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)
He just grunts dismissively at that, pulling his collar up higher as if he’s cold and faces the sea. Then he frowns. “This must be for us.”
I follow his gaze to see a small motorboat coming our way, a man in black at the back piloting the prop. At least I think it’s a man, the closer he gets the more that I can’t make heads or tails of his face. It’s like he’s the Elephant Man come to life.
“What the…?” Bitrus whispers as the boat comes to the dock.
The man at the helm is disarmingly tall, cloaked with such dark and chaotic energy that it feels repellant, and on his head is a plague doctor mask.
I exchange a wide-eyed look with Bitrus. He raises his brows.
They can’t be serious? he says inside my head. This is our ride?
I look back to the plague doctor, seeing only black fathomless holes for eyes, the long beak for a nose. “Did Saara and Aleksi send you for us?” I ask, as if there’s some other explanation.
The man in the mask just stares at us.
I guess that’s our answer.
“Guess we should be on our way, then,” I say with a weary sigh, heading toward the boat, which the plague doctor holds to the dock with one very large leather gloved hand, a hand far too large to be human.
“Boy am I regretting coming along with you,” Bitrus says under his breath, following me as we step onto the boat.
The minute we sit down, the boat pulls away from the dark and we head into the mist. I keep looking over my shoulder at the plague doctor piloting the boat, wondering who could be under that mask. If it’s a vampire I can’t tell, and usually my vampire radar would be going off. If it’s a human, well, he’s a giant, and I don’t know what the hell that weird energy around them is since that’s akin to witchcraft.
Maybe it’s a witch. I think back to when I saw one recently. I was walking with Dahlia, that night we first had drinks and I kissed her. The witch looked of Middle-Eastern blood, fairly young and pretty, and she didn’t seem to notice me but I sure as hell noticed her. I could smell her. Venice is said to have more than a few witches hanging around but for whatever reason I don’t run into them very often. If this masked person driving the boat is a witch though, I should be able to smell them and I’m getting nothing.
Do you ever wonder if there are more ways to kill a vampire than what we’ve been told? Bitrus asks in my head. Maybe it’s not just fire, decapitation, or being stabbed in the heart by a witch’s blade. Maybe it’s being scared to death by ghosts of plague doctors?
Not helpful, I tell him.
Especially not helpful as the boat goes deeper into the mist, the lights of the city and Giudecca being swallowed up. All sound is swallowed up too, leaving only the whir of the motor and the beating of my own heart inside my head. I don’t spook easily but I’m feeling more and more unsettled the longer the boat ride is. I’m thinking back to the creature in the water, to what Bitrus had told me about something being in his room, I’m thinking about how these last few weeks I could have sworn something was following me in the dark, something insidious and rancid that never appeared to my eye, forever in shadows.
And now, as the island appears before us, the belltower rising above the mist which is clearing just enough to show the dilapidated hospital, the crumbling bricks and overgrown weeds, I have that feeling again, the one of being watched by something that doesn’t belong in this world. As someone who doesn’t belong in this world myself, it’s a most unsettling feeling.
There isn’t a single light on the island and I only now just realize the boat must have turned off its light too. Because we can see quite well in the dark, it makes it easy to live undetected in the shadows.
“Shit!” Bitrus suddenly cries out, pulling back from the edge of the boat where he was staring down into the surface. “I just saw faces in the water.”
Completely fucking normal.
I look over my shoulder at the plague doctor, as if the man in the mask has a rational explanation for Bitrus seeing faces under the surface, but the doctor is pointing straight ahead with a rigid arm.
I turn around to see Saara and Aleksi standing on the end of the dock. They sure as hell weren’t there a second ago. As usual, the two of them are dressed to the nines, Saara in a long white slinky gown, Aleksi in a white suit. They look like they’re going to some vampire prom, except they both have bare feet.