“I don’t know if I believe in God or in the devil, but after that day, I’ll tell you Chris – I definitely believe in evil. They stood in front of me, my parents’ blood dripping from their mouths, and they smiled at me. They actually smiled. It was the most chilling and horribly evil thing in the whole world. As if they thought they were vampires or something.”
Christian was trying to come to a decision. Caroline knew. Okay, she didn’t know she knew, but she knew. But worse than that, the vampires knew she knew. He had failed to truly anticipate the very real possibility that she actually knew something substantial, but worse than that, to truly anticipate that the vampires would now be aware of the fact that she was aware of their existence. He couldn’t simply leave her here, on the street, and return to Lorenzo with just the knowledge that she was in way over her head. If he returned to the hotel and left Caroline behind, she would be as good as dead.
Yet, if he brought Caroline back to the hotel with him, she would know that vampires really did exist, and that there were people who dedicated their lives to killing them. And that he was one of those people. Lorenzo would not be happy with that. No one outside of the Manus Dei had ever heard of the order or knew of its existence. That’s how secretive the organization was. Not even the pope was aware of its existence.
Okay, now he was staring off into space, probably ignoring her. Good. Then he wouldn’t notice her leaving.
“Okay, well this has been fun,” Caroline said, lying through her teeth, “but I have somewhere to be.” The truth was, she didn’t even have anywhere to go.
Christian came to a split second decision. He grabbed her hand, and held up his other hand as a sign of peace.
“Don’t get mad,” he said softly. “I mean, don’t get any madder than you already are. I know that right now, you probably hate me.”
She didn’t hate him, although she didn’t correct him. The truth was, as much as she had yelled, she kind of liked him when he wasn’t being all pushy and nosy.
“I know we just met,” he continued, “and I know you’re probably not too keen on trusting strangers right now, but I have a favor to ask.”
She said nothing, and he rushed to continue, knowing he had to convince her, knowing she had no idea that it was a matter of life and death.
“I need you to come back to my hotel with me. I think you need to talk to Father Lorenzo.”
She started to protest, but he interrupted.
“Not about how you’re feeling and how you should be feeling,” he insisted, “but about what you saw that night.”
“Why?” she asked suspiciously.
He hesitated. He couldn’t tell her. Not without talking to Lorenzo first.
“I need you to trust me, Caroline.”
She didn’t know what it was about him. Maybe it was that familiar look she had glimpsed momentarily in his eyes earlier, maybe it was the fact that she felt so comfortable with him that she had been able to blow up at him in public. Whatever it was, she felt something deep inside her that told her he was on the right side. He was on her side. No matter how annoying he had been, he was trying to help her.
“Okay. I’ll go with you.”
As they began walking towards the subway, Christian knew he had made the right decision, to bring Caroline back with him. Lorenzo would give him hell about it, but he had no choice. He could’ve tried to protect Caroline from afar, and not let her know she was being protected, but unless he was watching her 24-7, the Master Vampire would make sure she was dead. The only way to ensure her safety was to bring her back to the hotel and tell her the truth about everything, Lorenzo and secrecy be damned. He had already failed her once; he wouldn’t fail her again.
Chapter Six
Lorenzo Catalano was more than surprised and not too thrilled to find two people standing in the hallway when he got up to answer the knock on the door to the hotel suite. Though the priests at Saint Joseph’s had offered to put them up in the rectory, he and Christian had chosen to stay in hotel because it afforded more privacy for the work they were doing.
Christian had a guilty but determined look on his face, and the girl standing next to him… well, Caroline looked like a girl who had just buried her family that morning.
He watched with disappointment as she didn’t seem the least surprised to see him there. If she had known to expect Lorenzo to be staying with Christian, then he must have told her something about what they did, something he shouldn’t have told her.
“Father Lorenzo,” she said. “It’s good to see you again.”
“And you as well, my child,” Lorenzo answered her, while questioning Christian with his eyes. Christian chose to ignore him, instead putting a hand on Caroline’s shoulder.
“Let’s sit down, shall we?”
Lorenzo moved out of the doorway, allowing the two to pass and enter the front room. Caroline walked in first, and as Christian followed her, Lorenzo placed a hand on his shoulder.
“You shouldn’t have brought her here,” he murmured discreetly, close to Christian’s ear. Christian said nothing, only looking at Lorenzo with an unreadable expression on his face, before following Caroline into the room. Lorenzo turned to face the two younger people.
“Well, this certainly is unexpected,” Lorenzo said with barely feigned cheerfulness. “I wasn’t expecting Christian to return with company. We aren’t used to having guests, as you can see by the mess.”
He gestured around the spotless, bare room. He turned to Christian, waiting for an explanation, as Caroline looked on in bewilderment, clearly ill at ease; a palpable tension between the two men filled the air. She could tell that she wasn’t completely welcome in the apartment, but she was in the dark as to why. Chris had specifically said he wanted Lorenzo to talk to her, but Caroline had the distinct impression that Lorenzo was unhappy with the decision Chris had made.
“Can we speak in private?” Chris asked, suddenly looking uncomfortable.
“If you had wanted to speak to me in private,” Lorenzo said through clenched teeth, “you should not have brought her here.”
Christian turned to Caroline, an apologetic look on his face.
“Would you excuse us for a second?” he asked.
“Of course,” she answered. Christian practically dragged Lorenzo into one of the two bedrooms, shutting the door as Caroline began looking through a pile of books on the end table to amuse herself while she waited.
“Christian, she cannot be here,” Lorenzo began as soon as the door was shut. “It is much too dangerous. She is a civilian-“
“She knows,” Christian said in a voice so soft Lorenzo almost missed it. He froze.
“How does she know?” Lorenzo asked, trying to mentally assess the situation.
“Because she saw them, because she was there in the apartment with them,” Christian explained, starting to get exasperated.
“But that is impossible,” Lorenzo sputtered; Christian could tell the old priest was shaken up by the news. They had known there was a possibility she had seen and discovered things, but the possibility had been so slight that neither of them had seriously entertained it. Lorenzo had sent Christian to Caroline to find out how much she knew, expecting that Christian would return with the news that all was well, the secret was safe, because the girl knew nothing. Things were definitely not going as planned.
“That is impossible,” Lorenzo repeated, as if trying to convince himself. “They would never allow a human to survive.”
“Well, they did, and she’s sitting in the other room. She knows. She doesn’t know, however, that she knows. She thinks what she saw were two people acting like vampires, not two actual vampires.”
Christian paused, letting it all sink in. Lorenzo was deep in thought, but the shock of the situation had taken its toll - he looked as if he had aged ten years in the past ten minutes.
“The thing is, Lorenzo, and the reason I brought her here,” Christian continued, “is that they must know that she knows.
She is in danger. I have already failed her in not protecting her family. I won’t fail her a second time by not protecting her.”
“But she is a civilian,” Lorenzo insisted. “What will you tell her?”
“The truth,” Christian said simply, walking past Lorenzo and opening the door to fill Caroline in.
He was too late.
“They were real, weren’t they?”
It wasn’t a question, but rather a statement. Christian had entered the room where they had just left Caroline a few minutes ago, planning on telling her everything. He would need to explain to her everything in order to convince her to stay with him and Lorenzo for her protection, even if it meant revealing for the first time ever a secret that had been kept for hundreds of years. He noticed immediately, however, upon entering the room that something had changed.
Caroline was no longer sitting on the sofa, but rather, was pacing angrily, though she had stopped when he and Lorenzo came back into the room. She glared at him, a book in her hand. Because they never had visitors, it hadn’t even occurred to either man to hide or cover any of the neatly stacked books on the windowsill and end tables.
She had a look of utter betrayal on her face. Considering the fact that she looked like she wanted to kill someone, particularly him, she spoke very calmly. It was a dangerous calm.
“Vampires, you mean,” he said, hesitating only a second before continuing, his voice much calmer than he felt. “Yes, they’re real.”
“You have all these books,” she said, waving the one in her hand in a furious gesture. “All these books, about signs and prophecies and…vampires!”
Christian didn’t know what to say, though he was certain she wouldn’t listen even if he did know. He felt Lorenzo’s presence at his back, but he was sure Lorenzo was as much of at a loss of what to do as he was. Caroline threw the book down on the floor, and the fury in her eyes was replaced again by betrayal as she glared at Christian, but there was something else there too, that took Christian only a moment to identify - extreme hurt.
“You never spoke to Father Reed about me, did you?” she asked, her tone accusatory.
“No,” Christian admitted.
“You’re not in counseling, either, are you?”
It was a rhetorical question, and didn’t warrant a response.
“You lied to me,” she said in a watery voice, as if she would start crying any minute. “I suppose it’s my fault, really, for being so stupid. I mean, I just met you. I just met you an hour ago and yet I felt like I could trust you.”
“You can, Caroline-,” he tried to protest, but she cut him off.
“You didn’t follow me to the coffee shop to counsel me. You didn’t follow me to help me. You only wanted to know what I knew. You lied to me.”
Christian had never felt so horribly dirty and rotten in his whole entire life; he hadn’t lied to her, but he hadn’t been honest with her, either. It was just another thing she hadn’t needed added to an already horrible day. He took a cautious, conciliatory step towards her, but he could sense her bristling, and so he stopped.
“I was trying to help you, God’s honest truth. I’m still trying to help you, if you’ll just let me explain-“
“I trusted both of you. For God’s sake,” she said, suddenly turning her anger towards Lorenzo, “you’re a priest! And here you are, having your…friend follow me and press me for all the gory details of my family’s murder! How sick can you people get? What are you two, some sort of vampire groupies or something?”
“Some might call us that.” She was glaring at Christian, but it was Lorenzo who answered her. He took a step forward, and then another, until he was even with Christian. She was breathing heavily and erratically, her eyes wide and wild. She looked as if she might bolt; Christian suddenly saw that as furious as she was, she was also terrified. He didn’t even look to Lorenzo for permission. He had come back to her to tell her the truth, and he still intended to. He took a deep breath before proceeding.
“I am what is called a vampire hunter,” Christian said. “I told you that I help people in need. Well, my job is to kill vampires.”
“Vampires are real.” She had said it before, but she was only just realizing the full implication and weight of the words.
“Vampires are real,” he agreed yet again, “and I fight them. Lorenzo helps me on the more intellectual end of the deal. Research and stuff. Hence, the books.” He gestured to the book-laden end table.
He waited to see what her reaction would be to his statements so far, but she remained silent. He began to worry when she still said nothing. He was about to continue with his explanation when she spoke, in a barely audible voice.
“My family.”
A chill settled in Christian’s spine. How could he have been so careless? Here, he had been trying to smooth things out, and he had forgotten that his admission could make things extremely, irrevocably worse.
She looked into his eyes, and he was suddenly frightened. There was no longer any anger, and the betrayal and hurt were also gone, but in their place was nothing. Her eyes were flat, devoid of emotion. She was shutting down.
“If what you’re telling me is true, then vampires killed my family. If you kill vampires, how were those two able to kill my family?”
Christian had no answer for her.
“Have you killed them? The vampires who killed my family?” Christian’s guilty silence was the only answer she needed. She nodded in understanding.
“So, my parents are dead, my sisters are dead, and those two vampires are still walking around someplace. That sounds pretty reasonable.”
She was right. About it all, she was right, except for the reasonable part. He had failed, and he would never forgive himself, but it suddenly felt ten times worse because she knew he had failed her, and she would never forgive him.
Without warning, she turned and walked to the front door of the hotel room, turning the knob. Christian rushed to stand in between her and the entrance to the hallway.
“Wait!” he cried, confusion and worry temporarily overriding his self-berating. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t know,” she said, shrugging. “Somewhere. Anywhere. Besides the fact that it’s none of your damn business where I’m going.”
Lorenzo was suddenly at her side.
“Leaving would not be a wise decision, my dear. You are not safe. Nobody knows about vampires save a select few, of which you are now included. You are a threat to them, and I am sure they intend to kill you. You must stay with us to ensure your safety until the Master Vampire is killed.”
“Oh, great, now there’s a Master Vampire?” she cried, nearly in tears. “And how am I safer here with you? He,” she gestured angrily at Christian, “couldn’t save my family. How can he save me?”
Her words hurt, and catching Christian off guard, she shoved past him and stormed off. Christian was immediately set to run after her, but Lorenzo restrained him. When Christian looked at him in bewilderment, the old priest explained.
“If you follow her now, she will only become more hostile and adamant. She is in shock. Keep an eye on her from a distance, but give her some time before you approach her again.”
“But you agree that she must stay with us? That she isn’t safe otherwise?”
“As much as I dislike the idea, I agree that she needs to be kept safe, and that staying with us, where we can keep an eye on her, is the only option.”
Christian started out the door, but Lorenzo again restrained him with a hand. Christian turned to his mentor, whose eyes had softened and was looking at him as if he could see into Christian’s soul.
“Do not let her words hurt you. She is upset. You are a good Hunter.” Sensing the doubt Christian continued to feel, Lorenzo added his usual words of reassurance.
“Remember, Christian. We do only what we can.”
Lorenzo could tell that Christian still didn’t completely believe him, but the hurt and self-loathing in the young
man’s eyes had diminished. And then he was gone. Lorenzo turned to a cross on the wall and said a silent prayer for the young girl, and for Christian, too. They would all need a prayer or two; he could foresee nothing but trouble in the future.
Caroline ran blindly out of the hotel, almost colliding head on with the doorman in the lobby, not sure where she was headed, just trying to get as far as possible from Chris Dreiden. Before long, she found herself across the street from Central Park, and she finally decided that’s where she wanted to end up. The walking had helped to clear her head and calm her down a bit. She walked into the park, and it was like stepping into another world.
It had always amazed her how a beautiful, peaceful park full of trees and grass and…well, more trees, could exist in the middle of a concrete and steel city that never slept, home to millions. As a child, she had loved visiting the park with her father, particularly the zoo and carousel in the spring and summer, and ice skating in the winter. Thinking of her father brought on a fresh wave of pain, but Caroline found that being in this place, with all the wonderful memories it held, was comforting.
Usually, she could spend hours just wandering, exploring all the meandering paths and visiting all the attractions, but Caroline had finally settled on a destination, and she made her way directly there. As she approached the bridge that marked the entrance, before it came into view, she paused for a moment, and closed her eyes. She loved Central Park, but she loved this part of it best. She thought Bethesda Fountain was one of the most peaceful and magical places she had ever known.
After the Fall: A Vampire Chronicle (Book One) Page 5
