Chapter 13
After a fierce staring contest, I agreed to postpone my inspection of the school’s nether regions in exchange for Alessandro giving me a proper tour—and the boys promising not to murder each other. It seemed like a reasonable deal. But my gut told me otherwise.
Would three immortals always manipulate me? Probably. But how do you beat teenagers who’ve had centuries to practice their strategies?
I climbed two flights of stairs to my apartment, dragging myself like a sack of potatoes. After jotting down notes on the staff meeting and the tunnel trouble, I yawned so hard my jaw cracked. I would message Alessandro later. Being nocturnal didn’t agree with me any more than it agreed with my circadian rhythm.
I pulled on my nightgown and headed for bed. If I didn’t sleep soon, I’d be useless to everyone, including myself.
My eyes closed the second I settled my head on the pillow.
“Knock. Knock,” said Harvey, who stood beside the silver door, gesturing at it like a game show host presenting a car neither of us wanted.
“You had to remind me,” I mumbled.
“You know yourself, darlin’. This mystery’s been prickling under your skin all day. How can you get any real rest when you know what’s lurking behind those bricks.”
“I think I can manage not knowing for a few hours.”
“But it could be bad,” said Harvey.
I took a deep breath. It could be very bad.
“Sometimes,” I said, “I hate you.”
The silver door swung open easily this time, as I’d already cracked its seal on my first visit. It creaked on its hinges to reveal the red brick wall. Unchanged. Unmoved. It was like a problem that had been waiting patiently for me to return.
Part of me had hoped the barrier would be gone. Like a bad dream. But there it sat in all its glory. A strange feeling swept through me—not foreboding exactly, because it wasn’t dark. More like a prickly awareness of the unknown. A mystery that had decided I was the one to solve it.
My gut clenched. I like knowing my place in the universe. I have never been someone who enjoys surprises—not when they involve my own life. I crave certainty and, if we’re being honest, control.
I touched the bricks. Nothing happened. They felt cold, rough, and solid, as bricks tend to do.
They smelled like bricks too.
“I don’t know, Harvey. Maybe the room’s been bricked off for structural reasons—holding up the ceiling, supporting the walls. If I meddle with it, the whole roof might come down.”
“Uh-huh.” Harvey tapped his foot.
I ran my hand along the outer edges of the wall. No light came from the other side. No darkness either. “My working theory is that Alessandro’s renovating one section of the manor at a time and the top floor’s next on his list.”
I bit my lip. “Then again, he knows I don’t like ghosts. Maybe the madam’s ghost is in there.” I shivered.
“So, you won’t move it because the roof might fall down,” said Harvey, “or because a ghost might fall out.”
I leaned forward and licked a brick.
Harvey stared at me.
“It tastes like a brick,” I confirmed.
He huffed. “Ever ask yourself why an immortal like Alessandro is in such a hurry to get this academy running? And why, after centuries of considering it, he picked you?”
“I’m sure he has his reasons.” Of course I’d thought about it. “Alessandro treats secrets like treasure. He gathers them, hoards them, protects them—like a dragon sitting on gold he’ll never spend. My best guess is he needs to move quickly to protect whatever he’s sitting on.”
“Or?”
“He genuinely cares about those boys and wants to turn their undead lives around before they get any worse.” I paused. “In seven years, he’s never lied to me.”
I extended all my witch senses toward the wall. Still nothing.
“It’s just a brick wall, Harvey. Old bricks mostly, a few new ones, fresh mortar between them. No spell. No magic signature. No ghost.” I exhaled. “It’s just a brick wall.”
“Mm hmm,” said Harvey. “A brick wall in your bedroom. In a former bordello. Now housing delinquent vampires. Nothing strange about that at all, darlin’.”
If I’d had a carrot, I would have thrown it at him. “What could Alessandro possibly be hiding? And why here?”
“Something he wants to keep from you,” said Harvey, “but not far away.”
“Now there’s a riddle.”
A knock at my bedroom door made us both turn.
“Who is it?” I called.
“James.”
I winced. “Hey, James, it’s really late for a mortal witch. Can this wait until tomorrow night?”
“I have a fine bottle of champagne to celebrate the end of our first staff meeting,” he replied, his voice warm and deliberate, like velvet draped over a very nice trap.
“No, thank you.”
“No, you don’t like champagne—or no, not tonight?” His voice could have melted butter from across the room. If he were a pastry, he would be a chocolate croissant: dangerously appealing and bad for your health.
No to everything, I thought.
“Go away, James,” I said. “I’m tired.” I really needed to find a way to keep vampires out of my apartment that didn’t involve garlic or a stern memo.
The sound of his footsteps faded. I turned back to the wall. The only question left was whether to spell it or hex it. A spell would be faster. I raised my arms.
My phone buzzed.
“Cassie?” I blurted.
“I know it’s late, but I’m worried about you. No one’s bitten you yet, have they?”
“I’m fine. Just exhausted. It’s been a long night.”
“Just one thing.”
I scoffed.
“Don’t trust Alessandro. Ever.” She clicked off.
I looked at Harvey. “Maybe I should give my favorite vampire a call.”
Alessandro picked up after one ring. “Yes.” His familiar gravelly voice moved through the room like smoke.
Where to begin. “The students were fighting tonight, and local mages tried to infiltrate the tunnels.”
“Rebel,” he said warmly. “How nice to hear your voice. I trust you enjoyed your first night.”
“Did you hear what I said?”
He tsked. “Boys will be boys. Vampire boys will be vampire boys.” A pause. I could practically hear his shrug.
“They aren’t boys, and the noise in the tunnels upset the entire staff. There seems to be some coffin-position power struggle going on, but I think it goes deeper than that. They don’t want me down there, and they won’t say why.”
“I see.”
“Do you? Alessandro, I need access to those tunnels. If I’m to run this building, I need to know what’s in it.”
“Yes. Yes, of course.” Another pause. Then, in the background, the rustle of sheets and a soft female voice saying, Come back.
“Hmm,” said Alessandro a moment later. “I’m not entirely sure a tunnel tour is necessary. Not just yet.” A beat. “There’s quite a lot of sawdust.”
“And what about the brick wall in my bedroom?”
“Excuse me?”
“The brick wall,” I said, enunciating with great care, “in my bedroom. Are you telling me you didn’t know about it?”
“Uh. Hmm. Uh … Leave it. It wasn’t there the last time I looked, and I don’t want you to stumble into something …”
I ended the call.
The nerve of that man. Expecting me to live in his crumbling manor and simply ignore things.
“No,” said Harvey sharply. “No, no, no, darlin’. I know that look.”
“What look?”
“The devil be damned look. The I’m going to do exactly what I want look.”
“I can’t let the grand vampire from Amsterdam have his way all the time.” I turned back to the bricks and studied them one last time. “I’m going in before he sends backup to stop me.”
“Maybe you should call Cassie.”
“I can handle this.” I rolled up my metaphorical sleeves. It’s just bricks.
I drew my magic into my fingertips, raised my arms, and let fly a plasma ball. It hit the center of the wall made a sound like a cannon shot and shattered the bricks in every direction. The house shook on its foundation. A vortex of wind swept the debris to the floor—and all over me.
Slowly the dust settled, and I stood looking through a hole in the wall.
Chapter 14
Piercing brown eyes stared back at me.
“Took you long enough,” they seemed to say.
I’m not sure what I expected to find behind a mysterious sealed wall in a converted Victorian bordello housing vampire delinquents. A bricked-up ghoul, maybe. A scaly demon who’d taken advantage of the entertainment in the house’s former life. A deranged wizard laying low after the wizard war. A Fae lord orchestrating this entire chapter of my existence out of spite for my father.
I have to admit I considered all of these. I have a vivid imagination and an overactive threat assessment.
What I had not considered was a hot guy in a suit.
He looked like he belonged on the cover of a business magazine—the kind where everyone is described as “visionary” and no one smiles with their teeth. He stood with his arms folded and a bored expression so complete it was almost artful.
Thirties. Excellent bone structure. Glowing skin. Manly man smell. I took it all in.
Then his fangs descended.
Of course.
I’d found myself another bloodsucker for a roomie.
A crease formed between his brows as he studied me in return, but he said nothing. The silence was deliberate. I’m sure of it. He looked like the sort of person who let silence do the heavy lifting.
On my hot-guy scale of ten, he was a twelve, and I deeply resented it. He looked like Ryan Reynolds with bangs.
Hush, I told my libido.
A slow smile crossed his face.
That’s when I noticed, with some concern, that one of his fangs had what appeared to be blood on the tip.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I come with the furniture,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m part of the deal.” A quick, practiced grin. “The deal you made with Alessandro.”
“I think not.”
He shrugged. “Page 201 of your contract. Fine print.”
“You’re a friend of Alessandro’s?”
“You could say that.” He looked me over with the measured calm of someone who has never once been startled.
“So, Alessandro wants you here.”
“Obviously, or I wouldn’t be here.”
“Right. So, you’re the janitor.”
He said nothing.
“Professor of Communications, then. You’d be good at that.”
“The witch thinks she’s funny.”
“Okay. Not a janitor. Not a teacher. Definitely not a witch.” I flipped my hair, which was coated in brick fragments, with what I hoped conveyed casual authority but probably made me look like a deranged cave woman. “What, then?”
“This is getting tedious,” he said, glancing past me to my bedroom like he was evaluating the square footage. “Close the door and leave me be.”
“Not until you explain who you are and why you’re in my wall.”
A half-smile. “Demanding.” He paused. “Let’s say I’m your worst nightmare. Your best friend. Your—” His voice, which sounded like good whisky served neat, trailed off with the air of someone who finds conclusions beneath them.
“I got it,” I said. “You’re a pain.”
A full smile this time. “I am the man you can’t do without.”
“Let me stop you there. I have done without every man I’ve ever met and found the experience refreshing.”
The skin around the corners of his eyes crinkled. “I’ll keep the brats in line for you.”
“First, I don’t call students brats. Second, I don’t need a counselor who hides in walls.”
“I’m not a counselor, Rebecca.” He straightened slightly. “Alessandro has asked me to serve as warden of this establishment.”
Asked, I thought. Or blackmailed.
“I have an extensive background in defense systems, martial arts, and blood sorcery, if required.”
“I don’t need a warden or blood sorcery from a dead man,” I said, in my most polished principal voice. “That’s not the kind of academy I intend to run.” I stood as tall as I could manage, which was undermined somewhat by the fact that I was coated in plaster dust and had been awake far too long.
“You’ll need me.” He said without arrogance. “My name is Onyx.”
Another one-word name that wasn’t really a name. I was beginning to think vampires named themselves in a word generator. “It sounds like a setting on a high-end convection oven.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re insulting me.”
“I’m Rebecca Black,” I said. “But you know that.”
“Rebel,” he said. “Alessandro always calls you his sister, Rebel.”
The way he said it—the slight roll of the r, deliberate or not—did something inconvenient to my heartbeat. I chose to classify this as a medical anomaly and move on.
“Alright, big picture,” I said. “What happens if I refuse to have you here?”
He started to laugh and caught himself. “Let’s be precise about this, witch. The question isn’t whether you want to keep me. It’s whether I want to keep you.”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t have time for this.”
“You have exactly eleven nights left to honor your deal.” He said it pleasantly.
“Wonderful. You can count. Might come in handy. You could teach basic algebra.”
Something flashed in his eyes—the first real emotion I’d seen from him.
I held my ground. “One more question.”
He groaned.
“Why the brick wall?”
“I like privacy.”
“Wrong address for that. We have three vampire teenagers in the basement who treat locked doors as a suggestion. One of them told me he’s technically the same age as me but considerably more intelligent. There is no privacy in this building—there’s barely insulation.” I paused. “And the fact that I’m supposed to civilize any of this,” I paused to wave my hands about, “is frankly delusional. I don’t know what Alessandro is thinking.”
“I’ve met the boys,” said Onyx. “I’ve made arrangements with each of them. They respect me.”
“Deals.“ The word came out like a mild curse. “I have never met a vampire who couldn’t turn a perfectly simple situation into a deal.”
“Deals are how the undead world functions.” He said this as if explaining gravity to an apple. “I can’t make them obey you—obeying mortals isn’t in their nature—but they’ve agreed to answer to me.”
“And if they don’t listen to me?”
He raised one eyebrow, and somehow that single eyebrow managed to convey more menace than most people achieve with their whole face.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll keep you.”
I raised my hand and sent a second plasma ball into the remaining bricks. The wall came down with a satisfying crash, leaving his full room exposed—a mirror image of my own.
“That was unnecessary,” said Onyx.
“If I’m running this building, I have access to all of it.” I surveyed the rooms. “Have the carpenters build a locked door. I’ll never enter your side without an invitation. I expect the same from you.”
I registered, a moment later, the particular irony of promising to wait for a vampire’s invitation.
Onyx stared at me with his fangs very much on display. And the blood still dripping off of one.
I turned, crossed back to my own bed, and shut the silver door behind me.
“You know,” Onyx said, through the door, “locks don’t keep vampires out.
Where can I find the other chapters?
If you want to catch up, you can find all the posted Chapters here:
1, 2, 3, 4&5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11&12
The next episode drops next Friday.
How can you buy the book?
The new edition of this boo will be available later in the summer..
Sources:
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Final Note
Thanks for reading my story.
Please, feel free to share it. That’s how most people find me, and I appreciate it.
See you between the lines.
With gratitude,
Jo-Ann
P.S. If you like my writing check out my books (including the free ones) listed here.