Or rather, it was something that had been a book once. Now it was ancient and fragile, kept cushioned on white flannel and cradled in a tray. It looked as if it’d been buried in dirt for the past several hundred years. And who knew? Maybe it had.
“This is what I was reading when I sensed your arrival.”
Okayyy. Was it a handbook of arcane tortures for unruly girls? Because surely the disciplining would begin at any moment.
He lovingly turned a page, and it crackled like the peel of an onion. “I think perhaps this is something you will appreciate.”
Here it comes. I couldn’t fight the curiosity—I had to glimpse what was in store. Adrenaline dumped into my veins, making me jittery and chilled, but still I managed to inch ever so slightly closer to him on the couch. Must know. “What is it?”
“It is a rare text, written by one of my favorite mathematicians.”
Huh? Total disconnect. I gaped, trying to adjust what I’d thought would happen with the reality. “Mathematician?”
He paused for a subtle dramatic flourish. “Archimedes.”
“Wait, what?” Archimedes was born in something-crazy BC—the book would’ve been as old as dirt, not buried in it. I sucked in a breath, the inconceivable truth blotting all other thoughts from my head. “Holy cr…crow. That’s older than Christ.”
His black eyes pinned me in my seat. When he spoke, his voice was gravelly and confiding. “I knew that, of all the others, you would most understand.”
Ru-roh. I inched back to my original spot on the couch, chilled again to my bones. That had sounded really personal, and it seemed to me personal was a thing one did not get with vampires. “Y-yes.” I did a quick scan of my memory banks. “The text must be twenty-two hundred years old.”
Was that why he’d taken an interest in me? Because I could chat math facts with him?
“Older than that,” he said triumphantly. “I have discerned other writings on these pages that are more ancient still.”
I almost scooted closer on the couch—the nerd in me couldn’t help but be fascinated. My mind raced with the possibilities—what else might be written on pages more ancient than the Bible?
But then my heart skipped a beat as I remembered why I was there.
I was in trouble, and I had no clue when the repercussions would begin.
He placed the tray down with a clack, startling me from my reverie. “Enough of my interests.” Adjusting his body, he faced me on the couch and reached his arms toward me. I could only stare dumbly. “Your hands, Acari Drew. I told you I would attend to your hands.”
Oh crap.
I held my right hand out, chagrined to watch it tremble ever so slightly. I could hope he wouldn’t notice my fear, but I knew vampires didn’t miss a thing.
He edged closer and took my hand in his.
Here we go.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I forced myself to focus on what Alcántara was saying—something about ancient Greece—rather than on the fact that he held a part of my body cradled in his cool palms.
It took a conscious effort not to ball my hand into a fist. Hand injuries were tough—the wounds were trying to clot, but they kept splitting back open, and even though I’d washed them at the dorm, they still oozed dark red. All that smeared blood made me feel exposed.
He traced his finger along my palm—in the path of the deepest cut. A creepy feeling wiggled up my spine, both prickly and warm at the same time.
If Alcántara could tell how terrified I was, he didn’t let on. Instead, he just kept talking, his voice a soothing, Spanish-accented lull. “…And Archimedes was the greatest of them,” he was saying.
Greatest of…mathematicians, Greeks, what? I tried to tune in, holding on to his words as a way to normalize the situation—to stop that disturbing cold-hot that was spreading its way deep into my belly. I forced a stiff nod. “Yes, Archimedes. Ahead of his time.”
“Would that I could have known him.”
Ohmygod. Alcántara was leaning in. Dipping his head closer to my hand, like a dog about to sniff. Or lick. Oh God.
His lips parted.Oh please no, a little girl voice keened deep inside me. He wouldn’t lick my palm, would he? I wanted to pull away, but the vampire’s cool grip tensed ever so slightly.
“Are you familiar with his work?” His breath was hot on my broken skin. His eyes, focused on my bloody cuts. Was he going to feed from me? My belly roiled with terror and revulsion.
No he won’t. No he won’t. No he won’t. I tried to will him to keep his mouth away from my open skin. My heart was pounding so hard now, I felt the pulse throbbing in my head.
He’d said something—I needed to reply. My mind raced, desperate to remember some ancient Greek fun fact. Because that mouth was closing in.
“Yes,” I blurted, more loudly than I’d intended. “Archimedes. He said he could lift the earth. If he had a long enough pole. Or a lever, I mean. If he had a place to stand and a lever, he could move it. The earth.”
Though Alcántara’s head was tilted down, I could read how my comment had pleased him, despite—or maybe because of—my nervous babbling. He chuckled, and I felt the puffs of breath on my skin. “So he did.”
“But he was killed,” I said, dredging everything I could from memory. At the word killed, I gave an instinctive tug to my hand, but the vampire held on tight.
“So he was.” Alcántara traced the lines on my hand, smearing faint trails of blood across my palm. He brightened, remembering the story. “They say Archimedes spoke his last words to an attacking Roman soldier. ‘Do not disturb my circles!’” He laughed, and gooseflesh crept along my arms. “Human creatures are so delightfully banal.”
I tried to imagine what else he might’ve thought about us humans. Delightfully banal…but loads of fun to kill. Banal…but for the musky aftertaste. Because the other shoe was going to drop, and soon. This punishment was shaping up to be a doozy.
But still, the vampire didn’t release my hand. Instead, he swept his cool finger along my palm again, harder this time, splitting the cut back open until I flinched from the pain. He held his finger up to catch the firelight. His skin was stained a pale pink.
I watched, horrified, as he brought it to his lips. And then his eyes caught and held mine as he sucked his finger slowly into his mouth.
Crapcrapcrap. There was licking happening. He pulled his finger from his mouth with a dull suck.
What else would he want to taste? Frantic, I did a quick mental inventory of all my other bloody parts. It was not good. I needed something, anything, to talk about.
“And the book?” The words exploded from me, sounding high-strung even to my own ears.
Calm. I needed to calm the hell down. I didn’t want to rile him any more than he already was—I mean, did vampires get blinded by bloodlust? Who knew what happened once they got a taste of it. And I definitely wasn’t feeling equipped to find out.
Keep him chatting. I glanced back at the book. “I mean, what is it? You didn’t tell me. Which text is it? Is it original?” I tried to act avid and interested, but I was afraid I probably just sounded feverish.
“Ah, yes. My book.” Momentarily diverted, he dropped my hand, and relief prickled through me, sending a rush of blood to my head. “It was a very exciting development in the world of mathematics. This particular text was discovered only decades ago.” He smiled coyly. “It was later purchased at auction by an anonymous bidder.”
“Which was you,” I said baldly. If I hadn’t been so panicked, maybe I’d have spoken with more deference, but I was too freaked to think straight, particularly since Alcántara’s disciplinary techniques appeared to involve finger sucking. It gave my words a thoughtlessly casual edge. “You guys seem to have a lot of money. I mean you’ve had years to save up, right?”
But he didn’t seem to mind my informality—I guess licking on a girl really loosened a fellow up. He considered it for a moment, answering thoughtfully, “We have resources at our disposal, yes.”
I stalled then. I had nothing to say to that. My childhood had been a series of apartments in central Florida—luxury was when we’d made the leap to a two-bedroom.
He tilted his head, seeing the truth of it. “Little Acari. I dare say resources isn’t part of your parlance, is it?”
Oh no. Getting personal again. “We didn’t have much, no,” I said tentatively.
“It is true, this axiom men have on the importance of living well. And yet the old adage isn’t completely correct. You see, it’s living forever that is the best revenge.”
He smiled then, full-on, bearing two dagger-sharp teeth, which reminded me that, although he was undead, I could find myself very, very dead at the slightest provocation.
The image silenced me.
“But we were discussing my book.” His tone was almost jovial, as if he hadn’t just bared a pair of freaking fangs. “I’ve not yet told you the best part.” He picked up the tray and tipped it so the pages could catch the light. “Look at the writing. Can you guess what it is?”
Guess? I could barely read it. Archimedes had been an inventor—Alcántara was probably reading instructions on how to build an ancient Greek torture device. Position Acari’s thumbs between screws; tighten. “N-no.”
“Do you know what a palimpsest is?”
Where the hell was this going? I gave the barest nod. “I…Yeah.…It’s when they scraped the writing off a manuscript so they could reuse the pages. They’d just write over the old stuff.”
He gave me a courtly nod. “Clever girl. But of course you knew.” He turned a few pages, and the smell of mildew gave my nose a twinge. “It was once a common practice, when materials like parchment or vellum were too valuable to be squandered.”
I nodded, even though I was familiar with everything he was telling me. And what was with the minilecture, anyway? Because I knew he had a point—I saw it coming in the satisfied gleam in his eyes.