The Raven (The Florentine 1)

“You need a drink.” He lifted the glass.

“No, I don’t.” She shifted the atlas to her other hand. “I need to get out of here and away from you.”

“Finally you’re making sense.”

William approached the staircase. He was unhurried in his movements, almost relaxed. He placed a hand on the railing.

“If you’d come down from your perch, little bird, I’ll tell you more.”

“You’re a bunch of sick people.”

“Strictly speaking, we aren’t people. We’re vampyres.”

“Whatever.”

William smiled, revealing an array of straight white teeth.

“You’ve already met several vampyres, including me.”

Raven felt unsteady. “Who?”

“The feral. And Maximilian and Aoibhe.”

“Who’s Aoibhe?”

“The female who chased you to the Duomo.”

“So there are three of you?”

William pressed his lips together. “‘Our name is Legion, for we are many.’”

“How many?” Raven’s eyes widened.

“We exist worldwide, usually congregating in cities. Some of our kind live as ferals, alone and in rural locations.”

Raven gripped the railing. “I saw the feral kill the policeman. Is that what you do?”

“No. Ferals abandon reason and live like animals. The civilized ones among us feed on humans, but try not to kill them. Humans are a renewable resource.”

“Like trees,” she said weakly.

“What’s that?”

She closed her eyes. “The feral said I was a pedophile’s whore. He told me he’d fuck me until I died. Are you a pedophile?”

She opened her eyes and saw William’s expression change. A wave of fury passed over his features.

With a roar, he lifted the wine bottle and threw it against the heavy wooden doors. The bottle broke on impact, the top quarter of it embedding in the wood.

Raven clutched the atlas to her chest, clinging to the staircase rail with all her strength.

William rubbed his face with his hands. After a moment’s silence, he turned to her.

“I didn’t know that it spoke to you. I hope you never encounter one again, but if you do, you mustn’t listen to what it says. They’re devoid of reason and entirely dark.”

“Dark?”

He shifted his feet. “Something dark animates us. In a feral, the darkness overtakes it completely and the result is what you saw with the policeman.

“They aren’t without perception, however. It realized you had a relic and it must have divined where it came from, which is why it insulted the former owner and you.”

“You gave me a relic from a pedophile?”

“He was not a pedophile,” William snarled, baring his teeth. “He was a saint. Only a feral would suggest otherwise.”

Raven shrank from his anger. But after a minute her curiosity got the better of her.

“Which saint?”

William gestured to the chair she’d sat in previously. “You need to sit down before you fall down.”

When Raven made no movement, he told her, “I shall keep my distance and stand by the door.”

“Not until you tell me what you gave me.”

William did as he’d offered, stepping carefully between the shards of broken glass and pools of Chianti to the door. “In order to save your life, I fed you vampyre blood.”

“You what?” she shrieked.

He lifted his hands as if to calm her. “It has certain properties that can keep a human being alive.”

“This is impossible.” She swayed on the staircase, switching the atlas back to her other hand. “This must be a nightmare.”

Before she was aware of what was happening, William was at her side. He’d flown across the room and ascended the staircase.

He lifted the atlas from her shaking hand and reshelved it.

“Cassita.” He spoke firmly, looping an arm around her waist. “Stay with me.”

Her eyes focused on his. “I didn’t see you move. How did you do that?”

“Speed and agility are two of our talents. Now come down.”

She tried to push him away.

He was immovable.

“Look at me.” When their eyes met, he spoke in a low voice. “I won’t harm you. I—I swear by the relic.”

His voice and expression seemed sincere. Certainly he was superstitious about the relic, whatever its power or lack thereof. Would he swear by it and lie intentionally?

She wasn’t sure.

Raven considered her options and realized she couldn’t remain on the staircase forever. The only exit from the room was the door. At least if she descended the staircase, she’d be closer to the exit.

William took her hand and patiently led her to the chair.

“Drink this. It will settle your nerves.” He handed her the glass that held the remaining Chianti.

She eyed the contents.

“It isn’t blood, is it?”

He seemed offended. “Of course not. It’s wine.”

She sniffed the liquid before draining it. The wine was good but she barely tasted it. She closed her eyes as she willed the alcohol to give her strength.

“I thought vampyres were supposed to be cold.” She handed him the glass and he placed it on the desk. “Your skin is cooler than mine, but I wouldn’t call it cold.”

“Some of our mythology was propagated by our enemies. Some we circulated, hoping to confuse them.”

“I can’t imagine Bram Stoker as someone’s enemy.”

“Probably because he was a paid propagandist.”

Raven peered at his mouth.

“You don’t have fangs.”

William frowned. “Our teeth are sharp enough, I assure you.”

“So you have enemies?”

“Every predator is prey to something.”

“What would prey on you?”

“Not what—whom. And that is a story for a different day.” He appeared impatient.

“You look human.”

“I was human once. My body has been perfected. I’m faster, stronger, and I don’t age. I still feed and breathe but can go a long time without air. As you saw, I heal quickly.”

She lifted her hands before dropping them to her lap. “How can this be?”

“Your mistake is in assuming that the supernatural springs into existence uncaused. It doesn’t. It obeys certain rules; it follows certain patterns. In summary, a vampyre’s supernatural properties come from the darkness.”

She rubbed at her eyes. “Metaphorical explanations are useless. If you aren’t human, why do you look human? Why don’t you have a different kind of body?”

“Why do the elements of the Eucharist retain their physical properties after transubstantiation in the Mass?” Once again William sounded impatient.

Raven made a face.

“They didn’t quite cover the transubstantiation from human to vampyre in my catechism class, but perhaps my paris

h was conservative.”

William’s features softened into a smile.

He chuckled.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve laughed.” He gave her an admiring look.

Raven tried very hard not to roll her eyes. Then something perilous, something terrible, occurred to her.

She regarded him with a worried expression. “If you gave me vampyre blood, does that mean I’ll become a vampyre, too?”

“Not from that, no. The blood I gave you was harvested from two vampyres who are no longer alive. You have to be changed by a living vampyre in order to become one.”

“I thought vampyres were supposed to be immortal.”

“Not quite.”

“How can they be killed?”

William’s smile disappeared. “We don’t discuss those things.”

“The man who approached me last night—he mentioned the term masters. What was he talking about?”

William muttered something under his breath.

“You still have vampyre blood in your system. Max must have assumed you’d been kept by two vampyres as a pet and they’d let you feed from them as a reward.”

“That doesn’t sound rewarding.” Her lip curled in disgust.

“It is when you’re dying.” He spoke sharply. “Vampyre blood reverses the aging process and modifies nature, which is why it changed your appearance and healed your head injury.

“Your leg injury is obviously old, which is why it’s coming back. The older the injury, the greater the amount of blood it takes to heal it, but the less permanent the change. How did you break your leg?”

“That’s a story for a different day.” Raven directed her own sharp tone toward him before focusing on her hands, which were clenched in her lap. “So my leg will be like it was before?”

“Yes. In order to heal your leg permanently, you’d have to become a vampyre. But you could heal it temporarily by continuing to ingest vampyre blood.”

His expression changed. He seemed thoughtful, searching.

Raven felt more than a tinge of regret. She’d enjoyed the changes to her appearance. She enjoyed being pretty and thin. Most important, she enjoyed having a functional leg that worked properly and without pain.

She enjoyed it so much she was almost ready to ask William to give her whatever it would take to heal her.

The realization made her cold.

“What happened to the man who attacked Bruno?”