The anguish in his cat-slit eyes was impossible to disguise. I couldn’t take any more. My arm flew around his neck. Careful of his injuries, I wrapped him in a hug. “I’m sorry,” I kept saying, tears sparking in my eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
He rested his head against my shoulder. I could sense the exhaustion in his arms as they slowly wrapped around my waist and clung there as I continued to apologize. It was so horrifically ironic, really. I’d thought that by sending him after the talisman, I’d save him from the shackles and lashes of slavery. Instead, I brought it all down on him, hard.
“It was my decision,” he mumbled softly. “I chose to disobey.”
His word choice set my teeth on edge. “You shouldn’t have to ‘obey’ anyone, Elias. That’s what getting the talisman was supposed to be all about, for crying out loud.”
His breath caught on the fabric of my shirt. “I’m truly a free agent now.”
Untangling myself from our embrace, I searched his face as I asked, “I screwed that up for you too, didn’t I? You liked being a knight.”
Shutting his eyes for a moment, he seemed to collect his thoughts. “I used to believe we were so superior to those lost souls who couldn’t sever their ties to their former masters. But look,” he said, raising his hands, palms up, indicating his own ruined body, “how little separates us.”
It was impossible to understand what my father had been thinking. I shook my head in bewildered disgust. “Did Ramses really think that would make you more loyal? I mean, since when does torture work?”
“The punishment wasn’t entirely for my benefit,” Elias said, his voice rough with memory. “It was meant as an example to others.”
“Yeah, because you don’t want anybody else stepping out of line. My dad, the wicked despot,” I said with a sneer. “Shit. Can I just say how sorry I am again?”
Elias laughed lightly. “I think you’ve expressed enough regret for today. Besides, I meant what I said. I knew what I was doing and, unlike you, I was fully aware of the consequences.”
He had a point there. I mean, I knew Dad would be mad if Elias went against orders, but I had no idea he’d have him beaten like a dog for it. I sighed. “It still sucks.”
“That it does, my lady. That it does,” he agreed with a smile.
A train clacked through the yard. I noted that I’d left a bloody smudge on Elias’s neck where my arm had pressed against him. The area where he’d bitten into the muscle of my forearm throbbed, but it had mostly stopped bleeding. I showed it to him. “Oh, um—did you get enough?”
He shook his head. “Not nearly, but the amount I need would easily kill you. It’ll do for now.”
My stomach tightened at the thought of doing this again, but he was my friend. He’d do it for me; how could I be less willing to help him? I looked at all the garbage and wondered, now that the sun had set, if people would arrive soon. Brushing the sand from the thighs of my jeans, I said, “We should get out of here.”
But when I stood up fast, I got a head rush. Elias must have taken more blood than I realized. Woozy, I clutched for purchase and found Elias’s shoulder. He winced, and I let go guiltily, stumbling onto my already banged-up knees. I started to laugh. We were a fine pair.
I let myself go face-first into the damp sand. “Or we could just stay.”
Elias chuckled at my antics, and I felt him step over me. I was about to tell him that even though he was no longer a knight, it didn’t mean he had to stop being a gentleman. But when I looked up, he’d dropped to one knee in front of the fence. He found a good grip on the bottom of the barrier and pushed. It looked so easy, but I could hear the groan of the metal as it bent.
He’d expanded the hole significantly. Before, a person had to shimmy, marine-style, in order to get under. The opening was now wide enough that even someone Elias’s size could easily crawl through on hands and knees.
“Wow,” I said.
“I don’t suppose I should get rid of it entirely,” he said, as if bending steel were as easy as crumpling paper. “We wouldn’t want the kingdom to have a ready supply of humans, now, would we?”
No, we wouldn’t. I felt responsible for enough pain and suffering. I didn’t want to add unexplained homeless disappearances on top of everything. “Bea tried to tell me that vampires only eat witches,” I said, watching as Elias made his way to the other side.
“‘Eat’?”
I ducked under the fence, and accepted Elias’s helping hand up. “What else do you do with humans?”
“Touché,” he said, with a slight bow of his head. “But who is B. and what does he or she know of the kingdom?”
“Bea’s a True Witch. She’s been my friend since forever. I can’t believe you haven’t met,” I said. As we started walking toward the lights of downtown, I wondered how many heads would turn at the sight of shirtless Elias. “We need to find you some clothes.”
Elias waved off my concern. “I have a stash of clothes at the safe house.” He must have noticed my eyebrows jump, because he explained. “I have often been called to move through your world on errands for the kingdom, some of which put me at odds with the local authority. I needed an aboveground home base from which to operate.” He cleared his throat slightly, and looked away. “Plus, the advantages of having a place secret from the rest of the guard occurred to me early in my career.”
“So you’ve always kind of been prepared to go rogue?”
He looked a little sheepish. “I would prefer to think of it as careful contingency planning.”
“I see,” I said, though I was smiling broadly. “You’re a dark horse, Elias Constantine. No wonder my dad—,” I started, but then I couldn’t even bring myself to tease him about what happened. So instead I took his hand and gave it a squeeze. “I’m sorry,” I said for the hundredth time.
“I would love to show you my place,” he said. He hadn’t acknowledged my faux pas, but he didn’t let go of my hand either. “It’s not far from here. Will you be my guest?”
“I’d be honored.”
Elias’s house was in Swede Hollow. We walked the expanse of the bridge, past Mound’s View Park to a little café surrounded by a huge herb garden. Evening diners sat around patio furniture, sipping lattes and eating organic salads. Elias led me through a thick stand of lilacs, and over a small, wooden walk bridge reminiscent of a Japanese garden. Under lamplight, lavender thyme flowers bloomed among curly parsley and freshly planted basil seedlings.
A few people seemed to notice us; someone muttered something about “kids these days” and “S and M.”
I almost turned around to tell that person I’d never hurt Elias that way, but he must have noticed the sudden tension in my body because he pulled me close. He said, “We’re almost there. Just one more block.”
Once we’d cut through the garden, I could see why this neighborhood would appeal to a vampire. In two blocks the road ended. There was nothing but trees beyond. The park stretched out as far as I could see. But we turned away and up the sidewalk of a crooked little Victorian. The house had a lot of similar features to mine—jutting dormers, a pointy-top tower—but it looked like someone had squished it with Photoshop to half the width, and then let Dr. Seuss do some remodeling.
Elias pushed open the gate of a waist-high wooden fence. That too had seen better days. There were planks missing and the cedar had faded to a brittle gray. After stooping to retrieve a key from under a chubby-cheeked garden gnome, Elias continued around to the back and a rickety staircase.
Every step creaked and moaned, and I thought I could feel it wobble as we made our way to a second-floor deck. Lawn chairs were arranged around a wide plastic sun umbrella. Yeah, this was a good safe house. It was impossible to imagine Elias stretched out on the roof catching some rays. Not to mention the crisp factor.
He saw my expression and smiled. “I don’t use that much,” he admitted. “Though it has a pretty unobscured view of the sky; I’ve brought a telescope out here.”
When I looked up, I could see only clouds and a hazy smudge of the moon. Elias totally struck me as the telescope sort, but then, what choice did he have, really? “You’ve never seen the sun.”
He’d unlocked the door and held it open. “Not for a long time. The ability to withstand daylight fades the older you get, and I, my lady, am quite old.”
“How old are you?”
“I was created when Constantine ruled an empire from Constantinople.”
My mind reeled as I tried to comprehend what that must be like. “Dang. That’s a lot of dark.”
“It is,” he said, though he didn’t seem nearly as impressed as I was. “Won’t you come inside?”
The safe house was no penthouse. Elias flicked on a bright overhead. I squinted in the harsh light after the soft darkness of the evening. I shut my eyes, trying to adjust back to normal human senses.
From what I could tell from a quick survey, Elias’s apartment consisted of three rooms. There was a kitchenette directly to my right. Cabinets and a countertop ran the length of the wall, with a sink positioned in the middle under a window. A scuffed, ancient fridge hummed noisily in the corner. The rest of the room opened up into a living area. Elias had a couch pushed up against a bank of windows and a couple of battered recliners across from it.
From the position of the other two rooms, I got the sense that the living room/kitchenette had been fashioned by knocking down a wall between two bedrooms. The other clue was a strip of hardwood where the stained, nubby carpet abruptly ended. It looked like a hallway, without the, well, hall.
My mother raised me to say something nice when first coming into people’s homes, but all I managed was, “Wow, look at this place.”
“It’s not easy to find a landlord willing to rent to someone with no references and no job,” he said.
“Yeah, how do you—?” I’d started when the bedroom door opened, and a pudgy, young Asian guy in plaid pajama bottoms padded into the main room with a yawn.
He rubbed his face sleepily and blinked at the two of us. “Oh, hey, Elias, looks like you’re home.”
“Ana, this is George.”
George and I regarded each other from across the room. He didn’t smile or offer his hand. In fact, he seemed kind of annoyed by my presence. “I guess I should go put some clothes on if we have guests,” he said finally, and then he turned around and went back into the bedroom.
The
bedroom, since the only other door clearly led to a small bathroom.
“George?” George, who didn’t seem at all fazed by the fact Elias wandered in not wearing a shirt and had welts across his back. Did my boyfriend have a boyfriend? I asked again, “George?”
Elias scratched his chin. “Ana,” he said, sounding a little like a teacher explaining a difficult subject, “keep in mind that it is very complicated for me to operate in the daytime without help.”
“So. George helps you.”
“Yes.”
“So he’s like a personal Igor?” It suddenly occurred to me to wonder what Igors got in exchange for all their help, why they were so devoted to vampires.
“I’m going to go change,” Elias said. “I’ll explain everything when I get back.”
“I look forward to it,” I said, watching him enter the very same bedroom George had disappeared into. I sat down on the couch and stared at the door. I could hear male voices murmuring heatedly. George, apparently, had some questions for Elias as well.
George came out first. He wore a Hawaiian-print shirt and shorts. “I’m going to the café,” he said. “Do you want a soda or anything?”
Oh. I was wondering how Elias and I were going to actually talk. “No, thank you.”
“Suit yourself,” he said with a sniff. “I should warn you there’s not much in the pantry. I suppose Elias might be able to make you a cup of tea or something. Well, you’re his guest. I’ll let him worry about you.”
George seemed to be waiting for some kind of response, so I said, “Okay.”
“Okay, well.” George stood at the doorway with his hand on the knob. He seemed on the verge of saying something, but shook his head. “Hopefully you’ll be gone when I get back.”
With that, he left.
If this guy wasn’t Elias’s boyfriend, he sure acted like he thought he was.
I sat on the couch and pulled absently at a thread that had come loose at the cushion’s seam. It seemed like forever until Elias emerged wearing a fresh pair of jeans and a black silk button-down shirt. He’d combed his hair. “Don’t you look metrosexual,” I said.
“Jealousy doesn’t become you, my lady,” Elias said, coming to sit down beside me. He perched on the edge of the seat, his back ramrod straight. His posture reminded me that perhaps there was another reason he’d chosen silk, and why he carefully avoided leaning back.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But ... George? I just wasn’t expecting a George. You’re not sleeping with George, are you?”
Elias didn’t look nearly as shocked by the question as I might have hoped, but he looked me in the eye when he said, “No, I’m not.”
I waited for him to elaborate, because, you know, it was pretty obvious
something
was going on with George.
With a resigned sigh, Elias continued. “George likes being bitten.”
I decided I didn’t really want details, after all, so I put up my hands. “So, he
is
an Igor? He knows what you are?”
“Not exactly. To be perfectly frank, I retain a very loose relationship with George. I’m here only enough to keep this safe house a viable option. We haven’t talked about what I am. But he certainly knows how I react when he opens the shades in the morning.”
“So you
have
seen the sun.”
“‘Seeing’ would not accurately describe my particular experience.”
“Ah,” I said, trying very hard not to picture Elias in bed with George. Of course, because I was trying to avoid it, it instantly flashed in my mind. I changed the subject quickly. “What are we going to do about the talisman?”