Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 89023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Blood and… I’m not sure. Remnants of body parts, I think.
Something really bad happened here. Something I didn’t notice when I brought Syrsee in last night because we came from the pool out back.
I look around. The whole place is eerily quiet.
Where is everyone?
I stay completely still, using my vampire ears to pick up anything—any kind of sound. But there is no one in this house except for Syrsee and me. Not only can I hear the silence, I can feel it.
Now what?
I have to find Paul, but where do I start?
The dreamwalk seems like a logical place, but I don’t really know how to do that. It’s never been me controlling those things. It was Paul or Syrsee.
I’m sure I could do it, but the silent lodge is creeping me out and I don’t like the idea of closing my eyes and turning my back on reality.
Sniffing the air, I catch Paul’s scent. Tracking must be one of my new vampire superpowers because suddenly, I can smell them all—every single one of his scions. But even though the one guy told me his name was Jeff, I can’t discern his scent from any of the others so it doesn’t mean much to me.
Then there is an odd one. One that does not seem familiar at all, except it reminds me of Syrsee. It’s not her, though. I definitely smell Syrsee and she is distinct from this scent. So I don’t know what to do with that information either.
Paul’s scent, though, is something I can follow.
Maybe.
I did track Syrsee using her scent when I was a scion. That was literally my job. But I have never been able to track Paul. He came and he went, usually in my dreams.
Everything about today seems about as far removed from those days last winter as they can get. I don’t even feel like the same person.
I am not, in fact, the same person.
Hell, I’m not actually a person.
I’m a… I look down at myself and shake my head. I’m a demon. I look like a demon. This is the longest I’ve gone in this form so far and it feels pretty final. Like there’s no going back now. That other guy, the one with the nice body and attractive face, he’s gone.
It’s not true. This is me, no matter what, but I don’t have to stay in this form. Paul didn’t. So one day, if I make it that far, I’ll know how to control it the way he did.
But today is not that day. Today there is no illusion to cover up what I am.
Everything I’ve been through over the last ninety-three years has finally caught up to me. The bill always comes due.
“Enough,” I say out loud, mostly to shake myself out of this creeping feeling that something is about to go terribly wrong. “You’re a fucking vampire, Ryet. A real vampire. You’ve got wings, for fuck’s sake.”
So I let out a breath and continue my walk down the hallway, my fingertips sliding across the wooden railing as I approach the stairs.
I go down the stairs and walk over to the stain on the floor. Which is not really a stain, but leftover blood and… whatever that other stuff is. Body parts, I’m pretty sure.
But it’s days old. Dried and cracking since this is the entrance to the lodge and there’s a whole wall of cathedral windows allowing in sunshine.
The mess is lit up with this sunshine right now. And when I look out the window to check the sun’s position, it feels like late morning.
How long has it been since the three of us fed on Syrsee? It feels like years—months, maybe. But it has to be weeks, at least, because winter was still hanging about and it doesn’t feel like winter anymore.
I can’t reconcile this timeline. There is no way I can put it all together because while I know that Syrsee and I really did go to my cabin in West Virginia, I don’t know how many days passed while we were there and I have no fucking clue at all how many days have passed since I turned into the Darkness and got her pregnant.
I have a bad feeling about all that time between then and now. Like something was happening but I was too fucked up to realize it.
“Lied to, as well,” I absently say, mainly focused on looking around.
In the dining room I find evidence of… well. I’m not really sure. I walk the length of the table, looking at all the bloodstains on the surface, then stop in front of the two golden wingback chairs at the top of the room. I didn’t make these, they were purchased. Not by me, but they’ve been here for decades.
I’ve walked by them literally hundreds of times and never taken a second look, but today they don’t look like chairs in an intimate seating arrangement.