Secret Worlds (42 page)

“Yeah. Read about him in the news when I was in high school. I think the whole country heard. Surely you know all about it. You lived here when it happened. It was the media-mystery of the century! Who’s dead body is found surrounded by so much of their own blood, without a single wound on their body? People
still
talk about his murder.”

Some people still thought about it, too. Thought about how he’d been standing outside with a cigarette burning down between his fingers, smoke billowing from his mouth as though he were breathing into the cold, while they snuck into his store to fill a large paper bag with food.

I’d known stealing was illegal. I wanted to feed the runaway girl I’d met down by the tracks. Get her help. I couldn’t have stolen from Mother’s cupboard or asked even asked her for the money. I feared Mother might try to ‘help’ that girl in all the wrong ways. Mother might not consider the girl’s situation. The abuse. The girl’s stepfather, and the things he’d done. But none of those things excused my actions.

As I’d been sneaking out the back near the dumpsters, Mr. Petrenko saw me. He hollered and started after me, but then he was bleeding, and thoughts were tumbling in my mind—
You have to die, you have to die, you have to die—
and I told myself those couldn’t be my thoughts, but then he was dead on the ground and it was only me in that parking lot.

I don’t know what happened. I just know I didn’t kill him.

I couldn’t have.

I swallowed and forced myself to speak. “Murdered in front of his own store. I doubt anyone will forget.”

“People don’t notice the Cruor because they don’t believe in them. They’ve never seen them, or, if they have, they know to keep their mouths shut.” She started to brush the other side of my hair. “You’d be wise to do the same.”

“Are you saying a Cruor killed Mr. Petrenko?”

“As good a guess as any.”

“Why didn’t he have any wounds?” I asked, though I knew that wasn’t true. He’d had them, at least when I’d seen him die. They were just gone by the time the cops arrived.

“Alls I know is, Adrian’s blood healed you. His own wrist healed in mere moments. You saw, right? Well, they can also seal smaller wounds with their saliva. Small wounds…like punctures to the main artery in the neck.”

“How can you be sure? It could have been—” Been what? A human? Me? I’d been there, and I hadn’t seen him killed by any Cruor. I hadn’t seen what killed him, or who. I’d just seen him alive one second and dead the next.

“Can’t say for sure.” She smoothed long strands of hair away from my face. The brush scraped through my shirt and snagged on my bra strap. I winced, and Ivory eased up. “But isn’t it strange?”

I guess she hadn’t heard I’d been there when it happened. I’d never talked to her about it. Heck, she didn’t even know about how my mom died. Ivory was a private person, and maybe that was why she never asked many questions.

Across the room, a beaded lamp with fringe the color of paprika dimmed. One of the tassels swayed, as though a breeze had passed through. Pinpricks of cold spotted up my arm and neck, but when I blinked again, the tassel had stilled. I forced myself back to conversation, making an effort to keep my tone light.

I couldn’t talk about Mr. Petrenko anymore, but silence would make my discomfort too obvious. Thankfully I wasn’t lacking in the things-to-say department.

“Does Charles always stalk people?” I asked.

“Charles? Stalk people?” Ivory let out a bark of laughter. She combed her fingers through my hair a few times, springing my curls back to life. “Why would you even ask?”

“I saw him outside my window one night. Then again at the woods.”

“I found you by the woods, too. Do you think
I’m
stalking you?”

Okay, so I was a paranoid, self-absorbed idiot. But I was
also
cautious.

“Ivory, do you believe one person’s life can be closely tied to another’s?”

“I do.” She stopped brushing, and I turned to face her. She was frowning. “This about Charles?”

“I’m not sure. But for a stranger, he’s been popping up in my life a lot. And at the strangest times.”

“You like him?”

“After last night…” I shrugged, trying to hide the hurt that confusion and uncertainty were pressing into my chest. “I still don’t know why he left me. I could have gone with him to get help.”

Ivory sighed, shifting her gaze out the window. “You’ll have to ask him, then.”

I turned around, and Ivory resumed brushing in silence. We shared a secret now. If the Cruor trusted her with their secrets, then I could trust her with mine. I could tell her about the voices.

“About the whole Cruor-thing.” My hands were shaking, but I held them tight in my lap, doing little more than causing my shoulders to tremble instead.

“I said I’m sorry. You need to understand why I didn’t tell you. And don’t just
say
you do, because you need to keep it a secret for the same reasons.”

“I do understand. There’s something I’ve been keeping from you, too.”

“There…is?” She nearly stumbled over the two words, her voice smaller than usual.

The Cruor’s existence defied explanation, just like my curse. Ivory might be the only one who would understand. The only one who might accept me even knowing about the voices. “Remember the positive energy ritual I told you about? A few weeks back?”

She nodded.

“Well, ever since, I’ve been hearing these voices—”

The hairbrush paused. Ivory’s voice came out clipped and quiet. “What kind of voices?”

I shouldn’t have said anything. Obviously feeding on blood was fine. Seeing auras was acceptable. But no matter what ‘world’ you lived in, hearing voices meant you were crazy.

“Nothing,” I said, closing my eyes against the hurt. “Anyway, they’re gone now. Probably just stress or something.”

“Maybe.” She dropped the brush on the bed. “We should get you home.”

***

ON THE RIDE HOME, we passed yards of grass covered in frost. A finger unable to move less than three hours ago flicked the car lock back and forth with ease. How powerful was Cruor blood? Could it cure cancer?

“Will you be there for Samhain?” I asked, blurting the first thing that came to mind. Blurting anything, really, that might break the silence between us. Though the Sabbat was still nearly two months away, it was present in my mind as the best chance to speak directly with my ancestor’s spirit. I hadn’t given up on that, even if the voices were on vacation.

“Sure.” Ivory’s eyes didn’t break from the road.

“Ivory—”

“I said I will. Okay?” She pulled in front of my house. Her hands gripped the steering wheel, eyes straight ahead.

With Ivory not bothering to look at me, I felt as though she’d already driven away. “You gonna tell me what’s wrong?”

“What’s the point?”

“Ivory, it’s not like you weren’t keeping something from me, too.”

Her eyes watered, and her jaw tensed. “I knew someone who heard voices.” Her face swung toward me, her expression full of a hate and anger I couldn’t place and couldn’t bring myself to ask her about. The raw emotion made me flinch.

“I—I’m sorry.” I swallowed, but my mouth and throat only became drier. “Are they okay now?”

“They’re dead. So what do you think?”

I didn’t know what else to say. “I guess I’d…better get going. See you soon?”

“Yeah, see you.”

As soon as I stepped out of her car, she tore off down the road. I was an idiot. No matter how close I was to anyone, no matter what secrets they shared with me, I’d be foolish to think they’d accept my problems.

My breath formed clouds in the air. It’d gotten cold so fast. Too cold for mid-September. This would be one of Colorado’s early winters. And, with the way things were going, one of the loneliest.

Pushing my emotions away, I faced my house. Another flash of Adrian’s life played before my eyes: a dual grave arrangement. The image cut off before revealing the names on the headstones. Something in my head
popped,
and a pressure on my mind released.

Please let that be the end of that
.

As I opened the front door and hung my coat in the closet, Red chirped, bringing a smile to my face but somehow making me sadder at the same time. I headed to the kitchen, where my yellow, pink, and purple lupines wilted in their vase on the windowsill from too much sun and not enough water. It felt like weeks had passed since I’d been home, but it hadn’t even been twenty-four hours.

“I haven’t forgotten you,” I said to my little cardinal. “You need fresh water.”

After refilling Red’s tray, I headed to my bedroom. All the thoughts and feelings I’d been avoiding charged at me. How many people knew about the Cruor? How many people had died at their hands?

I plopped down on my bed and stared at the ceiling. Dust piled like dark clouds on the blades of the motionless fan above, but instead of grabbing some cleaner and a rag, I just stared, wondering at the intensity of the stale odor the dust created in my room.

Being Wiccan, I believed in the energy of the earth, of the gods and goddesses…but vampire-like creatures? It wasn’t as though being Wiccan was synonymous with believing in things such as UFOs or thinking Elvis was still alive. Having faith in one thing didn’t mean I had to have faith in
everything
.

Yet, what choice did I have? Today I’d learned vampires
were
real. There was no erasing that—no ignoring what Adrian had proven to me only hours earlier.

With a sudden burst of energy, I darted across my room to grab my Book of Shadows. I gripped it tightly, staring at the brown leather and the black, scripted letters and the pentacle’s imprint on the front cover. I flipped through to a blank page, took my black ink pen, and, trying to stop my hands from shaking, transcribed all I’d learned onto the parchment.

I shut my book, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. Great. I knew more about their world than most people, but still had no answers about my ancestor.

Though the noise was gone from my mind, the empty space where it’d once been thrummed against my skull. I couldn’t give up on my ancestor. I would have to look into the book’s previous owners of the book Paloma gifted me. I’d run a search on the address after sleeping away the sickness roiling in my stomach over everything I’d learned.

When I finally drifted to sleep, the nightmares returned: Elizabeth’s court document tumbling in a cold breeze through the dirt roads of a Puritan settlement. A noose cutting into her neck. My ancestor kicking her legs and digging her nails against the rope, looking around for someone—anyone—but the town was quiet. Then people started gathering, shuffling with empty eyes and sluggish steps.

They’d come to watch her die.

They smiled, and moonlight glinted off their fangs.

Elizabeth’s thoughts whispered on the breeze:
Don’t tell a soul, Sophia. Don’t tell anyone of our curse
.

But the warning had come too late.

I AWOKE to dawn’s russet sky—a shepherd’s warning, some said.

I shook away the eerie fog of sleep by refreshing myself with a dose of reality: people’s hands were bound during hanging. My nightmare wasn’t real, or even reasonable for that matter.

Yesterday, though, was
not
just a bad dream.

Green electric numbers glared at me from the alarm clock on my dresser: 6:17 am. I glared back. I’d slept straight through the day and night.

Once out of bed, I stared into my open closet. Dress pants or jeans? Jack wouldn’t care if I wore jeans to work. Some of the girls never wore uniform pants.

Since when did I care?

I settled for a boho casual look: an earthy brown, cream, and green-toned mandala print top with small touches of peacock-blue and a gathered keyhole neckline. I’d never worn it before. Not wanting to hunt down the scissors, I took the tags off with my teeth. I paired the shirt with medium-wash blue jeans tucked into my Eskimo boots.

The full-length mirror mounted to the back of my bedroom door revealed no visible traces of the attack. I grabbed a hair tie off the doorknob. With the elastic in my mouth and my hands pulling my hair back, I changed my mind. Maybe I should leave my hair down. For me. Not at all because I was hoping to run into anyone. Especially not Charles.

I bustled into the kitchen and made myself a quick breakfast of toast and orange marmalade with a glass of milk.

Red chirped from the corner of the kitchen. After I changed his food and water, I slung my workbag over my shoulder and started out the door for Jack’s, but when I spotted the note taped to the inside of my front door, I froze, hand hesitating on the doorknob.

My gaze dropped to the signature first. The note was signed,
Yours Truly, Marcus
.

Heart slamming against my chest, my eyes shot up to the words above.

I yanked the note from the door, shredded it with my hands, and threw it in the trash. My heart pounded in my ears as I ran, shaking, to my Jeep. What the hell was that creep doing in my house? How did he know where I lived? How did he know about my dad, or perhaps more importantly
what
did he know about him?

What if he’d done something to me while I’d been sleeping? I swallowed, then pressed my hands against my neck and slid them over my arms. I’d feel different. I’d know, somehow. I would have to know.

I needed a way to protect myself. Ivory’s suggestions were useless if the Cruor could break into my home without my knowing. I sped to the diner, flipping open my cell as I drove.