I feel like laughing, because with all of his magic he can cause buildings to rise out of the earth, keep a room frozen in time, yet he cannot figure out what my name is.
“Tegan.” I answer, not bothering to lie.
“Tegan,” he repeats, “do you know it has been almost nineteen years since I last came across a female of die Äußerste Macht? What a surprise it was to find you standing there, among the crowds at my homecoming.”
I swallow down what feels like a hard lump of rock in my throat. “And what did you do to the last woman when you found her?” I ask, though I can hardly bear to hear the answer.
“I hunted her down. She had been evading me for some time,” Theodore answers. “I finally tracked her to some woods in a back water town out in the suburbs. She gave a good chase, I’ll admit that,” he pauses, a reminiscent smile on his lips. “But I caught up to her eventually. I kept her for a while, and then, well, quite inevitably she died.”
What Theodore says about chasing the woman down in some woods strikes me. It sounds exactly like that vision of my mother, she had been running through trees in the dark when someone had caught her. Had it been Theodore who killed her? This is all so confusing, and I still don’t understand why Theodore could want me. My blood is only of value to vampires, perhaps he plans on selling me off, or holding me to ransom.
“And why are you so interested in women like me? What value do we hold for you?”
“The liquid that runs in your veins is not only of use to vampires you know,” he answers. “It is also a highly powerful magical substance, and when used in a spell it can achieve almost anything the caster wishes.”
I suddenly recall the fact that Rita had needed my blood in order to cast the spell that would banish Theodore to another dimension. Funny, I hadn’t thought to ask her why at the time. I need to get out of here and get to her before it’s too late.
“Can I ask you one thing?” I say, turning to face him head on.
“Of course, my little diamond,” he replies with false tenderness.
“What was the name of that woman, the one you caught in the woods?”
Theodore pauses a moment to think. “Well now, let me see. I think it was Doreen? Dorian? I’m sorry, I don’t quite remember.”
Tears fill my eyes and my hands begin to shake as I continue to stare at him. “Dora,” I whisper.
Theodore slaps his hand down on his thigh. “Why yes, I do believe that was her name.” He stops then, and a sickening satisfaction fills his eyes. “She wasn’t any relation of yours, was she?” he chimes, his nostrils flare as he savours my heartache.
I jump up from my seat, grabbing a tray of drinks out of the waiter’s hands and throwing them directly at Theodore. “She was my fucking mother, you evil monster!” I scream, and my voice seems to echo through the room. The spilled wine and smashed glass quickly falls off of Theodore, not leaving a single stain or scratch. I let out an almighty wail, but none of the party goers seem to hear me at all. They continue to chat and enjoy themselves, the pianist over in the corner continues to play. Theodore has not stopped watching me since my outburst, and his expression is absolutely blank, empty.
Finally he blinks, and his usual smug grin returns. “You should think about where you direct your anger, my dear. The next time I will not be inclined to overlook such behaviour.”
Then he calls on the waiter to clean up the mess on the floor. No more than a minute later Theodore tilts his head to the side, his ear sticking out almost as though listening for something far away. He rises and goes to peer out the window. A quiet expletive escapes his lips before he turns back around.
“I am afraid we must cut our enjoyment short tonight,” he says, addressing me pointedly. “We have some unwanted guests on the premises.” His eyes turn purple for a moment, and when he lifts his right hand, making some bizarre gesture, I am suddenly outside in the freezing cold, sitting on a seat on the big wheel as it makes its rotation around and around. I look down just in time to see a group of bodies crowd around the front door of the mansion, one person uses a gun to shoot open the lock, and then they disappear inside.
I can’t make out who they are as I’m at the very top of the wheel, but I hope to God that Rita is among them. She’s the only one with a chance of outwitting Theodore. A yacht floats on the shore just off the island. I wonder who it belongs to, although the style has Antonia written all over it. Then nothing happens, all the action is going on inside of the mansion, and unfortunately I can’t see through walls. The icy air cuts into me as I’m still only wearing the slinky velvet dress Theodore so creepily put me in.
My skin goes even paler than usual, a stark white against the black sky as I rotate on the gigantic wheel. I shake as the cold penetrates deep into my body and I begin to count the rotations in an effort to calm myself down – and heat myself up. One. Two. Three. Four. I rub my hands over my arms to the beat of the count.
I get as far as forty seven rotations when I begin to simultaneously count the turnings of the merry go round below me. Twenty more rotations of the big wheel and twenty five of the merry go round pass before anything happens. Every window in the mansion smashes outwards, the glass flying in shards, and a blinding multi coloured light pours out of them like a dazzlingly harsh rainbow. It’s both beautiful and terrifying.
Then a stream of people come running out the front door, the rainbow vanishes and is replaced with a horde of flying rabid crows that caw and snap and try to bite those they are chasing. The crow must be Theodore’s totem animal or something. The smaller crows are even more frightening that the giant one. They seem crazed. Hungry.
As the wheel turns and comes closer to the ground I can finally make out who is here. Ethan, Lucas, and Delilah. Rita, Gabriel, and Finn. Antonia and her bodyguards, along with some of the other nameless vampires who had been present in the club last night.
“Rita!” I shout as she runs toward the big wheel, though she hasn’t yet seen me on it. She looks up and her eyes go wide in shock at the sight of me. The kind of shock that accompanies the face of a person who thought you were dead. She must have come to some bad conclusions when I hadn’t shown up to meet her. She has a heavy looking bag around her shoulder as she continues her way over to me. The others use what weapons they have to fight off the crows.
Finn is crouched over by the chair-o-planes, a bow and arrow stretched out in front of him as he shoots at the small flying monsters. I watch as one of his projectiles flies straight into the centre of a crow’s chest, his shot perfect. Dru and Antonia’s other bodyguards shoot at the birds with their guns, while maintaining a protective circle around the evil bitch of a predator they are paid to keep alive.
Ethan and Lucas swing swords at the creatures that come at them, and it’s a more efficient way of killing than I would have thought. Because of their speed the two vampires are able to cut off the birds’ heads with quick, clean swipes before you have even seen them raise their arms.
Delilah’s method of defending herself is perhaps the most ingenious and strange. She’s sitting on a horse on the merry go round, her swift arms swing out and grab the birds as they fly by, and quite plainly she snaps their wings and legs before throwing them away. If they can’t fly anymore then they are harmless. I wonder if she has some kind of moral compunction against actually killing them. Or perhaps she prefers them to suffer the agony of broken limbs before they finally meet their maker. The birds have difficulty getting at her because she’s constan
tly moving on the ride, and if they do get close she cripples them within milliseconds.
Rita is standing on the platform of the big wheel now. “You need to find a way to get off of there,” she calls. “The motors are being worked by Theodore’s magic so I can’t stop the engine.”