this time and take her as she needed to be taken, as he burned to take her, as his beast craved.
“ You may come in the front door this time, vampire.” The line went dead, and the window she had been in disappeared right before his eyes. Actually, all the windows, and the chimney faded away as if they had never existed. But the front door stood there, worn and sturdy, beckoning. She would no doubt have set her trap again over the threshold of that door. If he had any sense at all he would find another way in. If anything else, letting her have dominion over his body meant she could stake him at any time. He would have to be insane to let her bespell him again. But he walked carefully to the door, and without another thought in his head he reached for the door knob.
*****
Min had made good use of her week, reinforcing and expanding the wards around the house that same day, and using that night, and every free moment she had away from the shop since, to scour the tomes her sister had brought her. But no matter how engrossed she tried to be in the books—what was truly important—she still fantasized and day dreamed of the vampire, her Luca.
Ha, her Luca! Maybe she was crazier than she’d thought. Having the vampire come into her home, and then to let him go after she’d had her way with him—now that was truly the work of a lunatic. Maybe all the pressure that was on her shoulders, suddenly being the head of the family, was too much?
She’d been working so hard on learning all she could from the books, and working nearly as hard at trying not to think about Luca…no, the vampire! She had to stop thinking of him as a person. She had to think of him as what he truly was, a merciless, soulless killer. And then she read something in the Lydian grimoire that had to have been written by a deranged person, or at least a complete idiot.
It was a vague reference to the souls of humans being restored by using—contorting—the soul of a vampire to snag it from the ether.
She reread the passage, laughed—and the sound of it filled her with dread, it was the laugh of a mad woman. Vampires did not have souls, of this she was certain. She had killed enough of them, and her family had splayed enough of them over the last millennia, to know that as a fact.
She slammed the volume shut. Her shoulders had gone tight, a spill of curse words on the tip of her tongue. Her frustration was hot enough it felt like anger. And after she gave the old book a throw against the wall of the kitchen, that anger only doubled. She didn’t like it, but the anger felt much better than the frustration. She should throw things more often. What kind of idiot wrote such obvious fallacies? And what publisher, even back in ancient times, would have printed such garbage?
Well, she had only to look to the rather small self-help section she’d grudgingly put up at the store. Most of those authors didn’t know jack about human emotions or the humans that had them. She considered the whole genre a cruel cosmic joke. She wondered what, if anything, the authors with alphabet soup behind their names had degrees in: applied greeting card design, or more probable, creative writing.
Whichever it was, the fact that she’d wasted an entire night studying an obviously fraudulent book made her mad enough to scream. She wanted that long dead author there in front of her so she could shove that book straight up his ass!
She took in a great breath and let it out slowly. She needed to get this out of her system. She had another three books to start in on, and she needed to squeeze in about a week’s worth of balancing the books. Andy was great with the customers, and she kept the stocking and special orders flowing like a well oiled machine. She just couldn’t stand or sit still long enough—and didn’t want to—to deal with long columns of ciphers all in a row. That had always been Min’s job, even when her mother had been there. Neither Andy nor
“ You may come in the front door this time, vampire.” The line went dead, and the window she had been in disappeared right before his eyes. Actually, all the windows, and the chimney faded away as if they had never existed. But the front door stood there, worn and sturdy, beckoning. She would no doubt have set her trap again over the threshold of that door. If he had any sense at all he would find another way in. If anything else, letting her have dominion over his body meant she could stake him at any time. He would have to be insane to let her bespell him again. But he walked carefully to the door, and without another thought in his head he reached for the door knob.
*****
Min had made good use of her week, reinforcing and expanding the wards around the house that same day, and using that night, and every free moment she had away from the shop since, to scour the tomes her sister had brought her. But no matter how engrossed she tried to be in the books—what was truly important—she still fantasized and day dreamed of the vampire, her Luca.
Ha, her Luca! Maybe she was crazier than she’d thought. Having the vampire come into her home, and then to let him go after she’d had her way with him—now that was truly the work of a lunatic. Maybe all the pressure that was on her shoulders, suddenly being the head of the family, was too much?
She’d been working so hard on learning all she could from the books, and working nearly as hard at trying not to think about Luca…no, the vampire! She had to stop thinking of him as a person. She had to think of him as what he truly was, a merciless, soulless killer. And then she read something in the Lydian grimoire that had to have been written by a deranged person, or at least a complete idiot.
It was a vague reference to the souls of humans being restored by using—contorting—the soul of a vampire to snag it from the ether.
She reread the passage, laughed—and the sound of it filled her with dread, it was the laugh of a mad woman. Vampires did not have souls, of this she was certain. She had killed enough of them, and her family had splayed enough of them over the last millennia, to know that as a fact.
She slammed the volume shut. Her shoulders had gone tight, a spill of curse words on the tip of her tongue. Her frustration was hot enough it felt like anger. And after she gave the old book a throw against the wall of the kitchen, that anger only doubled. She didn’t like it, but the anger felt much better than the frustration. She should throw things more often. What kind of idiot wrote such obvious fallacies? And what publisher, even back in ancient times, would have printed such garbage?
Well, she had only to look to the rather small self-help section she’d grudgingly put up at the store. Most of those authors didn’t know jack about human emotions or the humans that had them. She considered the whole genre a cruel cosmic joke. She wondered what, if anything, the authors with alphabet soup behind their names had degrees in: applied greeting card design, or more probable, creative writing.
Whichever it was, the fact that she’d wasted an entire night studying an obviously fraudulent book made her mad enough to scream. She wanted that long dead author there in front of her so she could shove that book straight up his ass!
She took in a great breath and let it out slowly. She needed to get this out of her system. She had another three books to start in on, and she needed to squeeze in about a week’s worth of balancing the books. Andy was great with the customers, and she kept the stocking and special orders flowing like a well oiled machine. She just couldn’t stand or sit still long enough—and didn’t want to—to deal with long columns of ciphers all in a row. That had always been Min’s job, even when her mother had been there. Neither Andy nor
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