Odin made the gag face, complete with tongue rolling out of his mouth before he shook out his arms. But he recovered quickly. “Well, if nothing else, at least the gaps between your ribs make for good handholds.” He turned and sauntered through a gate attached to a white picket fence. “Gives a whole new meaning to ‘ribbed for her pleasure’!”
Logan tipped her head back against Kerestyan’s shoulder. “Where does he come up that shit? And does he ever not have some kind of barbed comeback?”
He shook his head. “He watches a lot of television. And no, Odin always has to have the last word. You’ll learn that soon enough. Trust me.”
She glanced back at Odin just as he disappeared through the front door of a rather small and unremarkable white house. It looked nice enough, not that it took much to impress her considering where she slept most of the time, but it didn’t bear any resemblance to a castle. And the two huge rottweilers sitting on opposite sides of the snowy front yard, although she was sure did a great job of making salesmen think twice, didn’t exactly fit the whole medieval motif she’d imagined.
She cocked her head when Kerestyan moved to stand beside her. “I take it when you refer to this as a castle, it’s some kind of inside joke I’m not privy to?”
The low, evil laugh that rumbled in his chest sent chills dancing up her spine. “Sure.” He turned and extended an arm towards the gate. “By all means, Milady, Lord Nelek awaits you.”
She started up the bricked path to the gate. “I thought you were Lord Nelek.”
“I’m Lord Kerestyan.”
“But your last name is Nelek, so wouldn’t you also be Lord Nelek?”
“No. As Vouclade would gladly tell you if you asked, there is only one Lord Nelek…and it isn’t me.”
Logan pushed the gate open and held it for him. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
He smiled as he passed then reached around her hip to pull the gate closed. “In about five seconds, it’ll make a lot more sense than anything else in your world.”
She eyed the rottweilers when their ears perked up, hoping like hell they’d stay right where they were. “What do you mean in five…” she trailed off as the world around her melted into an amalgamation of vibrant colors, as though she’d just dropped 500 crayons on a hot grill.
“Oh, fuck…” It was really all she could muster when the little, innocuous white house fizzled away, replaced by a black monolith of a castle standing roughly a football field away.
Obsidian stones loomed high above her, framed by the cloudless night sky and thousands of twinkling stars. Towers rose so tall she had to squint to make out the scarlet banners flapping at the tops, all of which bore the same dragon she’d seen on Odin’s armor.
Trailing down from the spires, she marveled at all the different levels, stairways, window openings and walkways she could see from so far away. They seemed to go on forever, a dangerous ebony maze lit by nothing but flickering torches and braziers.
The front door Odin had walked through was actually two black doors. They had to be wide enough at the ground to drive two buses through side by side, but tapered to a sharp point easily three stories high. A set of torches burned on either side, casting thousands of gold and red sparkles through the facets in the stones.
Logan leaned back into Kerestyan when she felt his hands on her shoulders. She’d never seen anything more foreboding, yet so breathtakingly beautiful in her entire life. This place, this dark and elegant stretch of stone didn’t even touch the image her mind had built.
When she’d first heard the word castle, she’d immediately thought of grey stones and green, slimy moats. She’d thought of drawbridges and knights on horseback. She’d even pictured one of those little men dressed in bright colors blowing a horn.
But never in her wildest dreams had she expected this.
It wasn’t even winter here. The breeze was warm against her face, carrying sweet scents and tantalizing fragrances she’d never encountered before. There were trees in full bloom as far as she could see, and the grass was such a rich, brilliant shade of green, it looked more like paint than something nature could produce.
She shook her head. No, this wasn’t at all what she’d expected.
And what she also would’ve never expected, until they moved and she suddenly felt the urge to wet herself, were the two huge dragons sitting where the rottweilers had been. One was a ruddy rust color and the other ashen grey, but both were monstrous with heads the size of small cars.
Kerestyan must have felt her body tense because before she could even ask, his arms circled her waist and his stubble prickled her cheek. “No, you aren’t imagining any of this. There truly is a castle and those really are dragons.”
She blew out a deep breath and tried to slow her racing mind. How? Why? There were so many things she wanted to know, so many questions she wanted to ask, she didn’t even know where to begin.
He tightened his hold. “It’s a little overwhelming, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “It’s so unbelievable.”
The scratch of his stubble told her he was smiling. “I know. My Father knows we’re here. He says to take as much time as you need to acclimate yourself, he’ll see you when you’re ready.”
“Kerestyan,” she reached up and touched his cheek, eyes locked on the red dragon that appeared to be watching her, “how can all this be here? I mean, is it really here? You said we were going to Chicago. This is not Chicago.”
“We’re just north of Chicago, outside the city limits because Chicago itself is ruled by another Lord. As for how it’s here, that has everything to do with the power of my Father’s blood and the strength of his magics. To any eyes but those of an Ancient vampire, nothing sets on this land but a little white house with a perfect picket fence. However, I assure you it’s really here. It’s just hidden as to not completely rend the Veil.”
“How do you hide something like this?”
“The castle is hidden through the use of blood magic. That’s the only explanation I can offer you, Logan. You may know that vampires exist, but there’s so much you don’t know about vampires.”
She turned in his arms when she caught the note of frustration in his voice. “I’m sorry if I’m being difficult. It’s just, holy fuck…I was not expecting this.”
“You aren’t being difficult. This is just hard to explain. Most Fledglings have at least a basic understanding of the magic in their blood, and even they aren’t aware places like this exist.” He finally smiled. “Think of your current situation like this: You graduated high school with the intent to go into business, but instead of going to college and following the proverbial ladder of success, you accidently met the CEO of a large company who decided to bring you in at the executive level.”
She considered his words for a moment. “So I skipped a bunch of menial cubicle jobs that even a new vampire could do and landed myself in the cushy corner office with a vampire who’s older than dirt?”
He laughed. “That’s correct. You’re seeing things right now most vampires never will, and you’re about to meet vampires, my Father mainly, others only hear of in stories. The Nelek name is known throughout Ancient circles, but most Fledglings only come in contact with my younger siblings. And of course myself, but that’s only because I rule a major modern city, packed with younger vampires.”
Logan rubbed her temples. She was more than on board with the whole vampire concept, especially because of where she currently stood, but the sheer amount of information to digest made her head ache. “Can you just draw me a chart or something?”
He laughed again. “Why don’t we start with getting you inside the castle?”
“That works for me.”
She accepted Kerestyan’s hand when he offered, figuring the dragons would keep their distance if she was somehow attached to a Nelek, and walked with him towards the doors.
She craned her neck at least a dozen times trying to see different things on the higher levels, but it quickly became obvious that she could look for two days straight and not see even a tenth of everything there was to view.
Logan turned her attention back to the blackened doors when the muscles in her neck cramped, but jumped when the destination of the smooth cobblestone path changed, leading straight to the golden, glittering eyes of the red dragon.
She squeezed Kerestyan’s hand and tried not to panic as the beast lumbered forward, but when it stopped only a few feet away and lowered its head to sniff her, she was so busy trying to see she forgot about panicking. Every snout full of air the damn thing drew in sent a tiny tornado spinning around her, and if it wasn’t sucking her hair into its nostrils, it was flattening it all against her face. When the air finally stilled, she brushed her hair out of her eyes and looked up at the creature – just in time to see a gaping maw full of razor sharp teeth snap closed in front of her face.
Her entire body went rigid and her heart slammed against her ribs before she let out a scream she was sure could wake the dead. The second she regained control of her limbs, she jumped on Kerestyan’s back.