I stood and walked to her and wrapped my arms around a neck that wasn’t there. I tried three times to hold her in my arms but each time they passed through her. I stood back and watched as the image of my sister faded away before my very eyes.
A stream of tears flooded my face as I realised that it wasn't Gabriel who had intruded my mind, but Sophie.
Gabriel was stood with Levi at the door. Levi had a bored self righteous look on his face; Gabriel couldn’t have looked more scared.
“What’s happening to me?” I whispered, my eyes pouring my soul into Levi’s hard uncaring pair.
He looked away from me and rested his hand onto Gabriel’s shoulder, “Get her out of London before she hurts herself.”
Gabriel shook Levi’s hand off and watched bitterly as he walked out of the house and down to his chauffer driven car. I searched Gabriel’s face, but found nothing.
“Gabriel what just happened?”
“You seemed to slip into a trance of some kind.”
“A memory,” I uttered, not wanting to believe it.
He nodded and walked to me, taking me into his arms he kissed my lips lightly and held me to his chest, “I’ll take you home, and everything will be fine I promise.”
Gabriel gave my hand a squeeze and said with his voice of reason and calm, “When this is over I’m going to take you home, I’ll buy you a real house, anywhere in the world. No more staying in hotels and hunting every dead that wakes. You will go away and be happy without any of this.”
“I can’t do that Gabriel. Hunting is all I know, it’s what you taught me, what Katelyn taught me.”
“No,” he said grasping my hands and pulling me up to stand. “No Victoria. I taught you to smile once upon a time, I taught you to be free. Don’t you remember that summer? Don’t you remember the years afterwards, I taught you to grieve and to live? And you taught me how to love.”
“Gabriel…” I began to protest.
“No, Victoria, listen to me. You have to promise me that you’ll at least think about it.”
I sighed and nodded, “fine, I’ll think about it.”
“No more tears, ok?”
“We’ve got this,” I said. “No more tears.”
I spent the early hours of the morning sitting up in my bed staring across at the mirror. My eyes didn’t look like my own; I had stayed up all night in fear of fading into my memories. I was tired, but I couldn’t sleep. My light was beginning to become clear to me, yet I could feel a dark shadow nipping at my heels.
A light knock on my door made me jump. “Can I come in?” Clarence whispered, poking her head around the door.
I smiled and nodded. She walked over to my bed and sat down on the edge of it. “I can’t sleep,” she said quietly.
“Nor can I,” I replied drowsily.
She asked quietly with the weight of the world in her voice, “Levi’s in love with you isn’t he?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Do you love him?” she asked as she rested her head onto the pillow beside mine.
I looked down to her and furrowed my brow, “What do you want to hear?”
“The truth,” she whispered.
“I have only felt this way about one other man, it seems like a dream it was so long ago. I will never forget him, but I am starting to understand that I can still love him and be happy with someone else.”
“So that’s a yes?”
I rested myself down onto my pillow and nodded, “More than he’ll ever know.”
The next morning as I sat at my adopted dressing table in my room at George’s house there was a quiet knock on the door.
“Come in,” I called.
Jones walked in with a serving trolley. “Levi bought you this,” he said, pointing at the take out coffee mug from my favourite London coffee shop. He completely ignored Clarence who was now sitting up in bed and looking at the coffee intensely.
“Thank you Jones, when will breakfast be served?”
“An hour,” he said with a smile, “I’ll be sure to thank Levi for you.”
I smiled as he left and then looked up to Clarence. “That was nice of Levi,” she said, watching me carefully for my reaction.
I picked up the coffee cup and took off the lid. I turned away from her and sat back down at the dressing table. I could see her watching me in the mirror, but I kept my eyes on my coffee and blew it lightly to cool it.
“If Sophie was here,” she said lightly catching my attention, “what would she tell you to do?”
I looked up to her slowly and closed my eyes. Pain swelled in my heart. I swallowed and met her eyes, the eyes which were a mirror of Sophie’s.
“She would tell me that I should listen to my heart and listen hard.”
“I’ll never be your sister, but I think that she’s right.”
“I know you’re both right. But I can’t.”
“You’re still worried that you’re going to lose control, lose everything?”
I closed my eyes and bowed my head.
She walked over to the window to pull back the curtains and as the light burst into the room she disappeared.
I stood and slowly walked to where she had been standing. I drew my arm through the empty space before me and shook my head.
My worst fears were coming true. I was losing my mind. I lay in my bed and stayed there until my mind was numb with nothing.
1823
“Welcome home girls,” my father said as he unlocked the door to our quaint new home.
My aunt sighed as she pushed both Sophie and I into the house. I met Sophie’s eyes and she smiled brightly as she always did whenever she was in a less than perfect situation. Of course she had Peter to fall back onto, to keep her head above the suffocating water that had swept away our old lives.
“It’s delightful,” I said to Margaret, who looked less convinced.
Sophie nodded and took our aunt’s hand, “It will be ok. Everything will be ok.”
“I’ll make dinner,” I said, leaving the room and crossing into the corridor. Unlike our home in London each room was only an arm’s length away. The kitchen was pretty, but extremely simple, there was an old stove and two gas lanterns. The window was so small it was almost insignificant. In the middle of the room was a simple wooden work bench. Opposite there was a shelving unit with simple dull plates, and a tea set.
I lit the gas lanterns and searched through the three cupboards which stood at the end of the table. We had been given the most basic of supplies by the landlord of the property, and the larder was no more extravagant. It was a temporary home; soon we would be in our real house, just like in London.
Sighing, I chopped up the little selection of vegetables that lay waiting for us and lit the stove. I placed four small bowls onto the serving tray and walked into the dining room. Laying it on the table I called for the rest of my family. Sophie paused at the table before she pulled out her chair and forced on a beautiful fake smile, “It smells lovely Victoria, thank you.”
“Yes dear, it smells just lovely.”
“Father, you and Peter will have to go hunting tomorrow.”
My father smiled and took a hold of my hand, “I know how hard this move was on you girls. Thank you darling.”
“I love you,” I said quietly. I looked out at them all and I met each of their fragile scared eyes and said, “I love you.”
Levi whispered, with his drink clutched to his chest, “I love you too.”
I kept my eyes closed and yawned.
With a sigh he laughed quietly, “And Aurora awakes far from the arms of Phillip.”
I sat up and stretched, narrowly missing a glass that was perched on the edge of the coffee table. “What are you mumbling about?” I said sleepily. “What am I doing down here?”
“You don’t remember?” He laughed and shook his head, “Of course you don’t.”
“What have I done?”
“Nothing, don’t worry your pretty little head a
bout it.”
I crawled across to him and he put his arm around my shoulder as I rested my head onto his chest. “You are my Prince,” I whispered. I felt him laugh beneath me, his chest rising and falling, he knew that I had heard every word, but then again as Levi would say, of course I did.
“We should hunt soon,” he said softly, his breath fanning through my hair.
I nodded, “It helps, which makes no sense at all.”
“Do you remember our first hunt?”
How could I ever forget?
1830
It was summer and the night was hot. We were in France. Levi had taken me across the border to follow a dead man that we had been hunting for a week. He had taught me how to perfect my control, so I could be around the dead man and not become overwhelmed.
The dead man didn’t know that we were tracking him.
As I stood looking out at the swelling ocean Levi ran his hand along my arm. My skin was damp from the heat and the anticipation.
“It is good that you can feel the heat, whenever you hunt you must always make sure that you can feel. It is what separates us from them.”
I had on a dress typical of the time, layers and layers of fabric, over several more layers. Levi had refused to let me dress down . He had insisted that I keep on as much clothing as possible. I had managed to ‘lose’ my bonnet and my tightly bound hair was flowing down my back.
“Where is he?”
“Be patient.”
“I have been patient for days.”
“A few more minutes then will do no harm.”
I sighed and kept my eyes on the strange rhythm of the tide. I felt him before I saw him. Wandering lonely like a lost sheep on the beach, he crossed the sands looking thoughtfully out upon the waves.
Levi kept hold of my hand before smiling and letting me go. I ran across the sand banks at full force. I kicked my shoes off and kept a hold of my dress so as I didn’t stand upon it and tumble like an embarrassing weed.
The dead man turned to me and hissed, so vulgar. I looked into his dead eyes and kept a steady smile on my tightly bound lips.
He looked at my attire and laughed. “Vous pensez… I apologise Madame. You are an English soul, ah oui.”
I ignored his voice and his words. Levi had taught me that. Unless I wanted information, they could not speak in my immortal tongue. He continued to laugh at me before his face grew grave. My hand was above his heart and he swallowed. I threw my hand back and took a hold of his heart before he knew what was happening.
He fell onto his knees and his head fell against my legs. I stepped back and watched as he met the sand and his bitter end.
“What does it feel like when you go?” he asked as my mind returned to the present day.
I shrugged and pressed my finger tips hard into his stomach, leaving white finger marks on his flesh. “Like,” I searched for the words and sat up; I looked down to him and smiled, “It’s like watching a movie. It’s like I’m sat in the theatre, you know how they have the fans keeping the room cool? Well, it’s more like warm air, and the longer I’m there the warmer and sleepier I get.”
“Do you know that they’re memories?”
I nodded, “Sometimes, well, most of the time I do.”
He traced his fingers over my lips and smiled lightly, “Do you not ever worry that you might not wake up?”
“Every time,” I whispered, revealing a truth that I had not dared say aloud for fear of one day becoming so lost in my past that the present day would never return to me.
Chapter 21
The next day I sat in the library, searching for some solitude, flicking through poetry books that I didn’t have the patience to begin to try to understand, but all I received was further annoyance.
I wandered down to where Oliver lay and I found Levi sat beside Clarence. I sat down next to him and looked at her absent face.
“How long have you been down here?” I asked.
He shrugged, “I just needed to see her.”
“How’s she doing?”
He met my eyes and shook his head, “I don’t think that she is going to wake up Rose.”
“Don’t say that, of course she will.” I put my hands over his and he smiled meekly across to me.
“I love you,” he said, his voice soft and quiet.
“I know,” I replied in a breath. I know, I thought to myself, and I love you more than you could ever believe.
“If someone is posing as Francis,” Jesse began, “Does that mean that the real Francis is dead?”
I cleaned the dried blood from my hand and laughed.
“What’s funny?”
“All of this time and no one has asked about her.”
“It was just a thought. I mean, she has to be somewhere. Maybe she is being held captive.”
Although I knew that he was joking, fantasising, he had a point. I had been so relieved that it wasn’t actually Francis that had been tormenting the city that I had forgotten my fear for her safety.
“Why don’t you use your detective skills to find her for me?” I asked, turning around to look at him.
His eyes lit up and he smiled nodding ecstatically. “Like a secret agent.” He ran off, his towel slipping from his waist as he disappeared up the stairs to where he was keeping his computer.
“There is something seriously wrong with that boy,” I muttered under my breath as I left for George’s.
The date of the ball was drawing ever closer and we still had no clue as to what we would have to face. We had a mighty collection of immortals on our side. All that we could find in Europe and other stragglers just passing through, some of the oldest and most powerful immortals the world had ever seen, and some in the blossom of immortal youth, seeing the upcoming battle as a rite of passage.
“You look like you’ve just been in a room with a hundred three year olds,” George said as he walked past me to his dining room where lunch was being served.
“Something like that,” I said as I ran upstairs to find Levi.
Lounging on my bed was not the man that I had wanted to find.
“We really must stop meeting like this,” Victor laughed, sitting up and patting the bed beside him. When I frowned and pushed the door shut he smiled and rolled his eyes, “Don’t be like that. I come bearing news of the dark kind.” When I didn’t say anything he shrugged and walked over to the window and moved to jump out.
“Wait,” I called my hand shooting up without meaning to.
He turned around and smiled, “You will never guess where I have found a dozen immortal hearts.”
“Take me.”
If I had known where Victor was taking me I might never have agreed to go, as soon as I began to follow the path that I had done so many times as a girl I knew that my memories would come for me.
The plants had taken over and were battling one another for the little sunlight that poured through the spaces in the bare branches. No one had purchased the land because I owned it, just as I owned every other memory. Yet since my immortality I hadn’t been back to the place.
I passed a rose bush that I was surprised to recognise. I stopped and cupped one of the pretty pink roses. As soon as its soft petals caressed my palm I was thrown into my memories.
1821
It was the month after Sedric had proposed to me. His father had not hidden his disapproval of the engagement, but that did not stop either of us.
The driveway in which I stood in the present day was another world away. The wildness of the place was gone. What lay before me was a clear soil path, lined either side by luxurious green lawns. In my hand I held a pale pink rose.
I was humming a tune that I had since forgotten. Something caught my eye and I stopped my little tune. Sedric had run down from his house and was standing watching me with the same look I had seen in Jesse’s eyes earlier that night. I laughed and ran to him. He caught me in his arms and held me there for a second before his lips came down onto mine.
; As the memory faded from my mind my hand jerked and plucked the rose from its stem. I was holding it too tightly and the petals scattered around my feet as I dropped it.
“You still with me?” Victor asked with his cool hand on my cheek.
I looked up into the early morning sky. Not saying a word with one final breath I continued up the drive way. The closer I got to the house the more I began to regret following Victor.
However to confront my past was something that needed to do. In a way I was glad that I was there. I was glad because of something that Sedric’s father had said to me before our engagement. I remembered his words for they were burned into the back of my mind.
1820
I was walking with Sophie on a summer’s evening. Mr Wright called my name and we stopped. He smiled to my sister, keeping up his polite charade. Whenever I saw him he looked at me as if he knew something about me that it would have been impossible for him to know then.
“May I have a second of your time Victoria?”
“Of course, sir,” I said before I turned away from Sophie and walked a little way back with him.
I waited for him to begin the conversation as was common practise among the young and the old, men and women.
He had his back to Sophie so she did not see as his face turned to one of a very bitter man’s. “I do believe that you are a smart girl Victoria, and you should also know that the nature of Sedric’s affair with you displeases my family greatly and brings great dishonour to us all. If you hear my words you are never to step foot on my land again.”
“His mother, your wife, does not see dishonour in our love Mr Wright,” I began to say, my voice pitiful compared to his.
“They have been fooled, but I know that you hold a hellish demon in your heart. You listen to me, I would rather spend an eternity with Lucifer than have you on my soil,” he was towering over me, a monster of hellish design. His black top hat only added to his monstrosity. I did not cower however as I knew that his words were ten times worse than his bite could ever hope to be.
An Immortal in London: Corruption Page 18