by Megan Derr
"What of Ekaterina's parents?" he asked Bergrin.
"They seem almost falling over grateful their daughter and Elam get along so well. Bits of gossip I've learned lead me to believe she has had trouble in the past contracting a spouse. No one would quite say why, theories abounded with most and those who did seem to know for certain would not say."
"Well, I know she is a good fifty years older than Ellie," Johnnie said. "I was rather surprised to learn she was not already married. Perhaps she is picky or difficult—there are any number of reasons, and I think we had best find it."
He glanced over the ballroom again, lifting one brow in amusement as he saw Phil ask his father to dance—and his father say yes. They reached the dance floor just as the strains of a waltz began to fill the ballroom.
The mood in the room shifted, then. Nearly all of the inhabitants present had come through many centuries, living through the darkest of times, the roughest, to make it to what they called 'these much softer days'. They clung to many old traditions and beliefs.
Dancing and old-fashioned parties were amongst those things to which they clung so fiercely. This was nothing like the vibrant, flashy, thoroughly modern affairs that Jesse enjoyed so much. This was a ball, with all the old world touches that word evoked. Nostalgia was thick on the air now, as they all danced.
Johnnie watched them move through steps as old as the dancers themselves, steps they knew as well as they knew their names. It made him feel … isolated? Out of place? But he knew how to dance, and could do it well, and he knew everyone present, to one degree or another.
Maybe it was the ease with which they moved: the affection between them—especially the true couples on the floor, dancing as only lovers could. No one had ever asked him to dance, who did not either want to curry favor with his father, mock Johnnie, or simply fulfill some social obligation.
He had never danced with a lover, never had one he could ask, or who would ask him. Johnnie wondered what it would be like, to be on the dance floor with a lover, one more happy couple dancing to music that had survived centuries when so much else had faded away.
"Johnnie—"
Bergrin's voice startled him, and Johnnie turned his head to look at him, and then his heart started pounding in his chest. A hesitant, uncertain look was on Bergrin's face, and Johnnie had the sudden, wild, unexpected realization that Bergrin was going to ask him to dance. He just knew it. His breath lodged in his throat in anticipation, his chest tight with that sudden burst of joy—
"Nothing," Bergrin said, shoulders slumping ever so slightly, and he turned his head away from Johnnie, muttering, "Never mind."
The tight knot of anxious hope in Johnnie's chest turned into a sharp, twisting ache of crushing disappointment. He felt like a fool, so stupid and delusional he could not stand it. Bergrin asking him to dance! What had he been thinking? He cringed away from his own rampant stupidity.
But it hurt. Worse than anything he had ever felt. Because damn it, he had wanted Bergrin to ask him to dance, and he had been so certain that Bergrin was going to—and then he had not. Had he changed his mind? Why?
But Johnnie knew the answer—Bergrin might have shared the secret of his mother, but he still thought of Johnnie as nothing but trouble—quadruple the usual amount of trouble. And Johnnie had asked him to spend a day at the Last Star, and Bergrin had essentially turned him down. And for every 'Johnnie' there was at least twenty 'Highness'. He thought Johnnie's clothes were stupid, he did not much care for nobility, and until he got stuck with Johnnie, playing bodyguard had not even been amongst his primary duties.
Johnnie pushed away from the wall, unable to take it a moment longer. Why was he never good enough for anyone?
"Hey, Johnnie—" Bergrin stopped him. "Where are you going?"
"To get some air," Johnnie snarled, jerking away. He glanced at Bergrin, feeling stupid and wretched and—
And heartbroken, he conceded. He hated to admit, but there was little point in denying it now. He had ceased to care about Elam because Bergrin consumed all of his attention. Bergrin, who had just made it painfully, humiliatingly clear that he did not want to dance with Johnnie.
"Leave me alone," Johnnie snapped, then stalked off, fleeing the ballroom as quickly as he could without drawing attention to himself.
Finding an empty room, he fell into the nearest chair, braced his elbows on his knees, and buried his face in his hands. Really, he thought bitterly, he was a great fool. What sort of man constantly attached himself to men who did not want him around, or even necessarily liked him?
Elam was his brother, and decidedly cool about it. Eros was one hell of a lover, but wanted nothing to do with him outside a darkened bedroom. Bergrin saw him as a job first, and maybe some sort of friend second—and that was a very big maybe.
All three had power they used against him in some fashion. Elam never tired of reminding him that he was the real son, the Alucard, and Johnnie was not. Eros used his powers to keep Johnnie literally and figuratively in the dark, and Bergrin used his to harass and babysit.
All three kept secrets—
Johnnie froze, mind flipping back to his previous thought.
Power.
Eros had immense power, power that Johnnie had never been able to identify. He did not fear magic of any sort, ignored wards, he did not fear consequences, he came and went with no effort, and could see perfectly in the dark.
Bergrin could come and go as he pleased, as Johnnie had recently learned. No one knew where his immense power had come from, other than his mysterious, 'unknown' mother. He had walked over the very same cage which had trapped Johnnie. Why had he not noticed that before?
They were both middle class, and had no real love for the upper class.
Neither was beautiful in the conventional sense.
And Bergrin had been around every single time Eros had appeared, except that very first night in the Casino. But, no … Bergrin had said he had been in the Last Star once before, on a job. If he had been on bodyguard duty that night …
Both had muscular builds. Both had curly hair. Both were half a head taller than him.
Johnnie's heart began to thunder in his chest as he thought about it. He tried to tell himself he was imagining things, but he knew he was right.
Why had it taken him this long to figure it out?
He laughed bitterly, feeling like the world's greatest fool. No wonder Bergrin had not asked him to dance—why should he, when he was already getting the one thing he obviously wanted?
The door opened, startling him, and Johnnie looked up as a light flicked on—then everything he was feeling coalesced into a bright, white-hot fury.
"Johnnie?" Bergrin asked. "Are you all right?"
Slowly, Johnnie stood up. "What is your first name?"
"Huh?" Bergrin asked, looking completely baffled. "What's wrong?"
"Not going to tell me? Fine," Johnnie bit the words out. "How about I guess? Is your first name … oh, how about … Eros?"
Bergrin paled, and Johnnie's gut twisted to see the plain proof that he was right. "Johnnie—"
"Stop calling me that!" Johnnie snarled. "Do not fucking dare! You played me for a fucking fool!"
"No—"
"Shut up," Johnnie snapped, then laughed, bitter and half-hysterical, and so goddamn miserable. "Did it amuse you? Babysitting me, making me think we could be friends by day, then turning around and making me moan and beg for you at night? Did it? You must have gotten one hell of laugh from that."
"You don't—"
"Understand?" Johnnie finished. "I understand—you used me and mocked and must have enjoyed the hell out of it. Here I am, supposed to be so smart, and you proving me a fucking fool."
Bergrin shook his head. "That's not—"
"Why did you not just admit?" Johnnie bellowed. "Why lead me on? Why hurt me? Why use me like that?"
"I was scared—"
"Liar!" Johnnie raged, beyond caring that they could probably hear hi
m in the ballroom by now. "You brag about not being scared of death, but you are scared to admit you are the man who has been fucking me in the dark?"
"Johnnie—"
"I thought we might actually be friends. I thought I actually mattered that small bit past being your fucking job, just a little." He picked up a heavy china owl from the table beside his chair, and threw it as hard as he could, listening to it shatter against the wall behind Bergrin—but his anger only increased. "I fucking loved you, and all you have wanted was to use and mock me."
"What—" Bergrin's jaw dropped, but in the next moment, his face clouded, and he was decidedly cool as he said, "In love with a shadow? I seriously doubt—"
"I did not say I was in love with Eros!" Johnnie shouted, so loud his throat hurt.
The door slammed open then, a furious Ontoniel filling the doorway—but he stopped abruptly as he looked at Johnnie. "What is wrong?"
Johnnie could not take anymore. He just—he was done. His eyes burned as he strode to the door, desperate to get away. "Fire him."
"John—"
"Fire him!" Johnnie said, then stormed off, fleeing to the only place that had been his sanctuary as he grew up in a world that did not want him, did not seem to have a place for him. His library was short several shelves of books, but it was still his, still familiar, still soothing.
He did not bother to turn on any lights, simply walked through it in the dark by memory, until he reached the table where he had spent so many hours reading, writing, translating. Sitting down, he folded his arms on the table, then buried his head in them and simply sat there, alone in the dark.
When the door opened some indefinite length of time later, Johnnie tensed and shied away from the thin line of yellow light which cut into the dark of his library.
"Your bodyguard is gone," Ontoniel said quietly. "Did you want to discuss it?"
Johnnie wiped at his face, grateful for the dark. He did not need his father seeing him look ever more pathetic than he had already proven to be. "No," he said, voice hoarse, throat sore from all the shouting he had recently done. "It is over. There is nothing more to be said."
"I think perhaps that is not true," Ontoniel said gently. "But, I think you also need time. Gather yourself, Johnnie. When you are ready, let us solve this mystery surrounding your brother. Focusing on that will clear your head, help you get your feet back."
"Yes, father," Johnnie said. Ontoniel hesitated a moment, then simply left. Johnnie took several long, deep breaths, trying to restore his shattered equilibrium.
He would manage. He would get past this humiliation, this … disaster. He had never needed anyone before, he would be just fine by himself from this point on. He most definitely did not need Bergrin, who only—
Johnnie cut the thoughts off, refusing to think about him for one single moment longer. He was gone. There would be no more Bergrin, no more Eros. That was the end of it all.
Standing, he fixed himself as best he could in the dark, on the chance he met someone in the halls. He would go upstairs to his old room, wash his face and tidy up his clothes, put himself back together. Then he would fix Elam's problems. After that…
He did not know, and he was too worn out to think about it right now.
Johnnie strode to the door, bracing himself to endure people again, muttering softly to himself as he went. "I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright/Who art as black as hell, as dark as night."
Case 008: The True Bride II
The number of guests had greatly diminished by the time Johnnie returned to the ballroom. The remaining were all old friends of Ontoniel, a few Elam had known for decades, though he was not the sort to have close friends.
That made him think of Rita, and he looked around the ballroom until he saw her holding a glass of champagne and speaking shyly with Ontoniel.
Movement caught his eye, and he turned to see Phil and Zach approaching him. He hid a grimace, not at all in the mood to speak with anyone, but he supposed he had little choice—his brother still needed saving.
But instead of the dreaded sympathy or kind words he had braced for, Phil only said, "Something interesting happened while you were gone."
"What?" Johnnie asked.
"Elam finally went to speak to Rita. They had not been speaking two minutes before Ekaterina approached them and, after a couple more minutes, all but dragged Elam away on some trumped up excuse. Since then, she has kept them firmly apart."
Johnnie frowned. "She showed no such possessiveness earlier in the evening. She was clingy, but not that rampantly possessive. What tipped her?"
"Elam smiled at something Rita said, then laughed. He hasn't shown that much enthusiasm for anything the entire night; he's been little more than a bored, obedient boyfriend, really." Phil snorted. "I know the type, believe me. Even love doesn't make a man enjoy a party, and definitely not when it's a curse-made love."
Zach snorted. "Amen to that. I am glad I gave up my title; hundreds more years worth of parties and never mind blood crazy—I would have gone plain crazy."
Ignoring that, Johnnie glanced casually around the mostly-empty ballroom, landing on where Elam sat at a small table, Ekaterina all but wrapped around him. She could not look more possessive if she tried.
"I've picked up some intriguing gossip starting about half an hour ago," Zach said. "Once everyone else had filtered out, those women there," he pointed to a group of vampires who had to be several centuries old, not merely a few, "began to gossip like it was going out of style. Apparently they do not approve of Elam Desrosiers marrying what they call an ugly duckling."
Phil's brows rose. "I got none of that, and I worked the floor the entire night."
"They do not speak with humans much," Zach replied. "They lived through some dark times, and members of their family were hunted down."
Johnnie frowned in thought. "An ugly duckling?"
"Yeah," Zach said. "Apparently not all vampires are born beautiful. It's less common than the blood-craze, but you can only imagine how well that would go over."
"Indeed," Johnnie said. Beauty was everything to vampires—everything. Vampires had not always relied so heavily on beauty, but as the years and decades and centuries passed, it became safer and more effective to draw the prey in rather than go out and actively seek it. As the method of hunting and feeding changed, so too had vampire society; it revolved around beauty and wealth even more so than normal society. Major portions of the abnormal world were divided into territories amongst the great three 'territorial abnormals'—demons, vampires, and werewolves.
Of the three, vampires were the weakest in power—demons were nearly unbeatable in terms of magic, and wolves had numbers on their side. Vampires had more magic than werewolves, and longer lives, and outnumbered the demon lords, but far more vampires had died throughout history than the other two combined.
So an ugly vampire, a vampire lacking in the one thing that vampires had over everyone else … that would be even more shameful to a family than a relative gone blood-crazed. At least the latter was a disease, and could be dealt with to a point. Ugliness in a vampire …
"She is certainly no ugly duckling now," Johnnie said.
"A mix of old magic and modern science, I would imagine," Zach said. "Apparently her family kept her tucked away for longer than I care to think about. That would certainly explain why she is only now getting married."
Phil frowned. "That seems so cruel. No wonder she is so clingy and desperate—hell, I can almost understand why she might cast the curse, and add the forgetting one just as a precaution."
"Almost, maybe," Zach said. "Me, I couldn't bear to live with the thought I was only loved because my lover was under a curse. That's not love."
Johnnie really was not in the mood for discussions on love. He would give anything to never have met Bergrin. But he would give everything to know Bergrin was still to his right and one step behind him. That was the hardest thing to face.
The lingering silenc
e drew him from his thoughts, and he realized Phil and Zach were both looking at him expectantly.
"I am sorry, what?"
Phil continued to regard him uncertainly, but said, "I said, should we let this drag on indefinitely, or should we try something more drastic?" She hesitated, then said. "Johnnie—"
"I do not think drastic measures are a good idea," Johnnie cut in, desperate not to have to listen to advice or sympathy. "We do not know enough about her or her abilities; for example—did she cast the curse herself, or pay someone to do it? If the former, then she is in possession of necromancer skills that should have been mentioned to my father but were not. Worse, I have not smelled any magic on her, which would mean she is capable of hiding it. If she hired someone, then who, and what else could we learn from that person? I also want to know if her parents are ignorant of all this, or party to it."