To collect myself, to figure out how the hell I’m going to make it through the rest of this semester knowing I’m breathing the same air as a vampire. A vampire who’s potentially kidnapping women, sucking them dry, and throwing them into the Delaware River. Or maybe a vampire who’s glamouring innocent victims, abusing them, and sending them home with their memories wiped.
Maybe Orfeo isn’t dangerous—but he knows dangerous people, and his affiliations aren’t a mysteryIneed to solve.
I’m in Echidna for one reason: my mother. I shove aside the nagging thought that maybe she would put me in harm’s way. I shove aside the very idea that she could have conspired with some dark energy to hurt me.
That’s just the fear talking.
Dropping Bowen’s class is out of the question—no one else offers even half a chance at getting into the catacombs. And judging by how shitty I feel right now, decoupling into the crypt using just pictures and no sense memory is completely out of the question. Knowing my luck, my spirit would end up trapped in the home goods department of a Ross Dress for Less.
I take the long way home to make sure there’s no chance I cross paths with Orfeo or any of the other brutes trolling around town, holding court outside of Hades House. I walk with my hood up and my shoulders hunched, eyes fixed on the ground in front of me.
As soon as I’m inside my studio, I double-lock my front and balcony doors, barricading both with chairs. Then, I grab my mother’s tomes, drag them into bed, and start looking for anything I can find about vampires, about Echidna, about portals.
Orfeo
Diantha skips class.
Bowen makes some comment under his breath about our lack of fortitude, and the rest of his lecture passes in a bone-dry blur as he monologues about carved ivory reliefs. The entire time, my gaze drifts to the door. I imagine her slipping in, dark eyes scanning the room until they settle on the empty seat beside me.
I imagine her shimmying out of her winter coat and sliding into the chair, hair twisted up off her shoulders and piled at the top of her head. She hands me a pen and rolls her eyes.So you don’t bother me.I can imagine her saying something like that—sarcastic, dry. Lips puckered into a half pout, half smile. Her long, lean neck bending as she takes careful notes.
Fuck, I’m hungry.I pull on my sunglasses to keep anyone from noticing my eyes, which seem to glow brighter the hungrier I get. Bowen goes five minutes over, and by the time I make it to Hades House, I’m delirious with desire. Kat’s waiting for me, and this time, I let her kiss my mouth. I wrap my arms tight around her frail body. I devour her neck, letting her blood run over from my mouth, dripping down between her breasts. Sheasks me if I want to fuck, and for some reason, I decline. I stroke her hair and let her drift off with her head in my lap.
Afterward, Kat sleeps while I go back to work on the ceiling fresco—an abstracted swirl of red, brown, black. From the darkness, I craft red roses in full bloom, petals falling open, heavy with their ripeness. With my light colors, I carve out a crescent moon and the silhouette of a woman bathing in its light.
Wednesday night, Diantha ducks in when Bowen has already cut the lights and started his slides. She sits close to the door, keeping her eyes cast firmly ahead. Even hidden beneath a turtleneck and a sweater, I can see her shoulders sagging under an invisible weight. Dark circles have taken shape under her eyes, bruise-like in color. She doesn’t look well. I want so deeply to know what thoughts are passing through her mind.
The depth of this desire…
It startles me.
When Bowen completes his lecture, she darts from the classroom. Without thinking twice, I move at a vampiric speed to plant myself on one of the benches halfway between the Art History building and the campus gates.
She’s moving at an impressive clip, head down and arms folded across her chest. There’s a human obsession with people being so beautiful the room stops when they walk in. Heads turn, voices quiet, time slows. And so, beauty like Diantha’s goes unnoticed. Those dark eyes, the lush curve of her bottom lip. In this place, she lets herself recede into the background. She hopes you forget her.
“Diantha,” I call out, standing slowly and burying my hands in my pockets. She freezes in her tracks like a doe. Her eyes cut left and right, and I know she’s considering running from me. I keep my distance. “Hi.”
“Hi,” she replies, refusing to meet my eye. She tilts her head toward the gate. “Um, so…I have to go?—”
“Wait.” I step into her path. “I wanted to check in. Are you?—?”
“I’m fine,” she cuts me off, tightening her arms around her chest.
“I was worried when you didn’t show up for class last night. Is everything okay?”
“I’m fine,” she bites back. “I told you I’m fine.”
I huff. “You do notlookfine.”
She finally looks at me, anger flashing across her features. Her jaw clicks as she clenches her teeth. “Oh, really? Wow, thanks. How kind of you.”
“That’s not what I meant. You just look tired?—”
“Because I am. Now,please.” She shakes her head hard, like she wants to knock the sound of my voice out of her ears. “Please move out of my way. I want to go home.”
Does she think I am going to follow her? I recoil at the implication. Does she think I am hunting her? I raise my hands in surrender and step back. “I will not stop you.” As she passes by, her smell overwhelms me. I drop my eyes as I say, “I don’t blame you for being afraid.”
She pauses. Just for a moment. And in the moment, she holds my heart in her hands.
