Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 49441 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49441 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
“And vampires never embellish things?” she asked.
“I once knew a vampire who claimed to have been alive in the Bronze Age,” I told her.
“How do you know he wasn’t?”
“I was faster than him.”
Though, these days, he might beat me in a race.
Not for long, I reminded myself. That was the whole point of all of this.
“Can I have the phone back?” the witch asked half an hour later.
“For what purpose?” I asked.
“You’re being really protective of a phone that has nothing interesting on it,” she said.
“You want to watch more of your inane television programs, don’t you?”
“Well, it’s not like you’re some great conversationalist,” she shot back.
“We can have a conversation,” I invited, surprising myself.
“Okay. Who turned you?” she asked, turning fully in the seat to look at me.
“A woman of my acquaintance.”
“A woman of your acquaintance,” Roxanne repeated, lips curving up. “Is that a nice way to say a sex worker?” she asked. “Look at you, acting all superior, but you were a John in the Industrial Age,” she teased.
“I had typical mortal flaws before I was turned,” I agreed.
“‘I had typical mortal flaws before I was turned’,” she parroted. “See? This is why we can’t have a conversation.”
“I was a drunkard who spent all of his money on gambling and women of the night,” I confessed.
“What did you do for a living?”
“I worked in a textile mill. Fourteen-hour days for low wages and in dangerous conditions.”
“I kind of can’t blame you for drinking and screwing around,” she said, shrugging. “Fourteen-hour days sound like literal hell on Earth. Clearly, I was placed in the right timeline for me. I mean, the witch hunts alone were the stuff of nightmares. I wouldn’t have had the motivation to outrun the Crusaders.”
“In the interest of historical accuracy, they didn’t burn witches. They burned women. I doubt they burned a single actual witch.”
“That’s likely true,” she agreed. “So, did you turn anyone?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“That’s a responsibility.”
“Because baby vampires are bloodthirsty monsters and a general menace to society?”
“Partly, yes. But it is a lifetimes-long commitment. There is a bond between a sire and the one sired.”
“A family,” she said. “Who doesn’t want a family?”
“Someone who doesn’t want to feel responsible for all the bodies left behind.”
“A vampire with a conscience,” she said, watching me in the dark of the car.
“Something like that,” I admitted.
It was more than that, of course.
Two hundred years ago, I wouldn’t have even blinked at the idea of human corpses piling up. They lived such fleeting lives to begin with. The idea of it being a tragedy never occurred to me.
But everything changed a hundred years ago.
When the curse had first started. When it began to plant seeds of mortality, of humanity, in my mind, in my formerly cold, dead heart.
It had a hundred years to grow, to spread.
The ache in my joints.
The growling of my stomach for human food.
Sometimes, when I was trying to rest, I could swear I could almost feel my heart begin to beat again.
It wouldn’t be long before that was a reality, before it was a constant thud in my chest, before I could feel the rush of blood in my veins, couldn’t get through the day without eating human food, before my strength diminished, and my steps slowed.
That was why time was of the utmost importance.
I needed this key.
I needed this witch.
And I needed to keep her motivated to get through the labyrinth.
It wasn’t long after we stopped talking, with nothing to distract her, that she drifted off to sleep.
At first her head rested on the window. But when the car took a sharp turn, she grumbled in her sleep, turning, likely seeking the comfort that came from her bed and the pillows on it.
Which was why she sought me.
The closest thing to a pillow the car had to offer.
Slowly but surely, she shifted over me, legs draping over my legs, dangerously close to feeling the impact her nearness had on me. Her summer honey was overwhelming up close as her head nuzzled in at my neck, her warmth making me aware of the chill inside of me.
My arm slid around her.
Warning sirens rang out in my mind as I pulled her closer and she let out a contented little mewling sound that had a warm sensation moving through my chest.
Unfamiliar.
Dangerous.
But as we pulled up to the private airstrip, there was no going back.
I was stuck with Roxanne.
As we were about to walk into a magicked labyrinth that, for all I knew, might swallow us whole, and only spit us out when we were nothing but ash and bone.
As she shifted in her sleep once again while I watched the co-pilot make his way to the plane with half a dozen bags full of, I imagined, the requests the witch had sent him, I decided that there was no one else I’d rather meet my mortal end with than this particular woman.