Page 31 of Bloody Valentine

“Fourteen women were murdered. My great-something grandmother was one of those taken that night. Someone killed all the wives.”

Maddox turned to face me now. He had a knife in his hand. It looked ceremonial-old but taken care of. The jewels glittered on the end, and there were inscriptions on the blade.

“Our blood is written in history,” he said, almost as if he were chanting a spell.

Behind the building in front of us were pillar-like gravestones erected around the mausoleum. I pointed to the strange line of marble. “What is that?”

Maddox followed my gaze and turned to smile at me. “Our grandmother.”

I didn’t know why, but I felt so much fear at that moment. The woman in my head, spouting about her riddles and warnings, was lying dead under one of these masts.

I felt incredibly sad.

She was murdered if the rumors were true. We looked so much alike from the images I found on her. I was a recreation of every aspect of her corporeal form. Maybe that was why I heard her in my mind. However, I can’t decipher her messages.

“I want to see Vivianna’s grave,” I said, my words increasing the strange hum inside my blood. We were connected.

Maddox turned to me and smiled. “You know where it is, Little Virgin. Let your body guide you. She’s always been waiting.”

I didn’t know how I felt about that, but he was right. There was an unseen pull on my soul, a gentle nudge in the direction of the largest marble pillar directly in the center. I followed the sensations and stood across from the name written on the tomb.

“Vivianna Valentini,” Maddox whispered. He was standing behind me. I had heard his footfalls, but he respected my space. I didn’t know what I was meant to find here.

Why did my blood call to this grave?

I didn’t know my ancestor, and my only information was hearsay and rumors. Her picture was carved into the rock, and it was eerie as if I were seeing a photograph of myself from that time. A man stood beside her, looking like his descendant behind me.

“I told you our fate has always been written in our blood. We were born to the present so that we can recreate the past. Aequilibrium in Mundo.”

His words didn’t make sense, and besides the fact that he apparently spoke Latin, the past, according to legend, was St. Valentine killing his beloved wife.

“What could that have to do with us?” I thought aloud, but Maddox was already walking away, heading back to the crest on the stone of the building.

I sighed and followed him. The dagger was in his hand, the blade resting on his palm. Before I could speak, the weaponsliced through his skin, and his blood spilled out onto the snow-covered ground. My eyes widened in horror.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Shhh. Watch.” he brought his hand up to the symbol, his blood coating the doe with many horns.

A mechanical sound whirred behind the door, and the doe spun around to flip completely upside down, revealing a new image. A monster faced me. Spindly legs stretched out where there used to be horns, and the head was a warped…heart.

Maddox looked at me, wrapping his injured hand with a cloth from his coat.

The bloody door clicked and began to open. The stone moved forward, allowing entrance.

Maddox gestured me forward, and my curiosity was too much to deny. I questioned who I was and where I came from so often. This was my chance to find those answers.

I walked through the slab, and Maddox followed. It was dark while I followed the path of a tunnel, but then the room lit up.

Old school cavern lanterns illuminated the way, and one by one, I could see…tombs. The bodies were covered in a glass display, stood upright, and preserved all these years. Their names were carved into the bottom of the coffins.

I gasped, backing up into Maddox. He smiled and continued to walk me forward. The graves were all circling a large table with names written into the stone. We moved around to the center of it all.

A man frozen in time was entombed.

He looked so much like Maddox that I lost my breath, turning to look at his features. His bright blue eyes were the only difference between him and his ancestor. Those eyes in the tomb looked old, cold, and dead. There was no sinister light in them…at least not anymore.

I counted each glass box with a man inside…

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