by M. L. Desir
“I could make you tell me.”
The boy spun around, eyes wide. “You mean like hypnosis?”
“Something like that.” Gabriel leaned forward, smiling. “Colin, look into my eyes.”
The handkerchief became a tight ball in his fist before falling to the floor. The boy brought his hands up to his face and covered his eyes. “No way. You’re . . . not serious, are you, Master Gabriel?”
“Trust me. Please sit down.”
Colin slowly sank down into a chair, lowered his hands, and rested them on his knees. He stared back at Gabriel, his eyes empty and wide like a doll’s.
Gabriel regretted having to see his eyes. “Tell me, where did you get an education?”
Colin opened his mouth to answer, but just as Gabriel thought he was going to speak, his eyes narrowed and his hands clenched into fists.
Interesting. The boy was fighting him. Actually fighting him with what seemed to be his will alone. Gabriel just stared at the boy, wanting to know more about his mysterious past, but afraid of what could happen if he forced the information out of him. He thought about satisfying his curiosity another way, by drinking some of Colin’s blood, which would form a strong, but temporary bond.
He’d only experimented with a blood bond once before—a century ago, and with a mortal girl. He remembered being in her mind, hearing her silent thoughts, flipping and perusing her inner secrets, like the words on the pages of an open book.
A wonderful experience.
Frightening.
He never did it again for three reasons. One, the exchange of blood seemed more intimate than sex with a lover. Two, he always feared that the person with whom he formed the blood bond could somehow have access to his thoughts, his memories, share his pain and pleasures, long after the blood had been exchanged. But that only worked if the sharer was another Chosen. Blood bonds between Chosen were like steel marriage contracts that not only had to be mutual between both parties involved, but also had to last as long as the two forming it lived. It could only be broken if the one who no longer wanted it spilled all of his blood upon the ground. Gabriel could only imagine blood spilling as a slow, agonizing descent into oblivion. Due to the dire circumstances surrounding blood bonds, few ever formed them. Chosen weren’t the sociable, compromising type.
In this case, however, Colin was still human so maybe . . .
Oh, and he mustn’t forget the third reason. The girl, once the blood bond had been severed, she had forgotten who he was. He didn’t linger to see if she ever regained her memory of him. And with the centuries, her face, her scent, her name, became as faint, pale, and bitter as ashes from a sacrificial pyre.
His curiosity warred with the memories and won.
Gabriel waved his hand in front of Colin’s glassy stare. The boy made no response when he spoke to him in a quiet, soothing tone, telling him to relax. At once, Colin’s stiff hands loosened, and Gabriel took an upturned arm. He rolled back the long sleeves of the boy’s coat. Then, he bit into his arm at the wrist and drank a little of the blood that flowed from it. He made a small incision into his own wrist, pressing the shallow wound to the boy’s mouth. He told him to taste and swallow, and when he did, Gabriel closed his eyes and waited.
The off-black darkness replaced with the image of Colin dressed in the uniform of a wealthy college student. More images faded in and out.
Oxford. Colin with a group of friends, sitting around on the floor talking about the future. Laughing. Feeling brave, daring. Experimenting with opium. His friends injected it into their arms . . . he drinks it . . . laudanum it’s stronger . . . he feels unstoppable, immortal. Several hours later, the sensations disappear. He feels like an emptied bottle. Nights are sleepless, filled with pain, nausea, and chills. Every breath he takes feels like his last. Another taste, another smoke, just one more sip will allow him to relax.
To live.
Trapped by opium. His need emptying his pockets. Becoming desperate. Performing sexual favors for women and men to get the funds to feed his habit. Snuffing out the lives of younger boys whom he took under his wing. Suffocating them while they slept. Freeing them from the empty, hopeless world of prostitution. Freeing them from the monsters in the guise of elegant men and women. He’s their savior. Their angel of death. His reasoning is simple: “I send them to heaven. They mustn’t suffer.”
Gabriel witnessed the funeral of Colin’s mother. The boy weeping. His father telling him to go to hell. “That’s right, you wastrel! You wasted our hard-earned money! And for what? Just to leave school without earning a degree? You killed your mother, you did! Broke her heart!” His red face screams in Colin’s. Colin backs away from his father’s angry face, and the big, strong hands clench into fists itching to strike him. Anything to drive him away. He looks to his siblings who avoid his pleading gaze. If he could look into their eyes, “Outsider. Black Sheep,” they would accuse.
He is not wanted here.
Colin does the next best thing. What he’s done for most of his life.
He runs.
From a distance, Colin watches his older brothers and sisters gather around their father, who kneels before the open coffin of the deceased. His mother. Colin remembers that he is her favorite. No, was her favorite, for she’s dead now, and only the desires of the living matter.
The white rose slips from Colin’s hand. He stalks away and doesn’t look back.
Gabriel opened his eyes and coughed up Colin’s blood, retching in dry heaves.
He knew the mind was the home, the sanctuary that no outsider should have access to.
Uninvited. The legends said that vampires must be invited into a home, but the legends were confused. It wasn’t the physical homes that vampires had to be invited into.
Gabriel whispered into Colin’s ear that he should open his eyes.
“Master Gabriel, you look very sick.”
“I am not.”
“You’re not offended, are you? It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s just that I don’t trust that you won’t be ashamed of my past and all. I’ll tell you about my past sometime, someday, I will. I give you my word.”
Gabriel forced a weak smile. “Never mind that.”
“Do you have, you know, fangs?” Colin laughed, opened his mouth wide, and made a hissing sound.
Gabriel smiled widely to show off his white, perfect teeth. “When I want to.”
“But you don’t have them now. That’s because you don’t want to eat me, right?”
“. . . Correct.”
“May I see them?”
Gabriel gave a pained sigh. He opened his mouth and drew out his fangs as easily as blinking. He grazed his tongue across the sharpness and smiled at the boy.
Colin flinched. “No. It’s a trick!”
Gabriel drew in his fangs.
“Ugh. So, they’re retractable, like a cat’s claws, eh? Not at all like the legends. Hmm. How long can you live for? Hundreds of years? Thousands?”
“I suppose only time will tell.” Gabriel suppressed a stab of anger, and his audible reply fared better than what he told himself: “I don’t know.” And not knowing if he was immortal kept him in bondage.
“How long have you lived?”
“I saw London burning in 1666.”
Colin gave a small nod of his head. He counted out on his fingers, his eyes turned up to the ceiling. “That’s not the answer I wanted to hear, Master Gabriel, but that’s at least two hundred years. Wow! That’s fucking amazing.”
Gabriel narrowed his eyes. “And I ask again, you’re not at all bothered by this?”
The boy shook his head. “As long as you don’t want me to kill or maim anyone, I’m your man, Master Gabriel. You’re paying me; I can play along.” He stood up and patted his stomach. “I’m a bit hungry, though. Can I have something to eat?”
“Nathaniel and I will be glad to treat you to dinner.”
Colin’s face went mock serious. “But it’s still light outside. The sun won’t set for several hours, Master Gabriel. And you know, with your condition . . . a moment in the sun could be, uh, life-threatening . . .”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “I’m quite capable of withstanding the light of the sun, Colin. You know that.”
“Oh. But of course. So then, what’s your goal, Mr. Vampire? Ravishing maidens?” he asked with a graceful wave of his hand. Deceiving the rich out of their wealth? Or something more? Why, if I were a vampire, I’d make all the beautiful women of the world members of my harem!” He hid an ear-to-ear grin uselessly with one hand and made a poorer attempt at masking his snickering in the disguise of a cough.
He sighed. “My goal? My goal is simply to be left alone. Be my own person. My own god.”
Colin stared at Gabriel for a full minute before he shut his eyes in silent mirth. He bent over, holding his stomach as the laughter seemed to rise from there and into his chest coming out with such force that it must’ve hurt because Colin began to shed tears. He fell onto the floor, hysterical with laughter. “Oh, ow. Ha, ha, ha. That’s funny, but you’re serious—ha, ha. I want to believe you, but—my stomach! It’s so empty! Ow!”
He nudged him in the side with his boot. ”All right. That’s enough. Get up and stop acting like a child.”
* * *
Gabriel recommended an elegant restaurant in London, but Colin wanted beer and an atmosphere where he could feel more “at home.” So he drove Gabriel and Nathaniel to a pub in the East End where he ate plate after plate of shepherd’s pie and polished off several pints of beer, his cheeks barely flushed with the alcohol coursing through his veins. His bright laughter filled the pub as he sang bawdy songs at the top of his lungs. No one seemed to mind, but Gabriel couldn’t help but cringe.
When they returned home, a young boy waited outside, tapping his foot impatiently. Just as the boy prepared to sit down on the steps, Gabriel slipped out of the carriage. The boy looked him up and down and grinned.
He removed his low-crowned felt hat, revealing a mass of brown curls, and bowed at the waist. “Are you Gabriel Lennox, sir?” he asked.
“Depends on who wants to know.”
The boy grinned. “You must be him! She said that you’d have wine-red hair. And if I hadn’t seen it with mine own eyes, I’d never believed anyone could have hair like that,” he said, voice cracking and nasally.
Poor brat. Gabriel remembered with loathing his voice changing from a boy’s into a man’s. He stared into the boy’s freckled face. “And who is she?”
“Why, Lady Genevieve Dele-something-or-other. She has a message for you.”
Gabriel’s heart sped up.
Out of his pants pocket, the boy slipped an envelope sealed with a red wax insignia. “Here you are, my lord.”
He took it and stared at Genevieve’s invitation before thanking her messenger and sending him on his way with a generous tip.
The envelope smelled of perfume, and the words were scrawled in red ink upon white paper. The word “urgent” held his attention. The ink had smudged before it dried so that it looked like blood. She had signed it with an elegant “G.”
Urgent? What could she possibly need or want? Gabriel tucked the letter into his frock coat.
“What is it?” asked Nathaniel at his back.
“I don’t know yet.” He began walking back toward the direction of her home, a series of suspicious thoughts steering him closer to a confrontation he didn’t look forward to. The sooner he arrived, the better. What did she want from him?
He told neither Colin nor Nathaniel where he was going, and they didn’t ask.
He traversed several streets before he heard a voice calling his name. He stopped and turned around to see Genevieve standing beneath a tree, her lacy, gloved hand beckoning to him. It seemed as if she wasn’t the only impatient one. He assumed she had rushed out of her home to meet him along the way. How lovely she looked, her blonde hair brushed back in an elegant chignon and her blue-green eyes large and innocent.
She almost looked afraid.
Afraid of what?
Eve must have looked this way when she tempted Adam to taste the Forbidden. All Genevieve needed to make the image complete was a piece of fruit. And she should not be clothed.
He had once thought Adam foolish. Now, he wasn’t certain.
He closed the space between them.
* * *
The setting sun looked like a dragon’s eye twinkling in a haze of clouds. Genevieve took Gabriel’s bare palm in her gloved hand.
“The mist,” she said, “is beautiful.”
Gabriel raised his eyebrows. He couldn’t understand why she thought that the heavily contaminated yellow-brown fog looked beautiful. A perfect example of looking through rose-colored glasses.
“I hoped I’d see you.” She smiled. “Come with me.”
In silence, Gabriel let her lead him to her home. While passing through the hallways and rooms, Gabriel concluded that he and Genevieve were the only ones present. Why? Had she sent everyone away?
Naturally.
“Where’s Michel?” he asked, adding curtly, “your husband.” He slipped his palm out of the warmth of her hand, stepping away to gaze at her from a distance. Her eyes were shadowed, as if she had been crying or had been deprived of sleep.
Genevieve raised and lowered her shoulders in a sigh. She walked over to a glass cabinet filled with crystal, wines, and various liqueurs. “Would you like some wine, Monsieur Lennox?” she asked, already pouring a glass.
He refused.
She sauntered over to the sofa with the full glass in her hand, a smile on her face. She traced her fingers over the fabric before sitting down on it. Her smile deepened when he sat down beside her.
“Your letter expressed an urgency,” Gabriel said. “I insist that you tell me the nature of it.”
At once, she drained her glass. Her eyes glazed over. Without saying anything, she sat there, holding the glass with both hands, and then lowered it to her lap.
Only then did he notice that her hands were trembling.
She looked up at him, her eyes wide and watery. “I had a dream about you.”
Gabriel leaned in closer, not wanting to miss a single word. “About me?”
“You came to me in the night. You—you ravished me.” She paused. The glass slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor. The delicate stem broke off; the red wine soaked into the carpet. “I want it to be real. Love me, Gabriel. Please.” She slid closer to him and held his face in her hands. She brought him close and kissed him full on the mouth. “Just once.”
Gabriel took her hands and placed them back in her lap. Rising from the sofa, he walked over to the window, shaken. She tasted sweet as honeydew. He wanted her—yet something held him back. Something more than her marriage served as a wedge between them. “A fantasy. Nothing more .Besides,” he continued, “how do you know that it was I?”
“I saw your eyes. As green as emeralds.” Her voice became softer with each word. “The dream; it’s difficult for me to describe and explain. I have never dreamed something so vivid. So real.” She shook noticeably and held herself.
“But, madam, you are Michel’s wife.” Gabriel kept his tone carefully nonchalant, rejecting what she had offered.
Her mouth spread into a devious smile. “And he is my husband. What of it?” Then she laughed, low and deep, uncrossing her legs.
He tilted his head to one side, one hand propped underneath his chin, as if poised in deep thought.
Genevieve sauntered over to him, slid her hands down the column of his throat and chest. When Gabriel tried to dodge her advances, her long nails grazed him. She murmured an apology and something trivial about him making her clumsy. Sh
e raised her fingers to his face, showing him her nails stained with his blood
“You drew blood.” Gabriel’s casualness edged away into warning.
Her eyes widened, looking like drowning blue pools. “Blood. Does it arouse you?”
Gabriel roughly took her hands, pulling them down to her sides. He gave her no time to consider her inhibitions and laid her down on the plush, carpeted floor. Her pink lips parted in a look of astonishment, as he began to kiss the backs of her hands and the side of her face. She closed her eyes and rubbed her cheek against his, laughing. He left a trail of warm kisses on her collarbone and the shallow crevice between her breasts. He slipped the top of her gown off her breasts, and with the pointed tip of his tongue, licked the nipples into erect points. As she whimpered with pleasure from the back of her throat, he felt the sharpness of his fangs sliding out of their sheaths.
He slipped away from her.
Her eyes snapped wide open and filled with disappointment. It couldn’t have been anything else.
He felt the sensual spell he had touched her with break into pieces and dissolve in the span of a breath, after he pulled away.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her breathing ragged.
Gabriel’s heart beat faster, he had to take some time to catch his breath. Did her body ache to continue, to climax, to be alleviated? His teeth tingled; he swallowed hard, willing his fangs to retract.
“I’m leaving, Madame.” He couldn’t risk remaining longer. It must seem to her that the intimate encounter hadn’t affected him in the least. If only she knew.
She stood up and pulled her dress straight. “Why must you be this way?” Her whisper came out high and shrill. “No man has ever denied me.”
They weren’t men, Gabriel thought. What kind of man seduces another man’s wife? “Perhaps,” he said, “I should apprise your husband of this matter.”
The rosy color in Genevieve’s face drained immediately. “Please. You mustn’t. If he finds out, he will leave me. I’ll be destitute.” Breaking into tears, she covered her face. “I would be better off dead!”
He stepped forward. To comfort her—to do something. But when he touched her, she screamed. “Don’t you dare touch me now!”