Beautiful Monster 2 (17 page)

“Here, do this
.” He guided Sarah’s arms over her small body.

“Liam, what the hell is going on?” I interrupted at last.

Connor answered me, “The bottle you found in Nina’s hand is holy water. It burns if thrown into our faces, human or not. But ingested, it’s a slow agonizing death as it burns every single internal organ out. And because it’s not something that affects a normal human, we don’t heal from it. Perhaps Sarah can draw out the effects of it.”

My head swive
led to Sarah, who met my eyes. Nina remained motionless and slack jawed in her arms. Liam covered his face with his hands and Connor placed a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s not your fault, Liam.”

“’Course it is,” he replied thickly. “I should have seen it coming.”

“Wait,” I said, trying to piece it together carefully. “
Holy water
… can kill you?”

“Yes,” Steve said at last. “Poor little girl.”

Suicide
. The word nearly made my heart stop. I instantly felt guilty that I had not moved faster, not been as concerned. Maybe if I had run up the stairs, I could have helped her. But there she lay, clearly not returning.

“Jesus, what are we going to do?”
Liam asked.

Steven shook his head.
“She wanted to die, Liam, and I think there’s nothing you could do about it.”

“Are we such undesirable creatures that she would end an immortal life?” Liam roared at him, and all eyes turned to me, to fix the situation.

I rose carefully. “Liam, you couldn’t have known she was going to do that.”

“But I should have damn well figured out!” He was pacing, angry. “And maybe if you, Amy, had been nicer to her, none of this would have happened!”

“What?” Now I was angry. Liam and I couldn’t seem to get along lately, not for love or money. “How is this my fault?”

“Nina came to us for help, and she trusted me. She was afraid of the whole world, and she wanted a place to hide. I was the only person she trusted and every time she showed that trust, you had to show up and act like a teenage girl. How are you not self
-assured yet, Amy, after all you’ve been through?”

“Liam!” Sarah said, still cradling Nina.

I watched Connor place a gentle hand on Sarah’s back and take Nina from her. He closed her eyes and pulled off his dress shirt to put over her face. I wanted more than anything to stop screaming at Liam for having treated me so poorly, but we were in too deep now.

“This isn’t going to help anything. Don’t yell at her
.”

“W
e need to move on,” Steven said gently. “She’s gone, Liam, and there’s nothing we can do about it. We’ll give her a proper burial, tell the others what happened, report her death to the elders, and that will be all. It’ll be alright.”

“And what if she was murdered?” Liam brought up. “Selene is crazy, and it’d be just like her to go after us one by one. She would know to
prey on Nina, she’s weak. What if she dragged her down here, chained her up, and made it look like it was suicide?”

“Liam,” Steven said. “I’ve spoken to Nina about three times and I knew she wanted to die.”

“She wanted Selene DEAD!” Liam roared.

“So let’s make it happen,” Steven replied
.

W
e all fell silent. I was still seething underneath. How dare he blame me for this, and then sit there and not apologize for it?

“Let’s make it happen,” I spoke up. “Because I promised you, Liam, and I promised all of you. Because Porsche was my friend too, and Selene deserves to die. But after that, I’m done.”

“What?” Liam whipped his head to stare at me. “What are you talking about?”

“All we do is fight all the time. I’m sick of it. We clearly can’t get it together. We clearly can’t trust each other. Hell, I’m probably cramping your style!” I really didn’t want to do this in front of everyone, but everything I had been feeling for weeks was
finally bubbling to the surface and I was sick of keeping it quiet. “I don’t need to do a graduate year and you know it. My credits are in place and my storyline on Ranger will get extended. I don’t need stupid school plays and immortals who can’t figure out their lives hanging around me.”

I think no one was more shocked than me at the words that came out of my mouth. I almost sounded like those students I had come to hate, who found fame elsewhere and booked it out of here without so much
as a thanks. Liam had given me my start, but I felt like I had come as far as I could with him. This was too much to handle, and my life was going to be too short. It could be me on the floor instead of Nina. All it took was one infection, one slip, and my disease would be active and I’d be done for as well.

To my surprise
, Liam didn’t beg to keep me, and perhaps that was what I secretly wanted.

He simply nodded.
“Fine, Amy, if that’s what you want, I really can’t deal with this right now. Or you.”

I
wanted to hit him at that point. Instead, I picked up my backpack and grabbed Sarah’s hand. She looked torn for a moment, between Connor and me, but she rose, following me. Without a word, I headed up the steps with Sarah, making sure to slam the door behind me. If he wanted to be done with me, that was just fine. I’d be better off alone.

I didn’t remember most of the week following Nina’s death. With Amy avoiding me like the Black Plague and my anger at her as strong as ever, there wasn’t much I wanted to do but hole up in my apartment and drink, which is exactly what I did. I told the school I was taking a business trip, which I’m sure they didn’t believe in the slightest, but no one questioned me.

And so I drank my
weight’s worth most days, and come nightfall, I headed out into the neighboring towns, drinking from humans for the first time in I couldn’t even remember how long. And it felt good.

I hadn’t go
ne out womanizing yet, but I’m sure that it wasn’t far behind. All the things about myself: the bloodlust and the regular lust, I found returning tenfold, and I enjoyed them. Perhaps we were better off apart. She was young and sheltered, and she had no idea what it was like on the other side of life. She just enjoyed taking care of me and making cooing noises whenever I got upset.

But none of these angry thoughts took away the horrible feeling
I had. Dawn came and I lay with a pounding head. I bent over the toilet, throwing up the red tinged liquid that I needed to survive. I was halfway between dead and alive.

I wa
s into week two of this behavior when I got a call from an extension in the school around dusk. My transformation was not too far away.

“Liam, it’s Connor. You need to be here, in the Red
Theater now.”

“Why?” I wasn’t in the mood to play games, but Connor wasn’t really the type to play games either.

“Now,” he said, and hung up the phone.

I called a cab, not wanting to be responsible for another death if I drove in this state. Just before leaving the house, I grabbed a Mickey, putting it in my coat pocket. If I was going to go out, then I was going to have fun.

The cab pulled up at the school as the sun was half set, and I half considered having a snack of the driver. But the urgency in Connor’s voice made me simply pay him and head into the theater. I began to worry, seeing the empty hallways, if something terrible had happened again. And despite my anger, I hoped to God that it wasn’t Amy.

I had about a thousand horrible ideas in my head when I pushed open the door, but none of them matched with the sight I saw when I entered. On the dimly lit sta
ge, standing there as if they owned it, were three cloaked figures. One was in the forefront of the other two, and Connor was on the ground below them, speaking up to them from bended knee.

As I approached, I was awed by them. These were
our elders, at least some of them, the oldest vampires in existence. They were almost 2000 years old, and they resided in Romania. They were a different bloodline than Selene, and they governed all vampires. Despite myself, I bowed my head.

It was said that when all vampires were created, there was some instinct in them to respect these ones, to fear them and stand in awe at the same time. It was something about the blood coursing through our veins, the magic that reacted with them. It was almost like I was a puppet on a string
. I bowed to them and enjoyed it.

“My lords,” I said, before I could stop myself.

I had only ever seen drawings of them, but they hadn’t changed much. Even when Porsche had told me the legends of them, I felt a sense of respect brew up inside me. To live 2000 years and be so calm, so decent and so regal was something that deserved respect.

“Liam,” one of them,
Elias, spoke to me.

If I was identifying them correctly, the other two behind him were Fennel and Silas.
My heart was pounding, even as my head swam, and I knew I reeked of booze. These were the kings of vampires, and I was a mess.

It had never occurred to me that they were here
because of a controversy. I assumed they wanted Selene dead as much as we did. The elders were very honorable, respectful people, who didn’t kill senselessly, nor did they interfere in vampire killing, usually. The wars we started among ourselves were our own responsibility. And even when they killed, it was polite and clean, a quick grab of the heart from the chest and that was it.

“You are new to the vamp
ire covens, Liam,” he continued.

I shrugged. “
A few years, yes.”

“Our condolences on the death of one
in your coven,” Silas said

I
raised my eyes to meet his. He seemed genuinely compassionate, and I was surprised. There were so many vampires who died every day, and some of them were suicide. There was no way they sent out a branch out every time.

But what surprised me more than that was the fact that he referred to it as a coven. In a way, I guess I was part of a coven, and their leader. I had never thought about it like that, it was such an ancient way of referring to things. But he was right. We had all found each other, united in a
common purpose, and we stayed together. And I was their coven leader, no matter how bad a job I felt like I was doing.

“Thank you,” I replied. “Nina’s passing does grieve us all. If you’ll forgive me for asking…
why are you here?”

“
Ah, well.” Elias looked to the other two.

Fennel stepped forward.
“Liam, you are new to this life and so we occasionally forgive offenses. But you have had a few years, and we know you have been educated on the vampire ways… despite the fact that it was by a Shield. Who you choose to ally yourself with and who you choose to try and kill are not our concern.” In meeting my eyes, he told us that he knew of our fight against Selene, and he was given us permission to move forward. Whatever they were here for, it wasn’t for that.

I racked my brain for that long ago conversation with Porsche, but I came up blank.

“Have I offended you?” I asked.

Fennel winced.
“Not so much offended as broken the rules, Liam. Our existence must be kept secret from the human population at all costs. If humans were to know that vampires exist, they would not be able to handle the truth beyond their media created world. There would be chaos in the world we work so hard to keep peaceful.”

“I haven’t told anyone!” I cried, confused. “The students think I’m a disgraced Hollywood superstar w
ho they are way too thrilled to be close to. I--“

“Your grandfather, Peter,
is aware of your transformation nightly. And also, Amy, the young girl, is more than aware of you and the whole clan. She is even assisting you. Neither of them are supernatural creatures. That is twice that you have broken the rules.”

“I
--” I stopped. What could I say? I couldn’t lie to him, he knew the truth. And he was absolutely right. This is what the Elders did, they enforced the rules, they kept the vampire life secret and in order.

I tried to rack my booze
-clouded brain for an answer, and cursed the fact, for once in my life, that I wasn’t sober. If I was, maybe I could be more than a babbling idiot in the presence of kings. I was an actor for God’s sake, I was supposed to know how to improv and make things up on the spot, because the show must go on, no matter what.

“I
-I needed Peter to help me when I first changed,” I said. “Without him, I would have ended up like Nina. Peter is my grandfather, and at the time, he was the only one who would have helped me. No other vampires came to my aid. Peter won’t tell anyone. And Amy… Amy had to know. We are, we were…” I corrected myself, although I felt my heart crack, “in a relationship. And she’s young. I… uh…” I looked up to see if any of my excuses were working, but they didn’t seem impressed.

I hung my head. So this was it, this was how it was going to end, after everything I had been through. I knew there was no hope in trying to fight them off, trying to run. I knew the truth
: my blood was possessed, captured, just by their eyes simply gazing upon me. They would lay down the final verdict and then rip my head off.

I frantically wished that I could see Amy one last time
, so that I could tell her, despite it all, that I love her.

That thought surprised me because that certainly wasn’t what I had been thinking all week. But I wanted Amy beside me, her hand on my shoulder,
her lips on mine.

I wouldn’t trade my relationship with her for the world. If they were going to rip my head off because of her, th
en I think it was well worth it.

“Law of deliverance!” Connor suddenly blurted out beside me and all the
elders turned to look at him.

“What?” I asked, confused.

“Liam evokes the law of deliverance,” Connor said, calmly.

The
elders regarded him with curiosity.

“Explain.”

“Yes, please explain.” I glanced at Connor like he was crazy. If I were in his shoes, I would have made sure to get out of there as soon as possible, because I wouldn’t want to be around for an elder killing. But Connor held his gaze steady.

“The law of deliverance states that if the vampire believes the mortal to be close to death, th
en they can share their secret, under pain of death themselves. Liam’s grandfather, Peter, is an old man, living on borrowed time. If you were to see him, you would see that he is practically on his deathbed, hobbling around, with rows and rows of medications that he needs to take to keep his heart beating. And Amy.” He glanced at me. “Amy suffers a blood disease that claimed her mother’s life, and she too will succumb to it, and likely soon her demise will begin, judging by the smell of her blood. Both of them are beginning to smell of death, my lords. I’m sure that if you would like to investigate, you will find this true.”

They glanced at one an
other, and then back at me.

“Liam, is this true?”

“I…” I looked at Connor, who nodded. “Yes.”

The
elders whispered to each other and then bowed low to me.

“We will investigate the case. If your plea is accepted, th
en please accept our apologies for the wrongful intervention. Our condolences again, and… good luck on your mission.”

And then they were gone, moving so fast I could hardly see them go.

I turned to Connor. “We have to get Amy to safety. How can we avoid this? If we put dead pig’s blood on her, will they think that’s enough, from the smell? Come on, Connor, let’s move! That was fast thinking.”

“Liam
.” Connor didn’t move, routed to his spot. “There is no need.”

I stared back at him.
“What are you talking about?

“Liam,”
He placed a hand on my shoulder. “I am much older than you and I have seen much death. I can detect even the smallest hint of it.”

I shook my head.
“Amy’s not dying, Connor, she’s fine. The way her disease works, it’s slow and even when it becomes active, she’s got years. Peter, I understand, and it’s going to suck, but I get it. But Amy’s fine.”

“Liam…”

I shook my head, babbling again, “No, trust me. I saw Porsche die from the same thing, I know what it looks like. It’s not like that.”