Once Bitten (Shadow Guild: The Rebel 1)
Page 86
“No, it is not. You are an animated block of ice who can barely see color or smell the night air or taste anything decent. And she will thaw you.”
“The curse is what it is. There is no cure.”
“That is not true. Your immortality can be cured.”
“What says I want it cured?”
She looked around the quiet office. “This, for eternity?”
“I’ve tried everything else.” And I had. Sumptuous mansions, parties, lovers, every dangerous sport in the history of humanity.
Anything to pass the interminable years of immortality.
What the movies and books didn’t understand was that immortality was a curse. Years upon years of the same thing, all of it experienced in a haze and punctuated only by the death of anyone you might grow to care for. It cast the world in shades of gray.
Born vampires didn’t have to suffer it—they died and went to an afterlife like any normal creature. But turned vampires did. We were inhuman monsters, cursed to walk the earth forever. It made me good at business and miserable at everything else.
“I’ve accepted my lot, Oracle. You should, too.”
“I won’t accept a lie. And what I have seen is the truth. Her blood will make
you feel alive again.”
“It’s all bloody nonsense,” I said.
Quick as a quip, the Oracle leaned across the table and gripped my arm tight, forcing a vision into my mind. It burst to life—Carrow and me in vivid color. Her hair was golden, her lips red. Her lavender scent was so strong it made me dizzy, and I could imagine the taste of her so well. The air turned warm. Suddenly, I felt alive. The air around me vibrated with it. Everything vibrated with it.
The Oracle yanked her hand away, and the world returned to gray. Stale and cold.
I blinked at her. “Impossible.”
“Not impossible.”
“Is there something you aren’t telling me?”
She shrugged, her gaze enigmatic. “If this whole thing is impossible, then you don’t need to know, do you?”
She was right. It was impossible, so it didn’t matter. I didn’t have time for fairy tales. All the same, it felt like there was something she wasn’t telling me.
Carrow
I slept well that night, dreaming once again that Cordelia came to visit me. After the raccoon’s help at the morgue, I knew I wanted to find her again. Something to add to my to-do list when I finally cleared my name.
Near noon, Mac woke me with coffee and more Oreos.
“This is a thing with you, isn’t it?” I asked.
She chomped into a biscuit. “You’d better believe it is. Try dipping it in your coffee for a little something extra.”
“I’ll consider it.”
After we’d finished eating, she leaned close. “I want to show you something.”
“Yeah?” I raised an eyebrow.
She stood. “Come on.”
I followed her to the door. She led me to the stairs outside her flat and turned right, heading up to the next floor. The door was unlocked, and she pushed it open, revealing a small, empty flat. It was charming, though, with wooden floors and white walls and a heavily beamed ceiling.