Summary:
When Adeline's dad disappeared before she was born, the only clues to his whereabouts were left in the horror novels he wrote. And now, they seem to have brought Adeline to an Italian town with a few horrors of its own.
Felix has never been able to resist a good mystery, and let's face it, the human is never solving this herself.
Will this unlikely pair manage to come anywhere near to finding her father? Will Adeline manage to avoid becoming dessert for several hungry vampires? And will Aro ever start making sense?
Chapter 1
"With the rational mindset possessed by so many in the United States, it is hard to believe that just across the sea rumour and superstition abound. For one small village set in the Tuscan countryside, one particular superstition reigns - a belief in vampires. These are not the traditional creatures of our thriller movie spooks, but instead, an army of relentless undead who, so the legends say, stalked the land until one brave man put a stop to their quest for power. That man is known locally as St. Marcus, but his true origins are much less Christian than would be believed. So sit back, put on your reading light, and lose yourself in this tale of love, self-sacrifice, and blood-drinking monsters. And for God's sake, don't look out the window…"
Aaron Fisher, "Introduction to St. Marcus' Tale" from Horror Stories across Europe
Adeline's POV
I closed the hardcover of the book and leaned back in my seat with an exaggerated sigh. I had spent my life searching for meaning in Dad's books, and so far, I had found nothing but fairy tales and long-dead superstitions. But something wouldn't allow me to stop looking, whether it was the cryptic dreams that haunted me or the emails from my father's fans containing wild conspiracy theories. I knew I would not be able to rest until I found some clue as to what had really happened to him, which was part of the reason why I was seated in an overheated coach as it wound its way through the too-narrow country lanes to the town of Volterra.
I had never allowed myself this indulgence before. No matter how many times this strange town was referenced in my father's books, or how long he had spent here, the plane ticket to take me from San Diego to Naples was a luxury I had never been able to afford.
But to my surprise, I had received an invitation to my college roommate's destination wedding in Italy, along with the promise to pay for me to come along as a bridesmaid. It was almost unbelievably lucky. What only slightly soured the deal was that I was now trapped in Italy with a group of overenthusiastic women I barely knew for a bachelorette party before the wedding. The trip to Volterra had been a handy escape and a chance for some well needed alone time after the relentless partying. None of my companions seemed interested in history, no matter how spooky its reputation.
The coach finally pulled to a stop away from the walls, and the driver explained over the loudspeaker, first in fluent Italian and then in broken English, that due to preparations for a festival, they wouldn't be able to get any closer to the town but the walk would be easy enough.
"The Festival of St Marcus," I guessed, asking as much to the man seated next to me, who shrugged and looked so annoyed about the short walk that I decided not to bother him any more. I hopped off the coach with a quick "grazie" and started the winding walk to Volterra. The day was cool enough, and there was no denying that the countryside was beautiful. I easily outpaced the rest of the group as I climbed the steep road to the entrance of the city.
There was a harried-looking man redirecting traffic away from the gate, and he gave me a relieved smile as I headed through on foot, making a comment that I could only roughly translate into something about sensible choices.
The town was as beautiful as I had always imagined it. The ancient yellow stones seemed warm and comforting in the summer sun, and the fluttering red banners that were hung from the rooftops added an undeniable hint of celebration. The sense that something was about to happen hung in the air. The people hurried around carrying sweets and wreaths and red cloaks, and I felt more invisible than I had felt yet in this country.
I put them all out of my mind and left the busy streets behind. They weren't why I was here. But as I moved to quieter lanes, my sense of jubilation diminished. There was no obvious sign of my father ever having been here. The streets were as he described, yet they felt absent of his spirit.
And when I paid the entrance to the shrine of St. Marcus, all I found was a grisly relic that was said to be all that remained of the hero - a skull pierced through the eye with a metal blade. I studied the dead thing in front of me with increased curiosity. It seemed so far removed from the soft, peaceable man described in the story that I couldn't believe it was him.
I left the shrine feeling as if a stone had formed in the pit of my stomach. My father wasn't here, and if he wasn't here, he wasn't anywhere.
My mother had been right. She'd called my search foolish and deluded. The words had hit hard, but I knew it was nothing but a front. Mom was as devastated as always. But she'd thrown herself into work, whereas I had lost myself in theories and speculation in the recent years. Now I knew for sure who the sensible one had been.
As if noticing my sour mood, the sky split open, covering the town in a shroud of rain. I took off at a run for the Piazza dei Priori, in search of shelter until the rain stopped. But to my great annoyance, every shop I passed had the same sign in the window. They read, "Chiuso per la Festa di San Marco," which I took as a clear indication that I was just going to get soaked. I pulled up the hood of my thin jacket and hunched into its limited cover, hunkering down to take the onslaught of the rain when I noticed that the small archway in the shade of the clock tower seemed empty- and, more importantly, dry.
The stone archway presented a welcome respite from the rain, and I pulled off my hood and shook the raindrops from my hair. The rain always seemed to make havoc in it, and I knew that in minutes it would dry into an untameable mass of curls. So much for the hair straighteners, I thought wryly, pulling on one lock and wincing as it bounced back up into a slender ringlet.
It didn't seem like I was going to get much out of today, so in disappointment I pulled out my phone to check what time I should return to the coach. I scrolled through my screenshots to find the one with the details of my trip and realised that I still had a couple hours to fill, and with the rain showing no sign of stopping, I realised those hours were likely going to be spent in this alleyway, sheltering from the storm.
I sighed, once again regretting making the trip to Volterra, but the sharp click of a latch startled me. I turned around but there was no one to be seen, only a wooden door hanging half-open. No one could have come out and left without me seeing, but I still felt the uncanny sensation that I was being watched.
I stepped closer to get a better look at the door. It looked ancient, maybe as old as the building itself, though I knew that was unlikely. Through the gap, I could see a dimly lit hallway that seemed to twist around and down beneath the tower.
Curiosity getting the better of me, I pulled open the door for a better look. The hallway seemed innocent enough, but my attention was pulled to a plaque on the wall. The writing was in Italian, but luckily, an English translation accompanied it. There was nothing on it I didn't already know; it merely detailed the age of the clocktower and its necessity in timekeeping when the majority of people lacked clocks in their homes. It made for boring reading, but the seal inscribed "Volterra Tourism Board" gave the all-clear that this place was indeed open to the public.
There was not much to see as I ventured further into the building, but something spurred me onwards. Maybe it was my relentless curiosity or perhaps a line from Dad's book that haunted me on my best days.
"The corridors twisted as if they had been built a purposeful labyrinth, and though Amy knew the Saint was long dead, she was sure she heard his footsteps haunting her."
The story mirrored my very surroundings, and while I doubted I'd find any vampire-slaying ghosts, I was almost sure I would find something. The place seemed so familiar that I was sure I had seen it before, though perhaps only in a dream.
Low voices from ahead provided a reality check, and I knew at once that, despite the signs, I really shouldn't be here. Turning sharply on my heels, I headed for the exit casually, as if I was merely confused. The tunnels started to shrink, closing in around me, and as I went on, I realized in horror that I couldn't remember where I came from. The voices grew closer, but I knew they had to be different people. The others couldn't have caught up so quickly.
I knew they were going to catch up with me, so I made a split-second decision that I would spend the rest of my life picking apart and wondering what if?
I pushed through a door labelled "cleaning" and hid myself in a small cupboard. The voices grew louder outside, talking in a language that I didn't understand, but I knew it wasn't Italian. The tone seemed almost joking, and I hoped I was misreading things earlier.
I held still and tried not to breathe. They couldn't possible know I was here, and soon, they would move on and I would run. I supposed if they did find me, it couldn't be any worse than a warning, surely. The rationalisation didn't explain why I was shaking so much or why my voice built up into a hysterical whimper as the door of my hiding place was yanked open.
***
Felix's POV
"There's a human sniffing around the west entrance," Demetri said, hurling a wickedly sharp knife into the dartboard with inhuman precision, though I'm not really sure what I should have expected.
"Wanna check it out?" I ask hopefully. Hanging around had always been my least favorite part of guarding, and a human could provide a tiny bit of interest to my day.
"No," Demetri said decidedly. "No humans come into the castle without our express intention since...'
"Since Afton," said Jane's childlike voice behind me. I've always wondered how she's able to traverse the castle so quietly. "And we all know what happened to him," she said with a twisted smile that seemed to suggest he suffered a worse fate than merely ending up married to Chelsea. Though I suppose, in Jane's eyes, that could be a fate worse than death.
Demetri glanced around, confused. "Actually, forget everything I just said. The human is in the castle."
"Then you better go get them," Jane commanded in a voice that left little room for argument.
"Yes, ma'am," I said with a joking salute that made her giggle, and then she was gone with a flutter of her dark cloak.
"Does she ever stop being freaky?" Demetri asked, which was an odd question considering he had been living with Jane for the past thousand years, though I'm even older than her so maybe I'm some kind of authority on spooky kids.
"Nah, it's her thing," I said, getting up. "So you wanna grab the human?'
"Sure," Demetri muttered, throwing the last knife into the wall. We headed off to find the human, falling into an easy coordination out of centuries of practice.
I could smell the human's blood from a mile away, nothing special about it, but I was thirsty enough that it was slightly tempting.
"Head in the game," Demetri reminded me, which was all the more insulting considering I had hundreds of years of self-control on him.
The scent lead us straight to a cleaning closet. "She's hiding." Demetri laughed, using his native Greek tongue instead of our usual Italian. I wondered if he was trying to avoid giving the human an idea of who we were.
"She?" I asked in Latin. Two can play at that game.
He merely rolled eyes and gripped the door handle, pulling it open to reveal a cowering human girl. She gave a half-shriek and I couldn't help but wonder exactly what had scared her so much. She hadn't seen anything yet.
I didn't recognize her from around Volterra, which suggested she was a tourist. Her dark curls, terrified eyes, and nondescript clothes gave very little indication of exactly where she was on holiday from.
"Cosa stai facendo qui?" Demetri asked in a more aggressive tone than I would have used, but the girl just stared blankly.
"Non parlo molto Italiano," she stammered out in an obviously American accent. Well, I suppose that mystery is solved.
"You're lost?" I asked and she nodded, looking relieved
"I can leave now," she said earnestly. "I wandered here by accident. I shouldn't have, and I'll leave now."
"We'll show you out," I said, ignoring Demetri's disappointed face. I was not about to put us all in danger to mess with one human girl.
The girl nodded, sighed in relief, and stumbled on ahead of us. I was reminded of that Bella Swan - no, Cullen - who had been giving us Hell for a good while, back when she was still an incessantly clumsy human, though I supposed at least this girl could blame her lack of coordination on terror.
Suddenly, Demetri whipped his head around at the sound or scent of something I couldn't perceive. Looking worried, he pushed the girl in the back and insisted she hurry up with vicious determination. I watched nonplussed, but then I heard a shriek and everything made sense. Santiago, Alec, and Caius must have come back from the Amazon, finally bringing Joham in for his long-awaited trial. The problem was there was no way the human was going to avoid this.
"What's going on?" She stuttered nervously, just in time for the four of them - no, five. I hadn't noticed little Jane, though that would explain the screaming - to round the corner.
I could get a human out of here having merely seen a couple of guys in black who acted a little threatening, but these five monsters, one being dragged and missing half an arm with an obvious lack of blood, were not going to fly in any circumstance.
I guess the little American's dead.
"What is that human doing here?" Caius sneered.
"It's nice to see you too," Demetri quipped but no one laughed. He sighed. "We were about to get rid of her."
"I'd hope you were," Caius said. I knew the human's chance of survival had gone from slim to none.
"Dibs," Alec called cheerfully. I growled at him. I hadn't dragged this human around for nothing. If we weren't getting her out of here alive, at the very least I could get something out of the deal.
"No," Caius decided. "Bring her. I'm sure Aro would love a meeting."
It made no sense. There was nothing special about her, but strangely, Caius seemed more focused on the trashy horror novel she had clutched in her shaking hands. Demetri grabbed her arm and, ignoring her protests, pulled her along to the throne room behind the others. I felt a twinge of pity, but I quickly buried it behind centuries of psychological walls.
She was as good as dead, and since when have I ever cared about the dead?