He took my silence as a lack of understanding. “That’s you.”
I shook my head slightly. “No.”
“Yes.” He nodded once.
“He is who has been haunting me? But why? Why is he behaving like a poltergeist?” My mind reeled with the realization that this entire time it had been some man behind the hauntings.
“He has always had a strange ... courting style.”
“Courting?” I squawked. “He’s courting me?”
“My guess is he is wearing you down. He’s cornering you so he can take your hand without resistance.”
A soft roar filled my ears, like the distant ocean. This was far worse than I ever could have imagined. I was not simply possessed by a demon. I had a deranged vampire after my hand. There was no recovering from this. My secret had become a far greater burden for me to bury.
“He is who has been turning your people. To my knowledge, there should be no Dreigian vampires here, except for him. He’s creating his own army of newborns. It is against our kind to turn someone that is unwilling. And he has been giving our world, and our kind, a bad name, demons, to be exact.” His eyes narrowed as if he were scolding me.
I finally managed to drift up to the surface. “What do you mean by vampires becoming more powerful once they marry? What sort of power?”
“We possess some abilities. One you may be well acquainted with. Illusions.”
I had never heard of vampires possessing magical abilities. What I’d read only mentioned heightened strength, speed, and senses. Without this knowledge, we wouldn’t stand a chance against them. How could I tell my father this without further ostracizing myself?
“And he wants to marry me, to strengthen his abilities?”
“Yes.”
My mouth opened and closed around nothing.
“So, you see. We want the same thing. We both want the vampires removed from your world, the portal closed, and Alaric gone.”
It’s a trap. The words rattled around my head, but it all made sense. Why would he lie about this? Though it was unsettlingthat he was trying to convince me that he was not a demon; that seemed like just the thing a demon would do. But I could confirm part of his story, and I cringed internally at what that required.
“So, I’m just to pretend you’re not a vampire?”
“Yes.”
“And how are we supposed to get rid of the newborns, Alaric, and close the portal?”
“We can use the Society to our advantage. They are already hunting newborns. Without an army, Alaric is weakened.”
“And you’re okay with ... killing your own kind?”
“They are newborns. They are a tragedy, but they are not of Dreigo,” he said it so callously, and I wasn’t so sure he really thought it was a tragedy, more like an inconvenience. “As far as Alaric and the portal, that will take some more time.”
All the fear in me crowded my head, my decisions muddled from desperation. That’s how I explained it to myself as I made a deal with a demon. Another part of myself I had to keep concealed. Another part of myself that added up to the strange woman everyone thought I was.
But with no good path to take, he was the lesser evil.
* * *
I left Sebastian in a daze. He had assured me he would be fine. The tincture was not pleasant to him, but it was not deadly either. It only affected newborns because they were weaker, and he was stronger as a Dreigian. We would reconvene later to determine our next steps. And in the meantime, I would continue desperately reaching for my fractured reality, attempting to keep all of the pieces together.
As I made my way to my room, I closed the door softly, sure to not make a sound. I hung my cloak back within my wardrobe and turned towards my bed, though my eyes paused at the window. Thecurtains were still open, but a sconce had been lit somehow, and I could see my reflection in the glass.
I rushed to the window and grabbed at the curtains, flinging them closed. The room fell quiet save for my heavy breaths and the slight creak of the wooden floor behind me. I turned slowly. The single lit candle cast writhing shadows throughout the room. The door to the bathroom was open, and I had certainly closed it earlier. I never slept with any door open. Just like mirrors, open thresholds were also a portal the vampires used. I kept my eyes on the void at the corner of the room and stifled a scream as the darkness reached for me.
“Alaric,” I whispered the demon’s name as tears stung my eyes.
