Theroen put a hand to his face and shook his head slowly from side to side. Naomi gave a grim laugh.
“I thought about asking Two, first, but I realized she would never agree to it. She’s too young and stupid and self-righteous. It’s one of the many things I love about her even when it makes me want to grab her shoulders and shake her to death.”
Theroen nodded but said nothing. Naomi continued.
“I need someone who can be there to make sure I’m dead. That’s why I don’t want to do it myself. I don’t want to wake up and know that I’ve failed again.”
“Naomi … why? Why do you want to die?”
Naomi looked up at him now, and there were no tears in her eyes, no quivering lips or shaky voice, nothing that hinted at any sort of internal conflict. When her voice came it was steady, and calm, and laced with a deep and aching sadness.
“I am so tired,” she said. “I do not believe in God, anymore, but if I did, I would ask Him why He has turned against me. For all the efforts I have made, for all of the good I have tried to do since Lisette was stolen from us, how have I been rewarded? Time and again I have been given pain and more pain, in one form or another. If it’s not punishment from an angry God, then the only other possibility is what I told you earlier … nothing matters. Why continue to struggle against the part of me that begs for it all to end? Why continue to fight on, and on, if the only thing I am fighting for is the chance for more pain?”
“I don’t—”
“Please let me finish,” she said, and she favored him with another sad smile. “You don’t need to tell me how there is wonder and joy and beauty and love out there for me. The best I have felt in thirty-five years was during a relationship I knew was doomed within weeks of starting it. A few brief months of relative happiness, followed by torment at every turn. Agony, as I have watched those that I care about die or fade away, like you and her.”
“Two and I are not fading away,” Theroen said.
“Are you not?” Naomi asked. “Did you even realize that when we saw each other last month at the bar, it was the first time in six months that we had been together for anything other than official council business? We lived within blocks of each other for more than two years, and yet I saw you and Two only when it came time, every few weeks, to watch the both of you sit impatiently through a council meeting until we told you we had no further information on Tori. My reward for that news was a pair of disgusted looks and to watch you leave as soon as possible, to disappear into yourselves and into each other for another fortnight.”
“Naomi, we were not trying to hurt you,” Theroen said. “Truthfully, we were trying to give you space. If we had known …”
“I am not blaming you, or her.”
“But we—”
“It doesn’t matter. Every night I wake up and wonder why I am waking up. What is it, exactly, that I am hoping to accomplish? I want it to end. I am asking for your help. If you won’t do this thing for me, then just say so. I will find someone else.”
“I do not want you to find someone else,” Theroen told her. “This is your blood talking, the curse of the Ashayt, this sadness and emptiness.”
“Did my blood kill Stephen?” Naomi asked him. “Did it murder Lisette, and Mother Ashayt, and William? Did it steal Andrew from me or cause Arenne to hang herself in that shitty, rat-infested inn? Did it cause the fire that burned Patricia alive before her thirtieth birthday?”
“Time is a blade, Naomi, and it can cut deep. Those of us who live long, we all bear such wounds. You are not the only one with scars.”
“Am I to envy your strength for enduring them?” Naomi asked, her tone almost casual, staring out the window into the darkness of the park. “Theroen, do you remember the first night we were together? We shared our first time on November the twelfth, sixteen-hundred and nineteen. I still remember it to the very day. You held me close when it was done, and you promised that if I ever needed you, you would be there.
“Do you remember that promise? You thought me dead for centuries, but I knew you were alive. For three hundred and fifty years I knew it, and I never collected on that debt. I have never asked you for a single thing until this moment. If you would renege, just say so. Tell me that you will not do this for me and let me search elsewhere, but do not seek to change my mind.”
Theroen thought back to that night. The three of them had sat together, talking and laughing, Lisette and Naomi drunk on wine, Theroen sober, his young Eresh body incapable of tolerating the liquid. He remembered the rush of excitement that had run through him when Naomi had glanced sidelong at Lisette, her cheeks pink, a tiny smile on her face, and said, “I think that I am ready.”
He had never known why it was that Lisette had insisted he wait for Naomi. He had known only that the elder vampire refused to take his virginity from him, though he had asked it of her. Always she had told him that it was to be Naomi’s task. So he had waited, and at last he had learned this final thing.
He had tried not to rush, when first she had circled her legs around him, and shifted her hips, and helped him into her. Naomi had cupped his head, twined her fingers into his hair, and pulled him down so her lips were at his ear. “I am giving myself to you,” she had told him. “You should take me.”
Whether a command or a request, Theroen had been unable to deny it, and he found himself thrusting again and again into that warm and wet place within her. It was like nothing he had experienced before, and with Lisette and Naomi he had experienced a great many pleasurable things. Within moments, he had gone from gentle caution to something approaching frenzy.
He remembered struggling to stay aware, to not lose himself in the moment. As if in response, refusing to let him stay distant, Naomi had cupped his buttocks, pulling him against her again and again, making little gasping, growling noises. The air had been filled with the scent of her hair and skin, her sweat, her sex, the blood in her veins; this combination, this essence of her, had been maddening. Lisette had shown him what an orgasm was, and he could feel that need overwhelming him, but also something more, an almost violent desire to possess the writhing, panting creature below him.
With a last thrust, he had buried himself deep within her and, snarling, driven his teeth into her neck like an animal. It had seemed his entire body was climaxing, rejoicing as her blood washed through him. Naomi had given a cry that was half pain, half ecstasy, and dug bloody crescents into his back with her nails.
Lying with her after, exhausted and drenched in sweat, he had made his promise. He remembered it just as Naomi did now, and wondered how he had ever forgotten those words. He nodded, staring at the far wall but not really seeing; most of him was back still in that cramped and smoky, candlelit room.
Naomi, I am here with you. I am here for you, and if ever you need me, I will always be here for you. I promise you.
He looked over at the girl who had shared this thing with him, all those years ago, and it seemed for a moment that he could hear Lisette’s words, the first she had spoken since he and Naomi had begun, whispered on the breeze.
“Now you understand,” Lisette had said, and only centuries later did Theroen feel at last that he did. She had made them wait because neither had ever known the thing, and there was something for both of them in the learning of it. Something that would tie them together forever, even long after they had moved on from their time as lovers.
“Yes, I remember,” Theroen said finally, and Naomi smiled.
“I have always wondered why Lisette chose to give us that bond,” she said. “I never understood why she didn’t take you for herself, right from the start. Perhaps it was one of her flashes, a glimpse of the future like she claimed sometimes to have. Perhaps she knew that someday I would ask you to do something for me, and you would not want to do it, and that this thing between us would leave you no choice.
“That is where we’ve come to now, Theroen, is it not? If I press, you will do what I ask because you promised it to me al
most four hundred years ago.”
“She can’t have meant this!” Theroen said. “She would never have wanted this.”
“And yet she locked you into your promise without knowing, because this has nothing to do with what she might have wanted. It’s what I want.”
Theroen closed his eyes for a time, considering this. When he looked at Naomi again, she met his gaze and even managed half of a smile.
“Will you not wait, at the least?” he asked. “We need you.”
“What, you and Two? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Yes, Two and me, but as well the rest of the vampires in this city and this country. We need you if we are to survive this plague that’s fallen upon us. With William gone, you are now the most senior member of the American council. They will turn to you for leadership. They will—”
“I cannot help them.”
“That is not what William believed!” Theroen snapped, losing his temper for a rare moment. “He thought you were the best of the Ashayt in this country, and that is why he chose you. How can you ignore that? Could you not sense his relief that soon you would take the council from him?”
Naomi seemed to have no immediate response to this other than a slight coloring of her cheeks. Theroen knew from long experience that this meant she was both pleased with the statement and too embarrassed to admit it. He continued.
“The vampires in this country are teetering right now on the lip of an abyss. If we make the wrong move, we will all plunge to our deaths. We need help. We need to rally and organize or we will all die, and what then? The Children will have America. From there they will spread to Canada and Mexico. South America. After that, they will set their sights on Europe and Asia, and even Australia. If there is a vampire in Antarctica, they will find him and kill him. That is what they want.”
“What would you have me do about it?” Naomi asked him. She took the shoebox with the gun in it and lifted it from her lap, setting it on the coffee table, and turned sideways on the couch to face him.
“I would have you lead. You, and Jakob, and …”
“And yourself?” Naomi asked, and this time her smile held a glint of real amusement. “I am not the most senior member of the council, Theroen-Sa … that honor belongs to you by almost twenty years.”
Theroen sighed. “Yes, true, but I have been on the council for only a very brief time, and have not obtained the respect that you and Jakob have. I think even Two – though technically my apprentice – is more liked than I am.”
“They like you more than you think. But tell me … do you truly believe there is still hope?” Naomi asked.
“There is always hope until the last of us is dead,” Theroen said. “Forgive me if I would avoid hastening that eventuality. Naomi, if I cannot deter you from this path, at least give us time to—”
“Don’t you understand that if I had swallowed perhaps ten more pills, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation? The council can proceed without me. You can petition the Ay’Araf in Europe. They will come fight for you, and you can spring the very trap Two was advocating.”
“You are either delusional or deliberately underestimating yourself.”
“And you are making excuses for not following through on your promise!” Naomi exclaimed. She stood suddenly and paced back in forth in front of the window that spanned her entire western wall, staring out across the park.
“Naomi, this thing you are asking is … it’s …”
“It is a simple thing,” Naomi told him. “You’re the one making it very complicated. I have lived four times longer than any human should. I am tired, and empty, and alone, and I wish it to be done. Theroen, I am begging you!”
Theroen felt something welling within him, a sort of wordless despair. He thought at first that Naomi must be using her aura against him, but he realized after a moment more that the feeling was not coming from her. He and Naomi could spend the rest of the night trading rhetoric, but it would change nothing. When the sun rose and sent them to sleep, she would still be determined to die, and if he continued to refuse then she would only find some other person to grant her wish – or eventually pull the trigger herself.
Jaw clenched, he reached out and took the gun from its box. He stood, crossed the room to where Naomi waited by the window, and brought the gun up, pressing the cold metal lip of its muzzle against her forehead. She didn’t flinch. He had wondered if she would, if she might give him some sign here, at the end, that this was not truly what she wanted. Naomi gave him nothing – merely regarded him with her big, grey eyes, and waited for him to act.
Theroen hesitated and Naomi spoke in a low, murmuring voice, never dropping her gaze. “Do it.”
Theroen felt adrenaline course through him; he meant to pull the trigger. A single twitch was all that was required, and with it he could take away her pain forever. Naomi was right: it would not be hard, and no one would ever know. Would he ever be able to forgive himself? Did any of it even matter?
Theroen drew in a breath, one he meant to hold as he shot his oldest friend between her eyes. At that very moment, his cell phone rang. Theroen’s finger twitched, and he very nearly squeezed the trigger and gave Naomi the blackness she was asking for. He managed to avoid this, however, and instead stood poised for a moment more with the gun at her head, looking into her eyes.
“Please,” Naomi said, but Theroen shook his head and pointed the gun’s muzzle at the floor. Naomi visibly deflated and, after a shaking breath, covered her face with her hands. Theroen moved toward the kitchen, pulling his phone from his pocket.
Chapter 13
A Port in the Storm
They sat crammed into the backseat of one of New York’s hybrid cabs, watching the street signs flick by as they rolled slowly through the congested traffic on Seventh Avenue. Two thought it best to stay between Sasha and Leonore and so had taken the middle seat. She would have opted for the front – normally something of a breach of etiquette with fewer than four people – but it was filled with stacks of old newspapers and discarded coffee cups.
“You girls smell like smoke,” the cab driver said.
Neither Sasha nor Leonore seemed interested in responding to this, and so Two spoke. “We were … at this bar, and it’s, like, a log cabin theme inside, and they had a fire burning.”
“In July?” the driver asked. “Cheeeesus Christ, like it ain’t hot enough?”
“I know, right?” Two said, warming to the story. “It was so hot, and our makeup got all runny and smeared, and there was soot all over … that’s why we left.”
“That so? And I suppose your friend back there fell into a box of tomatoes or somethin’, right?”
Two glanced over at Sasha, who was looking out the window. The Ay’Araf woman gave the slightest shake of her head, as if disgusted by the entire situation. Two tried to continue her improvisation.
“You ever been to one of those clubs where they give out body paint?”
“Sweetheart, last time I was in a club, they still called ‘em dance halls, and you could buy a pitcher a’ suds for about seventy cents.”
“Guess that’s a no,” Two said.
“Listen, I been in this city forever. Sixty-eight years, born and bred, and I seen every single crazy fuckin’ thing you can possibly think of, OK? I had people in my cab bleedin’ all over the place, people coked up out of their mind and rantin’ crazy conspiracy shit, people literally fuckin’ right there in the back seat … so it’s no skin off my back, is all I’m sayin’. But if you need me to take you to the police or a hospital or somethin’ … you just let me know.”
“Thanks. We … we’re good,” Two said, and at this she saw Sasha lean her forehead against her hand and close her eyes.
“All right, doll. Corner of Greene and Broome you said, right?”
“That’s the place.”
“We’ll get ya there. Some kind of fuckin’ church fire going on, with explosions and shit. Traffic’s crazy. This fuckin’ city, I swea
r to God … it’s always somethin’.”
“Yeah,” Two said, shaking her head. “It always is.”
The rode in silence for some time, the cab driver swinging in and out of lanes, sometimes gaining a few car lengths, other times ending up stuck, mostly coming out the same as if he had simply stayed put. It was par for the course for New York, and Two wasn’t really even paying attention. She was thinking about Theroen, wondering if he was safe, hoping that he and Naomi had made it far away from the cathedral.
She was trying not to think about Tori, or about Jakob, but was having a hard time accomplishing it. Her friends: one corrupted, the other dead. What terrible things had the Children done to Tori to turn her into this killing machine? The Tori she knew, the one who had been so excited to see her parents again, could not have been the same person who so willingly lopped off Jakob’s head. She could still see it, flipping through the air, eyes wide …
Two came to the sudden realization that she was on the very edge of bursting into hysterical tears, and she was unsure if she was going to be able to do anything about it. She wanted Theroen. She wanted her friends back, and the life they had been living for the past two years. The whole of what had happened seemed suddenly ready to overwhelm her, to swallow her up completely. Fortunately, at that exact moment, Leonore leaned in and gave Two’s mind something else to focus on.
“How are we going to pay for this?” she asked, and Two blinked away her tears, considering the question.
“I’ve got cash at my place,” she murmured. “Should be plenty. You guys can stay with the cab so he knows we’re not stiffing him.”
Leonore nodded. “Very well.”
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