Sabrina's Clan (22 page)

All this time he had been fooling himself that Jake was nothing. A passing thing. A mere human to play with until his time here was done. How blind he had been! How utterly selfish.

How could he have allowed this to happen?

“Ny? Is everything okay?” Jake’s voice, rich with concern.

Nyanther shook his head. He wasn’t sure he could speak yet. The adrenaline that had flooded him was making him feel sick. Vampires weren’t used to the yo-yo physical reactions that emotions delivered to humans on a daily basis. On the rare occasions when the emotions were so strong they delivered physical reactions, it was that much worse to bear.

Jake gripped his arm. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

Nyanther shook his head again. His eyes were aching. Stinging. His vision blurred.

“You’re scaring the crap out of me.”

Nyanther got his hand up. He squeezed Jake’s where he was holding his arm.

“You’re shaking!”

Nyanther closed his eyes. It was easier that way. “I kept her at a safe distance, right from the start.” His voice was as uneven as his insides.

“Sabrina?” Somehow, Jake had intuited what he had meant. Or perhaps she was at the top of his mind, still.

“I knew she would be dangerous, you see.”

“What you saw…it was nothing.”

“It was
everything
to me. It pulled the scales from my eyes. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

“You want Sabrina? I know that,” Jake said patiently. “Everyone wants her to one degree or another.”

Nyanther stood up and faced him. Jake dropped his hand and waited. There was a shadow of fear in his eyes, behind the puzzlement. His gut knew already, then. It was just his mind resisting what he already had intuited.

“Since I woke up in the cave, I’ve spent most of my days trying to understand humans and their complicated relationships and the
huge
expectations they have for themselves and their lives. I saw Sabrina wanted no part of this world and that included me, so I stayed away.”

Jake looked over his shoulder, back toward the kitchen. He was checking to see if she was there, listening.

“It doesn’t matter if she does hear,” Nyanther told him. “She already knows.”

Jake flinched. “You told her?”

“She just knows. She understood far more than I thought I did. I thought I had everything under control. I didn’t. I kept her away and I should have been watching you, instead.”

Jake grew still. Very still.

“You weren’t supposed to creep in like that,” Nyanther added.

He thought Jake might laugh. Or not. He didn’t expect him to lift his hand and brush his thumb over Nyanther’s cheek. “I didn’t think you could do that,” he breathed and looked at his thumb. It was damp, the moisture a pale pink. Then he dropped his hand and looked at him. “I know you sheer away from the hard words, Ny. For once, say them. Lay it on the table. Then we both will understand and you won’t have to say it again.”

Nyanther rolled his hands into fists once more. “I love you.” His voice was strained. “I didn’t expect to. Now I know I do. And that…can’t happen.”

Jake let out an unsteady breath. “Love is so terrible?” He moved closer, reaching for him.

Nyanther stepped back, out of reach. “No.”

Jake halted. Hurt showed in his eyes. His confusion was greater. “Why not?” he demanded.

Nyanther turned away, toward the frost-starred window. It was easier that way. Easier to speak the hard words he was expecting. Jake was right. This had to be said. He might still spare Jake. Sabrina, at least, was safe from it all. He had preserved that much at least. He made himself say it. “There is no future for us.”

Jake didn’t answer at once. His silence stretched and Nyanther wanted to turn to look at him, to see what he was thinking. He didn’t have the courage to and railed at his weakness.

“You are immortal,” Jake said slowly. His voice was strained. “So why is there no future, if you…if you love me?”

Nyanther sighed. “Vampires are not immortal. There are ways we can die, most of them messy and difficult…we don’t die easily and that is why we linger on, century after century. We
can
die, though.”

Jake made a harsh sound. It might have been a sigh. “You have the one crystal ball in the world that actually works, Ny?” There was impatience in his voice. “You saw your end in it?”

“Yes,” Nyanther breathed.

Silence again.

Nyanther had to look. He made himself turn.

Jake was standing with his hands by his sides and his fists were tight, too. There was a sheen in his eyes that Nyanther had put there. The sight of it made his gut clench. He hurried to try to ease Jake’s pain. To explain. “This is not my time, anymore. By rights, I should have died when the gargoyle bit me, two thousand years ago. I don’t know why I didn’t. Instead, I found myself in a world and a time as alien and unfriendly as you find the surface of Venus.”

“So?” Jake demanded. “You adapted. You survived. Thirty years and you’re already one of the richest men on the planet. My uncle thinks you’re a hero and he has no idea you’re not human.”

“I’ve…got by,” Nyanther admitted. “I’ve had no choice but to adjust and live in the world I’ve found myself in. There’s one choice I
can
make and I did make it. Two years ago, when Nick told me the gargoyles had risen again and now they could be destroyed for all time, it came to me as clear as a text message. When the gargoyles are gone, there will no longer be any reason for me to linger, either.”

Jake’s chest was rising and falling quickly. His heart was loud, moving far too fast. “Suicide. The cowards’ way.” The derision in his voice was rich.

“I’m already dead,” Nyanther replied. “I died before the Romans were kicked out of Rome. This body you see is a coda, an aberration that has no place in this world.”

Jake swallowed. “Despite how you feel about me, you still intend to do this?”

“Where would I go, if I did not? What would I do?”

“You’re asking what the meaning of life is,” Jake shot back. “No one knows that. We all muddle through, trying to figure out what to make of our time. Welcome to the club.”

Nyanther shook his head. “I’ve had my time.”

Jake threw out his hand. “And now you’re the one lucky bastard in existence who gets a second chance! Jesus wept, Nyanther! Every middle-aged human with creaking joints and graying hair would trade places with you in a heartbeat.”

“They’re welcome to it.”

Jake hissed, venting his fury. He walked away, back to the kitchen.

Nyanther didn’t follow him. Anger was good. Rage would keep the barrier up. If Jake could learn to hate him, that would be even better.

He picked up his coat from the back of the chair and headed upstairs. He would go and sit out on the stoop again and breathe the night air. At this time of year, with fresh snow making it crisp and sharp, it reminded him just a little of the highlands. Except for the smog. And car exhaust. Traffic noises. Screams from far away. Horns. Sirens.

He sighed. It wasn’t home. It never would be. The stoop was as far away from Jake and from her as he could get for now. He sat on the cold, dark step and put his head in his hands.

Was he wrong? Was he just being a coward?

Or were they like everyone else, unable to understand what it was like to wake to this new world with its noise and complicated layers and niches?

He sat on the stoop as lost and alone as he had been since 1983.

The table in the kitchen was a tiny thing, squeezed in between the passage entrance and the tall cupboard that served as a pantry. It barely had room for Sabrina’s laptop, but she used the table there more than she used the formal dining table in the living room, because it
was
right where she prepared her solo snacks, when she cooked at all.

Since Jake had become an almost permanent fixture in the apartment, a second fold-up chair had appeared. It started off being kept folded flat and leaning up against the wall, out of the way. Gradually, Jake’s inability to tidy up had made the chair transition from a fold-away convenience, to a seat that remained perpetually tucked under the front of the table. Everyone tripped over the back feet. No one folded it and put it away, though, not even her.

Forty minutes after Jake had kissed the back of her neck and left her shivering in front of the fridge, he came back. He pulled the blue plastic chair out from under the table and dropped into it.

He looked dreadful.

Sabrina took out her earbuds and turned off the music. “What’s wrong?” she asked, alarmed.

He looked at her. His eyes were shining, brilliant with unshed tears and her heart squeezed and her breath evaporated in a rush. “God, Jake, what?”

“You didn’t hear any of it, did you?” Even his voice was shaken.

She lifted the earbuds. “They’re sound-cancelling. Plus Mozart at top volume.” She had bought them the week after Jake and Nyanther had gotten together. Sleep came only slightly more easily with them in, though.

Jake was looking at her, his glittering eyes narrowed. “Damage control…” he whispered.

“What?”

He put his hand on the table, flat, the fingers together. Sabrina looked at it. She wasn’t sure if he was asking for silence, or about to make an announcement. Except he didn’t speak. Not for a long time.

Then he lifted his other hand and rubbed the heel of it over each eye in turn, wiping away the excess moisture. “Have you ever seen labor mediators work?”

“A few times. Not directly, though.”

“If you could describe what they do in one word, what would the word be?”

She thought back to the few monotonous hours when she had been asked to sit in as a management observer for meditation sessions. “They listen,” she said.

Jake nodded. “Yes.”

Sabrina lowered the screen on her laptop, closing it. “What damage are you trying to control?”

“The harm done by time itself.” Jake got to his feet, then surprised her by picking up the chair and folding it. He slid it up against the wall behind her and held out his hand. “Come here.”

She looked at his hand. “What’s going on?”

“I’m trying to explain. Come here.”

She took his hand. It was warm and strong and his touch sent little fizzing sensations along her hand. He helped her to her feet, then drew her around the table and for the two steps to reach the fridge. Then he turned her so her back was against it.

It was a reminder of the last time she had stood here and her heartbeat picked up and hurried on.

Her breath jammed up in her throat as Jake leaned down, bringing his mouth to hers.

For weeks she had recalled the few kisses they had shared, often when she caught a glimpse of Nyanther and Jake together...or heard them. This kiss was powered by those memories and the fantasies they had inspired and it was heavenly. Jake was leaning against her, his hard body pressed up against hers and she welcomed the pressure.

All the worn, well-used images she had concocted of him and Nyanther together tumbled through her mind in a blur so fast she didn’t really see them. Their effect was electrifying.

Had she really wanted Jake this much all along and just buried it deep? She moaned into his mouth as she wished she could tear his clothes away and fuck him with a crazed intensity. It was making her shake.

Jake groaned and the deep sound, from far inside his chest, made her pulse almost stop in its tracks.

He lifted his mouth from hers and touched his head to hers, lightly, then straightened so he could look at her. His eyes were very blue in this light and he was watching her carefully. Measuring her reaction.

“What has happened?” she asked again. Only something terrible could have happened for Jake to be kissing her now, like this.

“I need your help with Nyanther,” he said. His voice was still strained.

“What do you need?” she asked quickly. “What’s wrong?”

He brushed his thumb over her cheekbone. “I need you to answer a question.”

Sabrina frowned. “What?”

“I need to know something.” He lifted her chin so she was looking at him squarely. “I need to know what you
really
want.”

* * * * *

Nyanther waited until the house behind him grew completely silent and the streets around him hushed. They would never be completely silent. At this time of the night, though, they dropped to a low murmur.

By then, he was starting to feel the chill in the distant, icy-skinned way that vampires did. It meant he’d been too long in a cold he didn’t notice and his extremities, which were still human flesh, were in danger. Even vampires had a metabolism of sorts and severe cold could hamper it.

He went up to the third floor and used the key to get into the apartment, instead of going to the fourth and trailing through the top floor to the iron stairs and back down again. Nick and Damian would still be there. They were in no mood for company and neither was he.

He wasn’t certain what would greet him when he stepped into the bedroom. An empty bed, most likely, with Jake’s clothes and the possessions that had sprouted like mushrooms all cleared out.

Or perhaps Jake had decided to stay anyway and would make a formal exit at a more civilized hour.

It was also possible Jake would want to fight the inevitable. He knew how to battle for what he wanted, especially if it was something no one else wanted for him. He had been doing it his entire life. He might have stayed up, waiting for Nyanther to return, so he could launch a counter-offensive.

What greeted him was so far beyond any of those expectations, it brought him to a halt a pace inside the door, his hand still on the handle.

Jake was lying on the covers, still dressed, except he’d gotten rid of his shoes. Nyanther wondered if he was aware of how quickly he reverted to barefoot whenever he could. He was sitting with his back against the headboard.

Sabrina was lying against him. She looked like she was asleep, with Jake’s arms around her. She was also dressed, in the gleaming, silky tight-cut pants she favored for around the house.

And she was barefoot, too.