Page 44 of The Vampire's Lament
You don’t want to hear my answer, fucker!
“Alas, I must abide by the rules of our connection.” He chuckled.
What about his deity powers? Surely, he had some super magic tucked up his sleeves.
I forced myself to stay calm, to listen while he handed me a chunk of information.
“Because you set me free, I can only use things connected to you,” he said. “What a precious little elf you are to me.”
He found his own words hilarious.
“But it’s a maze in here,” he added.
Fingers crossed he got lost.
The prick sniffed, the sound loud enough to hurt my eardrums. “Magic, magic, magic. What can you tell me about magic?”
Sweet fuck-all.
But a figure pulled itself free from the darkness, ringed in silver light and shaped like me, hurrying down a pathway with a determined gait. Other Me veered left, then right, taking an incline until the darkness peeled open like a shadowy curtain, revealing my apartment inside the Aidan Temple back in Oreflame City, seeing myself on the green, overstuffed sofa with Oliver my pink orchid.
Was this another vision?
Damn, I missed Oliver and my own bed. But I’d never get back there, would I? Not without a miracle, and certainly not with Hal sharing the same air.
“Keep going,” Aidan said. “Now I’ve told you, show me what I need, my dear conduit of hope.”
Again, he pissed himself laughing.
Weirdo.
Hal appeared, joining me on the sofa with a big mug of coffee. As he aways had, because the man was a real coffee fiend.He laughed, stroking his beard, with me grinning ear to ear. Aidan only knew what I’d said to set him off.
Not Aidan!
“He’s a mage,” the deity in question said. “Your friend. Your lover. You’ve been inside him, shared body fluids. But he hurt you.” A sigh. “Well, isn’t that interesting?”
Like fuck it was!
The vision or whatever collapsed, sending me back onto the island slopes. I lay splayed like a starfish on the grass, gasping for air, a fine drizzle falling from the sky.
Thunder crashed in the darkness above, scaring the crap out of me.
Dammit!
I rolled onto my front, pushing myself to my knees.
Where was Aidan? He’d left me with a worse headache, a sickening roiling in my belly.
Lightning illuminated the island with a savage violet flare. Second by second, the rain fell heavier, the wind really gaining speed. I stood up, then hurried back to the house, its glow a beacon.
Aidan couldn’t use magic without me, so he needed Hal because Hal was connected to me. Was that what’d just gone down in the vision? He’d looked for him, found him, and then…what? What the hell came next?
Ugh. This threatened to turn my brains to porridge. But one thing I did deduce was Aidan not being the other presence inside me. At least, it didn’t seem so, especially after shoving his fist down my throat.
Prick!
I reached the garden path, passing the tree and getting some energy from the sweetie pie.
