“No, if I ever did such a thing as shitting someone, that is not what I’m doing right now.”
It was hard to believe such an act of kindness after the horrors she’d seen. He hadn’t even told Claude what he was doing. Maybe he was right and she needed to judge this world differently. But now that he’d returned, it was time to get back to business. “I need to go get Nik.”
“I know.”
“I don’t have a plan. I don’t think I’m strong or smart enough to do it without help.”
“You are highly intelligent, Elena Arcos. You simply are not familiar enough with our world to navigate it successfully yet.” He sat back in his chair considering her. “You have mentioned that you see visions of the future. What is the catalyst? Sex or blood?”
“Blood.”
“Well, that’s a relief in more ways than one.”
That made no sense at all.
He took her hand. Surprisingly, his was not cold like a corpse, just cooler than she was. He chuckled. “I do metabolize. My heart beats and pumps blood, albeit much more slowly than a human’s. The movies are all fictional.” He patted her hand.
“Now what?”
“Well, now you need a vision. I’m relieved it’s blood induced because although you are highly appealing, you are bound to another, and he’d kill me if he survives were we to have…an encounter, regardless of my intentions.”
“Yeah, besides, you’re old enough to be my great-great-grandfather.”
He threw his head back and laughed. “No. Nikolai is old enough to be your great-great-grandfather. I’m off the chart. And you are lucky to have a blood catalyst. Nothing kills the mood better than a doomsday vision.”
Now it was her turn to laugh. “So who do I bite? Let’s get this done.”
He nodded to the woman at the end of the table, and she approached. Elena looked into her warm, calm, brown eyes. No fear at all. “So, I got power from Nik, Ricardo, and Fee. What will I get now?”
“Only enough energy to teleport and hopefully a vision of what to do when you arrive.”
She stood, and the woman smiled, tipping her neck. It should have felt awkward or wrong, but it didn’t. She just detached herself emotionally and bit down. The woman was silent. Her blood almost tasteless. When Elena pulled away, there was no wild buzz of power like she’d had before, only a warm hum. She closed her eyes and waited for the vision. Nothing at first, then only two brief images: She was biting Vlad. And then she was studying a picture of the area where Nik was being held. Her eyes shot open and met his.
“I was afraid of this. Uzana as much as warned me—something about sharing Kool-Aid and not making you wacko.”
Clearly, he’d read her mind as she saw the visions. “You know Aunt Uza?”
“Everyone knows Uza.”
“What did she mean?”
He placed his napkin on the table. “With all power comes great risk. In my case, you might pick up some of my gifts—or curses. In order to pick up any of my talents, you already have to have them present to some degree. I hear other’s thoughts. That won’t transfer because you do not hold that power at all. What I’m afraid will transfer is my ability to see the past.”
“Why is that a problem? We all have memories of the past.”
“Which is exactly why I think it would transfer. Elena, I don’t just see the past, I see it with absolute clarity and from everyone’s perspective. It makes events entirely different than originally perceived. It could drive the strongest person mad.”
This situation was crazy enough. She really didn’t need a dose of mad. “What’s with the paper in my vision?”
“That’s my other gift. I can teleport to a place I’ve seen, rather than only places I’ve been. It is extremely rare. I only know of one other who could do it.”
“My father.”
“Yes.”
She remembered how compassionate her father had been. How he seemed to know exactly what she was feeling without her having to tell him. He just seemed to know when she’d had a bad day, or when something made her happy. Putting that with what Lilian had said, she was getting a clearer picture of the man she thought she knew, but really didn’t. Not even a little bit. “My father was the empath vampire who used to run this place,”
“He was. His ability to feel others’ emotions made him a powerful leader.”
She stood. “I have to bite you, Vlad. I need to go to Nik as soon as possible, and I can’t do it without your ability to teleport to places based on pictures.”
“I know.”
Heart hammering, she approached his chair. “Do you need to be restrained like Ricardo?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “No. I am much older and have far greater control than Ricardo Juarez.”
“So you do this a lot?”