Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX

Nathaniel

I was half-expecting the witch to slide back into the town car with bedhead, informing me that she got tired while searching and took a little nap in the pews.

She came running out of the cathedral like she was being chased, looking over her shoulder now and again until she finally flung herself into the backseat, leaning back and breathing fast.

"Here," she said, flinging something round and heavy onto my lap.

Reaching down, I found a quartz gemstone with something in the center of it.

"You're sure this is the key?"

"Well, seeing as it stopped singing when I removed it, yeah," she told me as she toed out of her shoes. "These shoes hurt my feet, by the way," she griped.

"Your feet are probably adjusting to being upright instead of supine for longer than half an hour," I drawled, turning on the car light and holding the sphere up to it, but I couldn't make out what was inside of it.

"You're awfully moody for someone who got what he wanted," she said, flexing her feet, then tucking one under her other leg on the seat and leaning the side of her head against the window. "How long was I in there?" she asked.

"Two hours," I told her. "Give or take." It was actually two hours and twenty-one minutes. But who was keeping track?

"No wonder I'm tired," she said, letting out a yawn.

"You can sleep on the plane."

"Plane?" she asked, stiffening as her head whipped over in my direction. "Isn't it going to get bright soon? Shouldn't you be safely in a coffin?"

"As a witch who doesn't fly around on a broom nor dance around naked under the full moon, you would think you know better than defaulting to stereotypes."

"How do you know what I do or don't do under a full moon?" she asked, and I could feel her gaze on my profile as her words conjured up images of her out in a field, peeling off her ridiculous fuzzy pajama pants and tank top until she stood there bare, the moon shining off of her pale skin, kissing areas that…

No.

I absolutely did not need my mind to be thinking those things. Especially with her so close, filling the car with her flower honey scent.

"The plane has blackout windows," I informed her.

"Oh, so it's… a private plane," she said, her tone taking on an excited lilt.

"It is," I confirmed. It was not like public transport would outfit their planes with accommodations to welcome someone into a tin can full of veins that could so easily be opened. With no way to escape.

"Will there be food on the plane?" she asked.

"You just ate." To that, I felt her green eyes boring into me. "I will have it arranged," I said, reaching for my phone. "Do you have preferences?" I asked as I drafted up a text to the co-pilot.

"Here, just give me," she said, leaning over to snatch the phone out of my hands and typing off what looked like an absurdly long list for a few-hour flight.

I shouldn't have entertained it.

But I had the key in my hand that I'd been searching for around the world for decades. I figured she'd earned a reward.

"There," she said, passing the phone back to me. "By the way, your camera gallery is boring," she told me. "Who takes pictures of books?"

"Those who need to reference back to passages when the book is not on their person."

Admittedly, I'd been a bit of a Luddite about cell phones when they'd first appeared. Over time, though, I'd learned how invaluable they could be. Especially for things like research. No more having to memorize wordy passages of important tomes. Or worrying that entire books might get lost to space and time. Now, when I acquired a new, rare text, I had each page scanned and compiled into a digital book that I could easily reference from my phone.

"What does your gallery consist of? Pictures of restaurant menus?" I asked, hiding my interest behind snark.

"Some, yeah. But mostly ships."

"Ships," I repeated, brows raising. "You have an interest in marine vessels?"

"No," she said, actually snorting at me. "Edits featuring ships of my favorite fictional characters."

"It is like you are speaking a foreign language."

"When you like the idea of two fictional characters in a relationship, even though it isn't canon to the story. That is what shipping is. Ugh, what?" she asked when my face must have betrayed my thoughts.

"If you invested half of the interest you have in fictional characters into real-life endeavors, your life would be very different."

"Who says I want it to be different? Just because you like ancient texts written by fingerless nuns doesn't mean everyone else is so boring."

"Blind nuns," I corrected, my lips twitching despite myself.

I didn't have much appreciation for most humans, but I had to admit that this one was at least somewhat amusing.

"Were men and women with disabilities more likely to be nuns and monks back then?" she asked.

"I believe there is some solid historical evidence of that, yes," I decided. "And to be fair, there is no proof that these nuns were actually blind. Or fingerless," I added, getting a twinkling little laugh out of Roxanne. "Humans have a long history of… embellishing facts."

"And vampires never embellish things?" she asked.

"I once knew a vampire who claimed to have been alive in the Bronze Age," I told her.

"How do you know he wasn't?"

"I was faster than him."

Though, these days, he might beat me in a race.

Not for long, I reminded myself. That was the whole point of all of this.

"Can I have the phone back?" the witch asked half an hour later.

"For what purpose?" I asked.

"You're being really protective of a phone that has nothing interesting on it," she said.

"You want to watch more of your inane television programs, don't you?"

"Well, it's not like you're some great conversationalist," she shot back.

"We can have a conversation," I invited, surprising myself.

"Okay. Who turned you?" she asked, turning fully in the seat to look at me.

"A woman of my acquaintance."

"A woman of your acquaintance," Roxanne repeated, lips curving up. "Is that a nice way to say a sex worker?" she asked. "Look at you, acting all superior, but you were a John in the Industrial Age," she teased.

"I had typical mortal flaws before I was turned," I agreed.

"‘ I had typical mortal flaws before I was turned' ," she parroted. "See? This is why we can't have a conversation."

"I was a drunkard who spent all of his money on gambling and women of the night," I confessed.

"What did you do for a living?"

"I worked in a textile mill. Fourteen-hour days for low wages and in dangerous conditions."

"I kind of can't blame you for drinking and screwing around," she said, shrugging. "Fourteen-hour days sound like literal hell on Earth. Clearly, I was placed in the right timeline for me. I mean, the witch hunts alone were the stuff of nightmares. I wouldn't have had the motivation to outrun the Crusaders."

"In the interest of historical accuracy, they didn't burn witches. They burned women. I doubt they burned a single actual witch."

"That's likely true," she agreed. "So, did you turn anyone?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"That's a responsibility."

"Because baby vampires are bloodthirsty monsters and a general menace to society?"

"Partly, yes. But it is a lifetimes-long commitment. There is a bond between a sire and the one sired."

"A family," she said. "Who doesn't want a family?"

"Someone who doesn't want to feel responsible for all the bodies left behind."

"A vampire with a conscience," she said, watching me in the dark of the car.

"Something like that," I admitted.

It was more than that, of course.

Two hundred years ago, I wouldn't have even blinked at the idea of human corpses piling up. They lived such fleeting lives to begin with. The idea of it being a tragedy never occurred to me.

But everything changed a hundred years ago.

When the curse had first started. When it began to plant seeds of mortality, of humanity, in my mind, in my formerly cold, dead heart.

It had a hundred years to grow, to spread.

The ache in my joints.

The growling of my stomach for human food.

Sometimes, when I was trying to rest, I could swear I could almost feel my heart begin to beat again.

It wouldn't be long before that was a reality, before it was a constant thud in my chest, before I could feel the rush of blood in my veins, couldn't get through the day without eating human food, before my strength diminished, and my steps slowed.

That was why time was of the utmost importance.

I needed this key.

I needed this witch.

And I needed to keep her motivated to get through the labyrinth.

It wasn't long after we stopped talking, with nothing to distract her, that she drifted off to sleep.

At first her head rested on the window. But when the car took a sharp turn, she grumbled in her sleep, turning, likely seeking the comfort that came from her bed and the pillows on it.

Which was why she sought me.

The closest thing to a pillow the car had to offer.

Slowly but surely, she shifted over me, legs draping over my legs, dangerously close to feeling the impact her nearness had on me. Her summer honey was overwhelming up close as her head nuzzled in at my neck, her warmth making me aware of the chill inside of me.

My arm slid around her.

Warning sirens rang out in my mind as I pulled her closer and she let out a contented little mewling sound that had a warm sensation moving through my chest.

Unfamiliar.

Dangerous.

But as we pulled up to the private airstrip, there was no going back.

I was stuck with Roxanne.

As we were about to walk into a magicked labyrinth that, for all I knew, might swallow us whole, and only spit us out when we were nothing but ash and bone.

As she shifted in her sleep once again while I watched the co-pilot make his way to the plane with half a dozen bags full of, I imagined, the requests the witch had sent him, I decided that there was no one else I'd rather meet my mortal end with than this particular woman.

As insane as that thought might be.