The Vampire's Hourglass Read online

  I saw him, then, coming from meters away. Even in his clumsier human form, he moved more stealthily than the others over the slick pavement dampened from the melted winter. Even then, he was still vastly different. Classier, leaner, and withholding a sort of charisma I had only very seldom seen in other mortals. I was enamored in that instant. My gaze locked on his slender form, which was silhouetted by the flickering streetlamps. His broad shoulders, his dark hair dripping like jet rain down the severe angles of his face, as his leather boots advanced toward me. I recognized the moment to be one of the most detrimental to my usually controlled character. It was a moment when the ice, which guarded and enveloped the very core inside of me, melted. Frozen for hundreds of years, and then, in one mere second of weakness, warmed entirely.

  You might say I fell in lust…because I will never admit it was love. I will never fall in love, because love always ultimately finds a way to fail against more powerful forces, like war and magic and greed. Ultimately, love always fails. And I would never admit to failure.

  The doors opened behind me, their booming echo rippling down the marble floors as though they were the surface of a dark body of water. I peered around the back of my chair.

  Once again, I studied Valek’s graceful movements as he entered the underground hall. His patent leather boots seemed to make absolutely no sound as he moved toward me. The fire cast jagged shadows across his vaulted cheekbones and his sharp jaw, making him look like something more sinister than I knew he was. The frosted color of his eyes pierced me so thoroughly, I thought I must be impaled by their very glance. They did not leave my face while he continued advancing toward me and the breath stilled in my lungs.

  For those months I was alone in the Dark City, I longed to see Valek again. Before his mishap with Charlotte, I thought about him endlessly each of my evenings, down in the metropolis of death and secrecy.

  Until I was ordered to go and fetch him.

  I thought doing so would bring me some amount of happiness once again. I thought seeing his face down there every night would do something to make this place feel more like home. But instead, it only felt like I’d caged a free bird.

  Everyone loved Valek. Everyone wanted a piece of him.

  I couldn’t bear to look at him any longer. Instead, I turned to face forward in my chair again.

  The flames of the fire, large in their marble hearth with its elaborate, gilded carvings flanked by intimidating columns, did nothing to warm me, for I still missed my life the way it was before all the mess. I missed my home and the bustling noises of the city. I missed the fun of preying on young human males in the underground discotheques. I missed the fresh air of midnight and the moonlight glittering over the baroque helmets of the various basilicas and monuments scattered among the modern bastions. The Vltava River. I missed the clamor of people. I missed the starlight. I even missed Sarah, my indentured house Witch.

  Valek’s forlorn sigh slid through the staleness of the room and filtered into my chest, causing my stone heart to somehow constrict. He took a seat in one of the silver throne-like chairs next to me. I could not hear his thoughts, but I felt his misery. Like chilling bands off a windstorm, they blew me over and took me down with this sinking ship.

  But, alas, I will surface. I am fine. I always have been and I always will be.

  To err is human, and there is nothing more human than love. And though I would never admit to loving Valek, I did. So I guess I have erred. So what does that make me?

  What am I?

  What am I?

  Chapter One

  Mud in the Snow

  Valek snaked up the porch steps and slid through the front door without a sound. Very few of the sconces hanging about the walls were lit, creating eerily dim streaks of light throughout the foyer. The house felt stripped of its previous happy glow, having been completely stolen from the rooms and corridors. The air about the place seemed stagnant. There would have been only the methodical ticking of a grandfather clock, paired with silence, if it had not been for the small commotion bubbling down from the upstairs bedroom.

  Giggles. Bedsheets rustling.

  Every last nerve ending buzzed under the icy bed of Valek’s skin as he passed over the darkened threshold, devoid of all emotion and intent, except for one. Revenge.

  Mortal blood wasn’t what he was after that night. Not even Elven or Fey blood. He only wanted the same as the stuff gushing through his own veins. Stolen blood. Transformed blood. Vampire blood. Lusian’s blood.

  As he listened to the rustles continuing to ensue just up the stairway of what was once his house, Valek grew more and more enraged. More ready. Becoming the new liege of the Parliament proved good for something, at least. The new title meant new power. New ability. New ways to reap the lives of those who crossed him.

  He grinned at his own violent thoughts.

  The stairs made no sound as he trod upon them. Fury raced like a brush fire under his skin as he ascended to the second story. A century or so ago, in Valek’s first few days of being among the Vampire kind, Francis had warned him of the battles he would wage over the course of his new existence. Battles with prey, battles with Elves, battles with himself. But Francis had never warned him of the battles between him and his own kin. Probably because Francis never imagined one of their own would betray another this badly.

  None, until now.

  Valek stalked the shadows of the hallway, passing the door that had once concealed Charlotte’s bedroom. It was closed, making the room a crypt for some of Valek’s happiest memories.

  He passed the large stained-glass windows until he was just on the other side of the double doors to his bedroom. He was so close.

  Valek shoved the sole of his muddy boot at the meeting of the doors, sending them both crashing inward and slamming back against the walls. The surprised gaggle of heathens fumbled around in the knotted bedsheets, gasping at Valek looming in the entryway.

  Lusian was the first to collect himself, leaping from the bed. Valek could smell the toxicity of his fear, his breathing ragged either from Valek’s sudden appearance or from what he had been doing with the Vampire twins. Valek couldn’t be sure.

  “You!” Lusian huffed. His normally spiked hair was wilted about his pallid face, which had turned an unnatural shade of green. His mouth was slack with the lack of words, no doubt.

  Ana and Aneta remained cowering in the bed with the sheets grabbed in their fists over their chests. Valek could then see there was something else different about Lusian. Something uneven about his face. His nose had been broken—a mark left from Charlotte’s desperate attempt to escape, he recalled. It was odd it hadn’t repaired itself, like most all of Vampires’ wounds did. Valek quirked an eyebrow.

  It was a permanent reminder of the terrible crimes Lusian had committed against Charlotte. How curious. Perhaps, unlike popular human fables, that was another reason why Vampires did have reflections cast back at them in mirrors, so they could forever be reminded of the monsters they truly were.

  “What are you doing here? We thought you were taken to Abelim!”

  Lusian already knew what was coming. Valek didn’t even need to listen in on his mind. Evidence of his fear lived in the way Lusian rocked and fumbled over his words.

  Valek did not answer; there was nothing he could have said to make this moment any more satisfying. Words couldn’t do the job his own two hands could. In spite of all his brazen ways, Lusian was such a coward, and it made Valek so much more feverish to act.

  His claws itched for the Vampire’s jugular, and he lunged, several long blades pushing through the skin of his nail beds. He flew through the bedchamber over his battle cry. The larger, animalistic claws grew at least three times their normal size, something he could not have done before his initial meeting with the Parliament. They pierced Lusian’s skin.

  His anguished cry was so cathartic, Valek let out a contented sigh as his lethal new additions sank deeper into Lusian’s chest, until Valek coul
d touch his cold heart with his fingertips. The idea of ripping it out was tempting.

  So he did.

  Lusian released another cry, his back arching, dead blood spilling over his chest and stomach. Valek could smother his grin no longer. In a dismal attempt to fight back, Lusian roared, piercing Valek’s shoulder with claws that now seemed flimsy and pathetic in comparison to Valek’s own.

  “You really are a backstabber.” Valek chuckled and tossed Lusian’s heart to the floor, and with his free hand, tore Lusian’s head clean from his shoulders. The twins shrieked. Valek tore Lusian’s talons from his own shoulder, shoving the dismembered body to the floor. “If either of you attempts to move from the bed, your fate will be the same.”

  He bent and picked up the dead organ from the dusty floorboards. The dismembered heart was stone hard, and he tucked it away in his breast pocket. He would keep it. His permanent reminder of how he’d failed so miserably at protecting the one thing that had given his existence any meaning. Charlotte.

  Snatching Lusian’s head by the hair, he lifted it to meet his own eyes with its vacant stare. “When I found out you hurt her, I promised her I would kill you.” He sneered and spat on the severed head, right between its eyes. “And I won’t break my promises. Not anymore.”

  Valek threw Lusian’s head at the rain-soaked windowpane, shattering the glass into a million glittering shards. Lusian was finally where he deserved to be. In the filth. In the refuse. In Hell.

  Valek turned on his heel, leaving the twins shivering in the bed, and stormed back down to the first floor.

  Photos of Charlotte hung cockeyed on the forest-colored walls, a few of them smashed, but Valek pushed past them, trying his best not to focus on the faces behind the broken glass. He pulled a small amulet from behind the collar of his shirt and turned the thing over between his fingertips. The pendant reminded him of the one Evangeline had worn around her throat the night she’d been destroyed in the streets of Prague. He’d almost been the one to destroy her, for she had acted as an agent of the Regime, sent there to sniff out Charlotte’s location and report back to Aiden. This piece of jewelry seemingly did the same thing hers had done, he remembered. Blockaded thoughts.

  Apparently, Lusian had not been able to detect Valek when he had first arrived at the home. The trinket masked the fact Valek had been lurking downstairs while Lusian carried on with his shenanigans. The amulet was a weapon of the Parliament, an onyx chain around Valek’s throat which kept Lusian’s senses at bay. That, combined with the power of a purified sapphire to guard Valek’s mind, was enough to make him all but invisible to nearby Vampires. Ergo, it was the perfect camouflage.

  Ophelia had been the one to give him this trinket. Though he was barely conscious enough to exchange words with the Elder the night he arrived, he remembered the odd sensation of not being able to search her mind. Or any of their minds, for that matter. He was not used to this sort of deafness. It was as uncomfortable as not breathing. He pulled out the amulet strung on the dull chain and watched it dangle before his eyes.

  The sapphire stone glittered under the white light flashing through the gunmetal color of the storm just outside the windows. The thing had served him well. Lusian was dead. A smirk caused the corners of Valek’s lips to twitch, though his overwhelming bitterness suppressed the satisfaction he should have felt.

  This house had fallen, sunken deep and steeped in sorrow. Dismal and haunted it would remain, and he would try to forget the events that had recently occurred there. Valek caught sight of his morose reflection in a mirror hanging on the wall close to the front door. Stopping a moment to eye his own blood-soaked image, he roared, his fist flying to crush the vision of himself in the darkness, watching it go to pieces on the floor. He hated himself probably as much as the beast he’d just slaughtered.

  He made his way toward the door, his claw wrapping around the familiar brass knob, when a voice croaked for him from somewhere toward the back of the house. He froze, listening for it to sound again, making sure it wasn’t just another reverie. He did feel like he’d gone mad, these days. The sound had been so faint—weak, like it would disappear if he weren’t quick enough to find it.

  He turned, his gaze landing on the door of what had once been his office, the room where he’d spent night upon night working and healing inhabitants of the Occult as their only medical professional. The Vampire doctor was how they used to know him.

  The feeble voice called for him again, almost crying. Valek began advancing toward the desolate sound down the short, first-floor corridor, finding the entry to his office had been bolted shut. Valek winced. What was Lusian hiding? Valek shook the handle. When it didn’t budge, he shoved his hand straight through the face of the door. The wood splintered around his arm, and he turned the lock from the inside.

  Shoving the door open, Valek pushed his way into the room, which looked ghostly in the midnight, stark and abandoned. His focus dashed to each shadowed corner and toed warily a few steps deeper. At first, nothing struck him out of the ordinary. The white walls and sterile counters were all just how he’d left them.

  For a moment, it seemed as if nothing about his life had changed at all and his dead heart constricted again. He stood in the eerie silence and new sound flooded his memory. Roaring, he drew his hands up to shield his ears from what he knew was not really there. He swallowed a sob as Charlotte’s voice, crying this time, forced him to drown under his own regret.

  On his desk, in a cracked frame, sat a drawing Charlotte had constructed when she was about ten or so—a gift for him—of the two of them, lined in crude, colored markings, standing in front of their home. Valek plucked it from his desk and held it in front of his face, attempting to memorize the image.

  “Valek, is that you?” the voice choked out again.

  Valek gasped and whirled around, the drawing clutched behind his back. Swallowing his heartache, he faced the heavy door which lead to a small freezer compartment at the side of the room. He’d converted this part of his office to store medicines and emergency supplies needing to be kept cold, and, on occasion, bodies of his victims, until he could figure out how to dispose of them. There was even the rare situation when the freezer room would serve as a temporary morgue for patients he could not save, or had been too late in his attempt to do so.

  He frowned, unsure if what he’d just heard was real.

  “Valek,” it choked again, muffled.

  The voice was masculine, he noted, musical, and vampiric. He recognized distinctly to whom it belonged.

  “Jorge?” Valek called. He dropped the picture onto his desk. Pushing forward for the freezer door, the opening to Mr. Třínožka’s burrow caught the periphery of his sight.

  Someone had clearly made an attempt to seal it. He appraised the twisted bars and metal scraps that must have been meant to be a barrier. They were jagged, like they had been torn open. Something inside his mind spoke to him and confirmed this was all Lusian’s doing.

  “In here, Valek,” Jorge croaked again.

  Valek dashed to the dead-bolted freezer door. Using all his strength, he pried it open, the shrapnel clanging to the floor. Chilled air hit him in the face.

  Inside the darkened storage, he discovered Jorge chained to the back wall, his complexion grayer and more sullen than it was ever supposed to be. His eyes were jet pools, with flakes of ice clinging to his eyelashes, hair, and the surface of his tattered clothes. He looked positively next to death, and not in the same way the Vampire kind usually did.

  “What has happened to you?” Valek rushed to his side and began trying to break the manacle on Jorge’s left wrist, pinned high above his head.

  “Lusian,” Jorge struggled to choke out. “I heard the fight upstairs, and I knew you were here.” His voice sounded crusted-over and dehydrated. He grimaced over his weak and tired gaze at something. “Why can I not hear your mind anymore? Where is Lusian?”

  Valek continued to work quickly. “My thoughts are protected. And he
is dead.”

  “He put me here. My punishment for helping Charlotte escape.” Jorge proceeded to roll and crack the joint in his left wrist back into place. “From what he was doing to her.”

  Valek opened the manacle holding Jorge’s right wrist. “You helped her?” He stopped breathing and watched all of Jorge’s memories play out before him—watched Jorge freeing Charlotte’s limbs from the bed just the same as Valek freed his from the wall, then. The scene proceeded with Charlotte’s face darkening, disappearing down the dark burrow hole with Lusian following soon after. The memories jumped to Lusian returning bloodied, battered, and angry. Angry with Jorge. So angry, Lusian had ripped the bindings from the bedposts and used them to fasten Jorge to the inside of Valek’s freezer and left him to rot. Jorge had been there for weeks.

  “My friend,” Valek began, offering up his own wrist, “please drink from me.”

  Jorge lazily shook his head, a pained grimace pulling down the corners of his blue lips “No,” he grumbled, his voice husky and tired. “I will not.” Valek thought about pulling him out into the office, but Jorge looked fragile enough he might break if Valek were to touch him. The surrounding slate walls seemed to close in on him as he fought for ways to save his friend.

  “You’re too weak to hunt. You need something more potent. Take it from me. Please. It will help you.” He shoved his bare arm toward Jorge again, who merely shook his head before letting it loll to one side and collapsing with his back against the wall. He could barely open his eyes.

  “Where is Charlotte?” Jorge coughed over the black bile oozing from his mouth. The color matched his thirsty, albeit weakened, stare.