by Peter Dawes
In some distant corner of my mind, I became aware of Monica pressing up against me. Because of the discrepancy in our heights, the short, impish woman had to hitch up onto her tiptoes to kiss my jawline. “Come back to me,” she whispered. “This is who you are, honey. Hell, you and I have enough nightmares to last for the rest of our lives, but that’s the whole point of being a couple. We’re sharing the burden.” The hand on my shoulder lifted to touch my face, prompting my eyes open again. “Come on. Tell me what’s rattling around in your brain.”
“No,” I said, avoiding looking at her. “I know what I am thinking is senseless, I simply cannot seem to free myself from it.” My hand settled on her waist anyway. I did not want her to drift far.
“Humans have frustrating days, you know.”
My gaze shifted to her, skepticism latent in my eyes. “Are you attempting to argue this is part of the human condition, Dearest?”
“In some senses. Is that what this’s all about? Proving to yourself that you’re human?”
“Proving to myself that I am anything other than a reanimated vampire.”
“Well, it’s not perfect, but I might have a case for you.”
The tone in which she spoke begged being prompted further. While I failed to state the question, the curiosity must have been evident enough in my expression, because she glanced away and pursed her lips in thought. When she met my gaze once more, it bore a coyness which confused me almost instantly. “I was going to wait to tell you,” she began. “In fact that quip about you not being ready to hear something had more to do with this than you being pissed at a bunch of humans.”
When Monica failed to continue, I thought I might need to prod her along. She preempted me with a warning glare, however, the gesture filling in where words seemed to fail her. ‘Give me a moment.’ I nodded and she relaxed, her hand lowering to take hold of one of mine. She sobered as our fingers intertwined. “You know we’re never going to have a normal life, right?” she continued. “I know you get that on some basic level, but I think sometimes you avoid actually confronting it. That’s the real problem here, not a bunch of superstitious villagers.”
I drew a deep breath inward and exhaled it slowly. Finally, I nodded. “I know.” The words passed through my lips in a subdued manner, my voice gaining confidence back only after the admission had been confessed. “I have to pretend that I do not telepathically invade every villager’s thoughts as it is.”
“The bitch of learning Spanish.” She quirked an eyebrow at me. “I need you to stop pretending your scars don’t exist. Or that you won’t continue having nightmares. Whatever it is we need to work through, we’ll work through together, but we both need to be honest about it.”
“Very well. Now, what were you going to tell me?”
A beat preceded the response. Had anyone been apt to warn me what she would say next, I might have thought to be seated. “I’m pregnant.” I stared stupidly at her while she hiked up on her tiptoes again and pressed a finger into my chest. “Peter Dawes, you and I are going to have a baby.”
I opened my mouth, knowing I needed to say something, but at a loss for what. Monica laughed, undoubtedly at the expression on my face, and as I processed what had been told to me, something about my demeanor changed. It was as though somebody opened a window inside my soul and allowed the first light of spring inside.
Any remaining frustration I carried with me sloughed off. The haze which had settled over the world broke and I blinked as though waking from a dream. “You are... we are going,” I began, but words yet failed me. She chuckled. I barked out a laugh, delight cresting over me and filling me with a sense of awe as I met her gaze once more. “How is that even possible?” I finally managed.
Giggles blurted past her lips, building in volume toward a crescendo. “Sweetheart, I think a doctor shouldn’t need to ask that question,” she said.
“Yes. No. I know how that occurs, you quixotic imp, I am simply baffled.” The fledging grin on her face expanded outward and I could not help but to mirror it as I became lost in the miraculous. “You are certain? You are absolutely certain?”
“One hundred and fifty percent sure. I even had Dr. Alvarado sneak a test past you so I could be the one to tell you.” She had lightened as well. Monica nestled up against me, her hand settling over the other miracle in the room – my beating heart. “Like I said, this isn’t going to be easy, but if you need some other sort of proof, something else to hold onto during those times when you’re ready to snap...” She brought our joined hands to her stomach. “Maybe let it be her?”
“Her?” My vision developed a sheen once more.
Monica shrugged, trying and failing to look chagrined. “So, I abused a spell or two,” she said. “I wanted to know.”
“What would your father say, you abusing magic?” I quipped. Another delighted laugh sprang from my lips and I could no longer contain myself. “A daughter.” The words preceded me lifting Monica into my arms, adjusting her weight and tempted to spin her around. As I bent, our lips met in a kiss, her arms wrapping around my neck and the embrace lingering for what seemed like an eternity. This was impossible, I thought to myself. I had never entertained any hope of a family, even waking, restored, in Rome.
I could not take my eyes off her for the entire rest of the evening. Frenzied kisses swept us up in the undertow, a hundred affirmations of love passing back and forth from one of us to the other as though each minute demanded to be touched by some recognition of what our reckless spirits had brought forth. As I laid in the stillness of our bedroom with Monica, I felt as though the weights on my heart had been lifted, even if only for a time.
It was then I made a fateful determination, while staring at the shadows cast by the scant amount of moonlight filtering in through the windows. I needed to leave it all in the past. Every bit of it. Not merely the vampire I had been, but the seer I had been forced to become by the hand of the Fates. All of the bloodshed had taken an obvious toll and if I was going to reclaim any semblance of myself, what caused the fractures in my psyche had to be buried. I was owed it, I told myself. We had suffered enough. And I had earned the right to put down my sword.
As it stood, that would not be the last time I lost my temper. It would not be the final moment I struggled with the joint vestiges of my blood past, even after Lydia Marjorie Dawes was born. Even when John Michael followed in her wake almost two years later, or when Jamie Alexander followed three years after that, I still heard the whispers of something encroach, birthed in those instances when my inner darkness warned of what scars still remained.
Ten years of ignorance passed, with hills and valleys marking the path along the way. Life settled and the clinic where I worked grew on me, to the point where I missed it when we eventually had to leave. The more time progressed, however, the deeper and more sinister the shadows became. I had made a promise to Monica not to be blinded to the truth of my existence, but regardless of my best intentions, reality loomed in a box I attempted to keep packed as tightly as the Italian trunk. Such was how I preferred it and how things seemed apt to continue.
That was, until the moment he returned.
Part One
Aftermath of a Decision
“Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.”
Arthur Miller, The Ride Down Mt. Morgan
Chapter One
November 13, 1998 – Colleferro, Italy
For a moment, I genuinely believed I might have pushed Robin over the edge. A pervasive silence settled between us, with my brother glaring, incredulous, and me unable to say much in defense of my actions. The struggle for coherent thought had become enough of a losing battle without fighting to stay upright, drained of blood and already weary from a confrontation with my maker. If someone had asked what I knew with certainty at that moment, I would have confessed I was going to black out.
The only thing I could do was hold off the inevitable.
Bloody droplets of s
weat formed on my neck, coating my skin as I took breath after unsteady breath. Each second of consciousness I claimed cost me dearly, but I knew leaving my body to the mercy of whatever horde of vampires remained would be even worse. Robin kept me from toppling onto the basement floor while I faced the reality that I was not anywhere near fighting condition.
My eyes shut, but my feet held steady with his help. Inside my bones, I could feel the presence lying at my feet – the woman I had just given the eternal kiss to, and she was in just as much peril as me. “It would seem I turned my wife,” I said, finally answering the question Robin had posed. Even in that state I realized what a lackluster response I had given him.
‘Peter, you fool. What the hell have you done?’
He shifted his hold on me, leading me over to a wall. Whatever threat had begun to mount outside, the world seemed to have stopped, and whether this was an illusion or not, my brother seemed to need the chance to regroup. Transferring my grip, I clung onto the seams in the stonework while Robin paced closer to Monica and crouched beside her. His fingertips swept away the locks of her hair which had fallen onto her face, revealing a sleeping fallen angel.
“You both have made this infinitely more difficult for us, I hope you know,” he said. Standing first to gather my sword, he tossed it to me, seeming apathetic as to whether or not I actually caught it. I freed a hand to capture it, nearly losing my footing in the process once more. “I’m partly of the mind to leave you both to whatever finds you.”
As Robin lifted Monica’s limp body into his arms, I fumbled to secure my sword at my hip again. “She hardly asked to be drained,” I said. “Though it seems I have your turncoat paramour to thank for that.”
“Please don’t. Not now. We have more immediate concerns than Patrick.” The way he weighed me when our eyes met again suggested a different form of exasperation with my response than his answer might have indicated. What it was, however, I lacked the mental facilities to decipher. He carried Monica closer to where I stood, pivoting to offer his shoulder. “Hold on tight. We need to be swift and have lost the ability to be as quick about this as I would’ve liked.”
“We make do with what we have, then.”
As I reached for him, I fought against the darkness creeping upon me, willing myself forward despite the stickiness which had collected in my joints and hair; down the side of my face and the backs of my legs. My teeth itched to descend, though I doubted I would have the energy to feed at the moment, nor the clarity of mind to be able to stop myself from draining someone past the point of death. What little energy I had left devoted itself toward making it to the staircase leading back into the kitchen.
“Do they mean to kill us?” I asked, in some effort to keep my mind busy. “I am at a loss as to what just happened.”
“Kill us, no,” Robin said. “Detaining us might not be beyond them, however. Beyond that, I don’t yet know what happened here tonight.” His eyes peered up toward the door providing our salvation, the look in them seeming to offer a prayer to whatever gods might be listening. “If we make it out of this alive, we can sort this mess out later.”
“I hope that includes you explaining to me why your lover attempted to kill my wife.”
“Peter, I will drop you both if you don’t silence yourself.” He quickened his pace as if to punish me, forcing me to clutch onto a fistful of his suit jacket out of panic that I might fall. I plodded and tripped once, but managed to stay upright. If the speed of my brother’s gait had been swift up the stairs, the way he pushed us through the length of the house begged to be slowed.
I gasped my protest as I held on, my feet continuing to fumble through our exodus. “Don’t you dare,” he warned when I wavered. Somehow, the strength of his compulsion kept me from collapsing, though reaching the front entrance brought with it a second challenge. Robin kicked one of the doors hard enough to make it buckle, unseating it from a hinge without displacing it altogether. He gathered himself, but while his next attempt brought the door sliding onto the ground, my footing followed suit. This time, I could not grip on tight enough to avoid falling.
Peering helplessly at my brother, I watched as Robin shot a look which could have finished the task of killing me. When he barked the order for me to stand, the unwelcomed passenger in my head did as well, chiming, ‘Get up, Peter,’ at the same time Robin did. I winced at the voice of Flynn, needing his interference as little as I needed the order to do what felt physically impossible. “I am trying,” I responded, both to Robin and to Flynn.
‘Try harder,’ the assassin I had once been replied, while Robin remained silent for the moment. ‘We aren’t safe yet. More specifically, she isn’t.’
I drew a deep breath inward, aware enough that anger would only exhaust me further. “If Robin needs to leave with her, then so be it. At least then, they will both be safe.”
“It feels like asking you if you’re insane would be redundant,” Robin chimed, bringing my attention back to him. The sound of footfalls reacting to the noise finally reached us where we stood, suggesting that what few immortals remained alive now knew we had managed to escape the basement. Still, he took a moment to crouch before me, repositioning the dead weight of my beloved while doing so. “Peter, regardless of whether or not they mean to kill you, if you’re not there to wake her, then she will die. Since your mind is unable to comprehend much beyond your selfish desire to keep her alive, latch onto that.”
“Then I will not let them take me,” I muttered, not sure if the response found its origin with me or Flynn. The way I scowled at him suggested the latter. I felt more in control of my words when I added, “How are we going to hobble from here to where we left the car?”
“We might not have to.” Robin glanced apprehensively toward the main staircase. “They drove a car out from the garage,” he explained. “If the Fates care for our well-being, there’ll be another for us to use. If they especially favor your idiocy, we might even find the keys. I simply need the time to look.”
“May fortune favor the stupid, then,” I said. Robin lifted to a stand again and for a moment, my gaze fell toward Monica, determination filling my heart. “Take her and come back for me. I will find a way to hold them off until you return.”
Robin nodded, unexpressed doubt filling his eyes that never made it to his lips. As he turned toward the door and spirited Monica out to the front, I took a deep breath, pressing both palms against the ground. Pushing up, I blinked as darkness crept in the edges of my vision, my head swimming the entire time it took me to struggle to my feet.
‘You better know what you’re doing,’ Flynn said. ‘You can barely stand.’
“Fighting for what is ours,” I said. “We have no other option.” Drawing my sword, I tapped the bottom of a dry well to pace forward to meet them. I thought only of my wife, centering all the energy I had left on the singular need to keep her safe. Muscle memory powered the first swing I attempted for the initial wave of antagonists through the doors, the swipe blind and easily avoided. My next effort, however, bore more fluency, cutting a vampire who had sidestepped the previous blow.
The amount of determination fueling my movements defied my fragile condition. I twisted to avoid being taken by one of the group and used the momentum to cut across the leg of another. As he toppled down, I thrust the blade forward, watching with satisfaction as my sword plunged into the chest of the creature standing beside him. She staggered backward when I withdrew and within seconds, she had become dust.
Another bead of sweat ran down the side of my face while I stumbled away from a lunging immortal, a fleeting glance behind him revealing at least half a dozen others about to join us. The one I had injured attempted to circle me and while the slight break in my concentration almost resulted in my capture, I managed a burst of telekinesis strong enough to knock him away. My vision blurred, but I remained on my feet, gritting my teeth while swinging my sword for the neck of the injured vampire.
“You lot are of the
mind to die,” I said. “Allow me to oblige, then.”
More ash fell to the floor. I swung brutally for the next closest immortal and forced him back as well. Another wave reached where I stood as the fleeting energy I summoned started to wane. I knew I needed to end this. Whether I had begun to hallucinate or truly heard a car starting somewhere in the distance, it provoked me to reach for the final embers I had left.
Swinging my sword cut another vampire across the chest and the way he recoiled formed a temporary bottleneck. What little power I could gather rushed to the tips of my fingers, my hand releasing its hold on the sword’s hilt so I could point my palm at the remainder of my antagonists. Inside my head, I heard the primal way I screamed, fatigue making me uncertain whether the noise made it past my lips while a rush of light charged for the vampires, impacting them where they stood. The unholy symphony of death rose from the masses, one immortal after another either turning into dust or flying backward.
My eyes rolled back before I could fight the onslaught of unconsciousness. I lost my balance and fell to the ground, landing in a heap. A groan rumbled from my throat, the sound of footfalls closing in on me from behind followed by what looked like Robin picking up my sword. He rushed ahead, using it to impale one of the injured vampires through the chest before returning.
“To your feet,” he said, extending a hand toward me and clasping onto mine when I reached back. Robin pulled me to a stand, holding me steady while he secured my sword into the sheath still strapped to my waist. I wavered, but his grip never relented and when he had finally rid himself of my weapon, he pulled me closer. My arm draped around his shoulders, feet walking in tandem with his as though I had been compelled. “You aren’t allowed to fade on me yet,” Robin added. “You’re about three inches and four stone too much for me to carry you like I did your wife.”
