Chapter 21 – Dahlia #2
“He had a few years of…troubles.” He squints at me. “Guess he never told you many details about that either.”
I shake my head.
He sighs wearily. “Well, I won’t overstep my boundaries here. Despite being known as Dracula, he can be very private.”
“He did tell me about the women he loved and lost.”
“You mean Mina?”
“Sure. And Lucy.”
Funny. Now that I think about it, he never told me either of their names. It’s like I just knew.
He frowns, eying me warily. “But you know that Lucy and Mina were the same person, right?”
“No?” I blink. “How?”
“She was reincarnated.”
I stare at him for a moment, trying to let that info sink in. “She was reincarnated?”
“Saw it with my own eyes. When Lucy was dying, she made it clear she knew Valtu from the past. She used to be Mina. Valtu, of course, knew it right away. He knew it the moment he laid eyes on her. When he told me, I thought he was just seeing what he wanted to see, but he was right all along.”
“And she died too? That’s awful,” I tell him, feeling all sorts of horrible for him. “I thought the reincarnation thing was just from the movie, I didn’t know that actually happened.”
“Wish that were the case,” he says. He gives me a small smile and nods at my hair. “But now that he’s with you, I see he definitely has a type.”
“What do you mean?”
“She had red hair too. Exact same shade. In fact, I’d say you look exactly like her but…” he takes off his glasses and peers at me closer. “Very strange.”
I swallow uneasily. “What?”
“I’m having a hard time seeing you. Like seeing you for who you really are.”
“You probably need your glasses on,” I tell him, that unease building.
“These aren’t real corrective lenses, my dear, I’m a vampire,” he says, raising his chin and putting his glasses back on. He squints at me again and wiggles his brows. “Most peculiar. It’s almost as if the more I stare at you, the more you seem to become…”
Oh god. Please don’t tell me my glamor is losing its grip. If he finishes his sentence by saying “a witch” I’m toast.
“How did she die?” I interrupt him.
“Which one?”
“Either one.”
“Well, Lucy died in childbirth. Stillborn. Very sad. I did all I could but…”
It just keeps getting worse.
“And the other?”
“Mina? She had been pregnant too. It’s no wonder that Valtu got his vasectomy, you can’t blame the poor guy after all those tragedies.”
“She also died in pregnancy?”
“Oh.” He shakes his head. “No. She was pregnant, but that’s not what killed her. She was beheaded. By her father. A Russian general. In fact, at that moment Valtu discovered he was a vampire, he fought the soldiers to try and save her but it was too late.”
The doctor keeps talking but I no longer hear him.
Instead I see my dreams.
I see me lying on the ground in the dirt. My father above me in his military garb, calling me a whore in Russian. I see him put his boot on my stomach, aiming to kill what was inside.
My baby.
And then I feel it.
I know it.
I know it’s Valtu that the soldiers are holding back, I recognize his screams, the terror, and he’s trying to save me but he can’t.
He can’t stop my father from swinging that sword against my neck.
My world from going black.
Then turning bright.
These aren’t dreams.
They were never dreams.
I fucking died .
I remember dying.
And just like that a whole life comes sliding into me, like negatives into a developing plate.
I remember being Mina, growing up in Moscow, living a lavish but controlled and empty life, my mother dying early, other people considering me strange, spending so many of my days alone, with only servants for company, before my father got his position in the war and we left Russia.
I remember meeting Valtu in the field and knowing it was forbidden, I remember falling in love with him, having sex with him, how he opened me up to a whole new world with our bodies.
I remember the dreams and the hopes that I had for us, then I remember discovering I was pregnant.
That my handmaiden ratted me out, that we were caught one sunny morning and I was killed and Valtu… Valtu…
Then another life comes slamming into me, like waking up and realizing the dream you had or a book you read was real all along.
I remember being Lucy. I remember being raised in England somewhere, I had a sweet mother who was very weak, I had a dear sister who died in childbirth, I went to school, I had friends, I had money, and I met Valtu at the British Museum.
Suddenly I look at Van Helsing and I know.
“You were there,” I whisper, the images flooding my brain now. “You were there.”
He was with Valtu that first meeting in the new exhibit, eastern art, and he was there. After that we would go to the opera together, Van Helsing was like a chaperone to us, and then he was the best man at our wedding, and then he was my doctor when I was pregnant, and he took out the baby and—
“Oh my god!” I cry out, bending over and clutching my stomach.
“Dahlia, are you alright?” the doctor says, putting his hand on my back.
I need to get out of here. I’m Dahlia but I’m also Lucy and I’m also Mina and I don’t know what to do.
“I’m going to be sick, excuse me.” I push past him and hurry to the woman’s washroom on this floor, relieved when I find it empty.
I take the furthest stall and drop to my knees, vomiting up the negroni. It does nothing to stop the flood of feelings and emotions that pour through me, all the moments and scenes, the trauma, so much fucking trauma.
I throw up until I’m dry-heaving, then I flush and sit back against the toilet on the floor, my head in my hands, trying to make it stop. I’m dizzy and exhausted and I feel like I’m on the world’s worst drug trip.
I remember it all.
All of it.
I am Dahlia and Lucy and Mina.
I am three different women in one.
Three different lives in one.
And Valtu…
Valtu.
Oh my god.
Valtu.
He’s not some man I just happened to fall in love with.
He’s a man I’ve already loved.
I’ve carried his child twice.
I was married to him.
I’ve died by his side.
And he’s here.
I found him again like I promised him I would.
Suddenly I get to my feet and burst out of the stall, putting my head under the tap and rinsing out my mouth, then splashing water on my face in an attempt to gain clarity, and when I look back in the mirror I see myself across three different centuries, my outfits and hairdos changing and evolving but my face staying the same.
“Are you okay?” Margaret, the girl from my class says. I didn’t even notice her standing beside me at the sink.
“I think so?” I tell her.
Then I run out of the bathroom, needing to find Valtu.
I bump into him right away.
“Are you okay?” he asks me, holding onto my elbows, his eyes searching my face with concern.
Oh god, Valtu.
My lord.
I place my hands on his face. “I’m okay. I’m here. Don’t you see who I am! I’m here, I found you, I found you Val! I said I would!”
He looks taken aback, gently places his hands over mine and lowers them so that no one around is too suspicious of our relationship. “I was looking for you ,” he says. “Van Helsing said you were talking and you suddenly got sick.”
I stare at him, giving my head a slight shake in disbelief.
Why doesn’t he…?
And that’s when it hits me.
It’s like what happened with the doctor. He can’t really see me. He’s never been able to. This glamor hides who I really am, and it only works on vampires. I look familiar to them but they can’t physically see me as Lucy. They can’t see me for who I really am because the glamor doesn’t let them.
“What color are my eyes?” I suddenly demand.
“What? Green. They’re green.”
“And my nose, I have this bump on it right? Right?”
“I love that bump,” he says quietly.
“And my hair?”
“Red,” he says, eyeing me uneasily. “Did someone slip something in your drink? What’s happening in your head?”
“You can’t see me?”
Now he looks concerned. He straightens up. “I’m going to take you home.”
“I’m fine,” I tell him.
But I’m not fine.
Valtu sees me but he can’t connect me to Lucy or Mina.
He won’t know it’s me until I lose the glamor.
But if I lose the glamor, he’ll know I’m a witch.
Specifically of the vampire-slaying variety.
And I can’t tell anyone, I can’t tell Livia because then the guild is going to come after me, knowing I’ve been compromised.
What was I saying earlier?
Oh, yeah.
That I’m fucked.