by S J Williams
“What is it?” Catarina asked, following him to the bike.
Sebastian ignored her, straightening up with a snap, he stared around the still busy marketplace, searching for something.
“Sebastian, what…?” Catarina said, her voice trailing off in confusion. Effie leaned forwards. Catarina was holding a ripe pear in her hand, just like those she and Sebastian had bought earlier.
Brow furrowing with puzzlement, she came up behind Catarina to pick up the bag.
And a note slipped out from underneath it to land on the stone flagged pavement.
Stooping, she picked it up.
Remember your promise. In the meantime, a little sweetness for you, my dear.
The note was written in a hand that was as good as a signature, as familiar as it was to Effie’s eyes. After all, hadn’t she seen it scrawled across her work any time in these last few months?
“Bartholomew.” She breathed. “But how? We’re in broad daylight.”
She looked around at the others. Catarina read the note over Effie’s shoulder, her expression grim.
“If he’s out in daylight,” she said, “that means he’s feeding well.”
Effie’s stomach plunged to her feet. There was only one thing that could mean.
Someone had died last night.
Impassive, Sebastian took the fruit from her. In his hands, the bag slowly imploded, juices seeping through the paper. It got smaller and smaller until it was barely recognisable, just so much pulp. Then Sebastian, his face still blank, tossed the mess casually over his shoulder. It sailed with suspicious accuracy into a nearby waste bin, landing with a wet thunk in the basket. Effie swallowed. Sebastian was scary when he was angry.
“We need to get out of here.” He said at last. None of the others said anything. Dividing their shopping between them, they got onto the bikes and rode away. Effie looked regretfully at the market disappearing behind them. She doubted they’d be coming back here any time soon.
They found Lucien sitting, eyes closed, in the garden when they got back. His face was turned up to the late afternoon sun. He cracked on eye open at their approach, then frowned and sat up when he saw their faces.
“What happened?” He asked, a smile only half forming before it quickly slid off his face. “Did somebody die? Or couldn’t you find any tomatoes?”
“In answer to your first question, yes, we suspect somebody did die last night.” Henry said. “To the second, no, we do have plenty of tomatoes.”
Lucien ignored that last comment.
“Somebody died? Who?”
“We don’t know.” Henry threw himself down into the chair next to Lucien’s. “A mortal who fell victim to Bartholomew’s need to give Effie a love note.”
“We need an answer to what Bartholomew wants with this medallion.” Sebastian’s voice was brutally cold. “The longer we take over it, the more people he will kill.”
“You realise he’s doing it deliberately?” Catarina said. “Just to rile us?”
“It could be to put pressure on me.” Effie said quietly. “To make me take the medallion to him.”
Catarina looked at her, her bleak expression telling Effie she’d probably guessed correctly.
Sebastian’s hand landed on her shoulder. Gently, he turned her to face him.
“This was not your fault.” He held her gaze with his own, uncompromising stare. In his eyes, she saw utter confidence in what he was saying. “Only Bartholomew is responsible for the lives he takes.”
“I know that. But I also know that he wouldn’t have taken that life if he didn’t want to push me into taking the medallion to him.” Effie was ashamed of the tiny whine that crept into her voice.
“You do realise that if you go to him with the medallion, you will be putting yourself in his power.” Lucien’s quiet voice drew everyone’s attention. “We don’t know what he wants with you but we can be certain that it will not be good. At best, you’d be dead.”
He didn’t finish, but he didn’t need to. Effie could fill in the blanks.
At worst, he’d turn her into a vampire. An immortal lifetime completely under his control.
Sebastian’s hand tightened momentarily on her shoulder but, in the next instant, he let go again, as if afraid to bruise her. The thought left her with a strange feeling she couldn’t quite untangle.
“Did you find anything?” She asked Lucien, who was sitting forward, his hands hanging limply between his knees.
He sighed and shook his head. “Nothing new. At least I’ve now read through the whole diary.” He added, his voice a touch more hopeful. “I feel like I’m more on top of it.” He squinted at Effie. “If this medallion is a recipe, it didn’t come with instructions because Fra Amedeo had no idea what he was doing.”
“I was thinking maybe he didn’t have the medallion when he was trying out the recipes, or perhaps had only heard it described.” Effie said heavily. “I can sympathise with him there. It feels like we’re all swimming in the dark.”
“While you’re figuring that out, the next obvious thing to do would be to find Bartholomew’s lair and drag him out of it.” Catarina said, a growl of anticipation in her voice. “There’s a reasonably good chance that will be in the university.”
“We might not be welcome after what happened yesterday.” Henry warned.
“Well, we can’t do nothing!” Catarina threw up her hands in exasperation.
“If I went out as if I was looking for him, do you think he’d come to me?” Effie asked.
“No!”
It was a resounding negative. She had expected it from Sebastian, but not from Catarina.
“If you go wondering around, trying to get him to come to you, we can’t control the situation. We can’t guarantee that he won’t take you. And if you don’t have the medallion on you, he can always use you as a hostage to negotiate an exchange. We can’t let that happen.” Catarina’s voice had taken on a commanding tone. More than ever, Effie thought, the other woman sounded like a general in an army.
Which, she supposed, was just what Catarina was.
“Okay, okay.” Effie put up her hands. “That was a terrible idea, sorry.”
Lucien gave her a kind smile. “You’re better off staying with me and putting that researcher’s brain of yours to work. I know sitting in a quiet room may seem counter-productive when urgency is required but it will probably be the fastest way to catching Bartholomew.”
Effie gave him a wan smile, not completely consoled by his words. “You sound like you’ve given that advice before.”
“I have.” He said, smile widening. “More times than I care to count.”
Sebastian drifted to the doorway of the dining room. Lucien and Effie were seated at the dining room table, books and papers strewn around them in a sea of paper. Sunset had long since come and gone without any sign of a breakthrough. Effie looked exhausted. Her red-rimmed eyes looked painful. And heavy. He smiled slightly as he watched her head droop. She caught it just in time. Sebastian shook his head and entered the room.
Coming up beside her, he caught her off-guard. She jumped and a pile of papers slid to the floor. He caught them using telekinesis. She gave him a tired smile as he lifted them back onto the table.
“You come in handy sometimes, don’t you?” She murmured.
His heart clenched. She sounded just like she used to do when she’d just woken up, all warm and soft in his sheets.
“Come on.” He said, his voice low. “I want to show you something.”
“But…” She began to protest. Lucien interrupted her.
“Go, child. You’ve nearly fallen asleep twice.”
She sighed but didn’t hesitate any more. Pushing her chair back, she stood and nearly staggered into him.
“Ouch.” She winced. “I’m so stiff.”
“Definitely time for a break.” Sebastian resisted taking her arm like he used to. Wrong century. She looked like she needed some support, though, as she swayed slightly on her feet, her
eyes losing focus for a few seconds.
“I feel like an old woman.” She complained.
Sebastian couldn’t resist. “Would you like an arm to lean on.” He held out his forearm.
She wrinkled her nose at him but, to his surprise, she accepted, delicately placing her hand on his arm and leaning on his elbow.
“Where are Catarina and Henry?” She asked as they left the dining room.
“Busy in the kitchen making plans to raid the university tomorrow.” He answered. “The idea is to go in disguised as students under Henry’s glamour and look for any psychic trail Bartholomew might have left. If there aren’t any fresh enough for Henry to follow, there might be some imprints left for Catarina to pick up.” He grimaced. “It will be a long shot. There’s always a possibility he’s using students as proxies, controlling them from afar.”
If that was the case, their job would be exponentially harder. There was little they could do but hope that Bartholomew would find controlling the students too draining to keep up in the long term. It would also require him to hunt and feed more frequently, upping the likelihood that they would discover him haunting the university halls.
Effie hummed in interest but didn’t ask him to elaborate on their plans. She seemed content to drift beside him, letting him lead her deeper into the house.
While it was true he had chosen this house because it reminded him of Effie, if he had to pick any one room where he could find her heart, it was this one. Opening a door that normally remained shut, he ushered Effie in, then closed the door behind his back, wanting to see her reaction.
She stopped a few paces in and stood there, her head tipped back as she took in the panelled walls lined with antique bookshelves. Well-stuffed dark green leather armchairs were dotted around the room, each with a small side table and a lamp burning with a soft gold flame.
She slowly turned on the spot until she met his eyes. Hers were shining, all tiredness forgotten.
“Why didn’t you tell me you had a library?” She breathed.
He gave her a crooked smile. How to explain that showing her this library meant revealing a part of himself that had been reduced to ashes on a bonfire five hundred years ago? This library was the crypt and memorial to a love he’d long since abandoned all hope of reclaiming. Seeing her standing at its heart now was like opening a grave to find spring flowers had bloomed where he had been expecting to find a corpse.
He settled for, “I’m showing you now.”
Completing her turn, she drifted to the nearest book shelf and began to run her fingers over the aged spines. He followed, hands in his pockets to stop himself from reaching out and touching her. He needed to be patient, to let her discover this part of their past for herself.
Because this wasn’t just any library, not to them. This was Effie’s library, the one she had amassed before she died. He might have added a few titles to it, ones he knew she would have hunted down obsessively had she been alive, but his main aim had been to keep the integrity of the library intact.
Only Henry knew about it and that was because it had been Henry who had suggested the idea to him in the first place, back when he was too blind with grief to see any hope of clawing his way out of the black abyss he’d fallen into.
Effie paused at one tome, her fingers tracing the lettering. Her lips moved silently and she frowned, as if frustrated by something. He squinted over her shoulder to read what had caught her eye. It was one of the Greek plays, a favourite of hers.
“Herakles, by Euripides.” He read over her shoulder.
“‘Come back. Even as a shadow, even as a dream.'” She whispered, her voice so quiet it was only by leaning in that he could hear it. She turned to him, eyes wide and staring.
“Whose books are these?”
Sebastian rocked back onto his heels. What to tell her? He could make up some lie, or even fudge and say they were his. But the words, when they came out, were the unvarnished truth.
“They’re yours. These are the books you collected before you died.”
She blinked at him. Then, silently turning back to the bookshelf, she stroked her fingers over more of the books, pausing every now and then when she came across one of her old favourites.
She can’t read them, he thought. But she can remember them. It felt like his heart was skipping every third beat. It shouldn’t be able to hold this much hope and still function.
“I should have studied classics.” She murmured. “I wanted to, you know. But the Italian Renaissance trumped it.”
“You will have time, now,” he reminded her, “to reacquaint yourself with all of these books.”
Her hand stilled again, but this time he knew she wasn’t seeing what was right in front of her.
“You're right.” Again, that so very quiet whisper.
Then she looked back at him over her shoulder and her face split into a beaming smile.
“There has never been a better reason to become immortal.”
It wasn’t quite what he wanted to hear but that smile more than made up for it.
“Did you keep all these books for…” She took a deep breath, eyes returning to the books. “For me?”
Sebastian stilled, his eyes fixed on the top of her head. She was refusing to look at him, head bowed towards the bookshelf. But, what had she just said? Could that mean she had remembered something? That she believed?
“All these books…” She began, her voice barely a murmur. “I feel like I know them, which is ridiculous because I can’t read most of them. And yet… I feel like if I picked one up, I’d be able to tell you where every stain, every tear, every thumbprint came from. I feel like I’ve grown up with them. But, at the same time, I feel like I’m robbing someone, like I’m robbing you, trying to take what isn’t mine.” Her voice caught. Sebastian wanted to reassure her that that wasn’t the case, but he was afraid interrupting her now would break whatever spell had fallen over them.
Slowly, afraid to startle her, he reached out and turned her to face him. She flinched, starting to retreat then stopped herself with a groan of frustration.
“I’m sorry. As soon as anyone gets too close, I just start shoving them away because… because I can’t take it. I can’t take being close to people. I’m not even really sure why. I just panic and then… and then it’s too late. They’re gone and I don’t know how to mend things. Have you ever had this problem? Have you ever really, really wanted something and just been too stupid to take it? It’s there. People keep offering and I… I’m the problem. And I'm sorry. I’m ranting.”
“You're making perfect sense.”
“No I’m not. I don’t even know what I’m talking about. This is one of the things I do, just to persuade people they’re better off without me.”
“That’s a lost cause. I know what I’m like without you and it’s not ‘better’.”
“I’m sorry.” She began again. “It’s just… I don’t know. The other day, when we were leaving the university, I think I… I think I remembered something. From before.” She peeked up at him from under her lashes before darting her eyes downwards again. “I saw you and I think… I think your neck was broken or something. I had to hold your head like a brace.” She smiled briefly. “Then Bartholomew came with a band of men. I tried to fight them but they overwhelmed me.” Her voice sped up. “I couldn’t stop them and all I remember thinking was that you were defenceless and I was failing you. I couldn’t protect you.”
Sebastian couldn’t accept that. It was his job to protect her. If anyone had failed that day…
“I’ve been haunted by that feeling for as long as I can remember.” She continued. “And now, when it looks like I might not just have an explanation for it but a chance to put it right, I’m so afraid that I’m reaching for something that isn’t there because I really, really want it to be there.” She finally looked up and met his eyes. “I want you to be real, Sebastian. I want us to be real.”
There were a thousand things Sebasti
an could have said in that moment. He didn’t say anything. He tipped Effie’s chin up with one finger and brought his lips down to meet hers.
Effie hadn’t dared to think about what it might be like to kiss Sebastian. It was just as well, because nothing she could have imagined would have come close to the reality.
Warmth exploded in her, travelling from her lips down to her toes. All she was aware of was his finger under her chin and his lips on hers, but it was more than enough. Fire at his touch like she’d never felt before. Even the burning heat of her dreams didn’t come close to this. She wanted to be closer. She wanted full body, skin to skin contact. She wanted him inside her, this fire inside her, so that these delirious flames would never go out.
Effie parted her lips to tease his with her tongue. With a groan, he snatched her to him, his arms around her back, around her head. Hers were crushed against him, in between them, but, with a little struggle, Effie managed to wriggle them free so she could wrap them around his neck.
His tongue tangled with hers, teeth clashing.
It wasn’t awkward; it was like coming home.
Eventually, her lungs starting protesting. She pulled back, gasping.
“Damn breathing.” She panted against his lips. “Why do we need air?”
Sebastian shook his head and laughed as he trailed kisses over her jaw and down her throat.
“Do you remember now?” He whispered, his breath hot against her skin. “Do you remember what this feels like?”
Yes, she thought, yes. This was what she had been missing, what she had been longing for. This was what had always been lacking when she’d kissed or been kissed by anyone else. She couldn’t put that half memory, half epiphany into words, though. Instead, she just dragged his face back up to hers and caught his lips again, nibbling at them when he smiled. Nibbling at them to make him smile, like she knew he would.
Someone hammered at the door.
“Sebastian?” Henry’s voice was muffled by the wood. “We need you downstairs. There’s a phone call for you.”
Effie and Sebastian broke apart, eyes shining as they stared at one another.
