I’d seen Connie stake Vanessa without a moment’s hesitation or regret. Still, I’d like to think it would mean something to kill someone she’d known and worked with.
“You hate me that much?” I asked pointedly.
“How many times have we been over this?” the vampire snarled and pointed emphatically toward herself. “Cursed. Remember?”
I leaned against the wall with a heavy sigh.“You’re the only person I can be my real self with. It would be nice to get to know you.”
“Fluffikins—”
“Is a cat,” I interrupted with a scowl. “And our boss.”
“If you think this shared secret will suddenly make us best friends, you’re wrong.”
“I know all about the vampire curse, but I also know I can overcome it.”
Connie’s eyes shot to my face and she opened her mouth without speaking, then shook her head and chuckled. “No. I’ll believe that when I see it.”
“Then come here, and let me show you.”
Connie stepped out of the shadows and toward the well-lit staircase.
I followed.“Are you sure about this?” I asked, flexing my fingers in preparation.
She thought about it for such a long while, I wondered if I’d lost her. Finally, she tilted her head thoughtfully and regarded me with cold, black eyes. “I don’t want to be a normie again, but it would be nice to feel, to love.”
“Do you remember what it’s like? Any of those things?” I’d already started to forget during the short time I carried the curse. I couldn’t imagine what it was like for Connie to shoulder that burden for so many endless years with no promise of reprieve.
“It’s been so long.” She closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath through her nostrils, one we both knew she didn’t need.
I shrugged.“You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want.”
“Yes, but you’ll keep asking. I might as well save myself the annoyance.”
I waited in silence until she spoke again.
When she did, her voice came out at a strange cadence.“When I was mortal, I fell in love with an angel named Symont. Supernaturals didn’t have to hide in those days. The Terrans reigned and kept all species living in easy harmony. Symont and I enjoyed many blissful years together. Unfortunately, I aged normally while he hardly grew any older at all. I developed crow’s feet and smile lines, but he remained the perfect picture of youth. Forty might not seem old these days, but many centuries ago it was quite the advanced age. My love couldn’t stand to lose me, so he sought for a way to give me immortality so we could always be together.”
“So he turned you into a vampire,” I murmured.
She straightened to her full height, several inches taller than me.“I chose to become a vampire. It’s not like there’s any way to turn a mortal into an angel, so I agreed to it as the only possible solution. Once I was transformed, though, Symont hated the monster I had become. Vampires and angels are natural enemies, and what we were proved stronger than what was in our hearts.”
“He left you.” Even though I knew Connie couldn’t feel the sting of this pain from long ago, my heart ached for her.
She fixed her eyes on a spot in the far corner of the room.“Yes. He had no choice. We thought our love could overcome the curse, but we were fools.”
“Do you miss him? Are you hoping you might be able to reunite?”
She shrugged and shook her head.“I can’t remember. I remember what happened, but I’m completely removed from it. Like it happened to someone else instead of me. As for hope…” She sighed. “How could I ever think that anyone would lift the curse if we couldn’t?”
“Fluffikins tells me I am the most powerful person living. And when the world magic entered me, everything came back to me. Maybe I can help you get it back, too. Will you let me try?” I asked, raising my hands and showing off the pink glow surging within.
Connie nodded slowly.“I can’t remember how it felt to love, but logically I know it must have been amazing for me to voluntarily turn myself into this… this thing for the chance to preserve it.” She reached her hands forward and wedged her fingers between mine.
I still didn’t know exactly how my magic worked, but it was something I’d have to learn by myself. Nobody else could tell me exactly what to do. The only way to find out whether I could even lift Connie’s curse was to give it a try.
I took several deep breaths and closed my eyes, pushing magic out through my fingers into hers.
The vampire squeezed my hands tight but didn’t back away.
I kept moving forward, infusing my magic with love, compassion, humanity—even though neither of us was truly human. And apparently I had never been.
Connie sucked in a sharp breath.“I feel…” she said, but then her words broke off as she sucked in a deep, shaky breath.
I held steady, keeping the connection between us open but not pushing anything else through to her.
When Connie didn’t speak again, I blinked my eyes open just in time to see her collapse lifeless to the ground.
27
I dropped to my knees and placed my head to Connie’s chest. No heartbeat, but she also hadn’t had one before.
“Connie!” I cried out, shaking her shoulders. I was too afraid to use any more of my magic until I learned what had gone wrong here.
When she didn’t rouse, I shot the world magic from my fingertips like powerful bolts of lightning, allowing it to form in the air before me.
“Find Fluffikins,” I pleaded. “Bring him here.”
The sparkling pink swirls united in a long tendril and snaked through the ceiling.
I continued my efforts to revive Connie, but nothing I tried had any effect.No, no, no!
I wasn’t a killer, and yet five vampires had dropped dead at my feet in less than fifteen minutes.
“What did you do?” Fluffikins roared, zooming down the steps after taking care to seal the trapdoor behind him.
My magic returned and crashed into me from behind. I drew in a sharp breath from the shock. The suddenness of it hurt. My system had been given no time to adjust to the intense change, and I definitely wasn’t adept at controlling my Terran magic yet. Just look at what I’d done to Connie!
At the same time I could tell the magic had craved my touch for a long time. Centuries maybe. Fluffikins had explained that this world magic was as old as the earth itself. It didn’t belong to me nor did I belong to it, but we belonged together.
Symbiotic.
My moment of pain was nothing compared to the long years it had been forced to endure without me or others like me. We would figure this thing out.
But first we had to save Connie.
“I tried to lift the curse for her. The same way I did for myself,” I told the frantic cat at my side.
“You flooded her with the world magic?” he asked, aghast.
“No, I very slowly fed it into her. I was careful. I—”
“Didn’t listen! You didn’t listen!” he shouted in my face. “It’s too much. Her heart couldn’t hold it all. You killed her.”
“No!” I shouted. “That’s not possible! She’s a vampire. She shouldn’t have—”
Fluffikins spun and scratched at the ground, sending wave after wave of magic into Connie. Nothing happened.
“I didn’t m-mean to,” I sputtered as tears splashed across my cheeks.
“You need to learn to control your magic before you use it again,” the cat hissed.
“That’s enough for today. Return to me,” he commanded the magic inside me.
Again nothing happened.
“Return!” the boss cat shouted, spittle flying.
My skin flashed pink, then returned to its normal peach.
“You refuse?” he hissed in rage.
“Not me,” I said, trying to summon and expel the magic.
I glowed pink again, but the magic remained where it was.
The magic inside me, it was sentient. It had its own mind, and now it shared my body.
As I realized this, my hand raised of its own volition and came to rest on Connie’s chest. I watched my fingers light up as they sunk into the deceased vampire’s chest. I felt it, cold and squishy in my hand, Connie’s heart.