Nevermore, the Complete Series (73 page)

Our relaxing outing together had quickly been ruined by my stubbornness, but we were greeted by Ezra when we returned home. That temporarily made me set aside the feelings I had over Salem’s lack of agreement with my plans.

“How are you, lovely Alexis?” Ezra asked and gave me an unexpected hug.

“I’m okay,” I replied, hoping he couldn’t tell I had been crying. “Where’s Hannah?”

“She left abruptly to see someone at the restaurant…I was sort of hoping you would be willing to stop and check on her. I don’t feel comfortable entering such an establishment; otherwise I would do it myself.”

I glanced at Salem and he looked away. Neither of us wanted me to return there. “Do you think something is wrong?” he asked, obviously concerned about his sister.

“She has been behaving unusual after seeing someone there that she felt some sort of unfamiliar connection to.”

“I know who she’s talking about. There was a woman there earlier, and Hannah was almost in a trance when she saw her,” I explained. “I’ll go check on her, just to make sure everything is okay…do you mind taking me there, Ezra?”

“Of course not,” he smiled. I was very relieved that Hannah had taken the time to teach Ezra how to operate a vehicle. I never understood why Salem refused to.

“Salem, I will be back soon. I promise.”

“That isn’t a promise you can keep.”

“I will come back.” I kissed him on the cheek and followed Ezra out the door and into the car.

When we arrived at the restaurant, Ezra stayed in the parking lot while I entered the building. The man at the door no longer needed to identify me, but he still cast a shield over me to protect me from being sensed as a mortal among the vampires. The place was a lot more cramped than usual—there were guests occupying every single available table and chair.

I scoured the room quickly, glancing over every customer until I spotted the familiar woman in the red cocktail dress. Sure enough, sitting across the room at a different table was Hannah, her eyes locked on this stranger. My feet led me directly over to my sister-in-law’s table and I waved my hand in front of her face to get her attention.

“What are you doing here, Alex?” she grumbled and tried to push me out of the way.

“Ezra is worried about you and asked me to check up on you.”

“He has nothing to worry about. I’m a big girl; I can take care of myself. Besides, I’m not doing anything that’s going to get me into any trouble. This woman…she’s just…I don’t know. Something about her is so…familiar. I just can’t figure it out.”

“Why don’t you just go say hi?”

“I can’t do that…”

“Of course you can. Tell her she looked familiar, and if it turns out you don’t know her, then apologize and come back over here.”

Hannah considered the thought for a moment and shrugged. “I guess it couldn’t hurt.”

I watched her leave the table and stride over to the unfamiliar woman. Their voices were almost mute, but I could make out a few words here and there. Her name was Viola, and she had come here from her hometown to experience the ‘famous restaurant known as Varias’ after hearing so many great things from fellow vampires. As soon as they touched hands in a simple handshake, Hannah’s eyes glazed over momentarily and I knew at once that she was experiencing a vision of some sort. She drew back her hand and stumbled backwards. I took the opportunity to move in closer in order to hear them more clearly.

“You…” she said in a hushed voice and shook her head in disbelief.

“Have we met somewhere, doll?” Viola asked and my brain tried to register why her voice sounded subtly familiar.

“No…I’ve never met you, but I know who you are…” Hannah was physically shaking and I couldn’t understand why—just what had she seen?

Viola laughed and smiled brilliantly up at Hannah. “Please, dear, relax and have a seat. We wouldn’t want to upset the owner, now would we?”

Hannah obliged and sat across from the woman. “How long…” she paused and attempted to steady her voice. “How long have you been alive?”

“I have been around since the 1600’s,” the woman replied calmly. “You, however, are quite younger.”

“A bit,” Hannah said as she steadied her hands. “How many vampires have you Sired over such a long span of time?”

“There have only been a few, actually,” Viola replied, seeming to be intrigued by Hannah’s questions. “I tend to get caught up in it, you know? I mean to say that it is extremely hard not to bleed them dry. You must know what I mean.
The blood running fresh from a vein, filling your body with the warmth of the living….mmm.” Her tongue traced across her rosy red lips as she relished the idea.

“Do you remember them all?”

“I do. Let’s see…there was the twin girls in London. They were my firsts. I always wanted sisters. After they turned though they fled off on their own, can you believe it?” She looked annoyed but soon continued. “Then there was this one man in Wales. I can still see him so clearly—drunk and stupid, lying there in the alleyway. He practically begged me to kill him. I hadn’t planned to turn him, honestly…but was interrupted half way through that meal. He no doubt recovered to a shocking realization.” She laughed loudly

Her laughter made Hannah cringe. “He did.”

“Oh? And how would you know that?”

“The man’s name was Daniel Winter. He was the father of a three year old girl…you took his happiness away from him. You killed a potentially wonderful father and turned him into a monster,
who in turn turned me into this.”

“I don’t even know what you are blabbering about, dollface. The man I was killing wasn’t happy. And if he was a father he looked like a piss-poor one to me.”

“He was my father!” Hannah clenched onto the edge of the table, her long nails sinking into the wood.

The woman laughed lightly. “How is it you have come to know all this? And how did you find me? You couldn’t have even known what I looked like.”

“Daniel kept me as a human child until I was old enough to be Sired. He held onto enough of his love for me to keep me alive, despite the constant urge to kill me. We could have had a happy, normal life together…but instead, we became murderers…and it’s all thanks to you.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing…but the more I focused on Viola, the more I could connect her to the vague memory I had from Raziel sharing it with me. Her voice was a definite match. What surprised me most was that Hannah was being so open about her true feelings—things that even I wasn’t aware of. I had thought for the longest time that she enjoyed her life as a vampire, that she didn’t care about losing her mortality like Salem had…was this all just a front to conceal her true feelings from us? She was just playing tough when deep down, she was still a hurt little girl that needed comfort.

“That still doesn’t answer everything.”

“He shared visions with me. It has been so long…I could barely remember where I knew you from until we touched. Then I saw everything.”

“Well congratulations, you found me. But so what? The past is done, doll. We can’t relive it.”

“I relive it every day!” she growled and launched herself on top of Viola, knocking over the table in the process. Her hands firmly gripped onto the other vampire’s and I knew at once that she was sending images into Viola’s mind. Imagining what she was seeing sent shivers down my spine—it reminded me all too much of the night Raziel nearly took my life and shared with me the memories of Hannah and Salem’s childhood—the day they lost their home, their parents, and essentially their lives.

My eyes cast down upon my expanding stomach and I wondered about the child’s future. There would be no more hunting for me after it was born, there would be no talk of vampires or hunting…none of those details had to be known. I wanted the child to live a happy life without conflict. I would not let my baby’s life turn out like Hannah’s…or mine. The more I looked down at myself, the more I realized that the vampires here would no doubt be aware of my mortality by the fact that I was pregnant and vampires were infertile…did the shield surrounding me prevent them from seeing this?

Viola tugged away from Hannah, and none of the surrounding vampires seemed to care or notice that there was a feud going on beside them. It was probably fairly normal for fights to occur, considering the temperaments that most vampires possessed—the only thing that surprised me was that no one was whisking them away from the restaurant for disturbing the rest of the customers. Then again, they really weren’t disturbing anyone.

“I didn’t know!” Viola shrieked as Hannah slid a slender, sharp nail across her cheek. “He was just a drunk! He wanted to die!”

“He was my father!” Hannah repeated again and exposed her fangs.

“Now, now, Hannah…we wouldn’t want to cause a scene, and you are tempting my patience now,” Viola said with a sneer. “Can you not just take an apology and accept that what’s done is done?”

“No,” she growled. “Apologizing won’t give back everything I have lost.”

“We all lose things, dear, there is nothing anyone can do about that. If it hadn’t been for me, you would have lost him years ago.”

“That isn’t the point!” Hannah slammed a hard fist into Viola’s cheek and I heard something snap.

The scream of agony was ignored by everyone else. Viola spat blood onto the floor beside her and pushed Hannah off of her. “You just couldn’t leave it alone, could you? You will beg for death just like your father did—I am not one to mess with!”

The words hit Hannah just as she had hoped, but it only infuriated her more. I hadn’t witnessed many vampire-on-vampire fights, as most of them were quickly ended because the opposing vampire was always stronger than the other. I couldn’t determine who was the strongest in this fight—Viola was clearly experienced and wise and had the potential to do a lot of damage if she put her mind to it. I knew Hannah’s strength firsthand and wouldn’t wish it upon anyone. She was a dangerous woman, especially now that she was consumed by rage.

Viola’s hands encircled Hannah’s throat tightly as she pulled her up from the ground. She slammed her opponent’s body into the nearest wall and I watched in astonishment as particles of the stone chipped and fell to the ground from the sudden impact. Hannah grasped at the other vampire’s hands and pulled them away with impressive strength.

“Your father must have taught you well,” Viola noted with a sly grin. “Where is he now?”

Hannah leapt over Viola and tackled her from behind, pinning her firmly to the ground. “He’s dead,” she seethed.

“Good,” the woman replied with another grin. “It’s fortunate for him that he won’t be here to witness what a failure you’ve become.”

There was something nagging at me, telling me that I should be in there intervening, protecting Hannah from this woman…yet I also knew that she wouldn’t want me to. This was her battle. And besides, I could not risk the life of my unborn child.

“I am just upset he won’t be here to see me killing the bitch that ruined his life!” Hannah snarled and pulled Viola’s head up by a chunk of her hair. She exposed her fangs again, leaning in to her opponent’s throat, ready to strike.

My eyes were wide in awe until the sound of cracking bones reached my ears and Hannah was flung across the room. Viola had reached back and hit her hard in the ribs with her elbow. Hannah writhed in pain on the linoleum but she wasn’t about to give up. Viola sprung to her side and grinned sinisterly down upon her.

“What was that you said about killing me?” she teased.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a figure descending from the stairs, but I paid little attention to who it might be. My focus was solely on Hannah and her enemy.

Hannah gasped as Viola revealed a thin dagger from underneath the folds of her dress.

“Did you know that I like to play with my food before I eat it? I had parents once too…and they always told me it was a bad habit. But mommy and daddy aren’t here for either of us now, huh?”

Hannah struggled underneath Viola’s weight, thrashing her head back and forth as the vampire attempted to strike at her. I winced as the blade of the dagger caressed the side of her throat and a gush of blood streamed out of the open wound. She held back her cry of agony by biting down on her own lip and attempted to push Raziel’s Sire off of her but it was no use.

“Say hello to your drunkard Daddy when you see him in Hell,” Viola chuckled and bent down, licking at the blood on Hannah’s throat before baring her own fangs.

“NO!” I shouted and ran to them. Attempt after attempt, I pulled against Viola’s body and failed to pull her away. She laughed in amusement at my failure and turned on me. I was glad to have at least gained her attention, despite the glare that Hannah shot in my direction. “Can’t you two just settle this in another way?”

“I’m afraid not,” Viola answered and looked me over. “I didn’t know they let humans who weren’t on the menu in here—this place isn’t nearly as classy as I had imagined.”

“You can see through my shield?”

Viola laughed once more. “Your little fortune teller friend here isn’t the only one with gifts.”

This was bad—no, it was more than bad—I had exposed myself to a vampire for what I really was, and there was no doubt in my mind that the other undead in the restaurant could hear her, regardless if they had been ignoring the raging battle or not.