Uza looked away and patted her hair. “That’s irrelevant.”
She was hiding something. “No, it’s not. I’ve been taken prisoner, starved, frozen, and I’m not going to be lied to anymore. Tell me.”
“You’ve been starved, frozen, and taken prisoner, but you’ve also been whoopied until you couldn’t see straight by a scorchin’ hottie, lucky girl, and you’re immortal, too. You can thank me anytime now.” She patted her hairdo again and smiled.
How on earth was she supposed to respond to that? She shoved the cash in her front pocket, crossed her arms over her chest, and clamped her jaw shut.
Uza shook her head. “You have all the pieces. Figure it out. I’m under a spell, missy, and I’m not going to be stuck lookin’ and talkin’ like this because I flap my yapper.” She smoothed some hair behind Elena’s ear. “Not even for you, Ellie Baby.”
Elena’s emotions were a tangled mess stuck in her throat. “Help me. I don’t know what to do. I don’t even know what I am.”
“You’re the best kind of immortal in the whole shebang. Dhampirs look and act like humans, but they can see beneath the Veil without being under it. In the good old days, every village wanted one because they weren’t dangerous to humans and could spot and kill vamps.”
“I’d never seen freaky stuff before I met…” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Until recently.”
“Yeah, that. Well, you had to kick the bucket first. That’s the vamp side of you.”
“So, you knew this was going to happen.”
“Yep.”
Elena digested this for a while. What if it wasn’t fate, but instead, the machinations of a crazy old witch. “So, did you manipulate things? Did you send him to me?”
“No. Fate did that. I saw it coming, though. And coming, and coming, and coming…”
“Ugh. Shut up!”
Uza laughed, and her mu-mu purred.
“But you did this to me.” She pulled her neckline of her shirt down to expose the top of the strange markings on her chest.
“It was part of a spell. Yes. As were the hottie’s markings.”
“So, he was only with me because of a spell.”
“No. He was marked because of a vision. Because of his destiny. He was yours before I ever became involved or before you were born.”
“I don’t believe in destiny and fate.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Then we are all screwed ten ways from Sunday because it’s your destiny to save us. And I suggest you stop jawing and get moving.”
“What do I do?”
“You use that analytical brain for more than feeling sorry for yourself and figure out where your hottie is and how to save his finely formed fanny. Start there. You should be recharged by now.”
And without so much as a good-bye, Aunt Uza vanished with a loud pop.
Elena stared out over the tiny amusement park, and for a moment, she could almost hear her father’s laughter. She had to succeed. For her dad, for Nik, for herself. A fleeting burning sensation flitted across her ribs and abdomen, then subsided.
A little boy squealed and ran by her, clutching a huge puff of cotton candy. Hell, she had to succeed for everyone. And just to think, only a short few weeks ago, her biggest concern was paying her electric bill.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The cab smelled like sweat and cheese, but Elena wasn’t going to waste precious energy teleporting unless she had to. She’d gotten around the old-fashioned way for twenty-six years, and money wasn’t an issue. Uza had handed her plenty of cash to live on for a long time.
“Should I wait for you again this time?” the driver asked, pulling up in front of the sporting goods store.
“Yeah, I’ll only be a few minutes.”
She dashed into the store and ripped warm-up pants, a running shirt, and fleece from the racks. Then, she grabbed a pair of running shoes and a ski jacket with a hood. A backpack, a huge box of protein bars, and a pair of fleece-lined Gore-Tex boots, and she was set. She wasn’t going to freeze or starve this time, she told herself at checkout.
“Okay, now to the airport, please.”
“Terminal?”
“International flights,” she answered.
Then her stomach flipped. Well, crap. She hadn’t thought this all the way through. She didn’t want to teleport to the Slayer fortress in the Carpathian Mountains because it would use a ton of her energy, but she didn’t have a passport or even her driver’s license. She could call Stefan! She still had his phone in her pocket… No. That wouldn’t work, either. He was right in the middle of some crisis himself, and besides, she was a bit leery of him since the cat guy said Time Folders were Uza’s enemies.