Mirror: Book One of the Valkanas Clan (18 page)

“Yeah, you’re right, I’m sorry,” I said, laughing as I went to pour him some fresh food and water.

There was a quiet tap on my door.

“Just a sec,” I called out, swapping my pajamas for the knee-length cotton dress I’d tossed in my bag. I was tired of living in my jeans—plus today would hopefully not require rugged attire. “If you don’t mind talking to me while I brush my teeth, you’re welcome to come in now,” I added once I was fully dressed and walking towards the bathroom.

“I’m
sorry,
I hope I didn’t wake you. I thought I heard you talking to someone,” Valerie said as she entered, scanning the still unmade bed and balled up
p.j.s
.

“Oh, I
wa
’
juh
‘
alking
‘
oo
Beh-ett
,” I said around my toothbrush, hoping she understood me. I finished up quickly, rinsed my mouth out, and returned to the bedroom. “Did you need something?”

“
Mmm
?” she said, clearly distracted. She was watching Beckett eat with a faintly wistful look on her face that made me wonder why she didn’t keep a pet. “Oh, I was just going to invite you to come downstairs to join us. Damian thinks he may know how Cesar escaped and why you couldn’t sense anything at his house.”

My shoulders fell.
So much for my plans for a relaxing Saturday afternoon.
Still, it wasn’t like I could say
sorry, but I just don’t feel like talking about the guy that’s trying to capture and kill me today. How’s tomorrow look for you?
So I nodded and followed her downstairs.

Neither Sam nor Luis was with Tom and Damian in the sitting room, causing me to wonder once again just what had gotten into Sam last night. I plopped down in what I was starting to think of as "my" corner of the couch, while Valerie gracefully sank into a chair beside me. That whole effortless grace thing was clearly something I needed to work on—either that, or I could just give up blending in altogether and make myself a t-shirt that said “newbie vampire” in colorful block letters across the chest.

“I was just explaining to Valerie and Tom that I think Cesar may have found some way to bond a member of the Seelie to him. It would explain both his disappearance and the muted psychic residue in his home,” Damian said.

“A what?”
I said.

“A member of the Seelie.
It might help you to think of it as a Light Elf,” Tom said, as nonchalantly as if he’d said “a stray cat.”

“Thank you, that was so terribly helpful.” I said, resisting the urge to outright roll my eyes. “Now could someone explain to me just what ‘a Light Elf’ is? Are we talking pointy ears and magic, or have I just read too much Tolkein?”

“Tolkein?”
Damian asked. “I thought I knew all the scholars of
magick
, but this name is unfamiliar.”

Tom laughed. “He was a novelist. Don’t worry about it.”

Damian’s face scrunched in curiosity, and I could tell he was about to ask another question. I waved my hand at him in the hopes of reminding him I’d asked something first and, thankfully, it worked.

“I haven’t seen one of the fair folk in centuries. I thought they had closed all the doors to Faerie long ago, but Cesar must have found his way through one. How he could have found a way to bind one to him I do not know—their magic is a wild and uncertain thing, not easily tamed, and I have never heard of our hypnotic powers working on a—what did you call it, Thomas?” Damian asked.

“A Light Elf,” Tom repeated.

“Ah, I see. Yes, I like that: descriptive and simple.” Damian smiled. “But as I was saying, the presence of a ‘Light Elf’ is the most logical explanation for what happened. Somehow, the elf must have pulled him into Faerie. In order to hide the trail, the elf would have had to dampen all magical
residue
in the area, which would explain why everything felt so oddly empty to you.”

My brain refused to catch up with this new information.
Elves?
Faerie?
Acts of magic? I’d assumed my clairsentience was something like a cellular mutation, something that gave me extra-sensory input that resembled magic only in the way that a dog’s extra range of hearing might have seemed magical to people thousands of years ago. Even discovering vampires were real hadn't caused me to believe in full out magic. But to hear someone say there were elves, and magic, and some kind of parallel realm to our world—well, it could sink only so far in before my mind simply decided to ignore it in favor of more immediate concerns.

“So if Cesar has this…elf…working for him that can pull him into, uh, wherever, does that mean he could pop him back out here, in your house, to attack us at any time?” I asked.

“Possibly, but doubtful,” Damian said. “I am not an expert in these matters—even when elves were more common in this world I didn’t have cause to know very many, especially not the Light Elves. They find the vampires taste for blood
distasteful
.” His mouth quirked wryly on the last word, and I wondered what private joke he was sharing with himself. “I have no idea how a vampire as young as Cesar could have encountered one, much less bound it.”

“How are you so certain it’s a Light
Elf,
and that it’s bound?” Valerie asked. “Couldn’t he have found one of the Dark to work with him voluntarily? They feed off suffering, after all, and I don't think Cesar would mind creating plenty of suffering if it helped him achieve more power.”

“Again, possible, but not likely.
To keep a Dark Elf well fed enough to make it worth
its
while to work with Cesar, there would have been too much pain inflicted in that house for even a dampening spell to erase. Alyson would have felt something,” Damian said.

Tom got up and began pacing around the room.

“Are you sure,” he paused, looked at me,
then
looked away. I raised an eyebrow at him, wondering what he was about to say. “Are you sure you should be basing your hypothesis on
Aly’s
skills? She’s pretty new to
all this,
after all.”

I tried to catch Tom's gaze to let him know I was perfectly fine with his assessment—I was more inclined to agree with him than Damian on this one, anyway—but he wouldn't look my way again.

“That’s a fair point,” I said. “I have no control over any of these abilities—they appear and disappear at random.”

“I spent too much time with Dorothy to believe it random," Damian said. "You would have felt something; I am sure of it.”

“So why wouldn’t a Light Elf work with Cesar voluntarily?” I asked.

“They feed from tranquility and happiness,” Damian said. “They are potent
empaths
, such that being around suffering causes them to experience it as keenly as the one in pain. A Light Elf could only be with Cesar by force, and would be desperate to break the bond. Being surrounded by that kind of misery would literally kill it eventually.”

“Then why would it go to the trouble of rescuing Cesar after you’d done it the favor of paralyzing him?” I asked.

Valerie broke her silent observation of Damian, who was staring so intently at the floorboards I almost expected them to burst into flames.

“We haven’t been able to figure that out,” she said.

 
I was frustrated, and suddenly cranky,
all of my
dream-induced good mood having evaporated over the course of this conversation.

 
“Do you all mind if I head back upstairs to get some work done?" I asked. "I’m not doing much good here.”

 
Tom looked up at me, startled, but Valerie simply nodded.

I only had a few more reading responses left. Then I just needed to check my email to make sure there weren’t any more student questions about my absences, and maybe put a bit of thought into that presentation I’d been avoiding. Usually, reading fifteen variations of “I don’t know what to say about this book because…” over and over was enough to make me scream, but I was actually finding a return to my routine kind of soothing. Granted, that relaxation could be a reaction to the fact that I was sitting in a giant tub with wonderful pulsing jets, but I wasn’t one to take a good thing for granted. Especially since it was the first time I’d felt normal in days.

I didn’t even feel guilty anymore about walking out on the conversation that Damian, Valerie, and Tom were having about elf lore and binding rituals. It wasn’t like I’d had anything to contribute but kindergarten level questions, and, unlike them, I did still have a job to do that didn't revolve around blood or magic.

I tossed the pile of finished responses far enough away from the tub to prevent them getting wet, and then I sunk down, closing my eyes and submerging myself completely. The jets beat against my back and neck, feeling indescribably wonderful. I rested underwater, taking a sudden and unexpected delight in the fact that I no longer had to breathe if I didn’t want to. It was strange not to hear any rushing in my ears or feel a tightening in my chest. For the first time in days, maybe even in months, I felt completely and fully relaxed.

Eventually the urge to finish up my obligations took over, though, and I regretfully slid above the surface of the water, pushing my damp hair out of my face and wiping my eyes.

“I haven’t felt peace like that in a long time. Thank you,” a voice said, and I whipped my head to the right to see a slender, androgynous looking woman with creamy skin and short strawberry blonde hair slumped somehow gracefully within the shower stall. Within a split second her face changed from tranquility to pain, and it curled into a ball. “Oh, please, stop. I’ve been around too much fear already.”

Her reaction piqued my curiosity, and my fear died down. As it faded, the look of pain on her face eased, and she slowly uncurled.

“Are you…a Light Elf?” I said, feeling ridiculous.

She nodded. “My name is Marielle. I apologize for disturbing you. He only gives me brief periods of time to replenish myself, and yours was the most peaceful feeling I have detected in a long time, so I jumped here directly.
Again, my apologies.”

“He?”

“You would know him as Cesar.”

Damn. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me, since Damian said he hadn’t seen or heard of any Light Elves in so long. Still, even knowing she worked for Cesar, I couldn’t bring myself to fear her. Her fatigue and pain were so obvious that I couldn’t believe she posed any immediate threat to me. I sighed, and tried to focus on feeling peaceful again, hoping she’d be more likely to stay and answer my questions if she was getting the sustenance she needed. I leaned back against the tub wall to keep my body fully submerged—I wasn’t hugely modest, but still—and the jets certainly made it easier to relax.

Her eyes widened. “You would still do that for me? You are an unusual vampire.”

I grinned. “I’ve only been one for a few days.”

She nodded as if that explained everything, and leaned back against the shower wall and closed her eyes.

“Can you talk?” I asked. “I mean, while you’re…feeding, or whatever it is you’re doing.”

“Mm-hmm, though I’m not sure I can be of much help to you. I cannot stop Cesar, and I cannot tell you how to defeat him.”

“Can you tell me what the nature of his hold over you is?”

She paused for so long I thought she might have fallen asleep sitting up.

“It does not appear I can,” she said eventually.
“Not directly, at least.
But I may be able to answer some more specific questions. I am not certain. It’s hard to tell how strongly woven this contract is.”

“If he has such a tight hold on you, why aren’t you trying to capture me for him?”

She smiled. “That is not part of our agreement, fortunately. Of course, I imagine he did not suspect I could get so close to you so easily. But there is no reason for me to tell him that.” Her smile widened, and it was so breathtaking in its beauty and purity that I was dumbstruck for a few seconds. But my curiosity eventually won out over my awe, especially once her smile faded slightly.