Chapter 5 – Cassini #2
The urge to tell her the truth is surprisingly strong. To explain what she is, what she can do. But that would mean revealing what I am too, and I’m not ready to have that conversation. She’s too valuable to push away now.
“I’m interested in this kind of thing,” I say instead. “Alternative therapies, stuff like that. Sometimes ancient problems have ancient solutions.”
“I think alternative therapies are kind of bullshit,” she says, draining the last of her beer.
“I see it all the time at the hospital. Someone diagnosed with a treatable cancer ends up dead because some white lady with dreadlocks sold them the promise of a cure in the form of an overpriced crystal and a laxative tea. These people are ghouls. They’re vultures who prey on the weak. ”
“This isn’t like that. This is about exploring another option where modern medicine has failed. You work in a hospital—you’ve got every test available to you, and you still don’t have answers. So what’s the harm in trying something new?”
She studies me in the porch light, cynicism warring with curiosity across her face. “You really know something about this? About what’s happening to me?”
“Let’s just say I might know someone who can help,” I say. “And I think it’s the same person who can help with the stuff about your mom. What are you doing tomorrow night?”
“Why? If you’re asking me on a date, you should know that I don’t do that.”
“Neither do I.”
“What exactly are you proposing?”
“I want to take you to see a friend of mine.”
She considers it for a while and I watch the exact moment she decides to surrender. “This is crazy…” she says, narrowing her eyes. “Why are you doing all this? What’s it going to cost me?”
“Nothing. I’m not looking for anything,” I lie.
She’s quiet again, chewing on her lip and considering her options. Finally, she nods. “Eight o’clock. But if your friend turns out to be some kind of quack with crystals and sage, I’m out.”
I smile despite myself. “Sage, yes, but no crystals, I promise.”
She shoots me daggers. “Fine, but don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
On the way back to the car, my phone is buzzing frantically in my jean pocket. Seven missed calls from Beau. I need to get out of here before dawn, but I need to deal with this first.
I have maybe an hour before the sun becomes a problem. So I call Beau back as I drive around the block, searching for a place to hide my car from view.
“Where the hell have you been?” he answers on the first ring.
“Dealing with a situation. What’s wrong?”
“You’re burned, that’s what’s wrong.” His voice is tight with anger. “Word’s already out that you got into it with one of the Sixth Clan tonight. Over some girl, no less. Do you have any idea how this looks?”
I grip the steering wheel tighter. “How did you—”
“I have other sources, Valbruna. Sources that are telling me vampires are asking questions about a tattoo artist who’s been getting too friendly with humans. Questions that lead back to our arrangement.”
My neck prickles when he uses my real surname. He’s reminding me of the power he holds over me. This isn’t good. I knew Cyrus would run his mouth, but I didn’t think the news would travel this fast.
“I’m handling it,” I say.
“Handling it? You call blowing your cover ‘handled’? If anything happens to Megan—”
“I said it’s handled,” I interrupt. “I have something else in the works. Something better than what we had before.”
There’s a pause. I know I’ve got his attention. “What kind of something?”
“The kind that gets us what we need without anyone getting suspicious. Trust me.”
“Trust you?” Beau’s laugh is bitter. “You just put both our asses on the line for some piece of tail. Why should I trust you with anything?”
“Because I’m the only chance you have of finding Megan,” I say quietly. “This is our best shot, Beau.”
Another pause, longer this time. “You better know what you’re doing, you blood-sucking motherfucker.”
“I do.” And for the first time in months, that’s true.
I hang up and check the time. A few minutes until sunrise.
I walk back through Lily’s neighborhood, staying in the shadows.
When I reach her house, I stare up to what I sense is her window.
The lights are off now. I can still hear her heart, and if I listen carefully, the steady rise and fall of her breathing. She sounds like she’s fast asleep.
I find a spot in the small park across the street, hidden by trees and early dawn shadows. The ground is soft here, rich with decades of fallen leaves. I dig down into the earth with my bare hands, creating a shallow depression just deep enough to shield me from the coming sun.
As I settle into the cool soil, I allow the ground to swallow me whole, filling the crevices of my body, enveloping me in a sweet, silent embrace.
It’s the most natural thing in the world for us—to sleep in the ground where we belong—and the familiarity of it calms me.
I haven’t done it in months. Instead, I’ve been playing pretend, sleeping in a bed in a borrowed underground apartment that comes with strings attached, resting amongst my enemies in the sanitized vampire city that hums below Sixth Street.
It’ll all be over soon. I just need to keep her safe long enough for the plan that’s already forming to work.
After that, she’s on her own.
I do not form attachments to humans, not anymore. Not even pretty ones that smell like sunlight. But lying here in the earth, listening to the sound of her heartbeat from across the street, I know I’m lying to myself.
And that’s a complication I can’t afford.
The sun breaks the horizon, and I close my eyes, letting the ground embrace me as I slip into the death-like sleep of the damned. But even as consciousness fades, part of me stays alert, listening for any threat to the woman sleeping peacefully in the house across the street.
Tomorrow, I’ll take her to the local bruja to confirm, but I already know. Already understand what I must do. I have to protect her because Lily is extraordinarily rare. A creature my people have long feared, coveted, and hunted.
She’s something we call Oracolo del sangue.
A medium.