“Paris found this yesterday,” he told him as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper.
Leo took it from him.
“Tell me where you’ve been, Leo,” Elias said in a low voice.
When the paper was released, Leo raised his eyes to meet Elias’s silver ones and thought he saw… No, it can’t be. However, Leo could’ve sworn he had seen a flash of knowledge in them. What is he waiting for me to say?
“I can’t.”
“Why not? We’ve told each other everything for years.”
Leo dropped his eyes and busied himself unfolding the paper. When he saw the notes he’d made of his recurrent dreams, he touched his finger to the words.
How the hell… “Where did you get this?”
“I told you. Paris found it in your office last night.”
Leo looked at the date of the final entry and then took a cautious step away from Elias.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, but Leo didn’t answer, his mind instead whirling as he tried to remember bringing that piece of paper to his office. But…
I didn’t. I left it at home, in the drawer of my desk.
“Leo?”
Leo grabbed his bag and stuffed the paper inside. “I’ve gotta go.”
“Hang on one damn minute,” Elias demanded, grabbing his arm. “I hope you mean you have to go downstairs, because we only have a couple of days and then the exhibit opens.”
Leo glanced at the hand Elias had on his arm. What was going on? How did he get that piece of paper?
“So, I still have a job?”
Elias frowned and released his hold. “Yes. Unless you keep this bizarre behavior up. Then, friend or no friend, I’ll have to reassess your job duties.”
“Okay,” Leo agreed, hastily backing out of the office. “I’ll…I’ll be downstairs if you need me.”
Then he left, not giving Elias another chance to speak.
ELIAS WAITED UNTIL Leo had disappeared before shutting the door and walking back over to his desk. He sat down and reached for the clock on the corner of it. Gently, he unlatched and opened the small door at the back that hid the mechanisms inside. Then he removed the small key resting on the wooden base.
After closing the clock, he moved it aside so he wouldn’t knock it over and then inserted the key into the center drawer of his desk. Upon rolling it open, he took out the leather-bound journal and untied the binding knotted across the center.
It’d been years since he’d looked at the entries, but right there, written neatly down the first page, were several of them, each of them having occurred nearly ten years ago exactly. He’d marked the date, the time, and the strange blinding light that had been in each of the dreams. But the one journal entry he kept coming back to was the first one, the one that was different than all the others.
Different than the ones Leo had also documented.
9/16/05, 3:13 a.m. - Yesterday was my first day teaching. Nerves finally caught up to me, I think, which might explain why I had such an odd dream tonight. It was about two of my students. Not anything creepy. But they were definitely in it. Leonidas Chapel and Paris Antoniou. Two boys whose names could be straight out of the history books I’m teaching from. But the odd thing about the dream was we weren’t in class. We were standing in some sort of hall. It was massive in size, and there was a marble altar in front of us. Seated behind the altar were three figures (I think they were men.) The light that was shining on the three of us was so bright I could barely see at all. I was in the middle, Leonidas was to my left, and Paris to the right. Then a voice so commanding I felt the weight of the order down to my bones said, “Born of us, you are the three. When the time comes, they shall find you.” Then I woke.
LEO’S MIND WAS a mess as he walked to the two elevators at the far end of the corporate floor. He pressed the down button and fiddled with the strap of his bag while he waited for the elevator to arrive.
Since he’d left Elias’s office, he’d gone over their conversation several times. But no matter how it played out, the piece of paper¸ the one Elias had lied about, might as well have been burning a hole in his bag.
His foot tapped as the light indicated the elevator had stopped on the ground floor. It still had five floors to climb until it reached him, and his agitation rose with each level.
Why did Elias have his journal entry? And why not admit to snooping around my place while I was gone instead of lying? It made no sense at all.
He ran his fingers down the strap of his bag and then flipped the top flap open to pull the paper out. Staring at the words, he ran his fingers over them again, reading them back in his mind.
I was standing in a huge room, at an altar or something, and there was a light. A bright, blinding light—
DING.
When the elevator announced its arrival, Leo looked up from the paper and watched the metallic doors slide open.
There, standing inside, was Alasdair. Wearing all black, from his boots to his coat, and with his beautifully sculptured face, he resembled some sort of fallen angel. One who had frozen Leo.
As the doors began to slide shut, Alasdair causally pushed off the wall and jabbed one of the buttons. Once they’d whooshed back open, Leo heard in his head, Won’t you come inside, Leonidas?
Leo licked his lips, and when Alasdair’s eyes dropped to them, he clutched the paper in his hand.
I told you I would be back.
“You said tonight,” Leo said out loud, and then he thought, What difference does it make what time he showed up?
“I changed my mind,” Alasdair said as he raised an arm to hold the elevator open.
An office door opened and shut behind Leo, and then footsteps made their way towards them.
“Better hurry. I haven’t eaten this morning, and after the night I’ve had, I’m a little testy.”
Shit. He really had no other choice as he entered the small confines of the elevator and again thought, How do I get myself into these situations?
AS LEO WALKED by, Alasdair closed his eyes and inhaled, taking in his fresh scent. It was all he could do to stop himself from taking Leo’s arm and sinking his teeth into him. The only thing preventing him from acting on the urge was the knowledge of what would happen should he give in to his hunger.
Fuck, I need to find someone to feed on and soon.
The doors to the elevator closed, locking him inside with Leo, who was now flattening himself against the far wall. Alasdair couldn’t stop himself from moving towards him.
After he’d finished with Stratos and cleaned himself up, he’d gotten to thinking about what the vampire had said before his demise.
She was different… You don’t even know.
Stratos was, ironically, dead on. He didn’t have a goddamned clue what he’d been talking about, and neither did Isadora. Not that she seemed to care too much. She’d told him quite plainly that she wouldn’t bother trying to decipher the words of a deranged mind when she could be out pursuing other, more enjoyable pastimes. Such as her redhead.
It was a selfish deed to disregard the dead and what they’d died for so blithely, but that’s who they were at the core. Selfish, narcissistic creatures. And as he placed his hands on the wall on either side of Leo’s head, his cousin’s words echoed through his mind.