Waiting for Darkness (Blood Martyr)
Page 10
Room 17 was a solitary room, and through the square window set into the heavy door, I saw Jamison, his lovely red hair cut to his shoulders. They probably had to do that for his various treatments, but it still hurt. His hair had been his glory and I loved to run my fingers through it. Even though his hair was still longer than conventional standards, there was an air of shorn dignity surrounding him, and I was a bit apprehensive about walking in, scared that more had changed about him than just his hair. His arm was in a cast, and his temple bandaged.
He was staring out the window, the morning sunlight streaming in, bathing his features in a perfect symmetry of dark and light, and I took a deep breath. Gathering my frightfully low supply of fortitude, I placed a hand around the doorknob and turned it.
Jamison turned to the door, and I found myself unable to meet his eyes as I walked in, closing the door firmly behind me.
The air smelled sterile, as if it had come from a bottle, not from nature. There was no smell of redwood in the room, no smell of him.
He was silent and when I managed to look him in the jewel eyes that had captivated me all the time, I couldn’t help but call out his name in distress.
“Oh God, Jamison…”
His eyes had lost their spark, the inner fire that had made them look like jewels. Now they were just like glass marbles, and I felt like I was staring into the face of a mannequin.
He smiled ruefully and then turned his face away from me, presenting me with a stoic profile. “I look like hell, don’t I?”
He did, quite frankly, but I didn’t have it in me to say so.
I walked toward the bed, my steps sounded unsteady, offbeat against the hard linoleum floor.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Jamison.”
I was biting my lips hard, trying not to let my eyes cloud with tears, because I knew I couldn’t do something as selfish as that. The person who really needed to have a good cry was Jamison. He’d been the one who went through hell. I couldn’t possibly imagine what it must have been like to be under the care of Raylene.
My hand shook as I reached out to touch his beautiful face, to reassure myself he really was all right.
He flinched and I stopped, a mere inch away from the porcelain of his cheeks.
“Don’t. Please. Don’t touch me.” He pulled away, put more distance between us, as much distance as the hospital bed would allow him and this time, I could not stop the tears that flowed down my cheeks and splattered onto the floor. “Please leave me alone. I want to be by myself.”
There were no words in the English language that could have possibly described what I felt. Bereft? Lost? Wretchedness? Demoralized? This was everything I felt, and so much more.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw my head back and cry. Cry for my faults, for causing such pain to the one man who meant most in this world to me.
I swayed on my feet, knowing I had to remain strong, but also knowing the minute I stepped out of this room, I’d became a quivering mass of despair.
He was not going to forgive me. When I cast him away from me four days ago, I had unwittingly thrown him out to the wolves.
“Forgive me, Jamison. I am so sorry. I was wrong. Please, I would do anything for your forgiveness. Don’t do this to us.” My voice trembled, no matter how steady I tried to make it, and he stared down at his lap.
“Just go, Tanith.”
“Why?” My heart beat painfully against my chest and I was helpless. Hopeless. Pinioned by the invisible weights of guilt and remorse, I could not move. For the life of me, I could not move. Neither forward, nor backward, I stood by his bedside, and waited for an answer that would feel like a physical blow to my soul.
“Because when I see you, I see her. When I hear your voice, her voice whispers in the shadows. When I think of you, she appears.” His broad shoulders trembled briefly and his voice grew thick with emotion that he dared not release in front of me. “Don’t you see? She tainted everything in me. She made everything that had once been beautiful, the things I loved, she turned them into things I can't stand to look at.”
"Jamison, don't say that."
He turned those blank eyes to me. “I will never be the same again. I’m not the Jamison you knew. I will never go back to the Jamison you knew.”
I could think of nothing to say. Those empty eyes were enough to rebuff any arguments I could have thought of.
“Now please leave before I call one of the orderlies to escort you out.”
He turned back to the window, and I stood there for a minute, staring at him, praying desperately that this was just all a horrible, terrifying dream. But he never looked at me, and there was little I could do, but walk out.
I closed the door, and the sound of his weeping reached my ears.
I couldn’t stay there anymore.
Not bothering to stop by the waiting room, knowing Mitch would say “I told you so”, I walked out of the hospital and headed toward the one place I knew I could find peace and solace.
Saint Paul Cathedral.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
None but the brave deserved the fair
-John Dryden “Alexander’s Feast”
“Hm. That is quite a dilemma. I can understand how you feel, but on the other hand, I think I can see how your friend feels about this whole mess. You must think of the horrible experience he’s gone through.”
Father Hernandez looked up from polishing one of the pews, although it seemed completely unnecessary. The whole place shone, as if it had just been newly built, but that wasn’t quite so true. The place had been erected on deconsecrated ground about ten years ago, so, technically, the place wasn’t really what anyone would call a holy place.
But it was holy enough for the ones who couldn’t enter most other “places of God.” And that was good enough of us. After all, we weren’t exactly in a position to complain.
Most humans got the wrong idea about us burning up into smoke and turning into ash when we walk into a church. A church is just a building. The reason we are turned away is because the building was on holy ground, blessed ground. But take away the special earth and there wasn’t really anything special about the building.
I liked it here. It was calm, peaceful, a retreat from the crazy life that I led. But when I really needed peace, it did not come to me. I felt completely hopeless, and that was a feeling completely foreign to me.
“I just…I don’t know what to do anymore. I thought if I went and brought him back from Raylene, then everything would be peachy, you know?”
“Things don’t work out the way we want them to, Tanith. You, of all people, should have already known that.”
Father Jeffery Hernandez wasn’t an ordinary clergyman. For one thing, he’d been excommunicated by the Vatican when word got out he was a Were. He should’ve just folded up his stole and thrown away his rosary, but he didn’t. He told me only God had the right to turn people away from the Faith, and no mortal man, Pope or no, had the power to make him quit worshipping the Holy Father. I admired his courage and will. In fact, I admired just about everything about him. If vampires, if I was allowed to have a hero to look up to, then Father Hernandez would have been mine.
“I know. I know.” The church was empty, and the silence echoing from the cold stone walls only made things worse. “I just didn’t know. About Jamison. He was my friend, my best friend. And now, suddenly this close to losing him, let’s not even talk about me taking his blood, everything just feels like it’s totally out of control.”
Father Hernandez sat down next to me with a sigh. “My dear, Tanith. It seems like just yesterday when you staggered through those doors, bleeding and crying for death.”
I remembered that and couldn’t help but wince. I had not been at my finest, then.
“Just yesterday, but already it has been more than five years. And during those five years, I have seen you change in ways I can only deem as miraculous. I do not think you are aware of just how different and lucky you are fro
m the rest of your brethren.”
I was confused. Me? Different from the other vampires? I vaguely remembered Kieran talking about the same thing, but at that time, I had chalked that off as extremely lame pillow talk. Now, I wasn’t so sure.
He cocked his head to one side, causing one side of his normally florid face, to get even redder from the crimson glass panes set into the cathedral walls. “Perhaps you are thinking of something? Something that points toward your rather odd standing as a supposed damned being? Just the fact you can walk around in the sunlight is quite a remarkable thing. I don’t know of many vampires who can stand the sun, and I know even less who can actually walk in it, sunglasses or no.”
“I don’t know. Kieran…” I snuck a glance at Father Hernandez. “Kieran Black.”
He smiled. “I know him. He’s come here several times, last week being the most recent.”
That struck as odd. Kieran didn’t seem the sort of person who was into spirituality. But then again, most people would’ve never imagined me sitting in a pew of a cathedral.
“Anyways, Kieran told me about how I was different. From my kind. At first, I didn’t know what he was talking about, but now since you’ve brought it up, I have to admit, I am a little more than curious. What makes you two think I’m so different? If I was different, don’t you think I’d be able to live without blood?”
He quirked a brow. “Every person must have their fallibilities, their weaknesses. If you did not need blood to survive, then you would not be human.”
“But I’m not human.”
He shook his head. “No, but you are not a God, either, Tanith.
I was confused. “What do you mean? So, if I’m not human, and if I’m not a God, and apparently, I’m different from other vampires, then what the heck does that make me?”
“Isn’t that something that you ought to tell me? Tell me, have you actually stepped foot into a church? Onto any sort of sacred land?”
I was ready enough to say that something like that would have just been suicide, when I realized that, no, I’d never been to such places. “Why would I? What would be the point? One step on consecrated land, and I’ll get covered with first degree burns over the majority of my body. That’s what happens to all vampires.”
“Yes. It would happen to all vampires. After all, they are souls forsaken by God, they are souls God do not want back into his throng. Supposedly. But you, however…” His voice trailed off into silence, and he turned to look at me, thoughtfulness fixed onto his gentle features.
I couldn’t see where this conversation was going. “So? Would you like me to go walk into an average church and see what happens?”
He smiled a secret sort of smile, the sort of smile that I neither trusted nor liked. On a holy man like Father Hernandez, it only made him look incredibly diabolical. In that instant, I had no problems seeing him as a man who would lead souls to their ruin, using the name of God as a ruse. Scary, that.
“No, no, that is completely unnecessary.” His eyes left mine and fixed upon the open doors of the cathedral. I followed his line of sight to see an old woman, back hunched over like a shrimp, as she tottered to the pew nearest to the doors. “Ah, it’s Ms. Brynn. I expect she’ll be wanting some consoling and someone to talk to. I heard one of her boys died during the pack fight between Phoenix and Kieran.”
Even if he hadn’t given me that ‘look’, I already knew it was time for me to leave. I stayed long enough, commiserating, and the rector was just trying to tell me, in his own way, that it was time for me to stop thinking and start moving. Not to mention, I didn’t want the old lady to know her son had been killed in my club. The fact that I might've been the one to kill her son didn't make me feel any better.
I pecked Father Hernandez on a weathered cheek, and he beamed at me.
“Thank you. For everything, Father.”
He nodded.
“Any time, my dear Tanith. Any time you need someone to talk to, any time you feel the need for company, I am always here.”
Leaving the church, I felt light, as though a weight had been taken off my shoulders. It felt good, and my mind felt clear.
I knew what I had to do, and I was going to do it.
So what if Jamison did not want to talk to me? Well, it was just too fucking bad, because he and I was seriously overdue for a ‘therapy’ session.
He wouldn’t break. He wouldn’t bend. I knew him, better than anyone else. He would come out of this, maybe even better than he was before this mess.
The drive back to the hospital was quiet, and I didn’t even bother to turn up the rock music I loved. There were just many questions in my mind, and if music was added to the mix, I didn’t think I’d be able to drive right. Not that I was worried about me. Precious little could hurt me, car accidents not being one of them. I was more worried for the people in the other car.
Mitch had already left the building, and the sun had slipped below the horizon, allowing me to take off the hideous sunglasses and toss them into the nearest trash bin, set next to the elevators.
The elevator ride seemed to take an instant and all too soon, there I was, in front of the door, and on the other side, would be Jamison.
I took a deep breath before opening the door. Courage or no, but I did need to be gutsy, and guts wasn’t something I had much of, not when it came to Jamison. The old, rusty smell of apprehension was starting to filter through my nose, and I opened the door before I lost my nerve completely.
Jamison hadn’t moved from the spot when I last saw him, the only difference being the room was now lit by a pair of hospital lights set by his bed, and he was looking out the window, at the stars just beginning to rise in the night sky. His hair shone russet in the glare of the light bulbs and he looked at me, incredulity clear on his perfect features.
“What are you doing here? I thought I told you not to come back here,” he said quietly, and already I could see his hands moving toward the intercom button set next to the bed.
Coward.
So he was going to cheat, was he? So he was going to try to get me chucked out, was he?
If he could cheat, then, well, so was I. Two could play at this game.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Jamison.”
He glared at me, eyes hot with anger. Ah. So we were actually going somewhere now. I liked Jamison with emotion. Anything was better than the empty pain he showed me before. “Oh, really? Well, what the fuck are you going to do about it, vamp?”
He never called me ‘vamp’ before, in jest or otherwise. Clearly, Raylene had a lot to answer for.
I almost regretted killing her so quickly. Almost.
I braced a chair under the doorknob. "No interruptions. Not now."
His finger fell away from the intercom button, untouched, and he dropped his head, features masked in darkness. “Why did you come back? What’s the whole point? You can’t change something that’s already happened.”
I hated hearing him sound like that. Dejected, melancholy, despondent. Now I was wondering if he was going to take his own life.
“You’re right. I can’t change what already happened. But things that happened are past. You can’t think on them, you can’t waste your time going through the memories like going through individual grains of sand. That’s not even living. I won't let you.”
His hands rested in his lap, the beautifully thin pianist fingers I always envied, clasped as if begging for forgiveness. “What would you know? You’re supposed to be dead.”
Said by anyone else, I would've laughed. Said by Jamison, it hurt.
“Why did you go to Raylene?”
His face contorted into an ugly mask of pain and torment. “Do you really think I would’ve gone to her, if I’d known her to be such a destructive, sadistic bitch? No, I went because it was a cat house; because I thought I could learn to be your dominant.”
I was completely nonplussed.
“So you’re saying this is about the sex?”
Then I knew, and the realization made my knees weak.
“You never needed to be stronger than me, Jamison. You were strong enough to begin with,” I said in a small voice.
His voice choked on unshed tears. I could sense the bitter anger he felt, and I felt utterly impotent. Would that I could go back and wring Raylene’s neck a hundred times over. But I couldn’t.
Like I said, things that were past, were past.
“You don’t understand. For five years, I stood by your side, and I watched as man after man passed through your life, and I’ve seen you make complete fools out of them. But they still wanted you even after what you did to them. But more the fool I, because I wanted what you gave them. You gave me your friendship, but God fucking damn it, I wanted more! I wanted everything you could give to a man, do you have any idea what kind of woman you are? Any man would kill to have you as his.” His hands clenched into the sheets. “And I was such a dumbass to think I could make you mine.”
Truth be told, I was getting rather sick of people starting to give me godlike attributes. First Kieran, then Father Hernandez, and now Jamison. What did they see in me that I could not?
He laughed bitterly. “I thought I’d come back a stronger man, but instead I end up weaker. Funny how life just likes to fuck you over, don’t you agree?”
I didn’t know what to say. “Jamison…”
“But none of that matters now.” He reached over and turned out the lights so the small hospital room was bathed in darkness and shadows, the moon peeping from behind its cover of thick clouds. Pulling the covers over his head, he turned his back to me. “None of this matters now. I’m tired, so will you please leave? And don’t come back here again, Tanith. I mean it. I’ve never had to use spells on you, but if I have to, then I’ll do it.”