Cheating Death

by April White

  I grabbed onto the echo of my own name to drag myself to the surface of consciousness. I was on a settee in a large room I didn’t recognize. Mary Shelley bent over me pressing a cool wet towel to my head. It felt so good to be touched by gentle hands, and I wanted to close my eyes to revel in the sensation for a moment. Her voice urged me to look at her, so I finally did as she asked.

  “Saira, my dear. Can you see clearly? Are you alright?” Mary’s voice sounded mild, but there was an undertone of frantic to it that told me I’d been unconscious for more than a couple of minutes.

  Then everything came rushing back to me, and I tried to sit up.

  “Where are they?” I tried to struggle against her hands, but I had no strength, and my vision swam with the motion.

  She gently pushed me back and smoothed the hair from my face as she spoke in a soft voice. “Your friends are alive, and they seem to be healing. Tom …” Her voice caught, and I realized she had come to care for Tom during our journey south. She cleared her throat. “Tom was hurt quite badly, but he has taken some blood and he’s finally stable. Your new friend, Bas, is it? He, too, was injured severely, but he seems older, more resilient somehow.” She said the last words with a faraway expression, as if she was talking to herself. When she snapped back, her eyes found mine. “You and Ringo managed to avoid the worst of things. Perhaps you’re just faster than they are?” She smiled. Her attempts to make me feel better were generous, even though they were misguided.

  “I want to see them.” My voice sounded weak to my own ears, and I tried again. “Please, can I see my friends?” That one came out how I meant it – with conviction. They were my friends – all of them – friends and brothers.

  “I’m ‘ere, Saira,” Ringo said softly from somewhere behind Mary. She stood up and gave him her seat on the edge of the sofa next to me, and I reached out for his hand.

  “Will ye live?” he asked. The very slight twinkle in his eyes told me he was okay, despite the fierce bruises on his face and a bandaged hand.

  “Nope. Not going to survive this life. How about you?”

  He chuckled. “Keep me out of my own time and I’ll live forever. Or at least until some Immortal War god or rabid Vampire decides to take their piece of me.”

  “They didn’t get one, did they?” I asked, suddenly not joking at all.

  He held up his bandaged hand. “‘Tis nothin’ but a scratch. That bloody bastard can fight though. ‘Alf the time I thought ‘e was toyin’ with us, at least until ‘e got bored and decided to run Tom through.”

  I gasped and sat up, managing it with only a little dog-paddling in my head rather than the full swim. “Is he okay? Mary said he’s stable.”

  “‘E is now. It was a trick gettin’ the bleedin’ to stop when we couldn’t touch ‘is blood. Doran finally came to ‘elp us, and once we ‘ad pressure on the wound, it started knittin’ together.”

  Ringo looked at me with a deadly serious expression. “Tom’s been ‘urt bad in ‘is short life – worse than Archer ever was. ‘E’s not ‘ealin’ fast like ‘e should, and I’m not sure ‘e could come back from another one like ‘e just got.”

  The sheer magnitude of accumulated injuries that Archer had sustained was the reason Mr. Shaw and Connor had been able to develop the cure for Vampirism. The problem was, the Vampire had to be in an extreme state of weakness for the cure to have a chance of working, and no one knew if he’d survive that part of it, much less the cure itself.

  I exhaled sharply, then sank back into the cushion of the sofa while I watched Ringo’s eyes search mine. He knew what I was going to say before I said it, and I could tell he agreed with me. “Then Tom can’t go back to that ghost station to fix the time stream split. The chances of him getting shot by George Walters are too high.”

  Ringo was quiet for a long time, and finally he nodded at my prone position. “Sit up and give a man some room, would ye?”

  I smiled and pulled my legs up under me so he could sit next to me. He leaned back against the cushions and closed his eyes as he spoke. “So, will ye come back to 1889 with me and find ‘im there?”

  The words felt like molten lead poured into me – too heavy and toxic to answer without thinking the whole thing through, and my head hurt too much to concentrate. I leaned back next to him, reached out for his hand to hold, and closed my own eyes.

  “When I keep in mind the fact that we all die in the end anyway, the choices don’t suck as much,” I said. Exhaustion wove its way through my voice.

  Ringo barked a short, mirthless laugh. “So at least ye’ve got that goin’ for ye.”

  I turned my head to face him, and his eyes opened to look at me. Our heads rested against the backrest of the settee about six inches apart. “Why do I have to choose what to do next?”

  “Because ye choose yer life or ye become a victim of it. That’s ‘ow it works.”

  “It’s too much responsibility.” I knew I was whining, but Ringo was probably the one person in the world I could whine to.

  He rolled his eyes. “Bein’ responsible for yerself? That’s called bein’ an adult. Bein’ responsible for other people? That’s a parent, and ye’re not one of those yet, so ye don’t get to make choices for anyone else.”

  “But Tom—” I started to protest, but Ringo cut me off.

  “No. Ye choose yer life, and I’ll choose mine. Because I like ye, I might take yer choices into consideration, and if I were married to ye, I might base my choices on yers, but they’d still be mine to make. It’s why ye don’t get to choose whether or not Tom goes back to fix the split. Ye can choose not to take ‘im there – that’s yer choice. And ye can choose to release ‘im from the piss-poor deal ye both made, that’s yer other choice. But ye don’t get to tell ‘im ‘e can’t do it, just like it was wrong of ye to say to Archer ‘e couldn’t take the cure because ye were afraid to lose ‘im. Ye choose yer life, and let others choose theirs.”

  I was quiet a long time before I finally nodded. “They’re sleeping?”

  “Bas and Tom? Yeah. Tom brought back yer daggers by the way. They’re in yer bag.”

  I nodded my thanks. “Is Doran still here?”

  “‘E’s up in the studio, paintin’ I think.”

  “Will you help me get up there? You know, catch me if I swoon, or whatever it is that happens when you get conked on the head by War.”

  His eyes looked worried as he searched my face. “Ye’re alright then?”

  I nodded. “You?”

  He nodded.

  I held his gaze for a bit. “Tom was the one who infected Wilder.”

  “Seems likely.”

  I closed my eyes with a defeated sigh. “This Clocking thing needs to be left to the grown-ups. I keep messing things up.”

  “Ye’re ‘uman, Saira. We make mistakes, and then we fix ‘em. That’s what we do. The grown-ups in my book are the ones who don’t turn their backs on the fixin’.”

  He stood and held out his hand to help me up. “C’mon, I’ll escort ye upstairs, just to make sure ye don’t swoon and knock yerself out.”

  The villa seemed very quiet, and Ringo told me that Artemisia had gone to visit her daughter in Naples. Mary had planned to leave too, but then we arrived, so she stayed to care for us, and Doran had come soon after we did.

  I was mostly just achy, and my head hurt where Duncan’s fist had smacked me, but unconsciousness seemed to have been the rest I needed, because I felt remarkably decent.

  Late afternoon sunlight shone through the big window in the studio, and Doran sat with his back to the door working on a large canvas. He didn’t turn when we came in.

  “It seems that War is not your biggest fan,” he said dryly.

  I scoffed. “The feeling’s mutual.”

  Doran was putting detail into the view out of a large window in the background of his painting. It was another Renaissance style formal portrait, remarkably similar to his painting of the Immortals that hung in the Elian Manor keep. Now tha
t I’d seen three of them in person, I could recognize them easily.

  They were arrayed on thrones in a room that reminded me of drawings I’d seen of the Greek gods on Olympus, except the view out the window was of islands set into a deep blue-green sea. In this painting, Aislin faced forward, and her young, beautiful face reminded me a lot of Ava’s, except with a sharp, focused look in her eyes rather than the dreamy one Ava usually wore. Duncan was still actor-handsome, but because I’d seen the deeper ugliness in person, that was the only thing I noticed about him in the painting. Jera looked down at her empty hands, and something about her pose made me unbearably sad for her. Goran looked angry, but his eyes weren’t focused on anything in particular, and that made him seem sort of helpless. It was unsettling that such a powerful man looked so lost. The space between Goran and Aeron was there in this painting too, and I almost imagined I could see an empty throne. I blinked and the space was bare again, but something gnawed at the edges of my brain – something to do with that space.

  Interestingly, Aeron’s expression was still forbidding, but in a way that no longer inspired fear in me. It was a different reaction than I’d had when I saw him on the train, and I wondered if my encounters with War had shown me what a proper bad guy actually looks like.

  “Are these their natural faces?” I asked Doran as I came up to stand next to him.

  “You suppose I know their natural appearance?”

  I turned to watch his face. “You do though. That’s where your chair should go, isn’t it?” I pointed at the empty place between Nature and Death, and his reaction was exactly what I’d expected – absolutely nothing. Not a twitch, not a flinch, no scoff or surprise. Nothing. I took his utter lack of reaction as confirmation. “What are you the Immortal of? The big five are already accounted for, so what’s left?”

  With supreme control, Doran returned his attention to painting the whitecaps on the ocean outside the window. “Where will you go when you leave here?” he finally asked.

  I shrugged. “It depends.”

  “On?”

  “On what Tom and Bas want to do.”

  He let that hang there for a long moment. “What do you want to do?”

  I decided to stop messing with him. I pulled a stool over and sat so I could study his painting. He was very good – one of the best artists I’d ever seen – and it was pretty intriguing to watch him work.

  “I honestly don’t know. I still want to fix the time stream split, but asking Tom to help me isn’t really an option anymore.”

  Doran’s eyebrow raised, but he said nothing.

  “We almost got your ring back, by the way. Unfortunately, Duncan kicked our collective booties and then walked off with it.”

  “Ah, so that’s how it went missing in your history books,” Doran said quietly.

  “What would you do with it if you got it back?” I was getting used to this whole not-answering-the-question way of communicating with Doran, or maybe it just annoyed me less now.

  Doran shrugged. “It’s a nice ring, but I’m not really big on jewelry. I might only bring it out for special occasions.”

  “Occasions … like what?” Maybe he wasn’t answering because I wasn’t asking the right questions.

  “Oh, you know, times when people needed guidance to follow their path, or when the right words could make the secret dreams of the heart grow into something real and true.”

  Sentimentality from Doran? Be still my heart.

  I willed him to look at me, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes so I forged ahead. “If you were wearing your ring right now, what would you say to me?”

  He leaned forward to dab a little gold into the whitecap, but not before I caught the barest hint of a smile. Again, he shrugged. “I might tell you that your original plan was a good one, and 1944 would be an interesting place to revisit.”

  I met Ringo’s eyes over Doran’s head. “Huh.” I said in my best non-committal voice. “Maybe someday I can find that ring for you.”

  “Maybe someday you can. I’ve heard you know a good thief.” Doran leaned back and regarded the painting for a moment, then dropped his brush into a jar of mineral spirits and stood up. He leaned over and kissed me on both cheeks. “Goodbye, cousin. I’ll leave you to the careful ministrations of the remarkable Mrs. Shelley.”

  I reached into my pocket for the big emerald I’d dug out of my satchel. “Hey Doran?” He raised an eyebrow and I put the gem in his hand. “This would look really good on Artemisia, don’t you think?”

  He stared at the spectacular stone, and something soft and wistful came into his expression. If I hadn’t known better, I might even have thought he got a little misty-eyed. He looked me in the eyes. “Thank you, Saira. I think you have excellent judgment.”

  He turned to shake Ringo’s hand. “Keep each other safe, will you? There are people who would miss you.” He included me in his backward glance as he left the room.

  A Choice

  I sat outside with Mary as we sipped Moroccan tea and watched the sun set.

  “Why did you write Frankenstein?” I asked her.

  “Because I was afraid to,” she answered immediately, “and I knew if I didn’t do the thing I feared, the fear of it would eventually control me.”

  “Beware, for I am fearless and therefore powerful,” I quoted. It was the line from her book that had stuck with me.

  She laughed. “I am not fearless, Saira. I never have been. I am, however, not afraid to face my fears, to look them in the eye, perhaps shake their hands, and then ask them to move out of my way. Sometimes they follow me, and sometimes they’re so shocked when I confront them that they just melt into the background. But I do not allow them to stop me anymore, and because I am no longer afraid, my fears have no power to dictate my actions, or, for that matter, exert control over my dreams.”

  “What do you dream of, Mary? Your husband is dead, your son is grown – what is the carrot dangled in front of you that makes you wake up each day?”

  She smiled at me in a way that said she knew why I was asking. “Bysshe’s dreams were so grand, so full of individualistic philosophy that I believe his own renown would have fulfilled them. My mother’s dreams were easily defined by a woman’s place in relation to a man. Education was the foundation of her dreams – an equal education for men and women to give them equal standing in society.” She took a sip of her tea and looked up to see Tom standing in the doorway. She smiled and gestured to him to join us.

  When Tom had seated himself, Mary continued, and I let my eyes wander over Tom’s wounds. “My dreams,” she said, “have always been much quieter than my husband’s or my mother’s. My dream is to have mattered to the people I love; I would like my world to be a little richer because I am in it. And perhaps, if my words can find their way into someone’s heart, to give truth to an idea, or voice to a question, that is reason enough to rise and face each day.”

  Something in my heart shifted profoundly in that moment, and I felt a weight move to one side where it felt easier to carry. Mary turned her attention to Tom and held out both hands for him to take.

  “My dear, how do you feel?” she asked him with genuine warmth in her voice.

  He had gotten outside on his own, and he didn’t appear to have been moving especially slowly. I didn’t miss the wince when he sat down though, and he had the drawn, pale look of bone-deep exhaustion. His hand had a thin bandage around it, which surprised me. The wound should have healed by now. “Like a sushi chef just sharpened his knives on me,” Tom said dryly.

  I laughed and was surprised at how long it had been since anything Tom said or did was meant to be funny. His own expression was startled, as though he hadn’t expected my response, and then he gave me a very small, very tentative smile.

  “This is taking a bit,” he held up his bandaged hand, “but I think everything else is closing up fairly well. I might need to go out and hunt tonight though. I’ll see if Bas is up for a run in the forests later.”

/>   I put my hand out and touched his arm. I expected him to pull it away, but despite a little flinch, he left it in place on the table. “I’m not going to hold you to our deal,” I said.

  Then he did pull his arm away, and the warmth left his eyes. “You don’t trust me to do the thing without screwing it up like I did this time.” There was no question in his voice. Nothing but flat anger.

  I was so tired of fighting him – it’s all we had done since I found him in France. That little bit of a smile had meant so much more to me than I realized – I couldn’t find any anger of my own to match his. I just sighed and sat back.

  “You didn’t screw anything up. We’re all just trying to do the best that we can and get through this thing despite some pretty horrific odds. We wouldn’t have Bas if you hadn’t been with us, and Tom, you fought War and survived.” I rubbed my head; it was starting to ache again and I wanted to lie down. “We didn’t get the ring. That’s reason number one to not hold you to the deal. I didn’t keep my end of the bargain.” He was about to protest, but I cut him off. “And two, I don’t want you to get hurt again. I don’t know how you’re up and moving around right now, but your injuries have accumulated to the point that I don’t know if you could come back from a gunshot wound anymore.”

  He was still glaring at me, but whatever he’d been about to say had died on his lips. I pushed back from the table, and weirdly, he got up as a show of manners. The kindness of it made my eyes prickle with tears.

  “My head hurts again. I’m going to go lie down for a bit.” I reached out to touch his arm, and this time he didn’t flinch away. “I care what happens to you, Tom. You matter to me.”

  Mary looked worried, and I shot her a grateful smile. “Good night, Mary. Thank you for taking care of us all … again.”

  The interior of the villa was cool and dim, with just a few lanterns lit in various rooms. I didn’t want to brave the stairs again, so I curled up on the same settee I’d woken on and drifted off to sleep. My dreams were full of fragments. Images and snatches of conversation were scattered through a landscape of restlessness. Archer was there, and Ringo, and even Tom and Doran, but none of their faces gave me the answers to whatever unsettled me.