Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 112849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
“Bellamy rang me last night,” she says gravely. “You can—and should—call him to hear for yourself. But Dracula, Professor Aminoff, he’s now just part of a much bigger picture. A much more deadly picture. In the last couple of days, the vampires Saara and Aleksi have taken up shop here in Venice. Where, I don’t know. And they reportedly have a book that they recently stole from Lisbeth, a witch from Wales. The book went missing after Lisbeth was found dead.”
“She was found dead? Did they kill her?” I don’t know Lisbeth—I don’t know most witches to be honest—but the death of a fellow witch is a hard pill to swallow. There are only so many of us left.
“Saara and Aleksi did,” she says, her tone sharp. “Professor Aminoff has an alibi, he was here. And it’s possible he had nothing to do with it. But we won’t know that until you get close. What Bellamy wants you to focus on now is using the professor to get close to Saara and Aleksi. Find out where they are staying. Find the book. Then kill them all.”
I blink, trying to take the new information in. In my job, being adaptable is an asset but this new plan is throwing me off. “I’m going to need more time to process this,” I admit, hoping I don’t sound weak. The last thing I need is for her to report me to Bellamy and pull me from the mission.
“It shouldn’t change anything,” she says. “You’ll just be at the school for longer. You’ll need your glamor for longer. When you feel it weakening, take your time to do another spell. You’ll want it strong enough to not only pass Dracula’s inspection, but Saara and Aleksi too. And anyone else. Who knows how many vampires truly live in this city. Sometimes it feels like hundreds.”
I swallow the rest of my coffee, the caffeine mixing with the adrenaline. “What’s so special about the book?”
“It’s a spell book.”
“So? I know plenty of vampires who have their hands on one.” There’s one in particular, Absolon Stavig of San Francisco, who has a whole library of them, but he is a little different from the rest of the vampires. He’s not loyal to his kind, or really anyone except himself, and he does a lot of deals with witches. As far as I know, the magic he gets from the books doesn’t really leave the house he lives in.
“This isn’t an ordinary spell book,” she says, her eyes looking grim. “It can open portals to other worlds.”
Okay. Now she has my attention.
“I’m sorry…portals?”
Livia nods. “The witch was in charge of it for safekeeping, so really no one should have been able to find it. But perhaps curiosity got the better of her. Either way, Saara and Aleksi learned about the book, journeyed there, killed her, and took it. Now they have the ability to open portals themselves.”
The skin on my scalp prickles uneasily. “And do what with them?”
Livia gives a slow shrug, looking around her as a flock of pigeons land nearby. “I don’t know. Bellamy fears they may be opening a portal to the Red World, where their king resided.”
“But Skarde is dead.”
“He is. But there may be other vampires or creatures that live in that realm that they can pull out.” She pauses, shifting uneasily in her seat before she fixes her eyes on me. “Even monsters.”
Suddenly the flock of pigeons take to the air, as if hearing her. They probably did.
“Why?” I whisper.
“I don’t know,” she says. Then she gets to her feet and smooths out her sundress. “But your job is to find out. I will help you in whatever way I can as your guide and fellow witch on the ground, but this is your mission, Dahlia. Bellamy entrusted you with it.”
I open my mouth to protest. To tell her that originally my mission was just to come to Venice, enroll in the music school, get close to Dracula, who happened to be a professor there, then kill him. He was a vampire who had killed many over the years and the job of a slayer is to seek out the vampires that kill humans and deliver them justice. After a job well done, I would go back to the Pacific Northwest and resume life in the guild again as a slayer.
But now I have three targets, not one, I have to get close to my professor in order to access the other two, and then there’s this magic book that opens portals to vampire worlds that I have to find, then kill all the vampires, and then bring the book back to Bellamy.
I didn’t sign up for this.
Yet you did, the voice inside my head says. You signed up for this when you were thirteen years old, the moment Bellamy became your guardian and you pledged to avenge your parents.