Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Joseph awoke with a start and took a few moments to realize where he was. The scent of his bedding and the coolness of the windowless stone helped identify his own bedroom. How did he get here? He sat up in bed and took a few deep, calming breaths. Memories of the previous evening slowly came back to him. Alexander and Roxana in his house torturing the homeless woman. His own exhaustion after his urban walkabout. What happened after the murderous pair finally left…

It had been so long since he had fresh human blood. For two hundred and fifty years, he had been able to resist the temptation. But a large part of his decision had been the act of the hunt itself. He abhorred the thought of hunting and killing a human being, something he himself could remember being. He had been so turned off to the idea that for many decades he had subsisted on animal blood. It was not as good as human, but it was okay. Then, as the years progressed, he was able to find a steady supply of donated human blood, and satisfied his thirst without the moral quandary of having to take it from the source.

But last night, weak from days of emotional turmoil, fighting with his wicked progeny and his vixen of a wife, a sleepless day and his night out walking the breadth of Los Angeles, Joseph had found himself in his kitchen with a bleeding corpse that wasn’t quite dead yet. He hadn’t done the killing, and in that moment, his hunger had done the thinking and rationalizing for him.

He had fed on the poor woman.

A wave of guilt swept through him like a cold front, making him shiver even though he wasn’t physically cold. He fell back on the bed, covering his face with his hands.

I have to deal with the body.

The awful thing was that it was so good. The ecstasy of having a full meal of hot, fresh, human blood (a young woman at that, full of spicy fear), along with his exhaustion, had made him drunk, and he’d barely been able to stumble down the stairs to his bedroom. He’d slept more soundly than he had in—

Joseph opened his eyes and took his hands away from his face. A sound came from upstairs.

Someone is in my house.

Joseph bolted up and over to the staircase leading up to the main level. Barefoot, he soundlessly took the stairs two at a time. He reached the main floor and the metallic smell of congealed blood filled the air. To his nostrils, it was a fog of overpowering odor. It should have been dark in the living room. The sun had set at least half an hour ago. But there, in the doorway to the kitchen, a figure. Backlit against the light from above the cooking area, the features were indiscernible, but Joseph recognized the silhouette immediately, and his heart sank in his chest.

“David?!” he said more loudly than he had meant.

David, who had been staring wide-eyed at the gory scene before him, screamed at the sudden interruption of the silence.

“No! David, it’s just me, it’s okay!” Joseph moved forward, hands outstretched.

David turned to see him. The light from the kitchen made it easy to see the blood on Joseph’s shirt, hands, and mouth.

“Stop! Don’t come any closer!” He had no weapon to back up the command if Joseph had been unwilling to obey, but Joseph did stop. David took in everything he was seeing and could barely speak from the awful picture it formed in his mind. All he could say was, “Did you…?”

“No,” Joseph quickly defended himself from the unspoken accusation. “No, I didn’t kill her. It was Alexander and Roxana.” He gestured frantically to the front of the house. “You saw the front door? They broke in this morning and tormented that poor woman in front of me. They killed Rafaél, David. He was my son, and they killed him. They blew up one of my buildings, and he was inside.”

Joseph realized he was beginning to ramble and forced himself to stop talking. He needed to get the lay of the land as far as David was concerned.

David, for his part, was barely handling the situation. This was the first dead body he’d ever seen, and it wasn’t just a dead body. There was blood everywhere. It looked like a horror movie. If he hadn’t already known for a fact he was in the home of a vampire, he might have assumed it was an excessively decorated set piece in a film. There was just too much blood.

“Wh-who…” David stammered. “Who is…?” He didn’t need to get more specific.

“Homeless. I don’t know. They pulled her off the street. They were toying with me, torturing me because I tracked them down after they attacked you and told them to leave town. They wanted me to drink from her because they were disgusted that I wouldn’t feed on humans, so they pulled a random woman—”

“Did you?” David interrupted.

“What?” Joseph realized he had said too much.

David paused. It was a tough question to get out the first time. It was even harder to repeat into the silence between them.

“Did you … feed … on her?”

Joseph couldn’t answer. To give voice to his sin would be ten times worse. The sanctity of human life was the closest thing he had to a belief system. He had betrayed himself in a colossal moment of profound weakness.

The silence was answer enough for David. He turned his back on Joseph, unable to make eye contact. That only brought him to face the corpse sitting tied to the chair in the kitchen. It was less shocking now, and he was able to take in other details. He saw the blood bags on the floor and the thick red liquid dripping out of the refrigerator.

Joseph took a solitary step closer before stopping himself. “Please believe me, David, I didn’t kill her. I couldn’t bear it if you thought I…”

David averted his eyes from the scene and brought a hand to his mouth to hold back the vomit rising in his throat. He retreated into the living room and sat on the sofa. “I believe you,” he said as he tried to take deep breaths.

Joseph, meanwhile, moved to the entryway to the kitchen and took in the scene with fresh eyes. He wept with pity for himself and for the innocent person that sat within.

He felt David’s eyes on him and turned to meet his gaze.

“What are you going to do?” David asked.

Joseph shook his head. There were so many things he could be referring to. Joseph’s whole world seemed to be crumbling around him. Rafaél’s death, Tetractys, Alexander and Roxana, the body in his kitchen, his relationship with David… He didn’t know which one David was asking about. But it didn’t really matter because he didn’t have the answers. One thing was certain, however.

“You have to leave, David. We can never see each other again.”

“What?” David started. “But I came to check—”

“No, stop,” Joseph interrupted. “It’s not safe. I already lost the most important person in my life. They will hurt you if they know how much you mean to me.” Joseph turned his head to indicate the contents of the kitchen. “Or worse.”

David was terrified by the obvious truth of what Joseph was saying, but he was unable to break himself of his love for this man who was in such trouble. He was a problem solver by nature. It’s what made David a good director. His first instinct with this situation had been to start thinking of a solution. “Joseph. Maybe if…” He had hoped to have an end to the sentence by the time he got there but nothing came.

“David.” Joseph took a step forward and tried to make himself authoritative. “You have to leave. Don’t call, don’t check on me. Leave. Now.”

David stood up so fast he stumbled a bit. Fuck you is what he wanted to say, but he knew he didn’t mean that. He had already gone through all the reasons why Joseph was having an impossible time right now. His whole body was tingling and he felt disconnected.

“I love you,” he said quietly.

Joseph held his tongue. He wanted desperately to say it back, to run over and hug David and tell him not to go, they’d figure something out… but he knew it was wrong. He had to let David go for his own safety.

David waited a moment for an answer, then steadied himself and turned to the broken door. He had not tried to close it when he came in, so it stood wide open, moonlight spilling into the foyer. He stopped at the threshold and looked back at his immortal lover with tears falling in streams down his warm and very mortal cheeks. “Please. Be careful.”

Joseph nodded. “You, too,” he replied, willing himself not to show the same remorse.

He watched David walk out the door and did not follow. The door of the little Accord opened and closed a moment later. He heard the engine rev to life and the wheels crunch the asphalt as it reversed out of the driveway. Then David drove away forever.