27. Vex
Vex
“So that’s it then?” I cannot believe this is fucking happening to me. “I’m dead.”
“Boy, did I tell you that you were dead?” The woman, I don’t even know her name, snaps at me. She’s a little thing with an attitude the size of the damn universe.
“No,” I draw out. “But I’m not alive either.”
“That you aren’t,” she snorts and shakes her head.
“Where are we?” I look around, it’s like a fog rolled in and settled around me. “Heaven?”
“Don’t test me, boy.”
“I’m not a boy.”
“The fuck you aren’t.” She walks through the clouds, the little woman who smacked me in the head when I opened my eyes. Whoever she is, she’s a freckled sassy little woman and I’ve lost sight of her.
“Ah, god?” I cannot find her.
“Do I look like god to you?” She enters the clouds, looks me up and down. “Well come on now.” There’s a lazy drawl to her voice like she’s already bored with my bullshit.
“Got nowhere else to be.”
“Mm.” She turns around not waiting for me.
I dive through the clouds to catch up to her only for her to grab my shirt and tug me back. “Whoa.”
“Fall off you land right back in that body of yours.”
“So I am dead?” How the fuck did I die?
“There goes Soren, chasing that fool when he should be focused on you. Look at you bleeding out all over down there.” She hums under her breath again then from nothing she’s holding popcorn. “My favorite part.”
“What the fuck is happening.”
“See that’s the problem with all you, always talking and not paying attention.” She swats my head again. “Pay attention.”
I focus on the scene before me. I’m lying in a pool of my own blood. I can hear bikes now, speeding off. Soren’s footsteps slapping the pavement and Lazarus… he’s kneeling beside my body, his face white, his hands hovering.
“He looks like he’s seen a ghost.”
“‘Cause to you? You are a ghost.”
“I don’t understand.”
She waves her hand, the clouds fade away until I see four brothers sitting around a fire, their laughter echoing up to me.
“Leif, Lazarus, Lucien, and,” she looks at me like she needs to see my expression, “Leviathan.”
“That’s…” I look at the man, then the woman, then back to him. “Me.”
“Eh.” She grunts. “Kinda.”
“Kinda?” I run my hands through my hair. “That’s me!” I squeak.
“Calm down, boy,” she rubs circles on my lower back when I bend over to fucking hyperventilate. “It’s mostly you.”
“Not. Helping.” I’m going to puke. That is me, that is absolutely me.
“See now Lazarus is about to make his move, want to watch?”
“Why are you so excited?”
“Because no one is making vampires anymore and I want to enjoy this while I can.” She whines a little.
“Did you say vampires?”
I wake in a cold sweat. My body coming online too fast, my sweat cools in the air-conditioned air. My body feels like I ran a marathon I didn’t sign up for while having the flu.
Stumbling out of bed I hit the door, then the wall, then the next door. I feel sluggish, disoriented and I know it has everything to do with that damn dream.
Leviathan.
Levi.
That’s who Leif, and Lazarus were talking about.
Their brother. The one who died. But I’m not him.
I have a mother, I have four sisters. I have a family and it’s not them.
It’s not Lazarus, Leif, or Lucien. Who I have yet to meet.
It’s my sisters. One of whom finished Callie’s car days ago and because I suck, I haven’t told her yet.
I will tell her.
I swear to it.
Just not right now.
I turn on the sink and splash cold water onto my face. The mirror in the dark hides what the light won’t. I don’t turn on the light, because I can feel my fangs pressing into my lower lip. I can feel my eyes burning and glowing in a way that they shouldn’t if I were human.
The woman swims into my vision again. That has to be the Goddess. Sophia. It has to be her.
Short, spunky, freckled, dark hair and skin. And a goddess.
“Why is the room spinning.” I get the words out before my legs give out right there on the floor.
Something just isn’t right. I feel wrong, broken, like my body isn’t mine.
That’s when I hear the door open, the one to the building. Small footsteps unsure as they walk up the steps. Callie. My Calliope. I’d give anything to go to her right now, smell her, kiss her, hold her close to me.
Only I cannot get my ass up off this fucking floor. My muscles feel like they don’t belong to me anymore. They squeeze and stop only to pulse again and again. It’s honestly horrible and I hate it.
A part of me wonders if I lay here, will I die?
Is Sophia watching me? From her cloud with popcorn and a smirk on her face?
“Fuck you, Sophia,” I grumble refusing to let her find amusement in this moment.
Rolling onto my knees I begin to drag myself to the hall, then down to the living room where I pause and roll over. I’m not giving up, I’m merely taking a small break. That’s all just a small break where I can lay here for a moment. Maybe rest my eyes.
I hear the door to the building open again and two very distinct voices float toward me.
“Well you know eventually she will have the entire tablet translated, and then what, Laz?” Soren, that is absolutely Soren chastising Lazarus.
“Don’t you think I’m aware of that?” Lazarus sounds bored. “Tomorrow, tomorrow I’m going to…”
“Tell her?”
“You know I can’t fucking tell her a damn thing.”
“Show a little fang, she’s a smart girl.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that I want to do this right?” Lazarus drops his voice even deeper. “I want her love and maybe that makes me an absolute bastard, but I want her to love me.”
“Does make you a bastard?” He’s chewing, Soren is always chewing on something. I can hear him smacking his lips. “She loves a curated version of you, not you.”
“So she does love me.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
The door opens finally and these two idiots finally see me.
“Hey so,” I croak. “I feel weird.”
“Shit.” Soren slams the door shut.
“She absolutely heard that.” I cough. “I didn’t think vampires got sick. Is it because of the dream?”
Lazarus responds first sliding to my side, kneeling beside me just like in the dream. Like the night I died in that parking garage. Glad I didn’t remember the death part. I could do without that.
“You need blood.” Lazarus checks my pulse. He presses two fingers to his carotid, and mine. Tracking whether they match. “His heart isn’t in sync with mine.” He bites his wrist open pressing it to my mouth.
His blood bubbles over into my mouth. Tasting sharp and bitter and wrong.
I spit it out as my stomach cramps, and I roll to my side trying to breathe through it.
“Human.” Soren kneels at my side. “He needs human blood,” he bites his wrist and presses it to my mouth.
His is softer, not as bitter and strong. The difference between strong coffee and watered-down coffee. I don’t hate it. But it’s not great and it doesn’t do a lot for me.
I push him away, at least it eased the cramps.
“Bags?” Soren asks, talking to Lazarus and not the vampire on the floor who I now realize is just fucking hungry. I’m hungry.
Hangry really.
“No, it won’t work anymore.” Lazarus licks his wrist. “Come on.” He hauls me up.
I sway on my feet, but I feel more stable than I did a half hour ago.
“We going out?” I press a palm to the door frame holding myself up. My hair keeps falling into my sweaty eyes and I don’t even have the strength to push it away. So fuck it that’s where it stays. At least eventually it’ll just glue itself to my forehead with my sweat.
“Yes.” Lazarus doesn’t sound happy about it. “Soren?”
“Getting the car.” He leaves me alone with Lazarus who loops an arm around me.
Except just as I am standing tall, Callie’s door opens with a faint creak.
“Can’t hide, can we?” I joke but Lazarus isn’t laughing.
“Why are you guys so damn loud.” She yawns.
She’s in those sexy little shorts and matching top with cupcakes on it this time.
Fuck I love those little sleep sets. Here I was thinking I was a lingerie guy.
Hell no. Lingerie has nothing on these sexy little shorts.
I’m obsessed. I’m not afraid to admit I’m obsessed.
Am I staring at her legs while she talks? Yes. Did I miss half the conversation? Also yes.
I’m blaming the fever.
“He okay?” she asks.
“Yes,” Lazarus says too quickly, “we are heading out for a drink. Did you want to join us?”
“Hell no,” she says way too fast while glancing down the hall.
Interesting.
“Let’s go!” Soren shouts from the door.
“Tomorrow?” Lazarus asks Callie hopefully. Like what does that question even mean. Tomorrow? He’s a pompous ass.
“See you in the morning.” She backs away locking herself in her apartment.
“Go,” Lazarus whispers to me.
I step out from behind him and rush as fast as I can down the steps and out the door tossing myself into the backseat. I land face down and barely get my legs in before the door is shut on me.
I blink out of existence for just a moment and when I come to Soren is driving, and tension feels thick in the car.
“I remember.” I push myself up, letting my head rest on the backseat. “Kind of.”
“Remember what?” Soren glances in the rearview.
“Not the dying.” I wipe the sweat off my forehead. “The cloud.”
Lazarus spins in his seat. “You remember Sophia?”
“I do.” I rub my forehead like if I rub it hard enough then I’ll remember more but it doesn’t work that way, not at all.
“We were watching. Soren chased some guys. Lazarus stared at me like I was a ghost. But I was a ghost to you, wasn’t I?
I don’t know why I dismissed it before, but Leif was right. I look like Levi.”
And from what Sophia hinted at, I’m more than that.
“What did she say? What did she show you?” Lazarus looks almost desperate.
I know I could put all his fears to the side. I could. But I’m not going to because I don’t understand it myself. And I don’t know if I’m ready to. And Lazarus isn’t getting a damn thing out of me until I actually remember everything.
And right now I don’t.
I shake my head and look away because if I keep looking at him while he looks like I really am his dead brother then I might tell him shit before I’m ready to.