The Last Keeper (28 page)

“Aunt Sere?” It was morning already, and for once I wasn’t found in the garden watching the sun. “You want some breakfast?”

“Not today, Lizzy,” I said, going straight back to my work.

She paused for a moment in the doorway to the basement, never actually venturing down. She was thinking about telling me something, if I had to hazard a guess.
 

Then she was gone again.

I should apologise for my behaviour towards her—my predicament wasn’t her fault—but I couldn’t. Doing that would mean admitting I wasn’t coping.
 

Instead, I stayed in the basement, working on the translations. Even when Jayne came to say goodbye before she left for work, I stayed. Always working. Doing anything to keep my mind off the rest of my life.

When the doorbell rang, echoing ever so slightly throughout the house, I reluctantly went to answer it.
 

“Good afternoon, I have a delivery for Miss Serenity Cardea?” the young man said when I answered the door.

The cars had arrived early. Perhaps my luck was changing for the better.

Smiling, I asked, “Where do I need to sign?”

Ten minutes later the cars were signed for, and all but one were in the garage. Lizzy’s pristine Firebird sat in the drive, waiting for her. As much as she loved riding my bike, when I let her, and when the weather or her mood suited her, she much preferred her Firebird.
 

Where I wanted the solitude of my motorcycle, she loved the fact she could ferry her friends around in comfort.
 

Actually,
why not drop it off for her?
 

She wouldn’t mind if I intruded for a moment to collect the keys to the bike. It would only take a second, and then she could show off her car that much sooner.

With my decision made, I grabbed the keys, picked up my spare helmet and jacket, and drove to the university.
 

I got there and parked easy enough, but when it came to finding someone who could tell me where Lizzy was, I ran into difficulties.
 

“I’m sorry, but we can only allow family members into the university when classes are in session,” the irritating woman behind the reception desk told me. The third to tell me that.

“And as I’ve said, I’m her sister. I
am
family. She needs her car, and as I have the keys, and she has the keys to my bike, I
have
to see her.” I was quickly losing my patience. “Look, I know she has European History now, so if you would point me in the right direction, then I won’t be more than five minutes.”

“I really shouldn’t,” she said. At least this was the nicest of the three.

“I promise I’ll only be five minutes. No more than that. I just need to exchange keys with her.”
 

“History is in the second building, and Miss Walters is in the first room on the right.”
 

“Thank you.”

I left the tiny, constricting office before I decided the human race didn’t deserve to live. Second building, first on the right, I told myself. Easy.

Knocking once, I waited for someone to ask me to enter. The voice that called out must have been that of her history professor, she never did tell me his name, and it wasn’t on the door.
 

“Come in.”

“Hi, I just need to change keys with Lizzy Johnson,” I said, glancing around the room for her.

“
Serenity.
” The whispered voice startled me, causing me to whip my head around.
 

Impossible!
 

It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t.

With shaky legs I walked up to Lizzy, handing her the keys with trembling hands.
 

“I’m sorry,” she muttered but stopped when I shook my head.

After taking my keys, I tried as best I could to calmly walk to the door. I paused for only a second. “I’m sorry, Ray. I can’t do this,” I whispered, before running from the room.
 

I did the one thing I tried never to do.
I ran away.

   
How was it even possible? How was it possible that after all these years Ray was . . . ?
 

Nothing could have prepared me for it. Nothing at all. It just wasn’t possible. But he’d been standing there, looking almost exactly the same as when I’d last seen him. That aura marking him for what he now was shining clear around him, screaming that he was a vampire.
 

How?
I kept asking myself.
How?

By all rights, I should’ve been dead years ago. I shouldn’t have survived if he’d been turned. William had proved that, Lona had proved it.
 

I abandoned the bike outside the house. Then, as I stormed in through the front door, the memories I thought I’d buried rose to the surface and took over. Issac Baruti’s words came back to me, whispering through my mind like long dead ghosts.
 

“
I was with him when it happened.
”

“
I am so sorry, I did not know.
”

It had to have been him that turned Ray. If only his words had made sense at the time.

Not that I would’ve believed them.

I still didn’t.
 

But I loved Ray. Even though it was impossible, and he couldn’t possibly have been meant for me if he’d been turned, I loved him with everything I had been, and with everything that I still was.

How?

That was the only question running through my mind. Even as I practically climbed the shelves to retrieve the box Jayne had put away, I knew I didn’t need to see his family portrait to know it was him. He hadn’t changed much. His eyes were the same. That beautiful grey colour that shined like moonlight. His hair was longer, pulled back in a ponytail now instead of cropped short. But he was the same.

Hugging the picture of him to my chest, I collapsed in the middle of the basement. All the fear, all the pain, and all the longing I’d felt over the last thirty years washed over me. I ached to go back to the campus and confront him. I longed to go back and talk to him, to say something, anything.
 

Yet, I feared he didn’t love me anymore. I was afraid he’d changed when he was turned, as so often happened.
 

And that thought hurt more than all the years of not knowing. The thought he could be so different from what I’d known that he wasn’t
him
anymore.

But he was teaching a history class. He always did love history.
 

Maybe he hadn’t changed. Maybe he did want me.

Still, I shouldn’t want him. Not now. They were always the ones we had to fight against, and I’d killed so many of them. More over the last few years as I let my pain take me to dark places.

But I would always love him.
No matter what.
 

That was my conclusion.
 

It didn’t matter.
 

And yet, that answered nothing.
 

“Serenity?” Helen called out, sounding worried. “What happened?”

“I found him,” I whispered as she carefully joined me on the basement floor and wrapped her arms around me.

“Oh my dear. How long?” she asked gently, assuming he was still human.

“He’s a
vampire.
But that’s impossible.” I sobbed, letting my emotions roll over me in wave after wave of confusion, longing, and bitterness.

“Is it?”

“Yes. It isn’t possible. If it were, then why is Lona gone? Why did William have to die? If it were possible, then why am I alone?”
 

“Is that what they did to William?” she asked gently. “You never told us.”

“That isn’t the point. I don’t know if I can do this anymore. I’m alone. There are no more of us, and there will be no more. And now I find that Ray,
my Ray,
is a vampire!”

“You aren’t alone, Serenity.” Helen’s tone was hard. “You have us.”

“I don’t know what to do!” I wasn’t in the mood to explain exactly why they didn’t count. I needed to know what I was going to do.

“You’ll figure it out; you always do.”

“How? All these
books,
all these
stories,
and
nothing!
Not a single answer!”

“Did you talk to him?”

“No.” I half-laughed. “I ran away.”

“Go talk to him. Maybe this is what your gift does, lets you live through him being turned. Did you think of that?”
 

“The gift of Life,” I scoffed. “What use is that when I can’t keep fighting on my own?”

“Talk to him. You can work it out together.”
 

“What do I say?
Hi, what have you been doing for the last thirty years?
”

“Well,
hello
would be a start. Go,” she insisted. “Talk to him, see what he says.”

“I don’t know if I can. How am I supposed to face him? I still love him, so much, but how can I?”
 

“Tell me something, what did you notice about him when you saw him? What’s changed? What’s stayed the same?”
 

“I only saw him for a second.”

She narrowed those shrewd eyes. “Answer the question, Serenity.”

“His hair is longer; it was in a ponytail. He wasn’t using his stick to support himself, so the change must have fixed his leg. He was taller. Not by a lot, just an inch or so. His shirt and pants were the same style he used to wear. His eyes were so bright, still the same colour.” I rattled off an entire list of things I’d noticed. “He’s the same.”

“Exactly. Now go on. His address is by the door.”
 

“How?”

“A certain granddaughter of mine called and said I needed to give you an address. She didn’t tell me why, but I can only assume this was the reason.” She beamed, deep wrinkles showing on her face.
 

“Thank you,” I said, giving her a kiss on the cheek and offering her a hand up from the floor.

There was a war going on inside of me. I was so torn over what I was going to do. Even as I scanned the address Helen had written down, I wondered if I’d actually make it there. A part of me desperately wanted to throw myself into his arms and forget the last thirty-four years had ever happened. But the logical side of me said that wasn’t such a good idea. He was a vampire.
 

That was what it came down to.
 

He was
a vampire.
 

He was part of the race of beings that had plagued us for centuries.
 

No, he was more than that. He was the man I loved, the man I’d always love, no matter what.

As I shoved the keys into the ignition of my car, not trusting myself to be safe on my bike, I paused for a moment, hand on the steering wheel.

I had a second chance. This didn’t have to be the end for me anymore. Maybe Helen was right; maybe this was what my gift did. Allowed me to survive his change, his technical death, and stopped me from having to leave everything behind.

But the longer I drove, the more my feelings of hope turned to anger. By the time Ray’s house came into view, set back off the road on the outskirts of the city, anger was all I felt. Issac Baruti had known Ray was alive, I was sure of it. For decades I’d wondered whether he’d truly perished in the rubble of London or whether something else that I didn’t want to think about had happened.
 

Pulling up in front of the house, it took me a minute to realise the car I was parked next to was Lizzy’s. I’d need to send her home. Jayne would worry about her if she didn’t return soon.

Taking a deep breath in a vain attempt to calm my already shattered nerves, I got out of the car. It was another couple of minutes of staring at the eclectic mixture of modern and Victorian structure before I had the courage to knock on the door.
 

“Hello?” I looked up when I heard the familiar voice.

And came face-to-face with Poppy Baruti.

“I’d like to speak with Ray Synclair, please,” I said, forcing myself to keep calm. “Or Issac Baruti, if he’s available.”

“Of course. Ray has stepped out, but Issac is here.” She opened the door for me.

Her polite smile made me wonder if she’d recognised me.
 

She led me into the living room, leaving me alone with two reluctant hosts. It was clear the house didn’t normally receive visitors. It was all sharp lines of colour and modern furniture, and though it was neat as a pin, there was nothing homely about it.
 

The two vampires sitting on the sofa, watching me from the corner of their eyes, were obviously uncomfortable with my presence. They kept shifting slightly, as if waiting for something to happen. It was also clear the male was protecting the female. A couple, or so it appeared.
 

She was tall and elegant with chin-length brown hair. He was taller, with a mess of black curls and a distinct German air about him. There was no way to tell how old either of the vampires were, but age didn’t matter as much as power. And considering the afternoon sun streaming in through the windows, neither of them were overly powerful.