“That's not exactly ladylike.”
“I know.” I wink and raise the bottle as if to clink glasses.
The cool beer is balsam for my parched throat.
“You were dead,” he says again and looks at me demandingly. He wants an explanation, and I search for words.
“Only temporarily. You can see I'm still alive. It's because of a punishment, or more like a curse, which Noah has to bear because he's the son of a Nephilim.”
For a moment he stares at me in surprise.
“He's descended from the egregoroi?” As well read as Airas is, of course he knows the stories of the fallen angels and their offspring, the Nephilim.
I nod and he wrinkles his forehead.
“So then he's a demon, and he kills you when he. . . I mean, when you and he. . .?”
“Demon?” I feel like I have to defend him, and I go on hastily. “He's no different from us. He can't do anything about this curse. Just as we're not to blame for our curse either. If he's a demon, then we are too. And he doesn't really kill me. Do I look dead to you? Just like me, he feeds off death because he has no other choice.”
Airas puts his teacup down so heavily the porcelain clinks and some of the amber colored liquid slops out of the cup.
“Are you telling me he doesn't only do it with you and in doing so kill you temporarily, he also feeds off you at the same time?” The disgusted expression on his face cuts me to the quick.
“Airas, it's not like you're making out. Well, yeah. . . that's what happens, but it's completely different.”
How can I explain everything between Noah and me to him, when I don't even understand it myself?
“What am I supposed to think of a parasite like that then? Kaya, wake up, he's no good for you.”
I look at him sadly and shake my head. I suspected he wouldn't exactly be overjoyed, but I wasn't expecting such a hateful tirade. Although I get how this whole thing must look from his perspective. I haven't forgotten my first reaction when I realized how it worked.
“I know you only want to protect me, but you don't have to. He's no danger to me, and I'm no danger to him. You know I've been unable to control IT all these years. It must mean something that I can when I'm with him. That I can be close to someone without killing them.” I pause in thought, then continue. “I don't know why you were able to injure him, because he must have had the opportunity to get away. There must be a reason why he stayed and you could injure him. I think I was that reason.”
Airas tears a kitchen towel from the roll and wipes up the spilled tea. Typical. Whatever happens, he's always concerned about keeping things clean and tidy. Sometimes it seems almost a little compulsive to me. But I don't know him any other way.
“He wanted to explain, but I didn't want to listen. You were lying dead in your bed. First Cassie and then you too. I didn't want any explanation. All I wanted was to rip him to pieces.”
My brother's voice sounds flat and quiet now. I see the slight twitch in the corner of his mouth, and I feel how much I love him, especially for his sensitivity.
“I'm sorry you got such a fright because of me. I didn't mean that to happen.” Only now do I realize what a shock it must have been for him. I lay a hand on his arm.
“You don't have to like him, but please accept him. It means so much to me,” I say, and then add, “He means so much to me.”
Airas turns away in silence and heads toward his special fridge, which only opens with a PIN code. After six beeps it reveals its contents and I hastily turn my head to the side, because the sight of the blood bags sets my saliva running like one of Pavlov's dogs. Even knowing this form of blood is poison to me doesn't change this automatic reaction. I quickly tip a large gulp of the German beer down my throat and try to distract myself. The green of the bottle in my hands reminds me of Noah's eye color when he is taking in the energy of death. In spite of the macabre background, this color change holds a certain fascination for me. I'm ashamed of myself for thinking that, but not enough to stop me from straight away thinking about the exciting moments of the past two days with Noah. Also about the wounds Airas inflicted on him. How bad might they be? Does he too possess stronger healing powers through his angel blood perhaps? I realize how little I really know about him.
The crinkling sound behind me tells me my brother is putting the empty blood bag in a small, black garbage bag, which he'll then throw in the large garbage can.
Only now do I turn back to him and freeze, because Airas's face looks terribly worn out again. Even worse than on the day of Cassie's burial. I instinctively sense something else is getting him down. Didn't he mention something on the phone yesterday?
“What's up?” I ask anxiously, jumping from the granite counter and going over to him, but he heads for the living room and sinks into the soft leather of the beige sofa. The room is only indirectly lit and more comfortable than the kitchen with its somewhat brighter light.
I follow and sit down beside him gingerly. It's clear something is upsetting him, and I must know what it is. Meanwhile he is tapping around on his smartphone nervously and clicking through his Facebook page. His profile there is only filled in sparingly, and he's barely recognizable in the photos. It's better to be a bit cautious than to struggle in later decades with problems which would have been avoidable. In all our time we've learned to be careful.
I've always given social networks a wide berth. Maybe because I've never felt like I belonged there. Still, in a fit of loneliness I made myself a fictitious identity in the community “Second Life”, and for almost a year I would use it now and then to give myself the illusion of a normal life and closeness. But that was just as dumb an attempt as taking drugs was in the fifties, which made me quite unpredictable for a while and only worsened my problems.
“Damn it.” Airas casts the smartphone aside and tugs at his hair, distraught. “Where can he be?” he then grumbles loudly, and I'm confused.
“Who? Who do you mean?” I ask. “Phil?”
My brother nods and looks at me. “Something happened while you were away.”
I have a feeling what he's going to tell me won't be good.
“He saw it. I got caught on his piercing, and suddenly there was blood right there in front of me and I couldn't keep from transforming.”
“Did you. . .?”
“Attack him? No. I had it under control again as quickly as it came on, but he saw my other side and was totally beside himself. Somehow I had this dumb hope I'd be able to explain it to him, and it wouldn't change anything. For a moment I really did get the feeling it would be different than with the rest. So I let him go when he said he needed fresh air and time to think about it alone.”
“You let him go without erasing the incident from his memory?”
“Yes – and now he's gone. Without a trace. He hasn't been back to his apartment and I haven't seen him anywhere else either. No email or internet activity. It's as if he went out and disappeared into thin air. I've looked for him everywhere, over and over, in every damn place I can think of he could be.” He reaches his right hand up to the rectangular pendant he wears around his neck and actually never takes off. Half of a heart is stamped onto the army style dog tag, and I know their anniversary is imprinted on the back.
No wonder Airas looks so worn out. This must all be a bit much at once, even for him, who is normally my rock.
“What do you think happened?”
“That's just it. I haven't the faintest idea.”
16
Amkaya
Airas and I have spent two days already waiting, he for a sign from Phil, and I for one from Noah. It makes us both jumpy and irritable, so we make a point of avoiding Wilson. I can barely follow his tales of this Mr. Daniels who is interested in my paintings.
“Tell him I'm very busy at the moment and I'll get in touch in the next few days,” I say, trying hard to remain friendly and not take my bad mood out on him.
Airas has become reticent and spend
s a lot of time in his rooms in the left wing of the house. Sometimes I hear him playing the piano. Sad pieces, some of which I recognize as Chopin. Music which shows me even more clearly how he is feeling right now. I sense his grief lying heavy upon me, bringing me down even more. I can imagine how he must be feeling. Even if I'm not particularly keen on Phil and think he's kind of weird, Airas seems to care greatly for him. My attempts to distract him and get him to think of something else fail. He makes it quite clear he prefers to be alone at the moment. Something which is actually very unusual for him, because he normally likes to have company around and gets on well with most people. Unlike me, who shuts herself off from the world.
“I need a distraction,” my brother finally says over breakfast in the salon. He tells me about some deals he wants to close on the east coast, and also about a fairly lucrative job offer as a bodyguard. His reputation as the best man in personal security always precedes him, even if he now only does this job occasionally, taking on only particularly interesting and well paid offers. A few years back this job triggered a bit of an obsession in him, and brought in loads of extra money for us. Word gets around. No other bodyguard was as daring, none had such foresight or was as quick as my brother. And none had thwarted so many attempts on their clients' lives without ever being seriously injured. But Airas will soon have to swap his identity for one of a supposed younger brother, or stop working entirely, because he still looks exactly like he did eleven years ago when he started the job.
“Don't you need any help? I mean with the deals?” I ask him, as I spread butter on my French toast.
He shakes his head and looks out the window a moment as if in a trance. Then he looks at me questioningly. “Will you be okay alone for a while? I'm worried about the incident with Nita, and to be honest, your new acquaintance concerns me too.”
“You don't need to worry about me. You can't be there every time it happens and take responsibility for me. It's about time I learned to manage on my own. I can't and won't be so reliant on you anymore. It's not good for either of us. Besides, Wilson is still here and Noah must be back soon too.”
I bite into my toast half-heartedly and swallow a large gulp of tea down after it.
“Hasn't your Mr. Angel gotten in touch with you yet?”
I ignore his scornful tone and shake my head. I'll be damned if I'm going to tell him how agonizing it is for me waiting for a sign of life from Noah, and that by now my feelings are jumping back and forth between worry and annoyance. Couldn't Noah at least send me a message? He must realize I'd be worried about him, if only because of his injuries.
I get up and join Airas at the window. I look out through the curtains onto the street. The black cabriolet disappeared from in front of the house along with Noah.
“He'll get in touch as soon as he can,” I tell Airas, making a point to sound calm, and sit back down at the table.
“If Phil gets in touch or you hear anything, then call me right away, okay?” The sadness in his voice drifts over to me and settles on my heart.
“Of course,” I promise, and don't tell him about my dream, where I saw Phil dead and swollen, lying in dark waters. I awoke in a cold sweat last night with these images in my head and tried to interpret this dream. But I found no answer, as always when I think about my nightmares, and this time too I suppressed the images as being figments of my brain's madness. A dream itself is but a shadow, said Hamlet, but even this saying can't get rid of the suffocating feeling inside me.
17
Amkaya
How indescribably slowly time drips away when you're waiting. During the day I swim, paint and sleep, if I can, because my uneasiness hardly lets me truly rest and when it does, then the strangest, most bizarre dreams haunt me once more.
I rummage around in the DVDs and watch old Greta Garbo and Bette Davis films which used to always entice me to the late shows at the movies, when the theaters weren't so full and I sank down into one of the seats and let myself be carried away by the moving pictures of early Hollywood. Even today these old films have lost none of their attraction for me, although by now I prefer watching TV shows on streaming providers for hours on end. They whisk me away to a parallel world for significantly longer, and occasionally make me forget reality. And that's a good thing.
More days have gone by without a sign from him, when Wilson interrupts my painting with a large bouquet of flowers. The pink calla lilies, tied into a stunning arrangement, make my heart stop beating for an instant.
“These were delivered for you, Miss Álvarez. There is a card.”
I quickly fish it out and my hands tremble as I open the elegant, ivory-colored envelope.
Dear Miss Álvarez,
Would you do me the honor of joining me for dinner at Farallon this evening to discuss your paintings and my interest in them? I'll send my limousine for you at eight o'clock and will be so pleased if you accept my invitation.
J. Daniels.
The flowers aren't from Noah. My joy immediately turns into disappointment. I stick the card back into the arrangement and ask Wilson to put the flowers in a vase. For a moment I feel stupid for assuming the flowers were from the man I feel so connected to, and yet at the same time so distant from right now.
“Oh, Wilson?”
“Yes, miss?”
“The flowers are from Mr. Daniels. He invited me to dinner at Farallon tonight and I think I'll go.”
Wilson, who is almost out the door already, seems as surprised about my decision as I am myself. In the past when a meeting was unavoidable, I always chose the location, usually a quiet, poorly frequented place. Farallon, as a popular restaurant in the art district by Union Square, is definitely not one of those quiet places, and yet I feel the need to accept this invitation. Right now anything seems better than this agonizing wait for a sign from Noah.
“I'm getting picked up at eight o'clock,” I quickly inform Wilson, taking up my paintbrush again and trying to distract myself from the painful tug of yearning.
At eight on the dot a white limousine stops in front of the house. As I go out, I scrutinize myself in the large mirror next to the door, and I can see the silver dress was a good choice. It may show a lot of leg, but it still seems serious enough for a business dinner.
Quickly and without batting an eyelash, the driver opens the back door and nods at me to take my place on the white leather seat inside the car.
We won't take long to get there, because Farallon is only about a mile away. As we drive along Jones Street, I try to imagine what this Mr. Daniels, who seems to be so interested in my paintings, looks like and what kind of proposal he wants to put to me. But even before I really come to any conclusion, we turn down Post Street and have already reached our destination.
As soon as I set foot inside, the normal restaurant noises rudely penetrate my sensitive ears and I wish I could turn and leave again, but someone from the staff is already approaching me to ask whether I have a reservation.
“I'm meeting Mr. Daniels here,” I tell the woman – Maria, according to the embroidery on her top – and I try not to let my irritable mood show. The intense cocktail of scents that hits me inside the restaurant makes me a little nauseous. The mixture of various perfumes, dishes and other aromas is too much for my delicate sense of smell and therefore quite unpleasant.
“Ahhh, Mr. Daniels.” Maria's eyes widen, as does her smile, and she scrutinizes me with unveiled curiosity. “He's waiting for you. Please, follow me.”
The five star restaurant is furnished like a bizarre undersea jellyfish wonderland. Although I've seen photos of the interior design before, admittedly I'm still impressed by the unusual ambience. It almost has a twenties era charm.
I generally find big restaurants unbearable due to the noise alone, but that's not the only thing which has kept me from coming to this restaurant before. The fact that I don't really like fish and seafood is another reason I've given Farallon a wide berth up till now.
“Mr. Daniels aw
aits you in the Beluga Room.” Maria leads me up a black, wrought-iron staircase and into a large room with French doors and a vaulted ceiling, which looks like the ballroom of a luxury ship. It really is strikingly beautiful. In the middle of the room, surrounded by some large tables, stands a smaller table from which a slim figure now rises to face me. The young, dark-blond man in a fine pinstripe suit eyes me attentively.
“Miss Álvarez. How nice you accepted my invitation.” He looks at me expectantly, but on a sudden impulse I avoid him and head straight for the chair on the opposite side of the table, giving him a polite but reserved smile.
“Mr. Daniels,” I say with a nod.
He doesn't seem to hold my rudeness against me, because his amber eyes are alert and watch me with a friendly gaze. Even if I didn't really have a picture of Jack Daniels in my head, I would definitely have imagined the art dealer differently. Considerably older and not so good-looking. He must be about six foot tall and around twenty-five years old. Suddenly I'm overcome with doubts about his experience.
“Please, sit down. I hope you don't mind me arranging a place away from the hustle and bustle for us to have our meeting?” With a gallant gesture he invites me to be seated and I do as bid. I like his obvious European accent.
“No, it's absolutely fine,” I say, and ask, “Are you from France?”
“Paris,” he says nodding. “Or, as Jules Renards so correctly observed, 'Add two letters to Paris, and it's le paradis' – paradise. Have you ever been there?” His smile is anything but unpleasant, and I can't help but return it automatically.
“Yes, ages ago.”
And how long ago it was. The twenties in Paris really was a remarkable time. Montparnasse, the neighborhood where famous artists lived in destitution, was also Airas's and my main residence for a time. Only in contrast to most of the impoverished artists, we led quite a luxurious life there too, with every comfort imaginable. I have to admit I almost enjoyed those dynamic times in the capital of France, where the new women's lifestyle was in bloom then. If only there hadn't been those bloody traces I left in that place and time too. Still, with the crash of the New York stock market in 1929 and the resulting financial crisis, the golden era came to an abrupt end and we left France soon after. The fact that the year of the Wall Street Crash was also the year the French senate refused women the right to vote made me pretty irate back then. And I can be very unforgiving. Since then I haven't set foot back in that country, unless you count a few stopovers in the airport. Maybe I should stop being so stubborn and go see the Paris of today with new eyes. One day.
The Night Within Us: Dark Vampire Romance Page 11