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I think about that for a moment, then eye my father. “Then if he’s such a monster, why do you know him? Why does he know you? Surely if you’re such good witches, you wouldn’t be hanging around a monster like him?”
He looks at my mother and then gives her a grim nod. He exhales softly, looking me square in the eye. “Absolon helped us once.”
A cold feeling spreads through me, all my knowledge of what he is and what he does.
A mercenary.
“Helped you with what?” I whisper.
“He gave us the location of your parents,” my mother says tightly. “I’m sorry, sweetie.”
He lied to me. Didn’t he?
No. He just didn’t reveal the truth.
Why not?
I already hated him. It wouldn’t have hurt to hate him more.
“You’re sorry,” I say. “For what? For killing them? You went behind the backs of the people who are supposed to keep you organized, the guild, and you flat out murdered them. For what? For me?”
“We didn’t know about you,” my father says quietly.
“But Absolon did.” My voice comes out in a hush.
“If he did, he didn’t tell us,” my mother says. “We didn’t know, Lenore, until we heard you crying, and by then it was already too late. Your parents were dead.”
“We knew you were one of us, though,” he says. “We could tell. We took you with us and never looked back.”
Why didn’t Absolon tell my parents that I existed? Was it because I was just a rumor to him? Or did he think I was better off dead too?
A sense of doom settles in my chest, a dull pain.
I shake my head, unable to grapple with any of it. Exhaustion is pulling me under.
“Why did you do it?” I say through a yawn, sinking deeper into the couch.
“Kill them?” my father asks, getting to his feet. “Sometimes the simplest answer is the best for now.”
“Revenge,” my mother adds.
I raise my head and look at her, at the flashing moons in her eyes.
Revenge?
“Elaine,” my father says. “Keep it cool. We need to get Lenore out of here.”
I glance up at him. “What? Why? I just want to go to sleep.”
“You’re not safe here,” he says, reaching down and pulling me up to my feet.
“If you’re worried about Solon, I’m pretty sure he can find me no matter where I go,” I tell them, my chest squeezing.
“Solon?” my father asks. “Don’t pretend you know him. You know nothing about him. Nobody does.”
“Regardless, he’ll find me.”
After all, I’m his. His blood is in my veins.
But I keep that information to myself. No use making them worry even more, or worse, fear me again.
“We’re not just hiding you from him,” my mother says. “We’re hiding you from other vampires, ones that don’t have an agenda, ones that just want the pleasure of killing you and using your blood. Heaven forbid you attract the attention of someone like Skarde.”
“Skarde?” I cry out. “I heard about him. He’s like the vampire king. I assumed he was dead.”
My mother’s lips go white as she eyes me. “I wish he were.”
“And aside from vampires, there’s always Poe and others like him,” my father says, pulling me along to my bedroom. “Poe might be in over his head, but there are those at the head of the guild that will not only punish us, but punish you.”
“Why me? It’s not my fault I am what I am,” I tell them.
My mother takes a duffel bag out of my closet while my father grabs my shoulders, eyeing me.
“Can you imagine a vampire with the power of a witch? Or a witch with the power of a vampire?” he asks. “That’s what you are, Lenore. And even the best ones can’t cause an earthquake.”
“So they’d kill me?”
He looks ashen. “I don’t know, sweetie. But I can guarantee that’s what they have planned for us.”
“I won’t let that happen,” I tell him, my loyalty to my family rising up with ferocity. “No one is going to hurt you.”
“And no one is going to hurt you,” my mother says, throwing my shit in the bag. “But we have to start by getting you out of here. You’ve been gone, but I sensed Poe about the last few days. He’ll be back. Maybe others too. And though vampires wouldn’t dare cross these doors, we can’t risk it.”
“Absolon crossed these doors,” I tell him.
“Yeah, well apparently he can do a lot of things, like appear out of thin air,” my father comments bitterly.
And so can I, I think, keeping the secret to myself. Black Sunshine.
“So where am I going?” I ask. “I don’t have my purse. No ID, no credit card, no phone.” I don’t bother adding that they’re at the haunted mansion.
“We’ll put you up in a hotel across town,” he says. “A nice one with lots of security. You choose. Maybe the Fairmont would be good.”
