I walked deeper into the shadows and there he sat. My torturer. My plague.
“Victor, what are you doing here?”
“We were having a wonderful dream, why’d you leave?”
“You did that?”
He laughed and walked over to me. “Please, you flatter me.”
“How did we share that dream?”
“Punishment.”
“Punishment for what?”
“For loving each other,” he said, taking my arms and pulling me into his chest.
Roberta had said that we were one, the living and the dead. And in his arms I felt it, the joint power of the light and dark, the most fearsome force known to man.
I put my hands to his chest and bowed my head. “No.”
“What are a few dreams,” he whispered, mirroring my own words to him.
“Victor…”
“You can’t deny your feelings forever.”
“I can’t, you’re right.”
“Why are you fighting so hard?”
I relaxed in his arms and he let his hands fall to my waist. I kept my eyes on his as his lips came down to mine. My hands glided to his neck and with one foul snap he collapsed at my feet.
“Do you believe me now?” I asked to the shadow that I knew had been watching and listening.
Levi stepped out of the darkness and looked down at his ancient enemy.
He pulled me into his arms with all of his force and punished me with his passion.
The next day I sat in George’s garden and watched a red and orange butterfly flutter from flower to flower, without a care in the world. Its delicate wings carrying it through its careless life, free to go wherever it wished.
“Mr George has requested an audience with you,” Jones said as he stopped before the bench on which I was sat.
“Thank you Jones, tell them I’ll be with them in a minute.”
He slipped away and I sat for a minute more contemplating life without duty, without care, much like my own life once upon a time.
We sat together in the library, George, Gabriel, Levi and I, each waiting for the other to talk.
“Jones!” George called, breaking the silence, “Jones!”
Footsteps hurried up the servant’s stair case and we waited silently as he composed himself before entering the room. “Yes sir?”
“I think that we could all do with a cup of tea. Organise that for us in the dining room if you would,” he said, before dismissing him and turning his attention to us.
“After recent events the ball clearly can no longer be held at Gabriel’s place. Considering the enormity of the event I propose that as Levi has the greater sized home, the ball should take place there this year, if that is ok with the host?”
Levi looked across to Gabriel who was watching me with a lost expression in his eyes. I nodded and Gabriel reluctantly agreed to host his party in his least favourite master’s home.
After discussing several other arrangements Gabriel left the room and I could feel Levi relax instantly beside me, all tension evaporating from the room.
George lit up a cigarette and offered the pack to me. I took one gratefully and lit up much to Levi’s dismay. I found it odd how an old soul could have such a sour attitude towards the habit, during most of my life smoking had been the thing to do.
“Will you not take one my good man?”
Levi shook his head and smiled softly, “I’m afraid the habit disgusts me.”
“Well then, Vickie, we must take our dirty habit outside. Jones will call you when the tea is ready. Don’t feel you have to wait for us.” He stood and offered me his arm which I gratefully accepted.
I rested against the back wall of the house and looked up at the ever darkening sky, “Where has it all gone George?”
He laughed and paced before me, “with the wind,” he said lazily. “To think I was living alone mere days ago, and now I have a houseful of everything!”
“Do you wish I had never come for you?”
He shook his head, “Do you want the truth Vickie?”
I nodded and watched as he jumped up to sit on the window ledge.
“My life has been rather stale.”
I laughed, “Oh George, it can’t have been that bad?”
“Sure I have the money, the worldly charm, and undeniable great looks, but I don’t feel I have a purpose. The second you showed up it was as if the fates gave me a kick in the behind.”
“I miss your ramblings,” I said whilst my mind faded into nostalgia.
1955
We lay wrapped in Egyptian cotton sheets with the moonlight casting shadows of our bodies against the red silk which hung from his four poster bed.
“George,” I whispered.
“Vickie?”
I rolled onto my stomach and kissed his lips lightly. “Do you think that we’ll remember this? When the world has aged and we have new lovers, will you remember me?”
He laughed freely and pulled at my hair, “How could I ever forget such a beauty as you? One day, my love, I will find you and ask you the same question, may it be fifty years from now or more. I will find you and ask, now that the world has aged and we have new lovers, do you remember me? And what will you say?”
I laughed and said lightly, “How could I ever forget such a beauty as you?”
“Exactly,” he said with weightless laughter, “you see, we will never forget nor regret any of our past. It is who we are. We are creatures of forever. Our past is our present and we have no future to speak of because we have nowhere to go! Oh don’t pull your face like that, I promise you that I speak only the truth!”
He pinched my cheek and wrapped his arm around me as I settled on his chest.
“No, you will never forget me, and I will never forget you. No matter how the world changes we will remain the same. You might leave tonight and never come back, who am I to know? I won’t be bitter and neither will you when I don’t call, because that is who we are. We are selfish through and through.”
I kissed his chest and waited at hip lips. His smile tortured me as I said, “When you ramble on as you do I get the most impossible urge to kiss you.”
“Kiss what you wish my love. We are gods after all with the freedom to do,” he uttered as he kissed me faintly, “whatever,” he whispered with a harder kiss, “we,” he laughed lightly as my lips clung to his.
“Damn well want,” I said, finishing his sentence and stealing his breath.
Later that day Levi left with George to carry out the daily patrol of the surrounding city streets. Although George’s house had been the safest there was no guarantee that we were still hidden from the mass of the dead that served the corruption’s army.
With little to do I sat beside Clarence and Oliver and looked over them both, wondering for a brief second, what it might feel like to completely lose my heart.
“It would be damn painful.”
Victor was standing in the doorway, his magnificent beauty overwhelming me for all but a second.
“That was rather unnecessary, don’t you think?” He said, rubbing his neck and smiling like the devil.
“You knew that he was there.”
“Is that the only reason why you did it?”
“No, I did it because I wanted some peace.”
“Was that what Levi gave you, peace?”
I walked to him and pushed him back, he stepped back into the hallway and I closed the door behind me. “You shouldn’t be here, they will be back soon.”
“I’m here purely for business. Marcus requests his payment for the cure.”
“When?”
“Right now if you’re not busy, and considering that you were sat with two dead-to-the-world hunters, I would say you’re not.”
Victor walked into the station shop by my side and Marcus looked up, a proud father’s smile on his face.
“Marcus,” Victor said, as he took Levi’s father’s hand and pulled him into a greeting embrace.
; “Son,” Marcus said with an honest smile. He turned to me and bowed his head, “Victoria.”
“Victor said that you have a favour to ask me.”
“Do you still hold to your previous words?” he asked.
I looked from him to Victor and nodded, uncertain as to if I was about to make a very big mistake.
He smiled slyly and Victor did not miss either of our looks. Marcus put his hand onto Victor’s arm and whispered to him. With a nod Victor left, looking back at me only once, knowing in his eyes and a hatred for his old enemy more so than I had ever seen.
“Don’t look so terrified,” he said as he walked a little closer to me.
I shook my head and smiled lightly, “I’m not scared.”
“Tell your hands,” he said, taking my hand in his and kissing my trembling fingers. “As much as it pains me I haven’t asked you here for your body, after all that would break my son’s heart.”
“Which one?” I asked sharply.
He frowned for a second before he laughed and dropped my hand. “I have a hunter of my blood line in America, a couple of decades ago his maker lost his immortality to a small tribe in New York. Since then the boy has been somewhat of a pacifist. He has the potential to stand in your league, and I see his unwillingness to fight a great loss to our cause.”
“How can I help?”
“I have given him your name and requested that he find you here in London. I want you to take him in and train him. The corruption won’t be stopped until we have every last hunter on our side.”
“When will he be here?”
He shrugged, “I can’t be certain that he will show, but I have faith that he has enough sense in that head of his to seek you out. If he comes at all it will be after the New Year.”
“What if he doesn’t come?”
“Then I suppose I might have to break a few hearts.”
I laughed and met his eyes, identical to his son’s and bowed my head.
“Goodbye Victoria.”
“Marcus.”
As I wrapped my hand around the handle Marcus called out to me, his voice quiet and reserved, “How is he?”
I looked down to the floor on my left side and glanced up to him briefly before I turned back to the door. “Surviving,” I answered in a whisper. I pushed open the door and walked to the car.
Victor opened the passenger side door for me and looked back at the shop as I ducked under his iron arm and sat down staring blankly ahead.
He started the car and once we were on the road he turned to me and said, “You shouldn’t let him get to you.”
“Marcus?”
“Levi,” he said, “I can see what he’s done to you.”
“And what is that?”
“When we met you were physically weak, but mentally, no, you were steely and unbendable. Look at you now, you’re a mess, a hopeless mess.”
“How am I a mess?”
“You’re letting feelings rule your decisions.”
I turned from him and stared out of the window. I refused to say another word. It was childish, but what could I have said? Victor had been the one to initiate the awakening of my soul, my feelings. Levi had harnessed them, controlled them, taken them and used them to make me stronger. Sedric had been the only one to do it before. I had loved Sedric with so much force that it destroyed everything that I had ever held close. I was terrified of the same thing happening again.
As I turned to look at Victor, who had turned his attention back to the road, I knew that he was right. I was a mess, but not because of love or Levi, but because of my fear of losing them both.
“What did Marcus want?” he asked as he pulled into my driveway at Rainbow’s End.
“Just a favour for a friend of his.”
“Right, well here we are.”
“Here we are.”
He was looking out at the house and refused to turn to look at me as I searched his face, my eyes delving beneath the surface of his pale thick skin. He loved me. He might not have said it, but I knew love in the eyes of man when I saw it. With every breath I took I was breaking his dead un-beating heart. He knew that Levi had me hook line and sinker, but he wouldn’t give up that easily. I wouldn’t let him give up. I could sense his capability for destruction, the damage that he could do to others was nothing compared to what he could do to himself if I didn’t help him.
I leant over and kissed his cheek lightly, pausing at his side for a second before I got out of the car and ran through the rain to my door.
“Hey, I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” Jesse said, a towel around his middle, lounging in the drawing room.
I put my hands onto my hips and laughed, “What on earth are you doing?”
“I’m chilling.”
“Chilling?”
“Relaxing,” he said whilst dropping a grape into his mouth.
“Oh, what’s with the towel?”
“I just had a bath; it’s too warm to put clothes on. I’m getting hot just looking at you stood there in your jeans.”
I walked to him and put the back of my hand onto his forehead. He was burning up. I sat down next to him and draped the blanket from the back of the sofa over his shoulders. He tried to shrug it off, but I held it there as I took out my pen knife and held out my bleeding hand to him.
“I don’t remember this ever happening to me,” I said as his trembling lips took my life blood from me.
He wiped his mouth and pulled the face that a child would pull when sucking a sour sweet. He shook himself and handed me a tissue for my hand. “You are kind of old, maybe your memory isn’t what it used to be.”
“Jesse my memory is fine. Maybe I should ask Levi.”
His eyes flashed open wide and he swallowed, licking his lips. “Are you sure that’s a good idea, what if he tries to kill me?”
“You would come back.” I shook my head and took an impatient breath, “Is it just me or are you getting more annoying the more blood you have?”
He smiled brightly and shrugged, “It’s your blood. Maybe I’ve ingested your fun gene.”
“Hey,” I said swatting his arm, “I can be fun.”
“In what century?”
I sat back and pushed my hands through my hair.
He took my hands as he turned to me and graced my cheek with his hot finger tips. “I’m sorry. I’m on a permanent high over here, I don’t think before I speak.”
I smiled into his hand and closed my eyes.
“Levi called the house phone earlier and left a message, he sounded pretty upset.”
Chapter 20
I kissed his chest and rested my head there, listening to his heart beat, steady, strong, beat, beat, never, stopping, forever, beating.
I shuddered as he traced the tips of his fingers up my spine, tediously slowly.
“Are you curious as to where I went yesterday?” I asked, my breath coating his chest.
He shrugged beneath me and leant up to kiss my hair, “I’m not your keeper.”
“You’re just my guardian?”
“If that’s what you want to call it.”
“All of those men, they had nothing to do with you, did they?”
I turned to look at him and his eyes told me all that I needed to know. I wouldn’t ask his cause as I had a pretty good idea. Levi hadn’t been the only person in my life to try to help me to move on, whatever that meant.
1823
“Victoria, it is not Margaret’s fault…”
“Sophie, you don’t understand! Why does she feel the need to bring them around one after the other?”
Sophie picked up her thin cotton dress and walked further into the stable. She stood before me and with her hands on her hips said with pity in her voice, “She knows that you loved him, but Victoria, one day you will have to marry, to see past him. She wants you to find happiness.”
“I was happy! Oh Sophie, but how I was so truly happy.”
She stole my hand after kissing my cheek and sai
d, “Come back to the house and meet him. If not for her, do it for me. Please, I hate to see you so down.”
I sighed and stood from where I was lying hopelessly on my haystack. “What’s this one called?”
“Oliver White.”
Later that day I found Gabriel, another lonely soul lost in the modern world never quite knowing where yesterday had gone.
“Walk with me,” he said quietly, disturbing the silence that had built up around us.
I walked with Gabriel to his home and we sat on a bench hidden within the evergreen firs, looking up at his half standing house.
“What’s the damage?” I asked.
He sighed, “The whole right side of the house is useless, builders are coming in tomorrow to take it down and then it will have to be rebuilt.”
“This is my fault.”
He laughed, “Tell me, did you put that bomb in my room?”
I shook my head, “You know what I mean.”
He took my hand, “You didn’t ask for any of this, none of us did. Now, enough about my house how are you?”
I sighed and rested my head onto his shoulder. “I’ll be fine,” I said, fixing a smile onto my face. Neither of us needing to apologise, both knowing that we were sorry.
He looked down into my eyes and furrowed his brow, “Promise that you’ll come to me if it gets worse.” I could feel the words that he didn’t speak hanging over me like a curse, ‘like before’.
1925
My sister was sat on the sofa next to Gabriel smiling sweetly across to me. I sat smiling back at her, whilst Gabriel’s brow furrowed deeper and deeper, his eyes blind to the apparition of my beautiful sister.
“He’s back,” I said, my voice betraying the excitement and fear that I felt.
Sophie and Gabriel both opened their mouths and asked, “Who is back?” My sister’s voice was soft and curious, whereas Gabriel’s was laced with worry.
“Sedric, he has come back for me.”
When I looked up from my hands only Sophie was sat before me, I hadn’t noticed Gabriel leave, but in my memory he hadn’t been there anyway so my surprise surpassed quickly.
Sophie had a glorious smile on her face, “Oh! That is wonderful news!”
An Immortal in London: Corruption Page 17