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 equi 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… adossier.
Zusiwasspying on me.
The whole fucking time.
