by Morgan Rice
No, it was Robert. The Duke.
He was the last person she wanted to dance with. Not only because he was arrogant, but more importantly, because Polly liked him.
He stood there, facing her, cheeks red from too much wine, and with a ridiculous white feather protruding from the back of mask, climbing several feet into the air.
This time she would be more tactful.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but I’m taking a break.”
His face reddened. “How dare you! Would you really dare to turn down a dance with me? Don’t you know who I am? After all, you are just a commoner. You’d be well advised to accept my offer—
while it lasts.”
Despite herself, Caitlin broke into a laugh. It made her realize the stark difference between the 21st and 18th centuries, the class lines that still existed. This man needed a good dose of her time.
Now she was mad.
“I wouldn’t dance with you if you paid me,” she said coldly.
The man’s face scrunched up in indignation. He stormed off, stomping his feet. He had probably never been spoken to that way in his life.
Good, Caitlin thought. It was past time that he had.
Caitlin needed some air. It was so stuffy in here; not a single window was open, and the hundreds of moving bodies created a tremendous heat.
She began to cross the dance floor, and as she did, a new song started up, a slower, more romantic one. Partners again began pairing off. Caitlin tried to ignore them, to brush past them, but it was another switching song, and partners didn’t ask. People grabbed whoever was on the floor, danced with them for several steps, and let them go, and Caitlin felt herself being grabbed and spun.
There was simply no way around it.
She gave in, deciding that she would just dance her way across the room one last time, and then head for the exit. She switched from one partner to another, grabbing hands and letting go.
And then, it happened. As her hands touched those of her final partner, an electric shock ran through her body.
His hands, his energy. She felt it from her head down to her toes.
She looked up at him carefully. He wore a mask, a proud, golden mask of royalty, and she couldn’t see his eyes. But her body told her.
She became breathless. The entire room stopped around here.
It had to be Caleb.
But as she opened her mouth to speak, a random dancer pulled her away, grabbed her and spun her in the other direction. At the same time, another dancer grabbed him away, and spun him in the other direction.
Caitlin tried to yank herself away, but he was too heavy and strong. By the time she managed to disengage, she was already halfway across the room, looking desperately for Caleb. She scoured every which way, looking for that golden mask, but he seemed to be gone, lost in the sea of bodies.
Frantic, Caitlin hurried through the room, shoving anyone in her way, absolutely determined to find him.
She did it again and again, crisscrossing the entire room, from one exit to the other.
Finally, after almost an hour, she was exhausted. He was nowhere to be found. If it had been him, he was gone.
Or had she imagined the whole thing?
Caitlin bent over, removed her mask, and breathed. She couldn’t stand it. It was too much.
She ran out the nearest door and then kept running, through the lobby, and through another door.
Finally, she was outside, on the square, gulping in the fresh air. She removed her mask and felt overwhelmed with emotion.
She cried and cried and cried.
*
A bell tolled, and Caitlin looked up at the giant clock tower, on the opposite side of the square, and saw that it was four A.M. She couldn’t believe how late she’d been out. If she had been home, in modern times, and it had been a school night, her mom would’ve killed her. Here, no one cared.
There had been many teenage girls in that room, and there were still many of them hanging out here in the square, at four in the morning.
Caitlin was exhausted. She just wanted to go home, to go back to Polly’s Island, and crash. She needed to sleep, to clear her head, to formulate a plan for finding Caleb—if he was even alive. She had been foolish, she realized now, to expect to find him in that ball. Even if that had been him, it clearly he was now gone for good.
She needed to go back in there, find Polly, and ask her if she was ready to go. She hoped that she was. The last thing she wanted was to wait here for hours more until Polly was ready to leave.
And she didn’t exactly have another way of getting back to the island—or any place else to go.
Caitlin went back inside the ballroom, and was a bit relieved to see that it was already petering out. It was half as crowded as it had been, and people were leaving by the minute.
Caitlin found Polly, luckily, and was concerned to see her crying. She hurried up to her.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “What happened?”
“Robert,” Polly said. “I asked him to dance. At first, he said no. Then, he changed his mind, and danced with me, but it was like he didn’t really want to dance. He was dancing too fast, like he was rushing to get through it, and jerking me around. He made me trip. He said I was a clumsy dancer.
He made fun of me and people were laughing. I’m so embarrassed,” she said, crying.
Caitlin turned red, furious. If she needed one more reason to hate Robert, she’d just found it.
“Can we leave?” Polly asked. “I want to go home.”
Caitlin was relieved to hear those words, but after hearing the story, she wasn’t quite ready to go just yet. “Of course, she said, “but can you just give me one minute?”
Polly nodded through her tears, her makeup running, and Caitlin strutted through the room.
She spotted Robert easily—he was the easiest one in the room to find, with that huge white feather protruding off the back of his mask, three feet higher than anyone else. She saw him giggling as he danced with several girls across the floor.
Caitlin spotted a passing server, reached over and grabbed a silver goblet overflowing with champagne, and hurried towards him. She snuck up behind them, and as he was dancing, casually pretended to trip, and dumped the entire goblet of champagne down his back. She made sure she dumped it down his neck, so that it trickled down his bare skin.
Robert shrieked, and pranced about the room, hopping from one foot to the other, as the cold liquid trickled down his bare back.
Caitlin ducked into the crowd and hid herself. Robert wheeled, again and again, looking for the offender, but it was futile. The girls all around him laughed at him.
Caitlin, satisfied, set the goblet down and hurried back towards Polly.
The room was really emptying out now, and a new song started, a slower, more romantic one—
probably, Caitlin assumed, the last song of the night. She looked over and saw that Mozart was still playing, sweat pouring off his face, pale, not looking very healthy.
And that was when she felt it.
The fingers on her shoulders. The electric thrill as it passed through her.
She stopped in her tracks. She was afraid to turn around and face him. Afraid that it was really him. And that she would lose him again.
Slowly, she turned.
And there he stood, with the same gold mask. With one hand outstretched, waiting for her hand.
He had found her. For the last dance of the night.
Her heart pounding, Caitlin took his hand, as he placed his other on her waist. She held his hand tightly this time, and put her other on his shoulder, determined not to let anyone break them apart.
They waltzed slowly across the room, and with each step, she felt her heart soaring through her chest. It was really him. She was so happy that he was alive. That he had made it. It reaffirmed her belief that everything had a reason. That, no matter what came between them, they would always be destined to be together.
The dan
ce went on, as slowly, the room emptied.
Finally, the dance died down, and they stopped, each holding the other tightly, neither willing to let go.
Finally, he released his grip, raised his hand, and prepared to lift his mask.
Caitlin’s heart pounded so hard, she could barely even think.
He pulled his mask back.
And that was when Caitlin fainted.
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CHAPTER ELEVEN
Kyle flew quickly in the night, diving right for Venice. That priest had been a tough one—it had taken more severe torture than Kyle had imagined to get the answers out of him, to find out where Caitlin had gone. But in the end, right before he killed him, Kyle prevailed. He smiled at the thought of it.
Kyle dove for the back streets of Venice. It was a fast and hard dive, and he chose an unlit alley, one that he’d always used whenever he’d needed to visit this stinkhole of a town. Just as he remembered, the alley was filthy and pitch-black. It provided the perfect cover for landing in the night.
It was so dark that Kyle couldn’t precisely see where he was going, and he came in a bit too fast, and accidentally set down on something. At first he was surprised by the softness of the ground, but when he heard a man grunt, he realized he’d landed on a sleeping bum.
The bum jumped up, and scowled back at Kyle. “What do you think you’re doing!?” he screamed.
Kyle, annoyed already, didn’t give him a chance to finish. He kicked him hard, and sent him flying across the alley, hard into a wall. The bum collapsed, unconscious. That made Kyle feel just a bit better.
Kyle looked around, and, with satisfaction, noted that no one had seen him land. As he headed down the alleyway, he recoiled at the smell, the stink of this city. It almost made him pine for the 21st century.
Kyle straightened his shirt, and walked out into a square. He found himself smack in the thick of the crowds of Venice. The human fools danced and played and sang all around him. It irritated him beyond belief. He couldn’t fathom what they could be so happy about. They were just a bunch of mortals, with no purpose of life, like he had. None of them were driven, set out to achieve things, worked nearly as hard as he.
The more they laughed, the more that he felt they were mocking him. His fury rose. He picked out one of them from the crowd, a particularly happy clown. He crept up behind him and kicked him hard, right behind the knee, and sent him to the ground, his juggling balls scattering everywhere.
The man spun and looked all around to see who did it, but he could not figure it out in the crowd. At least he had stopped laughing. That made Kyle smile, and lifted his spirits just a bit.
Kyle elbowed his way through the crowd, across the square, then down another alleyway.
Finally, he reached the waterfront, and made his way along the docks. It was slightly less crowded.
And there it was, just as he remembered it: the Bridge of Sighs. A small foot bridge, with maybe 20 steps on either side, and a fifteen foot bridge, it was just high enough for small boats to pass under. It stood opposite a prison, and from here, one could watch as prisoners were hauled off to jail. The bridge got its name, Kyle remembered, from the “sighs” of the loved ones who would stand and watch their people being taken away. It was one of Kyle’s favorite places in Venice.
More importantly, it was exactly where he needed to be. Before he could track Caitlin down, he wanted to first wreak havoc on this dump of a town. Not only because it would give him great joy to do so, but also because it was pivotal to his plan. He needed a distraction. He didn’t want to have to encounter her entire coven head on, by himself; he didn’t want to risk getting outflanked, and missing the girl again. He needed some back up. And since the Grand Council wasn’t going to give him any, he needed to create a plan of his own: the jail. Once he opened their cells, they would tear the town to pieces. That would more than suffice to provide the distraction he needed to keep the humans and the covens’ hands full.
Kyle descended the bridge, made his way down the alleyway, through a backdoor, and into the large structure housing the jail.
He strutted down the empty, marble corridor, and headed to a flight of stairs. Down there, he knew, in the bowels of Venice, sat the city jail. There he would find hundreds of human prisoners to let loose, to wreak havoc on the city—and even some prisoners of his own race.
Several policemen stood guard before the staircase, and stiffened as he approached. One of them began to raise his bayonet.
But Kyle didn’t give them the chance. He suddenly leapt in the air, kicking one hard in the chest.
In a whirlwind of speed, he punched and elbowed the others before they could react, tore the bayonet from another’s hand, and stabbed them.
Within moments, all the guards lay before him, dead.
Kyle quickly looked each way, reassured he had not been watched, and hurried down the flight of steps.
This was going to be a beautiful night, indeed.
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CHAPTER TWELVE
When Caitlin opened her eyes, she found herself looking up at a ceiling. It was so high, so far away from her, and she noticed it was beautifully painted in a fresco. She was so disoriented, she tried to remember where she was. She felt that she was lying on her back, and felt that her head was in someone’s lap. Immediately, she remembered.
She looked up, blinking, to see who it was, her heart racing.
But staring back down at her was not Caleb.
It was Polly.
Caitlin sat up quickly, shaking off the cobwebs, looking all around.
“Finally,” Polly said. “I thought you’d be out forever. What happened?”
Caitlin looked all about the room, scanning the masks of the crowd that was quickly petering out. A pang of terror raced through her.
“Where is he?” Caitlin asked.
“Who?” Polly asked.
She scanned the room again. No. This could not be happening. Not again.
Caitlin thought back. She tried to remember the moment when he lifted the mask. Looking into his eyes.
It hadn’t been Caleb. And that was what had shocked her most of all.
No, Caleb had not appeared, at any time in the night.
The man facing her, the man she had danced with, the man she had felt such a connection with, was Blake.
And now, he was gone.
She was so mad at herself. Why had she had to pass out? Why did things like this always happen to her, at just the wrong moments?
“I saw you faint,” Polly said, “and saw a boy catch you, and I came over to help.”
“Where is he?” Caitlin asked anxiously.
“Once you were safe in my arms, he
disappeared.”
Suddenly, another voice came: “Only for a moment.”
Caitlin wheeled, and her heart stopped in her chest.
Standing there, just a few feet away, was Blake. He slowly removed his mask, and stared back at her with the same intensity he had before, the same intensity she remembered from the very first time they’d met.
It all came flooding back. Their guard duty together on Pollepel, his cello playing, that night on the beach, their talk—she remembered all of it as if it were yesterday.
She wondered if he remembered, too. The way he looked at her, it made her feel as if he did.
But then again, how could he? That was in the future, and now she was in the past. Unless he had the power to see into the future. It seemed that most vampires had it, some stronger than others, so, she reasoned, it could be possible for him to remember, or, rather, to see into the future.
“Yes,” he said, reading her mind with precision. “I do.”
Caitlin felt herself blush, once again embarrassed by others reading her mind. At the same time, she felt overwhelmed with emotion, by the fact that he remembered.
He remembers. All of it. He really does.
That alone meant the world to her. Finally, she felt as if she weren’t so crazy, weren’t so alone. It felt like her first real connection to the 21st century. Finally, she didn’t feel like a complete stranger here, like none of it had ever happened.
“Caitlin?” Polly said slowly, bewildered, looking back and forth between the two. “You haven’t introduced me to your friend.”
Caitlin stood there speechless, not sure what to say.
“Um…” she started, but then stopped. She tried to think of how to explain, but she had no idea where to begin.
So she stood there, speechless, until it got awkward.
“I’m Blake,” he said finally, extending a hand to Polly.
