Despite myself, I couldn"t help but notice how similar they were.
"I had to defend myself," Sebastian said.
I wasn"t listening. All I saw was the way they were together. Similarly pale, unearthly skin glowed faintly in the moonlight.
Tereza"s long, curling hair had an inky blackness that seemed to blend into the night, like Sebastian "s. Maybe it was way they carried themselves, but something about them both seemed to be out of this time, from another era, though they were dressed in regular clothes, even if Tereza"s skirt was ragged and Sebastian was underdressed for the weather as usual. For that matter, neither Sebastian nor Tereza shivered, like I did, in the cold.
Tereza"s eyes watched me with rare clarity. I saw in her stare the hunger-that strange craving that always came between Sebastian and me. I might understand Sebastian"s thirst for blood in theory, but in practice I had to admit it repulsed me. He was a vampire.
So was she.
And they had a kid together.
How was I ever going to compete with that?
"I had to think of something to distract her," Sebastian continued weakly.
Someone jumped in with: "So you kissed her? Dude."
Funny though it was, that was the wrong thing to say. Lilith reared up. I felt fire, like lightning, scorch through my veins. My conscious thought began breaking down into a repet.i.tive phrase: Kill them, kill them all.
But a circle tightened around me like a noose. Raging against the constricting bond, I felt I could break it. Yes, it would be easy. Then they would all die.
Until his voice joined in that infernal song of theirs, the one holding me back. His magic wasn "t like the others. It was like the cold fire of a diamond facet, and it should be mine. Not hers. I rallied against the circle, but with his added magic, there was no hope of breaking it.
I smiled wickedly. I"d kill her later.
Suddenly, I snapped back fully into myself. The woods echoed with voices. I felt Lilith"s evil grin fall. Her heat abandoned me.
I stood in a puddle of melted ice on the muddy ground. Around me, the entire coven had formed a physical circle, holding hands.
Sebastian stood separated from the others. I could see him over Griffin"s shoulder, standing under the pine. Tereza still clung to him, but I could hear his voice clearly above them all.
"I"m cool," I said, but my voice was too hoa.r.s.e to be heard over the singing. I cleared my throat and tried again. "I"m back." Slowly, as if not quite trusting my a.s.sessment, the song died down.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Sebastian step forward, his mouth open, ready to spout some lame excuse when I turned on my heel and started walking back to the van. As I pa.s.sed William, I asked, "Can I stay at yours tonight?"
"Of course," he said quietly.
I sensed the rest of the coven following behind me in a solemn procession. We left Sebastian and Tereza standing alone in the woods. No one spoke a word; we just filed into the van.
Sebastian came running after us, dragging a reluctant Tereza along. "Garnet! Wait!"
Xylia slammed the sliding door on the sound of his pleas. Robert started the engine.
But I forgot. There was no running away from a vampire.
In a flash, Sebastian stood in front of the van, his hands on the hood. Robert gunned the engine threateningly.
"Run him over," I said. When everyone looked at me in horror, I added, "He"s a vampire. It won"t kill him."
The engine revved again. "I can"t do it," Robert admitted. "My foot won"t come off the brake."
"Anyway, he"s got the strength of ten men or something," someone muttered from the backseat. "He could probably hold the van back."
"I think your physics is off," William corrected. "Besides there"s ice, with the ma.s.s of the van . . . I think if we had more momentum or something, we could totally slide him under us."
I got out of my seat, while they continued discussing whether or not Sebastian had the strength or leverage or whatever was needed to hold back our van. I pulled the door open with a jerk and stuck my head out. "Get out of the way, Sebastian," I said.
"We need to talk," he said.
"Go to h.e.l.l," I yelled.
Tereza hissed at me from the ditch.
"And why don"t you take your wife with you."
"She"s not my wife," he said.
"Didn"t look like that in the woods," I retorted. "Now, get out of my way, or this time I"ll let Lilith come out to kick your sorry a.s.s."
The entire van echoed with a chorus of "Boo-yah" and "You go, girl!"
Wisely, Sebastian stepped to the side. He started to say something-no doubt one last appeal to my better judgment. I pulled the door handle. Not being used to these kinds of sliding doors, it bounced a bit against the latch, but I managed to get it shut with a modic.u.m of the drama I"d intended.
The van lurched into motion. The sudden start pushed me back into my seat. Once we rounded the corner, everyone started talking at once. Over my head I heard, "Kicked him to the curb" and "What was he thinking kissing that woman" and "She sure told him."
Without a word, William put his arm around my shoulder.
I started to cry.
Well, I thought, at least now I didn"t have to worry about what to tell my mother about the heirloom wedding dress.
I thought I might make it to William"s place without anyone in the coven really noticing how upset I was. After the first few tears, I knuckled the rest away and held on tightly to my smile. The initial exuberance had died down. By the time we were pulling onto William"s street, everyone was quieter, chatting about their lives and mundane things.
No one mentioned Lilith.
The absence of commentary hung in the air. Every once in a while someone would start to say something about Lilith and stop short. We all pretended not to notice-even me.
Lilith scared me too. If the rest of the coven hadn"t been there, Lilith would have killed Sebastian and Tereza. Part of me might have talked about wanting to see him dead, but not like that, not really. I knew what it felt like to wake up with my hands around a dead man"s throat. It wasn"t something I wanted to repeat ever again.
Lilith hummed under my skin, almost as though she were laughing at me. I got the distinct sense she didn"t believe me.
I shoved that thought away quickly. Luckily, we"d arrived. After I unbuckled, there was a lot of jostling, hugging, and saying good-bye. Everyone promised to be there if I needed them. I nodded. I knew they would be . . . h.e.l.l, they already had been.
I waved good-bye and scurried up the rickety stairs at the back of the house to William"s apartment. William"s building was a block off Fraternity Row. His house was shabby but well-maintained. The neighborhood, however, left something to be desired.
The sidewalk was shoveled, but bits of newspaper and other garbage stuck out from the piles.
Once William let me in, I threw myself on his couch without even taking off my boots or parka. When I heard the door latch, I screamed and hit the pillows with my fists.
"What was he thinking?"
My cell phone rang.
"I imagine he"d like to tell you what happened," William said drily, as he took off his boots and hung up his coat.
"Well, I"m not going to talk to him," I said. The phone rang until it rolled into voice mail. "I"m not ready yet. I need to process this whole thing."
William nodded like he understood. He slid across the floor in stocking feet. "I"ll make some hot chocolate."
William had redecorated since my last visit. He still had a lot of India-influenced throw pillows and wall hangings. Bright colors and mirrors and geometric shapes dotted the room. But now, William had added more chrome and sharp edges. It felt a little like a marriage between Ikea and Global Village, but it worked.
It still surprised me how comfortable William had made this shabby s.p.a.ce. Where walls were water damaged and cracked, William put up an embroidered quilt that looked Mexican in origin. Accent lamps made warm, comfortable pools of light around the room. Playful pictures of faeries and dragons dotted the walls.
When I glanced at the caller ID on my cell phone, I wasn"t surprised at all that it had, in fact, been Sebastian earlier.
Now I just had to decide what to do about him. I rubbed the s.p.a.ce between my eyes, trying to banish the image of Sebastian"s lips on Tereza"s from my mind. Unfortunately, every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was Tereza"s arms entwined around his body, which pressed hungrily against hers.
And, worse, how natural they looked together . . .
William put a hot mug into my hands. "You should take your coat off, stay a while."
I"d totally forgotten I was still bundled up. Setting the cup down on a chrome and gla.s.s coffee table, I pulled off my coat and stepped out of my boots. William took everything over to the closet by the door and stowed it away. I tucked my feet under my b.u.t.t and took a sip of the cocoa.
"I wonder how long they were in love," I said to myself. "Did he stay to see Matyas born?"
William sat down on the couch next to me. He had a cup printed with the Bill of Rights that was slowly disappearing with the heat of his drink. "Izzy says that Matyas was born after Tereza died."
I crinkled my nose at the thought. "What? How is that possible?"
"Well, I guess it happens sometimes when people are in a coma. And, well, to hear him tell it, she wasn"t all the way dead."
"That explains a lot about Matyas," I said, remembering that he had some magical powers himself, specifically the ability to walk into other people"s dreams. "So Sebastian must have been there. To take care of him and stuff, right?"
William shook his head. "Matyas was taken in by his mother"s people."
This conversation wasn"t helping. I"d wanted a sense that Sebastian had fallen into Tereza "s arms because of some long, romantic history. The more I heard about it from William, the more like a one-night stand Tereza sounded. "That can"t be right," I said. "I mean, Sebastian must have courted Tereza for a long time. He said that Tereza "s father made him learn to speak their language. He"s smart and everything, but that must have taken a while, don"t you think? Plus, they were promised to each other-betrothed, engaged, whatever. That doesn"t happen overnight, does it?"
"It might when you"re pregnant."
"Jeez," I said. "You think Sebastian was that guy? The one who swoops into town and makes a girl pregnant?"
"More like the Gypsy camp."
My mouth hung open for a second. Now I had a line from Cher "s "Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves" in my head about all the men coming "round and laying their money down. "That sounds really tawdry," I admitted.
William shrugged and took another sip of his cocoa. "Maybe you should ask him about it."
I looked at the drink cooling in my own cup. "I suppose I should."
It seems there were a lot things I didn"t know about a man I was about to say "forever" with. In the last couple of days I found out he fought in Africa with Rommel, and, at some point, he hung around Gypsy camps. What else did he have hidden up his sleeve? Did I even know Sebastian at all?
"I guess it"s all right to let him stew a bit, though," William said with a little half smile.
I joined him in the grin, and we clinked our cups.
Later, William distracted me with a monster movie. He popped some popcorn, and we drank hard lemonade. When I should have been laughing at the badly dubbed English and the papier-mache puppet, I found myself staring at the engagement ring on my finger and crying again.
"My wedding"s off, isn"t it?"
"What?"
"Nothing," I said, pulling my cell out. I swiped away the tears with my fingertips. I "d turned the ringer off when we started the show, and there were several missed calls-all from Sebastian.
William noticed me staring forlornly at my phone. He rubbed his nose. Then he turned off the TV, even though part of Tokyo was still standing. "I"ll go take a shower and get ready for bed."
"Okay," I said. "Hey, thanks."
He gave me a tired smile. "You"ll do the same for me someday. Now go save your marriage."
My breath hitched. "Do you really think I can?"
"If you really want to, Garnet, you can move mountains."
That was such a William thing to say. My face crinkled into a reluctant smile. "Yeah," I said. "Maybe." But I wasn"t sure. I mean, maybe we weren"t ready to get married. We hadn"t been going out together that long-less than two years-which was what, a flash, in Sebastian"s span of a thousand? Even as dead weight, Tereza had been part of Sebastian"s life for over a hundred years.
I flipped open the phone. Should I call him? I still couldn"t quite shake the image of the kiss. I snapped it shut and stood up. I wandered over to the window. Looking down onto the street, I saw Sebastian standing under a streetlamp. He had his phone in his hand.
I stepped away from the window.
I wasn"t sure why I was reluctant to talk to him. Okay, I meant outside of that nagging picture of him lip-locked with his dead- vampire-zombie-Gypsy-queen-ex floating around in my head.
Maybe there was a reasonable explanation, right? I looked out the window again. This time our eyes met. He looked at his phone and then back up to me. I shook my head and pointed to the back of the building where the stairs to William"s door were.
My boots were still a little wet and cold, but I put them on anyway. I pulled my coat over my shoulders. Scrunching my hat over my ears, I slipped my gloves over my fingers.
I opened the door to meet Sebastian, but he was already standing at the top of the stairs.
"I"m sorry," he said.
He did look apologetic standing there. His eyes searched mine with a vaguely frantic yet totally sincere look. "Where"s Tereza?" I asked. "Back at the house."
The house? His farm? He took Tereza back to our house?