My Love Eternal

by Liz Strange

  The house appeared— a quiet and forlorn projection in a small clearing otherwise surrounded by acres of wilderness. We drove the car into the nearly dilapidated barn, hiding it from view. Charlotte motioned us toward the rear entrance, and as we passed around the side of the building I noticed that the front doors were carefully boarded across, most likely to prevent vandalism and squatters.

  She unlocked a narrow door, which led us directly into the home’s kitchen. From there we followed her into what must have been a pantry in another time. The room was barren except for a few crates, and floor-to-ceiling shelving that ran the entire perimeter of the room. She reached a hand into the space where one of the shelves met the stone wall, pressing until a section released and moved slightly forward. She tried to give the now revealed door a yank to pull it wider, but it was stubborn. I took over and pulled the opening wide enough for us to pass. Just inside the opening a flight of stairs had been cut from the naturally occurring rock. They ended in a well of blackness that even my vampiric eyes had trouble seeing into. Charlotte fumbled around behind us until a narrow beam of light appeared. She held a small flashlight in her hands, which projected a weak shaft of light. She pulled the door closed behind her, locking it with an enormous length of wood.

  “Let’s go.”

  Down the flight of stairs we went, until our feet made contact with the floor of a well-concealed passageway. The air was damp and stale.

  “Up ahead there a several rooms, and also several barriers which can be locked. Eventually this passage leads to the main house where it comes out into the wine cellar.”

  We moved on ahead through the first archway, where a solid wood barrier existed that could be lowered into place from the ceiling then secured with another immense beam of wood. From there she led us for several hundred yards until she stopped outside a doorway that was almost indistinguishable from the rock walls in which it stood.

  “Here.” She pushed the door inward.

  Inside, the room was quite large with a low ceiling. A long table stood with several heavy chairs about it, and two doors led off into other areas. Everything was covered with a thorough layer of dust.

  “I wasn’t thinking too clearly when I set off to find you, and I didn’t bring supplies of any kind. I believe there’s a trunk in one of the other rooms with blankets and a lantern, matches, that kind of thing. I’m sorry, I didn’t think too far ahead… ” She seemed nervous now that she was alone in the isolated space with us.

  I placed a hand on her arm, and thankfully she did not pull it away. “This is wonderful Charlotte, thank you.”

  She held the light up between us and looked me directly in the eye. She did not smile, but I sensed acceptance on her part. “I’m going to continue and after I go, someone should lock the next set of doors to stop entrance from the other side.”

  She turned quickly to leave, and with a shaky hand on the door looked at the three of us. “Eli, do you want to come with me?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “No. I need to be here.”

  She nodded and left us in the darkness. Both Charles and I went to one of the smaller adjoining rooms where we found the trunk Charlotte had spoken of. Inside were several changes of clothing, blankets, two lanterns and a box of waterproof matches. I lit a lantern and placed it on the table. I offered Eli a dry pair of pants and a sweater, which both smelled slightly of mildew, but were still better than the soaked clothing we were all wearing. I retreated to the other room to change, discovering only men’s clothing in the trunk. I dressed in a pair of too-large pants and a sweater that fell to my knees. Back in the main room, the two men were similarly dressed. I joined them at the table.

  Charles caught my eye, his expression grim. “I want to say that I’m sincerely sorry about what happened tonight. I know this may be hard to believe after our last encounter, but I did not wish any harm to Giovanni, or yourself.”

  Eli reached across the table to take my hand, and his flesh was unbelievably warm against my own.

  “Thank you for saying that. I can’t really wrap my head around what happened. And why you showed up? Can you explain to me what those men were doing to Giovanni?” I asked.

  “It’s like I tried to tell him all those years ago. The Desmarais have been researching ways to efficiently control and kill vampires, and from the events tonight, it looks as though they have succeeded.”

  “What were those things they were using on Giovanni? And what was he injected with?” I tried to keep my voice even, but I could hear the quiver creeping in to betray me.

  “It’s quite ingenious if I might say so. It’s the same technology used by marine biologists to control sharks, only intensified. The netting was made of the same material shark cages are constructed of, making it all but indestructible, even for a vampire. The injection was a relaxant tested on other vampires they have managed to capture over the years, which basically paralyses the victim. It was developed from many years of study of vampire blood chemistry, a serum unique to us. And the prods again were based on shark control, tasers that have been amped up enough to affect even the strongest of our kind. Against one of these things we might have been able to fight, but not against all three. They were very prepared this time.”

  “Sharks?” I asked.

  “Yes, and it makes sense, I guess. They are formidable creatures, designed to kill others, but extremely hard to kill themselves. Much like a vampire.”

  “How do you know this?” Eli asked.

  “I’ve been watching them for a while now. They are very well protected, but I’ve managed to get some information. Not enough, though.”

  “He had no chance. Not alone, anyway.”

  “No.”

  “Rachel, there was nothing you could have done.” Eli’s words were soft, and truthful I knew, but words could not have comforted me then.

  I was too close to loosing control, so I switched gears in the conversation. I was on the threshold of the full force of Giovanni’s loss. I knew that once that gate opened, it would not be closed again for a long time, if ever.

  “What about you? How do you fit into all of this?”

  “What I told you many years ago was true. I have been watching Giovanni, and as a consequence have been aware of the Desmarais and their research. I learnt of the attack, and came to warn you, but obviously I was too late.” He paused, a conflicted look on his face. “I guess even one as old as I can be caught unaware.”

  His words triggered a memory from that night so many years before. I let my mind follow that thread, as the sound of his voice distracted me from the flood of torment whispering in my mind.

  “How old are you exactly?”

  “I was born in the year 1327, in an area not too far from here. My family was quite well to do, my mother’s side able to trace her lineage back to Richard the First. Our family had certainly fallen below that once greatly exalted status, but we were wealthy and influential nonetheless. I was a spoilt, aimless man, living off the wealth of my family, with no real ambition or responsibilities of my own. I wandered from place to place, soaking up the lavish lifestyle wherever I could. I never married, to the annoyance of my mother, though I might have sired a few illegitimate children along the way. Then fate caught up with my one night. I was forty years old. My mother had passed on a few years earlier, leaving her vast fortune to my brother and me. My home was frequently open to the wealthy and the privileged for one type of gathering or another, and on one such night she came along at the invitation of an acquaintance of mine.”

  He stopped, realising that neither Eli nor I had made a sound since he began speaking. “I’m sorry, it’s been a long time since I have even thought about this.”

  “Go on.” I was grateful for the distraction from the emotions I was barely able to hold at bay.

  “It was quite late, most of the guests already having left for home, and I was quite drunk. I was quite drunk most of the time back then, to be entirely honest. She came to me, and lured me a
way to my bedroom with promises of sexual indulgence. Certainly nothing to be turned down by a man such as I was then, and she was incredibly beautiful, too beautiful I now know. After she had her way with me, she bit me and drained me to the point that I could never have survived. She looked down on me, smiling, and asked me whether I wanted to live or die. Of course I said I wanted to live, and then she made me a vampire.”

  “But you didn’t really know what it was that she was asking you?” I asked quietly.

  “No, but I don’t suppose that it would have mattered if I did. I was a shallow man, still am really, and I’m sure I would still have accepted if I had known the truth.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “I don’t rightly know. I stayed with her briefly, but one night she simply left. I have only seen her but twice in all the years since.”

  Charles’s words stirred up mixed feeling. Even his very presence was confusing, and it was compounded by the trauma of the loss of Giovanni. His face returned to that cold, blank expression I remembered all too well, but I understood that it was an expression that simply came easily after too many years of wearing it. His presence reminded me too much of what happened that night.

  “I don’t think I can hear any more tonight. Charles can you lock the other barrier before retiring?”

  He nodded, and with a look slightly softened from his usual expression, he stood from the table. He leant in, and in a voice too quiet for Eli to have heard, said, “Giovanni was right. Being alone for all this time is a terrible way to exist.”

  Then he left to do as I had asked.

  I entered the smaller room, feeling wearier than I could ever remember being. I lay on the narrow cot, smelling the years of disuse, and was suddenly overcome with panic at the thought of sleeping alone for the first time in more than two decades. A cold spasm of anxiety travelled up my body’s entirety.

  I drew my knees up to my chest, and I tightly wrapped my arms around them in a sorry attempt to console myself. Flashes of his face, his scent and taste assaulted my senses, yet the tears still would not come.

  In the other room I heard Charles return with a swift closure of the door and a solid latching of the lock. How could this have happened? Everything had been perfect. Giovanni, Eli and I had settled into such a wonderful life, and we were so full of love for one another. Now Giovanni was dead, and the rest of us hiding in an underground tomb. Even Charlotte, whose only crime had been befriending me, was now facing the possibility of harm.

  A chair scraped across the rough stone floor as one of the men settled at the table. A few silent moments passed before I heard Charles speak. “So, I am aware that you have been with Rachel and Giovanni for several years now, but what exactly is your connection to them?”

  “They are parents to me. I never had a father, and my mother was killed when I was a boy. Rachel saved me from a terrible existence, and I owe her for everything that I am and everything that I have.”

  “I see, and that’s the extent of your, how shall I say this, attachment?”

  There was a pause before Eli spoke again. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “All right then. I won’t give you the disrespect of trying to read your mind, though to be honest, even in the proximity we have been in with each other tonight I have received very little from you.”

  “Rachel says I have a hard mind to read.”

  “That may be true. There are some humans who are almost impossible to read, and others who are like an open book.”

  “What about you? What is your connection to Rachel and Giovanni?”

  “I am Giovanni’s maker.”

  “Why have I never heard about your before?”

  “Let’s just say that in the past, I was not open to contact, but even a dog as old as me, I have found, can change his ways.”

  “And you came back for friendship?”

  “Something like that, and what about you? You are a grown man now, and still you reside with your parents, as you call them. Why are you still here?”

  “Because this is where I belong.” His voice was soft, but full of conviction.

  “Then what do you say we both stop grandstanding, and just accept the fact that this is where we both need to be right now?”

  “All right. I need to go check on Rachel.” I heard his quiet footsteps as he closed the distance from the table to the cot where I lay. Once inside the room, he gently wrapped his lanky frame alongside my body and pulled me in tightly to himself.

  He didn’t need to say a word. I felt his love, and knew in his own way he shared my grief over Giovanni’s loss. The tears burst forth with vehemence then, and I sobbed in his arms until it was impossible to cry any longer. Then I closed my eyes and drifted into an unsettled sleep.

  I awoke the next evening to the sound of unfamiliar voices, rushed and agitated. I was momentarily disorientated, and I reached out my arms for Giovanni as I normally would, instead finding the edge of the narrow cot. The realisation that he was not there, and in fact gone from me forever sent a cold shock through my aching body.

  I shuffled into the next room, where I found Charles and Charlotte in deep conversation. They abruptly stopped as I emerged, inadvertently twisting the knife I already felt in my heart. I didn’t think I could survive their pity.

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt. Where’s Eli?”

  “He’s at the house.” A horrible expression must have crossed my face because she immediately launched into an explanation. “It’s okay, really. Please sit and let me explain what’s happened.”

  We all took a seat at the grimy table, the darkness broken by the unsteady waves of light from the lantern. The effect cast harsh shadows across their faces, making them seem ethereal one minute and sinister the next.

  “After I got back home, I called the security force I use to monitor the house. I have used them in the past for coverage when I’ve had large event of some kind. Anyway, they came out under the pretence of an attempted home invasion, and have been patrolling the house and grounds ever since. Everything has been quiet. There has been no contact whatsoever. Then Eli came by early this afternoon, and I accompanied him, with two guards following, of course, back to your place. When we got there it was deserted. There was obvious damage and signs that something had happened, but it was clear someone did a good job of sweeping up the evidence. All the bodies were gone. Every shell casing was removed and all the blood had been wiped clean. There were simply tires tracks and broken windows. I called a company out to board everything up, and Eli removed the items he felt were important. We’ve brought it all to the main house. I’m sure there are things there that should be stored or moved, but that’s not imperative right now. Eli’s up at my house right now, making a few calls.”

  “And no police involvement?”

  “Nothing. I put out quiet feelers to the authorities and the hospitals, but there are no signs that anyone other than the people involved know what happened last night. Your men must have treated their own wounds, and as for the others, I can’t honestly say.”

  I turned to Charles. “What do you think of this?”

  “I’d like to look into it myself. I think I’ll go by the house then check with my sources. I can be back in a few hours.”

  “That sounds like a good idea.”

  Charles left swiftly and without another word. I still wasn’t sure if I trusted him completely, but he was the best chance we had at that point. After he was gone I turned my full attention to Charlotte, and I could see that the circumstances were taking their toll on her. For the first time since I had known her, she looked old. Her clothing was rumpled, and her hair in disarray. Her skin looked sallow and dark bags were evident under her tired eyes. Timidly she came to me, and gave me a quick hug. “I don’t know how we’re supposed to act with each other.”

  “Like friends, and you have been an amazing one to us.”

  “I’ve done the best that I can, but I realise that the safest option for you r
ight now is to disappear.”

  “Yes. We need to get out of England quickly.”

  She handed me a folded piece of paper. “This is the name and phone number of a friend of mine in Switzerland. You can send a communication through her whenever you need. She can be trusted.”

  “Thank you. There will be things here to tie up, and I may need your help.”

  “I should get back to the house. I need to get some sleep. I’m too old to keep up with these kind of wild shenanigans.” She gave a small laugh, but I could see she was struggling with the intensity of the situation. Fortunately, Eli’s return interrupted the uncomfortable moment.

  He slipped through the door quietly, obviously sensing the awkwardness between Charlotte and me. He gave me a sad smile and she left the room.

  Eli closed the door behind her and came immediately to where I stood. I threw myself into his arms, so full of hurt and anger I thought I would suffocate from the burden of it. He wrapped one strong arm around my waist and smoothed his hand along my hair with the other. “It’s going to be all right,” he murmured, “I will never leave you.”

  “I can’t lose you too.” The thought of it was more than I could bear.

  “You know I love you, Rachel, and I would do anything to be with you.”

  He pulled me even closer, and a knot of dread began to mingle with the sadness and confusion already overtaking my mind.

  “Eli, please, I can’t do this, especially not now… ” I pulled away from him and returned to the room where I had slept. Giovanni, how can I go on without you?

  I stood there with tears stinging my eyes like acid, and sobs wracking my body. Though I had seen the events, my brain could not comprehend that he was actually gone. Gone! No more forever, no more love to last until the end of time. How could this have happened? Part of me had died with him.