“Silly gargoyle. Rooftops are not safe places for naps.”
He whimpered in return, like he was trying to reply to her. She cocked her head.
Protect. It was the only thing she sensed from him. He was trying to protect her. Something he wasn’t supposed to do according to all she’d learned about gargoyles.
In a rumbling movement his feet were in the sill, his body soaking up the space. Melinda jumped back as he deftly bounded inside, quietly so considering his bulk, and proceeded to curl up on the floor at the foot of her bed. No sleeping though, he was on full alert.
“You’re not supposed to be an indoor pet,” she chided. Although there was no contempt in her words, only delight. And he was not supposed to be a pet at all. There was no denying his presence was comforting. It gave her a sense of serenity. Her addled brain, sliding into a peaceful space, ready for sleep.
She gave a yawn and patted him on the head.
“Good night, Finn. Don’t get yourself in trouble or anything with the other gargoyles, or whatever.” Was that even possible? She needed to learn more about this creature keeping guard at the foot of her bed. She gave a clipped chuckle. That’s what he was doing, guarding her. She had a guard gargoyle. And she liked that idea. It was her last thought as she laid her head on her pillow and drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER 15
Jean took in William during brunch, in fleeting vampire flashes no human would ever notice. He was avoiding her glances just as fleetingly. Annie was preoccupied with Riley on the other side of the table, laughing over some topic Jean had not paid attention to. She noted the subtle shifts in William’s jaw, and the hardened muscles of his face. He had something on his mind; had since he’d arrived in Sorcier. But these inflections told her he was finally ready to speak of them.
William gave in, catching her stare so ever briefly; it was all there, written in the white of his eyes. Buried in the emerald. Some agonizing secret he intended on sharing. But only with her. Not Annie. Or Riley. Or anyone else.
If she’d had a beating heart it would have skipped a little in despair. Whatever this was, it was eating him alive, little by little. Sending a silent warning she might not wish to find out…
“Annie, Riley, would you clean the table?” Jean asked, but it wasn’t really an option to say no.
“Of course,” replied Annie.
“Yeah, not a problem,” Riley added. “We’ll head to the pub after.” It would be time to open in a couple hours.
“Actually Riley, not today. Rather, not for the next week,” stated William.
Annie’s smile dropped, lips pressed together in a gloomy sort of sympathy.
“We’ve reached that time,” Jean reckoned. How unpleasant it would be for the vampire. And still not the secret they needed to speak of.
“What’s going on?” asked Riley in thick apprehension.
“I’ll show you in an hour. First, Jean, I fancy a stroll before it begins. Would you join me?”
“I’d be pleased to, William. The fresh air will do you good.”
Riley held his tongue but seriously wanted to know what was up. Why he suddenly would not be working at the pub, and why all the vague secrecy. Annie nudged his shoulder as Jean and William departed.
“It’s nothing to worry about. Really.”
“Easy for you to say,” Riley grumbled in reply. “Don’t suppose you can fill me in?”
She shook her head in a meaningful shake. “Sorry. William will want to explain it himself. That way you can’t chicken out.”
“What?” he choked out.
“I’m just giving you a hard time.”
“So not funny,” he scolded.
“You’ll be fine. Really. Now help me clean up.”
He did so, wondering what the hell the vampire had in store for him now.
##
Jean allowed them to walk in tense silence for a time, to let William gather his thoughts. Although she guessed he’d already penned the words in his mind a while ago and got the sense he was searching for the courage to speak them and make them real. Another wary sign of an impending gloomy conversation.
The streets of Sorcier were bustling. Everyone who saw William, and knew him, was sure to shout out a greeting. He obliged, though with a flatness he didn’t normally have.
Jean stopped him.
He refused to hook onto her brittle gaze.
“I realize you are aware I am hiding something from you. I will speak of it, but not here. Not on the street.”
“Confirmation I didn’t need old friend.” Her mouth lifted only slightly amused, her gaze softening some. “Suffering… it surrounds you.”
He refused to answer or catch her eye.
Jean continued. “You wished to speak, but not at home. Not where Annie, or Riley, or anyone else might overhear,” she surmised.
He nodded stiffly.
Jean’s hardened vampire frame emptied of breath, leaving her insides empty. Whatever this was, it wasn’t going to be good, and now she just wanted it over with.
“Annie looks good,” he changed the subject as they continued their stroll.
“Yes. If possible, more beautiful every day. But she is getting restless again. I can see it in her eyes. This simple life isn’t meant for her. Not for one forever young and vibrant as she. But I fear what will happen if she ever chooses to leave for good.”
“She’s always loved this place. Considered it home,” said William.
“Because it’s safe. And she’s smart enough to understand the value in that, as well as avoiding the dangers and temptations that lurk in the outside world.”
“I may have a solution,” William spoke evenly. He stopped and opened the door to an empty storefront, the business closed. He motioned for Jean to go inside.
Once in and assured they were alone, Jean asked, “What’s this solution of yours?”
“I don’t think you’re going to like it.”
“Now you’ve seriously got me worried old friend.”
“It’s not my intent.”
“What is going on, William? I understand why you brought Riley here. He’s a good young man, a little lost. But this… this is nothing at all to do with him.”
William paced for a moment, a flicker of distraction and emotion making him falter.
“I am signing over the house to you, Jean. As well as all of Sorcier that’s still within my control.”
“Why?”
“You live here. I do not. You take care of these people now. Not me. It should be yours. You’ll find the paperwork in my old study. Already taken care of, all you need to do is sign.”
“Why?” she repeated, her tone almost a snarl.
“I… I do not plan on returning to Sorcier, again.” His gaze fixed upon hers, the truth digging into her, stabbing back like a dagger.
“You mean to die.” Not a question. And not a flicker of remorse, or doubt from him. His sureness inflamed her iced veins, but he held steadfast.
“I am… tired, Jean. In a way I have never been before.”
“And by tired, you mean lonely.”
He gave her a half-hearted shrug. “To me, they are one and the same.”
“Why not return here then? If life on the Isle is leaving you in such a state.”
“It would be no different here, Jean. I was not meant to live so long. I was not meant to live so long alone.”
“Then don’t be alone,” her snarl clipped. “Find someone. Let yourself be happy.”
“I did find someone. The someone. The only someone. And I cannot have her.”
“A human?” Jean was already well aware he’d never turn another human. His regret over Annie plagued him still, after all these years.
“Yes.”
“One of the Howards,” she assumed.
“Yes.”
Which would mean the young woman, Melinda.
“You loved Angelina once, William.”
He groaned.
“You survi
ved after losing her. It wasn’t easy, but why is this time any different?”
“Because I started to believe I could have her… that I deserved her.” And this can never be, and I do not… he left off. “She’s not a prize I can claim for some unearned worth.”
Jean paced, nervous energy making her fidgety.
“Does Melinda return your love?”
A flinch from the vampire upon hearing her name. And no chance of denying it was Melinda, his reaction telling.
“She believes she does. She also loves another. Melinda is young, and once she sees the world for what it really is and what she’d be giving up, she will not choose me.”
“You will not permit her to choose you.” Jean swung around to leave but twisted around again, fangs lowered. Pissed would do little justice for the venom in her pose. “Would you not turn a human if they loved you in return? If they chose it? If they chose you?” She did not allow him to respond. “Annie was a mistake you made as a young vampire learning to control your hunger. This would not be the same.”
“How is it not the same?” he spat out. “Even if Melinda begged me, how do I make her fully understand what living in this form does to someone? How watching those you love grow old and die, over, and over, and over, while you remain unchanged, kills a little more of your humanity every year. I cannot ask this of any human. It would be selfish. It would take two lifetimes for them to comprehend what forever stuck, means. What never moving forward in life means. To discover the reality is not the same as the fantasy.”
“Perhaps, but she would not be alone. And neither would you. You’d have each other and that changes things.”
Jean had seen this self-deprecating behavior before. It was similar to a mid-life crisis or deep depression in humans. Especially for vampires who’d been around as long as she or William. Who lived the compassionate lifestyle where humans were equals, not food. Vampires who loved, and loved, and loved, until it broke them. Turned on them. Becoming something devoid of the humanity they strived for, which if permitted to fester, made them into the very monsters they feared to be.
It sent many a decent vampire sinking into the very pits of darkness they struggled to stay out of. Forever lost to the depths. These were the true monsters. The hunters. The creatures feared on lonely streets at night. Those with any sanity left, did as William was prepared to do now. End it. Before the bitterness overtook what was left of their souls and the monster surfaced with merciless anarchy.
William’s humanity and compassion is what first drew Jean to William and Annie all those years ago. Watching him interact with her, like a stern doting father of a newborn. Which Annie was, just not in the human infant sense. And he was aged more a brother than father, when comparing their human years.
Sadly, though, when a vampire entered into this acerbic spiral, they were often unable to pull themselves out again. It ended up swallowing them whole. Consuming them. Jean shook her head, nothing more to say at the moment about the subject. She’d need to think on it. Figure out some way of making her friend see the value in life again.
“So what of Annie?” she changed the subject.
“I would like her to return with me, to The Demon Isle. When I do go back.”
“So you are going back?”
“Yes. I have not decided exactly when, but yes. And in another human lifespan of years, I do not plan on continuing…”
“When your human dies, when Melinda dies,” she restated, “this is when you plan on dying too?”
“Yes.” A short, determined answer.
Jean got quiet. At least she had a few short human years to figure out some way to lift her friend out of this morose state.
“The Isle would be good for Annie,” William offered. “It’s not as simple a life as Sorcier, but she is safe around humans. And she’d get rid of that restlessness that can be so dangerous to our kind.”
“And you would look out for her of course?”
“Naturally. I think a change of scene would be good for her.”
Jean eyed him as if to say, take your own advice.
He ignored the topic.
“I believe you mean to train Annie to take your place on the Isle. Don’t you?”
He sighed. There was no hiding anything from Jean.
“Perhaps. I would not force the choice on her.”
“She would do anything you asked of her.”
“Which is why I will never ask. If she goes, and wishes to stay, it only seems natural she’d take up my position after I’m gone.”
“After you take your own life,” Jean corrected.
“Annie is brilliant.” Again, refusing to reenter the subject of his own demise. “She’s kind. And has maintained the youth I was never capable of holding onto.”
“Have you thought about what your choice will do to Annie? Or me?” Jean wasn’t ready to let it go just yet. “Or those humans you claim to love so much? Is Melinda aware of your intentions?”
“It matters not. The fact is I cannot go on in this world once the human I love is no longer breathing. I would become a useless shell. My life would no longer serve any purpose.” He didn’t feel so very far from a shell already. “Whether her death happens next week, or in sixty years, the thought of it alone has already broken me. The act of it will be my undoing.”
“Do you have no hope of surviving this?”
“No. Because unlike Angelina, I let it in. I let the love in… and believed.”
And now he was denying it. A sure way to fall, for a vampire.
The sincerity of his words pinched at the heart no longer alive in Jean’s chest.
“Let us not speak anymore of this now. If Annie wants to go with you, she’s free to, of course. I think it would do her some good even if I don’t agree with the long term assessment of your life.”
William refused to look at his old friend. They did not hide things from each other, but admitting this agony aloud was painful in a way that left him weak. Not just physically. Somewhere in the depths of him, it slowly sucked out whatever life force still existed inside him.
“It’s always been your biggest downfall,” Jean scolded as she went to leave him. “You’ve never once believed yourself worthy of anything but being alone. And now you have started to believe, and you’re giving up. And making that dreary belief come true.”
He spun around, eyes seething at her in the doorway. “I will not take another life to satiate my own,” he snarled at her. “And I will love no other.”
“If you won’t choose to accept that love then you are truly lost.”
“I am choosing love. I have always chosen love.”
“Just not for yourself.”
“I am choosing to let Melinda live her life as it should be.”
“As you say it should be.”
“My choice is made.”
“Maybe so, but I’ll not say goodbye just yet…” Jean left him. Sped away to the pub, and clearer space. Annie would tell something was bothering her; she’d need to gather herself before getting there so as not to worry her.
William stared at a blank space on the wall for he wasn’t sure how long.
These were thoughts and decisions he’d kept to himself until now.
He had no intentions of telling anyone else but Jean, and she’d begrudgingly and regretfully keep his secret.
Sleep.
Rest.
He wished so deeply for respite, of any kind. Just a few precious hours of mindless nothing. For everything to turn off.
An impossibility. And no point in lingering in the wish.
His eyes fluttered closed, a groan rumbling in his throat.
Now that this terrible conversation was over he had to return home and take care of another unsavory task.
CHAPTER 16
William meandered his way back home, taking his time. Once there, he called out for Riley, motioning for the young man to follow him. He did so, silently, nerves on high alert according to the erratic h
eartbeats the vampire was picking up.
William proceeded down a long stone set of stairs, Riley not far behind. Even with their far too honest conversation the day before, the young man wasn’t so sure he wasn’t being led to some form of punishment to be doled out by the vampire.
At the bottom of the stairs was a basement, finished, but not your normal basement where you might find stored foods, or laundry, or boxes of forgotten belongings. It was a series of stone and iron cells. An old prison? Riley’s new permanent residence? Another flicker of panic, which William brushed off.
“When I first created this place, we had need of these,” the vampire explained. “I had them built to my specifications. When we had new arrivals in Sorcier, there was a required vetting process before they were permitted to join the colony.”
“They’re similar to the one you use in the Howard Mansion,” gulped out Riley. He didn’t want to recall the memories of his time in the vampire’s room there. He’d been tied up in that room, and attempted to defile Melinda just to piss off the vampire. Another memory he wished to scrub out of his brain. “I don’t suppose this job you have for me requires me to drink beer. Or tequila? You know, like, a lot of it,” he chattered glumly.
William saw a familiar misery in the young man’s eyes he knew was in his own. Riley needed something to numb the pain, dull the images, suck away the thoughts.
“I’m afraid you would not enjoy the beverage of choice,” William retorted in dry flatness. He stopped outside the last cell on the right hand side. It was sparse compared to the one he had on The Demon Isle. The basic comforts were there. A bath, some books, a sofa. It was created for extended stays, but not too comfortable. Outside the cell though, for some reason, was a fridge.
William opened it and Riley’s stomach rolled.
Blood. A ton of it.
Maybe William was planning on turning Riley into a vampire so he couldn’t have Melinda either. And he’d lock him in this cell and feed him blood, and…
“I can’t imagine what insane thoughts are crowding your brain right now, Riley. I can almost see your mind trying to work this out. Whatever you’re thinking, you’ll be wrong. This isn’t any sort of punishment… well, you might not see it that way in a few days,” he argued his own statement. And he actually let out a sigh. Actually sounded tired.
Hexed and Dangerous (The Wicked Witch of Future Past) (A Wicked Good Witches Paranormal Romance Book 9) Page 16
