Summoning Shadows: A Rosso Lussuria Vampire Novel (23 page)

I dipped the cloth and soap into the pail and bathed in silence, making as little of a show of it as was possible. I tried to imagine that Morina was not there and that I was not being forced, but it was impossible. Thanks to the binding she had placed on me, the bond that she had forcibly forged between us, I felt her and the vast emptiness within her. I pondered what could make someone so empty. Even the vampires among the Sotto have a difficult time turning their emotions on and off. I would know, for as with Lucrezia, I have sensed their true feelings despite what they have projected. There was always something beneath the mask. Always. It was disconcerting to be so near a living being so bereft of life.

“Your anger, Morina, has burned everything else inside of you,” I said, no longer caring if she took it upon herself to punish me. Being with her was punishment enough.

I forced myself to look at her, shoving my fear into the darkest corner of myself. Morina said nothing, nor did she make a move toward me. Her lack of a response inspired me to carry on.

“Would she be proud, do you think?” I asked. It was a shot in the dark, a guess, nothing more than that. Why else would she be so attached to the place? Why else would their spirits still linger here?

Morina flinched at my words, not noticeably so, but enough that I knew my words had hit their target. A few paces were all it took for her to reach me.

Morina struck me with the back of her hand, knocking me to my knees and forcing the corner of my mouth into my fang. The blood welled at the contact and I spit, tasting Morina’s blood in my mouth and feeling the wound close as fast as it was made.

“Do not speak of her!”

“You wanted to know what the house told me,” I said, feeling her anger as my own. “It is sick of sorrow and violence. If you want to make her happy, bring life back to her home.”

I felt something then; a light weight on my shoulder like someone had walked up behind me and rested their hand there. A shiver trickled down my spine before a small flicker of emotion ignited like a lit candle. Its warm glow inched across the room, touching and enveloping me…

Compassion.

Whatever it was, whoever it was, the memories came upon me so vividly that the room in which I knelt disappeared behind the curtain of them.

“
Partly memory,
” a woman’s voice whispered. The room was the same and yet, different. The coverlet on the bed was pristine, its bright red and gold colors nowhere near as dull as in the present. A curtain moved and a spill of sunlight stretched through the room. I crawled back out of instinct and pressed myself into a shadowy corner away from the two doors.

“
Do not fear
,” the voice said, though the body it belonged to was nowhere to be seen. “
Try harder, vampire.
Try harder to see me and you will.
”

I was not sure how I was supposed to try to see something I could not, but I searched the room anyway, trying to find her.

Something near the bed caught my eyes out of my peripheral vision. I saw the outline of a white dressing gown, lace spilling at her collar and wrists. As soon as I saw it, the image became stronger, more solid, and more real.

Her eyes were dark and wide and lined with thick lashes. Her cheekbones were high and round, framed by a mane of black curls. She was petite, probably not much taller than I. Her stature gave her a certain air of fragility that the strength of her bone structure denied.

“Now do you see?”
The edge of an accent graced her tone, though she spoke English clearly enough to understand.

Slowly, I nodded at the figure near the bed.

“She stays in hopes that she will see me again, that she will feel me, but it will never be so, it is not meant to be.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“He does
,” the woman said.

Cuinn slipped up beside me, pressing the line of his body against mine where I huddled. His fur was soft and real against my skin and I buried a hand in it, burning orange against my white.

Cuinn genuflected in a measure of respect.
“Aye, lady. I do.”

“What are you?” I asked. “Are you a ghost?”

“
I am that which has passed through the veil.”

“How am I able to see you?”

“Your abilities allow you to gather and absorb emotions and memories, vampire. His abilities,
” she motioned to Cuinn,
“his abilities help you to part the veil and to see beyond it, for he is one of the Fatas and that is what they do.”

“And what are you?”

She’s a White Lady, Piph
.

“What is that, Cuinn? A ghost?”

Yea and nay,
he said.
A White Lady is the spirit of a Fata witch that will not rest. The tragedy that befell this place has forever tied her to it, to protect it and its inhabitants.

“Like a banshee?” I asked him.

Aye, similar to a banshee.

I wanted to ask more questions, but the White Lady spoke before I could begin.

She looked so sad when she spoke.
“She was not always as she seems, vampire. Perhaps you can help her…”

Her image wavered in my vision. “Wait,” I said. “How?”

Come on, Piph. Time to go.

“But wait!”

I woke with a start, bolting upright in the chambers I had been using as my own. A fire danced in the fireplace, sending crooked shadows to writhe and stretch against the stone walls.

My wits were scrambled. I was no longer certain what was real and what wasn’t. Surely, I hadn’t dreamed that Morina had forced me to abase myself before her and that a spirit of a witch from the past had presented herself to me. I was a vampire. I didn’t have dreams.

I touched my hand to my chest to clutch the collar of my gown, but instead of the exquisite gown King Augusten had given to me, my fingers brushed a spill of lace.

A rush of adrenaline sang through me and I clambered out of bed. The gown swung around my legs and fell in a sheet of white past my ankles.

Cuinn
, I thought, the voice in my head conveying my panic and uncertainty.

The door to my chambers opened as Morina admitted herself. In her right hand, she carried the gold and ruby chalice that contained her blood.

Cuinn didn’t respond. Morina took one look at me and the expressionless mask she usually wore slipped as her features contorted, first in pain, and then in fury. The chalice fell from her hand and clinked across the floor, her blood pooling on the cold stone.

Morina crept toward me, slowly enough that I could visually keep track of her for once. “Where did you get that?”

“I don’t know.”

She continued to cross the room, making her way around the bed to get to me. If I thought I could have outrun her, I would have. But she was Dracule, and if I tried to run, she would catch me.

When she was close enough to touch me, Morina grabbed my elbow and jerked me to her. I put a hand up, catching her shoulder.

“Where did you get that?” In the heat of her fury, her voice was beginning to rise again.

“I…I don’t know!” I stammered, my heart pounding a warning that something terrible was about to happen.

She jerked me again, pulling a muscle in my shoulder that made me cry out in pain. I tried to draw away from her, and her grip only tightened considerably.

“You’ve been snooping around,” she growled. “Where did you find that? I didn’t tell you you could wear anything you wanted to. I left clothes for you. Where are they?”

I didn’t know, and in the face of her fury, propelled by my own fear, I fought and struggled against her. I tried to break her hold on me, and every inch I gained, Morina caught me again, her grip even harsher and more bruising than the last as I tried to fight her off with my arms.

She gripped me by both elbows and tugged to pull me to her.

I don’t know what came over me. The only thing I could think was that I did not want her to pull me any closer to her, and when she made to do so, I lost it. I fought her hold like a wild animal, no longer concerned with being hurt if I struggled against her. I sought one thing and one thing only: to get away.

I kicked and wriggled wildly. Any part of her body that I could hit or kick, I did. I didn’t care how angry it made her. I knew I had to get away. During the struggle, Morina lost her grip on my elbows. In the back of my mind, I knew Cuinn had jumped to his feet. As soon as my arms were free, I felt it in my hand, the old familiar reliable steel of the fox blade.

The blade blazed to life nearly as bright as the fire burning in the room. It glowed with a light of its own, casting its own shadows along the walls.

Morina growled, low and deep, a rumble that felt as though it made the very walls tremble.

Cuinn yelped,
RUN, NOW!

I did. I ran for the door, and as soon as I made it to it, I felt Morina behind me. I turned, raising my arms above my head and sweeping the fox blade down through the air at an arc. Morina jumped back from the blade and I hit the stairs, taking two and three at a time.

I opened the door at the end of the stairs and ran into the night. The grass crunched and pricked sharp under my bare feet and I ignored it as the blood thundered in my head. The white gown tangled around my legs and I grabbed a handful of it, using every ounce of strength and speed that I could to try to outrun a Dracule.

I didn’t get very far. Morina hit me from behind and her weight took me down at the edge of the trees. She grabbed my wrist and jerked my arm, disarming me and sending the fox blade out of my reach.

“I told you not to leave the walls of the castle,” she said, pushing my arms up behind my back. “Do you really think you can survive out here on your own? Do you really think you can survive
without me
?”

“It was a chance I was willing to take.”

“Foolish girl,” she growled, her mouth uncomfortably close to my ear. “No matter where you go, no matter how far you run, I will find you.”

“Why are you doing this?”

Morina yanked me to my feet without answering. She kept her steely grip on my arms and steered me back toward the castle. For the first time, I got a good view of it. It was a small keep, secluded, surrounded by land and trees. The outside was as dreary and unkempt as the inside; a blanket of ivy climbed one side of the stone wall, and I wasn’t sure if the ivy was protecting it or trying to pull the rocks into ruin.

Morina shoved me. “Go.”

I thought about the fox blade, but knew she wouldn’t stop to retrieve it. It didn’t matter. Wherever I went, so too did the sword. It was part of Cuinn’s magic. It would find me again, when I needed it. That, even Morina couldn’t stop.

Morina guided me back through the castle. When I hesitated to move as she bid me to, she pulled my arms up higher behind my back until the pain forced me to oblige. She led me down a long hall and past another sitting room. The room was aglow with a single lamp that had been lit and placed atop a table beside a long sofa.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding, my captor,” I said.

Morina pushed me again and I stumbled. Only her grip on my arms kept me upright. The sitting room led to another hallway, one danker and darker than the rest. She continued to guide me through it. At the end of the hall, the stone beneath my feet slanted downward, until I realized she was leading me to a place beneath the castle itself.

Down and down we went, making our descent into the dark belly of the castle. Strangely, I wasn’t afraid. A certain helplessness came over me, and with it, a measure of surrender.

“I’m reminded of a story the Sumerians tell,” I said. When Morina did not silence me, I continued. “Perhaps you have heard it? The Descent of Inanna. It is the story of the Goddess’s journey into the Underworld and of her sister, Ereshkigal. Seven things she carried on her person, each representing her power. At each of the seven doors, she was stripped of something precious to her, her crown, her ring, her measuring rod, her garments—”

“
Queen of Heaven
,” Morina snorted. “Haughty and arrogant.”

I wasn’t sure if she was talking about me or Inanna. “If Inanna was haughty and arrogant, why would she have abandoned her temples, her wealth, and her status to make the descent into the Great Below in the first place?”

“What you forget, vampire, is that Inanna attempted to enter with her wealth and her status. It was her sister who forced her to enter the Underworld in nothing but her own skin. It was her sister who stripped her of those things and forced her to bow low. Comparing yourself to Inanna does not put you in my good graces.” She shoved me again, as we had both come to a halt. “Now, move.”

“I am not comparing myself to Inanna,” I said, “not really.”

“Then what do you hope to achieve by telling your little story, vampire?”

“I’m comparing you to Ereshkigal. You may strip me of everything I know and everything I own. You may tear this gown from my body, but there is one thing you can never ever take from me, Morina.”