Chapter 9 Diantha #2
“What are you doing?! Is that thing supposed to be lit?”
“Of course.” He shrugs off his jacket and settles onto a high-backed chair opposite the flames. “I checked the chimney. I am no amateur.”
“Oh.” I drop my jacket, scarf, and backpack onto the chair opposite Orfeo and sink down to sit on the carpet. “I guess we should get started.” I pull my notebook from my bag, extracting my pen from the spiral binding.
“You’re actually going to do this assignment?”
“Of course. You’re not?”
“Do you really think Professor Bowen is going to stumble back from the bar just to get our two essays off his desk?” Orfeo shakes his head, lips twitching into a smile. He sinks a bit lower into his armchair, crossing one ankle over the other.
He’s wearing a heather gray sweater, the fabric molded to the contours of his gently muscular physique, clinging to his shoulders in a way that makes my stomach tighten.
Beneath his collar, a thin gold chain catches the fire’s light and glimmers.
He watches me through heavy-lidded eyes, absentmindedly tracing his bottom lip with his tongue.
If he feels any awkwardness for how we left things—or for how I told him we were leaving things—he doesn’t show it. “This…it’s just busywork.”
“Okay, well…” I sound flustered and whiny. Okay, well, actually, I love homework. I have no plans for tonight, so this actually seems really fun to me! I clear my throat. “Well, I’m just going to do it. You can do…whatever.”
“Okay.” Laughter rolls through him, a deep and genuine chuckle. “I will do whatever.”
We fall into an easy silence while I, trying desperately to forget that Orfeo and I are alone in this enormous house, attempt stringing together a coherent sentence about unicorns in 15th century art. Meanwhile, Orfeo just sits there.
First, he pulls a lighter from his pocket and plays with it. Opening and closing the lid. Running his fingers through the flame. Then, he stands and paces the room, whistling a Lady Gaga song under his breath. Of all artists. Eventually, he gives up and asks me for a piece of paper and a pen.
“I’m sorry for how I acted on Tuesday,” I say, handing both over. “You were right—I was scared. Of you.”
“Was?” He catches my gaze, lips tugging into a smirk.
“I mean, maybe I’m still a little afraid of you,” I say with a laugh. “The same way I’m afraid of most men.”
“Like I said—I don’t blame you, Diantha.”
My shoulder muscles melt down my back. I didn’t know I was even holding any tension in my body. I meet his eyes. “Thank you for starting the fire. Is that…a talent you have?”
He nods. “Most Mediterranean vampires have some elemental mastery. Fire is easy. We just make the particles interact with each other at warp speed. Friction makes fire.”
“Can I ask…how the fuck you ended up here?”
“I followed Alfo here about a month ago. I had to follow Alfo after he…” Orfeo pauses. “He settled a very big score for me. And now I have to repay my debt. Not only my debt, but my entire vampire family’s debt.”
“Sheesh. I never even knew he existed until, like, a week ago.”
“Men like him are everywhere. They move in silence. They make the right friends, grease the right palms. I’ve watched him work his demon magic for years now. He brought me down from New York, where I worked in another one of his clubs, to help with Hades House.”
I perk up at the mention of my hometown. “What did you do in New York?”
Orfeo flashes me a lopsided grin. “Shirtless bartender.”
“Oh.” I laugh. “I thought maybe…”
“Henchman? Getaway car driver?” Orfeo shakes his head and slides down to the floor to sit beside me.
“People always have this idea—vampires are at the top of the food chain. We’re the silent hand that moves all the chess pieces.
But that’s demons. They blend in; they have no moral compass or sense of justice; they’re sinful—gleefully so.
They thrive off of suffering. Who better to live amongst humans?
Oh, and they’re stupid enough that they’re always underestimated.
” He stretches his legs out straight and reclines against the chair, bringing his hands to rest behind his head.
I wish I had a sketchbook and charcoal. He doesn’t look like a killer; he looks like a god.
“Vampires are weak. Lustful. Beautiful and soft, always yearning for our humanity. Tortured little poets, we are.”
“And Italian vampires?”
“Even worse. We’re lustful, and we’re always late.”
I let out a hiccup of laughter. “Can I be honest with you?”
Orfeo lifts his chin, arching a brow. “Have you been lying up until now?”
“No, I just…I overheard some kids in the library the other day. They said bodies have been found on the shores of the Delaware River here. I thought maybe it was you.”
“And now you don’t think that?” he asks.
Embarrassed, I drop my eyes to my notebook.
“I’m grateful you’ve changed your mind, but I won’t lie to you: those bodies could be Alfo’s victims. Demons will sometimes attack with their teeth, the same way a dog might eat an entire sock.
They certainly love murder. But if I had to guess…
” Orfeo drops his voice to a whisper. “Yes, it could have been vampires. Other vampires who have been alive for far too long, who have lost all of their humanity and given over entirely to their new form.”
“Humans kill too,” I reply.
Orfeo eyes track over my face, and I know he’s searching me. Probably wondering where all of this empathy and open-mindedness is coming from. Frankly, I don’t really know myself. “They do, don’t they,” he says eventually.
I chew my bottom lip for a moment, then pull my eyes away, back toward my paper. “So, you’re not very old then.”
“No. And I’m not immortal either. I age about two years for every decade I’m…still here. I have no idea how long I will continue to exist. I was changed fifty years ago, when I was a boy. I was eighteen. An unparented menace to society. Horrible, unkind, but still, a child.”
“You’re what’s known as a non-traditional student.”
“Very funny.” And then, in spite of himself, he laughs. He leans over and taps the top of my page. “‘Diantha Moro’…You have Italian origins?”
I shrug. “Probably. That’s my mom’s last name. I never knew my father at all. And my mom wasn’t well. She was extremely magically talented, and that wasn’t always compatible with a normal, all-American life. It didn’t feel like we belonged to any place or culture other than each other.”
“You said was,” he says quietly. “Has she gone to the beyond?”
I swallow roughly. Perfect segue. “Actually, no. And I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”
The Echidna talk started when I was a little girl.
Every reading my mother did for me went the same way.
I see a town on a river with rolling hills and a university.
I see a sign with a Greek or Latin name.
You have to go there. Then, one day, she knew.
Echidna! My brilliant daughter was born to study at the University of Echidna.
Except I wasn’t brilliant and I didn’t want to rack up thousands of dollars in student loans.
Not to mention my mother was most incapable of surviving without me.
So, I went to CUNY and got a bachelor’s degree in Library Science.
A waste. That’s what she’d called it. She’d click her tongue and shake her head. You were destined for more, child. But by the time I’d graduated, Mom was the sickest and weakest I’d ever seen her. I worked on my final project in her hospital room, using the end of her bed as my desk.
In the dead of night, I applied to Echidna’s master’s program.
I wrote an essay about my mother’s dying wish and the legendary curse on us both, the demons and haunted shadows we were constantly running from.
Of course, I personally felt cursed. My mother had some B-cluster personality disorder and a bad habit of falling asleep with a lit cigarette.
The day her soul departed, I received my acceptance letter. Then, the dreams started. It took me six months to finally admit that the woman coming to me in my sleep was actually my mother’s soul—that she was actually trapped between the realms and I wasn’t just slowly losing my mind to grief.
Our time together in the Dream Place is so brief that over the last two years I’ve only been able to collect crumbs of information: the catacombs hold ancient artifacts connected to my people (who are my people?); my ability to decouple my soul from my body is paramount to my success (fair enough); and freeing my mother, getting into the catacombs—this is my destiny (bit dramatic, but okay).
As I tell Orfeo about my mother, I find myself reclining onto the floor, then lying on my back.
When the fire becomes too warm against my skin, I slip off my cardigan and put it under my head in a ball.
Orfeo shifts to lie beside me, resting his head in his hand, eyes trained on the ceiling as I talk.
There’s no other sound in the room but my voice and the crackling of the fire.
“I wasn’t meant to come here to study because of my brilliance. What she saw was a future where I inevitably had to come here to undo whatever curse has her tangled up in spirit realm bureaucratic red tape.”
Orfeo narrows his eyes at the ceiling, consumed for a moment in thought. Finally, he says: “Your mother was a witch.”
I scoff. “You can say that again.”
“No, I mean, she had to be a powerful witch. That’s what it sounds like—she was a clairvoyant seer and you can ‘decouple,’ as you call it.
These are the powers of witches.” Orfeo pushes himself up to a sitting position suddenly.
“Diantha, you can never reveal these details about your mother to anyone. Ever. I’m happy you told me.
We can protect this information together. ”
I roll up onto my side. “Why would anyone care? My mom’s dead and I’m…”
What am I? Stuck? Trapped? Busy?
Orfeo doesn’t give me any time to finish my thought. “Demons only have one natural predator. Witches.”
“And you’re afraid those guys you work with might find out?” I shake my head. “You were already afraid they’d take advantage of my power.”
“No, this is different. Diantha, you could kill them. Vanquish them to the Underworld for eternity. If they find out about you, they’ll send someone to kill you. A human with a human gun.”
Right now, I can’t make any intellectual sense of what Orfeo’s saying. How can I vanquish them if I don’t even know whether my mother was actually a witch? Is there such a thing as non-human gun?
“What about this portal in Echidna?” I ask. “You have to know something.”
“I’ve never heard of it, but it makes sense…Why else would Alfo have such an easy time blending in here? It never felt right to me.” He nods with finality. “I will find you more information.”
“Thank you.” I look down at my phone. “It’s nine. But I don’t want to move.”
His eyes slide from the ceiling down to my face and his features soften, his eyebrows unknitting from a frown. I swallow against the throb in my throat. “Then let’s stay a little longer. Here…” He reaches over me and pulls a pillow down off the couch. “Lift.”
“You sure?”
“Of course.” He slides it under my head. “You rest, and I’ll start my essay. I’ll put you to sleep with my observations about that ram with wings.”
I laugh, snuggling into the pillow. “Are all vampires funny?”
“God, no.” Orfeo’s mouth twists into a smirk. “They’re the most self-serious, dramatic bastards you’ll ever meet. We could sleep in any box and what do we choose? Coffin.”
“Do Mediterranean vampires sleep in coffins?”
He shakes his head. “We sleep in four-post beds with silk sheets.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not. We eat oysters and drink chilled white wine. We kiss our lovers just for the pure pleasure of it. We lie in the sun.”
“Sounds like heaven.” My eyelids begin to drift shut, heavy with sleep. “Tell me more.”