Wait (Beloved Bloody Time) (7 page)

“We knew about this date, thirty years ago,” he reminded her.

Tally sat up, a small frown marring her expression. “Wait…” she said. “When did you end the last life?”

“Does it matter?”

“Indulge me.”

Christian sat up, too. “A while ago,” he admitted.

Tally slid off the bed and padded over to where her clothes were scattered across the floor, her hips swaying in the most enticing manner. She bent over and plucked her tee-shirt from the pile and put it on.

“You’re getting dressed?” he asked, disappointment touching him.

She unfurled the scrap of satin that was her panties and stepped into them. “I’m covering my breasts and my pussy, as you keep focusing on them and losing track of what we’re talking about.” She came back to the bed and folded her long beautiful legs as she settled back in front of him. “How long ago?”

He examined his hands. “About… thirty years or so.”

She was silent, forcing him to look at her again. But she still didn’t speak.

“In 1969, the Vietcong raided our MASH unit. They lined up everyone. I was the first one they shot, as I was the only doctor on the unit right then.” He grimaced.  “You know what is worse than going first? It’s not dying quickly like a human would, and having to lie there and listen to your friends and allies die, one by one.” He shook his head. “They left us there to rot in the sun. After they were gone, I burned the place down to the ground, along with all the bodies. Then I took off, through the jungle. I made China two weeks later, and didn’t stop until I reached Japan.” He took a deep breath. “Japan had changed since I was there last, so I stopped only long enough to access money and buy clothes. Then I headed west. Bit by bit.”

“Across Asia and into Europe,” Tally summarized.

“I stopped here and there.”

She pursed her lips. “But never for very long, huh?”

“After Vietnam, I didn’t want to settle.”

“Because you had a date in thirty years’ time?” she asked. Her tone was devoid of anything at all.

Christian shifted the focus deliberately on to her. “What about you? Still marrying humans at the speed of light?”

Her brow raised. “One or two,” she agreed, her tone still neutral.

“You can’t remember how many, exactly?”

Tally considered him for a moment. “Three,” she said flatly.

“Three marriages. My, you have been busy.” He pushed himself off the bed and strode over to where his jeans lay and thrust his legs into them with sharp movements, then fastened them. “And where did you do all this marrying, pray tell?”

“The mid-west, the first two. This one, New England.” She turned on the bed to face him again.

“Does he know where you are tonight?” Christian demanded.

Tally hesitated. He heard her heart give a single beat. Then she gave a tiny shrug. “He knows who I am meeting…and why.”

Christian stared at her, as the reason for her hesitation revealed itself. “Jesus Christ on a pony! You told him what you are. You
told a human!”
All his anger swirled to the surface, taxing his heart and making him breathe faster. “Of all the stupid things, Tally!  You gave me grief the first time we ever met. You said blood socializing with blood was too risky. It put us in danger of discovery.”

Tally lifted herself up so that she was on her knees on the bed. It should have stopped his thought, that provocative look – the little silk tee-shirt stopping around her waist, and the tiny satin panties, but he was too angry to let her enticing appearance filter more than skin deep.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “How could you? You don’t know Kyle, you don’t know about David. You don’t know any of it. You can’t judge until you know.”

“I don’t know who the fuck Kyle and David are. What, are you living in a ménage now?”

Tally blinked. “Kyle is my husband. David is…our son.”

“Your
son
?”

She pushed her hair off her forehead impatiently. “Kyle had a son from a former marriage, when we met. David was three. We’ve raised him together.”

“And does
David
know what you are, too?”

Tally pressed her lips together, and Christian could almost feel her caution, how it had made her careful about her answers. That she should be guarding her tongue with him was just the icing on the cake.

“Mother Mary,” he breathed. “The son knows, too.”

“
David
knows, yes. When Kyle becomes too old for my appearance, we’re all moving to Florida. I will become David’s sister.”

“How lovely and domestic for you,” Christian sneered. “How long do you think it’s going to be before Kyle gets old enough to start panicking about his mortality and asks you to turn him? What are you going to do then?”

Tally bit her lip. “I don’t know.”

“What happens if you turn him? You two become wedded together forever?”

Her lips parted in surprise.

“You didn’t think of that, either, did you?”

Tally climbed off the bed and spun to face him. “Just who the fuck do you think you are, passing judgment on me, anyway? I was of the blood long before you were even born. You should—“

“Do
not
use your age as evidence of your superiority,” Christian snapped. “Hell, Tally, I didn’t think you capable of that sort of stupid prejudice.”

She drew in a deep breath, reining in her anger.

“You’re pissed because I’m right about Kyle,” he added.

Her eyes, which he had always thought of as filled with warm and caring, seemed to become all ice and chilliness. “I have been looking after myself just fine for over a century. I don’t need your council, Mr.
 Hamilton.”

The use of his last name stung. He’d had to work to earn the privilege of her using his first name and it had taken decades. “You didn’t marry all those humans because you loved them. You wanted a home. You wanted acceptance.
That
’s why you told them.”

Tally stared at him, clearly stunned. The ice had gone from her eyes. “Aren’t you doing the exact same thing?” she replied.

“I haven’t had a permanent home in thirty years,” he pointed out.

“And what a magnificent waste of time that was,” she said dryly.

“Damn it to hell, Tally! I was waiting for you!”

Tally was looking at him again with the same cornered animal expression.

Christian sighed and pushed his hand through his hair. “I thought you would have known that,” he said. “I thought you would figure it out.”

“From a thirty-year-old agreement to meet by the lions?” she asked. But she wasn’t angry any more.

“Isn’t that what the date was for?” he asked. “So we could finally synchronize our lives and…” He blew out his breath. “…and be together,” he finished. “But now you’re with him, instead.” He whirled and faced the pile of discarded clothing again, and bent to pick up his shirt.

“I didn’t like being alone,” Tally said softly.

He looked over his shoulder. “You weren’t. You haven’t been since 1898.”

“But you weren’t
there
!” she cried. “God, Christian, I tried. But after you were hauled off by the FBI, I couldn’t stand it. We had been that close to… to…” She threw out her hands. “I have a family now. You can mock it all you like, but I
raised
David. He looks like his father, but he’s like me in so many ways. He likes comic books and reading, and hates politics and bigots.” She gave him a weak smile. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“No, I don’t. What happens when David gets old? Are you going to turn him, too?”

“I told you, I was lonely!” she cried.

“So was I!” he shouted back. “But I didn’t jump into the nearest bed to make it go away!”

She was breathless again. Angry again. “You have to live
with
humans, Christian. You can’t pass through time and not let it touch you. You’ll come to hate yourself.”

He dropped the shirt. “Then pass through time
with
me. We can be lonely together.”

She clenched her hands together. “I can’t. Not right now.”

It hurt. More than he thought it would, and he had been braced for her refusal.

Tally must have seen something in his face, for she stepped closer, in an impulsive movement. “Kyle knows what I am and he still wants me. He loves me.” She gave him a small smile. “You just want a cuddle rug to keep the boogie man away.”

He shook his head. Denial. The desperate man’s last defense. “Do you love him?” he demanded.

Her answer was just as soft. “As much as I can, yes.”

“You’re not in love with him. You’re in love with what he gives you.”

She threw out her hands. “Yes! I want
children
. A family.  Grandchildren. He can give me that.”

She didn’t have to finish the other half of the sentence. The unspoken words hung between them, almost shouting in their silence.
He can give me a family, but you can’t
.

There was nothing he could say to dispute her. So he said nothing.

* * * * *

Tally’s flight back to New Hampshire wasn’t until noon, and it was barely three a.m. She didn’t leave, as he expected her to. Instead she turned the TV on and glanced at him. “I would just go back to my room and watch it there. I may as well stay here.” She got dressed as CNN reported on the new millennium celebrations around the world, then settled back on the end of the bed, her legs folded up under her, the remote in her hand.

Christian put on the rest of his clothes and sat on the bed next to her. He felt oddly old and creaky. His muscles ached like they once had when he had been at West Point and suffering through the most severe physical training he could remember.

They watched the fireworks around the world. He wasn’t interested, but he didn’t know what else to do. He had run out of options.

Tally pointed to the screen with the remote, where they were showing fire bursts over the Sydney Harbour Bridge. “That footage is only a few hours old, but it’s already made it around to the other side of the world. Technology is just amazing, isn’t it?”

He stirred and forced himself to answer civilly. “Communications is going to be the next big thing. Especially when you throw the Internet into the mix. You watch. The Internet will be a huge thing. People will communicate with people anywhere in the world, and news will move at the speed they talk. The news networks will lose their monopoly.”

“You really think it’ll be that big? The Internet?”

He nodded. “We’ll all be wired into it by mid-century.”

She flipped channels slowly. “That would be interesting, to be on the inside of that evolution.”

“It would,” he agreed, staring at the images flashing up on the screen as she surfed. At least half of them were from somewhere else in the world other than America.

Tally lowered the remote. A movie was playing.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“You haven’t seen it? It’s
Love Bites
.”

He shook his head. “I haven’t really been near a television. Not for a while.”

“Decades, I’m guessing. How have you kept up with human affairs?”

He didn’t answer, because the answer was negative. He hadn’t kept up at all. He had held himself apart. Waiting.

The heavy feeling seemed to sink into his bones and settle there.

“You must keep up, Christian,” she told him. “You have to stay current, or they’ll spot you.”

He nodded. “So what’s this movie about?”

“A vampire.” She smiled.

He rolled his eyes. “How bad is it?”

“Bad enough you just have to laugh.”

“I could do with a laugh right now. Let’s watch it.”

He didn’t laugh at the preposterous storyline, or the ridiculous antics of the vampire, played by another Hamilton, but he did feel the ache lessen. His heart grew a little lighter each time Tally giggled.

He was here with her. It was enough for now. He’d worry about tomorrow later.

At the end of the movie, two bats flew off into the sunrise and Tally picked up the remote once more, watching the screen. She wasn’t smiling any more.

She looked at him. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t have to keep on pretending like this? Do you think there’ll ever be a place where we will be able to be ourselves?”

“You can be yourself with me,” he said, more gruffly than he had intended.

“I mean, with humans.”

“What, tell all of them?” He shook his head. “It will never happen. Real vampires instead of these tricked-out Hollywood ones would scare them and you know what humans do when they’re afraid. How did your Kyle take it when you told him?”

“He didn’t believe me.”

“After you
made
him believe, then what?”

Tally grimaced. “It didn’t go well. Not for a long while. But he came around, in the end.”