Mirror: Book One of the Valkanas Clan (20 page)

What were my reasons for being here then?
Protection, of course.
Then last night flashed through my mind and I warmed and quickly added “Tom” to the list. I tapped my pen against my teeth for a few seconds,
then
added “curiosity.”

I studied my categories, trying to think of any others to add to either side of the list. I wasn’t sure why it still seemed important to me to finish it—other than the handy distraction from my work, of course. And then it struck me: I’d written it right into the list from the start. “Reasons to
pretend
 life
is the same as it always was.”

Clearly it wasn’t. I could no longer encounter sunlight without heavy layers of sunscreen and huge aviator glasses, enjoy my favorite restaurants, or be completely honest with my friends.

I glanced at the earrings again. Ava. I still hadn’t called her, despite the guilt I felt every time my fingers brushed across the earrings. I did not want to lie to my best friend, but I had. Worse, I’d let her worry needlessly about me, freaked her out when she came by to check on me, and then never called or even emailed an apology.

On impulse, I snatched my cell. Eleven p.m.
Would
she still be up? I sent her a text so I wouldn’t disturb her if she was already sleeping.

Hey - u up?

Her reply appeared within seconds:
Yes.

Mind if I call?

Minutes passed. I worked myself into a frenzy of remorse and fear. What if it was too late to fix things between us? What if she wouldn’t talk to me ever again? What could I possibly say to her to make anything better?

I’d just gone to splash some water on my face to help calm me when I heard my phone chirp.

No lying.

Taking a few unnecessary breaths, I punched in her number.

“Ava?” I said.

“You were expecting someone else?”

Her snarky tone relieved me. If she was still angry enough to be snappish, she still cared enough for me to have a chance of repairing our friendship. I laughed, but got only silence in return.

“Uh—so are you alone?” I asked.

“And you care why, exactly?”

Ouch.

“I just—I figured it would be easier if you were. To talk without interruptions, I mean.”

“Just me and Sartre,” she said.

We had both named our cats after existentialist playwrights because they came from the same litter, and then joked that now we were officially related. I winced at the painful twinge the memory provoked.

“How’s he doing?”

“
Aly
, no offense, but I’m assuming you called for some reason other than checking on my cat?”

I sighed.

“Yes, of course," I said.
"Um.
I’m sorry.” Damn. Why couldn’t vampirism grant super-human conversational suave-
ness
as well?

“And?”

“And…” I paused, realizing I probably should have planned what I wanted to say to her before calling. “And I shouldn’t have lied to you. I didn’t want to. I won’t do it again.”

“Why would you have lied if you didn’t want to lie?”

I sighed again. It was a fair question, and one I couldn’t answer directly if I didn’t want her to hang up on me for talking crazy. But maybe, instead of lying, I could simply be truthful about the things it was safe to tell the truth about.

“I know this isn’t going to make a lot of sense," I said, "but there are some really weird things going on in my life right now that I just can't talk about.” With anyone who can eat garlic and doesn’t get their food from an artery, that is. “But I won’t lie to you anymore, and I’m sorry I did before. If I can’t talk to you about something, I’ll simply tell you I can’t, rather than lying about it.”

“What do you mean? There’s nothing we can’t talk about.” Her voice softened. “Is something wrong,
Aly
? What’s going on?”

This was torture. Knowing I was disappointing her, knowing she did nothing but care about me and I now was concealing a fundamental part of myself from her was far worse than having Cesar in my head. How could we maintain a friendship under those pretenses? I couldn’t do this to either of us. I had to tell her the truth.

“Now’s not the best time to talk about it,” I said, realizing she’d only think I was crazy if I tried to explain it over the phone. I’d have to show her. “Could we maybe get together sometime tomorrow afternoon?”

She hesitated, and I could almost feel her debating whether her concern or hurt feelings were stronger. I wasn’t sure which won, but finally she said “Fine. I have some free time around four tomorrow. Do you want to come over to my place then?”

“Yes, absolutely.”
I smiled for the first time since I'd texted her. “I’ll see you then. Thanks Ava.”

“Don’t thank me yet—I haven’t decided whether or not I’m forgiving you,” she said, but I could hear a hint of her usual snarkiness under her cooler tone and I smiled.

“I don’t blame you,” I said, “but I’m still glad I’ll be seeing you tomorrow.”

After I hung up the phone, I jumped up and did a bouncy little dance, shaking my hands excitedly. Maybe I could make this work without any pretending. Ava was my closest friend; she deserved to know the truth about me. If she freaked out, I could just will her into forgetting about it, right?

I skipped around the room,
then
flung myself onto the bed, grinning as Beckett came over to investigate my exuberance. He head-butted my hand and I scooped him up to give him a good head scratch.

“You seem awfully happy about something. I guess it would be egotistical of me to hope it was because you had a foreshadowing that I was coming up to check on you?”

I popped upright so quickly Beckett went tearing under the bed with a disgruntled meow.

“Actually,” I said, trying to pretend Tom hadn't startled me, “you seem to be one person I never get a sense of. I wonder why?”

Tom shrugged.

“Mind if I come in?”

“Of course not,” I said, grinning and slapping the spot next to me.

“Oh my, the lady invites me to her bed no less,” Tom said, grinning back.

“Don’t get any ideas or I’ll plop your butt on the floor.”

“I’ll try to be a gentleman,” Tom said, sitting beside me.
“Unless you force me to be otherwise, of course.”

“Who me?
I’m a picture of innocence and light.” I circled my hands above me in a mock halo.

“Hmm," he said, "that halo looks to me like a new addition. That or I somehow managed to miss seeing it last night.”

Remembered heat flooded through me, coloring my cheeks—and probably a few other sensitive areas as well. But I was still too happy at the thought of regaining my friendship with Ava to be anything other than delighted, so my embarrassment died quickly, leaving only a pleasant tingling throughout my body.

“So what are you so delighted about, then, if it isn’t the indescribable glory of my magnificent presence?” he asked.

“Long story.”
I certainly wasn’t about to tell him I was happy at the thought of telling Ava I was a vampire. I’d tell him afterwards, since I didn’t want to lie to him either, but I didn’t want to risk him trying to stop me now. “So what brings you up here anyway?”

“Just missed you, I guess.” He grinned, and then his face grew more serious. “Plus Valerie and Damian are acting strange about their research. I don’t quite understand why they’re so fidgety all the sudden.”

“Oh, that.” I grimaced. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about it. They think the horn could allow them to have children, and when that possibility arose during our conversation—it was when you were still checking out the upstairs for signs of Marielle—they both started acting strange. Valerie could hardly sit still, and Damian kept grinning like a little kid.”

Tom’s face sobered. “You mean this
Sringara
thing can allow even vampires to bear children?”

I couldn’t tell if he was just shocked or, like me, disturbed by the possibility.

“Apparently," I said. "I have to admit I’m not wild about the idea.
Little babies with fangs?
It gives me the creeps, to put it mildly.”

Tom visibly shivered, immediately making me feel better. At least I wasn’t alone in being disturbed by this.

“It’s not—it shouldn’t be possible," he said. "Vampires are in a state of near stasis. There’s no real growth or change—we’re just borrowing the life stored in the blood of the living to continually heal and maintain our bodies. Vampire eggs and sperm would be like any other element; they couldn’t change into a zygote, or change from a zygote to a child. I don’t see how any crystal horn, magic or otherwise, could alter such a fundamental part of what we are.”

“Wow," I said, trying to absorb the implications of what he'd just told me.

 ”Maybe they're mistaken," he continued. "Valerie has always missed never bearing children—perhaps she's just hopeful this relic could change that, and Damian is caught up by her dream. I simply don’t see how it could be otherwise. Elves bear young naturally, though infrequently—but vampires, to my knowledge, never have.”

I relaxed. I had become
so
used to viewing Damian and Valerie as the source of knowledge on all things supernatural over the last few days that it hadn’t occurred to me they might just be projecting their hopes rather than expressing simple facts.

“Should we talk to them about it?” I said.

“I’m not sure.” He paused. “Let’s see how things go tomorrow. If they’re still acting strangely then we might want to—but I’m in no rush to bring their dreams crashing down while your life is still at risk.”

Though it made me feel like the kind of storybook character I usually delighted in mocking, I had to admit it was nice to have him concerned with protecting me. Not that I was about to climb to a tall tower and start weeping for a knight in shining armor or anything.

“Hey, could you teach me some more about how to defend myself?” I asked, my train of thought reminding me of the decision I’d made in the woods behind Cesar’s house. “That course I took really only taught me a few basics, most of them regarding the effective use of pepper spray and quick knees to the groin or heels to the instep. All that was helpful, but,” I shrugged, “I feel like I need to know a lot more than that.”

“Of course.
We can start right now,” he said, grinning as he flung me back on the bed and straddled me.
“Beginning with close combat.”

I pulled my knees up and locked my elbows down, forcing him to perch just above my hips, which I then raised and twisted to the side, throwing him onto the other side on the bed. Then I pedaled back, hopping with about as much grace as a lame turtle from the bed to the floor to give me a bit more room to dodge his next “attack.” He just rolled onto his side, though, propping his head on his hand and smiling at me.

“So they taught you that move in your self-defense class too, huh?”

I nodded, a separate part of my brain marveling at how hard I was breathing, as though the oxygen really was necessary. I wondered if that habit would fade with time.

“Did they teach you anything to counter this?”

He sprang from the bed with the exact fluidity I’d been so sorely lacking seconds before, and I winced with envy. Then he was standing in front of me. I moved my arms up to push him backwards—I’d foolishly put myself against a wall, so I had nowhere to go with him this close—but he caught them both. Trapping a wrist in each hand, he moved his arms behind me, resting them just behind my hips. And then he bent down and kissed me.