by Lara Hayes
“You’re not going to kill me,” she alleges. I would believe the confident bluff, but for her staccato pulse. She sets her mouth in a firm line, and I cannot help the answering smile that sweeps across my lips. I walk to the bedroom window and part the sheer curtains. The sun has begun to warp the horizon from black to plum. We have so little time.
“You would have let me die in that alley if that’s what you wanted.”
“Are you reassuring yourself? Or are you asking me a question?”
Elizabeth’s head snaps back as though slapped. She recovers quickly, gracefully despite the anger leeching off her ebbing fear. I turn toward her and she wills her body not to shake.
“No one deserves what that man had in mind for you.”
Mention of her brush with death mollifies her momentarily. Her eyes grow distant, no doubt replaying the horrors in vivid detail. Unconsciously, she rubs her arm and an ugly realization ghosts over her. She nearly died this evening, but was spared. Elizabeth’s mouth quakes once before she bites her lip. She does not cry. “You killed him.”
My only reply is the arch of an eyebrow. Between us Elizabeth’s heart pistons, as loud as an engine, drowning out every inconsequential sound. To look at her, one would never know. A misplaced pride swells in my breast, though her discipline has nothing at all to do with me. I have never seen a human come to terms with the fantastic truth of this world and react with anything less than abject horror—providing they were in their right mind, of course. I have skulked in shadows as they disinterred their loved ones and shoved stakes into freshly decomposing corpses. Flipped bodies face down in the grave. Drove twisted bits of iron through the eyelids, and severed the necks of their own children as they prayed.
Elizabeth takes a deep, fortifying breath. “What are you?” A better question, to be sure. Laced with the disgust I had been expecting.
“You know what I am.”
Elizabeth shakes her head violently, as though physically expelling the thought from her mind. Denying the obvious. A sudden, anxious laugh spills out of her, not because of the brutality of what she has witnessed, but the sheer impossibility of it all. Her dauntless veneer slips, leaving her visibly shaken. She straightens her long neck, projecting a confidence we both know she does not feel.
“Are you going to kill me?” And this time, it is a question. One I cannot even begin to answer, and more abstruse than she realizes. Death, after all, is subjective.
I sit firmly on the edge of the bed with my hands clasped. She trembles, knotting her fingers in the crisp white sheets, but makes no move to run. I cannot undo what has been done. I cannot withdraw from her any more than I can expel her from my own heart. Though I have dreamed of this moment, I do not have the gall to tell her how this will end. A short answer is all I can offer in the way of peace; the conditions will have to be addressed when we have more time. If I am not accounted for before morning, Fane could force my siblings to come looking for me, and they would not be pleased to move about in the sun.
“No.”
Elizabeth nods firmly, attempting to convince herself that she is safe, at least for now. She catches a rogue tear and relaxes back against the headboard, frightened but growing weary.
“Why are you doing this?” Scrutiny squares in her eyes. Her gaze moves down the side of my face and settles on her blood on my hands. I bring one leg up between us to face her and Elizabeth flinches. She promptly looks away. Repellent as my eyes may be, she can no more resist them than she can deprive herself of oxygen. She longs to linger in their shadow.
“I cannot justify my actions.”
Elizabeth leans forward and the light of the bedside lamp cuts across her neck like the blade of a guillotine. I focus instead on the hinge of her jaw, tight with frustration. I linger on the cynical arch of her brow, and the warm, deep sepia of her eyes. A single, wavy curl falls in her face as she drifts closer, as though my reasoning is a whisper she cannot quite hear.
“What did you do to me?” The words knock sharply against her clenched teeth.
This time I am the one to look away. She is the only mortal I have ever marked for my own. Articulating that bond is more difficult than I imagined. How do you explain something at once so intrinsic, and yet so foreign without directly admitting that it was invoked irresponsibly in a single moment, and regretted immediately?
“Think of it as a door that swings open two ways.” I turn to her completely, my legs folded to mirror her own, wrists resting on my shins. “The door that leads me to you opens fully and freely from my side. The door can be pushed open from your side as well, but only partially.” Skeptical eyes search my face for sincerity—she is more frightened by the thought of being the brunt of a joke, than by the monster sitting on her bed—and some understanding I am not certain I can provide. What has happened to her is nothing practiced on my part. We are learning the subtleties together.
“A door?” The sarcasm drips heavily from her lips.
“I can think of no better way to describe it.”
“I thought I was losing my mind. I had an MRI!” she snaps.
“Yes, that was an unfortunate surprise.” With an aggravated huff, Elizabeth is up on her feet, pacing. She winces only once when she attempts to push herself from the bed with her injured arm. She holds it for a moment, pausing before resuming her brisk trail back and forth over the creaking floorboards.
“You were with me on the subway platform.” Another accusation.
“In a sense.”
“You took the business card out of my pocket.”
“I merely suggested it. Impressed it upon you. You released the card of your own volition.”
“Have you been stalking me?”
“Watching you.”
“The violin?”
“Seemed a waste to keep such a fine instrument locked away.”
Elizabeth halts, clasping both hands over her mouth. A scream builds inside of her, like wind caught in a sail. She swallows it back down, shaking from the effort. “This is my life,” she says with dangerous calm. “Do you understand that?”
“Yes. And mine.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” She stands above me with curled fists.
“It means that the door opens both ways. I have felt you with me, seen you in dreams, some mine, some yours.” My patience has begun to thin, and her harsh tone is certainly no help. But I make every effort to remain calm, even if she cannot. Elizabeth has seen enough violence for one evening.
“Felt me? I’ve seen you, felt you, smelled you. Everywhere.” Her voice rises steadily in pitch and volume with each word. “At work, at home, in my dreams. You drove me to the edges of my sanity.”
“As you have said.”
“I think it bears repeating!” She screams, stomping a foot to emphasize her distress. For a second neither of us moves, falling silent to listen for her mother. The unexpected quiet silences Elizabeth’s bluster, and once again exhaustion softens her sharp edges. She sinks down beside me, and to my surprise, wraps pleading fingers around my wrist. Her touch is scalding and physical contact—no matter how chaste—is as dangerous as it is unwelcome at this juncture. My blood, moving through her veins, calls out to me. I savor the moment for as long as I possibly can, her elevated pulse beating in the pads of each fingertip.
“Please,” she begs, tightening her hold. “Take it back.” Her face is no longer a mask of contempt. “I didn’t ask for this. I don’t want it, whatever it is.”
“I cannot change the past.” My voice soft, and more troubling is my willingness to do or say anything and everything she desires.
“I’m not asking you to change the past,” she explains in that same pleading way. “I’m asking you to stop.”
“We are joined. That cannot be undone, Elizabeth.”
“Joined?”
“I think we have discussed this matter enough for one evening.” I attempt to extricate my hand, to stand, but she grips my shoulder and I relent. Beyond the
window, unbeknownst to her, the sun has begun to hiss its imminent arrival in my ear. A burn buds at the back of my eyes, and I pinch the bridge of my nose to thwart the pain.
“You called it a door. How is there a door? Why is there a door?” Elizabeth’s face seems to round itself in honest, open curiosity.
“Do you remember the evening at the hospital?”
“When we met? Vaguely.” The corner of my mouth quirks into a crooked grin. Of course not.
“You were shouting into your mobile at your mother. The two of you were arguing when I discovered you.” She nods thoughtfully, attempting to string together a few frayed images. “You noticed my eyes. Indeed, you sensed something disquieting about me the moment I entered. I could read it quite clearly.”
“Yes.” She swallows. “I remember.” She seeks my eyes, sighing sweetly when I look upon her. Drawn to me, comforted. I grip the tops of my thighs to keep from touching her, and consider enthralling her a second time so that we might resume this conversation another evening. But I am as intrigued by my frankness as she is seduced by the absorption of knowledge. Honesty could prove as addictive as blood, and that is to say nothing of her rapt attention.
“There is a skill that we possess which renders a person unable to fully recall certain events.”
“We?” she repeats, chin down and cheeks pale with fright.
“I have not finished. In the hospital, you were ensnared by my eyes, lulled into a black euphoria. The blackness was so heavy, the emotion so intense, you remember little else.”
She blushes prettily. “That causes the door?” An upward inflection at the end of the question—a hint of disbelief.
“No, and yes. That causes you to open. But when the stare is broken, the door closes and you remain largely as you were before.”
“Then how does my door open both ways? Why is it still open?” she hedges, suspicion coloring the tops of her cheeks. Perhaps a lie would have been better.
“You spoke,” I reply. “I have never witnessed a mortal more self-possessed than you seemed to be. You asked for my name, and I gave it to you, which was irresponsible on my part. When the gaze was broken, you kept that name. I can hear it rattling around inside your heart even now.”
“Let me get this straight…” She waves a dismissive and agitated hand.
“Hold your tongue if you intend to offer a witty rebuttal. It changes nothing, and frankly, your cynicism lessens you.” I did not intend to raise my voice, but this woman has a rather infuriating way about her. The coming day bears down upon my senses, draining my limited patience frighteningly low.
Elizabeth has the decency to appear abashed, though she seems a breath away from defending herself. “Why should knowing your name change anything?” she asks earnestly.
“It changed everything,” I lament. “When we are turned, reborn through blood, we are given that name by the one who owns us. I am bound to him by that name, and through the same principle, you are bound to me.”
“For how long?” She ventures bravely, despite the quiver of her lips. Her eyes narrow to slits and her body radiates with barely repressed ire.
“The alternative is death,” I respond dispassionately. “I leave that decision to you.”
Elizabeth props one foot on the mattress, glaring at me, and rests her forearm on her knee. The decision is made more by her body language than anything else. Though, admittedly, it is not much of a choice. “You said there were others coming. You used the word ‘we’ just now. How many of you are there?”
“We are six in my family.”
“Outside of your family?”
“We are many.”
Her shoulders fall back against the headboard, and a breath whistles between pursed lips. She has begun to shiver, watching me closely. “Will they come for me?”
“They know nothing of you,” I assure. “They will learn nothing from me.”
The implications, the answers settle like a heavy meal, spoiling her appetite for truth. Her face appears aged from this conversation, drawn and pained.
“The person who named you,” she hedges, watching the shadows that stretch along the floor. “Was he the man on the horse?”
At first, I have little idea what she means. But as I repeat the question thoughtfully to myself, I remember my own plaguing dream. The dream of my mother, the last time I saw her, and the day I met Fane. He claimed me as his ward then and there, and I never returned to my family or my village. I can picture Elizabeth on the edge of the crowd, the wind curling the edges of her nightshirt up around her thighs.
Elizabeth does not flinch away from me when I lean forward. She returns my interest unabashedly. I place my hand on the bed beside hers, so close my fingers warm from the heat of her. “How could you know that?”
Elizabeth shrugs indelicately and grimaces. “It felt that way in the dream. Like you belonged to him—like he thought you belonged to him.”
She is a clever one, and her quick mind endears her to me rather unexpectedly. I reach across her folded limbs, brushing back the single strand of hair on her cheek. I half expect her to pull away from me, and I could not be pressed to say why I am compelled to remain so near to her, as torturous as this dance is. Elizabeth’s unsteady breath rushes over my fingertips, but she remains still. I trace the shell of her ear with my thumb. She tolerates my momentary fixation, turning her head into my touch, and permits me to run my index finger along the tapering sweep of her eyebrow. She is a thing that feels, and reasons, and solves, and grows, and acts, and ages, and will inevitably end.
“Is knowing your name why I feel this way?” she beseeches.
The question rouses me from my morbid preoccupation over the misapplication of so much potential in so fragile a vessel. I pull my hand away, but linger beside her with a steadfast gaze. One she meets unreservedly.
“What way?” I probe, fascinated by how she will answer.
The tops of her cheeks and ears grow scarlet. Twice she beings to speak, only to stall. “Like you’re all over me,” she husks, seemingly against her will. “Even when you aren’t touching me.”
Elizabeth chases my touch as I rake my fingers through her hair, letting it sift through my tempered grip. When the last strands have slipped over my knuckles I withdraw, standing by her bed as she struggles to recover. She swallows thickly, the color bright in her cheeks and bare neck.
“The pull you feel is stronger now, because I have given you my blood.” Her curiosity roused, the haze of lust begins to clear from her darkened eyes. “Stronger still because of our proximity, but I suspect that will dissipate.”
“Suspect, but don’t know?”
“No. I have never given any human the amount I have given you.”
“Why give me your blood at all? Why not let me die?”
“I told you, the choice to live or die is yours.”
Elizabeth slumps forward, resting her elbow on her thigh, her exhaustion defeating her curiosity. We are both bone-weary from the trials of a long night. “On what terms? What’s in it for you?” she presses.
I cast a glance over my shoulder to measure the light spilling between the parted curtains. “The sun will be up soon. I should not be here when it arrives.”
“You didn’t answer my questions, and I have more.”
“I am sure that you do. Some of which I may answer, and others I may not. But for now, I will have to bid you goodnight, Elizabeth.” I tip my head cordially, twisting on my heel for the door.
“You have to come back,” she demands. I halt my retreat in the doorway for one last look before we part.
“And why is that?”
“That’s my favorite shirt,” she retorts with complete seriousness. I cannot tell if it is a jest, or if she meant to say something else and lost her nerve. I pluck the front of the shirt in my fingers, as though the answer is encoded in the lettering. She stares at me expectantly, and finally looks away. “Goodnight, Stela,” she says, though I doubt her intention to slee
p.
I pull the bedroom door closed quietly behind me.
* * *
As I descend into my dormitory the rising sun swelters against the pavement overhead. Once inside, I lift Elizabeth’s shirt over my torso and the haste to conceal this trace of her is thwarted by a low growl. Instinctively, I bare my fangs. Two sharp shark fin-like ears skate behind the back of my sofa. I will my snarl into submission before he can gauge my reaction and grow any more hostile. He reveals himself slowly, dragging his hind leg behind him as he edges his way into the open, his haunches slumped in pain, and tail curled between his legs.
“Erebus?” His ears perk, and the lights of my chamber brighten automatically as I step out from under the hatch. He does not rush to greet me, but drops in a crumpled heap at the foot of my bed. His face is tilted up in tempered glee, the tip of his tail flicking lazily in a meek greeting.
Carefully, I kneel beside his exposed belly and examine his wound. A pointed warning rumbles in his barrel chest as my hand hovers over the tear, matted with blood and coarse black fur. The wound has already sealed, but the shape is revealing—straight and deep—another inch or two and he would have lost the limb. I settle beside him and take his heavy head in my hands, placing it gently in my lap. Erebus whistles a whimper through his wet nose and relaxes against me, hooking a paw the size of a saucer around my leg. I stroke the spiny hairs between his downy ears, alarmed by his pronounced fatigue and the affectionate way he brushes his snout across my knees.
“I see he found his way back to you.”
Fane is so surefooted that his approach is undetectable, even to me. Which leaves me with little time to brace myself and prepare for the bevy of questions that will undoubtedly follow. I am late, again, with nothing to show for it.
“What happened to him?” I do not meet Fane’s insistent stare. He crosses the length of the room and perches on the arm of my sofa, his silken shirt parted down his chest, the lapels brushing his ruddy veined sternum.