Where Loyalty Lies (42 page)

Holt started clearing up some papers that were scattered over his desk and, not wanting to appear nosey, I turned my back and started fiddling with the chess board that Holt had set out on a small table. The pieces were detailed and beautiful. Judging by their weight, they were made of marble.

“Is everything alright?” I asked.

“It’ll be fine, just a case of stubbornness getting in the way of common sense,” Holt said.

I didn’t believe him. They weren’t the sort of people to argue over anything petty, so this couldn’t be good news. It didn’t make any sense though; it had only been last week that we’d spent Christmas together and everything had been great then. A thought suddenly occurred to me and I spun round.

“It’s not because of me, is it? You don’t mind me and Saul being together do you?”

Holt crossed the room and held my face in his hands.

“Of course not. I’m very happy for the two of you, so don’t do anything to distance yourself from him. Yes, Saul and I sometimes have disagreements, but the truth is he’s one of the best men I’ve ever known. I’d trust him with my life and, knowing how he feels about you, I think you can safely say the same.”

I smiled. Maybe whatever they’d been arguing about wasn’t that serious after all. Holt looked down at the chess piece I was still holding in my hand.

“Do you know how to play?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“Well, I have some spare time if you’d like me to teach you.”

“I’d love that,” I admitted.

Holt picked up the whole set and carried it effortlessly into his bedroom. I followed, thinking it was an odd choice of room until I saw the two wing-backed chairs placed either side of a round coffee table.

            Holt’s room made my bedroom look small. He had a gigantic four poster bed with a dark mahogany frame and I was surprised to find that there wasn’t as much clutter in here as there was in his other rooms. The walls were bottle green and the floor was an expanse of distressed wood covered in areas by thick rugs. The wing-backed chairs were positioned right next to a pair of French doors that opened out onto a large balcony. For the millionth time, I wondered what exactly Holt must have thought when he’d seen the state of my old home.

Chess was complicated. I’d always suspected it was a game for clever people to play and now I knew I’d been right. I understood why it took people so long to take a turn. If it wasn’t difficult enough to remember what every individual piece did, you then had to work out which pieces you needed to move before the other player took them.

I was just wondering if I should move my bishop or a pawn when it occurred to me how long Holt had been waiting for me. I glanced up at him to see if he looked bored, only to find him staring at me. He looked so sad that I completely forgot about game plans and sat up.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“For a moment you reminded me of someone I used to play many games of chess with,” Holt said. As he spoke, he started to finger the tree pendant that he wore round his neck.

“Did she buy you that?” I asked, giving the pendant a closer look.

Holt smiled and I knew I was right. “We bought them together. Hers was a heart instead of a tree.”

“You loved her.” It came out as a statement rather than a question because Holt’s wistful expression gave it all away.

Holt nodded, his smile faded and I had a feeling I knew the next part of the story as well.

“But she died,” I said. Again this was a statement.

“It was many years ago,” Holt said. “But most days the pain still seems overwhelming.”

I felt like the world had stopped moving. Holt dropped his guard around me very rarely. He was always so busy worrying about me that I was surprised to find out that he was so unhappy himself. I hated the thought of him being alone in his rooms, recalling memories of better times.

“It’s my fault she died.”

Holt’s words were like a confession and, as he looked at me, I had the feeling he hadn’t spoken about this to many people. I once heard that the greatest thing you can do for someone who’s grieving is to simply listen to what they need to say. With that in mind, I leant back in my chair and kept my gaze on Holt so that he knew I’d hear whatever he wanted to say.

“I messed everything up so badly.” Holt’s voice cracked slightly and a shine coated his eyes.

My heart was hammering in my chest. I’d never seen a man cry in my life.

“I promised her I’d spend my life making her happy and I’d always keep her safe. I told her we’d spend our lives together. She was tortured for days before she was murdered. She died in agonising pain, screaming my name and I never turned up. It wasn’t until days later that I even found out she was dead. I failed her.”

I hated myself for not knowing the right thing to say. Then the perfect thing came to mind. I’d once worked at a coffee shop where customers were encouraged to write their favourite quotes on a wall. We were supposed to wipe them off every week to make room for new ones, but I always remembered one that I’d left on display for months. I went to Holt’s desk and found a scrap of paper and a pen. Somehow it seemed like something I should write down instead of say out loud.

If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another chance for you. What we call failure is not the falling down but the staying down.

I took it back into Holt, who was staring out of the window, and held it in front of him. As he read it, a tear rolled down each of his cheeks.

“I can’t say that I know how you feel. But what I do know is she’d hate to see you like this. She’d hate to see you tearing yourself apart over something that can’t be changed.”

Holt ran his thumbs over my note, staring at it like it had all the world’s biggest secrets written on it.

“I know she’d be proud of you too,” I said. Holt finally looked at me. “She’d be proud of everything you’ve done for me. Not only did you save my life all those years ago when Incorruptus tried to kill me, but you saved me from wasting my life. Everything good in my life has only happened because of you.”

“You make me sound like a hero,” Holt said, feebly attempting a smile.

“You are my hero,” I admitted.

This time Holt’s smile was genuine. There was total love in his eyes and I was certain it was reflected back in my own. The truth was I’d come to see Holt as the father I’d never had. I’d always heard about the special bond there was between fathers and daughters and now I understood it. I wouldn’t give up my relationship with Holt for anything in the world. 

“So what exactly am I supposed to wear to this thing?” I called to Henry. I was sitting at my dressing table doing my makeup and Henry was in the living room flicking through the TV channels. He appeared in the open doorway.

“Thing? Do you even know what it is we’re going to?” he asked in amusement.

I smiled. “I know it’s not a ball or a banquet and that’s good enough to make me want to go.”

Henry crossed to my wardrobe and started riffling through. “You haven’t even been here four months and you’re already fed up with balls? You’ll never last here with that attitude.”

He gave me a look of mock disappointment and I rolled my eyes.

“This will do.”

Henry pulled out a black conservative knee-length dress and laid it on the bed. I frowned.

“That dress? Okay, now I’m interested. What is it we’re going to?”

“It’s the swearing in,” Henry said simply as if that would make things clearer.

“And that means what exactly?” I asked.

Henry leant casually against my dresser. “It’s when the new vampires arrive and swear their allegiance to The Sénat.”

A little bell went off in my head and I remembered Dale saying something about new vampires having to spend time in America. I’d wondered about it at the time but had been too preoccupied with other things to delve into it further.

“New vampires? I thought it was against the law to create new vampires?”

“It’s against the law to create new vampires without getting The Sénat’s permission first,” Henry corrected. “Every July The Sénat accepts applications from humans who want to become a vampire. The Sénat pick who they want and then, in January, the humans are taken to a camp where they’re turned and then they stay there for a year while they learn how to live their new lives. Once that year has passed they’re brought to wherever The Sénat are residing so that they can swear their loyalty and be given their official positions.”

I thought Henry was joking but his expression told me he wasn’t.

“Applications? You mean humans apply to become vampires?”

“You’re really that surprised?” Henry asked. “You don’t think that most of the staff here would want to become vampires?”

I considered it. Dale’s negative opinion of vampires made it clear that he’d never want that, but maybe he was in the minority. The staff probably looked at vampires and saw a comfortable lifestyle, enhanced senses and possibly eternal life. That would appeal to most people.

“I guess I’d never really thought about it,” I said. “But I thought The Sénat didn’t want loads of new vampires? Wasn’t that the reason they brought in that law, so they could stop the numbers increasing too much?”

“That’s why they made the law but the new vampires they bring in are to replenish the numbers we lose, not to add to what we already have.”

Makeup done, I got up and indicated for Henry to turn around while I dressed.

“What do you mean ‘numbers we lose’?” I asked.

“Enforcers mostly,” Henry said. “A lot of enforcers get killed in their jobs and The Sénat know they need enforcers so, when they go through the applications, they generally try to pick people who will choose to be enforcers. That’s also why there aren’t many females because The Sénat sees no need to create more of them.” 

I stared at the back of Henry’s head. I’d known that being an enforcer had its risks but he was making it sound like enforcers dropped like flies. Henry sensed my concern and turned around. He strode over to do up the zip on the back of my dress.

“Aw you don’t need to worry yourself about me, I can handle myself. And Saul’s not bad either,” he joked.

I tried to force a smile but it wouldn’t come.

“Henry, how dangerous is it being an enforcer?” I watched his expression, wanting to see the truth in his eyes.

Henry shrugged but it looked more uncomfortable than casual. “We go out to find people who don’t want to be found and most of the time we have to kill them; it’s always going to have its risks.”

I stared at him. He seemed so matter of fact about it.

“So you don’t mind constantly risking your life to kill someone that The Sénat wants dead?” I asked.

Henry reached up to tousle my hair and then realised he couldn’t because I’d pinned it up.

“It keeps me on my toes,” he said. A brief glimmer of sadness touched his eyes and then he snapped back to himself. “So we get to go and watch as the new guys shake in their boots and swear an oath in front of every person here at Rillith.”

I smiled at Henry’s eagerness and slipped on my shoes as he checked the collar of his white dress shirt in the mirror.

The swearing in was taking place in a large rectangular room with a raised platform right in the centre. I followed Henry along the rows of benches where we met up with Holt, Thomas and Roy. I took my seat between Henry and Holt and looked around. The room was full already. There were a few people standing up in one corner by a set of double doors and I assumed that’s where the new guys were going to enter. I strained in my seat to see if Saul was over there but he wasn’t.

Saul had told me he was involved in today’s events but I had no idea what it was he was supposed to be doing. Giving up on my search, I fixed my attention on the platform in the middle only to see Saul standing up there staring at me. He smiled at the look of surprise on my face and I automatically smiled back.

I leant over to Henry. “Why’s Saul up there?” I whispered.

I knew half the room could probably hear me but it seemed polite to keep my voice down. 

“Most of the new people will be employed as enforcers, so the top enforcer has to be present. It’s symbolic really; Saul is the standard to which the new guys should aspire,” Henry said.

I looked back at Saul and raised my eyebrows. He’d heard what Henry had said. My smile grew into a grin. I felt hugely proud of him standing up there; he must have felt it because he gave me a wink and then our attention was drawn to the double doors at the far end of the room. They were pulled open and The Sénat entered. Everyone stood and watched as they glided up the steps to the platform and took their seats at a table. Saul and the two others he was standing with moved to one side of the table, facing the doors again. We all sat back down.

Sénator Aimery gave a wave of his hand and the doors opened again. A line of vampires came in and stood at the bottom of the steps, waiting to be called up. I counted them, there were twenty-four. Did that really mean that twenty-four enforcers had died in one year? Their ages seemed to range from the early twenties to late thirties. I wondered how many of them actually wanted to be enforcers and how many had just agreed to be enforces because it was the only way they could be turned into vampires.