by Kira Hillins
Tristan breathed like a man, as if touching her delicate skin made him need it. One breath after another, he couldn’t control them. Three women had crossed his path in a matter of a day, yet this little lady possessed his black heart.
He swaddled her in the dark wool blanket from the couch. Her cries grew. Her eyes opened, blue as the sky, glazed from newness and constant tears. Hunger resided in them.
“It will be all right.”
He needed to find her a suitable home. Mac and Betty were the best candidates to keep her, at least for a little while. If this child was indeed his messiah, they wouldn’t have to keep her very long.
He laid her between her dead mother and the couch then backed away. “I will return.”
He opened the balcony doors and flew out into the night. As he fell through the sky, he shuddered. He should drain the child now and bury the body with her mother. It was befitting, but otherwise unjust—morbid.
He landed on wet pavement in front of the bar. He debated on going in to face Mac with this dilemma. What if he declined to help? What if Madeline had lied about all of this?
If he decided to go back now, would the baby’s blood cure this insatiable thirst? Would he become living flesh once more? Would he forget about all the innocent lives lost during his passage through darkness? Never since he’d become this monster had he cared for anything else but the night. So why now did he debate on carrying through on the same path to eternity?
No matter what happened from here, in no way would he grow attached to the child. Eternal darkness tore at him. It was a dread he so longed to toss aside and make room for light. He longed to see his mother and little brother in heaven. But would they welcome him in their arms? After all the evil he’d done, he belonged in hell with his father.
Tristan went inside. “You’re late.” Mac grinned as he set Tristan’s usual wineglass on the counter. “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming tonight.”
Tristan glanced at the few diehards on their Sunday night binge then returned his attention on Mac. “I do not have time for luxuries tonight, my friend.”
“Oh?” Mac stepped out from behind the counter wiping his hands on his dishtowel. His brows lowered with his voice. “Anything I can help you with?”
Tristan cleared his throat, a little nervous about what words to use. “A woman has given birth in my house. I do not have the necessities to care for a child.”
Mac arched his brows. “I’ll go to the store then.”
“If you could make haste. She is hungry.”
“OK.” Mac turned to the eavesdropping employee behind the bar. “I’ll be back later.” He retrieved his jacket from the stool beside him then slipped on his wool beret. “I’ll meet you there.”
“Thank you.”
Tristan took flight through the sky with a sense of urgency to return to the child before too much time passed. He hoped Mac would do the same, but he, no doubt would not disappoint him.
Chapter Four
Baby
From ready bottles of formula and diapers to a few articles of clothing, Mac had brought everything the baby needed. He’d confessed he’d received help from a woman at the grocery store. His wrinkled grin had widened, but then dissipated when he saw the horrifying scene on the couch.
He sat on the recliner across from the mother’s body and ogled. “What a mess.” He shook his head as he fumbled his hat through his fingers. “You’ve put me in a difficult situation.”
“I will take care of the body.”
Tristan held the child in his arms near the fireplace. As she suckled the nipple on a bottle of formula, she gazed up at him. Her hunger was a lot like his. She’d cast a spell on him, and he was falling fast into her charm. It wouldn’t be long until he could not escape.
Maybe this heartfelt emotion was due to boredom. Hanging out at the bar all night in a smoke-filled room with drunkards was enough to drive anyone insane. The struggle to endure life had gone on so long that his mind had caved from the pressure, taking the demon along with it.
The baby closed her eyes, and then it dawned on him. To be a positive role model to this child was exactly what he sought. At least until he was ready to take her life.
“I could raise her for a little while. It would be good practice for when I become human, when I am able to become a real father.”
Mac stood so fast that he dropped his hat. “How do you expect to raise a child when you can barely take care of yourself?” He sank deep into the cushioned pillow of the recliner. He picked up his hat, and then rubbed the short gray stubble on his chin. “I don’t understand any of this.”
“What do you not understand? She is the one I have searched centuries for. She is the cure to my illness.”
“I thought the man’s wife died of cancer months ago.” Mac shuddered when he glanced at the dead woman before him. “Who is she?”
“His mistress.” The baby’s eyes opened, as if she knew he spoke of her mother and longed to memorize the story. “Whilst I sulked over the death of his wife, he had his affair.”
“You can’t possibly be considering…killing this baby.”
Although Mac’s words shouldn’t have roused his anger, they did. “The outcome for this child is inevitable. But do you believe I am so evil to steal her essence at such an early age? Her blood needs to ripen. Her body needs to grow until her pulse is strong enough to withstand such a wound. She will need to stay alive until every ounce of her blood is drained.”
“You don’t mean that, Tristan.” Mac cast a bemused glance. “You’re not evil.”
“I will not pass up this chance to be human again.”
Mac scratched his head, causing a few strands of gray to stand. “As a vampire who’s lived for centuries, you might understand how meaningful life is. Her life has meaning and you want to keep her in this dark house until you take it away.”
“Vampires are fictitious beings without souls. I am a diseased man. And I am not so heartless that I would kill this infant here as we speak.” Maybe it’d be easier for Mac to accept this if he gave him a time. “I will give her…eight years to live.”
Mac gave a horrified grunt. “This is preposterous. I can’t believe you’d—“
“—then you will take her. Keep her hidden. I will not allow Madeline to find out about her, no matter what it takes. Or this child might not even make it into next week.”
Mac’s body shook and his lips trembled. “Social services will find her a home and family, somewhere where she can grow up to have a normal life.”
“She is too important to be left with strangers.”
“I won’t do this!”
Mac’s outburst awakened the baby to a fuss. Tristan looked at her. The infant was so tiny in his arms. It almost seemed he carried nothing but a blanket. “I do not wish to argue, Mac.”
“All I’m saying is she’d be safer with someone nobody knew.”
“You must care for her, to keep her close to me.”
“You want me to raise her, care for her until she gets old enough for you to kill her?” Mac headed toward the front door. “I don’t want any part of this.”
“You are already much a part of this.”
Mac stopped at the door, but didn’t turn around. “What you’re asking of me is too much. I don’t know what the right thing is to do.” Mac sighed heavily. “I can’t imagine how my wife will react to something so horrifying and cruel.”
Tristan studied his unsettled appearance. “Do you trust me?”
“I do.”
“Then I swear to you now. Until the appropriate time comes, I will not harm her.”
“The appropriate time is on her deathbed at a very old age.” Mac faced him with a scowl. “You’ve always worried that you’d disappoint me. Well. Congratulations. You’re doing it now.”
Tristan had never seen Mac in such turmoil. The man could barely keep his hat in his shaking hands. “For some time you have listened to my confessions. You advis
ed me against death by my own hand. You preached to me of hope. Now with salvation bundled in my arms, you ask me to give up on something I have waited centuries for. Did you think me a liar—that this day would never come?”
The grim expression on Mac’s face said it all. Tristan understood now. Mac had never believed his story. He’d gone along with his misery because he felt sorry for him.
“I am ashamed.” Tristan strode down the dark hallway toward the bedroom. “I believed you were my friend. But, alas, I am a fool.”
****
Tristan was wrong. Mac cared for him like a father to his son. That’s why this was so difficult to understand what he wanted to him to do.
Mac stepped back inside the house and closed the door. He waited a moment, shuffling his feet as Tristan came into the room empty-handed. He tossed him a dark glance and Mac could see plain as day he was incredibly put out.
“The child is resting. You may go when you like, for we are finished here.”
Mac grumbled. “Okay. Betty and I will take her. I’ll need to run it past her first.”
Tristan stopped at the couch. “Your after-the-fact generosity is misplaced. I wish you no burdens…friend.”
Mac switched stances. “I think you believe in this cure. But, you’re chasing something that’s just not possible. That child in there is just a baby, not a cure for some disease some woman said you had.”
“I hear you. You do not believe in me.”
“It’s not that I don’t believe in you.”
Tristan lifted the dead body in his arms. “You may leave now.”
Mac groaned. “Okay. Eight years, Tristan. If you can prove to me that there might be a cure inside that little miracle, I will reconsider the possibility that she’s your savior. But until then, I can’t go along with your plan. I won’t.”
Tristan carried the body toward the balcony. “She will live in my world until then.”
“No. We will take her.” Mac’s voice rose with his temper. He placed his hat on his head. “I’m sure Betty will be fine once I’ve explained everything. Most of it anyway. Now I’m finished with this conversation. I’ll figure out a way to deal with this. Just promise me. When the time comes for her, you’ll let me know. Give me time to prepare.”
Mac shook his head. After hearing the baby start her sweet cries again, he left the house. He sat in the driver’s seat of his car, and then slammed the door shut.
Nausea that had crept up in his stomach subsided. No way was Tristan evil enough to take that child’s life. After eight years in her presence, he’d be full of love. He wouldn’t turn on her.
An odd realism had hung over Tristan. Like a storm cloud breaking into peaks of light, he’d brought forth the image of a living being, chest rising and falling in breath, a hint of color in his pale cheeks. Like a father, he’d smiled at the child in his arms.
Maybe the girl possessed a power, but not in ways of magic. Maybe she did hold a cure, turning Tristan’s aura of darkness into light. She’d become the answer he sought, but not in the way he believed. A child, pure of heart, would cure any lonely soul, giving him the will to live for just a short moment in time, giving him meaning to his life.
Then, maybe Mac had read it all wrong. Maybe the smile on Tristan’s face meant hunger and the intent to drink her blood. Mac shuddered as he drove his car through the brush. He drove down the dark coastal highway, wondering if he should go back and tell Tristan he’d changed his mind. Why should he help Tristan with this when his own life stood at the verge of breaking?
Mac had provided Tristan with his drink night after night without any payment. For the past year, a friend at the blood bank had brought him two bags of blood after his shift ended, no questions asked. Quarts of blood weren’t cheap.
Mac glanced at the moon hovering above the ocean. Never again would the white disc remind him of anything but Tristan. No doubt he loved him like a son. But did he love him enough that he’d raise a child to be nothing more than his meal?
Mac parked in his usual spot beside the bar. He envied the tranquility it presented—closed and empty. Though he’d been gone for several hours, he felt as though he’d never left the damned place. It didn’t help that he lived in the small apartment above it.
When he reached the top of the stairs, he paused to look in the living room window. The green drapes were drawn to the sides. His wife sat on the couch watching an old black and white movie on TV just as she normally did at this hour. With dark brown hair hugging her tear-stained cheeks, she looked as young as the day he’d met her twenty years ago.
Mac went through the door then quietly closed it behind him. He took off his jacket and hat as he always did and then hung them in the closet.
“Where have you been?” Betty scolded with a sniffle.
He sauntered toward the kitchen to see what she’d cooked for dinner. He opened the oven door just as she came in and leaned back against the counter in front of the sink.
It never failed. Every time his nerves acted up, his eye twitched. People tended not to notice, but it never escaped her.
“I went to check on a friend.”
Beef stew dressed with carrots and potatoes smothered a white plate. The scent wafted into his nostrils as he removed the meal from the warm oven. He was the luckiest man in the world to have married such a good cook.
“Went to see a friend, did you?”
Mac retrieved a fork from the top drawer next to the refrigerator. He sat at his lime green kitchen table and kept his twitching eye on his meal.
“Were you worried about me?”
She plopped her petite rear end down on the chair next to him and folded her arms over the table in front of her. “I know when something’s got your attention. Who needs your help this time? Is it that drunk you’re always giving free beer to? Homeless in the park—it’s a wonder something terrible hasn’t happened to him yet.”
Mac shoved a bite of beef into his mouth. If only you knew how correct you are in that assumption. “Let me eat first, and then I’ll tell you everything.”
She pursed her lips as she studied his tired face. “You’ll have to do better than that.”
“I’ll tell you about it tomorrow. It’s late, and I’m exhausted.” Good one, he thought, but procrastinating never worked on her.
“You’ll tell me now.”
He grasped her soft, warm hand. He set his fork on the plate then brought his hand around to stroke the back of her palm. “I’ll tell you now. But promise you’ll listen with an open mind.”
Lost in her worried eyes, he hesitated to start talking. When she cleared her throat, he gave a short nod. “A good friend of mine has…asked us to watch his child. He doesn’t have anyone else to turn to. He’s afraid if we involve social services, they’ll take her away forever. So, I told him we’d take her until he straightens his life out, which might be a very long time, possibly indefinitely.”
“What?” she whispered. “You actually told him we’d take her?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about it first, but…damn it. I should just march right back up there and tell him to find someone else.”
“Don’t you be sorry, MacDonald. I think it’s absolutely wonderful you want to help out a friend in need. We’ve always wanted to have children.” Her lips drooped. She only used his full name when she got angry with him. She only grew angry with him when he left her out of important decisions. And boy, what a whopper this one was.
“Why would your friend want to give away his child? Is there something wrong with her?”
He shook his head. “She’s fine, beautiful actually. Her mother died giving birth to her, and he can’t take care of her.”
Emerald eyes glistened. “Oh, the poor dear will never know her mother.”
“But if you decide this is what you want, she’ll have a beautiful, loving replacement to look up to. I’ve always said you’d make a great mother...”
She kissed him on the lips. She hugg
ed his neck and squeezed, letting the tears flow. “Oh, Mac.” Her voice fell soft in his ears. “You are a wonderful, compassionate man.”
Like chills during a bad case of the flu, guilt spread through him. His body ached, head more than anything. He brought his fingers to his temple, massaging, wishing he could tell her the entire truth.
He loved seeing her glow like the day she’d found out she was pregnant. It brought back the memory of the two amazing weeks they’d spent fixing up the second bedroom, just before she miscarried. He’d helped her paint it pale yellow. “A perfect color for a boy or a girl,” she’d said.
Her eyes shimmered as she glanced at the bedroom door down the hall. Though the bedroom walls were still pale yellow, they used it mostly for storage. She’d set her ironing board up, and sewing machine, there, though she hadn’t sewed in years.
The wheels spun in her head. He could see it plain as day. By the end of the week, everything in the storage room would be gone, and in place of the clutter would sit a baby’s bassinette.
Chapter Five
The Adoption
At four in the morning, Mac and Betty drove up the old coastal highway in silence. He could see her excitement as she peered out the window. The full moon shined bright, casting a glint in her eyes. Dressed in her white button-up blouse, bottom tucked inside her golden skirt, she looked just like an angel. She’d parted her auburn hair down the center and let the soft curls hang beautifully down the length of her arm.
He swallowed his guilt and looked back at the road. “There’s something I need you to do for me.”
“What would you like me to do?” The sweet voice of an angel, and oh, how he loved to hear her speak. She’d been suspicious since his confession, tossing him puzzled glances once in a while. He could see the million questions rolling around in that beautiful head of hers, but she’d barely spoken a word. Maybe she wanted to ask the usual how, why, when, and maybe even a what if, but decided to believe in his judgment. For once, she let him take the reins and steer their lives down this new path of discovery. Of parenthood.