Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 112849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
“I’ve never been in a gondola,” he adds with a laugh. “Can’t get more touristy than that.”
“Well, be careful with that. Strange things are lurking in the water these days.”
“What are you talking about?”
I shrug and finish the rest of my wine. “It’s probably nothing. But last night when I was walking Dahlia to her apartment, there was something in the water. Something very large with a very peculiar smell.”
“Big fish?”
“Not a fish. I couldn’t quite see it, but you could tell it was very long. It’s the smell that gets me. It smelled familiar but in an awful way. Like it was bringing…death.”
Bitrus lowers his sunglasses and frowns. “You okay there, Val? You forget that death can’t come for us?”
“It can and you know it,” I say rather sharply. I clear my throat. “Anyway, it made me uneasy. There’s been something in the air lately.”
“So you’ve been saying.”
I eye him. “You don’t feel it?”
He rubs his lips together, pondering something over. Then turns his head to me, lowering his voice. “I do sense something. Like a shift of some kind. I think it all started when Saara and Aleksi came back into town.”
He might be right. That uneasy feeling has been here ever since they reappeared in the Red Room weeks ago, saying they were staying for a while.
“I think she’s a daughter of Skarde,” I tell him quietly. I don’t know where they live in the city but since a vampire’s hearing is second to none, better not to take my chances. They know I don’t like them but hearing it firsthand would hamper the peace in this city.
Bitrus shivers, his lip curling with disgust. “I wouldn’t be surprised. She’s not like the rest of us. Aleksi is supposed to be her brother though, and I don’t get that feeling from him.”
“Brother can mean many things,” I remind him. I also don’t get the sibling vibe between them either, but that doesn’t mean anything. Vampires, especially very old ones, are a little more, shall we say, lax about familial relationships.
“Why do you think they came back?” he asks.
“I don’t know. I don’t even know where they went.”
“It’s possible they brought something back with them,” he says.
“Something like what?”
He shrugs and adjusts himself on his chair. “I don’t know. Maybe another vampire or two we haven’t met yet. Maybe some cursed artifact. Black magic…” he trails off, his brows furrowing. “Come to think of it, something strange did happen the other night.”
“What?”
“I had woken up in the night, like something had woken me up. Like a bang of a door. I got out of bed and saw the bathroom door slowly inch open. By itself.”
I stare at him to go on. “And?”
“It was dark in there but I swear I saw a shadow moving. Shouldn’t have been possible but all the same it was like there was something physically in the bathroom, like in the bathtub. Suddenly I was cold. Like arctic cold. You know it’s cold when we feel it. I almost chickened out. Then I told myself I was being silly. Walked into the bathroom, turned on the lights. Nothing there, of course.” He pauses. “The weirdest thing was I couldn’t look at the mirror after. I was afraid to. I can’t explain it. You know they say vampires don’t have reflections? Well this time, I swear to god, it was like if I looked in the mirror I would see someone else staring back at me.”
I can pick up on Bitrus’s fear like he’s put on new cologne. Until this moment, he wasn’t really scared. Now, though, he’s got adrenaline in his veins.
“I’m sure you were just spooked,” I tell him.
“I know I fucking was,” he says. “But you’re saying there are monsters in the canals and I’m thinking there’s something in my mirror, ready to steal my soul, so…”
“Technically I never said it was a monster,” I remind him.
“Well, it’s enough that whatever my plans tonight, I’m going to avoid my reflection and the water. Tell you what, if you’re still offering some of that wine, I’ll take it.”
I chuckle and get up, heading into my house to get him another bottle of wine.
Monday rolled around quickly. When you have an infinite amount of weekends in your life, holding onto them is never a big deal, even when you’re working a steady job. For me, I was glad the time passed swiftly, and for all the wrong reasons.
It meant I got to see Dahlia.
Not that I have a lot of time to talk to her during history class. I’m there to teach everyone, not just her, and when I finally did talk to her for a moment after class, asking her how her weekend went, if perhaps she saw any ghosts, she was standoffish with me. Again, with the hot and cold.