by Lund, S. E.
Will I ever be able to trust anyone or anything?
While I clean up, Julien stands in the doorway. I pour fresh water into the basin on the counter and splash some of it over my face with my hands, then wash my body off.
“Good idea,” he says, his arms crossed while he leans on the door jamb to watch me. “Don’t go to Michel smelling of me or he’ll be livid.”
“He made his choice,” I say and grin at Julien, and try to make light of it, but inside, I still feel a tug at my heart that he gave me up so easily. Soren seemed to think that Michel would go back to me in a moment, if I offered. I won’t because I decided we were through before he chose the priesthood, but still… I wonder.
“He chose the priesthood over me. I doubt he really cares.”
“Oh, he cares. Believe me, he cares,” Julien says with a nod. “He just cares more about his damn religion than his own heart.”
“I know,” I say and brush my hair, smoothing out the tangles I got from rolling around with Julien on the bed. “But that’s Michel, isn’t it?”
“He’s nuts,” Julien says and smiles that crooked grin. “His loss is my gain.” Then he comes to me and pulls me into his arms. “Don’t let him discourage you. Don’t let him upset you. Most of all,” he says and kisses my neck, “don’t let the bastard touch you. You’re mine, Eve. He made his choice. I made mine. I chose you.”
“I chose you as well,” I say, and kiss him tenderly. I stroke his hair, which is starting to fall a bit onto his forehead. If his hair were longer, he’d look almost identical to Michel. Except – except there’s this different look in Julien’s eyes.
I can’t explain it, but I see it when our eyes meet. I feel like his equal when I look in his eyes, despite the difference in our ages. He still has hope. He still wants to fight. He still wants to have fun.
I think Michel has lost that. He seems as if every moment with me is some kind of diversion from what really matters. As if I was stealing him away from his true mission.
Not Julien.
He’s all mine.
* * *
I take the hallway to Michel’s quarters and knock on the door.
“Michel?” I say softly. “It’s me.”
He opens the door and stares at me as if I’m an annoyance. “What?”
“Can I come in?” I ask, trying to squeeze into the room. “I need to talk to you.”
He holds firm, keeping me from entering. “What about?”
“When you let me in, I’ll tell you.”
He glances over his shoulder into the room and then turns back. “I’m busy. Come back later.”
“Now,” I say and crane my neck to see inside. “Who’s with you?” I ask, and then I see her. She comes into view, dressed in her diaphanous gown. Gabrielle.
Soren’s replacement for Marguerite.
I can’t hide my shock, my jaw dropping open.
“Are you with her?” I blurt out, then kick myself that it was my first response.
He frowns and shakes his head. “No, of course not,” he says angrily. “I’m telling her about the real Marguerite. I took a vow, Eve. I’m celibate until I die.”
“Tell her to leave,” I say and watch her, a strong twinge of jealousy in me despite his claim that he’s celibate. I don’t want to even think of Michel with another woman. If I can’t have him, I don’t want anyone else to.
“Eve, don’t be rude. Come back in an hour.”
“Tell her to leave, now,” I say, for although I’m jealous, I need to talk to him about Soren and what he claimed. I need to see Michel confirm or deny it.
“Just a minute,” Michel says with a sigh and closes the door. I wait outside, my heart pounding in my chest. I’m afraid of what he’ll say when I confront him.
I don’t want him to confirm what Soren said about my mother. If he does, everything falls apart.
The door opens again in a couple of minutes and a smiling Gabrielle leaves, giving me a coy expression when she does.
“Thank you, Father,” she says softly and turns to Michel. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”
Michel opens the door, waving me inside. “Come in, Eve.”
I enter his rooms. There’s a piano in one corner by a huge floor to ceiling window that looks out over the courtyard. A library lines the wall with thousands of books. And in the other corner is a four-poster canopy bed with thick deep green velvet draping and white sheets and pillows. On a desk by another window is a pad of paper and a quill pen.
A painting of some stage of the cross is on the wall beside it, a fatigued Jesus carrying a heavy wooden cross on his back through the streets, his forehead bloody, a crown of thorns on his head. Around him, citizens jeer and throw rotten food and stones.
It’s a really heart-rending scene. One I don’t doubt actually happened, for I believe in the historical Jesus. Just not the transcendent one who was resurrected or was God made flesh or any of the other religious crap. Does Michel get some kind of solace looking at that horrific scene?
He closes the door and points to the small seating area with a couch and two comfortable armchairs. I sit on one of the chairs and face him where he sits on the couch across from me.
“Tell me the truth,” I say and lean forward, my eyes meeting his. “Did my mother ask Soren to allow her to become a vampire?”
Michel says nothing for a moment, but I see something in his eyes that tells me all I need to know.
“I thought so,” I say and glance away, unable to look at him a moment longer, my anger is so strong. I try to calm down, breathing in deeply in an effort to slow my heart rate, which is elevated. A flush spreads on my face and my cheeks heat.
“I wanted to tell you—” he says, but I cut him off, my hand up to stop him.
“Don’t say a word.”
“Eve, I—”
“Don’t,” I say, my voice shaking from emotion. “No more lies. No more anything. Consider yourself dead to me. She’s dead to me as well. Not only did she abandon me willingly, she lied to me about how she became a vampire. You lied to me as well.”
I stand to leave, for I don’t need to hear anything else. What could he say that would make this all right? He lied to me. He lied and lied and lied. She lied.
I’m finished with him. Finished with them both.
I stride to the door, my eyes filling, vision blurred. I don’t want to listen to him try to rationalize why he and my mother lied to me all this time.
“One day, Eve, you’ll understand.”
I turn to him, sick and tired of hearing him say that same old refrain.
“Well, that day isn’t today because I don’t understand.”
“I didn’t want it this way,” he says and comes to the door when I reach it, holding it closed, preventing me from leaving. “I wanted another way, but your mother chose for us all.”
I turn to him, barely able to see him through my tears. “Yeah, well, you went along with her.”
“Not willingly, but she forced my hand.”
“How? What does she want?”
He shakes his head, still unwilling to tell me the whole truth. “I told you before that I can’t tell you.”
“And she won’t either, so I guess I’m back where I started. I’m done with the both of you.”
I put my hand on the doorknob to open the door but he stops me and leans closer, so that his face is mere inches from mine. I can’t help but look in his eyes, and despite everything, I want him to tell me the truth, I want to be able to understand so that I can cooperate willingly with him. Even now, I can’t help but want us to be the way we were.
“Tell me, Michel,” I plead, my voice soft, breaking from emotion. “Please…”
He shakes his head sadly, and I see real pain in his eyes. “I can’t.” He holds up his hands as if in surrender. “All I can say is that you shouldn’t cooperate with Soren. Please trust me. I know you have no faith, but trust me, and trust the love we feel, what we felt for each other. That wil
l never die on my part. I would never do anything to hurt you.”
“I can’t trust,” I say, my lip actually quivering from emotions welling up inside of me. “I have no faith.”
He lets me leave this time, and I push the door open and rush down the hallway, a hand over my mouth to stop myself from sobbing out loud, but that’s how I feel.
My mother did ask to be turned. She chose to become a vampire and then chose to let me think she’d been murdered. Michel lied about her ever since I met him.
He won’t explain himself and expects me to simply accept what he says as fact.
He wants me to be like him – accepting things on faith, but I have none and never did.
I stand outside my room in the dim hallway and try to get control over my emotions, breathing in deeply to try to calm myself, but it’s impossible. I lean against the door and slide down so that I sit on the floor and I sob silently into my hands.
Julien opens the door. “Eve?” he says when he sees me sitting there, weeping and of course, he comes right to me and picks me up, his strong arms slipping around me, pulling me into his embrace. “Oh, Eve, I’m so sorry,” he says and holds me tighter.
I don’t say anything. I can’t speak.
He pulls me into the room and closes the door, then takes me to the couch where I sit on his lap and cry on his shoulder. I let it all out, sobbing about Michel and my mother and all the lies and deceit.
Julien says nothing. Instead, he listens and strokes my back, wiping tears off my cheeks, and kissing me when I’m no longer wracked with sobs.
Chapter 111
Later, when I’ve calmed down enough, we talk in quiet voices about what Michel said, and didn’t say, and what it all means.
“Can you blame her for wanting to be immortal?” Julien says softly, and I know he’s trying to be reasonable in contrast to my emotionality.
I shake my head. “It’s not that,” I say and consider my mother. “She was always so strongly committed to eradicating vampires. Her choosing to become one was so unlike my vision of her that it’s hard to accept. It’s that she chose to leave me,” I say and wipe my eyes. “I always thought she was murdered. At least I could believe that she was taken from me by an evil vampire.”
All my life, I thought it was a monster who killed her and I turned all my hatred towards him, finding him, getting revenge. Then I learn it was actually Michel who killed her and not Soren, but I thought he was forced. Then I discover that she was alive. That Michel had turned her in order to save her. Now, I discover she wanted to be a vampire.
I turn to look in Julien’s eyes and see such sympathy in them. “She was never taken from me,” I say and tears start again. “She left me. She abandoned me.”
Julien pulls me back into his arms and the tears run down my face once more. This time, I get myself under control much more quickly.
“Soren said that after I spoke with Michel, I should come back and talk to him. Maybe I should go and ask him more.”
“You have to cooperate with him, Eve,” Julien says and I’m surprised that he might even consider cooperating with Soren to raise the rest of the Twelve. “But I told you before you can’t trust anyone,” he says and his voice is emotional. “Not even me.”
“Not even you?” I say with surprise. “Why?”
He shakes his head. “I’m compellable. I can be compelled.”
He’s right, of course. He is compellable. For all I know, everything he says has been fed to him by someone else trying to control me.
It could be Michel or Blackstone himself.
Maybe even Soren.
I have no idea and now, I feel utterly lost.
I place my hands on his shoulders and look deeply into his eyes. “Julien,” I say firmly, trying to use my powers to compel him. “Tell me who compelled you to lie to me.”
He smiles softly. “It’s no use, Eve. You’re new and not nearly powerful enough to overwrite the compulsion of an older, stronger vampire.” He shrugs.
“Damn,” I say and slump. “I hate this.”
“I know. So do I. And while I really don’t like the idea of you cooperating with Soren, I think it’s the only way.”
“You think I like it?” I say in disbelief.
“Eve,” he says, his voice dark. “I hate those monsters. He said if you cooperated, there’d be no killing. He’ll stop the plague. He’ll defeat Blackstone. I don’t like the fact that he wants to be worshiped like a god, but you can’t stop people from believing. As long as he allows people personal freedom, I can’t help but see him as the lesser of two evils.”
He nuzzles my neck. “All I know is that I want you to be safe. I wish the world could go away and the two of us could go to some cottage on the coast and live in peace but we have to do this.”
“Maybe someday,” I say softly and snuggle in his arms. For a moment, I let his warmth penetrate me. Our emotions for each other fill me with peace. I need it. His love is like a drug and I need it to keep me going.
“I love you,” I say to him, stroking the scar that runs down the side of his face.
“And I you,” he says. He kisses me and I feel the surge of desire he feels for me, but as much as I want to make love to him, I have to finish what I started with Soren.
“I have to go and speak to Soren.”
“Can’t you delay for a while?” he murmurs into my neck. “Say, ten minutes?”
“Ten? Is that all you need?” I say with a grin.
“Less, if you’re ready.” He smiles, one side of his mouth quirked.
“When I come back,” I say and kiss him quickly. “We’ll take an hour.”
He sighs heavily. “Okay, if you insist. I hope you’re still in the mood…”
I stand up and straighten my clothes. “I’ll probably need it even more after speaking with Soren.”
He stands up. “I’ll be here.”
* * *
I take the hallway back to Soren’s suite of rooms and the guard doesn’t hesitate to admit me. It’s like he’s been expecting me. When I enter, Soren’s alone and sitting at his desk, sorting through papers. He doesn’t even glance up when I stand before the desk.
“So, was I right?” he says, still studying the paper before him. I step closer and see it’s a map of the world with familiar red swatches marking where the plague has spread.
“Yes,” I say, my voice soft.
He glances up, his brow furrowed. “Sorry about that,” he says, smoothing the edges of the map, which have curled up. “It had to be hard to hear. Did he explain?”
“He said she wanted to be immortal so she could continue to work on the cure for vampirism without worry about being killed.”
He shrugs. “Makes complete sense. Still, it had to hurt that she more or less abandoned you. Why do you suppose she did that?”
“To protect me from you, for some reason.”
He frowns and sits back, eyeing me over his hands, which are folded in front of him. “Me? What did they say about me having anything do with you?”
“Michel said that in one possible future, I’m your lover. You took me at twelve and made me your concubine. They wanted to protect me from that.”
“How racy of me,” he says as if this is a joke. “Of course, back in the day, girls were married at twelve, after their first period.”
“We’re a little more civilized today,” I say with derision.
“Back then, fifty percent of women died in childbirth,” he says, matter of fact. “Fifty percent of infants died in their first five years of life. Reproduction had to start early to maintain the population, let alone increase it. It was survival, Eve. Not dirty old men.”
“Can’t it be both?” I say. He says nothing in reply. “Well, whatever the case,” I say, having to admit he might be right about it. “I’m glad we have a different system today. I certainly wasn’t ready for marriage and childrearing at twelve. No girl is.”
He sighs and picks up another map. “I’
m not going to argue history with you, or human nature.” He glances up at me expectantly. “That’s a fool’s errand. What’s your decision?”
I say nothing for a moment, considering.
Soren stands up, coming around his desk to stand before me. “If you need convincing, take my hand.”
He holds out his hand and I stare at it, not wanting to touch him. He grabs my hand anyway and when he does, he shows me some vision and it’s very dark. The images overtake reality and it’s as if I’m in a different time and place. The sky is grey; heavy black clouds blot out the sun. The land is ruined, the dirt pitted by huge holes, men’s bodies lying on the edges. I realize they’re the craters caused by massive bomb blasts.
He’s showing me a possible future and it’s very grim.
Then I see a small group of soldiers standing on the edge of the battlefield. We move closer and I see it’s Blackstone and several of his men. They’re surveying the carnage and seem pleased by it. I take it the smiles on their faces indicate Blackstone won that battle. If he won, I know that humans have lost.
It sends a shiver down my spine. I can smell the wet earth, and it’s soaked in blood, the coppery tang strong on my tongue and in my nose. I gag and then the memory fades and I’m back in Soren’s room, my hand in his, his eyes focused on me.
“I suppose you showed me that to scare me into complying.”
“I showed it to you because you want – you need – evidence. The only evidence I have is the evidence based on my ability to see the future.”
“How do I know you’re not creating that vision out of thin air? How do I know it’s really of the future and not just one thread? Even Michel can’t see the final future. We all have parts to play and so the future isn’t fixed.”
“Michel can’t see the final future, or the three choices we have. I can. You have to trust me.”
Frustration fills me for it always comes down to that – trust or faith.
“If you can see the final possible futures, everything is pretty much preordained. Every step. There can be no diversion. You already know what will happen. Isn’t that rather boring for you?”
