I said, raising my voice, “I am happy to learn what Elsa wants to teach me, but I don’t like being told who I can be friends with.”
William bent his head down and began to laugh softly. “My dear, sweet Olivia, you have a lot to learn about the world you’ve entered. Vampires don’t make friends,” he said. “They take lovers.”
And then he leaned in and kissed me. Kissed me until my lips felt like they would blister from the heat. I had no idea how powerful sexual energy could feel until that moment when I opened myself up to it. It was easy to understand now what someone meant by being lost in a kiss. In fact, I was so lost in thought that it took me a few moments to realize I was actually no longer kissing him. At some point he’d disappeared—like he had that day in the tunnel. Once again, I was alone in the dusk light. This was the second time he had managed to disappear on me. I vowed there would not be a third as I grabbed my things and headed for home.
****
CHAPTER 18
My sleep had been restless, but this time I had the vampire to thank for my insomnia. His kiss had seared my soul, and I’d spent the evening tossing and turning, yearning for him in a way I had never wanted a man before.
The timing of our meeting, I realized, firing up my espresso machine, was horrendous. I was running a multi-million dollar campaign and assuming a new role as a consultant. My window for romance was slim at best, assuming I could even find William Ferrell again.
I must have been daydreaming because I did not hear Elsa come into the kitchen. “How was the concert?” she asked.
“Good, fun,” I said. “I met a vampire. His name is William.”
“You met a vampire, as in he came up and introduced himself?”
“Yes. Sort of…what I mean is I had been staring at him, err watching him perform. He’s in a band,” I managed to stutter out, sounding like a teenager.
“And, what happened?” she asked, sounding like my mother, which got my defenses up.
“I am over thirty years old,” I said, sounding more like a teenager. “I can take care of myself.”
Elsa was shaking her head in a way that oddly reminded me of William. Once again I was going to be lectured on all the things I didn’t know. I held my hands out in front of me to indicate I wasn’t in the mood.
“Listen, he already told me I didn’t know what I was getting into,” I said. “And he told me you would not approve at all.”
“He was right,” she said. “Vampires are serious creatures, Olivia. They do not make friends with humans.”
“So I’ve been told,” I said. “Listen. I will probably never see him again, so let’s drop it.”
Elsa nodded, and I went back to making myself a cappuccino. Once that was out of the way, we discussed how to contact Nadia, the witch versed in old magic who would transfer the map of the portals onto my skin. It would not be hard to locate her, Elsa said; she could be found most days feeding the ducks and geese at Stow Lake. All we had to do is walk over and look for her.
The sun was already high as we climbed to the top of the stairway at the foot of Stow Lake. The trees were lush and green and our surroundings seemed brighter against the brilliant October sky. There were turtles sunning themselves on logs, and ducks resting on the grass as Elsa scanned the perimeter of the lake, looking for Nadia.
“There she is.”
‘She’ turned out to be an elderly woman, who despite the heat, was dressed in multiple layers of clothing: tights, floral dress and a large cardigan sweater. And for good measure she had a floral scarf tied around her head and knotted at her chin. Next to her was a worn red wagon stuffed full of bags of bread pieces and birdseed. Nadia, it seemed, was well stocked for her work.
“That is Nadia?”
Elsa nodded. “You were expecting a pointy hat and a magic wand?”
“When you said old magic, I guess I got an image in my head of someone more scary looking,” I said, cringing at how stupid I sounded.
“I said o-l-d magic, not black magic,” Elsa said with a laugh. “But don’t be fooled. Nadia can be very scary when she needs to