"So you're not in my head anymore, you're on the phone now?" For being my next Immortal guide, I wasn't sure I liked this new route of communication.
"I'm on the roof. Be there in five."
When I heard the dial tone, I stared in disbelief. Not only was I going to meet my next guide in person, she hung up on me. I hoped that she meant five minutes, not five seconds. Who could get up there in five seconds….that's right, me. I squared my shoulders, nervously smoothed out my jeans and pressed my yellow tee shirt tighter around me. I shouldn't be nervous. Whatever I looked like didn't matter. The Immortal was already inside of me, it's not like the guide was going to take one look at me and yank it out because I wasn't pretty.
Still. I wished that I had used my anti-frizzy curl gel when Emily had chucked it across the room at Kates. Kates had laughed. I had laughed. Emily had stormed off and my gel had been left underneath my bed.
I trekked out of the office and headed towards the roof door. As I started up the sparse stairs, I heard my footsteps echo all the way down to the basement. Each echo made my heart pound. By the time I got to the top, I felt like I was going to explode, like a bomb was ticking underneath my skin.
Then the door was open and I stepped onto the roof.
For a second, just a briefest of moments, I saw Talia on the edge again with her golden hair waving in the air and her white dress billowing from the wind. The same sad acceptance railed against me.
But I blinked and the image was gone. Instead, a different girl was there and this one was a doozy. Red eyes, black and blue sleek hair that fell past her waist, and ivory skin that any vampire would've marveled at. She stood at my height, a little slim with her hipbones sticking out, and a mark covered the entire left side of her face.
I gulped and froze. There was no way I was getting closer.
She snorted, rolled her eyes, and I felt her disgust blast me.
I was safer where I was.
And then in a flash, she was in front of me.
Oh man, those red eyes looked like they were on fire. That mark was an intricate symbol of weaving lines. I wondered if it meant something and then cursed my foolishness. Of course, it meant something. Everything meant something in my insane world.
"You're right. It does mean something, but it's nothing for you to know. Not yet." She was smug as she leaned closer.
I gulped again. The red in her eyes that looked like fire was fire. An actual flame was in her eyes. It moved in perfect rhythm with the wind that swirled around us on the roof.
"What are you?"
She laughed. "I'm not a vampire."
"Are you a werewolf?"
"I'm not a werewolf either. And no, I'm not anything that your precious vampire is going to know either. I'm beyond his knowledge. I'm beyond a lot of people's knowledge."
"Are you a witch?"
The flame glowed brighter for a moment and then settled back down. "Very good, Davy, but as I said I'm not anything that your lover knows. He knows witches."
There was a riddle there, but I retorted, "He's not my lover."
"He was. He will be again. And he's much more than that." As she spoke, her head tilted to the side and smoke swirled in her eyes to cover up the flame.
"You're a fortune teller witch. You see the future, don't you?" I hated fortune tellers. And, even though I've never met a witch, I was pretty sure I didn't like them either.
She laughed again and the smoke vanished with a swift pop. Her fire was back. "I come from a witch, but I'm no longer a witch, Davy. I'm much much more and I'm here to help you."
"Help me with what? The last one who told me that needed me to accept the Immortal inside of me. What's your agenda with me?" They always had agendas.
"The other one annoyed you, yes?"
She already knew the answer to that.
She had a smug smile on her face. "I'm here to piss you off."
I barked out a laugh. "It's not hard to do that—"