The Immortal Compromise (The Mortal One Series Book 3) (7 page)

“You are such a girl,” he laughed.

“What?” I asked, walking inside.

A woman greeted us immediately. She spoke in German, but slowly enough that I picked up a few words here and there. Gregorio thanked her and started walking upstairs.

“Where are we going? The chocolate is down here,” I said, following him.

“There’s a whole tour to go on. Explore the history of the chocolate and how it is made. Then we can go to the chocolate café.”

My eyes must have lit up because he laughed again.

The tour was self-guided and didn’t take much time. It was a fun way to step out from what we had been talking about. And anything having to do with chocolate was okay with me. There were videos about how the chocolate was made and I learned the history of how Ritter Sport had come to be. A woman with dark hair and a basket of goodness handed us each a sample as we descended the stairs and made our way into the café.

In front of us, there was a glass display where there were some of the most amazing chocolate cakes, mousses, and other chocolate items behind it. I unwrapped the sample of chocolate in my mouth and stared at the case, trying to figure out what I wanted to order.

“Do you see something you like?” Gregorio asked, breaking me out of the chocolate-induced trance.

I nodded slowly, not letting my gaze leave the case.

“I told you I would bring you chocolate.”

“Do they package to go?” I asked, finally looking up at him.

He finished the piece of chocolate he had. “You don’t want to eat it here?”

“Oh I do,” I said. “But I want to take more back to your apartment so I can have more later.”

He laughed. “So you are a die-hard chocolate lover?”

“Oh yes,” I smiled and pointed to an item. Gregorio placed his order with the woman behind the counter and we were given our plates to take a seat wherever we wanted.

Chapter 10

GREGORIO KEPT GOING over concepts that were foreign to me once we returned to his place. I think he forgot that I hadn’t been raised around necromancy.

“Explain this to me one more time,” I said.

He let out a sigh and rubbed his hand over his head. When his arm extended, his tattoos were more visible, showing off tribal designs that wrapped around his biceps several times.

I reached out and traced my finger on the underside of his left arm. “Are those words?”

He nodded. “It’s a German saying that runs in my family about the importance of being true to one’s self.”

“Oh. That had to have hurt.”

“It wasn’t too bad,” he said, but I had the sneaking suspicion that he was being brave. I would have cried like a little bitch at a needle being on that sensitive area of my skin for the time it must have taken to do that full design.

“Necromancy is not just about saying things and performing ceremonies. If you don’t have necromancy running through your veins, then the ceremonies aren’t going to work,” Gregorio explained, going at it from a new angle.

“So it’s like magic?” I asked.

He rolled his eyes. “I guess that would be the easiest way to explain it, but it’s not magic.”

“Got it,” I said, smiling. He could call it whatever he wanted, but it was magic in one form or another.

“So you either have the magic or you don’t.”

“And I have the magic?” I asked.

“Yes. That is ultimately what it means to be a sensitive. The ceremony that I performed awakened some of that in you,” Gregorio explained. “Now you need to learn how to harness that magic in order to do something with it.”

I made a face.

“What?”

“What am I going to do with it?”

“You could con some vampires out of a million dollars,” he suggested.

I laughed, simply because he was honest about his ability to ask for that kind of money knowing that the vampires would pay.

“Okay, seriously. You never know what you are going to need the necromancy powers for. You are mortal and therefore you have the ability to control the dead. Considering the position you are in with a vampire for a husband, it may be something you want to have at your disposal.”

I wasn’t sure if I completely understood him. “Olivier rose the dead and then you put them down. What other powers are there?”

“Dylan, necromancy means more than creating zombies.” He seemed frustrated that he was the one telling me this.

I hated feeling stupid because I truly believed that being a necromancer meant it was about being able to raise zombies. “What else is there?”

“Everything,” he said. “You have the ability to communicate with the dead. It doesn’t have to be in a bodily sense. You can raise apparitions. By being able to communicate with them, you can learn about so much.”

“Oh.” I was at a loss for words with this new information. I never thought the day that I puked at a ceremony in Paris was the day that would lead to me being able to communicate with the dead. That was always for someone else, not me. There was no way that I had the ability to do any of what he said I could do.

“You don’t believe me?” He asked.

I slowly shook my head from side to side, unsure if I actually wanted him to prove me wrong. What he was talking about scared the shit out of me, but I didn’t want to admit it.

Nico and Olivier both encouraged this meeting because it was a way to learn more about being a sensitive. Olivier may have the magic in him, too, but he didn’t know a whole lot more than I did. He was experimenting with the magic, and according to Gregorio, that was dangerous territory. Gregorio was willing to teach me and help me harness the necromancy that was inside of me.

“I don’t understand,” Gregorio said. “This is a hereditary ability. It may skip one generation, but no more than that.”

I shrugged. “My parents are dead, so I can’t really ask them if they saw their parents do any of this kind of stuff.”

“But you can.”

I stared at him, trying to figure out what he was talking about. Then I caught his meaning and goosebumps spread across my body. “No.” It was the only word that would come out of my mouth. “No,” I repeated again.

“Dylan.”

“No.” No way in hell was I going to raise my parents from the dead as some kind of apparition. It scared the shit out of me and it wasn’t going to happen. I made peace with the fact that my parents were dead and had no desire to bring them back in any way, shape, or form.

He reached over and took a sip of his beer, staring me down in the process. I couldn’t make eye contact with him right now. I stood up and went into the kitchen where there was an open bottle of Riesling on the counter. It was a lighter, sweeter wine than I was used to, but it was flavorful and went down easily.

“Fine, we won’t try to contact them,” Gregorio said. “I thought maybe you would want to.”

“Absolutely not,” I said, taking another healthy sip of wine.

“Would you like to contact someone else that is deceased?” He asked.

I shook my head. “No. What are my other options to test if the necromancy is strong enough to do anything?”

He sat on the floor, silent for a few moments. “You don’t want to raise the dead and you don’t want to communicate with the dead.”

“Correct.”

“Those are your only options. We are talking about necromancy.”

“Shit.”

***

We had just finished eating dinner at a small restaurant near Alexanderplatz. He made me order something I had never eaten before –
schweinebraten
. It sounded funny, but it was actually pork loin and had some of the best
spaetzle
I had ever had served next to it. For the past two nights, it’s all he would let me have, something new. My palate was being exposed to all sorts of new foods and so far, I hadn’t come across anything that I didn’t like.

“You still have no idea,” Gregorio said to me.

I looked up at him. “What?”

He smiled. “We have more work to do once we get to the apartment. We’re going to test you once and for all, whether you like it or not.”

I scrunched my nose up at him as we walked down the stairs that led to the underground trains. I knew that some kind of ceremony had to be done to test my necromancy, but none of the choices were acceptable. It was one of those things that I would have to suck up and be okay with.

“This way,” he said, pulling me to the side of the U-Bahn that headed back in the direction of his home.

I shook my head. “These signs never seem to make any sense to me.”

He smiled. “Good thing you have me to tell you where to go, then.”

“This is true.”

“Your friend Jen comes in tomorrow, correct?”

I nodded. “In the afternoon.”

“Well then you better know where you’re going by then.”

“You are coming with us, though, right?”

He seemed surprised. “You’re inviting me out with your friend?”

I shrugged. “Why not?”

“If I am invited, then I would love to escort the two of you through my city.”

“Good,” I smiled.

The station was busy and there were a lot of people crowding around the edges of the platform, waiting to push their way onto the next train. I looked up and it was set to arrive in twenty seconds. I always loved how it told me exactly when it would arrive.

“Dylan?” There was a strange voice from behind me.

I turned to see who was calling me and squinted to see if there was anyone I recognized. Before I had a chance to focus again, a man stepped into my field of vision, commanding the space in front of me.

“So you are Dylan?” It was a tall man standing there and a shorter man right behind him.

I looked over at Gregorio who had come to stand at my side. He shrugged, but kept one eye on the men at all times.

“Do I know you?” I asked, taking an instinctive step closer to Gregorio.

The train arrived and people pushed past us and inside. I wanted to get onto the train as well, but the men had positioned themselves so that I would have to walk past them in order to get on. From their broad shoulders and wide stances, I wasn’t going to have the opportunity.

“No, but you do not need to. You are coming with us,” the taller man stepped forward, grabbing my arm.

His fingers pressed deep into my flesh and I let out a yelp without meaning to. He was being very forceful for someone I didn’t know and who obviously knew me. No one in the station paid any attention to us.

“Let go of her,” Gregorio yelled, stepping closer.

The shorter man stepped in front of me. He pulled out a knife and held it out to Gregorio. “This does not concern you.”

“She is in my protection,” Gregorio said, taking a step away from the sharp blade that was pointed at him. He moved closer to me, but was out of my reach.

The two men pulled me in the direction of the stairs that led up to the street level of Berlin.

“It will be easier if you do not cause a scene,” the taller man said, turning his attention to Gregorio for a brief moment. He then continued to pull me further away from where we had been standing. The pressure of his fingers moved from my lower arm to my upper arm and I knew there would be bruises.

All I could think about was Nico. Nico wanted to make sure I would be safe. Gregorio had promised him my safety and it was not the case any longer. I didn’t know the men taking me and they were not giving any reason for taking me. They had the advantage, too, because they obviously knew who I was, or at least a little bit about who I was.

“Can you at least tell me where you are taking her?” Gregorio asked, running after us as I was dragged up the stairs.

“We cannot tell you that,” the shorter man said.

“Gregorio,” I called.

“I’m right behind you,” I heard him yell as we all were forced to run up the stairs at the speed that the two men were going.

I squinted in the sun to get my bearings. The taller man opened the door to a black van that was parked on the side of the busy road. He gave me a good push, forcing me inside. I fell hard on the floor of the van, skinning my knees. I reached a hand on the side to steady myself and avoid vomiting. The interior reeked of old food and there were no seats in the back for me to sit in. The short man got into the driver seat and started the engine. I placed my hand on my messenger bag, remembering my phone was inside of it. The tall man pulled it out of my grasp and tossed it out of the van.

Before the taller man closed the van door, I looked at Gregorio, who bent down to pick up my bag.

“I’ll call Nico,” he said and the door closed, leaving me to hope he called soon.

I felt like I was in the back of the van forever. The two men in the front seat didn’t speak to me or to each other. One drove and the other looked down at his phone, texting like a mad man.

They hadn’t blindfolded me or anything, so I was able to look out the window. It was dark, but I saw that we were on a main road and heading south. There were other cars on the road, but it didn’t matter because they wouldn’t be able to see me. The only thing I could do was stare out the window and watch the German countryside pass.

“Can you tell me where we’re going?” I asked.

The taller man in the passenger seat turned to look at me, but said nothing.

I sighed and leaned against the sliding door of the van. The lack of cushion was causing a throbbing pain in my back, but I assumed that this little outing wasn’t made to make me comfortable. My biggest fear was that they would kill me since they were allowing me to see where I was being taken. If they didn’t care, it meant that they didn’t anticipate me being a threat.

Being left in the dark sucked. As I continued to watch the scenery pass out the window, I noticed we were coming into another city, and that’s when we started to slow down. I swallowed, preparing for what would be next.