by M. J. Scott
Rhianna handed me a handkerchief. It was hot pink, like the flippy sundress she wore. “No crying,” she said. “You’ll never make it through if you start crying now.”
Her matter-of-fact tone made me laugh again. And chased away the tears so I could grill her about college and her life.
She was pre-med and enjoying herself as much as a girl intent on getting into one of the top med schools could. Her tales of college life were hilarious. She had the same sharp sense of humor as Julie too and I felt another pang. I’d never really had another female best friend since Julie died. Rhi was more like a little sister.
Jase was pretty much my best friend now and had been for a few years. Before that it had been Dan while we’d been together. Right now I wasn’t sure if you could call us best friends. Or even friends at all sometimes.
Though today he was doing a pretty good job. I looked for him in the crowd, found his dark head close to Bug’s silver one and smiled.
“That your guy?” Rhianna asked.
“Yes. Dan.” I couldn’t remember if they’d ever met when we’d first been going out.
Rhianna squealed. “Oh my God! You two are back together? That’s great!” She suddenly looked sixteen again as she bounced on her heels. Then she stopped abruptly. “Didn’t something happen to him?”
“Sort of, he got hurt when we went after Tate,” I hedged. I was hoping that was what she was referring to, and not the reason why Dan and I had broken up originally. A.k.a. him being a werewolf. I didn’t know where Rhianna fell on the whole supernatural issue. “But he’s fine now.”
“Oh.” Her face cleared but not completely.
Time for a distraction. “I think it’s time to go in. Let’s talk afterward.” Which meant I couldn’t just escape back home to Seattle after all. I’d have to go to the post-service potluck. Me and my big mouth.
* * *
The service, as expected, was excruciating. We had sermons from Father Schmidt and Reverend Flannery and Rabbi Sara. People sang. People talked about the ones they’d lost. All of it grated on my nerves but I steeled myself to keep my eyes front and pay attention. I owed the victims that much.
Then the worst bit of all happened. Mayor Lockridge got up and made a speech about me.
Oh God, they were going to make some sort of presentation.
I dug my elbow into Bug’s side when I realized what was going on. “You didn’t say anything about this,” I whispered trying not to move my mouth.
She looked smug. “You wouldn’t have come.”
Gah. Suckered.
I should’ve seen this coming. Caldwell loved a celebration. The town did all the major holidays in a big way. Trick or treating at Halloween, lighting the huge tree in the town square at Christmas, a Fourth of July parade, a leaf turning festival, homecoming parades and too many other events to count. They were always awarding some poor schmuck with something. Only this time the schmuck was me.
I gritted my teeth through the speech and rose obediently when the mayor called my name, trying not to let the cursing running through my head show on my face.
I let the mayor give me the key to the town and smiled for the cameras. As Lockridge stepped back from the mike and gazed at me expectantly, I realized that everyone was expecting me to say something in return.
Fuck.
I stepped up to the lectern, trying to think of something to say. As I reached to adjust the mic—Mayor Lockridge being half a foot shorter than me—I froze.
Because I was sure I’d just seen Marco at the back of the hall. Just for a second before he’d ducked out of my line of sight.
What the hell was Marco doing here?
This was the last place anyone wanted to see a vampire. It couldn’t have been him, could it? Maybe it was just some new resident of Caldwell with Italian heritage.
And green, green eyes.
Mayor Lockridge cleared his throat. Whoops. Five hundred or so people were waiting for me to speak.
I didn’t know what the hell to say. I didn’t want to be thanked for killing Tate. I didn’t want to think about Tate at all. Heat swept into my face, combining with my lack of food to make me feel dizzy and borderline nauseated.
But all the faces in the audience were waiting. They smiled at me proudly, like I had done something amazing. They didn’t know what it had cost me to do it.
Swallowing hard, I leaned closer to the mic. “Thank you,” I said, and then stopped, because I really couldn’t think what to say next. When in doubt, stick to the tried and true. “I’m honestly speechless.”
Short and sweet but it won me a round of applause. Which only made me feel guilty all over again. “I don’t think I deserve an award, but it does mean a lot to me, if what I’ve done has helped some of you. I know McCallister Tate hurt a lot of people in this town. I’m one of them. I also know he won’t be hurting anyone else ever again.”
“No more than he deserves,” someone yelled from the crowd. There was a swell of muttered agreement and nerves crept up my spine. The mood in the hall suddenly felt ugly.
Someone-could-end-up-getting-hurt kind of ugly. My eyes strayed again to the back of the hall but I couldn’t see the man who’d reminded me of Marco. I hoped if Marco was here, that he’d been sensible enough to leave already.
“This town has suffered,” I said, as the crowd got noisier. They quieted a little at my words. “We’ve suffered but we’ve survived. We live. And in doing so, we honor those who are no longer with us. By doing good, by each small act we take in the world, we remember them.”
“Yeah, like killing vampires.”
I couldn’t see who had spoken but he got a round of applause all of his own.
Once upon a time I would’ve joined in. But my world wasn’t black and white anymore. I wasn’t enough of a hypocrite to let the murmurs of ‘death to vampires’ go unanswered. Even though defending them might mean Caldwell deciding to change its locks when it came to me.
I took another deep breath and gripped the sides of the lectern. “Not all vampires are evil,” I said firmly. “Not all weres are. Just like not all humans are good.”
Silence rippled across the room. The weight of five hundred pairs of disbelieving eyes pressed in on me. “I’m not defending Tate. He was a monster. But if we want revenge, if we hurt others to ease our own pain then what’s the difference between him and us?”
The muttering in the crowd increased.
“I killed McCallister Tate,” I said. “I did it because he was trying to kill me. But killing isn’t the answer. Hatred isn’t the answer. The only possible answer when the world turns dark is to shine our light.”
I had a horrible feeling I was sounding like a Hallmark ad but I couldn’t think of a different way to say it, that the only way to move on was to let go of some of the hatred.
I hadn’t wanted to. I understood exactly where some of the crowd were now. Angry, bitter, looking for someone to blame. I’d been there myself. I’d done my best to fight against those feelings and then I’d had to change.
I hoped some of them might be able to without such a drastic reason as mine.
Silence flowed across the hall and for a moment I wondered whether they were going to storm the podium and tar and feather me.
But then Rhianna got to her feet and started applauding, tears standing in her eyes. Bug joined her, then Dan, then in ones and twos, others stood. Not everyone but it was a start. And it eased the tension back to an acceptable level.
* * *
It was getting close to three by the time the service wound up. It took another fifteen minutes or so before the hall emptied and everyone headed for the cemetery.
I walked with Dan and Bug, bracing myself for what was to come. I gripped the bouquet of coral-colored roses I was carrying too tightly. Thorns bit into my hand.
“Ow,” I muttered.
“Do you want me to carry those?” Dan said.
I shook my head. He already carried an identical bunch, as did
Bug. The scent of the flowers mingled with the complicated scents of the crowd. Sorrow. Grief. Too many perfumes and powders and soap. Nervous sweat. The scents of life.
For a moment the coral roses blurred. I blinked back tears. I was not going to cry.
The roses came back into focus. My mom’s favorites. The flowers she carried on her wedding day. After twelve years of memorials, I hated coral roses. I had an extra bunch of lavender and irises for Julie.
With every step, the crowd grew a little quieter until we walked in near silence. The quiet was eerie when you thought about just how many people there were in the crowd.
It took almost forty minutes for everyone to file into the cemetery. There were so many people, we broke into smaller groups to make the rounds.
I started with Julie’s grave, along with her family. Her headstone had her photo reproduced on a plaque hung over the white marble.
Julie grinning up at us with braces and her favorite sparkly lip gloss. I let her family go first, Rhianna stony- faced and her parents crying, then I laid my flowers as well, touching the photo briefly, whispering in my mind to her as I always did, telling her about what had been happening to me, about Dan, about my newest boots and the latest showbiz gossip, all the things we used to giggle about until all hours of the night.
Telling her how much I missed her.
But I didn’t cry. No, I managed to hold it together as I straightened and moved back from the grave.
One of the worst down, three to go.
I left my family until last, looping between the other victims’ graves, stopping at each to listen to the families and friends tell their familiar stories.
After all this time, I knew most of them. How Tom Hardiger had almost missed his own wedding because of a faulty alarm clock, how Sunita Gillis was a champion brownie maker.
Each family had stories they held onto like cherished toys, repeating the memories that kept the lost alive for them one after the other.
But finally I’d done everyone else and I couldn’t put off the hardest part any longer. I headed to where my family sheltered, beneath the branches of a huge oak tree. As I walked up the small hill to where the graves lay in dappled light, I saw a limousine parked on the road that ran along the edge of the cemetery. Somehow I knew Marco was inside, watching me do this thing. Marco, who was partly responsible for the fact we were all here. After all, one of his lineage sired Tate.
My hands clenched, squeezing Dan’s arm tightly enough that he stopped walking.
“What’s wrong?”
I couldn’t tell him about Marco. He’d probably go over there and put his fist through the windshield. So I shook my head. “Nothing. I just want to get this over with.”
He pulled me a little closer, kissed the top of my head. For just a moment I let myself lean into his strength, closing my eyes and pretending none of it was real.
Then I knelt by the graves of my family and placed the flowers I’d brought them, splitting the bouquet between the three of them, fussing with the blooms in an effort to try not to think about how much it hurt just to be there.
How much I missed them.
As usual I couldn’t really think of what I wanted to say.
Instead I rose and let Bug take her turn, holding Dan’s hand as she followed my example and separated the flowers between the graves.
I stayed silent as Bug told stories about my family, knowing that I couldn’t trust myself to talk. She seemed to find comfort in it. Me, I just hurt.
Hurt like every cell in my body was on fire.
Seeing everyone standing around, laughing softly or smiling at what Bug was saying only made the fires burn hotter.
Eventually I’d had enough.
“Get me out of here,” I said to Dan.
“Sure.” He squeezed my hand then stepped over to Bug and whispered something in her ear. She nodded and made a little shooing gesture.
I blew her a kiss then walked with Dan toward the cemetery gate. I couldn’t see the limo.
I hoped Marco had left.
Old One or not, I wasn’t sure I could bring myself to be courteous to a vampire right now.
Bug caught us up a little way outside the gate. She looked tired. I figured she’d reached her limit too.
Her presence made me doubly glad Marco had gone.
I might have to deal with Marco but I didn’t want Bug or anybody else to meet him.
Not today.
Surely he’d left?
No such luck, it seemed.
As we approached the hall, I saw the limo again, pulled into a side street. In the rapidly falling dark it might have been inconspicuous, apart from the fact that Caldwell isn’t a limo kind of town.
Marco was skating on some very, very, thin ice. I let go of Dan’s arm. “I’ll meet you inside. I left something in the car.”
He nodded absently, his attention on Bug, who’d caught us up, and the story she was relating about something my dad had done when I was about ten. Rhi followed the two of them as they continued on to the hall. I watched until I was sure they’d all made it inside then hurried back the way we’d come.
The limo hadn’t moved and I felt a little stupid as I raised a hand to knock on the darkened glass. What if it wasn’t Marco?
Part of me knew it was.
The rap of my knuckles against the glass echoed loudly in the twilight and I looked around guiltily, hoping no one was watching. The window didn’t roll down. It still wasn’t completely dark, so I guess Marco was being cautious. Instead, the driver’s door opened and the driver came over to me. He was short and bald and dressed in an expensive dark suit.
“I want to speak with Lord Marco,” I said before he had a chance to speak.
To my surprise he just nodded and opened the door for me. Which kind of threw me—maybe it was dark enough after all.
I climbed into the limo and the door gently closed behind me. Instead of Marco, I faced a matte black divider—the kind that usually appears in a limo between the driver and passengers. For a moment I freaked out, wondering if I’d just climbed into a car with someone I shouldn’t have but then the glass slid back to reveal Marco smiling at me. The divider, I realized, must be UV treated—protection against any lingering sunlight that might have hit the inside of the car when the driver let me in. Nifty.
“Ashley, cara, how nice to see you.” Marco nodded at me as if it were perfectly normal that he was here.
“Don’t ‘cara’ me,” I said. “What are you doing here? This isn’t a vamp friendly environment.”
“They do not seem to mind werewolves.”
“Most of them don’t know I’m a wolf.”
“Truly?”
I nodded. “Believe me, Caldwell is not pro-supernaturals. I’m surprised you’re here.” I studied his face for a moment but it was an unreadable blank mask. “Why are you here, exactly?”
“Jason had some concerns.”
He did? He hadn’t raised them with me. Not that I’d given him much of a chance. “What sort of concerns? And why wouldn’t he come himself?”
“I presume, because he knows Caldwell’s attitude to our kind.”
“That didn’t stop you from coming.”
“I can take care of myself.” He tilted his head toward the driver. “I have resources.”
One vampire and one bodyguard might not be much good against an angry mob. But it wasn’t my job to look after Marco.
It was my job to look after my friends and family.
“What sort of concerns?” I asked again. Was Jase worried about me? Having another premonition? He wouldn’t bother Marco if he was just worried about how I’d cope with the memorial.
Also Jase would know that if Dan found out Marco was around, there’d be trouble. So it had to be something more serious. My hands curled in my lap as I waited for Marco’s reply.
“He wasn’t specific, he just said he thought there might be a problem.”
“Why tell you? He should have told Da
n, we could have brought some agents.”
He looked out the window. “You should get back to your gathering. Your wolf will be wondering where you are.”
There was a distinct lack of answer to my question in that statement. But he was right. And getting out of the limo before this conversation got any weirder sounded like a plan to me.
* * *
I found Dan inside the hall, clutching a take-out coffee cup and looking nervous, surrounded by Aunt Bug and a gaggle of her friends. If I knew my aunt, he was probably being grilled about when he was going to make an honest woman out of me.
I caught his eyes and smiled. He grinned back and extricated himself from the group.
It didn’t take him long to reach my side. Our fingers snaked together. “How much longer do we need to stay?” he asked softly. He glanced back over to Bug and her cronies, looking faintly worried.
They’d definitely been grilling him about us. “Not long, I just want to say hi to a few people, then we can go back to Bug’s.” I knew he wanted to be back in Seattle, working. The full moon was approaching and we’d lose a couple of days going to the Retreat. We needed all the time we could get right now.
He nodded, looking resigned. “Want some coffee?” He held out the cup. “There’s no booze in it but it’s hot.”
“Were you expecting booze?”
A head shake. “Next year remind me to bring a hip flask.”
Yeah, that would go down well. My stomach didn’t like the thought of alcohol much but I desperately needed caffeine. “I’ll go make my own. I know the coffee here. It needs help.”
So I was a coffee snob, sue me. Caldwell was your basic white or black, cream or sugar type of town. There was no place in town to get a good espresso or a caramel latte. And the town hall coffee, from memory, was not even good basic coffee.
“Grab me a brownie,” Dan said with a grin. He dropped a kiss on my cheek then settled into one of the seats lining the walls.
I didn’t know how he could eat. I still felt like live eels were occupying my stomach. But I made my way across to the tables that held piles of muffins and cakes and brownies and sandwiches supplied by the good women of Caldwell. Homemade, delicious and full of calories. It made me regret my lack of appetite.