Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 85029 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85029 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
“That’s double creepy, Ryet.”
“Unsurprisingly, it was Paul’s idea. I just… put it in. But it does come in handy.”
Syrsee is about to step past me and enter the cabin, but then she pauses, looking at me. “Have these people around here ever met Paul?”
I think back for a moment. Trying to remember a time when Paul might’ve been here when the humans were hanging about. “Yeah, they have. The boys who helped me, at least. But they didn’t realize what he was.”
“I don’t understand.” Syrsee makes a face. “They would not be able to tell that he’s evil? They wouldn’t feel it, Ryet? Because even if I was blind, I would be able to feel his wrongness in a crowded room.”
“Well, you’re a Black witch, Syrsee. You can probably do a lot of things regular humans have no clue about. They couldn’t really see him.”
“Was he a ghost or something? An apparition? Only half there?”
“No. He wasn’t a ghost. Mirage is maybe a better word. They could see him, but they didn’t pay any attention to him. I think he was going through something—a phase, or some kind of vampire maturation point, maybe. Because he would spend years at a time in the earth back then.”
Syrsee and I both look at the side of the house that leads to the root cellar and come to the same conclusion in pretty much the same instant. She’s the one who says it out loud. “That’s why he needed the root cellar?”
“Maybe. Anyway.” I let out a breath, wanting to change the subject. I’m hungry. I don’t care about Paul and his mysteries. I just want to feed. I invite her in with a wave of my hand. “Welcome home, Syrsee.”
She hesitates for a moment, perhaps wondering if a vampire inviting you into his home might come with conditions. Kind of like that myth humans have been perpetuating for the last hundred years about inviting a vampire into a human home.
But if these conditions do exist, I’m not aware of them. And she, being a Black witch—albeit a baby one—can probably feel my honesty the same way she can feel Paul’s evil. So she steps past me and goes inside. I follow and close the door behind us.
2 - Syrsee
Nothing but a hen.
He’s hungry. I can see it now. I’ve spent the last two weeks feeding him and there is definitely a pattern of behavior that only occurs when he needs my blood. It’s nothing as obvious as bloodshot eyes or pale skin. It’s more like an energy coming off him. A vibration, almost. It’s always there, but when he’s hungry the velocity of the wave increases.
Wow. Velocity. Not a word typically found in my vocabulary. I know what it means. Speed. But it’s a very specific kind of speed that pertains to waves and…
I shake my head to stop this train of thought. What the hell, Syrsee? No one cares.
Anyway. When he’s hungry this wave vibration is more urgent. I can’t explain it, but I can feel it and it’s happening right now.
It comes with colors too. Like the purple letters that came with the phrase ‘blood lovers’ back when I was first turning into… well, whatever it is I am now.
I haven’t had much time to think about the changes happening inside me. I can feel them. But I can’t explain them. I just know I’m not the same person who walked into my grandma’s cabin on New Year’s Eve. The moment I walked out, and she was dead, everything about me changed.
And that’s just the beginning. Who the hell knows what was done to me while the blood orgy happened up in that tower room at Paul’s compound.
I close my eyes in this moment when Ryet’s back is to me and he’s closing the cabin door. Then I take a quick breath, give myself a speedy pep talk—which amounts to nothing more than Don’t think about it, Syrsee—and force myself to smile so when Ryet turns back to me I don’t come off as resentful.
Even though I feel some resentment about this whole situation.
The little neighbor welcome wagon down the hill was a nice distraction. And it’s all been fine since Ryet woke up and we started heading to West Virginia. It was a relief, actually. For him to take over and start making decisions so I didn’t have to.
But reality won’t wait forever. And my pep talks suck.
Bright side—Ryet’s hunger is distracting and imminent, so I don’t really have the luxury of dwelling on my insecurities. The color of the wave coming off Ryet is not purple. It’s yellow. Kind of gold, actually. Which is good. Because I’ve got enough purple going on these days and having a separate color for this particular event—or behavior, or whatever you want to call it—should make it easier to determine which state of insanity I’m currently residing in.