The enslavement of the entire human race and anyone who happened to be filled with viable blood . . . That was really for the “good” of everyone?
Lona’s daughter had been naïve to think that, and Laura was even more so to continue believing. She’d seen how things had gone in the past decade alone. Things were slipping all over the world because William and I had been fighting a losing battle.
Now there was no one left to help me.
As I took the last of their memories, an overwhelming tide of guilt washed over me.
This is for the protection of our race, I thought.
Our survival depended on Ray surviving as long as possible. Everything depended on that. When I was finished, I walked away without looking back. Laura wouldn’t remember that I’d been there. Any remaining memories would be but the ghost of a dream. Nothing more.
On my way, I passed a young man wearing a sullen expression. He was clutching a telegram. Slipping into his mind for a moment, I discovered that it was a note regarding Laura’s husband.
She had just lost her race, and she was about to lose her husband. At least she had been spared the physical pain of his death.
My mind was riddled with guilt as I travelled home. So much had happened, and all I wanted was to be home, to see Ray, and to be with my family once more. But the world was in a difficult time and those times encompassed everything, including me.
As I was riding out of Lyon, one of the many check points loomed ahead. Most that I’d encountered had been manned with soldiers easy enough to influence.
Not this one.
By his uniform, he was an officer of some kind. Why he was there I didn’t care. His mind was already in my grasp as I approached, but not all minds are equal, and some are harder to influence than others.
“Halt!” He stood right in my path, blocking me from going any further. “What is your purpose here?”
There were so many answers I could have given him, just to placate him whilst I carried on with influencing him to let me pass, but I was so very tired.
When I didn’t answer he demanded, “State your purpose.”
With a shake of my head, and a deep seated need to be as far away from Lyon as possible, I did again what I had not long done. I made the man forget he’d ever seen me and carried on straight past him.
A feeling of dread was heavy on my heart as I saw London rise up before me.
Or what was left of it.
The German army had been busy while I was away. London was deserted. So many buildings had been razed to the ground. There were a few people wading through the rubble of what had once been a home and a shop. Then I passed the university. The same building I’d met Ray in.
Its neighbours were all but gone, and parts of the university were destroyed, as well.
Trudging past the ruins, I went straight to my home. I didn’t intend on stopping long, just long enough to pick up a few things.
But when I opened the door, Helen was standing there. “Helen, are you . . . ?” I rushed over to her side, looking her over for injuries.
“We’re fine,” she promised. “But…”
“Why are you still here?”
“I’m sorry, Serenity,” Helen whispered.
“Helen, why haven’t you left yet?”
“Sam’s missing, and Ray went to fetch his mother the day you left. That was last Saturday.”
“What?” I whispered. I couldn’t have heard her right. Ray couldn’t have been gone that long. He was supposed to have left the city, gotten to safety.
“He left to get his mother . . . Serenity, Sam went after him.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice shook, her calm slipping. “He never came back.”
“Look after the children. I have to find them,” I told her, racing to my room to change. Searching for someone would be a lot easier if I were dressed appropriately.
The first place I went was his house. There was no answer as I rang the doorbell again and again, so I let myself in. It was clear that no one had been there. There was a thin layer of dust covering everything and the air was stale.
He must have gone to the university, I thought, but he has to be fine. I’m still here.
Locking the door behind me, I raced through the streets towards what was left of the university. There were hardly any people about. Most had fled the city, and those who’d stayed were at the hospital with loved ones or helping to sift through the wreckage of various buildings.
I tried to get a closer look, but the police stopped me at the edge of the rubble.
“You can’t go in there, miss,” one of them said.
“Do you know if Liza and Ray Synclair were in there?” I asked.
“I’m sorry,” he answered, shaking his head. “There were a few people inside at the time. They’ve all been taken to the hospital.”
“Thank you.”
It wasn’t as crowded as I’d thought it would be. It had been a few days since the first bombs had fallen and most people had been released. Or had died from their injuries.
“Please, let him be safe,” I whispered, approaching the receptionist.
“Can I help you?”
“Can you tell me if any of the Synclair family has been admitted? And Sam Cardea?” I asked, hoping that they were all fine.
“Just a moment.”
It seemed like an eternity as she searched through various files and names. Each second ticked by, passing too quickly and too slowly at the same time.
“Yes, Mrs. Liza Synclair was admitted for a short time.”
“And Ray Synclair?” I asked, practically begging. “Where can I find him?”
“The morgue.”
I blanched. “I’m sorry?”
“Ray Synclair was taken straight to the morgue.” She spoke slowly, which made her words that much worse. “Mrs. Synclair died of her injuries shortly after she was admitted. And we have no record of Sam Cardea.”
That couldn’t have been right. I was still alive, still breathing. My heart was still beating, so Ray couldn’t be dead. I hadn’t felt anything either. No jolt of pain or sudden realisation.
“Miss Cardea?” I heard someone call. It was a voice I hadn’t expected to hear in the hospital.
“Professor Baruti,” I greeted him, not wanting to deal with more vampires.
“Did I hear you asking about Ray and his mother?”
“Yes,” I admitted. “Ray is . . . he’s my fiancé.”
“I am so sorry,” he told me, unfathomable sadness in his eyes.
“He cannot be dead,” I whispered.
“I’m afraid he is, Miss Cardea. I didn’t know the two of you were so close.” He led me to one of the seats in the waiting area. My mind was dissolving into panic as I tried to grasp what had happened.
“He cannot be dead,” I said again. “I would know. Why was he even there?”
“He was picking something up,” Professor Baruti informed me. “He and his mother were going away for a couple of days.”
“No! He can’t . . .”
“I am sorry,” the professor said again, placing his hand on my shoulder. It was supposed to be a gesture of comfort. All it did was remind me of what he was.
“There has to have been a mistake.” I shook off his touch and stood up.
“I’m afraid not,” he said. “I was with him when it happened.”
“And yet you appear uninjured,” I hissed.
“If I could have done anything—”
“I don’t want to hear it!”
The last thing I heard as I fled the hospital was Professor Baruti whispering, “I am so sorry. I did not know.”
There had to be another explanation. I would’ve known if anything had happened to him.
I came to the only conclusions possible: either he’d already gone up to my other home, he’d left me, or he really was dead. I prayed it was the first explanation. The logical part of me was telling me it wasn’t. T
hat perhaps he hadn’t taken everything as well as I thought.
Because no one was that calm.
Alison was, I thought, but pushed it to the side.
What if it had been too much, and he’d gone to Professor Baruti for help? After all, a vampire would understand needing to disappear from other mythical beings. Even if he hadn’t told the professor what I was, the man had been a friend to Ray. It would explain why he was there. But on the chance I was wrong, I couldn’t go to him to find out, because of Poppy.
Unless Ray was dead. But if he was, then how was I still alive?
There was a quiet voice whispering inside my mind, trying to tell me something I didn’t want to be true. Life, it whispered, making me shake my head.
I hadn’t realised where I was heading until I was standing outside of his house again. I stopped, staring at the front door. Part of me wanted to go in, to make sure he wasn’t there waiting for me as though nothing had happened. The rest of me stayed rooted to the spot, refusing to move.
Was I wrong? I thought. Was he really meant for me?
Everything hurt. There wasn’t a single part of me that wasn’t blazing with pain. More than holding my sister as she died. More than watching William as he writhed in pain. Even more than seeing his house burn and knowing it was my own family that had caused it.
Tears ran down my face, soaking my cheeks. I knew. He wasn’t waiting somewhere safe, away from everything that could go wrong.
He was gone.
But he was the one who was supposed to stand by me for the rest of my life. I was supposed to grow old with him, have him by my side as I felt the dread of leaving my family behind. We were supposed to watch our family grow.
We were supposed to stay together.
My mind screamed that I didn’t want to go back into that house. I didn’t want to see it empty; I wanted to remember things how they were.
The house was empty. There was no one waiting in any of the rooms. There were no signs anyone had been there since Liz had left on her trip. I couldn’t tell if Ray had been back before going to the university.
What had he wanted?
There wasn’t any reason for him to go there.
I ended up standing outside Ray’s room. There was something I wanted. He was supposed to have put it in the safe, but he’d spent hours trying to translate it. I couldn’t have that falling into the wrong hands.
As I rifled through his drawers for the book I’d given him only weeks before, I bumped into his wardrobe. When I glanced up, I spotted the box that was on top of it. With tears streaming down my face, I reached for it.
He couldn’t begrudge me that one small thing.
On my way out, feeling the sting of loss running through every part of me, I picked up one of the portraits that were scattered through the house. The most recent one of Ray and his mother.
The glances from passers-by as I walked home with Ray’s things clutched to my chest were not my concern. I was a mess—tear-streaked face, wild eyed, and my hair still plaited.
I didn’t care.
Couldn’t.
“Aunt Sere?”
“Not now,” I whispered. My voice was as lifeless as I felt.
In one week I gained a husband-to-be. And in one week I’d lost everything.
“Do you need anything?” she asked gently.
“Ray.”
She placed her hand on my arm for a moment. “Sam?”
I shook my head.
Dejectedly, I walked past her, heading for the stairs. When I got to my room, I went to my wardrobe, putting the things I was so desperately clutching in it. Before I closed it, I lifted the lid of the shoebox, taking out the tiny hedgehog. Clutching it to my chest, I turned to face my room . . . and my mind went blank.
My bed. Our bed. So many memories in such little time.
My knees gave out and I collapsed to the floor, sobbing. Screaming.
No one disturbed me, and no one came to comfort me. My throat was raw by the time they faded to nothing but a whimper. I didn’t feel it. All I felt was the pain of knowing he was gone.
It was dark before the tears stopped and I managed to crawl into the bed. My mind kept going over what had happened. Was there something I should’ve done? Maybe I should’ve gotten him out of the city before I’d left for William’s.
My thoughts were spinning in circles, trying to think of something, anything to explain what had gone wrong.
Could he really be gone? Did my gift, so useless for so many centuries, mean I had to spend eternity knowing what love felt like only to have it ripped away?
Time ceased to exist as I lay on the bed.
Minutes passed with excruciating slowness. They turned, slowly, into hours. Those hours turned into days. Helen tried to talk to me so many times, but I couldn’t bring myself to answer her. Life went on in the house; I heard everything, yet it was as if I was no longer there. Just a ghost listening to life pass by.
Helen received word that the London Seat had relocated due to issues in Spain. She was checking all of my mail, not that I cared what was in it. When that piece of news came, however, I felt my hope return.
I lay in the bed, waiting. Hoping. Yet the seconds passed. The minutes came and went. The hours dragged on and on. Night turned to day. Day drifted back to night. And nothing changed, not even the nightly bombardments. There was no call. No letter. No anything. The only words I spoke were urging Helen to leave, but she refused.
Part of me hoped he had found it all too much and decided to run when the dangers of my life became all too apparent. He deserved so much more. Could I deny him that?
Yes.
I’d never deny him the freedom to choose. I’d have let him go if he’d asked. Had he asked . . . But he didn’t. He hadn’t given me any indication he wanted to leave. He’d asked me to marry him! He’d said he wanted to know everything. That he understood.
How could anyone ever understand?
What we were went beyond the realms of anything that was known. I was a creature of myth and legend . . . No, I wasn’t even that. I was just . . . a creature. A being trying to protect those weaker than me. Someone hoping to find love, yet hoping that day never came. My day had come.
And now it was gone.
Yet, as I thought of all the things I could have done wrong, the persistent voice in the back of my mind told me to stop being so stupid.
He wasn’t alive somewhere, waiting for me. How could he be?
But as my mind cleared and began accepting that perhaps my gift had a use, all I could see was a future knowing the pain of losing my partner.
Every unneeded breath I took reminded me of it. Every time I inhaled Ray’s fading scent from my sheets it stabbed me again, sharp as a knife, deep as an arrow.
I stopped counting as the days passed. I stopped thinking about what I could’ve done differently. I stopped hoping I’d ever see him again. I stopped thinking about him. I didn’t wallow. I didn’t mope. I wasn’t miserable. I wasn’t inconsolable. I didn’t speak. I didn’t eat. I didn’t do anything.
Christmas was fast approaching, and yet I cared not. Not about presents for my family or dinner in front of a roaring fire. I knew I needed to move on. There was no one else to keep the peace anymore.
What was the point? It would make little difference in the end.
I had a duty to fulfil. I knew I needed to drag myself out of bed and get things done, but I couldn’t.
Was there a point to protecting the human race when it could be so unbearably cruel?
“Aunt Sere?” a small voice asked from the door.
It was Jayne, and I couldn’t bring myself to answer her. I didn’t know if my voice would work.
Instead of leaving, as everyone else did, she stepped into the room, closing the door behind her. She clambered onto the bed and lay facing me. Looking into my eyes, she wrapped her arms around me and whispered, “I miss Uncle Ray, too.”
That was all it took for me to lose control.
One sentence. Five little words. The tears I’d been holding back since I first returned broke through. Every emotion I’d buried in an effort to stop the pain came roaring back to life, taking me, overwhelming me, forcing me to feel everything. Pain. Fear. Anger. Loss. Love.
I cried so hard I thought I’d never stop.
Through all of it, Jayne held me, never saying anything. She just held me, her tiny arms wrapped tightly around my neck. It felt like hours before I realised she was crying with me.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, wiping her tears away.
“I just want my Aunt Sere back.”
“I’m not sure if I can come back,” I told her, unable to offer even the smallest of smiles.
“We can help,” someone said from the doorway.
“I don’t know if I can do it.” Helen was standing there with tears in her eyes. “I don’t think I’m strong enough.”
“Let us help.”
“Thank you.” I opened my arms to them both. “I miss him so much.”
“We all do,” Helen said, hugging me.
“What am I supposed to do without him?” I asked.
“I don’t know, Serenity. I can’t answer that question.”
“Will you come down for dinner, Aunt Sere?” Jayne asked, sniffling.
“I will, sweetheart.”
Having my family with me made me realise something. I had to be strong. Not for me.
For everyone else . . .
1974
“You be careful with that, young lady,” Helen said from her seat by the front door.
“Yes, Nana.” Lizzy rolled her eyes as she passed me, gingerly carrying the box containing her grandmother’s picture frames.
The Last Keeper Page 17
