House Of Vampires 3 (The Lorena Quinn Trilogy) Page 3

“I've got the ghost cat to prove it. Okay, so if you add twenty-two and seven, you get twenty-three. Right?”

  He nodded. “That you do, and now everything falls into place.”

  “Why?”

  “Because nineteen is the number of all magical occurrences.”

  I held my breath. Wei's death, as far as I knew, had to be considered a magical occurrence. “So, we subtract that?”

  My father nodded, his eyes focused on the paper as he finished off the equation. I don't know what I expected to happen. Bright flashing lights, a sudden shift of numbers on the paper. I wasn't sure, but I was definitely expecting something to happen once my father carefully scribed the equal symbol. What I got was a whole lot of nothing.

  “Uhh, is that it?”

  My father frowned, holding the paper between two hands as he looked down at the equation, checking and rechecking his math.

  “We should get an answer,” he said absently.

  “Is there a waiting period?”

  He shook his head. “It should be immediate, if the equation is correction.”

  My heart sank. “If?”

  He gave me a look. “Lorena, I don't want to lie to you here. I don't want to give you false hope.”

  I raised my brow at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “There are two reasons this didn't work. The first was that the soul number is incorrect.”

  I thought about that. Self-perfection, guilt, and passion? No. I was one hundred percent sure that those were the core of who Wei was as a person. I knew it the way I knew the back stories for everyone in the Justice League, okay, maybe not everyone, but at least the core members.

  “It's right. What's the other reason?”

  He looked away as if he didn't want to tell me. “That he's not dead.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  I stood up from the table so fast that my chair slapped against the floor.

  “What are you doing?” my dad asked.

  “I'm going to find my boyfriend.”

  I turned away from the table and the scribbled equations, and stomped to where my jacket was. It was cold in the mountains this time of year, and I was going to need a jacket. I shoved one arm and then the other into the sleeves. I didn't know what I was going to do. I didn't even have the first glimpse of a plan, but I knew that I was not just going to sit here and hope that Wei wasn't dead and that he'd find his way back to me.

  “Lorena, wait.”

  I shook my head. “Nope, not waiting.”

  My dad reached out for me but I jerked out of his grasp before he could latch on. “Lorena, please.”

  “Please what?” I demanded, whirling on him. I don't know what he saw in my face but it was enough to make him square his shoulders in preparation for a confrontation. Did he want a fight? I hoped so. I wanted to fight. I wanted to fight with everyone. I didn't understand right then why I was so mad but on a scale of one to volcano I was Mount Saint Helens.

  “Please sit down and think about this? Please give it some time? I don't know if you've noticed, Dad, but I've wasted a whole lot of time being a moping little brat who had given up. I could have... damnit, I could have rescued him a week ago if I had known that he wasn't dead. But guess what? I trusted you when you told me that Wei was dead. I trusted you and I don't even know why, since you spent eighteen years lying to me about pretty much everything.”

  Oh, I guess that's why I was so pissed off.

  His face turned a faint pink. Right then it wasn't that big of a deal, but I knew my dad, it would turn red sooner or later and that's when I knew he was really pissed off. I had a knack for pissing him off.

  “Now wait just a minute. I've apologized for that.”

  I scoffed. “Yeah, you have. And hey, look at that, just like magic it's all better again, right? Wrong. Saying you are sorry does not make up for eighteen years of keeping secrets and lying. Sorry isn't a magic word that scrubs the slate clean. Sorry is the first step to making things better. You wanna know what the second step will be?”

  The pink had already begun to turn the shade of a tomato. “What's that?” he asked through gritted teeth.

  “Getting the hell out of my way. I've got a vampire to rescue.”

  He didn't get out of my way. Shock and amazement. “Lorena, we need more information. If you want to believe that he is alive, that's fine, but we still need to know where he is and what we are up against.”

  I hated, absolutely hated, that he was right. I wanted to get the last word in and I wanted to be petty enough to slam the door on my way out. But he was right. Even if I went charging out of that door right that moment I had nowhere to go. Yeah, I could have gone to the Vampire House with the knowledge that their brother wasn't dead after all. And yeah, I could have gone over to Jenny's and asked for her help, even though she'd been absent for about a week and I was kinda mad about that. I had options, but they weren't all that great.

  “What do you suggest? More mathemagics?” I asked, waving my hand towards the paper.

  He nodded. “Yes, I do. I can do it by myself. In fact, it's probably better if I do. This is going to take time, Lorena. I understand that you want to go charging off after Wei, but we need to know things so you don't get hurt or accidentally get him killed or any one of a thousand bad possible scenarios.”

  “What am I supposed to do?” I snapped. “Sit around and wait? I've done plenty of that, thank you.”

  He shook his head. “Get back up, get some training in, and gear up.”

  He was telling me what to do again and I didn't particularly like it, but what else was I supposed to do? Ignore it completely? No thanks. I needed some kind of direction and even if it came from him right now, I was going to take it.

  With a sigh, I picked up my keys. My dad's shoulders sagged.

  “You are leaving anyway?”

  I shook my head, and then I thought better of it and nodded. “Yeah, I am, but I'm going to do that reinforcement thing. If I hang out here I'm going to go crazy and you need to concentrate on that whole math thing.” I scooped up my cell phone. “Text me when you know something.”

  I walked out of the house, and into the cool night air. I didn't even know that Maahes was following me until I felt the humming weight of the presence of his ghost form on my shoulder. I was grateful for it.

  “Hey cat, you ready for this?” I asked.

  The cat nudged my ear and I took that as a yes. I'd always wanted a cat. I just always thought he'd be alive when I got him. Silly me.

  I yanked open my car door, plopped myself inside, and tore out of the driveway with the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack blasting as I drove. It was too cold to put the windows down, but I did it anyway. It wasn't going to bother Maahes and I seriously needed the fresh air. I was mad. I was so mad that I didn't even think about where I was going, I just drove.

  The roads of mountainous Virginia wove their way around one curve and into the next. I took them, going sixty miles an hour as the music pounded down around me. I wasn't the world's best driver, but I was close, and anger gave my driving skill a hard edge it might otherwise not have had.

  How dare my dad assume that I didn't know Wei. Just because he had met him before didn't mean that he knew him. How dare he not just, for once in my life, trust me. He'd never trusted me. Heck, I was wearing the clothes he picked out for me right up until high school and even then, it had been a struggle to just get him to let me be.

  But it wasn't just dad that I was mad at. It was everyone. It was Alan and Dmitri, it was Jenny and Reikah. It was Marquessa and my mother and my sister and Zane. Hell, I was even mad at me. I was a lot mad at me and that didn't make me feel any better about any of it.

  If I hadn't been so wrapped up in my own sorrow I would have thought to double check on Wei long before this moment. The fact that I didn't was all on my shoulders and that hurt more than anything else could. I pulled over in an empty and abandoned gas station parking lot and gave over to the tears that had
nearly blinded me.

  Two sob fests in one day, I thought as I swatted the glove compartment open to retrieve a pile of whisper-thin take out napkins.

  I hated myself for letting my feelings get the best of me. Not just the tears, but everything. I could have been doing a thousand things since I woke up from that stupid dreamscape. I could have been training. I could have been reconnecting with my dad. I could have finished up making the house all my own like I'd been meaning to do for like...forever. I could have been busy but instead I had been wallowing, drowning in a self-made pool of pity and guilt and everything else.

  I knew, logically, that depression, the situational kind and the general kind, couldn't be helped. That the brain did whatever it wanted to do. But logic had no place in sob session number two.

  I was almost startled when Maahes crawled into my lap. Sometimes Maahes had all the weight of a ghost, something that I could feel with my mind but not my skin, but right now he was as heavy as a real live cat. His dark back paws settled on my thighs and he lifted himself up so that his front paws were on my chest. He stretched himself up until his little nose was almost up against mine. It was the strangest thing that I had ever seen a cat, ghost or otherwise, do. His nose pressed lightly to mine in the words smallest 'boop' of affection, and I felt better.

  I knew cats weren't big into hugs, but I wrapped my arms around the tangible ghost anyway and gave him a hug. Rather than pull away, or disappearing like I expected him to, he curled over my arm and started to purr. It wasn't a normal purr, like your average everyday cat, but Maahes wasn't average. The purr seemed to reverberate right through me, a happy hum that went soul deep. A few minutes later all of the sick and angry emotions I had felt faded.

  My dad made mistakes. Yup, that was true, but he had fessed up to them and he was trying to make up for it now. Marquessa was trying to bring me an army, and I certainly couldn't fault her for that. There was a good chance the Alan and Dmitri were just as wrapped up in their own misery as I had been. And Jenny? Well, I didn't know what her excuse was, but I was going to have to hear it out, because she was my friend and I deserved to know what was going on and where she had been.

  I gave Maahes one final pat, silent thanks for what he had done, and adjusted him so that I could drive. When I started the car up this time around I had a better idea of where I was going and what I was doing. It was eleven o'clock. Prime vampire time, and there were a couple of vampires I knew who could probably be cheered up with the news of Wei being alive.

  ~~

  The old Victorian mansion that operated as the home for the Sons of Vlad was a dream. Especially now, with a dusting of snow on the ground and the moonlight glittering on the two dozen windows sprinkled over three floors. It was worthy of a painting, or at least a high-quality Christmas photo. The driveway, however, was cluttered with half a dozen sleek black cars, all bearing expensive names and foreign license plates. I wondered what on earth was going on here. Was it a party? If it was I certainly wasn't invited.

  Growing up, thanks to all the moving around, I had never been what you would call popular. I hadn't gotten invited to much, and my dad probably wouldn't have let me go even if I had. I did not have the gumption to walk into something that I hadn't been invited to.

  I was about two seconds away from driving away and coming back later when the door opened and Alan stepped out. If it had been anyone else I might have still driven away but Alan was my friend in the way that only he could be.

  He looked like an angel, though he always did, wearing a black velvet doublet and black slacks, pressed to the kind of perfection that my father aspired to. Even his shirt, flouncing with lace, was black as pitch. In fact, the only thing of color about him was his hair. A perfect fall of blonde that he had pulled into a rigorous braid.

  I could see how tired he was from here, even before he lifted one arm and placed it on one of decorative pillars. He buried his face against the crook of his arm and took on that unnatural stillness that only vampires could have. Something was not okay.

  I opened the car door and he jerked to attention. I slid out of the front seat and his eyes went wide at seeing me. He looked over his shoulder at the front door, and then back to me.

  “Lorena? What are you doing here?” His voice was a quiet hiss. I knew he was upset because I could hear his native French in his words. Alan rarely ever sounded French. Yeah, something was definitely wrong.

  “I have news, I came to see you.”

  He shook his head, making his braid lash back and forth behind him. “You shouldn't be here right now, Lorena. This is not a good time. I will come to you when things are...better.”

  I shook my head. This wasn't like Alan at all. He rarely ever used my name, preferring French pet names to my Christian one. First, my dad being nice and now Alan giving me the brush off? I was beginning to believe my alternate reality theory had more credence than I originally thought. Then again, maybe I had never really woken up from that dreamscape after all. Wei was dead after all, maybe this was a nightmare. Ohhh no, there was a line of thought I just couldn't take myself down. No need to always be wondering if I was awake or asleep. That was just asking for lunacy.

  “Alan, what's going on? I need to talk to you. And to Dmitri. My dad and I figured something out.”

  He put his hand on my shoulder and pushed me back to his car. For all the strength behind that movement it was a graceful dismissal. Alan was always graceful.

  “Alan, what's-”

  “Little brother? What is this?” It was a woman's voice, soft and musical and tinged ever so lightly with the French accent that Alan only had when he was befuddled or upset.

  Alan went completely and totally still. His eyes went wide, showing the full ring of his perfect irises and he swallowed. It had to have been a reflexive movement because vampires, unless they were sucking down blood, didn't need to swallow.

  Curiosity drew my eyes away from Alan and to a woman I could only guess was his sister. She was dressed in a long flowing gown of black, with the kind of overdone layers that you only saw in historical films. The black suited her, just like it suited Alan, showing off her perfectly pale skin and golden curls. She, just like her brother, looked angelically beautiful. Her shoes made the kind of stiff clack that you only got when you wore heels as she approached. Her pale hands clutched an elegant fan that she unfurled with a practiced flick of her wrist.

  “Alan? Will you not introduce me to your friend?”

  Up close she was even prettier than her brother, and I honestly did not know that was possible. Her eyelashes were so pale and fine they looked like tiny silver fans around eyes so perfectly blue I was pretty sure I could drown in them. There was the faintest tinge of rose in her cheeks, a sign that she had fed recently enough to give her a glimmer of life that she might otherwise not have had.

  I could see by the tightness of his jaw that this was something that Alan absolutely didn't want to do. I was confused. Usually Alan was the paragon of courtly manners. This was not those.

  “Alan?” I asked, hoping that my confusion wasn't as obvious as it felt.

  He didn't sigh, vampires didn't really need to do that, instead his eyes closed for a moment as if he could blink away whatever it was that was bothering him. When they opened again they were cool and clear and empty.

  “Lorena, may I introduce my sister, Genevieve, my sister and the third wife to Vlad, father of all vampires. Genevieve, my dearest sister, may I introduce Lorena Quinn, granddaughter of Loretta Queen the Prophetess.”

  Genevieve. I knew that name, and it solidified what I had already guessed. His sister was here, and judging by all those cars she was not alone. Their clothes suggested that they were mourning Wei. Unless of course vampires just bedecked themselves in black whenever they got together. I wasn't willing to take that idea off the table just yet.

  “Pleasure to make your acquaintance,” I said, trying my best not to sound like a complete bumpkin. I don't know why I bothered,
in comparison to her I was going to look like a bumpkin no matter what I did.

  She shook her head, making the perfect curls around her face bounce. “Oh no, the pleasure is all mine.” She said it with such complete sincerity that I found myself smiling at her in spite of myself. Her accent was lighter than her brothers, more delicate. Then she placed a single finger to the very corner of her lip and tilted her head so that she looked like the perfect bridal doll. “However, I do believe my brother has been derelict in his announcements of you. Are you not also a necromancer?”

  She said the word necromancer like I might have said outbreak monkey, with a mixture of disgust and fascination. Having it come from her smiling mouth was a double slap to my face.

  “Uhhhh,” I managed to get out that syllable and no other before another face darkened the still open doorway. I hoped they had enough money to pay the electric bill. Who was I kidding? Of course, they did.