Patrick studied a map of Flora while Holly watched him. Her knee bounced up and down, and her eyes flashed between him and the small window. What she was so nervous about? I was the one playing the bait.
Ignoring the council, I
studied the beauty outside the plane.
“Gwen?” Dorian tapped my arm. Blinking a few times to escape my thoughts
, I
stared at him.
“I want you to know I’ll be right beside you while you’re dealing with Ian.” Dorian sat down next to me.
“Don’t you think that’ll give our plan away?” I asked perturbed. Dorian was a mystery. One minute he was trying to get close, and, the next he could be a complete ass.
“Not if I’m invisible,” he shrugged.
I shifted so I could see him better. “You can go invisible?”
Dorian leaned on the armrest and smirked. “I’ve got tricks you’ve never seen.” He waggled his eyebrows.
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, Dr. Jekyll, when is Mr. Hyde coming out to play?” I laughed at the confusion in his features. “I thought you were pissed at me? You don’t have friends, remember? So what the hell are you doing talking to me when I’ve made it perfectly cl
ear that’s all we’ll ever be?”
I liked Dorian, but I wouldn’t play his mind games.
“How about we keep you alive through this, then we’ll talk about a friendship,” Dorian said.
“Deal.”
*****
The plane touched down twenty minutes later. The council set off to find a hotel while Dorian and I drove back to my apartment. It was Holly’s idea that Dorian stay with me so we could practice contacting Ian and go over strategies. I wondered how Aiden would feel about Dorian staying with me, but I didn’t really have a choice. Turning my key, I
opened
the front door and inhaled the familiar scent of home. It was a far cry from the digs at the castle, but it was more my style.
The kitchen was small and blue with boring white appliances. The floor was yellowing linoleum that was only popular in the seventies. A hallway led to mine and Fiona’s bedrooms and a tiny bathroom.
The entire place was
maybe
nine hundred square feet, but it was home.
“So, this is it.” I gestured to Dorian as I let my cat out of her carrier. She was hesitant to step foot into the space, but after some coaxing, she scurried into the living room. I’d have to come up with another name for her—calling her Aura just didn’t seem right.
“It’s nice,” Dorian commented, his voice an octave higher than normal.
Turning to face him, I smiled. “It’s a piece of shit, but thanks for sparing my feelings,” I laughed.
“It really is. I’ve been in prison cells bigger than this. Isn’t your vampire taking care of you?”
I scoffed, shrugged out of my jacket and headed to the fridge. “I’m sure he would if I asked, but I’m not that type of girl. I earn my own things.” Grabbing two beers, I handed one to Dorian.
“Kudos to you, there
isn’t
a lot of independent women out there.” He took a swig of his beer and wiped his mouth, his eyes growing hungrier the longer he stared at me.
“So, what’s the plan?” After a four hour plane ride all I wanted to do was curl up in bed and sleep, but we needed to devise a
strategy
to entice Ian to meet me tonight—if he was even in the country. I didn’t want to think of having to wait for him to travel, the anticipation would drive me insane.
“I suppose we’ll work on strengthening your powers, and Aaron will meet with you tonight to teach you how to contact Ian.
Nodding, I took a drink of my beer, but it was sour in my empty stomach. The last time I ate felt like eons ago. My stomach grumbled in unison with my thoughts and Dorian smiled.
“Have any food in this shithole?”
Normally, I was embarrassed of my tiny apartment, but Dorian’s jokes about it eased my
discomfort
. I may own a store, but selling potions and enchanted items
in a town full of magical folks didn’t bring in a lot of dough.
Sure Broomsticks made enough to pay the bills and put food on the table, but that was the extent of my income. Maybe Penny’s idea for selling my goods online to boost sales would work, and I’d be able to afford name brand food.
“Um,” I mumbled as I rummaged through the cabinets. “We have vegetable soup, canned corn, green beans, and bread.” I blushed. Fiona and I kept our place well stocked, but since
we knew we’d be
in Moon, we hadn’t been grocery shopping.
“I see you have a collection of takeout menus.” Dorian nodded to the refrigerator.
“Yeah, we
sorta
keep the restaurants
in Flora in
business.”
“Why don’t you take a shower, slip into something comfortable, and I’ll order pizza.”
I eyed the
hallway;
a sudden craving
for just that
and my favorite Hello Kitty pajama pants seemed like the best thing in the world. But leaving Dorian alone while I was naked in the bathroom seemed wrong.
“Go,” Dorian said as waved his hand towards the hallway.
Putting the fact he was treating me like a child aside, I smiled and headed towards the bathroom.
Twenty minutes later, I found Dorian lounged on the sofa with a paper plate full of pepperoni pizza. My stomach complained as the aroma teased my nostrils. The TV was tuned into
Abbot and Costello’s Meet Frankenstein
.
“So this is what the Angel of Death watches, movies from the forties?” I slid a piece of pizza onto my plate and sat in the large overstuffed chair, curling my legs under me. The whole scene of eating pizza, watching Abbot and Costello, and having Dorian on my couch was surprisingly comfortable. There was something about him that put me at ease.
“This movie is hilarious. Have you seen it?”
I swallowed the hefty bite I’d just taken. “It’s one of my favorites, but I didn’t think someone like you would like something like this.”
“Someone like me?” Dorian asked. His sunglasses rested atop his head, so I had a clear view of his cloudy eyes. They were light gray today and calm, something I hadn’t seen since meeting him.
“The whole bad boy persona doesn’t scream comedy fan.” I took another bite of pizza.
Dorian gave a genuine laugh. “Bad boy? Is that what you think of me?”
Holding up a hand, I ticked off the things that qualified him for the title. “Leather coat, motorcycle, long hair, hangs out in dive bars, and one night stands, tell me how those don’t qualify you as a bad boy?”
Dorian nodded while his
smiled widened. “I guess I can’t argue with the facts, huh?”
“Nope.” I thought for a moment. “Don’t you have a job to do? Like shouldn’t you be out ferrying souls to the hereafter? That’s what reapers do, right?”
It occurred
to me Dorian wasn’t just a teacher to incompetent witches. Who did an Angel of Death take his orders from?
“I took a leave of absence. There are other reapers to pick up my slack,” Dorian explained.
I nodded and took another bite. When all of this mess was done, I’d have to grill Dorian about his job and boss. It couldn’t be a fun job going around plucking souls from bodies and trying to lead them to the ghostly realm, or wherever they went. Even though Dorian explained all spirits went to the dimension of the dead, I didn’t understand it. The few times I’d been to the there wasn’t a huge population of spirits running amok. Where were they?
“You ready to start training again?” Dorian asked.
“Do I have a choice?” I laughed. “Hey, what’s going to happen with the spirits I summoned from the vampire blood?”
“Depending on how this all turns out, they’ll be released. You
wanna
try and call them?”
I set my plate on the coffee table. “Why?” Having a horde of restless spirits in my tiny apartment didn’t seem
like a good idea
.
“So you can practice connecting with the dead,” Dorian said in a “duh” voice.
“Why couldn’t my powers have come from Midas? Now that would be a kickass talent.” Shifting in the chair so I was sitting Indian style, I rested my head in my propped up hand.
“It’d be cool for a while, until you turned your vampire into a solid gold statue. Everything that glitters isn’t gold, Gwen.”
I rolled my eyes. “Thanks for the advice, Yoda.”
Dorian ignored my sarcasm and moved the coffee table out of the way so he could sit on the floor. He held out his hand for me to join him. When I was sitting in front of him, he held out his hands, palm side up. I eyed his outstretched hands for a moment before clasping them.
“Okay, close your eyes and focus on the underlying feeling of death you’re connected to,” Dorian instructed.
I was coming to terms with being a full-fledged spirit walker, but phrases like “the death you’re connect to” didn’t make me jump up and down with excitement. Who wants their superpower to be controlling spirits or jumping into a dimension that’s washed in gray, cold, and has demons hiding in the shadows? Not me, that was for damn sure, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. Complaining wouldn’t change a thing. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the gloomy darkness hovering all around me. It was getting easier and easier to recognize. Goose bumps pebbled my skin as a chill crawled through my body; I shuddered from the feel of it.
“Now send the command for the spirits to return to you,” Dorian
kept his voice low
.
“Oh, restless spirits, I command you to return to me,” I said, using my best séance voice. Squinting through one eye, I peered at Dorian
and smiled. The whole thing seemed so
hokey.
Icy tendrils traveled from Dorian’s hands to mine and the lamps flickered. My eyelids
popped
open and searched the small space. Wisps of fog-like bodies formed all around my tiny living room. Soon more than ten ghosts stood stoic and unmoving around us.
The air grew colder, my breath forming a white mist as my breathing picked up. Even the feeling of the room changed to gloomy and depressing.
“Order one to do something,” Dorian said.
“Like what?”
“Anything.”
I stared at the ghost he pointed to. It was a woman
.
Her features were undistinguishable, the ghosts looked like nothing more than gray silhouettes, but the body type gave away her sex.
“Can they speak?”
“Of course,” Dorian said.
“What’s your name?” I asked the spirit.
“Melody,” it answered in a slow and steady tone. Its voice echoed in my eardrums. She sounded so sad and lost.
“Melody, could you please push that frame over?” I kept my voice calm and even smiled for good measure. The silver picture frame on my bookcase flipped over with a loud clang. “Thank you, Melody.”
Dorian snorted. “You don’t have to be polite, they’re under your control.”
“How would you feel if you were dead and someone had control over you?” I shook my head with irritation.
“Just because their dead doesn’t mean they don’t deserve my respect.”
The ghosts wavered like a gloomy
optical illusion
as they hovered all around the room.
“Order another one,” Dorian said, ignoring my previous comment.
I bit my lip while my eyes traveled over the translucent bodies. I stopped on another female. Her head was hung and her hands clasped in front of her.
“You,” I said as I got up from the floor and walked with
caution towards her. The woman lifted her head slow
. The area where her eyes would be was nothing but round circles. I fought to keep eye contact with something so freaky. I didn
’t want to appear weak around the
spirits who may or may not resent me for summoning them.
“What’s your name?” I asked to the spirit.
“Rosella.” Her voice was soft and came out as a whisper.
“Ask her who killed her,” Dorian said behind me.
Looking back at Rosella, I asked, “Who killed you?”
The vials of vampire blood were supposedly from the vampires who were dangerous, so I didn’t expect her answer to mean anything to me. They were ones who killed my kind for the simple fact of harvesting our blood. I didn’t know why Dorian wanted me to ask the question.
“Alonzo
Moretti
,” Rosella answered.
My body froze, along with the blood in my veins. Out of all the names she could have said I did not expect her to say Aiden’s given name. I wasn’t stupid, I knew Aiden killed before, but to see his victim standing in my living room so sad and alone was a whole other ballpark—one that put things into perspective. The Aiden I knew wasn’t a murderous monster. The Aiden, or Alonzo, Rosella met was.
I stared wide eyed at Rosella as I imagined Aiden sinking his fangs into her neck and ending her life long before it should have ended. I imagined what her family must have gone through losing her, and more
disturbing
, I wondered if she was just a woman on the street he’d attacked, or if he wooed her with his charm, gained her trust, and then killed her. Either way it didn’t matter, she was dead and my boyfriend was the reason why. Staring at her felt like an omen. Would I end up like her someday? Would
Aiden not be able to suppress his hunger for my blood and drain me? This was a crack in the otherwise happy world I’d painted around Aiden. The
big
question was, would the crack cause it to come shattering down around me?