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)
But despite winter just around the corner, and the quietness that has befallen this beautiful moody city, my life has only gotten more complicated.
I’ve been having my dalliances with Dahlia over the last couple of weeks and I’ve grown closer to her than I ever thought I would be with anyone ever again. She’s brought me her darkness, but in doing so has made my world so much brighter. There’s this perverse understanding between us, this rare and precious way that we give ourselves to each other, not just in our bodies but with something deeper. I often question if I have a soul, as vampires will proudly claim they do not, but she does have one and I feel as if when I’m with her, she lets me borrow her soul and wear it for a while.
She feels good on me.
But as it is in my life, everything good that happens is swiftly followed by something bad. In this case, it’s nothing to do with Dahlia, but with Aleksi and Saara, who seem to be complications in my life ever since they arrived.
Seems I’ve made enemies of them since Aleksi’s stupid stint in the Red Room. Normally it wouldn’t matter if a vampire got kicked out because everyone knows that it only exists for them as long as they follow the rules. But because those siblings have such a strange hold on this town, I’m in a position where I have to make nice with them.
As such, tonight me and Bitrus have to take a boat out to the island of Poveglia to have a meeting with Saara and Aleksi. They asked me specifically to go so that we could settle our differences. I may be a vampire, but I’m no fool. They may be wanting to kill me, I wouldn’t put it past them. So I asked Bitrus to come with me, just in case. It doesn’t hurt to have another witness.
“Could they have picked a spookier night?” Bitrus says.
I turn to see him coming toward me out of the mist, the collar of his black coat spiked up high, his hands in his pockets. All he needs is a fedora covering his bald head and he’d be straight out of a film noir.
“You know how dramatic vampires are,” I say.
I’m standing on a dock along the south side of the city, just behind the famous silhouette of the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute. The siblings said they would send a boat for me at eleven p.m. and even though it’s late, many boats and vaporettos are still cruising through the canal that separates us from the island of Giudecca, their lights barely visible through the fog.
“So they live on Poveglia, huh,” Bitrus muses as he stands beside me. “That’s all sorts of fucked up.”
I sigh. “Yeah, well, if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck…”
Poveglia is a small island that’s grand with infamy, reported to be the most haunted place in the world and for good reason, too. During the plague it was used as a lazaretto to confine the dying. Rumors have it that there were so many plague-ridden bodies burned on the island that the soil is comprised mostly of human ash. I don’t think that’s a rumor though, I’ve been there once just passing through on a boat, and I didn’t even have to step on the island to smell how deep the stench of death goes.
After the plague, it was used as a quarantine station for those entering Venice, then it was turned into an insane asylum, naturally, then a hospital and care home for the elderly to spend their last days, until it was finally closed in the 1960s. Now it’s completely abandoned, though the hospital and watchtower remain.
And apparently not fully abandoned since the siblings have taken up residence there. I’m assuming they’ve converted some secret part of the hospital into their dwelling, since the last I heard everything was left to rot.
“So, how is it going with Dahlia?” Bitrus asks as I search the fog for any boats that might be ours. “Are you any closer to introducing me to her?”
I give him a wry look. “Not yet.”
I’ve wanted her to meet Bitrus but I’m worried that introducing her to other vampires might trigger her fight-or-flight instincts. Humans are pretty good at ignoring vampires for what we are, but only one at a time. If she met Bitrus she might start picking up on the fact that there is something very wrong with me.
Though who am I kidding?
She already thinks there’s something wrong with me.
And she likes it.
“I’ve introduced you to Bash,” Bitrus goes on, running his fingers over his clean-shaven jaw.
“Yes. The Bash that you’re still just casually fucking,” I comment with a laugh. “How about I’ll let you meet Dahlia when you vamp-up and realize that you’re in a god damn relationship with him?”