by Bethan Tear
The music reverted to the steady cry of violins and Ruby craned her neck over feathered masks and hats to scan the ballroom. There was a man, one she had not seen before. He was dressed from head to toe in black. A black leather mask concealed his identity from her, enormous wings sprouting from his back, more like the wings of a bird than a bat. The masked stranger was smirking but there was something about the angles of his face that made him seem familiar, like somebody she should recognise instinctively. Two of his top teeth were very long and very sharp, sliding over dead white lips and indenting the flesh on either side, confirming everything that she had feared.
Mind reeling, Ruby fought to keep a grip on her wits and balance as she swayed, committed to not giving the game away. She felt the cold, crippling knowledge that death was in her house, in her home, spying on her, desiring her. Death had come to dispose of everyone she loved and make her watch.
And yet the man in black did not move. He stood alone, detached from everyone around him, watching her dance with eyes like midnight sin. His smile had dissipated and his face was impassive, without emotion, with nothing she could gauge. She’d imagined this, dreamt it, feared it, planned for it but now he was here in the flesh and she was powerless. Her terror was there for him to see, to savour, to use to his advantage.
The song couldn’t have ended any sooner for her. Ruby wanted to run from death, to hide away and pray it would leave her be but she knew death would follow her. It would pursue her to the ends of the earth and beyond even that. She might be able to use that to her advantage, to lure it away from innocent humans and spare countless lives by her sacrifice.
Thanking Edward for the dance she mumbled shyly and made an excuse about talking to an old friend, something believable. Edward informed her he had mingling of his own to do and asked her for the last dance of the evening. She told him maybe, much to his disappointment, and left it at that. As she walked off the dance floor she realised the man in black had vanished. The chill that'd penetrated her soul lingered, meaning death was close by, its visit not over quite yet.
Very few people knew about the hall of mirrors behind the false wall, a place that had always enchanted her as a child. She didn’t stop to think of how the man in black knew about it. He seemed to know everything. Nobody noticed her as she slipped through the small gap concealed by a curtain and into the passage of glass. Golden candelabras on the walls flickered with flame, the mirrors reflecting the light and making Ruby’s vision shimmer like the stars. She relaxed her senses, letting them magnify, trusting them to guide her. This was the route the man in black had taken. Tendrils of his coldness teased her skin and his scent was breath-taking, like that of fresh winter snow mingled with exotic spices, an intoxicating combination. He was using everything he had, everything he was to lure her here.
She found him, leaning against a mirror, black feathers crushed against glass. When she paused he turned his head to her and smiled a subtle, mysterious smile that made her heart stop beating. It was quieter here somehow, like a distant dream, and though she was only separated from humans by glass she felt disconnected from them, from everything. She feared she might never be able to go back. The man in black could create his own world, a world where only he and Ruby existed, where nobody could touch her but him. It was hazy around the edges and she was bemused by it, taking deep breaths to keep her grip on a reality that was quickly slipping through her fingers.
She could handle this; she could, if she didn’t surrender to him. It was a difficult thing to do when a vampire was looking at her like that. His smile widened, fangs still retracted. Ruby trembled, her heart fluttering like the wings of a butterfly. She had been wrong to compare the way Edward made her feel to the way Anton could make her feel.
“You are the most enchanting human ever,” Anton admitted passionately, his voice as deep and melodic as the diminished music.
Ruby didn’t know what to say.
“I have seen many beautiful women throughout history; I have been with many beautiful women throughout history. Not a single one of them compares to your grace, your sweetness...your innocence.”
He pushed off from the glass.
“I do hope you like the dress,” he said with another smirk.
So, it had been a gift from him. Ruby wondered if it came with a price she could pay.
He was there so suddenly, before she could think, before she could blink, and his hand stroked her cheek as he smiled the docile, content smile he always used when he was touching her, when she wasn’t resisting him. It was so different from his withering glares and scornful sneers.
She found her voice at last.
“What are you doing here Anton?” she sighed wearily. They had been through this performance so many times that she knew it off by heart. His love for her, her loathing for him, his charms and her weakness. It was becoming repetitive and tiresome.
“You dance magnificently,” his voice was soft and awed and then it darkened, “It is a shame you could not find a better partner.”
Ruby was indignant. “If you mean yourself I-”
“Silence,” Anton said smoothly, pressing a long, white finger to her lips.
It did the trick. She swallowed her own words. All she could think about now was his flesh against hers, how cold it was, how solid it was, how real it was. It still amazed her how a creature such as him could exist, how they hadn’t been hunted by humans to extinction or abolished by God, how he had spent so many years in the coffin, starving and rotting, waiting for a death that would never be granted. It mystified her how he hadn’t succumbed to insanity, when so many in his place would have. Perhaps delusions of love were his form of lunacy. A demon devoted to a human was absurd, after all.
“Dance with me,” Anton requested, voice husky with desire, eyes wide and imploring.
The monster was not in his eyes. They were calm, considerate and entirely for her.
Ruby didn’t give him permission though didn’t struggle one bit as he took her hand, guiding her body closer to his, closer than close, one of his arms circling around her waist, claiming her. A new song began, one she did not know. The notes were long and mournful, echoing in her heart, so sad they made her want to weep.
She didn’t. Instead she danced like she had never danced before, keeping perfect time with Anton, forgetting everything else. It was like falling into another one of her dreams, one not perverted by darkness and despair. It was beautiful, misty and muddled but somehow, just for now, that didn’t matter. It didn’t matter at all.
Anton drew her to him, using his eyes as leverage. He did something strange to her, a jumble of dissimilar emotions he could make her feel all at once, all of them contradictory. When they were apart she could hate him freely, curse his name, find his pestering insufferable. When he was close she could sense him before she saw him and was intrigued by his past, by the man he had been when he was alive. When he touched her she was enthralled by him, by his dark beauty, by his origins, by his odd affections and the way he treated her so delicately, like a little bird, her wings so easily broken. If his control slipped, even for a second, he could hurt her much more than any human ever could.
She closed her eyes, sinking deeper into the music and into Anton. Resting her head against his shoulder she sighed, harmony coursing through her. He welcomed it, raining heartfelt kisses so tenderly on her neck. Ruby was not afraid for the fate of her throat, she was frightened for the throats of others but as long as he was here, with her, so serene, so enchanted by her then he couldn’t hurt them. He couldn’t touch them.
Relax. I did not come here to eat.
She believed him completely, the last of the tension expelled from her body. She didn’t know why but right then, right there, she trusted him. It was as if he were a mortal man holding the woman he cherished, dancing with her, trying to make her happy, dedicated to fulfilling her every wish and desire. Ruby knew how much he wanted to please her. He strived to make her want him, and a part of her
did, though she would never admit to it. If she despised him absolutely she wouldn’t be here, like this, so tranquil in their private world of music and mirrors.
She found she didn’t even need to use words.
What are you supposed to be?
An angel.
But angels have white wings.
Not fallen ones.
Ruby opened her eyes and lifted her head. They stopped swaying. He gazed down at her, eyes bright with longing, with everything he felt for her and because of her. This was the furthest away he had been from the monster and it mystified her.
“Why do you think you love me?” she asked softly, “I still do not understand.”
“I love you because you are human. So mortal, so delicate, so delicious.”
He caressed her cheek again.
“You laugh. You cry. You sleep, you eat, you breathe,” he explained, pausing before pressing his hand to her heart. “You love.”
Ruby opened her mouth to contradict him, the words stalling in her throat.
“You are life and light.” His voice deepened. “You are the only light I can abide.”
“So it’s all about you?” Ruby was exasperated, the magical moment ruined. She couldn’t trust him. His spellbinding eyes had made her forget what he was, what he had done, what he would do.
“No.” He gave a short laugh of disbelief. “It’s about you.”
He stroked a curl from her cheek and teased it gently.
“It’s all about you.”
He was honest, if nothing else. It was all about her. She had suggested grave robbing, she had intimidated her sisters into it, she had cut herself and revived Anton with her blood. Everything he did now, all the people he murdered; it was all because of her. He enjoyed killing, and thought mortals meaningless. He had forgotten long ago what it was to be human.
“Why do you kill the villagers?” she demanded, stomach squirming when she remembered the blood on his lips in the meadow, “Why do you kill them if it is all about me?”
Anton scowled. Ruby knew she was swimming in dangerous waters. His eyes were like sunless pools of chipped ice.
“I need to eat, Ruby.”
His voice was cool, dispassionate with an edge of indiscriminating darkness. She knew she should stop, shouldn’t push him any further, shouldn’t play with dead things.
“Why don’t you take the blood you need from animals?” she suggested meekly.
As an animal lover she would feel sorry for their suffering but a few dead rabbits were better than a dead human, a mother or father, a son or daughter, someone who would be missed because of Anton’s insatiable appetite.
Anton snorted.
“What?” Ruby fumed, “Are animals not good enough for the vampire extraordinaire, the great Anton Black?”
He frowned.
“Do not mock me Ruby,” he said harshly, “I refrain from hurting these people by your wishes, and your wishes alone. Do not force me to do something that you will regret.”
Anton growled deep in his throat, the sound vibrating through her. She saw his eyes had changed, no longer lucid and loving, now alert and angry, trying to restrict the beast that raged inside, screaming for blood, for retribution. The points of his fangs pricked his lower lip as it quivered with restraint.
She yanked herself from his grasp when his grip loosened. He was letting her go. Her hands were shaking so much and she felt like ripping the wings from her back throwing them at his face. It repulsed her to know they had been paid for with blood money. Her heart hammered with anguish and anger at herself for being so easily deceived by his pretty gifts and faithful eyes.
It had been a trick. It had been a trap.
It had all been lies.
And she had fallen for them, like a leaf obeying the laws of winter, like one of his fallen angels, she had fallen far.
The spell had been broken. He was a monster. She was a maiden. In the fairy tales the monster always devoured the maiden.
He could only be a monster.
“I have to return to the party,” she informed him stiffly, voice raw with emotion and threatening to crack with tears. It took all her resolve not to cry. She wouldn’t let him see how much he could hurt her.
Without another word she spun around, shoes clicking on the floor as she marched away, out of the corridor, out of the world he had shattered with his own vicious nature. Tears streamed down her cheeks but she wouldn’t let him see, couldn’t let him see how devastated she was…
The orchestra had taken another interval. One of the guests was playing the piano forte quirkily. There was boisterous laughter mingled with chatter and petty gossip, all these things making her feel detached from the people she loved, the people that didn’t have fangs and couldn’t snap her neck like a twig with their bare hands. She ached to be reunited with them, to find her father, to talk to her sisters, to dance with Edward and have normality and humanity, far away from Anton.
The ballroom held nothing for her. The masks confused her; frightened her and she did not think them fascinating any more. They were grotesque, ghastly, the maniacal grins of jesters, the hooked noses of witches, the snout of a ferocious wolf baring its yellow teeth. People hid behind disguises, they protected secrets that could destroy reputations and harboured desperate, dark longings like Anton did. She wanted to escape from the sea of liars and deceivers, to find peace and salvation and so she fled from the room, tears falling thick and fast.
The entrance hall was blissfully empty and the deserted staircase was like a sanctuary from the drama, from the death that craved her. She sat half way up, buried her face in her heads and wept, too incensed, too distraught, too terrified to stop. She wished she could find a way to renounce the truth, to forget the creatures that made the night treacherous, that children feared in the darkness when parents kissed them goodnight and told them not to be afraid.
Well, they should be afraid. Very afraid. Everyone should be afraid that abominations like Anton were allowed to exist.
“Ruby.”
The voice was familiar and soothing. Ruby sniffed and looked up to see Edward take one of her wet hands into his own, stroking it with his thumb, gazing down at her with eyes that almost made her heart thaw. He removed his mask and sat beside her on the step. Ruby was so relieved to see his honest, handsome, human face that she hiccuped, choking on her tears. Resting her head on his shoulder she continued to cry, not feeling at all ashamed of being so emotional in his presence.
Edward tensed in surprise, not rejection. He gradually relaxed and wrapped an arm around her. His warmth was welcoming after Anton’s bitter coldness.
“I don’t want to know any more,” she sobbed, inconsolable, “It’s all so wrong. Everything. The dead villagers. Anton. The graveyard, the ball, the masks…it’s all so terribly wrong.”
Gripping her shoulders Edward gently prised her away. She had been scared Edward wouldn’t care anymore, that he’d had enough of her silly behaviour and paranoia about Anton. She wiped her cheeks, tired of crying. It was all the seemed to do of late.
“What are you talking about Ruby?” he asked seriously, not a hint of blame in his voice, “What connection does Mr Black have to the deaths in the village?”
“I…I…I,” Ruby gasped, breathless and light-headed, afraid she had made a most dreadful mistake.
It almost gushed out of her. The truth. The whole truth. From the graveyard and the corpse to the nightmares and vampire that had pledged itself to her, the very vampire lurking somewhere in her house, hunting for its next victim.
Edward stared at her, eyes wide and expectant. So he didn’t hate her. She couldn’t bear to think how that kind face would twist with revulsion and loathing when she confessed what she knew, what she had known all along about the murders, how it was her fault and hers alone. Without her blood Anton could never have killed those poor people.
That was when Ruby remembered that she couldn’t speak of it. Not now. Not ever. It was too much of a
risk, and not one she was willing to take.
“I…I don’t know,” she lied sadly, bowing her head with regret, “It is just a feeling. I am being foolish.”
Edward caught her under the chin and lifted her head until her eyes met his. The green in them was so vivid it made her want to weep again, to take back the lie and admit the truth, whatever he might think of her subsequently.
“I don’t believe you could ever be foolish Ruby. You have every right to be distrustful of him. He is a very dubious character and has aroused my own suspicions.”
“Oh Edward,” Ruby sighed.
Edward’s thumb glided across her cheek to wipe away residual tears. Ruby wasn’t entirely sure how it happened; she didn’t know who made the first bold move but a couple of seconds later their lips were locked in a sweet kiss. Shock flared in her and at the same time an immense sense of satisfaction. Unbeknown to the rest of her conscious mind, she had been concealing this longing for some time. The question was being answered, the need fulfilled. Edward’s lips were soft and smooth, fitting perfectly against her own, as if they had been designed for this purpose and this purpose alone. Their lips moved in rhythm, attuned, the kiss becoming deeper, Ruby dizzy in the delight of discovery. Her fears seemed so far away, exiled by the exhilaration of such a kiss.
It stretched onwards, into forever, until a deadly voice interrupted and the world came crashing down around Ruby.
“What in God’s name do you think you are doing?”
WATTY AWARD WINNER 2012
It was Ruby's idea for her and her sisters to go grave robbing and save their father from the wrath of his creditors. She knew it wouldn't be a pleasant experience to steal from a corpse but what happens when they unearth more than they bargained for? Ruby's blood unleashes a darkness, one that claims to love her, one that threatens to consume her, one she must fight with every heartbeat.
Coming in 2014