Lailah (The Styclar Saga)

by Nikki Kelly

  His smile fell away and the creases in his forehead made a reappearance.

  “What complications? That you were an Angel?”

  “Well, that was an issue in itself, but you didn’t know I was an Angel. I was going to tell you, tell you everything, but I was too late.” His face dropped and his body tensed.

  Perhaps it was wrong but I tried to connect to him; I hoped he was still open from what we had just seen together. He instantly seized up.

  “What are you doing?” he asked. I could tell he wasn’t happy, but his words were still soft.

  “I just want to understand. Why don’t you show me what happened?”

  “There are some things I never want you to see, and I won’t be the one to show you.”

  He seemed to be trying to protect me, but I couldn’t help feeling frustrated. This had been my life as much as it had been his. I was entitled to know all of it, not just the bits he deemed appropriate to share.

  His expression cooled as he gathered himself. “There were a number of situations that made things difficult. I don’t want to go through all that now. I just wanted you to feel the happiness we shared back then. You need answers, but that’s enough for now.”

  I screwed up my face to protest, but I knew Gabriel meant what he said, and if that was all he was ready to reveal today, that was it. Instead, I tried to be grateful for the memories and feelings he had given back to me.

  “That said, I think I should teach you to play again.”

  The grin returned to his expression and he nodded at the soldiers who were prepared for battle in front of us. His face lit up brightly again as I conceded.

  “Ruadhan will take you for a tour of the village at twelve, so we have a couple of hours.”

  “You kept this all those years?” I asked quietly as I concentrated on the pieces in front of me.

  I was immediately drawn to the knight.

  “I hid it for all those years, yes.” Gabriel unbuttoned his cardigan and rolled up his sleeves. He meant business.

  “Let’s start with the characters, shall we?”

  He spent the next hour naming each chess piece and explaining how they could move and what the rules of the game were. Although it all seemed new to me, I found myself moving some of the pieces instinctively.

  As he continued the chess lesson, my mind wandered and his words echoed around it. I was mortal when he met me. Then I had died and returned, a different girl than who he had fallen in love with all those years ago. I was changed forever and I couldn’t be sure myself if any remnants of the innocent Lailah were left.

  I watched how delicately Gabriel handled the pieces. I could barely bring myself to take my eyes off him. Finally, checking his watch, he signaled that it was time to finish our game for the morning.

  He began packing the characters up and I cradled the knight in my hand; the cold ivory was so smooth to touch. I hid it carefully in the box and Gabriel placed it back under the floorboards.

  He wrapped his arm around my waist and whisked me from the library to a patient Ruadhan, who was standing at attention in the kitchen.

  “Hi, Cessie, you ready to go for a walk?” he said.

  “Yes, that would be lovely.” I grabbed my jacket and looped my satchel over my shoulder before turning to say good-bye to Gabriel. “What will you be up to while I’m gone?” I asked.

  I wondered if he would follow on this particular outing.

  “Ruadhan will take good care of you. Michael and I have some things to catch up on.”

  I took that to mean that he trusted Ruadhan, unlike Brooke. And I had to remind myself that he was working to make sure the Purebloods and their Vampires were not hot on our heels.

  “Okay,” I replied, sending a grateful look his way.

  As we left the kitchen, Gabriel called, throwing me an apple.

  I caught it one-handed.

  “A late breakfast snack?” he suggested.

  I actually wasn’t hungry, I’d never had much of an appetite, but I tucked it away in my handbag anyway.

  As we stepped onto the driveway I could sense Gabriel’s reluctance to let me go, but clearly he thought it was good for me—even if he didn’t like it. And he needed time to strategize with Michael.

  We made our way down the drive and onto the road. It was a long walk to the village; I was quickly learning this group liked to maintain its distance and privacy. I took the opportunity to take in Ruadhan properly. In his late forties in human years, he was certainly very elegant, wearing a tweed jacket over pressed trousers and leather shoes. His dark hair had flecks of gray running through it at the temples and he had bushy eyebrows of the same color. His pale skin had faint freckles across the cheeks and over his nose, and he had a small bit of stubble on his chin.

  We made idle chitchat until we eventually reached the local church and cemetery. Guiding me around, he explained his Irish Catholic heritage.

  “Do you still believe in God, after what happened to you?” I asked as we moved slowly down the church aisle. Ruadhan was admiring the images in the stained-glass windows.

  “If anything I believe now more than I ever did. The Purebloods came from Hell, and Gabriel came to us from Heaven,” he said.

  He bent his head in silent prayer at the foot of the altar before we ventured back outside.

  Drifting through the cemetery in winter was eerie, but Ruadhan took his time, reading the inscriptions engraved into the headstones. “It’s amazing, isn’t it? To think I am more than a hundred years old, but yet here I am, and here they are.” He looked down at me. At over six feet tall and burly, he was quite impressive.

  “But that is the normal order of things, Cessie. You will grow older and you will die one day, and that’s how it’s meant to be.”

  He seemed humbled. Little did he know, I was actually far older than he was, and as far as I knew, I could never have an end of any kind.

  We left the cemetery and walked down the narrow street, passing by a wide property that looked as though it dated back to the Tudor period.

  “That was used as a school in the nineteen hundreds. It’s been converted into a house since,” he explained.

  I could tell. It was an old-fashioned one-story building from a bygone era, with windows stretched from the bottom right to the very top. I could almost hear the excited children running and giggling as they stood in the playground waiting to go inside.

  Opposite was a row of terraced cottages; they were all painted white with a short picket fence running the length of them. They were small, but looked very cozy. The properties were more clustered along the main road, but you could see farther back that the houses got bigger on the streets that continued off this one. We approached a tall sign that swung and creaked in the chilly wind; it featured a picture of a horse’s head surrounded by the words THE WHITE HORSE.

  “Local boozer,” Ruadhan said.

  We neared the entrance and the prospect filled me with pleasure: another single-story brick building, which looked more like someone’s home that had been converted than a purpose-built public house, with its old-fashioned black and white beams and array of benches outside sheltered by enormous umbrellas. Of course, no one was actually using them because it was freezing, but inside you could hear that the place was brimming with people.

  Ruadhan offered to take me in and treat me to a Sunday lunch.

  “Sure. That would be lovely, thanks,” I said as he chivalrously held the first of two doors open for me. I still didn’t have much of an appetite, but I wanted to go in and escape the frost for a while.

  Stepping inside, I was suddenly reminded of the life I had been living up until recently. While the building and the thought of the families inside enjoying their Sunday dinners had initially made me feel warm inside, that sensation was quickly replaced with the cold reminder of the loneliness that I had come to associate with my existence in these places.

  It was tightly packed and ahead of me was a large wooden bar with an ove
rworked barman trying desperately to attend to five raucous customers at once. There were logs burning in an open fireplace, heating the whole room, which instantly took the edge off the chill. The room felt even more snug thanks to the low ceilings, and I noticed Ruadhan wasn’t far from hitting his head on the thick beams that ran the whole length of the room.

  “If you walk down and to the right, there’s a set of double doors. They have another seating area out there covered by a tent with heaters; we’re more likely to get a table in there.”

  “Okay, great.”

  “What would you like?” he asked.

  “I’m happy with anything, I’m not that fussy.”

  “Aye, and what about to drink?”

  “Just a juice, please,” I replied, and began squeezing through the standing patrons to reach the double doors.

  Sure enough, a table at the far end was available, so I ventured over to claim it. I peered out of the clear plastic of the tent onto the sloping gardens at the back and glowed as I watched the children playing on the swings and running about with their dogs. It was charming and rustic; just how an English pub should be.

  Ruadhan spotted me at the end of the tent and, joining me, placed a pretend saltshaker that said TABLE 6 on it. Drinks in hand, he passed me a cranberry juice and plonked a pint of Guinness in front of himself.

  I noted it curiously before asking, “Do you eat and drink normally?”

  “Drink, yes; eat, no. Being a, well, you know … alcohol is actually far more intoxicating than it is to normal folks like you. Food, well, you know the score there. Luckily for you I have had years of practice on this stuff!” He laughed heartily as he guzzled his pint, leaving a frothy white mustache on his top lip. I giggled and wiped it away for him with a napkin.

  “So tell me, Cessie, where are you from? Where are your parents?”

  I hesitated a little before I replied. I had instantly liked Ruadhan, and I felt guilty for being dishonest with him. So I tried to stick to the truth as best as I could, just omitting some of the detail. “Well, not much to tell. I was orphaned, if you like. Always been on my own as far as I can remember. I was working in a pub in Creigiau when I came across Jonah on my way back home. You know the rest.…” I trailed off, taking a sip of my juice.

  “Home? I went back there; it was more of a shell if you ask me. What’s a nice girl like you doing staying somewhere like that?”

  I’d forgotten that he had gone back in search of my things.

  “Well, I don’t have any family. I wasn’t making much money, and that house was just sitting there.…” I said. “And what about you? I bet you have a much more interesting story than mine.” I wanted to change the subject, but he seemed unnerved as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  “I’m from the Emerald Isle originally. ’Course you probably gathered that.” He paused for a moment, slurping his beer while he considered the rest of his story. “I wasn’t a young man when I was turned, and served for over ten years before Gabriel found me. He saved me from my Gualtiero and he helped me rediscover my humanity.”

  His face became drenched in regret and sorrow; I would have thought being saved would evoke a different emotion. I leaned in, hoping he’d tell me more.

  “Gabriel saved me, but I had trouble adjusting. When I was changed, I was taken away from my wife and daughter. Gabriel told me I couldn’t risk returning to them. He said I wasn’t ready. But I didn’t listen.”

  He stopped there. I shouldn’t have pushed but I couldn’t help myself. “Did you say good-bye to them?”

  “In a manner of speaking. Gabriel was right, I wasn’t able to control myself.” He rubbed his eyes.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I whispered. “You didn’t ask to be what you are.”

  Ruadhan blinked, and the flecks of green in his eyes started to swirl. He certainly appeared to be far more able to restrain his impulses than Jonah.

  “That may be true, but what I am now is … I would have ended things myself, but I have a debt to Gabriel for risking himself for me.”

  “That’s the only reason you go on?” I said.

  “Yes. I have assisted him in freeing the others. I hope in some way that my support will allow me some small form of redemption. Though I know when my final end comes, I cannot be saved past this existence. But I’ve got a duty to Gabriel to help him in any way I can.”

  I struggled with the idea that this wise and caring being would simply stop existing when his end finally befell him.

  “So you go on for him? Only him?”

  “Yes. When he no longer needs me, I will ask him to be the one to finish this. I’m evil, we all are—our choice or not. Nothing evil should be allowed to exist in this world. We belong in Hell, right alongside our creators … the Purebloods. I hope to help send them back to the darkness from whence they came, before my final day does come.”

  “Even your Gualtiero? Do you not still have some form of connection to him?”

  His eyes blazed momentarily before he answered me. “Especially my Gualtiero. If you believe nothing else you hear while you keep our company, believe me when I tell you that if I were ever presented with an opportunity of ridding this world of one of them—any of them—I would not hesitate. In fact, I pray that I am given the opportunity.”

  His words cut through the air between us.

  We sat, neither of us talking. I felt the weight and enormity of Ruadhan’s guilt and loss now weighed heavily on my own heart.

  My lunch finally arrived: several lamb cutlets—undercooked and dribbling blood—together with roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, and vegetables, all submerged in thick brown gravy. I realized suddenly that I was in fact quite hungry after all.

  “Looks grand, that!” Ruadhan laughed. “A hearty meal for a hearty girl!”

  I went straight for the lamb; it was chewy as it hadn’t seen the oven long, but delicious.

  Ruadhan placed his hand on my arm as I cut into my meal. “You know, you remind me of my daughter.”

  I stretched a small smile as he moved his heavy hand from me. “How did you find Gabriel?” I spoke softly despite the outside seating area brimming over with people and the noise filling every available inch.

  “He found us, all of us. Hanora was the first he saved. I was shortly after.” He leaned back in his seat and folded his arms together, and suddenly seemed very fascinated by his pint glass, his eyes not moving from it for a while. “Gabriel seems to believe that there are Gualtieros and their armies looking for you.”

  I was surprised by the turn in conversation.

  “He trusts me implicitly and I him,” Ruadhan continued. “He isn’t telling me everything, not yet. And I get that; there’ll be a good reason for it. But he has told me that they want you and he doesn’t understand why. He’s got us on full alert, patrolling the village in shifts. You clearly mean something to him.”

  It was more of a statement than a question. I munched on my carrots while I considered my response. “Why that is, your guess is as good as mine,” I said.

  It wasn’t a lie; it was the truth. Ruadhan seemed content with my answer, for now at least. We passed the rest of the conversation on lighter topics.

  By the time I had finished my lunch, I was stuffed. We made our way to the exit and Ruadhan settled up before escorting me out of the pub.

  Deciding that it would be wise to walk off the meal, we proceeded to trek across the many different trails and roads around the village. I didn’t mind; it was a change to be out in the fresh air, even if it was frosty. The new Chanel jacket was too fancy for the outing, but it kept me sufficiently warm as we walked for what felt like miles. I still didn’t have my bearings among all the fields, streams, and tall trees.

  It was almost six o’clock; we had been going for over four hours and the night was drawing in. Letting out an unwanted yawn, I covered my mouth with my hand.

  “Oh dear, sweetheart, have I worn you out? I’m sorry, I rather forget sometimes.… Not us
ed to the company of a mortal! Your legs must be aching!”

  As I looked up to reply, I waffled.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Against the darkness Ruadhan almost sparkled like the stars in the dark sky.

  “Our kind are created out of darkness,” he said. “We are strongest when it’s dark.”

  I wondered about my Angel. “And Gabriel?”

  “He is born out of light, he feeds off the sun. On Earth, his gifts peak at sunrise and weaken at sunset.”

  It made sense. Whether day or night, Gabriel was almost impossible to take in, unlike anyone or anything I had ever seen. My knees weakened as I pictured his face.

  “We should get back. He’ll be waiting for you.”

  “How far do we have to walk?” I asked, hoping we weren’t miles away.

  “Not far. Can you manage, or would you prefer a lift?” He smiled.

  “Um, we can walk.”

  Half an hour later we were near the property, and I finally gave in, letting Ruadhan carry me the last bit of the way. Sure enough, at the front door, Gabriel was standing there smiling widely at me, displaying his perfect white teeth.

  “She’s all yours!” Ruadhan laughed, lifting me from his shoulders and placing me in Gabriel’s arms, leaving us alone together.

  “Did you have a nice time?” he asked me, his dimples set deeply into the sides of his cheeks.

  I stretched my body in his arms and raised the back of my hand to my temple, attempting my best damsel-in-distress routine. “Funny, I never ever thought I’d need rescuing from a Vampire because he was forcing me to exercise!” I laughed, burying my head into the crevice between his shoulder and his chin.

  Gabriel held me effortlessly as though I weighed nothing at all. “Well, now you’ve been rescued, or rather, returned for a refund, what can I do for you?”

  I paused and considered some things I’d like him to do, but I resisted enlightening him.

  I hopped down and shivered as I removed my jacket. “Tea…!”

  ELEVEN

  ONE CUP OF TEA and several chocolate cookies later, I lay my head in Gabriel’s lap, my tangled hair covering my face. My boots were strewn by the side of the sofa, and I felt myself drifting off.