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)
Even though the pressure of his hand is light, this is the first time he’s touched me. I feel his skin against me as if I’m wearing nothing at all. It shoots down into my veins, turning them warm, thick, like honey, and that peculiar knee-buckling feeling is back.
I manage to keep it together and walk onto the bridge with him guiding me, even though I feel like I’m unraveling on the inside. All the vampires that touched me (and then some) before, none of them made me feel like this.
While I’m pondering this feeling, we pass by a nun who shoots us a frightened side eye and does the sign of the cross.
“She seemed to think you’re a heathen,” Valtu says, leaning in conspiratorially.
“Me?” I say. For a moment I’m aghast, because he’s the heathen here. But of course, that’s not true. Witches are just as blasphemed as vampires are. The only time I’d ever group our species as the same is the only time we’re met with the same prejudices. I guess the difference is that people know witches exist, they merely suspect that it might be true for vampires.
“Nuns don’t lie,” he says. “But it’s okay. I prefer my company on the sacrilegious side of things.”
If you only knew, I think. But since he’s implying he enjoys my company, I’m taking it.
“So the University of Aberdeen,” he goes on. “That’s an interesting school.”
“Is it? Honestly I don’t remember much. More partying than studying.” The thing that both of us know is that there is a secret department within the university. It’s like Hogwarts but without the capers and whimsy. I studied history on the outside and walked away with my degree, but on the inside I was learning how to murder vampires along with the rest of the slayers. The other witches called us The Buffys, for obvious reasons. There were only six of them in my class. Each year there are less and less.
But, of course, Valtu doesn’t know this about me since my glamor is working.
“So you graduated with a hangover. Then where did you go?”
“Back to Canada,” I tell him, while the truth is I was living outside of Boston, ready to be dispatched to wherever Bellamy and the guild wanted to send me. Some years I’d have a vampire to kill every month or so. Other times things were slower. “I did some odd jobs, tried to find myself, that sort of thing, until I finally decided I wanted to take my music further. Which of course led me here.”
He nods, seeming to believe that. “And do you know what you plan to do when you leave here? If you don’t mind me saying, you have a great natural talent.”
Supernatural talent, you mean.
“I don’t mind you saying,” I tell him, playing the role of being bashful. “But I don’t believe it.”
“You should,” he says. “I’ve seen countless musicians throughout my life and none of them have impressed me the way that you have so far.”
Okay, now I feel my cheeks going hot for real. I guess I do have my own talent—I honed that at university too—it’s just in order to get to his level, magic helped me the rest of the way.
We talk about music and musicians for the rest of the walk and I have to admit I’m enjoying listening to him wax poetic about the greats, as well as some underrated ones that I hadn’t heard of. The thing about listening to vampires talk about the past, other than them being natural storytellers that make you grab on to every word, is that they’ve experienced so much of history firsthand. I could easily tell which musicians Valtu knew or at least saw perform in person, and which he hadn’t. Explained why he knew of so many that never made it big.
Pretty soon, we’ve made it to the last bridge before we get to my apartment. We’re just crossing over it when I suddenly feel an acidic twist in my stomach that nearly makes me sick. I pause and Valtu stops right beside me, frowning. He opens his mouth to talk but then shuts it abruptly when a loud splash sounds from underneath the bridge.
We exchange an uneasy look. There’s no one else around us and only a few lights from the surrounding buildings. They don’t seem to reach far into the canal and there are no boats passing by. The silence, the stillness, is beyond eerie.
The splash sounds again and we both peer over the edge of the bridge, his hand going to my lower back again and I grip the stone railing. Something is in the water just below us, swimming beneath the surface, causing ripples. It’s big and it’s long and then suddenly the ripples stop.
“What the hell was that?” Valtu asks.