Mirror: Book One of the Valkanas Clan (6 page)

A few minutes later, we pulled up outside one of the Cherokee drive mansions, and it was my turn to chuckle. “Just how much of a snob is this Damian?” I asked.

Tom smiled. “He loved
The Great Gatsby
, and when he found out Daisy Buchanan’s childhood home was based on one of these, he decided he had to move here.”

“A literature fan, huh? Well I guess that will give us something to talk about. At least I won’t be the only bookworm here.”

Tom’s jaw clenched. “I doubt you’ll be talking about books,” he said, and slammed his door.

“
Sheesh
, somebody’s super-powers are all in bunch,” I murmured, then hopped out and followed him up the long stone stairway.

We were greeted at the door by a beautiful, lithe woman who looked to be in her early thirties. She had straight blond hair that seemed completely untouched by the
frizziness
the Ohio Valley humidity inflicted on most women, which caused me instant envy—until I remembered the way my own
frizziness
had apparently disappeared.

“Valerie,” Tom said, giving her a light peck on the cheek. “This is
Aly
.”

“Of course.”
She looked at me, smiling warmly, and I found myself liking her almost instantly. Cautious, I threw up the same mental shield I’d used against Tom earlier—it came somewhat more easily this time, thank goodness—but the warmth barely changed. Her lips did, though, quirking into a smile.

“I wasn’t trying to will you into liking me—I’m genuinely delighted to meet you,” she said.

“Then it's nice to meet you, Valerie.” I extended my hand and returned her warm smile. “I’d say ‘I’ve heard so much about you’ but, to be honest, Tom has barely said a word.”

She grinned. “Please, follow me. Damian is in the sitting room.”

The sitting room turned out to be quite cozy, with leather furniture in warm earth tones and a stylishly carved wooden coffee table. The furnishings were clearly expensive yet not ostentatious. They made me want to curl up on them with a good book. Damian was sitting in the far corner of the room, reading. His aquiline nose, thick eyebrows, and slightly curling dark-brown hair, along with the faint olive undertone to his skin, led me to conclude he must be from somewhere in the Mediterranean. He stood a moment after we entered, crossing the room to clasp my hand, and I was surprised to notice that he was actually shorter than me by a couple inches, putting him around 5’6”.

“Alyson,” he purred, “so lovely to meet you at last.”

“Nice to meet you too, Damian.” I shook his hand, and then moved back half a step, puzzled by the sensuality that poured out of his mocha eyes like water. Valerie and Tom both began to laugh. After briefly looking surprised, Damian joined them.

“Excuse me, but what exactly am I missing?” I asked.

“Oh, forgive me.” Valerie paused to stifle a giggle. “It’s just that it’s probably been a good five decades since I’ve seen anyone resist the infamous Damian Valkanas in full charm, and you did it so easily.”

“I’m sorry?” I said.

“I have a particular talent for seduction.” Damian interjected, giving me a smoldering look that succeeded only in making me wince. “It works on both humans and vampires, and when I turn it on I’m more used to people swooning than stepping back with mildly appalled looks on their faces.” He chuckled again. “I hope you’ll forgive me my little experiment—I just wanted to see for myself whether Thomas was exaggerating your talents. He clearly wasn’t.”

“I see,” I said, moving back another step from all of them and crossing my arms.
“So first Tom decides to try a few experiments with my mental control.
Then you run a little test to see if I’ll fall into your arms. Did either of you bother considering how it might affect me if I’d attempted to attack someone or made a fool of myself by jumping some man I’d just met? Do you do this to everyone you turn, or am I just
lucky
?”

Damian flashed Tom a look that I couldn’t quite read.

“You didn’t tell her?”

“No,
sire
,” Tom said. “I was getting ready to when you called.” His words mimed obedience, but his tone was cold. Damian, however, either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

“I see. Let’s have a seat then, shall we? Valerie, Thomas, maybe it would be best if you left us for a few minutes.” He gestured me to the couch, returning to the corner seat he’d occupied when we first came in. He
steepled
his fingers in front of his face for a few seconds, staring at them. Then, abruptly, he looked up at me.

“Do you remember your great-grandmother Dorothy?”

I blinked rapidly, wondering if I'd heard him correctly.

“No,” I said eventually, “she died when I was a couple years old.”

“I see. That’s unfortunate. She was a lovely woman with tremendous psychic gifts, most especially clairsentience.”

“Clairsentience.”
I paused. “So that would be what, like clairvoyance but applying to other senses?”

Damian gave me the classic happy teacher look. God, it was patronizing. I resolved to make sure I never gave it to my students again.

“Yes, precisely,” he said. “Clairvoyance is more common; people with that gift are visual and usually see images of events that are about to occur. Clairsentients, however, are slightly rarer, and their psychic experiences are generally felt in more tactile ways. And sometimes this feeling simply occurs as knowledge, without any clear sense to tie it to.”

I remembered the icy chill that had run down my back in the alley just before the door buckled, and the certainty that Ava was calling me before the phone rang.

“Your great-grandmother,” Damian continued, oblivious to my now racing thoughts, “was an especially talented clairsentient, and I have been watching all her descendents for signs of her gift. You are the first to have shown these signs.”

“Wait. You’re saying you
knew
my great-grandmother? And that you’ve been spying on me and my relatives for decades?”

“Yes.”

“That’s it? No explanation? No consideration for our privacy?”

“Dorothy asked it of me.” He shrugged. “I did not find myself in a position to say no.”

“And what, exactly, does that mean?”

“Dorothy and I were friends.” He paused, and glanced away.
“More than friends, to be precise.
I loved her dearly, and I believe she had genuine feelings for me, but she adored her children above all else.”

“Whoa, now you’re saying my great-grandmother had a freaking
vampire lover
?” That mental image did not mesh with the few black-and-white pictures of her that I’d seen, white haired with thick glasses, smiling softly for the camera.

Damian chuckled.

“I suppose someone from modern times might phrase it that way, yes,” he said. “I cared for her, and, when she realized what I was, she asked that I look after her children, and her children’s children—and that I specifically keep an eye on anyone who showed a predisposition for her gifts. She faced a great deal of hardship due to her clairsentience, and she wanted to shield her children from some of that if she could.”

“And so Tom was in my class to, what, keep an eye on me? Make sure I wasn’t having psychic seizures in the middle of the day, or getting burned at the stake for witch-craft?”

Damian smiled.

“No, his primary job was to protect you from any vampires that might have been hunting you.”

“Like the one he killed yesterday,” I said, stifling my urge to make sarcastic comments on what a fine job he’d obviously done protecting me, given what I now was.

“Yes.”

“And I would be of interest to other vampires because…?”

“Because by draining you they would acquire your gifts, gifts that would then be amplified by their vampirism.
It has quite the appeal to the power hungry.”

“So…you’re saying my great-grandmother was a clairsentient, I’m a clairsentient, I was being hunted by at least one vampire and spied on by a few more, and now I’m a vampire and that vampirism is heightening my abilities?”

“Both physical and metaphysical, yes.”

I slumped back against the couch, stunned. I’d thought securing tenure was going to be the most stressful thing about the next few years. Then it struck me like a slap: I was a freak, a clairsentient newborn vampire surrounded by spies and likely more than one would-be assassin. For the first time since their death four years earlier, I felt relieved that my parents were already gone—at least they’d never have to know what I’d become.

Before I could slip too far into my puddle of self-pity, though, the familiar feeling of ice trickling down my spine sent me jolting upright.

“Alyson?
What is it?”

I stared at Damian, not exactly sure how to explain.

“I think we’re about to have company,” I whispered. Another three chills slid down my skin. “Four.
Out back.
They’ll come through the windows.”

Instantly, he was on his feet, calling for Tom and Valerie. They rushed in, and Damian looked at Valerie. “Call Luis and Samuel, and tell them to hurry. Then meet me in the kitchen.” He glanced at Tom. “Make sure she remains safe.”

“What—
“ Tom
began, but then we heard glass shattering at the other end of the house. Damian disappeared out the door Valerie had just left through. Tom grabbed my wrist.

“Come on, we’ll be safer in the crypt.”

I knew it wasn’t the time, but I couldn’t help myself. The hysteria that had been building since Damian had told me about Dorothy bubbled up, unstoppable, and I began giggling maniacally.

“A crypt?”
More giggling.
“You…seriously…
have…a…
crypt
?”

I was laughing so hard tears were streaming down my face. Tom, I suppose realizing that his tugs on my wrist were accomplishing nothing, stepped close and simply scooped me up, carrying me like a child.

Still giggling, I snuggled into his chest.
“Here
crypty
cryptic crypt.
Your newest vampire is coming to you,” I crooned in a singsong voice.

Tom’s chest began shaking with what felt suspiciously like suppressed laughter. “If this is you losing it,” he said, “I think I might actually prefer it to your twenty questions approach. This one is more entertaining.” His gait shifted as he began carrying me down a narrow curved stairway.

I growled at him,
then
poked him in the arm. “You were spying on me, you sneaky little vamp. You are
so
getting a D this semester.”

He laughed again, setting me down on a velvet couch that was in a dark red room with no windows.
“Seriously, crimson and velvet?”
I said, “why don’t you just post a sign that says ‘secret vampire room, no garlic allowed’?”

Tom was about to respond when we both heard a yelp, and suddenly I remembered that while shock had been turning me into a slap-happy
toddler,
Damian and Valerie were fighting off intruders. My hysteria disappeared, and I stood up and began pacing.

“They’ll be fine,” Tom said. “They’ve been fighting together for almost a century, and Luis and Sam are sure to have arrived by now.”

I looked at him dubiously.

“Truly
Aly
, I promise. It wasn’t even really necessary to bring you out of the sitting room—I’m sure whoever it is will never get that far—but I knew Damian would be irked if I had left you there.”