“Anne told me to be careful. I only need to know that you won’t do it again.”
“Would another promise even mean anything? Of course I won’t, but how can you ever believe me again?”
Xavier smiled and seized Thomas’s arm. He had moved closer again, no longer huddled in a ball.
“I didn’t want to chase you away,” Thomas said and grabbed Xavier’s hand.
Xavier held tightly to Thomas in return.
“I was ready to come to you. I wanted to go away with you and fall into your arms,” Xavier cried harder now. “I have left the church. I told Catherine and everyone, I accept what I am.”
“Then what’s stopping you?” Thomas asked.
“I don’t know what you are.”
“What do you mean?” Tears filled Thomas’s eyes, and he knew it would frighten Xavier, because he cried blood.
“Are you a monster?”
“No.”
“Then why did you lie? Why not tell me?”
“I’m not a monster, but how many people see it that way? I was afraid to tell you because I feared rejection. I hide my nature from everyone because the world would assassinate me. We’re in constant danger of exposure, especially from the Church.”
Xavier nodded his head slowly as tears streamed down his face. With his free hand, he traced Thomas’s finger.
“Xavier, I’m the same man you wanted to run away with. Nothing has changed. I never lied about my beliefs or attitudes. I was completely honest with you about everything else. You’ve only learned the last part about my life.”
“But you’re not alive?” Xavier asked.
“I don’t know what to call it. I’m physically dead, but I walk around and have the same emotions. So is that really death? I know only that I love you and want to take care of you forever.”
The two fell silent. Then, without hesitation, Thomas reached over and turned Xavier’s shoulders so that they faced one another. Xavier complied, even when Thomas grasped his head and slowly pulled him forward, and closed his eyes as Thomas pressed their lips together. With his eyes still open, Thomas watched as Xavier gave in to the kiss and his entire body relaxed, leaning into Thomas. Thomas held him close and gently stroked his hair as the embrace lingered. Xavier opened his mouth first, and a fire lurched through his body as their tongues touched, lasting for several minutes before Thomas softly pushed them apart and gazed into Xavier’s eyes.
“Xavier, I love you.”
Then Xavier cried and spun off the bed, running his hands through his hair. He walked hesitantly toward the door, looking at Thomas as if he might suddenly attack. Thomas predicted what happened next, though it stung nonetheless. Xavier grabbed the door knob without turning away and could barely talk through the tears.
“I love you, too. But after everything, after all that I went through, I can’t believe that you hid this from me. I’m not as sure as you that this is natural. I just can’t—”
Xavier stopped and raced out the door. The final test of his patience had come, and Thomas had passed with flying colors when he simply walked to the window and watched his beloved run. Perhaps he had lost his quest. Maybe Xavier would come back. Thomas had no idea. At least there were no more secrets, nothing else to hinder the final decision that was Xavier’s alone.
30 July 1793 After midnight
XAVIER STARTLED CATHERINE when he barged into her office. Her door swung violently open and hit the wall with a crash, sending an entire row of books onto the floor. Xavier stood there, breathing heavily and sweating profusely, and glared at her for a moment before tears coursed down his cheeks.
Catherine took a second to gain her composure and then rushed to her brother. She took him by the arm and brought him into the room before closing the door and setting him into a chair. She sat opposite him, watching him try to gain control. Without a word, he got up, strode to the bar, and poured himself a glass of scotch. He sucked it down in one gulp before refilling and returning to the seat.
“What has gotten into you?” Catherine asked.
“I suppose you haven’t any idea what might have gotten into me,” he said sarcastically.
“I won’t speak with you like this. I don’t want this anguish again. If you want to tell me something, then let me know, but this has got to stop.”
Catherine snatched the glass from him and smashed it against the bookcase. Xavier smirked, shook his head, and got a second glass and filled it.
“I won’t yell at you,” he said calmly, “but I need the alcohol.”
“Before you drink yourself into nonsense, will you tell me what this is about?”
“You knew, didn’t you? All along, you knew.”
“Knew what?” Catherine wracked her brain for answers but figured it out at the same time he said it.
“He isn’t human. You knew that he was a monster, and you hid it from me. Me! I trusted you.” Xavier finished the scotch and poured even more.
“Xavier, calm down. We need to talk about this rationally.”
“Admit it. Just admit that you betrayed our trust.”
“Please, sit down and stop drinking.”
“Just tell me, please. I want the truth.”
“Yes, I knew,” Catherine answered softly.
Xavier walked over and slammed another glass of scotch, already staggering as he walked back. “And you never thought that I might be interested in that little tidbit of information?” Xavier questioned, drunk enough to giggle.
“Why should I have told you when you didn’t even acknowledge feelings for him? You would’ve run in fear. Until you came to terms with what you wanted, I saw no reason to drive a bigger wedge between you two. Besides, it was his secret to tell you, not mine.”
Xavier laughed derisively. “Catherine, we’re not talking about some minor secret. The man is dead. And he could’ve killed me.”
“For heaven’s sake, be reasonable. He worships the ground you walk on. Here you made a grand announcement about leaving the church, and at the first sign of a challenge you revert to an archaic view of the world, good versus evil. What if reality is more complex? What if there’s nothing wrong with being a vampire? Can’t you stop for one second and think of other possibilities? There was nothing to fear from Thomas except utter devotion to a fool priest.”
Xavier drank more as she scolded him. She was at least grateful that in his inebriation he could not lift himself out of the chair to run away when she finished. He put his glass down.
“I still don’t see how you could encourage me to be with something that doesn’t live.”
“I saw you happy for the first time since childhood. I saw the same Xavier who wandered around this house gleefully and in love with life. I saw that adulthood and the Catholic Church had taken those things away from me and I hoped against hope that Thomas could restore them.”
“Catherine, listen to me.” Xavier leaned toward her. “He kills to survive. He’s a murderer. And that never bothered you?”
“Did you ask him about it? You’ve made all sorts of judgments against him without knowing a thing about it. I asked him. Did you? Because he explained everything and it makes more sense than simply castigating something that you don’t understand.”
Catherine crossed the space between them and knelt before her brother. “Listen to me. You left the church. You don’t have to believe in a black-and-white world anymore. Imagine shades of gray and possibilities waiting for you that you never knew existed. Maybe you can see if you two can work things out. I can’t answer that for you. But maybe you should try.”
“Catherine, are you listening to yourself? You sound mad. You sit there and with complete sincerity hand me over to a vampire. A creature that feeds off humans. Do you honestly believe that I could lead such a life?” Even in his drunkenness, he gaped at her in horror.
This had given her pause a number of times. Though she trusted Thomas’s explanation and never feared him, she often wondered if he intended to bring Xavier into that existence as well, which Catherine thought doomed to failure. Regardless of their love, Thomas viewed the world as did she: a cruel and random place where people regularly injured one another without cause. For a vampire to live in the midst of this and yet adhere to principles higher than most people only underscored her acceptance of his varied nature. But Xavier was different. He could not easily harm another person, let alone live off blood.
“Why do you have to take things that far?” she asked.
“Because he kills people.”
“But do you think he’s evil?” she asked.
Xavier hesitated, then started to reply but withdrew before saying, “I don’t know.”
“Then don’t condemn him so easily. Take things slowly. Allow him to explain things and make your own judgments after giving it some thought. Now’s the time to see the world through different eyes.”
Xavier sat up in the chair and fumbled with his hands nervously. Catherine worried anew about him. The drinking, the lost expression, and the condemnation of Thomas concerned her. He talked only about cursory matters, yet a deeper pain obviously coursed through him. Earlier that day he had all but intended to run away with Thomas, and now he refused to see him as anything but a monster.
Xavier sat and sobbed, then, without a word, left the room. Catherine followed, and when he closed the door to his room she instructed a guard not to let him leave the house. Maybe he needed to sleep, or perhaps the morning would bring him to his senses. To calm her nerves, Catherine hurried to her quarters and plopped Marcel’s medication into her wine and watched the soothing fizzle before drinking it all in one swallow.
1 August 1793
AFTER ALMOST BEING killed by an angry group of men, then getting rescued by a vampire who turned out to be his lover, Xavier stayed in his room the entire next day. It took all of his energy just to eat after awaking at noon. He ordered some wine and drank by himself, hoping that the spinning of the room would provide the answers he sought.
But nothing came to him or made sense.
He loved Thomas, of that he was sure. His heart ached too much for it not to be genuine. But vampirism? This was the stuff of legend! He first hoped that it was a bad dream, but somehow it was true, and Xavier had to decide if it were evil or good, or something completely different.
At least the wine numbed him, so he drank more. He recalled all that Anne had told him when she worked so hard to sober him before, and he had agreed, but this was so beyond comprehension that the wine became a necessity.
He loved Thomas, which meant that he loved a killer. That made two of them in the family, as Catherine still clung to her engagement to Marcel, their brother’s murderer.
This thought rocked Xavier out of bed and propelled him to dress. He straightened his hair, poured out the rest of the wine, and headed down the hall. Before, though he struggled with inner emotions, God always provided answers. Xavier’s wrestling with theology offered solace in troubled times. Had he been wrong to give up on his faith? Only one person could help him.
Maria sat in the hospital, busily working with the patients. Xavier stood in the doorway until she finished and then moved so that she would see him.
“What do you want?”
Xavier had forgotten their fight. “Can we talk?” he asked meekly.
“I suppose,” she said and led them down the hall into a small room of medical supplies. “What?”
“Maria, please. I know that you’re angry, but I need to tell you something—I need your advice. I need our friendship now more than ever.”
Maria plopped down on a wooden chair and commanded him to sit.
Thankful for her counsel, Xavier ignored the strange circumstances and launched into his tale, from the moment he left the house, through the ringing of the bells, to Thomas saving him and finally to the fact that Thomas lived beyond the grave. He poured out his heart, cried as if the tears would never end, questioned his former decision, and described how lost he felt.
“What do I do?” Xavier finally asked.
“This is what I tried to warn you about.”
“I know, but what do I do now?”
“Maybe you should leave again. We can’t risk him finding you. He’ll try to get you back. You can’t have any contact with him. With one bite he could bring you to Satanism forever.”
“Where will I go? What will I do? I left the church to go with Thomas, remember? What’s left?”
“God will take you back. There’s still room for you in His service. We can work together again.”
“Maria, it’s not that simple for me. I left for many reasons. It wasn’t all about Thomas. I might have been wrong about what I wanted but the Church won’t do what I need it to do for me any longer.”
“Think about those innocent souls murdered in that church yesterday because they wanted to ring the bells. Maybe if you had stayed in the church they would’ve believed your theology and not tried to ward off spirits like that.”
Xavier contemplated, his mind a jumble of confusion. He had forsaken the church and had struggled for so long with God. Was this a sign? “Maybe I am supposed to serve the people again.”
“Yes, you are. You can help people fight the devil.”
Xavier bit his tongue and ignored Maria’s warped view of Satan.
“Xavier, I’m so excited that you’re back. You were under Satan’s evil influence. You were under the tutelage of Beelzebub. He sent Thomas to you. How else can you explain it? But you can conquer him.” With that, Maria bustled back to the patients, leaving Xavier bewildered. He wanted to feel exhilarated or relieved that this was the right decision, but Maria’s comments caused hesitation. She had commandeered his struggle into a shared problem, switching the conversation to what they would do.
More than this, her theology pestered him. He never accepted that Satan lurked around and caused evil. Humans did so on their own.
Xavier wondered if Satan even existed. Which brought him to Thomas. Had he condemned Thomas too quickly, as Maria did, because of his own fear? Was he right in returning to the people? Or was this another betrayal of himself?