As a compromise, David suggested that a twilight service be held at midnight on Saturday so religious obligations could be met and everyone could have Sunday free to worship the Black Sun. When he first proposed the change to Sister Mary Elizabeth, she readily agreed, but as time went on, she realized it didn’t make sense. Why couldn’t they have both, church in the morning and the carnival in the afternoon? Why did she always give in so easily to David in his presence and then experience doubts later on when she was alone? Why didn’t she voice her opinions to him? She wasn’t confrontational, but she was hardly submissive, particularly when it came to her beliefs. If she knew what David had planned, what he had already set in motion, she would have done more than question herself. She would have begged God to intervene.
Water is mixed with blood once more. No one was in the church, so no one heard the sound. Plop, plop, plop. The holy water rippled within the insides of the font each time its smooth surface was broken, each time something fell from above to splice into the consecrated liquid. If anyone was in the church, all they had to do was look up to see what was creating the sound. The cross that was usually bare now held a body.
Mimicking the crucifixions from the Bible, the man was nailed to the cross, one piercing in each outstretched palm, one through both feet, which were placed one on top of the other. Unlike typical religious iconography, there were two more piercings in the body, these two created not with the aid of nails but with fangs. Two holes, more like gashes, were visible on the left side of Lochlan’s neck, both large enough so that whatever blood was left in the doctor’s body could spill out and contaminate the blessed water below. Sister Mary Elizabeth was right. Canceling mass had nothing to do with keeping the students’ schedule free. David merely wanted to put the church to better use.
And Ronan merely wanted to know what the hell happened to Dr. MacCleery. Standing in the middle of his office was like standing in the aftermath of an explosion. The desks were overturned, cabinets were leaning on their sides, their contents spilled out and strewn throughout the room. There were huge dents in the walls created by fists or thrown bodies, and splattered all over the floor in a random pattern was blood. It was not what Ronan expected to find when he raced over to the doctor’s office after seeing that he had sent him several texts last night and early this morning. He thought he would find the doctor waiting for him, eager to explain what his puzzling messages meant. He didn’t think he would find more mystery.
Instinctively he kept the truth about his rendezvous from Michael. Even after his promise to be honest, he still felt the need to protect him, still couldn’t fight his innate reflex to conceal. “I’ll meet you at St. Sebastian’s in an hour or so,” Ronan shouted as he left their dorm. “I forgot something.” He didn’t see Michael peek out of the bathroom, expecting a good-bye kiss. He was already racing across campus. All the way he kept wondering if he had made the right decision, the feeling only got stronger when he saw the doctor’s ransacked office. Then he looked into the corner of the room and saw two things that made him forget all about Michael and made him realize the doctor was in grave danger.
Jutting out from behind a fallen lamp were the doctor’s eyeglasses, one lens shattered, and a crumbled piece of paper. Ronan didn’t have to squint to see the word “evil” written on the page and he didn’t have to think twice to know the paper was Alistair’s note. MacCleery might rush out without his glasses, but he would never leave the note behind. He had been taken by force. Angry and frightened, Ronan didn’t know who attacked Lochlan, but he knew whoever it was, only did so because they were following orders.
“Headmaster, I’m sorry I’m late! Please forgive me!” All heads turned when Amir burst into David’s office, the door slamming behind him. He was greatly relieved, however, when he saw that David wasn’t in the room.
“Amir!” Nurse Radcliff chastised. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Why don’t you get stuffed?” Amir shouted. “I was carrying out Headmaster’s orders.”
Which doesn’t make you special, you dumb twit! Of course, Nakano didn’t speak that comment out loud, he didn’t want Jean-Paul to think he was immature or anything. “Hey, mate,” Nakano said. “She’s just talking about the blood that’s dripping off your face.”
Extending his tongue so it glided across his chin, Amir tasted the doctor’s surprisingly sweet blood as he wiped his face clean. Sitting next to Nakano he quipped, “Guess I didn’t have time to freshen me face.”
Seated directly behind him, Nurse Radcliff muttered under her breath, “Sloppy.”
“Like you should talk, Margaret.” The nurse’s given name hissed out of Brania’s mouth like acid, turning the already rancid air toxic. As David’s daughter, Brania knew that she should be immune to the unattractive human traits that characterized the group of dysfunctional immortals and not sink to their level, but she couldn’t help herself. She despised them, the nurse most of all. The feeling, predictably, was mutual.
Pulling her cardigan tighter across her ample bosom, Nurse Radcliff looked in Brania’s direction and lifted her chin. “This from someone who dresses so disrespectfully in her father’s presence.” Seething, Brania felt her back stiffen and her fangs tingle as she tried to inconspicuously pull down her black leather skirt so it would at least reach the middle of her thighs. Satisfied at putting her master’s spoiled child in her place, Nurse Radcliff beamed. “And don’t think He hasn’t noticed.”
“That’s because I notice everything.”
Before the door closed behind David, everyone had stood up to greet their leader, everyone except Brania. As his only child, she didn’t feel the need to rise in his presence. She felt that, over the centuries, she had proven her loyalty enough to remain seated. David didn’t agree. “Lethargic, darling?”
The ticking of the seven-foot oak and gold grandfather clock, hand-made by one of David’s many admirers, a now-deceased master carpenter from the Lower Rhine region of Germany, was the only sound that could be heard as everyone waited for Brania’s response. “No, Father,” she replied. “Bored.”
David didn’t hear Nakano snicker or Jean-Paul slap him in the arm to caution him. He was too busy listening to Zachariel. “She may be your child, but she is a girl,” the wise voice counseled. “She is not created in my image and therefore she is worthless.”
Spoken like a true father. Before David spoke out loud, he paused to stand behind his desk, his black eyes shimmering, his red hair aflame, every muscle of his body hard and expanded, pressing against the tight-fitting black silk material of his imported suit, to allow his subjects to see what a true leader looked like. Then it was time for them to hear what a true leader sounded like. “Brania, please take your place with the others.”
What?! Brania couldn’t believe that her father was relegating her to take position with, with . . . them, those inferior beings. How dare he? Oh, how she wished he had never returned! Again, silence permeated the room, and the ticking of the clock was deafening. But when the thin second hand, made of twenty-four-carat gold, had traveled more than halfway around the clock’s face, Brania realized her father was serious; he expected her to sit among his subjects and not by his side. Things were changing. Brania could feel it, changing to her, around her, within. Maybe her father was testing her loyalty? Possibly, but hadn’t she proven herself so many times before? Still she had her pride. She wasn’t about to let these nothings see how hurt she was, how utterly disappointed. When she got up to walk toward the empty seat next to Nurse Radcliff, she didn’t care that her skirt had ridden up her thighs and was exposing most of her legs. When she saw the older woman eyeing her exposed flesh, Brania pulled her skirt up an inch higher. Why not let the pig see what she would never, ever have?
“Now that you have all taken your rightful places,” David said, “the Carnival for the Black Sun may officially begin!”
After the cheers and hoots died down, David sat in his chair, leaning back into the leathe
r upholstery, and folded his hands in his lap. He looked like a kindly professor about to tell an anecdote instead of a man about to lead his subjects to war. “This is the end of the beginning, my friends,” David said softly. “My purpose in returning here was not to be Ruler of Academia but to reclaim our dominance. Today is the first step in a battle that I have longed to wage, a battle against those vile half-breeds who call themselves water vamps and who threaten our position as leaders of the immortal world.”
“We are the true leaders!” Amir shouted.
Proud, David let Amir’s words and fury wash over him. “Yes, we are! And today’s carnival is step one in uncovering the location of their precious Well, their life force.”
“So we can destroy it?” Nurse Radcliff said, clutching her cardigan so tightly her knuckles turned white.
“Precisely!”
Brania listened to the applause. She heard the roar of approval, the craving for victory, but she felt numb and had no idea why. She hated the water vamps and their arrogance as much as anyone else in the room. Perhaps it was because her father was the one leading the charge? Perhaps she had stood behind no man for so long, she didn’t know how to step back in line? Or perhaps she just felt like being defiant? “Do you really think destruction is an attainable goal?”
David’s face turned as gray as the shadows bleeding through the windows. Sometimes children were so spiteful. And stupid. “Have you been listening, dear?” David queried. “Destruction of The Well is not on today’s agenda, merely its location.” The others in the room looked positively gleeful by David’s tongue-lashing. Most believed Brania too haughty for her own good anyway. “Does that strategy make sense to you now?” David asked condescendingly.
Breathing deeply, Brania ran her fingers through her thick auburn hair, making it bounce freely, and gave her father the answer he wanted to hear. “Yes.”
Triumphant, David declared, “Let the festivities begin!”
Shadows and light. The sun was not yet covered in darkness, but the mid-morning sky was starting to look like dusk. St. Sebastian’s was filled with students eating, laughing, not at all understanding the magnitude of the Black Sun or even caring about its arrival, merely thankful not to have to spend hours in the library or the cathedral or hovered over their desks doing homework. To them the day was a respite from the endless study and pressure that was common at the end of the school year. To Dr. MacCleery, it was much more significant.
On a crimson stain. A pall crept through the stained-glass windows of Archangel Cathedral, turning the hopeful yellow color somber, like the sound of prayer when spoken by someone who doesn’t believe in its power. Lochlan opened his eyes and looked down. His vision was blurred, fading, but he could see the drop of blood that had fallen from his neck foul the holy water below. He felt the last few breaths that his body clung to quicken as the blood drop exploded and swirled so there was now more blood than water in the font. He was not a religious man. He wasn’t going to spend the last few moments he had on earth begging forgiveness for a lifetime of cynicism, nor was he going to become a hypocrite and plead for mercy. He was, however, a practical man and, if there was a God, he assumed he would be listening, which is why he began to pray for the safety of the children he could no longer protect. When he finished his prayer he started another, this one for the child who had taken his life.
“Amir,” David called out as everyone was leaving his office. “Thank you.”
Flushed with humility, Amir had to resist the urge to genuflect in front of David. Instead he bowed his head and clasped his hand over his heart, unable to find the proper words to convey what lay there. He didn’t reply.
“You have proven your loyalty today,” David continued. “And once you succeed in your next assignment, you will be legendary.”
I can’t believe he’s entrusting me with such an important task, I can’t believe he thinks I’m so special. When Amir finally found the words, they raced out of his mouth in a strangled whisper. “There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you, sir.”
Placing his massive hand on Amir’s bony shoulder, David looked at the boy, making sure his eyes shone with a father’s pride. “And that’s why I have complete faith in you.”
This time Amir couldn’t resist. He clutched David’s hand and bent low on one knee, his eyes cast downward, not worthy of looking into his master’s face. From across the room, near the door, David caught Jean-Paul’s stare, and the two men had to look away from each other to stop themselves from laughing at the spectacle. When Amir finally stood up and found the courage to once again look David in the face, the headmaster’s countenance had resumed its serious nature. “You have a busy day ahead of you,” David remarked. “Go make me proud.”
“I will.” After a few moments, Amir was able to pry himself away from David’s presence and leave the room. When Jean-Paul closed the door, they could no longer retain their composure and burst out laughing, David’s deep baritone intertwining with Jean-Paul’s higher-pitched voice, the new sound echoing off the walls loudly.
“You do know thees eez a suicide mission?” Jean-Paul asked, catching his breath.
Pulling out a crisp white handkerchief from his jacket pocket to wipe away the tears his laughter created, David replied, “That’s why I’m not sending you, my love.”
When he heard those last words, Nakano’s hand froze on the doorknob. He wasn’t eavesdropping, he wasn’t being an immature git, he was just looking for his boyfriend. He never expected to overhear his headmaster call him love. He also never expected the two of them to embrace.
What the bloody hell is going on?! What are they doing? When he felt his hand start to shake he let go of the doorknob so he wouldn’t jiggle it, so he wouldn’t make any sound and interrupt the two of them from doing what seemed to come so naturally. He didn’t want to bear witness to the scene; he wanted to pounce on them or flee. Instead, he watched. He felt his stomach lurch when he saw David hold Jean-Paul’s chin between his thumb and forefinger and stare into his eyes. He felt something cold and painful squeeze his heart when he saw David tenderly kiss Jean-Paul’s left cheek, then turn his face to kiss the other. No, not again! Am I that ugly? Am I that stupid that I can’t even keep a boyfriend?! What is wrong with me?! Put one foot behind you, Nakano, so you can get the hell out of here before they see you, before they make you look like an even bigger fool! One foot, that’s it, then the other, yes, go, leave! He stumbled out of the anteroom, but just as he turned to run, he bumped into Brania.
“Watch where you’re going, you fool!” she exclaimed.
Nakano stared at her. He wanted to scream back, tell her how disgusting her father was, but he felt that if he opened his mouth he would cry.
Watching him run off toward campus, into the burgeoning darkness, Brania couldn’t get over how much younger Nakano looked. It could be the longer hair; it softened his appearance, made him look more vulnerable, more like the child he really was. It wasn’t so much his physicality, though, as his demeanor. Nakano ran toward a fight, not from it, something must have happened to change him. Studying Jean-Paul, his arms wrapped around her father, she had her answer. “You’re sleeping with the old nurse and the hot Frenchman,” Brania denounced. “My word, Father, how varied are your tastes?”
“It seems that you’ve lived among these humans far too long,” David remarked. “Their primitive instincts have permeated your brain.”
“I’m the one being primitive?!” Brania shouted. “You’re so primal, you can’t even limit yourself to one gender.”
Outraged, Jean-Paul took a step toward Brania, but David grabbed him by the elbow, preventing him from getting any closer. “You should not speak to your papa that way.”
It was bad enough she had to deal with her father’s scorn. She refused to be preached at by his latest concubine. Sideswiping a chair with a brush of her hand, sending it flying across the room, she screamed, “I will speak to my papa any way I choose to!”
&nbs
p; “But you will not raise your voice to your brother!”
Her knees buckled, just slightly, but enough to warn her that she needed to hold on to something or else she might fall. Brania clutched at the back of one of the leather chairs, pressing her nails so hard she broke through the fabric. “My what?”
This was not the way David had planned to hold the family reunion. He wanted to wait until the location of The Well was discovered to proclaim that he and both his children would lead His people to victory, Brania seated on his left, and Jean-Paul, a smidge closer, seated on his right. Ah, well, what was that colloquialism? No time like the present. “Brania,” David said, “I’d like you to meet your baby brother, Jean-Paul Germaine.”
This is ridiculous, this cannot be happening. It’s a joke, yes, my father’s attempt at a cruel, a very cruel joke. “That’s impossible.”
“I assure you it is possible and it is fact,” David declared. “I remember every second of Chantal’s labor, thirty-six long, but ultimately extremely rewarding, hours.”
Smiling, Jean-Paul touched his father’s shoulder affectionately. “She still blames me for zee pain.”
Joining in the laughter, David kissed Jean-Paul’s hand. “Oh, she has no one to blame but herself, my son.”
Son?! How in the world can he have a son? Her entire life she was the only one, no one else. That wasn’t going to change now; she wouldn’t let it. “I’m your only child! That’s what you always told me!”
Growing weary, David was beginning to regret his disclosure. “I said you were my only daughter, I never said you were my only child. Maybe if you would stop listening with human ears, you would hear the truth.”
It was as if Brania stepped through time, as if she tumbled through a tunnel and landed two centuries earlier. She felt like Nakano looked, young, vulnerable, like the child she had been and, unfortunately, still was. The tears were so unexpected, so unfamiliar, that they stung, they blinded her so she couldn’t see her father’s face; she could only focus on the memory of him. “I have dedicated my life to you! I . . . have . . . compromised myself and done things that were abhorrent only to carry out your whims and earn your love.” She wanted to continue; she had so much more she wanted to say. But she couldn’t breathe properly, she was gasping, her chest heaving. Her father’s harsh summation made it unnecessary for her to speak another word.
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