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)
“Hold on.” I’m so annoyed right now. “I need to find a pen and paper.” I start opening drawers, finally finding one with what I’m looking for. Then I pick up the receiver again. “Go ahead.” He gives me the URL, then the log-in credentials, and I write it down. “Is that it?”
“Will you promise to look at it?”
“Fine, Tristin. I’ll look at it. Please don’t call back. And pass this message along to Zusi as well. Tell her…” I sigh, frustrated. “Tell her we’ll talk soon. But only if she gives me my space.”
Then I just hang up the phone without waiting for an answer.
I leave the kitchen and go back into the bedroom to check on Ryet. He’s still a vampire. A very scary-looking vampire. But when I place my hand flat on his back, right between those wings, he feels much cooler than he was before he fed.
How much longer? How much longer will it go on like this?
And what is the deal with all the sickness? First him, then me, now him again. It’s like a cycle of… something. I got a little information out of Paul, but not nearly enough.
My eyes involuntarily track a path through the open bedroom door and to the counter where I left the notepad. I doubt it’s going to be much help, but at this point, any new information is better than none.
I leave Ryet to sleep it off—feeling a little sick myself, but trying not to think about it—and go back out to get the notepad. Then I find the cellphone I bought while Ryet was feeding off me those first ten days, and navigate to the website.
I’m immediately presented with a log-in page. I enter the credentials that Zusi gave me—they are not words or anything. Both the username and the password are just long strings of numbers, letters, and characters. The kind of super-strong combination that is automatically generated by a browser AI.
The webpage reloads and I lean in, squinting my eyes at the small screen as it populates.
Then I gasp. Because the first thing I see is some kind of digital art depicting the Ice Maiden I saw in my dreamwalk with Lucia that night I banished Paul.
The whole scene is there, actually. The horse and rider. Coyrah, the Ice Maiden, taming the aquis equī out on the ice and turning into the night mare.
“What is this?” I whisper these words out loud as I navigate the menu. There are a couple dozen folders and all of them have something to do with me. ‘Syrsee’s Ancestors.’ ‘Syrsee’s Dreams.’ ‘Syrsee’s Nightmares.’ ‘Syrsee’s Diet.’ ‘Syrsee’s Education.’ ‘Syrsee’s Habits.’ On and on like that.
Research? This isn’t research. This is… a dossier.
Zusi was spying on me.
The whole fucking time.
14 - Josep
A little baby taste.
Little Baby screams the whole fall down as I hold her against my chest. Then the landing is so hard, I lose my grip and she goes flying forward, falling face-first into the ragged rock floor.
She makes noises of pain, then she starts sobbing.
I let out a breath. Then take in another one, filling my lungs with the pungent, humid air that one only finds at the entrance to Hell. The mist is thin, but it’s very purple down here. Purple that is almost black. Purple the color of a feeder’s blood.
It’s the past, it’s the future—the mist down here is all possibilities at once.
It’s only been about six weeks since I last visited the gates, but it feels like forever since I was deep in the earth like this.
This is where vampires come from. Not the physical location at the bottom of a cave drop found off a hallway. ‘Here’ isn’t a definitive term. You can find Hell just about anywhere underground if you’re a vampire blessed by the Darkness, as I am.
We not only like it here, we want to be here. That’s why we love the Darkness. That’s why we try to please it so badly. This is where we belong.
Little Baby—the creature formerly known as Echo—does not belong here.
She gets to her feet, sobbing through her screams. “What’s going on? Where the hell are we?”
I chuckle at her little accidental pun. “Well, you got it in one, dear girl. We are at Hell’s Gates.”
Her eyes go wide, then they wildly dart around, looking past me. Like she might be able to go back. To escape. To evade her future.
“Oh, good luck with that.” I chuckle these words out. “There is nothing behind me but rock. To leave now, Little Baby, you must go up.” I watch, fascinated by this girl, as her eyes track above my head, squinting because she can’t see in the dark.
But I can. And there is fear all over her face. This fear manifests as a screech. “Take me back! I want to go back! Right now!”