Beautiful Monster 2 (25 page)

“Liam
.” She brought a finger to my lips, hushing me. “I will.”

Now it
was my turn to choke in shock. “You will?”

“I will. Yes. Yes!”

She threw her arms around me, and I could now feel her trembling from happiness. Keeping one arm around her, I reached to the ground to pick up the ring I had dropped. It wouldn’t make any sense for her character, but I really didn’t care. With my own hands shaking, I slipped it on her ring finger and squeezed so it tightened around her small finger.

She met my eyes and our lips locked, a slow passionate kiss that I never wanted to break away from.

“We don’t have to rush into it,” I told her. “We can do it when life is settled down, when you’re ready. When you know the outcome of tonight.”

“If you got a priest in here now, I’d do it,” she whispered. “You know none of that matters to me.”

I kissed her again, biting her lips and pressing her close. I wanted her as close to me as possible, to make us one and never be separate.

“Amy, if tonight doesn’t work…
if I remain a vampire… you know, eventually, I’m going to have to disappear.”

“Liam, you always worry about what could happen, what might happen. Whether or not you’re a vampire or human won’t change the fact that I’ll be dead before our tenth wedding anniversary. If you’re prepared to deal with that, I’m sure I can deal with an eternally hot husband
.” She squeezed my hand, trying to make light of the situation.

“I wish I could kill AIDS as easily as I could take down Selene,” I muttered into her hair
.

She nodded.
“One day, maybe. But let’s not worry about one day. Let’s just worry about today.”

“Right
.” I took my strength from her once more, and then straightened up, glancing at the clock on the wall. “Show time.”

“See you later
.” She hopped off the table, straightening her costume, ever the professional. I had no doubt that if I got a priest to marry us right there and then, Amy would still make sure that the show went off without a hitch.

A
knock came at the door, just as she was leaving, and Connor stood there.

“Selene has taken her seat.”

“We should have put dynamite in it,” I replied, trying to keep the mood light. “Connor, get on a radio and bring Sarah back. It’s time to close the curtain.”

H
is face contorted in confusion. “Where’s Sarah?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, not wanting to explain why I had sent his girlfriend off in a huff.

Connor let it go, heading off to follow my instructions. I signaled the rest of the cast to get in place, and then climbed up to the very top balcony, which was roped off. It was where the Phantom started the show, and also where a script was kept hidden, in case I needed a last minute line check. I fitted the earpiece inside my mask, so that I could keep in communication with the rest of the cast and crew. I hated that I still didn’t know this part well, and I now had to accept that I never would.

There she was, sitting in the front row, just as we had predicted she would be. She was wearing a black trench coat over a red dress, her hair a sleek mane down her back, and her makeup flawless. Even after all these years and all she’d done, she was still one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen.

She craned her neck and looked right up at the balcony, meeting my eyes and winking at me as the lights went down completely.

This was it, now or never. One of us would be lying dead within an hour.

I committed the biggest theater faux pas I could that night. As soon as the lights came up on the ballerinas, I drew Sarah in close. Our characters were supposed to be whispering and giggling to each other, and every other night, we had done it in character. But tonight, I was bursting at the seams.

“He proposed to me!” I hissed, discreetly showing her my hand.

Her eyes widened. “The Phantom did?”

“Liam. Liam did. Sarah this is real!”

“Oh my God!” She turned her back to the audience slightly, and leaned her mouth near my ear. “Are you serious? When’s the wedding?”

“I don’t know. As soon as possible.”

“Tell me everything!” she cried, and I was honestly about to, when Davina, who played Madame Giry, the ballet Mistress and my on-stage mother appeared, and I immediately snapped back into character.

I knew the show was a mess tonight from the get
-go. The vampires, stuck in human form, and us three leads, only had our mind on one thing. Even Liam missed a few lines, hurrying to get to the party scene. It was like we were on super speed, and the other actors were giving us dirty looks the whole time. I felt bad, especially when I looked down and saw poor Charlie in the audience, watching with a look of jealousy. We were destroying the play he worked so hard on for our own purposes.

Finally, it was upon us. Sarah and I stood on opposite sides of the stage, hidden in the wings and locked eyes.

“Are you alright, Amy?”

I jumped, turning to my father behind me.

“Dad! I’m fine!” I had never snapped at him like that before, but suddenly I realized he was on the wrong side. Looking just beyond him, I thought my heart would stop as I saw my mother, hovering nearby. “You’re on the wrong side!”

Confusion crossed his face. “Stage notes say the wine enters from here.”

“It changed! Get to the other side! Now!” I practi
cally shoved him into a curtain, giving my mother time to get out of the way, and then heard my musical cue. I entered the stage, and locked eyes with Selene.

“Christine, where are we?”

It happened so fast I felt like I was on drugs. How could everything be crawling up until now and then suddenly, it was upon us. Connor was in the audience, acting like a drunken lout, and not doing too bad of job, and bringing up people for the party. The minute his hands closed around Selene’s, all hell broke loose.

She was too close to the stage not to be dragged up on it, too weak as a human to resist. If our audience saw that something was wrong, they didn’t let on, which is what I was counting on. You can convince an audience that almost anything is part of the show.

The second Selene crossed the threshold of the stage, we surrounded her, the music reaching a fevered pitch. It was so loud I couldn’t even hear myself think. The others were human, the Shields keeping them in check. Selene, the mother of the vampires, was of course, not as affected, but I could still see a half inch of fangs, despite her weakened body.

And then Sarah’s
hand closed around hers and she howled, jerking around. It was almost like Sarah was hurting her.

“O’Malley!” she hissed
, and Sarah simply grinned, the innocent character of Christine crossed with the devilish grin Sarah put on.

“That’s right. You and I have a personal thing, don’t we?” Sarah whispered. “Because I did my research and I’m pretty damn sure you’re the reason that I’m the last of their bloodline. You set us up all those years ago, didn’t you?”

“O’Malley Shields are corrupted trash,” Selene spit out, and Sarah hit her so hard that she drew blood. She was still surrounded by the crowd of supposedly partying vampires, who were now moving closer to the wing where Liam was waiting.

“And vampires like you are the reason Shields exist,” Sarah replied, not at all alarmed by the fact that she had probably broken Selene’s nose. In Sarah, I saw power and fury like I never had
seen before. Everything seemed to come to a point then, the months of fear and change, the pain of losing her child, of what she had gone through, of the street life she had tried to live and the mask she had worn every day to keep people away from her. She was angry, and I wasn’t going to stop her from taking it out on Selene.

“An unexpected guest
has invited to your party!” Liam’s voice boomed from up above, and I knew he was about to descend into the crowd.

My mistake was looking up, in taking my eyes off Selene and Sarah, off the struggle. Suddenly, I was thrown backwards, slamming into the wall of the wings. I felt pain like I never have before, pain so badly that I couldn’t scream, couldn’t move,
couldn’t do anything but watch what happened next.

Selene now had her arms around Sarah,
whose veins were bulging with the focus on keeping her human. Liam dropped down and skidded to me, completely changing the scene, not that I cared. I felt like I was moving underwater, my brain wasn’t processing what was happening in front of me. Liam reached up to rip off his mask and I heard a crash.

Turning my head as if it weighed a hundred pounds, I saw my father standing there,
a tray he had been carrying dropped from his hands at the sight of Liam’s vampiric face, at the sight of me, at the scene. He stood open mouth, staring.

“Dad! NO!” I had no idea if I actually got those words out, or if I just thought them. Darkness was flooding my vision.

Selene broke free of Sarah, and I could see the fangs begin to grow again.

And then it was my worst nightmare. In the exact same place where we had watched Porsche’s life fade away, by the exact same monster, I saw it happen again. Selene moved too fast for any of us, and without so much as a second thought, grabbed my father and sunk her teeth into his neck.

“NO!” I knew that word came out, because I saw Sarah’s head twist towards me, and her eyes widen in shock before she threw herself forward, managing to grab Selene again. Liam hit her in the back of the head, and she dropped like a stone into his arms. My father’s body headed straight for the ground. But my mother caught him.

I had dreamed about this moment all my life, seeing my parents together.
She looked absolutely beautiful, almost glowing, and I wondered if she was a ghost or an angel. Whatever she was, she was being kept solid by Sarah’s presence. She held my father’s head in her lap, stroking his cheek until his eyes fluttered open. It was the most beautiful, peaceful thing I had ever seen, their eyes meeting and a thousand unsaid words passing between them. It would have been perfect, had my eyes not dropped and seen the blood pouring from his neck, his jugular torn open.

My father was going to die, and I knew it. I tried to move, and found that I couldn’t. Something felt very odd.

Slowly, I looked down, not wanting to see. And found out why I couldn’t move.

Protruding through my white ballerina costume
was a spike that was normally used to tie a rope and rig open the curtains. It was sticking straight through my stomach. Blood spilled all over and onto the floor. It was almost like I was watching myself, in a dream. Nothing felt real. This couldn’t be real. That couldn’t be my blood on the floor.

And that couldn’t be my mother, holding my father and looking
at me with tears spilling down her face.

“Mommy,” I whispered, my voice choked up. It didn’t hurt, exactly. It just felt like I was leaving this world. “Soon. Soon, we will all be together.”

She shook her head fiercely. “Your father and I need you to live, Amy. We need you to live, for us.”

“I can’t,” I mouthed, my throat so dry I could hardly speak. “I can’t.”

“You will,” she said, meeting my eyes. “And we will be watching over you. You will live on, Amy.”

“How?”

“Through love,” she whispered, giving me a soft smile and glancing at the ring on my finger. “Through his love for you.”

I
couldn’t keep my neck upwards anymore and my head lolled to the side, bringing Liam and Selene into my field of vision.

His body was rippled with the strength of a vampire, and he had her in a headlock. This was it. Liam was going to snap her neck and everyone would be free, including him. Everyone would be free from this dreaded curse.

“Liam!” Sarah stopped him, Connor suddenly at her side. “No!”

“No
?” He looked absolutely baffled and clearly hadn’t noticed the chaos that was around him.

“Look!” She pointed to me, trembling. “Save her, Liam, Save her!”

The rest of the cast was now backstage, although I couldn’t figure out why. I seemed to be seeing double, and Liam was blurred along the edges as he cracked Selene’s head on the wall and then dropped her in Connor’s direction. She wasn’t dead, I knew that, you couldn’t kill a vampire that easily. And then he was at my side, taking my hand, his face blurred up close.

“Amy, Amy, no, no!”

“It’s ok,” I managed to whisper, trying to meet his eyes.

Everything was becoming increasingly hazy and now it looked like my father was sitting up. But that wasn’t right, because I could still see him lying down. But he was sitting up too, as if there was two of him, and glowing the same unearthly glow as my mother.

I wondered if being close to death made you hallucinate.

“It’s ok,” I said, trying to get a grip on reality. “It’s ok. This is everything you wanted, everything you hoped for.”

“Not at this price,” he managed, and I had never seen him so choked up. “Not at this price! Not like this!”

“You have to kill her, Liam. You have to finish this. For me. For them!”

“No!” he howled.

I could feel his arms around me, trying to pull me forward. It was the worst pain I had ever felt and I knew the audience heard.
The show must go on.

“
I’m not letting you go, Amy. No. This life isn’t worth living without you!”

“Liam,” a voice spoke that I had never heard before, and I glanced up to see a man from another time. Clad in what seemed like priest robes, with long hair and chiseled features
. I tried to place him in the show, but couldn’t. Still, he stood there, towering over the rest. To my confusion, the vampires backed up, sinking to their knees. Liam turned, not letting go of me.

“Elias,” he said, his voice muddled. “Please. Please save her. Please.”

The one he called Elias shook his head. “This is not my choice to make, Liam. It belongs to you!”

“How!” Liam said. “How can I do this? Selene’s death will make me human! I cannot save her!”

“Selene doesn’t have to die!” Connor spoke up, and the others turned to him, slowly.

I felt sleep take me
and a warmth spread over me. This was it, this was what death felt like. I had spent my whole life wondering what it would be like when the time came. But I hadn’t imagined it like this. I had imagined my withered body, hospital tubing and my sobbing father. I hadn’t seen it backstage with my father’s spirit waiting for me and my fiancé crying.

Elias smiled at Connor. “We
mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” He looked upon the coven of vampires, as if he were a proud father. “If you here tonight understand that lesson, then you give me hope that vampires can continue to coincide with humans for all eternity. This has been a bloody fight, and I applaud your effort in it. And with Selene’s death comes your freedom, but at the price of more than one innocent. We made you vampires long ago, but we did not make you monsters. That is for you to decide.”