A Sanguinary Rose (Complete)

There was no way out. The door I had come through had vanished behind a starry blackness. And going near Mandala was the last thing I wanted.

“Guys, can you read me? Is anyone there? Anja? Oliver? I don’t know where to go.”

In my desperation, I came close to removing the gazer, to taking the limiting lenses off my eyes and peering around the abyss of mystery I stood on, because how else would I find the way back in this black sea of infinity? The only thing keeping me from taking it off was Mandala’s warning—irrevocably insane. Then this might be a double-edged sword because one might as well lose their mind in trying to find the way out.

Ask.

“Where’s the exit?”

Nothing.

“How do I find the exit?”

Silence.

“Lead me out.”

Stars flew out and flickered, constellations shifted, stardust coalesced into a blinding core of light until it exploded in a shower of dust, and I bumped into a cold, steel-bound mass. My palms, grasping and sweating, probed along for anything to grab onto.

Then my fists pounded on it. “Somebody, get me out of here.”

A red signal beeped on top of it. As it screeched, the wall of steel began to rise upward. I dashed inside under the rising gate, pushed past the sliding double doors, past the stone gargoyles, and snatched the gazing device off my face, letting it drop to the rocky floor.

Two security guards rushed up with handguns drawn. They didn’t point them but were still wary. They spoke in hard, fast, aggressive French.

“I don’t understand anything you’re saying.”

They gave each other glances of annoyance.

The clerk behind the glass counter spoke up. “They want to know how you got inside there and for what purpose.”

“I’d like to know how I got here. I was across the world moments ago.”

The clerk came out of his booth. “You’re in Paris’ Bureau. The Starlit Almanac works in mysterious ways. If unsupervised, you don’t know where you’ll end up next. Now, what were you doing in there and how did you get in? Because clearly you were unsupervised.”

“I work for ORPHEUS in Farpoint. There was a loose vampire, and there was nowhere else to hide. I really need to go back, though. Please.”

“Hiding in there is either the stupidest or smartest thing you could’ve done. We’re aware there was an infiltration, but that was days ago. It’s currently under investigation.”

“Days? What do you mean? I couldn’t have been in there that long.” However, as I said those words, my stomach growled, and it hit me how long it had been since the last time I tasted blood, how long since I’d slept.

One of the guards spoke a few words in French and both seized my arms. I looked at the clerk, horrified. “Hey, what are you doing to me? Let me go.”

“They’ll take you up for questioning. Don’t worry. It’ll be fast and easy,” he said, before going back to his seat behind the counter.

The only thing that might give away my involvement at that point was the earpiece I wore.

The two guards half-walked and half-dragged me down the corridor to the elevator. In the idle wait between climbing floors, they were bound to notice the piece in my ear. They yanked me forward when I dug my heels on the ground. The thought made me panic. Thinking of the consequences tied knots in my stomach. If I went down, what would happen to my friends?

As I stamped my feet on the ground, the guards tried to wrestle me forward. One barked in my ear, shoving me while the other pulled from my shoulder. The one with the large mustache barked a few French words in my face mixed with spittle.

“I’m sorry,” I told him. My arms slid free from their grip. As they fumbled, I slammed my palms into his chest and flung him off his feet. The second one reached down for his belt as I spun, shoulder-bashing him into the ground. I zipped down the hallway as if my life depended on it. They were scrambling to their feet when I banged the stairwell’s door shut behind me.

On my way up to floor -2, I plucked the earpiece out and dashed it in the first trash bin I found going onto the next landing.

When I emerged onto the next story, a half dozen handguns were drawn on me across the hall. Behind them, the doors led to the Gates.

I raised my arms above my head and bent down on my knees.

***

SanguineX had a cruel way of disabling and disorienting its victims, even in smaller doses. I learned it the hard way.

The first thing I felt was the strength in my arms seeping away, the vigor in my every action gone now, replaced by a heavy burden in the simplest motion. It dulled my sharp reflexes and shut down my enhanced senses to the point there was no difference between vampire and human. The med didn’t sate my thirst for blood. Instead, it put a lid on it as pressure continued to mount endlessly.

The worst part? It killed the soul. Motivation? Gone. Determination? Gone. Willpower? Gone.

Now I almost felt sorry for the vampires we captured before.

The first day, armed men in security vests and one in a lab coat escorted me to a clinic. I was dimly aware of my surroundings as they dragged me through an endless stretch of white tile after white tile. I’d lost count of the hours, or maybe days I had been their captive. For all I knew, it might have been only two hours or an entire week. I looked to their faces, but in my drugged stupor, their features seemed to blur into splotches of paint.

They didn’t even bother to have me restrained. I melted into the metal chair before a broad dark grain desk, trying to keep my head from lolling to the sides. Across sat a middle-aged, bespectacled man with salt-and-pepper hair dressed in a beige lab coat and a bow tie.

“Good evening, Ms. Rosenbaum. I’m Dr. Franz. Do you understand the charges you’re being held on?” He leaned forward on steepled fingers.

By then the drug’s effects had lessened somewhat. “That I stood my ground?”

“That’s one way to put it. You’re being held on charges of battery and resisting arrest, as well as a suspicion that links you to former ORPHEUS top-ranking cadre warlock, Mandala, and his crimes. You maintain the right to a lawyer if you don’t already have one, or assistance from your guardian angel.”

That made me laugh out loud. “So, I’m screwed pretty much?”

“If you wish to waive those rights away, I won’t stop you.”

“Do I look like someone a guardian angel would bother to look out for?”

Dr. Franz moved papers around his desk. “Well, according to this right here you’ve got a guardian angel assigned to you.”

“You’re joking.”

“An angel safeguarding a vampire is certainly uncommon, but not unheard-of. If you’d rather have a lawyer of our choosing—”

“Call him.”

“Give us a few minutes.”

When the door opened behind me, I dared not look back. I felt his presence, his aura, even before I saw his radiant eagle-like wings looming at either side of me. He gripped the chair’s backside, and my hair brushed with his fingers. His perfumed odor, the clove-scented cologne, slithered into my nose. Glancing down I could see the tips of his black oxfords.

“I’ve been looking for you,” Alan said. “I knew you were in Paris, but no clue did I have you were so knee deep in—”

Dr. Franz tapped his wristwatch. “Shall we start?”

The large white wings closed in around me in an almost protective embrace. The action took me aback. I glanced over my shoulder to see Alan’s pinions bent forward to cover our frames as one. I peered between the pale feathers at Dr. Franz as his lips tightened with contempt, and I couldn’t help the smile tugging at mine.

“As I was saying, you’re being held on grounds of battery and resisting arrest. Since you tried to flee, we have more reason to believe you might be linked to Mandala’s crimes against the international body of ORPHEUS and the state of Washington.”

“I—”

Alan interrupted me. “So you have nothing against her but measly conjectures? That’s one big accusation you’re making, so you better have something worth the stock to show for it. Mandala is powerful, the best and brightest of his cadre. And even if he’d coerced her into something illegal, what do you think a sixteen-year-old would’ve been able to do that a warlock of his caliber couldn’t on his own?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. They found her wandering the Starlit Almanac. That alone is reason enough to warrant an investigation, Mr. Grayson.”

Alan bristled. “So let me get this straight. Her family, her friends, we all have been worried sick for my client’s wellbeing, fearing any disabilities may have befallen her, perhaps even death. Days of desperate searching, only to find her in such state of mistreatment. I’ve felt the danger she’s felt, the crippling starvation and thirst, the lack of sleep. And on top of that, in the Starlit Almanac. To my very limited knowledge, it’s an incredibly dangerous place to get lost in, isn’t it?” Dr. Franz’s lips were taut. He nodded. “For crap’s sake, she’s sixteen, a lost, confused, and starving girl who took these great risks to run from a much more dangerous and immediate threat, putting her mental wellness and even her life on the line. When she, at last, finds others who might help end her torment, she’s grappled with, and threatened, and pointed at with weapons, you don’t think, in her debilitated, disorientated, and utterly bewildered state, that she wouldn’t try to fight for her life?” Alan shot him a furious finger. “You haven’t even fed her, have you?”

“She had a meal—”

“Not good enough. You couldn’t bother even with animal blood? No, you had to dope her. To take advantage of her dulled senses. To work for a faster conviction. This is all unacceptable. Even from across the globe I could sense her turmoil. This all warrants an official apology. Or we may have to have more parties involved.”

Dr. Franz tapped his foot rapidly. He screwed up his nose. “We will inves—”

A gun shot rang out outside the room, then a barrage, a fusillade right after another. Screams mixed in with lead detonations soon after. A red alarm screeched in my ears a couple of seconds later. By instinct I ducked under the table. I couldn’t understand what was happening, shrinking into a ball as my heart jumped to my throat.

Dr. Franz bolted off his seat, shoving the chair hard against the concrete. Alan spun on his heels, drawing his wings close before him like shields just as the booming shots ended.

A towering seven-foot figure tore the door off its hinges without even having touched it. Behind him the bodies of armored guards littered the hallway, fresh dark blood pooling over blinding white tiles.

A pair of sturdy arms gripped my shoulders and dragged me to my feet and off to the side of the room. Alan put himself between me and the warlock, his wings raised forward, ready to fight.

Mandala ducked under the lintel into the interrogating room. “I have come to get my pupil.”

Dr. Franz backed up, pressed against the wall, and his crazed eyes flicked from the hulking warlock to me.

Mandala approached the doctor, leaving the door behind wide open, and my eyes became transfixed on his trench coat leaking a trail of blood behind. “I didn’t say she was involved. I came to get her out of your twisted claws.” He extended a hulking arm towards him and began to close his fist. Dr. Franz choked. “Ever felt the tips of your fingers blow up all at once?”

The man gasped. “No, no. Stop!”

“This marks the beginning of the end of this machine of tyranny. It’s time for change.”

“You can’t. You’re mad! The cadre will come after you. Shallam, Caspian, Horst, Nestor, Yami…”

“If they have a death wish, I’m sure they will.”

There was a glimmer of light gathering strength around Alan’s arm, dim at first, then brighter by the moment. I yanked his arm back and my fingers burned for a second. I killed the scream of pain before it left my throat and croaked out. “Don’t.”

Mandala was watching us now while holding Dr. Franz captive. He beckoned with his gaze and nodded toward the man. “Come, feed on him. It’s only fair after how they’ve treated you, only because you’re not human. Will you continue to accept that?”

The siren blared on. The patches of red on the white floor hooked my gaze, making my mouth water. The vampire does not make me. I make the vampire.

Mandala raised his voice. “Go on, then. Whose side are you on?”

“She’ll do no such thing,” Alan said, drawing the warlock’s ire to him.

As Mandala raised his other fist towards the angel, I ducked around his wings and stepped between the two. “Stop. He’s no danger to you.”

“I know,” he said, lowering his arm. “It’s clear you’ve decided to stay a vampire rather than return to being a human. These people will never leave you alone. They will meddle with and ruin your life the way they ruined mine. At my side, you’ll become stronger, faster, more powerful than your old bat Montgomery Royce could ever hope.”

He sure got to know me all our time together.

“I found no cure. Anything I got from that vault could hardly be called an answer.”

Mandala’s smile grew wide. “That’s because you need Horus’ Sight,” he said, taking out of his inside pockets a gazer, like the one I’d worn. “These allow you to adjust your sight to the most precise degree. I don’t need it anymore. Come with me, and it’s yours.” He held out the artifact. “Want to know about the moon? About the cure?” He shook it by the strap. “Here’s your answer.”

“My drive has always been to go back to normal. Everything you offer is anything but.”

The warlock’s mouth twitched, and he put the gazer back in his pocket. “I’ve learned to be disappointed. If I were you, I’d avoid your family before the hysteria begins.” Before I could ask what he meant, his fist closed down and Dr. Franz gurgled red liquid from his mouth as veins and arteries exploded inside him, his bloodshot eyes rolling back in their sockets. The body came crashing down upon the desk and slid down to the floor.

The sight paralyzed me, sent my stomach turning.

Alan’s arms wrapped around my waist and lifted me in the air, his wings outspreading at his sides and sling-shotting us back through the corpse-littered hallway. All I felt was the rushing air ruffling my hair. In our spiraling flight trajectory, I lost sense of direction. Which way was up, and which was down? He spread open his wings again to catch the wind and break the fast descent, and our feet slammed on the floor. Without his steady hands around me, I would’ve stumbled off my footing.

With a quick glance behind us it was enough to determine that Mandala wouldn’t give pursuit. Alan seized my hand and pulled me into a clumsy sprint.

As we came around the corner, a SWAT team was preparing to rush in where we came from. They were pressed against the walls, manning assault rifles, and awaiting their officer to give the signal. Once we passed them by, they shoved us along and behind their formations as they funneled inside.

“Come, we won’t get another chance,” Alan said, taking my hand, gentler this time, and guided me to the staircase and down below it. He pressed a finger to his ear. “I’ve got her. We’re on our way. Over and out.”

We climbed down to floor -2, hustled down the wide carpeted corridor, and arrived before the Gates to Heaven and Hell.

Arrivals and departures had been halted since the alarm rang out. Against the security officer’s orders, Alan led me past the metal detectors and up the daises carrying the portal devices. He spoke in fast, quick-fire French once we stood over the copper-colored platforms.

“Enfer.” He snapped his fingers at the operators in the booths down below. “Allons-y, allons-y.”

There was a flash of light and I felt myself go weightless for a moment before we emerged back to Inferno. Where exactly, I couldn’t tell.

You should’ve come with me.

The pillars upon which this society rests will come crumbling down, and you and your friends will be caught in the firestorm.

I will not be the cause of it. Humans will be—your family, your friends, your neighbors, the cashiers at the store, the bank tellers, the bus drivers, the police officers, the teachers and caretakers you’ve always trusted. Every person you’ve ever met will turn against you once they learn your identity. They will turn against each other.

Farpoint is no longer safe for our kind. Nowhere is safe anymore.

We’ll weather through and do right by us till the end.

You should’ve come with me.

When I found footing again, my mind was spinning, and my hands met the floor. What little they had fed me the last day came spilling out of my mouth, leaving a burning trail in my throat. The sallow bile pooled on the tiles of polished marble.

I didn’t notice my hands were smoldering under direct sunlight due to my numbed senses. The pain kicked shortly in full, and I hid them in my hoodie’s pockets, whimpering. Like a magnifying glass, the radiating heat bore down on me in piping hot waves, and despite my anti-UV clothes, I felt urged to hunch down as if to mitigate it, to no avail. The rays filtered through a massive dome of glass above us and all over the hall of arrivals and departures.

People were staring at us: Devils, at times indistinguishable from humans. The men generally dressed in gray or black tuxedos and flannel trousers, some wore sports jackets over open-necked shirts and berets over their hair. Some of the women took on sultrier styles, clad in satin dresses that hugged their curves tightly with lower back cuts, while the more conservative ones displayed their elegance in plaid-patterned linen jackets and high heels.

Like an airport or a train station, they bustled down hallways, bought their tickets from booths, and queued up at an assigned portal device from the dais.

This time we drew the attention from hundreds waiting at the bottom of the platforms.

Alan picked me up, and the oppressive heat abated as his wing folded over my back. He led me down the stairs as I fought to regain control of my shambling feet. People hurried to part ways to let us pass, though they didn’t hide their loathing or contempt, muttering phrases or giving us the evil eye—whether for the angel or the vampire, who knew?

“We’re in Belial territory,” Alan said, looking ahead, puffing once for breath. “But we’re not close to Beliagard Keep. Damn it.”

As he talked and dragged me along, I couldn’t help staring at his neck. It was built lean and sinewy, and his blood didn’t quite smell like a human’s. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept, or if I had even eaten anything at all. The SanguineX shot they gave me in Paris must have been wearing off, I hoped, because the feeling of weakness didn’t double me over or made me want to lie down anymore.

“We’ve got no choice but to go under the sunlight,” he said once we came close to the glass doors leading outside to the atrium. “Put these on.” He handed me a pair of sunglasses. “Brace yourself. We’ll get you something to eat and then be on our way.”

People moved away from us as we emerged outside. Even amid a mob, it was evident they wanted no association with either of us. As though we were repelling magnets, they ebbed away and flowed back in as we passed.

Alan’s wing helped keep most of the heat away as we shuffled down the white atrium’s stairs to the old extensive plaza and looked for shades beneath trees and building’s overhangs to travel under. Had I been wholly inattentive or passed out and woken up now, I would’ve sworn we were somewhere in the Vatican.

Modern cars drifted along the narrow, cobbled streets. Gold enameled carriages drawn by eight-foot-tall horses trundled by as well. I had to remind myself several times I wasn’t in Europe.

“What’s wrong with those horses?” I asked, staring after a gorgeous, pitch-black gelding with what looked like dark, ruby eyes.

“They’re hell-steeds,” Alan said, maneuvering our combined weight through crowds and under shades of trees with twisted branches, thorns for leaves, and pomegranates for fruit.

“I want one.”

Alan brought me under the awning of a butcher’s shop and lowered me onto the waiting bench. The bell rang as he pushed in and walked up to the counter. My mind was still fuzzy from the dose I’d received before. But I felt some semblance of vigor being restored as the meds lost their effect. I grabbed a lock of hair from my shoulders: It was a deep red.

Mandala had played us all. I’d played right into his hands, and I could feel the guilt surging through my stomach, knowing that I’d failed to see it coming. As morbid thoughts took over my mind, I asked myself, what would’ve become of me and everyone else if I had chosen to side with Mandala over Alan?

I cast a glance at my guardian angel as he argued with the butcher over the payment method. Due to the drug’s effects, I hadn’t given a thought to anything. However, as the dullness waned, Alan had me utterly befuddled the more I tried to reason. This angel wasn’t a shadow of his former haughty self.

What changed?

“I’m sorry, I don’t have any gold. How much is it in American dollars?” he said, fidgeting with his wallet.

“Those aren’t backed up by gold. Get lost, birdie.”

“Do you take argentum?”

“That’ll be fifteen then.”

“That’s five times what you asked before,” Alan said, his wings bristling behind him.

“Your coin is worth five times less. Pay up or scram.”

When Alan plopped the paper bag next to me, he sank down on the bench with the sullenest expression on his face.

I tore the sack open to find a sealed packet of animal blood and a loaf of meat wrapped in beeswax paper. “Thank you, but what’s this?”

“Ram. Eat up so we can go.”

“It’s raw. You think I feed on anything that moves?”

Alan pursed his lips and held out his spread hand. I removed the wrapping and gave him the loaf. Peach-colored at first, his palm gradually took on a paperwhite tone until it glimmered, emanating warmth, and radiating light like a lightbulb, and the meat seared in his glow for a minute. He nodded when it was finished.

“It’s not seasoned.”

He arched his eyebrows. “Can you not?”

“Just messing with you. I can’t even taste anything, remember?”

“Oh, right. How bleak.” He turned away to watch a couple strut along the sidewalk, while absentmindedly wiping the grease off his hands.

A few pedestrians glared daggers at me when I munched on the steak with my bare hands. I was ravenous. I wolfed down the ram in a matter of seconds. Warm grease ran down my hands and dribbled down my chin. My fangs sprang forth and tore into the bag of blood. Waves of energy rushed in to reinvigorate me as the blood flowed out and the packet became empty wrinkled plastic. I wiped my hands and dabbed my mouth with a couple of napkins and turned to Alan.

“How long was I gone, really?”

“Not long enough.” He smirked at my frown. “Kidding. Mr. Royce and the others were worried sick. He called me in the middle of the night and basically ordered me to be your guardian angel so we could track you down.”

I gave him a doe-eyed look. “Wouldn’t you know having you rescue me was part of my plan all along?”

Alan chuckled. “You could’ve just asked. No need to go to such lengths.”

My smile died down. “Yeah, things went south pretty badly, huh?” I said, thinking back to the bodies by the Starlit Almanac. “He wanted me to clear the path to the vault for him.”

“We got more pressing matters now. Come on, let’s get out of here,” he said, rising to his feet.

“Aren’t you gonna offer me a hand?”

“How about a wing? Just ’cuz it’s part of the job.”

I stared at him for a few seconds. What had happened to the old annoyed-at-life Alan, who threatened to make a burnt crisp of me every day? I zipped up my hoodie and braced myself for the heat. He took me again under his wing and we went on a stilted and awkwardly romantic walk along the cobbled streets and quaint storefronts.

“How’s everyone doing back home? I kinda miss them. Even though I never felt I was gone for too long.” I’d had a dream where nothing but intense misery had become part of my day-to-day life. Strong nostalgia trips surged through in my head and a feeling of melancholy washed over me. It made me long for my friends’ company. I couldn’t feel any more grateful that they were all right.

“They’re fine, I guess. Don’t give me that look, you know I don’t hang out with them,” Alan said as he looked both ways before crossing the cobbled street.

“You don’t know anything about them? Did the world come to a stand-still?”

“Well, Mr. Royce has been having sleepless nights since we started searching for you. He called in sick once for work. Anja didn’t go to school for a couple of days. I don’t know about the others.”

My breath gave pause as I realized something potentially horrible. “How are my parents? If I’ve really been gone that long, what am I gonna say to them?”

“Nothing of this, I hope. An amber alert went up the next day and people posted your picture all around town and in social media. The FPPD knows you were in ORPHEUS’ Bureau at the time of the attack. They might also have been told of your stay in Paris. It’s their decision what information they relay to your parents.”

“Either way I’m screwed.”

“Why did the warlock warn you about your family?” Alan asked while hailing rides from passing carriages.

“When? What do you mean? I was pretty dazed.” But even as I said that a cloud of worry crept into my mind.

“He told you not to be near them when the hysteria hits.”

My knees almost buckled under my weight. Alan spoke to me while helping me keep steady on my feet. But his words were wind and all that mattered to me would come crumbling down in ashes if Mandala succeeded.

“He’s going to lift the veil.”

“What?” Alan said, frowning. “Speak up.”

“Mandala, the warlock. The veil keeping our existence hidden from the rest of humanity. He’s gonna lift it. History will repeat itself.” I bit into my tongue as I struggled to contain my anger. “I should’ve gone with him. Could’ve torn his throat apart when he wasn’t looking.”

“No, you did the right thing.” He pulled me up. “Come on, they’re all waiting for you.”

“I have to go back. Take me back to Paris.” I yanked my arm off his grip. “What do you care, anyway? You’ve treated me like crap ever since the first time I dared speak to you. All you ever cared about was your career as a guardian.”

His face darkened. “That was true weeks ago. But believe me, not anymore. Safeguarding vampires isn’t exactly bestowing me many points. There are many reasons why I care, but that one is the least important one right now.”

“How do you expect me to believe that? You gave a one-eighty all of a sudden?”

“I can explain to you, but now’s not the time. I did things these past months I regret, things I wish I could take back. But yes, I do care. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here breaking you out and breaking laws in the process.”

“If you do, then show me. Let me go back. I cannot let Mandala get away with it. Everything there is to me and to us will come crashing down along with society as we know it. Do you understand what that means?”

“I know. But you can’t go by yourself. He’ll kill you the moment he sniffs out your intention. Hell, don’t you think he’ll already be suspecting the minute you turn up with a ‘change of heart?’ If someone’s going to stop him, that’s up to the governments of the world. Come on, let’s go. I don’t get how you can stand being under the sun for so long.”

He turned his back to me and tried hailing a ride with his thumb. The horse-drawn carriages passed trundling by every time.

“Try putting your wings away. See if it works.”

He looked over his shoulder. “No way. You really think that’s it?”

“Just saying.”

A minute later a carriage pulled over by the curb, its spoked wheels nearly as tall as us both, the obsidian-colored steeds kicking the ground. The coachman looked down from his seat. “Where to?”

“Beliagard. By the Keep,” Alan said.

The coach doffed his pointed hat. “Climb on in.”

Up close the hell-steeds stood more than twice as tall as us. Their imposing red eyes, regal coal mane, boisterous snorts; these massive, muscular onyx beasts could probably haul a score of men on their backs or tow a small house after them.

Alan avoided eye contact while holding the coach’s door open for me. Inside was austere enough, but it had comfortable enough cushions to sink into them. I rolled down the window’s screen and took off my sunglasses. Alan sat spread-legged next to me, and the coachman spurred the steeds into motion.

An uncomfortable silence settled between us as we jostled along the scenic streets and out to the green rolling fields of Inferno’s countryside. All the while I had this gnawing worry in my stomach, eating away at me from my core.

“Scarlett?”

I turned from the window. Alan’s hands were tucked in his blazer pockets.

“I wanted to… hmm. You know… That thing you do to make amends.”

“Apologize? Wait, is that an alien concept to your people, or…?”

“It’s complicated. Pride… we take it very solemnly. If our pride or honor is at stake, in more serious times it may require a court case to make the aggravator apologize, or worse, a duel to settle things.”

“Well, no need for any of that here.”

He snorted and gave me for the first time a ghost of a smile. “Yeah.”

I sat up straight against the cushion. “Why did you come get me, though? Why not some other guardian angel?”

“Because I wanted to. Yes, rank in mind, but that’s bonus. I realized I judged you too harshly before.”

“Would you have come before? Had it happened months before?”

His eyes betrayed no emotion. “No, I wouldn’t.” But they mellowed shortly thereafter. “The thing is, it’s hard for me to say, but… you’ve proven me wrong time after time. Everything I thought you to be, you aren’t. While others seek power and knowledge, you longed for a normal life with school and friends. It is against the vampire’s nature to be like that, and yet, you display none of the sins or vices that plague the whole species.”

But I do, I wanted to tell him. I just control it. You’re creating a ‘perfect’ image of me that doesn’t exist.

“Back when you said I neglected protecting Anja, you were right. She’d be dead, or worse, and there would’ve been nothing I could do to take it back. I wanted to apologize for putting you down.” His voice became softer. I had to lean closer to hear well. “Sometimes I can’t help… can’t help blaming myself. Back at the party, had I only said ‘yes,’ you might still be human.”

“You can’t blame yourself for that. Alan, that was not your fault.” As I said that a flood of this year’s memories rushed into my mind. And I smiled. “But thank you. Your apology means a lot. What you may not know is, I don’t want to be human. I wouldn’t trade this new life for the world.”