Summoning Shadows: A Rosso Lussuria Vampire Novel (35 page)

“Your former self is,” another voice said, a woman’s voice. “Congratulations, vampire. It appears your dance with death was a smashing success.”

Morina leaned against the bedpost with the black patch shielding her scarred eye. I made a face, trying to convey my displeasure, but it felt funny. My face felt strange. I raised my hand and Iliaria snatched it.

“Epiphany,” she said.

I met her gaze.

“I do not know what you said or what you did, but Azrael has answered your request.”

I tried to glance down at her hand on my arm and she moved her other hand to bring my gaze back to her face.

“Not yet,” she said. “You do not remember a thing about Azrael?”

“No, why? What happened?”

“Bugger it all!” Cuinn exclaimed. “Just tell the poor girl!” He leapt onto the bed. “You’re one of them now.” He motioned with his snout to Iliaria. “You’re Dracule, Piph. You asked and received.”

I blinked. I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right, and if I had, I wasn’t sure I believed it. I felt strange, but wouldn’t I know if I had changed that much?

Cuinn must’ve seen the disbelief on my features, for he snorted and said, “Get a mirror.”

“You are going to send her mad,” Morina said, but not like she really cared.

Iliaria let out a heavy sigh and released me. She held a mirror. “It is true, before you doubt. Remember that what you see here is only what is true now. It may not always be so.”

She held up the mirror. I managed to catch a glimpse of myself and no more than that, for as soon as I saw the white fur, the angular face, and fathomless eyes—

My heart lurched with panic and I scrambled from the bed, though Vasco and Iliaria tried to contain me.

It was a mess. I was a mess, a mess of the tail I paid little heed to, a mess of wings I didn’t know how to use, a mess of the slightly bent legs that I had not yet learned how to maneuver.

If it weren’t for Iliaria, I might’ve taken all three of us to the floor. As it was, she pulled me down and sealed her arms tightly around my midsection. “Stop, Epiphany! Stop fighting it!”

I tried, but every instinct within me told me to fight, to panic. Every fiber of my being told me it wasn’t
right
.

For some reason, Queen Helamina’s vision came to my mind.

“It’sss me,” I said.

“What is?” Iliaria asked.

“Helamina’sss visssion.”

“Sì,” Vasco said. “We kind of noticed that.”

I slumped against Iliaria, defeated. “Tell me.”

Vasco understood. “You died, Epiphany. Iliaria drank you empty.”

“Vasco begged me to interfere,” Emilio said. “I couldn’t.”

“Neither could I,” Cuinn said. “Nothing we did to try and pull ye back worked.”

“I thought I had lost you,” Iliaria mumbled against my neck, tickling my fur with her lips. “I lost control. I couldn’t stop drinking. I’m sorry.”

“What elssse?”

“Azrael came,” Emilio said. “We could see him. He stood over you. He knew what you sought and he gave you what you asked.”

“Why?”

“Love, I think,” Vasco said. “He did not explain why. He barely spoke to us, sorella. He only said, ‘For turns of the whole moon, she will have what she asks.’”

“
Four
,” Cuinn corrected him. “As in, four months. He took the cloak from his back and wrapped you in his magic,” he explained. “In four months, he will return you to your former self.”

“Where are we?”

“Azrael wrapped you in his darkness,” Iliaria said, stroking my back like you’d calm a child. “When his darkness began to fade, we saw that he had indeed changed you. I too remembered Helamina’s prophetic vision. We feared she would turn against us, so we’ve brought you somewhere safe.”

“Who elssse isss here?”

“All of the Rosso Lussuria, save Gaspare,” Vasco said. “We decided to leave him behind just in case he goes shouting wolf.”

The corner of my mouth tugged in a smirk. “Wissse.”

“Aye, I didn’t disagree with it,” Cuinn added. “Bit of a whiny bastard, that one.”

“Anatharic will be here shortly,” Iliaria said.

“I ssstill do not know where we are.”

“We’re in a hotel room in the human world,” Vasco said. “And don’t worry, Emilio’s warded and spelled the place. No one will know we’re here.”

Morina snorted.

“Why isss ssshe here?”

“We had no choice but to bring her,” Iliaria said.

“Aye, she threatened to squeal on us if we didn’t,” Cuinn added with an accusatory glance toward the Dracule in question.

“Don’t sound too thrilled,” Morina said sarcastically.

“Anatharic and I will teach you how to use this body.” Iliaria gratefully changed the subject. “Are you able to stand?”

“I think ssso.”

She helped me to my feet, and though I still felt like a drunken sailor on a swaying ship, her hands on my arms helped me to remain upright.

“Use your tail for balance, Epiphany.”

“How?”

“If you focus, your body will react. It’s a lot like moving the rest of your limbs. Think about it and it will happen. Your wiring just hasn’t sorted itself out yet.”

She was right. When I focused on
trying
to move it myself, it did. Left, then right, left, then right…

I knew I made a strange face at the sensation. “Odd.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

I swung it a bit roughly and nearly lost my balance again. I reached out to catch myself by gripping Iliaria’s arm and accidentally stretched a wing outward.

Iliaria laughed. “It’s a bit like watching a newborn colt, sorry,” she said when I glared at her. “In time, they’ll become just another part of you, but for now,” she started guiding me back toward the bed, “rest. Sleep. It’s something your Draculian body needs.”

She dismissed the others, all save Cuinn, to an adjacent room. Iliaria climbed into bed beside me.

“Try your stomach,” she said, noticing when I began fidgeting and trying to get comfortable.

I rolled onto my stomach and felt the node of flesh between my legs pressing against the mattress. I rose up on my arms with a gasp.

Iliaria laughed again and stroked a hand down my back, between my winged shoulders blades. My fingers curled in pleasure and with them, the spurred tips.

“Just lie down,” she said. “Try to ignore that.”

“Awfully bleedin’ hard.”

“Is it?” she asked with a mysterious smile. “So soon?”

I gave her an impatient look, but lay back down on my stomach, a bit more cautiously this time.

“Not like
that
,” I grumbled.

Another trickle of laughter fell from her lips and I closed my eyes, burying half my face in the pillow. “I’m hot.”

“You’re supposed to be. You’re Dracule now, no longer a vampire.”

“Couldn’t Azzzrael have made me hairlesssss?”

“A bald Dracule?” Iliaria asked. “That’d be an odd sight and I think it unlikely that you’d fool Damokles that way.”

I groaned unhappily.

Iliaria stroked my ear and it tickled insanely, making them twitch wildly as I tried to avoid her. I felt them flatten against my skull, tugging the muscles near my forehead whilst I frowned.

“We’ll teach you to change your form,” she said. “When you’re ready…for now, sleep, Epiphany.”

She started to leave and I laid a hand on her arm. “Ssstay with me, pleassse.”

“I will,” she said as she curled her long body against mine. “I promise.”

*

I stretched, relishing the mists of sleep that clung to me. After two hundred years, I’d forgotten how good it felt to sleep normally instead of dying at dawn. The stretch alone felt incredible, sending a tendril of pleasure unfurling from the center of my body and spreading through every inch of me. My ears sank back as my toes curled, and I yawned.

A triangle of sunlight cut through the hotel bedroom and I ducked down low and instinctively in the bed.

“Good morning,” Iliaria said as the thick curtain over the window swung back into place. “You need not fear sunlight, not as one of us.”

I managed, albeit a bit uncertainly, to get myself upright.

I clambered out of the bed in a mess of limbs and wings, holding on to the bedpost for balance. “May I?”

She gestured to the window with a smile softer than any I’d ever seen on her face before. “By all means,” she said, and came to help me.

I pulled the curtain aside, and the light was too bright. It made me squint and draw away as it sent a shooting pain through my eyes and into the back of my head.

“Let your eyes adjust, Epiphany.” Iliaria gently steered me back toward the window. She drew the curtain aside herself. “Close them.”

I did and the light beyond sent an orange glow behind my lids.

“Open them, slowly.”

It took a few tries, but after a while, my sight did adjust to the brightness beyond the glass.

We were some stories up. Below us was a world of healthy and lively green grass. Tall and sturdy trees with wide leaves dotted the rolling landscape. The sunlight caught on a pool of water at the edge of a tree line. It danced and rippled off the blue metallic surface where ducks and white swans swam. A mother duck with a startling crown of iridescent plumage led her chocolate and yellow ducklings up to shore. The boat of her tail danced behind her as she led them, happy as could be.

“You will notice your vision is better than that of a vampire in this form,” Iliaria said, though I sensed she wasn’t sharing deeper thoughts.

I nodded, for I had noticed. It was not that my vision appeared weird in any way, only that the scope of it seemed wider. The colors below came to life more vividly than those any artist’s brush could give birth to.

Iliaria handed a wad of black cloth to me. “Put this on,” she said. I unfolded the cloth to find a pair of trousers cropped just above the knee. Iliaria had to help me dress, and when she was finished, she said, “Come.” Her hand squeezed my shoulder briefly before she turned to slide open the two wooden doors that led to the adjoining room. She led me into the room where we found Anatharic and Morina waiting. Anatharic, as usual, was in his Draculian form. Morina was still in the more human of hers, though she had changed her garb for a pair of leather breeches and a blouse over which buttoned a figure-flattering vest.

“Where are the othersss?”

“They’re in the basement.” At my expression, she said, “I told you we would teach you. Emilio has spelled the entire hotel and its grounds. We are safe here.”

“If you’re going to fool Damokles, you need to know how to move like one of us and not like a gangly fawn,” Morina said.

Iliaria showed me soon enough what they were talking about. She moved throughout the room, shifting furniture and placing it just so. She moved a high-backed chair from its spot in front of a desk and placed it just catty-corner to it. A sofa was pressed up against the wall by the door.

When she was done, she turned to Morina.

“Since you wanted to help,” Iliaria said, gesturing at her with a hand.

Morina kicked off her knee-high boots until she stood barefoot.

“This is how you should be able to move,” Iliaria said. “Watch closely.”

Morina drew in a breath and let it out slowly. As soon as the breath left her body, she was moving. She ran toward the round-back chair and leapt on it, catching the corner of it with the tips of her toes. Her wings fanned out to slice the air as she continued to move. Every part of her body worked in perfect harmony, her tail swayed for balance and her wings cut and cupped the air to aid her movements. After she caught the corner of the chair, she stepped onto the desk, and from that, the nightstand beside the bed. I thought she would simply walk across the bed, but she did not. She turned and danced, nimble and swift like a ballerina on her feet. Her hands caught the thick wooden post before she swung herself around to walk right across the top of the footboard. The footboard creaked beneath her weight, but she was not on it long before she threw herself to the sofa, walking along the narrowest part. She left herself little room to stand, but she did not need it. She used her fingers and the spurs of her wings to penetrate the sheetrock of the wall and climbed upward toward the ceiling.

Iliaria tilted her head back as Morina flattened her body against the ceiling. Her long white, gray, and black hair hung loose before she dropped herself. She swung her body into the fall and landed flat on her feet.

Not a piece of furniture was out of place when she was done. The only damage done were the holes she had created to climb. Morina stood to her full height. “If you’re not careful when climbing, you’ll pull the entire ceiling down on top of you. Remember not to create your holds close together.”

Iliaria said, “Now watch Anatharic.”

Anatharic stepped up and did what Morina had done, with only a few alterations to his movements to compensate for his less humanoid form.