Page 102 of Cloak of the Vampire
Maybeyouare causing it,logic murmured in my head, and I almost laughed in hysteria. That couldn’t be true. I was a Common vampire, and before I became a vampire, I was merely a human. Stopping time wasn’t a power any living being should have.
Then why am I the only one not affected?
Something caught my eyes, distracting me from that disturbing line of thought. It was Margarita’s red hair. Even in such a big audience, her distinct hair was far too prominent. She was two rows ahead, and I walked toward her, almost curious to see her face.
The first thing I noticed, however, was that she was sitting next to Logan. And when my eyes darted between the both of them, a sinking feeling took hold in my stomach. They were wearing expressions I’d never before seen on either face.
Margarita was staring at the stage with parted lips, her glowing green eyes wide and filled with trepidation. At any other time, I would’ve loved seeing such a look on her face, but when I saw Logan’s face mimicking Margarita’s, his turquoise eyes bright with a glow that on his familiar face seemed eerie, I couldn’t find it in me to feel anything but sick.
Because they weren’t the only ones who were looking like they’d just seen a ghost.
Raising my eyes to the row behind theirs, I saw Ragnor. He, too, was staring at the stage, at the canvas, with an expression that made me take a step back.
He looked like someone had slapped him, with his eyes wide with shock and his body leaning forward as though he would’ve stood up had time not stopped.
I’d never seen him make such an expression, and my fingers itched to cup his face, caress the creases near his eyes, as if to try and embed his visage as it was into my brain. I wanted to close my lips on his, using my touch to show him that whatever bothered him, it was all right.
But before I could do anything, a sudden, sharp pain cut through my head. Groaning, I stumbled backward, my vision blurring with the sudden, throbbing ache.
When it felt like a knife was trying to cut my eyeballs out, my instincts suddenly yelled,GET BACK TO THE STAGE!Gritting my teeth, I stumbled past the rows, vision blurry with tears of pain, and somehow managed to climb back up to the stage.
I fell onto the wooden stool near the easel and sucked in a breath, holding my head in my hands, shutting my eyes as I begged that this pain, thistorturewould stop.
The pain in my head became an unbearable pressure that made me scream.
“Resume time.”
The torment must’ve been very severe, because I seemed to have hallucinated a familiar yet unfamiliar voice talking in my head.
The pain seemed to cascade from my head down my spine and even lower to my waist. I arched my back, trying to get away from the pain, needing it to go away, to leave me alone.
“Resume time, Aileen. It’s your doing.”
What the fuck?
Before my watery eyes, I saw what seemed to be another hallucination, this time vividly visual, that of a translucent, ambiguously shaped creature. It was glowing bright, making the pain impossibly worse, but then the voice whispered in my head,“Release the time you have stopped, Aileen, or you shall die.”
Nothing mattered at that moment. Not even logic. I just needed the pain to stop.
Before I could question myself, I closed my eyes, and through the pain, tears, and sweat, willed silently,Move, time. Please. I’m begging you, just continue on and release me from this terrible fucking pain.
There was a clicking sound inside my head, like a grandfather clock’s hands hitting midnight, and as suddenly as it came, the pain disappeared.
I slumped on the stool, breathing heavily, perspiration dripping down my cheeks, mingling with what remained of my tears.
For a moment, I was sure nothing happened. I was too occupied with feeling the sheer relief of having the pain go away.
So when Kaylon called out “We have fifteen thousand!” it took me a moment to realize what was happening.
Like I’d been sucked back to reality from whatever fever dream I’d just had, I snapped my eyes open and stared at the darkness of the moving audience. Next to me, Kaylon, whom I hadn’t even noticed come onstage, was grinning at the audience as he said, “And Lord Rayne just upped the bid to twenty-two! Do we have thirty?”
I blinked and wiped the sweat and tears away before straightening on my stool. Time had resumed. The pain was gone. And everyone seemed to be none the wiser about what had just occurred.
Had anything really happened? The field, the stopped time, the pain?
Or had it all just been in my head?
“Fifty thousand from Lord Renaldi!” Kaylon suddenly called, drawing my gaze to him. “We have a bidding war, all right—and Lord Atalon just brought it up to seventy! Do we have seventy-five?”
