The ghoul wasted no time, darting out and melting into the darkness.
As smoke began to pour from the room, I strode up the staircase, but paused as I realized this wasn’t the staircase I had come down earlier. I hesitated, but pushed on, even as it became too dark to see properly. Smoke filled the corridor I climbed, tickling my lungs until they began to burn. I coughed, lightly at first, but then found I couldn’t stop. Blindly, I climbed the steps until I pushed on solid rock. I felt lightheaded, the smoke growing thicker with every second that passed. I needed to get out now. Something scrambled nearby and I realized it was the ghoul I’d released. It pushed its small frame against the stone, as if its weight would make any difference at all. I appreciated its fight and resolved to offer my own.
I turned and pushed my back against the stone, lifting a trapdoor that swung up and out under my weight with a groan of protest. Then, I found myself stumbling out into the night air, body wracked with fits of coughing. I collapsed, turning to look up at the sky, and realized I was in an obscure part of the garden. A statue of an angel stared down at me, fighting a snake wrapped around her arm and torso, teeth bared to strike. The ghoul paused briefly over me before it slipped into the shadows of nearby trees.
I heard shouts in the darkness, and I forced myself to move, suppressing my coughs as I embraced the arms of darkness, cloaking me in its folds as if welcoming home a lost child.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Istared at my mother, knitting before the fireplace with a look of contentment. I could smell stew in the air and hear the tune she hummed under her breath even through the pane of glass that separated us.
Flames sent shadows over her face, but with my new sight, no facet of it was lost to me. I hadn’t seen her in months, not since I’d bid her farewell in the doorway on my way to boarding school. She’d seemed so sad then, but here she was, happy as ever without me. She looked older than before, or maybe I’d never noticed the lines in her forehead, or the streams of silver mixed into her dark brown hair.
My father entered the room, plopping into a chair at her side, smiling vaguely in her direction as he produced a pipe from his pocket and set about lighting it with eager, fumbling fingers. I’d tried that pipe once and had gagged at the putrid smoke it produced. I didn’t understand how he found pleasure in its foul vapors, but then again, I’d never had a taste for blood before either, yet after a few weeks, I didn’t know how I’d ever gone without.
“Why are we here?” I asked, although I didn’t turn to look at Konstantin, eyes glowing red from the shadows at my side. “I thought you said we needed to put our human lives behind us.”
Konstantin sniffed. “I’m not sure you fully grasp my meaning, Lucian. This is yet another lesson I must teach you. Perhaps the most important one.” He gestured through the window, even though my eyes were already fixed on the figures within. “You can never return to this life. If you ever do, they will see you as a monster. They will try to destroy you. In fact, if you ever try to live among their kind again, rather than embrace what you truly are, people will notice things about you. They will note how you never eat, how you never venture out during the daytime hours, how you never age.” He paused, cocking his head to look at me. “You aren’t of their kind anymore, Lucian. Any lingering longing must be expunged if you want to survive as a creature of the night.”
I nodded. “I understand. I’ll never see them again.”
“No. You will not. You will make sure of that tonight.”
I smiled as my father reached out to pat my mother’s hand before Konstantin’s words registered. I blinked and glanced sideways at him. “What?”
A smile stretched across his lips, and he leaned in closer so that I couldn’t avoid his eyes. He pushed a lock of hair back from my face. “All ties to the human world must be severed. They are your only weakness. They will be your undoing if you let them be. Without them, you will be free to become what you were always meant to become.”
I swallowed hard, eyes darting inside again, but Konstantin grabbed my chin, forcing me to meet his eyes once more. “You are strong enough, Lucian. You can make it as quick as you need to, but this must be done to make any sort of existence for yourself.”
I pursed my lips. “I won’t see them again. I won’t even be tempted. I can leave them be and let them die on their own terms.” I hated the pleading in my voice, but it couldn’t be helped. I tried to smile for him. “I only need you.”
“Then prove it.”
“Master, please—”
“Do not beg like one of them. Cut down everything that stands in your way. That is the way of a true predator. An apex predator.”
“Lucian?” a voice asked from behind me, tentative.
I flinched, turning to find my sister Lexa standing in the path leading to the door, firewood in her arms.
I straightened and blinked at her. She’d grown in the weeks since I’d last seen her. Yet somehow, she seemed so much frailer than I remembered.
“Mother and Father will be very upset if you’ve been kicked out of school,” Lexa said, frowning. “Are you well, Lucian? You look pale.”
I glanced toward Konstantin, but he was gone. I was on my own then, to see this through. I knew I couldn’t disappoint him. It wouldn’t end well for me.
I strode toward Lexa casually. “I’m fine, sister. You’ve grown though.” I held out a hand. “Let me carry the firewood for you.”
“If you insist.” She squinted at me suspiciously before she pushed into the house ahead of me.
I stopped at the threshold, frowning as my body wouldn’t allow me to venture any further. It was like an invisible wall stood in my way, repelling me. I hadn’t encountered anything like it before, but I recalled my master’s instructions: To enter a home, a vampire needed to secure an invitation.
“Guess who’s home?” Lexa announced, startling my parents.
“You’ve barely been gone ten minutes,” my mother said, chuckling, eyes on her knitting. “Dinner won’t be ready for another hour.”
“Where’s the firewood?” my father asked, squinting beyond her at the open door.
