Page 6 of House of Night (House of Night #1)

6

Recovered Journal of Dr. Georgia Clark

February 23, Year 1, Emergence Era

The lab has everything I could possibly need to find a way to fight the virus. What I’m missing is what I was promised—Juno’s Miracle. All I have are unusable samples. If Aang gives me one more dirty look, I might snap. I don’t know what the hell Juno is thinking, and it’s not like I can ask her. I screamed ‘bullshit’ at the top of my lungs in the shower this morning like a lunatic. Something’s got to give. And soon.

T he hallway is even longer than I first thought. I stand outside my room and take deep breaths. I catch more details now—the lights along the stone ceiling, the smooth walls, the paintings and art. Everything is meticulous and clean, not even a mote of dust floating through the air. Despite being underground, it isn’t dank here. It’s simply still. As if hermetically sealed. The thought isn’t comforting.

My body is stronger. My aches remain, but they’ve faded to the background. No one has bothered me, and I haven’t heard a sound during my time in my room. If it weren’t for the food and clothes, I might have fooled myself into thinking I was alone. I’m not, so I have to be careful. I don’t know if I’m even supposed to be out here.

Sitting and wallowing are no longer options. Not when there’s a war being waged somewhere over my head. People are dying. If I can help them, then that’s what I have to do. Even if that means I forfeit my own life. I can’t let these monsters win, but I don’t know what to do to stop them. Nothing is clear. Nothing is easy.

I wish Juno were here so I could lean on her, or maybe Candice. I blink hard, Candice’s face flashing through my mind. No, not her face, the gaping wound in her throat. Candice is dead. That’s right. She’s gone. It’s like I’ve come across a grave of an old friend, someone I always loved but put away in the recesses of my mind. Discovering her death is a fresh wound, and the bridge of my nose stings with tears. Who else is gone? Who else’s grave will I stumble across?

I stop for a long while to gather myself, my thoughts disjointed as fragments of memory wash over me in sharp, stabbing waves. Then the sea is gone and I’m left alone, the water receding, leaving me gasping on the shore.

There’s so much I don’t know, but one thing I do: I can’t stop. Not now. Not until I draw my last breath. Keeping to the wall, I ease along the corridor in the opposite direction of where I went last time. I listen at the first door I come to. Nothing.

Goosebumps creep along my spine as I turn the handle. The door swings open with a small squeak. Inside is another bedroom, much like mine but decidedly empty. The bed is neatly made, everything in here untouched. I close the door and continue along, opening the doors I come to and finding more empty bedrooms.

When I reach the end of the hallway, I turn back and examine the rooms along the other side. It reminds me of a fancy hotel, room after room of exquisitely furnished quarters. Who needs this much space?

I close the last door across the hall from my own room, then give up on searching this hallway. Instead, emboldened, I stride down the center of the corridor to the staircase. Gripping the rail, I stare down at the expanse below. So many floors. They can’t be all bedrooms. There has to be more. I look up at the stone overhead—there has to be a way to escape.

“Venturing out, little rabbit?” Valen’s voice slithers through the darkness.

I white knuckle the rail and try to find him in the gloom.

“I thought you’d never come.” Taunting, his voice seems to come from everywhere all at once.

A cold breath brushes along the back of my neck. I whirl.

He’s standing across the hall, leaning against the wall, his eyes pinning me in place.

I can’t seem to breathe, to move. Loathing and terror twist inside me, both of them trying to win out over the other.

“Melody says you’ve been eating.” He looks me up and down. “Not enough, clearly.”

I grit my teeth so hard my gums ache.

“What am I to do with a skinny little rabbit like you? Damaged beyond repair.” He sighs and crosses his arms over his broad chest.

I find my voice. “You could let me go.”

He smirks. “Not until I’ve gotten every detail for High Lord Dragonis.” He’s on me before I can even blink. “Shall we begin?” He kisses me hard.

Surprised, I open my mouth in a gasp. That’s when I taste blood. His blood.

He pulls back, his pupils huge and haunting. “Tell me what you remember about your work on the cure.”

A series of images race through my mind—data, the lab, cells—along with a searing pain that rips through me like lightning.

I fall back against the railing. He cages me there, his hands on either side of me. “Tell me what you remember.”

The compulsion grips me, forcing me to speak. “I don’t know.”

“Your lies will not save you from this snare, little rabbit.” He bares his fangs.

I cringe away, but there’s nowhere to go.

“Tell me what you remember.”

The compulsion burns through me, turning my resistance to nothing but ash. “The lab,” I gasp. “The lab and my—” I jerk from the jolt of agony in my skull. “My friends. We were working. We—” I get a flash of blue eyes, intense and full of some nameless emotion. Nothing like the emotionless stare I see right now. “And you. You …”

“What, rabbit? What about me?” He grips my throat. “Tell me.”

“You were supposed to help. You—didn’t. You—” I cry out as the pain explodes and splits me in half. “You betrayed me!”

He releases my throat and backs away.

I hold onto the rail as nausea roils in my gut. He looks feral, his fangs long, blood smeared on his bottom lip. The same blood he forced into my mouth. I spit on his perfectly polished floor. “I hate you.”

Something flashes in his dark gaze. “Good.” Then he strides past me and down the stairs. His mocking voice floats up to me. “You can explore all you like, little rabbit. There’s no way out for you. Not now. Not ever.”

For two days, I’ve explored the mansion. At least, I think it’s two days. There are no clocks, no way for me to know the time or the day. This place is a tomb.

“Could you creep elsewhere?”

I startle at the sudden sound.

Gorsky, the rude young man from before, pops up from a sofa in one of the drawing rooms on the piano floor of the mansion. “I’m tired of seeing you sneak around corners and lurking in hallways. Fucking irritating.” He glares at me.

Despite his cold reception, I can’t deny I’m glad to see another person. Even if it’s him.

“What are you doing?” I step into the room, the floor a deep crimson lined with emerald rugs. Flames crackle in a fireplace that’s taller than I am and about six feet wide. Three stone dragon heads grace the mantle, their maws open as if only a moment away from breathing fire across the entire room.

“Reading.” He sighs and settles back down.

I move closer, keeping my eye on him as I settle on a side chair. He pays me no mind, his attention already returned to his book.

“What is it?”

He groans. “Can you just go on your way? I don’t need company.”

I fold my hands in my lap and sit back in the chair. Maybe he doesn’t need company, but I do. Even his.

He looks at me over the edge of the leather-wrapped tome. “You wouldn’t know it.”

“Try me.”

He slides a second book—this one with an explicit cover—from the middle of the antique-looking book. “ The Vampire’s BoyToy . Do you know it?”

“I …”

“Didn’t think so.” He slides it back down.

“Why hide it?” I glance around the empty room. “It’s not like anyone’s here to judge.”

“You’re here,” he fires back.

“I don’t care what you read.”

“Good. Now go away. Haunt some other room.” He flicks his fingers at me.

“No.” I tuck my feet beneath me.

He groans again, but he doesn’t leave.

I take that as a win. The fire crackles, sending out a wall of warmth. The mansion always seems to be cool, though not uncomfortably so. Even so, I’m always cold. The clothes in my closet range from simple t-shirts to heavy sweaters. I opt for the sweaters and jeans, though I have to cinch them tightly with a belt I stole from my bathrobe. Two layers of socks and a pair of house slippers—no other shoe choices are available—also help to insulate me from the clinical chill in the air. But there’s nothing like a roaring fire. It drew me in, and now that I feel its warmth, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

We sit in silence for a long time. I have a million questions I want to ask him, but if I do, I fear he’ll simply get up and leave. So I let him read while I watch the flames.

I’m dozing off when he slams his book shut.

“Go ahead.” He rolls his eyes.

“Hmm?” I sit up and rub my eyes.

“Talk. I can feel a logjam of stupid questions all piled up inside you. It’s like you’re constipated. You disgusted me before, now it’s even worse.”

“Why do you have such a problem with me?” I fire back.

“Because you don’t belong here,” he snaps.

“And you do?”

“Yes,” he says confidently. “Ask your idiotic questions or don’t. Up to you.”

“Where’s Valen?” I blurt out. It’s what’s always at the forefront of my mind. The fear of him. I look for him around corners and in doorways. It’s been two days since he came at me in the hallway, and I’m always tense for another attack.

“Out winning Gregor’s war.” He puts his books on the table beside him and settles down on the dark blue sofa, his feet dangling off the end.

“The war—you mean killing?—”

“Everyone.” He smiles to himself. “Killing all the humans.”

I swallow hard. “Because of Theo?”

“Yes.”

“Why? I mean—” Pain explodes behind my eyes for a moment when I try to put together my thought.

“Because Theo was his son.” Gorsky looks at me like I’m utterly stupid.

“But isn’t Valen—” The pain threatens again, and I go silent.

“Also his son?” he fills in. “Yes, but no.”

Wait, Valen is Gregor’s son? The spike in my forehead returns when I focus on that fact. Did I already know it before Gorsky said it? I can’t get a grip on my own mind. It’s like some of it has been scraped away and replaced with a mishmash of thoughts. Fragments of knowledge, all disjointed and at sharp angles.

“Theo was his heir.” He waves a hand dramatically, and I notice a bandage at his wrist. “A pureblooded Dragonis heir . Do you have any idea how rare that is? Most vampire births kill the mother and the child. For Gregor to have sired a child like Theo, and for Theo to have lived—it guaranteed their dynasty forever. The other bloodlines plotted against him, of course. Don’t get me wrong. But they knew they’d never be able to topple Gregor from his throne. But now—” He shrugs. “Now, his legacy is dead. His future is finished. He could live another thousand years and never sire another heir. It’s over.” He draws his thumb across his throat.

“But you just said Valen is also his son, right?”

“From a human mother.” His mouth twists with distaste.

“Oh.” I feign understanding.

“Don’t get me wrong. Valen is my master. He’s going to give me eternal life. I’ll be part of his Blood. A Dragonis. A powerful one.”

“He promised you that?”

He shrugs. “He doesn’t have to. I’ve been here for months . He and Melody have been drinking from me exclusively.” He puffs out his chest. “I’m all they need. You’re extra, and from what I’ve seen, you’re also extra useless.”

“Because I’m not volunteering my blood for them?”

“Has he fed from you?” he asks, the question propelled with enough force for me to realize he’d been wanting to ask it from the start.

“Um—” I think back to what he did to me at the top of the stairs. He didn’t drink my blood. Quite the opposite. “No.”

He lets out a small sigh of relief. “Good.”

“Does he feed from you?”

“Obviously.” He pulls his collar up.

I glance at his wrist. “From there?”

His eyes narrow. “That’s none of your business.”

“I could help. I was—” I shake my head. “I am a doctor. If you’re injured?—”

He snorts derisively. “I don’t need your help.” He stares me down for a long while, then closes his eyes.

He reminds me of a contented housecat, and I’m his plaything. The dying mouse he bats around for fun. “Is there a way out?” I ask.

He simply looks at me, amusement in the slight turn of his lips.

“Like a way to the surface?”

He smirks. “Oh, I knew what you were asking.”

My hands fist. “Then why won’t you answer me?”

“Because you already know the answer. Yes, there’s a way out. No, I won’t help you find it.”

Hope, just the slightest glimmer of it, flares in my chest. There is a way.

“You aren’t going anywhere.” He turns to his side, his gaze on the fire now. “Gregor already gave his orders. You’re here until you spill what you know. Then you’re dead.” He says it with contentment. “Master will kill you, and things will go back to the way they were before.”

I don’t know him. I don’t know his circumstances or what he’s been through or why he’s like this. All I know is that at this moment, I hate him. The sort of hate I thought I reserved only for the vampires. It’s spilling over now, my cup too full, the blood red wine forming a river that rises all around me.

“Doctor?” A gentle voice wakes me from my dark thoughts.

I turn my head so fast my neck cracks.

“I’m Melody. Remember?” The vampire stands just inside the doorway, her dark hair roped into a crown on top of her head. Her lips are a deep red, and she wears a navy-blue dress that fits her curvy frame perfectly.

“Yes.” I stare, my fight or flight glitching.

“Please come this way.” She steps back and gestures toward the hall. “You have a meeting.”

“A meeting?” I swallow thickly.

“Yes.” She doesn’t offer anything else.

“With who?”

No answer, but her demeanor isn’t vicious or cruel. She’s nothing like Gorsky, at least not on the outside. Inside, she’s a monster just like Valen.

“If I say no?”

Gorsky snorts. “I’d love to see it.”

“Please.” Melody drops her chin deferentially.

Good manners. Southern woman’s kryptonite. It goes straight to my Texas programming, getting me on my feet despite the fact that I’m probably marching to a grisly death.

She leads, remaining a few steps ahead as we walk across the rotunda with the piano, then down the winding stairs to a lower level. It’s darker down here. I’ve never ventured this deep, something about the entire area giving me a queasy sensation. It’s gloomy and colder, almost damp.

We keep walking past rooms within rooms. Some are closed off, the doors dark and unwelcoming. Others are simply black chasms, no door necessary to keep me out. I stick close behind her as we wind through the mansion. When we stop at a set of doors adorned with blood red stones inlaid on the surface in the form of a dragon, I clasp my hands in front of me to keep them from shaking. My skin clammy, my heart pounding, I find myself wishing for the room with the roaring fire even if it comes with Gorsky’s loathsome presence.

“Enter.” Valen’s voice, several degrees colder than usual.

Melody opens the doors and leads me into a room with similar stone inlay on the high walls, each different images of dragons. At the back of the room is a sitting area with black furniture. A fireplace burns, the flames green and giving off no heat.

Valen, turned slightly toward me, sits before the fire in a wingback chair. The other is occupied, but I can’t see who it is.

I glance at Melody. She gives a short bow and retreats, closing the doors behind her. I want to follow her out.

“You haven’t fed from her?” That voice, both scoffing and clinical at the same time.

My knees go to jelly. I know his voice. His touch. The feeling of his fangs in my wrist. I flinch back until I’m against the cold door.

“She’s weak,” Valen says, disdain dripping from his tone. “High Lord Dragonis won’t be happy if I kill her before I find out what she knows.”

“Ah.” Whitbine turns in his chair, his gaze landing on me. “Here she is.”

I scrabble for the handles. They don’t turn. I’m cornered again. I close my eyes, and I’m there again—strapped to the table, Whitbine pulling information from my mind. The same answers over and over until I’m wrung out. Dry of ideas. Dry of life. Nothing more than dust, my tears falling like sand in an hourglass.

“Why so skittish?” Whitbine clucks his tongue. “Don’t you remember me?” He smiles, his fangs descending into two sharp points.

“Do what you came here to do, and get out,” Valen snaps. “I don’t have time for your games.”

“Apologies. However, the high lord made clear I’m to be thorough in my review of her memories. He’s quite determined to find out what she knows, as am I.”

“You had her for a month,” Valen’s cold condescension seems to chill even the air. “You learned nothing. If you fail to recover what High Lord Dragonis seeks, your usefulness will be at an end.”

Whitbine clears his throat. “I will discover what she knows—” He turns back to Valen. “—and whether she’s been tampered with.”

“What are you suggesting?” Valen’s frigid tone has me yanking at the unmoving doorhandles once again.

“I’ve nothing concrete,” Whitbine says quickly. “Just that perhaps something has made her memories unreachable. It could be inadvertent, of course. Trauma or the like. Or it could be something slightly more … intentional. I’ve yet to?—”

“Do go on and bore me with every single way you’ve failed to do your duty.” Valen rises, and Whitbine quickly follows.

“Apologies, my lord.” Whitbine drops his chin in deference.

Bile coats my throat, acid rising as my stomach churns. A cold sweat breaks out along my brow, and I cower as both vampires approach me.

“Make this quick.” Valen glowers down at me. “I have a city to destroy.”

“You may leave her with me, Lord Dragonis. I?—”

“And let your incompetence continue uninterrupted and unwitnessed? I think not,” Valen snarls.

Whitbine’s eyes flash with so much malice that I flinch. Then his face returns to its perfect mask.

“Don’t touch me.” My voice shakes, my entire body revolting against the nearness of my torturer.

“Oh my dear Georgia, that’s no way to greet me, now is it?” he simpers.

“Get on with it,” Valen sighs, his expression bored, his gaze somewhere over my head.

“Doctor, let’s begin.” Whitbine takes my wrist.

I scream, horror coating my mind in acid, eating away at my sanity. I can’t do this again. I can’t go through it. I won’t survive it. With a hard yank, I try to free myself, but it does nothing to stop him. Whitbine’s too strong. Even when I’m not lashed to a table, he can still overpower me with ease.

He brings my wrist to his mouth, but Valen grabs him by the throat and lifts him from the floor. “She’s mine ,” he seethes. “You may not take from her.”

“Ah.” Whitbine chokes out. “Understood.”

When Whitbine releases my wrist, I fall back, then try to dart away. Valen catches me easily and pins me against the doors.

“Let go!” I scream and fight. I’m not helpless now. Not strapped down. But Valen’s grip may as well be thick iron chains. “No more theatrics, little rabbit.” He turns to Whitbine. “Do it.”

Quickly, Whitbine swipes his blood between my lips, grazing across my teeth. The acrid taste of it invades my senses, and I cry out as it takes hold.

“Don’t fight it,” Whitbine says. Except it’s not just him saying it. It’s a command.

Immediately, the tension leaves my body.

Valen releases me and steps back.

“Sit with me.” Whitbine leads me to a couch near the fireplace.

It doesn’t matter how badly I want to bolt out the doors or even jump into the damned green flames. I can’t. I can only do what Whitbine tells me.

“Let’s warm up, shall we?” He settles beside me, his gaze holding mine captive. “Speak only truthfully, Dr. Clark. Now, tell me what’s happened since you’ve been in Lord Dragonis’s care.”

The compulsion is bitter on my tongue. “I woke up here, and there was a man who taunted me. He said we were blood consorts. He was cruel…” I speak for long minutes, going over every detail, every moment I spent waking and sleeping, eating and creeping around the corridors.

Whitbine’s expression changes to amused when I recount how Gorsky wants me dead. I keep talking until I get to the now, to sitting here with Whitbine.

“Has Lord Dragonis questioned you?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Did you answer him truthfully?”

“Yes.”

His eyes flash. “I see. And how do you feel about Castle Dragonis?”

“I hate it.”

He tsks, his mouth twisting with slight amusement. “Quite rude to speak thus in front of your host.” He cuts a look to Valen. “However, I appreciate your honesty. Now that we’ve gotten a better hold on your memory, let’s go back. Tell me about your work on the cure. Let’s begin when you first came to DC. Let’s begin with your sister’s inauguration.”

I don’t know how long Whitbine questions me. It feels like days. Could be hours. Could be less. Time doesn’t mean anything when I’m under the compulsion, when my entire consciousness is laid bare and sliced into thin strips. Bits of information that Whitbine digests. He’s chewed me up many times, the same questions asked and answered.

“But you never found a cure?” he asks.

“I don’t know.” My head is splitting in half, the pain so great that my entire body shakes from the weight of it. I can’t remember. All these questions I can’t answer. Whitbine has cut and cut and cut, dissecting my memories over and over again, but still there are things he can’t find. Things I don’t know. Things that have been stolen from me either by Whitbine or some trauma I can’t fully grasp. Were the answers ever in there? I don’t know.

“Did you come close to finding a cure?”

“I don’t know.” Thud, thud, thud . Each beat of my heart is another hammer blow to the spike in my head.

Whitbine nods and looks somewhere over my shoulder. “You see, my lord? This is where I fear the tampering has occurred. She recalls her work—though not in detail—and has completely blocked out any recollection of the cure.”

“You’ve no need to explain your incompetence to me.” Valen’s voice, low and snide.

“Of course, my lord.” Whitbine turns back to me. “Did you use vampire blood to create a cure?”

“I don’t know.” I shake from the impact, from the agony inside. A pained moan rises in my throat.

Whitbine holds up a clawed finger. “No blubbering. No sound except your answers to my questions.”

Tears well, but I don’t make a sound. I can’t.

“Were you present when Lord Theo Dragonis was killed?” he asks.

“I don’t know.” I gasp out the answer, my vision flooding with black spots. I remember this. I’m close to passing out. The pain has gone somewhere deep now, in my marrow, in places where no human can withstand it.

“Who killed Lord Theo Dragonis?”

“I don’t know.” Just saying the words is like swallowing lava. My blood is boiling, everything inside me screaming and clawing.

“You know the answer, Dr. Clark. Now tell me who killed him,” Whitbine demands.

Like a rubber band stretched too far, my mind snaps. The blackness takes over, swamping me like a murder of crows taking flight. No Whitbine. No questions. No pain. Only me, alone in the velvet dark.