Darkling (6 page)

“Tomorrow you will train in the morning and in the afternoon.” Then he left.

I stood in the empty gym for a while, helplessly. Gathering my thoughts and my stuff, I left with an undefined feeling. No one was waiting for me outside the gym, but I managed to find the way back to my room.

I caught a glimpse of Julia on the couch as I stormed through the living room to my room, where I threw myself on the bed and started to cry. After some time, I heard knocking but didn’t answer. The door opened and Julia sat on my bed and put her hand on my back, comforting me. She was quiet while I wept. After I had calmed down a bit, she spoke.

“You know you’re not alone in this, Nika. We all went through the same.”

I knew that and it did make me feel better somehow. I propped myself on one elbow. She arranged the pillows so I could lean on them, and she moved next to me. She picked up the catalogues on the bedside table.

“Oh, I think you’ll like Lena’s choice of brands.” She grinned at me but I only looked at her.

“There’s a lots of tight jeans, just like you like them.”

I nodded, not thinking about the clothes.

“And there are some awesome nightlife outfits. Hot and elegant.” I smiled when she said “hot.” She read off a bunch of brands; some I knew, but most not. Julia played around, choosing shirts and jeans and pairing them with the clothes. She kept asking my opinion, trying to lighten my mood. After a while I felt like she had kind of succeeded.

“Thank you.” I said, looking into her soft blue eyes.

“It’s going to get easier with each day. And if it doesn’t you can always leave. No one will keep you here against your will, hon. That’s why they give a trial month before you sign the contract.” She brushed back a strand of my hair. “If it helps, I’ve been here for four years and they’ve been nothing but fair to us. Nothing bad has happened to me or anyone else.”

“Did you spend all four years here?”

“I did, but that’s up to your Vocati and what you have to do to get close to him. Tibor and Gustavo travel a lot. But I guess their M.O. is different. Also, they’ve been working here much longer than the rest of us.”

“So you’re stuck here. Like a voluntary prison.”

“Well, not really. I have four weeks’ vacation.”

My face clearly showed surprise.

“What, you didn’t know?”

Still confused I shook my head.

“When you accept the contract you become an employee of Gazini, Inc., so the whole legal package comes with it—bank accounts, social security—the whole shebang. Vacation time as well.” My surprise amused her. “You’ve really been thinking of this place as the gallows or a torture chamber, haven’t you?”

I shrugged. I hadn’t been thinking anything except that the idea of the vacation was a nice novelty and somehow made things more bearable.

“Julia, can a couple of vampires make a baby?” The thought suddenly struck me.

“No, they are impotent.”

“So romance is always with a human?”

“It used to be. Nowadays things have changed. They often turn to their own race for emotional support and pay some human girl to bear their children. Our women have changed as well: they’re colder than before and easily accept different arrangements. The number of vampires is drastically declining. Since they can’t reproduce enough, they easily become Vocati targets. They are becoming the victims of their own laws, so to speak.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know much, but the word around here is that Baldur’s ideas are more progressive than the other Elders.”

Chapter 4

Blow

I had woken up two hours earlier and didn’t feel much like training. I was standing in front of him holding the sport bag, way too tired and sleepy to feel any of the usual fears.

“Why aren’t you ready?” he asked, firm and sharp. I didn’t understand what he meant.

“Or do you just like undressing in front of me?”

Yawning, at first, I didn’t catch his words, but a second later my face was drowned in redness.
Oh, God!
I couldn’t control that much embarrassment, so I lowered my gaze. I felt his eyes staring at me for a couple more long seconds, then he walked away, turning his back on me, leaving me to my immoral dressing room.
I’m such an idiot.
I mean, really, what was I thinking? Why the hell didn’t I change in my room?! I remembered Tibor’s “lamb” comment and felt about ready to release one huge
baaaaaaaa
—which would be definitely be more appropriate because since I’d arrived, I’d clearly forgotten how to use my brain. So much for my vast intelligence!

But, could anyone blame me? I mean, using logic in
this
place? Apparently, an adjustment period was necessary.

This time he was dressed in dark sport pants.

“Warm-up jacket’s on the bench.”

“I don’t need it.”

“Yes, you do. We’re going outside.”

If I had imagined a pleasant little stroll around the front yard, or the possibility of any pleasantries on Belun’s part, I was soon to be disappointed. . But at least rocks weren’t flying my way like they were in that hideous dream. He was silent as he ran beside me, speaking only to order me to run faster—or not to lag behind. And, yes, that was my morning glory: running through the darkness of woods. To run, run, and run some more. No one can match me in my loathing for running. I am good at sprints, but this—it was cruel. Very soon I was exhausted, but even though I was clearly suffering, he made me run more. And then some more.

Mister “Best Warrior” babysitting someone who sucked at any and all physical activities. Oh, and based on my reactions and poor word choice, he probably thought I was mentally challenged as well. Great. Maybe that’s why he didn’t look so pissed; because, really, how pissed can you get at a handicapped person?

Until that morning, I hadn’t realized how little daylight there was in the place. I mean, it’s not like it was dark all the time, but the sun just doesn’t cross the horizon. Mornings started late and there was only a little light that lasted until lunchtime. I quickly got used to the halls, the underground connections, and the artificial light; the same for the darkness that smoked through the windows. I could not get used to cold, however.

It was pretty dark on the morning run, but the path through the woods was illuminated by some white light that didn’t cast any shadows. It cut through the darkness just enough for me to see the path in front of me. But I couldn’t catch sight of the sky through the trees, or the line where the woods end and skyline begins.

“Tell me when you’re actually ready to run.”

I frowned, a huge pain in my gut. I was running!

Of course, the unbearable ache cut off any efforts to speed up, or at least maintain an acceptable tempo. But even though I was on the verge of both weeping and yelling, the fear hadn’t left my body.

We came to a clearing that had some wooden training equipment and he made me exercise on each piece. At this point I could barely breathe or move any of my limbs, let alone manage the coordination necessary for these tasks.

However, the torture ended soon enough. I guess. When we finally turned around, I was so drained that I couldn’t even manage the slightest of jogs. But even walking, he made me extend my step. We were silent all the way back to the indoor training arena.

“Here at six.” And he was gone.

Left alone, I couldn’t do anything more than lay sprawled out on the floor. Everything ached. I didn’t even have strength to drag the mat back. For something like fifteen minutes, I couldn’t feel my body; I just felt completely hollow. The wall clock said that I had less than an hour until my Psych class, which meant that I had to hurry and shower if I wanted to eat. Yes, breakfast—I needed it after this morning’s torture.

Julia was by the entrance of the dining room with some blond vampire guy who looked younger than she, and they were laughing. When she caught sight of me, she waved me over.

“Let me introduce you.”

Blond guy was tall and hot and he stared at me with a peculiar interest.

“Nika this is Set, my team leader.”

Great—she was having fun with hers and I had to scrape my body off the floor with mine! Set offered his hand, and although I wasn’t thrilled to touch him, his skin was surprisingly silky smooth. No jolts slammed through my body like they did when I shook hands with
my
team leader. So it wasn’t like that when you touched all vampires! This hand was normal, and even pleasant in its softness.

“Nice to meet you, Nika. There’s a lot of expectations of you and your team,” he said with a grin.

“I wasn’t aware of that.”

“How could you not be? You have a big beast to tame.”

They both laughed, but I didn’t follow the joke. There was nothing fun about that.

“I’m going to eat,” I said, heading toward the huge food table.

It felt like I was starting to be myself again; I had managed to speak with a strange vampire without shattering into pieces or making a complete idiot out of myself. I wasn’t exactly comfortable with the whole thing, but at least I wasn’t feeling like a poor little lamb anymore either. On the other hand, I might have been too exhausted to feel anything at all.

At least I could actually concentrate on the food this time; I got a couple of waffles and a huge bowl of fruit salad. I wasn’t sure I could eat it all, but I was starving.

I glanced at where Julia had been, but I saw only her team leader—staring right back at me. I was curious as to why he was so interested, and wondered what kind of interest it actually was. I stared at him for some time, too—completely unselfconsciously.

Oh my God!!

Eye-locked with a vampire!!

And the fear was back! I looked away immediately hoping there would be no misunderstanding, but my spine was tingling. Just what I needed: another problem with a vampire. I locked eyes with my salad bowl, and headed away as fast as I could.

In full flee, I bumped into someone and muttered apologies without looking up. Then I saw Blake and Tibor already eating in what seemed to be their regular spot.

“May I?”

“Hey, Lamb, no need to ask.” Tibor grinned and Blake joined him.

It was nice to be near positive and polite people. Humans, preferably.

“I thought you didn’t breakfast,” Blake said.

“I do after hour and a half of killing myself running,”

“That explains the appetite.” Tibor nodded at my salad bowl. I smiled a little.

“So, where’s the sun?” I asked

“You won’t see it until mid-January,” Blake said, and I choked.

“Lamb, it’s the Arctic Circle. You’re only a couple of miles from the North Pole.”

That actually sounded cool, if you forgot about the lack of the sun, and the cold.

“Don’t you find your way around!” Julia approached the table. “I’m sorry, I had to finish some things.” She sat next to me with a small bowl of cereal.

“No problem.” I wondered if she had something with the blond guy. True, he looked younger, but maybe when she arrived four years ago the difference wasn’t visible. He was her team leader, they’d probably spent a lot of time together—maybe some romance had developed. Then I thought of my team leader and shivered.

“How was your training?” she asked.

“Terrible.”

They all chuckled. I wished I could just go back to bed. Then I remembered that I hadn’t gotten through the book Mr. Matthews had given me and felt a sting of guilt. He would have to go through the chapters with me as if I were an illiterate idiot.

Several tables away, I noticed Lyndon, alone. There was room for one more at our table. Had I taken her seat or something?

“Why’s Lyndon sitting alone?”

The rest of them exchanged looks.

“She’s like that sometimes,” Blake answered vaguely.

I must have had a huge neon question mark plastered across my forehead, but they all chose to ignore it. Which probably only made it brighter. I watched Lyndon for a while. She didn’t make eye contact with anyone, just looked through the window or at her food. She wore jeans and a brown button-up shirt, and besides the fact that she was sitting alone, nothing seemed out of ordinary.

Soon enough I had to leave the small oasis of human laughter and hurry over to Psychology class.

My knocking was again futile, so I just entered. There was another “Welcome” note, giving instructions for the black helmet and weird elbow length gloves with microchips that had been left on the desk. I put them on, as instructed, and waited to respond to images that would be played on a screen inside the helmet. At first it wasn’t very promising; the helmet fell down to the bridge of my nose and the gloves gave my hands weird tickling sensations. It was more uncomfortable than I’d imagined.

Then the images started. Honestly, I had expected the worst; but they began with some flowers and pets, leaving me dreading the horrors that could be coming. Each image stayed up for only a couple of milliseconds, so there were like a zillion of them—I tried to relax so the results would be more accurate. After all, that’s probably what they wanted, right? To trick the careful mind by relaxing it with nice, gentle images first. I wondered if it was the same strategy that the slick vamps used, because if anyone could wait to get you, it was certainly them.

Lots of images flew by. Different eyes, looks, signs and symbols, ordinary people in motion and then still. Some faces of porcelain dolls, different colors, weapons and transportations. The last image thanked me for my patience, and then everything went black. I took off the equipment and took ten minutes to regain the balance between my thoughts and static view. Next came Matthews.

“I’m sorry, but today you’re going to have to review with me.”

“Tough training?” he arched his eyebrow, and I nodded.

“Let’s get started then.”

Thankfully, he didn’t seem disappointed by my lack of enthusiasm, and began to roll out the vampire/human parallel history.

“Our world revolves around the respect of our laws and our hierarchy. At the top of the pyramid are five Elders who come from ancient times; three of them were the first amongst us. Our governing body is the Council, which is composed of the five Elders and the six noble families who are directly descended from them; at least that is how it used to be. Now that some of the families no longer exist, the Council has an even number of voters, and in the case that the votes are close, some neutral family is chosen by draft. However, the need for this is very rare, almost nonexistent.”