The Vampire's Reflection (17 page)

“I am dreaming!” he called out. “I’m dreaming! I’m dreaming!” No matter how hard he tried, he could not wake up. He pounded on the glass desperately.

Nikolai heard the muffled scream of his little sister, then, the memory instantly flashing as it became embedded in his mind. He dashed from the hallway into his bedroom, where he found he was looking back at himself. The tanner, scrawnier, mirror image of himself was trying to stifle his sister’s screaming from under the bed.

The shadowed monster moved past Nikolai in the bedroom. The girl screeched as dream-Nikolai jumped out from his hiding place under the bed, with his arms outstretched wide in a final attempt to protect his little sister.

“Please,” he began to reason. He was trying to keep his voice as calm as he possibly could. Wanted to be brave for his little sister. Wanted to keep her from getting too scared. Now he remembered everything. “Please, you can have anything you want. Just let her go. You can kill me. Just let my sister go.”

Nikolai watched in misery, as did his reflection, as the dark figure straightened himself, his icy gaze locking on the shivering little girl under the bed, completely turning his attention away from the boy before him. Nikolai tuned in to the only noise in the room. His sister’s heartbeat sounded like the wings of a hummingbird. Racing. Delicate.

The figure dropped to his hands and knees, a new smile playing on his face. “Do not be afraid, child,” he forced out through an evil grin. And then he lunged.

Nikolai closed his eyes and screamed, unable to watch any more. He fell to his knees, his face buried in his arm, as he continued to holler, more blood tears soaking his sleeve. A gentle touch on his shoulder triggered him to open his eyes, and he found he was in the strange room yet again. He looked down at his sleeve to find no bloodstain there, just the wetness of normal tears. He struggled to catch his breath after weeping so hard.

Desperate, he got to his feet, grasping at the strange boy’s shirt. “Where am I?” he roared, seeing red. “What did you do to her? What am I now?” The questions poured from him as he continued to bawl. Had he gone insane? Had he died and was he now in hell? Something in the back of his mind confirmed to him that what he had just seen really had happened. It was not dream. It was fact. His family was dead.
He
was dead. He clawed at his chest again, though his pulse was there.

The boy shoved him off and brushed his collar, with a peculiar look of disgust on his face. “It’s not what you are now. It’s what you’ve always been. You’ve just been hiding it. All of your questions will be answered in time,” he said calmly, and folded his hands in front of him. “Your human family is dead. Killed by exactly what you have living inside of you. I saved you. Brought you back from the door of death.
They
killed your family, Nikolai. I saw it. I watched them do it. They left you to become one of them. A monster. The very same thing that killed your sister!”

“
You’re lying!
” Nikolai spewed, his fists flying through the air. “I am
not
one of them! How can I be?” Nikolai could not control his broken heaving. “I don’t want to be one of
them!
Change me back! How do I change back?”

“You cannot simply
change
back,” the boy scoffed. “You were born this way, weren’t you? You’ve always had these powers. In order to regain any sort of normalcy, it takes one to kill one. You must find the monster who has committed this crime in order to seek your revenge.”

“Who is it? Point me in the right direction, and I will tear him into pieces!” Venomous spit flew from Nikolai’s lips.

“I know who killed them, Nikolai.”

A new chill was cast about the room as every syllable reverberated off the walls. It was a mix between a harsh wind and the purest sound of anguish he’d ever heard. Each word came out long and snake-like. It was almost as if he was hearing the boy’s words within his mind.

“But you never told me who
you
are. How can I trust you?” Nikolai’s voice shook as he struggled to keep his knees locked.

The odd boy turned the mirror to him again. “You could have ended up on their path. Evil. Bloodthirsty. A dark creature. But I saved you. You will never become what they are…if you follow me.”

“I demand to know who you are!” Nikolai ordered.

Angrily, the boy waved his hand through the air, an unnatural wind billowing through the room. Small particles turned about the floor in the twister that pinned Nikolai to the wall. The boy kept his hand raised, fingers outstretched, so that Nikolai had no way of escaping. He cried out against the struggle of the storm. He couldn’t help but recall that things turned out much happier for the magical boy in the fantasy book series he was reading than they were turning out for him. Where was his awesome train ride to his awesome school of magic? This sucked.

“You will demand nothing!” The boy’s words were sharp and threatening. “I am your liege, and I will be the one who makes demands.” He lowered his hand, causing Nikolai to tumble to the floor. “Do you wish to avenge your family?”

Nikolai clumsily got to his feet again, brushing the debris from his T-shirt. “Of course I do.”

The odd boy closed in on him, so they stood standing eye to eye again. “I know the very one who committed the crime. I can help you, so you’ve got to trust me.”

Nikolai frowned. He sensed something else. This strange person, whatever he was, didn’t seem to be the most trustworthy individual. There was a catch. “And what do
you
want out of it?” he asked with an eyebrow raised.

The boy’s eyes crinkled again. “Only the very same thing. My
own
revenge needs to be satisfied. However, you are not yet complete. There is other work to be done.” The strange boy rotated the mirror toward Nikolai again who flinched away from the reflection. “You are lacking one weapon most lethal. To earn it, you must take blood from a human, as they took it from you.” Nikolai grimaced at him. “Not to worry. Humans are pathetic, weak creatures. Cockroaches to
our
kind. And what are Vampires, other than lowly… despicable…
undead
cockroaches?”

Chapter Eleven

The Devil

Charlotte appeared in the doorway of the study. The permeating smell of cherry tobacco and pipe smoke filled the room and wafted out into the place where she stood. The foyer had been restored, for the most part, the more resilient pieces of the antique furniture placed back in their rightful spots, the floor dusted of debris. Charlotte could see hunks of the more unfortunate chairs roasting before Valek in the hearth. He watched them cremate, as if he were mourning the loss of his valuable collection.

The room before her was cast in a deep, sienna glow. Valek’s regal armchair sat facing the fire, its beautifully carved back slightly angled to her, the many screaming faces imprisoned in the cherry wood. One by one, his perfect smoke rings billowed up and out of the open window, fading into the night behind the long, garnet curtains.

She lingered in the threshold, leaned up against the carvings in the frame for a few more silent moments, though of course, he knew she was there. Her mind flashed to what she’d seen. Valek strike down upon the woman in his office. Sarah watching in horror as he sucked the life from her, and then to Charlotte’s surprise, pulled away well before the woman was dead. What exactly did he intend to do with her if it wasn’t to kill her? Did he always tie his victims down? He’d noticed Charlotte watching, too. Valek never missed a motion. But he went on now, pretending it was only himself and the fire before him, methodically producing perfect circles of smoke, one by one. He seemed focused on his own thoughts, his movements slow and somber, rather than tuning into hers.

Valek sat, one long leg crossed over the other, perched on the velvet seat of the chair. He lifted his pipe to his full lips with his other set of claws wrapped around one of the intricate chair arms. Mindlessly, he chipped away at the wood, gazing into the crackling flames. The sound of Valek’s nails scratch-scratch-scratching made the hair on Charlotte’s arms stand on end. She was addicted to every lethal part of him.

There were so many memories from this particular room that haunted her. Her guardian habitually perched where she always remembered him being before the disaster at the Regime, before their capture, before their relationship got complicated, turning both of their worlds on their axes.

Every night, when Charlotte would return home from hunting another human, this was where she’d find Valek sitting. Every evening, without fail, this was where he would be. It was comforting to know that at least one thing in her strange life was a constant—dependable and unchanging. At least one thing in her life would exist forever. Now, somehow, the two of them managed to find themselves back in this very room, alone again. It was as if nothing had changed at all.

Her fingers wound in impatient knots in the material of the skirt of her favorite new dress. She bit her lower lip a little too hard and suddenly tasted a very familiar sensation of iron and copper.

“Lottie.”

Valek’s liquid voice soothed her burning anticipation. Her heart fluttered unevenly. When he spoke, it was like rain when she had not tasted water in days. When he touched her, it was like ice against the devastating fire that now tortured her under the bed of her skin. This addiction was literally eating her alive.

“Charlotte,” he began again. “Come to me, please.”

The immense shadow from his armchair stretched across the wooded floor to the ends of her toes, tugging at her, begging her to meet his request. A waiting lump formed thickly in her throat as she took a step deeper into the study. She could tell he hadn’t moved from this spot since she had fallen asleep, beating himself up inside over Charlotte’s very peculiar predicament. Valek had been self-flagellating for the past few months. It
was
true. Something from his bite had made her deathly ill. It had been that way since their time in Francis’ basement.

The fire roared before Valek, as if a wild beast lived in the embers. It cast intimidating shadows across the edges of his face. As he exhaled, his lips parted ever so slightly to reveal his lethal incisors. Something fluttered in Charlotte’s stomach, and it lurched as she rounded the corner of his chair to face him.

Valek was more than beautiful, crafted by the devil himself in order to cause Charlotte to do awful things—unspeakable things: to hunt her own kind, to sacrifice her life, to drive her to insanity. He possessed her.

The pallid Vampire puffed a perfect silver ring into the air above his head, his electrified blue eyes following it before it eventually vanished. He didn’t say anything. He merely waited. Many things were bothering him. Charlotte could only imagine what those things were. She couldn’t tear her mind away from the woman. What had happened to her? Against Valek’s strict orders, she’d crept down the stairs and around the corner to his office the night before. Through the crack in the door, she could see the mortal’s panicked expression just moments before Valek had struck, sinking his fangs into the side of her throat like a cobra. It was so fast, and Charlotte had winced instantly upon the sight of it, her scar flaring with the recollection of what that felt like.

“Charlotte!” Sarah had whispered feverishly at her. “You are not supposed to be here! Go back upstairs, now!” The Witch had shoved her away and quickly slammed the door. Charlotte did as she was ordered, too exhausted to witness anything further that night.

She climbed into Valek’s lap and settled herself, her legs hanging over the side of his knee. The scar at her throat continued to throb, though it wasn’t too painful yet. She wrapped her arms around his neck, lacing her fingers together as they draped over his broad shoulder.

Valek neglected to look her in the eye, his gaze remaining transfixed on whatever distant thought was hanging before him. However, that didn’t mean he missed anything.

“You’re shaking,” he observed, shifting his weight slightly and wrapping his free arm around her, though his deathly skin didn’t do much to warm her. He continued to look stoic and stone-faced. His movements seemed absentminded and almost involuntary. Charlotte frowned. She could tell he wasn’t really in the room with her at all. “Shall I close the window for you?”

Charlotte cleared her throat, which made her wince with the immediate shooting pain that followed. “No. It is not that I am cold….” She trailed off, hoping he would catch on. She wound one of her fingers around a thick lock of his soft, dark hair. It ran long, like a night’s rain, from his widow’s peak, down past his shoulders to the middle of his chest, curling slightly at the ends, the impossible beauty of his porcelain face cradled by it. Oh, he was deadly indeed.

“I caught Sarah crying,” Charlotte began.

“Did you?” Valek’s eyebrow lifted.

“Yes. I believe she worries for me—that she feels I am in danger if I continue on this like this. I saw it in the way she looked at me.”

Absently, deep in thought, Valek twisted one of Charlotte’s curls around his index claw. He did not utter a word, which made her stomach turn.

She wanted him to look at her. “Do you like my dress?”

“It’s very pretty,” he murmured without even a mere glance in her direction.

Charlotte hugged his neck tighter and leaned in closer to his face. “I know that you are also worried for me.”

Valek’s lips parted slightly again, though he did not answer. He blinked once, as if there was something he needed to say, but he only sealed his lips again.

“What happened to that woman, Valek?” Charlotte asked innocently, her heart fluttering in response to her nervousness. A lump formed in her throat as her breathing became shallow. She awaited his answer. When he didn’t, she continued. “Did you consume her? Is she dead?” Charlotte’s heart sank with the last of her words. She had not realized before how saddened she was by the thought of it. She hadn’t seen it before. Or rather, didn’t want to see it. But she was just like that woman. Just as expendable. Ashes in the wind.