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“Tell me a poem,” I said, because this walk clearly needed poetry to push it over the top.
He spoke in a dizzyingly delicious voice, words I’d never heard aloud, ancient Persian if I wasn’t mistaken, that I’d only seen on the page. Hearing it was so thrilling. I whirled around to face him, his eyes in shadows then lit by a glowing orb while his lips spoke what had been dead for centuries, awakening in this dark bower of beauty, words that felt like a spell, resonant sounds that pulled on my heart, my soul. He was magnificent in his glistening blue silk, like a pale sculpture emerging from the water, coming to life from long, long ago. I wanted to capture those words, preserve them so I could look at them later, but it wasn’t only his words I wanted. His voice, his eyes, flickering in the light, his lips, capable of saying such impossible things.
I wavered closer to him, fingers buzzing along with my lips. I wanted to taste his words, his mouth, his tongue. Oranges and peppermint. Wait. I knew that word. I focused intently until I understand the gist. It was a poem about oranges.
The magnitude of his appeal in that moment was so great, I almost sank down on the path in defeat. He had slain me with oranges. How could I possibly resist someone who spouted dead poetry that easily? I forced a laugh and grinned at him. “Now that is a suitable poem. How easily you pluck poetry from ages past, as sweet and delicious as the oranges above us.”
“And how sweet and delicious a mind that can appreciate the words of a forgotten age.” He took my hand in his and raised it to his lips. He kissed my hand, his eyes closed in a moment that froze and stretched out while I soaked in every detail of the night, him, the feel, the scent, the way I felt coming alive, unfurling like a jasmine blossom.
I blinked, and the moment was over, my hand released, our walk once more resuming, but slower, too lost in feelings that roiled and spun inside of me to overthink about what this was and whether it made sense. We talked about books, ancient authors who changed the world, and those who spent their life preserving the knowledge of the ages.
“Why do you translate Hammurabi’s Code so often? You do it at least once a year, usually more.”
I shrugged and tilted my face up to smell a clump of flowers, aware of him beside me, waiting for me, keeping pace together like I’d never been with anyone. “I love it. I love everything about it. I don’t translate dead languages because I’m easily bored with things that never change. I seek the stability that comes from knowing what words I’ll find before I open the book, with perhaps one or two nuances that I never noticed before. It’s like visiting with an old friend. You never feel like that about anything?” I asked, turning to him.
He plucked a blossom that I’d been admiring and tucked it into my hair, barely making contact before he pulled away and we began walking. “I’m a vampire. By definition, I appreciate things that don’t change.”
“And the other half?”
He glanced at me with a raised brow. “Are we shedding our armor and revealing our hidden natures, Miss Morell? I’m game if you are.”
My heart beat rapidly as I considered revealing my former career, my impossible work of death in the Square of Immolation. I faced forward and said, “What a lovely view,” walking more quickly until I came out of the trees and into the clearing near the waterfall.
He chuckled and followed me, that low rumble chasing down my spine and sinking into my bones.
A table set for two was near the edge of the deep falls, silver covered dishes looking out of place in that wild location.
“Is this the restaurant in Song that we’re going to try?” I asked as I walked towards the table.
“The food is from the finest place in Song, but the show can only be seen on special occasions. Being the Scholar, I facilitate several specialist groups, one being historians obsessed with recreating long past entertainment. Tonight is ancient Babylonian, I believe.”
He held out a chair for me, which I took, and then he sat beside me, for a paralyzing moment brushing my knee with his, and the show began.
I’d thought that dead poetry was amazing, but this, having ancient dance and music brought to life was more than brilliant. The dancers seemed to be mostly vampires in elaborate face paint and robes that were meticulous replicas of several pieces I’d seen in museums. The dancing and music were fascinating, dovetailing perfectly with everything I knew about their language, but it was more than an intellectual feast. It was beautiful art that evoked feelings, like awareness of the man sitting beside me, his stillness, his secret band of dance and music re-enactors and his vast expanse of knowledge regarding ancient fruit poetry.
I reached under the table and grabbed his hand, gripping it too hard, but it was like stepping into a dream of so much more than I was used to thinking about wanting. It was better than sushi. He was better than sushi.
I watched breathlessly, too fascinated with the show to eat anything until they performed the last flurry of spins and then disappeared into the darkness dramatically. Like magic.
It took me a few seconds of breathless silence, my eyes still filled with the movement and color, before I realized that I was still holding his hand.
I pulled away and grabbed my fork. I carefully cut into my steak, slicing a sliver thin piece like you’d use to get information out of a certain species I hadn’t seen in years. I took a bite and focused all of my attention on it so I didn’t get distracted by the man next to me. I wanted to devour every piece of him, but I focused on food instead. It was extremely delicious, steak that melted in my mouth with so much butter and garlic on the mushrooms and tender asparagus that you could barely count them as vegetables. There was salad, a nice peppery mix with candied nuts and light dressing, but nothing was as appetizing as the man next to me, not even the world’s best sushi. I was officially in trouble.
He ate slivers of meat, a bit of candied nut, and two spears of asparagus, but mostly he drank a thick, red elixir that smelled like elderberries.
After we’d been quiet for long enough that it felt awkward, I clicked my fork against the rim of his glass. “What are you drinking?” I shouldn’t have used my fork. I’d been sucking on that fork. That was too casual, too intimate. Wait, was intimate the same as casual, or were they the opposite?
“It’s a cleansing elixir to help with the detoxification process.” He cleared his throat. “I dislike alarming you, but you should be aware of some unfortunate news. Brace yourself.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I’m breathless with anticipation. Is Bert dead?”
He frowned and shook his head. “No, nothing like that, but the spiders weren’t targeting him. The spider that injected me had poison based on demon blood, but mixed in such a way with certain elements by someone that knows me very well.”
I stared at him, puzzling through that maze of almost information. “You’re saying that you were the target? But you weren’t there when they came out.”
He bared his fangs for a moment before he took a sip of the elixir, made a face, and set it down with a thump. “To kill you. I was injected with a serum that would turn me into a monster that would destroy anything angel-touched, like you.”
I swallowed hard, and I had to work to not pull out my file. “You’re saying that someone was trying to use you to kill me? Why?”
