Anathema (Causal Enchantment #1)(37)

“Here. Sit up and have some water,” Viggo said, offering me his hand and then a glass.

“So what happens now?” I asked, accepting both with a small smile of thanks.

“The spell is unclear,” Sofie said softly. “I can’t see beyond you transporting to this world. It’s like getting an instruction manual with a large chunk missing from it. I assumed it would involve you being transformed into one of us. You would then have the venom to create more of our kind here. But clearly, based on what happened last night, I was wrong.”

“You put a spell on me and you don’t even know how it works?”

“Isn’t it terrible? Again, Evangeline: we had no control over what she was doing,” Viggo said.

A low, feral sound came from Sofie but with one sharp glare from Mortimer, her face went expressionless again. “The pendant rejected the venom. It’s protecting you in this other world—masking your heartbeat, changing the taste of your blood.”

“And how are we supposed to know how it’ll work?” I demanded, hearing the bitterness in my voice.

“Sofie is trying to—” Viggo began.

“I know what you need to do now,” Sophie interjected.

“Oh, really.” Mortimer’s voice was hard, suspicious. “How convenient that you finally know something.”

Sofie ignored him. “You need to bring one of them back. The pendant will tell you how, exactly. It’s sentient. It will communicate with you.”

I peered down at the pendant, muttering, “So I’m going to start hearing voices?”

“I’m not sure,” Sofie said, adding, “You will know when it happens.”

Her candor didn’t ease my anxiety. I dropped my gaze to the floor, focusing on a knot in the hardwood. The stabbing pain of Sofie’s betrayal had begun to fade, replaced by an all too familiar emptiness that slowly crept through my body. It was the numbness of loss—loss of an illusion of friendship I had quickly accepted as reality. I was delusional, after all.

And humiliated. Here I was, unwittingly the butt of a secret—a pawn, greedily accepting the gifts they showered upon me, turning a blind eye to the fighting and screaming.

The disturbing fact was, I now had an explanation for the bites and the old sweat clothes—albeit an insane one—and that brought me some small comfort.

“Is there anything else I need to know?” I wasn’t sure I could handle anymore.

“No,” Mortimer answered abruptly.

Another growl from Max.

I swallowed. “What if I want to go home?”

“This is your home for now,” Viggo answered calmly. “It’s for the best. For your safety, until this is all sorted out.”

The thought of leaving these walls—my elegantly wallpapered and decorated prison walls—brought me back to the attack. “Who were those people in the park?”

“No one you need to worry about.” Viggo smiled gently. “They won’t bother you anymore.”

No, of course not. They’ve been stuffed into bags by now. I shuddered.

“You probably need some time to yourself,” Sofie suggested.

I was glad for the dismissal, wanting to get as far away from her as possible—as far as my prison bars would allow. I left the library without glancing in her direction, picking up speed until I was sprinting to my room.

Throwing open my bedroom door, I yelped in surprise. Sofie stood in front of the fireplace, her back to me, studying her painting.

“How did you—” I didn’t bother finishing. Just further proof that she isn’t human.

Max nudged me into the room as he barged through the door behind me. Once in, he sauntered over to my bedside and sat down, no longer the frothing, protective guard dog. I guess he didn’t see Sofie as a threat to me. So much for canine intuition.

“We understand this is a lot to absorb,” she said, turning to walk toward me, her face an emblem of sadness. For a second a pang of sorrow pulled at my heart. But then I remembered what she had done to me and that grief dissolved. It was all a masquerade. None of it was genuine.

She reached up to place a hand on my shoulder. I recoiled. Slowly dropping her arm, she sighed, her expression going blank. “It’s best to keep some things to yourself for now, until you know them more. Don’t tell them why you’re there or anything about the necklace. And keep out of trouble. You could easily have died last night, if that vampire hadn’t controlled himself.”

“He said my blood didn’t taste right … or human … something like that,” I mumbled, remembering the attacker’s words, suddenly finding them offensive. There was nothing wrong with my blood. But something else dawned on me. “Wait. What if he hadn’t? What if the vampire hadn’t tried to convert me and kept draining me of all my blood? I’d be dead—weren’t you worried that would happen?”

Sofie pursed her lips. “It didn’t happen so there’s no use worrying about it. And anyway, the spell is irreversible.”

“Right.” I moved away until my back hit the wall, trying to distance myself from her—the evil vampire sorceress.

“Well, alright then. Be safe tonight.” She moved as if to head out the door. But in the next instant she was beside me, gripping my arm tightly. “Don’t trust any of our kind, including Viggo,” she whispered, the words coming in a rush, “and don’t do what the pendant tells you to, yet.”