Pretty When She Dies (24 page)

“What did you dream?” Cian asked softly.

“I was dying.”

She could vividly remember the way her hot blood had sprayed the professor's clothing as he savagely tore into her. Her own heart had betrayed her and continued to pump her blood out in rhythmic spurts.

She felt Cian put an arm about her shoulders and leaned toward her.

“Your mortal death?”

“Yes.” She turned her head, rested her cheek on her knee, and stared at him. “I was bleeding out so fast. I could feel my life draining out of me.”

Cian's fingers gently moved her hair back from her face, and he asked in a very tender tone, “Can you tell me what happened next?”

Blinking, she exhaled slowly, emptying her dead lungs, then nodded.

“I think I blacked out. I remember coming to on the ground. I felt very cold. He was leaning over me and whispering words in another language. I could see...” She struggled for words. The image had come to her so vividly in her dreams, but it was fading away. “His eyes were white. Completely white and I could see that his shadow was somehow...um...like it was reaching into me and making my heart beat and my lungs breathe.”

“Like he was keeping you alive?”

“Yeah. With some sort of voodoo magic or something. Then he held his wrist over my lips and his blood began to drop into my mouth. I started to choke, but he kept trying to get me to swallow.”

“And the whole time his eyes were glowing white?”

She nodded the affirmative, then let herself drop backward onto the bed. Her hair splayed out around her as she stared up into the dim light filling the small chamber. “I think he even told me not to die too soon. That it wasn't part of the plan.”

Cian sat next to her looking quite thoughtful. She could almost see him breaking apart her words and examining them, looking for some sort of clue to some mystery he alone seemed to know about or want to solve.

“Tonight, when that creature-”

“Rob.”

“Rob attacked you, you banished him. How did you do that?”

Amaliya blinked, and then shook her head. “Did I banish him for real?”

Cian gave her a short nod. “Yes, you did.”

“I don't know. I just knew that he needed to get off me and go back to where he came from. I kinda imagined him falling into his own grave and then he just sank away into the earth. So I did that? For sure?”

“I'm pretty sure you did. The same way the Summoner's eyes glow white when he controls the dead, so did yours.”

“Can you do that?”

“No. I can't.” Cian lay down next to her. “I think that when he kept you alive using his necromancy, he may have inadvertently ended up giving you some of that power.”

“To control dead things?”

“Yes.”

“Ugh. Do not want!” She did not want to deal with ugly zombie things like Rob ever again.

“Well, it could work to your advantage if The Summoner truly gave you a bit of his power by accident. If you can figure out how to use it, you may be able to use it against him.”

“I just don't want to deal with him,” Amaliya groused, and rolled onto her side to face Cian.

“I know, but you will have to,” Cian responded somberly.

“Your girlfriend must hate me,” she said after a beat.

“I think she hates me a little right now.” Cian rubbed his eyelids slowly. He sounded weary. “She was riling against you being here and it infuriated me because she and Roberto cannot understand my position.”

“And you're the big bad Master of the Austin, eh?”

“Well,” Cian pondered this. “Yes, I am. I shouldn't be questioned.”

“Vampire stuff kicking in, huh?” Amaliya smiled at him. “Getting all reconnected into the dark side of the force.”

“Something like that,” Cian admitted.

“Glad to be of service,” she joked, and adjusted the pillow under her head. “But honestly, Cian, I will be gone soon and they won't have to worry about me corrupting you.”

“You can't corrupt me.” Cian laughed. “I am already corrupted. You're just reminding me of that.”

”Sorry.”

“The sun will rise soon. Go back to sleep.”

Amaliya sighed and closed her eyes. She did feel weary, but she also felt anxious. If what Cian said was true, then maybe she had a few more tricks in her bag then she realized. Her eyes flashed open and she said, “Hey, can I turn into a bat?”

“We'll talk about that tomorrow.” His tone sounded amused.

Pouting slightly, she snuggled down in the covers. “Fine.”

He deliberately rolled over and put his back to her and she stared at the curve of his shoulders, then closed her eyes.

I'm not attracted to him
, she whispered in her own mind.
He's just not my type. Plus he's short. I like tall men.

“I'm marrying Samantha,” Cian's voice said from near her. But it did not sound so sure anymore. “I worked hard to create this life.”

“You're not my type anyway,” Amaliya said with a little laugh. “Don't worry about it.”

There was silence from his side of the bed, then he reached over and turned out the light. The darkness was strangely comforting, despite the night's events, and she pulled the heavy comforter over her as the cold air whispered over her skin.

“When I died, I lost my entire life. My wife, my children, everything.

For years I mourned them and struggled to escape The Summoner and his twisted reality. Austin is where I found my freedom from him at last. I finally won his twisted game and he released me. It took a lot of time and planning to be where I am now. Samantha was just unexpected. She was so full of life and energy. She made me laugh.

She made me feel human again. And when she discovered what I was, she didn't run away screaming. Samantha sees everything that is good in me.” Cian's voice was very soft, yet full of deep emotion and torment.

Amaliya reached out and touched his shoulder lightly. “That is why you should marry her.”

“I will,” he said with a slight tinge of defiance in his tone. “I will.”

Something heavy and unspoken hovered in the air between them and Amaliya felt herself struggling not to do something obscenely stupid.

“It doesn't make me stop wanting you. Doesn't make it any easier not to sink my teeth into you and feed. Or want to be in you as you drink from me,” his voice said with raw need and desire. “You remind me of everything I truly am. The parts of me I have been denying.”

She drew her hand away slowly, but he caught it.

“I'll teach you the basics of our abilities tomorrow and then you must leave.”

“Okay,” she said softly.

“Because if you don't go,” he hesitated. “If you don't go tomorrow, I may never let you go.”

Taking the day off was easy for Samantha. Being the boss definitely had its perks at times. It was easy for things to go terribly wrong when it came to dealing with State agencies, but luckily her small staff was pretty competent. When she called her office manager to leave a voice mail that she was taking the day off, she felt secure that the office could survive one day without her.

Crawling out of bed around ten o'clock, she had stumbled through her small 1940's house to the kitchen and poured herself some coffee. She loved automatic timers. Her cat curled around her feet, muttering about the lack of food, and she managed to pour most of the cat food into the bowl and not onto the floor. The tabby she had picked up at the Town Lake Animal Shelter did not act like it had ever been a stray.

Beatrice was decidedly aristocratic in bearing and threw a disdainful look at the few bits of kibble on the floor.

“Fine.” Samantha picked up the bits of food and almost tossed them in the bowl, but didn't want to upset her Feline Majesty, so she threw them away.

She had never needed much sleep before meeting Cian, so usually their late nights did not really affect her, but last night had drained her. The bright sunshine pouring through the trees that towered over her small house filled it with dappled light and shadow. Opening the refrigerator, she pulled out cold Pesto A Go Go pizza from Austin Pizza and began to eat. Breakfast was so overrated.

She had snagged as many of Austin's free publications as she could last night at the Magnolia Cafe after she had left Cian's. She had felt upset and wanted queso. Sitting in a corner table, feeling like a jilted girlfriend, she had gone through all the announcements and ads she could find, looking desperately for someone who could help her. She had considered the Catholic church, but as someone raised Southern Baptist, she was slightly suspicious of their methods.

Picking up the few publications she had yet to read, she sat down at her tiny breakfast table and began flipping through them as she munched on the delicious pizza loaded down with pesto and goat cheese. Every once in a while, she had seen announcements for lectures on the supernatural in town. She had never attended, though her curiosity had been peaked. Before Cian, she had not believed in anything supernatural, but God, Jesus and the angels. Now she was engaged to a vampire, a hot one at that, and she was a lot more open about the supernatural. It made life more exciting and a little more scary all at once.

Tapping the end of her purple highlighter against her cheek, she arched an eyebrow as she came across a small announcement in one of the smaller weekly magazines.

“Is the Supernatural Real? Evidence Presented and Discussed by Jeffery Summerfield, owner of Central Texas Supernatural and Occult Bookstore.” Tucking the highlighter cap between her teeth, she tugged it off then highlighted the ad in bright, cheery purple. Then she noticed the date. The cap hit the table and rolled onto the ground as she exclaimed “Holy shit! It's today!”

Beatrice pounced on the purple top to the highlighter and smacked it across the kitchen like it was a hockey puck.

Tearing the page out of the magazine, Samantha rushed through her house into the bedroom and began digging through her fresh laundry for something to wear. What did you wear to an occult lecture? She had no idea, but she didn't want to look like an idiot.

Digging out a black skirt with big white, abstract splotches and a black tank top with a white flower on the shoulder, she made a slight face.

All her clothes were so cutesy. After seeing Amaliya lounging around in just plain jeans and a t-shirt, she felt decidedly unsexy. Though, she thought with evil glee, her legs were longer than the female vampire's and her hips were trimmer. At least she had that over the sexy vamp.

As per the usual, trying to hurry only resulted in her dropping the soap in the shower numerous times, burning her eyes with shampoo, falling halfway out of the tub when she tried to get out, and managing to drop her makeup all over the floor.

By the time she made it out the front door, jostling her big white bag stuffed with a notebook, pens, and a Bible-a spur of the moment choice-she felt like she had fought a major battle already. Unlocking her little convertible Volkswagen, she glanced up the quiet street to see a few of her neighbors out walking their dogs. It seemed so normal here, but she knew things were far different below the surface of it all.

Even though she was worried she wouldn't make it by 11 AM to the Spiderhouse, the coffee shop where the lecture was being held, she drove carefully, and listened to her Patsy Cline CD to soothe her nerves. Despite her calm appearance, she was nervous as hell and the last thing she needed to do was have a wreck. It wasn't a long ride from her house on the edge of Hyde Park to the infamous Drag that lined one side of the UT Campus. She parked in the Spiderhouse parking lot and made her way to the old house converted into a coffee shop. It was funky and cool and very Austin. A large board covered in flyers and announcements had one big poster on it announcing the lecture, and she sighed with relief.

Two huge worn stone statues, a lion and winged leopard, stood guard on the steps leading up to the purple house. She patted them as she passed and wove her way past college students animately talking as they exited the building. Following the wrap around porch, she carefully maneuvered past small tables filled with students typing away on their laptop computers or reading their textbooks. The patio was large and full of old statues that were missing pieces here and there, old rusted patio chairs and tables, Christmas lights, and people from all sections of Austin life catching a quiet moment before returning to work or school.

Samantha found the lecture in the patio in the back of the house and there was a nice gathering of people already seated at the picnic tables.

On the large screen, that was usually used to show movies or classic TV shows, there was a projected slide of of Bela Lugosi as Dracula with the words “Are they real?”.

Taking a seat at the last table, she set her bag down and took out her notebook. She noted she didn't look that out of place as she looked at the students, housewives, a few elderly people, and a large man in a wheelchair, gathered around the tables waiting for the lecture to start.

Looking around curiously, she tried to figure out who was the lecturer.

She finally settled on an older man having an animated conversation with a woman with too much lipstick smeared on her lips.

“Okay. I guess we should start. It's ten after eleven and I think this is it,” a young man said as he slid off a bench. He was wearing very battered jeans, a t-shirt that read “Got Blood?” and flip flops. His plain brown hair was kind of scruffy, with long bangs hanging in his eyes.

What was she expecting? Giles from Buffy?

“This lecture series is all about the different popular supernatural creatures that exist in our modern subconsciousness and where their legends originated. We'll address the possible theories as to their attributes. Such as does lycanthropy really make a werewolf? We'll discuss the possible supernatural aspects of these creatures and whether or not there is viable evidence to back up these claims.” The young man spoke quickly, but not as confidently as he was trying to project. He looked a little nervous and he wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans once or twice.

“Will we be discussing your father's works?” This came from the older man in the audience.