No, she can’t.
But I can’t even begin to process what has happened or how it’s possible. Right now my only priority needs to be to get Callahan back.
“Bring Callahan back and we will find her.”
It sounds like a promise, but I don’t know how I can keep it. I don’t even know what happened.
Finally, solid black eyes inch towards me. There’s an unfathomable depth to them that makes you want to look away. Staring at the eyes of a thing beyond parallels. Something too twisted to be a god and yet with power surpassing them. It’s like looking at endlessness.
“We’ll find her together,” I continue, praying to the damned gods above Callahan will come back. “But I need Callahan. I need him back to find her.”
There’s a ripple in the endlessness of its eyes. Then right around the edge of its pupil red lights up. A sliver of Callahan back.
“I need Callahan back to help me find her.”
A shudder works through his body as the black in his iris retreats. Returning back to the edges of his iris and golden eyes are now looking at me. Golden, tortured eyes.
“Varian,” he croaks. This time it sounds like him. And then he crumbles.
Thorne is there to catch him as I grip under his arms. A broken sob rips out of his throat as his fingers curl into my whitebutton up. Already rumpled from staying up way too late last night and then sleeping for a couple hours in it.
I hold Callahan and for the first time since coming here look around the room. Ms. Waterstone is hidden within Mr. Ruleten’s arms as her body shakes. Sobs heave out of her as Mr. Ruleten stares in shock at the ashes still slowly drifting down behind me.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I clear my throat and try to get the vampyr’s attention. “Mr. Ruleten.” He doesn’t even budge. Enforcing more power into my voice, I demand, “Mr. Ruleten!”
He eyes too slowly slide over to mine. Caught in a daze as he stares at me but I’m not sure if he’s actually seeing me.
Callahan is still sobbing in my arms and Thorne looks nearly distressed. I need to know what happened. I need to see it for myself. And with the true devil still lurking near his surface, I can’t go looking through Callahan’s mind.
“I need your permission to enter your mind so I can see what happened,” I say slowly and with more power influencing my voice. Just barely he dips his head and I don’t waste a second in case he changes his mind.
He lets his few walls down so I can walk right in. Strong, well-built walls, but nothing compared tohers.
His shock splinters into absolute petrification and I realize he’s been hiding his emotions as well. Whatever happened must have been unthinkable.
Passing his emotions, I weave through the library of his mind to the memory of what just happened. Beginning it withhim standing behind Ms. Waterstone as she opens the door to her dorm.
The first thing he notices is Callahan. He’s sitting on a wooden chair facing one of the beds. The side of the room always so bare, always so sad. It shouldn’t be fair that she should have to live like this when it was never her choice to come here. No one should be forced into. . .
I shove past every minute thought and emotion he has. I’m not here for his opinions of the bloodsucker, I need to know what happened.
Looking from Callahan, he finally looks to her. And I almost fracture his mind as she comes into view. As I see her, sitting crisscrossed on her shit-looking bed, arms behind her as she rests on them, with her bare legs exposed.
Bare legs absolutely covered in scars and bite-fucking-marks.
. . . six, seven eight – nine fucking bitemarks just from what I can see. With scars you can tell were made from multiple objects.
It takes every ounce – all the practice I’ve had these past two hundred and fifty years – to keep from shattering the vampyr’s mind. To keep that thing inside me at bay.
Distantly, outside of this mind I’m currently in, someone asks, “Are you okay?”
I nod my physical body because if I were to speak or move in any other way more than an inch that true devil would be unleashed. The type of rage – the wrath that wants to be unleashed. There’s barely a couple inches between each scar from one another.
Continuing the memory, I continue flowing through it. Hearing her speak and confirming that the vampyr and mage knew about her scars. She threatens Callahan to keep his mouth shut about them. And then she stands. Her shoulders rolling as she stretches her neck side to side.
And then poof.
There’s no flash, to flicker, no explosion. No whisper of a spell or crack of a curse. The sun isn’t even up yet so it’s not as if she could have burned away faster than half a fraction of time. And now she’s gone.