Page 15 of Radiant

Contrary to what I had imagined, the next two weeks were busy. Auris had people. Staff. He had a tendency to keep everyone whose skills he appreciated on retainer, and when your new human boyfriend needed to have all his stuff moved into storage while you were in a different country during a pandemic, that came in handy.

One of his people, a woman with scary-good memory named Linda, took me through my old apartment via a Zoom call on her phone, and I pointed out what I wanted shipped, how to unplug stuff, all the little details.

Auris’s silent approval of me taking part in this transition made me feel as pleased as Eva’s—Jan’s niece’s—cat looked whenever she snuck into our apartment to enjoy the afternoon sunlight from one of the kitchen chairs.

Throughout all of that activity, I had a few meetings with the new management team, and we were moving forward with a new website dedicated to all the places where only the shadows of humanity remained; my collection of abandoned spaces. It wasn’t quite the online museum I had imagined, but it was gorgeous and interactive. I called it Hidden Hollows as a small nod to the church without which none of this would have happened. The church in which, within moments, my life had been changed forever.

“You look happy,” Auris said one afternoon.

I was lounging on the couch in the sunken floor part of the living room. I’d started out doing work—like I was supposed to—but I’d ended up watching videos of the National Museum. They were all pre-pandemic, but there was a slow reopening happening, although that had started a week ago. This week, the news was all about a new wave of infections, so who knew. From behind the couch, Auris glanced at my screen.

“I was legitimately working. Until a minute ago.”

“I saw that. You were very focused. Good work ethic. Good work posture with your legs up on the coffee table.” He rounded the couch and sat next to me.

“They’re only called coffee tables because foot table sounds silly.”

“I see. I appreciate the explanation. After all, I’m far from a native speaker in the language, and it’s refreshing to learn new things.”

I shook my head at him. “Really, you can never tell anyone you’re a vampire. I mean, what if they get to know you and realize how silly you are, deep down? If that got out, I could kiss my serious, angsty vampire cult goodbye, Auris. Seriously. Reputation is no joke. Go get a cape or something and try to brood more.”

“My sweet, I will not go back to wearing capes. They drag in the gutter and always get filthy. Besides, we talked about the cult you aren’t allowed to have, and we agreed you aren’t allowed to have it.”

“Did we? When? Was I present?”

Auris leaned into my space, swiped my fingers off my laptop’s keyboard, and closed the screen. “Are you present now, my sweet? Are you here with me, where I want you to be?”

I nodded, but leaned away from him instead of into him. He raised his eyebrows, but he wouldn’t pressure me, so he went right back to sitting next to me, turned toward me, and waited.

I pointed at my laptop. “I want to go to the museum. To several. There are so many here I want to visit. But before that, we should do what we came here to do, don’t you think? Maybe we should find out where that other vampire was killed? You said you suspect a place.”

Auris froze for several seconds. He could do that, stilling to the point where it crept even me out. He only ever did it when we were alone, never when Eva was here to vacuum, cook, or clean.

“Sedlec Ossuary,” he finally said.

“Uh, what?”

“It’s the only place that makes any sense.” He tapped the laptop, and I opened it back up. “It’s spelled S-E-D-L-E-C.”

I typed it in. The photos I found were stunning, creepy, and something that belonged in every dictionary in order to illustrate the meaning of the word “morbid.”

“I see what you mean. That’s a bone church if ever I’ve seen a bone church. Like, there’s literally bones everywhere. So we’re going there. Hey, this isn’t all that far. It’s in Kutná Hora? Jan can drive us there, right? We could even go today.”

Auris froze once more, but this time not for as long. “We could. It would have to be at night though, and I wouldn’t take Jan. I don’t even want to take you.”

I sighed. “I told you; I won’t leave you. I don’t want you to do this alone either. Plus, I’m curious.” I shrugged. “Bone church.”

He smiled at me. “You are too easily tempted. I know that about you, my sweet. I’m not yet sure I fully approve of your sometimes-daring curiosity.”

The mention of curiosity made my mind go to the questions that had formed over the past two weeks since he’d told me about Tove and Owain, the story about them almost like a pattern in the sand left behind by the tide. I’d weighed whether to ask about them or not. Auris deserved not to be pressured into telling me things, just like he never pressured me into talking when I didn’t want to, when I wasn’t ready.

Today, curiosity won out though. “Speaking of that, I was wondering, you know. When you told me that story about the baker and the kid you saved? I was wondering what happened. And whether Tove is still around.”

Auris nodded once—not an answer, but an acknowledgment. “You want to know if Owain is as I am.”

“Yeah, kind of. It seemed important, the way you told it.”

Auris nodded. “Then I told it right. But at the same time, I think the best I can do to answer your question is to continue the tale, in the right way.”