Page 20 of Nocturne

19

LENA

T he fog rolls in from the ocean, spreading cloudy fingers into the air, seeming to wrap around the house like a ghostly embrace. From the expansive balcony, I can barely make out where the sea ends and the sky begins, both merged into a canvas of infinite gray. The crashing waves below are more sound than sight, a rhythmic heartbeat in the darkness.

I’ve been standing here for nearly an hour, sipping blood wine and letting the cool mist caress my skin while the men inside discuss what it means to be vampire, their voices carrying. Abe’s has been patiently explaining our history, our abilities, our limitations. The things we can do. The things we must never do. The responsibilities that come with immortality.

Callahan has said little, mostly listening, occasionally asking questions that a detective would ask, albeit one that’s investigating his own life.

The sliding glass door opens behind me, and I know without turning who it is. The smell of sandalwood and tobacco wafts past, calling to something primal within me. A scent that makes me register Callahan as mine, even though he’s not.

“Mind some company?” Callahan asks, his voice rough with fatigue.

I turn to face him. “Please. I was hoping they’d release you soon.”

He steps out, a glass of red wine in his hand. In the dim light from the house, I can see the exhaustion etched on his face, the weight of revelations pressing down on his broad shoulders. Despite that though, his aura is still powerful, more so than ever before. With his striking blue eyes and black hair, with the fog and the night wrapping around us, he really does seem like a predator of the dark. And while Callahan has always had me running hot, the idea that this man is actually a vampire like myself has me drawn to him like never before.

“Abe offered me blood,” he says, lifting the wine glass. “I couldn’t bring myself to drink it. Not consciously, anyway.”

“More of a wine guy,” I comment. “Your vampire side has different tastes.”

“My vampire side.” He says the words like they’re in a foreign language, testing how they feel on his tongue. “Like I’m two people, Jekyll and Hyde.”

I lean against the railing, watching him. “It’ll integrate eventually. I’m sure it will. That’s essentially what transition is—the merging of both aspects of yourself into something whole.”

“And what if I don’t want to merge?” The question comes out quietly, almost too low to hear over the surf below. “What if I just want to go back to being human?”

“You were never human, Callahan. Just like I wasn’t. We were born this way.” He takes a long swallow of wine as I add, “It’s not shameful. It’s who we are. We’re a product of nature, like everything else.”

“Lena, you feed on people. We’re like…cannibals. We kill humans.”

“We’re not cannibals, because we aren’t the same species. You have to make peace with that fact. And we don’t have to kill to feed. Most of us don’t. We learn the different ways to feed without harm.”

“But I did.” His knuckles whiten around the stem of the wine glass.

“You didn’t know what was happening to you. You had no control. What you wanted was blood without knowing how you should get it.”

“And what about Elizabeth Short?” He finally looks at me, his blue eyes haunted. “What if I killed her too and just don’t remember? She was drained of blood…why would any human do such a thing?”

I shake my head firmly, refusing to even entertain his inane musings. Victor Callahan, the Black Dahlia killer? “You need to stop with this. The timelines don’t match. The Winters murder, the first ritual killing, happened before your thirty-fifth birthday. Before your transition began. You couldn’t have done that.”

“But Elizabeth?—”

“Betty was killed the same way. By the same people. Possibly vampires.”

“The Ivanovs,” he says under his breath.

“Perhaps.”

He falls silent, considering this. The wind shifts, bringing a stronger surge of mist that momentarily obscures the space between us.

“How was it for you?” he asks, changing the subject. “Your transition.”

I look away, the memories still vivid despite the years. “I was twenty-one. My parents knew what was coming—they’d been preparing me my whole life for the Becoming , as we call it. Sounds rather ominous, doesn’t it?”

The images flood back—my mother’s worried face, my father’s steady hands as they led me into the barn on the outskirts of Salem. The chains they’d prepared, strong enough to hold me when the bloodlust hit.

“They took me to an old barn,” I continue, “far enough from town that no one would hear. They chained me to support beams they’d reinforced specially for this purpose.”

“They chained you?” Callahan sounds horrified. “A twenty-one-year-old girl?”

“They had to. The Becoming is violent. Unpredictable. The hunger that sweeps through you is unlike anything you can imagine. It’s all-consuming. You’d do anything to satisfy it.” I pause, remembering the burning need, the animal rage. “There’s also a sexual component. An overwhelming desire that mirrors the thirst for blood. This is the real bloodlust.”

His eyes darken at this, and I feel the air between us charge with primal energy.

“It lasted three days,” I tell him. “My father brought animals for me to feed on—deer, mostly. Some human blood they’d procured in an ethical manner. Enough to sustain me until the worst had passed and I could control myself again.”

“And then?”

“And then I learned to live with what I am. My parents taught me how to feed without killing, how to move among humans without detection. It was strange, like learning to be human all over again. Pretending to be human.” I give him a sad smile. “They wanted me to stay in Salem, where it was safe, where they could protect me. But I wanted more. I wanted to sing. To see the world. So I came to Los Angeles, just like everyone else does.”

“Where you met Elizabeth,” he says softly.

“Yes. Where I met Betty.” I push away from the railing, needing movement. “That’s why we have to find these Ivanovs. See if they’re behind the killings. We have to do it for her. For all their victims. We have to find the truth.”

“And if it turns out I’m her killer?” he asks.

I step closer to him, close enough to feel the heat radiating from his body. “Please. Stop. You’re not. I know you. The real you. Not just the detective, not just the vampire, but the man beneath it all. The man who killed Marco because of how he treated me, the same man who shot dead others who hurt me. A man who would protect me against all odds. That man couldn’t have planned and executed these sick, ritual murders.”

He doesn’t move away, but I see the struggle in his eyes—wanting to believe, afraid to hope. “You can’t know that for certain.”

“I can. I do.” I reach up, my fingers hovering just shy of his face, not quite touching. “Let me show you who you really are.”

His breathing quickens as I close the remaining distance, my hand cupping his cheek. His skin is warm beneath my palm, the stubble rough against my fingers. I lean in slowly, giving him time to pull away.

He doesn’t.

My lips brush his, tentative at first, then with growing confidence as he responds. I can taste the wine on his tongue, feel the restrained power in the arms that cautiously encircle my waist. My body thrums, wanting, needing to be held. For a moment, everything else falls away. There is only this connection, this recognition of kindred spirits finding each other in the darkness.

Then he stiffens, abruptly pulling back. His face contorts in desire and fear.

“I can’t,” he whispers, voice ragged, his gaze averting mine. “I can’t risk losing control. Not with you. Not now.”

The rejection stings more than it should. “You won’t hurt me, Callahan. I’m not human. I’m stronger than you think. You should know that by now.” I pause. “The other night when you paid me a visit, you were rough and you weren’t yourself but you never hurt me.”

He steps away, putting distance between us. “It’s not just about hurting you. It’s about what happens if I let that part of myself fully emerge—what if being with you brings it out? And what if I can’t go back? What if I lose whatever humanity I have left?”

My heart sinks, seeing how desperately he’s clinging to the identity he’s known all his life, the fear of fully embracing what he truly is. And beneath that, the terror that if he allows himself to want me, to have me, the ultimate loss of control, that it will somehow complete his transformation.

“You don’t have to lose yourself to find yourself,” I tell him, but I can see my words aren’t reaching him. They bounce off him as if he’s made of steel.

“I need time,” he says, not meeting my eyes. “To process all of this. To figure out who—what—I am now.”

I nod, though disappointment settles cold and heavy in my chest. “Of course.”

He sets down his empty wine glass on the small table between the lounge chairs. “I should get some rest. Abe offered me the guest room at the end of the hall.”

I see. He won’t be sleeping in my bed tonight, that’s what he’s telling me. I swallow hard.

“Goodnight, then,” I say, keeping my voice neutral despite the tangle of emotions within.

He pauses at the door, looking back at me. For a moment, I think he might change his mind, might return to my arms, might tell me to join him in his bed or offer to be in mine. Instead, he simply says, “Goodnight, Lena,” and disappears into the house.

I remain on the balcony long after he’s gone, the fog thickening around me until I’m wrapped in a cocoon of silence and gray. Eventually, I return inside, spending what remains of the night in restless contemplation of what might have been.

Morning brings a layer of fog over the ocean with clear skies and weak, pale sunshine above that does little to warm the chill I feel. I dress quickly, eager to find Callahan, to continue our conversation from the night before. Perhaps in daylight, his fears will seem less overwhelming. Perhaps while he’s slept, he’s started to embrace his true nature and come to terms with what it means.

But when I enter the kitchen, I find only Abe in a plush robe, sipping his English breakfast tea at the marble-topped island.

“Good morning,” he says, his accent more pronounced in the early hours. “Sleep well?”

“Where’s Callahan?” I ask, ignoring his question.

Abe’s expression tells me everything before he speaks. “He left about an hour ago. Said he needed to follow up on a lead at the police station.”

“And you just let him go?” I can’t keep the accusation from my voice.

“He’s not a prisoner, Lena,” Abe says mildly. “He has his own free will.”

“He doesn’t understand what he is yet. What he’s capable of. What’s hunting him.” I pace the kitchen, agitation making it impossible to stay still. “The Ivanovs, if they’re behind this, they could be watching. Cohen’s men too.”

“He’s a grown man. And a detective.” Abe refills his cup from the silver teapot.

“Private investigator,” I say wearily.

“Regardless. He went to the station, I’m sure the safest place possible for him right now, providing there isn’t a warrant out for him from last night. Besides, he took precautions. Adonis drove him into the city, made sure he wasn’t followed.”

I stop pacing, processing this. “Adonis is with him?”

“No. Callahan insisted on going alone once they reached the city limits.” Abe studies me over the rim of his teacup. “He’s not the first vampire to struggle with his nature, Lena. He won’t be the last.”

“He’s different,” I insist. “He didn’t know what he was. He’s been thrown into this without preparation, without understanding.”

“Is that why you’re so drawn to him? Because he needs saving?”

The question catches me off guard. “I’m not trying to save him.”

“Aren’t you?” Abe sets down his cup. “You’ve always had a weakness for strays, for broken things that need fixing. First Elizabeth, now Callahan.”

“He’s not broken.”

“No, but he is incomplete. Caught between worlds.” Abe’s gaze is sympathetic but penetrating. “And to be frank with you, I’m not sure how we’ll be able to fix him other than giving him time.”

Before I can respond, Valtu enters the kitchen, bare-chested in black silk pajama bottoms, his dark hair tousled from sleep. He takes in my obvious distress with a knowing look.

“Lover’s quarrel?” he asks, reaching for a mug.

“Callahan left,” I tell him, not bothering to correct his assumption.

“Ah. The new vampire fled the nest.” Valtu fills his mug with coffee, then adds a splash from a flask he produces from his pocket, something that smells like alcohol and blood. “Can’t say I blame him. It’s a lot to take in.”

“He could be in danger,” I say.

“Or he could be dangerous,” Valtu counters. He gestures toward the beach with his mug. “Walk with me?”

I glance at Abe, who nods encouragingly. “Go. Clear your head. We’ll figure out our next move when you return.”

Outside, the morning sun has burned away some of the mist, though tendrils still cling to the shoreline. Valtu and I make our way down the wooden stairs to the beach below the house, our feet sinking into cool sand still damp from the tide. The fact that he’s still shirtless save for his black silk pajama pants gives him the appearance of being some dark sea king having emerged from the depths.

We walk in silence for several minutes, the rhythmic crash of waves providing a backdrop to my tumultuous thoughts. Finally, Valtu speaks.

“Remember how you said that you didn’t think either of us knew much about love?”

“Mmmm,” I say, not liking where this conversation is going.

“You still believe that?”

“More than ever.”

He gives me a sly smile. “But you are in love with him. I can tell.”

“I am not in love with him.”

He sighs. “Fine. But what’s set in motion cannot be stopped. You’re falling in love, at this moment, as we speak.”

I want to deny it again. I am not in love with Callahan. I don’t even know what love feels like, I’ve never felt it before. But I can’t pretend I don’t feel it coming, like standing on the edge of a cliff, waiting for the slightest to breeze to knock you down.

“Is it obvious?” I ask warily. I’ve always prided myself in wearing a mask, keeping my emotions hidden beneath my voice and red lipstick.

“Only to someone who’s been alive as long as I have.” He takes a sip from his spiked coffee. “I recognize the signs. The way you look at him. The way you gravitate toward him, even when you’re trying not to.”

“Maybe he’s just good in bed,” I tell him

He smiles and shrugs. “He’s a vampire. Of course he knows how to fuck you properly. But it’s more than that and I think you know it.”

“It doesn’t matter. He’s not ready. May never be.”

“Give him time. The transition is difficult enough when you’ve been raised knowing what to expect. For him?” Valtu shakes his head. “Poor bastard. It must be like waking up in a foreign country where you don’t speak the tongue. Imagine discovering your entire identity was a lie?”

“I know that,” I say, frustration edging my voice. “But what if we don’t have time?”

Valtu makes a scoffing noise and pulls me to a stop. “Time? We have nothing but time.” He puts a strong hand on my shoulder, peering down at me. “Lena. What I said the other day is true. You’re young. For a vampire, you’re very, very young. You don’t yet realize what immortality is. You haven’t felt the way time stretches between your fingers, like dough, never breaking. You haven’t seen your loved ones die, time and time again, while you soldier on, cursed to keep going.”

While Valtu’s voice remains smooth, neutral, there’s something in his brown eyes than make them seem darker than ever, like a deep-rooted pain.

“Cursed?” I repeat. “You see this as a curse?”

He grimaces. “If you’re unlucky enough to fall in love with a human, then yes, it’s a curse.”

“This person you lost…” I begin.

“They… she …is irrelevant right now,” he says. “We’re talking about you, darling. If you fall in love with this Callahan, then don’t resist it. Hang onto it. He will come around eventually, if he’s not already there. Who knows, you might be the key in bringing his two halves together. And if takes time, so be it. You both have all the time in the world.”

We walk further down the beach, away from the house, the fog thickening again as we near a rocky outcropping.

“But others don’t,” I eventually say. “If the Ivanovs are behind the murders, then they’ll strike again.”

He casts me a furtive glance. “This sounds like a problem for humans, not for us.”

“Betty was my friend,” I tell him sharply. “It became my problem when one of my friends was murdered.”

His mouth twitches in sympathy. “Perhaps I misspoke. It’s not a problem for us anymore. I’m sorry they killed your friend. But we are not involved. This is between them, not us.”

“But if the Ivanovs did it, they are us. They’re vampires. I know the rules. I know that we all abide by them so that we don’t cause problems, so that we stay out of trouble, so that we don’t draw attention to ourselves. But they’re breaking the rules, clearly. They’re serial killers. They’re making the whole world look our way. And for what? For what reason?”

“I have my theories.”

“Which are?”

“The Ivanovs are old blood,” he says thoughtfully. “Russian nobility that have been around since the first age of Skarde, mingling between the worlds. Once they were fully expelled from the Red Realm, they fled to Europe, then to New York. Then here. They brought arcane knowledge with them, practices that blended vampire abilities with something darker.”

“The magic you and Abe were talking about.”

“Of a sort. Certain vampire bloodlines maintained connections to pagan practices, rituals that could amplify our natural abilities.” He pauses, looking out at the misty horizon. “I’ve encountered the Ivanovs before, you know, centuries ago. We ran in the same circles, as ones does when you’re all vampires from the same area.”

“And were they the type to start murdering random women in a horrible, ritualistic fashion?”

He gives me a cold smile. “Oh yes. But make no mistake, there’s nothing random about the murders. Each one was chosen for a reason. And whether the Ivanovs did it for some sacrificial reason, or it was simply a deranged human, we need to figure out what that reason is.” He pauses. “It’s a good thing Callahan is already on the case. Seems like the type to get things done.”

“He is,” I say.

But that doesn’t make me worry any less.

“Would you be able drive me back to my apartment?” I ask Valtu.

“Now?”

I nod. “I want to get my stuff, while we still have daylight. Feels like I won’t be ambushed with the world out and about.” Even though that didn’t stop Cohen’s thugs from throwing acid in my face in a busy hotel bar.

“Guess you’ll be moving in here.”

“Guess so.”

Guess I’ll be saying goodbye to another part of my life.

Two hours later, Valtu and I are standing on the hill outside my apartment building, the mid-day sun casting harsh shadows on the facade that had once felt like home. The building seems different now—a reminder of a life I can no longer return to, of a career that might be over.

“Stay behind me,” Valtu says quietly as we enter the lobby, his aristocratic features tensing. “Just in case.”

We climb the stairs silently, Valtu moving with the fluid grace of centuries of predatory experience. At my door, he pauses, nostrils flaring slightly as he seems to listen.

There’s someone inside , he projects inside my mind . At least two of them. They’re looking through your things.

I nod, stepping back as Valtu places his hand on the doorknob.

Try not to break the door down , I quickly tell him, thinking of Callahan’s damage. I had to pay my landlord through the nose to replace it.

He nods and with a swift, controlled motion, he breaks the lock and pushes the door open in one smooth movement. Least it stays on the hinges.

Two men in grey suits spin around from where they’ve been ransacking my living room. One reaches for his gun, but Valtu is already across the room, moving with supernatural speed that makes even other vampires look sluggish. He grabs the first man by the throat, lifting him off his feet with one hand while the other disarms him.

The second man manages to fire a single shot before Valtu is on him too. The bullet grazes Valtu’s shoulder, barely drawing blood, nothing that won’t heal in minutes. With efficient brutality that speaks of countless battles across centuries, Valtu slams the man’s head against the wall, leaving a crack in the plaster and the man unconscious.

The first man struggles in Valtu’s grasp, eyes bulging, face purpling.

“What are you?” he gasps, terror replacing the tough-guy facade.

Valtu smiles, revealing extended fangs. “The monster under your bed.” His voice carries the weight of ages, of the very legend that inspired his literary counterpart, before he buries his teeth in the man’s neck.

Meanwhile, I close the door behind us, surveying the damage to my apartment. They’ve been thorough—drawers emptied, furniture overturned, even floorboards pried up where I once hid Elizabeth’s diary. Goes to show they weren’t the ones who stole it in the first place.

“They were looking for something,” I say as Valtu finishes drinking from the man’s neck, the man slowly losing consciousness, before he drags the body toward the bathroom.

I grab the man’s feet, helping Valtu maneuver him into the bathtub. Then Valtu returns for the first man he killed, bringing the body into the bathroom as well, blood smearing the hardwood floors. I was smart enough to not have a carpet—I’d never get my insurance deposit back after that. But after the crack in the plaster, and the broken locks, I think that money is long gone.

With both men bunched up in the tub, Valtu pulls their arms over the side and bites into their wrists, tearing open flesh until blood starts flowing out. He places a bucket beneath to catch the red rivers. Suddenly I flashback to my hallucination from the other night, the blood running under the door. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had a premonition.

“We don’t know if anyone heard that gunshot, and obviously we can’t leave bodies for the police to find,” Valtu explains, collecting the blood. “And this…” he gestures to the flowing crimson, “this is survival. We can’t let any blood go to waste.”

I watch with a mixture of practicality and revulsion. This is who we are at the heart of it all, predators who feed on humans. Yet seeing it performed by Valtu, with the casual expertise of someone who has done this countless times across centuries, drives home the reality in a way that my own feeding never has, even after killing that child murderer the other week.

“We’ll need to dispose of them,” I say, focusing on the logistics to avoid dwelling on the gruesome scene.

Valtu nods. “The bathtub will contain the mess. I’ll drain them completely, then dismember the bodies. The pieces will fit in your freezer until we can arrange proper disposal.”

He says this so simply I nearly laugh. As if he hacks up people and puts them in his freezer on a daily basis. Perhaps he’s more like Dracula than I thought.

I give him all the knives he asks for, and then turn away, moving back to my bedroom to pack what I need into two suitcases: Clothes, jewelry, cash I’ve kept hidden. Photographs and keepsakes I can’t bear to leave behind. As I work, I can hear Valtu in the bathroom—the soft splash of blood, the sick thump of meat, the occasional crack of breaking bones. He’s even humming a tune. Bach, I think.

By the time I’ve finished packing and cleaned the floors, Valtu has completed his grim task. The bathroom is spotless, no evidence remaining of what transpired. The freezer in my kitchen is now full, stuffed with carefully wrapped packages I try not to dwell on.

“We should hurry,” Valtu says, wiping his hands on a towel. “More may come looking for these two.”

I nod, taking one last look around the apartment that had been my home for the past two years. All the hopes and dreams I’d come here with feels like another life, one I have to leave in the dust.

“Ready?” Valtu asks, picking up my suitcases while I take a bucket of blood, the lid firmly in place.

“Yes,” I say, straightening my shoulders. “Let’s go.”

“Mind if I stop in?” Valtu asks, pulling the car up alongside a wine store on Franklin. “Won’t be a minute. This the only wine store in town that carries anything older than ten years.”

“Sure,” I tell him, trying to give him an easy smile.

He squints at me. “Are you alright, kid?”

I put my hand on his arm. “I’m just a little shaken up, that’s all. But I’ll be fine. Go get your wine. Get me something sweet, while you’re at it.”

“Anything for you, love,” he says and exits the car. I watch as he strides gracefully into the store, then sit back in my seat and exhale loudly.

It all hits me at once. The chaos, the trauma, the exhaustion. The last twenty-four hours have been positively insane. It’s going to take a long time to wrap my head around any of it.

Callahan killed Marco.

Callahan is a vampire.

Callahan knows I’m a vampire.

Cohen’s cronies threw fucking acid in my face.

And more of his cronies are dead, their remains in my freezer.

A light tap on my window startles me from my thoughts. I turn to see a striking blonde woman standing beside the car, her platinum hair styled in perfect waves, a wannabe Veronica Lake. Her smile is dazzling but doesn’t reach her eyes—cold, calculating eyes that lock onto mine with unsettling intensity.

Before I can react, a strange heaviness settles over my mind, like fog rolling across my thoughts. Her lips move, forming words I can barely comprehend, yet they resonate within me with undeniable authority.

“Get out of the car,” she says, her voice carrying a subtle European accent. “You want to help your friend, don’t you? We’ve been watching for a long time.”

Something washes over me like mud. With drowning thoughts I realize it’s compulsion, stronger than any I’ve encountered before, stronger than even Adonis. I find myself reaching for the door handle even as a distant part of my mind screams warnings.

As I step out onto the sidewalk, the woman takes my arm with cold fingers, her grip both gentle and inescapable, her nails painted purple and terribly sharp. “Come with me,” she murmurs, leading me toward a waiting black Cadillac. “We have so much to discuss about Victor Callahan.”