Mourning Sun (11 page)

A sob slipped between my lips. Mathias looked at me, wonder in his eyes. He didn't know that what made me cry out was his own anguished face, the chaste kiss he'd left on Kathryn's lips, the promise he'd made to mourn her for eternity. Such love, so much more than I believed I was capable of, couldn't exist in an evil creature. It couldn't be allowed.

He shook himself, coming back from his past to join me in our present. "For too many years, I wandered the night, hiding in alleys, taking life in order to sustain my own existence. Women flocked to me, walked into the dark with me as though they could not see the evil in my heart. I walked the night and I mourned the sun."

Each word he spoke brought with it the visions of my dreams. I had walked those alleys with him. I had seen the death he brought to those women. I had mourned the sun with him. For the first time in my life, I cursed the gift I had been given. I didn't want his memories, their details sharp and horrible. I wanted to continue to be able to doubt his words so I could stay with him, love him.

"It wasn't until decades later that I met Alfred. It was he who shared the secrets of our existence with me. How home soil allows us to live in the light. How our venom makes more of us. How if I were careful, if I could control myself, I could take blood without killing or turning my donors. It was only with his teaching that I was able to step out of the sewers and return to the human world. But even then, I was still a monster, still a killer."

"I count meeting Alfred as my third birthday," Mathias said. "My first was when my mother brought me to this world, the second when my Kathryn left it."

"And even though I'd found ways to be reborn into the light, the light of my mortal life haunted my every moment. There has been a gaping hole in my chest from the moment I realized what I had done, how my selfishness had taken Kathryn from this world. I vowed I would never be that selfish again, that I would never again allow my desire to live in and be surrounded by the light to endanger someone I loved."

Mathias smiled at me. "But I cannot be anything but what I am."

 

He held my hand to his lips and watched me so intently and silently that I couldn't bear it any longer.

 

"What happened to Alfred?" I asked softly to break the silence.

"Alfred and I recently parted ways. He travels extensively and unlike me, he does not seek to live among humans for long periods of time. He wanted to go to Europe and I wanted...I wanted some time alone."

I wondered what Mathias had been about to say he wanted, but before I could ask, he continued.

 

"Don't worry, Mairin, should he visit, I would insist on his word that he not hunt here. I would protect you and your family from me and mine."

 

I shuddered. "He...he hunts?"

 

"He does not hunt as much as he did when we met, but he is, shall we say, less civilized about how he obtains his meals than I am."

My mind wouldn't grasp what Mathias was telling me. He could see my confusion and said, "Let me finish my tale, Mairin and I will answer all of your questions. Do you not want to know why I came to live in Highland Home so recently?"

I nodded, not at all certain I really wanted to know what had brought Mathias into my life but unable to resist drawing out the story he spun. The longer he spoke, the longer I could stay with him. If only he were Scheherazade. A thousand nights could easily be a lifetime with Mathias.

"I was drawn to this little town because I needed to replenish my home soil supply. Without it, I would have to live in the darkness, something I could not abide for long. Living in California I could soak in the sun and pretend to be human, but that lifestyle drained the power from my home soil so quickly. I came to take soil from the garden where my Kathryn lays buried and then I planned to return to California."

It jolted me to realize the cobbled streets upon which Mathias had killed were buried under the asphalt here in Highland Home. He noticed my shock and kissed my hand.

"But then I heard your voice, so clear, so pure, so much like my Kathryn's and that changed everything. You and your family were laughing together, coming off the beach after a day in the sun. I watched you from my Kathryn's grave and for the first time in almost a century, my heart sang. I knew I had to stay, that I had to meet you, to understand how it was that after so long, an insignificant human girl could reawaken my human soul."

"And that is the base, selfish reason I endanger your life. You make me feel whole, Mairin and I'm too self absorbed to let go of that wholeness for your safety...unless you tell me I must leave you. If you tell me to go, I think I can do it, though I must admit I'm not at all certain of that."
I sat, silent and still, trying to digest what Mathias had said. I had so many questions and didn't know where to begin.

"I can see the questions you bite back, Mairin. I've told you the worst of what I am. I have confessed to you what I have held in the secret vault of my heart for nearly a century. Nothing you ask me now can harm me, or you, any more than I have already done. Ask me your questions."

There was only question to which I had to have an answer. Mathias didn't understand how deep my fear of his need for death was because he didn't know I had walked the alleys with him. I needed to know if those midnight plunges into the depths of hell were distant memories or part of his present and future. "Do you, I mean do you have to...to.."

"To kill?" he said, finishing with the word I couldn't utter. Even on his lips, it was a bitter condemnation

 

"Um, yeah."

"Having to kill and being unable to stop myself are two different issues. There are ways to take blood that do not put the...the donor, for lack of a better term, in danger from my venom, but the blood lust that begins at the first drop on my tongue has often negated any steps I've taken to save those who give me their blood. Alfred has hypothesized that because I still connect so closely with my donors that I cannot separate myself from the blood lust. The taste of human blood is a drug to me, one I cannot live without and one that steals any vestige of humanity I may still posses."

"So you still," I swallowed hard, "Hunt?"

 

"No, Mairin. I don't need to hunt. There are many humans who find my kind irresistible and who are willing to put their lives in danger to fulfill a fantasy."

 

"But you still kill your, um, donors?"

 

"More often than not, I do. It is something I have tried very hard to combat, but

I have not had a great deal of success." His voice was cold and emotionless, but I could hear his anguished cries as the Mathias of my dreams mourned each person he had killed.

Chills ran down my spine and I felt myself sliding away from Mathias without a conscious thought that I needed to get away from him. His dark eyes were sad as he sat back, releasing my hand and giving me distance.

"I don't know what to do," I said softly. "You're so calm. You can tell me you kill those who offer you blood without emotion. I need to know you feel something, Mathias."

"I carry with me the memory of every face from every donor on whom I've fed. I see them in their last moment and I hear their screams. It has taken nearly a century of practice to inure myself to them, to the screams, but what wretched slip of soul I may still have is wracked with guilt over each and every one of them. If there were another way, I would do it, but only human blood allows me the shadow of a life I have. If it would mean I could live my life at your side, I would gladly starve in order to refrain from doing something I can see repulses you and is taking you from me even now."

"I wouldn't want you to starve, Mathias."

 

"But you would not have me feed in the only way I have been able to for a century."

 

"Not if it means people will die," I said. "There is no other way?"

"No, Mairin. No other way. I have done everything I could think of to suppress the blood lust that rises when I feed and there have been times when I have been successful, but so far nothing I've tried has been a surety. Too many times I remember the taste of the blood and awaken to the dead weight of the donor in my arms.”

I shuddered. Mathias was calmly explaining how he murdered people despite attempting to leave them alive. I didn't know what to say or do. Part of my brain screamed, "Run," but the part of my soul I'd already lost to him kept me rooted in place. I couldn't leave until I was certain leaving wouldn't destroy me. "Tell me what to do, Mathias," I begged. "Tell me how to be OK with that...to be able to live with murder as a part of my daily life and I will happily stay and love you until the end of time."

"You must do as your conscience dictates, Mairin. I am, and can only ever be, who and what I am. I could wish I were not a monster, but wishing will not change my fate...or yours. Though I do not believe I will ever stop loving you, I meant it when I told you that you always may do as you please when you are with me. I would never hurt your or your family. To do so would be to further damn myself to an eternity of pain. But if you wish for me to leave you..." he swallowed hard, pausing to pull in one long breath. "If you wish for me to leave you, I will go."

"That's why you wouldn't kiss me," I said, sudden realization dawning in my foggy brain. "You didn't want to risk infecting me."

"There are many things I would wish to do with you, Mairin. Touching you is a joy I never believed possible. Breathing your scent makes my head spin. Seeing your every thought and emotion as it passes through your eyes is a gift of which I am not worthy. But to taste you, any part of you, is to tempt fate to such an extent that even my selfish heart will not allow. I have never wanted anything in my very long life as much as I want to taste your lips. Even my thirst pales in comparison to that desire, but I will not jeopardize your immortal soul to fulfill my selfish desires."

I leaned back hard in my chair, suddenly aware that as Mathias had spoken, I'd edged closer and closer to him.

 

"You talk to me, about me, as though I were something more than girl," I whispered.

 

"You are so very much more than a girl, Mairin. From the moment I heard your voice, you became my heart, my sun, my reason to continue in this existence."

"This is too much," I said. "I don't know where to begin to wrap my head around all of this, Mathias."
"I understand, Mairin. I've had nearly a century to come to terms with what I am. You've had a few hours at best. I have all the time in the world to await your decision."

I looked at him, this boy to whom I had already given my heart, and realized I could not tell him to leave. If he left, he would take a part of my soul with him, a part I could not live without for long. But if he stayed, could I accept that he remained a killer? I didn't know how to reconcile these thoughts into something I could live with, something that wouldn't eventually lead to the destruction of my own humanity.

"Why are you able to restrain yourself with me, but not with your donors?" I asked. "Don't you want to...to drink my blood, too?"

Mathias jerked back as though I'd slapped him. "Don't even think....Mairin, must I say the words for you to understand? I love you. Your death would mean the end of my existence. If I were the cause of it..." He stopped and plunged his hands into his hair, pulling it back so tightly, I could only imagine how much it must have hurt.

"If I were the cause of your death, there would not be a deep enough pit in hell to which what remained of my soul could be banished."

"But why is my death so different from your donors? You said you connect to them. Why isn't that connection enough to keep you from killing them?" I didn't say that I knew he felt guilt over their deaths, that I had seen his anguish. I couldn't understand why that wasn't enough to keep his donors alive.

"I don't know," he roared. He shoved away from the table and stood as far from me as he could. "I don't want to be the monster I am. Especially when I see the fear in your eyes, Mairin. Tell me what would take that fear from you and I will do it. I would make any sacrifice you demanded if it meant I wouldn't lose you."

I was stunned by his passion and his pain. "I need to go home. I have to make dinner for my sister." I knew I was grasping at the mundane to keep my mind from settling on the macabre truth. The man I loved was a killer. "Will you allow me to drive you home, Mairin? For my own peace, and for your safety?"

"I'm OK to drive," I said, knowing I lied. Mathias considered the lie for a moment before nodding.

 

"As you wish," he said. I heard the finality of his words and my heart broke further.

 

"I need time to think, Mathias. I know I'm not rational right now and I have to have distance and time to be able to decide what to do."

 

"Of course, Mairin. I would not wish for anything more." His voice was so dead it gave me chills.

 

"There are a lot of things I can live with, I think," I said, grasping for a way to tell him the one thing I was sure I couldn't live with.

 

"But a killer is not one of them," he said, finishing my thought neatly and finally.

 

"No," I whispered, tears slipping down my cheeks.

Mathias caught one tear as it lay trembling on my cheek and lifted it to his lips. His eyes closed and his beautiful face broke into an angelic smile. Hesitantly, he leaned into me, brushing my forehead, my cheeks and finally my throat with his lips. The cool feel of his breath jerked a deep sob from my throat and he pulled me into his embrace, rocking me until the tears slowed.

When I could, I pulled away from him slowly. I didn't want to hurt him any more than I already had, but I needed distance. He let me go, though part of me prayed he would hold me longer.

"I have to go," I said.

 

He walked me to the door and held it open for me.

 

"Will you..." he stopped. "No, I have no right to ask anything of you."

"What were you going to ask me?" "Will you allow me to stay in Highland Home for a time? Until I can settle my affairs and move back to California."

I knew that hadn't been his question, but I let the lie pass. "I can't ask you to leave, Mathias. For more reasons than I'm ready to deal with, I can't ask that of you. All I am asking for right now is time and distance. Let me find my path. Don't interfere while I'm searching."