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I knew that voice…
“It’s not your place to question me,” he sneered; his whole demander changed even his eyes seemed to darken.
“Is that Mrs. Ming?” I reached up for the phone, and when I touched it, I saw the caller ID. Sure enough, the name Lucy Ming appeared on the screen.
“We’ll be there in five minutes,” she said.
“You have two,” he snapped before turning off the phone.
“What was that? How do you know Mrs. Ming? And why the hell would you speak to her—” Mid-interrogation the lights above us flickered.
“We need to go.” He grabbed my hand, but I yanked my back.
“What the hell is going on?” For the first time, I didn’t truly trust him.
He looked wounded that I had done so, but I didn’t understand. He flexed his rejected hand a bit and stood straighter, meeting my gaze. “I understand that you are confused. As am I, but I assure you, I cannot explain to you what I am trying to piece together. I made a mistake by not telling you when you asked, but right now is not the time to talk about it. We are pinned down in here.”
He stretched out his hand, and I could see the bite marks—the ones he got pushing me out of the way—were now turning black, and I took his hand.
The moment they touched, he kissed them before he pulled me on along and started to run toward the elevator. Inside we were held captive by the machine, waiting for it to rise. There were six floors, and for some reason, the elevator was crawling today. His grip on my hand tensed as he put me behind him slightly.
“This would be a good time to tell me a little bit.” Only then did we get to the fifth floor.
“They are slowing it down, trying to trap us, but that should be easy for them, why?” he spoke mostly to himself.
“Who are the witches? I need you to talk to me, not yourself. I’ve gotten this far alone, and I don’t need someone trying to coddle me now.”
“My intent is not to coddle…I…” He paused to think. “I merely wished it was finally my long-awaited good fortune, which had led me to you. That, instead of a slipper falling from the sky, leading to you, that I, myself, had fallen, and I would be able to spend my time simply in your company.”
I had this eerie feeling in the pit of my stomach as he spoke. “So, I’m guessing it not your long-awaited good fortune?”
“Meeting you is good fortune no matter the cause,” he said as we got to the fourth floor.
“But?”
“But,” he glared at the number pad for a moment and took a step beside me, looking into my eyes. “In my centuries of life, I have learned many things, and the greatest of them all is that nothing is by chance. For a moment, I hoped we were the exception, but now it is clear to me that there is something at work here. Some mystery which explains why it is I awoke in Great Falls Park at the same time you and witches were in that very park. And it explains why I have lost my memory, and why the most potent memories I have were sent to your work. Why the woman who now oversees it and you, fought my influence…something only a witch can do.”
His eyes drifted to the levels again; we were now on the third floor.
The woman who oversees it and me?
“Simone? You think she’s a witch?” I shook my head. “I’ve known her since I was a kid. You said witches smell of nature. She smells like…” I paused and tried to think of her scent, but no one thing came to mind.
“She smells of everything she comes in contact with,” he said to me. “However, she has no true scent of her own. Unlike Dr. Lovell, he smells of aged sandalwood. Witches do smell of nature always unless for some reason their magic has been bound. She is a witch, but she is one that cannot access her magic any longer. Which is why she, unlike Dr. Lovell, knew something was amiss. She tried to fight it off, to see through what I had influenced her to see. She could not, but she was aware she could not.”
I still couldn’t believe it. “Witches hate vampires and vice versa. I’ve worked beside her for a year. If she was what you say, why hasn’t she or her coven come after me?”
We were now on the second floor…we both noticed.
“Exactly.” He nodded and frowned. “You two are not close?
I flinched at his question. “I think we were friends as kids. Her parents were killed. She was an orphan. My father’s work made him travel a lot, so I often felt like an orphan, so we bonded. Until high school, where for some reason, we seemed to fight with each other. By the time we both came back from college, we were more enemies than friends. When I started working here, she was even more standoffish. It was fine. It’s not like I would force her to be my friend again. But a year ago, she became even more of a bitch to me.”
“Around the time of your rebirth?”
I froze, thinking back on it. I couldn’t remember exactly, but that was right. I had wondered then if she knew, but I shook it off as being paranoid. “She knew?”
“She must have. But why has she simply let you be?”
