by Peter Dawes
“In the bedroom,” I called back. Lifting both hands, I scrubbed at my face, making myself aware I had not shaved for a few days in the process. Strands of hair fell in my face, longer than I had ever worn it, brushed away again when I pushed my palms up to my temples. My hands fell to my sides as I stood, turning my back to the door in time for it to open.
Light flooded the darkness, disrupted only by the sliver of space she occupied. I did not need to turn to face her in order to visualize how she must have looked in that moment. Much shorter than me, with darker hair disrupted only by a blonde streak in her long bangs, Monica had worn a long skirt that went down to her ankles that day and a loose-fitting blouse. The scarfs she once wore as my watcher – my sorceress partner in crime – still adorned her neck, but mostly to ward off questions about the peculiar sets of scars that yet lingered. She shifted further into the room, reaching to switch on a lamp before shutting the door. “How long have you been sitting here?” she asked.
I shrugged, pivoting only to direct a small glance toward her in my periphery. “Not certain how long ago I returned, to be honest. At some point, I lost track of time.”
“Didn’t you have a long shift at the clinic?”
“I did. I left early.”
Her footsteps closed in on me, slowly; pausing a few feet shy of where I stood with her emerald eyes seeking mine out. I looked away and shut my thoughts against a tickle running through my brain, an edge threatening to creep back into my words when I recognized the sensation. “Please, no telepathy,” I said. “Whatever you are looking for, you can ask me.”
“I’ll try, but you’re not known for being chatty when you get in these moods.” Instantly, the pin pricks which had invaded my mind abated. Monica stared intently at me even when I failed to look at her. “Did something else set you off?” she asked.
I hesitated, wanting to rebuff her again, while reminding myself she was my wife, and the sole confident I had in the world. My hand settled on a small, mirrored dresser as if for support, gaze shifting to the only other piece of furniture our small room boasted – a wooden trunk we had purchased before leaving Italy. A frown tugged at the corners of my mouth as I remembered the sword it contained and its last bloody excursion. “Do you think the Fates were wrong to make me human again?” I asked.
Monica failed to answer me at first. She paced over to the bed where I had just been sitting and lowered down onto it, the mattress giving a soft creak as she settled into place. I pictured her folding her hands on her lap, and felt the weight of her gaze on my back as though she could read me like tea leaves in a cup. Silence settled in the room like an unwelcome companion, the quiet anything but gentle.
“I doubt they thought it’d be easy, Peter,” she finally said, her voice calm and measured. I turned to regard her as she raised an eyebrow at me. “It’s not exactly the kind of gift that comes without an adjustment period.”
“Twelve months?” My frown deepened. “Or will it be one year for each spent as a vampire?”
“Maybe we should rewind to what happened at the clinic first before we get existential.”
Nodding, I stuffed my hands in my pockets while crossing the short expanse between us. “I lashed out at one of the nurses,” I said, freeing my hands to sit. My voice turned subdued. “She dropped a needle and the glass broke. There was a mother fighting against medicating her daughter and a man who resisted transport to one of the larger hospitals because it was too far away.” My hands slid out, but only to settle into my hair again, combing it back with my fingers. “Each day, there is a barrage of superstitious, spiteful creatures and I get tired of arguing sense into them. Bloody aggravating humans.”
As my arms lowered once more, Monica furrowed her brow at me. At first, I wondered if her expression registered confusion or disappointment, or if I was reading something more into the way she studied me than was already there. When her chest rose to take in breath, the look settled. “Wow. You really are grumpy,” she said, “And painting with one hell of a broad-sweeping brush.”
I shrugged in assent. “You asked me what I was thinking and I am telling you,” I responded.
“No, I get that, it’s just that…” She trailed off, shaking her head. Slowly, Monica rose to her feet and brushed off her skirt. “Nevermind. Maybe you should nap. I’m going to go take a walk while you do.”
“Dearest, wait.” Tracking her progress to the door, I lifted to a stand as well while she opened the door. She left it ajar rather than shutting it, the action offering some implied consent for me to follow. I stole a deep, steadying breath first before giving sedate pursuit. “It is not as though I enjoy entertaining these thoughts.”
“I know you don’t, but at the same time, I don’t think you’re ready to hear what I’d have to say.”
“Grant me a chance to listen first?”
Monica sighed, pausing halfway through the modest-sized living area before turning to face me. Her arms folded across her chest, weight shifting from one hip to the other. “I think I see it clearer sometimes than you do, that’s all,” she said.
I perked an eyebrow. “See what?” I countered.
“How much you hold onto the vampire mentality. The fact that it’s what you lapse into when you aren’t paying attention.” Her gaze held me hostage, the weight behind it bordering between exasperated and concerned. “Somebody gets you upset and suddenly, you’re the sharpest tool in a room full of blunt objects.”
“You have used that expression with me before.”
“Yes, I have, Flynn.” The way she issued my old nomme-de-plume caused me to glower. She countered with a raised eyebrow, as if asking me to refute the insinuation she had placed before me. When I failed to respond, her expression evened. “If these bursts of anger make you upset, you need to let it go. Or figure out what’s causing it.”
“You make it sound like a simple exercise, when it is anything but.” Shaking my head, I frowned again almost as a reflex. My gaze shifted away, eyes going distant in thought. “I wish I could describe it better. My patience is tried and something comes over me, beyond my control. One moment, I am calm and rational, and the next, I am ready to press a scalpel against somebody’s throat. I feel like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”
“Probably a good way of putting it.” Her arms lowered, feet pacing forward until the distance between us disappeared. “Peter, look at me?”
My attention shifted back toward her, something about the request causing my demeanor to sober. A warm smile crossed her lips as our eyes met, her hand lifting to rest on my shoulder. “A person doesn’t just walk away from what you went through intact,” she said. “Most normal human beings don’t know what it’s like to kill somebody, let alone a city full of somebodies.”
“No, they do not,” I responded. My disposition sank, tears dancing in my eyes the more I considered this impossible conundrum. Swallowing hard, I shut my eyes, feeling the onset of frustration once more, rising where serenity had just attempted to make an appearance. I felt fatigued; left to gaze upon a permanent purgatory after a day spent wrestling my inner demons. Where did I have left to retreat, I asked myself. How far would I have to run to get away?
In some distant corner of my mind, I became aware of Monica inching closer to me. Despite the discrepancy in our heights, the short, impish woman hitched on her tiptoes enough to kiss my jawline. “Hey, 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 this is the point. 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.”
I shook my head. “No,” I said, avoiding her gaze. “I know what I am thinking is senseless, I simply cannot seem to free myself from it.” A hand settled on her waist just the same, though. I did not wish her to drift far.
“Even normal people have frustrating days, you know.”
My gaze sh
ifted to her, eyebrow perking at her with skepticism latent in my gaze. “Are you attempting to argue this is part of the human condition, Dearest?”
“In some senses. Is that what this is 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 say 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, because on some level even I have that problem. Just not as severely.”
When Monica failed to continue, I thought I might need to prod her along. She preempted me with a warning glance, however, the gesture filling in where words seemed to fail her. ‘Give me a moment.’ I nodded and she relaxed, the hand on my face lowering to take hold of one of my hands. 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 everyone’s thoughts as it is.”
“The bitch of learning Spanish. It was easier when we only knew English” 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.” I furrowed my brow at the look in her eyes, tilting my head to study her. “Now, what were you going to tell me?”
A beat preceded the response. Had anyone been apt to warn me what her response would be, I might have thought to be seated. As it was, when she finally spoke the words, “I’m pregnant,” they impacted a wall of shock. 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 just been told to me, something about my demeanor changed. It was as though somebody had 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 and 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, my brow furrowing again.
Monica shrugged, trying and failing to look chagrined. “So, I abused a spell or two,” she said. “I wanted to know, and I knew how to guess.”
“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.
Indeed, in that moment I felt I had reclaimed that night.
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 would not be the last occurrence of me losing my temper. It would not be the final moment I struggled with my renewed state of being, even after Lydia Marjorie Dawes came forth into the world. Even when John Michael followed in her wake almost two years later and Jamie Alexander, three years after that. I still woke at night pouring sweat, and heard the whispers of something encroach upon me, birthed in those instances when darkness swept over me, warning of what might yet be lurking beneath my skin. Ten years of blissful ignorance passed before my eyes, with hills and valleys marking the path along the way. We weathered them all the same way we had my outburst in the clinic.
The more time progressed, however, the deeper and more sinister the shadows became. I had made a promise to Monica not to be so blinded to the truth of my existence, but regardless of my best intentions, reality still loomed in a box I attempted to keep packed just 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.
In Acknowledgement
And so, we embark on another journey. While writing stories about the vampire Flynn, I’ve gotten back in the habit of spending each November writing a 50,000 word novel and this is how Deathspell was born. Christian Richardson has been a figure in my mind for a lot longer, but when NaNoWriMo gave me a chance to bring him into the literary world, it filled a fond hope I’ve had to finally write a historical fantasy. I love history almost as much as I love vampires.
Let me tell you, though, you learn to appreciate history really quickly when you decide to embark on such an undertaking.
In that light, this book is dedicated to two sets of people. For one: The historians who have provided the wealth of knowledge I was able to read both in print and on the Internet. Christian lives during a time period known as the Wars of the Roses and if it wasn’t for all of the information readily accessible about period dress, Medieval culture – hell, how to light a candle back before matches – this would have been an anachronistic mess.
The second set is dedicated to the other writers who have undertaken this mad journey called National Novel Writing Month. I’ve been participating off and on now for almost ten years and have had the chance to meet some truly remarkable local writers through it. It’s a blessing and a challenge to share our life experiences, and become better wordsmiths through the effort. Every year, I look forward to seeing you again.
As always, these books are dedicated to my better half as well, who is the reason these harebrained plots and ideas become the cultivated stories they are. I couldn’t do it without any of you who stand behind me and give me encouragement. It’s a new adventure and I’m excited to bring you all along for the ride.
&n
bsp; To brave new worlds!
J.A. Staples
The Puppeteer behind Peter Dawes.
April, 2015
Fin.
