Nevermore, the Complete Series (68 page)

“You…you are the one that slayed her...are you not?” his expression seemed to change from fury to gentleness within a second.

I nodded slowly. “I didn’t…I didn’t want to. You have to believe me. I wanted nothing more than to have my mother back in my life…”

“I know,” he whispered and sat back down, still holding back his anguish. “She at least got her wish, to see you again.”

“If only it could have ended differently.”

“We all must do things we will grow to regret.”

I couldn’t understand how he seemed so calm at the fact that I had killed the woman he loved. Aside from his initial outburst it was as though nothing had ever happened.

“You will return to your duties below,” he said after a few moments of silence. “But, please, do not hesitate to accompany me again.”

Malik seemed to have acquired a soft spot for me, possibly because I was the child of the woman he had loved for so long. It gave me a sense of comfort, knowing that he didn’t seem to have any desire to harm me, and that I could use this to my advantage. 

“Thank you,” I bowed my head respectively and started towards the stairs.

“And Alexis.”

“Yes?” I said, turning back around.

“Don’t think about running again. Okay?”

My voice caught in my throat. I wasn’t sure if he had read my thoughts or only noted my expression, I hoped for the latter. Unable to speak I simply nodded, turned, and then walked back down stairs as fast as I could.

The room was more occupied now than when I had left and I quickly made my way back onto the platform. The crowd appreciated the music and to my surprise, some couples even got up to dance along to the melodies. It was moments like this that made me wonder if all vampires were really as bad as I thought they were. Then a faint noise caught my attention. It was no more than a gurgle at first, but steadily grew louder.

The fountain I once thought to be beautiful had been turned on and a steady stream of thick red liquid flowed from holes in the stone woman’s neck. As I turned my eyes away from the site I once again saw a room full of hundreds of bright, blood red eyes and I knew I had been mistaken. There was no goodness in a place like this.

Two weeks of work had passed by before I knew it. Malik insisted that I meet with him on a daily basis, even if we only sat in silence in the upstairs room—it provided him with some form of comfort. Salem was completely against the idea of me ever returning to the restaurant, but I wouldn’t hear it—it had to be done. I had only met with the Vanatori once since my first full day of work. They were incredibly intrigued by Malik’s gentle nature towards me, and were quite clear in stating that I should continue using it to my advantage.

Today, there would be no talk of vampiric activity if I could help it. Salem was beyond stressed, to the point that he barely communicated with me anymore.

“Oh come on, Salem, put on something casual. Something not so…fancy,” I insisted. “Something you don’t care about getting dirty or ripped.”

“Are your…friends…having us join them on a hunt or something?” he asked with obvious distaste.

“No. We’re going to the park.”

“And I cannot dress comfortably to go to the park?”

“You would be more comfortable in a t-shirt and shorts for what I have in mind.”

He gave me a look of uncertainty. “Must I?”

I shrugged. “You don’t have to, but it’ll be a little weird if you don’t.”

He retreated to the restroom and I stifled a laugh when he emerged. I had never seen Salem dressed in anything less formal than a button-up shirt and slacks. Seeing him in ordinary clothing was enough to make me giggle uncontrollably. He looked no less handsome than usual; it just wasn’t Salem.

“I look amusing?” he asked.

I stopped shaking with laughter and shook my head. “No, no! You look fine…it’s just weird seeing you in ‘normal’ clothing.”

“I should change back…” he began to turn back towards the restroom.

“No. Salem, it’s fine, really. No one else is going to care, but believe me, you’ll be much happier wearing that.”

“What do you have in mind for today, Alex?” he sounded uncertain.

“You’ll see!” I said with a grin and took his hand, leading him away to the car.

Before starting the ignition, I leaned over and kissed him tenderly. “I promise you’ll have fun today.”

He smiled warmly and held my face in his hands. “I would have fun doing anything with you, Alex.”

The park was nearly empty, save for a few people on the opposite end from where we were. It was the perfect location for what I had in mind. There was a bike trail around the edges of the park and I led Salem over to it.

“Alex…what are you doing?”

“Summon us two bikes!” I said with a grin.

He looked apprehensive. “You do realize I have never ridden a bicycle before, right?”

“I never thought about that,” I said in shock. “But…it’s not hard. I can help!”

“And what if someone sees me summon them?”

“No one is going to see. The closest people are wayyyy over there.”

“A bicycle is too complicated to summon, Alex, I don’t know if I-”

I cut him off before he could finish. “Oh, don’t give me that. You’re not getting out of this one. Now go on. Do it.”

“If you are certain…” he stared at the bike trail nervously and two bikes appeared out of nowhere.

“Climb on, I’ll keep you balanced.”

Salem approached one of the bikes and looked it over, touched the seat, squeezed the handlebars, eyed the tires and shook his head. He carefully raised a leg over the side and sat down, shifting until he was comfortable and I held onto the back of the seat after instructing him to move the kickstand into a folded position.

“Put your feet on the pedals,” I said and he gave me a horrified look. “C’mon, Salem…it’s not that bad.”

“If you had spent as long as I have on this planet, without so much as touching a bicycle, you would be cautious, too!” he said and slowly placed one foot on the left pedal.

“There you go,” I grinned and watched him put his other foot onto the right pedal. “I won’t worry about telling you about gears right now…just hold onto the handlebars and if you need to stop, grip onto the brakes there.” I pointed out the brakes and explained that if that was too complicated, he could scoot his feet along the ground to come to a stop.

He tried to convince me again that this was a mistake—that we should just walk around the park to soak in the surroundings—but I wasn’t taking no for an answer. We were going to have a fun, normal ‘human’ afternoon whether he liked it or not. I held the bike steady as he tried to maintain balance and before long he was laughing and enjoying the ride.

“See, I told you it wouldn’t be that bad,” I shouted and laughed.

“Perhaps not yet, but once you let go, that will be a whole different story.”

“But Salem…I already let go!” I replied and slowly released him.

“Alex-wait!” he yelled and I watched the bike swerve and topple over into the grass.

I ran over to him and helped him up. “I should’ve given you a better warning, I guess.”

He pushed the bike off of him and pulled me down into the grass. Giggling, I fell into his arms and
laid against his chest.

“I am not sure bicycling is something I will ever get the hang of, but I will admit that I had fun…however, I do think I would like a break from it.”

“A break? Already?” I laughed.

“Yes…is this not far more enjoyable?”

“It is,” I admitted and relaxed as he ran his fingers through my hair. It was nice to hear him being happy again.

Above us was a vast display of branches with bright green leaves hanging off of them, shielding us from the warm rays of sunlight. There was subtle movement on the tree limbs, which at first I thought was just the breeze pushing against them, until Salem pointed out two brown furry shapes.

“Squirrels!” I said with a gasp and watched one of them leap across from one tree to the next. The other rodent followed and soon they were sitting together on a single branch, nuzzling against each other. My observation of the animals was quickly over when I heard Salem sigh heavily.

“What’s wrong?” I asked and stared up at him.

“They are scarcely any different than us…and other human beings.”

I shrugged. “
There’s a lot of things different between us and animals, Salem.”

“Yet, in the end, we all have lives and loved ones…they may not be as intelligent as we are, they may not live as long or as extravagantly, but they build families and lives just the same.”

I was pretty sure I knew what he was getting at. “Most people probably don’t think about it like that.”

“No…they do not. Just as I had not until recently,” he said softly as he continued to watch the squirrels. “Killing them for blood is scarcely any different from killing a human.”

“You know that’s not true, Salem! A human is far different from an animal.”

“I realize there is a big difference between the two, but how am I to know if I killed a rabbit’s life mate or child and they spent the rest of their short life searching for them…or they died over the loss of them…or…”

I pressed my lips against Salem’s and quickly shut him up. He shut his eyes and tenderly returned the gesture. As I pulled away, I smiled at him.

“You’re thinking way too much about it, Salem. But I know what you’re saying,” I said gently and resumed kissing him.

Salem ran his warm hand across the middle of my back and his kisses grew more passionate. I didn’t object to him pulling me on top of him until I heard a gasp that didn’t come from either of us. I rolled back onto the grass when I spotted a little girl staring at us in shock.

“Oh, geez…” I mumbled and glanced around the park. There were children swarming around the entire park now. “We should go home, Salem.”

He sighed but agreed. “Shall we resume where we left off?”

“We’ll see,” I laughed and we got up from our spot after apologizing to the girl and her mother, who gave us a very stern and disgusted look, saying something in Romanian under her breath.

I woke up the following morning to the sound of Salem talking vividly over the phone to someone. His voice was quiet yet I could make out a few words here and there—‘please, we need you’, ‘get over the past’, ‘she is in trouble and I need you to prove it to her’. Once the last words registered in my head, I sat up and looked for him. He was in the tiny kitchen, looking through the window over the sink. There was only one person I could think of that he’d be begging to come here.

“Salem?” I asked as I stumbled into the kitchen, rubbing my groggy eyes. “Who’s on the phone?”

He hung up quickly and looked at me, startled. “Someone who can help…if only I can convince them we truly need their help.”

“Hannah,” I said without a doubt in my mind. “You think she’ll see something in her visions that’ll prevent me from continuing my job at Varias, right? Just like her visions made me decide to stay a vampire, right? Oh wait! That didn’t happen.”

“It isn’t only that, Alex. She can help the Vanatori, she is a vampire…she can easily get into the restaurant and acquire further information for us.”

The latter was difficult to believe—I knew he wanted as little to do with the hunters as possible. Hannah and I didn’t part on good terms…but hopefully she can put her crazy ideas behind her enough to be helpful. I quickly gathered my phone and sent a text to Hannah asking her to come, regardless of what happened between us in Florida—Salem missed her, and truthfully…so did I.

I only wished that it was safe enough for Jason and Mitchell to come here, too. That was the one big thing—aside from my house—that I missed about Willowshire. They were the only friends I had left outside of Salem, Hannah and Ezra—if I could even consider the other two as friends. Ezra had the potential to be a friend, if ever I became close enough to him.

I punched in another message into my text message thread to Hannah asking if she received my text. To my surprise, I got a response almost instantly: ‘I was already planning on it, stop begging.’

I ignored her sarcasm and sent her another text requesting that she bring Ezra along with her if she knew where he was. Again, her reply was swift: ‘Already was.’

My eyes drifted away from the touch screen device to Salem. “Do you think Hannah and Ezra are…you know…together?”

He raised an eyebrow and almost laughed. “What?”

“You heard me…”

“I would highly doubt that. Why do you ask?”

“She said she’d already planned to bring him with her…when she comes.”

“So that means she’s coming?” I could see his boyish face becoming more and more excited. He did love her.

He ignored the subject of his sister and Ezra. I knew he was uncomfortable with the idea of Hannah being in a relationship, or even a fling like with that guy last year. She was his baby sister, regardless of the fact that she was technically older than any living adults. But Ezra was a respectable man; I could see him taking good care of her. He didn’t seem at all her type, but what did I know about that? It wasn’t as if I would have taken it seriously had someone told me I’d someday be with an ex-vampire.

After the excitement of Hannah’s future visit started to die down, my thoughts began to return to my mission. Tomorrow would be yet another day of work, another day of being among Malik and hopefully another day of absorbing information to share with my fellow hunters.

As if my thoughts had summoned their call, my phone rang and Luca’s name flashed on the display. I answered and he got straight to the point, giving me some pointers on what my next infiltration moves should be. He also filled me in on the Vanatori’s latest successful hunting trip.

An innocent human had been trapped outside a vampire bar, ganged up on by four different men. They had tied her up and were slowly draining her blood through her fingers. Thankfully the Vanatori happened to come across the attackers before they emptied her beyond healing. It wasn’t safe or ideal to hunt directly outside a vampire establishment, but they would rather risk their lives than watch another human die. He let me know that most vampires hunt solo, so besting four at once had been harder than expected. From the details of his story I could tell that the vampires here were different than most I had faced in Willowshire. These were no mere bloodthirsty monsters. They were smart. Their attacks were thought out and calculated. They seemed to have a much finer grasp on their desires and reality than the crazed beasts I had killed. If the common vampire in Romania was this intense, I could scarcely imagine what facing Malik would actually be like.

Luca ended the call in the same way he always did. There were no pleasantries. He told me exactly what he needed to and then bid me goodbye until ‘next time’ and hung up.

His story had rekindled a yearning within me to hunt. The more I had been around the undead, the more it had been slipping into my thoughts, but I attempted to ignore it. The Vanatori were out there doing their part each night, protecting the living. How much of a difference could I really make? I had bigger fish to fry—my sole focus should be Malik alone. He was the source of it all, and I wasn’t going to let anything distract me from that if I could help it.

“Hannah did say there was one circumstance for her to come,” Salem said, breaking my train of thought. “We are not to mention anything to her about the child she foresaw.”

I grimaced at the remark and nodded in agreement. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Great. I expect she will be here in the next couple of days…so I suppose we should arrange to have an additional bed placed in here, or request that Cassius relocate us.”

“I’ll see what I can do tomorrow at work.”

Salem and I settled down together on the couch and became immersed in a book he summoned for us—a photo album that he conjured from his memory. I was often baffled by his ability to do that. He lost the majority of his childhood memories after Raziel turned him, but he retained a few here and there—mostly of people’s appearances. The first page depicted a beautiful image of Margaret and Arthur Young on their wedding day. Her fabulous golden hair was up in a bun with a few strands dangling in front of her ears. She was a magnificent creature, and it was no wonder where Salem and Hannah got their looks. Arthur was also stunning; in an entirely different aspect…it possibly had a lot to do with the fact that he reminded me so much of Salem, as they both shared the same dark hair.

The second page was dedicated to images of Salem when he was a kid. I quickly recognized the picture of him with the black cat Hannah had named ‘Daniel’ after her true father—it was the same one he had framed in the Victorian that Paul burned down. Beside this one was a picture of Salem reading a book, leaning up against a tree, with sunlight reflecting off of his ebony hair.

“How old were you then?”

“Eleven, if I remember correctly.”

“It’s amazing how you can just pull these images from your memory and make them real.”

He smiled and turned the page. Images of baby Hannah flooded the next two pages. At a young age, she had barely any hair, just a light wave of yellowy strands. I had never seen a picture of Arthur wearing a genuine smile until I spotted one of him holding Hannah in his arms, looking down at her proudly—and it broke my heart to know that his admiration for the child he thought to be his own was eventually destroyed.

“He loved her despite not being her real father,” Salem pointed out.

“He didn’t even know for that long before…before the fire.”

“I know,” he sighed and turned the page again.

The next pictures I saw were of us from the past…some things I never even knew about. There was a picture of me curled up under the silk blankets on the bed in the old house, a picture of us sitting on a log over a creek, and the final picture nearly startled me—it was of me, hovering over a lake, transformed from human to raven with a spiral of feathers swarming around my body.

“How…”

“Memories,” he answered simply. “I could technically pull any memory from my mind and turn it into a photograph.”

I prepared to ask him something when I saw his eyes spark momentarily and a thin piece of paper appeared in his hand. He swiftly flipped it over and showed it to me.

“You’re too amazing…” I whispered and marveled at the picture. It was the two of us sitting on the couch glancing through this same album together, from just a few moments ago.

With a smile, he leaned over and kissed me lightly. “Let’s go out to eat.”

I considered the idea for a moment, I was hungry…and it had been a while since we went out on an actual ‘date’. “Sure,” I said with a grin. “Did you have anywhere in mind?”

“We’ll go for a walk and pick someplace at random, how does that sound?”

“Delicious.”