The Vampire's Reflection (18 page)

Valek blinked twice and cleared his throat. His gaze shifted a bit with a new thought. “N-no,” he stammered. “She is not dead.”

Charlotte hugged him closer. “What did you do to her?” she whispered.

“I fear you’ll think me a monster if I tell you,” he said quietly back, continuing to stare sadly forward.

“I think I am more like you than you know. I am already such a monster. I take lives as you do, so I am already a killer. I have an addiction, as you do. Why will you not transform me entirely if I am already as damned as you are?”

Finally, Valek dropped his gaze, though at nothing in particular, his focus distantly at the floor. “Your soul is clean, Charlotte. I’ve brainwashed you into doing my bidding, into thinking it is right, so your killing is my responsibility. Please, do not compare yourself to the likes of me. I am the worst kind of evil. The kind you wish to believe is inherently good.” His voice was pained, his gaze soft and thoughtful. He stroked one of his claws lightly across her cheek and smiled slightly. “And anyway, I prefer a killer in an angel’s body to that of a beast such as myself.”

Charlotte placed a hand on his cool cheek, pulling his mouth closer to hers. “You don’t look very beastly to me.” She kissed him lightly, her fingers trailing up the sides of his face and burying themselves in his soft hair. The sweetness of his scent enthralled her, but he pulled away after a few moments.

“What else is bothering you?” he prodded, narrowing his eyes at her. He was all too observant. He probably didn’t even need to listen to her mind anymore to know when she was troubled.

Charlotte dropped her gaze, struggling with the next bit of it. “Well….”

Valek sat straighter. Suddenly, he was
completely
there in the room with her, his undivided attention on what she was about to say next. This only made her more nervous.

“It was something I dreamt. Though Mr. Třínožka said we should never discuss our nightmares for fear they might come true,” she started to explain, nervously toying with the hem of her dress.

Valek squeezed the point of her chin. “That’s silly. I’ve never heard that said before.”

“There might be some truth to it,” she confided, dropping her gaze from his. Her tongue swelled in her mouth as she grappled to choose the right words. Her cheeks burned at one particular memory of her nightmare. She shivered.

“Tell me, Lottie. I wish to make it better.” His claw grazed the slight crescent raised along the flesh of her throat. “Perhaps,” he offered, “it is the
only
thing I can make better.”

Bashfully, Charlotte peered up at Valek, melting the chill along the icy surfaces of his face. “I dreamt of your wife, Valek.”

Valek drew in the smallest gasp. Charlotte caught a glimpse of his fangs from just behind the perfect fullness of his lips. He suddenly went rigid, as though all of his walls had gone back up, and looked away from her.

“She returned to you…in my dream,” Charlotte went on to explain.

She could see him struggle to conceal his utter shock. A new sadness filled his eyes, though he smiled faintly in spite of it. Softly, he traced the surface of her cheek with the back of his cool hand.

Charlotte dropped her eyes again, blushing with the next memory of the nightmare, knowing he would see it play in his mind as instantly as she did. “You—you welcomed her.” She wound her fingers together in her lap as she waited for his response to that. When she was met with nothing but silence, she looked back up just to make sure he was still in the room with her. He only continued to stare forward, eyes narrowed and pained, as though watching her memories like he was watching a film. “You still love her, don’t you?”

Valek’s gaze darted about the room as though he were searching for what to say next. He cleared his throat. Her heart fluttered in her chest when she saw he wasn’t responding immediately. Panic bubbled in her stomach.

“There will always be a type of love for her, yes,” he said finally looking back at her. “She was the love of my human life—when I was something different other than what I am now. Even though I keep those memories, however muddy and distant, that time in my life is obsolete. I am something entirely different now, and you,” he held up his left palm to her, “are my soul mate. You are the love of my life as it is now—the very one fate has brought me to.”

Charlotte relinquished the breath she’d been holding and offered up a tiny smile. She leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. “Thirsty?” she forced out breathlessly.

Valek sighed and put his pipe aside on the small, carved ashtray on the end table next to his chair—an action that seemed solemn, and almost a little peeved, she noted. His eyes narrowed slightly.

“Your addiction has gotten far worse, Lottie.” His words condemned her. Punished her. They were a cold diagnosis—one a doctor would tell his patient. She wanted to argue back, but he interrupted. “It grows worse by the night. Sarah’s right to be worried for you. Something has to be done.”

“What needs to be done? I thought Sarah said there was no cure.” She grimaced. “Aside from the…
obvious
.”

Valek’s expression hardened even further as he ground his teeth together. “Yes. Well, we both know
that
will not be the answer.” His gaze snapped to her face, causing her heart to leap up into her throat, though she saw that his expression softened when their eyes locked. He traced one of her dark, under-eye circles with his claw, trailing down her cheek and her chin to the hollow at the base of her throat. “We are going out later. Just you and I. I need to get away from this house.”

He barked this out low, as an order rather than a request for her to join. Even though she knew it was biologically impossible, Charlotte thought about how much he seemed to have aged recently. Never at rest, his usually bright characteristics seemed to lack their unnatural glow. She knew how he sat alone in the library, night after night, racking his brain—worrying about Aiden’s next move. Worrying about Charlotte’s condition. Carrying the weight of the world on his too-capable shoulders. She knew all of these things haunted him behind his eyes set aglow by the harsh firelight. Valek didn’t need any sort of God to send him to hell. He’d already put himself there.

“All right,” Charlotte said meekly.

“I know you hate me.” He whispered so close, the moisture of his breath cooled against the skin of her ear.

“I don’t,” she managed to get out, though her words were barely audible.

Valek ran the back of his cool hand over her cheek again as his gaze dropped to her lips, parted from the anticipation of him being so close. He grazed her lower lip with the edge of his nail. It made her throat muscles tighten.

“You’re an awful liar.” Valek, continuing to focus on her mouth, slid his one nail down the center of her throat again and watched her shift uncomfortably as a wave of an odd, new emotion fluttered through her stomach. Her fists tightened. He chuckled, and she could see the full glory of his fangs, which caused this odd feeling to spread through her stomach again.

“I love that I can do that to you,” he murmured, satisfied.

She shivered as he cupped the side of her face, closing in. He kissed her with a greater intensity this time, crushing his mouth to hers. Her scar reacted to his dangerous proximity.

Pulling away, he grabbed her wrist and drew it toward his face, sliding it along his cool cheek. He inhaled slowly. Charlotte watched his eyes engulf in black. He opened his mouth and penetrated her wrist delicately, the red pooling up around his lips. Releasing it, he plucked a wine glass from the end table and held it just under her open wounds. Charlotte watched her own blood flow in scarlet ribbons down her arm and into the glass. When it was filled about a quarter of the way, Valek brought her wrist back to his mouth and ran his tongue over the puncture, all the while keeping his eyes locked with Lottie’s as her wounds healed shut. He dropped her wrist.

“Run along now, Lottie,” he murmured darkly, sipping at the warm, red contents of the crystal glass. “I’ll be after you shortly.”

Chapter Twelve

Conspiracy

Once Valek was sure Charlotte had busied herself with Edwin and the Spider downstairs, he stood from his perch in the study. “Francis,” he whispered, somewhat to himself, “you’ve got to help me. I cannot accomplish this alone.”

He downed the rest of the blood, slamming the glass on the small table beside his armchair and lapping up the rest from his lips. Sarah entered the room in a huff, her arms crossed over her chest.

“Valek.” Her musical tone was now shrill with her fury. “You’ve got to end this experiment now. The girl is
dying
. You promised me you weren’t going to hurt her! I think you should go in there and have a look. I can’t take any more of this!” She stamped her foot.

Valek eyed her, exhaling slowly through his nose. “I never promised you anything. At any rate, it is too late for her. This was the experiment. It proves my theory. That woman is Charlotte. She represents, on a faster timeline, the process that Charlotte’s body is going through.”

Sarah’s eyes glittered as they watered up. “You
meant
to kill this person?”

“Sarah, I mean to kill a lot of people. If you haven’t noticed, it sort of comes with the job description.” Valek smoothed his hair and adjusted his ascot. “I didn’t know that was the resolution—death. I was afraid it would be something else.”

“What? Change?” Sarah blanched. “I happen to agree with change. I think Charlotte
should
be changed. Change is good, Valek. You shouldn’t be afraid of it! You’re telling me that
death
is better than that?”

“
Yes, that is
exactly
what I am telling you!
” Valek thundered, unable to control his temper any longer. Sarah flinched back from his volume. “I don’t want your opinion anymore,” he continued. “I’m going to check on the patient. I’ll be back.” He stormed past her.

“She’s not your patient, she’s your victim!” Sarah cried after him.

Valek shoved past as Lusian and Sasha entered the room. He heard them snicker, but their petty behavior barely bothered him now. He wouldn’t let them instigate another fight when he had more important things on his mind.

On his way out of the library, he saw a gaunt-looking Charlotte standing stiffly by the staircase, appearing even paler than usual. Her face actually held a sort of green tinge to it. She already seemed like a ghost to him, the circles under her eyes nearly swallowing the green irises whole. She glared at him, a deathly look he had never seen her emit before. He tuned into her mind. He saw she had just come up to the house through Mr. Třínožka’s burrow…through Valek’s office.
Damn it.

“Will you kindly tell me,” she seethed, “What kind of monstrous experiment you are working on in there?” Her large, angered eyes twitched as they filled with tears.

Though the volume of her voice didn’t rise a single decibel, this was the angriest Valek had ever seen her. She pressed her pink, heart-shaped lips together as she held herself steady on the banister.

Valek wanted to run to her and swallow her frailness in his arms and hold her up, but something in her expression kept him where he was. “W-what did you see?” He winced, afraid of her answer.

“Everything.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “All I needed to do was follow the sounds of her
screaming
!”

Valek gasped. “Excuse me.” He streamed past her and into his office, turning to lock the door before facing forward to the stark, white room.

It was silent, with an eerie sort of quality. The freezer door had been left open. That was not the way he’d left it, having to keep her locked in there out of fear of the others finding and eating her. There were no human-like sounds emanating from it. Valek took a step forward, listening for thoughts. They were present, though very, very quiet. Was the human finally dying? Valek toed deeper into the office, listening for any sign of action.

As he neared the freezer, carefully rounding the corner to peer inside, he was met with the scene that most definitely had been the catalyst for Charlotte’s fury. The woman lay there on the gurney. She was still, her breathing shallow, he fingers flexed into claws and she seemed to be staring death straight in the face. Dried blood clung to her hair and her torn shirt. An IV filled with fluids and antibiotics was inserted into the large vein at her wrist. A bowl of Sarah’s truffles sat on a small work table to the left of the gurney, Valek’s rolling chair just next to it. He cringed slightly at the image of this poor, human experiment as he moved deeper into the room. He noted that there was still a slight chill, though he’d shut off the power so that the mortal wouldn’t freeze to death. He needed her to last just a little bit longer.

“Hello,” he murmured, rushing to her side, seeing that her eyes were open. She stared blankly up at the dismal ceiling, her skin a sickly sort of blue. Her lips were curled back over her teeth in silent agony. Valek put his hand on the side of her face, which was considerably cooler, though still warm according to his own unnatural temperature.

Slowly, her gaze shifted to his face. It wasn’t an angry one. There wasn’t much expression in it at all. She closed her eyes once and reopened them again as her stare moved slightly over the various details of him. He could see she was studying him, perhaps in an effort to remember what killed her when she finally went.

He sat down in the chair, their gazes still locked on each other. She didn’t say anything as he watched her breath form in puffs of mist in front of her nose. “Here,” he offered, removing his jacket and laying it over her body, tucking it under her on the sides. She was attractive, as he’d noted earlier. Wholesome looking—with pin-straight brown hair and dewy blue eyes. Her skin was pale around her thin frame. Her coloring reminded him somewhat of a fawn: wounded, helpless, small, hunted. She looked much thinner than when she’d first come into the house. He sighed at his monstrosity. Rubbing at the bridge of his nose, he spun around on his chair, reaching for one of Sarah’s truffles from his medical bag. He turned back to the woman, who continued to stare tiredly at him. He took a mental note of how slow her pulse had gotten. He wondered if she had a family—a lover. He wondered how afraid they were for her. If they were looking for her. How many posters they’d plastered of her face all over their town. The adjacent town.