Epilogue
Vasile
With my feet planted firmly on the bed, I propped my sketchpad on my knees. It wasn’t the best angle for this, but I didn’t have my room set up in this new house yet. Everything in Sacramento had burned, and I’d yet to decide on new furniture.
This place was more boring than the last, but Sibon wanted to be discreet. If she thought a five-bedroom penthouse in the middle of the city was discreet, she was more delusional than I’d given her credit for.
Time wore everything down, including the mind. With my vampire blood, my seven hundred and fifty eight years didn’t result in damage to my body or the physical abilities of my brain. Memories faded and emotions grew noncompulsory.
Sibon, though, didn’t possess the curse of vampirism. Magic kept her from aging, largely by consuming the life force of those with such things in their blood. Her psyche, on the other hand, did not withstand the test of time. She’d been desperate for centuries and it would be her downfall.
If nothing else, I may be able to wait her out. Unless she managed to consume Sam or her Nexus, she would begin to wither. I already saw it happening in the small details she tried to hide. The shiver that came too often. The stutter when she used her magic, as if it had taken too much effort.
I pressed my pencil lightly to the page, adding a bit of shadow at the inner corner of the eyes. It wasn’t quite right, but it never was. My father’s face had largely faded from my memory centuries ago. If I looked back on the drawings, I could see the ways they’d changed, morphed into something I couldn’t readily identify as the man who raised me. All I had were fractured memories, images that were a disgrace to his true beauty.
A shout from somewhere in the condo made me sigh. I wanted to ignore it, but information was a resource greater than most others. Setting the pad down, I opened my bedroom door, wincing at the light. I raised my hood, which offered me just the barest relief from it.
Stopping at the end of the hall, I watched the commotion in the entryway. Davi was throwing some sort of fit. He was always too emotional. I was relieved Erla was gone as she only ever compounded his nature.
“What is it?” I asked, not putting in any effort to sound interested.
Sibon turned around with a hand over her mouth. “It’s Erla.”
Moving closer, I saw a box lined with plastic inside. With one finger, I opened one of the flaps, my nose wrinkling when I saw her head. It was grotesque in a beautiful sort of way.
It looked like they had removed her skull, which left her skin loose and misshapen. It was skin and meat, nothing else. If she hadn’t told me it was Erla, it may have taken me a moment to notice.
“Who sent this?” I asked.
“It was floating above the bay.”
“More balloons?”
“No. Magic, I assume.”
“Wind,” I mused.
On the box, there was what appeared to be an Instagram handle. I pulled out my phone, looking it up. There was only one picture on the account and it was of Sam and Lock sitting on two thrones. She wore a crown made of bone, the surface covered in glitter.
What they lacked in tact, they made up for in… I don’t know. Lunacy?
Still, I couldn’t help but laugh. Davi whirled around, looking murderous. Ignoring him, I headed out the back door, dropping off the edge of the balcony. I stepped off my invisible platform when I reached my destination, listening carefully to make sure I hadn’t been followed.
A figure stepped out of the shadows, his hood up and an expression of unveiled worry on his face.
“Gabe,” I greeted dryly. “I trust you have the information I need.”