Three Months Later
DIANTHA
“She’s most likely being held captive…” Bowen pauses to take a long inhale of his pipe. “Here,” he says on an exhale, tapping the pipe’s tip against a speck of land, smaller than half a grain of rice.
“L’isola di Ponza,” Orfeo says at once. He frowns at Bowen. “How?”
I lean closer to the map, studying the cluster of land masses off the Italian coast, halfway between Rome and Naples. On this yellowed, faded map, they look like crumbs or ink droplets.
“Yeah, how the hell did you figure that out?”
“Well…” Bowen pushes away from the desk, rolling toward the cluttered window sill on the other side of the room where he grabs a manila folder.
Then, he propels himself back toward us, placing the open file on his desk.
“Here’s what I found in my research. Feel free to read through, but in summation: many believe Hades has an enchanted fortress somewhere on those islands—a paradisiacal prison, a golden cage.
” He takes another inhale of his pipe. The smell of charred, peppery tobacco hangs around us, mixing with the crisp early spring air drifting in through his open window.
“Ponza, Zannone, Palmarola—they’re mostly uninhabited.
Tourists might take a day trip out, but…
” He shrugs. “There are no hotels, no hostels. It’s a very convenient place to work magic. ”
“Poor Evie,” I whisper through the tightening of my throat.
It’s all my fault, I think for the hundredth time.
It’s all my fault. It’s all my fault, all my fault, all my fault.
Orfeo slides his hand off the desk and rests it gently on my knee.
The anxious thought quiets slowly, as if someone has turned down the dial on a radio.
I feel Orfeo’s emotions shift through me: his devotion, his care. They move through me, slow traveling wisps of smoke curling around my bones.
Now that we share blood regularly, our bond is titanium.
Orfeo was right: this love isn’t human. I don’t just desire him or feel joy and pleasure in his company.
I have a primal, instinctual need to protect him, to have him inside me.
I dream of murdering anyone who has ever wronged him.
His emotions live in me as if they’re part of my own physiology. All of this—it should scare me.
But I don’t feel human anymore. I don’t have time to.
All I’ve done for the last three months is try to keep Pandora’s Cup open and Hades House profitable and crime-free while doing everything in my power to find Evie and Davìd. It’s been an all-consuming mission.
I can’t doubt myself. Because a moment wasted wondering if I have what it takes to be a goddess might be one more moment they face harm and suffering.
I had to embrace my destiny. Had to. Because Evie can’t die. She just can’t.
Bowen spins in his chair toward his bookshelf.
Since the first time we met in this office—his office, at the very top of the Art History building—I’ve watched him rummage through these volumes time and time again.
He yanks a heavy tome free, its pages so deep into disintegration that the little yank produces a cloud of dust.
He holds the book by its cracked, dry spine.
“Aeaea island…Aeaea island…” He whispers the words like an incantation until finally he lets out a little victorious yelp.
“There we are! Aeaea island, Circe’s dominion.
” He drops the open book down in front of us.
“Believed to be Ponza—or one of the small islands around Ponza.”
Orfeo shoots me a sideways, skeptical look. “She wouldn’t allow him to build his little mouse trap in her caves, would she?”
“No. Gods, no. But! Where there is one god—or goddess—there tends to be another. Where there is powerful magic, there will be more…powerful…” He raises his brows, flicking his eyes back and forth between us.
Orfeo smirks. “You think I am a powerful vampire?”
“No need to feign modesty now, old boy.”
“Seriously.” I roll my eyes playfully. “Aren’t we past that?”
Orfeo is a powerful vampire. He had gotten really good at concealing his abilities from Alfo and Leo and Nis, but now there’s no reason for him to hide his cunning intellect and elemental mastery.
And sure, the bartenders and dancers gossip about our blood bond.
They could talk all they wanted; it’s obvious to us all now how Orfeo had survived those merciless early years of his vampire life.
“Anyway.” He waves Bowen on. “Why a kidnapping? Why subject his daughter to yet another game?”
“The gods are ancient! They have their modus operandi.” Bowen leans back in his chair, folding his hands over his belly. “You’re nearly immortal, aren’t you? Do you think you’ll be open to trying new things in two thousand years?”
Orfeo pulls his hand away from my thigh and rubs at his jaw. “No,” he says slowly, carefully. “I don’t think I will be. I will only grow more calcified—lazier and more predictable. Hence why…” He cuts his eyes to mine. “He abducted another human witch.”
I manage a small nod. “Right. Makes sense. He got lucky. If Evie was anything else, he might not have done it.” A pit opens in my stomach with this realization.
“We know for a fact that the Tyrrhenian sea contains many—no, innumerable portals,” Bowen says. “Sunken temples, ancient shipwrecks, schools of mythological water-bound creatures.”
I scoff. “Who needs a getaway car? Just slip through a few portals.”
“Exactly, but you two cannot take any risks.” Bowen reaches into his desk drawer. “Your passports.” He drops them on the desk. “Orfeo, you will travel through the Quiet Network. Diantha, you will fly. Economy.”
My passport is the standard blue booklet all Americans get. Nothing extraordinary. Orfeo’s on the other hand…
He picks up the envelope-sized trifold leather pouch, unwrapping the twine strap holding it together. “Still haven’t given up the pomp and circumstance, have we?”
Bowen let out a hard laugh. “You know how smugglers can be.”
“Do they know their cargo is precious?” Orfeo says as he flips through the pages of his document. He lingers on the final page, glancing his thumb over a line that reads REBIRTH DATE: November 10, 1976
“Absolutely. They were all trembling once I mentioned your mate,” Bowen says, bringing our attention back to him. He slides another set of papers across the table. “Your tickets. You leave in seven days.”
“Thank you,” I say as I push an envelope bulging with cash across the table to the man who had once been nothing more than my professor. “The last of your payment…plus something extra for everything you’ve helped us with.”
Bowen rests his hand over mine for a moment and gives me a squeeze.“Thank you, my dear.”
I toss him a wink. “Anything for you. Come by the club tonight.” Orfeo and I stand, pulling on our jackets. “Your favorite dancers are back from Montreal.”
My ex-professor’s entire face colors a deep plummy red. “Ah, well. It is Friday, isn’t it?” And then he buries his nose in his wristwatch.
“You torture the poor man.”
“No, I don’t!” I laugh, knocking my shoulder into Orfeo’s. He slips his arm around my neck and pulls me into his chest. “I just want him to relax and have a little fun.”
“Oh?” He cups my chin in his hand, angling my face up toward him. “Look who is talking.” The thin, yellow street lamp light illuminates his features, and I see mischief glint in his eyes.
“You make me relax,” I say softly. “I’m just trying to return the favor, ass. Now, kiss me”
“Yes,” he growls, tightening his grip on me and pressing his lips against my temple, then my cheek and finally—finally—my lips. “Call me dirty names,” he murmurs against my skin. “The filthier the better.”
We follow Main Street down all the way to where it meets a narrow creek off the Delaware River.
Then, we hop the short, stone parapet and follow the banks through the thick, overgrown trees until we reach the dock—our dock.
Rotted and water-logged, but Orfeo managed to repair it with a few strategic waves of his hands.
We found the dock by chance on one of our nightly walks and dubbed it ours. Now, coming here has been our tradition since all the snow melted and the evenings went from bitingly cold to breezy and cool.
The late May air whips across my neck, chilly and humid, but with Orfeo’s arms around me and his blood in my veins I’m always warm.
He leads me to our spot in the shade of a wide-trunked chestnut tree, on a stale corner of the old wooden jetty.
We sit beside each other, watching the crescent moon dance on the surface, breathing in the sweet, almost-summer air.
The cicadas are finally back and their song is all around us. We stay quiet, fingers tangled on the wood between us.
Finally, I say: “I don’t want to wait another week. I wanna leave tomorrow.”
“I know, amore.” He takes his fingers from where they’re tangled with mine and rests them on my shoulder.
“I know you are worried, but it’s not so simple.
I have to begin building my strength now.
And then, we need to make sure everything is in place here.
We should really consider bringing Leo. He knows that sea like the back of his hand.
He has bartered with those beings before. ”
I lean into his touch, sliding my gaze to his moonlit profile. So sharp, so intense. So perfect. “And what, leave Misha with all of this mess?”
“She can handle it, baby.” Orfeo narrows his eyes at the dark waters. “Leo will be invaluable.”
I wrap my arms around my vampire and pull him into me. His body is solid and muscular, typically immovable, but he lets himself be pulled to me. “We’re gonna find him, amore.”
Orfeo lets out a quick laugh, dropping his gaze to mine. “You can really read my mind, can’t you?”
“I know that look,” I say.
“I have tried to forgive myself for…for all of it. If Davìd is dead, then everything is as it should have been years ago.”
“Don’t say that,” I whisper, his grief a small, needling ache in my stomach. “You did everything you could to protect him.”
“But it is true. His blood is on my hands, no matter what.” Orfeo breaks from my embrace and gets to his feet, offering me a hand. “Come on, my goddess. Work is waiting for us.”
I let him pull me to my feet and lead me back to the narrow path that leads back up to Main Street.
But before we begin our trek, I grab both of Orfeo’s hands and pull him back to face me.
His caramel eyes swim still with that far-off sadness, his mind still drifting through those memories. “Hey. You’re a really good vampire.”
“A good vampire?” He smirks, tucking his chin and giving me a dry look through his eyebrows. “A good vampire is different from a good person. I believe you wish to call me—”
“I know what I’m saying,” I cut him off. “You are good. You are filled with goodness. Gentleness and a desire to be fair.”
“And you?” he replies, his voice a deep rumble in his chest. He brings his hands to the curve of my lower back, yanking me to him and collapsing all the space between us.
“You have given my undead life meaning, time and time again. We will find Evie, and we will bring her home. Then, our world will be at peace and you…” He glances the tip of his nose over my cheek, up toward my ear.
I shiver in his arms as his lips connect with the shell of my ear and he whispers: “You will never spend another moment of this life worrying. You will do nothing but lay on a chaise settee and allow me to paint you over and over…”
“Sounds a little boring,” I joke, but my voice is a fractured, breathy whisper.
“Ahhh, amore.” His mouth migrates until I feel the gentle scrape of his fangs along my neck. My head falls back as his hand rises to cradle it. “There are not enough years in eternity for us to grow bored of each other.”
My laughter turns to sounds of pleasure as his mouth draws a hot, slow line down my neck. A million questions buzz inside my head: what do you mean by eternity? What happens if we never find Evie? What if my father never leaves us alone? What if I’m evil—like him?
But it doesn’t matter right now. Orfeo has been my solace since the first day I met him, when he saved me. So, I let him quiet the storms of my mind.
I trust the Italian vampire.
The end, for now.