by Claire Cray
But that option had been taken from him swiftly. Shortly after he sent me back to the city, I was rudely approached by one Theodore Verlaine, a sly and determined French vampire who professed to be Merrick’s oldest, dearest, and only friend. I had not yet witnessed a moment of mutual affection between them, but there was no doubting Theo's determination to keep Merrick alive. He was the one who revealed Merrick’s plans for self-destruction and explained to me that turning me was the only way around it. And when, in terror for Merrick’s life, I argued for my own sacrifice, Theo stepped over Merrick’s objections to make an inspired vow: if Merrick destroyed himself, Theo would hunt me down kill me.
And just like that, to Merrick’s dismay, we had trapped him. We two selfish children had defied his wishes, which were noble, I knew, and deeply felt. We had forced him to commit an act he considered despicable, forced him to take my human life and remake me as a creature in his own image, a predator, a killer.
I had done this to the man I so admired and adored. And yes, I was terrified that he despised me for it, and that this was the real reason for his lengthening absences—not mercy, not reluctance, but resentment. Indeed, who was I to blame Merrick for the mess our affair had become? Did I really expect him to just hop to it after the way I’d forced my own will upon him?
Devil take it. One more blunder for me, the eternal idiot. Christ, if Merrick went through with this I would literally be the eternal idiot. Perhaps that was the real conundrum…
I was just drifting off to sleep when I heard the sound of hooves on the road outside, and a driver bidding his horses to a stop. In an instant I was fully awake and stumbling toward the window.
From the idling coach outside the gate stepped a man in black and gray, his head bowed low and his face obscured by his broad black hat. His collar was turned up, his hands gloved—not an inch of him bared to the sun.
My heart, as always, was threatening to leap from my chest and throw itself at his feet.
CHAPTER THREE
The heavy drapes were drawn in the parlor, blocking out the morning light, and a lone candle flickered on one of the side tables. It did little to illuminate the tall figure standing near the cold fireplace with one gloved hand on the mantle. Only his black hair picked up a shimmer of light, leaving the rest in shadow.
I stood in the doorway, and so help me, I felt goose pimples rise all over my limbs. My thoughts were a hectic mix of giddiness, longing, and—somewhere way in the back—a hint of dread. "Merrick," I said, and cursed myself for managing to betray every one of those feelings in two syllables. Damn it all, why could I not be mysterious for once?
"Good morning, William."
The sound of my name on his lips made my soul bloom as a matter of reflex, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that his velvety voice now held a weary hush. My eyes wandered intently over his broad shoulders, following the length of his right arm along the mantle, making out the shape of his gloved fingers against the faintly gleaming wood. "Good morning."
"Please sit down."
I did as I was asked, reaching to light the lamp beside my chair. Despite how badly I’d longed for his return, a worried knot formed quickly in my stomach. There was no way to read his stillness, his silence—what he had returned to say, or do. I knew only that he was still braced against the inevitable, for he had come to see me in the morning, the time when vampires lost their thirst.
Several moments passed as I waited for Merrick to turn, but the stillness, the silence, stretched on. It swelled in the room like a raindrop on a windowpane, poised to streak down the glass.
At last, he spoke. "Have you changed your mind?"
The question threw me, and I frowned.
Change my mind? Did he really think that possible? Surely he did not expect me to lift my shoulders and say, Well, now that you mention it, I think I would rather you just go and set yourself on fire. And don’t worry about Theo, I’m sure he’ll let the whole thing go. Change my mind, indeed.
Without realizing it, I had buried my face in my hand instead of answering. Now he turned to me at last, and I straightened in alarm.
Merrick was not an old man by the looks of him. Yes, he was old, two-and-a-half centuries old. But he had not aged since his early twenties, when he himself had been turned. And his face, Lord Almighty! He was handsome as the Devil, a mesmerizing portrait of masculine beauty, with straight, noble features and penetrating amber eyes that shined beautifully in the light. Only in darkness did they reveal their true incandescence, a subtle yet unmistakable glow, as though they were lit from somewhere deep within.
Those eyes burned into mine now, but there were dark shadows beneath them, and Merrick's handsome face was tired and drawn. I had only seen him look that way when he had gone days without drinking. Thirst aged him, sprinkling fine lines at the corners of his eyes and dulling the luster of his skin.
"Have you not been drinking?" I asked, more sharply than I intended.
"Have you changed your mind, William?"
So he really expected an answer, did he? I rubbed my eyes, suddenly feeling very tired. "No," I said plainly. "And I don't know what you mean by asking." That sounded rather irritable, and I rose to my feet with a sigh. "Merrick, I hope you mean to stay."
"I'm afraid I cannot."
“You cannot,” I repeated blankly, and a flash of frustration caught me off guard. I looked away. The long hours and drinking had done me no favors; my feelings were all higgledy-piggledy, and his unwelcome response caused a foreboding tingling in my eyes.
"I must return to the cottage for a time."
"To the cottage?" I frowned in confusion, for I had assumed that was where he'd just come from. "But where have you been?"
"There was a typhoid outbreak in Brooklyn. I’ve been treating the people there."
"Oh." He might have told me. "I am...sorry to hear that." Was that what I was supposed to say?
Merrick acknowledged this with a nod, his gaze resting idly on the table near my hip.
I was poised to ask what business he must attend to in the cottage, but then, to Hell with it. I didn't give a damn. Without a word I rose and crossed the room, ignoring the way he tensed and recoiled as I embraced him and buried my face in his shoulder. When his hands closed on my shoulders to push me away, I locked my arms stubbornly around his waist.
"William, please," he spoke in a rush, but I felt his grip loosen for a moment as though he would return my embrace. Then he turned his face into my hair, and I thought, Dammit, I'm ready! I'm ready, I'm ready, so do it, for the love of God—dip your head, put your lips on my neck and do it!
"Merrick, I beg you," I moaned, raising my head and stretching up to press my cheek against his, the better to tempt him with my throat. I could feel my heart pounding between us—surely so could he! Did he not crave the blood now racing through my veins? I pressed the length of my body against him as though I could prevent him from escaping, trapping my own arms between the small of his back and the wall beside the fireplace.
For one brief moment, Merrick lowered his chin, and I felt his breath below my ear like a phantom promise. But then he took my head in his hands and firmly pulled my face up to his.
Somehow it was in that moment that I finally perceived the quality that made his amber eyes so distinctly inhuman. I had thought it was that luminescence, nothing more, that hinted at his unearthly nature. What I hadn’t noticed was the animal lurking in the shadows of the shadows within them. Or had it simply not been as plain before? Now I was transfixed not by the warmth of those golden orbs, those rings of brilliant coppery shards, but by the tiny threads of black that ran through his eyes like fine shards of ebony, like the inky crevices of a cave, like the dark stripes of a tiger.
If I had any sense I would have feared the hunger in that dark-glowing gaze, the evidence of a predatory instinct that tore at his formidable restraint. And fear had whispered in the corners of my mind, now and again, for months. But now desire consumed my senses, tied me
in knots, pulled me so taut I feared I would snap and die if he didn't share it. "Merrick, I—"
My plea was silenced when his lips touched mine—but only touched. For cruelly, cruelly, he stopped himself and held me fast, taking a sharp breath and pressing his forehead to mine.
“Why not?” I begged him, gripping the back of his coat. “Why not be done with it?”
His expression was fraught, and it seemed he wanted to say something. But all that escaped those shapely lips was a shuddering sigh, and he shook his head.
Sensing him on the verge of flight, I felt the fight leave my spine in lieu of the same old helpless resignation. "If you must go," I whispered, faltering a moment as his thumb brushed the corner of my mouth. "If you must go, let it be the last time, I beg you. I beg you." I could survive one last time. After this embrace, after this moment in his warmth, I could stand it—even if not by choice.
At first he gave no response, and I was afraid he would leave me hanging there again. But at last he took a steady breath and pressed his lips to my forehead.
"Say your goodbyes," he whispered.
With that, he abruptly pulled away. I let him go, turning to watch his dark cloak disappear into the hall.
Only when I heard the front door close did I sink into the nearest chair, collapsing limply into the cushions. In the miserable silence of the empty parlor, all I heard was the ticking of the clock and my own gradually slowing pulse.
One last time. One last wait, and this would be done.
CHAPTER FOUR
The days crawled by. The nights I drowned in whiskey. My books lay untouched, my mornings wasted. Surely Merrick meant for me to savor every sunrise, but to Hell with it, I thought. My old life was already over. I had already left home. I was stranded on the border of my homeland in the cold rain, waiting for the ferry to take me across the river, a pitiful, lovesick wretch, sickening myself with my own despair.
But things had been so good! Though my self-pity tricked me into feeling I'd gone an eternity without Merrick's loving company, in truth it often seemed that only yesterday we were together in a love-dream of contentment. Only months ago we had ended the summer of 1799 in the tranquil bliss of the cottage—reading and talking, walking the woods at night, and lying together in that bed, my arm laid across his broad chest.
And then he'd returned to the city with me, and things had been fine there, too. He reclaimed one of his properties, this handsome wooden house in quiet Greenwich, and gracefully resumed his work as a private physician making house calls by night to the poorer parts of the city. Some parts of my life, too, went back to the way they were before: I carried on with the books and the downtown dallying, happily sneaking north as often as I wished. Though I missed the isolation of the cottage, I grew attached to that home as it absorbed his charm—particularly on those snowy nights in the flickering parlor, where I read for hours on the chaise while he wrote letters at the desk. Sometimes I would drift to sleep and wake up to find him kneeling before me with his lips pressed to my palm, or having sat down beside me to stroke my hair as I dreamed.
Merrick, Merrick. His tenderness tempered my lust, and good thing, because I still rumbled with desire when I thought of the intimacies we had shared. We grew more and more chaste in New York City, and I did not have to ask why. I did not argue, though my body quite literally ached in longing.
I did not pretend to understand the urgency of his desire for my blood, but I knew the battle wore on him with each passing day. Until he was ready to surrender, I could only offer the courtesy of patience.
But that was easier said than done.
One night back in February, I had come to the house after a few days away and found him tense and disturbed.
"Forgive me, William," he said that night, his calm murmur at odds with the tension in his eyes. "I'm afraid I must keep a distance."
And so he did. Just like that. No more evening visits. No more warm embraces. No more of his gentle touch, his hand on my shoulder or his fingertips smoothing my hair from my temple. Merrick's will to resist his thirst had been stretched too thin for such casual pleasures.
In March, nearly two weeks passed wherein I went to his home and found him absent again and again, until finally he sent a messenger with an invitation to lunch. We sat in the dining room, corner to corner, and he served me a good meal of cold chicken, cabbage salad, and soft buttery rolls. Politely, I forced myself to eat it. At times like those I always felt the difference in our age. Perhaps not the full two hundred and sixty-some years' worth, but certainly a difference. For even in his unhappy moments Merrick was patient and steady, calm and stoic; I doubted he had shown any petty emotion in decades, if ever. I, on the other hand, discovered that it took constant effort not to sulk or grimace when my mood was bad. Sitting there and picking at my lunch, I tried to be like a mechanical figure in an automaton clock—placid and unemotional—rather than ruin our visit. I was doing all right, I thought.
"I know you are unhappy," Merrick said at last, turning his teacup on the table. Of course he did not eat.
Blast it. "I'm sorry," I said, and meant it. With a sigh I dropped the act, laid down my silver, and pushed my plate away. "I hate to cast a shadow over the table."
"Any shadows are my responsibility, William." Merrick gave a rueful smile. "You need not apologize." He reached over the table for a bottle of wine, pulled the cork, and filled a glass for us each. "I seem stubborn to you," he said quietly.
"You seem far away," I said. "That's the essence of it. Farther by the day."
Merrick lowered his eyes to his drink. After a long moment he said, "I'm afraid I cannot explain myself. I ask again for your trust."
"I would hope my trust is plain," I said, more edgily than I intended, and reached up to rub my eyes. Loath as I was to make a spectacle of my feelings, it was exhausting trying to match his composure.
"William," Merrick murmured, and reached across the table for my hand. "Of course your trust is plain, as plain as your love, and I'm filled to bursting with gratitude."
I gripped his hand tightly—seizing what was now a rare opportunity to feel his touch—and let out a quiet sigh.
"If I could free you from this..."
"You can free me from this."
"That's not what I mean."
"Merrick," I moaned, and crushed my forehead against the palm of my free hand. "I don't understand the point of this!"
"I'm sorry," he said, with a hint of anguish to match my own. His hand tightened on mine, and his voice grew heavier. "I've failed you. I failed you the moment I took you into my care, knowing my nature, knowing my intentions.” Merrick reached over to smooth my hair. “Please understand, William, I don’t want to make you unhappy."
My eyes were closed, and I pressed my lips together until I felt my features were steady enough to speak. "You haven’t failed me, Merrick," I said at last. And I'm sorry you dread this so.
How was I to be comforted when his misery was so plain? For that, I was certain, was what he had not the heart to tell me: That he hated the thought of turning me, hated it so badly that he wished we had never met.
To think I had hoped to be done with it by the New Year. But Easter came and went, and Merrick showed no sign of relenting. I saw him less and less, and the words that passed between us were fewer and farther between. What could I say? All my thoughts were in turmoil, and in his company only two came to the fore. First, that I longed for him so sharply it felt like a broken leg. And second, for Christ's sake, all he had to do was bite my throat!
"I will not turn you as easily as that," he had promised me the day we forced his hand. "I will savor every moment of your mortal life." Not a promise, I realized now, but a warning. We were in the lower cave, where I had found him resting in his coffin—his "quiet place to think"—and I had begged him not to be angry with me for conspiring against his wishes.
"What would you have me do?" I pleaded. "I couldn't bear the thought of your destruction. Would you
hold that against me?"
Now I was sure that he did; not the sentiment, but my actions. The proof was in the way he still went dark and silent at the mention of Theo's name. Merrick might insist that he harbored no resentment toward me, but he held onto that private rage toward Theo, and was I not as much to blame?
No wonder, then, that this delay had begun to feel so much like a punishment.
Could that be the intent? I hated to entertain the thought. But how could Merrick really still believe this was for my sake? Was my despair not clear as day? All I did with this time was sulk and fear, pine for Merrick and try not to drown in all the questions I couldn't answer without him. He had to understand I did not spend these trailing days in leisure, soaking up the sunlight like some hapless fool who had no idea he was about to become a god damned vampire!
CHAPTER FIVE
Another afternoon, another hangover. I sighed without opening my eyes, readying for the slow process of rousing myself, shuffling to the washbasin, changing my clothes, and dragging my heels downtown for a tea and a smoke. Another day of waiting, pondering my future, weighing my circumstances against every philosophical argument I could think of. Then joining Jeremy and the boys and drinking through the night, because at night, God, there was no other way to get my mind off of Merrick.
Such was my routine of late. But today I was in for a rude awakening.
"Bonjour, mon petit."
I turned my face into the damask cushion, closing my throat on a groan. A reaction would only hasten the assault...
"Sleeping the days away already, Will-iam?" Theo's voice was close. I could picture him with one hip propped daintily against the arm of the chaise, looming over me like a beautiful nightmare. "How extravagant."