Falling to Ash (20 page)

But Caitlín wasn’t my sister for nothing. When she got hold of something that she found interesting, she was implacable. I suddenly flashed on an image of her asking Mom questions about her cancer. It had taken all my strength not to scream at fourteen-year-old Caitlín to just
leave Mom alone. Can’t you see what you’re putting her through?
But our mother had patiently answered all of her youngest daughter’s questions with her usual grace.

Unfortunately for me, Caitlín had that look in her eye now; the fierce expression of a cat watching an injured bird trying to escape, while preparing to go in for the kill. ‘Let me see,’ she said, touching my arm and trying to look past the long strands of curly black hair that were hiding my eyes.

I wanted to push Caitlín away; it would be easy. So easy to twist out of her grip and escape to the bathroom, the only room with a lock on the door. Fix the contact lens, go back out and come up with some bullshit that might placate my sister.

I felt my whole body sag. No amount of lying would convince Caitlín that there wasn’t something bizarre happening.

‘Holy crap, you’ve got silver eyes!’ Caitlín yelled. She took a step forward and stared. Her eyes were round with . . .
shock? Disgust?
I couldn’t tell for certain. All I knew was that I felt ridiculously weak, as though I might faint at any moment.

‘Wait, let me explain—’

‘You’re not getting out of this, Marie. No way. I saw what I saw earlier, and now this. I’ve had some crazy suspicions about you for way longer than you probably realize.’

I tried to turn away from her. Tried to fix the stupid contact lenses.

‘Dude, you look so
beautiful
.’

‘It’s not what you— Wait. What did you say?’

Caitlín’s whole face was alight. ‘I said, you look amazing. OK, sort of weird but totally stunning. Beautiful.’

I swallowed. This was actually going a lot better than I’d expected. I didn’t know what to say so I stood there,
nervously
squeezing the ruined lens between the fingers of my right hand.

‘Marie . . .’ Caitlín’s voice sounded more grown up. ‘Don’t tell me this is just a trick of the light, or you’re wearing contacts underneath your contacts.’ Her pale face was composed and strangely dignified.

I knew my eyes were shimmering wildly; it really was difficult to hide my emotions with eyes this expressive. ‘Caitlín, there’s so much you don’t know about me. And it’s not what you think. It’s not something . . . good.’ I bowed my head. ‘I’m not a superhero.’

‘I don’t care. You can tell me
anything
.’

‘I’m not even sure where to start,’ I said.

‘Start at the beginning,’ Caitlín replied, a gentle smile on her face. ‘Isn’t that usually the best place?’

The beginning . . .

He tells me everything I thought I’d never hear
.

Mom is gone and I hurt in ways I never even knew were possible. I am eighteen years old. For real: eighteen. I’ve barely started my first semester at college after Mom died. I don’t know if I even care about school anymore, but it gives me something to focus on. And I do care about art. I care about drawing comic books. That’s what I tell myself
.

Then I see Theo. He is talking to a group of Goth kids and they are all completely in love with him. The girls and the boys – though he seems more interested in the
girls
. OK, if I’m being honest, he is mostly interested in
me.

I can’t figure it out. Me. Quiet little Marie, who still hasn’t come out from my older sister’s shadow; who is still afraid of her father’s temper
.

I am drawn to him like
 . . .
well, like a moth to a flame
.

I think he is lonely
 . . .
Theo singles me out. Something about my blood sings to him, he tells me. I can’t decide if this is weird or romantic. Weirdly romantic? He calls me
m’anamchara
because he knows I’ll understand it, coming from good old-fashioned Irish stock
. My soulmate.
Theo always knows exactly what to say
.

I want him so much. He is so beautiful. I love how his black hair shines under the moon when we sit in ‘our place’ on some benches by the Charles River. I dangle my legs over the edge while he laughs at me. I love the curve of his lips, just a little too full to be as masculine as his biker clothes would have you believe. His nose is just like a hawk’s, but so noble; I love to trace the curve with my finger and watch as he smiles with those white, white teeth
.

Oh, and his eyes . . . when we are with the others they are gray, cool stone after rain. But when we are together they shine as silver as the stars. I think I am imagining things because I am so in love with him
.

I know he isn’t human, even though I have no real idea of what he could possibly be or what that might mean. It is like a sense of something – intuition of the most basic kind, no more than that. But no human could be that beautiful.
I
don’t care, anyway, even when he scares me, because simply being with him makes me feel free
.

He listens to me too. Listens like he really cares about what I have to say. Just to sit with him, to talk with him – those things make my heart soar
 . . .

As the memories flooded through me, I began to talk softly, to tell Cait how I’d first met Theo – how my want for him had gone so much deeper than I’d ever thought possible.

‘Back then, I had nothing to compare it to,’ I said. ‘Now I know what that stomach-wrenching desire really feels like. Sorry. This is sort of heavy.’

She reached for her cold tea and wouldn’t quite meet my eyes. ‘It’s OK. Go on, I want to hear this – I want to know about this guy. Theo. What was he doing at school, hanging with teenagers? Sounds kind of gross to me – he looks way older than you.’

I almost laughed at the understatement, but managed to restrain myself. I didn’t want to risk sounding hysterical.

‘He made me feel so freakin’ special, Cait,’ I said. ‘He never actually used the word “love”. He simply told me that he needed me – that I was a part of his soul he’d been missing for more years than he cared to remember. He’d been empty, fractured.

‘He called me
anamchara
again and again. Said that I
reminded
him of somebody else – although he didn’t tell me back then that he meant his wife. But I’m getting ahead of myself again. And this is
my
story, not his. It was the most significant thing that had happened in my tiny life. Who was I that this god-like being would look at me and want me in this way? I could hardly believe it, and it wasn’t long before we were kissing. The thrill of kissing someone – a
man
rather than a boy – a guy who would be considered completely unsuitable in Dad’s eyes was, of course, a part of the attraction. But the majority was all Theo. I’d only kissed one boy before him, and imagined that the difference would be like canned Guinness compared to the real deal on-tap in Dublin.

‘It was dizzying, Cait. The taste of him totally intoxicating as we kissed in the moonlight. It reminded me of those Victorian romances you love so much – and don’t start protesting, you know you can’t stop reading them. Only my Mr Rochester had a far darker secret hidden in the attic than a crazy wife. That would be child’s play for Theo.

‘We went to his house and I was overwhelmed by its beauty. Theo lit candles that he seemed to produce from out of nowhere. In the flickering flame, his dark face looked more like a pirate’s than ever. I didn’t care about whether he was just using a line on me, one he’d used on other girls so he could get them to sleep with him. The only thing I cared about as I looked into his
shining
silver eyes was that he’d said he wanted me.’

Cait leaned forward, eager to hear what was to come. And I didn’t disappoint.

‘He made love to me,’ I murmured. ‘On a beautiful ornate rug, right in front of the fireplace. Corny, right? But I still remember how he pulled down cushions from the couches and placed them beneath my head. He took my hair out of its braid and told me how gorgeous I was as he spread it out on our makeshift bed. It was my first time, but he was gentle. More gentle even than I’d hoped he would be. I would’ve done anything for him. Anything at all. Afterwards, when he was still lying on top of me with his face buried in my neck, I felt so at peace. I touched the back of his head, revelling in the fact that I could run my fingers through his dark curls – so much like mine, and yet more filled with velvet than mine would ever be. He was otherworldly in his perfection. I didn’t know how right I was. About the “otherworldly” part, I mean.

‘Then he growled, his whole body suddenly tense against me. I tried to look at his face, but it was half hidden behind a tangle of hair. He raised his head and I looked into the eyes of a predator . . .’

Caitlín reached forward impulsively and clutched my hand for comfort. For me? Or for her, hearing this story – hearing how I had become a monster? And it was as if I was back there once again, back on those cushions,
fighting
and scratching at Theo as he pinned me down with such ease.

‘He begged me to stop struggling,’ I continued, ‘told me that I was making it worse, but of course I didn’t understand what he was talking about. Not right then. But now I know that once a true predator’s instincts kick in . . . well, it’s almost impossible to just switch them back off. That’s not the way it works. And that night, I hurt him pretty good, driving my knee into his crotch, making him howl with rage . . .’

Theo shoves me back down with one hand, while his other grips a clump of my hair and forces back my head. I think my neck might snap under the pressure, and almost hope it will
.

His teeth – those razor-sharp fangs – plunge into my throat, below the ear and directly into my jugular
 . . .

‘The pain was bad, Cait,’ I said. ‘When he bit me. Really bad. It was . . . the sort of pain you have to blank out, you know? It’s something that I can’t ever talk about. I used to wake up crying every single morning, for weeks after Theo brought me back, and I didn’t know what had woken me. I think maybe my body remembered the pain and was somehow processing it at night.

‘And what happened after that? After the terror and the pain had all but erased the beautiful? What then?
I
don’t remember, not clearly. There are . . . feelings, impressions; a confused dream that only comes back in pieces. But nothing concrete. Nothing I can grab hold of to anchor me in the past and force myself to remember how Theo made me into a monster.

‘He says he was forced to Turn me. I believe him when he says he never meant to change a living human as young as I was back then. Theo lost control – something he’d not done for more than a century. He prided himself on the tight leash he kept on the vampire’s bloodlust. Especially a vamp as old and powerful as he was. It surprised me to learn that the older they got, the stronger the bloodlust – almost as though the number of kills and the more times they feed somehow made them more susceptible to bloodlust, not less. Theo says that when a vampire feeds, they take more than just blood. They take energy too:
chi
. It’s addictive.

‘Anyway, he lost control and then came to his senses. Realized he was about to murder a human – and not just any human, but a human he supposedly had feelings for. I wonder how many men try to rip out the throat of the girl they love? I mean, really? Apart from serial killers.

‘So Theo brought me back, which means he had to revive me enough to force me to drink his blood. He had drained so much from me that I would have died if left for even a few more minutes. Apparently, I was
that
close. Instead, I did it. I drank Theo’s blood and became one of
his
eternal Family. He will forever be my Maker – no amount of physical distance will change that. I belong to him, because he made me. Our souls really are connected now.

‘The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes, several days later, was Theo’s face. He said: “Welcome to eternity, little Moth.” I looked at his devil’s face: his beautiful eyes and hair, his wicked pirate lips that hid those deadly fangs, and there was a part of me that was glad. Glad to be spending eternity with the monster that had killed me and saved me, all in the space of a single night . . .’

Chapter Sixteen

THE MORNING WAS
cold and bright, the sort of morning that I would have loved when I was alive. Now it made things difficult. Contacts or sunglasses? Or both? The sun hurt my eyes, but the contacts hurt them more. Theo didn’t like it when I went out in public
sans
lenses, but whatever.
Theo isn’t even around
, I thought, my chest tightening with what I hoped was anger but felt more like anxiety. He’d be sleeping now, having been out hunting Murdoch last night. Hunting the hunter – after I’d left that message with Kyle.

Sinéad had, of course, called the apartment at oh-my-God o’clock to make sure we were awake. But no matter how worried she might be, it would never enter her head to skip classes for a family emergency. It ‘wasn’t really an emergency, once we knew Caitlín was safe,’ as Sinéad had
reminded
me in that superior tone I hated. She was going to meet Caitlín during her break that morning.

We were up early anyway as I wanted to get Caitlín out before Holly came back in. We took a cab to the station so that Caitlín could get a really early bus. When I hugged her goodbye, I kept my sunglasses on to hide my tears. It always amazes me that I can still cry, although there’s no salt in my tears now. I know, because I’ve tasted them.