by S. J. Coles
“Meg…” I took a breath as her eyes met mine. “I do love you, you know.”
She pressed her lips together. Her eyes brightened with tears. “I know that, Alec.”
“Not in the way you want”—I forced out, watching the pain mount in her eyes and hating myself for it—“but it’s still there.”
She brushed my hair back, bent and kissed my forehead, hesitated then pressed another, softer kiss to my lips. “I know,” she murmured. “I love you too. Just not in the way you need.”
“I don’t know what I need,” I whispered.
“Dear Alec,” she murmured, a watery smile turning up her beautiful mouth. “Do you think anyone ever does?”
She left. My phone was charging next to the bed but I didn’t pick it up. I didn’t want to read the news or check the messages. I didn’t even want to call Ivor Novák and confirm what I already knew in my heart…that I was alone, again.
Chapter Seven
I straightened my aching back after re-attaching the last tire of the Porsche 501. The chassis was gleaming, the new weld work smooth under its fresh coat of ice-white paint. Its interior was deep red leather, smelling warm and organic. The wheel arches curved like swan necks over jet black tires, their silver alloys gleaming, the raw power of the engine tucked away behind the elegant swoop of the bonnet.
It reminded me of Terje. It had done so for the whole six months I’d been working on it. Clem had accused me of drawing out the restoration. He warned me that the owner was getting impatient, but working on it had managed to restore the only thing close to peace I’d known in over a year.
The days were gradually lengthening. The ice and snow were loosening their stranglehold on the glen, even whilst the mountaintops were still capped in white. Meltwater swelled the gurgling burns. The workshop was fractionally above freezing for the first time in weeks. The storms of the previous winter hadn’t returned with the same severity, but there had been moments in the long, dark nights when I had felt as trapped as when the snow had been ten feet deep the year before.
I knew I had no right to complain. Meg had been good as her word. She’d gotten our Obstruction of Justice charges dropped on the understanding that we both testified for the prosecution at Jon Ogdell’s trial. Neither of us had had to think on it long, even though seeing that man across the court room, prison-chiseled lines in his sagging face and all, was something I had been unable to prepare myself for.
His black glare had never left me. When it was finally over, I’d thanked Meg, deeply and sincerely, and climbed into my car to drive straight back to Glenroe, politely refusing her offer to put me up for the night.
I had watched her shrink in the rearview mirror with hard hollowness in my bones. She might have saved us from criminal charges, but her law career was over. People didn’t understand. Social media was rife with conspiracy theories. Activists on both sides were proclaiming their version of the truth and what they considered should be done about it. It would be a long time before any law firm wouldn’t associate the name of Megan Carlisle with that infamous Scotland Blood Party that had sparked the terrible events of what was now being referred to as ‘Blood Winter’.
I knew she needed someone who knew what had really happened to be close to her while she worked through it all. But I couldn’t stay in the city and I couldn’t think what to say to make it better.
At least David was back, staying with her while he looked for a local job. She needed him, and I was glad he was there for her, even more glad that’d he’d stayed clean despite everything, but things had been strained since that last kiss in the hospital. He knew I was hurting and couldn’t understand why. I knew he secretly blamed me for my own unhappiness. I’d hardly known Terje, after all, and would possibly never have been able to understand much of made him what he was. To David, he’d been, at best, a toxic invader who’d messed up our entire lives in just a few short days. At worst, a predator who’d manipulated and abused me into a dangerous addiction that I couldn’t even see for what it was.
He couldn’t understand that Terje, in that tiny amount of time, had somehow become everything to me. He was the first being I’d ever encountered who didn’t leave me feeling alienated and frustrated upon discovering I wasn’t like everyone else. He had been deep enough and old enough to absorb every extreme and intense emotion that spilled out of me, responding only with patience and curiosity. He had been life and breath and heat, mystery, strength and beauty, even if—or because—he was something so far removed from what was considered human as to be classed as a different species.
He’d got me to admit things I’d never admitted to anyone. I’d felt unfettered and guiltless for the way my life had played out for the first time in my life.
I couldn’t explain that to anyone and I couldn’t let it go.
I suddenly understood how David must have felt when I’d ended it with him—and that stung.
I’d had to get a new phone line and mobile. Somehow, my numbers and email had been leaked and I was getting abuse and death threats on a daily basis. It was an unfortunate for me but an acceptable—to him—by-product of Ivor Novák’s media campaign. Terje and I had been made out to be the human-haemophile Capulet-Montague equivalent—star-crossed lovers, vengeful families. Our story had everything. Lashings of death and tragedy. And for what?
Necro-fag. Psycho. Corpse-fucker. Freak. Traitor.
Novák had at least managed to keep my real name and Glenroe out of everything, despite Ogdell’s best efforts to smear me from prison. Not enough people had heard of the real me to believe his accusations, and the collapse of his business empire and his rapidly diminishing mental health were increasingly the focal point of most of the news stories he generated.
I’d spoken to Meg by text message only a couple of times since Ogdell had been sentenced, but she’d long since given up trying to maintain communication. She had started her own consultation business and, through it, had met someone. He was handsome, successful and by all appearances stable and secure both in his future and his outlook, and he trusted her version of the events of the previous winter rather than what he’d read on the Internet. I read her engagement notice online and was happy for her in a vague and distant way, but I also knew a certain degree of guilty relief.
I wasn’t invited to the wedding.
The news sites, papers and radio continued to report on the pulsing waves of consequence from Blood Winter throughout the following year. Ivor Novák, along with a platoon of PR execs and government officials, had overall succeeded in pulling off the colossal juggling act of ensuring that blame did not land on either side and instead focused on the individuals. By the time the following summer had come to Glenroe, the hottest flames had been doused, though things were far from settled.
Freak. Faggot. Blood junkie. Child killer.
Evgeniya had been stripped of her Magister position and extradited to Russia to stand trial in one of the three specialist courts set up to try haemophile crime. I read, several weeks later, that she’d escaped custody, leaving several—haemo and human—dead in her wake. I was certain the world hadn’t heard the last of her, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.
“You should let it go, you know.”
For a moment I hadn’t recognized Clem’s voice when he spoke to me one evening late that summer when, again, I’d not acknowledged his attempts to draw me into discussions about supply orders.
“Let what go?”
“Feeling something you can’t understand…can’t justify, even to yourself. It’ll eat you alive if you let it.”
I lifted my eyes, but he was packing tools away at the other end of the workbench, gaze intent on the tool rack. If I hadn’t known better, I’d’ve sworn there was a flush rising above his beard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
One bushy eyebrow twitched. “I don’t know the whole story of what happened—”
“Clem—”
“But I do know something’s broken i
n you since,” he went on like I hadn’t spoken. Finally, his watery blue eyes met mine. “And you’re too young for that, son. Too young to become your pa.”
The anger was instant, even though I knew it was unjustifiable. “You don’t know anything about it.”
His face shifted, something like pity filling in his eyes. “I know his lordship wanted stuff he couldn’t get his head around, too.”
I put the filer down with a clunk. “Like what?”
His gaze went far away. “I really thought we could be happy, for a while. More fool me. Can’t make someone happy if they can’t handle wanting what they want.”
A long pause whilst my mind somersaulted. “You…and Dad?”
“We were both young once too, you know.”
“But…Dad? Dad wasn’t gay.”
His storm-cloud face twisted into a grimace. “I don’t know if he was or he wasn’t. There weren’t labels for things like that back then. But we…” He definitely blushed this time. “We were close for a while, after your ma left.” He picked at a loose splinter on the workbench. “I knew we could never tell anyone. But I thought…” I held my breath. I sensed that if I spoke, I’d break the spell. “He used to come to the cottage. In winter, mostly. I don’t know if was because of the long nights or if he felt, I don’t know, hidden by the snow. But winter was when I saw him most. It was the only time he was himself—the only time he knew the truth about himself.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, I know what he was like,” Clem continued, his familiar scowl returning. “A tough old sod. A right arsehole, even, sometimes. But that’s what happens when a man fights himself for a lifetime.” His gaze dropped to the oil-streaked floor. “It got so bad that in the end, the only thing he could care about was the damn house. It played its part, you see. Helped him look right. Protected his place in the real world.” He snorted. “Your ma never understood what it was really all about. Of course, that was all before the drinking got too bad. After that, he couldn’t even care about Glenroe, let alone anything…or anyone…else.”
My knees had gone funny. I wanted to sit down but I didn’t dare move.
“Your pa knew what he wanted,” Clem continued after a moment, his voice even lower, “and hated that he wanted it. It destroyed him.”
I gripped the workbench. “What if you can’t have what you want?”
He methodically cleaned a spanner for a few moments. “You can still accept you want it,” he said. “It’s a good start.”
He placed the spanner in the rack, folded the cleaning rag and put it in his pocket then raised his eyes to mine. For one surreal second, I thought he might put his hand on my shoulder, but he seemed to reconsider it, nodded briskly and left. I listened to his Land Rover drive away in dazed silence.
Long after everything had gone quiet, I still hadn’t figured out whether the conversation had made everything better or much, much worse.
When he returned to work the next day, it was like nothing had happened. I caught myself looking at him out the corner of my eye, feeling at once uncomfortable, saddened and angry. He knew I was looking at him differently but he went about his work with only the occasional grumbled complaint offered as conversation, the same way he had my whole life.
It was like pieces of a puzzle I hadn’t known I was trying to solve suddenly fit together. The picture they formed was sad, even if it completed something inside me that I’d never realized was missing. It didn’t stop everything hurting, but at least I finally allowed myself to admit that it did hurt…and how much.
Late one night, when that summer had just started to sigh into autumn, Ivor Novák knocked at the Glenroe front door. Memory smote me as I pulled open the door, which hadn’t been opened since Brody had knocked on it the year before. But the towering, broad-shouldered haemophile standing on the step in a long, ground-sweeping coat, impeccably tailored navy-blue suit and perfectly schooled expression couldn’t have been more different from the sunny, slim Californian. His fine-cut appearance should have made me very aware of my oil-stained, unshaven state, but I’d already had half a bottle of wine and couldn’t bring myself to care.
I heard myself trying to explain why I hadn’t returned his calls or messages.
He raised a spade-sized hand. “It’s okay, Lord Aviemore. You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”
“Why are you here?”
“To reassure you that you have not been forgotten,” he said, his deep voice, faintly accented, rolling through me like a fine whisky. “And that your kindness toward Terje Kristiansen has not been overlooked.”
The name renewed a pain behind my ribs that had, at that point, faded to a dull ache. “What kindness?”
“You attempted to bring him relief when he was suffering,” Novák continued softly, “despite the danger to yourself. And you tried to save him during the confrontation with his Magister.”
“How do you know that?”
He put his head to one side. There was something in his blue-black eyes that I couldn’t identify. “Don’t worry. No one is renewing the claims against you regarding Brody Harris. The boy was an unfortunate casualty, one that Terje would have answered for, had he been able to. But his death was not of your making.”
My throat closed and my fingers ached where they clutched the wood of the door. I wished fervently that he’d leave.
“To answer your question,” he went on smoothly, “the timeline of the true events of Blood Winter has now been fully established. I wanted you to know that your actions are appreciated by my people…and myself.”
“Thank you?” I managed.
His gaze drifted over my shoulder to take in the hall, the staircase and once-grand windows over the gallery, now almost entirely blocked over with plywood. “Some people don’t understand your attachment to this place,” he went on quietly, “but I know what it’s like, holding on to something that the world thinks is useless or antiquated.” I struggled to untangle one question from the dozens that swirled in my head. “Glenroe is yours,” he continued, holding out a thin manilla file, “for as long as you want to keep it. I have taken the liberty of funding a Blanket Prevention Order to last your lifetime, stopping anyone from approaching you about the sale of the property without facing legal action.”
I took the file, feeling numb. “I don’t understand. How do you know so much about me? Why—?”
“Don’t worry yourself, my lord,” Novák said with a soft smile and a slight bow of the head. It was the first time anyone had used the title and made it sound real. “This is merely a small way for my kind to pay you back for the understanding you extended to one of our own in a time of need.”
“I know you want me to do interviews,” I said, voice flat and lifeless, “but I really just want to be left alone.”
“I understand,” he replied, though something in his eyes told me he wasn’t dissuaded. “Please,” he said, producing another business card from a pocket in his coat, “keep my number. Let me know if I can be of any more assistance. A new age is coming, Lord Aviemore. And this won’t hurt forever.”
He glided down the overgrown path, large feet barely making any noise on the weedy gravel. A car started on the road below, its headlights washing holes in the gathering night, then he was gone.
His words swirled in my head for days, but I hadn’t been able to fathom what had lain behind them, if anything. I had my new lawyer look over the BPO and they found it to be airtight. Something loosened inside me as I filed the papers away in a kitchen drawer, like a knot that had been snagged in me for years had finally come undone, but it only eased a small part of the constant ache that still permeated to my bones.
* * * *
“Boss?”
I blinked, Clem’s rough voice in my ear bringing me out of my reverie.
“What?” I asked, straightening from the Porsche. He was craning his neck, peering out through the window into the forecourt.
“I think someone’s h
ere.”
I frowned, looking at the time. “It’s very late. Didn’t they ring the bell?”
Clem shook his hairy head. “Didn’t even hear the car drive up.”
I strode over to the window and peered out into the gathering dusk. A beautiful E-type Jaguar, gleaming British Racing Green, was parked in the forecourt. I went out to it but it was empty, though the keys were in the ignition. I took a moment to admire the walnut paneling on the dash, the creamy leather upholstery, then straightened to scan the forecourt and stretch of deserted road. There was still just enough daylight to see there was no living thing as far as the eye could see.
“What the ‘ell?” Clem stood scratching his head in the doorway. “Is that a job?”
“Looks in perfect condition,” I murmured.
“Well, it didn’t drive here itself, did it?”
“I—” I froze. A figure had stepped from around a corner of the workshop and stood just out of Clem’s eye-line. White-blond hair brushed the turned-up collar of a black wool coat. His skin was the color of fresh milk, marble smooth, the curving lips a fractionally darker shade, like sun-warmed fruit. A large pair of sunglasses hid the eyes from view but I could feel them on me, even at this distance.
“Clem,” I called when he turned to look over his shoulder, “I think we’ll call it a night.”
“I got paperwork to finish up.”
“I’ll do it in the morning,” I said, hurrying into the workshop and fetching his coat and keys. “I’ll lock up. Have an early night.”
“What about this?” he said, gesturing at the Jag.