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)
Pretty sure he’s talking about Saara, Aleksi, and the Red Room. “If these people are dangerous, can’t you report them to the police?”
“Not if the police are in on it,” he says with a loaded look.
Oh shit. I never thought of that. The cops are vampires too?
“So, uh, what is this society about?”
He worries his lip between his teeth, his dark eyes drifting across the room. He focuses on his reflection in the mirror above the fireplace. “You told me you don’t believe in ghosts. Does that still hold true?”
I have to remember what this non-witch version of myself told him. “That’s true.”
“Do you believe in the supernatural at all?”
And here we go.
Of course, I want to say yes, but I have to say, “No.”
“Not even a little?”
“I’ve never seen proof of the supernatural existing,” I tell him, which is a great segue for him to tell me he’s a vampire and give me proof about it.
“So you need proof, you can’t just take people at their word?” He eyes me curiously, taking a sip of his tea.
“Depends on who was doing the talking and what they were saying,” I tell him.
He nods slowly. “Okay. Yup. I figured that with you.”
He puts his mug on the coffee table and walks over to the mantle, picking up a dagger that was lying on top of a cigar box. It’s short, sharp and gold with a black stone star at the base.
He brings it over to me, displaying it on his palm. The dagger looks ancient.
“What is this?” I ask.
“Proof,” he says.
I expect him to go on and say the dagger belonged to some king he personally knew in the 1600s or something. But instead he hands it to me.
“I want you to stab me with it.”
My mouth drops. “I’m sorry. Stab you with it?”
He nods. “Stick it right in my heart.”
I let out a dry laugh and get to my feet, trying to give the knife back to him. “Okay, now you’re the one who is acting nuts here. I’m not going to stab you. What the hell?”
The fact that he said that surprises me so much that for one sweet moment I’d forgotten that I actually know what it’s like to stab a vampire in the heart. I’ve done it a dozen times.
The muscle memory makes me sick.
“Okay, then I’ll do it myself,” he says, swiping the knife from me and pressing the tip against his chest, the sharp end already piercing a hole through his t-shirt.
“Wait! Stop!” I scream, trying to wrap my fingers around his wrist and pull his hands off but he’s an immovable rock and I’m only a feather. “Stop, Valtu!”
He grunts and I watch as he pushes the dagger straight into his heart, driven in with inhuman strength, the sound of his sternum cracking under the pressure.
I’ve stopped screaming. I’m just watching in horror as blood begins to spill from his chest in waterfalls of red as he drives the gold dagger deeper and deeper into his heart.
I know what it feels like to do that.
I know what it’s like to drive a knife through that bone, to find the heart, to plunge it in. It’s some kind of sick joke, a twist of fate that has me reliving all my past kills right now, all the vampires I murdered with my glowing blue blade.
I’m staring at this blade sticking out from his chest, and I’m hit with such sadness, such regret for everything I’ve done. What if the vampires I killed were just like Valtu? What if they had done nothing wrong but try to survive for centuries? What if killing so many of them, just like this, robbing them of their immortal lives, just meant that real ones who deserved my vengeance, the ones that killed my parents, ones like Saara and Aleksi, were running around free?
Tears burn at the corners of my eyes and I look up at Valtu, wishing I could tell him my truth and ask for forgiveness, but I can’t do that now, not ever.
“Don’t cry,” he says through a grunt, his face distorted. “I’m okay,” he wheezes.
Suddenly he removes the blade from his chest and flings it to the floor. Then with pained gasp, he pulls his shirt off over his head so I can see the wound.
We both stare at it, at the blood as it flows, coating his chest, stomach, pants, and then the blood starts to slow to a trickle. I watch it actually congeal in real time. Now this is what’s different from the kills I’ve done. Valtu isn’t dropping dead like the rest of them because it wasn’t a slayer with the blade of mordernes that stabbed him. Instead his wound is healing before my eyes.
“What the fuck,” I whisper, forgetting for a moment that I’m supposed to be more shocked than this. Instead I’m finding it strangely beautiful, watching his body repair itself. “I don’t understand.” I glance up at him. “How did you do that? Why did you do that?”