In the Flesh

by K D Grace

  “I do apologize,” Alonso said, coming to his feet and moving back to stand by Reese. “It is often my custom to communicate non-verbally with those who belong to me.”

  Michael growled at that remark and Alonso smiled an internal smile that only I could see. Then he added in his best conciliatory tone. “But you are right. Now is not the time for secrets. I only wish to ascertain if our scribe is unharmed.”

  Before the testosterone pissing could start again, I spoke up. “I’m fine. I’m just… well, it’s a lot to take in, that’s all.”

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  “Talia said this is where you’d be.” Michael sat next to me on a rock in the last of the afternoon sunlight. “She also said Alonso doesn’t know you’re here.”

  “I got tired of everyone watching me like I might explode or my head might start spinning in circles. I had to get out of there.” I nodded to the cavern behind me. “Alonso’s still worried about my tolerance of sunlight. That’s why I’m here in the mouth of the cave. If I suddenly smell burning flesh, I’ll make a dive for it. Where were you?” I asked, hoping I didn’t sound as pouty as I felt. “You left in a hurry.”

  “I’ve been at home, making a few arrangements.”

  “I see,” I said, but I didn’t. I didn’t see at all. I thought after last night we’d reconnected and made everything right, that we’d stopped pushing each other away, yet it felt like Michael couldn’t get away from High View fast enough after the Guardian revealed himself. I suppose I couldn’t really blame him. It was bad enough to watch your girlfriend become a vampire, but a vampire with a resident demon was surely a bridge too far—even for an angel.

  “I had an important delivery,” he said. “And I had workers coming to help install the blackout blinds. I didn’t want to put it off any longer.” Before I could do more than offer a surprised glance, he continued, “I was trying to make the house more vampire-friendly back when I didn’t know you could tolerate sunlight.” He shrugged and looked down at his hands folded in his lap. “I had to do something constructive or go crazy when you… when you wouldn’t let me near you. Anyway, I suppose all that’s irrelevant now, but the blinds had already been paid for and they seemed like a good idea—you know, just in case you do suddenly smell burning flesh.”

  He stood and offered me his hand, pulling me to my feet. “Come with me, Susan. Come back to my place with me. I want you to see what I’ve done, but mostly I just want you to myself. Oh, I know you’ve got to spend time with Alonso, and I’ll make sure you’re back first thing in the morning. It kills me that there are things the vampire can do for you that I can’t, but at the end of the day when he’s finished your lessons, I want you in my house. I want you in my bed, in my arms, and I don’t want to wake up with half the vampire menagerie and a gorgon poking their noses in the door to see what we’ve got up to during the night.”

  “Alonso won’t like it, and neither will Magda,” I said.

  “I don’t care. Do you?”

  I squared my shoulders and huffed out an exaggerated breath. “Nope! I’m sick of caring what everyone thinks is best for me. I’m not a child, and I’m tired of being treated like one. Let’s go.”

  When I tugged him back toward the cave, he shook his head. “I know a shortcut to the Jeep. I parked it off the property so we could sneak away. They won’t even miss us.”

  “Of course they’ll miss us. We can’t even sneeze without someone knowing.”

  “Well then, they’ll surely appreciate a few less sneezes around High View.”

  It was just a walk across the meadow, then we were heading down Honister Pass, and I was away from High View for the first time since my new life had begun. We didn’t talk much. There seemed less need to now that we bore each other’s mark. That he wanted me to be with him, that he’d planned and prepared, even hoped, when things weren’t looking very promising, that was enough for now.

  At his house there had been several changes, but the most obvious was the Las Vegas-style blackout blinds in Michael’s bedroom, just inside and above its lovely French doors. “I guarantee no sunlight will touch your alabaster skin through those monsters,” he said, stroking my cheek with the back of his hand. “I know it’s not an issue under the circumstances, but just in case. And the basement, well, I can have it made up any way you like if you’d feel safer there—you know, a study for you to write in, a library. I’ve even drawn up plans to have the basement loo turned into a nice bathroom with a spa tub. We can even move the bedroom down there if you want—just to be sure.”

  “Alonso’s the worrywart, not me. I believe the Guardian won’t let anything happen to Him, and therefore he won’t let anything happen to me either.”

  “Yeah, well I didn’t know that before this morning, did I? So that really didn’t figure into my plan.”

  “Your plan.” I sat on the edge of the mattress, feeling weak kneed all of a sudden. “Michael, are asking me to move in with you?”

  He sat down next to me and folded my hand in his. “You can’t go back to your old life, Susan. You’ve burned all the bridges in a major way.”

  “Writing and being a vampire aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, under the circumstances, no one would know the difference even if I worked side by side with them—not unless I got hungry and decided to have a little sip from one of my colleagues.”

  I thought about my tiny closet of a flat in Brixton that took the lion’s share—and then some—of my income, just so I could live alone, and—technically—live in London. The truth was, I didn’t want to go back. The truth was, I couldn’t help feeling excited about the life ahead of me now, even as the thought terrified me.

  “That’s not the point.” He gave my hand a squeeze. “You belong to the Consortium now, and Magda will want to keep an eye on you. I reckon she’s already making arrangements to have your flat lease terminated. She’ll want you to stay with the vampire until he teaches you the ropes, though what that means is up for question now that you’ve become prison warden for the Guardian.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question. Are you asking me to move in with you?”

  “Oh, Magda will find you a fantastic place, I have no doubt. She always does, and I know the vampire would keep you there as long as he could, but—”

  “Michael, I’m not a charity case. I can bargain and negotiate for myself. I want to hear it from you. Do you want me here, or do you feel obligated because… well, because Magda sent you to steal me.” I made quote marks around the word ‘steal’. “If you’re doing this out of—”

  Michael stopped my words with a kiss that felt as hungry and voracious as I felt when I fed, pulling me tightly to his chest, to the pounding of his heart, quite literally pulling me onto his lap. For a moment, I forgot what the question had been. I forgot what planet we were on as his hands skimmed my back and then moved up to cup my head, stroke my hair and hold me close.

  When he pulled away, breathless, he shook me slightly, as though he were trying to wake me up. “How can you even ask such a question, when having you with me is the one thing I’ve wanted for more lifetimes than you can imagine? Of course I want you here! I want you in my arms when I fall asleep; I want you in my arms when I wake up; I want you like the air I breathe, all the time, Susan! All the bloody time! If you don’t want to live here, if you want a place in which you’ve had a little more input in the choice and the decoration, that’s fine. Anywhere you like. Just say the word. I just want you, that’s all. I just want you.”

  I stopped any further conversation with a single word of my own, a word which I breathed into his mouth and pressed deep onto his hard palette with my tongue. “Yes! Yes,” I repeated again and then again, as I pushed him back onto the bed and straddled him. After that it was a long time, a very long time, before either of us spoke again.

  Long toward midnight we dozed in each other’s arms, and I dreamed. I dreamed of following a trail of blood, sparkling like a path of rubies on the snow. I foll
owed the drip, drip, drip, like a trail of breadcrumbs through a darkened alley in a place I didn’t recognize, and into the entrance of a cave that was no cave at all, but concrete and brick. I followed it deep underground, to a candlelit chamber where shadows danced like phantasms against the stone. There it ended in a stain on the chamber floor that looked inky black beneath the pale body of a man curled on his side, face toward the wall. Before I could see who he was and if he still lived, there was a groan deeper in the passage, beyond the play of candle flame. When my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I saw another man chained to the wall—arms spread wide, shoulders slumped, bare back sheened in sweat. It wasn’t until then that I saw the third man, only a silhouette that, try though I might, my dream vision could not resolve.

  “I’ve been waiting for you, scribe,” he said softly, and his voice crawled over my skin like I’d walked through a heavy spider’s web.

  I woke with a jerk to find Michael raised up on one elbow, watching with concern. “Bad dreams?”

  “Strange dreams.” I moved to lay my head on his chest and told him in as much detail as I could remember, unable to shake the feel of spider webs over my skin.

  When I finished, he kissed the top of my ear and let out a slow, even breath. “Do you think it was because of Him—the Guardian?”

  “I don’t know. Possibly. I mean, there was a man chained in a deep cave, but nothing was very obvious, if it was about the Guardian. And why would there be three men?” I shrugged. “It probably should have been a nightmare, but even though I was in it, I watched it all from a distance. It didn’t feel like a nightmare. I don’t know what it felt like. Yes I do. It felt… almost prophetic. But then again, it was just a dream,” I added quickly, embarrassed at such a ludicrous idea.

  “Have you talked to the Guardian since your first surprise visit?” he asked, his hand moving down to stroke my back.

  “No, but I will. I mean, I have to. He lives inside me, and that’s a real head job—even though I was prepared for it, or as prepared as I could possibly be. He’s right; the situation will take some getting used to for both of us. I can’t help but feel there are things He could tell me, things He could teach me. Whether He will or not, I don’t know, but the one thing I do know is that He’s intrigued by our situation. Very intrigued.” I decided not to add that I was too.

  Michael lifted my chin so that our eyes met in the darkness. “Susan, it’s dangerous to trust Him. You know that.”

  “He’s with me twenty-four-seven now, Michael. I can’t ignore Him. There are things I need to know. I would feel better about our situation if I could discuss a few ground rules and ask a few questions. I just can’t believe that if I say nothing, ignore Him, as he’s said I could, for the next however many years I have ahead of me, that He’ll be blissfully quiet. Clearly He doesn’t trust Magda. Not that He would have any reason to. I get that.” I gave a dismissive shrug. “But if I now belong to her, as it appears I do, if she wants me to do some nebulous work for her that has something to do with my abilities as a scribe—whatever the hell that means, well, I can’t think it’ll be a waltz in the park. I have… options—way more options than I had when I first came to Manchester to see Annie. And because of the Guardian, I have even more options than I would if I were just a vampire. I also have a whole new life—a double life—that I haven’t begun to understand yet, and like it or not, the Guardian is a permanent part of it.”

  He pulled me on top of him and hugged me until I groaned. “All right, whatever it takes, whatever you feel you have to do, I’ll be here. You gave me back my life, Susan. You gave me the chance to share it with you, a chance I thought I’d lost forever. I’ll take that on whatever conditions I have to—vampire, demon and all. All I ask is that you don’t try to bear it all alone—what’s ahead of you, what the future holds. I know Magda, and I can help you deal with her. I know the Guardian probably better than anyone. Certainly I’m the only one who’s lived to tell the tale—except for Annie, of course, who was just his pawn. And I know Alonso and his familiars. Everyone is quirky. Everyone has an agenda of some kind. I’m no different. But I know that all of us, everyone associated with the Consortium, we all want what’s best for you.” He curled a finger under my chin. “But I’m the one who loves you, Susan. I’ve loved you forever, and that’ll never change, no matter your choices. I want to be a part of your life. I want to be there to help you deal with whatever comes next. But mostly I hope that I can be there just because you want me by your side.”

  I pulled him close and buried my face in his shoulder, next to the thudding of his pulse, resisting the urge to lick him there possessively. “Of course I want you by my side, or I wouldn’t be here in your bed right now. Maybe I haven’t loved you forever, but I promise you, I got around to it as soon as I possibly could under some pretty trying circumstances, and like you, I’m not planning on going away. Will that do?”

  He kissed me fervently and offered a smile that warmed me to the core, which always felt slightly chilled now that I was a vampire. “That’ll do, Susan. That’ll do just fine.”

  He slid up into a sitting position, bare back pressed against the headboard. With what had become a rather expert flick of his nail, he opened the flow of his heart’s blood to me and pulled me close.

  As I fed next to the steady beat, beat, beat, even knowing how uncertain the future was, I felt happier than I could ever remember feeling. If Michael was with me, if we were together, then it would be all right. Deep in my chest, in some nebulous place, I sensed the Guardian waiting, waiting to see what His future would be. Our uneasy truce, our sudden change of circumstances, reminded me again that my uncertain future might be a lot of things, but it would most definitely not be boring.

  Epilogue

  “Is everything all right, Alonso?” Magda knew that it wasn’t. She’d heard the little altercation between the vampire and his lover, and even had she not eavesdropped, she would have known what it was about. Everyone at High View knew what it was about. It didn’t take a great deal of intuition to figure it out.

  “Fine. Everything is fine.” He made no effort to sound convincing. He knew she would know it wasn’t, and the look on his face told her he was resigned to her poking her nose in where he wished she wouldn’t.

  “You’ll have to send her away, you know that, and the sooner the better. If you love Reese.”

  “If I love Reese?” He spun around to face her with such speed that one with human vision might have thought it magic. However, one would have to be blind not to see the anguish on his face. “Dear God, Magda, you know how much I love Reese. There is no ‘if.’ Besides, against my wishes, Susan is with the angel tonight.” The word angel was tinged with bitterness, the bitterness of jealousy. Then he added with a forced smile, “There, you see, the fledgling has left the nest of her own accord. Does that please you?”

  “Michael’s place is just down the road. Do you think that’s far enough to keep you away from the child of your heart’s blood?”

  He ran a hand through his hair and paced in front of the open French doors that looked out onto the night garden below, which Reese had built for him, to which the man had fled in his anger only minutes before. “Of course it won’t be enough. There’s no place in Cumbria, not likely any place in Britain, where she’d be far enough away from me that I wouldn’t go to her. She’s like my own soul. I never would have imagined it could be thus, since my maker didn’t take the time to bond with me or aid me in any way. I didn’t know.”

  He turned to face Magda, the desperation etched deeply on his beautiful face. “I didn’t know.”

  “Even if you had known, the bloody demon left us with little choice. We all did what we had to, and you and Susan bore the brunt of the horrific choices we had to make. And now, now that we know He’ll be taking an active role in protecting and watching over her, I’m not sure if I feel better or worse. It behooves Him to take care of her, to cherish her, and I know He can’t escape her, and yet s
till it makes me nervous. There are so many variables.”

  “That’s what I have told Reese ad nauseum; that’s why I can’t send Susan away, not until she’s ready.” He nodded out to the garden again, to the place where Reese paced on the slate pavement. “He wants me to bring him over, and I keep telling him that I will as soon as Susan is able to fend for herself and do no harm. I can’t make him understand that I am not capable of giving two fledglings what they would need of me. There are times when I’m not sure I can even care for one as I ought. That is pretty evident, I suppose. But I can’t make Reese understand, in fact I fear that even his desire for me to bring him over is only because he fears losing me to Susan. How could I bear it if I brought him over and it was not truly what he wanted? We must think this choice through carefully. It can’t be made in a jealous heat, in an act of desperation. He sees it as though I am choosing her over him, and the damned angel’s jealousy only makes matters worse.”

  She dropped the bomb, figuring now was as good a time as any, and Alonso would take it better than Michael would, of that she was certain. “I’ve decided to take matters out of your hands. I’m sending her to New York City.”

  “What!” He was at her side in what would have seemed like an instant to anyone with human eyes, but Magda’s eyes had been far from human for more centuries than she cared to count. Before he could reach for her, before he could lay distressed hands on her, she stepped aside, and he caught himself with all the dignity, all the grace for which vampires are known, straightened his jacket and took a deep breath she knew he didn’t need. “You can’t take her from me. She’s not ready.”

  “I can, and I will. In case you’ve forgotten, Alonso, she’s mine to do with as I see fit. She belongs to the Consortium now. She came at a very high price, and there’s no overestimating her value, especially now that she’s a vampire who can walk in daylight, now with the Guardian inside her. You may be her maker, but that doesn’t mean you know what’s best for her, and neither does Michael.”