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)
It was the middle of the night, and after I killed her and fed, I left her body right there on the street in Buck’s Row, disappearing in a flash before anyone could see. I often got carried away during feeding, violence taking over, and if I wasn’t careful, I could become lost in time.
I saw the inquest days later into her death and I could have kicked myself for not being more careful. I should have hidden the body. I shouldn’t have done it on the street.
Not that anyone would ever suspect a Finnish Count of murder, not when I resided in a grand house in Marylebone, when I donated so much of my wealth to the poor and other charities. Vampires aren’t all bad, not when the money we have invested and saved for a century helps us improve the lives of others—even when we take away those very lives in the end.
But there were no solutions yet. How were we supposed to live without taking human life? While I have admitted my truth to some humans in the past, the majority became afraid of me, and even if some of them volunteered to be fed on, who would control me? When a vampire feeds, they lose all control, the bloodlust always getting the better of them. The only way I think I would be able to feed without killing anyone is to have someone with me who could make me stop. But would Van Helsing do that? Or would he join in too?
Of course, Van Helsing came up with the best solution—he became a doctor. Now he had access to all the blood he needed, even though he did enjoy the hunt.
“I would be happy to share some vials with you, Val,” he said, picking up on my thoughts as we sometimes do with each other.
“I’m fine,” I said again. Old blood wasn’t the same anyway. I finished the dregs of my coffee and sighed, feeling both weary and restless. “How about we make the most of the weather and go to the British Museum? They have a new exhibit I hear.”
Van Helsing never cared much for going out in public, preferring to spend his days studying medicine or relaxing with a boring book, but he would often accompany me on my outings even when he didn’t feel like it. While he liked to study the body, I liked to study how people worked. What made them tick, what made them different from one another. A museum was a great place to do that. Even when so many people were putting on airs, pretending to be smarter than they were or interested in history and art, I liked to see how they were beneath the masks.
“A new exhibit,” Van Helsing mused, getting to his feet. “New to most humans perhaps. It’s never new to us.” A slight exaggeration, considering there was a lot of history that even us vampires weren’t witness to, but since the doctor was born in the 1400s, I let that slide.
We called for my carriage and trundled off toward the museum, an easy walk most days but I didn’t want to listen to the doctor grumble about the rain ruining his fine clothing. He acted like he didn’t have more wealth than anyone in the city.
The new exhibition turned out to be paintings from the Far East, China and Japan to be specific, located in the white wing. We stepped on through and joined the hordes—seemed everyone in London had the same idea to escape the weather.
As usual, we took our time looking at the Ancient Egyptian artifacts. Since neither of us were alive back then, their whole society fascinated us. We often stared at the hieroglyphs and mummies and tombs and wondered who we could have been had we been vampires then. But with vampires only having come into existence via Skarde, the so-called king of us all, in the twelfth century, our lineages don’t stretch back that far.
Eventually we made our way over to the white wing to see the exhibit. There was a crowd gathered so we took our time waiting to view the paintings, recognizing many people from various parties I’ve either thrown or been to as they milled about.
That’s when I heard her.
This melodic song of a laugh.
It seemed to soar right through the museum and hit me straight in the heart.
I immediately stiffened, the blood whooshing loudly through my veins like a drum.
It couldn’t be.
It was impossible.
And yet I knew it was her all the same.
“What is it?” Van Helsing asked, noting the strange expression on my face, the way I froze.
I could not even answer him. All the air from my lungs and words from my tongue were stolen when I laid eyes on her.
Across the exhibit, talking to a couple of other women, was Mina.