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Dylan responded that I was with him and we decided to go to Portland for the night and that we were fine. Then his phone went into airplane mode.
In just under two hours, our plane touches down at San Francisco airport. It’s obviously not the first time I’ve been on a plane, my parents took Dylan and I to Disneyland when we were young, and also New York City one Christmas, plus all my adventures as Dahlia, but even so, I’m feeling both excited and nervous as soon as the wheels touch down.
It might be insane to do this, but it’s taking me one step closer to Valtu.
I grab my bag and we get a cab, heading into the city. The buildings get closer and my gut twists as I stare up at all the lights, the fog wisping past the tallest structures.
“Okay, now mom is really freaking out,” Dylan says, waving his screen at me. I haven’t turned my phone off airplane mode, all the info I need for our hotel and the Westerfeld House is offline in my notes section.
“Why?” I ask. “It’s not like she really knows where we are.”
The cabbie eyes me in the rearview mirror at that. I give him a dirty look in response.Mind your own business, bud, I think, and he flinches as if heard me, immediately turning his attention back to the road.
Oh yeah. I’m a vampire now. He probably did hear me. I probably compelled someone for the first time.
“Man, she is paranoid,” Dylan says, texting something at the speed of lighting before shoving the phone in the pocket of his jeans. “And that’s just with us being in Portland. You were right not to tell them about this.”
I give him a look like,I told you so.
The hotel is where they filmed scenes fromVertigo, one of my favorite classic films. Like the original classics, stuff from nearly a hundred years ago. The hotel a little small and run-down, but it was cheap and not too far from where I believe Lenore and Solon are. We check in to our room and while I immediately want to go find the vampires, Dylan goes out to find some clothes and toiletries.
So I raid the mini bar. I have a small bottle of vodka that I take tiny sips of and I sit on the edge of one of the twin beds, staring at myself in the mirror.
I’ve been avoiding the mirror these last few days. I haven’t put on any makeup. I look away from reflections. I’m finding it hard to come to terms with who I am.
But now I’m staring right at myself.
It’s so weird to see the woman I’ve been throughout all these lives. And, yes, a woman, because even though last week I felt like a girl who barely stepped into adulthood, I know I’ve been someone in my mid-twenties and my late twenties as well. As Dahlia, I was nearly thirty. As Mina I was only twenty-three, but given my upbringing and the fact that it was the fucking 1600s, which seems absolutely unreal now, I had the mind of someone much older. Sometimes you have to grow up faster.
And yet here I am. Twenty-one. A vampire. My skin is clear, my freckles nearly faded overnight, perhaps because being a vampire gets rid of sun damage. My red hair is thick and glossy, my green eyes bright, teeth white (fangs or not). My body is still curvy and soft but I have lean muscle underneath that wasn’t there before. I look like the best version of myself that I’ve ever been throughout the ages. But inside me, I’ve lived for at least eighty years put together. I feel older, wiser, different.
And totally unmoored.
I finish the rest of the vodka but it does nothing. Vampire metabolisms are so fast that you have to drink a lot to really get the effects and I’m broke, using my money that I earned over summer while working at an occult shop in town for this trip.
I worry about my parents a little. They can’t know what I’m up to, I know it would hurt them if they knew. We’ve always been very close, our family very insulated. I’ve always felt it was a blessing of sorts to have family like this, even when I was a rebellious teenager and they annoyed me. I wonder now if deep down I remembered the trauma of what I went through as Dahlia, losing both those parents the way that I did.
Bellamy.
The thought of his name twists a knife in my gut.
I searched online for him, just as I searched for Valtu and the others. I found no record of Bellamy. I don’t even know if he had a last name or if that was his last name, but regardless he doesn’t exist. He would maybe be eighty years old now, so there’s a big chance he’s dead. If true, I hope that his death was horrible.
But he could still be out there. And if he is, I don’t care if he’s an old man now.
I want my revenge. For what he did to my parents, what he did to me, and all the other witches he manipulated into being weapons at the expense of their family.
The sound of a keycard in the door takes me out of my thirst for vengeance and Dylan comes inside with a bag from CVS.
“Back so soon?” I ask.
“Got everything I need right here,” he says, pouring out the contents on the bed. There’s travel toothpaste and toothbrush, body spray, deodorant, socks, a pack of cheap boxers and a couple of poorly made SF Giants tee shirts.
“Boys,” I mutter under my breath. Only they could pack for a trip at a drugstore.
He shrugs and takes off his jacket and shirt, slipping on one of the Giants ones he just bought. “Okay. I’m ready to go.”
I hesitate and glance at my phone. It’s nearly eleven at night. Maybe it’s too late.
