The Black Swan

by Tinnean

  “Never tell me—you’ve read his future also.”

  “I have.” She approached Gabe, and this time she did rest a hand on his forearm. “Young Owen will need a friend. You’ll see to the care of both of them.”

  “All right, fine. Is anyone else joining us?”

  “No. I’m going to feed the boys. Why don’t you get your own dinner?”

  Well, I reckon I’ve just been dismissed. Gabe went off into the woods and searched for the critters that would provide him with sustenance until he returned to the next battlefield.

  That was the only time he fed from men.

  Remember had comforted him when he’d first been turned and had wept tears of blood, until his friend had assured him there were beasts without number in the forests and plains. He could use those to sustain himself.

  And thanks to Remember, Gabe was able to hold onto a shred of his humanity.

  * * * *

  Gabe had taken down a small white-tailed deer, and he brought it to Remember’s grave.

  “Two boys, Remember. I’m going to be responsible for two boys.”

  The deer’s struggles had grown more ineffectual, and he lowered his head, bit into its throat, and began draining it of its blood. After a moment he paused. “Were we ever that young?”

  “Of course we were, Gabriel. Don’t you remember when you first came to Braddockville to live with your uncle? You were even younger than that, and I wasn’t much older.”

  Somehow Gabe wasn’t surprised to hear Remember’s voice, but he was afraid if he looked to the side, he wouldn’t see his friend sitting beside him, waiting to take the deer carcass so he could gut it and roast it for his own dinner.

  “‘Twas before that other war.”

  “Aye.”

  Gabe turned his head and nearly fell over when he beheld Remember, not as Gabe had last seen him, but as Remember had been before the start of that bloody battle—hale and whole.

  Gabe choked on a mouthful of blood. It took him a moment to get himself under control.

  “Remember?”

  “Aye.”

  “But…” He shook his head. “Are you really here?”

  “I am.”

  “Oh, my friend!” Gabe threw himself at Remember and wound up hitting the ground with his chin. “Bloody hell.” He had heard tales of ghosties, but he’d never encountered one face to face.

  Remember chuckled and touched his cheek, although Gabe couldn’t feel it.

  “Will you stay?” He knew he could bear going on if Remember was nearby.

  “I can’t. Even now I’m being drawn to the other side. I wanted you to know that you did the right thing when you aided in my passing. I’m all right. Continue on your path in peace. Look after our boy and his friend. And know that I’ll be waiting for you.”

  This time Gabe felt the ghostly brush of lips across his mouth.

  “Godspeed, beloved.” And then Remember was gone.

  “I’ll miss you.” Gabe sighed and dressed the drained carcass. His soul—he liked to think he still had one even after all these years—was lighter. He rose to his feet, hoisted the carcass over his shoulder, and began his return to Mother Morwen’s cabin. She could prepare the meat for the boys for their departure tomorrow evening.

  He knew there were hours until sunrise. He’d find another deer or perhaps two and leave them as a parting gift for her kindness in caring for Remember’s grave.

  He gazed up at the star-spangled sky. “Take care of my friend, Lord.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 8

  The lads were thrilled to be marching off to war, but that lasted no longer than the first battle they witnessed. The sight of limbs being blown off, of soldiers being trampled by charging horses or run over by caissons, or men simply falling dead where they stood resulted in them both turning green.

  “And I shouldn’t,” Owen said, almost in tears as he finished retching. Phin wasn’t much better, losing all the contents in his stomach. “I saw what happened to Remember.”

  “Do you want to go home?” Gabe asked them. “I’ll send you back, and no shame will be ascribed to you.”

  “No. I’m your black swan, Gabe. I’ll stay.”

  “Phin?”

  “No. I’m Owen’s. I’ll stay.”

  “All right, then.” It hadn’t taken Gabe long to realize that the reason Owen’s family wouldn’t care that he went away was because he liked boys, and Phin in particular. Gabe remembered how it had been when he and Remember had been that age. He just asked that the boys used caution when around others.

  * * * *

  The battles grew fiercer and more desperate—the Wilderness where almost twenty-eight thousand men on both sides fell, Spotsylvania, where the number rose to almost thirty-two thousand, Cold Harbor, where casualties numbered over seventeen thousand—and Gabe protected them as best he could. On their eighteenth birthdays, he fed them some of his blood, knowing that would help safeguard them.

  And then the war came to an end with the Battle of Appomattox Court House and Lee’s surrender, and the North went wild with joy.

  * * * *

  “All the celebrations we’ve attended have left us weary,” Owen said that Friday evening. “We’re off to bed.”

  “I wish you both pleasant dreams.” Gabe had no doubt that a good deal of dalliance would be involved before they sank into Morpheus’s embrace.

  “Thank you, Grandda.”

  Gabe cuffed Owen’s head.

  “What plans do you have, Gabe?” Phin asked as he urged Owen toward their bedchamber.

  “I’m going to the theater to see Our American Cousin.”

  “Have a good time.”

  “You too.”

  They were all grinning as they went their separate ways.

  * * * *

  Gabe returned home an hour or so before sunrise and tapped on their chamber door.

  Owen opened it, wearing a nightshirt that appeared to have been hastily donned, his hair standing up every which way. “What is it?

  “The president’s been shot. I can’t stay awake much longer. I need you to go to Petersen House. Secretary Stanton is there. Offer him whatever assistance he requires.”

  “How fares Mr. Lincoln?” Standing at Owen’s shoulder was Phin, wearing the bottom half of his long johns. His torso was well-defined, and Gabe could understand Owen’s attraction to him.

  Gabe shook his head. “Not well.”

  Owen turned pale, and Phin looked sick, but they dressed quickly and left the house.

  Gabe went down into the cellar. He had known there was no hope for the president, and he would have given the great man what solace he could, but too many people crowded the area.

  He climbed into his box with Booth’s words ringing in his ears—oh, yes, Gabe had recognized the popular actor. The South is avenged…

  Did the fool really think so?

  Gabe slid the box’s lid in place and succumbed to the vampyre’s version of slumber.

  * * * *

  It wasn’t quite nightfall, but the tap on the lid of his box roused him. Gabe pushed it aside. “What word?”

  “The president is dead.”

  “The poor man.” Gabe blew out a breath. The poor country. He knew Secretary Stanton would want the South to pay heavily for this.

  “Gabe…What do we do now?”

  “There’s no need for you to remain here. If you want to return home, I’ll see you’re given a pension.”

  “But where will you go?”

  “I’ll stay in the capital.” He’d spoken to Secretary Stanton before he’d returned home, and he’d been asked to remain handy on the chance his services were required.

  Owen stared at him solemnly. “Then I guess I’m staying.”

  Phin looked bored. “Are we doing this again? If Owen stays, then so do I.”

  Owen pulled him into a hug and kissed him.

  Gabe regretted he no longer had anyone to kiss.

  “All righ
t, if you’re certain. I’ll go pay a visit to Secretary Stanton and see if he has any assignments lined up for us.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 9

  Of course Secretary Stanton did, as did the Secretaries of War who followed him. There always were assignments waiting for them.

  Their most recent mission was to Cuba, where the battleship USS Maine had been blown up in Havana harbor.

  Gabe did his job. Owen and Phin amused themselves. They were adults now, over fifty, although thanks to Gabe’s blood, they didn’t appear more than the twenty Owen had originally claimed to be.

  Maybe that was why Colonel Roosevelt permitted them to ride along when his Rough Riders made that charge up San Juan Hill.

  Over two hundred of the men died, and among them were Owen and Phin. Owen had a smile on his lips—he had died cradling Phin in his arms.

  And once again, Gabe had to return to Braddockville to bury his black swan and the man his black swan loved.

  Mother Morwen had a replacement ready for him.

  “How did you know?” he asked her.

  “I saw it in their palms.”

  “And yet you let them go with me.”

  “It was their destiny.”

  He was afraid to ask if that was his newest black swan’s destiny, not that it mattered. This time Gabe swore he would keep his distance from the young man—who turned out to be a young woman.

  * * * *

  She didn’t survive the First World War.

  Her replacement, another woman, was killed while they worked with the French resistance obtaining intelligence during World War II.

  Gabe lost another black swan in Korea.

  By the time the war in Vietnam was over and he’d returned to the States with another wooden box, he’d had enough. He resigned his position in the government—they dismissed what he was, preferring to believe the intelligence the CIA gathered was more valid—and he took up travel. Alone.

  Because he’d be damned if he carried another black swan back to Braddockville to be buried.

  * * * *

  Chapter 10

  The years drifted past, and as Remember had said back when they’d started with this, one conflict followed another.

  And another and another.

  Gabe kept out of them, although he visited battlefields occasionally and eased the dying on their way to whatever Afterlife they believed in.

  He returned to the States four times each year to honor the black swans he’d lost, but he couldn’t live in Braddockville—the cemetery and what it held was just too close—and then he’d leave.

  He grew tired, though, and eventually he returned to the States for good.

  * * * *

  The moon was in its third quarter, but it afforded enough light for even a normal to see. And even if it had been a new moon, he’d have seen. He sat cross-legged by Remember’s grave, stroking the cool marble of the headstone. Some of the older stones in this graveyard were in serious disrepair, crumbling and with the names and dates engraved on them no longer legible. Not those for his black swans, however. He saw to it that the marble was replaced periodically. Especially Remember’s.

  He ran his fingertips over the words engraved in the marble.

  Remember Littlebury

  1750-1863

  For where thou art, there is the world itself,

  and where thou art not, desolation

  The quote was from Henry VI, Part II, Act III, Scene 2. He and Remember had gone to see the play when they’d been in London, on that evening when they’d finally crossed paths with that damned English vampyre and Gabe had dispatched him.

  Anyone looking at the dates would assume he was just long-lived. Either that or it was an error, and the dates had been transposed.

  “I miss you, Remember. The black swans after you—they were fine as black swans, and I was fond enough of them, but I could never love them the way I loved you.” He’d also never done more than sip from their cut wrists, and when he’d had to feed them, he’d pricked his own wrist, rather than biting his lip and letting them kiss the blood from his mouth. To do otherwise would have felt like a betrayal of Remember.

  He waited, hoping he’d get a response, but there was nothing but the summer breeze in the trees and the sound of fireworks in the distance. After that first time, Remember had never spoken to him.

  “I…I think I’m ready to try with another black swan.” He was so lonely. “But this one grows old with me—no more spying.”

  “Master Granger.” In spite of what he was, he jumped when the voice came to him from out of the night.

  “Who…?” He gazed over his shoulder, ready to vanish at a moment’s notice. “Mother Morwen?” He rose to his feet, a gentleman even though he hadn’t been born one. “You’re still alive?” If he’d been alive, he would have blushed.

  She just chuckled. “I was when you claimed your last black swan, and that was almost forty years ago.”

  He wondered how old she was. Remember had mentioned she hadn’t been a young woman back when he’d first known her.

  “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “Actually, there’s something I can do for you. I’ve been waiting for you to return to the cemetery. A black swan was born a few years ago. You’ll need to wait until he reaches maturity before you claim him, but I read his palm, and he’s for you—”

  “As long as he accepts me.”

  “This is true, but when has a black swan ever denied you?”

  That was also true, and Gabe began to feel hopeful. He didn’t bother asking when she’d learned of the cygnet. It didn’t matter, since he’d have to wait until the boy was of age anyway. “Who is he?”

  “His name is Noah Poynter.”

  “Poynter? I knew of a black swan by that name almost two hundred year ago in Great Britain.”

  “You recognize the name, then?”

  “As I said, it’s been a good many years.” He frowned for a moment. “Eloise. That was her name. She was the black swan of the English vampyre that had a hand in my turning. Remember was with me when we finally ran him to ground.”

  “Ah. I sometimes forget you and your black swan used to be quite the globe traveling pair.”

  He shrugged. “We were all young then.”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  He couldn’t help laughing.

  “What did you learn of the Poynters?”

  “Nothing. Only that they lived in King’s End in Bicester.”

  “That’s in Oxfordshire, I believe.”

  “I suppose.” How did she know things like this? “At any rate, we brought her home but couldn’t linger—we had to return home ourselves to pass on the information I’d uncovered. So I don’t really know anything about Eloise’s people. And even less about those here in America.”

  “You wouldn’t. The family arrived in Braddockville while you and Owen and Phin were in Cuba. Noah’s line mostly intermarried with Remember’s.”

  “I’d like to stay nearby.”

  “I thought you might. You’re welcome to stay in my root cellar if you choose.”

  “Thank you. I’d best find myself some dinner before I settle in for the day.”

  She rested her hand on his shoulder. “Come when you’re ready.”

  * * * *

  By the time 2006 rolled around, Gabe had been without a black swan for thirty-three years. Waiting a few more years shouldn’t have mattered.

  But Gabe couldn’t resist seeing what the boy looked like.

  He knew the family had moved to Wittington some years before and that they ran a tavern there called the Golden Circle.

  He was in Braddockville to mark the September passings of Jennie Hadley and Sam Granger. Why not stop in Wittington?

  He wasn’t known there.

  He wandered through the town until he happened to overhear a group of boys and girls talking as they walked down the main street.

  “Will Noah be able to join us?” a p
etite blonde girl asked.

  “Not tonight,” the boy who held her hand answered. “His pop’s got him working at the Golden Circle.”

  Ah!

  “I guess it’s just as well. He doesn’t like movies like The Covenant.”

  “He’s a chicken.” Another of the boys, this one tall and bulky and probably on the high school’s football team, clucked like a chicken.

  Gabe stepped out of the shadows, making sure only the boy saw. He let his eyes glow red. The boy gave a squeak and bolted down the sidewalk. The other boys and girls raced after him, giggling, probably thinking it was all in fun.

  Gabe grinned and headed for the tavern.

  It was a pretty building, built in the Tudor style, although the lighted signs that advertised various brands of beer spoiled the effect.

  He opened the door to a wall of sound, and for a second he was tempted to retreat. He’d never seen such a crowded space shy of a battlefield.

  But Gabe had no trouble spotting the boy. His shock of blond hair had him standing out like a beacon. What color were his eyes?

  Look up, lad.

  But he continued industriously drying a glass, a faint smile on his lips as he listened to the chatter going on around him.

  Look up. One of a vampyre’s abilities consisted of mentally communicating with his black swan. Of course Noah wasn’t Gabe’s yet, but he must have felt Gabe’s gaze, because he did look up, and his smile broadened to a grin, as if he’d been expecting Gabe and was fascinated by the sight of him.

  His eyes were the bluest Gabe could remember seeing in more than a century. Gabe smiled and took a step toward him.

  Suddenly six big men placed themselves between Gabe and his black swan. The oldest one, no doubt Noah’s father, said something to Noah in a fierce, low tone.

  Noah gave Gabe a final, regretful glance, then placed the glass and the towel on the bar and left.

  Gabe waited for the big man to approach him, then introduced himself. “I’m Gabe Granger.”

  “I know who you are.” He didn’t bother to introduce himself, but that was all right; Gabe knew who he was. “I want you to stay the fuck away from my boy.”

  “You know he’s a black swan, don’t you?”

  “What Noah is or isn’t doesn’t matter. He’s not for the likes of you. Now get out of my tavern and don’t come back.”