Vigil (4 page)

his passion for my father—another man. I understand him better

and acknowledge that he cared for my father in a way I didn’t—

and still don’t—understand. Now he seems to care for you in a

similar way.”

“He loved your father very much,” Adin admitted. “He still

carries it in his heart like a flame. What he feels for me is different,

but I don’t think it’s less… Maybe I’m kidding myself.”

Santos kicked at a pebble on the ground. “I don’t understand

this passion between men at all.”

“Because you don’t share it. Believe me, if the situation

were reversed I couldn’t…well. That’s not entirely true, is it…?

Whether I can feel sexual attraction with a woman or not, I enjoy

any truly great literary love story. I have a particular fondness for

Tristan and Isolde
.”

“I’ve had comrades in arms I have mourned. Men I trusted

like brothers.” Santos frowned.

“I have a sister that I love very much, but I would be incapable

of romantic love for a woman. I just think that’s how I was made.”

Santos gazed at the cathedral again. “It flies in the face of

religious tradition.”

“I can see where you might have a problem with homosexuality,

biblically speaking—” Adin tried not to laugh, but it wasn’t easy.

“—after its injunction in the Pauline Epistles. Unlike becoming

a blood-sucking monster, homosexuality seems to be forbidden

to Christians. Why, just the other day I was reading that glowing

welcome to the Christian vampire brotherhood in the apocryphal

St. Paul’s letter to the Undead
.”

“You simply can’t help yourself, can you? You always make

a joke when you should be pissing yourself with fear.” Santos

reached out and cuffed Adin on the shoulder. “A better question

is why you’re still human?”

Vigil
21

Adin paused. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Look around you. Man reaches for immortality like a frantic

junkie looking for drugs. He will claw and devour and kill for

it if he sees it within his grasp. You remain human, and
I
want

to know why.” Santos turned so they were facing one another.

“Have you already displeased your vampire protector? Is my

father’s eternal flame proving hotter than your human love?”

Adin swallowed hard.
Why does that feel like tearing off a scab
?

“For your information, I don’t choose immortality. I don’t

want it. I’ve told Donte that, and we don’t see eye to eye at all. He

worries that I’ll be hurt, and so he wants to turn me. For the last

three months there have been alternating bouts of heated debate

and brooding silence, interminable kendo and self-defense

lessons, and what Donte tells me are bodyguards, but can only be

described as sloe-eyed, brooding undead nannies.”

“What an inconvenient pet you’ve turned out to be.” Santos

laughed. “Color me delighted.”

“I’m thrilled you approve.”

“Since your lover is my oldest enemy, don’t you worry that

we’re meandering around Paris together in the middle of the

night? Tell me you fear me still or I will weep.”

“It’s always the same with the undead. Do you ever ask why

people skydive or swim with sharks or walk on hot coals?”

“I do not. In general, people are fairly stupid, and you may

consider it a compliment that I don’t think that’s true of you,

Adin.”

“Actually, I see that it’s a compliment. Thank you.” Adin

stopped midstride. “I didn’t get the chance to thank you for

your help this evening. You and Boaz saved me a great deal of

trouble.”

“You may thank Boaz; he insisted.” Santos stopped in front

of a café that was still open for business. “Are you hungry?”

“No.” Adin stepped aside as Santos opened the door. “But

after everything that’s happened, I could very definitely use a

22 Z.A. Maxfield

glass of wine.”

Adin entered the café first, and Santos helped him out of

his coat. He found a rack and hung it up before they scouted a

suitable table. After sitting, they ordered a bottle of Bordeaux.

When the waiter uncorked and poured it, Santos showed the

same disinterest Donte usually displayed. Adin wished it were

Donte sharing the cool Parisian evening with him. He felt hollow

and sad at the thought of Donte brooding alone somewhere.

“What?” Santos asked. “You’re thinking of Donte again…?”

“It’s nothing. What brings you to Paris? If it’s not a deep and

arcane secret…”

“It is!” Santos’s eyes fairly sparkled. When he relaxed Santos

was an extremely handsome man, and his smile held a certain

boyish charm. “It’s the oldest, deepest and most arcane of all

secrets. I almost always spend
Pâques
in Paris. I like to come for

Easter Services and stay through the end of May for the feast of

the Ascension, although this year that will not be possible. I need

to leave tomorrow for a series of business meetings in Taiwan.”

Adin blinked in surprise. “You celebrate
Easter
services?”

Santos nodded. “Of course.”

Adin shook his head and drank his wine. Why shouldn’t

Santos still be an observant Catholic? “I guess I didn’t realize it

was so close.”

“Next Sunday.” Santos appeared to be reasoning something

out in his mind. “I have a place in the seizième. The sixteenth

Arrondissement. It’s a nice neighborhood.”

“I know.” Adin blinked at the understatement. It was
the

nice neighborhood in Paris, on the west side across the Seine. It

boasted upscale businesses and grand apartment homes.

“If you run out of options, Boaz can take both you and the

boy to my home where he can look after you.”

“What on earth would make you think I’d take you up on an

offer like that?” Adin wasn’t entirely over nearly being killed the

last time he’d been forced to accept Santos’s hospitality.

Vigil
23

“Bygones,” Santos murmured. “Besides, I won’t be there but

Boaz will. You’d be safe as a child with its mother.”

“In a species that eats its young,” Adin snarked.

Santos shot Adin an exasperated glance and then looked

down at his untouched wine glass and chuckled. “You really are

a handful. I hope someday Donte realizes that by letting you live,

I’ve given him far more grief than I had reason to hope for by

killing you.”

Adin’s muscles relaxed as the wine hit his bloodstream.

“Certainly. Wasn’t that your plan all along?”

“Well, no, it wasn’t.” Santos grinned, and it was the first time

Adin had ever seen it when it wasn’t meant to be cruel. Santos

could be attractive, dark like Donte, but with curlier hair and

softer features. Very much the offspring of the beautiful boy

Adin had seen illustrated in Donte’s journal, Donte’s dead lover,

Auselmo. Even if Santos was far more deadly than he was letting

on in that moment. “But I have to take it as a win that he’s tearing

his hair out with worry over you.”

“As long as you’re happy.”

“I am happy, actually. For now.”

“Happy Easter,” Adin said over the rim of his wineglass. “A

new life awaits.”

“I’d prefer you didn’t share that information with Donte. I

find I’m reluctant to let him relax.”

“Fine.” Adin watched as Santos’s eyes strayed every now and

again to the door. “Expecting someone?”

“I estimate I have about twenty minutes before Donte finds

you, and I’d rather he didn’t find you with me.”

“
What
?” Adin nearly knocked his chair over in his haste to

rise from the table.

“He may have called Boaz to aid you with your little problem,

but I doubt he’ll be satisfied to leave your safety to someone else

for long. I imagine he’s hopped a flight to be here and is even as

we speak racing to the rescue in a cab.”

24 Z.A. Maxfield

“
Shit
.” Adin made for the coat rack even as Santos dropped

extra coins on the table for the waiter.

“How romantic you are.” Santos caught up with him at the

door. “Someday perhaps the thought of seeing me after a respite

will inspire some young woman to profanity as well.”

“You don’t understand. He’s only coming here to yell at me

and tell me I’ve proven his point. He’ll try to change my mind

about being turned and we’ll only argue until he goes back to

Spain.”

“Adin.” Santos’s brow furrowed as he caught Adin’s hand and

stopped him. “I hate him for turning me. I
hate
him for it. If it’s

truly going to come to that, you must accept protection from

me.”

Adin nearly gaped at Santos with shock. “
Why
?”

“Why what? Being turned is a horror I wouldn’t wish on

anyone, even those who desire it, although the chance to deprive

Donte Fedeltà of his pretty toy is an added incentive. The

process is painful and disorienting and the results are anything

but guaranteed. Tell me why you refuse him.”

“I want to remain who I am,” Adin whispered. “I never want

to be loved
if only
I were something else, even if who I am gets

sick and rots and dies. It’s my journey. And without its beginning,

its middle, and its end, I’m not ever going to be the man I was

born to be. Do you understand that? Does it surprise you so

much?”

“Yes,” Santos continued, holding Adin’s arm. “It’s

extraordinary, really, but not unexpected from a troublemaker

like you.”

Adin shrugged and retrieved his coat, then donned it and his

scarf before exiting the restaurant.

“Come to my place in the morning. I’ll be gone. As for your

boy problem,” Santos looked around at the darkened street before

he spoke again, “I have information that may change things.”

“What?”

Vigil
25

“Harwiche fears the men he’s dealing with, he used you as

an intermediary, and now that you have made the monetary

exchange, he will either try to trade for him or take him from

you.”

“That much I figured out all by myself.”

Santos cuffed Adin’s shoulder again. “Patience, pet,” he

warned, but without the usual sting. “Boaz can and will get your

money back.”

“But—”

“Don’t ask how. It’s confidential but I’ll tell him to do it. Or

Donte will.”

“Donte?”

“Yes, I never know who Boaz is serving from one moment to

the next. But there’s something Harwiche has recently acquired,

and Fedeltà will do anything he has to do to get it. Including

giving up the boy.”

“What could Harwiche have that Donte will want so badly?’

“My father’s letters.”

“Your—” Adin’s stopped, closing his mouth over an

expression of shock.

Santos’s eyebrows rose slyly. “I may have told Donte at one

time that I burned them.”

Adin grasped the lapels of Santos’s suit. “Your father’s letters?

Truly? Donte would kill for those.”

“Ah.” Santos peeled Adin’s fingers from his coat. “If that’s

the case, it might be wise to turn the boy over to him. Harwiche

will ask for Bran in return for my father’s letters.”

“But I promised to protect—” Adin gasped. “You
bastard
!

You knew.”

Santos shrugged, then shot Adin a radiant smile. “I suspected.

Well… maybe I suggested to Harwiche that the men he was

dealing with were unsavory and his problems might be solved

by an intermediary. The Harwiche family and I have a history,

26 Z.A. Maxfield

of sorts.”

Adin closed his eyes. “You are
such
a shit.”

“It’s really a simple matter, Adin.” Santos draped an arm

around his shoulder and began walking him back toward the

Pont Neuf, where they would cross the Seine. “All you have to do

is give the boy to Donte—”

“You know I won’t do that, I can’t. And Donte will try to

force me…”

“Yes…” Santos gave Adin’s shoulder a hard squeeze, just

short of painful. “Well. Eternity isn’t much fun unless I’m making

some kind of trouble for Fedeltà.”

“I have to think.” Adin shoved Santos away. “What
is
the boy

that Harwiche wants him so badly?”

“That is a very good question.”

“All right,” Adin growled and looked at his watches. “You’ve

made your mischief, and if you’re right, Donte will be here any

minute. If you want to add jealous outrage, be sure and stick

around.”

“Never. That would be too pedestrian for me and he knows

I don’t share his peculiar tastes.” Santos shook his head. “You

won’t believe me, but it’s always a pleasure to see you Adin.”

“The pleasure was all yours.” Adin headed across the bridge

toward the Right Bank but stopped when he’d gotten about ten

feet. He sighed and turned back to shoot Santos a cheeky smile.

“
Almost
, all yours. Thanks for the drink, Santos, and Happy

Easter.”

A brief burst of Santos’s laughter followed Adin as he

crossed over the river. Once on the other side, Adin couldn’t