill every month or so.
Other times things were slower. “I did some odd jobs, tried to find myself, that sort of thing, until I finally decided I wanted to take my music further. Which of course led me here.”
He nods, seeming to believe that. “And do you know what you plan to do when you leave here? If you don’t mind me saying, you have a great natural talent.”
Supernatural talent, you mean.
“I don’t mind you saying,” I tell him, playing the role of being bashful. “But I don’t believe it.”
“You should,” he says. “I’ve seen countless musicians throughout my life and none of them have impressed me the way that you have so far.”
Okay, now I feel my cheeks going hot for real. I guess I do have my own talent—I honed that at university too—it’s just in order to get to his level, magic helped me the rest of the way.
We talk about music and musicians for the rest of the walk and I have to admit I’m enjoying listening to him wax poetic about the greats, as well as some underrated ones that I hadn’t heard of.
The thing about listening to vampires talk about the past, other than them being natural storytellers that make you grab on to every word, is that they’ve experienced so much of history firsthand.
I could easily tell which musicians Valtu knew or at least saw perform in person, and which he hadn’t.
Explained why he knew of so many that never made it big.
Pretty soon, we’ve made it to the last bridge before we get to my apartment.
We’re just crossing over it when I suddenly feel an acidic twist in my stomach that nearly makes me sick.
I pause and Valtu stops right beside me, frowning.
He opens his mouth to talk but then shuts it abruptly when a loud splash sounds from underneath the bridge.
We exchange an uneasy look. There’s no one else around us and only a few lights from the surrounding buildings. They don’t seem to reach far into the canal and there are no boats passing by. The silence, the stillness, is beyond eerie.
The splash sounds again and we both peer over the edge of the bridge, his hand going to my lower back again and I grip the stone railing. Something is in the water just below us, swimming beneath the surface, causing ripples. It’s big and it’s long and then suddenly the ripples stop.
“What the hell was that?” Valtu asks.
I glance at him. “Do you have river otters in Venice?”
He shakes his head. “No.”
“But you do have dolphins. Maybe seals?”
He seems to think that over, then looks up and around us, as if gauging something in the air, his nostrils flaring. “Perhaps.”
He looks on edge, which makes me further on edge.
All I can think about is what Livia thought she saw come out of the water.
It also makes me think about what I thought I saw earlier in the week, this shape on the dock below my window.
If these are in fact monsters that have come from an opened portal, why would Valtu look so concerned?
Unless he has no idea.
“We should get going,” he says uneasily, his hand guiding me again over the bridge and then I’m heading right toward the apartments.
We walk past a few buildings and crumbling old walls that seem to hide trees and gardens behind them, their autumn-kissed leaves looking pale in the moonlight, and then we’re in front of my building.
“I can’t believe you live here,” he says looking the building over.
“It’s all I can afford,” I tell him, feeling defensive, even though I shouldn’t be because the guild is paying for it after all.
“I don’t mean that,” he says. “This is one of the most haunted spots in the city.”
“As I said, I don’t believe in ghosts,” I tell him.
“Or creatures in the water, it seems. So very pragmatic.”
I give him a bit of a shrug. It’s dimly lit in this corner and most of the windows in the building are dark, giving it a feeling of being abandoned.
The lone light above the front door is weak and flickers like crazy, no doubt affected by the vampire’s presence.
It casts moving shadows across his face, his eyes seeming to glow, his cheekbones more pronounced.
Remember what he is and what you are , I remind myself. He is your enemy. This is only a play.
“Well, I better get inside,” I tell him, and this thick cord of tension suddenly wraps around me. I can almost see a silver line of electricity flowing from his body to mine. We’re a couple of feet apart and yet I feel a tug, as if it wants us to be closer.
He gives me a soft smile, something dark and dangerous glimmering in his eyes as they flicker in and out of shadow. “Thank you for letting me walk you home. I enjoyed getting to know you better, Dahlia Abernathy.”
“Thanks for volunteering,” I tell him, though my words come out in a whisper.
He takes a step forward and I instinctively want to take one back, feeling his predator instincts taking over. For a panicked moment I fear he may try and bite me…or kiss me. I can’t make heads or tails of his energy.
But then he reaches down for my hand, raises it to his mouth, and kisses the back of it, his eyes never leaving mine.
And just like that, the world flashes and brightens and changes and suddenly…
I’m inside what looks like a museum.
There are people around me dressed like they’re from the Victorian age, and Valtu is standing in front of me, holding my hand in this same way. He too is wearing a dapper waistcoat, a top hat upon his head.
“Pleasure to meet you, Lucille,” he says in an English accent, staring at me with what can only be described as love.
And then suddenly the image fades and we’re back in the dark outside my building.
What the fuck?
“I’ll see you on Monday,” Valtu says to me. “Good night.”
Then he drops my hand and turns, walking off into the night.
And I’m left wondering what the hell just happened.