by Ciar Cullen
“Now we can leave this horrible place?”
“I…I have to help Lillian find her boy and then all will be well. We will go far away, Phoebe. Anywhere you like.”
He didn’t tell her he’d have to turn the boy over to Vasil or kill him. That he was to kill everyone involved in this disaster: Lillian, the Orleans brothers, anyone who knew they were vampires. The plump blonde woman, what was her name? And the writer, Doyle. Had the man fled the city yet? The policeman…
I cannot.
But Vasil would kill Phoebe, would kill both Phoebe and Chauncey without a thought. Of that Chauncey was certain. Could he justify killing everyone to save her, though? No, he could not.
Perhaps Vasil wouldn’t know, wouldn’t care, now that Marie was out of the way. Would that be enough for him? Vasil seemed to truly care about nothing, Chauncey admitted. Perhaps he’d been right when he said that all men, mortal or not, cared simply for their own skins. But didn’t his love for Phoebe count for anything? Or Lillian’s love for George or her child? Wasn’t there some good, even if it only resided in a few?
What to do?
Run, Chauncey. Run for your life and your sanity.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
A terrible accident.
As the three leapt from building to building, at times flying short distances, George kept a wary eye on Lillian. That she’d dipped into her medicinals he was fearful. No matter, that discussion could come later, once they found the boy. But he wondered and worried that, once again, the facts of her heritage hadn’t fully taken hold of her. She would crash, and crumble, and be broken again.
We’re all hungry. He felt it, saw it in Phillip’s eyes, and knew that Lillian was operating on nervous energy alone. Besides the ordeal they’d all survived, that hunger was making them squabble.
“No, Phillip, you’re to look to the left.”
George didn’t care much about who looked which direction. He watched Lillian and held her hand, treasuring the feel of her skin against his, happy also to be in the company of his brother. If their lives could go on like this forever, or for even a mortal lifetime, he would think himself a very lucky man. They had come into the bowels of Hell to rescue him. And he’d known the moment he saw them that they had not come to rescue their maker but to rescue a man they loved.
Or is that merely a fantasy, George? You still hold their bonds. Are you through testing Phillip’s fealty and love? It was far past time to release his bond, so George would make it right as soon as they were home.
“You’re looking right again, Phillip,” Lillian chastised.
“Dear God, woman, let me concentrate! I’m trying to find your blasted son!”
“Don’t talk to Lil like that.” George settled on a high landing of the First Bank and Loan Association building and motioned for everyone to stop. “The truth is, the boy and those two men could be anywhere. Jacques could have ducked into a building or an alleyway. I cannot imagine they got further downtown on foot than here.”
“True,” Lillian concurred. “Doyle has that terrible cough. I have trouble imagining that he has been able to keep up with even Johnnie.”
“Ah, but he did!” Phillip pointed to the intersection.
George heard Lillian gasp at the first sight of her child. The boy’s hair was as dark as hers, and he was also thin and lanky. She looked like he was the most beautiful sight she’d ever encountered, and she clearly loved him as if they’d never been parted.
George wrapped his arm around her and squeezed. “There you go, love.”
“Oh, my!” She wiped at tears and buried her face in George’s jacket. “It is true. He is real, and mine.”
“We’ll have to look that Mencken chap up and thank him properly somehow. Do you want to let Johnnie and Doyle take care of this, or go to meet him now?”
She peered down. George knew that she must have fantasized about this moment a million times, but the reality of it was a different matter. “I would have your opinion on that. I am not sure what he will think of me, of being chased by strangers…of anything about his life to date.”
“Uh-oh!” George blurted. Jacques had slipped from Doyle’s grasp and was now between the two men, running to and fro like a rabbit, confounding them both. “I think they need our help.”
He pulled Lillian by the hand, and they dropped down to the north side of the street where Johnnie was scampering this way and that trying to grab the youth. The boy darted here and there, seeming to have no problems avoiding the trolley tracks embedded in the cobbles.
“That’s enough, young man!” Doyle called out in choking breaths. “We are not going to hurt you!”
Lillian went to the edge of the street and called out Jacques’s name. The boy stopped and stared at her. She took a step forward and held out her hand. He didn’t move but kept staring as if he recognized her.
“I won’t hurt you. I will never, ever hurt you.”
“I have heard that before.” He wiped his nose on his cuff and chewed the inside of his cheek.
“I will never leave you.”
“Why not? What did I do to you? Please, let me go.”
“We are here to help you.” Lil held out a shaking hand. Like her own mother had only minutes earlier, George thought.
No, this could not be more different.
“Don’t take me back there,” the boy said.
“To the home?” she asked.
“No, I liked the home. I want to go there. I don’t want to see Madam again.”
“I promise you, you will never see her again.”
“Cross your heart?” the boy asked.
Lillian laughed and cried at the same time. “Cross my heart.”
“Do it, make the sign.”
She did.
George had rarely cried in his lifetime but felt that he must turn away lest tears come to him unbidden. Phillip whispered, “He looks just like her, thank God. And somehow, he looks a little like you. That is a lucky stroke.”
“She loves him already. It is not like the maker’s bond. It is different.”
“Of course it’s different. I say, George, you really need to relax.”
“Hmnn.” George let a long moment pass. “Phillip, thank you. For coming.”
“You knew I would, you idiot. Don’t think you won’t hear about running off without us to face Marie for a good long time.”
George took a deep breath and visualized the black string of will that bound Phillip to him, the bond of a vampire’s “child.” He held his end up to a cool night breeze…and let it drift away into the night.
Phillip’s knees buckled, but he caught himself on George’s arm. “Why? After all this time? I didn’t come for this….”
“Let’s not talk about it,” George said, more embarrassed than he thought he would be, less bereft than he thought he would be.
“See, that is your problem! All bottled up, wondering and worrying constantly…”
And with that familiar chastising tone, Phillip told George what he needed to hear. Nothing had changed. His brother still loved him.
Then: “Jacques, get out of the street! Trollies use this street, see the tracks? You must come to me!” Lillian moved another foot to coax her son to come to her, trying not to scare him, treating him like a frightened animal.
“No!” They turned to see Jacques frozen in front of a trolley that whizzed around the blind corner. Doyle leapt forward and pushed the boy out of the way. Relief swept through George until he saw Doyle catch his footing on a track and fall in the middle of the street. The author lay like an upended turtle before struggling gracelessly to his feet.
George reacted swiftly, but it was not fast enough. The car was already on Doyle, knocking him yards to the gutter. When it passed, George and Phillip ran forward, while Johnnie blew his whistle and chased the trolley, yelling for the driver to stop, but his cries were drowned by the clanking of the cars. Lillian hugged her son and looked on from the sidewalk in horror.
<
br /> George groaned at the carnage the blow had made of Mr. Doyle.
Johnnie ran up and caught his breath. “This is terrible,” he whispered.
George leaned in toward Doyle’s bloody head and listened to his chest. He turned to Lil. “He’s alive. But not for long.” He nodded quickly toward Johnnie.
“Please, Johnnie, go find a doctor,” Lillian said.
“Seems a little late for that, Miss Holmes.”
“No, it’s never too late. Until it is. Now, run, Officer Moran, run!”
Johnnie took off uptown, toward the new Johns Hopkins hospital. George looked at Phillip, who ran his hand through his hair in frustration.
“Really? I can’t make this choice for the chap. Let Lillian do it. She knows him best.”
“Soon we won’t have a choice to make. Lil, what do you want to do? He knows too much, far too much. It might be best…”
Lillian hugged Jacques to her, likely so he couldn’t see the gore, and kept a tight grasp on his wrist lest he bolt again. George watched her carefully, wondering if her answer would reflect her feelings about the choice she herself had made. Was becoming a vampire worse than death? How could you make such a choice for a man without the ability to express himself?
Well, George reminded himself, he had done so often enough, but not to an innocent friend.
Lillian hugged Jacques and closed her eyes. “Save him.”
“I think you are the one to do it, Lil. He’ll forgive you much more easily than me or Phillip, don’t you think?”
She nodded and motioned for Phillip to take custody of the boy. Running to George, she knelt by Doyle. “I’m not sure precisely what to do.”
“Yes, you are. The first time is the hardest. But are you positive of this?”
“No. But I’d dearly love for him to write more stories. He’s a wonderful man, isn’t he, George? He found Jacques. He rescued him…”
“There’s that. And he does have an interest in the eternal.”
“Yes, good, we’ll tell him that’s what we were thinking. Don’t mention the stories. I don’t want to upset him.” Giving a great sigh, Lillian held her wrist to George’s mouth so he could open a wound and produce the blood that would heal Doyle. She hissed at the pain and pleasure.
“Oh, yes, that will be what upsets him. He won’t be upset in the least to wake up finding that he’s a vampire.” George laughed. “At least it will cure that cough. Sounded like a touch of pneumonia to me. Ho, Lil, give me a sip of you…it’s been so long.”
She bumped him away with her hip. “Not likely. Now hold his head up for me. You can lap at his wounds if you’re that hungry.”
George heard Phillip talking to Jacques, distracting him from the scene in the street. What would Lil tell her son? They still had a long road ahead of them. But having him safe in her arms was a good start.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Bread and jam.
Lillian wondered what Johnnie thought when he returned to the scene of the accident to find them missing. She also wondered what he would do about it. Had Arthur told him all?
She kept a tight grip on Jacques’s hand, loving the contact with him, hating how inadequate she felt. It was one thing to want your child in your care, another to know how to provide it. Why, she didn’t even have a mother friend to copy, she realized, and wondered how she might remedy that. Aileen had done all right with her brothers, and Johnnie as well. They were good boys, although little rogues. How would Jacques get on with them?
Phillip had taken Arthur to his house and volunteered for the odious task of managing his newborn antics. Lillian would visit soon, she vowed.
“Tomorrow, you must see him tomorrow,” George had warned. He would want to see his maker.
“Are you certain you want me here now, Lil?” George asked as they arrived at her home. “You are both safe.” When he put his hands on Jacques’s shoulders, the boy didn’t try to wrestle himself free but simply yawned.
Oh, of course, Lillian thought. He’s tired and hungry! Surely there is food in the house?
She needed Addie and Thomas. Another nervous lurch of her stomach at the thought of how to explain everything to the pair, who now more than ever seemed the only mother and father figure she’d ever have, and that she’d buried Aileen without them even knowing her dead. Perhaps she would forever need to keep them at a distance.
She nodded to George. “I would have you here.”
“Where are we?” Jacques asked as he examined the house’s exterior. “I thought you were taking me back to the home.” His deep brown eyes, so like her own, reflected worry no seven-year-old should have to feel.
She knelt to comfort him. “This is a bit like the home, but better. No Madam, not ever again. She is gone forever. There are three lads to play with, and a lovely yard. We can go to the park every Sunday, where you can sail boats and have all sorts of adventures. Would you like that, Jacques?”
He shrugged. “S’pose. My name isn’t Jacques though. Madam called me that, but I hated it. I’m not French. At the home they called me Jack.”
“Jack.” Lillian smiled. “I like that name. We will never call you anything else.” She brushed her hand on his cheek and bit back tears. It wasn’t time to tell him the truth, not quite yet. I’m too tired, and I don’t know what to say.
George touched her back, and she stood. “It will be fine, love,” he said. “Take him inside.”
He opened the front door, but Lil hesitated, feeling as if entering her home would waken her from the wonderful dream of having her son. A sip of medicine would help right now, but she didn’t want for Jack to see that.
“Lil, he’s exhausted. So am I.” George scooped Jack up in his arms, and the boy rested a head on his shoulder. Lillian stared, wanting to remember the picture accurately for the rest of her life.
George pushed the door fully open with his foot, carried Jack inside and right up the stairs into Lillian’s bedroom. He sat Jack on the bed and worked at pulling off his boots. “Tonight,” he remarked, “you may sleep in your street clothes.”
“I’m hungry.”
“As well you should be, boy. Lil, be a dear and go downstairs, get a treat for him, won’t you?”
He winked at her, and she gaped. How did he know how to do this? George was the last man on earth to raise a young boy. Still, she ran to the kitchen and scoured the larder for anything that might suit. Bread and jam, bread and jam. I loved that as a child!
After cutting off two large hunks of bread and smearing them with jam and butter, and after pouring a jar of milk, she ran back to her room. Jack was sitting up in bed, listening to George.
“Tomorrow you can sleep in the room with the other boys, but we won’t wake them now. Does that sound fine?”
The boy nodded. “Quite fine. What is your name, mister? Are you in charge of this home?”
George looked taken aback, but Lillian was too interested in his answer to rescue him. He glanced over and she nodded. It seemed too soon, but if George could help her, she would accept this. I’ve never needed so much help.
A tiny voice inside contradicted her. You’ve always needed help. You would never accept it.
“You can call me George. Do you remember that when you were at the home, sometimes people would come and take away one of the boys?”
Jack nodded. “They got taken. I never got taken. Except by her.”
“Do you know why?”
The boy shook his head no, but Lillian wondered how many awful reasons he’d created for why no one ever wanted him.
“Because they were saving you for us. We had a hard time finding you, though.”
“You were looking for me?”
“Yes. Very hard. Lil, bring over the food.”
Lillian sat across from George on the bed and handed the plate to Jack, who devoured the bread and slurped down the milk.
“What’s your name?” Lillian’s son asked her, with a full mouth and jam smeared across his cheek
. She cleaned him off with a handkerchief George offered.
“My name is…”
“It’s all right, Lil. Tell him your name.”
“My name is Lillian. Lillian Holmes.”
“Are the other boys here vampires like you? Vampires I’ve seen are strong. Wouldn’t be easy to play with vampire boys.”
“No,” Lillian answered. “They are just like you. You will like them. And they have a giant dog named Abraham Lincoln. I think you will like him as well.”
Jack closed his eyes. “I like this home better than the other one.”
“It’s not a home for orphaned boys, Jack,” Lil whispered after a time. “It’s your home.”
His eyes fluttered for a moment, and Lil wasn’t sure if he’d heard her or if sleep had won out. No matter, it gave her more time.
Jack whispered something she couldn’t hear and then looked at her. “Are you my mother and father? You looked for me…”
“Yes, love, I am your mother. George…”
George looked at Lil for direction. She nodded.
“And I am your father.”
Evidently satisfied, Jack rolled onto his side and fell fast asleep.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Heroics unmasked.
George spent the rest of the night with Lillian in his arms, curled up in the bedroom formerly occupied by Addie. He slept fitfully, visions of Marie, Sullivan, and the dead Coyles running in a continuous loop through his mind.
Even though they’d found Jack and Marie was dead, he felt a failure, not able to forgive himself for luring Lil and Phillip into the pit of darkness. He’d worried they would come, stubborn as they both were. He should have sent them the letter long after the confrontation, at least if he was being truly noble. I could have lost them both, lost everything. He thought of Sullivan, wondered if he’d ever meet the man again. Surely he and Phoebe were on a train, heading quickly away from Baltimore.
