Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 122030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
Lucia laughs. “They didn’t disappear, darling. They crossed the veil. And they never came back.”
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE - PAUL
Say goodbye now.
Echo is waiting for me on the landing two floors down. I pass by her without stopping. “Do not go up there.”
“But Paul—”
“Save it for another time, Echo. Whatever it is you’re going to say, I already know.”
“But… where are you going?”
“To my apartments. Do not bother me unless Ryet is here.”
“Yes, my lord.”
I get down to the second level, then take a long hallway over to my own wing. I wish that little tower was on my side of the lodge, but it isn’t. And in my mind, all these decades, whenever I have stepped in the purple mist of the future, that was the room where it all happened.
So that is the room where it shall happen.
When I step through the door to my apartment, I can’t help but think about the phone call I made to Ryet when I first came up out of the ground. How rebellious he was that night. How certain he was, as well. Strong-willed, defiant, and, as always, confident.
Today though, he was angry. More at the little witch than he was me. Which is understandable. She betrayed him.
Of course, I set it up that way. So… poor Syrsee. She’s just bumbling around like a clueless idiot through no fault of her own. The Guild has told some pretty big lies to that girl. She will never trust them again. Just as Ryet will never trust her again.
But we all go through betrayals from time to time. Even me. Being banished from the fold was the best thing that could’ve happened. That challenge built my character. It also allowed me time to perfect my powers and work on my weaknesses. I’ve grown used to my absolute authority over the centuries. It’s quite nice not having the Obscurati on my back. If—no, when—I am welcomed back into the fold there will be an adjustment period for me.
But I am ready for that. I am ready.
I am ready for all of it.
Especially this one last visit to Josep.
I go over to the far wall of my living area and open a panel in the wall. There are no lights and it is pitch dark, but my vampire eyes don’t need lights. So I simply walk inside the small foyer, close the door, and descend the stairs that will take me underground to my geneticist.
Occasionally, these days, if I’m drunk or in a good mood, I will try to describe my relationship to Josep to my projects. In the early days I would spell this all out to each and every scion. But that got tiring. Explaining over and over. And for what? They all died in the end.
So with Ryet, I did everything different. Up to and including fully explaining my working relationship with Josep. Which was easy because Josep was already underground by the time Ryet was born. And by the time Ryet was old enough to build him the bunker here at the compound, Josep hadn’t seen sunlight for more than a decade.
We do love our darkness. Both darkness of the spirit and the actual blackness. So I suppose I can understand how humans might misinterpret our love for the dark as an aversion to the light.
The stairs end abruptly at a door. I pause. Straighten my shirt. Then inhale.
The scent of earth and dirt fills my nose and this air alone is enough to give me some energy.
I open the door, step into the tunnel, and walk forward towards the bunker. There is no door leading in. Or out, for that matter. It’s really just a shipping container with the ends cut off. When I enter there is one flickering candle on a small wooden table to my right and an old leather couch on my left. Josep is nowhere to be seen.
But that’s because he doesn’t stay here much. He prefers the cavern with the rocks and trickling waterfall that empties into a dark pool.
When one hears the word ‘geneticist’ they immediately picture labs, and chemicals, and potions. But that is not how genetics work in the vampire world.
I have already mentioned how wrong the lore is. This is just one more thing.
Bite your way into offspring? That’s laughable. If it were so easy, we’d have overtaken this world millennia ago.
No. Producing a brand-new baby vampire starts, of course, with a scion. Just like Ryet. But getting past the scion stage has always been the problem. Every vampire—even with the help of the fold and fully sanctioned by the Obscurati and their dark magic—will have trouble reproducing.
The scion has a natural lifespan of about thirty years, give or take. I have been keeping Ryet alive with the blessing of Josep, who has the blessing of the Darkness.