Dominic spoke of how he invited the young man to share his lodging against the coming dawn. The two fell easily into conversation, their exchange lasting well past sunset the following evening. It was there that Dominic learned of Carlos’s past and his connection to us. From then the two traveled together, Dominic as teacher and Carlos as student—learning from Dominic how to rebuild and strengthen the threads binding himself to his remaining humanity.
Although their encounter occurred decades in the past, I am not ashamed to confess I sobbed in Jeffrey’s arms, grateful that Carlos had managed stay true to the decent man I had loved—a man Jeffrey remembered as one to be respected for his integrity and struggle, yet feared for the fragile veneer that held him so tenuously to his humanity.
It gave us pause, realizing that although Dominic and Carlos had both been changed unalterably, their strength of will and truth of character had overcome even their most heinous of fates. The true nature of their virtue enabled them to remain forever the men God had intended them to be.
My prayer is that wherever Carlos may be, and on whatever journey his life has taken him, that he is contented. And that somehow, some way, he will know I forgive him.
Trina sat there in stunned silence as the late morning sun filtered through the sheers, bathing the parlor in a clean light. Patterns of sunlight dotted the floor, and as she watched them dance, she understood the cliché of how everything looks clearer in the cold light of day.
There was still so much to learn, so many questions she wished she could ask. Isabel’s clear, steady hand had already given Trina more than she had hoped for. Isabel’s words had pulled away the veil of doubt and shame. Through her words, she had relived Isabel’s pain, her fear, her doubts—and finally, her forgiveness. She now knew exactly what had happened to her great-grandmother, and who was responsible. What she didn’t know was why.
Although she had searched as she read the first time through, Trina could only find disjointed references to the events that brought Carlos to his fate. Perhaps Isabel didn’t know the full story, or perhaps it was just too painful to recount. She wrote that Carlos had forged a bond with Dominic, that he had been the one privy to the story—immortal confidants, with her and Jeffrey as their common connection. But that was all. Trina knew there was only one person who could tell her the truth of what happened and that was Carlos himself.
Closing the last journal, she placed it with the others on the end table and stretched. She had read for seventeen hours straight, stopping only to eat and to pee. Her back was a mess from sitting for so long and it cracked as she stood up. Even during her worst final exams, she had never pulled an all-nighter like this. Well, at least she didn’t have to go into work this evening. Rick had been really good about giving her some time off and she knew Susan and Louie would cover her shifts.
Yawning, she glanced down at the pile of journals stacked neatly in front of her. She was tired and bleary-eyed, but she hadn’t felt this good in a long time. It was as if everything that had unraveled this past week had managed to weave itself back together. The threads of her life had come together in a tapestry that spanned the centuries, and Trina knew she would never be the same. She was connected to Isabel, to her family and her past in a way that just couldn’t be explained—and for the first time in her life, she knew who she was.
She picked up the journals and locked them carefully back into their hiding place. Opening her great-grandmother’s locket, she hesitated as she went to put the key inside, looking at the tiny images of Carlos and Isabel as it lay open in her hand. There was only one loose thread that remained. Trina knew she needed to either snip it clean, or weave into a place in her life. But which? She snapped the locket closed, slipped it into her pocket, and headed upstairs. She had a lot to think about.
***
Holding a half-empty cup of coffee, Trina picked at the Styrofoam until the sidewalk at her feet looked like it had been dusted with tiny white balls. “Just walk across the street and ring the goddamn bell, Trina. It’s not like he doesn’t already know you’re here,” she said under her breath.
Self-conscious, she kicked at the white mess with her heel. “Great, now I’m talking to myself in a random doorway.” Without thinking about the condition of her cup, she took a sip of her coffee. Her eyes flew open and she turned awkwardly from side to side looking for a place to spit. “Ew!” she sputtered, wiping loose pieces of Styrofoam from her tongue.
Scrubbing the front of her jacket with a napkin, she glanced at the elegant wrought-iron balustrade lining the curved stone steps of Carlos’s townhouse. “Classy, Trina,” she muttered, grimacing while she continued to scrub.
All afternoon she had grappled with whether or not to call, arguing with herself as she showered, and even as she tried to catch a little sleep. As the afternoon wore on, curiosity triumphed over caution and she decided to take her first steps onto the wild side. Louie would be so proud. But even as she told herself it was nothing more than a need to finish what she started, she couldn’t help the nervous quiver that ran through her lower belly as she stood there looking at his house like some kind of stalker.
She had expected her call to go straight to voice mail, and when Carlos picked up, she wasn’t sure who was more surprised. Here she was, and anticipation flooded her system like a drug. The butterflies in her stomach had somehow morphed into a swarm of bees, shooting tiny stingers of nervous pain into her abdomen as she walked across the street and up the stairs to his front door. “The better part of valor and all that jazz,” she mumbled as she rang the bell.
Trina’s heart did a little flip-flop as he opened the door and smiled. He was even more beautiful than she remembered. It was sunset, and the reflected glow made him seem even more real, yet unreal.
“You have no idea how happy I am that you’re here, that you decided to call,” he said, taking her hand. His eyes pierced hers, and no sooner did their hands touch then she knew he was aware of all she’d learned, that she knew what he’d done to Isabel.
He looked at her in amazement, as if surprised she hadn’t run screaming for her life. Trina had taken it in stride, and she wondered if he felt her determined curiosity, as well as her budding compassion. If he guessed every one of the hundred questions racing through her mind, despite her underlying fears.
“I can understand your apprehension in coming here this evening. There’s really no reason for you to be afraid. Except for the housekeeping staff there’s no one here but me, and I promise I’ll be on my best behavior.” He crossed his heart and flashed a reassuring smile. “Please, come in.”
Trina face flushed with embarrassment. “I know that, Carlos, and I appreciate the welcome. It’s silly how I can’t help my nerves sometimes, especially when I’m out of my comfort zone, and this whole situation qualifies more as Twilight Zone than comfort zone,” she said with a nervous chuckle.
Not quite knowing what do next, she quickly leaned up and kissed his cheek.
In a flash, Carlos’s arms circled her waist. “How I managed to be blessed enough to find you, I will never know,” he said, pressing his lips to her temple.
Trina felt a slash of guilt, despite the warmth flooding her lower belly. This wasn’t what she had come here for. As attracted as she was to him, if she wanted any sort of answers, she was going to have to make sure they kept it light, and that meant keeping Carlos at a distance. A tiny sarcastic voice in the back of her mind whispered, “Yeah, right…good luck with that.”
She put her hands on his chest and gently pushed herself back. “Carlos, please. I shouldn’t have done that. The last thing I want is to send you mixed signals, especially from someone as mixed up as me. I came here to talk. I have so many questions, and I need to understand why things happened. Hopefully, you’ll be able to fill in the blanks.” She tried to sound as apologetic as she felt. “Maybe it would have been better if I had waited longer to call.”
He took her hand and kissed it, and the gesture made her he
art jump remembering the last time he’d done that. Breathing in his clean, sexy scent, she closed her eyes. God help me. Did he have to smell so damn good?
“Of course, please forgive my…enthusiasm,” he said, but she couldn’t help notice the small smile that tugged at his mouth. He affected her and he knew it. “Let’s go into my study. We can talk there.”
Trina could only nod as she followed him inside.
The foyer was sumptuous, with its thick Aubusson carpet and carved wooden staircase. Paintings as tall as her lined the walls, and an antique, beveled glass chandelier hung from the ceiling in front of a stained-glass window looking out onto the street.
“Are you hungry? Rosa, my housekeeper, is a fabulous chef. I can have her whip something up, or we could order in pizza if you’d rather something quick,” he offered as he led her into the study.
She smiled tentatively as she took in the rich décor. “Funny, I never took you for someone who orders take-out…I mean, I didn’t think…I mean before…I mean when I thought you were…” she stuttered, feeling her cheeks start to burn again at her own incoherent rambling.
“That’s quite all right, querida, I understood what you meant. No harm, no foul.” He chuckled.
Carlos was nothing if not gracious, and here she was acting like some kind of driveling idiot. Get it together, girl, this is what you wanted. Sitting down on the soft leather couch, she took a quiet breath.
She’d rather starve than feel like an imposition, and as if he knew it, he took his cell phone from his pocket and handed it to her. “I have the pizzeria on speed dial. Just press seven and tell them the order is for Salazar. If my guess is correct, with the kind of questions you have waiting for me we’re going to be here a while.”
Trina hesitated. “No, that’s okay…”
“Go ahead,” he insisted. “After all, I still owe you a dinner, right?”
Trina gave him half a smile. He was referring, of course, to their date at the Met. The same night everything hit the fan. Well, at least now everything was out in the open. With a nod, she took the phone and dialed. He sat down next to her on the couch, with his arm across the top of the pillows. And so it began.
***
Carlos inhaled. A metallic tang of anxiety had saturated the room when Trina first arrived, but now all he smelled was pizza and her overwhelming curiosity. She had calmed down completely, and he was amazed at how well she managed to pocket her fear. He paid the delivery guy, and carried the food into the study.
She helped herself to the pizza, and he watched the sway of her hips as she walked back toward the couch.
“Sure you don’t want a slice?” she asked, swallowing a mouthful of stringy cheese. “It tastes like they didn’t use much garlic.”
Carlos took a bottle of merlot from the wine rack to the left of the sideboard and meticulously cut the thin metal wrapping from around the neck. “That’s a fallacy. Garlic doesn’t affect me one bit.”
“So, what does affect you, then?”
He winked, twisting the corkscrew into the center and pulling it from the bottle with an audible pop. “Well, you, for one,” he said, pouring the wine into a glass and handing it to her.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” she said, taking a sip and peering at him from above the rim of the crystal.
Carlos’s lips curled upward as he leaned against the back of the bar swirling his wine. “Then you’d better qualify what you mean by ‘affects’ me.” His gaze pierced hers, and he couldn’t resist the play on words.
Trina shifted in her seat, and he caught the faintest trace of arousal mixed with the wine’s oaky bouquet. “I thought you said you’d answer anything I asked. I want to know these things, so come on…if garlic doesn’t bother you, then what about the other things? What things are myths and what will actually ‘dispatch the undead’?” she asked, doing her best Dracula impression.
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Cutting right to the chase, eh? Well, I hope you’d at least get to know me better before you try to ‘dispatch the undead’,” he mimicked.
Considering her for a moment, he sipped his wine before answering. “Fire, decapitation, the sun…although that one lessens as we age. That’s about it.”
“What, no stake through the heart? No holy water?”
“Funny…you’re a funny girl.”
He sat down next to her on the couch. Was it simple curiosity, or was there a method behind her litany of questions? She said she came here looking for answers, but was this all what she wanted? Vampire 101? Carlos looked at her, and her quiet probing eyes. “No. You would literally have to cut out my heart…as opposed to just breaking it.”
Trina didn’t answer. A transitory shadow passed her eyes, and she appeared lost in thought, like she was filing everything away somewhere behind those vivid green eyes. In that moment, Carlos sat listening to her heartbeat, wishing he could read her better.
She frowned down at her hands. The silence between them was thick, and Trina reached for a cloth napkin to wipe her mouth. When she turned, her eyes met his again and they were tender. “I don’t know what to say, except I would never intentionally break anyone’s heart.”
“I know that, querida…and I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. Forgive me?”
Trina blushed. “I’m not uncomfortable, Carlos. I’m just trying to take it one step at a time.”
High color stained her cheeks, and the rosy tone was almost as delicious as the scent of the blood causing the sudden flush. “I know that too, and I’m glad. Back to questions, then?” With a smirk, he freed the cloth napkin from her unconscious vise grip and wiped the corner of her mouth. “Missed a spot.”
She exhaled a chuckle. “Sorry, I guess I had more of an appetite than I thought. So, right…back to my questions. What were you saying about the sun? Do you burst into flames as legend says? And what happens as time passes? Do you age at all?”
He smiled at her tenacity. “When one is first turned, the sun is a deadly thing. Even so, it’s like anything else in life. You can build up a tolerance for it as your blood ages and becomes stronger. I have met elders of my kind who can walk in the full sun of midday and not have it affect them in the slightest.”
Trina got up for a second slice of pizza and refilled her wine glass. “What do you mean by buildup a tolerance? The more time passes, the more human you become?”
“No. I’ll never be human again, but what it does mean is that I can partake of certain things. You said one of the things you found unusual about me when we first met was that I didn’t eat. That’s true, but not because I can’t eat. It’s because my body won’t metabolize the food. Human food makes me slightly ill, like I’ve ingested something my body considers foul. Kind of like what would happen to you if you ate dirt.”
“But you do drink,” she said, indicating his wine. “Doesn’t that bother you as well?”
“It used to, but the older I get, the more I can tolerate. My body doesn’t seem to mind liquids, the more organic the better. I couldn’t drink a Coke, for example, but mineral water is fine, especially since water is a key component in blood. I seem to be okay with certain naturally fermented alcohol as well.” He shrugged. “It really doesn’t do anything for me, though. I do it more to keep up appearances.”
“What about what you mentioned before, about the sun? Is that something you can tolerate?”
“Are you trying to ask me in a roundabout way how old I am? After everything we’ve been through this past week, just ask. You already know almost everything there is to know about me.” Carlos kept a smile on his face though he knew his statement wasn’t quite the truth.
“All right,” she said playfully, and with a sly look, grabbed a book off the coffee table and placed his right hand on top. Feigning a serious expression, she cleared her throat. “Sir, for the record, will you please state your full name and your age.”
Chuckling, he answered. “I was born Carlos Antonio Jose Salazar, in the y
ear of Our Lord, 1711, in Valencia, Spain.”
At the look on her face, he nodded. “That’s right, Trina. I may have said I was twenty-six years old, but the truth is I have been so for two hundred and seventy-five years. The last time I celebrated my birthday as a human, it was 1737. Which makes me over three hundred years old.”
The full impact of the term immortal vampire and its dreamlike reality must have hit her at that point, and she suddenly grew very serious. “How did you…die?” she asked, hesitating as if the words were somehow stuck in her throat.
“I’m sure you’ve heard of the Spanish Inquisition. It began in 1478 under Isabella of Castile in her quest to purify Spain of its heretics. Tomas de Torquemada was her first inquisitor-general. There have been many parodies over the years, but the truth of the tortures and atrocities carried out in the name of God remain true nevertheless.
“Most people felt they were carrying out God’s work and labeled Torquemada ‘the savior of Spain.’ Torquemada was evil and reveled in his power. He did unspeakable things to innocent people, and though many people believed his actions and ideology were neither condoned nor continued after his death, the truth remains they were still very much in practice up until the year I died. A fact that is both sad and ironic.
“We believed this was not what Christ intended and certainly not the kind of thing he would have wanted done in his name. We tried to help as many people as possible escape.”
Trina sat, her face amazed as he spoke about his life and how his people had banded together to form a kind of underground movement against the abuses carried out in the name of God and the church. Carlos was eighteen years old when he began his crusade, and for eight years, he and his group managed to smuggle people out of Spain to safety.
The Cursed by Blood Saga Page 63