Chapter 7 – Valtu
Valtu
“I am a predator,” I say to Bitrus, leaning back in my chair and tilting my head to the sun.
This is my favorite time of year in Italy, when the sun doesn’t hurt so much but fills my body with warmth and energy.
A damp breeze runs through my garden, making the blood oranges on the branches sway, the silver leaves of the olive trees rustling like feathers.
The boats tied up on the canal beside us knock against the wood of the docks like a melody.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Bitrus muses. I look over at him as he has a sip of his orange-tinted wine, his eyes covered by shades that would have made Blade proud. “I’ve never seen you interested in a woman until they don’t seem interested in you. That goes for humans and vampires alike.”
“This one is different though,” I tell him. “And I can’t put my finger on it. It feels like I know her from somewhere, but no matter how hard I try to place her, my brain puts up a brick wall.”
“Honestly, Valtu, I’m surprised you turned her down,” he says.
“So am I,” I admit. “It was instinctual. Obviously I’m not supposed to date students. The last professor that did that was fired. But it also came from some other level of my subconscious.”
“Perhaps you’re not attracted to her. You fuck anything that walks but I’m sure you have your limits.”
“Funny.” I give him a withering glance. “I do wish that was the case. Would be easier. No, Bitrus, she’s beautiful. Young, supple, and beautiful. The scent of her blood…”
I pinch my eyes shut. The way she smelled the other night, the scent of her blood and lifeforce…it made me want to do some very, very bad things to her.
“Then perhaps you know you’d lose control with her. You have been trying to turn over a new leaf, and yet I’ve seen you lately…”
He doesn’t need to remind me of the Red Room the other day.
“Maybe that’s it,” I say, staring back up at the blue sky above.
“She’s just so hot and cold. One minute she’s coming onto me and I feel this urge to back up, to run, and it’s ludicrous because she’s just this girl.
The next she acts like she doesn’t care for me, and then I want to stalk her and run her down, pin her to the ground and feast on her.
” Though the urge to pin her down and fuck her is even stronger than my bloodthirst. Like I said, I want to do very bad things.
“How old is she?” Bitrus asks.
“Twenty-eight,” I tell him. “But she seems older somehow. Not in her looks but…in her eyes. It’s not all the time, but sometimes I get this glance at her, like I’m seeing the real her and not some front she’s put up, and I see an old soul.”
“You know what they say about old souls,” he says.
“If they aren’t vampires, it generally means they’ve gone through a lot of trauma.
Any child who is told they’re an old soul, or seem old for their age, is no doubt because they had to grow up fast, that they had to experience more than most adults ever will. ”
“And how are you making that conclusion?” I ask. “Was that you in your youth?”
Bitrus shrugs, having another sip of his wine as he glances at me over his sunglasses.
I don’t talk about my beginnings any more than he does.
There’s an understanding with vampires that generally the further back you go into their past, the unhappier it gets, so it tends to be a topic of avoidance.
“Perhaps,” he says. “I was told I was an old soul, but only when I left Nigeria, in my twenties. When people weren’t used to seeing those who had been displaced by war.
But when I was younger, as the British took over Sokoto, every child looked like me.
Every child was an old soul. Every child had to grow up fast, had seen things most others wouldn’t. ”
“When was this war again?” I ask, trying to remember my history of the area.
“Early 1900s,” he says. “You know I am young compared to you.” He gives me a bright smile.
Then his smile fades and he has another sip of his wine.
“It wasn’t until I moved away and went through my transition that I felt I moved past it all.
Sometimes I wonder how much easier it would have been to have gone through all of that as a vampire.
I knew what I was, the people we lived and traveled with were vampires too, but when you’re still human and young… I think you feel everything more.”
I don’t say anything to that. Just close my eyes and let the warm breeze wash over me. He really is still young. Only been on this planet for just over a hundred years. The first hundred years after I lost Mina were the hardest. I had lost my mind and gained a terrible reputation.
“But anyway,” he says, sitting up straighter. “We are not here to discuss the sad stories of my youth. We were discussing this girl, who may or may not have a sad story of her own.”
“Well, she’s human,” I say to him, picking up my wine glass and swirling the burgundy liquid around, “and humans are born into suffering. They spend their short lives either trying to run from it or rise from it. As for Dahlia, she’s got her baggage, but what it is I don’t know. I can’t figure her out.”
“You’ll go mad trying to,” he says. “I know you, Val. You have that look in your eyes, when you start getting possessive and obsessed and can’t let something go.”
“Have you ever seen me that way around a person? I don’t think so.”
“Not a person, no. Not a vampire either. But when you get an idea, like the idea you had to open the Red Room right inside the very school you got a job at, well you didn’t let go of that idea until it was done. You get possessed.”
“I’m not possessed, I’m merely curious.”
Bitrus grunts as if he doesn’t believe me and finishes the rest of his wine.
“Want some more?” I ask him.
“I better not,” he says with a dismissive wave. “Need to think clearly tonight.”
“Oh? Do tell…”
“I met someone,” he says hesitantly.
“Well, look at that. You’re giving me grief over Dahlia and you’re the one who has met someone…are they vampire or human?”
“Vampire,” he says.
“So then I’ve seen them at the Red Room.”
“You have,” he says. “They’re quiet though. You probably wouldn’t have noticed.”
“I notice everything , Bitrus. What do they look like?”
“Tall. Handsome. White dreads. Like a male version of Storm.”
There aren’t many black vampires with white dreads frequenting the Red Room. I know who he is right away. “Sebastian?”
“Yeah. But he goes by Bash. Anyway, it’s nothing, just wanted some company and he’s up for the same. Doesn’t know many people, you know.”
“Bitrus and Bash,” I muse. “You sound like a sitcom. Or a clothing label. Either way, you sound good together.”
“Oh, come off it. It isn’t serious. I just want a bit of fun.”
“And you deserve it,” I remind him. Bitrus was married to a woman, a human , for quite a long time, until she died in a car accident. It was sudden and tragic and though it happened about ten years ago, I haven’t seen him get involved with many others since.
“So, where are you planning on taking Bash for your date?”
“It’s not a date,” he says. “And I don’t know. He’s new in town so I figured we can do the touristy things.”
Just like Dahlia. I can’t help but think of where I would take her if I ever did take her up on her offer. Lead her by a collar right into my bedroom, I guess.
“I’ve never been in a gondola,” he adds with a laugh. “Can’t get more touristy than that.”
“Well, be careful with that. Strange things are lurking in the water these days.”
“What are you talking about?”
I shrug and finish the rest of my wine. “It’s probably nothing. But last night when I was walking Dahlia to her apartment, there was something in the water. Something very large with a very peculiar smell.”
“Big fish?”
“Not a fish. I couldn’t quite see it, but you could tell it was very long. It’s the smell that gets me. It smelled familiar but in an awful way. Like it was bringing…death.”
Bitrus lowers his sunglasses and frowns. “You okay there, Val? You forget that death can’t come for us?”
“It can and you know it,” I say rather sharply. I clear my throat. “Anyway, it made me uneasy. There’s been something in the air lately.”
“So you’ve been saying.”
I eye him. “You don’t feel it?”
He rubs his lips together, pondering something over. Then turns his head to me, lowering his voice. “I do sense something. Like a shift of some kind. I think it all started when Saara and Aleksi came back into town.”
He might be right. That uneasy feeling has been here ever since they reappeared in the Red Room weeks ago, saying they were staying for a while.
“I think she’s a daughter of Skarde,” I tell him quietly. I don’t know where they live in the city but since a vampire’s hearing is second to none, better not to take my chances. They know I don’t like them but hearing it firsthand would hamper the peace in this city.
Bitrus shivers, his lip curling with disgust. “I wouldn’t be surprised. She’s not like the rest of us. Aleksi is supposed to be her brother though, and I don’t get that feeling from him.”
“Brother can mean many things,” I remind him. I also don’t get the sibling vibe between them either, but that doesn’t mean anything. Vampires, especially very old ones, are a little more, shall we say, lax about familial relationships.
“Why do you think they came back?” he asks.
“I don’t know. I don’t even know where they went.”
“It’s possible they brought something back with them,” he says.
“Something like what?”
He shrugs and adjusts himself on his chair. “I don’t know. Maybe another vampire or two we haven’t met yet. Maybe some cursed artifact. Black magic…” he trails off, his brows furrowing. “Come to think of it, something strange did happen the other night.”
“What?”
“I had woken up in the night, like something had woken me up. Like a bang of a door. I got out of bed and saw the bathroom door slowly inch open. By itself.”
I stare at him to go on. “And?”