by Lund, S. E.
“I will,” Julien says.
“Make me forget her,” Michel adds. “Use the drug to make me forget.”
“I will. I promise.”
Then Julien helps Michel sit up and hands him the glass of blood.
Chapter 132
Over the next week, I spend my time in my rooms, uncertain of how I feel about what’s happened. My family come for visits, but most of the time I’m alone. Julien’s off getting things ready for Soren, overseeing the construction of the cell in which Soren will be imprisoned.
The containment room is in an abandoned mineshaft in New Jersey. Construction is almost finished on the vault in which he’ll be kept. His body doesn’t decay. It remains intact, but he has no ability to do anything but stay alive. He can’t even open his eyes, and so there will be only a weekly check on him to ensure he’s still captive.
I stand in the hallway and watch as they wheel him out of the cell where he’s been kept and into the vehicle to be transported to the mine. I hope it’s the last I’ll see of him, but if he truly is immortal, and if he will regain power one day, I have no doubt he’ll come looking for me for revenge.
Count on it.
I try not to respond to Soren’s intrusions into my mind, but it’s difficult. He’ll probably do his best to interfere as much as he can in my life. There has to be something I can do to block him, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to find out how.
Michel has so far remained secluded in his own rooms. I know he didn’t want to be a vampire again, but there was no way Julien would let him die for good. I don’t think Julien could stand to live without Michel. As I watch the vehicle drive off, Julien returns to our suite and closes the door, a heavy sigh escaping his lips. He comes over to where I stand by the window and wraps his arms around me. It feels so good, so comforting, to have him with me.
“How’s Michel?” I ask, my arms around his as he stands behind me and kisses the top of my head.
“Grumpy, but he’ll get over it. As soon as we get the cure, the real cure, he’ll be happier. For now, he’s angry to have to feel bloodlust again.”
“It’s only temporary,” I say, frustrated with Michel that he wanted to die.
“I know, but he hated being a vampire, Eve. It defined his life. Being free of blood lust even for a short while made him happy. Being a priest again made him happy.”
I shake my head, unable to understand Michel’s love for the Church, given everything that’s happened.
“Now what?” I ask, turning around in Julien’s arms so that we face each other. “What’s the first thing on our new post-Soren post-Blackstone post-Plague agenda?”
“What’s next?” Julien says and squeezes me tightly. “First on my agenda is spending a week in bed with you, that’s what.”
I smile. “You said two weeks.”
“Two weeks.” He kisses me, his strong arms around me, his mouth hungry on mine, one hand slipping down to squeeze one of my buttocks. “I feel completely deprived and in serious need of TLC.”
“Mmm,” I say when he pulls my hips against his. “I think a week in bed is the least we can do. More like a month.”
He pulls me over to the bed and for the next hour, we try to make up lost time, rolling naked together under the covers.
Later, a servant enters with a tray of tea and sandwiches for our lunch. We’re both dressed but lying on the bed, reading the daily paper together, discussing the reconstruction efforts underway to get the city back up and running again now that the plague has passed. Life is still precarious and fraught with danger, but there is a semblance of order now that Blackstone is no longer in power.
We spend the day like that, staying in bed, eating our meals alone rather than in the main dining room, and Julien only leaves me briefly to speak with Michel or the other officers who remained loyal to him or who joined him once Soren was destroyed.
Each time I ask Julien about Michel and what he plans to do, Julien’s noncommittal, as if he doesn’t want to speak to me about Michel. Finally, a few weeks later, when I still haven’t seen or heard from Michel, I push as hard as I can for some news.
“Tell me how Michel is or I’ll go looking for him myself. Did he take the drug to make him forget?”
Julien puts down the paper and lies on his side, facing me.
“Yes, he took the drug. He’s forgotten about you. He doesn’t know anything about your relationship. All he knows is that he was almost killed when Soren was disabled.”
“What does he remember?”
“About you? Nothing. About Soren? He remembers our past history. I told him that he had a brain injury when he was almost killed by Soren and has some memory loss. Eve, he can’t remember anything starting from just before he met your mother until now. He knows the basic story of Soren’s rise and his fall, but not your relationship. He knows you and I are together and have been since the start.”
I nod, and there’s a part of me that’s sad. I wish we could have just come to terms with what happened and go our separate ways, but apparently it was too painful for Michel. He didn’t want to live knowing that we were once lovers and that I chose Julien instead of him.
Still, I can’t deny that it hurts me that he wants to forget it all. I hated not knowing what happened to me. When I first found my online journal and read all my entries, I felt as if there was this huge hole in my life and more than anything, I wanted to fill it with knowledge of who Michel was to me and why everything happened.
Maybe Michel will feel differently about the hole in his past. I don’t know what he’ll feel but I cried a few nights when Julien told me about the drug and how far back the memory loss went in Michel’s past.
“He doesn’t remember my mother? My father?”
Julien shakes his head. “Nothing from the time he met your mother when she was a child. He doesn’t even know the story of you. You’re just a name in a list of other names of people who were involved in stopping Soren.”
“What’s he going to do?”
Julien heaves a deep sigh. “He wants to go to England and stay there, find a small parish, and be a parish priest. Nothing big. Just a small town with a small congregation. He left instructions for me before he took the drug.”
“Where’s he going?”
Julien shakes his head. “That’s going to remain secret,” he says softy. “He didn’t want you to know at first, just in case you had second thoughts.” He looks at me guiltily. “Sorry.”
I frown. That makes it feel even worse. I have no interest in being with Michel any longer. Although I no longer feel anger towards him for lying all those years and for keeping me in the dark, I still have chosen Julien, and that’s the way I want it. I have no interest in getting back with Michel or restarting what the three of us had before.
There’s a knock at the door and Michel enters, dressed in a black cassock with a large wooden cross. His hair is longer, and a bit wild. I see that the shoulders of his cassock are wet from snow. He’s been out walking in the courtyard, probably saying goodbye to his property.
His eyes meet mine and I see no recognition in them. I’m glossed over quickly and his gaze comes to rest on Julien, who is sitting beside me.
“Sorry,” Michel says and smiles. “I didn’t want to bother you, but my car is here so I’m going.”
Julien gets up and crosses the floor to Michel. “So soon?”
“Yes,” Michel says. “No sense in delaying.” Michel puts his arms around Julien, his eyes closing as they briefly embrace.
“I’ll miss you brother,” Julien says and I hear the emotion in his voice, which is almost breaking. “Don’t be a stranger.”
Michel pulls back and smiles, squeezing Julien’s shoulder. “We could never be strangers. You’ll come to stay now and then.”
“I will.”
They embrace once more and then Michel turns to leave, without even a glance back.
He really has forgotten me. I thought that he might be surpris
ed to see how much I look like Danielle, but he said nothing and didn’t respond at all to seeing me. I get up from the bed and stand at the window, staring outside at the falling snow.
When Julien comes to stand beside me, I can’t help it. “I thought he’d be surprised at how much I resemble Danielle,” I say, a little hurt.
“I told him you were almost a dead ringer for her, but I guess he’s so glad to be getting a parish, and that he’ll have a flock, that he’s not all that focused on women and how much they remind him of his first lover.”
Julien pulls me into his arms and hugs me tightly. He pulls back and bends down to look in my eyes. “Does it hurt that he doesn’t even recognize you?”
I nod without speaking, not sure I can say anything without my voice breaking with emotion.
Julien hugs me again. “Maybe someday, he’ll remember. Who knows how long the effects of the drug will last?”
I sigh and lean into his arms, and his warmth and his love washes away all the pain and sadness of the past months. Although there is a part of me who will always love Michel, Julien is more my type. He’s passionate but has a great sense of humor. He’s strong, but can let down his guard and be vulnerable. We’re a team, and now, we’ll start our new life together as founding members of the new Council of Clairveaux. We, and the others who join us, will work to ensure that the rules are followed so that vampires and humans can at least live in peace while we perfect the cure and end vampirism.
“I’m glad we ended up together,” I say, and kiss him softly.
He pulls back and strokes my cheek. “When I saw you in the diner that first day we met again, I was so jealous that Michel found you first. When I saw your dimples, and your hazel eyes, you were so much like Danielle that it took my breath away. As angry as I was that Michel got to you first, I couldn’t blame him, but I knew then that I’d do everything I could to weasel my way into your life because you were meant for me.”
“I was,” I say and lean up on my tiptoes to kiss him once more. “I’m yours.”
“You are,” he says and lifts me off my feet, kissing me hungrily while the soft light of the early spring morning fills the room.
Epilogue
Twenty Years Later…
Seeking to forget makes exile all the longer; the secret of redemption lies in remembrance.
Richard von Weizsaecker
Our cottage is in St. Brides, about thirty kilometers south of St. David’s, on the southern coast of Wales. It’s a good walk from the three-bedroom house to the Lockley Lodge information center, in Martin’s Haven and the cliffs nearby. I often go there and sit with my binoculars so I can watch the birds flying back and forth to the cliff faces of Skomer Island where they’ll nest and lay their eggs. I take the boats to the island on occasion and spend time walking around, watching the birds and breathing in the salt air.
Sometimes, Julien joins me, but most of the time, he stays at home, reading or working on some project. Dylan and Sarah were down for a visit and left yesterday, and I feel a bit lonely with them gone. They live in Manchester with their parents. Both took the cure, like Julien and I did. Now, we no longer feel the need for blood, but now we face a new reality.
Eternity.
It stretches out in front of us all and means that unless we can find a way to harness the Adamantine nature of vampirism and transmit it to humans, we’ll all have to say goodbye to the mortals we’ve all grown to know and love. So far, we’ve had no luck. The only route to immortality at this point is via vampirism, and no one wants to start that scourge again, even with the cure. Work continues on trying to find the secrets to the Adamantine genes, with Dylan and his team at the forefront.
Until that happens, we all face the prospect of losing the humans in our lives as they age and eventually die. That means my foster parents, Dylan and Sarah’s parents and everyone we know who was never vampire. I remember what Soren said to me about watching humans be born and live out their lives and then die. It’s not something I want to have happen to me.
Tonight, I’m going out to watch the meteor shower.
“Are you coming?’ I ask Julien. He comes to me where I’m busy lacing up my boots. While it’s warm during the day, the nights get cool.
“Not tonight.” He pulls me into his arms when I stand up. “You go alone. I have some things I want to do. Some reading to catch up on.”
“You’ve been awfully mysterious lately,” I say and kiss him. “Off gallivanting around by yourself in the town. Do you have some kind of secret life I know nothing about?”
He laughs and pulls me closer. “No secret life,” he says with a grin. “Just some Council business that needed my attention.”
I frown, thinking he’s being deceptive, but I say nothing more. He’ll tell me when I need to know.
After I gather my things, I leave the cottage and walk along the path that follows the cliffs. In the summer, when the weather’s warm, I stay out all night and watch the stars. When I do, I remember a time years ago when I watched the night sky, taking time lapse photographs of the Milky Way as it rises above the earth.
It’s mid-August and that means it’s time for the annual Perseid meteor shower and I intend to stay out all night and watch. It’s an annual event for me, and I always stay alone for the peak, remembering another time when I watched the meteor shower. It seems so long ago that I can barely remember how I felt, but I know that I fell in love on a beach in Massachusetts with a man who also loved the stars. Most of the time, I block Michel out of my mind, but during the annual meteor shower, it’s impossible and while I wish Julien were with me, part of me is glad. I need to spend the time alone, to soothe that small still-broken part of my heart.
I walk to the cliffs along the coast. I’ve brought with me a sleeping bag and my camera equipment for I want to capture the meteors as they streak across the heavens. The Perseids are remnants of the Swift-Tuttle comet, which makes a pass every 133 years. The biggest known threat to Earth, if the comet hit, it would be far worse than the one that killed off the dinosaurs. That likely won’t happen for several thousand years if at all, and it feels strange to think that I will likely be around that far in the future.
The sun doesn’t set until late this time of year and so I have a sandwich and some tea in a thermos to keep me from getting too hungry. As I walk along the cliff face, looking for the perfect place to set up my camera tripod, I see a figure walking along the cliff towards me. He’s too far off to see who it is, and so I focus on the task at hand. I unpack my bag and check the horizon for clouds but it’s clear. The best time for viewing will be right after midnight, and since there’s a new moon and the skies are cloudless, it’s a perfect night for viewing and capturing the shower on camera.
While I’m pulling out the tripod from its carrying case, I realize that the man has stopped and is standing a few feet away. I frown, because it’s not really proper for him to intrude. When I turn to see who it is, a shock runs through me for it’s Michel, dressed not in his vestments, which he wears for mass on Sundays at the cathedral in St. David’s, but in a black sweater and jeans, with a light jacket.
He stares at me and I wonder if he recognizes me or whether this is the biggest coincidence ever. We haven’t spoken since the night he transitioned, although I’ve spent many a Sunday in the past few years sitting in the back of the cathedral while he said Mass. He never appeared to recognize me and I never tried to speak to him, so it comes as a shock that he’s out here tonight, walking along the cliffs when I’m here.
The coincidence is too much to accept.
He meets my eyes and I’m at a total loss for words, my cheeks heating, a choke in my throat as my emotions roil. I’ve only seen him from a distance in the past twenty years since it all happened, but even so, despite my love for Julien, there’s still a part of me that misses Michel. A part that still loves him.
“I remember everything,” he says, his voice soft.
I’m a total loss for words
and for a moment, I can’t speak. Michel glances out at the water.
Finally, I clear my throat. “I thought the drug…”
He shakes his head. “The drug wore off. It’ll wear off for you too, eventually, but you had it used on you twice, so it’s had a longer effect.”
“When did it wear off?”
“A decade ago.”
I’m silent, trying to understand the implications. It means he did recognize me each time I went to his church and sat during Mass in the summers when Julien and I returned. It means he’s chosen to stay away these last ten years, despite remembering everything.
“Why are you here?” I say stupidly.
“Julien told me you were walking along the cliffs looking for a good place to take some time lapse photographs.”
“You spoke to him about me?”
Michel nods but says nothing else.
“Why?” I ask, totally flummoxed by his presence and the fact he sought me out deliberately. “I thought—”
“I thought I never wanted to see you again,” he says, reaching out to place a finger over my lips to stop me. “I thought it would be better for us all if I forgot who you were. That I’d be happy as a priest, but that was when I was mortal. Staring down the face of eternity? No. I miss you.”
“I don’t understand…”
He shakes his head, his expression sad, his large blue eyes wet. “I still love you. Back then, I wanted Soren to die,” he says, his voice almost a whisper. “I wanted to kill Soren, so that you wouldn’t have to. I failed,” he says and holds out his hands, pleadingly. “It’s because of me that he’s still alive.”
“No,” I say and shake my head. “It’s my fault. I hesitated because I didn’t,” I say and stop, my throat closing up. I have to bite back a sob and tears spring to my eyes, remembering that day. “I didn’t want you to die.”