He frowned at that line of reasoning, and was about to argue when I stopped him with a question of my own. “How did you know it was a portal? Did you know this was here all along? I told you that I came through a swirly light thing—why didn’t you tell me this is where it was located?”
“I did not know this was the object that you used to reach me,” he said, giving a little head shake that had a swift flash of pain crossing his face. “I have never seen this phenomenon before, but I know it is a portal because that is the exact location that a demon lord named Magoth used when he laid the curse upon me. He appeared out of nothing; thus, he must have used some sort of a portal from a different place to this one. It is only logical to assume that what one man might do, so might another.”
“A demon cursed you?” I asked, my skin crawling at the thought.
“A demon lord,” he said with emphasis. “He told me that he was commissioned to destroy me, but that the method was not specified, so he chose the most heinous punishment he could think of, and cursed me to be a Dark One.”
“Holy freak-out,” I said, unable to imagine how horrible that had been.
“He also took my soul, but I have learned to cope without that,” Nikola added in an offhand manner, just as if the loss of a soul were a minor inconvenience.
“You have got to be kidding…. No, you’re not, are you? You don’t have a soul?”
“No.” He took a look around us, then, putting both hands on my waist, hoisted me up and onto the saddle. “I thought you would have noticed.”
I was a bit taken aback by that statement. “Well, shoot, Nikola, it’s not like I go around checking everyone I meet to see if a devil has taken their soul. But…is that why you’re all angsty inside?”
“Angsty?” He patted his coat and pulled out a familiar notebook. “I do not know the meaning of this word, but assuming you are referring to the emptiness that fills me, then yes, that is due to the loss of my soul.”
“I wondered about that.” I grabbed the horse’s mane when Nikola took hold of Thor’s bridle and turned him, walking back toward the way I’d come through the trees. “I thought maybe it was something I was imagining. What exactly is a demon lord? And why did someone hire him to curse you?”
He was silent for a minute, finding a path for us through the trees, keeping to the shade and holding branches back for me whenever possible. For some reason that, and the knowledge that he really and truly was cursed into being a vampire, tugged at my heartstrings.
“I’ve never been able to find out who damned me to this curse, although I have my suspicions. A demon lord is one of the princes of Abaddon.”
“And what’s—”
“Hell. At least, that’s what I assume, since no one has ever told me differently. When I was cursed, I did some research into the phenomenon of Dark Ones,” he said very matter-of-factly.
I bit back a giggle. Of course he researched the subject—I didn’t expect anything different from Mr. Scientific Reason.
“There isn’t much documented about them, but what I did find reassured me that although Dark Ones are not commonly found, there are others, many of whom are from my native Moravia. I wrote to the society to inform them that I was newly made a member of their group, and received in return an offer of assistance should I have any questions.”
“Vampires have their own society?” I asked, a bit flabbergasted at that. “Do they have local chapters? A newsletter? A Facebook page?”
He stopped, glared at me, and pulled out his notebook again.
I giggled.
“Yes, there is a society for Dark Ones,” he said after tucking away the notebook, and taking Thor’s bridle again. He marched on through the trees. “They did not send me any other letters containing news or otherwise. Years later, after Benedikt was born, I thought of contacting them to discuss his weaning, but my wife discovered that if she gave him a piece of raw meat, he would gain sustenance from that. As he grew older, he commenced to taking blood from living animals, and later to people. It was a most interesting experience, and one I documented fully. Someday, I shall publish my findings.”
“I bet that would make fascinating reading.”
He glanced over his shoulder to me, suspicion evident in his eyes.
“I mean it. I never really thought about what baby vampires eat. I guess I thought they just, you know, ate off their moms.”
“They do. They nurse until they are weaned and then they consume blood. At least, that is what Benedikt did. Imogen was different, but I attribute that to the fact that she very much resembles her mother, whereas Benedikt favors me.”
“That’s really interesting. Do you ever eat stuff that isn’t blood?”
“Not now.” He frowned, and pushed back the low-hanging branch of a giant fir tree. “I tried to at first, but it made me violently ill. I decided that something was not agreeing with me, and systematically began to eliminate those items of food that I could not stomach. After two years, I realized that it was food itself that my body had difficulty with. It would seem that Dark Ones do not digest food the same way as others.”
“Huh. That’s really weird. So you just went on a blood diet?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did Elizabet say that you liked maggoty pheasant?”
He sighed, and avoided a pool of sunlight, skirting it as we continued through the trees. “The servants would have commented if they saw that I did not take any nourishment, so I developed a method of pretending to consume food. Mostly, I had meals in my study. When that was unavoidable, I made sure one of my dogs was in the room with me, and simply slipped the food off my plate to whatever beast was handy. It saved me from attracting attention I prefer to do without, kept the dogs well fed, and made my cook happy.”
“You’re one smart cookie, you know that?” I asked, a warm glow of happiness spreading through me as I watched the back of his head.
“Cookie. Hmm. Cookie. A sweet biscuit?”
“Yup, you got that one.”
“I have a question for you, if it is my turn to ask.”
“Shoot. Er…that means go ahead.”
He stopped in the middle of reaching for his notebook, and asked instead, “I have had the short explanation—if you can call it that—of what actions you took, and now I would like a more detailed version. Why did you tie me to Thor and wrap my head in my coat?”
I sighed. “I had a feeling you weren’t going to let me get away without explaining fully. The truth is that your brothers—how do I say this so it doesn’t sound really circumstantial?—your brothers were planning on killing you.”
“I am immortal,” he said after a few seconds of digesting that thought. I found it interesting—and telling—that he didn’t at all question the idea of his brothers wanting to do him in.
“But you can be killed. You said so yourself.”
“Yes, I can, but it is not an easy task to accomplish.” He was silent again for another minute. “How do you know that they have planned to see that harm befalls me?”
“Imogen told me.”
He shot me a startled look, but kept walking.
“The Imogen in my time, that is. She was very upset, if that makes it better. Extremely so. She refused to even come up to this forest to take pictures because she said it has so many bad memories for her. Oh, holy cow, Imogen! We just left her!”
“We will be home shortly.”
“No, we won’t. Nikola, whether or not you want to admit it, I dragged you through that wormhole or portal or whatever the hell it is, smack-dab into the twenty-first century. It’s 2012 now, and although Imogen is still alive—at least I hope she is…oh, man, if the fact that I saved you messed things up, I’m going to be so pissed—anyway, assuming the lizards haven’t taken over and she’s here, then she’s just fine and dandy. And she did tell me to do whatever it took to save you. She was really insistent about that, so I guess I really shouldn’t worry, although now I feel terribly guilty over leaving her alone in the eighteenth century. That worry is retracted, however, if it turns out she was in with your brothers. Which I don’t think she would be, because honestly, what would she gain?”
“My daughter would never betray me in such a fashion,” Nikola said stiffly. “I make no such claim about my brothers; they have long resented the fact that my mother left her fortune to them in a trust that I administer, and I can readily believe that they would wish to see me gone so they can take over the control of their fortunes. However, to suggest that the same might be applied to my daughter is unreasonable.”
“Maybe. Although they did tell that kid named Ted that Imogen was in on the whole thing, but I can see where that might be a red herring.”
He sighed and pulled out his notebook.
“Again, though, I don’t see what she’d benefit from it. If you were to die, your son would get the castle, wouldn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“So that’s out, unless Imogen plans to knock him off, too. ‘Knock him off’ means murder, by the way.”
“Thank you, I gathered the meaning of the phrase from the context,” he murmured politely.
“I just hope she’ll be OK with no one to look after her but that crazy woman who sees smut everywhere.”
“Imogen is a woman grown, and capable of taking care of herself in all matters but that of men, and I have placed my trust in Frau Leiven to guard against Imogen being allowed undesired contact with such individuals. My word, as you have no doubt seen for yourself, is absolute. Frau Leiven will guard her from danger on that source.”
I didn’t miss the emphasis.
“I swear to god, if you call me a trollop or strumpet or whore, I’ll deck you,” I growled, waving one fist at him.
He didn’t even look at me. “As for your other statement, I see that I shall have to show to you that based on the state of that portal, what you suggest is just not possible. I don’t suppose you would care to make a wager on the subject?”