Mirror: Book One of the Valkanas Clan (19 page)

“Are you bound to him forever?” I asked

She paused again. “Only for five years.”

“Is there anything that can break your bond short of those five years?”

“Yes,” she said.

I waited, and then realized she wasn’t going to be elaborating on her answer.

“What can do that?” I asked.

“I’m afraid that is something I cannot discuss.”

Hmm.
What kinds of questions could I ask that might allow her to give me that information without breaking her agreement? Maybe I should call Damian or Valerie up here—they probably had a lot more experience with this kind of thing.

“What would happen if I called another vampire up here to talk to you?”

“I would have to disappear. He forbade me from all contact with vampires outside of his family. Since he considers you his, it provides me with a small loophole.”

“I guess
it’s
good I didn’t yelp when you popped into the bathroom with me then, huh?”

“I certainly appreciated it.” She grinned.

“Can you give me any hints as to what kinds of questions I should be asking you?”

“No, I’m sorry.” Her grin disappeared. “I only have a few more minutes before I must go back. Thank you for sharing your peace with me.”

Ask her what she wants most in this world.
Dorothy’s voice appeared and disappeared so quickly that I wasn’t even completely sure it had been her. I didn’t see what her question would reveal, but since I was fresh out of ideas I didn’t think it could hurt, either.

“Um, I apologize if this seems personal, but…what is it you want more than anything?” I asked, hoping I was on the right track.

“Oh, you are either very clever, or very lucky.” She paused, and then her eyes brightened. “Yes, I can answer that. What I want most in this world is a child.”

Her voice faded, and her body with it, until I was once again alone in the steam filled bathroom.

“So why would her desire for a child allow Cesar’s bond over her?” I asked Damian and Valerie.

Tom had zipped upstairs, presumably to make sure our visitor had really left, the moment I’d finished recapping my conversation with Marielle. I'd left out Dorothy’s surprise visit—they didn’t know about her, and I wanted Damian’s expectations of me to be higher like I wanted a new set of student papers to grade. I had been mulling over the end of my chat with Marielle as I dried off and got dressed, but I still couldn’t see a connection. I was hoping Valerie or Damian might.

Damian was sloped forward on the couch, resting his elbows on his knees and studying his hands. Valerie merely watched him expectantly, as if she was fully certain he had the answer and it was only a matter of patience. I wondered if she was usually that way with him, or if it was only because he had more experience with elves. When Damian’s head snapped up a moment later, eyes alight, a third possibility occurred to me: maybe a century together left you familiar enough with someone to just know when he was on the right track.

“What if…” he began slowly, his measured pace and calm tone belied by the light in his eyes. “What if she entered into his bond willingly, in order to get something she wanted and only he could provide?”

His gaze rested on me, apparently waiting for an answer. I felt like I was suddenly
back
in school and had just been handed a pop quiz.

“She seemed miserable, exhausted, and in pain,” I replied. “Why would she willingly choose to feel that way? And why would a vampire be able to provide her with a child?”

Suddenly Valerie’s gaze burned just as brightly as Damian’s, and she leaned forward, snagging his attention.

“You don’t think…” she whispered.

He nodded.

“But I thought it was only an old myth!” she said.

“Perhaps not,” he replied.

Valerie leapt to her feet, grabbed her purse, and began digging through it.

“We have to tell Temora,” she said.

“Wait,” Damian said. “Think for a moment. We don’t know for sure. Do you really want Temora involved in this? Wouldn’t you want to have it for just a little while before turning it over to her?”

Her hand tightened around the phone she'd pulled from her purse, and I decided to take advantage of the sudden silence.

“Sorry to interrupt your little tête-à-tête here guys," I said, "but would anyone mind catching the supernatural illiterate up to speed here? I haven’t felt so out of the loop since my first department meeting."

Damian and Valerie broke from staring at each other to look at me.

“Elves have always had a hard time reproducing. An elf is lucky to carry just one child to term within their thousand year lifetime,” Damian said, slowly. I had the distinct feeling they'd both forgotten I was in the room. “There is an old legend, originally written in Sanskrit, though it may predate even that language, of a magically imbued horn made of Moonstone, known as
Sringara
, that is said to guarantee the holder’s fertility. If this horn is real, and Cesar somehow managed to find it, it might be enough to cause a Light Elf female desperate to bear child to willingly bind herself to him for a short period of time, despite the exhaustion and misery it would bring.”

“Wait—then why do you want it?” I asked, suddenly revolted by Damian and Valerie’s reaction. I’d seen how miserable Marielle clearly was. How could they want to do that too?

“We do not wish to bind anyone, Alyson,” Damian said, guessing at the cause of my question. “Valerie was changed before she could ever have children, and vampires cannot reproduce.”

I stared at him, realization dawning.

“And you think this String— this crystal horn thing might change that?”

But neither he nor Valerie had to answer. The hopeful look in their eyes was enough. I slumped back against the couch, stunned.

I’m not sure how long we would have remained in that frozen tableau had Tom not returned downstairs a few seconds later, looking dissatisfied.

“I couldn’t find any sign of anything…” he said as he entered the room, his voice trailing off when he noticed us. “Um, what exactly did I miss here?”

When neither Damian nor Valerie made a move to respond, I realized I would have to. “Damian thinks Cesar might have found an ancient fertility horn and used that to bribe Marielle into temporarily binding herself to him.”
And now Valerie and Damian want it for themselves
, I added silently, deciding to share that tidbit with Tom later, when I might privately discuss my concerns with him. I was relieved to see Tom’s eyes showed none of their desperation at this revelation, just a lingering confusion.

“
Ooo-kay
.
So if we find this magic horn, will it break the bond Cesar has over Marielle and make him easier to capture?” Tom asked.

 ”It will depend on the nature of their contract, but yes, it might help,” Damian responded, his tone sounding as cool and reserved as always, though it was belied by the slow-to-die glimmer in his eyes.

“How on earth will we figure out where he is keeping it though?” Valerie asked.

She hadn’t managed to reclaim as much composure as Damian; her voice sounded slightly ragged with desperation.

Damian looked at me. Slowly, Valerie’s eyes followed his, and then Tom’s.

“Oh no," I said. "Don’t count on me to solve this one. I’m not a psychic Sherlock Holmes, and I got nothing from his house or people, remember?”

Tom nodded, and returned his gaze to the room, obviously ready to start brainstorming new strategies. But Damian and Valerie’s glances didn’t waver.

“Maybe the deadening spell has worn off enough now that you will be able to pick something up,” Damian said at the exact same time as Valerie said “It couldn’t hurt to try again.”

I turned to Tom. I avoided giving him a pleading look, despite being sorely tempted, because I hated pulling the whole damsel-in-distress move—it made me feel like the last several decades of progress in women’s rights had never happened. But I was hoping to read some hope in getting out of this somewhere in his features. I wasn’t sure why, but the thought of returning to Cesar’s
creeped
me out, even more than the prospect of having no leads as to how to find Cesar did. Illogical, yes—but then again, so was most of what had been happening over the last few days.

Unfortunately, the practicality I’d adored just moments before, when Tom had drained all the tension in the room with his simple questions, now worked against me. I saw him nodding, and my hope that he would have some brilliant plan that avoided Nashville entirely disappeared.

“Valerie’s right, I don’t see how it could hurt to check," he said, shrugging. "We don’t have any better leads. Plus it will give us a chance to see for ourselves what Temora’s knights have found.”

 ”Shouldn’t we at least wait until tomorrow night, to give the deadener a bit more time to wear off?” I asked. Not that procrastination would solve anything, but even though I knew they were right I still wasn't eager to act on their plan.

 ”Good idea,” Damian said. “That will give Valerie and me a bit more time to do some further research as well.
Plan for tomorrow evening, just after sunset.”

I returned upstairs to resume work on my oh-so-exciting presentation.

If it was hard to stay focused on it before—and generally it’s hard to get excited over a presentation on Literature and Pedagogy you know most of your colleagues are planning on sleeping through—the prospect of spending time with a baby-crazy vampire couple made it that much more impossible. Still, I strapped myself to my work like Conan to the
carborundum
wheel and managed to grind out another few PowerPoint slides with accompanying notes that were guaranteed not to disturb my colleagues' beauty rest.

I considered throwing in a few gems for my own amusement—such as maybe an aside that trading Melville for Anne Rice was guaranteed to improve class participation—but decided my as of yet untenured status made that a pretty bad idea. Nevertheless, I enjoyed imagining the lemon drop face Myron was sure to make if he heard me announce something like that in front of everyone.

When I was digging through my purse for a pen that wasn’t running dry, I came across my unfinished list from yesterday, crumpled next to the earrings Ava had given me. I pulled both of them out of my bag and placed them on my impromptu desk. Seeing the earrings just made me feel guilty, so I focused on the list, which made me begin wondering just what provoked Dorothy’s impromptu visits and whether there was any way to catalyze them when I had questions for her. I was almost tempted to ask Damian, but this whole horn business made me even less comfortable with the idea of him knowing she could talk to me. I needed to find someone to ask about it, but since everyone I knew was
either a
vampire, an academic, or a distant relative, my prospects weren't terribly good.

 Looking down, I realized I’d been idly drawing horns under my list. I added “vampire babies?” next to my sketches, my skin crawling as I did so. Though a part of me was grateful there was at least still the possibility of me having kids, I was mostly frightened at the prospect of infants with decidedly pointy first teeth and super-human strength and speed. It seemed more like the premise of a Stephen King book than a possibility to be celebrating. Plus, how could they grow or mature if they were vampires? Would Valerie and Damian end up coddling an infant for centuries?

I was jumping to conclusions without any information, I suddenly realized. Clearly I needed to ask them about this. In the meantime, I could at least balance out my list a little. It didn’t seem right that the reasons to explore my vampirism side of the list was completely empty given that I’d spent all my time with vampires since making it.