by Tara Moss
He’s a mortal. Oh no. He’s a mortal . . .
I heard Luke foraging for something in the junk behind me – I thought I heard something like a tambourine jangle – but I was too riveted to the scene unfolding beyond the wall to try to figure out what he was doing, or why.
The young man hadn’t said anything – or at least nothing I could hear – but now he cried out in pain or fear. Brunette had one hand on his neck, and now she was on him, right at his throat, taking the first bite. She held his head to one side. Her long mane of hair fell over him. She took a moment to straddle him, and then went for the neck once more. She was clearly in rapture with her feeding, gripping his flesh with long fingers, and emitting sensual, animal sounds as she sucked. I wondered how long she would feed before handing him to the others. He didn’t stand a chance.
I felt sick.
I turned away from the peephole, wanting to stop the horror. Surely I had to intervene? In minutes those three female creatures would drain this mortal stranger of every ounce of his blood. They would kill him right there on that bed and I would be an accomplice because I wouldn’t have done a single thing to stop it!
‘They’re killing him, Luke . . .’ I whispered. ‘I can’t let them!’
I heard a loud clang. Luke had turned something over, and beyond the wall, I heard a voice. I put my eye back to the peephole and saw that Brunette had raised her face from the prone body of the man and looked our way. Fresh blood flowed down her chin. My stomach did a little flip.
Oh, no, she heard us.
And then Luke’s voice came loud and clear behind me. ‘My sabre?’ he said with astonishment.
‘Shhhh. What?’ I whispered with alarm. I whipped my head around.
I still could hardly make anything out in the cluttered room, but I was aware of Luke’s excitement, almost as if it were my own. Something was happening. My ring let off a burst of heat that was stronger than before and it seemed almost to vibrate, and then Luke himself – not only his eyes but all of him – began to illuminate, from his cap right down to his leather boots. I could see more of our surroundings now with his light filling the room. The space was cluttered with old things. Broken musical instruments. Trunks. A cabinet on one side, broken. I could see that Lieutenant Luke, now glowing with increasing intensity, was standing over a trunk of sorts, and he had in his hand a long, gently curved sword in a silvery metal sheath. The handle was a bronze colour, with a large, elegant sweeping hand guard. He examined it closely, clearly awed by it.
‘My sabre,’ he repeated. There was emotion in his voice. He handled the sword with a kind of reverence and wonder, while I watched in dumbfounded silence. ‘My initials. Those are my initials.’
‘What’s happening?’ I asked in a low voice. ‘You’re glowing . . . You are becoming brighter . . .’
‘I recognise every scar, every flaw,’ he said, marvelling at what he’d found. ‘I haven’t seen this in one hundred and fifty years. I cannot conceive of what it is doing in this place.’
Slowly, Lieutenant Luke pulled the sword from its sheath.
A startling flash of heat passed from the obsidian ring, down my hand and through my entire body, straight to Luke. I gasped.
What was that?
And then, just like that, the light went out.
The room returned to total blackness. The heat and vibration of the ring ceased. I felt peculiarly drained and disoriented, and for a time I stood panting in the dark. I could not see a thing, not even Luke’s glowing blue eyes. Gradually, as my sight adjusted, I could make out the cracks in the wall again. I could not tell where Luke was, if he was still there at all.
‘Luke?’ I whispered quietly.
‘Miss Pandora.’ By the sound of Luke’s voice he was close now, but I still could not see him.
‘Miss Pandora, touch me.’
I concentrated on his presence. Sometimes closing my eyes made him even more real to me, as was the case now. I felt him near, only inches away. I could almost make myself believe that he was a mortal, like me. I could almost feel the warmth of a corporeal body press gently against my side; I could almost believe that Luke was real and human, and present to me. Our hands brushed and then clasped tightly. In that moment he felt as tangible and human as anyone I’d been close to. I savoured the feeling. Despite the awkwardness of the small room, despite the danger, I found I didn’t want that moment to end. I could forget where we were, could forget the bloodsuckers beyond the wall and their terrible feeding, and the dusty room that for the moment held me trapped. I sensed Luke lean in to me, and I raised my chin to him. Ever so gently he placed a kiss on my lips. Our lips parted just a touch and stayed there, pressing lightly together.
I kept expecting the mistiness, the melting feeling of his form beneath my lips, beneath my fingers. But it was different.
‘Luke?’
He ran a hand softly over my hair. ‘Miss Pandora, come,’ he said, and I felt him guide me towards the door. Without caution he threw the door open and stepped into the hall where there was more light. By now I was only a foot or two from the view of those horrible women.
‘Wait, there are too many of them,’ I whispered and tried to turn back.
Then I looked at Luke, really looked at him, and all other thoughts left me.
He was different. Crisp. Real. He took a step back and looked down at himself. He had the sabre fixed on his leather belt now, and it looked like it belonged there. Sometimes things in the physical world looked out of place next to his non-corporeal form, but this was part of him. It was on the same plane. He was on the same plane.
‘Luke? What’s happened to you?’ I said, and then cast a worried glance in the direction of the lounge room. They would soon see us, I felt sure.
‘You can see it, too?’ Luke asked and stretched a hand out in front of his face, flexing his fingers with a kind of awe, as if he had never seen them before.
‘Is it . . . Are you?’ I stuttered. I could resist no longer. I reached out and poked him hard with my finger. He felt solid. ‘Luke!’
‘I am flesh,’ he confirmed.
Before I could really absorb the enormity of what he’d said, he strode into the lounge room. He walked straight up to the bed where the three women were perched like vultures over their still-breathing victim.
I followed him into the room, thinking myself quite mad. ‘Leave that young man alone!’ I demanded.
Brunette lifted her head. Her savagely beautiful face was glowing, her lips and chin slick with fresh blood. ‘So it was you banging around back there. Why should we leave this strapping fellow alone? He likes it,’ she said. She pointed at Luke with one talon. ‘And who’s he?’
The man on the bed was naked from the waist up, and his bloodied chest was moving up and down erratically. His breath sounded ragged. ‘You’re killing him,’ I said.
‘Nah, not tonight,’ Blonde replied, her sick grin marred with red. She’d been nibbling on his wrist, I saw. ‘He’s worth a good drink or two. So stuff off.’ She sneered at me, then regarded Luke with appreciation. ‘You can leave him here, if you like though. He’s cute.’ She flashed him a lascivious, fanged smile.
They could see him. They could really see him! ‘You’ve had enough for one night,’ I said. ‘We’re taking this young man with us.’
Brunette, who had resumed her grim feeding, now raised her head, wiped her stained mouth and gave me a look that sent a chill down my spine. ‘Reeeeeeally,’ she said. ‘Is that so?’ And with an exaggerated sensuality, she placed her hands around the young man’s bleeding throat and stroked it. She ran a tongue over his lips. Then she jerked the man’s neck suddenly.
I heard a snap.
No!
The man’s head lay at an angle. She’d broken his neck, just like that. I couldn’t believe what I’d just seen.
‘Ooopsy,’ she said, and smiled at me with her fangs out, daring me to act.
I was speechless.
She stood up from the be
d, all feminine curves and blood-smeared, undead beauty. ‘Wanna fight about it? What we do here is our business,’ she told me. ‘You don’t own this place, and just because your great-aunt does, doesn’t mean you get to tell us what to do, little morchilla.’
Redhead and Blonde moved off the body, and I thought I detected some disappointment. Perhaps they hadn’t had their fill. They weren’t licking up what was left. The young man was left sprawling on the silky bed covers, half-naked, blood-smeared and limp, his dull eyes staring sightless at the ceiling. My mouth had been gaping in horror, but now I closed it and stood up tall.
‘You are going to regret that,’ I declared in a shaky voice. ‘You’re really going to regret it.’
Despite my words, I had no response to Brunette’s senseless violence. I backed away, leaving the dead man surrounded by his attackers. In that moment it seemed that being the Seventh didn’t mean much.
I had never felt less powerful.
The clock said it was past three thirty as I sat on the edge of my bedspread with one hand gripping the bedpost. The knuckles of that hand were white with tension. My other hand was being held by a Civil War soldier who had died one hundred and fifty years ago, and apparently come back to life.
I can’t believe she did it! Right in front of us, just because she could.
My stomach felt queasy. I was on the edge of tears. Despite all the death I’d experienced in my life so far – the many deaths I’d felt and foreseen, and all the ghosts I’d sensed and encountered – I’d never actually seen a human being killed. It was a terrible thing to witness. And Brunette’s action had been so callous and deliberate. So unnecessary.
‘They hadn’t even planned on killing him, not yet anyway,’ I continued venting. ‘That’s what the blonde one said. It was my fault that he died. She just . . . she snapped his neck like it was nothing, just to prove a point. And now he’s dead.’ I leaned my head towards the post and gently hit my forehead on the wood.
Lieutenant Luke sat next to me, listening quietly. His chest rose and fell beneath his fitted uniform. For once, the weight of his human body made an indent in the bed covers.
‘I handled it all wrong,’ I said.
‘The taking of a life is always terrible – whether it be murder or killing in the name of war,’ he said. ‘It is a difficult thing to witness.’
I wondered what he’d seen on the battlefield. I wondered how many Confederate soldiers he’d killed before he was slain.
‘They would have drained that young man over a few days,’ he reasoned. ‘They might have turned him into one of their kind, as Athanasia did with your friend Miss Samantha, and then he would be a helpless slave like she is, or worse, he would be a predator just like them. How could you predict what they would do? They are killers. They are reckless. That’s not your fault.’
I knew he was right, that they would have killed that young man sooner or later, but the idea brought me little solace. ‘It’s my fault he’s dead right now.’
‘No, Miss Pandora. No. He wasn’t their first victim and he won’t be their last. They would have killed him when they felt like it.’
He took my hands in his and furrowed his brow. ‘It must be late. You should get some sleep, Miss Pandora.’
I let out a humourless laugh. ‘Sleep? Not a chance. Not after that. And . . .’ I cast my eyes his way. ‘Look at you, Luke. I am not going to sleep, not with you right here.’
‘I should leave you then,’ he reasoned.
‘No,’ I said. I hadn’t meant it like that, but Luke was already up and walking to the wall. He reached out one hand and rested it on the wallpaper, seeming to feel its solidity, or perhaps his own.
‘You can’t pass through it, can you?’
‘I cannot.’
I felt my heart lift.
‘Stay,’ I found myself saying. I paused to find my words, my emotions running high. I felt on the edge of tears or laughter, or both. I thought I might soon go mad with all I’d seen. ‘We have to talk about this. I don’t know what happened, or why, but I can’t be apart from you now. Not tonight. Luke, I want you to stay with me.’
He turned from the wall and we looked at each other.
‘Will you . . .? Will you stay? I don’t want to be alone.’
He hesitated.
‘As you wish, Miss Pandora,’ he finally agreed. ‘I will stay if you do not wish to be alone. I will protect you, always.’ He looked down at himself, unsure of what to do next. He couldn’t very well stand around in his full uniform all night. Having decided to stay, he unbuckled the leather belt that held his sabre, and he placed it on the floor. Gently, he sat on the edge of the bed and removed his boots. With one hand he began to unbutton his frockcoat.
I felt a thrill course through my body. What if Luke was never human and real again? What if this was the only night we had? What was this miracle? Could I trust it?
I knelt on the bed covers behind him and helped him out of his stiff coat, and he stood and placed it over the small wooden chair by the Victorian writing desk, along with his cap. He quietly watched me, standing next to my bed in his uniform trousers and a cotton shirt he’d unbuttoned to the chest.
‘I just want . . .’ I began and stopped. What did I want? I lay back on my bed, slipped under the covers and folded my arms across my stomach. ‘You are always gone too soon,’ I said in a hushed voice. He pulled himself over and stretched out next to me. We lay on our backs, not quite touching, a living dead man and the Seventh.
I thought about that horrible spider woman. She’d known what I was. ‘Luke, what exactly does it mean that I am the Seventh?’ I asked. ‘Please tell me.’
Luke rolled on to his side, propping himself up on one elbow. He looked at me with a troubled, sky-blue gaze. ‘Miss Pandora, I can explain some things to you, but there are other things the dead cannot tell the living.’
Supernatural rules. Many of the rules were still a mystery to me. Why exactly did Sanguine have to be invited into a home, but not the lower floors of Celia’s mansion? Why didn’t New Yorkers ‘see’ Spektor, or remember it if they did catch a glimpse, as my date Jay briefly had? Why couldn’t Luke explain where he was when he wasn’t with me? Why hadn’t anyone been able to explain the significance of the Seventh, beyond telling me that it was a gift and a responsibility and came with great powers?
‘But why not? Why can’t you tell me?’
Lieutenant Luke seemed hurt by my question, or perhaps my tone. He had mentioned this rule before and I had not forgotten. ‘I can tell you some things, but not others,’ he elaborated. ‘It’s like the door of the mansion. I may want to leave, but I can’t. I am prevented.’
‘But you’re not dead anymore.’
His mouth opened, then closed again. For a while we were both silent.
He placed a hand on my bare shoulder, and I felt myself melt under his human touch. ‘Miss Pandora, you are very powerful . . .’
‘But?’
‘But I hope you don’t ever have to use your powers.’
His expression was grave. I wanted to press Luke for more, but the look on his face was too crushing. What could be so terrible about my powers?
‘I don’t feel very powerful,’ I confessed and rolled on to my back again. I stared at the ceiling, frowning. I didn’t have the heart to find out more. Not tonight, with all that had already happened. Not when the question was clearly so troubling, and when finally, for the very first time, I had him with me, as a man.
‘Hold me,’ I said. I had dreamed of his living embrace almost since I’d first met him. ‘I want you to hold me tonight. Just hold me. Can we do that?’
Luke wrapped his warm, male, living arms around me, and I slid gratefully into his embrace. I rested my head on his broad, muscular chest and exhaled a deep breath that I felt from my toes to the top of my head. The fingers of my left hand gently gripped the opening of his shirt, brushing against the soft hairs there. He touched my hair, stroking it softly. His chest rose
and fell with each miraculous breath he took.
It felt so good I never wanted him to leave again.
‘You can trust me,’ Lieutenant Luke whispered reassuringly, and kissed the top of my head as my heavy eyelids closed.
I’d never doubted it for a moment.
Luke . . .
Faint light came in between the curtains, filtered by the fog of Spektor. It felt very late – or very early, and I peered at the clock with one squinting eye. It said it was seven. I’d barely slept. I rubbed my eyes.
Luke?
I sat up in a surge of panic. I was alone.
He’d disappeared with the light of day. Back to the mysterious spirit world that held him? Would he still have a solid form? Or had I dreamed that?
I swung my feet off the bed and breathed out a sad sigh. My bare toes hit something cold. It was Luke’s sword, lying on the floor of my room. I stared at it. He’d been so pleased to have found it last night . . . why had he left it? Did it mean he was coming back soon? Or had something happened?
I heard movement in the kitchen and went to investigate. I found Great-Aunt Celia, perfectly made up and wearing her still-spotless red jacket and skirt, preparing tea. Her omnipresent black widow’s veil was in place. I wondered if she’d heard my door open and put it on, or if she wore it constantly when I was in the penthouse.