Afterlife (25 page)

“Bianca!” Raquel shouted again, but in an instant I was
gone, somersaulting through the blue misty nothingness. I landed — or so it
seemed, anyway. I looked down at soft green grass, then turned my face up to
see Maxie standing above me. She wore a strange coat of some dark fur that
looked more creepy than luxurious.

“What are you doing?” she demanded. “You’re siding with them
against us now?”

“That thing had to be stopped.”

“That thing? Thing?’ Maxie looked like she might slap me. “I
guess you might as well help Mrs. Bethany set the traps.”

A third voice interrupted our argument. “There’s a
difference between what Bianca has done and Mrs. Bethany’s efforts.”

We turned to see Christopher. So I was in the land of lost
things again — brought here, this time, against my will. Maxie had told me he
was powerful, but this was my first evidence of exactly how much stronger
Christopher was than the average wraith.

And yet it didn’t frighten me, because now I knew I had the
power to defend myself. Any power Christopher now had, I might gain for myself
in time — probably less time than it had taken him to learn.

The sunlight brightened Christopher’s dark brown hair, and
his old — fashioned long coat was a deep bottle green. We were at the foot of a
161 building that looked like some sort of pagoda, except that a rattling
elevate
,d
train straight out of the 191Os was rushing
along behind it.

“I got her out of there before she could do anything worse,”
Maxie said. So it was her, and not Christopher, who had intervened. “You
shouldn’t have let her go back, anyway.”

“Maxine, calm yourself.” Christopher put his hands on her
shoulders. “It is not my role to allow or disallow Bianca’s travels. She is
freer than the rest of us. She does not share our limitations.
l
realize that is hard for you to accept, but you must.”

Maxie snapped, “I don’t see the difference between what Mrs.
Bethany’s doing and what Bianca did. She’s turned against her fellow wraiths.
That doesn’t matter?”

I said, “That thing — “

“Thing again!”

“It hurt people, Maxie,” I continued. “Nobody has the right
to do that.”

Christopher nodded. “It is one matter to act in defense of
others. Another to act from selfish desires — no matter how understandable
those desires may be.”

He seemed so sad that I hated to ask more. And yet his
sadness itself drew my attention more than anything else. It was like whatever
Mrs. Bethany was doing wounded him personally, deeply. Did he care so deeply
about the wraiths — all the wraiths? No, this was something that affected him,
not as the leader of this ghostly world or whatever else he’d become, but as
the man he had been.

A laughably bizarre idea occurred to me, and yet I couldn’t shake
it. Christopher watched me closely, able to see that I was struggling with
something. Even his smile was sad.

“You know. now.” he said. “Trust your insight. You will see
many things here that would be hidden to you elsewhere.”

This world’s clarity had worked its magic on me again — or
had it? Still, I couldn’t quite believe. I asked the less direct question, in
case I was wrong: “
Christopher …
what anchors you to
the world? Or
..
.
who
?”

“My beloved wife, though I have not spoken to her in nearly
two hundred years
.·
• Was he saying what I thought he
was saying? “Then You’re
— ”

“Christopher Bethany,” he said. “Of course, you already know
my wife.”

“MRS. BETHANY IS YOUR WIFE,” I REPEATED. Although I’d
guessed it myself, I couldn’t fully wrap my mind around the information. The
leader of the wraiths, married to one of the most powerful, ruthless vampires
in existence? “Then why does she hate the wraiths so much?” Surely if she was
married to a wraith, she’d have to like them a little. But maybe not. Maybe
they’d broken up or something. A divorce would probably be extra — nasty after
two hundred years of marriage.

But Christopher shook his head. “I have not spoken to her
since my death.”

“Why not? Is it because she became a vampire? Did she — was
she the one who killed you?” I corrected myself. “No, of course not. You said
she was the only person loyal to you.”

“This is my history, mine alone,” Christopher said, and his
voice held a sharpness I hadn’t heard since his first frightening
manifestations at Evernight. Sensing my tension, though, he visibly calmed
himself. “And yet, it concerns you now, and those close to you. It is not wrong
for you to ask.”

Maxie gaped at him, her earlier outrage at my special
treatment forgotten. “Are you going to tell us where you come from?” I got the
impression this was a closely guarded secret.

Christopher glared at her. “I shall tell Bianca, as it
relates to her existence,” he said. “It does not relate to yours.”

With a huff, Maxie stomped away, her shiny heels loud on the
pavement. She disappeared into a crowd of people who seemed mostly to be
dressed in feathers and paint. I turned back to Christopher. “If you don’t want
to talk about it.” I said, “honestly, that’s okay. It’s your business.” I
wanted answers, but that Wasn’t the same as wanting to pry.

“You will soon see how our paths intersected. These events
are becoming part of your history as well.”

He swept his hand across the sky, turning it instantly black
— as though, instead of being outside, we stood in a kind of planetarium.
Instead of the flowing, chaotic land of lost things around us, we were entirely
alone, in a sort of void. I understood, without being told, that this was
beyond most wraiths’ power, including my own; this uncanny ability was
something Christopher had forged from his long centuries trapped between 163
worlds.

“Wow,” I said. “What is this?”

“We are traveling to see the past.”

“We’re going back in time
?
” After
everything else that had happened, it was weird that this had the power to
surprise me. Like something out of a science — fiction movie; Vic would think
this was extremely cool.

But Christopher shook his head. “Traveling to see,” he said.
“The past is unreachable by any power, mortal or immortal.”

I Wasn’t sure what the difference was, but there was no time
to ask. Taking shape around us was a forest, through which wound a narrow dirt
road, striped with tracks from wheels and horses. A carriage came toward us,
pulled by two pale gray horses and lit by actual lanterns on each side. It
seemed romantic to me, something out of a novel by one of the Brontes.

At least, it seemed that way until figures jumped out of the
dark — out of nowhere, it seemed — and sprang upon the carriage. The horses
whinnied and snorted as one of the figures grabbed their harness, bringing
everything to a halt.

I gasped, but nobody seemed able to hear me — the
difference.
maybe
, between seeing the past and being
there. Christopher stood quiet beside me as we saw the highway bandits or
whatever they were pull open the doors of the carriage. In the lantern light, I
could see their faces, their wicked grins, and their fangs: vampires on the
attack. “Well, well. What have we here?” one of them snarled. “Guests for
dinner?”

“I shall tell you what you have.” Mrs. Bethany — in Regency
costume, her hair piled high upon her head — leaned out of the door, completely
unfazed by the attack. Was this the moment she was changed?

Then she hoisted a crossbow. “You have to run,” she said.

The vampires scattered, but not fast enough. Mrs. Bethany
shot one straight through, the wooden shaft staking it in the heart. In a
flash, the carriage driver and liverymen leaped into action, each of them
armed, each of them sure and detem1ined as they ran into the forest after the
vampires.

“Quickly!” Mrs. Bethany cried, jumping from tl1e carriage so
that her skirts fluttered. Already she had reloaded the crossbow, and despite
the darkness, she took aim and brought another vampire down in a single stroke.
Her smile was brilliant in the night.
;;We
have them
now!”

She laughed out loud as she pulled a broadsword from within
her cloak. As she lifted it high, I turned away: I’d seen one vampire being
beheaded, and that was enough for a lifetime. As I heard the sick wet thud
,l
winced — and then my eyes opened wide.

“The way they’re fighting
.. .
the
way she throws herself into it…” I’d seen this
before.

“Trained well, don’t you think?” Christopher never looked
away from Mrs. Bethany.

“If she was hunting vampires, and if she knew just what to
do, then she was — she had to be — Mrs. Bethany was in Black Cross?”

I had to look at her again now. The fight was over, the
vampires dust at her feet. In the moonlight, her smile softened and became warm
as she rushed forward toward one of the liverymen — who, I now realized, was a
slightly younger Christopher. They embraced each other, her arms tight around
his neck, and kissed so passionately that I felt my cheeks flush.

“We were both raised among Black Cross hunters,” Christopher
said as he watched his long — ago happiness with his wife. “When I emigrated to
America in the first years of its independence, I connected with the first
Boston cell. There we met. Few women hunted in those days, but nobody
questioned her. She was the best fighter among us. And the vampires — they
always underestimated her l
!
lntil it was too late.
There sprang up a legend amorng them of a huntress both beautiful and deadly,
which they disbelieved at their peril. Sometimes it was the last thing they
said, even as the stake sank into them. ‘It is her.’”

The forest had darkened into indistinct gloom, but now
shapes began to form anew. I saw a small house, simple, with one large room
that seemed to be both kitchen and parlor. The fireplace was enormous, deep
enough to walk into, tall as a person and as long as the house itself. A
teakettle hung near the flames as Mrs. Bethany busied herself cutting cake; at
the table, Christopher sat with a few men dressed as he was, with long coats
and white kerchiefs tied at their throats. They had large metal cups filled
with something that looked like beer, and they were laughing loudly.

Was it tbe clarity of this place that showed me the others
weren’t as happy as they pretended to be? That their eyes watched Christopher
cagily tss as he took another drink?

“Business associates.” Christopher’s face was illuminated by
the long — ago fire. We seemed to be standing at the very edge of the room, in
deep shadow. “Friends, or so I thought. We joined in a shipping venture. Trade
between Europe and America, in fine goods — a growing industry in that time,
and therefore a likely bet to increase my family’s wealth. But I was accustomed
only to the company of Black Cross hunters; say what you will of Black Cross,
but they do not engage in such gross trickery. I had been brought up to think
that all evil was embodied by vampires. I did not look for it in men who called
themselves my friends.”

“What did they do
?
” 1 whispered,
though I knew by now the figures before us couldn’t hear.

“They did not want to establish a shipping business. They
only wanted to steal the family money I gave them as investment.” He still
sounded slightly bewildered — like after a couple hundred years, Christopher
hadn’t yet wrapped his mind around the fact of his betrayal. “After some
months, I began to press them for returns. Profits. To examine the books. They
had countless excuses and nothing to show me. One night I swore I would take
them to court. As I walked home that night, they attacked me. I was unarmed,
and recovering from a winter illness. My Black Cross training was to no avail.
They left me dying in a ditch. The last sound I heard was their laughter as
they walked away.”

“I’m sorry.” Before us remained the happy scene with
everyone being friendly. Maybe he preferred this to remembering his death; I
wouldn
‘ t
blame him. I didn’t like remembering my
death either, and at least I’d been in my bed, with Lucas by my side. “That’s
awful.”

Christopher stared hard at his killers, who were at that
moment laughing at one of his jokes. Mrs. Bethany set the slices of cake in
front of them; she didn’t seem to be in as good spirits as the others. In fact,
her expression was wary. She’d picked up on trouble even if her husband hadn’t.

Then the room shifted again, with Mrs. Bethany remaining
motionless at the center of it, her dress flowing from one color to another and
her expression changing from unease to rage. “What do you mean, you cannot
act?”

The scene in front of us was now some kind of meetinghouse
or storeroom. Black Cross, I realized, seeing the weaponry mounted on the
walls. 166 A man with his hair tied in a tail sat on a slightly raised
platform, obviously in charge. He shook his head
..
“Mrs. Bethany, as lamentable as your husband’s death is, it was not the work of
any supernatural agency. Therefore it does not concern Black Cross.”

“The magistrate will not listen,” Mrs. Bethany said. “He
believes it was the work of bandits and says lam a foolish woman, doubting two
such ‘fine gentlemen.’ “She spat those two words, as if she thought they could
poison her. “I could kill them myself, but they are gone to the Caribbean. His
family’s money is lost, because of their deceit. At least give me the funds to
travel there, to see justice done.”

The Black Cross leader looked at Mrs. Bethany pityingly — the
same look, I realized, that Kate had worn when she refused to give back Lucas’s
coffee can full of cash. “Our funds are used for our struggle, and every penny
is needed. You know this as well as I. Your grief has brought you to the point
of hysteria.”