Summoning Shadows: A Rosso Lussuria Vampire Novel (36 page)

When he was done, he dropped silently and deadly behind me, only creating a small disturbance in the air.

“You try,” his voice hissed.

I had memorized their pattern and so started as they had. I made a run for the chair and misjudged my jump, sending it toppling over.

Morina laughed while Iliaria set the chair back upright.

“Again,” she said.

Again
. It was something I ended up hearing over and over for the next several hours.

Again, again, again…

Finally, I got to the point where I made it to the bed, and then I slipped on the footboard and had to start all over.
Again
.

It was night when I made it through the entirety of the course they had set for me. It looked simple, watching them do it, but in action it was far more difficult than it appeared. Where Morina and Anatharic had done as minimal damage to the room as possible, I’d accomplished removing great chunks of sheetrock from the wall and ceiling.

But at last I got it, dropping to my feet and the ground below in an ungraceful heap.

“That was good enough,” Iliaria said, a thread of tiredness in her tone as if she were the one who had been trying to get through the makeshift course repeatedly and not I.

“The others should be awake now.”

“Sì,” Vasco said from the doorway between the rooms. “Awake and seeing that you’ve been busy.” The corner of his mouth raised in a half smirk as he assessed the destruction and bits of debris on the floor. “I guess it’s a good thing after all that we are not really using this room. How do you feel, sorella?” he asked me.

“Exhausssted.” The tip of my tongue flitted of its own accord and I groaned. “Frussstrated.”

“We’ll teach you to change your form soon enough,” Iliaria said. “Right now, you need to get used to the Draculian tongue. You’re too obviously irritated by it.”

No surprise there.

With six floors of rooms, the hotel was larger than I had anticipated. The hallways were wide, lined in a rich, creamy carpet that complimented the wood paneling and off-white walls nicely. It was far more extraordinary than anything I had seen in the Sotto, or even in my life as a mortal. Everything in the place seemed new, and though we cared for our belongings and our furnishings, they were usually from centuries past.

Morina and Iliaria turned a corner and we followed them when they stepped into a lift. I found that if I did not think about it, if I just did it, walking was not so complicated.

Iliaria pressed a button when the doors slid closed and the lift dropped. The sudden movement made my stomach feel as if it were trying to crawl to another location in my body. When the lift stopped, I clung to the metal rail that lined the box.

Vasco asked with some amusement in his voice, “Surely, you’ve read about these, sorella?”

“I’ve read about a great many thingsss,” I said. “It doesss not mean I want to try all of them.”

“I take it you won’t be coming back to play in it?”

I shook my head, still feeling mildly unsteady when we stepped out into another hallway.

“It’s not so different an experience than jumping,” Iliaria said. “At least with the lift it’s a controlled experience.”

“By whossse ssstandardsss?” I asked.

She laughed at that.

Cuinn trotted ahead. “I didn’t mind it.”

“Of course not, Fata,” Nirena said. “Your kind has long been fascinated by the advances of human technology.”

He didn’t disagree with her; instead, he continued to lead the way, his fluffy tail bouncing behind him as he trotted to a tune that only he seemed to hear. Cuinn seemed strangely cheerful.

“A Dracule smiling,” Nirena said, “that’s rather unsettling.”

“Sssorry,” I said, not really sure why I was apologizing but doing it anyway.

Cuinn led us through a massive dining room filled with round tables covered in white cloths and back to the hotel’s kitchen. Emilio moved about the large space with ease, leaning over and making things beep annoyingly. The smell of cooked meat made my mouth water.

At my questioning look, Iliaria asked, “It smells good, no?”

“Yesss.”

Vasco scrunched his nose up in distaste. “Not so much, no.”

Emilio cleared off space on a long metal table and gestured for us to sit.

“It’s not for you, vampire,” Morina said.

I wondered how Vasco, Nirena, Vittoria, Vito, and Dominique were to feed. Severiano had also been left behind. I suspected Vasco had decided who would and would not accompany us, and I thought he had decided well. Head of the Cacciatori or no, I did not trust Severiano as much as the others.

Emilio was a splendid host as he set about arranging glasses before each of the vampires. The Dracule shared their blood, even Morina opened a vein, though as she did so she held my gaze, as if making sure I noted her kindness.

While they drank, Iliaria told me more about the Dracule.

“We have to eat solid food. A diet that’s high in iron and protein,” she explained. “Meat, mostly. Though there are some foods you should steer clear of.”

“Like?”

“Dairy,” Morina said as she folded a cloth napkin over her thighs. “The Dracule are naturally lactose intolerant.”

“We’re nursed on blood till our fangs erupt, not a mother’s milk. Also, most plant-based foods do not sit well. You could try them, of course, if you’re so inclined. Your Draculian body will not reject anything quite like a vampire’s would,” Iliaria added.

“Will it?” I asked Vasco and he comprehended what I asked.

“She’s never tried food since she was reborn,” he explained to the others. “Sì, I will show you. Emilio?”

Emilio set a small saucer with a little cut of meat on it before Vasco.

Vasco picked the tidbit up between his thumb and index finger and plunked it into his mouth. As soon as the food passed his lips, he gagged violently and the morsel fell back onto his plate.

“And to think, we always thought of you as a lady of impeccable manners,” Nirena said as she sipped blood from her glass. She stared at the meat on Vasco’s plate with disgust.

Vasco took her teasing in stride. He picked the morsel up again. “Would you like to try it, Nirena?”

Nirena raised her glass. “No, thank you.”

Emilio took the plate away, chuckling as he returned to check the food.

“What elssse?” I asked Iliaria.

“Garlic,” Morina said, inclining forward on the aluminum countertop. “Avoid it.”

“Isss it poisssonousss?”

“No.”

“Then?”

Iliaria touched my shoulder lightly. “You’d best not find out. At least, we’d appreciate you not trying.”

“I think it gives ’em flatulence, Piph.”

My ears swiveled of their own accord as I wondered if that was really what it was. At my expression, Morina laughed and offered verbal confirmation. “Just avoid it like the plague,” she said. “It’s not something we digest well.”

Emilio kindly brought our plates with well cooked slices of delicious meat served on top of them. “Unseasoned,” he said. “I’ve been listening, sorry.”

Iliaria thanked him and encouraged me to eat by pushing my plate closer to me. Even though I was no longer a vampire, I was hesitant to try it. Two hundred years of feeding like a vampire made me suspicious of trying something new.

Eventually, my stomach outweighed my hesitancy and I dined with the others. The meat was juicy and metallic on my Draculian tongue. It was delicious, but when I began to chew, I found it was not easy keeping the piece in one place in my mouth and ended up nearly choking on it.

Iliaria was in near tears by the time she leaned over to offer me a suggestion. “Guide it to the back of your mouth, Epiphany. Like this. Anatharic,” she said.

Turning to look at Anatharic gave me more of an idea of what I appeared like trying to eat. Granted, he had the hang of it better than I. He turned his head at an angle to guide the piece away from his fangs and against the row of teeth closer to his cheek. His ears flattened against his head while we stared at him, as if he wasn’t enjoying being watched.

I shook my head. “And I thought walking wasss a challenge.” I sighed and resigned myself to chewing and swallowing my food any way it wanted to go down.

Iliaria finished before the rest of us, and when she was done she took her plate to Emilio. She leaned into him, her mouth inches from his ear, and whispered words low enough I couldn’t hear them.

“Yes, lady. I’m still working on it.”

“Good,” she said, “let me know when you’ve made some progress.”

“I will.”

I pushed my plate away when I was done with it and Iliaria touched my upper arm.

“Come with me,” she said.

I rose and followed obediently. In the hallway on our way back toward our room, I asked, “What wasss that about?”

“Oh,” she offered, almost absentmindedly, “he’s working on figuring out where Damokles is hiding and where your queen is.”

In that moment, it occurred to me that out of all those with us, Iliaria was the one who had taken the lead in regard to our situation. She seemed to be making most, if not all, of the decisions since I’d woken.

“You’re still intent on saving her, aren’t you?” she asked, searching my face.

“Yesss, my lady.”

Iliaria’s hand rested on the handle of the door as she halted just outside the room. “It’s not going to be easy, Epiphany. You are Dracule now thanks to Azrael, but you still have to fool Damokles into thinking you’re really one of us and that you’re someone who believes as he does.”

“I think I can manage it.”

“Do you?” she asked, her head tilting as her long black hair fell to frame her porcelain face. “Epiphany, you do not have a cruel bone in your body. Dracule like Damokles are bloodthirsty and cruel. In order to do this thing, you must become everything you are not.”

“I will do what needsss to be done.”

She looked doubtful but opened the door to admit us to the room beyond. “Sit on the bed,” she said as she motioned idly with a flick of her wrist. “There’s more to learn, then.”

And so she began to teach me of the Draculian tongue, which I found curling and complicated. When I faltered on a pronunciation, she pushed me.

Again
.

I grew increasingly frustrated with the unfamiliar alphabet.

“You have to learn everything, Epiphany. There are no shortcuts in this. If you want to fool Damokles, you must learn to read our hand, you must learn to write it, and you must, above all, learn to speak it without hesitation and uncertainty. Again,” she said.

I focused on the web-like and spidery figures she’d written on a tablet of paper and tried to sound their letters out, to put it all together. I daresay, it was more difficult than when I had learned to read as a child.

“My name isss Epiphany,” the Draculian language tumbled sloppily off my tongue, and I frowned and said in English, “We ssshould change that.”

“Keep your focus,” she said. “We’ll figure that out later.”

Hours passed until a light tap sounded at the door and Vasco peeked in. “Still studying?” he asked.

Iliaria leaned her head back against the bedpost and rubbed her temples. The tilt of her head exposed the smooth expanse of her throat and perfect line of her jaw.

“Yesss,” I grumbled unhappily.

“May I borrow her for a while, Great Siren?”

“She needs to learn,” Iliaria said, though she sounded tired.

“She’s spent the entire day and night learning. Surely, she can resume her lessons on the morrow?”

She sat up straight and then nodded. “Fine. Epiphany, go.”

I went with Vasco and found Cuinn in the hallway with him.

“What are we doing?” I asked.

“You’ll see, sorella,” he said with an impish smile.

Vasco and Cuinn guided me down the long hall and several flights of stairs to the ground floor. Vasco opened a door near the stairs and spoke as we walked through. “She’s intent on teaching you a lot, but perhaps we can be of some assistance in other realms.”

I didn’t know what he meant, until I took in the sight of the room and the large pool of water in the center of it.

Cuinn rushed past me, practically flying on the tips of his paws as he jumped and launched himself in the air above the water. He landed with a riotous splash and paddled back up to the surface, his orange head bobbing as he swam.

I couldn’t help it, I laughed. That, too, felt strange.

Vasco unbuttoned his shirt and let it fall.

He ran to the pool, leaping and arching his long arms out in front of him as he dove and swam the pool’s length underwater. The surface broke as he stood and pushed his long hair out of his face. His nipple piercings caught the light as he smiled widely.

“Come on, sorella.”

“Vasssco, I don’t know if I can.”