hair back from his face. “Are you all right, lover?”
Donte’s half-smile warmed Adin. “I’m fine. You see? You
worry about me as well.”
Adin lifted Donte’s hand and placed a kiss on his knuckles.
“Did you eat something that didn’t agree with you?”
Donte pursed his lips. “All the time, più amato.” He pulled
Adin into a hard hug. “I eat something that doesn’t agree all the
time.”
Bran spoke up. “Hey, ew... back off.”
Donte turned to him and used Bran’s own words to reply,
“You wish.” And suddenly the air was crisp and tense with
violence again.
“Enough,” Adin sighed. He caught the collar of Bran’s dirty
jacket and opened the door, hauling him out into the hallway. To
Donte, he said, “We’ll eat, and then we’ll shop. I’ll call Boaz if we
need anything.”
“Thank you,” Donte said quietly as he closed the door. If
Adin weren’t concerned about him before, those two words,
uttered with such simple sincerity would have set alarm bells
ringing without the glimpse he’d gotten of Donte’s unhappy face.
“Shit.”
Bran boarded the elevator with him. “What?”
Adin frowned at the numbers as they descended. “I wish I
knew.”
Rain continued to fall on the city, darkening the streets and
buildings and changing the silhouettes of passersby as they
bobbed along with umbrellas. The air was full of everything
Parisian, old wet stone and bread baking against a backdrop of
diesel fuel and genteel decay. They took the metro to the area
around Sacre Coeur in case anyone was watching the cafés and
shops around Adin’s hotel. Adin didn’t see anyone following
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71
them, but that didn’t mean they were safe. He looked over his
shoulder, but relaxed as time passed and nothing happened.
Adin wore a wool pea coat treated to repel rain, so he was
unlikely to feel the water soak through to his skin. Bran wasn’t
dressed for it, so the first thing they did was approach a street
vendor selling umbrellas. They bought a large black umbrella to
share. Bran had the tendency to carry it off every time he saw
something that interested him, and when they arrived at a suitable
café Adin’s hair was as wet as if he’d stood under a hose. They
ordered coffee and rolls, Bran asked for a café crème, which he
saturated with sugar.
“It’s time you and I had a talk,” Adin told him as the waiter
left with his payment. “Why did you come back?”
Bran looked away. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I
thought maybe you might have come back or the room might
still be unoccupied. I snuck past Villiers. It was easy to break in
without the chains. You weren’t there so I listened at doors until
I found you.”
“While I was sleeping?”
“You dream loud.” Bran bit his lip.
“I should have given you enough money to get back to
England when you left Santos’s place, but I didn’t have it. That
was stupid. Where could I expect you to go? Where were you
living when those men found you?”
“Nowhere really. Where do you and Donte come from?”
“I live in the Pacific Northwest. Donte is Italian. I assume by
your accent your from Northern England. My friend Edward has
an accent very like it when he’s not being an art snob.”
Bran looked away. “I really can’t remember.”
“How long have you been with those men?”
“I don’t know.” Bran’s voice trembled slightly as he spoke.
Adin reminded himself that Bran was little more than a boy. “A
few months.”
“Months?” Adin set his cup down with a clatter. “Did you
72 Z.A. Maxfield
say
months
?”
“Maybe. I think so. It wasn’t very cold when they took me. I
was sleeping in the park with some friends. Some men said they
needed me for a job, and then… I don’t remember much after
that. It was hard to tell time because it was always dark.”
“And the iron?”
“I don’t know about that. It makes me feel sick. Like I’m
under water. I lose track of time. I can’t remember things.”
“Jeez.” Adin pushed his roll across to Bran and signaled the
waiter for more. Bran continued to eat hungrily. “You were living
on the street when you were taken?”
“Yeah. There were lots of us kids. Sometimes people gave us
money. Sometimes we’d get odd jobs. The older ones found ways
to make money that… I didn’t. I don’t need much.”
“Were they…?” Adin frowned. “Was everyone like you? Did
they all have special things they could do?”
“No.” Bran shot him a look that said,
duh
. “Not at all. But I
always fit in, see, and everyone who lives on the street’s a little
mental, so you can’t really say for certain if a bloke’s different like
me, or if he’s just been on the street too long.”
“How’d they catch on?” Adin paid the waiter when he brought
more rolls. “How’d you get singled out?”
Bran looked at his plate. “Dunno.”
“I need an answer, Bran. Please, it’s important to me.”
Bran gazed at him, and Adin sensed his hero worship again.
That was going to be hard as hell to live up to. “There’s this thing,
yeah? Sometimes I can tell if someone’s about to die.”
“What?” Adin leaned in. “You see the future?”
“No.” Bran put his roll down and pushed the plate away. “It’s
nothing like that. If you’d been where I’ve been, you can tell. I’ve
seen it. There’s stages, see. And you just know.”
“So what? They think you’re psychic or something? Vampires
can read minds and sense all human physiological cues, I don’t
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73
understand, if it’s just that you know when people are passing—”
“It’s not that.” Bran lowered his voice. “I can go with them.
Show them things, like I sometimes do for you until it’s over.”
“What?” Adin tried to imagine how anyone would even begin
to realize they could do something like that. “But how—”
“I don’t know, alright?” Bran was beginning to fret. “I just
know that if someone is going to die nobody can really stop it.
It’s their time, see? And it’s sad for old folks if they’ve got no
one. Worse if—” Bran broke off and looked down at his hands.
“What?”
“I once saw a little girl get hit by a car. The driver didn’t stop
and she just lay there in the road. I screamed for someone to
help, but I didn’t want to leave her. By the time anyone got there
she was gone. It was only minutes.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Bran shrugged, but his eyes were moist. “We just looked at
things she liked, things she remembered that made her happy
while…”
“That’s probably the kindest thing I’ve ever heard about
anyone. That you take time. That you care. But…”
“What?” Bran snapped, obviously embarrassed and trying to
avoid any praise from Adin. “I know it sounds dumb. I do odd
jobs. I live on the streets, I’m… I don’t know what I am. And I
don’t know why anyone cares.”
“Is that why you came back to the hotel?”
“I didn’t have anywhere else to go. And I thought maybe, if
you were still there, I could stay with you.”
Adin smiled at him. “Okay.”
Bran lit up. “Okay?”
“Yeah.” Adin nodded. “So. What? You sit with people who
are about to die, and what exactly do you do?”
Bran stared at him. “I don’t know. Sometimes we watch their
memories. I try to find the best ones. Then we wait until their
74 Z.A. Maxfield
time.”
“Exactly their time?” Adin felt something tease at him.
Something he and Donte had been reading. “You know when
it’s over?”
Bran stared at his coffee. Adin thought the boy might have
burst into tears except that he bit his lip. “So?”
“How do you know?”
Bran frowned. “They’re just gone and I’m back”
“So you’re saying…” Adin asked carefully. “You’re saying that
you go with them?”
“Yes. No, I don’t really. It’s like they go, and since I’m in their
head…” Bran picked up his coffee and took a sip. For the first
time, Adin wondered at the wisdom of giving coffee to a boy
with that much energy.
“I see.”
“It’s not like people say, exactly. The light’s there, and
sometimes people, but I haven’t seen Jesus or the Virgin Mary
or anything. People are different so I guess they see what they’re
going to see, and I’m along for the ride.”
“And then you’re back.”
“Yes.”
Adin stared at Bran. He tried to imagine what his life must
have been like. He looked out the window and saw an attractive
family with teenage boys walk by outside. One of them looked in
and frowned at Bran, making a face that carried a familiar kind of
Gallic superiority. Adin saw it find its mark. He watched as Bran
looked away, tugging at the sleeves of his worn jacket.
“Well.” Adin cleared his throat. “I’d like to lose myself in the
flea market. Maybe we can find something interesting. I’ve been
looking to buy Donte a gift. Something he doesn’t already have,
whatever that might be.”
Bran’s forehead creased. “He’s a little…Cold.”
Adin sighed. “It certainly seems that way, doesn’t it? He’s not,
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75
though. Maybe I’ll get him a red scarf. It might make him look
more…approachable.”
“Maybe it’s not such a good idea for a vampire to appear
approachable.” Bran pushed the last of their bread into his
mouth with a finger even as he gathered up his umbrella. “Will
there be artists where we’re going?”
“I don’t know. Probably. Do you like art?”
“Yes,” Bran told him. “And old things, like statues and bones.
I went to the British Museum once.”
“Really?”
“Yes. When I was young. Someone took me there.”
“A relative?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t know.” Bran pulled open the door
and walked out into the cool air. Adin was still pulling on his
jacket as he took off after him. It was a good thing Adin got
regular exercise; he was definitely going to need some stamina.
It was only misting periodically by the time they arrived at the
market. Soon the sun would come out and dry the streets. Bran
closed his umbrella and held onto it in a way that Adin found
both sad and a little endearing. Any gifts Bran had received in his
life must have been few and far between.
The entrance to St. Ouen had a number of cheap clothing
stalls, and Adin noted that Bran passed those by as if they held
no interest for him. Clearly, Bran wasn’t interested in anything so
mundane, finding fascination instead in bins full of doorknobs
and drawer pulls, marbles and mechanical tin toys. As they walked
together through the tiny crowded shops Adin noticed Bran
studied everything from every angle he could without picking
anything up. As Adin watched, Bran held his hands behind his
back or clutched his umbrella in them as though they would fly
all over without his permission if he didn’t maintain absolute,
rigid control. As soon as Adin realized Bran was
afraid
to touch,
he began to ask available sellers if it would be all right for him to
pick up an item, and then he’d hand it to Bran, who consented to
touch only with Adin’s express permission first.
76 Z.A. Maxfield
Adin wished Donte could have seen him just then. If Bran
seemed impossibly young to Adin how much more so would he
seem to Donte. And how much more touched would Donte,
whose own centuries-long life had included children, be by the
story Bran told?
Bran was clearly growing on Adin, who hung back and
observed him, even as Adin’s mind raced with more questions.
At last Bran found a stall of clothing that attracted his attention,
and Adin nearly laughed out loud.
American bowling shirts, suits from the forties with pleated
pants, dress shirts with small collars and outlandish ties. Vests
that buckled in the back. Adin told Bran to try what he liked, and
soon they had a stack of retro clothing and two wool felt fedoras,
one black, and one gray. After the fastidious Donte, Adin enjoyed
the novel experience of shopping with someone who had no
taste whatsoever, and he let Bran purchase what he liked from
the used clothing sellers, except for shoes and underwear, which
Adin couldn’t bring himself to buy preowned.
They searched some more and found inexpensive socks and
underwear, new trainers, and two-toned wing-tip Oxfords that
made Bran’s eyes go goggly with desire when he saw them. Adin
finished off the day by bargaining heatedly with a vendor over
a double-breasted black military-style cashmere overcoat that
brought tears to Bran’s eyes when it was understood that it would
be going home with them, for him.
“I’ve never seen anything so nice,” Bran murmured when
Adin paid, and it was handed over to him. “It’s softer than I
imagined.”
“You’re just lucky they made men smaller back in the day or
you’d swim in these clothes.”
“I sort of do, anyway.” Bran’s eyes were shining. “A lot of