AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yes.” I put a hand to my head. This had been cathartic, but more overwhelming than I had expected. I had never thought that talking could be as tiring as fighting, but it appeared so.
Ray pulled the blanket around me, and tucked it in. I looked at him strangely. He looked back, a little embarrassed, but defiant.
“Everybody needs taking care of, once in a while.”
I did not know what to say to that, so I said nothing at all.
“And now that you’ve succeeded?” he asked, sitting back again. “Now that Dory is not only safe but a bigshot in the vampire world? What now?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” He looked like that hadn’t made sense, although it was rather the point of all this.
“You asked me what I wanted,” I reminded him. “I told you the truth: I don’t know. I’ve lived for one thing and one thing only for centuries, and now . . .”
I let it trail off.
I didn’t have any answers for him, or for myself. I wasn’t even sure I knew the right questions. I had been alone for so long, that I didn’t know where to start to build a life, or how or even if I should. What if Mircea had been right, and I was some kind of monster? He was a gifted mentalist. What had he seen, exactly, that had frightened him so?
And even if he was wrong, and I was merely a dhampir and Dory’s other half, did it matter? After so long, was I not broken beyond repair? Could I ever really hope to—
“You’re not broken! And Mircea can go fuck himself.”
I had started to take another drink, but Ray’s voice was hard enough to have me lower the canteen instead, and look at him in surprise. Nobody talked about father that way. “You sound angry.”
“And you’re not? You ou
ght to be furious with him!”
“I was, for a while.”
“Well, why the hell did you stop?”
Horatiu was banging pots around the kitchen, loudly enough to be heard throughout the house. They crashed like cymbals in my ears, making me wince. The kitchens were often on the upper floors in Venice, in case of floods, and a moment later, what sounded like every pot we had was flung down the stairs.
Horatiu was a vampire; he could not disobey his master’s wishes.
He could, however, make his feelings known.
Mircea did not comment about the noise as he came back into the house.
He had been giving final instructions to the large group of dark clad men outside. They looked so different from the usual sort one saw in the city, where the men were as fashion conscious as the women, and often outbid them on the finest jewels and most sumptuous materials. I had seen a popinjay of a boatman pass by, just this morning. His varicolored hose had been black and white diamond pattered on one leg and bright red on the other, while his doublet was a brilliant green. He had worn a black hat, but it had been crowned with a scarlet feather.
But these men were different. Their clothing was dark—rough browns, grays and blacks—and cut from coarse, long wearing fabrics. Their faces were weathered, and some of them bearded, something also out of fashion in Venice. But it was their expressions that really gave them away, or would have, had Dory been awake to see the hard, solemn, no-nonsense countenances of the finest mercenaries that money could buy.
But it was early morn, with the sun just beginning to peek over the horizon. She was still asleep, and under a spell to keep her that way. She went to bed last night, the petted, pampered daughter of a wealthy Venetian gentleman. She would wake somewhere, and someone, far different.
I was still conscious, however, and watchful. Mircea knew, but he did not care. Today, he did not care about much of anything.
He had just come in, but he turned around and went back out again, having thought of another proviso for the mercenary squad. They were mages, half of them, and strong enough that their magic peppered the air, even from this far away. The other half were vampires, powerful day walkers who had been hired to protect their precious cargo at night, but who could be active in daytime as well, if needed.
I watched father through a window, haranguing the men in tones few would have dared to use with them. Yet they did not flinch, much less object. Perhaps it was because they were being paid a king’s ransom for this, but I thought there might have been another reason, at least for some.
They were men who had seen almost everything, yet still there were glimpses, here and there, of compassion of those hardened features. Or maybe that was merely me, projecting what I felt onto them. I looked at Mircea’s agitated gestures, his dead white face, and the wildness in his eyes, and I both loved and hated him.
But mostly, I hurt for him.
This was killing him.
