Cheating Death

by April White

  “And now, from Saira and myself …” Archer pulled two envelopes out of the inside pocket of his dinner jacket and handed them to Ringo, who held Archer’s gaze a long time before he finally opened the first one. His hand shook very slightly as he passed the letter to Charlie, whose gasp at the first line caused Valerie to slide her chair next to Charlie to read over her shoulder. Ringo stood up and came to our side of the table.

  He held a hand out to help me up from my chair. “My lady …” His voice choked. “Thank you,” he finally managed to whisper. I held his face and kissed him on both cheeks.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Ringo embraced Archer in the kind of hug I’d only seen them do one other time – the first time they met again after Archer’s infection. It was the grip of brothers, and their eyes were shiny when they parted.

  Valerie’s voice rose in confusion. “Please excuse my ignorance of modern banking. There is an account set up for Mr. and Mrs. Ringo Devereux at Rothschild & Sons? But that is your name, is it not, Archer?”

  “It is my brother’s name too,” he said with a grin at Ringo. “Open the other one.”

  “I’m not sure I can,” Ringo said, wiping away the tears.

  I laughed. “Charlie, Ringo has butterflies in his eyes. Could you do it, please?”

  She giggled and slit open the second envelope. This time her gasp was even louder. “Oh, Ringo! It’s an admission from King’s College London for Ringo Devereux, to study the discipline of his choice, and for Charlotte Devereux to the Ladies Department of King’s College for the same.”

  Ringo stared at Archer open-mouthed. “But King’s is for the upper classes.”

  Archer smirked. “You carry a Lord’s name and bank statement. I think you qualify.”

  There was another round of embraces and some more tears before we all returned to our seats.

  “By the way, we’ve arranged with the modern Rothschild bank to call us any time a letter appears in a certain safety deposit box. You’ll have to give us a day or two notice – at least long enough for them to do their daily box-check – but the system should work okay for arranging visits.” I had been so happy when Archer told me what he had in mind, based on the way Tom had left us a message. I had actually gone back to 1945 to test it with the Rothschild banker I knew, and it had worked perfectly.

  It was the only thing that was going to make saying goodbye tolerable. Our days with Ringo and Charlie had been too brief, and although they did consider staying in our time permanently, they realized they actually did want to experience getting older day by day, instead of all at once with a visit back.

  So they were our constant companions during the two months after the Monger battle. They sat in on Council meetings that were open to all Descendants, and experienced the shaping of Descendant politics first-hand. They divided their time between Elian Manor and rooms in the newly opened wings at St. Brigid’s, where mixed-blood Descendants were now eligible to send their children to school. Charlie studied botany with Mr. Shaw, and managed to teach him some of the old plant lore she had learned during her time at Grayson Manor. And when he wasn’t with us, Ringo spent every minute with Connor, either in the laboratory or playing video games and tinkering with electronic gadgets.

  We took Ringo and Charlie with us the first time we visited the house in Galway that Millicent gave us. That had been a working trip spent cleaning and repairing the beautiful old place on the Cliffs of Moher. Ringo was the one who pointed out that a scene from The Princess Bride had been filmed at those cliffs, and our running joke of the weekend became answering “as you wish” to any request.

  Ringo’s friendship with Tom had also deepened. Ringo understood Tom in ways even Adam didn’t, and it was Ringo who was able to convince Tom to accept the position as Monger Head on the Descendants’ Council. There were full-blooded Mongers from the Rothchild/Walters regime who objected, but when Raven and the soldiers who had fought in the Monger battle stood up for Tom, the dissention quieted to a low murmur.

  Probably the most karmic ending of all belonged to Seth Walters, who died from blood poisoning. He had believed until the end that Archer was a Vampire, and had injected Archer’s Seer blood into his Monger veins. He was dead for three days before anyone found him.

  The engagement party that Millicent and my mom threw for Ringo and Charlie had also been a going away party, and I’d never felt so much love and friendship in one room. My mom confided in me that night that Mr. Shaw had asked her to marry him. He was the new Shifter Head, and I had returned the Shifter bone into his safekeeping. They felt they needed to bring the matter before the Council, but they weren’t asking for permission or forgiveness, just acceptance.

  After we left Grayson Manor, I took Archer back to modern St. Brigid’s before Clocking Ringo and Charlie to 1889. Archer couldn’t return to Victorian London because he was already there – and already a Vampire. Except things had changed now, and Archer from 1889 found us at the Baker Street townhouse that Valerie had built for Charlie and Ringo. My mom had gone to Elian Manor to see her sister, so it was just the four of us.

  “How much do you want to know, Archer?” I asked him, when we were seated in the drawing room across from Ringo and Charlie.

  He smiled at me, and it was my Archer exactly. They all were – every version of him, from every age – he was my Archer. “All of it has changed already, hasn’t it? This life that I will live is already different than the one I did live because you have changed it.”

  “It’s not a time stream split though, because the only person really affected is you.” I said. “I think it’s more of a time stream overlay. Whatever happens to you as you move forward in time won’t change the fact of what did happen. It all just lays over the top, so that as you experience things now, you’ll remember them in my time as well.”

  “There are differences though,” he said quietly as he looked down at the crowned heart ring on my left hand.

  I smiled and held the hand out to him. “There are, but we can work around them.”

  Epilogue

  “Do you want to drive?” Archer called to me from the bedroom of our Galway cottage. I was staring at the painting of us above the mantel, lost in thought, and I jumped when he came up behind me to kiss my neck.

  “I still can’t believe your mother bought this before you were born,” I said as I spun around to wrap my arms around his neck.

  “I can’t believe you painted it,” he said admiringly.

  “I sketched it. Artemisia finished it.”

  “Which means we have several hundred thousand pounds-worth of art hanging on our wall.” Archer kissed me on the nose. “And if I haven’t said it enough lately, thank you for speaking to my father.”

  We had gone to the Arman’s townhouse, which Archer had sold to Mrs. Arman’s great-grandmother, and told Camille what Lord Devereux had said to me about leaving something for Archer in the house. He thought he knew where to look for it, and she was very happy to let him search.

  Camille had mellowed since the Council had become more open and inclusive, and it had been enjoyable to sit in the kitchen with her while Archer went on his treasure hunt. The painting and a letter had been in the first place he looked – a false back in a built-in cabinet – and we’d waited until we came to Galway to unwrap them both.

  The painting had made me cry. It was more beautiful than I could imagine, and it was exactly how I felt every day that I got to wake up next to my husband and see the world by his side. The letter had made Archer cry, because it was from his father, who told him how proud he’d been of his younger son, and how he hoped Archer would make a good life for himself with someone who showed him the love his father had never been able to.

  “You drive,” I said, in answer to his earlier question. “I want to sight-see.”

  “Can I come?” A voice I knew came from the open door, and I laughed to see Doran leaning against the frame. Archer shook his hand warmly and I hugged him.
/>   “It’s good to see you, Doran.”

  He smirked. “You’ve never said that before.”

  “Not out loud,” I retorted.

  He stepped into the cottage and his eyes went straight to the painting. “A perfect spot for it.”

  “Did you know that Archer’s mother bought it?” I asked.

  He scoffed. “Who do you think sold it to her? She’d Seen you together though, before Archer was born, so it was an easy sell.”

  My eyes shot to Archer, and he looked startled and then happy as he gazed up at the painting of us touching each other’s faces. He took a breath and tore his eyes back to Doran. “Can we get you something? Are you hungry?”

  He smiled graciously. “No, thank you. I’d love to see your studio though,” he said to me.

  “How’d you know I had one?”

  He shot me a look loaded with “duh,” and I laughed and led him to my favorite room in the house. It had been a solarium that Archer insulated and turned into my art studio. It had spectacular views of the Aran Islands.

  Doran admired my work, sent Artemisia’s greetings, and then turned to business. “My parents have finally become friends, thanks to you.”

  “All of them?” I asked.

  He winced. “Maybe not Goran so much – there was no room left for love between himself and my mother when he joined Duncan’s civil war – but Aeron and Jera have made their peace with each other. Aeron is seriously considering a visit to St. Brigid’s by the way.”

  “Give us a warning and we’ll be there,” said Archer from the doorway.

  “Good. I think you’ll like my father. Underneath the stern, forbidding exterior beats the heart of a kind man who raised a baby by himself to have a part of my mother to love.”

  “It’s a little twisted, Doran, you have to admit.”

  He scoffed. “It’s beyond twisted. The House of Borgia has nothing on my family. But he was a good father, despite his motive for raising me.”

  Doran studied a painting I’d begun of the Immortals in their Council room. There were six thrones, and six people sketched into their places. Doran was seated between his two fathers, and his expression of peace had been the easiest to draw. I watched him carefully as he studied it, but he said nothing, only stroked the edge of the canvas and then turned to me.

  “I came to give you this …” He pulled something from his pocket and held it out. The ruby ring glinted in his hand. “… and to ask if you would become the Mixed-Blood Head.”

  I hesitated, a little afraid to touch the ring, and yet it called to me.

  “The Families have moved away from Heads. We call them Representatives now, because we realized we don’t need leaders so much as listeners,” I said. It had been Millicent who suggested the shift in responsibility, and I was so proud that everyone had embraced the new roles.

  My gaze went back to Doran’s eyes. “What do you expect from your Representative?”

  “The ring’s official name is the Ring of Dreams, and its power, as you experienced that day outside St. Brigid’s, is the power to inspire. It is meant to stand for what I represent – hopes and dreams of harmony. It is the mixed-bloods who can build the bridges between Families until we are no longer islands alone, but great, interconnected landmasses where all can thrive. This ring requires a principled wearer though, as you learned, and I trust that you are that person, Saira.”

  I glanced at Archer and found his eyes shining with pride as he nodded. I did pick up the ring then, and it felt warm and wonderful in my hand. “I am honored to be your Representative. Thank you.”

  Doran kissed me happily on both cheeks. “I leave you to the rest of your day then. I understand there’s a spectacular monastery just up the road, on the grounds of Kylemore Castle. You might find it interesting.”

  He shook Archer’s hand on his way out, and I scoffed. “I guess we’re going to Kylemore Monastery then.”

  We took the new Aston Martin up the coast. It was after dinner when we arrived, and it was still winter so no one else was about. We let ourselves inside and stepped into a gloriously decorated main hall.

  “It’s so beautiful,” I whispered reverently. A fire was crackling in the hearth, and stone carvings on the walls were cast in lovely light. I moved closer to examine one that caught my eye when I heard the priest come in behind us. “Ah, visitors,” he said graciously in a deep voice.

  “I hope you don’t mind—” I didn’t finish my apology as I turned, because my words had stopped working and a huge grin lit my face. “Bas!”

  He and Archer were already embracing like long-lost friends, and we settled ourselves by the fire to catch up on each other’s news. During the course of the conversation, Archer convinced Bas to join us at the next Council meeting and to perhaps consider becoming Death’s Representative. Bas was intrigued at the idea of meeting the Immortal, and we made plans to get together again later that week. It was nearly midnight when we finally left.

  As we drove home along the rugged Galway coast, I looked over at Archer’s profile and experienced the most profound déjà vu I’d ever felt.

  “We’ve done this before,” I said, as I watched his face in the light of the Aston Martin’s dashboard.

  Archer took my hand in his and kissed it. “Never like this.”

  “It was all worth it, even the awful parts.” I stroked his cheek gently. I never got tired of touching Archer – it reminded me that he was real, and we belonged to each other. He smiled, and light glinted on his teeth. “You know I used to call you Wolf,” I smirked.

  The smile got bigger. “Now what do you call me?”

  There weren’t words big enough to describe how deeply I felt, or how profoundly I’d changed from knowing him, so I used the smallest ones I knew that said everything.

  “I call you my love.”

  THE END

  Mirek Hejnicki/Shutterstock.com

  The Bramante Staircase – The Vatican

  The True History

  My favorite thing about writing a time travel series has been weaving real historical facts throughout my invented stories, and there are a lot of random truths in the fictional world of Cheating Death.

  Oscar Wilde was a playwright, novelist, essayist, and poet who lived from 1854 until 1900. He was renowned for his cutting wit, and remembered for his plays, imprisonment for ‘gross indecency’ with men, and for his death at the age of 45 after emerging from prison ill, destitute, and alone. His quotes are some of my favorites, and I’ve threaded several of them through his dialogue in Cheating Death.

  There is no specific evidence, however, that Wilde ever spoke at St. Etheldreda’s Church, or that he knew the real Father Lockhart – who was responsible for the restoration of the church in the late nineteenth century – despite the similarities of their backgrounds, education, and beliefs. Father Lockhart encouraged a thriving community of artists, poets, and playwrights, and several important authors of the day were invited to speak at St. Etheldreda’s, which is the oldest Catholic church in London.

  Mary Shelley did travel through Italy in 1842, and the facts surrounding her life with Percy Bysshe Shelley, the writing of Frankenstein, and the deaths of her children are also accurate. A first edition of Frankenstein, inscribed ‘To Lord Byron, from the Author’ was discovered in 2015 and sold for an undisclosed sum to a British collector. The asking price was 350,000 pounds sterling.

  The Artemisia of my story is based on the famous Italian Baroque painter, Artemisia Gentileschi – born in 1593 and trained as an artist by her father, also a renowned painter. In 1612 she was raped by her art tutor, and in an unprecedented move, sued her rapist for damages. Despite being tortured in court to determine the truth of her testimony, Artemisia won her lawsuit. Tassi, her attacker, was protected by the pope though, and served just eleven months in prison. Tassi’s work has been forgotten now, and Artemisia, whose paintings are remarkable for depicting a violent, feminist point of view, is considered one of the greatest Baroque
artists of the age of Caravaggio.

  The Tower of the Winds is a spectacularly painted tower in the Vatican that can only be accessed through the Secret Archives, which is closed to visitors. The tower was, in fact, the home of Queen Christina of Sweden for a few months when she moved to Rome in 1654 to convert to Catholicism. Christina was one of the most educated women of the seventeenth century. She spoke eight languages, including Hebrew and Arabic, and had a deep fascination with the study of religions, including Islam, and Protestant and Catholic Christianity. Christina declared herself “unsuited to marriage,” and then abdicated her throne to her cousin. She remained politically active and tolerant of religions throughout her life, and in 1686 issued a declaration that all Roman Jews were under her protection.

  When Saladin recaptured Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187, he summoned the Jews and permitted them to resettle in the city. Saladin was considered an extraordinary leader, a magnanimous statesman, and he died penniless after giving away his fortune. His sword was legendary and disappeared to history, and the technology for Damascus steel remains a mystery to modern science.

  Hatton Gardens is the historic jewelry district of London, and the River Fleet that runs under it was covered with brickwork in the nineteenth century to mask the stench of the raw sewage in the water. There is apparently a drain in Clerkenwell on which one can stand and hear the river flowing beneath the street. The Camden Catacombs still exist below the Camden Market, and they were once owned by the British Railway to house the pit ponies that pulled nineteenth-century railcars. NM Rothschild & Sons, founded in 1811, was headquartered in a Victorian building on St. Swithin’s Lane during the late nineteenth century. It is the seventh-oldest bank in England.