Anathema (Causal Enchantment, #1) (17 page)

“
Something about this necklace,
about me being human, about Sofie doing something to me. You being
… leeches?”

Viggo tisked, shaking his head in disdain. He
rose and walked over to rest his arm on the mantel. “Well, I guess
we can’t keep this from you any longer.” Viggo gazed up at the
painting of Sofie’s sister. “No, Evangeline. You are not crazy, or
hallucinating, though what I’m about to tell you will not help
convince you of that.” He paused to clear his throat. “‘Vampire’
has such a stigma to it, wouldn’t you agree?” he said casually,
followed by a resigned sigh. “I am over two thousand years old. I’m
the oldest surviving vampire on earth. Mortimer is just shy of nine
hundred.”

My stomach tightened into a tight ball. If I
wasn’t crazy, then I was surrounded by a bunch of people who
were.

“
Sofie, you are—what now, a hundred
and forty–eight? Is that right? I wouldn’t want to age you. I know
how sensitive females are,” Mortimer sneered.

Sofie rolled her eyes in annoyance, but
nodded.

“
You’re all … vampires,” I repeated,
listening to the words come out of my mouth.

“
Now Sofie, you’re not being
completely honest,” Mortimer mocked.

Sofie glared at him before turning to me. “I
was born a sorceress.”

“
Sorceress … like witch?” I
asked.

“
An extremely powerful one,”
Mortimer emphasized.

“
Oh, Mortimer, you flatter me,”
Sofie answered sarcastically before turning back to me with that
haunted look on her face. She lifted her hand and a tiny flame rose
from her index finger, out of thin air.

My eyes went wide. Without thinking, I slid off
the couch and pushed past Max to inspect it closer, intrigued.
Lifting my hand to it, I flinched as the heat scalded my skin. It
was real.

With a burst of excitement, Viggo skipped over
to the grand piano. Picking it up with one hand, he launched it
across the room. It crashed into a concrete column and splintered,
the sound deafening. “Need more proof?” He was instantly standing
in front of me. Grabbing an empty glass, he crushed it with his
hand. I cringed as he held his hand out, expecting to see blood.
Instead, tiny shards of glass scattered out of his pristine,
uninjured palm.

“
A song and dance now, if you
please, court jester!” Sofie tittered, mockingly clapping her
hands.

Viggo bowed. “It’s been so long since we’ve had
to prove ourselves. It’s exhilarating!”

I gaped at him.
How is this possible?
Vampires don’t exist. They’re just another scary tale.
“But … no. Sofie, I’ve
seen
you out in the sun, and …” I
stammered.

Viggo laughed. “Oh, don’t believe any of that.
The majority of it is pure poppycock. We’re not allergic to crosses
and garlic, we can come in and out of your house as we please,
there are no coffins under this roof—I could go on for hours with
all the nonsense.”

My eyes bulged as a thought hit me. Backing
away quickly, I practically fell onto the couch. “What about
people? Do you … drink blood?”

Viggo’s face grew more serious. “We want to be
completely honest with you, my dear Evangeline. No lying. So …” He
paused. “There are those of us who do feed on humans, impulsively
and without remorse. However, Mortimer and I have made it our
mission to eliminate that type of vampire from this world. I think
we’ve done quite well.”

“
So you don’t?”

He exhaled. “Only in desperate situations and
only on the worst criminals—child rapists and murders;
bottom–feeders, bane to all humans.”

The fascination with criminals … He wasn’t a
lawyer or a detective. He was merely scouting out his meals. I
shuddered and looked at Sofie and Mortimer. Both remained quiet,
their faces expressionless, though I sensed distress in Sofie’s
eyes.

“
We are not those terrible creatures
the stories paint us to be, I swear it! Have I been anything but
generous and kind to you since the moment you met me?”

I paused, then shook my head. “And sitting here
with me … and my blood—that isn’t hard for you?” I asked
hesitantly, afraid that reminding them I was human would have
adverse side effects.

“
Darling Evangeline! We would never
harm you!” Viggo cried, distress contorting his face. “And we’re
experienced enough that we can control ourselves. Now, being in a
room with free–flowing blood is a tad trickier … but we always
manage.”

So Leo obviously knew who his employers were, I
gathered, recalling his meticulous cleanup. It also meant he wasn’t
a vampire.

The silence in the room grew beyond the awkward
stage as I absorbed what they were telling me. Viggo watched me
with the look of a dejected animal begging for love and
acceptance.

Finally I spoke. “Wow, that’s quite the
secret.”

“
That’s not the half of it,”
Mortimer grumbled, studying his manicured fingernails.

“
Are you afraid? Please say you’re
not,” Viggo pleaded.

“
I’m okay,” I said, swallowing my
fear.
More like petrified.

“
The thing is … we need your help,
Evangeline,” Viggo said.

That took me aback. “How? With what? And what
does all this have to do with my dream and the bite marks on my
neck?”

Viggo’s expression turned grim. He sat back
down in the armchair. “For one hundred and twenty years, our venom
has been useless.”

“
I don’t underst—” I began,
frowning.

“
We can’t turn humans anymore,”
Mortimer said abruptly, sitting down in a chair beside
Viggo.

“
And that’s a bad thing?” I said
without thinking. I caught Mortimer’s glower.

“
If we can’t create one of us, we’re
left watching the ones we love grow old and die.” Viggo looked up
at the portrait.

Had he watched Sofie’s sister die?
I
wondered.
Had she been his lady friend?

“
It becomes too painful to get close
to anyone, knowing the misery and loss will just repeat itself over
and over again for eternity. It’s such a lonely life.” Viggo
sighed. “Can you imagine that, Evangeline?”

I shuddered. I had spent five years utterly
alone. It was a dismal, dark place to be. But eternity?

“
Please say you’ll help us,” Viggo
begged.

“
I … of course, I’ll help you if I
can …”

“
Oh, thank you, Evangeline. Thank
you! I knew you would understand,” Viggo said, elated.

“
But how?”

“
This is the terrible part about
it.” Viggo’s face fell in despair, and he turned to scowl at Sofie.
“Unbeknownst to us, that witch has cursed you!”

Cursed?
My eyes shifted to Sofie, who
sat in her chair, looking ready to explode. “What is he talking
about, Sofie?” I asked warily.

Sofie’s jaw clenched. “I didn’t mean
to—”

Mortimer cut her off. “Sofie is the reason for
our problem. She played with magic for her own selfish gains and we
are all now victims of the results.”

I glanced back at Sofie to see her minty green
eyes alight with fire, but she said nothing.

“
You’ve probably been wondering why
things have been … tense … between us these past few days,” Viggo
said. “It’s because Mortimer and I are so angry with her for what
she’s done to you.”

“
What did she do, exactly?” I asked
slowly, again looking at Sofie. Her eyes were focused intently on a
spot on the Persian rug.

“
Sofie, please explain,” Viggo
urged, adding, “Only what’s necessary. No need to confuse the
girl.”

Sofie swallowed. When she began speaking, her
voice was emotionless, as if she spoke by rote. “You are the
primary channel for an incantation that will solve our venom issue.
That necklace and the two identical statues—the one in the atrium
and the one in your …
dream
,” Sofie hesitated on that last
word, “they’re all conduits.”

“
Conduits for what?” I asked,
glancing down at the pendant. Her gift.

“
These dreams you’re having … they
aren’t dreams, Evangeline.
It
decided the best way to fix
our problem was to search the universes for another world like
Earth, one where vampires exist and their venom is
intact.”

“
Who decided?”

“
The spell.”

I frowned.

“
It’s all hocus–pocus,” Viggo
murmured. “Don’t worry. We don’t understand it either.”

Sofie ignored him. “You’re being transported to
another world—one that is identical to ours.”

“
And there are vampires there as
well?”

She nodded. “It seems you’ve found some
already.”

My stomach dropped. “They’re … vampires?” I
whispered, my face twisting in shock. “
All
of them?”
My Caden is a vampire?
He was so sweet, so kind, so
beautiful. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to. I hesitated
before asking, “How is my going over there supposed to fix this
problem for you?”

“
Sofie told us that you would be
transformed into a vampire and come back with the ability to
convert humans,” Mortimer answered flatly.

“
That’s not what I said!” Sofie
yelled.

I barely heard her. Mortimer’s words were like
an electric shock coursing through my body. “I’m supposed to be a
vampire?” I whispered, my eyes wide.

“
I wanted to tell you, Evangeline!
She—” Viggo glared at Sofie “—swore me to secrecy. Said she’d hurt
you if we told you!”

I bolted off the couch and pushed past Max,
having heard all I could handle.
The pendant.
I looked
down at the precious gift Sofie had given me only days earlier. I
needed it
off
, away from me—forgotten. As if it never
existed. My hand flew to the chain and I yanked it hard enough to
snap the clasp, just as Sofie shrieked, “No!”

Before I could take another step, I crumpled to
the floor, excruciating pain surging through my body, running along
every nerve to my fingertips, seeping down into the core of my
bones. I gasped, unable to breathe, or scream, or see, the
intensity crippling. I was sure I would die. I
wanted
to
die.

And then the pain vanished as instantly as it
had begun. My eyelids fluttered open and I saw Sofie leaning over
me, fumbling with something around my neck. “There, it’s fixed,”
she murmured to no one in particular. Her pale green eyes lifted to
mine then, full of anguish. “I’m so sorry, Evangeline,” she
whispered, “but please don’t take this necklace off again, or you
will die.”

S
ofie’s warning rang in my
ears as she scooped my limp body into her arms as if I were a frail
child. She carried me back to the couch I had stormed away from and
set me down gently. I wanted to fight back, to resist her help, but
I couldn’t even lift my hand.

“
What just happened?” I asked, my
voice hollow.

“
Sofie’s curse, darling. I’m so
sorry. Witches can be such wicked creatures,” I heard Viggo
murmur.

I rolled my head to regard Sofie. The distress
in her eyes appeared genuine. But I knew better than to believe it
now.

I turned back to stare vacantly at the coffered
ceiling. Seconds strung into minutes as energy slowly returned to
my limbs. My jagged breathing competed with the crackling of the
fire as the only sound in the room.

Physically, the hurt had vanished. There were
no residual aches or pains, no scars to serve as evidence. It was
as if had never happened. Emotionally, though, the injury was as
real as if Sofie had held a hot branding iron to my chest. The
fantasy I had unwittingly created in my head, where I was finally
welcomed and accepted—even loved—had instantly crumbled to dust. Of
course there was an ulterior motive. Of course Sofie wasn’t doing
all of this because she enjoyed my company.

I am such an idiot.

Still too weak to fight gravity, my hand slid
up over my stomach to touch the pendant, to feel the smooth stone
rolling under my fingertips. It was no longer mere jewelry. I could
sense the chain coiled around my neck as surely as if it were a
tight noose. Closing my eyes, I pictured Sofie ready to kick the
stool out from under me.

“
Here. Sit up and have some water,”
Viggo said, offering me his hand and then a glass.

“
So what happens now?” I asked,
accepting both with a small smile of thanks.

“
The spell is unclear,” Sofie said
softly. “I can’t see beyond you transporting to this world. It’s
like getting an instruction manual with a large chunk missing from
it. I
assumed
it would involve you being transformed into
one of us. You would then have the venom to create more of our kind
here. But clearly, based on what happened last night, I was
wrong.”

“
You put a spell on me and you don’t
even know how it works?”