Mirror: Book One of the Valkanas Clan (10 page)

I set the pen down for a moment, sure I was about to get good and pissed; I didn't want to end up with a pen flung halfway through my wall in a bout of anger. After all, didn’t Damian serve to gain a lot by turning me into a vampire while making it look like he’d rescued me? How did I know he was telling the truth about Dorothy, or about the desire of vamps for clairsentient blood? For all I knew the only way to make a psychic vampire was to turn a psychic human—maybe drinking human blood did absolutely nothing for “regular” vampires. But if Damian had me believing I was dependent on him for my safety, I was far more likely to play ball with any plans he had for me. Just what I’d be good for I wasn’t sure, since thus far I’d only seemed to serve as a mentally resistant newbie and early alarm system for attacks and phone calls, but maybe that wasn’t all I was capable of—or maybe Damian had simply hoped I’d be able to do more.

As I was musing over all this, I gradually became aware of a nagging feeling in my gut. Puzzled, I sat up straighter and rested my hand over my abdomen, closing my eyes to try and figure out if I was just hungry again or if something else was going on.

You’re wrong.

My eyes flew open and my hands jerked to the floor to stop me from rocking backwards. I’d heard a voice inside my head. I was hearing voices. Visions of strait-jackets danced through my head, and I wondered if anti-psychotic medicines worked on vampires.

The nagging feeling in my gut intensified, beginning to spike into pain, and I clamped my hand back over it instinctively, wincing.

Don’t be a fool. Of course you’re hearing voices. It’s part of your gift.

I started panting. I tried taking my hand away, but the pain spiked, and so I left it where it was. This didn’t make sense—I thought my gift was to feel things, or know them, but not hear voices. I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do.

Just listen to me.

Oh, of course. Just listen to a delusion. Sure. No problem. No problem at all.

A delusion?
I don’t think I was ever called that before. Trust my little professor to give me a new name.

What do you mean,
your
little professor?
I mentally replied. Hey, if I was going to have delusions, I might as well go all out and talk to them.

Alyson,
it’s
Dorothy. I’m not a
delusion,
I’m your great-grandmother.

But you’re dead!
Score one for team obvious.

Of course I am; I couldn’t talk to you otherwise. You’re not generally telepathic—but, if you’re like me, you can occasionally communicate with the deceased.

I can?

I know you didn’t manage to block that experience in Santa Fe completely from your mind, dear. That’s when Damian became certain you’d inherited my gifts; he started keeping a much closer eye on you after that.

Santa Fe. I’d really tried hard to forget about that trip. This delusion was digging up memories I really preferred buried.

I’d gone to Santa Fe when I was eighteen to live with the Benningtons, some family friends. They needed a nanny for the summer, and I was eager for an adventure. The high desert and mountains of Santa Fe seemed incredibly exotic to a girl who’d spent her entire childhood amongst oak trees and wide grassy lawns. Shortly after I arrived, I met two brothers who were around my age, David and Joseph. We hung out on the evenings the Benningtons didn’t need me to watch their kids. The brothers had a pool table, a massive stereo system, and plenty of beer, all of which made them terribly cool in my eyes.

One night we were sitting around in their garage, listening to Bob Marley. I’d been feeling tired that day, so while they drank beer I sipped on my water bottle, only half paying attention to their argument about the shortcomings of some recent rock star’s remake of “One Love.” The original version of the song in question had just finished playing when, out of nowhere, the skin across my back, neck, and upper arms felt as if it had half-dissolved, as if my insides were suddenly open to the slow currents of air the overhead fan was lazily circling around the garage. And then I felt someone inside my skin with me. Michael. I’d heard David and Joseph mention Michael and his death a few months before, once or twice, but we’d never discussed it in detail. Now I was feeling Michael’s thoughts, and I knew I was supposed to tell David that he was okay, that he’d had to leave this plane of existence for a reason, and that his fall from his tree house had not been a suicide as David feared.

My reaction to this sudden influx of sensations was almost instant—I’d clamped down on my brain, telling myself I was obviously sleep deprived and needed to get home and get some rest. As I repeated this to myself, the sensation in my back, neck, and arms gradually faded, replaced instead with a pounding headache. David must have noticed me grimacing in pain when he looked up to ask me a question a few minutes later, because he offered to give me a ride home right then, even though my original plan had been to hang out with them for another couple hours.

After a silent five minute car ride, we pulled up outside the Benningtons’ house. I’d gathered my bags and turned to thank David for the ride, when the clear sky suddenly clouded and began dumping rain.

“These summer storms only last a few minutes; you might as well wait in the car until it’s over so you don’t get soaked” he said.

I sat there, staring out the window, trying to
will
my headache to go away. Instead the pain intensified, and for some reason that I still don’t understand to this day—perhaps my urge to avoid pain was simply greater than my urge not to sound insane—I decided I might as well tell David what happened. I described the entire experience while staring out the car window, afraid of the disgust or anger I might see in his eyes if I faced him. When I finished, we were both silent for a moment. Then he began crying.

I spun to face him, reaching out with one hand but as afraid to touch him as I’d been to look at him a moment before. “Oh David, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I knew I shouldn’t have, and I don’t know why I did. I’m so sorry to bring up those painful memories again—”

“No,” he said. “You don’t understand. Earlier today I was alone in my room, pleading with Michael to send me some sort of sign about what had happened to him. It’s been tearing me up for months, wondering if there was something I could have done, something I didn’t see…”

Now it was his turn to avoid my gaze, and he stared out the window at the lessening rain.

“Thank you,” he said after a few more moments of silence.

Once I realized I was no longer in danger of getting soaked through, and that there was nothing else to say, I climbed out of the car and went inside. My trip to Santa Fe ended a few weeks later, and David and I never spoke of that night again. I never knew if he’d told Joseph, or his
parents,
or if he’d simply dismissed it the next day as hopeful insanity and buried it in his memory, as I did.

As if she’d been waiting for me to finish my little trip down memory lane, the voice continued
. Unfortunately for you, David got drunk a few months ago and confessed it to his fiancée, who then told her friends—one of whom happened to consort with vampires, including a particularly nasty one named Cesar who had been hunting psychic humans for years. Damian is trustworthy. Bewildering sometimes,
but trustworthy.
I heard a whisper of a chuckle

The tension in my stomach began to relax, and I gripped at my abdomen.

Wait—but what should I do? How am I supposed to handle all this? What do I tell Ava?
Or Tom?

The chuckle was fainter this time, as was the voice that followed it.
That’s quite a list of questions for a “delusion.” I just didn’t wish you to dwell needlessly on whether you could trust Damian—I can’t tell you what to do with that information, much less how to handle anyone else in your life. Though I will tell you this—if Tom is half as delightful as Damian was, you’d be a fool to pass him by.
And then the feelings, and Dorothy’s voice, were gone, leaving me curled on my side, alone.

Okay, so I was a clairsentient vampire who could talk to her snarky dead great-grandmother. And I was protected by said great-grandmother’s former vampire lover and his minions, one of whom wanted to date me, from various other vampires who wanted to suck me dry.
Literally.
No biggie,
I tried to convince myself,
you’ve handled worse, right?
Now if only I could silence that niggling thought that was loudly countering
no, as a matter of fact, you have
not
handled worse.
 

Fortunately, that voice got terribly distracted by the sudden knowledge that Damian was about to call me. I took a few deep breaths, finding the action soothing even though the air was no longer strictly necessary for anything besides speech. Then I stood up and retrieved my phone, answering it just before it began to ring.

“Yes Damian?”

“Ah good, you’re awake" he said. "Listen, our…guest…last night revealed who is so intent on draining you, a vampire named Cesar.” I decided not to tell Damian I already knew this. “It seems he isn’t interested in stopping even though he knows you’ve already been turned, and I’ve been unofficially authorized to take action against him as a result. Not that I wouldn’t have anyway, but having the added support makes this all so much more entertaining.” He chuckled in a way I found really disturbing. What had Dorothy seen in this guy again?

“Authorized?”

“By Temora, Duchess of the south-eastern United States.”
I must have made a small choking sound as I tried to process how a country founded on revolt against monarchy could contain royalty, because Damian added “I’ll have to teach you about vampire politics some other time,
paidi mou
. For now I need you to come back here so I can discuss our plans with you and so I can assure your safety until this situation is resolved.”

“Fine,” I said. I wasn't thrilled about it, but I knew it just wasn’t realistic for me to protect myself when I was still occasionally tempted to curl up fetal style on my living room rug. “I remember how to get there. Give me enough time to get showered and changed and I’ll head that way.”

“Actually, Tom was quite eager to volunteer himself as your chauffeur. He should be there in about five minutes.”

“Gee, thanks for the advanced notice.”

“And here I thought advanced notice was something you could provide entirely on your own,” he said, chuckling. I hung up.

Tom could just sit on my “go away” mat outside until I was ready; I needed a shower. I tossed my jeans and t-shirt into my dirty clothes hamper, even though I hadn’t been wearing them for more than an hour—I knew it was stupid, but it felt like one area of my life I could keep neat and tidy right now. Then I snagged a clean towel, jeans, and sleeveless blouse and headed into the bathroom.

The shower—especially my favorite spoil-myself citrus scented salon shampoo and conditioner—helped me shake off some of my lingering melancholy and I emerged from the bathroom with my towel turban style on my head, singing along to the Sarah McLachlan I’d left playing on my shower radio. I serenaded myself back into my room, deciding to throw a change of clothes, my pajamas (with a new hole-free t-shirt this time), and my toothbrush into an overnight bag in case I needed to crash at Damian and Valerie’s place tonight. Then, deciding an offer to protect me included my
cat,
I snagged a small baggie of cat food plus Beckett’s carrier and portable
litterbox
. I found him napping under the couch, and I chuckled at the combination of handsome disdain on his face and tuxedo patterning on his body.

“Hey handsome, at least you’re better dressed for their digs than I am,” I said, and unceremoniously dumped him into his carrier. He yowled in protest.

“I didn’t realize we needed a chaperone for our trip,” Tom said, emerging from my little balcony. I flinched, but managed to keep myself from emitting the embarrassingly girly shriek that was now sitting on the tip of my tongue. Damn, why was he able to catch me off guard like that when I could sense everyone else?