Eternally Dark

chapter 15: Victor and Kenric

“Stay,” I mumbled, moving over in bed. He sat down on the edge of the bed and kicked off his shoes and socks but didn’t move any further. “In, now,” I said a moment before yawning. He stood up and walked over to the drawers, and I sat up watching after him. He pulled a shirt and shorts from the drawers. He pulled off his suit jacket and tie, placing them on a nearby chair. He went to go into the bathroom to change, but my drunk self made a booing sound. James sighed and continued on into the bathroom, I flopped back down into bed. About a minute later the door opened again, and James walked out holding a glass of water, he’d changed into the clean clothes. I took the water from him, and up ended the glass, I climbed out of bed -now empty glass in hand- and refilled the cup in the bathroom. I drank the contents, then left the bathroom, leaving the cup behind. James was sitting on the bed when I walked back in, I climbed back into the bed , moving in close to him. He flicked back the covers and wriggled in next to me. I lay my head on his chest, tonight I couldn’t hear his heartbeat. I was asleep within the minutes, it all started out thoughtless and dreamless. That didn’t last long, almost like in a vision my surroundings changed and shifted, dropping me down in a small lab. Shelves lined three of the walls, overflowing with books and random trinkets. In the centre of the room sat three large lab tables, all except the middle one were empty. Standing at the middle table was Victor, he was bent over a microscope. I took a step into the room, and instantly his head shot up.

“Took you long enough,” He said, je made a come here gesture, which I obeyed. “Look at this,” He took a step sideways, and I peered down into the lens of the microscope, it only took a second for me to recognise what was on the slide and I looked back up.

“Where’d you get this?” I took another look at the blood in the microscope, there was something off about it. Following my gut I grabbed the empty slide that sat next to the microscope and the pin. I pricked my finger and let the small amount of blood fall onto the slide. I switched out the slide from the microscope with the one containing my blood. I looked into the lens, and confirmed my suspicion, my blood looked almost identical to the other sample. I moved aside so that Victor could take a look, but before he could I woke-up.

I sat straight up, my heart was racing, and I was gasping for air. James sat up a second after me, I didn’t think he’d even been asleep in the first place.

“What’s wrong?” He asked,

“Teach me to do that teleporting thing on my own,” I said, moving out of bed,

“Hang on, slow down,” He called after me, but I was already dressed and hopping while I pulled on my second shoe. I’d put on a pair of short shorts and a faded tee-shirt. “Liz, what happened? Liz, wait up!”

“Victor!” I called back, I had made my way to the front door. James appeared beside me, he’d put on sweat pants and shoes, but kept on the same shirt.

“Come on,” He said, having clearly accepted my sudden need to get to Victor.

I followed him through the building and to the room with the void.

“Okay picture where it is that you want to go, when you have the image in your mind step through, it’s the same with coming back,” James instructed. I nodded.

“He may not like you there,” I said absently, while I picture the lab in my mind.

“Who won’t like me where?”

“Victor, lab,” I tried to keep my answer short, so that I could focus. Once I had the image stable in my head I grabbed James hand and pulled him forward with me into the void. The darkness around us swirled and changed. Then we were in Victor's lab, just as it had been in my dream.

“I didn’t say you could bring guests in here,” Victor said, not looking up from the microscope.

“Get over it,” I led James over the stool nearest Victor, before walking over to him. “Move over,” He looked up, and took a step over. I closed one eye and positioned the other over the lens.

“Your sample disappeared when you did,” I sighed and took the once again empty slide off the table, pricked my finger and let the small amount of blood fall onto it. I put the slide into the microscope, double checked that still my blood had the same oddities as the other sample.

“There,” I said, moving over so he could have a look.

“How strange,” He mumbled to himself looking up, he quickly scribbled something down in a nearby notebook, took another look at my blood and continued scribbling.

“Ah, what's happening?” James said, Victor glared at him.

“You may not speak,” He told James,

“Told you,” I whispered to James, Victor’s head shot up again.

“You are lucky I’m letting you speak to me the way you have been, don’t push by speaking with him. Come,” I followed him across the room. He stopped in front of one of the many book cases and began to pull, what seemed to be random titles, off the shelves and hand them to me. By the end I was holding twelve books, all old leather bound, hand written books.

“Start reading,” He instructed, tapping the top book with a single finger. I placed the books down on the closest table and pulled up a chair. I carefully opened the first book and read the title; Vampiric truths. I turned the page and began reading.

“Not like that, silly child!” Victor called over, “Focus on using your newly found speed to do it,” I looked back down at the page and focused on reading with the same speed I could use to move. Once I figured it out, the books each only took a minute or two to read, and that was only because I didn’t want to rip the pages. Each book seemed to be impossible yet held what I somehow knew to be truth. Vampiric truth, Death to demons, Vampiric truth (volume two), Gift or curse, Wars of hell, Clan to fall, Lost to time, Vampiric truth (volume three), To kill the beasts, Nor myth or legend, Heaven burnt and Kenric (the smallest of the books by far). We're all written in a way that one may believe them to simply be fiction. The book that sparked my interest the most was Kenric The information in it perfectly matched what I already knew just as the pages James had dug out of the clan archives had.

We were in the lab with Victor for almost six hours. With Victor handing me more books to read, giving me quizzes on the books and taking more samples from me (blood, hair, spit). Which made James incredibly uncomfortable. He had me teleporting us back to his apartment, which took me two tries to get.

“Bed,” James told me, the moment we were back.

“But it’s like ten a.m,” I complained, then immediately after yawned, which most definitely didn’t help my point. James shook his head and led me into the bedroom. We both kicked our shoes off, and I climbed into bed without a second thought, but James didn’t move to get in.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I just don’t want to-”

“Get in,” I said, cutting him off. He smiled and climbed in next to me. I curled up against him, feeling safe in his arms.