“Just curious,” I returned.
Then she told me she’d heard Nik on the radio too. What did I think of it?
It seemed to me like she was fishing to see if I’d heard him say he was heartbroken. So I replied, “Cool songs.”
Just then, Nik texted. I opened it with some trepidation. All it said was, “It’s true.”
What was I supposed to say to that? My first impulse was to type, “Oh, really?” But, you know, there were too many ways to take that, and I didn’t want to always be the one to start off belligerently.
In the meantime, Bea prodded me with, “Did u hear what he said?”
I answered that I did. I knew she wanted more than that, so I added, “Don’t know how 2 feel.”
Reopening Nik’s message, I stared at the words. I decided not to make it too easy for him, so I typed, “What’s true?”
“Miss u.”
By chance, the radio played “Teardrops on My Guitar.” “Miss u 2,” I keyed. I almost pressed Send, but decided to remind him, “Complicated.”
I waited, but there was no response. I turned my phone off and laid it facedown on my desk. I laid my head down next. Emotions roiled in my gut, sitting uneasily with my sugary dinner. The breeze coming in from my window was cool, inviting.
Stuffing my phone in my pocket, but not turning it on yet, I grabbed a sweater and my keys. On a piece of paper from the printer tray, I scribbled, “E. Find me,” and then taped it to my window. Then I positioned the sock signal, even though I doubted he’d see it. He had things on his mind, and it wasn’t our usual “date” night.
On another piece of paper I wrote, “Mom—out for a walk,” and left that one on the kitchen table near the bowl into which Mom always dropped her pocket change. I made sure to lock the door behind me.
Bea might be right about the vampire thing, but I couldn’t help but feel better out under the stars, fresh air in my lungs. Not for the first time, I wondered why vampires were such nature freaks. If they weren’t even from this earth, why did they have such an affinity for all things outdoors?
It was baffling.
Even though it was Friday night, the streets were empty. A common joke about St. Paul was that it rolled its streets up after five. Most people assumed that was because St. Paul was naturally more sedate and grown-up than its twin, Minneapolis. I knew the truth. Vampires.
Unlike Minneapolis, St. Paul was built on porous sandstone, and the ground beneath my feet was riddled with caves—manmade and natural—and most of them were occupied by creatures of the night. My people.
My responsibility.
No matter what Bea said, the truth of the matter was that I was their princess. Okay, when I put it that way, it seemed kind of silly. I mean, so far I’d issued exactly two orders and apparently both of them had been wrong.
And it was probably just as big a mistake to agree to spy on Mom. But if Dad was right and Elias didn’t have the talisman and witches decided to enslave everyone again, then I really did need to warn everyone.
But at least there wasn’t much I could do about that right now. When Mom came home tonight, I could see if I could get some information from her without giving too much away—practice my acting skills.
Old-fashioned streetlamps cast pools of soft yellow light on the boulevard. Not a lot of people had mowed yet, and the grass was dotted with heart-shaped leaves of woodland violets and brazen, leggy dandelion stalks.
Cars lined the street. TV screens flickered bluish white. Voices and canned laughter drifted through open windows. I walked alone, like a trespasser, down the street. I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans, and my fingers curled around the lump of my phone.
I’d come out here to think about Nikolai; I needed to make a decision about how I felt about him, about us. There was no doubt in my mind that I liked being his girlfriend. The concerts were cool. I enjoyed hanging out backstage and even with the band while they practiced. The groupies were a nuisance and made me horribly insecure. But if being in a popular band was the only problem between me and Nik, I could find a way to deal.
The real issue was that Nikolai was training—or had finished training—to kill vampires. Honestly, the distinction didn’t matter all that much. Okay, so I could push the thought to the back of my mind when he was only an apprentice, but it was always there.
I walked along a retaining wall made of stone, letting my hand trail along its rough surface.
Could I date someone who hunted vampires? It would be different if vampires were actually as inhuman as Bea and Nikolai kept telling me they were. So, they came from hell and Bea was convinced they supped on witch blood, but that wasn’t what I saw. Elias was a nice guy. He brought me flowers and sat in the tree outside my window and listened to my woes.
Granted, I’d been kept at arm’s length from a lot of what went on underground. The one time Elias and I crashed the scene down there, it had creeped me out a little. Vampires didn’t always wear clothes and I’d seen a lot more nakedness than I wanted to. The whole thing was animalistic and unsettlingly alien.
There was a lot I didn’t know.
Had I been kept in the dark on purpose?
Dad could have brought me into the fold after the big showdown last fall when I inadvertently became betrothed to Elias, but he didn’t. It was ironic, really, that he was all bent out of shape over this Khan woman when it wasn’t as if anyone had taken the time to give me a vampire culture 101 course. How was I supposed to know arranged marriages were the norm? How was I supposed to know
anything
about being a vampire princess?
Maybe they didn’t want me to know because they knew there would be things I’d object to.
A dog barked from behind a wooden fence. I hurried past its territory.
But if I knew all the vampires’ secrets, would it make a difference in my relationship with Nik? Let’s say vampires
were
one hundred percent evil. I was still half one. Even if I somehow helped Nikolai take out every last vampire on earth, wouldn’t he eventually look at me and wonder? Even if he didn’t, wouldn’t his dad or the other True Witches put pressure on us?
I rubbed the space between my eyes. Now I was
over
thinking things.
The dog barked again. Someone was following me. I stopped and turned. “Elias?”
Chapter Eight
T
he sidewalk was empty. I checked the trees. No sign of anyone. Yet I still had the sense I was not alone.
“Who’s there?” My voice sounded small, the empty sky swallowing the impact of my question. But I stood my ground and continued to scan the street.
A raccoon scuttled out from under a car. Scurrying across the street, it slipped into a rain gutter.
“Oh, okay. Now I feel stupid,” I said.
Though I never entirely shook the sensation of being watched, I made it home without incident. I didn’t really have an answer to the Nik question, but I also couldn’t see how we could work things out either.
Elias waited for me on the front porch. I sat down on the swing next to him. His long legs stretched out to cross at the ankles elegantly, but otherwise his posture was slouched. He was dressed in his usual basic black, though this time he had shoes—engineer boots, no less. I tapped the toe of his boot with the tip of my Converse.
“I think I got you in trouble,” I admitted quietly. “With Dad.”
He lifted an eyebrow, and sighed. “I failed. I was too late. The talisman is gone.”
“Someone else has it?” A shiver flitted across my skin. My voice dropped to a whisper. “Um, us ... I mean, the witches?”
Elias’s head bowed in defeat. “It’s uncertain, but likely.”
“Wow.” I hadn’t meant to say that, exactly, but it was the only thing that came out.
“I was pleased to find your note,” he said, the strain of trying to sound cheerful evident in his voice. “I wanted to see you. We should celebrate the end of the world.”
“Oh, Elias—,” I started, but he cut me off.
“The time for pity is past. Tonight is about freedom, and enjoying it while it lasts. Come with me? Some of us are gathering at Lilydale.”
If Mom was out at the covenstead celebrating the full moon, she wouldn’t be home until late anyway. Besides, it was Friday night. “Sure, why not?”
Elias had brought his car, which was a big black hybrid. I never thought of vampires driving around, so it felt strange to buckle into the passenger seat. Once, when I’d asked him about it, he explained that no one rode horses anymore, so what alternative did he have? Most of the public transportation services cut off sometime after midnight, when his day was just getting started. Still, it was so odd to see him behind the wheel of something so modern, I asked, “Do you even have a license?”
“Yes, but it’s forged.”
“Um, eek?”
“The DMV hours are not vampire-friendly.”
I guessed not much was, like banks or even car dealerships. “Do I want to know how you got this?” I ran my hands along the shiny dashboard. It still smelled new.
“Igors are good for a lot of things,” he said simply, pushing the ignition button. Of course, I still didn’t know if he meant for buying cars or for stealing them. I didn’t ask for clarification. The engine hummed quietly to life. Patting the steering wheel, he said, “I’ll miss driving. Perhaps my new master—” He stopped, his grip tightening.
What to say to that? I looked out through the window as we rolled down the street I’d just walked. Still, his comment got me thinking. “How does the talisman work? I mean, there’s only one. So how do you get, well, assigned masters?”
“That’s actually a good question. I suppose we’ll return to the family line,” he said with a shrug. When I looked confused, he explained. “Whenever a witch wanted a new servant, the Council of Elders gave permission for the talisman to be brought out of its hiding place. You see, we’re bonded to whoever is holding the talisman when we’re brought over. Then, like any valued piece of property, we are inherited down the family tree.”
No wonder witches kept such careful track of lineage. “What if there are no children or none of them become witches?”
Elias gave me a sidelong glance. “That’s why hunters were invented. They tracked down and destroyed all rogue demons.” He said nothing, letting that information settle in for a moment. “There were always stories, legends, really, of people who’d stayed free, and attacked witches from hideouts deep in ancient forests or along forbidding mountain ranges.”
“Like Robin Hood?”
“More like Dracula or Carmilla.” He laughed.
“Oh,” I said quietly, absently playing with a loose thread on my sweater. So Bea was right about this too. Vampires did go after witches, or at least their folk heroes did. “Is that what the hunt is about? Killing witches?”
Elias turned down Summit toward John Ireland Boulevard. Spotlights made the cathedral’s stone walls glow brightly, and it appeared almost surreally crisp against the night.
“Ah,” Elias said. “Someone has been speaking out of turn.”
“But is it true?”
“Yes.” I must have looked stricken, because he added, “Keep in mind, my lady, though we were no longer oppressed by our masters, we were still a hidden, unaccounted-for people. If we fed on mortal men, we would surely be discovered. Only witches would keep our secret, lest they risk exposing their own.”
Did Bea have to be so damn right about everything? My mouth twisted into a grimace. “Plus it must be satisfying to sink your teeth into people who used to order you around.”
We turned past the Historical Society; its flat, impenetrable stone facade made it look like a fortress of knowledge. It must have taken powerful magic to get inside there. Elias didn’t speak until we turned again, this time onto 35E heading south.
“It was, at first,” he admitted. “But one hunt will satisfy us for many years—a generation, in fact. Time passed; hated masters died of old age. There was no one left to take revenge on, and their children were innocent of their mothers’ crimes.”
“And you killed them anyway.”
“It was decided, for our survival, that we must.”
“Decided? You mean by Dad?”
Elias’s eyes stayed focused on the road. But even without his acknowledgment I knew the answer. The vampires weren’t a democracy. “Pull off,” I said. “I want to get out.”
He shook his head. “If you had completed the hunt with us, you’d understand. It is how it has always been.”
When I turned sixteen, Dad had shown up and tried to convince me to do their sacred hunt instead of the witches’ Initiation. I wasn’t able to do either, so I stayed something in between, neither witch nor vampire.
“You didn’t ... that night? I mean, I didn’t hear—no one died, right?”
“No, when it was clear you wouldn’t join us, the prince called it off.” Elias hadn’t moved the car toward the exit. In fact, he switched to the middle lane. “We’d waited a long time for you to mature. The hunger grows.” He snorted a dark chuckle. “At least our bondage will come with a high price.”
“What does that mean?” I looked out at the cars rushing past, feeling trapped.
“It means, my dear lady, that once again the witches will have to provide for us, as they did in the past. I wonder if anyone remembers the dark gift, the devil’s deal.”
He sounded so sinister, not at all like the gentle courtier I’d grown to like. “I really want to go home now,” I said, my hand groping uselessly at the car handle. Lights whooshed past, dizzying strobes. “You need to let me out.”
“It was the weakest ones, you know.” He didn’t seem to have heard me. “Those who couldn’t pass their Initiation that they sacrificed.”
“Wait—what are you saying? Are you saying that the witches used to feed you one of their own?”
He took his eyes from the road long enough to give me a hard stare. He nodded. “Yes, Anastasija, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”