Antithesis: The Vampire Alliance Book Three - FIRST DRAFT COMPLETED

Antithesis Chapter 17: Eve Blakethorn-Sullivan June 2013

Eve Blakethorn-Sullivan, June 2013

As the bite of Tess' sword severs my neck I start awake, coming back to our room to find my heart racing and my body trembling with panic. Taking a deep breath I try to push away the visual which keeps repeating in my head and the sensations that torment my dreams. Lowering my head to my hands I press the heels of my palms into my eyes, trying to prevent the tears which are threatening to well up again. How can anyone bear to know they're going to die, horribly, bloodily, with no hope of reprieve?

I'd always admired Rob, right from the first time I saw him as he jumped in front of the knife wielding mugger the Senate had hired to put me in his path. His execution had been emotionally traumatic, horrifying, leaving me with a sense of loss like nothing I'd felt before, but it had also made me more proud of him than I'd ever been before. He may have been too weak to walk on his own, he may have been afraid, but he didn't beg or lose control in desperation. He'd died with dignity, standing up for everything he believed in. How had he done that?

I don't think I have it in me to kneel. I don't have it in me to accept my end without it driving me mad, not now I want to live. Maybe I could have done it before I became involved with Tul, when I was grieving and lost and craving a way out of my suffering. But now? I want to live and the idea of dying... My heart rate spikes and my constricting throat cuts off my ability to breathe as panic grips me. My mind grows fuzzy with dread and I want to run. But run where? Where can I hide? Looking down at Rob I wish I had his strength but I don't.

Tul shifts in his sleep, drawing my focus, and I can't help but wonder at his resilience. He's overcome a lot recently too. I can't be like them, I've never been like them. After losing Rob I'd fallen apart, turned to drugs, become desperate. When the Senate took Tul I gave up, I needed to die. How can I pretend I can cope with the future I've predicted?

Pulling myself to my feet I choose to leave my husbands sleeping. There's no reason to concern them with my restlessness, they worry about me enough as it is. Rather than wake them I tug on my Alliance issued joggers and t-shirt and slip out of our quarters.

My phone tells me it's midday and the corridors of headquarters are silent enough to show it. I don't see anyone as I make my way through the concrete maze, back to the shrine. Perhaps it's morbid that the first place I think to come is the corridor set aside for commemorating the dead. But then I am dead, even if my body hasn't realised it yet.

There's been an addition to the beautifully painted and heart-wrenchingly photo-covered space since I was last here. A small table nestles among the rows of flickering candles, a pedestal for a book. A book with Craig's smiling face on the cover. When I open it I find the pages full of messages, loving tributes which are a testimony to our communal grief. I try not to cry as I read the anecdotes, fond farewells and memories, although my attempts are unsuccessful. I'm not the first to spill tears and the bloody smears I leave on the pages are only a few among many. Each page is touched by sorrow, anointed with tears. Craig deserved no less. Many people had liked him; he'd been popular even if his jokes weren't.

I wish I could write a funny story about him. I wish I could write something moving, something that would honour him, but when I pick up the pen only three words come to me and although they're heart-felt they're also inadequate. "I am sorry." There's nothing else to be said and yet, at the same time, there's so much more I wish I could vocalise.

I should have saved him.

Reaching up I touch the slip of paper I'd pinned to the wall, my fingers tracing over my sister's name. I should have saved so many people. "I'm going to be seeing you sooner than I'd planned little sister," I whisper into the silence. "Depending where they send me. Is there a heaven? Is there a hell? I guess if there's a hell I won't be seeing you after all, seeing as that's where I'll be going."

As tears stream over my cheeks I rest my forehead on the concrete wall, over the line of names I'd placed there. "I'm so sorry," I sob, the ache in my chest as acute as ever as my voice breaks with grief. "I'm so sorry you all died because of me. I've made such a mess, Andy, and I miss you. I miss you so much."

Sobs rack my body as I stand in the deserted corridor surrounded by ghosts. I'm so wrapped up in my pain I don't notice Rob's approach, not until his arms wrap around me and pull me away from the wall of names. Turning towards him I bury my face in his chest, grateful for his warmth, his scent, him. Finally, years after my family had been murdered, the one person I'd wanted to turn to at the time is here as I mourn them.

The words come quickly, admissions I've always held back. If I don't get the confessions out now I may never have the chance. "I wanted you so much when they were killed. I wanted you at my side at their funeral but they were buried weeks before I got out of the hospital. I was alone and penniless and Christ, I made such a mess. I'm not sure I ever really got to grieve for them because I was so caught up in grieving for you and I miss them so much. My sister should've had a life. The Senate should have just taken me then, turned me, used me then. They didn't have to kill Andy. My parents would hate what I've done and I just can't bear that. I wish I'd gotten to say goodbye."

Rob's anger fills the air with a petrol tang as he strokes my back, my short hair, trying to comfort me. "Charleston told me they were keeping you sedated but I hadn't realised you didn't get to attend you parents' funeral. He wanted me to know they had you so I'd stay compliant but I didn't realise he'd deny you so much. I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you when I should've been. I'm so sorry they made you identify your family. That was nothing more than Senate cruelty and I should have prevented it."

He couldn't prevent it, any more than he'll be able to save me. Soon I'll be no more than memory, just like Andrea, and I wonder if anyone will want to commemorate my life. "I don't want to be a name on this wall but I don't want my death to mean nothing either."

Rob tilts my chin up to kiss me, tasting me and breathing in my scent before he promises "It's not in you to die a meaningless death. If you die, and I still intend to stop such a thing, it'll mean the world. I'm so proud of you, Evie. I know I've said things recently that have made you doubt that, but I am, truly, proud of you. Keep's proud of you. Wherever your family are I'm sure they're proud of you too."

"Wherever they are... Do you think there's a heaven... or a hell?"

He sighs as he steps back and perches on the concrete floor, looking up at the tributes to the dead. "For these people I hope there's a heaven but I can't remember one. I remember the sword at my neck and I remember the hazy beginnings of memories after the Senate woke me up but I don't know if there was anything in-between my death and my conversion. Part of me thinks that there mustn't be anything, that death is the end. Another part of me still hopes. Maybe we're just not meant to remember if we come back. Maybe knowledge of what comes 'after' isn't meant for this world."

Smiling sadly he takes my hand, pulling me down to sit beside him. "When I was 1352, after the arena when I... when I shot you, I started dreaming of you. I started dreaming of the park where I used to take you for ice cream. I didn't recognise it at the time but I guess it's like Keep suggests, there were ghosts of memories. I think if I could choose a heaven it would be in a park with you and him."

Chuckling at the coincidence I lean against him, my head on his shoulder as I draw comfort from his proximity. "The reason I started taking dried vampire blood was to hallucinate. To hallucinate you. My dreams were always set in that park. I guess my choice of heaven would be the same as yours.

In reality I only went to the park once after you died. After Donal, after the first time he... after he used me. Tul had reported my actions to Johan and Johan told him to get rid of me. He followed me to the park with every intention of doing it but he couldn't. You put him in a horrible situation you know, when you told him to look after me. I mean you seriously signed him up for a far harder task than he deserved."

Snorting a laugh, Rob smiles at me and promises, "I hadn't realised what you were going to put each other through."

"We've all put each other through a fair bit," I admit but don't want to dwell on that. Instead I ask, "What are you doing up anyway, it's the middle of the day."

With a shrug and a weary sigh he confesses, "When I woke to find you gone and your emotions all over the place I wanted to make sure you were alright. Anyway, I wasn't exactly sleeping well even before you disappeared. There's just so much to sort through at the moment. Once upon a time there was the Senate; I had to infiltrate the Senate and that was simple. Now there's the Senate, the humans, a son I didn't know I had and who hates me for reasons I can't even begin to unravel... And then there's Keep."

Frowning, confused, I turn to him and I don't doubt that my curiosity is clear in my eyes. "Keep? What's up with Tul?"

Rob shifts uncomfortably as he looks down at his hands, clearly embarrassed and unsure. It takes him a long time to answer and the hesitation warns me what's coming. Quite frankly it stuns me that he's going to raise it. That he's edging towards a conclusion I expected Tul to reach first.

"He and I have been connected for a long time. With the exception of the time I spent dead and the months it took for the connection to reform afterwards. We'd been learning to control it before we became Strix, before you gave metaphorical steroids to every supernatural strength we have. By learning to control it I mean very, very slightly. I don't even know if we were really controlling it or whether the...fading? Was a side-effect of staying apart, of me finding you, of him trying to distance himself even further to avoid you. It's unusual."

He pauses, considering the strangeness of his emotional tie to Tul. "Why do you think our connection's lasted as long as we've been vampires?" He asks suddenly and even though I saw the question coming it catches me off guard, his directness is wholly unexpected.

Hell. Biting my lip in nervous panic I try to fight off my shock. Rob's really not the one I'd expected to come at me with this. He's not the one I expect to take the possibilities well either. Trying not to incriminate myself I ask uneasily, "What do you mean? Because it normally fades in the first couple of decades?"

He laughs but it's a sharp, nervous sound as he shakes his head and shrugs and tries to figure out what he wants to say. "A connection that stays is always rare. The brief second of shared emotion you felt from Charleston, that moment that never, ever repeated itself, that's normal. A connection that forms and holds for a day, a week, a month, that's rare but it can happen between any sire and their newly-turned. When there's a strong friendship connections sometimes last a decade or two, but honestly I've never met anyone whose link's lasted even one decade. Connections that last indefinitely, that aren't easy to control, they only form between... between lovers, spouses, some say soul mates. Although that seems a little, I don't know, fanciful. It doesn't happen between friends... Except for me and Keep."

"Except for you and Keep," I repeat softly, watching Rob's jaw twitch with confused tension as he keeps his face averted from me.

We sit in silence for a moment while I contemplate what to say. I have my suspicions about this situation but if I'm wrong, or if Rob takes it the wrong way, then I'm in trouble. Vampires are volatile and he could take this hard. "I hadn't expected it to be you who raised this, Tul maybe, but not you."

Biting my lip in anxiety doesn't help me figure out the right thing to say and so I choose to start with a theory. It's better than nothing... I hope. "I guess, well, I guess it must have been hard growing up with obligations, with expectations, in a world that was somewhat more prejudice that it is now. I image there are a lot of things which are viewed differently now to when you were young."

He guesses my meaning just as I'd guessed what he wanted to discuss. "You think I've been suppressing because I was raised among the gentry, in a time when..." Rob winces, "when homosexual acts were illegal."

Taking his hand and laughing I try to cut through the anxious atmosphere. "Can you remember the night we met, and you asked me if I wanted to go for coffee of all things? You were so out of your depth that I asked how long it was since you'd dated and you admitted you hadn't, not since your engagement ended in 1912."

He smiles a little, finally meeting my eye, "You asked if I was gay."

Grinning, I nod. "Well how many hot guys do you know who've been girlfriend free for almost a century? But yeah, I asked, and I you said 'not as far as I'm aware'. Well, you're not gay. Not that there'd be anything wrong with it, except it'd be bad for me, but I know you like these too much to be gay." I grab my bust and he laughs even though I can see the shock on his face. The laugh had been my intention, the shock only goes to show how much working for Van had changed me from the innocent I'd been, the innocent he expected. Propriety is not my strong point, but this isn't about my problems.

"Not everything's black and white Rob. You can be attracted to women and men. You can even have a preference for women, but it doesn't mean that Tul isn't the right man for you. Maybe you've never looked at another because the right one was always in front of you. Wow," I breathe, "I never thought I'd be saying that, especially not to you."

His head tilts as he studies me intently, looking for something I can't interpret. "Would you find it easier with him?" He asks at last, "If he'd been sat here trying to figure this out rather than me."

I know there's no point in lying as he'd sense it, but the last thing I want him to think is that I have a better relationship with Tul than him. That's just not true. "As with everything it's just different. There is no easier or harder or more or less, it'd just be different. Everyone's always saying he adapts faster so I guess I just expected he'd start considering this first."

"Maybe he has," Rob answers uneasily, his concern is growing again. "Maybe he considered it and realised he wasn't feeling what I think I might be feeling."

"And what are you feeling?" I prompt, "When you think about Keep, when you think about everything you've been through together; him pulling you out of brawls, him almost dying in the Somme, Glastonbury, him being there to distract you at the end, what do you feel?"

I feel it before he admits it, the warm flow of emotion that starts in his chest and brings a lump to his throat. When he fails to find the words I do my best to find them for him. "That didn't come from me, that came from you. You love him Rob, and not just as a friend or your brother-in-arms.

For a century your lives have conspired to make that inconceivable, because of your upbringing, because of his. Because of your expectations and obligations and wars getting in the way. Because the Senate took over and forced you to live far more separate lives that you should've done. Maybe feeling what I feel was a wake-up call, but for you to accept each other, for you to even consider embracing what we are together, there has to be more than my heart behind that choice. The connection is evidence. You love him."

Breathing out a long breath Rob does his best to absorb that assertion. "That's a lot to take in."

Chuckling, I playfully jab him in the side. "Try being told you're the first Strix in almost two millennia."

With a broad smile he leans towards me, his lips pressing insistently against mine. "I love you, Evie."

"I know." Teasingly I add, "That's the reason I'm not having a jealous vampire hissy fit like some of us are prone to."

He ignores my goading, asking instead, "You're ok with this?" Rob's concern is unfounded considering he can feel that I'm fine with it. I'm more than ok with it; they'll need each other when Tess kills me. Maybe it'll help me to die, knowing they have one another.

He feels my mood sour as fear and grief creep in again. Lightly he cups my cheeks in his hands, preventing me from pulling away even though I'd like to. "We'll stop it, we won't let it happen. I swear."

Trying to avoid any argument I twist my head so I can kiss his palm. Neither Rob nor Tul can save me but I'm tired of telling them as much, I don't want another fight. "At least you won't be alone if it does happen."

He wants to rebel. I can feel it, his desire to deny what I know. His need to protect me is so very strong, so powerful that I ache with how much he loves me, how much he fears losing me. Luckily he can feel me too and he recognises enough not to rally against me. Not today at least.

Instead he reverts back to our former topic and murmurs, "He might not feel the same."

"The connection says otherwise," I encourage him, fully behind my claim. "It might take him time to get used to the idea but that's all. I wouldn't be surprised if he stubbornly keeps repeating to himself 'you're my brother, you're my brother' over and over while you grow as irked as I am with the 'my brother's wife' line.

Personally I think the whole brother thing was a mask anyway, you've both hidden behind it. You created something acceptable to shield yourselves from something you weren't ready to consider. Either way, I don't doubt that he'll realise exactly the same thing you have, once he thinks about it. But you are going to have to talk to him about it."

Blenching Rob pulls away, shaking his head. "I can't. I'm not ready. He could hate me. I can't just walk into our room and tell Keep I think I love him."

A sharp intake of breath interrupts our discussion and my first husband freezes as I look towards the end of the corridor into the stunned eyes of my second. Shock flows out of Tul in waves as fear grips Rob. His heart races, his pulse pounding so loudly I'd be concerned for his health if he wasn't immortal. Neither of them move. Neither of them speak. And I hope to God that I'm right about Tul.

"Um," I whisper, wanting to break the stalemate but not knowing what to say. "Tul?"

His gaze finally shifts from Rob to me and he asks softly, "Can you give us a minute?"

I can't really deny him that. They do need to talk and while I resent being pushed out of something that affects all of us I also understand that this has to be between them, at least at first. I just hope they make the right decision.

I place a quick kiss on Rob's cheek as I stand and make my way from the shrine. Pausing at Tul's side I look up at him as I briefly take his hand and murmur, "You've been connected for a long time, love. That has to mean something." Then I make my way back to our quarters to sit in concerned silence feeling their confusion, their uncertainty and finally, thankfully, a hesitant acceptance.

Thank you God, if you're there.

My phone rings, intruding on my grateful reverence. I'm surprised to see Johan's number in the middle of the day and when I answer I can hear my concern reflected in my voice. "Johan?"

"Grace is here," he answers immediately, "many of her peers have agreed to join us but they'll only do it if you'll be involved every step of the way. They want you to be their contact among us."

It's just one thing after another. "I'm about to die Johan, I'm not really an appropriate choice of human-vampire liaison." Saying it reignites my sense of dread and my fangs drop, piercing my tongue as I struggle to control my rampaging emotions. "I can't..."

"Evie," Johan interrupts, "they'll only join if you agree and as you said, we need them. They're going to swear allegiance in two weeks time. You'll be safe in the base until then, I'm hoping you'll be safe indefinitely. Will you at least consider it until we can find an alternative?"

I can't believe he's asking, insisting. In a somewhat risky move I hang up on my leader, throwing my phone down on the bed beside me and determined to ignore the request. My shoulders aren't strong enough to bear responsibility for yet more people. I've caused the death of too many already.

I can't deal with anything else. It's all too much. Don't these people realise that my life is over? Why can't they just let me be? Somehow I find myself back where I started, back on my bed with tears welling in my eyes and panic causing my heart to flutter wildly, and I know this dread is only going to get worse.