Author's Preface
A week passed, and within that time, Michael’s busted knee healed. Antun warned that it could ache for a while but that he could now put full weight on it again. Michael had made up a lie about an ACL injury while out playing soccer to cover up why he needed to work remotely for a few days, as he couldn’t really keep his leg straight to heal in the office and still be able to work effectively.
I, however, had no such excuse, so I drove into work by myself for those few days while his leg healed. One such morning, the elevator door opened to reveal Sarah waiting. “Drew, can we talk in your office for a minute, please?” she asked with surprising earnestness.
Curious as to what could make her ask me so politely, I followed after her, then unlocked my office door and let her in. As soon as I closed the door, she began, “You’ve killed someone before, right?”
I felt a lump in my chest and a heat flaring. Breathe, think before you speak. I took a minute to actually process before my anger could warm. Why would she ask about that? I looked at her, really looked. She had dark circles under her eyes, like she hadn’t slept in days. Her hands were shaking. No, not just her hands; her whole body was trembling.
“…You’ve never killed before, have you?” I asked as the pieces started to fall into place.
She went on the defensive, “I’ve killed animals while hunting before.” But then her shoulders drooped, “But I’ve never killed another person before. How do you get past it? You seem perfectly fine.”
Oh, honey. You have no idea. “Oh, trust me. I’m far from perfectly fine,” I assured her. I motioned to the chair for her to sit, and I walked around the desk to my own seat. Do I dare tell her the truth? That I’m still dealing with it? As much as I hated Sarah for various reasons, I felt like honesty was the right route. “I killed my captor and murderer, Nikola. It’s been months since then. I still have nightmares where I see his face, watch the light go out of his eyes.”
I thought back to when Antun had told that story of the partly turned vampire, how he still felt guilty. “I have a feeling it’ll be with me for a very long time. Even Antun still has scars from killing centuries ago.” I sighed, “What I’m trying to say is, you’re not alone in what you’re feeling right now. I have felt it, am in the middle of it myself with nightmares about it since everything went down this last weekend.”
Sarah still looked at me as though I might have an answer, then her countenance fell. “I just… I know he was a bad guy, a really bad guy, who was responsible for a lot of death himself. But now I’ve killed too. Does that make me like him?”
I still struggled with that answer myself; I didn’t feel like I was a bad person, but I had crossed a line. “Are you secretly a serial killer?” I asked. Sarah stared blankly at me, her brows unimpressed. “Do you manipulate other people to kill? Then I’d say you aren’t like him in some very important ways.”
“But who does this make me now?” she pleaded, her face changing to more earnest wanting.
I hesitated. The question hit harder than she knew. I gave her the answer I’d been wishing I had heard. “The decision you made does not change who you are. It was a choice between our lives or his, and you chose. That can’t be undone, but it can be learned from.”
“What could I possibly learn from this?” she cried, tears starting to silver her eyes.
“You’re learning that you don’t like killing, and that that’s not who you want to be. That automatically puts you not in the bad guy category. The people I’ve met who’ve scared me the most, who were truly dangerous, didn’t regret it. You obviously do.” I hoped my words would get through to her.
Sarah sat across the desk from me, her ice blue eyes boring into me like if she stared hard enough, maybe she’d get the answer she was hoping for. After a moment of silence between us, she let out a heavy breath and sagged. “I just don’t know what to do.”
“For now, all I can say is keep on keeping on because that’s what I’ve been doing. I wish I had better advice.”
“So do I,” Sarah groaned into her hands as she rubbed them down her face in the most unladylike way I’d ever seen her. “Michael’s doing okay?” she asked as gravity dropped her hands from her face.
Of course we’d end up at Michael at some point. “He’s healing fine, should be able to start putting weight on his leg in a couple of days.” Not feeling the need to give her more details, I moved on. “We’re planning on visiting more vampires as soon as Michael’s mobile again. You still want in?”
She lifted a bored brow. “Is the sky blue?” she asked sarcastically.
“Figures,” I mumbled under my breath before continuing, “We’ve got three in the states and two overseas left to meet with. We’ll let you know when we plan on seeing the first one so you can decide then if you want to come.”
I pushed the power button on my monitor. “But for now, we are at work and we’ve both got things to do.” I leveled a look on her. “Are you going to be okay to work today? Or do you need to take a mental health day?”
She nodded even as she yawned. At my raised brow, she insisted, “I’ll be fine, really. I’ll probably just take a nap instead of a lunch today is all.” She stood from the chair and walked toward the door.
“Sarah?” I asked as she opened the door. She paused, glancing my way. “If you figure out a way to handle… it, let me know?” I asked with my own small note of pleading.
After a pause, she nodded, exiting my office and closing the door.
❖ 🩸 ❖
It was just another evening at home, researching ancient vampires and trying to find any and all information we could about the vampires we had yet to meet. Antun and Syla had taken up spots on chairs while Michael and I had each taken over an end of the couch.
My legs crisscrossed on the cushion, I balanced my laptop on my knees as I tried to look up more information on Davor’s progeny. It was not going well. My brain couldn’t stop thinking about the latest vision I’d had with Selene. Specifically, the sigil that seemed to almost burn in the darkness as I was falling. The one painted next to a body missing blood.
A wound that dreams of becoming permanent.
I traced the symbol invisibly on my laptop. What did it mean? A circle pierced by a cross. I began to look up symbology around circles and crosses, hoping that maybe that might yield something, but it only served to confuse me further. Circles represent unendingness, eternity, repetition, and so on. Most of the cross symbology was Christian-coded unsurprisingly, but it didn’t give me any clues as to what the sigil itself could mean, if it meant anything.
I sighed through my nose, frustrated that I couldn’t figure it out. I feel like I’ve seen that symbol before. Maybe it was in some graffiti or something? It’s simple enough that I could have run into it anywhere really.
But Antun, Syla, and Sava had all mentioned that it looked somewhat Balkan to them, which was one of the reasons we’d been thinking it had something to do with Davor’s progeny. Maybe if I looked up more about Balkan iconology it would make more sense.
No luck. I huffed a sigh through my nose then let my head fall back heavily.
I mentally slammed on the breaks, freezing in place. Hold on… Why didn’t I think of this sooner?
I my back straightened as I asked urgently, “Guys? Where’s Davor’s journal?”
Everyone in the room looked at me. Antun said curiously, “Locked in the safe in my room, why?”
“I need to see it.” The criticality in my voice sent Antun to his feet in a rush. With quick steps, he went to the stairs, taking them two at a time. He disappeared into his room, coming back down the stairs a minute later with the journal in hand.
His enquiring look made me start to ramble my thoughts. “The common denominator in all of this: Davor. I swear I’ve seen this symbol before, but if its Balkan in origin, then there’s only one place I might have seen it.”
I started flipping through pages, trying to go fast but being aware of the delicate state of them. I nearly missed it, catching my eye as I was turning yet another page. But this one happened to have a small doodle in the margin. Not uncommon in the journal, there were plenty of margin notes and symbols, but this doodle was of a circle with a cross going through it.
The sigil.
It was there all along, right in front of us, and we kept missing it.
Everyone gathered to look at the page I was holding, my thumb right next to the symbol. The tick of the clock on the wall was the only sound in the room. We had spent months chasing clues only to discover the first real thread had been sitting in Antun’s safe all along.
This really wasn’t just a random killer’s signature.
“What if this all ties back to Davor’s philosophy somehow?” I voiced, looking up at them all.
Antun held out his hand for the journal, and I slid it over the coffee table toward him. He began flipping through pages as well. “There’s another, right there,” he said, pointing at another page. Turning more pages, he paused and said, “Here too…”
He fell into contemplation, and Michael spoke up. “If it’s in more than one place in the journal, then it stands to reason that it has something to do with Davor himself.”
“Perhaps one of his progeny adopted his legacy, inherited his work, and we just don’t know yet,” Syla theorized.
As we sat thinking over this discovery, Antun whispered, “I’ve seen it before; I must have seen Davor write it down myself at least once. How did I never notice it?” His eyes looked haunted, as if he’d just watched the memory play out in his mind.
He turned more pages, finding another, and another. “Davor used this too often. It has to be more than a signature.” He swallowed. “It meant something to him. Means something to whoever is using it now.”
My hands felt clammy. I hardly noticed when Michael picked up one and squeezed it three times. I looked over at him.
I love you too. But if we don’t figure this out…
He read my eyes. His looked as uncertain as I felt, though his face tried to come across as steadfast and steady.
Syla muttered, “If one of Davor’s progeny inherited his work…”
No one finished the thought. Because we were all thinking the same thing.
One of them was still out there.
