Darkling (18 page)

I was kicking and punching, trying to free myself from his grip. It was futile, and my frustration over my inability to beat him made me want to explode. His arm was locking my head again, and, realizing that, all I wanted was one thing and one thing only.

“Nika! . . . Nika! . . . Nika!!”

A voice was reaching through the thick walls of the blur. I didn’t want to hear it, I felt safe among the slippery clouds in my mind.

“NIKA!”

It was Belun’s voice. He was screaming, screaming at me—there was something in my mouth! Something weird tasting.

His arm! I was biting his arm!

Oh, my God!

I released it immediately. I looked up at him expecting a slap or hit. What the hell had I done?!

I looked at the damage I’d done to his pearl skin. The print of my teeth was deep in his arm, next to his bicep. It was so deep that it was strange that blood wasn’t dripping everywhere. In fact, there was no blood at all! Suddenly, my head hit the tatami and his body covered me, blocking my arms and my legs with his own. His face was next to mine and he was furious. His breathing slowly calm but his jaw was tight. There was a chill dripping off his eyes.

I started to shiver.

He sniffed at my lips.

“You drank wine. What is wrong with you?!”

My body gone beyond shivering and was already shaking. My limbs were moving completely uncontrollably and my eyes were wide.

He let me go and his look turned wary.

“Nika? Answer me.”

“I’m soo-rr-y,” I could barely speak the words.

“Is something hurting you?”

“No.” I was still shaking.

“You’re in shock.”

He gathered me in his arms and pulled me up into a sitting position, against his chest. All I could do was repeat over and over:
I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

Chapter 11

A Hobby

“Do you remember the feeling when you were summoned?”

“No.”

Silence again.

“But I do remember when Lolo flew into me.”

“What was the feeling like?”

“Pure explosion of all my senses. I felt the light and myself for the first time. Well, the second.”

“And how much of earlier you is in this present version of you?” I asked Tertius.

“Me before I died?”

I nodded.

“I cannot say that I am the same person I used to be. But I am not strange to myself either.”

“Try and give me an approximate percentage.”

He shrugged. “Maybe 15%.”

Today Tertius didn’t seem annoyed by my questions. He spoke slowly and with effort, but at least he did speak.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

“I had a very strange outburst yesterday.”

“What kind of an outburst?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, remembering the awful bite.

Tertius gazed at me patiently, seeing my moodiness. He took a piece of paper from the stack next to him on the table and, with a pencil, drew a question mark. Then he pushed the pencil and paper in my direction.

I bit someone
, I wrote, and he chuckled while reading it, then scribbled over it.

All the way down?

God no!”

Oddly, he was probably the only one I’d tell about that incident. I couldn’t imagine sharing my savageness with anyone else. I wanted to talk more about it, but there were too many ears around, so I took a deep breath and returned to the previous subject.

“What is the ritual of summoning?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who summoned you?”

“A Priest did.”

“A Priest, really.” I was being sarcastic.

“What, that isn’t in those books they gave you?” he teased. “His name was Doroteo, which means ‘gift from god.’ Ironic, huh?”

“Sure, if you’re giving symbolism to your existence.”

“And what
is
my existence according to you?” he asked.

“You’re a weapon for mass destruction.”

He lowered his gaze under my tone. Today I was much sharper than usual, and, oddly, I didn’t feel the need to justify my behavior.

“What kind of emotions are you capable of?” I sounded more like a machine than a human being. He wasn’t looking at me now, and he seemed dejected.
What is wrong with me?
I felt an edge inside me that wasn’t right. But after a while, everything returned to normal. Any remaining sharpness and anger evaporated from my conscience, so slowly I could almost feel the withdrawal. As if someone else had pulled the plug. Only when the feelings were gone did Tertius look up at me with a tiny smile.

“Welcome back,” he said. How had he known?

I hadn’t seen Belun since the gym before I entered our office. I felt completely uncomfortable and the guilt was eating me alive.

“Hi,” I said shyly.

He gave me an almost smile. “Hi.”

I didn’t deserve that smile—why wasn’t he throwing stones at me, or something like that?

“Stones?”

“What?” I was confused.

“You said stones,” he said.

“Out loud?” Crap, I was blushing. Okay, now he was grinning, his white teeth flashing at me. I wondered how he wore his fangs.

“How’s your arm?” I asked in a tiny voice, approaching his desk. My shame over the previous day’s behavior was beyond the words.

“It’s already healing,” he said.

“Do you guys have some great regenerative skill I don’t know about?”

“In general, yeah.”

There was something unsettling in his eyes.

“Then why the long sleeves?”

“Easy with the Twenty Questions!” His grin escaped me.

“Take it off,” I said, and he looked at me as if I had lost my mind. I repeated it.

“Why would I?”

“So I can see the wound,” I said.

“It’s not really a wound.”

I raised my eyebrows, waiting. He glared at me, but finally gave in. His shirt came off.

I came closer, trying to concentrate on just the injured part and not his entire naked upper body. Naked, just like it was in my dream when he grabbed me and placed over him.

“Your healing powers have failed you,” I said.

The bite mark was as deep as it had been the night before. The only difference was some reddening around it.

“Did you use any medicine? Maybe it’s infected.”

I looked up at him. His nudity was delicious, so I tried to keep looking into his eyes, afraid that if I looked a little bit lower, I would drool all over him. I didn’t know why I felt that way, but I wasn’t willing to risk it and embarrass myself even more. He leaned toward me and my heart sped up. He turned slightly and I let my eyes drop and saw several bite marks on his chest and near his neck. Those were old scars, and their shapes were all very different, although all were obviously teeth marks. Seeing them, I forgot about my attraction and stared at them. Terrifyingly, they were similar to mine.

“I haven’t always been babysitting berserk Inquirers,” he remarked. Great. So now I’m berserk.

“May I?” I moved to touch him. After a brief pause he nodded.

I felt his skin under the tips of my fingers. I brushed over the scars, noticing how his chest moved with breathing.

“How old they are?” I asked quietly, mesmerized by his body and its proximity.

“Are you asking how old
I
am?” he tried to joke. However, feeling his skin consumed me completely.

“There are more on my back,” he said, turning around.

There
were
more on his back. Countless barely visible silver lines crossed his body. They were almost at the same level as his skin, and it didn’t look scary or disgusting; they even felt smooth when I touched them. But they were there, and each had its own bloody story to tell. I pressed both of my hands on his back, feeling him twitch. Maybe he was uncomfortable with me touching him, but I couldn’t stop from doing it. For a moment, I closed my eyes to feel him even better, then he moved, pulling his shirt down. I unwillingly removed my hands, and when he turned to face me, his eyes seemed blurred.

“We have to write reports,” he said.

What a buzzkill.  I sat in my chair still feeling his skin on my palms.

While writing, I noticed that he scratched the place of my bite a few times. Where the hell did I get the idea to bite him?! I was no better than those creatures who had attacked him, marking his skin forever. How terrible.

“Guess where I was yesterday with Doris?” I felt a stupid need to talk.

His eyes moved from his screen to me.

“We visited a fortune teller.”

“Something troubling you?” He was intrigued.

“Do I look like someone who would ask a witch for advice?!”

He laughed, “Well . . .”

I frowned through a smile.

“So what did fortune teller say?”

“That Bryn doesn’t have love problems, that Mia will soon meet someone who’s not of her matter, and that Doris has already found her love.”

“And what did she tell you?”

“Nothing. She couldn’t see a thing. So, according to her I must be a zombie, I guess,” I laughed and he shook his head silently, as if to say
it’s all bullshit
.

“So, you never told me how a great Warrior becomes a babysitter?”

I didn’t know where I stood with him. What was I allowed to ask and what was off-limits? He didn’t seem pleased with the question, but he still answered it.

“I’m the only one left of my lineage, and I had to take a place in the Council.”

“What happened?”

“My father died in a Vocati attack.”

“I’m sorry.” This was definitely
not
a question I should’ve asked, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking further.

“Do you have any family? Offspring, I mean.”

He looked very perplexed.

“So, what were you doing in Iowa?” he asked, after a minute of tension.

Hadn’t we had this conversation? Okay, I know I hadn’t been completely honest then, but still. However, he seemed only interested in truth and not in my marvelous ways of avoiding it. But it was my fault; I was the one who had started with the intimate questions.

“My boyfriend cheated on me with my best friend,” I finally said.

“So the pain chased you off?”

“Not pain. I needed some space to breathe. The pain theory is Doris’s area of expertise,” I said, and he raised his eyebrows questioningly.

“Ah, it doesn’t matter.” I shooed the thought away with my hand, but he kept waiting for the answer. Damn!

“Doris thinks that I was really hurt by that whole thing, more so than I am admitting to myself; so, since I’m in denial, mentally, my body is having extreme reactions to men when they get physically close to me,” I said, thinking that his earlier nude proximity had totally beaten her theory.

“I thought it was something like that.”

I frowned. “And
I
think that both of you have too much spare time.”

“So what happened last night?” he finally asked. I had been thinking about it the whole day and still couldn’t find any explanation.

“I don’t know. How did it seem to you?”

“You marked me as your enemy and you wanted to rip my head off.”

I was shocked.

“You showed a surprising ability.”

“What, the ability to bite?” I tried to make a joke, but my gaze fell.

“No. You showed the fighting instinct. You absolutely lack technique, but you were still ready for anything. I didn’t know you had it in you. I thought you were all ‘Miss Peace-in-the-World.’ ”

“But I am.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. You’re hungry for blood and battle,” he laughed.

“Don’t form ideas based on one angry moment.”

“Actually it’s two moments, the kick to my face and now the bite.” His tone was teasing. “So what’s causing the anger?”

Gee, I don’t know—you?
Then I remembered Simona’s voice coming from his room.

“Nothing,” was my ingenious answer.

“What is causing that rage?” he persisted, but I looked away at my monitor, saving my files. “We won’t have training tonight.”

“Okay,” I said, leaving the office.

I joined Tibor at lunch.

“Hey Lamb, your steak is getting bloodier,” he grinned, looking in my plate. I didn’t reply.

“So, how’s work?”

“Better than the rest of my day,” I said, and he gave me an odd look.

“The rest is usually boring,” I added.

“Oh, that. Well, get a hobby!”

I scowled, which made him laugh, which made me want to punch him in the face.

What?! Punch him? Really, what was my problem?! Was this some delayed reaction to an “I-am-in-a-vampire-den” syndrome?

“Have you felt any changes in yourself after coming to this place?” I asked.

“You mean something like that exasperation of yours?”

“Yeah, like that.” He laughed again; thankfully I had no more desire to punch. “I often feel anxiety, then annoyance—even violence sometimes. Those things are only seem to be getting stronger.”

“I don’t know. Maybe you don’t dig the climate, California girl.”

He was in the mood to joke around, apparently; I looked down at my plate.

“Okay, if it means something to you, I didn’t notice any particular changes in myself or the other Inquirers. Of course, all of this changes you in some way, but not as dramatically as you might think.” He paused, and then added, “If it gets too rough, there’s a shrink here . . . maybe some meds as well . . . .”

Okay, Tibor was being helpful, but a shrink? C’mon.

I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Blake.

“Guess what was waiting for me in my room?”

“Twin Playboy bunnies?” I replied and Tibor choked. Even some people around us turned to look.

“Very funny!” He held a metallic gray USB flash drive. “Compliments of Mr. Baldur.”

“Oh, cool!”

“Yup. I’m guessing it’s the tests we wanted; I didn’t want to open it without you. Andrei Belun said I could find you here.”

“So are you free?”

“Like a bird, my friend.”

“Great, I can’t wait to check this out.”

“By the way, your office is cool,” Blake added.