RoseBlood

by A. G. Howard

  Thorn paused, pulling his gloves into place and working out the wrinkles in the dark leather. “I let her feed off one of her companions.” Duel emotions wrestled within him each time he remembered watching Rune attack her friend so viciously: one part impressed, the other part sorrowful. “The blond boy. Just enough to taint her relationship with her friends. But I stopped her before she could kill him. She wouldn’t do us any good in prison.”

  “Fair point.” Erik stood, hand still rested in his pocket, and dragged his feet over to the glass chamber. Ange fluttered down to stand beside him. He propped his slumped frame against the metal counter, raising one corner of the tarp so he could glimpse inside. “What upsets me is you took her before I could provide guidance and comfort. Before I could get inside her head so that on All Hallows’ Eve, she would beg to make the sacrifice. You’ve made ill-wrought choices over the past few weeks that are coming to light, and I am not pleased. However, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt one final time. You have served me well over the years. You’ve brought her this far when no one else could have.”

  Thorn narrowed his eyes. There was a pointed, underlying message within the mock praise that he couldn’t quite grasp. But he didn’t dare push. With the mood Erik was in, he’d risk never getting out tonight.

  “Go free your patients,” his father said. “You must be thrilled it’s the last time you’ll have to do it.”

  Every muscle tense and alert, Thorn drew up his hood and retrieved the cages. He started toward the tunnel leading to the exit route.

  “Thorn . . .”

  He stopped in his tracks but didn’t turn around.

  “Do you remember my reasoning?” Erik baited, his voice a lyrical, hypnotic menace. “When you were young and I insisted you never keep a beautiful, wild creature caged for your own purposes for too long?”

  Thorn tipped his head, weary of the passive badgering. “You said the animal would either lose the ability to function in the world without their keeper, or would turn feral and attack the one who feeds and cares for them, and have to be put down.”

  Erik’s ensuing pause felt interminable, his silence louder than the plasma’s crackle. “Yes, my lovely wild-boy,” he said at last. “In hindsight, I realize I’ve kept you caged in darkness for far too many years. Now we face the consequences, and I fear the fates that will befall us both.”

  A surge of impending doom raised the hairs along Thorn’s arms. Squinting to suppress the burn behind his eyes, he ducked into the tunnel. He followed the phosphorescent guidelines painted along the walls. His footsteps didn’t slow until the buzzing and popping of that artificial heartbeat faded to the soles of his boots scraping across pebbles on the way to his freedom—however tenuous it was.

  19

  CLIMBING TO THE STARS

  “A poet is a man who puts up a ladder to a star and climbs it while playing a violin.”

  Edmond de Goncourt

  The platform beneath me seems too small . . . too tight. I’m not one for a fear of heights, but having nowhere to turn other than the locked door in front of me and the steep, winding stairway behind, I’m less confident than usual.

  Diable mewls at my feet—a grumpy, scolding sound.

  “I’m trying.” My tote’s strap balances precariously on my shoulder as I juggle my phone so the flashlight app can spotlight the keyhole in the door. I work the key into place. The tote slides down, its weight dropping to my wrist and yanking the chain from my nervous fingers. The key clatters to the stone step beside my feline companion. He hisses in disgust.

  “Yeah? Well at least I have opposable digits,” I grumble. “I’d like to see you unlock something.” His unimpressed green gaze blinks up at me, reflecting my phone light as I fumble for the necklace. “Oh, I forgot. You’re a ghost. You’ll just materialize on the other side, right?” I tease him with the dangling chain.

  Diable bats at the key until it’s out of his reach. He then yawns, stretches, and saunters back down the long, dark stairway we wound through minutes earlier, his jingles slowly fading away.

  “Typical tomcat,” I say as he turns a bend where my light can’t reach. “Happy to have a paw in the mess, but always turning tail when it’s time for cleanup.”

  Talking aloud to myself is the only way to keep my nerves in check. I’ve had a miserable, albeit productive, day: Turned all my friends against me, made Kat drop out of the opera, and won the diva’s role in one fell swoop.

  After the auditions, Sunny tried to talk to me once or twice, but I shut her down. I can’t tell anyone why I did it. If I admit the truth, Jax will forget that I’m a heartless opportunist and start questioning our kiss again. And Audrey will never go along with a setup; she won’t honor her understudy duties if she knows I plan to fake being too scared to perform on opening night. That role belonged to her from the very beginning; this was the only way to make sure she gets her shot.

  Most of the day, I hid in my dorm, while the other students decorated the foyer, stairways, and the ballroom on the third floor for the Halloween masquerade tomorrow night. Laughter echoed outside my door along with the sound of my four friends horsing around. Hearing them, wanting to be with them, hurt more than I thought it would. I know they’re safer if I avoid them. But why did they have to be so great? And why did I let them into my heart?

  Dinner was just as excruciating, eating with my aunt—who was silent for the first time in . . . well, ever—as far away from the other kids as I could get. With every forkful I craved something other than the salmon, almond, and eggplant salad on my plate. All the while I wished Mom was there, or Trig and Janine. But would they even know me now?

  Then again, maybe Mom already knows. She always said I was my father’s daughter. Is that what she had in mind, when she told me to be something amazing? Something better?

  I almost considered calling her today to feel her out, but changed my mind. As skeptical as she was about Dad and Grandma’s talk of auras and his superstitious upbringing, there’s no way she knew how deeply rooted in vampire mythology they were. It’s better she doesn’t. If she knew the truth, she would hate me as much as Grandma for what I did to Dad.

  The edges of my eyes sting. After seeing how easy it is for me to drain people’s energy, I’m even more convinced that I’m responsible for him getting sick.

  How am I supposed to live with that?

  Blotting my lashes with my sweater’s sleeve, I take a last look at the empty stairwell, wishing Diable were still there.

  I snuck from my room a few minutes after lights-out, Diable at my heels. I kept my phone off and felt my way around the dark foyer, tripping over a pumpkin and knocking Sunny’s Red Death phantom cutout to the floor. As soon as I repositioned the prop and was assured no one heard me, I lowered the roof key to Diable and let him sniff the metal. With a twitch of his whiskers, he pattered over to the edge of a mirror and dug at one corner until a loud click snapped the silence and the reflective plane swung open.

  Shutting us in, I followed as he wound through the secret tunnel. We passed a dozen different hidden door panels while climbing the stairs. With my phone lit up again, I could make out rooms on each floor from the other side of the two-way mirrors, and understood at last how Etalon had kept tabs of my daily schedule. On the second flight, I recognized Bouchard’s workshop, Madame Fabre’s sewing dorm, and Professor Tomlin’s science lab. It was too dark to see much detail, but his costume for the masquerade was still hanging on his cabinet door where I saw it Friday—a gas mask of black leather shaped like a jackal’s head, along with a matching jacket. Even his costume was cooler than anyone else’s.

  Diable and I passed a few of the burned-out storage rooms on the upper flights, and even with the glass barrier, the sight of the scorched props and singed costumes felt too close, too real. It brought back memories of that fiery Valentine’s party in second grade, and Grandma’s vendetta. Tucked in the corners here and there were small barrels with wires swirling out from the bas
es. I had to make a conscious effort not to get sidetracked by them, assuring myself I’d try to find a way into the rooms to explore later. My meeting with Etalon was too important to miss.

  It took ten minutes to make that climb. Now, I can sense Etalon on the other side of the door. His emotions emanate through the wood, threatening to boil over: anxiety, anger, attraction, and dread. I can taste their vaporous sizzle, and I share every one. If I walk through, neither of us will go unscathed or be the same again. But he owes me explanations, and it’s time he pays up.

  Shoving the key into the hole, I click to release the lock. A gush of night air sifts across me, chilled with the scent of damp stone, greenery, and roses.

  I step out, close the door, and button my shin-length sweater to cover the scar on my knee peeking through the rip in my jeans. My hair billows in unruly waves, and I scold myself for forgetting to at least wear my knit cap. I knot the strands at my nape in a loose bun that will never hold in this wind.

  White pinpricks dot the black sky overhead and drape the dark shadows in lucent shrouds, like webs made of starlight. In the dimness, Etalon’s signature Fire and Ice roses deck every corner of the long expanse, spilling out of giant pots. Their vines and blooms wind along the five-foot-high stone wall encompassing the roof’s circumference like a guard rail.

  At last, I know the origins of his supply.

  He’s nowhere in sight, but he discarded his gloves a few feet from the threshold. I lift one and sculpt my cheek with the black leather, remembering how I wore it weeks ago. How he took it back during our first magical dance in the theater. Placing it atop the other glove, I continue my perusal of the surroundings.

  It had to have taken years to convert this place from a barren rooftop to a moonlit courtyard. How long has he lived at this opera house, haunting the corridors and passing through mirrors?

  I peer over the top of the guard wall where the chapel, cemetery, and forest dot the landscape below like grayscale imprints—dark and borderless.

  The stony surface is level beneath the soles of my boots as I move on, no wooden beams or shingles to trip me up. Strands of miniature greenish pearls glimmer along the auditorium’s cupola where it rises like a tower on the far end of the lengthy rooftop.

  At this end, overshadowing me, the fifteen-foot Apollo and Pegasus statue stands guard, lit by those same luminescent strings. The greenish lights trail down to outline the back of a stone bench beneath the stallion’s giant wing. They’re like Christmas decorations, but softer and more natural, gilding everything in a misty glow, without electrical outlets or cords.

  I stop at the bench and lay my tote on the seat to caress a strand. The tiny orbs feel warm and slick beneath my fingers. They brighten at my touch, and their light hums through me with a revitalizing pulse. Their glow is an aura. They’re organic—living things.

  “Eggs maybe . . . or worms?” I conjecture aloud.

  “Firefly larvae,” comes Etalon’s husky answer, muffled but close.

  I spin around in the direction of his voice.

  “Up here,” he summons, coaxing my gaze skyward. Above the bench, an empty can that looks suspiciously like one of the tins Professor Tomlin uses in his lab to store solvents hangs from a red ribbon laced through one end. The string stretches across the horse’s raised foreleg and disappears around the other side of Apollo. “Take it.” Etalon’s instruction seems to travel from the ribbon into the tin cylinder. He’s throwing his voice—a practiced ventriloquist.

  In spite of my anger over his deceptions, a smile teases my mouth as I drag the can down. There must be another one tied to the ribbon he’s positioned somewhere behind Apollo, out of sight. It’s a replica of the homemade toy phone Mom and Dad once used to talk to me at the hospital, before I started first grade. He had to have climbed a ladder to thread the ribbon through such a high point in the statue.

  To think he went to all that trouble just to re-create the comfort of sharing secrets with the two people I trusted most disarms me. I consider the fairy tale book I gave him, and the toe socks I finished today that are tucked in my bag on the bench, and at last understand why we’re so determined to help each other hold onto our most safe and precious moments. We’ve both missed out on carefree childhoods and lost parents we love.

  I hold the open end of the can to my ear, waiting. Etalon’s intimate gesture has left me vulnerable and without words.

  “You won the role of Renata.” The observation warms my temple—as if his very breath travels through the ribbon and the metal—a magical sensorial experience like when we dance in our minds.

  I hold the can to my mouth. “Yes. But . . .” I return the metal cylinder to my ear, testing to see if he knows how I feel without my even saying it.

  “Why did your triumph make you sad?”

  Nailed it. I frown up at Pegasus’s form draped in that glimmering veil of larval fireflies, grateful for the make-believe safety net, but also wanting to finally look at Etalon’s face with no more guises between us—to have him explain this deep connection we share. “I used a gift that I never had to earn, to steal the role from someone else who’d worked hard for it.”

  “If you hate this gift so much, why did you use it?”

  I’m going through the motions now, moving the can back and forth without even thinking, as if it’s the most natural form of communication in the world. “I don’t hate it.” Not anymore, thanks to you. “I just don’t feel like I deserve it. But I’d rather my friends be mad at me and still have one another, than know what a monster I am.”

  He sighs into the phone, and it flutters several strands of loose hair that cover my ear. “‘Whose ravening monsters mighty men shall slay, not the poor singer of an empty day.’”

  “I’m pouring out my heart, and you’re spouting lame poetry.”

  “Lame?” A rough chuckle bursts through our makeshift phone line. I’ve only heard him laugh in childhood memories with his mother. Now that he’s grown, it’s a deep, broken sound, and even more affecting. “The grand Sir William Morris would roll over in his grave.” Etalon’s tone sounds suspiciously like teasing. “My point was you’re not some ravenous, unthinking beast. You’re a girl with a talent for song who happens to feed on energy to survive.”

  I laugh this time, but it’s hollow. “Talent? I beg to differ. And we both know what I did to my friend last night in search of energy. That makes me a beast.”

  “Were you hungry today, at any time?”

  I think of how I couldn’t look at the students or teachers, even at dinnertime with a delicious salad in front of me, without seeing their auras and wondering how those emotions might taste. “Yes.” My voice echoes in the can.

  “And did you attack anyone and drain them of their life-force?”

  “Well . . . no. But I had to make the conscious choice not to.”

  “Beasts are driven by savage instinct. Not conscious choice. Our kind has a unique way of relating to the physical world. We consume, transmit, and manipulate the life-forces around us.”

  The firefly larvae brighten as he says this, as if he’s empowering them with a surge of energy, reminiscent of how I channeled the earth’s pulsing nutrients into the dying roses in the garden.

  “So . . . we can bring things back to life?” I ask. The possibility feels like a knife at my chest. Why couldn’t I have known that when I was seven years old, saying good-bye to Dad in his casket before they closed the lid?

  “Unfortunately, no. If something is dormant, we can keep it alive with a transfer of energy. But death has no reversal. Which is why we must be very careful when we feed.”

  The cold metal numbs my fingers as I digest the information. “Be careful, how? You saw what I did to Jax . . . and there’s another guy back home—” I stall there, ashamed to give the details.

  “When we’re small, our bodies don’t require any more energy than what the earth provides. Sunlight, plants and flowers, animals. They all offer sustenance, just by being ar
ound them. But we come to a point when we need more—an awakening. Human emotions hold the most potent forms of energy. That’s what you were craving with the first boy. And you’ve been starving since that taste, causing an energy imbalance. Now you’ve addressed that at the club. You will learn to curb your appetites by supplementing between significant feedings. Usually, only a sampling of a plant or animal’s life-force is enough to tide you over. And you will learn how to feed with caution. It doesn’t have to hurt anyone or anything. And it doesn’t have to be the end of your world as you know it. Many of us live among normal people and are never discovered.”

  I hold the cold metal to my mouth. “You don’t. You hide inside of mirror passages . . . behind masks.”

  “That is my conscious choice.” His answer rattles through the metal at my ear.

  “Is it? I sense loneliness, a desire for something more, every time I’m with you.” I crimp my lips, my breath balmy and hot inside the tin can. “My guess is, if you had your conscious choice, you wouldn’t hide at all.”

  There’s a pause, as if Etalon’s considering my words. “Tell me, if all of this could be taken from you, would you want that?”

  It’s obvious he feels as miserable and hopeless at offering the option as I do, knowing it’s impossible. “The music, or the hunger?”

  “Either. Both.”

  “Since we’re playing pretend, yes. If I could go back and choose, things would be different. Then I wouldn’t have killed my—” Regret steals the air from my lungs and cuts my confession short.

  Resituating the can, I strain to listen for his response with tears gathering on my lashes. He’s seen my childhood. He knows what I’ve done. Please, please. You’re my last hope. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me there’s another explanation. The pain that I’ve held inside for so long expands behind my sternum as silence swells between us.