“Caterina was wily, and she knew better. Unbeknownst to Violetta and Luther, she’d been spying on them. I suppose her main concern was that Luther was going to deflower Violetta and ruin her deal with the man she’d been promised to. Caterina also worried—and I know this because I’d overheard her speaking to my mother one day—that Violetta was going to leave town due to the increased pressure to get married. She feared for Violetta’s safety, too, since she suspected Luther was evil.”
“WasLuther evil?”
“I don’t think anyone is unequivocally good or evil,” Sebastian said philosophically. “Everyone has the capacity to commit horrific deeds when provoked, don’t they?”
“Good point. Until tonight, I wouldn’t have thought I’d be capable of jamming a broken lightbulb into a man’s neck, yet here I am. And I’ll tell you something else; I was prepared to kill Jason if it meant saving my own life.” I flapped a hand, waving away the memory, which I was sure would haunt my thoughts for years to come. “Sorry. Please, continue. I don’t want to think about the Nolans for the rest of my life.”
Unfortunately, I didn’t say, I’d probably have to anyway, depending on what they did with my blood.
“Violetta would sneak away from home in the middle of the night to see Luther. She had no idea that Caterina had started following her on the escapades. On the last visit,thefateful nightthat changed everything,” Sebastian said dramatically, “Luther asked Violetta to run away with him. He was asking a lot of her, as she’d never witnessed life outside our tiny village and would have to leave behind all that she knew. As a token of his devotion, Luther told her about his true nature, that he was vampire.”
“Did she freak?”
“No. He also presented her with a set of his fangs, which, he said, would give her the power to control him. By doing this, he was showing her how much he trusted her.”
I was speechless. Michael Graves had sworn that I was fated for a dark existence interconnected with vampires, which had seemed crazy at the time. Now here was my long-lost grandfather, telling me details about ancient events that were eerily like my own life lately. The coincidence was far too great. Yet, how it all related to me, I still couldn’t fathom.
“Violetta and Luther devised a plan for them to run away the following night. The yearly autumn harvest festival would be taking place in the town square, and they figured her absence would be noticed less by her mother. She was to meet Luther at the edge of the forest that marked the border of the village. They solidified their plan with a kiss and then parted. It was the last they saw of each other.”
“Oh no. Caterina?”
“She’d eavesdropped on the whole exchange,” he said with a grim nod. “The next afternoon, she slipped an herb into Violetta’s lunch that would make her sick and pass out all night.”
“That bitch.”
“Indeed. But that wasn’t even the worst of it,” he said. “During the festival, Caterina took a few men with her into the forest and ambushed Luther at the meeting spot. The men beat Luther and then hanged him. Believing he was dead, they left him in the forest and went back to the festival, pretending as ifthey’d been there all night. Catarina also took Luther’s fangs from Violetta’s room and ground them up into a fine powder. She then mixed the powder into the fruit punch she made every year for the celebration.”
“Mm-mm, fang punch,” I joked, and Sebastian chuckled.
“What happened was this: Everyone in the entire village drank the punch. It was an integral part of the harvest ceremony and blessed by a priest, so it was believed to contain miracles and protection. It was deemed blasphemous and bad luck tonotdrink it.”
“So, when you say everyone drank it, you meaneveryone.”
“With one exception.”
“Violetta, who was home in bed,” I guessed. “I still don’t understand why Caterina mixed the fangs in the punch.”
He explained, “Since she’d overheard Luther telling Violetta that she could control him with her fangs, Caterina believed Luther would be compelled to stay away if the villagers possessed a fragment of his fangs within themselves.”
“Because they all wanted him gone?”
“Right. To foolproof her plan, Caterina told a few village elders what she had done to the punch. They then made a conscious and collective effort to ban Luther by chanting a spell to keep him away. What Caterina didn’t realize, however, was that by drinking the spiked punch, the villagers had also taken in some of Luther’s vampire characteristics.”
“That’swhy you age the way you do?” I asked, astonished.
“Yes, and because of whatever improvised spells Catarina used, I suspect.”
“So, it boils down to drinking fangs and witchcraft—or whatever Catarina’s magic was called in her day?” It sounded ridiculous and I was skeptical, but the proof was sitting right there next to me. I could hardly deny what I was seeing with my own two eyes.
Sebastian nodded, then shifted topics. “If you think I had it bad being a pubescent boy for centuries, imagine what it was like for those who were given the fang punch as babies and toddlers. Many of them went mad.”
“I hadn’t even thought of that, but how awful. It must have been great for those who were adults, though, right? Like drinking from the Fountain of Youth.”
“Not everyone wants to live forever,” Sebastian said dryly. “Regardless, none of the adults survived the aftermath.”
“Aftermath?”
“Luther.”
